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Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2020 41:58

How Empty is Your Nest? (Part 1) - Mixed Feelings Stirred Up by the Empty NestHow Empty is Your Nest? (Part 2) - Changing RelationshipsFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Mixed Feelings Stirred up by the Empty Nest Guests: Barbara Rainey and Susan YatesFrom the series: How Empty Is Your Nest? (Day 1 of 2)Air date: August 1, 2016 Bob: There was a moment in Susan Yates' life when, as she looked at her empty nest, she started to think, “What's my purpose anymore?” Susan: I remember the day after Libby's wedding—she was the last to marry—going up to the girls' room that they'd grown up in / that they had shared their whole life. As I stood in the room, I looked around at the walls, and there were lines where the pictures had hung. There were pieces of little scraps of paper and, as I looked at these bare walls, I noticed that the closet door was ajar. On the floor of the closet I saw a rumpled, old, blue prom dress. It seemed out of place—it was all alone / it was not needed any more. It, in a way, was out of style. As I looked at that prom dress, I thought, “That's just how I feel.” 1:00 Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll look today at the realities that begin to set in as the nest starts to empty out. Stay tuned. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. I'm just sitting here, doing the math. What's it been? It's been more than a decade, now, since you guys became empty nesters? Barbara: That's right. [Laughter] Are you going to— Bob: Are you still trying to figure it out? [Laughter] You're kind of silent there! Dennis: I told you— Barbara: I guess I'm a little slow on the math. [Laughter] Dennis: No; that's not so. No; I'm just trying to realize when it was when you and I finally determined we were empty nesters. [Laughter] Bob: So there was this process, you're saying? Dennis: I think there was. I think it took us two or three years to come out of—how many years of childbearing and child rearing? Barbara: I don't know—a lot. Dennis: Twenty-eight, I think. Barbara: I think so. Dennis: I think over twenty-eight years. 2:00 Barbara: I think so. It doesn't happen automatically. Dennis: No; I mean, it was— Barbara: It was a transition. Dennis: It was all “Hands on deck!” raising children. It took us awhile to get out of the mindset and to finally realize: “You know what? We can kind of enjoy each other now and focus on one another.” It hadn't been that we weren't doing that before; but when you're tending to children, there's no question—they drain you. Bob: Our listeners are obviously aware that your wife, Barbara Rainey, is joining us today. Good to have you here. Barbara: Thank you, Bob. Bob: We are going to be hearing a message that you and your friend, Susan Yates, did, talking about empty nest issues. But I need to start by saying we got a very nice note from one of our FamilyLife Today donors, who wrote to say: “I've been reading Barbara's empty nest book. I was encouraged to hear about your daughter, who rebelled, to find out that we are not alone. Barbara is so right—we just need to choose our words carefully and to pray, pray, pray. God is faithful and He cares about our children more than we do. Thank you.” 3:00 I imagine you've heard from a lot of folks, who have read the book, who have written you personally to say, “Thanks for capturing in this book what we've been living through and couldn't put words to.” Barbara: Yes; we've had great feedback from women who've read the book because they understand, by reading it, that we get it—because we've been there and we've felt those things—and we're trying to help them know that they're not alone. Dennis: When Barbara and Susan wrote the book, they didn't offer a “pie in the sky” type of picture of the empty nest. They painted it—flaws, blemishes, warts, and all—because it's a process that isn't necessarily neat and tidy as you raise children who become adults. What this lady is referring to there, Bob, is—she just appreciates somebody being authentic and real. I just want to say to this donor / this partner in ministry: “Thank you for being a part of this ministry.” You know, I was thinking, when you read that Bob—that David, when he went to war, had his mighty men. Bob: Right. 4:00 Dennis: Well, we have a group that supports this broadcast and the ministries of FamilyLife. They're not just mighty men—they're mighty men and mighty women. Barbara: Yes. Dennis: And they're mighty because they care about, I believe, the oldest institution in the world / the most powerful institution in the world. They're investing in a ministry that's bringing good to marriages and families and bringing hope to people in a culture that, frankly, is trying to undermine and do evil to families. I just want to say, “Thanks,” to those of you who are donors to FamilyLife—you're needed, you're appreciated, and God bless you and your legacy. Bob: Yes; I agree—“Thanks.” Barbara, you and your co-author, Susan Yates, had an opportunity to speak to a number of women—I think it was in Dallas; right? Barbara: That's right. Bob: You spoke on the subject of the empty nest. This was a number of months ago, but we're going to give our listeners an opportunity to hear what you and Susan shared with those women. 5:00 We'll just dive right in. Here are Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates, talking about the issues women face as they face the empty nest. [Recording] Barbara: Susan and I have discovered, on this journey, that all of us are asking the same questions. They boil down to four questions. The first one is: “Am I the only one who feels this way?” I remember thinking that and feeling that, after my youngest left. It's a very common emotion for us in the empty nest. Most empty nesters feel that they are the only one. One of the big ones for us / for both of us was loneliness—because the house is empty and it's quiet. We're not used to that. Susan: Well, one of the things that we have found in talking to many women is that this season is very complex, and it's really diverse—it's just plain messy! You know, when we were mothers of young children, we went through many of the similar challenges—learning to share, back-talk, potty training—but it had sort of a beginning and an ending. 6:00 Then as we hit the teen years, we went through similar challenges; but you get to the empty nest, and it's just messier. It hits us at different times—it hit both Barbara and me at different times. I remember when it hit me—I have a vivid picture. Our kids all married young. They graduated from college in a period of seven years, and most of them got married right after college. So, I never had a chance to really adjust to the empty nest because, as our third child was graduating from high school to go off to the university, our first child was getting married within a one-week period of time. I was overwhelmed! So it wasn't, for me, until our last daughter / one of the twins got married—our twins got married within six weeks of each other. So that was a crazy summer! [Laughter] Barbara: And they're girls! [Laughter] 7:00 Susan: Yes! I remember the day after Libby's wedding—she was the last to marry—going up to the girls' room that they'd grown up in / that they'd shared their whole life. Susie and her husband, who had been married for six weeks, were packing up the U-Haul® to empty everything else that was left in the room. As I stood in the room, I looked around at the walls; and there were lines where the pictures had hung. You know, there were pieces of little scraps of paper, but otherwise the room was bare. As that truck pulled out of the driveway, with my last child off to her new life, I just sort of dissolved into tears and crumpled on the floor. As I looked at these bare walls, I noticed that the closet door was ajar. On the floor of the closet, I saw a rumpled, old, blue prom dress. It seemed out of place—it was all alone / it was not needed anymore—it, in a way, was out of style. 8:00 As I looked at that prom dress, I thought: “That's just how I feel. I'm not needed anymore. I'm a little out of style.” I remember just sobbing; and so, for me, that was a real “Oh, me! This really is the empty nest!” as all of my children were finally married. Well, all of us will experience different things as we hit the empty nest. As Barbara and Dennis experienced the beginnings of the empty nest, they experienced it with some real heartache. Barbara: Yes; we did. As we began the empty nest season, we were in a season of suffering as parents. One of our daughters chose to rebel—she became a prodigal. She rebelled in some pretty serious, life-altering ways. We had sort of been dealing with some of her issues through high school, and we were doing everything that we could think of to help her. It seemed like, at times, things were working; but when she hit her senior year, things really began to unravel. 9:00 We found ourselves in a really difficult season as that year progressed. She was involved with an eating disorder, and she began to experiment with alcohol and drugs. Our life, as a family, just began to spiral—it really affected us and our marriage. Here we are—entering or approaching the empty nest—we weren't there yet, but this was the way we entered our empty nest. We spent her senior year, watching other families do proms, and graduation ceremonies, and all these wonderful senior activities. We were wondering where our daughter was: “Where was she spending the night?” It was such a time of heartache and loss for us when it should be a joyous, wonderful season of life. We were in a very vulnerable place in our marriage and in our family because of this great suffering that we were experiencing. We went through that season, and there were two things that were very important for us. 10:00 One was a small group of friends—and it was just really a couple of couples, who stood with us and prayed for us, even when we didn't know if they were praying—there were many times that we didn't even see them—but they had committed to pray for us through this difficult time in our lives. The second thing that really got me through that season of life was God's Word. I remember I had the verse—James 1, verses 2-8—written out on a card. I taped that card to my steering wheel, and it must have been there for two or three months. When I would get in my car and something dramatic had happened or something was really weighing on my heart for my daughter, I remember driving down the street, saying that out loud, over and over again, because there was nothing else that I could hang onto.Nothing else seemed stable in my life except God's Word. Those two things really got us through. We've learned that the empty nest is a season of great change. And one of the most important things for navigating the season of the empty nest is friendships. 11:00 We've learned a lot about friendships in the last few years as we've worked on this and how important it is for us, as women, to have some good friends who can stand with us in the journey. Susan: One of the main things that we've found—as we've talked to other women and as we've been honest with each other—is how lonely we are. You know, for many of us, when we were mothers of young children, we were desperate to be with another mother of young children just so we could complete a sentence because we felt like our brain had fried. [Laughter] So we sought out other women, and we went to women's groups, and MOPS groups, and had play dates. But then what happens, often, is you hit those teen years. You find that you put your girlfriend relationships on hold a little bit because you want to savor those years with your teenagers. Well, in our book, we talk quite a bit about this. We also give several keys to how to begin to reconnect with other girlfriends—I'm going to give you three of them. The first one is simply pray: “God, make me a good friend to others.” 12:00 Ask God to lead you to one or two other women, who would become soul sisters / who would be of encouragement to you. And then, secondly, take the first step. Actually write down a list of three to five women that you would like to get to know at a deeper level. Call them up, ask them to go for a walk, or meet you at Starbucks for coffee. A third key is simply to be persistent. So you didn't really click with that girl you went for a walk with or you had a hard time sort of conversing at Starbucks—simply call up another one. Keep going! Keep taking the initiative. [Laughter] God, in time, will bring to you a good girlfriend. [Laughter] But it's scary; isn't it? It's scary to take that first step. Our first question is really to give us each a little bit of relief—our first question is: “Am I the only one who feels this way?” And the answer is: “Most definitely, ‘No!'” 13:00 Barbara: The second question that is on your outline is: “What is happening to my relationships?” You know, as we enter the empty nest—and we sort of have been feeling this as our kids become teenagers—but our relationships are changing. We've learned that our marriages are in different places. My marriage was very different as we approached the empty nest than it was when we began our marriage. We were two very different people after twenty-five / thirty years than we were when we started. So the key word for this is “renegotiate.” All of us are going to have to renegotiate our relationships. First, our marriage has to be renegotiated and redefined. Secondly, our relationships with our kids have to be renegotiated and redefined because they are now becoming their own person. Susan: You know, as Barbara mentioned, she and Dennis had adjustments as they went into this season. So did Johnny and I; but we have also discovered that most women do. Barbara: Yes. Susan: And that's one of the big things we fear. 14:00 I want to read to you just from two different scenarios that perhaps you can relate to from a chapter that we did on “How Do I Relate to My Husband Now?” These are two stories that are true. Bess and Gary couldn't wait for the empty nest. Raising their kids had been tough. They'd had different approaches to discipline, they had struggled on a tight budget, and they'd postponed many of their dreams in order to be with their kids. Now, the last one was leaving and they felt they'd done the best they could. Finally, they were about to be free from the daily stresses of parenting. They were excited! They couldn't wait for it to be “just us” again. Shelly's situation was just the opposite—she poured her life into her kids—they had come first. Now, as the last child got ready to leave, she was scared / really scared: “I don't even feel like I know my husband. I haven't been alone with him since I was 26. [Laughter] 15:00 “Our whole life has revolved around the kids. Now, what will we talk about at the dinner table? What we will do on weekends? I don't even know if I have the energy left to put into this relationship, and I don't know if I want to.” Two very realistic pictures of what we face in this new season. Well, as Johnny and I walked into the empty nest, I needed to be aware that I could put undue pressure on my husband. That's one trap I could fall in. On the other end of the spectrum, I could easily fall into this trap: “Well, now that the children are gone, he's just going to work longer at the office. He's going to take on more projects. I'll just get involved in more of the things I'm involved in. We'll just get busier and busier, and we'll pass in the night when it's convenient.” I realized that was equally as dangerous because I could become emotionally disengaged, and that would only lead to isolation. 16:00 It was really helpful to me to recognize these two extremes—but you know—not only does our marriage need to be renegotiated, but also our relationship with our adult children is going to change. Picture with me, for a moment, a seesaw. You know how, when you were little, you get on a seesaw with a friend—and part of the fun of the seesaw was one of you had to move in, who was a little bit heavier, and the lighter one had to move out so you could balance in mid-air? Keep that picture in mind for a minute because I think, as moms, we have two tendencies as we release our adult children. On one end of the seesaw is the helicopter parent, and on the other end of the seesaw is the hands-off parent. Now, the helicopter parent is the parent that is perhaps a little too involved with her child. She's on the phone: “Did you get to class on time?” “What are you going to wear?” and “What are your plans for the weekend?” and “Oh, are you eating right?” and “Tell me who your friends are.” 17:00 The child may be on the phone, throughout the day, dumping on mom, which gets mom all upset. Five minutes after the child has dumped, she's fine; and mom is leveled for the rest of the day. [Laughter] It's very easy for us to micro-manage our children from a distance. That's the role of the helicopter parent. The hands-off parent, on the other hand, is one that says: “Out of sight / out of mind,”—sort of: “I've raised this child to be independent. They need to know that I have confidence in them. I am not going to call them.” As a friend of mine, who just sent her first off to college this year, said, “We're not allowed to call him for the first three weeks.” Now, she is a chronic hands-off parent—doesn't know his class schedule, doesn't know who his friends are, and wants to give him space so that he can become his own man. 18:00 Let me quickly say that both the helicopter parent and the hands-off parent love their child / they want that child to be secure. So, in our book, we talk in greater detail about these two tendencies and give several practical helps on how you can seek to balance that seesaw. So our first two questions are: “What is happening to me? Am I the only one who feels this way?” and secondly, “What is happening to my relationships?” Barbara: Yes, there are two words that I want you to remember. The first one is, “intentional.” Become intentional in your marriage relationship and in key friendships. The second word that's key is “flexible.” Become flexible in your relationship with your children because it's changing. You need to adjust to what your child needs and to find out the best way to relate to your child. So become intentional and become flexible. 19:00 [Studio] Bob: Well, we've been listening to Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates addressing a number of moms—most of whom either were just into the empty nest or headed in that direction. I imagine you saw a lot of heads nodding as you spoke that night. Do you remember that? Barbara: Yes; we did. We got some great feedback. But the story that I remember the most was a young Asian woman, who came up. I could tell by looking at her she wasn't an empty nester. I started talking to her, and she's got three young kids. She said, “I wanted to come hear what you had to say and get your book because I want to understand what my mom's going through.” I was just so taken aback that this young woman cared enough about her mother to want to understand where her mother was in life. I was so impressed / I still am impressed that she was willing to do that because she was the only one in there who wasn't an empty nester or about to be. Most of the women had teenagers or kids who were already gone—so I was impressed. 20:00 Dennis: I'll never forget when we were meeting together with some of our friends—all ladies about the same age—and we asked them, “Okay, tell us the most important things— Barbara: Oh, yes. We were about to go in the empty nest, and these women were all ahead of us—they and their husbands; yes. Dennis: Yes; and there were these blank looks on their faces: “We haven't talked about it.” Barbara: “We haven't learned anything.” Dennis: “What do you mean you and Dennis are talking about it? What are you learning?” So it just points out the need that husbands and wives really need to own this and talk about it together. Bob: In fact, at the end of each chapter in the book, you've got questions. One of the questions, at the end of Chapter 5, is: “Set aside a date to begin discussing your expectations of each other in this new season. Also, plan for some times of fun for just the two of you; and if you're highly motivated, begin to talk together about your vision for the future—about what mission you might want to work on, as a couple.” You really are, in this book—you and Susan together—mentoring women as they approach the onset of the empty nest and as they enter in to those early years— 21:00 —because this is a significant life transition for somebody, who for at least / almost two decades, has been functioning in the role of mother. Now, that part of her job is about to change in a pretty dramatic way. And we've got copies of the book, Barbara and Susan's Guide to the Empty Nest, in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. If you know somebody who is about to enter that season—maybe it's you or maybe the season is still a year or two in front of you—get a copy of this book. It will help you be spiritually and emotionally prepared for the empty nest when it arrives; and it will help you navigate this chapter of life if this is where you find yourself right now. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com to order, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY—1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” 22:00 Well, here at the start of a new month, we've got a couple of anniversaries we want to acknowledge. David and Tanisha Lawrence are celebrating their fifth anniversary today. They live in Lynn, Massachusetts. And we also want to say, “Happy anniversary!” to our friends, Terry and Cindy Fahy, who live in Los Angeles. Terry is the General Manager at KKLA in Los Angeles. He and Cindy have been married 35 years today, and they are alumni of the Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway. “Congratulations!” to the Fahys and to the Lawrences. We hope your day is a great day as you celebrate your anniversaries. We think anniversaries are a big deal and that we ought to be celebrating longevity, and commitment, and faithfulness in a marriage relationship. We are the Proud Sponsor of Anniversaries™. In fact, last week, we celebrated our 40th anniversary as a ministry. 23:00 We got staff and friends together and spent some time reflecting on God's faithfulness over 40 years, as we have sought to provide practical biblical help and hope for marriages and families over the last four decades. You know, we had a number of people, last week, who wished us a happy anniversary with an anniversary donation. In fact, I noticed a number of $40 donations came through last week, and that was encouraging to see. We want to say, “Thank you,” to those of you who have helped support the ministry over the years. If you'd like to help with a donation today, we'd love to hear from you. If your donation is $100 or more, we have a thank-you gift we'd like to send you. It's a set of three study guides from our Art of Marriage® Connect Series—all designed to help you, as a couple. You can go through these, as husband and wife; or you can get with other couples and engage with them in helping to build stronger, healthier marriages. Find out more when you give, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call to make a donation at 1-800-FL-TODAY. 24:00 Or you can mail your donation to us at Family Life Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. Now, tomorrow, we want to talk about why it's important for a mom to maybe take a break when she reaches the empty nest—maybe a little season of rest there. We'll talk about that tomorrow. I hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

#4 - He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 3) - The Unchanging Christ

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2020 24:31

Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the seriesHe is the Stability of Our Times (Part 1) - Keeping Your FocusHe is the Stability of Our Times (Part 2) - Teaching Your Kids to Handle LossHe is the Stability of Our Times (Part 3) - The Unchanging ChristFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Unchanging Christ Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey From the series: Unshaken: He Is the Stability of Our Times (Day 3 of 3)Air date: October 19, 2016 Bob: Do you look at what's happening in our world and in our culture and lose heart?Barbara Rainey says there's reason for optimism. Barbara: I think, in the long run, this is going to be very good for the people of God. It's going to be very good for the church, because it will prove who really belongs to Christ. It will prove what we're really made of and where our loyalties lie; because if our loyalties are in the government—and who's in power / who the President is—that's going to go away / that's going to fade. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday October 19th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Could it be that God is actually causing all things to work together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose, even in a political election year? We'll discuss that today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. So here's the question: “Optimist or pessimist—which are you?” And your wife is here. [Laughter] So whatever you say, I am going to get a fact-checker, right here, to determine whether what you say is true. Dennis: I'm a realistic optimist. Bob: A realistic optimist. [Laughter] That sounds like you're hedging your bets on— Dennis: No; no. I just take a real clear look at what's taking place. These are troubling days/challenging days—we don't know what the future holds. But that's how I describe myself. I think I want to respond in faith. I think we are put here for good works. In fact, I was just thinking about this broadcast—I quoted this earlier on the broadcast—Psalm 37, verse 3: 2:00“Trust in the Lord and do good.” You can't be a pessimist and do nothing—you have to trust in the Lord, and I think, be an optimist. An optimist says, “God is at work.” I just walked into a meeting a few minutes ago and was just talking about the days in which we are alive. The gentleman who was there said, "Do you think maybe God's got a message for us?" And I said, "Do you think?!" [Laughter] I mean, these are fascinating days: “What is He up to? Why would you want to be up to anything else other than what God's doing?” Bob: Okay; let me see if your wife would agree with your characterization. Is he a realistic optimist? Is that a good characterization? Barbara: I do think that's a good description, and I was trying to decide what I would say. I would say he's definitely not a pessimist. Bob: Okay. Dennis: But what about you, Bob? Barbara: He's by far more optimistic than pessimistic. Bob: I want to know about Barbara first. Dennis: Okay. Bob: Are you an optimist?—or a pessimist? 3:00 Barbara: Well, honestly, I think I'd have to say the same answer that Dennis gave; because I can see the negative in things, but I think my faith calls me back to believe God. I think were it not for my faith, I think I would probably be a pessimist— Bob: Yes. Barbara: —because I tend toward depression. I tend toward realism and practicality; so I tend to see the reasons why things won't work sometimes. But— Bob: So how hard was it for you to create a plaque that says, "He shall be the stability of our times”?—Isaiah 33:6. Barbara: Well, actually, this one was pretty easy. There have been some other things that weren't so easy, but this one was pretty easy. Bob: A lot of people have seen this and said: “I need that— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —“in my home. I need something that reminds me—in a time, where we start to lose faith / where we start to lose hope— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —“I need something to remind me that there is still a reason for hope”; right? 4:00 Barbara: Well, the purpose of this plaque is to help us remember that there is Someone who never changes. I may change, my circumstances may change, my family may change, the country may change—I mean, everything is up for grabs except Jesus. The plaque we designed so that it will remind us every day, if you hang it in your house, He shall be the stability of your times. And why? Because Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He won't change. He's never going anywhere. No matter how unstable the world feels at any given moment, He's never changing. That reminder, I think, is really important for us, as Christians, in this era in which we live; because we are surrounded by so much that is creating uncertainly, and creating fear, and creating anxiety in our hearts. Jesus wants us to not be afraid but to trust in Him. Bob: So let me ask the realistic optimist— Barbara: Optimist 5:00 Bob: —over here: “As you look at the world that we are in today—you look at the economic condition, you look at the political scene / we've got an election coming up. We're going to have a new President, and we don't know which direction we're going to be headed. Are you hopeful about where we will be, as a church / as Americans? Do you think we will be in a better place a year from now / two years from now?” Dennis: I'll tell you what I was thinking back the Fourth of July when I was in church with Barbara's mom and they sang the song, America the Beautiful. I have to tell you—as we sang that song, I was sad because it talks about crowning our good with brotherhood. It talks about nobleness, about character, about America representing God. I was really sad; but I didn't stay sad for long because I thought: "You know what? This is why we're here." 6:00 Bob, I am more resolute than ever that these days ought to be the days when Christians are shining their lights the brightest. Marriages and families are in serious trouble, folks. Who's got the solution? Our God does. The Bible begins with a marriage / it ends with a marriage. The Bible contains the blueprints for making marriages and families work. This is an opportunity for our day. Are there political challenges? Are there economic challenges? Are there challenges with poverty in our country / with morality? No question about it, but what is the solution? I believe it is speaking to the needs of the human heart and the soul of individual people. I don't know of another solution if we abandon the gospel of Jesus Christ right now. . Bob: In the early 1980s, I remember we were—we had a Bible study that met in our home. 7:00 This was a time when I remember a friend of mine, who gave me advice—he said, "You should put your savings—whatever money you have—put it in a money market fund; because”—he said—"you can earn 10/12 percent interest on your money in a money market fund." It was true in those days, because inflation was so high that you could get that kind of interest securely on your money. I remember thinking—in the midst of that Bible study: “I wonder how much of the affluence that we experience in our country is responsible for the spiritual lethargy of God's people?” I had this thought—I thought, “I wonder if a depression / another Great Depression would stir up a revival?” And then, I had this thought.” How badly do I want a revival?” I mean, I thought: “I don't know that I want a depression! I don't want to go though the hardship.” 8:00 But honestly, we're in a time of hardship, as Christians, in our day that I couldn't have imagined back in 1980. It does—to your point, Dennis—it does call us to live our lives boldly and to be lights in a dark world. Dennis: It reminds me of the verse that we would read over each of our children as we launched our arrows into college—we'd take them as a freshman. We'd, you know, the girls—we would take a semi truck up to unload all their gear and get them moved in. Then I would read this verse—Philippians 2: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the Word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain,”— 9:00 —there's a daddy speaking there. But it's also our heavenly Father speaking to us. He wants us to do good—to dwell in the land, cultivate faithfulness, trust God—but He wants us to be in the marketplace, doing good things, redeeming situations, and taking the gospel of Christ to people who need Him. All of us ought to have some tool or a number of tools we have that we can give away to others to share the gospel of Christ as we go about our duties in this culture, because you don't know who you're rubbing shoulders with. These are human beings that are going to live for eternity somewhere. Bob: You keep copies of your book, Stepping Up, in the back of the pickup truck; don't you? Dennis: I do. You know, it's an inexpensive way to share Christ—to give a book away. It helps that I wrote the book. Bob: Yes; you can buy it for a little discount. 10:00 Dennis: I can. [Laughter] But you know, here's the thing—you ought to have some way of being able to share your faith and leave it with someone, to be able to check back at a later date and say, "Hey, what did you think about what I gave you?" I give Barbara's book away, Letters to my Daughters, because I think there are a lot of young ladies / a lot of wives who don't know how to do this thing called being a wife. Bob: Barbara, are you hopeful, as you look to the future—as you are now looking at your kids raising your grandchildren—and you think about the world that will be theirs in 20 years—do you think, “I really think they are going to have a better world than the one I grew up in”? Barbara: Oh, I don't know that I think that there're going to have a better world, because that's such a big unknown. I think it kind of depends on the day that you ask me. [Laughter] Some days you ask me, I might be really afraid for my kids and my grandkids. But I think, when I pull back and look at the big picture, I remember that God is in control and He uses suffering, He uses hard times, and He uses difficulty in our lives to prune us. 11:00 This may be a time of pruning, and as you talked earlier, about revival coming. It may be that that is what God is up to, but we don't know. We do know that He is in control / we do know that He is orchestrating. The situations that we find ourselves in are not what we would choose / they might not be what we would like, but we have to believe that God is sovereign over all. I think about the years of persecution in China and how the church has just exploded in China, even in spite of the persecution. We don't think that makes sense to us. You would think that, in persecution, people would go away—nobody would want to name the name of Christ. Why would you?—because you might be arrested and thrown in prison. And yet, people saw such a difference in their Chinese neighbors, who were believers—that they wanted what they had, in spite of the cost. We haven't lived under that kind of persecution / that kind of difficulty. I think, in the long run, this is going to be very good for the people of God. It's going to be very good for the church, because it will prove who really belongs to Christ. It will prove what we're really made of and where our loyalties lie; because if our loyalties are in the government—and who's in power / who the President is—that's going to go away / that's going to fade. Bob: And I think your point's great there. The question of whether we're hopeful people depends on what we're looking at—what we're focusing on. Barbara: What we're hoping in. Bob: That's right. If you are watching the news every day, you're probably not going to be a hopeful person— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —as you just feed on that. If you are trusting in either candidate in the current political election to save the day, you have probably got misplaced hope. But if you're hoping in Christ and His kingdom, that's unshakeable— 13:00 —your confidence in that will never be shaken Barbara: Right Bob: Even though circumstances around you may be unsettling, that's a firm hope; isn't it? Barbara: Yes; and it reminds me—on yesterday's broadcast, we talked about the Martin Luther hymn. It reminds me of two other hymns / two other songs that are my favorite. One of them is In Christ Alone by Keith and Kristyn Getty. I love that and could sing it—I mean, I won't sing because it would hurt everybody's ears. [Laughter] But I could recite the words. [Laughter] But the other one that I also love is an older song, and it is “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.” It reminds me—because the Holy Spirit has reminded me of those words many times in my life to say: “Ah, where's your hope? What are you hoping in?” And then I go: “Oh yes; that's right. I'm hoping in a person, “I'm hoping in a circumstance,” “I'm hoping in a situation instead of hoping in Christ.” Bob: Yes 14:00 Barbara: And so, when I remember those words, it's kind of like a wheel alignment, as Dennis would say. It takes me back to “Where's my hope?” And if my hope is in Christ, then I will not be moved. Bob: I have to say a word about that hymn; because in the second verse of the hymn, The Solid Rock, it uses a word that we almost never use. We talk about things being overwhelming. Well, in that hymn, it says: “His oath, His covenant and His blood support me in the whelming flood.” And I have always thought, “We don't talk about anything being whelming.” Barbara: Whelming—[Laughter]—we don't. Bob: We talk about things being overwhelming; but the hymn writer is saying, "This is not overwhelming—it's whelming.” But it's not overwhelming because His oath, His covenant and His blood keep your head above water. “In the whelming flood, when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.” 15:00 Dennis: And I would just add to that—we need to know whose we are and we need to know who we are. We need to know why we are here. He has given us an assignment. And I just was thinking, as you guys were talking—2 Corinthians, Chapter 5, verse 20—we talked about it earlier this fall, here on FamilyLife Today. Paul writes: “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God.” What's he talking about there? He's talking about someone, who's an ambassador—who knows why he is here and knows his message—and is speaking to the spiritual needs of the souls of men and women and boys and girls. And I was just reminded, as we were talking, of another embassy I was in—in Washington, DC. It was called the Christian Embassy. It was a place where heads of state were entertained and the gospel was shared with them by Campus Crusade for Christ® and by Bill and Vonette Bright, the founders of Campus Crusade. 16:00 Early in my ministry, I was in that Christian Embassy with Bill Bright. He made a statement that could have been made in a taxi, traveling across the city; or it could have been in an airplane, traveling with him; or any other setting. But just because of where he said it, it made a huge difference. Bill Bright looked at me and he said: "Dennis, wear well the cloak of materialism. Wear it loosely. Don't let it cling to you. Don't let prosperity choke out your Christianity.” Basically, what he was warning me about—he said: “The church is lethargic. It is sluggish today, because it enjoys too many of the trappings of our materialistic world.” And he said, "Wear the cloak of materialism loosely." 17:00 I have never forgotten those words, and I think he is right. I think we need to take an inventory of how much we're carrying around: “How much stuff and gear do we have?” and “Are we really on mission? Are we about 2 Corinthians 5:20? Are we proclaiming the true needs of human beings' souls and proclaiming the gospel of Christ to them in a needy day?” Bob: So if somebody is low on hope—somebody just says: “I'm not hopeful. I'm discouraged. I look where we're headed; and I'm fearful, I'm anxious, I just don't think we are headed in a good place,”—is there a way to strengthen the hope in us, Barbara? Barbara: Yes. I think it's where we put our gaze. So if we're looking at the circumstances, and we're discouraged and losing hope because of what we see, we need to stop looking at that. 18:00 We need to look at God, and we need to read His story. We need to look at what the ultimate outcome is going to be—where God is taking us someday. Because there have been all kinds of people throughout history—and lots of them talked about in the Bible—where God has taken someone through a hard time, and then, there is a good outcome or a better outcome. I mean, I think about the story of Joseph; and I think about the story of Job; and I think abut the sufferings that Paul went through. God has made it really clear that He doesn't abandon His people, and He has a purpose. So for where we find ourselves today in our country—and we feel unstable, we feel insecure, we feel fearful—we have to go back to what isn't going to change; that is, God's Word is not going to change; His plan is not going to change; and His purposes for us, as His people, will not change. We need to immerse ourselves back in God's Word and maybe find a verse that really captures your heart like this one did of mine— 19:00 —Isaiah 33:6: “He shall be the stability of your times.” That really resonated with me, and that's a verse I've gone back to over and over again when I do feel insecure and when I do feel like the world is an unstable place. Bob: Well it helps if you have it hanging. Where do you have yours hanging? Barbara: I have it hanging in my kitchen— Bob: Yes Barbara: —because I am in my kitchen everyday Bob: So you could look up and see that and just be reminded: “This is where my strength comes from / where my hope comes from. This is the bedrock of my life.” Barbara: Yes; and I think it's a part of what God wants us to do, as believers—is to surround ourselves with reminders of who He is. I think that is why, in Deuteronomy 6, He says we need to write it on our doorposts, and put it on our gates, and talk about it all the time everyday; because He knows we are a forgetful people. He knows we wander and we become afraid. When we have reminders / when I have reminders of the truth around me, it kind of takes me back to center. 20:00 It takes me back to what I know is right and I go: “Oh, that's right. I don't need to be afraid, because God is in control.” I think it's good for us to have reminders surrounding us at home, and it's good for our kids too. Dennis: You know, these are days when we're at war. There's a spiritual war for good and evil taking place in our country. There was also another time, when there was another war that was occurring, when another hymn got written that I want Barbara to share with our listeners Bob: Before you talk about that hymn though, let me encourage our listeners to see the plaque that you have created with Isaiah 33:6 on it that says, “He shall be the stability of your times." It's a plaque that we'd love to send to you. Go to our website—at FamilyLifeToday.com—if you'd like to order one of these. Or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. 21:00 Or you can call 1-800-358-6329. I think this is a plaque that a lot of families will appreciate having just as a regular reminder that God is our strength / He is our rock, and our stability is in Him. Let me make sure our listeners know, as well, we have created a series of ten daily devotions that families can do together or couples can read through and pray through together. The content for these daily devotions can be found on the FamilyLife app. When you open the app, just click where it says, “Help and Hope,” and the information about the devotions is there. If you don't have the app on your device or on your smartphone, go to your app store and look for FamilyLife and you can download it. Or you can go to FamillyLifeToday.com and download the content from our website as well. We think going through these ten devotions will help you think rightly, as a family, about the circumstances we live in and about where our hope comes from. 22:00 Finally, just let me say a word of thanks to those of you who support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. You make all that we do here possible, and we're grateful for your financial partnership. If you can help with a donation today, we'd love to send you a banner that Barbara Rainey has created that reminds you that your home is an embassy of the kingdom of heaven. Donate online at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a donation; or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. Dennis— Dennis: We've been talking about how to make Christ the stability of our days, of our lives, of our marriages and families. Barbara found a song that is very familiar to all of our listeners—you're going to smile when you hear it. You're even going to smile bigger when you hear the context of when this song was written. Barbara: I found this at a flea market—it's an old page of music from the ‘40s. 23:00 This song was written in 1942, I believe—‘41 or ‘42—and it is called The British Children's Prayer. It was taught to children during World War II. Listen to the words—the first line you will recognize immediately: “Now I lay me down to sleep.” We know that poem; don't we?—we've said it to our kids. But what we don't know is some of the other lines in this poem that these British children learned in the ‘40's, during World War II. Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If this night's sleep should end in rest; that is forever, keep me blest.Within Thy mercy may I be child of Thy kingdom, safe and free.If I should wake within the night to see the sky all red with light And hear the rooftops of the town with our own walls come crashing down,Though there be death within the sky, may I not fear oh, Lord, to die. 24:00 If I should die before I awake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.But should I live the long night through, when I arise my work to do,May I with courage seek to be, not safe, O Lord, not safe but free. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

#3 - The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2020 30:02

Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the seriesThe Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your ManThe Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the PositiveThe Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the DifferencesThe Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on GodThe Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His HelperThe Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Embracing the Differences Guest: Barbara Rainey From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 1 of 3)Air date: February 15, 2016 Bob: Engaged couples often look at one another and think, “We're so much alike!” Then, after they have been married for a little while, they look at each other and think, “Who are you?!” Here's Barbara Rainey. Barbara: What happens when we're engaged—we tend to think: “Oh, we're so much alike. We love each other so much—we'll never have clashes.” I think one of the first difficulties for most young couples is they're caught off guard by these differences. They don't know what to do with them—they go from being cute and attractive to being downright ugly or frustrating. All of a sudden, what was cute isn't so cute anymore; and you think, “Now what do I do?” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, February 15th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. So what advice would you give to young wives and their husbands about the adjustments we make in marriage? We're going to hear what Barbara Rainey has to say about that today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I am really enjoying learning lots of new things about you, Barbara. Dennis: You're eavesdropping. Bob: Well, it's legitimate eavesdropping because of what your wife's been writing about. This has been so much fun to read. [Laughter] Dennis: I think I want to welcome her to FamilyLife Today—Sweetheart. Barbara: Maybe we don't; huh? [Laughter] Dennis: This is my bride, and she has plenty of stories to tell. Bob: And she has just recently—by the way, welcome, Barbara—nice to have you here. Barbara: Thank you, Bob. Bob: You've been collecting these stories, not to share with the world your stories, but really to mentor—you've become an e-mentor; haven't you? Barbara: Yes. I'm really writing this for six women / six young women, who happen to be my four daughters and two daughters-in-law—to share with them the lessons that I've learned over all these years of marriage in hopes that it will encourage them, and give them hope, and help them—help them persevere for the long haul. 2:00 Dennis: But it actually started—back to Bob's point about—from an e-mentoring standpoint—really started on the internet— Barbara: It did. That's right; I had forgotten. Dennis: —as you were writing emails to your daughters and daughters-in-law so that you'd be able to coach them / encourage them in the process. Bob: Did you start doing this right after Ashley got married? Barbara: No; actually, it was after our two boys got married. They got married the same summer—the summer of 2001. One of those two girls asked me if I would give her some advice on being a wife. I thought: “Wow! She really wants my advice?” I thought, “If she cracked the door open a little bit, I'm going to just walk right on through while the door's open!” I said, “Sure, I'd love to!” I began writing a series of letters in the fall of 2001 to my two brand-new daughters-in-law and to my daughter, Ashley, who, by then, had been married four years. Bob: A lot of—a wife will hear you say that and they'll think, ““Boy, if somebody asked me, I wouldn't know where to start or what to say.” 3:00 But it sounds like you were ready to dive right in with wisdom. Barbara: Well, I don't know that I would say it that way, but I was ready to dive in—in the sense that I felt like, “Now was the time,” because all new brides are extremely teachable—they're eager, they want to learn, they want to do it right, they don't want to make mistakes—they really love this guy they just married. They're most teachable and most coachable in those early years. I wanted to begin by sort of exploiting that—in a sense, in a good way—by saying: “Here are some things that I learned / here are some lessons I learned along the way. Here are some stories of what we went through / what I've learned from it. Perhaps, it will be helpful.” Dennis: Over the years, we've—who knows how many hundreds of Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways have been held by FamilyLife—we've looked into the eyes of those in attendance. 4:00 It does seem that the engaged couples and the newly-marrieds are, not only on a steep learning curve, but they're much more teachable and kind of spongy in terms of soaking in the truth. What we wanted to do—and what I encouraged Barbara to do with this book—is take advantage of a window into the soul to speak a lot of relevant truth that she's learned, as a woman from the Scriptures and from other older women who have coached her, and really help these young wives get started on the right trajectory. Bob: They didn't ask you about a specific subject. They just said, “Help me be a wife.” How did you know, “Okay; I'll start here”? Barbara: Well, what I did is—I just thought back to those early days in our marriage and tried to remember: “What were the lessons that I learned? What did I do right? What did I do wrong?” Bob: Like that early romantic date that Dennis took you on? Barbara: Yes, like that one. Bob: Tell our listeners about—[Laughter] Barbara: You like this; don't you? [Laughter] 5:00 Bob: —how ““Prince Charming” swept you off your feet. [Laughter] Barbara: Yes. While we were dating in the summer of 1972, which was of course in the dark ages—one Saturday / it was probably on a Friday afternoon Dennis asked if I wanted to hang out on Saturday afternoon. I said, “Sure.” He picked me up in his— Bob: Now, let me interrupt you just so we get a context. Barbara: Okay. Bob: You guys had been friends for years— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —since college. Barbara: Yes. Dennis: Right. Bob: [To Barbara] After college, you went to the east coast and worked with Campus Crusade. Barbara: Correct. Dennis: University of South Carolina. Bob: [To Dennis] Where did you go? Dennis: I was in Dallas/Ft. Worth area, working with high school kids. Bob: You kept up your friendship— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —but there was nothing romantic between the two of you. Barbara: No, nothing romantic. We had been really good friends for three years. I really thought of Dennis as a brother—he was just a great, great friend. Dennis: She showed up in Dallas and needed to be shown around—kind of where everything was / kind of how you get around—so I'd pick her up, take her to work. Bob: Now, were you thinking of her like your sister at this point? 6:00 Dennis: Yes, I really was. It was not romantic—it really wasn't—which is really a cheap shot on your part—[Laughter]—to call out this thing that I took her on as a romantic date because we were just hanging out! Barbara: That's right—we were. Bob: Was this before—this date we're about to talk about—was this before or after you had tried to hold hands with her in the parking lot? Dennis: Way before. Barbara: I have no idea. Dennis: Way before. Bob: Really? Barbara: I would think so—yes. Dennis: Oh, yes; oh, yes. Bob: Okay. Barbara: I would guess. Bob: It's just friends: “Hey, do you want to hang out tomorrow?” Dennis: Yes. I'd take her back to her apartment, and we'd kind of sit on the stairs and talk— Barbara: Yes. Bob: Just visit. Dennis: —until about 2:00 in the morning—[Laughter]—just like a couple of friends. Barbara: Yes. Bob: Yes. Barbara: Yes. [Dennis laughing] Bob: Okay. So he says, “Do you want to hang out tomorrow?” and he comes and picks you up. Barbara: He did. Bob: Did you know where you were going? Barbara: You know, I don't remember—it was too long ago. I don't remember if I knew or not, but I knew it was casual. I knew we were going to go on a picnic. He took me to some remote place outside of Dallas/Ft. Worth— 7:00 Bob: Now wait. I've got to stop you here. You're taking her on a picnic. You're not taking your buddy—“Let's go hang out,”— on a picnic. There's more going on here in your mind [Barbara laughing] than just, “Let's hang out together.” Dennis: She needed to understand where the riverbanks were— Bob: Alright. Barbara: Like I really care! Bob: We understand one another here; okay. So he picks you up? [Laughter] Barbara: Yes. We take off to parts unknown because I'd never really been in Texas in my life. I didn't know where we were going, but I trusted him. We show up at this stream, or river, or pool of water, or something—I don't know where it was! Dennis: I don't know where it was—it was below a dam somewhere. Barbara: Gosh; I couldn't begin to tell you. Dennis: It was murky / it was fishy-smelling. It was a great date! Barbara: All I know is he pulls out a fishing pole—fishing rod / fishing thing—I didn't know what a fishing thing was! [Laughter] Oh, how funny! Bob: One of the things you observed or learned, when you shared this story with your daughters—it was really to talk about the fact that, in relationships, you've got to make some adjustments and be ready for the fact that you're two very different people. Barbara: Exactly; because after we married, about three months later, we moved to Colorado. 8:00 In Colorado, there was abundant fishing. Bob: You married three months later—after the fishing date? Barbara: Yes! Dennis: You caught up on that small detail. [Laughter] Bob: I just thought our listeners ought to be aware. [Laughter] It went from zero to sixty. Dennis: I'm a man of action, Bob. Bob: This was a sports car relationship. [Laughter] So, from the day you said, “Will you…” to the day you said, “I do,”— Barbara: —was six weeks. Bob: Six weeks? Barbara: Six weeks. Bob: You said, “I'll be the Fish Queen for as long as we both shall live.” [Laughter] Dennis: Then, on our honeymoon, I took her camping and trout fishing. [Laughter] We need to get to the point of the book though—she's talking about how we, as men and women, are different. Barbara: That's right. Dennis: I mean, we did start out our marriage—really, not polar opposites—because we enjoyed one another. Barbara: Yes, we had a great time; but, had you asked me what I would have pictured for the early years of our marriage, I would not have pictured traipsing around in the mountains— 9:00 —fishing, and camping, and all of those things—because none of that was a part of my background, growing up. They were totally brand-new experiences. I learned, by those experiences, that marrying someone is merging together two vastly different—not just personalities—but life experiences. As Dennis used to say, all the time, “It's like merging two countries.” Bob: Yes. Barbara: Because we are very different, as men and women—we're very different in our life experiences / our outlook—everything is different. So those early years are years of discovery. What you do with what you discover sets the tone and the foundation for your marriage. Bob: Obviously, we're talking to Barbara Rainey, who is joining us today on FamilyLife Today. We're talking about the wisdom that you want to pass on to younger women—specifically to your daughters—about being a wife. You've just written a book called Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife. 10:00 What are the big ideas that you want to pass on to your daughters in this area of marital differences? Barbara: First of all—the first big idea is that there are going to be differences. It‘s normal to be diametrically opposite on all kinds of fronts. Because what happens—when we're engaged / and dating but then engaged—we tend to think: “Oh, we're so much alike, and we love each other so much—we'll never have clashes. Yes; if we do, we can handle them. We love each other so much that it's not going to be difficult.” I think one of the first difficulties for most young couples is they're caught off guard by these differences. They don't know what to do with them—they go from being cute and attractive to being downright ugly or frustrating. Bob: Yes. Barbara: All of a sudden, what was cute isn't so cute anymore; and you think, “Now, what do I do?” Bob: We have this tendency to think different means wrong. Barbara: Wrong; yes. 11:00 Bob: “This is the way I think; and it's the way I think naturally. So I must be right; and if you think differently, we need to fix you so you think like me.” Barbara: Yes. Bob: That's part of the awakening and adjusting that both wives and husbands have to do in the early stages of a relationship; right? Barbara: Exactly; because that's one of the beautiful things about marriage—is how it broadens our perspective. I write about that in telling these stories about fishing. I knew nothing about fishing; but because of who I married, the horizons of my life have been greatly expanded and broadened. I could have either fought that, and resisted that, and said: “I don't want any part of that! That's foreign to me. I don't like it”; but by embracing who he was, and his differences as a person, my life is much richer because of that. I think, if we can encourage these young wives—and husbands too / but this is for the wives right now—to welcome those differences as an opportunity to grow as an individual, it will make it easier. Dennis: I like what you wrote in your book here— 12:00 —you said: “These new realities created some minor earthquakes in my life—rumblings that shook my familiar, comfortable foundation. I was discovering that we were not as much alike as I'd originally thought. We were opposites who were attracted to one another but found ourselves, like magnets, that repel each other.” And then she goes on to write about how I would make a decision compared to how she would make one. Bob: Yes. Dennis: I'd see something that needed to be done or something I felt like we ought to go do—I'd process at the speed of light and off we'd go. Bob: Right. Dennis: Barbara, on the other hand, processes a little slower. In fact— Barbara: —a lot slower. Dennis: —a lot slower. Barbara: Is that what you were going to say? Bob: A little more thoughtfully—with a little broader perspective. Dennis: I've been enriched by that, but I promise you—if, early in our marriage, we had set up war with one another in two separate bunkers. 13:00 You could easily have built a case between two very different people, who had started out their marriage together, but now really can't get along and don't see one another—as we teach at the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway—as “God's perfect gift for you.” Bob: You describe how you began to approach these differences in your marriage. You call it the “Bookend Principle.” Barbara: Yes. Bob: Explain what that is. Barbara: The Bookend Principle is something that Dennis and I practiced with one another; and then, after the fact, sort of came up with the name for that. What we have done through the years is—when we've had disagreements over our differences or conversations trying to understand one another—we would say to each other: “I love you, and I would marry you all over again. This may be hard, this may be confusing, this may be difficult—it may not be fixed in a single conversation, like we would always like; but that's okay. I love you and I'm committed to you, and I would do it all over again.” 14:00 That statement of reaffirmation of our vows and commitment to one another provides a level of security to continue to have these discussions about our differences. I think it's a good habit. It was a good habit for us because you can get so caught up in how different we are—and how his differences grate on me or make life difficult for me and my differences make life difficult for him—that you can subtly switch to becoming enemies rather than allies. Bob: Were there times, or events, or evenings when you weren't sure you loved him and you weren't sure you'd marry him all over again? Barbara: No. There were times when I didn't feel loving—without question—but I never got to the place where I thought, “This was a big mistake,” because I knew that God had called us to marry each other. I knew that we were doing what we were supposed to do. So, therefore, if this was God's will, and it was, then He would enable us to figure it out with time. Bob: That issue was settled. Barbara: Yes; “Done.” Bob: That wasn't open for reevaluation— Barbara: No. Bob: —reexamination— Barbara: No. Bob: —re-discussion. 15:00 At some point—when you stood and said, “I do,”—the ships were burned. You weren't going to reconsider whether— Barbara: I think that's the mistake too many young couples are making today—is they get into it, and it becomes difficult—instead of saying, “We can work this out,” they say, “Gosh; we must have made a mistake.” They move to, “This is a mistake, and maybe there's a way out,” rather than, “We can find a way through this / we can make it work,” and stick with it for the long haul. Dennis: I look back on our marriage. I don't remember ever entertaining the thought. And I mean by entertaining—I'm talking about cultivating the thought that I'd made a mistake. I do wonder, looking back on it—this Bookend Principle of kind of starting out with a commitment that says, “I love you,” and then maybe, in the midst of an argument or after the argument has been exhausted, you say again: “I'm committed to you. I'd marry you all over again.” 16:00 It creates a safe place for two imperfect, very different people to hammer out their relationship together. I think we're an instant culture that is not used to having to take a lifetime to achieve this thing called “oneness.” What we were doing, back then—we were going through some very hard ground. I mean, it had not been plowed before—two very independent people—who had joined together in marriage, and who did rub one another the wrong way, and who, in their differences, missed each other over, and over, and over again—and, as a result, mis-communicated, disappointed, hurt one another. How do you maintain a relationship in the midst of that if you're not committed? Bob: I think it's important because we can laugh about fishing dates, and whether you like fishing or not; but a lot of folks, who are listening, are going, “Look, our differences are not around whether you like fishing or not— Barbara: Yes; exactly. 17:00 Bob: “Our differences are around core, fundamental, deeply-held issues in life. The fact that we're miles apart on this—I just don't know how to live with a husband / or a wife who does not embrace what's dear to me at the center of my being.” Barbara: Yes. That is a very difficult place to be. Even though Dennis and I never really had a crisis quite to that depth, we missed each other plenty of times. There are seasons in a marriage when it's very dry and when there doesn't feel like there's much life. I would have to say that: “There is hope. There's always hope, as long as we have breath, that if you are committed and you are teachable—both of you are teachable—and you hang in there, there will be a solution, given time.” I think that we expect too much too quickly. We would like to have it happen quickly—I would like to have it happen more quickly too, but that's just not the way of a marriage. 18:00 A marriage is slow, steady growth over a long length of time. Dennis: If you go back to Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3, the way God commands a marriage to start is He commanded a man and a woman to leave father and mother. He commanded them to cleave to one another / to be committed to one another. And third, He commanded them to receive one another—to receive the other person as God's gift for you. If you practice those three concepts—leave, cleave, and receive—over, and over, and over again—if you practice that in your marriage / especially, in the early years—it doesn't mean it's ever going to be easy. Barbara: Yes. Dennis: I asked Barbara how she would summarize our marriage. I was kind of hoping for “romantic,” [Laughter] “chill bumps”— Barbara: —“wonderful.” Dennis: You know? But instead, you said? Barbara: “It's been hard.” Dennis: “Hard work.” Barbara: “Hard work”; yes. 19:00 Dennis: Lots of hard work. I think a lot of young couples—and for that matter, older couples—are starting out marriages today not really expecting it to be as challenging and to demand perseverance like it does Bob: I just have to come back around here because you're right in this section of your book that—not only did your marriage start off with fishing—but through the years you've learned to enjoy hunting with your husband? [Laughter] Is that true? Barbara: Well, not by his definition; no. Not by— Dennis: I was waiting for the answer to that question. Bob: I'm going to read to you what you wrote. Barbara: Okay; okay. Read what I wrote. Bob: “And I have learned to appreciate hunting.” Barbara: Yes, “appreciate it.” Bob: Maybe “appreciate” is a better word than— Barbara: “Appreciate” is a better word. Yes Bob: “I actually went with him on an elk hunt a few years ago— Barbara: Yes. I did. Bob: — “with the camo, the face paint, and the human scent killers sprayed on my body.” Barbara: [Laughing] I did! Barbara and Bob: “Aren't you impressed?” [Laughter] Bob: That's what you say right here: “Aren't you impressed?” [Laughter] 20:00 “We hiked and hiked and snuck up on a herd of elk hiding behind trees like clandestine spies following a double agent down a dark alley in Eastern Europe. It was really fun!” Barbara: It was fun! [Laughter] Bob: But the point is that we're going to face these differences in the first years of our marriage. Barbara: Yes. Bob: Some of them crop up ten years in—fifteen. It's a life-long process of understanding “We're different,” and making those adjustments. Barbara: Exactly. That really is the point that I'm trying to make with these girls—is that the differences are there—they're not to be changed and they're going to be there for life. I think we somehow assume, early on, that a lot of this stuff is going to subside, or change, or moderate; but who we are is who we are. I'm just amazed at how little really changes over time. You either fight it, and resent it, and resist it, or you join and learn to actually enjoy it and appreciate it. 21:00 Now, do I love to go hunting? No. I enjoyed that because it was active. We were hiking in the mountains, and it was beautiful. Dennis: And it was warm. Barbara: And it was reasonably warm; yes. But the kind of hunting that he is often inviting me to go on—which I have refused—is the kind where you get up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, in the winter, and you go sit. You can't talk / you can hardly breathe, and it's freezing. [Laughter] Hiking in the mountains—we could talk as we went—until we actually saw the elk / then we had to be quiet. It was a much different kind of experience so I could appreciate that one. But sitting in a deer stand—I've done it once and I'm not real interested in going there again. Bob: The point is—you don't have to be interested in going there again to make your marriage work. This is a part of the dance. One of your chapters in your book, “Marriage Is Like Beautiful Dancing”— 22:00 —“Part of the dance is understanding what we do together and where it's better to leave each other some space and some time to do things apart.” Barbara: Yes. Bob: I just think you have given some real great practical wisdom to a lot of wives in what you've written in your book, Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife. It's brand new, and you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com to request your copy. Or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY and ask for the book, Letters to My Daughters, when you get in touch with us. Now, as both of you guys know, this is our 40th anniversary as a ministry—2016. All year long, we are celebrating anniversaries. Today, we want to congratulate Abigail and Angelo Pinheiro. They live in Princeton, New Jersey. They listen to FamilyLife Today on WFIL. They're celebrating 21 years of marriage today. “Congratulations!” to the Pinheiros—“Happy Anniversary!” 23:00 We'd love to help you celebrate your anniversary this year. In fact, if you will go to FamilyLifeToday.com and leave us your anniversary date, we'll have some suggestions for you this year on how this year's anniversary can be the best anniversary ever. It's all because we are the “Proud Sponsor of Anniversaries.” There are a lot of anniversaries that have happened over the years because of how God has used FamilyLife in people's lives for 40 years now. Thanks to those of you who make FamilyLife possible. We're listener-supported—we depend on your donations in order for this ministry to exist. This month, we're hoping that God might raise up, in every state where FamilyLife Today is heard, 20 new families who would join us as Legacy Partners. We're asking you—if you're a regular FamilyLife Today listener / if God's used this ministry in your life: “Would you be one of the families in your state to help support this program?” It's easy to do—go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the button that says, “DONATE.” 24:00 There is information there about becoming a Legacy Partner or about how you can make a one-time gift to FamilyLife Today. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. You can also call and say, “I'm interested in becoming a Legacy Partner.” We'll explain the whole process to you when you call 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” Now, tomorrow, we're going to talk about the spiritual foundation in a marriage and how important that is. Barbara Rainey will be back with us. Hope you can be here as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

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#5 - Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2020 26:46

Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the seriesCelebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to AdventCelebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being StillCelebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the SaviorCelebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior NamesCelebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at ChristmasFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. His Savior Names Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey and Laura Rainey Dries From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 4 of 5)Air date: December 1, 2016______________________________________________________________________________ Bob: The Christmas season gives all of us the opportunity to be talking more easily and more comfortably with friends or family members about who Jesus is. Here's Barbara Rainey. Barbara: This good friend of ours had the great privilege of leading his son to Christ as a result of focusing on the names of Christ at Christmas. I think that's what God is calling all of us to do. He's calling all of us to settle things and make things right with Him. Christmas is a wonderful time to do that, because we're naturally thinking about Jesus being born in Bethlehem. It's a perfect opportunity for moms and dads to help your kids understand what a decision for Christ looks like and why that's the most important decision they'll ever make. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, December 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. 1:00 Are you thinking, and planning, and strategizing about ways you could take advantage of spiritual opportunities in your family or among your friends during the holiday season? We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. It's actually the first day of December. This is the first day of the last month of the year, and the last month we'll be celebrating our 40th anniversary as a ministry. Dennis: You're exactly right. It's been a great year to celebrate 40 years. FamilyLife has been, for 40 years, the Proud Sponsor of Anniversaries™—not ours—yours. I read a great letter recently, Bob, from a couple, whom you mentioned, congratulating them on their 70th. Bob: That was great—back in August; yes. Dennis: Seventy years of marriage—just a great letter of how their friends at church heard it and they thought: “You guys are famous! You're on FamilyLife Today!” [Laughter] 2:00 Well, 70 years deserves a celebration; and you know what? There's another season that demands celebration as well—that's Christmas. We want to help you do a better job of doing that. Before we talk about how we're going to help you celebrate Christmas—Bob, in our family, when I was growing up, we had a time when the family would come together around the dinner table and we'd say, “There's something important we need to talk about.” It didn't happen many times but enough times that I knew, as a young lad, this was important. You know what? We're at a table here—kind of a dinner table of sorts. I'm asking the listener to scoot up a chair and just listen as I invite you to become a part of FamilyLife's mission. We need you. We need you to stand with us as we stand alongside you—as a single person, married, parent, grandparent—with God's blueprints for marriage and family. 3:00 This ministry's made possible—our mission of supporting families—is made possible by folks like you. As you slide the chair up to the table, maybe you can slide your checkbook out on the table and write a check; because that's what makes this broadcast possible. I just want folks to know we believe this is the mission of the hour for our country, and we need you to stand with us if you believe that as well. Bob: And there is a significant incentive right now. If you're able to help with a donation, there's a matching gift that has been made available to us, here at FamilyLife. We've asked our friend, Michelle Hill, to be our matching-gift monitor throughout the month of December. Can you give us the details on how the matching gift is working? Michelle: Sure, Bob. Here's how it works—first of all, the matching fund is $1.25 million. When listeners make a donation in December, their donation is actually going to be tripled by money drawn from this matching-gift fund. 4:00 Let's say somebody gives $50. Well, we're able to draw $100 from the matching fund so that the total gift becomes $150. I'll keep tabs on how things are going throughout the month; and of course, keep you up to date! Bob: Well, we will check in with you regularly throughout the month. We'd love to have you join us in the work of FamilyLife. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com—make a donation online; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a yearend donation. Or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. We hope to hear from you, here, between now and the end of the year. Dennis: We sure do. I just want to remind you: “Christmas is about family. It's about love; and it's about giving, because ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.'” 5:00 Early in our marriage—I'll never forget—Barbara came to me and she said: “You know, I am just kind of sick and tired of the messages of the culture. How can we train our children to be more about gift giving than gift receiving?” We put our heads together—we started asking people. I don't know who shared it with us, but somebody—it wasn't us—originated the idea that, instead of lining up all your presents that you're going to open for yourself / instead, line up all your presents that you want to give to others. In fact, I'm looking out to the audience that's out there listening to us tape this program right now— Bob: A small audience—we have about five or six— Dennis: It's not— Bob: And we have your wife Barbara joining us again today. Barbara—welcome back to FamilyLife Today. Barbara: Thank you. Bob: But we do have a studio audience that includes your daughter, Laura. 6:00 Dennis: Come on back in here, Laura, into the studio. Share with our audience what you used to think about as you used to have to get all your gifts that you were going to give rather than all of the gifts that you were going to get. Laura: Well, honestly, it just changed the perspective between my siblings. It became kind of like a game of who's going to get to give first and, “Which gift am I most excited about giving?” I just remember thinking: “Oh, I know Ashley is going to love this. I can't wait to give her this gift!” It just changed the perspective. Instead of thinking, “Oh, I wonder what's in that box for me,”—[it was]—“I hope they like what's in this box for them.” Bob: Okay; but I heard a story about an awful, terrible Christmas— Laura: Oh! Yes! Bob: —where everybody—you know what I'm talking about? Laura: This is amazing. I hope this is the one you're talking about! Bob: Is it the hair dryer story? Laura: Yes! It had nothing to do with me, which makes it even a lot better; right? [Laughter] Dennis: Some of our regular listeners have heard this before; but it is worth revisiting, because this is a Rainey classic right here. 7:00 Laura: Well, Samuel, my older brother, came up with it; because one year, my older sister, Rebecca, said all she wanted for Christmas was a hair dryer. Barbara: All she wanted— Laura: “The one thing— Barbara: —the one thing. Laura: —“I need this year, guys, from all of you is a hair dryer.” So Samuel thought: “Perfect! We'll all get her hair dryers.” [Laughter] So we all got a hair dryer. Maybe he went to WalMart®; I can't remember. Barbara: No; he and I went—Samuel and I went to K-Mart®. We bought six hair dryers. I kept the receipt, because I knew we'd be returning five. Laura: Yes. Barbara: But when we walked out of there, we giggled and we laughed—it was so much fun. Laura: So, it was just a large prank. It turned Christmas morning into something that we all thought was hilarious. Lots of tears after about the third or fourth hair dryer that Rebecca opened [Laughter]: “Did you guys not talk to each other? What happened?! How did you do this all together?” We all thought it was great; and then, it was not funny to Rebecca at all. Bob: Were there some backup presents in the— Laura: Oh, absolutely. We all had backup presents. Bob: So you didn't just stick her with six hair dryers. Laura: —and say, “Good luck!”—right. [Laughter] Bob: And it wasn't your favorite Christmas; huh? 8:00 Laura: No; I don't think so. Dennis: But the point is—we wanted our family to focus on gift giving—because, really, Christmas is about God giving His Son, Jesus Christ, to come and be our Savior. What Barbara's been working on for families for the past, really, five years is to help you, as a family, know how to best celebrate Christmas and what God was trying to communicate through His Son Jesus Christ. She's done that through a series of ornaments that she's calling Adorenaments®, all around the song, O Come Let Us Adore Him. You've now created 30 different, unique ornaments that are beautiful, but also meaningful, around the names of Christ. 9:00 Barbara: Yes; we have. It's been a great privilege to be able to create these and to help families make their Christmas tree about Jesus instead of your Christmas tree looking like Santa Clauses, and reindeers, and all kinds of things that have nothing to do with Christmas—not that those things are bad—but those of us, who worship Christ—our Christmas tree should say something about Jesus. Our trees should say something about the reason for the season, which is His coming to earth, as you said in John 3:16, to save us and to redeem us. Dennis: And one of the things that Barbara did in our family was—every Christmas Eve, she would wrap up an ornament. She would give each of the kids an ornament that she had bought a year earlier, after they went on sale the day after Christmas. Barbara: True. Dennis: It really is true—that's how she did it. They were really beautiful ornaments, but none of them—I don't think a single one of them—had much to do with the real reason for Christmas. Barbara: Well, if I could have found some, that would be what I would have purchased for our kids. One of our daughters collected angels; so I tried to find her angel ornaments every year— 10:00 —that was sort of close to the Christmas story. But there weren't too many to be found that were actually about the reason for Christmas; so I bought other things for our kids for Christmas / for their ornaments. Bob: Do you remember any of the ornaments you got? Laura: Oh yes. I just opened them a couple days ago. I couldn't wait! I was so excited to decorate the tree. Bob: Because this is your first—this is your first married Christmas. Laura: Right; it is. Bob: Any of Josh's old ornaments on the tree? Barbara: I don't know if he has any. [Laughter] Laura: I don't know if he has any. Dennis: A single guy with ornaments, Bob? Bob: I had a box of ornaments that my mom gave me. I mean, you gave your boys ornaments; right? Barbara: Our sons have their ornaments that I gave them when they were growing up; yes. Bob: And do they still show up on their tree? Do you know? Barbara: I don't know—yes; Samuel's do, because I've seen his several years. I don't know about Ben's. I'm sure they're there—I just haven't noticed them. Bob: You'd better ask Josh if he has any ornaments. Laura: I think he probably left them in the attic—he was embarrassed. [Laughter] If he has any, we'll incorporate them in. 11:00 Actually, I have—like Mom said earlier—she gave us a different ornament every year and truly continued on. I still—well, I'm probably not going to get one this year—she's cutting me off now that I'm married. Barbara: Now that she's married. [Laughter] Laura: It's all downhill from here! Dennis: Josh can get you an ornament. But what you've done, Barbara, is—you've created now five different sets of ornaments. The first year, there were seven names—they're metal names of Christ from Luke, Chapter 2, and Isaiah. The second year was His royal names—these are in the shape of a crown. The third year, His Savior names—we'll talk about them in just a moment—they're in the form of crosses / different crosses from different eras in history. The next year, you had the name of Jesus—that we mentioned earlier—in the various languages throughout the world. Then, this year, you've created globes—which are his Advent names—that are meant to be used at Christmas to help people lead up toward Christmas Day. 12:00 Barbara: Yes; and you can use any of these ornaments as sort of an advent for your family if you want to. You could hang one ornament each day of the month of December if you wanted to; or you can use just the globes, and you hang those out once each week, leading up to Christmas. There are lots of different things you can do; but by focusing on the names of Christ, no matter which set it is, it helps you remember and focus on the real meaning for Christmas, which is that Christ came to redeem us. Bob: With five different sets that you've created, do you have a favorite set? Barbara: Oh, that's a hard question. Dennis: That's a tough one. Bob: I know. Laura: Yes; you do. Bob: Which is your kids— Barbara: I do? Laura: Yes; of course! Bob: Which one? Laura: The crowns are her favorite. Bob: Are they your [Barbara's] favorite? Laura: I think they are. Barbara: It's hard to say. I mean, I really don't know that I can say. I do love the crowns, because I love the idea of Jesus being the King. You know, we don't see Him as King like we will someday when He comes back—so I do love that. But I have to say I love the crosses, because the crosses remind us— 13:00 Dennis: Now wait a second! That was going to be mine. Barbara: Well, it can be yours too. [Laughter] Dennis: I like the crosses, too; because they speak of His purpose—of why He came to save His people from their sins. Each cross is a different cross from a different era in history, and I just think they're magnificent and beautiful. Bob, what about you? Do you have a favorite? Bob: I'm partial to the crosses too. I hate to kind of weigh in with the majority here; but the crosses have always been my favorite, because the cross is the centerpiece of our faith that points us to the gospel and what Jesus came to earth for. We tend to think of Christmas being about a manger, and Easter being about a cross; but we need to remember the cross at Christmas as well. Barbara: They were one in Jesus' mind—I mean, He came for the purpose of dying for us. When you look at it from God's perspective, they're inseparable, even though we celebrate them at two different times of the year. Dennis: We skipped over Laura. Barbara: We did; I know. Dennis: We didn't ask her what her favorite— Bob: Do you have a favorite set, Laura? 14:00 Laura: Well, up until this year, the Christmas names were my favorite; but I do love the globes. I think they're different, and they're unique—I love the colors. They really stand out on the Christmas tree. I think it just presents a really neat opportunity—for people who come into your home—aside from all the other ones / they also present the opportunity—but to speak of the reason why Jesus came in an incredibly tangible way is a unique opportunity. Bob: We are describing these. We ought to point listeners to our website if they'd like to see the globes versus the crosses versus the crowns versus all of the different designs you've done over the years. You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the link for the Adorenaments to see each of the 30 ornaments that Barbara has designed over the years. Dennis: I was looking forward to asking my wife this question, because I'm not sure I know the answer to it. Bob: Okay. Dennis: Why did you pick the Savior names for the third year to help celebrate Christmas? I'm looking at these names, and I just want to mention them— 15:00 —just kind of puts it in context here: Anointed One, Chief Cornerstone, Great High Priest, Lamb of God, Mediator, Messiah, and Redeemer. Why did you pick His Savior names? Barbara: When I was starting to create these ornaments, I was in conversations with a bunch of different people around the office. I remember one day—because there are over 300 names of Christ—so where do you start? I mean, that's a long list of names. I was mulling all this over in my mind. One day, I was talking to Bob; and Bob said, “Okay; if you could only do three sets of Jesus' names, which ones would you do?” I knew right away what that would be. I would do His Christmas names, because they're the names we know the best. I would do His royal names, because those are His names that we will know better when He comes back; and then we had to have His Savior names. 16:00 That's why I did those three sets first, because it was sort of—it was a challenge / it was a charge from Bob: “If you could only do three, which three would you do?” So that's why we did those three first. Bob: I had no idea. Barbara: You didn't know you— Bob: I didn't know. Barbara: —had that kind of influence. [Laughter] Dennis: See, I didn't know the answer to the question. The next question is: “Why did you pick these crosses from different eras in history?” I'm holding the Savior's name here, Mediator, and it's the Saint Thomas cross. Barbara: I did not know when we started working on His Savior names that there were so many different types of crosses. The Saint Thomas cross was developed by the Armenian people. Armenia is an area in eastern Turkey. It's said that Thomas, the disciple, went to Armenia after the resurrection of Christ—that he was the one who went east to take the gospel to people—so they created this cross. 17:00 It has a dove on the top to signify the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell within us; and they named the cross after the disciple Thomas. I did not know that; and I thought, “Well, what a cool story!” So each one of these crosses has a similar story—why it was created, who designed it, what the name is, and why it became important in the history of Christendom throughout the last 2,000 years. Dennis: So what's the story behind the cross that bears the name, Messiah? It's called the anchor cross. Bob: I knew he was going to ask about it—he loves the anchor cross. Dennis: I do. Barbara: It is his favorite. When we were talking about favorites—it's his favorite. Barbara: Oh, it's yours, too, Laura? Laura: Yes. Barbara: Why is it your favorite? Laura: Well, when people buy His Savior names—you can read this in the book—but it's my favorite because, in the book, it says the promise of Messiah is a message of hope. If you keep going [reading] down, it says the anchor cross has symbolized hope since the early days of the church. I think around Christmastime, it's such a happy and a celebratory time; but it can also be a really hard time for a lot of people. 18:00 Barbara: Yes. Laura: It can be a time where you've lost a loved one; and so you're reminded, around that time, of someone that's missing in your life—or something that you would like to have / if you longed to be married or if you've longed to have children and you can't. It can be a hard time of year, around Christmas. I think that's why I love the Messiah ornament. Barbara: That's why we put the name, Messiah, on the anchor cross; because there's the verse in Hebrews 6—and it says, “We have this hope, this sure and steadfast hope that is the anchor of our soul.” The idea that Jesus is our anchor—that when everything around us feels like it's giving way / when we're caught in some kind of a tempest, or a trial, or a really difficult time—we can be confident that Jesus is with us, that He will never leave us or forsake us, and that our faith in Him has been likened to an anchor. So we put the name, Messiah, on the anchor cross. 19:00 Dennis: We don't have time to look at all the names here; but the one we have to talk about, if we're going to talk about Savior names, is Redeemer. This is the Celtic cross. The word, Redeemer, is used 141 times in Scripture. It's used 13 times in the Book of Isaiah, where it foretells the coming of Jesus Christ. He came to be our Savior/our Messiah, but He also came to redeem us. I was thinking, as I was reflecting on that name, of the illustration given of a man who was standing before a judge, guilty. The judge declared him guilty and told him what his penalty would be. At that point, he got up, pushed back from the chair, took his robe off, pulled out his checkbook, walked around in front of the judge's bench, and wrote out the check, “Paid in full.” That's what our Redeemer did. 20:00 He came to do what you can't do for yourself. If you're listening to us today, and you don't know—the Redeemer, the Messiah, the One who is the chief Cornerstone, the Anointed One, the One who is the Savior of the world—then you just simply need to cry out and say to Him, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!” There was another person who cried out that prayer—he was in the process of dying on a cross. He was one of the criminals that was executed next to Christ on the day that Christ was crucified. Jesus turned to him and said, “Surely, you will be with Me today in paradise.” You know what? If you cry out to Jesus Christ / surrender your life to Him, He will hear your prayer. He will meet you where you are in the middle of your mess, and He will redeem you. He will be your Messiah. He will become your anchor in the storm. 21:00 Bob: We have on our website, at FamilyLifeToday.com, a tab that says, “Two Ways to Live.” I'd encourage listeners to go and click that tab and look at what's presented there, because there are only two ways to live. There is the God-centered way of living, and then there is the man-centered way of living. Each of us decides which path we're going to walk on. Again, go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the tab that says, “Two Ways to Live.” As you read it, ask yourself the question: “Who or what am I living for? What's my life really all about?” While you're on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com, take a look at the resources Barbara has been working on that we've talked some about today—the ornaments that have been created in past years to hang on your Christmas tree to proclaim the names of Jesus during the Christmas season—and the new set of ornaments, His Advent names. 22:00 These are four globe-shaped ornaments that have four different names for Jesus—Jesus is the Son, the Messenger, the Word, and the Light—corresponding verses on each ornament. You can order any of the ornaments in the collection when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY—1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” And for those of you who have the FamilyLife mobile app—some of you, I know, listen to this program using the app—we're starting to include some devotional material for the month of December in the app / some Advent devotions; some questions you can use to prompt spiritual discussions during the holiday season, with friends or family members—or your children, for that matter—ways to talk about Christ during Christmas. You'll find it all on the FamilyLife app, and the app is free. 23:00 Simply go to your app store to download it. Of course, FamilyLife Today is available on the app every day. It's easy to tune in that way. I want to say, “Happy anniversary!” today to Pastor Jason and Lady Charita Spruill, who live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was just up in Philadelphia for our Weekend to Remember® getaway recently—had a great weekend with listeners who came out for the getaway. The Spruills are celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary today. They listen to FamilyLife Today on WFIL. We want to say: “Happy anniversary to you guys! Hope you have a great celebration.” We're all about anniversaries, here at FamilyLife. We've been helping couples celebrate more anniversaries for 40 years now. We want to thank those of you who partner with us to make this ministry possible. We mentioned earlier the matching gift that is available during the month of December. We hope you'll consider a yearend contribution to this ministry. You can give, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to give. 24:00 Or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. Now, tomorrow, Barbara Rainey is going to be back with us again. We're going to continue our conversation about how we make Jesus the issue at Christmas and how we make sure that He doesn't get cluttered out. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.______________________________________________________________________________ Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Bonus: Your Home is an Embassy (Part 5) - A Home For Hospitality

Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2020 26:53

Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the seriesYour Home is an Embassy (Part 1) - On Mission, Your Assignment as a CoupleYour Home is an Embassy (Part 2) - World Avoiders or World Changers?Your Home is an Embassy (Part 3) - My Home, God's EmbassyYour Home is an Embassy (Part 4) - A Christian's MissionYour Home is an Embassy (Part 5) - A Home For HospitalityFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. A Home for Hospitality Guest : Barbara Rainey From the series: Your Home Is an Embassy (Day 5 of 5)Air date: August 26, 2016 Bob: As an ambassador, your assignment is to represent your homeland—to represent the culture and the values. We are ambassadors for Christ. Barbara Rainey says that means: “When people see us, they should be reminded of who He is and what matters to Him.” Barbara: Jesus talked to anybody and everybody. He welcomed everybody. His love was available for everybody. And as His ambassadors, we need to share His love with anyone. I think it's a great exercise for families to teach your kids to reach out to their friends in school and to invite their friends to come to your home so that you can know who your kids are hanging out with in school; but also, so that you can have an influence on those kids and, maybe, give them a different experience— Dennis: Yes; right. Barbara: —on what home is supposed to be like because theirs may be very different. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, August 26th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. 1:00 When people see you, your home, your family, how much of Jesus are they seeing? How much do your values reflect the values of the kingdom? We're going to spend time talking about that today with Barbara Rainey. Stay with us. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I'm actually not surprised to see the Reese's® Peanut Butter cup in the position that it's in on the poll on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com—this is the candy bar poll we've had going on this week. Dennis: That is no way connected to the content of the broadcast. Bob: No. Dennis: Although the broadcast this week has been sweet because Barbara is with us. Bob: That's true. I'd like to just acknowledge that— Dennis: How's that? Come on, Bob— Bob: —there's no connection— Dennis: —acknowledge that may be worth one point. Come on. Bob: There's no connection. Dennis: One point. Bob: It was you who brought this up at the beginning of the week. [Laughter] So, the fact that it's completely random should not surprise listeners at all. 2:00 But do you think of a Reese's Peanut Butter cup as a candy bar? See, I don't think of it as a candy bar. Barbara: It's not. It's a candy, but it's not bar shaped. Bob: It's not a bar. So, it's not—we put it up there as one of the choices, but I'm just a little surprised because I don't think of it as a candy bar. Barbara: I don't either. Dennis: It was not a random choice, either. We were talking about how you can be on mission as an ambassador. We've been talking this week, with Barbara—welcome back, Sweetheart. [Laughter] Bob: At last, we see the connection—we see the connection between being on mission as an ambassador— Dennis: I'm about to get there. Bob: —and a candy bar. Dennis: An ambassador knows whom he serves. Bob: Yes. Dennis: He knows and executes the mission of the one he serves. Bob: Right. Dennis: Third— Bob: Waiting for the candy bar part. Dennis: —he operates out of an embassy; and in this case, we're challenging people to think about making their home an embassy. Bob: Right. Dennis: And we've got a little sign—a stainless steel sign—that says, “Embassy of the King.” And finally, I think a good ambassador, operating out of his embassy, needs to train his kids to know how to operate in the world. 3:00 Bob: Here's the connection to candy bars— Dennis: And Barbara— Bob: —kids. Barbara: Kids. [Laughter] Dennis: Kids—yes; that's it! [Laughter] We took the kids to Russia on a Josh McDowell trip to go visit orphanages. Barbara: We did. Dennis: And the way Barbara survived was a candy bar made only in Russia—it's not exported, I'm sure. [Laughter] She survived all week because the sandwich, or whatever it was, had lettuce-thin meat. Bob: The supplies were meager. Dennis: They were. It was survivable only because of the candy bar. Thus— Bob: Okay. It took a long way to get there, but that's how we got to the candy bars. Dennis: —thus, the straw poll. It's okay. Bob: Our focus, though, this week has been rethinking about our lives—thinking about being ambassadors / thinking about our homes being embassies for the Kingdom of heaven. Barbara—as Dennis said, you've created a plaque to put at the front door of your home. 4:00 You've created a wall-hanging and a framed print that can hang inside the home that all remind you that the home is an embassy for the kingdom of heaven. If you were starting over again, as a mom / as a young wife—you had little kids in the home and you wanted to reinforce this idea—what might you do differently than what you did when you were raising your kids? Barbara: Wow! Dennis: Well, you know what I would do? Barbara: What would you do? Dennis: I'd go to FamilyLifeToday.com and I would play a little video that is on there—how long is the video of— Barbara: It's about a five- to six-minute video. Dennis: —a follower of Christ, from a former Communist country, who turned his home into an embassy. And the reason we're kind of speaking generically in pronouns is because the creator of this asked that we not refer to the person's name or gender identity; but you'll soon find out who it is by watching the video. But I'd have the kids watch this video, Bob. 5:00 The person involved is an older person, but this person is on mission. This person is an ambassador operating out of an embassy. Barbara: And this person talks about how important it is that his home reflects the King that he serves. So, he has some things around his house that remind him of whom he serves and whom he belongs to and remind those who come to visit whom he belongs to and whom his King and Lord is. Dennis: And if you are wondering, kind of, where the concept for this comes from, Deuteronomy 6 is a great place to go. It talks about having a sign on the doorpost of your house—a banner that is proclaiming whose you are and who you are / your identity. It was all about helping the nation of Israel, as they moved into a foreign country, to know how to establish their spiritual identity and who their God was as they took up residence there. Not a bad idea for us, as followers of Christ, today. 6:00 Bob: So, I'm thinking about, again, how we remind ourselves that we are living as citizens of a different kingdom with different values and make that a part of what our home reflects. I have a friend / we have mutual friends; and if you go into their kitchen, painted on the wall in the kitchen is Proverbs 14:4, which says, “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean.” [Laughter] Barbara: That's painted in the kitchen? Bob: It's painted in the kitchen. Barbara: I was thinking it was going to be something about food—I was waiting for that. Bob: See, I thought so too. I walked into the kitchen, and I saw, “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean.” And then, I looked at the kitchen and said: “Oh! I understand.” [Laughter] Barbara: Lots of little kids! Bob: “If we didn't have all these kids, the kitchen would be spotless,” is kind of what this is saying. Part of what you do—if you want your home to reflect embassy values—Dennis, you talked about the American embassy in foreign countries would have pictures of presidents or might have founding documents up. 7:00 You put Scripture on the walls. Barbara: You do. Bob: You put pictures on the walls that might represent some of our spiritual forefathers. You do things to create a visual environment that keeps pointing us to whose home this really is; right? Barbara: Yes; and that's part of the reason I created these visuals for us to put in our home because I think seeing one of these signs that says, “Embassy of the King” on my front door or next to my front door every time I walk in—and I don't have one up yet, but I'm going to put it up soon—but I think that would be good for my soul, when I walk in my front door, to remember that I'm walking into the embassy of the King. It's a refuge / it's a place of rest—when I've been out in foreign land, so to speak, and I've been on mission for Him—to come home and to know that where I'm walking into belongs to my King, and that it's His, and that He is in charge here, not me. Dennis: I'm going to screw this stainless steel, “Embassy of the King”—what do you call this? 8:00 It's not a sign. Barbara: I call it a plaque. Dennis: I'm going to screw this into our bricks of the front of our house. I'm actually picturing, as I come home from work, I'm going to reach over and touch that. Or as I leave in the morning and leave home, I'm going to touch it as I leave—just as a reminder and start thinking about that. What if your kids did that every day as you would raise them? Now, we tried to do that as we took our kids to school every day. We would—on the way to school, there was a certain spot on the road, where we'd start praying. We would pray for our children—that they would represent Christ, they would know whose they are, and who they are, and that they would represent Him well. That's what we're about, as parents—we have to make our faith our kids' faith—and how to help them begin to live on the basis of that faith in enemy territory. Bob: Part of making your home an embassy involves hospitality; doesn't it? 9:00 Barbara: Yes. I think it does involve hospitality because, when you think about an embassy in another country—if you went to the American Embassy in a foreign land, you would be welcomed, you would be greeted warmly, you would be invited in—and that's the essence of hospitality. You might go to the American Embassy because you had a need, you had a problem that you need their help solving, or you might just go visit because you wanted to see the embassy. I think our homes, as we represent Christ, can do the same thing. When our kids are in school and they want to bring friends home, we want those children, when they come into our home, to feel welcomed and received—that this is a warm, good environment to be in. I think hospitality is really important because we're commanded to be hospitable in the Bible, and I think that's one way that we communicate who Jesus is. Jesus talked to anybody and everybody. He welcomed everybody. His love was available for everybody. 10:00 As His ambassadors, we need to share His love with anyone. I think it's a great exercise for families to teach your kids to reach out to their friends in school and to invite their friends to come to your home so that you can know who your kids are hanging out with in school; but also, so that you can have an influence on those kids and, maybe, give them a different experience— Dennis: Yes; right. Barbara: —of what home is supposed to be like because theirs may be very different. Dennis: I think families, that are followers of Christ, need to invite other kids in. You never know, as Barbara said, where they're coming from. Maybe, they've never seen an intact family; maybe, they've never seen a husband and a wife being nice to each other/ loving each other. Now, a lot of our kids' friends did because a lot of our kids' friends had families that were intact; but I don't think you can underestimate the impact your marriage and family can have on other teenagers as you raise yours. Bob: Barbara, you've heard the interview that Dennis and I did with Rosaria Butterfield. 11:00 Barbara: Yes. Bob: Powerful story of a woman whose life was transformed, ultimately, because of hospitality. Barbara: That's right; yes. Bob: And I think, as I've reflected on her story—and again, if our listeners have not heard the story of a feminist, lesbian professor at Syracuse University, who became a follower of Christ and, now, is a pastor's wife and a mother raising four children, you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com to hear that story. It is remarkable. But the thing that has stood out for me was how she got an invitation to an embassy. Barbara: She did. Bob: A pastor and his wife said, “We'd like to have you over for dinner.” Barbara: Yes. She came; they had a great conversation, and it was the crack in the door. Dennis: And she kept coming. Barbara: And she kept coming. Dennis: And then, she started visiting the church. Bob: And you remember—when she first came, she came with a little edge because she told us—she said, “I brought a bottle of wine, just wanting to see if that pastor was going to freak out that there was alcohol. “ [Laughter] 12:00 And then, she said, “And I went out and got my best butch haircut so that I would be properly— Dennis: I'd forgotten about that. Bob: Yes. She said— Barbara: —“properly antagonistic.” [Laughter] Bob: Yes. And she said, “And it didn't throw them.” I think, if we remember that we're ambassadors, and if we remember that this is the embassy, then, when people from the foreign country come visit the embassy and they look like foreigners, it shouldn't surprise us! Barbara: No; it shouldn't surprise us. Well, and if you think about it, that's how Jesus received people. He was never shocked or offended or put off by people. He was in touch with all kinds of people. I think we get way too narrow, and selfish, and all kinds of things—but that's the right way to do it [as Jesus did]—is to invite the foreigners in who live around the embassy and welcome them in the name of Christ. Bob: We were having a conversation recently with somebody who was talking about wanting to be more intentional about how we share our faith in a culture that increasingly wants to hear less and less about it. 13:00 They were talking with people who aren't followers of Christ, and they were talking about lost people. And this person said: “Wait a second. Is that—are you talking about me?—that I'm a lost person?” because he said, “I don't think I'm lost,” and these other folks went—I guess we better stop and think, “If you are an ambassador, living in a foreign country, you should be missionally-aware— Dennis: —“of your language.” Bob: —“of your language, your actions, and your dress.” Dennis: —“attitudes.” Bob: This is, I think, what Paul was talking about when he said, “I've become all things to all people in order that I might win some.” You are aware: “I don't live in the kingdom anymore. I live in a place where they don't value what the people in the kingdom value, but I must be respectful of these people”— Barbara: That's right; yes. Bob: —“as I share my homeland and my assignment with them.” Dennis: Barbara and I chose to put our kids in public school, primarily, because God led us to; but secondarily, we wanted to train our kids in how to reach out to their friends who weren't necessarily all going to be believers as they were. 14:00 We wanted them to kind of grow up in a hostile country. Barbara: Well, we wanted them to go as ambassadors. We did not use that term with them, but we wanted them to learn to reach out to kids who didn't know Christ. We also wanted them to learn how to relate to kids from all social backgrounds, different kinds of economic backgrounds, and different races because we are called to reach all kinds of people. We wanted them to have that experience of relating to kids from all kinds of different backgrounds. And that's a part of being an ambassador—is learning who your audience is, learning who these people are, learning their customs, learning the way they talk—not so that you can assimilate and become like them—but so that you can have a hearing and they can hear from you. Bob: I'm glad you brought that up because one of the dangers that we face, as ambassadors— 15:00 —let's face it—we live in a pretty nice place. I'm thinking: “If I was the ambassador to Fiji, after a few years of living in Fiji, you might start to think, ‘Fiji's pretty nice. [Laughter] In fact, it's— Dennis: So, when you were saying you live in a nice place, you're not talking about your home being nicer than anybody else's. Bob: No! Dennis: You're talking about America. Bob: I'm saying we live in the world—this is a pretty nice world we live in. Barbara: Yes. Bob: And God's given us good things here, and you can fall in love with the world. Dennis: We had dinner the other night with a couple, Tim and Kathy Bush. They are from Washington, and they shared their story of how they were lost. I mean, they'd spent thousands of dollars on marriage counselors. They had been all over the place trying to find solutions for their marriage. They were not followers of Christ—had a second home, had all the trappings, had everything they wanted—and finally, found Christ / found a purpose, and got on mission, and became ambassadors. 16:00 Now, they're all over wanting to strengthen marriages all across the country. They were actually driving from the state of Washington through Little Rock to get to Aiken, South Carolina, to perform an Art of Marriage® event in that church to serve marriages and families there. They were on mission, and they talked about what you just said, Bob. They talked about how their attitude changed about—instead of being in the world, loving the world, of the world—they wanted to be those who changed the world and made a difference in the world and other people's lives. Back to the story of our kids being in high school—I'll never forget the first outreach we had in our home. Again, making your home an embassy may mean reaching out, inviting kids informally to hear the gospel. And in our case, we actually hired a speaker—and I'll never forget, Bob, I bought—it had to be over 100 hot dogs— 17:00 —all these hot dogs and buns and everything. We were going to grill dogs and be there for these hungry teenagers, and I think seven kids came. Barbara: Plus, our kids. [Laughter] Dennis: Plus, our kids. We were eating hot dogs for — Barbara: —a long time. Dennis: —a long, long time. Bob: The good news is you can buy seven hot dogs for about 20 bucks. [Laughter] Dennis: Well, you can buy a lot of them; but— Barbara: And they freeze real well! Bob: That's right. Dennis: I just remember that freezer was full of a reminder that we'd overshot it. But you know what? By the time our kids graduated from high school—the last one—we'd actually created an outreach that had anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of the student body coming out to events to hear a singing group, an illusionist, maybe, a simulcast with Josh McDowell speaking to them around relevant issues. And that's why I want to just say to parents: “It may not work the first time you try this to become— 18:00 —make your home into an embassy with your kids. Don't quit! Keep on inviting kids over there and stay after the task.” Barbara: Well, and you're modeling for your kids. I think that's—I mean, when you said just a second ago, Dennis, we did this. Well, it wasn't just us. Dennis: That's right. Barbara: We did it because we encouraged our kids to do it. So, it was really our kids who did it; but we did it together. And because we encouraged them to reach out to their friends and to create a safe place on campus for kids to talk about Christ, they actually bought into and began to do it. So, the whole reason that we did this—that we had the kids over, and had hot dogs, and hired a speaker—is because we wanted to model reaching out to others for our kids and with our kids so that they would catch the vision of what it meant to be an ambassador / how to go to school—not just to get an education and graduate and get out of there, which is what most of them think—but how to go to school on purpose and to know that God has a purpose and a mission for you wherever He has you in school. We wanted our kids to be aware of that every day. 19:00 Dennis: I think the thing I want to challenge people, who don't have kids to do—you may say, “Maybe, our work is done.” No, no, no—there are marriages and families that are falling apart all across the country. You need to know that we've created tools here that can turn you into a great ambassador. The Art of Marriage has now been seen by over 700,000 people because of ambassadors / people who grabbed it and showed the video at an event or in a small group. And there have been some men, who have said: “You know what? I want to help men be courageous men.” And they've grabbed Stepping Up®, the video series, and have led a Stepping Up video series with a small group of men or a large group of men and have made an impact on their lives. And over 200,000 men have been through that. So, there are thousands of ambassadors who, today, are saying: “I want to make a difference. Give me the tool. Get out of my way. I want to reach my community for Christ.” Barbara: I think the important thing is that each of us, as ambassadors for Christ, need to ask God: 20:00 “What is it that You want me to do?” Then, be intentional about it. If you have kids, you need to be intentional about teaching them that they are ambassadors—that their lives represent Christ every day when they walk out the front door of your house and go to school, or go to their job, or whatever—they are representing Christ. And it's your responsibility, as a parent, to help them wear that well and to understand what that means. So, whether you're still parenting or whether you're in an empty nest, we need to be intentional about representing Christ every day that we have. Bob: And if you have kids at home, a great way to be intentional is to go to our website at FamilyLifeToday.com and download the free e-booklet that's available that gives you four guided conversations that you can have with your family / with your kids to talk about: “How do we do this? What does this look like for us?” Again, go to FamilyLifeToday.com and download the e-version of the Embassy booklet that Barbara has created. 21:00 While you're there, find out more about the “Embassy of the King” plaque, and banner, and canvas—the other resources Barbara has created. And if you're ready to have an impact in the lives of folks in your neighborhood, in your community, in your church, get a tool like Dennis talked about—The Art of Marriage small group series, The Art of Marriage event kit, the Stepping Up series. Get some people together and go through this material and start pouring into the lives of others so that you can help strengthen them in their marriage, and in their family, and in their relationships. Find out more about these resources that are available from us when you go to our website, FamilyLifeToday.com; or call, if you have any questions, at 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” Now, I want to wish a “Happy anniversary!” today to a couple who have been to five Weekend to Remember® getaways— 22:00 —five of them! Today, they celebrate 26 years as husband and wife—Fred and Mary Lil West, who live in Mission Viejo, California. They are a part of the Cru® team. FamilyLife is a part of Cru, and Fred and Mary Lil are a part of Cru as well. We just wanted to say, “Happy anniversary!” to the Wests as they celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary today—one past the silver anniversary. And I'll tell you what—anniversaries are important. We think anniversaries really matter and ought to be celebrated. That's why, as The Proud Sponsor of Anniversaries™, we are acknowledging couples, like the Wests, as they celebrate. We're urging you to make your marriage a priority. Our goal, here at FamilyLife, is that more couples would celebrate more anniversaries for more years to come. The way we do that is by offering practical biblical help and hope each day so that your marriage can go the distance. And we appreciate those of you who partner with us in making this ministry possible. 23:00 We're listener-supported. This month, we're asking FamilyLife Today listeners, who have been listening regularly, but maybe, it's been awhile since you've made a donation—maybe, you haven't donated this year. We're a little behind this year from where we were last year at this time in terms of the number of people who are supporting the ministry. We're asking regular listeners, “Would you consider, today, going to FamilyLifeToday.com and making an online donation; or calling 1-800-FL-TODAY and making a donation over the phone?” You can also mail your donation to us at FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; and our zip code is 72223. When you get in touch with us, if you are able to donate $100 or more, we'd like to express our thanks by sending you a set of three Bible studies for couples—part of The Art of Marriage® Connect Series. These studies are designed for small group use or for a husband and wife to use together. They are our thank-you gift when you help us with a donation of $100 or more today. 24:00 Again, thanks for your support of this ministry. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to hear, again, from Barbara Rainey—this time, about God's design for women as wives. Barbara's just written a book on the subject, and she has some thoughts to share with us Monday. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back Monday for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Let Go with Megan Meyers

Memories With A Beat

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2020 16:01

Megan shares how she connects with the song Let Go by Frou Frou, as she broke up with her high school sweetheart. And even today, years later, Megan uses this song to remind her that done is better than perfect. Gonna stalk us on social? Let me help you... @meganmeyermakeup meganmeyermakeup.com @virtuallyyoupodcastva (FB & IG) ...heck, join me in my FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1884183095057195 **Full Transcript Intro I have a question. What is your favorite song and how do you connect with it? Is it when you fell in love or through something really difficult? I'm your host, Tiffany Mason now join me as I interview others, and we take a walk down memory lane with them. Let's get lost in why that music matters to them. Turn up your radio and let's explore memories with a beat. Tiffany Hello everyone out in podcast land. Thank you for joining me for another episode today I have with me Megan Meyer. Hello Megan. Megan Hiiii Tiffany Okay, and so Megan has picked a song for us again. Megan Do you want to share which song you chose? Megan Yes, that's a song called Let Go by Frou Frou. Tiffany By Frou Frou, and a side note, I just have to say. My mom when she puts on fragrance, perfume, she was calls it her Fufu. So using Frou-frou Frou Frou, is making me think of my mother and her fragrance. Megan Yeah, it's probably not a song that a lot of people have heard but it was in the movie Garden State and the soundtrack. So that's how I came about finding it. Tiffany Well, I was really taken aback because I looked up well, when you had text me your song pic. I saw Let It Go, and I was like okay that's good. And I was like, well, maybe it's got like this other meaning, you know? And so then I was looking at the words and trying to figure out like the day of the year was released. I'm like, Okay, let me just make sure because Garden State... I was like, I don't think the song existed before the Disney movie. [Laughter] So we went over the YouTube, the thumbnail of the YouTube video had not populated. So I just saw a blank square and I saw Let It Go, so I was like okay she doing Let It Go. Megan Yeah, I mean that's a popular song in my house because my kids are five and six. But it's not my favorite, personally. I'm a little tired of it. Tiffany Yeah, that makes sense that makes sense. Okay, so you said in the movie Garden State did you go see it with somebody, how did you see the movie? Megan Yeah, I mean I think it was.. so it came out my sophomore year in college. And I just feel like, those are such formative years, that for some reason that song stuck with me, and I really liked Indie music back then and finding new artists to follow. And that was also in the days of like Napster and, Tiffany Oh, sure... Megan Of course, I didn't download any music from Napster Tiffany No, none of us did Megan Or burn any CDs but, um...So I feel like, you know, that was just kind of a sign of the times of my life back then. Tiffany Where did you go to college? What year was-were you a sophomore? Were you seeing anybody or did your best friend go with you? Megan You know it's interesting that you bring that up because I hadn't made the connection. But in that movie. it is about a relationship which so many movies are. As a sophomore at Texas A&M and I was actually in the process of leaving a relationship with my kind of first love High School boyfriend and moving on and doing my own thing. And so I think that, you know, it's so interesting how movies also can kind of shape that time in your life. But I definitely was in a transition period of my own then and had been with him for 4 years, which is a really long time, especially when you've been on the planet like 20 years. Tiffany Well and you almost kind of..you know you really do mature from like the teenager to like almost adult. So it is really kind of a pivotal time. And then you're tied down with somebody. I had a boyfriend my whole high school career and I wish I would not have done that. I tell my kids all the time you have your whole life to be responsible to somebody. Don't do that. Don't get into a serious relationship, like, you know, you just have forever to be responsible to someone else once you do get married. So, enjoy your time and live it out so what did... so did you end up going with a friend of the movie? Megan Um, I think I watched it in my sorority house as a group. So, you know, it's also symbolic of like those times where, like I said just had kind of complete freedom for the first time, other than you know getting to your classes and making sure that you didn't flunk out. And spending time with friends and. And like you said just really moving from that teenager station of life to like being an adult. And learning what it is like to get hurt but also you know how you bounce back from that. And you know it wasn't until seven years later that I met my husband. It was quite a bit of time until I made the full commitment, but it was a fun time to just be with the girls and really appreciate that for what it was and not not be tied down to just always, you know, worrying about someone else. Tiffany Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's true. Megan And don't get me wrong, I'm married now and worrying about someone else now is, is like wonderful and exactly what I wanted. But this was much earlier in life so Tiffany Yeah I think when you're ready for it you know it's not a bad thing at all. But when you're so young like just go live and just go have fun and hang out with your friends and experience life. And then, you know, figure it out and fall in love with someone to marry and then tell them how you spent 10 bucks at Walmart and $50 at Best Buy. [Laughter] Unknown 5:33 Yeah, yeah. No, the kids, the kids keep things interesting as well. So my, my daughter's six, and there's a boy in the neighborhood that's quite popular with the ladies, that's seven. And I'm like, Lexi, you can't worry about boys you have the rest of your life to worry about boys go play with your friends. Ya knows. Tiffany Yep. Yep. Boy crazy at six? Megan I know I'm in trouble. Tiffany I'll say! My daughter's nine and I still don't think.. she, um, she told me one time that one of her classmates was very handsome. But then she later told me that her teacher said it. So I think that she was just saying what her teacher had said. I don't. Megan Yeah Tiffany I don't think it was really like. I mean, she just was noting like yes he's very good looking, but not so much, you know, I'm not going for him so much. Megan Isn't it funny how they test things out on it. Tiffany Yeah, very much so. Megan It's interesting because I just always go back to that song. I don't know. That artist has just kind of followed me through the years because that was quite a few years ago. We didn't have to say the number, but but you know and kind of that idea of letting go has also followed me so that's why I picked that song. Okay, well that's awesome. Tiffany I thought it was interesting that her voice sounds so much like The Cranberries. Megan So I love The Cranberries too. Tiffany I do too! I do too! And you know this online thing you have is [Singing]"In your head. Zombie" And at one point, she says in that song, "in your head, in your head." Or something like that and that's what I was hearing. And then I was like wait that's not what she's saying because I thought what the song is about right? So I was like wait a minute I must be mixed up but anyways. Megan I think they're both British. And actually, I think that one of the reasons I like the song is because I need to get out of my head more. So it's actually quite the opposite. But yeah, so I think that they do have a similar sound. Tiffany So Megan and I are in a networking group together and we're always all the women in our women inspired networking group W.I.N., are always you know encouraging each other and pushing each other to do more and, you know, whatever motivation we need for our businesses at the time. I thought was interesting in there she says 20 seconds to comply. Let go. What you waiting for, and it made me think of how it's so common right now for everyone to say you know 20 seconds of courage. So I thought that that was also kind of fitting just for, where I personally am in my own space, and then where our group is as far as just to be courageous, just 20 seconds, just do it. Megan Absolutely. I mean, 20 also makes me think of the year. And 2020 has definitely been a challenging one for so many of us. And I think that, you know, we've, a lot of us have been living in fear, and it's very hard to overcome that fear and really find your voice and find what's important to you and it's one of the reasons that I love the group that we're in is because it's really helped me to refocus, even during this crazy time. Tiffany Yeah, I agree, I agree completely. Okay, Did you also say that there was something about a coach training? How you kind of connect with this song? Megan Yeah. A lot of people don't know I, I sell Younique. But I also am a certified coach. When I was getting my coaching certificate, one of the activities that we did was to find a picture that was cut out of a magazine that meant something to us. And I just will never forget this image that I explained to my partner was a girl, holding a red balloon, and she was standing on like the edge of a cliff. And she was letting it go. And obviously, you know that those words are common to the song. But I think that I always wanted to be perfect and I always wanted to do things the right way. And was pretty hard on myself and so one of the things that I had to kind of come to terms with is that, you know, life isn't always perfect. Especially as an entrepreneur you have to kind of not just always try to control everything but let things come to you. And that's easier said than done, but that image just stuck with me. Yeah, so I'm hoping that as my business grows that I can get back into that coaching and add that to kind of my services that I offer. So I'm excited about that. Tiffany Is it business coaching? Megan I actually do individual coaching, so it can be leader coaching or life coaching. What I would really like to specialize in is women in transition because I feel like as women we're always in transition. We're always going through some sort of change. Whether it's a job change or becoming a mom or getting married, or even just dealing with, you know, a year like 2020. So I really like partnering with women who want to find their own way through whatever they're working through. Tiffany I see. Very good. That song by Frou Frou, does she have other songs as well? Megan Yeah, let me think here... There is another song, and it's escaping me right now that I...So I really like her album with her partner that they made Frou Frou but then there's also two other albums from Imogen Heap that I really enjoy that kind of remind me of my college times. And all the fun times that we had and the freedom that you had during that time. The song is not coming to me. You could definitely check it out and listen to her music because I really like the chill vibe that she has. But then also she has a really nice voice. Very calming. Tiffany Yes, I agree. My 19 year old, Preston, is in transition for sure and definitely trying to find himself. And you know he keeps coming to me trying to, you know, figure it out, figure it out. Like what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? And I finally just had to say like Preston This world is not as black and white as it seems like you think that it is. This world is very gray and there's lots of unknowns. Whenever anybody talks about, you know, making plans and letting go those plans I always think of Thomas Rhett song. You make your plans and you hear God laughing, you know, life changes. I think that's all he says changes. Anyways, um, but yeah it's just so true that like no matter how much we plan, you know, it always kind of changes and so you got to kind of let it go and be messy and have those 20 seconds to comply, or not comply. Megan Yeah, I think it's great to have a plan. And I'm definitely a planner. But I find that the more flexible that I am, the happier I am, because you don't set yourself up to be disappointed. If things don't meet your expectations and, you know, just being willing to kind of let life come as it is and sometimes that really opens up doors and opportunities as well. Tiffany Yes it does. I agree, I was just a business course. And I thought for sure I was gonna go this one way and I was kind of, you know, set in stone in my mind. And I got to thinking about and I thought, let me just open my mind up to the actual like what are all the possibilities? Let me just free myself up, let me not put myself in a lane. Let me just, you know, be completely open and I ended up coming across this and doing podcast management. And having a podcast and it's brought so much more joy to me I think then the other avenue would have. It's exciting and you know exhilarating to think like, I don't know I get to talk about music and help people make their podcasts, which is about their passions or helping them, you know, to grow their business. And I think that that's just super amazing. You know, you got to always be open and try to hear what the universe or hear what God is trying to say to you. Megan Yeah, and I love the idea of your podcast because I feel like there's lots of senses that bring back memories for us. Like I know smells do that for me but music is just so powerful, and can get us through the hardest times and can be a symbol of the most joyous times. And so I'm really excited to see who else you bring on the podcast. Tiffany Okay, well, do you have anything else you want to share about your song or about what you're doing in life right now? Megan No, I just think that, you know, as I guess my parting comments about why this song means so much to me. Is that anytime that I've come across a situation where I was really trying to force things and I just was so stressed out because it wasn't working. When I have been able to let that go and and you know really just see what comes in life. It's been really helpful for me and don't get me wrong I'm an ambitious person so there's definitely been times where I've been able to push through as well but if I think about you know when I started my business with unique. It took me a long time to actually take the plunge and join because I was afraid to be known as the makeup girl. Tiffany Sure Megan you know, had I not joined Younique three and a half years ago, there's four vacations I wouldn't have been on there's so many friends that I have that I would ever met. It's really you know a huge part of my daily life now. And same thing with coaching like if I look back at when I found that red balloon picture. I was trying so hard to force that to come about because I really wasn't happy in my day job, and was able to kind of let that that sit for a little while and found a day job that I it's much more fulfilling and I'm enjoying. And now I feel like, you know, as we move forward. Hopefully I can take on a couple of clients and help them to get over the humps that are holding them back. So, it's exciting. Tiffany well you heard it here first folks, if you're looking for someone over the humps Megan's your girl. Megan Thank you, Tiffany. Tiffany I'll have all of your contact information in the show notes, of course, and I'll see you soon. Megan Okay, sounds good. Thanks so much Tiffany Thanks so much, Megan. You have a great night. Megan You too. Outro Well that was a great walk down memory lane. I hope you enjoyed my guest's memories and experiences with the song or songs they chose to connect with my guests... I mean, I know you're just going to stalk their social media, but check out the show notes as always for details. Please leave a five star review, and I'd love if you left a memory of your own that was sparked. Can't wait to dive into my next guest's memories with a beat, hit subscribe now. you don't want to miss the next episode.

Nancy Radermecher, JohnRyan

Sixteen:Nine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2020 37:26

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED - DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Ask a digital signage provider about its target markets, and a hell of a lot of them will list banks among them. But only a small handful of companies are solely focused on the financial services sector, and the best known and most enduring of those is JohnRyan. The Minneapolis-based company has been providing branch merchandising and messaging services to the banking sector, globally, for decades. It's also one of a few companies who can credibly says it was doing digital signage before the technology had a name that stuck. I chatted recently with JohnRyan's President, Nancy Radermecher, who has been at the company for more than 20 years. We spoke about JohnRyan's roots, but also about what's going on today. Bankers have long been in the midst of what they call digital transformation, but the pandemic has turned five-year plans into five month executions. We talk about the evolution of retail banking, and how digital signage and interactive digital apply. We also speak about what kind of content really does work in banks, and why. Nancy has a passion for data-driven content, and nerdy stuff like integrating systems. We dig into where she thinks platforms for business, like digital signage, are going. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Hi, Nancy. I know JohnRyan pretty well. I'm thinking about a number of people maybe don't. So if they don't, can you give the elevator pitch about what JohnRyan is all about? And, we can also get into maybe how things have changed through the years. Nancy: Sure. We are historically a retail marketing agency, meaning that our clients are end-users, operating financial retail establishments, and we take a sort of strategic and all-encompassing approach to retail marketing. And within that portfolio, is digital signage. So over the years, digital has become a far more important and central product for us because people have moved a lot of their offline retail experiences into the digital world. And it's from that perspective that we entered the digital signage market. Yeah, it seems to me, I can remember that the first thing I knew about JohnRyan is that you had a legacy business where you were doing things like handling the compliance of all those brochures that would be in sleeves and bank branches and so on because somebody had to manage that otherwise the same stuff would be sitting in there for years. Nancy: Sometimes that even happens to digital signage, but yeah, you're absolutely right. And when we started in digital signage, it was because we were in the United Kingdom and passed a window of a building society and there they had a stand. On the bottom of that stand was a giant video desk, and then above it, there was a screen and they were making use of a firmware technology where you could actually superimpose changing text on top of a video background supplied by this video desk, which in its day was absolutely remarkable. And so we thought, goodness, is there something to this multimedia approach to what we do today? And we began the exploration based on that. And in fact, one of the people involved in that project is still with the company today, the original building society project. So it was, oh my god, the early mid-nineties, I can tell you that the word digital signage didn't exist. So we kept trying to find ways to explain what we thought this could be to one another before there was the terminology that you can apply to it. I think we're all still struggling to explain what digital signage is to people. Nancy: Yeah. Fair enough. It's improved, but is the focus entirely on retail banking, or do you service any other sectors? Nancy: Opportunistically we've stepped outside of retail banking. The company initially was focused on chain retail, conventional retail. We moved into retail banking quite early on and pretty much stayed there to this day. And is it just the big whale account banks in North America, or are you working globally and working with banks of all sizes? Nancy: Yeah, we do tend to work with larger banks. The mega global ones are particularly attractive to us, of course, but we work with banks, say super regionals versus community banks. And we've worked in many different countries and still do today. Yeah. You used to have an office in, is it Spain? Nancy: Yeah, we have a presence in Spain, but the, European offices are in London. And when you focus just on retail banking or primarily focused on retail banking, is that advantageous? I strongly believe that's the case that if you're going to be talking to very large companies, you sure as hell better know their business, but I see all kinds of companies who will go in and talk to anybody who is willing to take a meeting with them. And, I've been in some of these meetings and thought you guys don't know crap about this industry. Nancy: Yeah. I think there are probably two reasons why domain expertise is important in Banking. One is, I guess the obvious reason and the one you just referred to that, it's a good thing to understand something about the client's business situation, business challenges, business opportunities so that you can help them in relevant ways, but banking, I think imposes a second criterion, which is a very particular approach to security, as you can imagine in it and we would all hope to be the case. Why? (Laughter) Nancy: Yeah, exactly. What on earth do they have that requires security? (Laughter) So it has implications as to how the system is engineered and it has implications about how data moves and there's a high demand also for flexibility in engineering, which maybe you wouldn't expect, but banks may differ in how they approach their security regime. We've over the years had to be careful not to be too prescriptive, in how data is transferred, what kind of media player hardware is used because they have very specific ideas about that. So I think financial services is one where you actually really do need to understand the industry to thrive in it. When you're in these kinds of meetings, is it more the case may be with a retailer, pure retailer, you're talking about what the system will do for you and with the banks you are talking about, what you can stop the system from doing or preventing it from happening? Nancy: Yeah, that's right. That's a very good point The other thing that's interesting, and what you just said is, I think, as an industry, I'm always surprised a little bit about how much of the literature that's published by digital signage companies, possibly even us, focus on the benefits of digital signage and the sort of basic understanding. And I feel like banking, probably like a lot of other verticals, really understands that, they know why somebody would do digital signage and the conversation is no longer at that level, “why would this benefit you?” No. Yeah, my eyes roll up into the back of my head when I go on a software company's site and see a little Chestnut of what is digital signage. Oh God. 2020 guys. (Laughter) Nancy: Yeah, exactly. And I think, the questions about business case ROI, I think those have all been answered for the industry. We were talking earlier about digital transformation and how COVID-19 has forced a very rapid acceleration of digital transformation plans. You were talking in terms of going from three to five-year digital transformation plans to things that had to happen in a matter of months or even weeks instead Nancy: Yeah. It's interesting, and I was just looking at some more industry literature yesterday, in the banking industry, they've all been pretty clear on the shape of things to come in terms of increasing levels of digital adoption on the part of bank consumers. And with that has come, a general understanding that as time goes on, the number of branches will decline, the nature of the activities that take place in those branches will move from the transaction on cash-based activity toward consulting activity. And by and large, that was something the industry really wanted to see happen because it changes their cost dynamics quite dynamically for the good. So what's happened now is that there's been a really rapid acceleration of what everybody knew was gonna happen anyway. And in a certain way, that’s kind of welcome news for the industry in the sense of accelerating something that was desired. On the other hand at this level of speed, I think it's given people a lot of challenges in the very near term. So what's transforming in a retail bank? Nancy: Strategically, what's transforming is when and why customers are going to want a physical location. So, as I said a moment ago, it's really going to be far more of an advice and guidance proposition than a transactional proposition. But in the near term, what's transforming is the manner in which that advice and guidance proposition is delivered. So when your lobbies are not open and all the time, when people don't have free access, that's creating all sorts of logistical complexities about how do you let people in the branch, how do you manage appointment traffic? Nobody envisioned that they would have to answer all these questions all of a sudden in one big hurry, that has an impact on digital signage, of course, because it provides an opportunity to actually use digital signage to convey to customers new policies. Obviously, there are opportunities to manage, customer check-in, and flow using digital tools. The screen's gonna be an important part of conveying where you stand in the queue and what's going out in the branch. In some senses, this is making digital signage a more integral part of a successful branch operation, which is good. It's more than just a communications tool. And there were other examples of that. I think increasingly people are going to embed digital experiences in the onboarding process. We've all seen these bankers clickety clacking away on their computer terminals when we're opening an account. Some banks now turn that screen toward the customer when they're clickety clacking. But I think hopefully it will be a full-on multimedia onboarding experience, so seminars and financial wellness or all sorts of things that are going to happen, as the branch becomes more of a center for health and guidance than a teller-counter. Yeah, I go to a particular bank and it's just a suburban location, so there's not a lot of razzle-dazzle there, but it does have digital signage and it's the same bank I've been banking with for 30 plus years or whatever. So I don't see a lot of other ones, but there seems to be a standard feature set that I noticed there and in other banks in general, where there are displays behind the counter and there are displays in the seating area and maybe there's a display over the ATM bank, but it is generally just being branch marketing, “We're wonderful. We have this new thing. Here's the weather”, blah, blah, blah. And it's not terribly compelling and when I've seen banks of the future, in North America and, particularly in places like Dubai, I've seen things like virtual tellers and remote Financial service advisors, where they go into a little pod and you can discuss with somebody who's on the other side of the city or country. And those things have been very “branch of the future” sort of things that I've never seen adopted, but I'm getting a sense from what you're saying, that the novelty of that will become much more an operational thing out of necessity. Nancy: Yeah, I think that's right. There are a lot of things in what you just said that interests me. To your first comment about the placement of screens inside a bank, you're absolutely right. Where you would typically see them as the areas you describe but what's happening now as banks are moving more toward almost a lounge conception of the branch where the bankers are now untethered from their desktops, and maybe can help you with that with an iPad and in a roving fashion, it really diffuses the problem of where to place your digital media, because now suddenly everybody is milling around in a kind of uncontrolled environment, and there are obvious focal points, dwell areas, sightlines, like there always were in the past, which is a challenge. But then, on the level of the content and just compelling experiences, one of the things that we've learned over the years through mentors, many different experiments and trials and tests is that it's really important when you're thinking about innovative change to a bank branch that you don't lose sight of the fact that the consumer is seeking utility above all else. So do you have a really cool idea of a touch screen? And I think we've all seen many of these in branches of the future. It might be cool from the perspective of the multimedia designer who gets to create it and win an award for it. But it's a real challenge to get banking consumers to decide what they want to prolong a visit to their local bank branch in order to interact with content that most people intuitively believe is available to them at home. Anyway, it's tough to reign in the impulse to, I don't know, saddle a bank branch with all sorts of “cause you can” stuff without thinking long and hard about what customer utility is being imparted. So the example you gave of the video conferences is a perfect example of a high utility, high-value digital investment in a bank branch. And there are all sorts of reasons why doing something like that is valuable to both customers and to the bank versus some of the multimedia poster children that we've had. Yeah. Let's do something to connect and gesture and all that and embarrass the hell out of people. Nancy: Although you had on your podcast just this week, I think an article about one that made sense, but it kind of proves the point I guess. Yeah, probably a $2 million popup event by IBM, and that's what everybody's going to do, but it was good. (Laughter) What is the content based on all those years of experience that customers do want in a branch? Nancy: This is interesting and actually this is my favorite topic, really. So one thing we've learned, and this will come as no surprise to you or to anybody, is that Financial services advertising on its own is not that commercial for people. And there's a very good reason to use sort of general interest communications in a bank branch as a way to get people used to view the screens at all. So you mentioned the weather before. Our testing and results in time and time again, whether it comes up as the thing that people remember most and want the most. And it also happens to be very easy to deliver us as so if you can mix and match general interest information with bank information or place bank information in a more general interest context, and, an example that might be. If there's something happening in the mortgage market, tying your mortgage messaging to something that consumers are generally aware of and concerned about is a good thing. We've also seen some kind of interesting results that would suggest that if the ratio of bank messaging is a little bit lower than you might initially think you want, the recall of those messages goes up. And I think that's because there's more sustained viewership of the general interest information. People’s attention is more fixed and focused and for that reason, the bank messaging that crops up intermittent get more attention and more recall, which is really interesting. In my exposure to banks, I've certainly got a sense that they're very excited. The bank market is excited about being able to have some continuity between online and broadcast and other mediums and push that same campaign into the branches. But you're saying that at that point, they're in the branch and they don't need to be sold and drawn into the branch cause you got them. Nancy: Yeah, and it can reinforce the value of your brand by providing helpful tips. There's a huge demand for financial wellness information right now, not just because of recent events, which has accelerated it, but also because a lot of younger consumers actually don't know much about money management and want to, so that kind of helpful guidance information is also something people like to see. Another thing that people really want, believe or not, is to see pictures or names of people who actually work in the branch. That is always a highly recalled type of messaging. Just casting back to something you just said about content creation for other mediums. I think where this is all headed in terms of digital signage, content production in banking is toward, more and more repurposing assets that were created for other digital channels and bringing those repurposed assets together and to constantly updating, constantly iterating news and information streams. It’s less of a purposeful agency endeavor where somebody's building a 60s mp4 and more of rethinking it more as a large-format webstream, something like that. I don't know exactly the right metaphor. And I think banks will find that they don't have to spend a lot of money on content production to have a lot of really good locally relevant information on screens in their branches. That sounds to me back to the work I did with a very large bank. And, I sat at a meeting where we're talking about content with the agency and I became persona non grata, the devil, the antichrist by suggesting just that what was the point of a 60s spot in a window display that was going to cost a hell of a lot of money when you could be repurposing all kinds of other media assets and automating the content. And that did not go over well with the agency because that was their cash cow. Nancy: Exactly. It is interesting because, and I was thinking about this earlier this week that this is one of those rare instances, where to do it better, is also a way to do it cheaper. It's not like you're giving up anything, you're gaining something when you start thinking about digital signage content in a more disaggregated way, just snippets of bursts of information using static assets even that you have. And, our clients have huge repositories of assets and tips and all of these things are available aplenty inside of banks’ asset management databases. And mixing and matching these things creates a really low-cost way to build content, but also superior content, which is just such a great thing. Yeah. I assume that bank marketers are pretty savvy and understand this whole concept of Omnichannel and more so than let's say, “regular retailers” or all kinds of other potential clients in that, they have these digital asset management systems and everything else, and they understand automated and dynamic content based on data assets? Nancy: I think they do in all of their online applications, but it seems to me that they are generally puzzled by why they can't somehow better leverage their online assets to digital screens. And I suppose that's because maybe we in the industry have not rapidly embraced that model or educated the market to the model that actually, no, it is a logical thought to think that those other assets can be repurposed to digital signage. But you don't see a lot of it happening, right? So maybe the digital signage industry too has been a little bit in the paradigm of the agency that wasn't so happy with you creating longer-form content, purpose-built for this media versus looking at an alternative way of doing it. Yeah, you get the sense that even regionally sizes and certainly national and international banks, they are in the thrall of probably multiple agencies and it's in their express interest to control the thinking really, and certainly the budgets of these bank marketers. There's no incentive for them to say, “Hey, you don't need to do all this really expensive stuff. Just do it this way, and we'll surrender to that $5 million.” Nancy: Exactly. But I'll tell you what. I think with declining levels of traffic and branches and the general stressors that banks are facing now, in terms of justifying marketing investment at the point of sale, that's going to prompt a change. One of the things that gets batted around a lot these days is the whole idea of “interactive” in a bank setting and other retail settings. Is it safe to touch things and all that... You know, banks have ATMs, there's just no way around. You can't do voice control, or at least I don't think you can, or I wouldn't want to use that. So you go into a bank, you're already conditioned that, “Yeah. I'm going to use a touch screen and I'll whip up my notes advisor and everything will be fine”. Is there antsiness at all around introducing more interactivity to reduce the one-to-one contact with staffers? Nancy: For sure. I'm hearing a lot of focus on touchless experiences, and so trying to figure out how to clone interfaces to people's personal devices or bypass the need for them, that's a huge issue the industry is trying to address because, as you mentioned earlier, video tellers, video conferences, these things are really important to the branch of the future because they become the only kind of financially viable way to deliver certain services to certain branches in the network. So they're essential to the value proposition and will only become more essential. So yes, I think there's a lot of work being done and a lot of time being spent on how to make those interfaces appealing and acceptable to people in some of the ways I described. I think on the level of our business, digital signage, thinking back on the concept of utility touchscreens roles for marketing purposes has been very difficult to implement successfully. You've probably seen Microsoft, like those surface tables in bank branches, they came in and then they went away, interactive kiosks came in and then they went away. We've done a lot of things with touch through bank windows, we've done QR codes, we've done scannable brochures, that launch interactive experiences, printing brochures on demand, and all of them face the same challenge that they require a customer to prolong their visit in the bank branch and they're not delivering really clear apparent utilities. So it is just at the level of the basics. The tougher problem with all that, I think, is not just managing people's concerns about hygiene today but just the use of it at all. Yeah. It's not as private as going on a touchscreen to look up some health issues, but, if you're going to be doing loans, calculators, mortgage calculators, and things like that on a screen then other people can see. I don't know if it bothered me all that much, but I'm sure a whole bunch of other people would be very concerned about anybody seeing that. Nancy: It's not just that, but you're also likely having in your hand a device that does exactly the same thing, So you can use your phone to do these things when and where you want to do that versus standing at a kiosk, so it's an interesting challenge. In terms of banks. you’re focused on retail banking, but there's a whole bunch of bank office space and giant office towers full of banking people and even with work from home, that's not going to totally change, those office towers are not going to clear out. Have you guys done much work in terms of the back-of-house digital signage for banks? Nancy: Yeah, that is actually how we got our start. Our first network was a 900 branch training network within the UK, delivered by satellite because that's all there was, daily kind of huddle and corporate communications. So we've done a lot of that, more focused on the branch and then the corporate headquarters. But the technology as that you would know well drives one versus the other is exactly the same. Is it hard to crack the larger opportunity on the back of the house side? Nancy: I think it didn't use to be. We got our start prior to things like the internet and email and podcasts and websites. All of those become really viable corporate communications vehicles for the sort of information that we were imparting through our digital networks. So the case needs to be made that multimedia delivery of some of these messages is a superior form for those messages than plowing through an intranet. And I think that the case can be made, but given all the other things that banks have to contend with in their overall digital transformation, I don't think that's going to make the top of the heap. I know that you've spent a lot of time thinking about where all of this goes and you have the benefit, so to speak of working in an already demanding vertical where the security demands are a lot higher. Where do you see things going or do things like PCs and media players and all that will start to go away? Nancy: Yeah, definitely there's a move afoot in the world around us toward, edge solutions, and there's no reason to think that digital signage wouldn't be an edge compute solution. What we hear from corporate customers a lot is that they're very frustrated by the proliferation of point solutions in their branches. They'll have a solution for digital signage, they’ll have a solution for POS, solution for managing appointments and on. And each of these solutions is vertically integrated. It contains a monitoring component. There's a service plan that they have to have with somebody for it. And this kind of really adds up a lot of complexity. So this future of bringing these disparate point solutions together in a sort of commonly managed edge environment, I think is very real and the sort of streamlining that clients that we deal with would really like to see. So I think those of us who provide digital signage solutions should be hunkering down and really focusing on our software and imagining that it might be deployed in a manner like that in the future. So this is a couple of steps beyond the recent and prevalent question of, “Do you have an API?” Nancy: Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. A few months ago now, I think, you guys were acquired by AU Optronics out of Taiwan, a company that had already acquired ComQi, which does digital signage. How is that going? I know the AUO people and they're from Taiwan, so they're super nice and super smart and all that, I assume this was a good event for you guys. Nancy: Yeah. It's interesting because we remain a very entrepreneurial, agile company as JohnRyan. We're operated pretty much autonomously from the other units in the group. So from a day to day experience, it's actually just the same. But on top of that is something very nice, which is a huge resource for engineering and the number of patents. I think they have 29,000 patents. There's a lot of people that can answer tough questions within that company. Access and understanding of the really detailed aspects of display technology both now and in the future. I mean, it’s really a great thing to have that sort of resource available to us and obviously an incredibly strong financial group as well. So that opens up opportunities for subscription-based deals with clients and all manner of things. So it's been going well. Yeah, there have been instances in the past of hardware companies, display companies, buying software companies, and you just go, “Oh boy, this is just going to meander into nothing.” And that's what happens. But, I've certainly got the sense from Stu Armstrong, who is now overworking with you guys, came from ComQi. The ComQi experience was just that. They have certainly mentored them and had their back and everything else, but left them alone to do what they needed to do. Nancy: Yeah. And I think the interesting part of that might be that in some of these acquisitions by hardware companies buying digital signage companies, they might be viewing those digital signage companies as routes to market for their hardware. In this case, I think it's almost the reverse where AUO was interested in closer to the customer, more solutions-oriented businesses in order to provide feedback to it about where it is going. And so that's a great role for us to play. We're obviously interacting with people every day on the level of their business challenges and we have good and meaningful insight, I think for them. So it's a two-way traffic and AUO supplies some display panels, but they're also a supplier to the other manufacturers who produce digital signage displays and other displays. And so there is no agenda that our goal is to sell AUO products in particular only when they get the solution. Right, but it does give the opportunity. If you're looking at a bank deal that's 1100 branches and 10,000 screens or whatever. You don't necessarily have to buy from a consumer or commercial brand, you can go directly to a manufacturer and cut some of that cost out, which is going to be attractive. Nancy: Yeah, affordability is really going to be a very big factor for our business going forward. It's going to be interesting to see how people reformulate their offers and streamline them. We talked about content earlier. I think there's going to be a lot of interest in that sort of content approach. Now, when there really isn't the luxury to do it any other way, and that's going to affect every aspect of our business. We've been spending a lot of time over the summer looking and kind of reinventing digital signage. There's some stuff that we're going to be putting out in the weeks months to come, but not taking anything as a given, right? Let's look at the hardware. Let's look at the connectivity. Let's look at how content is created. Let's look at how maintenance is done and just across the board, trying to emerge from all that with a really streamlined, focused approach. All right. that was great. Thank you for spending some time with me. Nancy: Well, it was nice to catch up. Thanks.

Conversations with the Pioneers of Oncology: Dr. Trevor Powles

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2020 37:36

Dr. Hayes interviews Dr. Trevor Powles his involvement with translational medicine in the UK and early bisphosphonate. Conflict of Interest: Dr. Powles has not reported any conflicts of interest to ASCO. TRANSCRIPT The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories-- The Art of Oncology brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the role of cancer care. You can find all the shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. Welcome to Cancer Stories. I'm Dr. Daniel Hayes. I'm a medical oncologist, and I'm a translational researcher at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center in Ann Arbor. And I'm also the past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Today I am privileged to be your host for a series of podcast interviews with the founders of our field-- today in particular Dr. Trevor Powles. Over the last 40 years, I've been fortunate to have been trained, mentored, and inspired by many of these pioneers. It's my hope that through these conversations all of us can be equally inspired by gaining an appreciation of the courage, the vision, and frankly the scientific understanding that these men and women who established the field of clinical cancer care over the last seven decades. By understanding how we got to the present and what we now consider, quote, "normal," end of quote. I hate using quotes, but in oncology I think we can also imagine our work together towards a better future for our patients and their families during and after cancer treatment. As I've noted today, I'm really honored to have as my guest on this podcast Professor Trevor Powles. He's really generally considered one of the true pioneers in breast oncology. Dr. Powles was raised in London, where he went to medical school. He trained in medicine and surgery at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and associated affiliates, graduating from medical school in 1964. He went on to obtain a PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research. He directed his thesis towards hypoglycemia and bone metastasis. Following his PhD, he then completed specialist training in medical oncology at the Royal Marsden and further pursued training in endocrinology with Professor Philip Bundy, [? who was ?] then Chief of endocrinology at Yale before moving to the UK. Dr. Powles remained at the Royal Marsden hospital during the bulk of his distinguished medical career, first as head of the Marsden breast cancer unit, and ultimately is the founding chairman of the Committee for Clinical Research for the entire Royal Marsden. After he retired-- which again requires [INAUDIBLE]-- at the age of 65, Doctor Powles has served on staff at the Cancer Center at London Parkside. Dr. Powles has authored hundreds of peer reviewed papers. He's mentor of many of the leaders in breast college around the world, which we will discuss in a second. And he's really won too many awards and honors from me to list here, but they include the coveted William McGuire Award presented annually at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium-- and by the way, so have two of his mentees, Professors Mitch Dowsett and Ian Smith. And he's also won the Nancy Brinker Award. Many of you know Miss Brinker founded the Komen for the Cure Foundation. And perhaps what is perplexing to those of us in the colonies, in 2002 he and his twin brother Ray were named Commanders of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or CBE for short-- which of course is one of the highest honors one can obtain in the UK-- for their work in breast in Trevor's case, and haematologic cancers in Ray's case. Trevor, I know that a lot of your work also was done with a variety of other contributors, including Dr. John Kanis, Dr. Eugene McCloskey, and of course Sandy Patterson [? period. ?] You've always been quite generous in pointing out that they had a lot to do with your own contributions, and we appreciate that as well. Dr. Powles, welcome to our program. Thank you very much, and thank you for those kind words. Yeah. Actually, I interviewed someone a few weeks ago, and he said, "Geez, that sounded like my mother wrote that." [LAUGHTER] I have a number of questions for you, and I want to start out-- your research and your background was really in endocrinology of the 1960s. And that was a particularly exciting time for endocrinology with the discovery of the hormones not more than 20 years before that, and then the increasing knowledge of understanding of [? the ?] peptides steroid hormone receptors. What made you veer off from that field into oncology in general and breast cancer specifically? When I was working at the Hammersmith Hospital doing my endocrinology [INAUDIBLE] endocrinology there. And one of the conditions we would be looking at would be hypercalcemia with hyperparathyroidism. And hypercalcemia was occurring very commonly in the breast cancer patients in the oncology and the radiotherapy department. [? And ?] to begin with, we thought this would just be another paraendocrine-type syndrome, and that was the thing that really fired my interest. From there, I then wanted to do my PhD to look more into what was causing the hypercalcemia with breast cancer, and that started the whole path of finding out about bone metastases, what they were doing, how they were causing the hypercalcemia, and the path just continued and continued. Most of your work-- I'm going to get to some of the other things you've done-- has been endocrine therapy, endocrine processes, and the bone metastasis, which is really endocrinology. In the United States about that time, most of the excitement in the 60s was around chemotherapy. Was it difficult for you to stick with the endocrine approach? No, it wasn't really. When I first started, all of in the endocrine treatment was ablative treatment. And I knew that from when I was doing my endocrinology is that the hypophysectomy, adrenalectomy, oophorectomy, those were the early days for chemotherapy at using combination chemotherapy and metastatic disease. [INAUDIBLE] and endocrine therapies were far better treatments from the chemotherapy. And although I was doing chemotherapy because we started with single agents then combination treatments-- and there was a lot of chemotherapy going on at that time at the milestone for haematological cancers, lymphoma, teratomas, et cetera-- I was able to do that, but I really focused on the endocrine side. And coming back to the hypercalcemia, the one thing that really impressed me was when I was originally doing my endocrinology was that rapid response you could get to the hypercalcemia by ablative endocrine therapy for oophorectomy, or adrenalectomy, or hypophysectomy. And that was really the thing that started all of the research I did in bone. It started on my PhD with in vitro work. We set up bone assays, I went to Cambridge to [INAUDIBLE] very famous scientist Cambridge to teach us how to do the bone assays for in vitro bone assays. We also set up the animal model with breast cancer. We were able to show that breast cancers could cause bone breakdown and osteolysis in vitro. We could find that we could block that by using drugs like aspirin, and that got us very interested in cross [? demandings. ?] We could then go into the animal experiments. And when we had a rat model using breast cancer that we knew from our assays caused bone breakdown in vitro, and when we did that in the animals by injecting into the aorta we could get bone metastases [? and ?] soft tissue tumor. When we gave aspirin, we could completely prevent the bone metastases-- quite dramatic experiments. And that was what really fired me into getting into the oncology, getting into the endocrine treatment in oncology because of my background in endocrinology. And that has stayed ever since. So what was the timing there? This is the late 60s? My PhD was 1970 to '73. I was at the Hammersmith from '67 to '69, and then I went to [? Barts ?] to endocrinology, and then I came back and then with Bondy in the Marsden, and then I got on the staff of the Marsden as a senior lecturer in 1975. So what you just described to me sounds like translational science. That word wasn't coined until probably 20 years later. Was it unique where you were to be taking things from the lab straight out to the clinic? And where there obstacles to doing that? No, there weren't. The thing that was good about that was we were doing the laboratory work based on what we'd seen, what I'd seen in the endocrinology with the hypercalcemia and the bone metastases, and responding to endocrine therapy. I then was in the PhD, doing the PhD, and then I was able to translate that into the clinic once I then became a consultant. So the main work I was doing when I was first a consultant, the research work, was actually looking at hypercalcemia bone metastases in patients. We had a surprise because when we took the aspirin into patients, we could see no effect at all even though we'd had very dramatic effects in vitro and in vivo. And it was only when the bisphosphonates came through that we were able to then use those, because at this stage we knew it was working on osteoclasts. And it was only when we started to get the bisphosphonates that we really got into the dimension of first of all, being able to treat the hypercalcemia, then being able to switch off the bone metastases, bone pain, and bone fractures with bisphosphonates. And then take it into the adjuvant, I was then able to take it into the adjuvant scene and set up the first adjuvant bisphosphonate trial. So I'd gone right from in vitro, I continued the path right the way through to clinical work. And then what happened was that if we did the bisphosphonate trial and we got the result of just like that had happened in the rats-- it stopped the development of bone metastases and it stopped the hypercalcemia in the rats, but didn't affect the soft tissue. So in the humans, we had exactly the same result where we were able to reduce bone metastases, not have an impact on soft tissue or other disease, and improve mortality. And so we've gone right the way through. It's a story that's extraordinary from my point of view, because I was able to follow the whole path all the way through. And you're absolutely right. That is a really good example of translational research where you hang in there until you get the answer. What's the history behind transferring the bisphosphonates from prevention of osteoporosis in cancer? Now they're widely used as well as denosumab. In fact, it's malpractice not to use them in a patient with bone metastasis. How did you make that leap where you're standing next to somebody who was treating osteoporosis, and you said, "I wonder if that should work?" And how did you get hold of the drug? There's got to be a history behind it. Well, we were looking. We were looking for [? anti-osteodiscitis ?] agents [INAUDIBLE] the aspirin didn't work but [INAUDIBLE] worked so we knew for no reasons at all that it would prevent, stop hypercalcemia. And so we were going down that path, and two really important people in the way the path was going. One was Herbie Fleisch, and Herbie Fleisch [? had ?] suddenly produced bisphosphonates. It was a terrific story if anybody was interested in bone, because it was an agent that clearly was working on osteoclasts, and that was the target we were after. We knew at that stage that the cancer cells had to activate osteoclasts in order to cause the bone breakdown and develop in bone. And the second person who was key was Craig Mundie, who again I met. And I went over to the Boston Dental Hospital several times, and I met Craig and the others there, and that was linking up with being able to see the story that they were developing where tumor cells were activating osteoclasts that were then causing bone breakdown that was then producing growth factors to activate the cancer. So it became a really preferential site for bone metastases to develop because of the interaction between the cancer cells and the osteoclasts. So then there's Herbie Fleisch in Switzerland. I had a few skis with him. He was a very good skiier. But the spin off was that bisphosphonates were going to be the thing that we really [INAUDIBLE] to be looking at. And then we tried four different bisphosphonates. Five foot was a guy in Amsterdam who had APD that was actually the forerunner for [INAUDIBLE]. And the one that worked best for us was clodronate, which we got originally from Finland. And we set up the bone trials. We had to go through three stages. We had to-- first of all, before we could use adjuvant, we had to show that it worked in metastatic bone disease. And it did. It reduced what's called skeletal related events-- that's fracture, hypercalcemia, pain-- requirements of radiotherapy. We then did a trial for phase 3 trial of using clodronate for patients who had metastatic disease but who didn't have bone metastases. And we could reduce the risk of them getting bone metastases. And then we had the justification for doing the-- So let me interrupt you for a minute. Now you're about 1983 or '4 I think when that was probably? Is that right? It was-- yes, it would be. With the adjuvant trial, we would have started in '86. I think. That's the window of time. And then in that trial, we didn't get the results from that until I think it was 1997 when we did the first analysis, and that we were able to then show in that randomized-- it was placebo controlled as well-- we were able to show a reduction in bone metastases and improved survival. And then we did a subsequent analysis in 2006. So we've got longer term data. Back then where other bisphosphonate trials were going on, adjuvant bisphosphonate trails going on, and then we had the meta analysis in 2015, Oxford meta analysis, which I was involved with Rob Coleman. And we did the analysis there, which confirmed that we could reduce bone metastases and improve survival with adjuvant bisphosphonates. So the story that starts from a test tube, so to speak. Oh, there's one other very interesting experiment we [INAUDIBLE] that's never been repeated. Right at the beginning, we were able to show that doing co-cultures-- you're reminding me of things now-- doing co-cultures of the bone assay with human breast tumors I'd get from the Marsden while I was at the institute. We'd have fresh human tumors, and we would do a co-culture and some of them could cause the complete breakdown of the bone assay, and others would not have osteoporosis. And we did a follow up of those patients-- it was only about 30 patients, I think-- and we did a follow up of those patients, and those who had the most bone breakdown in vitro [? with ?] [? those ?] patients who were then going to get the bone metastases. That was a real incentive to show that link that we were getting. So we knew something was going on there. And that experiment was going on in 1971. And in 2015 with the meta analysis of bone mets and mortality. So that's a long story. That's the story. Let me say that this entire story reiterates the phrase that, "On the shoulders of giants we all stand." You look at the number of people you've laid out who led to this story, which is still ongoing. It's actually fascinating. I want to return just a minute to your work with endocrine therapy of breast cancer and your work with tamoxifen. But first of all, a lot of young people listen to this. 'Cause I came in the field just as surgical ablation of many of the origins of estrogen was going away. Can you talk about what it was like to take care of the patients who were having hypophysectomies and adrenalectomies and oopherectomies? I recall thinking, "I'm an endocrinologist here. I'm not a medical oncologist," as a first year fellow taking care of Addison's disease and other things. There are two things about ablative endocrine therapy. The first was that the responses could be very dramatic, and it was quite a high response rate. There was something [INAUDIBLE]-- don't forget we weren't basing it on ER. ER came later, and then [INAUDIBLE]. Even not based on ER, we were getting 30% to 40% response rates, particularly in bone. The second thing is the management of the patients. The hypophysectomies were relatively easy, because I'd already got experience of patients who got pituitary failure from my endocrinology, and that's much it easier to manage. But the adrenalectomies are much more difficult because you can get very acute glucocorticoid symptoms if you're not getting cortisol, whereas in hypophysectomies it's a relatively slow process. And they were much more difficult to look after. But the thing that was important about it was the fact that although we were doing it, these patients were getting hypercalcemia [INAUDIBLE]. You could have a patient who was hypercalcemia, you do ablative surgery, within 48 hours the calcium is back to normal. In fact, it will go hypoglycemic sometimes on bone hungry [INAUDIBLE] thing. And from a clinical point of view, it was some of the best responses we ever saw even up to this time. Now one of the things that came out of that was that we had one patient-- I can say a name because he's long since dead and [INAUDIBLE] anyway-- her name was Mrs. Pottinger. It's engraved in my mind forever. And she had bone metastases, and she was not particularly well and also had some heart problem. And she was due to have adrenalectomy, and she wasn't well enough for adrenalectomy. And so what I did is I'd used [INAUDIBLE] when I was at the Hammersmith as part of treating Cushing's disease. And so I'd already knew about medical treatment for-- so I then decided that we would do-- and I think it must have been the first patient. I had to get permission from [INAUDIBLE], and I still got the letter I wrote to the medical director of [INAUDIBLE] then saying could we use [INAUDIBLE]. So what we do is the basis was in order to get her well enough to have her adrenalectomy, and she did exactly the same as she would have done if we'd done adrenalectomy. Within 24 to 48 hours, she's getting better, the pain's going, the calcium's down. So she then refused to have an adrenalectomy. There's no way she is going to have it. She said, "No I'll continue with the [INAUDIBLE]." And she continued on [INAUDIBLE] for over a year before she died. And that started a whole new thing. [? Ian ?] [? Smith ?] was my registrar at the time. And so we decided we'd do a phase 2 trial. We did a Phase 2 trial of [INAUDIBLE] on the understanding we were doing a medical adrenalectomy. And that started the whole story that we were doing using [INAUDIBLE], because a [INAUDIBLE] came over, I had various other people come, and what we found was the story was. It wasn't the medical adrenalectomy by blocking postmenopausal estrogen. And then we went down the pathway of doing various, about three or four different aromatase inhibitors with Mitch doing all of endocrinology. It's a wonderful time. We had Adrian Harris, Charlie [INAUDIBLE]-- [COUGHING]. [INAUDIBLE]. [INTERPOSING VOICES] That's a parade of stars. Were you talking across the Atlantic a lot during that time with Dick [? Stanton, ?] and Angela Brody, and the other two who were also-- Yes. Angela Brody was the one who got us a source for [INAUDIBLE]. That was the phase 2. Charlie led on that on the phase 2. That was Angela getting us to do that and linked him with Mitch. And Dick Stanton, yes it was a lot of collaborative work with Donald MacDonald. And a lot of the endocrinologists I knew. So that was how that whole story rolled. That's an amazing library. Let me take you back now to your childhood. I know you and your identical twin, Ray-- by the way for the listeners, if you Google either Trevor or Ray Powles, you'll see pictures of the two of them standing together. And I challenge you to tell who's who. [LAUGHTER] Anyway-- Well I could. I could tell the difference. Yeah I know you can tell the difference. I know that you were both young boys in London during World War II. Tell me about the experience then, and how your mother moved you. Obviously, we were very young. My father was in the Navy abroad, so my mother was alone and was looking after my older brother David, who was four or five years older than us. And I can remember the bombing. I can remember quite a lot about it, surprisingly. We were evacuated up into the north of England 1943, 1944, something like that. And we were there for I think something like six months. And it was an incredible story. I went back to see-- I hadn't been back-- I went back to see-- I was up in the north of England, and I suddenly thought I'll go over. We were at a place called Stockton. And so I was five when we left-- four, four years old when we left. And I had no idea. I knew it was Stockton, and I knew the name of the house was the Priory, and I had a faint recollection of the door. And then I went up to Stockton, and I found the house we were in. And I knocked on the door, and it was a major-- a colonel-- Colonel Brown and his sister who lived there. And the sister was still alive, and she must have been about 90. [INAUDIBLE]. And she looked at me and she said, "You're one of the twins." [LAUGHTER] So we had a chat. [INTERPOSING VOICES] At the time, did you think of this as being frightening, or was it just a great adventure for a young boy? Yeah, I wasn't unaware of danger. My house was bombed down the road flattened and presumably a lot of people died, but I was unaware of danger as such. We had a shelter-- it's something called a [INAUDIBLE] shelter, I think it was called-- that was half buried with corrugated iron as the top thing. And if the siren went, I can remember that we would have to go out and get into the shelter. And we could hear the V-1s very, very-- I can still remember. You can hear the V-1s coming over. It made a hum-- [HUMMING] --like that. And it's gradually getting louder and louder, and then it would stop, and then it would just fall out of the sky at an angle. It would go down at about 45 degrees. So if you could hear the [? stop ?] overhead, you weren't going to be hit. But if you could hear the [? stop ?] coming towards you, there was a chance you were going to get hit. I can remember that. Everybody was sitting listening to where these bombs were cutting out their engine. So that's one of the things I can remember. And I can remember the V-2. It was a huge bang if one went off. I know that you and Ray both also developed tuberculosis as young boys. What was the background behind that, and how were you treated? Yeah, Ray-- we'd just finished school. And we weren't sure what we were going to do, and Ray had developed [INAUDIBLE], which again didn't mean anything to me. He coughed up a couple of times or [INAUDIBLE] of blood. And the next thing he's carted off and he's got tuberculosis, and he's been taken down to a sanatorium down near the Thames out along the marshes sort of thing. And he's there for six months. And during that six months, I can't see him and everything, and I thought, "Well, you know I'd like to do medicine. I think this is rather a good thing." So what I did, I then applied for medical school and got a place. And then Ray gets better, and he then applies to medical school, and he gets a place as well. The dean said to Ray when he saw it, he said, "Haven't we seen you here before?" And Ray said, "No, it's my twin brother." And he then says, "Did we accept him?" And Ray said, "Yes." And then he said, "Pity." [LAUGHTER] And it was the end of the interview. The next thing, he's in as well. [LAUGHTER] And then I get TB, because it's about an 80% chance you get it if an identical twin's had it. And I was in the hospital for three months. So we were both back a year. I would have been a year ahead of Ray, but in fact then suddenly we're both back a year. And it was quite an interesting year for me, because I only had one subject to do. So I was able to do some reading, things like Darwin and that sort of stuff. And then we just carried on. And you were treated with streptomycin in those days? [INAUDIBLE]. You had 50 grams of strep. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like you used that as a springboard to change the practice of medicine. So in every cloud there's a silver lining. The one thing I want to bring up-- I remember several years ago at one of the San Antonio meetings, and you and Dr. [? Bernie ?] Fisher were the bait. And he did all but call for you to be arrested and locked up because your study was negative, and of course the [? PL1 ?] one was positive. And you very graciously responded to that, "You know, Dr. Fisher, I didn't start this trial up to be negative." [LAUGHTER] That was a great response. My goodness did I not admire him. The reason I did the trial is-- again, this is a funny story. I did a lot of horse riding, as you know. And what I did is after the 1985 first meta analysis, Oxford meta analysis, that was the first one to show that chemotherapy worked for the [INAUDIBLE] and other trials that chemotherapies show the reduction. And it showed that tamoxifen worked. That was the first meeting where I was really convinced that both those were positive effects. Up till then, it was one trial and you couldn't be sure if it was going to be reproduced all the like. And that was the 1985 meta analysis meeting in Oxford. And then I came back home, and I got on my horse, and I rode for a week. I took the horse down to the South Downs. The South Downs is a long, expansive country, and it took me five days, I think it was, of riding to get across from one side to the other where I'd stop in a pub. I had to go down the week before and plan out exactly what I was going to do. So I've got five days on a horseback thinking, and that was where I thought, "Well, where do we go from here?" You might say, well, let's do bigger and better chemo or the like, right? And you might say endocrine therapy, let's do more tamoxifen, or different doses, or [INAUDIBLE] down those paths. So I said, "But if you really want to do something different, the two things you could do would be for chemotherapy is why not give it before surgery?" That was the time when I really thought neoadjuvant chemotherapy was where we ought to be going, because then we could see that they're responding or not et cetera. But tamoxifen, if it weren't for adjuvant therapy, then it should work for prevention. We had a clinic at the Marsden that I took over because somebody was leaving-- which was a family history clinic, and they all had very strong family histories three or four relatives, et cetera, et cetera. And I took over this clinic, and I thought to myself we could do a prevention trial here with tamoxifen. We'll do a pilot. What happened at the Marsden they just had a ethics committee set up, one of the first in the world. This is in 1985. And it had never met, it had only passed the trials to be done. And so the first meeting of the ethics committee at the Marsden was to discuss the prevention, because it was such a awful thing to do. Do you know what I mean? And but after two or three goes, I got it through the ethics committee mainly because a colleague of mine who was the head of medicine then was Tim McIlwain. He pushed it through because he said "Look, it makes so much sense." And we did a [INAUDIBLE] and we had an agreement that we could do 250 patients randomized, then go to 500. And then we had a national meeting to discuss setting up the national program. And so it was a feasibility trial actually looking to see what the toxicity was or whether it was acceptable to do it. And we had such a spin off from that, because tamoxifen at that stage was supposed to be a pure anti estrogen. And we were screening all the tissues, we were doing bones that [INAUDIBLE] from the clotting factors. Everything. Cholesterol. We were doing, measuring everything in pre and post menopausal women. And everywhere we looked, tamoxifen wasn't acting as an anti estrogen. It was acting as an estrogen effect, so much so that at the Think Tank-- I presented it at the Think Tank, and I said, "Look these aren't [INAUDIBLE] tamoxifen and anti estrogen at all." And I thought Mark, dear old Mark Lippert, was going to have an epilepsy, which 'cause it's correct because it is an anti estrogen breast cancer effect. But that was the first time. So then in the paper I wrote, I called it a selective anti estrogen. But I didn't coin [INAUDIBLE], but I did coin the expression, the first published thing of a selective anti estrogen. I remember that paper. [INAUDIBLE]. I remember that. So I want to finish up with just-- Let me just finish up one thing. Can I just finish up one thing? [INTERPOSING VOICES] Because it links into [INAUDIBLE]. So after Think Tank presented it possibly as an estrogen. And what was happening is we've got a bell shaped curve that was very narrow. So we were on the estrogen side as opposed to the anti estrogen side, right? And that was what was happening in the normal tissues. So I had a slides that said, "Tamoxifen is not an anti estrogen." You probably remember if you were there. You were there. We go out on the boat, and we get stranded out of the boat in the mist-- the one you've mentioned about where you and I and Mark, et cetera-- when we're approaching the time after about four hours when we're thinking about meeting our maker, Mark says to me, "I've really got to have a word with you about this anti estrogen." Well one other thing-- and this is going to be more my talking than yours. I really just touched on the surface of your contributions to the field, but I think probably the greatest is your mentoring history. And you've already hit on a few of these, but I travel extensively and I'm struck by the number of times I've been in some remote area-- or at least remote to me-- and corner of the world, and somebody-- it's usually my host-- volunteers that he or she trained at the Royal Marsden with Trevor Powles. And I think it's one of the things you should be most proud of all the many things you've done. And I want to know that you set up a system that was opening and inviting and also somehow funded to support people to come from all over the world. What made you do that? How did you do that in the first place? It's hard to do. Certain people came to me, which was very nice. We did have funds. I would be able to get funding even at that stage. There are many more hurdles for getting funding now than there were then. And the other thing about it was the fact that I find that people-- many times we've [INAUDIBLE] [? mentioning ?] things-- but one of the things I really did [? let ?] is let people have the run of doing things as opposed to me doing it maybe with the assistant. And that was very rewarding for me in terms of results and [INAUDIBLE], 'cause people were very motivated to do it, people like you, and Charlie, and the others. So in some senses, I think it was the fact I was looking for the results we wanted to get rather than anything else. That's probably the basis of it, and therefore people came who ere good. And I'm very lucky I had very, very good people come. So just to go through the list briefly-- Ian Smith, Mitch Dowsett, Troy [? Kohns, ?] Adrian Harris, Paul Goss, who am I leaving out? Anyway, it's a who's who of breast cancer, especially endocrinology and breast cancer. And they all came out of your brilliance. So we owe you not just for what you've done, but who you've trained to do even more. Very kind of you to say that, but in fact they get the credit because if you look through my publication lists you can see. Actually, I left out Steven Johnston, of course, who is-- Steve. Yeah, Steve. Yeah. OK, we've run out of time. I very much appreciate the fact that you've taken time to come on and do that for us. I'm sure our listeners will be thrilled by the stories you've told-- at least I always am-- and it's great to hear most of them again. And I hope sometime we can even do this again. So thank you for all you've done, thank you for all the people you've trained, and thank you for taking time to do this today. Well, thank you so much for asking me. Until next time, thank you for listening to this JCO's Cancer Story-- The Art of Oncology podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. While you're there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. JCO's Cancer Stories-- The Art of Oncology podcast is just one of ASCO's many podcasts. You can find all the shows at podcast.asco.org.

Embracing the Differences

Letters To My Daughters

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2020 30:02

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Embracing the Differences Guest: Barbara Rainey From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 1 of 3) Bob: Engaged couples often look at one another and think, “We're so much alike!” Then, after they have been married for a little while, they look at each other and think, “Who are you?!” Here's Barbara Rainey. Barbara: What happens when we're engaged—we tend to think: “Oh, we're so much alike. We love each other so much—we'll never have clashes.” I think one of the first difficulties for most young couples is they're caught off guard by these differences. They don't know what to do with them—they go from being cute and attractive to being downright ugly or frustrating. All of a sudden, what was cute isn't so cute anymore; and you think, “Now what do I do?” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, February 15th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. So what advice would you give to young wives and their husbands about the adjustments we make in marriage? We're going to hear what Barbara Rainey has to say about that today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I am really enjoying learning lots of new things about you, Barbara. Dennis: You're eavesdropping. Bob: Well, it's legitimate eavesdropping because of what your wife's been writing about. This has been so much fun to read. [Laughter] Dennis: I think I want to welcome her to FamilyLife Today—Sweetheart. Barbara: Maybe we don't; huh? [Laughter] Dennis: This is my bride, and she has plenty of stories to tell. Bob: And she has just recently—by the way, welcome, Barbara—nice to have you here. Barbara: Thank you, Bob. Bob: You've been collecting these stories, not to share with the world your stories, but really to mentor—you've become an e-mentor; haven't you? Barbara: Yes. I'm really writing this for six women / six young women, who happen to be my four daughters and two daughters-in-law—to share with them the lessons that I've learned over all these years of marriage in hopes that it will encourage them, and give them hope, and help them—help them persevere for the long haul. 2:00 Dennis: But it actually started—back to Bob's point about—from an e-mentoring standpoint—really started on the internet— Barbara: It did. That's right; I had forgotten. Dennis: —as you were writing emails to your daughters and daughters-in-law so that you'd be able to coach them / encourage them in the process. Bob: Did you start doing this right after Ashley got married? Barbara: No; actually, it was after our two boys got married. They got married the same summer—the summer of 2001. One of those two girls asked me if I would give her some advice on being a wife. I thought: “Wow! She really wants my advice?” I thought, “If she cracked the door open a little bit, I'm going to just walk right on through while the door's open!” I said, “Sure, I'd love to!” I began writing a series of letters in the fall of 2001 to my two brand-new daughters-in-law and to my daughter, Ashley, who, by then, had been married four years. Bob: A lot of—a wife will hear you say that and they'll think, ““Boy, if somebody asked me, I wouldn't know where to start or what to say.” 3:00 But it sounds like you were ready to dive right in with wisdom. Barbara: Well, I don't know that I would say it that way, but I was ready to dive in—in the sense that I felt like, “Now was the time,” because all new brides are extremely teachable—they're eager, they want to learn, they want to do it right, they don't want to make mistakes—they really love this guy they just married. They're most teachable and most coachable in those early years. I wanted to begin by sort of exploiting that—in a sense, in a good way—by saying: “Here are some things that I learned / here are some lessons I learned along the way. Here are some stories of what we went through / what I've learned from it. Perhaps, it will be helpful.” Dennis: Over the years, we've—who knows how many hundreds of Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways have been held by FamilyLife—we've looked into the eyes of those in attendance. 4:00 It does seem that the engaged couples and the newly-marrieds are, not only on a steep learning curve, but they're much more teachable and kind of spongy in terms of soaking in the truth. What we wanted to do—and what I encouraged Barbara to do with this book—is take advantage of a window into the soul to speak a lot of relevant truth that she's learned, as a woman from the Scriptures and from other older women who have coached her, and really help these young wives get started on the right trajectory. Bob: They didn't ask you about a specific subject. They just said, “Help me be a wife.” How did you know, “Okay; I'll start here”? Barbara: Well, what I did is—I just thought back to those early days in our marriage and tried to remember: “What were the lessons that I learned? What did I do right? What did I do wrong?” Bob: Like that early romantic date that Dennis took you on? Barbara: Yes, like that one. Bob: Tell our listeners about—[Laughter] Barbara: You like this; don't you? [Laughter] 5:00 Bob: —how ““Prince Charming” swept you off your feet. [Laughter] Barbara: Yes. While we were dating in the summer of 1972, which was of course in the dark ages—one Saturday / it was probably on a Friday afternoon Dennis asked if I wanted to hang out on Saturday afternoon. I said, “Sure.” He picked me up in his— Bob: Now, let me interrupt you just so we get a context. Barbara: Okay. Bob: You guys had been friends for years— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —since college. Barbara: Yes. Dennis: Right. Bob: [To Barbara] After college, you went to the east coast and worked with Campus Crusade. Barbara: Correct. Dennis: University of South Carolina. Bob: [To Dennis] Where did you go? Dennis: I was in Dallas/Ft. Worth area, working with high school kids. Bob: You kept up your friendship— Barbara: Yes. Bob: —but there was nothing romantic between the two of you. Barbara: No, nothing romantic. We had been really good friends for three years. I really thought of Dennis as a brother—he was just a great, great friend. Dennis: She showed up in Dallas and needed to be shown around—kind of where everything was / kind of how you get around—so I'd pick her up, take her to work. Bob: Now, were you thinking of her like your sister at this point? 6:00 Dennis: Yes, I really was. It was not romantic—it really wasn't—which is really a cheap shot on your part—[Laughter]—to call out this thing that I took her on as a romantic date because we were just hanging out! Barbara: That's right—we were. Bob: Was this before—this date we're about to talk about—was this before or after you had tried to hold hands with her in the parking lot? Dennis: Way before. Barbara: I have no idea. Dennis: Way before. Bob: Really? Barbara: I would think so—yes. Dennis: Oh, yes; oh, yes. Bob: Okay. Barbara: I would guess. Bob: It's just friends: “Hey, do you want to hang out tomorrow?” Dennis: Yes. I'd take her back to her apartment, and we'd kind of sit on the stairs and talk— Barbara: Yes. Bob: Just visit. Dennis: —until about 2:00 in the morning—[Laughter]—just like a couple of friends. Barbara: Yes. Bob: Yes. Barbara: Yes. [Dennis laughing] Bob: Okay. So he says, “Do you want to hang out tomorrow?” and he comes and picks you up. Barbara: He did. Bob: Did you know where you were going? Barbara: You know, I don't remember—it was too long ago. I don't remember if I knew or not, but I knew it was casual. I knew we were going to go on a picnic. He took me to some remote place outside of Dallas/Ft. Worth— 7:00 Bob: Now wait. I've got to stop you here. You're taking her on a picnic. You're not taking your buddy—“Let's go hang out,”— on a picnic. There's more going on here in your mind [Barbara laughing] than just, “Let's hang out together.” Dennis: She needed to understand where the riverbanks were— Bob: Alright. Barbara: Like I really care! Bob: We understand one another here; okay. So he picks you up? [Laughter] Barbara: Yes. We take off to parts unknown because I'd never really been in Texas in my life. I didn't know where we were going, but I trusted him. We show up at this stream, or river, or pool of water, or something—I don't know where it was! Dennis: I don't know where it was—it was below a dam somewhere. Barbara: Gosh; I couldn't begin to tell you. Dennis: It was murky / it was fishy-smelling. It was a great date! Barbara: All I know is he pulls out a fishing pole—fishing rod / fishing thing—I didn't know what a fishing thing was! [Laughter] Oh, how funny! Bob: One of the things you observed or learned, when you shared this story with your daughters—it was really to talk about the fact that, in relationships, you've got to make some adjustments and be ready for the fact that you're two very different people. Barbara: Exactly; because after we married, about three months later, we moved to Colorado. 8:00 In Colorado, there was abundant fishing. Bob: You married three months later—after the fishing date? Barbara: Yes! Dennis: You caught up on that small detail. [Laughter] Bob: I just thought our listeners ought to be aware. [Laughter] It went from zero to sixty. Dennis: I'm a man of action, Bob. Bob: This was a sports car relationship. [Laughter] So, from the day you said, “Will you…” to the day you said, “I do,”— Barbara: —was six weeks. Bob: Six weeks? Barbara: Six weeks. Bob: You said, “I'll be the Fish Queen for as long as we both shall live.” [Laughter] Dennis: Then, on our honeymoon, I took her camping and trout fishing. [Laughter] We need to get to the point of the book though—she's talking about how we, as men and women, are different. Barbara: That's right. Dennis: I mean, we did start out our marriage—really, not polar opposites—because we enjoyed one another. Barbara: Yes, we had a great time; but, had you asked me what I would have pictured for the early years of our marriage, I would not have pictured traipsing around in the mountains— 9:00 —fishing, and camping, and all of those things—because none of that was a part of my background, growing up. They were totally brand-new experiences. I learned, by those experiences, that marrying someone is merging together two vastly different—not just personalities—but life experiences. As Dennis used to say, all the time, “It's like merging two countries.” Bob: Yes. Barbara: Because we are very different, as men and women—we're very different in our life experiences / our outlook—everything is different. So those early years are years of discovery. What you do with what you discover sets the tone and the foundation for your marriage. Bob: Obviously, we're talking to Barbara Rainey, who is joining us today on FamilyLife Today. We're talking about the wisdom that you want to pass on to younger women—specifically to your daughters—about being a wife. You've just written a book called Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife. 10:00 What are the big ideas that you want to pass on to your daughters in this area of marital differences? Barbara: First of all—the first big idea is that there are going to be differences. It‘s normal to be diametrically opposite on all kinds of fronts. Because what happens—when we're engaged / and dating but then engaged—we tend to think: “Oh, we're so much alike, and we love each other so much—we'll never have clashes. Yes; if we do, we can handle them. We love each other so much that it's not going to be difficult.” I think one of the first difficulties for most young couples is they're caught off guard by these differences. They don't know what to do with them—they go from being cute and attractive to being downright ugly or frustrating. Bob: Yes. Barbara: All of a sudden, what was cute isn't so cute anymore; and you think, “Now, what do I do?” Bob: We have this tendency to think different means wrong. Barbara: Wrong; yes. 11:00 Bob: “This is the way I think; and it's the way I think naturally. So I must be right; and if you think differently, we need to fix you so you think like me.” Barbara: Yes. Bob: That's part of the awakening and adjusting that both wives and husbands have to do in the early stages of a relationship; right? Barbara: Exactly; because that's one of the beautiful things about marriage—is how it broadens our perspective. I write about that in telling these stories about fishing. I knew nothing about fishing; but because of who I married, the horizons of my life have been greatly expanded and broadened. I could have either fought that, and resisted that, and said: “I don't want any part of that! That's foreign to me. I don't like it”; but by embracing who he was, and his differences as a person, my life is much richer because of that. I think, if we can encourage these young wives—and husbands too / but this is for the wives right now—to welcome those differences as an opportunity to grow as an individual, it will make it easier. Dennis: I like what you wrote in your book here— 12:00 —you said: “These new realities created some minor earthquakes in my life—rumblings that shook my familiar, comfortable foundation. I was discovering that we were not as much alike as I'd originally thought. We were opposites who were attracted to one another but found ourselves, like magnets, that repel each other.” And then she goes on to write about how I would make a decision compared to how she would make one. Bob: Yes. Dennis: I'd see something that needed to be done or something I felt like we ought to go do—I'd process at the speed of light and off we'd go. Bob: Right. Dennis: Barbara, on the other hand, processes a little slower. In fact— Barbara: —a lot slower. Dennis: —a lot slower. Barbara: Is that what you were going to say? Bob: A little more thoughtfully—with a little broader perspective. Dennis: I've been enriched by that, but I promise you—if, early in our marriage, we had set up war with one another in two separate bunkers. 13:00 You could easily have built a case between two very different people, who had started out their marriage together, but now really can't get along and don't see one another—as we teach at the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway—as “God's perfect gift for you.” Bob: You describe how you began to approach these differences in your marriage. You call it the “Bookend Principle.” Barbara: Yes. Bob: Explain what that is. Barbara: The Bookend Principle is something that Dennis and I practiced with one another; and then, after the fact, sort of came up with the name for that. What we have done through the years is—when we've had disagreements over our differences or conversations trying to understand one another—we would say to each other: “I love you, and I would marry you all over again. This may be hard, this may be confusing, this may be difficult—it may not be fixed in a single conversation, like we would always like; but that's okay. I love you and I'm committed to you, and I would do it all over again.” 14:00 That statement of reaffirmation of our vows and commitment to one another provides a level of security to continue to have these discussions about our differences. I think it's a good habit. It was a good habit for us because you can get so caught up in how different we are—and how his differences grate on me or make life difficult for me and my differences make life difficult for him—that you can subtly switch to becoming enemies rather than allies. Bob: Were there times, or events, or evenings when you weren't sure you loved him and you weren't sure you'd marry him all over again? Barbara: No. There were times when I didn't feel loving—without question—but I never got to the place where I thought, “This was a big mistake,” because I knew that God had called us to marry each other. I knew that we were doing what we were supposed to do. So, therefore, if this was God's will, and it was, then He would enable us to figure it out with time. Bob: That issue was settled. Barbara: Yes; “Done.” Bob: That wasn't open for reevaluation— Barbara: No. Bob: —reexamination— Barbara: No. Bob: —re-discussion. 15:00 At some point—when you stood and said, “I do,”—the ships were burned. You weren't going to reconsider whether— Barbara: I think that's the mistake too many young couples are making today—is they get into it, and it becomes difficult—instead of saying, “We can work this out,” they say, “Gosh; we must have made a mistake.” They move to, “This is a mistake, and maybe there's a way out,” rather than, “We can find a way through this / we can make it work,” and stick with it for the long haul. Dennis: I look back on our marriage. I don't remember ever entertaining the thought. And I mean by entertaining—I'm talking about cultivating the thought that I'd made a mistake. I do wonder, looking back on it—this Bookend Principle of kind of starting out with a commitment that says, “I love you,” and then maybe, in the midst of an argument or after the argument has been exhausted, you say again: “I'm committed to you. I'd marry you all over again.” 16:00 It creates a safe place for two imperfect, very different people to hammer out their relationship together. I think we're an instant culture that is not used to having to take a lifetime to achieve this thing called “oneness.” What we were doing, back then—we were going through some very hard ground. I mean, it had not been plowed before—two very independent people—who had joined together in marriage, and who did rub one another the wrong way, and who, in their differences, missed each other over, and over, and over again—and, as a result, mis-communicated, disappointed, hurt one another. How do you maintain a relationship in the midst of that if you're not committed? Bob: I think it's important because we can laugh about fishing dates, and whether you like fishing or not; but a lot of folks, who are listening, are going, “Look, our differences are not around whether you like fishing or not— Barbara: Yes; exactly. 17:00 Bob: “Our differences are around core, fundamental, deeply-held issues in life. The fact that we're miles apart on this—I just don't know how to live with a husband / or a wife who does not embrace what's dear to me at the center of my being.” Barbara: Yes. That is a very difficult place to be. Even though Dennis and I never really had a crisis quite to that depth, we missed each other plenty of times. There are seasons in a marriage when it's very dry and when there doesn't feel like there's much life. I would have to say that: “There is hope. There's always hope, as long as we have breath, that if you are committed and you are teachable—both of you are teachable—and you hang in there, there will be a solution, given time.” I think that we expect too much too quickly. We would like to have it happen quickly—I would like to have it happen more quickly too, but that's just not the way of a marriage. 18:00 A marriage is slow, steady growth over a long length of time. Dennis: If you go back to Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3, the way God commands a marriage to start is He commanded a man and a woman to leave father and mother. He commanded them to cleave to one another / to be committed to one another. And third, He commanded them to receive one another—to receive the other person as God's gift for you. If you practice those three concepts—leave, cleave, and receive—over, and over, and over again—if you practice that in your marriage / especially, in the early years—it doesn't mean it's ever going to be easy. Barbara: Yes. Dennis: I asked Barbara how she would summarize our marriage. I was kind of hoping for “romantic,” [Laughter] “chill bumps”— Barbara: —“wonderful.” Dennis: You know? But instead, you said? Barbara: “It's been hard.” Dennis: “Hard work.” Barbara: “Hard work”; yes. 19:00 Dennis: Lots of hard work. I think a lot of young couples—and for that matter, older couples—are starting out marriages today not really expecting it to be as challenging and to demand perseverance like it does Bob: I just have to come back around here because you're right in this section of your book that—not only did your marriage start off with fishing—but through the years you've learned to enjoy hunting with your husband? [Laughter] Is that true? Barbara: Well, not by his definition; no. Not by— Dennis: I was waiting for the answer to that question. Bob: I'm going to read to you what you wrote. Barbara: Okay; okay. Read what I wrote. Bob: “And I have learned to appreciate hunting.” Barbara: Yes, “appreciate it.” Bob: Maybe “appreciate” is a better word than— Barbara: “Appreciate” is a better word. Yes Bob: “I actually went with him on an elk hunt a few years ago— Barbara: Yes. I did. Bob: — “with the camo, the face paint, and the human scent killers sprayed on my body.” Barbara: [Laughing] I did! Barbara and Bob: “Aren't you impressed?” [Laughter] Bob: That's what you say right here: “Aren't you impressed?” [Laughter] 20:00 “We hiked and hiked and snuck up on a herd of elk hiding behind trees like clandestine spies following a double agent down a dark alley in Eastern Europe. It was really fun!” Barbara: It was fun! [Laughter] Bob: But the point is that we're going to face these differences in the first years of our marriage. Barbara: Yes. Bob: Some of them crop up ten years in—fifteen. It's a life-long process of understanding “We're different,” and making those adjustments. Barbara: Exactly. That really is the point that I'm trying to make with these girls—is that the differences are there—they're not to be changed and they're going to be there for life. I think we somehow assume, early on, that a lot of this stuff is going to subside, or change, or moderate; but who we are is who we are. I'm just amazed at how little really changes over time. You either fight it, and resent it, and resist it, or you join and learn to actually enjoy it and appreciate it. 21:00 Now, do I love to go hunting? No. I enjoyed that because it was active. We were hiking in the mountains, and it was beautiful. Dennis: And it was warm. Barbara: And it was reasonably warm; yes. But the kind of hunting that he is often inviting me to go on—which I have refused—is the kind where you get up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, in the winter, and you go sit. You can't talk / you can hardly breathe, and it's freezing. [Laughter] Hiking in the mountains—we could talk as we went—until we actually saw the elk / then we had to be quiet. It was a much different kind of experience so I could appreciate that one. But sitting in a deer stand—I've done it once and I'm not real interested in going there again. Bob: The point is—you don't have to be interested in going there again to make your marriage work. This is a part of the dance. One of your chapters in your book, “Marriage Is Like Beautiful Dancing”— 22:00 —“Part of the dance is understanding what we do together and where it's better to leave each other some space and some time to do things apart.” Barbara: Yes. Bob: I just think you have given some real great practical wisdom to a lot of wives in what you've written in your book, Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife. It's brand new, and you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com to request your copy. Or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY and ask for the book, Letters to My Daughters, when you get in touch with us. Now, as both of you guys know, this is our 40th anniversary as a ministry—2016. All year long, we are celebrating anniversaries. Today, we want to congratulate Abigail and Angelo Pinheiro. They live in Princeton, New Jersey. They listen to FamilyLife Today on WFIL. They're celebrating 21 years of marriage today. “Congratulations!” to the Pinheiros—“Happy Anniversary!” 23:00 We'd love to help you celebrate your anniversary this year. In fact, if you will go to FamilyLifeToday.com and leave us your anniversary date, we'll have some suggestions for you this year on how this year's anniversary can be the best anniversary ever. It's all because we are the “Proud Sponsor of Anniversaries.” There are a lot of anniversaries that have happened over the years because of how God has used FamilyLife in people's lives for 40 years now. Thanks to those of you who make FamilyLife possible. We're listener-supported—we depend on your donations in order for this ministry to exist. This month, we're hoping that God might raise up, in every state where FamilyLife Today is heard, 20 new families who would join us as Legacy Partners. We're asking you—if you're a regular FamilyLife Today listener / if God's used this ministry in your life: “Would you be one of the families in your state to help support this program?” It's easy to do—go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the button that says, “DONATE.” 24:00 There is information there about becoming a Legacy Partner or about how you can make a one-time gift to FamilyLife Today. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. You can also call and say, “I'm interested in becoming a Legacy Partner.” We'll explain the whole process to you when you call 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” Now, tomorrow, we're going to talk about the spiritual foundation in a marriage and how important that is. Barbara Rainey will be back with us. Hope you can be here as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2016 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

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25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 3) - Juli Slattery

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2020 27:18

25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 1) - Juli Slattery25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 2) - Juli Slattery25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 3) - Juli SlatteryFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Spiritual Component of Sexuality Guest: Juli Slattery From the series: 25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask (Day 3 of 3) Bob: Dr. Juli Slattery had been married ten years before there was a breakthrough that occurred in her marriage in the area of marital intimacy. Juli: We had many years of boredom. You know, one of the first steps I took was I dedicated three months: “Lord, I'm going to pray about this area of my life. I'm going to learn to enjoy it, and I'm going to learn to pursue it.” I got serious about saying: “God, You're not okay with where we are. I'm not okay with where we are. I'm going to devote myself to helping change that.” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, October 26th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey. I'm Bob Lepine. Could it be that a season of prayer and study could actually bring about a breakthrough in your marital intimacy? We'll talk more about that with Dr. Juli Slattery today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I hope our listeners have been hanging with us here this week as we've been talking about a sensitive subject. I have to tell you—just in the conversation, there is such rightness in talking in a healthy— Dennis: Oh and it's healthy! Bob: —biblical way— Dennis: Yes! Bob: —about what God created. Dennis: If there's a radio program on—on all of radio—it ought to be a Christian radio program talking about sex from a biblical perspective. Dr. Juli Slattery has been with us this week. I just want to tell you: “You're doing a great job. Your book is excellent—25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy.” Juli—welcome back to the broadcast, first of all. I just want to ask you—you've been married since 1994 / you have three sons: “What is the most important lesson you personally have learned about love, sex, and intimacy?” Juli: That this is spiritual terrain. 2:00 It's not just a matter of good parenting or having a happy marriage—that sexuality represents a very intense spiritual battle. When I learned that, it was a total game changer in how I approached this in my marriage and parenting. Dennis: So, in essence, you're saying: “Who are you listening to? Juli: Yes; yes. Dennis: “Are you listening to the Bible and God's perspective of sex?”—because that's really the only place you're going to find it is in the Bible—or “Are you listening, watching, and feeding from what the world is?” Bob: Yes; when you're standing at the supermarket checkout line and Cosmo is there—what they're advertising on the front cover is not, “Here's how to think biblically about sexuality”; right? Juli: No; no. Bob: They're kind of compartmentalizing it to a purely biological activity that you can disassociate from every other aspect of your life. When people think that way, what happens to their sexuality? Juli: Well, and I think a lot of Christians do think that way—they think that sexuality is compartmentalized. 3:00 What happens is that you never realize that Jesus needs to be Lord of that area of your life too. In 1 Corinthians 6, it talks about the sexual, and spiritual, and the relational all being intertwined—that you can't make a sexual choice that isn't also spiritual. When you start to understand that—that this is a major battle; and if I'm not careful with even the little choices I make, I can be contributing to evil I hate. Boy, when you get that, it changes—for example, we all hate sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. We hate it / we wish it would go away. But we don't realize that our choices—for example, to look at pornography feeds into sexual exploitation and trafficking—that we have a part to play in that. Even just a cavalier attitude about casual sex—and you can hook up with whomever you want—you're contributing to the enemy's design on tarnishing sexuality. 4:00 That's really convicting. It changes the way we pray, and it changes the way we act. Dennis: I want to take a step back and just address a couple, who are listening to our broadcast, where sex has become boring. The romance is kind of out the window—it's a routine, it's a duty, it has lost its zest, and—well, whether a man or a woman, it can just be something you just “have to do” or neglect to do. Bob: Yes. Let's say somebody comes to you and says, “Okay; here's our deal…”—a couple in their 30s / they've got three kids. Both of them have full-time jobs. They would say: “You know, I guess for the last year, maybe once or twice a month we'll have sex and it is okay; but it kind of feels more like a chore. I'm honestly—I'm really okay if we just kind of let it phase out of our marriage.” There are people thinking like that; aren't there? Juli: There are; absolutely! 5:00 I would say: “First of all, you're normal. Those are normal seasons of marriage. Second of all, you might be okay with letting it fade away; but God's not okay with letting it fade away. We know that because, in 1 Corinthians 7, one of the few very specific pieces of marriage advice that we get from the Bible is: “Don't neglect sexual intimacy except for mutual consent for a time of prayer,”—that's the only reason why you should be avoiding this. Now, of course, there are health issues and things like that you may need to work through; but the spirit of it is: “This is very important for you to pursue,”—that would be the challenge of: “God would say you need to keep working on this,”—but it is normal to struggle. Bob: Even if the husband and wife kind of mutually say, “We're okay with it sliding,” you're saying: “You may be, but God's not. You need to make this a more active discipline in your marriage”? Juli: Absolutely! And the biology actually supports that. 6:00 The biology shows—now that we understand more about the brain and sexual response—that if a couple is sexually intimate on a regular basis, the hormones that are produced in the brain bond that husband and wife together—actually, in some ways / in a very healthy way—make you addicted to your spouse, where you can't wait to see them / you can't wait to be with them. You get a hormone in your body called oxytocin that makes them more pleasurable to you / like less offensive. It's the same hormone that a new mom gets when they have a baby, because you need to love that baby no matter what happens. God has created sexual intimacy, when it occurs regularly in the confines of a relationship, to be glue that continually draws a couple together. To neglect that is, not only something that God says is a bad idea, it's what scientific research is saying is a bad idea. Dennis: In your book, you talk about a couple that almost sounds like what Bob was describing—been married ten years, had three kids, and were going through a time of sexual struggle/boredom. 7:00 That couple was you and your husband. Juli: Yes. [Laughter] We had many years of boredom. One of the first steps I took was—I dedicated three months: “Lord, I'm going to pray about this area of my life. I'm going to learn to enjoy it, and I'm going to learn to pursue it,”— which was just something that God gave me and challenged me with. I'm a very goal-oriented person; and when I set my mind on doing something, I put energy into it—I save time for it; I think about it; I pray about it. That's what happened in this area of our marriage—is I got serious about saying: “God, You're not okay with where we are / I'm not okay with where we are. I'm going to devote myself to helping change that.” Dennis: Did you tell Mike you were going to do that? Juli: No; I didn't want the accountability! [Laughter] I told him after! [Laughter] Bob: So what happened in that three-month period? Juli: A lot happened! I think I could see definite changes— 8:00 Dennis: Is Mike where we can call him right now? [Laughter] Juli: He probably is. Dennis: Let's get him on the phone and find out what happened. Juli: Really? Dennis: Really! Juli: [Laughter] You are serious? Dennis: I'm serious. Juli: Okay. Bob: You good with this? Juli: Yes; sure! Bob: Alright. Juli: I don't know if he will be, but— Bob: Well— Juli: —we'll see. Bob: —we'll find out. Juli: Ask him honestly. Bob: I think our engineer, Keith, is punching up the phone number right now. [Phone ringing] Mike: Hi; this is Mike speaking. Bob: Mike Slattery. Mike: Yes. Bob: It's Bob Lepine from FamilyLife Today. I'm here with Dennis Rainey and your wife, whom I—I heard her call you “Swoo”? Is that the—is that— Mike: [Laughter] Bob: What does that stand for?—Swoo? Mike: I don't—there's not a real actual acronym or what not—it's just a song we made up, way back when, “Swee Swoo” and “Swoo” just kind of stuck after that. Bob: It just stuck—well that's nice! Dennis: So Mike, I just turned to Juli and I said, “So, you prayed about your intimacy with your husband for three months” and I asked her / I said, “So did you tell Mike?” 9:00 She said “No; I didn't want the accountability!” [Laughter] We were starting to ask her; and we thought, “No; let's just call Mike!” What did you think about what was happening, Mike? Mike: I think anytime you go back to God for anything—be it a budget, be it parenting, be it physical intimacy—you're never going to go wrong. As Christians, that's what we subscribe to—God has all the answers, and any area of our life is open to prayer with that. I think the world kind of guides us away from that, but I think that's the best thing to do. Juli has been a great example of doing that—she lives what she says. If she doesn't, she prays about it. We're very open with that communication, which has been great. Bob: When did it dawn on you this was an area that your wife was beginning to pray about this whole issue of intimacy in marriage and that God was at work? Juli: Well, if I could—maybe just tell a story to kind of prompt the memory of what was happening. This was probably a good ten years ago, before I started off thinking of Intimacy. I would have my quiet time in the evening. 10:00 As any young mom knows, the evening is your time—where you put the kids to bed; you don't want to be bothered; you have your tea; and your Bible, or books, or whatever. I would have my quiet time and just be asking God, “Would You show me how to draw closer to You and how to love You?” During that period of time—of beginning to pray about this—the Lord would begin speaking to me, ”If you want to love Me, then go up and just initiate with your husband.” There were a few times—and it's become more frequent now— Mike: Exactly; yes. Juli: —where I'll be doing my quiet time, whether it's in the morning or the evening—and that's the word that the Lord will give me—is: “This is a way that you honor Me.” Mike: Yes; basically, I remember when there was one time where Jules was—in her routine, typically on Saturday—Juli would get up, she'll go down and do her quiet time—kind of her normal routine, Monday through Sunday—she'll do that. 11:00 If it's like on a weekend, when I'm not going to work or jumping to the gym, I'll kind of stay in bed and kind of let her do her—that's her time with God. I never want to encroach on that. There was a time, where I was praying about it—and I just doing my quiet time, and she was doing her quiet time. We were both praying about the same thing. Then Juli came up, and we would kind of share that together—like: “Were you praying about this?” and “I was praying about this,” “I think God heard us.” [Laughter] So that was really—that was very special. Bob: You're a good sport, Mike. Thanks for letting us interrupt your day and just authenticate what your wife has been sharing with us here. Mike: I appreciate it. Thank you, guys, for getting the message out, because Juli's been doing this for the last several years. When she was at Focus—and initially, when God was pulling her away, we prayed about it. I said, “As long as you're sure this is what God wants you to do, I'm 100 percent behind you.” It's been a great journey. The main thing is we're all used by God. Dennis: I appreciate your courage too. The easiest thing to do is nothing. Mike: Sure. Dennis: The easiest thing to say, if you're a very private person, is nothing. Mike: Yes. 12:00 Dennis: And in the process, there's a lot of folks, again, who have received some help and hope as a result of you guys being honest about your own marriage. Pray God's favor on you in your pursuit in your vocation but also in your family. Mike: Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. God bless. God bless all of you. Bob: You want to say, “Goodbye,” to your husband? Juli: I love you Hon. Thanks for being a good sport. Mike: Okay; I love you Baby-doll. Look forward to seeing you tonight baby; alright. Juli: Me too; bye. Mike: Bye-bye. Dennis: [Laughter] I wish they could see Juli's grin, Bob. Bob: I think they could hear Juli's grin—[Laughter] —as she said, “Goodbye,” to her husband. You've been married how many years? Juli: Twenty-two years. Bob: And you're looking forward to seeing him tonight? Juli: Yes; of course, I am—he's my best friend. Bob: If your marriage had been on the trajectory / if it had remained on the trajectory that it was on—if you hadn't, ten/twelve years ago, had this kind of three months before the Lord, where do you think you'd be today? 13:00 Juli: Not where we are; because I had all the education I needed, as a clinical psychologist. I worked with couples on marriage issues and sexual issues but never really understood the power of inviting God, and the power of bringing sexuality under His Lordship, because I'd never heard that before. When you invite God into any sphere of your life, He's going to confront you on things that are difficult—yes—but He's / but He's going to provide hope and healing in ways that you didn't know you needed. Dennis: You're a clinical psychologist. I'd like you to give your best counsel to men about understanding their wives. Juli: I guess the analogy that I like to use regarding sexuality—and this is because I'm a mom of three boys—is I like to talk about Legos®. If you, on your honeymoon—you think you're going to open up this great gift that's going to be complete—you'll be really disappointed. And that's the truth with Legos. 14:00 If you go to the store and buy a package of Legos, and you see this beautiful thing on the outside—this cool Bat mobile or whatever it is—and you open it up, you're disappointed. I would encourage men that God has given you a gift of building something together that, at first, isn't going to make any sense; but that's part of the design—that He's challenging you to learn to love, and to build, and to sacrifice. Your wife may take years/ I'm going to say your wife may take decades to really understand sexually, and emotionally, and spiritually. She does not understand herself. But God's challenge to you is to: “Continue to build; continue to pursue; ask God for wisdom—have a sensitive heart.” This is the other thing I think we pass right over—in Ephesians, Chapter 5, Paul writes specifically to husbands. He says to “…love your wives as Christ loved the church and laid Himself down for her.” Then it says that “He washed the church with the word, presenting her as a spotless bride.” 15:00 Part of what Paul is saying to you, as a husband, is: “Are you protecting the purity of your wife so that you can present her as a spotless bride?” Don't bring anything into your mind or your bedroom that would defile your wife. Make that a safe place, emotionally and spiritually. Dennis: I would add one other thing too: “If you think you're going to trade in this box of Legos for a better box, that's all put together perfectly—it's a lie. Juli: Yes. Dennis: “It's a lie. The box God has given you is the one you need to keep your covenant with / keep building into and stay the course. Don't quit.” Okay; Juli—now, I want you to take the women underneath your arm and just counsel them. What would you say to them about their relationship with their husband? Juli: Well, I would say, “Don't underestimate the power of sexuality,”— 16:00 —that so often we think of power as a bad thing—but I see that God has given a wife, naturally, tremendous power in marriage around the issue of her body and sexuality. Because we're not always open and honest about that being a powerful tool that God has given, we don't use that power well—we either neglect it; we don't prioritize it; or we use it in a manipulative way. If you can say: “Oh man, God has given me a place of power in my husband's life that I'm jealous of—I don't want any other woman on the planet to have this power with my husband. I want to learn to use it effectively to capture his heart / to share something with him that no one else gets to share with him.” That's going to take work to pursue; and I've shared in my own testimony how it has taken work, but it is so worth it. Bob: I want to ask you about that power—because we've seen husbands and wives get pulled outside of the marriage covenant; because another woman uses that power with a married man, or because a married man pursues a married woman. 17:00 When a couple takes sexuality outside of their marriage—when they give up on what ought to be going on at home or when they just supplement it with an affair—what's really going on in the heart of the husband or the heart of the wife in pursuing that infidelity in the first place? Juli: There can be lots of things going on, but I think a profound thing is—they've never really understood, in the concept of covenant, that sexuality is all about covenant. The reason that God says it's reserved for marriage is because there's this lifelong promise or covenant. If you take it outside of that, you're destroying something so spiritual and special, that recovering from that is tremendously difficult. First, there's that discounting of the covenant—but also, pretty much with every situation where there's an emotional or sexual affair, you can kind of do the forensic on that relationship. The couple can begin to tell you, “This is when we started drifting apart,”— 18:00 —whether it was when she got busy with the kids, or she put on weight and didn't feel sexy anymore, or he got so pulled into his career that he stopped spending time with her. I know you two work on marriages so much that you've seen this—that affairs don't begin with that relationship of being sexually unfaithful—they begin when you get seeds planted in your mind that: “Someone else can love me more than this person loves me.” Dennis: It's an emotional connection— Juli: Absolutely. Dennis: —not a physical connection—but it grows into that. Juli: Yes. Dennis: I think what / what our listeners need to know that: “If your relationship is teetering toward an emotional affair, the advice is: ‘You've got to extinguish the chemical reaction now. You've got to take the number out of your cell phone; you've got to completely sever the relationship—if it means changing places of work because of the temptation— 19:00 —you have to protect your marriage, and your family, your children, your legacy.' This is really, really important what we're talking about here.” I so agree with your advice: “Protect your covenant at all costs.” Bob: I think you made a good point. You might just pull back and analyze, “What is it that I'm most attracted to here?” because that will help you identify what's been lacking—some longing that's an unmet longing—that was designed for marriage that may not be happening in marriage. Then sit down with your husband or your wife and say: “You know, there's an area in my heart that I've just felt lonely in,” or “…I felt lacking,” “….an area where we can—can we work on this together, and can we try to grow this together?”—rather than saying: “I'm just going to go find it somewhere else.” It is poisoned fruit outside the marriage covenant. 20:00 The other thing I encourage you to do is—just honestly ask the Lord—and even to share with a mentor and ask, “What lies am I believing?” because the enemy works in lies. Dennis: That's right. Juli: He will convince you that you're going to be happier with someone else, or some other guy is going to understand you more than your husband does, or that God can't rekindle and restore your relationship with your husband or your wife. You need to confront those lies with truth. Dennis: You're not going to trade in this box of Legos and find another box that's perfectly put together, exactly the way you want it. You're still going to be dealing with your selfishness. Juli: Yes. Dennis: You're going to be dealing with another person's selfishness; and then, you're going to be dealing with the debris of a broken marriage / a broken family. That's not a recipe for success in marriage, family, or in life. Juli, I just want you to know I'm really proud of you for stepping out in faith and beginning this new ministry called Authentic Intimacy. 21:00 I know that you didn't have to go try this / go do this, but I think it's a much needed area in our country. I hope that our listeners will get a copy of your book. I hope they'll use it to talk with their sons/their daughters—whether they are still yet at home or as adult children—about this important area and dimension of the marriage relationship. Bob: Yes; some of them are going to want to subscribe to your podcast, and they can do that. In fact, we've got instructions on our website if you want to find out more about what Juli is doing with the Java with Juli podcast—you can download it. There's information available when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Dennis: And in case you didn't notice, it's the Java with Juli with a little mocha, a little chocolate, and a little whipped cream. [Laughter] There's some spice— Bob: Hazelnut—there's some hazelnut in there. Dennis: We'll stop right there! [Laughter] Bob: Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and you can download the podcast. You can also order a copy of Juli's book, 25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy. 22:00 Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. Or you can order the book when you call us, toll free, at 1-800-FL-TODAY—1-800-358-6329. We mentioned this last week—we've had a lot of our listeners who have started using the ten family devotions that we've put together that are available on the FamilyLife app on your smartphone or your device. These devotions are designed to help us, as families, keep our hearts and minds focused on Christ in the middle of what can be unstable times. You can find the devotions if you have the FamilyLife app on your smartphone or device—just pull it up and click where it says, “Help and Hope.” Or you can download the devotions as a pdf document from our website at FamilyLifeToday.com. We hope you'll do that; and you'll find the devotions helpful as you shepherd your family and seek to keep your eyes fixed on the One, who is the author and finisher of our faith. 23:00 We've got a couple of couples who are celebrating anniversaries today. First, Ralph and Jean Carlson, who live in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and who listen to KTIS—42 years of marriage today. Then in Columbus, Ohio, Brian and Michele Livingston—they listen to WRFD, and they've been married six years today. We've been celebrating anniversaries all this year because 2016 is FamilyLife's 40th anniversary. We thought the best way to celebrate 40 years of ministry is to just reflect on all of the marriages that are still together, in part, because of how God has used FamilyLife in the lives of so many couples who listen to this program. If you can make a donation today, we'd love to say, “Thank you,” by sending you a banner that Barbara Rainey has created for the home that declares your home as an embassy of the kingdom of heaven. 24:00 It's our thank-you gift when you make a donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can request the banner when you call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate or when you mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. Now, tomorrow, our friend, Steven Curtis Chapman's, going to stop by. We're going to visit with him. Hope you can be here for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2016 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Daring to Hope (Part 3) - Katie Davis Majors

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2020 28:47

Daring to Hope (Part 1) - Katie Davis MajorsDaring to Hope (Part 2) - Katie Davis MajorsDaring to Hope (Part 3) - Katie Davis MajorsFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Serving the Hurting Guest: Katie Davis Majors From the series: Daring to Hope (Day 3 of 3) Bob: As a single mother, a parent to 13 adopted children, Katie Davis Majors was surprised when a young man, also living in Uganda, began pursuing her. Katie: He asked me out twice; and it was in the middle of, I think, just a hard season for me personally. Both times I said, “No”; and the second time, I really said like, firmly, “No”—like, “Hey,”— Barbara: “Don't ask again now.” Katie: —“I hope we can still be friends; but if we can't, it's okay. We can't—we can't do that. No. No; thank you.” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, December 20th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. How Katie Majors went from a firm “No,” to becoming Mrs. Benji Majors—we'll hear that story today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I want to meet Benji Majors sometime; don't you? Dennis: I do! Bob: I mean, I just want to meet the guy who was persistent and met a determined young woman and was determined to win her. Dennis: I want to hear the story of whether or not he went to Uganda in search of Katie Davis, author of Kisses from Katie. [Laughter] Bob: I'm just curious about Benji. You told us earlier that there was a guy who was living out in the house behind your house. You called Benji and said, “Would you want to come disciple him?” Benji said, “Sure.” I'm thinking: “Yes; Benji wanted to take you out. I would have come and discipled him and say, ‘I'll be there every day to disciple him if it gets me a little closer to you.'” Do you think that was in the back of his mind? Katie: At that point, no; I don't think so. [Laughter] Dennis: Are you sure though? Katie: No! [Laughter] Barbara: Yes; that was a hesitant yes. So, yes; I think that's right. 2:00 Dennis: Well, Katie is the author of a new book, Daring to Hope. She is now married. She is a mom of 14—13 of whom—a baker's dozen of Ugandan little girls, who are becoming, even against Katie's will, young ladies. They are growing up— Katie: Yes. Isn't that true? Dennis: —growing up on her here. I want to ask you my favorite question, but I'm going to ask you to wait to answer it— Katie: Okay. Dennis: —until the end of the broadcast. Here is my question: “What's the most courageous thing you've ever done in all of your life?” Now, don't answer right now—I'm going to give you a moment to think about it—but courage is doing your duty in the face of fear. I've got a sneaking suspicion, because of your book, Daring to Hope, that you've got a definition or two that comes from your book that you'd share with our listeners; but to get there, what I want to first have you do is tell us about the woman who had five children, who was dying of TB and HIV, who came to you. 3:00 Her name was Katherine. Tell our listeners that story of how you cared for her. Katie: Katherine came to live with us when she became very ill. Her five children, under the age of ten, were sponsored by Amazima; so we were paying for their school. Dennis: Okay; let's just stop here. Amazima is an organization you run in Uganda. Katie: Yes. We—our goal is really to disciple families and to empower the families to stay together. About 80 percent of children in institutions in East Africa actually have one living parent; and they end up institutionalized just due to financial poverty. Their parents cannot afford to pay for them to go to school, or to pay for their medical care, or to pay for their food; so they send them to these institutions. That was something that was very shocking to me the first year that I lived in Uganda, and I really desired to try to change the system. 4:00 Through financial sponsorship of school fees, and some food, and some basic medical provision, Amazima works to keep these children with their biological family members; but of course, the heartbeat of our organization is really that, in doing that, we would form a relationship with these families and lead them to Christ. Dennis: Katherine was one of those moms who had experienced the care of your organization. Katie: Yes; so we were in relationship with her and had known her for a few years through her children; and she just got sicker and sicker to the point where she wasn't really able to take care of her children very well. She moved over to our house so that I could help her out with her children and, also, because our house is very close to the local hospital, and she needed a little more immediate access to medical care. We were just down the street from the doctor she was seeing. They lived with us for several months. I truly, really, believed that God was going to heal her of her illness—that she would become healthy and strong again. 5:00 I had imagined it in my head—the happy ending, where she would move out with her children. We always throw a bit of a celebration for people who have lived with us for a season and get to move out on their own again. We've had many families, especially struggling single mothers, live with us over the years. We always have a big celebration when they become well, or they finally find a job, or their child is finally healthy enough, and they can move out. I really thought that that would be the case with Katherine and her family as well; and she did get better for some time, but then she began to deteriorate very quickly. Dennis: She passed away. Katie: She did. Dennis: You compared your experience to the prophet Habakkuk and how he had to deal with some disappointments as well. You learned through that disappointment that there isn't always a happy ending to the story—but in this case, there was a happy ending to the story because— Katie: Right. 6:00 Dennis: —she went to heaven. Katie: Yes; absolutely. That's what Habakkuk says—right?—that though the olive crop fails, though the leaves wither, though there are no sheep in the pen—basically, even if I can't see it, still I will hope / still I will rejoice in God my Savior. I felt like that was something God was teaching me in a season where I had really thought we would see it—we would see a happy ending where she stayed alive. God showed me—still I can rejoice, even though things didn't go my way. Barbara: I remember discovering that verse when our children were teenagers. They were starting to kind of press the limits a little bit and push back on us. I discovered that verse, and I thought, “This is a perfect verse for a mother— Katie: Yes. Barbara: —“of children of all ages; but especially, teenagers.” I think the oldest was only 15 at the time; but I remember, when I read that, I just hung on to that because I thought: “Lord, there is no guarantee— 7:00 Katie: Yes. Barbara: —“that all the best parenting, all the prayer—none of that guarantees that my children will choose You, they will choose to live a good life, they will be responsible / they'll be productive. They're no guarantees. It could all fail. It could all be gone. Will I trust You if You do that?” It was a real turning point in my life; because I said, “Okay; God, I will. I will choose to believe You even if none of my children flourish / there is no green on the vine.” Katie: And isn't that the hardest part of parenting— Barbara: Absolutely. Katie: —is just that moment when you realize, “Even if I do everything perfectly,”—which I'm not— Barbara: Which we're not—none of us do. Katie: —“but even if I did,— Barbara: Yes. Katie: —“there is no guarantee— Barbara: None. Dennis: No. Katie: —“there is going to be any fruit here. There's no guarantee that these—that they are going to choose Christ in their own lives, and they have to choose it for themselves.” That's the scariest part of it for sure! Barbara: Yes; exactly, because it's not something that we can do for them. Katie: No. 8:00 Bob: Bryan Loritts, who is a pastor in Northern California, who is a part of The Art of Parenting video series that's coming out before long, makes the observation: “God is a perfect Father. God has rebellious children.” Barbara: Yes; lots of rebellious children. [Laughter] Katie: Yes. Bob: So, think about that—here's a perfect Father with rebel kids. Why should we think that we, as imperfect parents, will be spared a little rebellion in our home?—right? Katie: Right. Dennis: No doubt about it. Just as Barbara was talking about, we have learned a bunch about God's love for us as we have loved our kids and watched them struggle in their faith, from time to time. Katie, I know from reading your book that you have learned a lot about the love of God through the 14 children that you have. Katie: Oh, absolutely; because even—you know, as a parent, you see so clearly that, even when you are disciplining your children, it's not out of this place of anger toward them or hatred toward them— 9:00 —it's out of such this place of love and a desire for good things to come in their lives. I think I've understood so much more that—when God disciplines me in my own life, when God tells me to go in a direction that I don't really feel like I want to go, or when God even brings me through a difficult time—it is His love that does that to shape me, to change me, to teach me; because He wants good things for me. I think, as parents, when we feel that love for our children, we can see it so much more clearly from God's vantage point. Dennis: Yes; I really agree. Katie, before we get too far away from the story of Katherine, who died, and her five children—what happened to those five? Did you adopt them? Katie: I didn't. They did stay with us for a little while, immediately following her death. 10:00 Then, we placed them with a biological aunt, who they lived with for some time; but that situation was never really good. The aunt was very young, and she was also struggling. She didn't have any biological children, so she had never parented before; and the children were really suffering there with her. We would provide food, and we would drive out there to visit them; but it just never seemed to be a good situation. I was just getting desperate, just praying, asking the Lord what I should do. I mean, the idea of having five more children come to my house was a lot. At the same time, I was not clearly seeing another option. They were a sibling set of five—like there aren't many families that are willing to take that on, even in the foster care system. I had gone to visit my friend, Rose. Before I started talking, she said, “You know, my daughter Helen”—who had been a good friend of my daughters and was in and out of our house a lot—she said: 11:00 “My daughter told me about what happened to the mom of those kids. I'm so sorry. God's just put it on my heart to really pray for them; but also, just to ask you: ‘Is there anything they need?—even, maybe, do they need a place to go?'” Of course, I like start to weep and just said: “Oh, I can't even tell you—that has been on my heart all week. I've been praying.” I was even just telling a good friend of mine earlier that same day—like, “I do not know what we're going to do for these children, but I feel like—I told their mom, before she died, that I would make sure they were okay. It feels like a lot of responsibility.” Rose and I talked for several more hours that day about what it would mean for her to start fostering them. About a month later, we went through all the paperwork process; and social workers visited with both families. 12:00 About a month later, we are able to help move Katherine's five children into Rose's home. Barbara: Wow. Dennis: You know, I just marvel at your acts of courage to care for Katherine as she died, to care for her children after she died, and also your courage in developing a relationship with a young man called Benji. Bob: Yes; you talked about how unusual it is for somebody to take five kids in as foster kids. [Laughter] Katie: That is a little ironic; isn't it? Barbara: Yes; it is. Bob: How unusual is it for a young man to say, “I'm going to be the husband to a mom of 13?!” Katie: Yes; it's not usual. Barbara: It's not normal. Dennis: So, he asked you out twice before you said, “Yes.” Katie: He did. He asked me out a couple of times; and both times, I said, “No.” The second time, I really said, like firmly, “No,”—like, “Hey,— Barbara: Like “Don't-ask-again” no? 13:00 Katie: —“I hope we can still be friends; but if we can't, it's okay.” [Laughter] Dennis: It was a “Dear John.” Katie: “We can't do that. I'm—no. No; thank you.” So, then, really, after that, I think I got to watch his heart on display a lot more; because I trusted that he wasn't going to ask me again. He was very respectful in that—he didn't really come over as much after that. He was still discipling the man that lived in the back of our yard, but he would come—he would go straight to Mack. He would spend his time with him, and he would leave. He would not come say, “Hello,” to me / he would not try to make conversation. I mean, I felt very respected in that—that he didn't. He heard what I said, and he didn't push the boundaries. I got to watch him and his heart for people, and for service, and truly for the gospel through that. He was also attending this large Bible study that we all went to on Wednesday nights. 14:00 He often led worship or even led the teaching at that Bible study. I was just—I was so attracted to his heart for the Lord. I was telling my good friend, like: “Oh my gosh. I think I like him; but now, I can't tell him; because he's never going to ask—he's not going to ask me out again. There is no hope.” So, I did—I had to call him and ask him if he would come over for coffee; and he said, “No.” [Laughter] Barbara: He didn't want to risk it again; huh? Katie: Well, yes! I mean, I had said so— Barbara: Yes. Katie: —clearly that I didn't want to date him. What was he going to be doing having coffee with me? Why would you have coffee with a young, single female that wasn't going to date you? [Laughter] So, I had to beg and plead a little bit, you know: “Please, I need to talk to you about something important. Can you come? Can we just—can we just have a cup of coffee?” So, he finally said, “Yes.” Dennis: Oh no! You've got to say— Barbara: And he said? Dennis: Yes?—what happened over the cup of coffee? Katie: Well, then, I was so nervous. 15:00 I made like dumb small talk the whole time; right? So, after about an hour, he's looking at his watch; and he's like— Barbara: “Okay?” Katie: —“Okay; well, this was nice. I think I'm going to go.” So, then, I just kind of blurted out some words that probably didn't even make sense—like: “You know, I was thinking / I was wondering if, maybe—do you want to like—we could spend more time together, you know, intentionally; you know?” Barbara: Real coherent; right? Katie: Right; exactly. He's just kind of looking at me; and finally, he said, “Like—like dating?” I said, “Well, yes.” He said, “Okay; I'm going to pray about that,” and he left! [Laughter] Dennis: He didn't go for the bait! Katie: What I didn't know, at the time—which is amazingly the Lord's provision and just further confirmation that we both really were trying to seek after Him— 16:00 —was that he had been in conversation, earlier that week, with some of his supporters in the States about whether or not his time in Uganda was coming to a close. He felt like he had pretty effectively discipled these 30 men. They were all kind of going out into the world and starting churches and discipling other young men. He felt like: “Okay; I could kind of take under my wing another group,” or “I could just keep in touch with this group via Skype and internet. Maybe, my time here is coming to a close.” He had been in conversation with people about whether or not he was moving back when he got my phone call asking him to come to coffee. What I didn't know, when he said he needed to pray about this, was this was a much bigger decision than “Am I going to date this girl?” This was a decision for him of: “Is there more of life for me in Uganda right now?” 17:00 Dennis: And so, how long did you date? Katie: Probably, almost a year from that point until we got engaged; and then, we were engaged for about eight months. Dennis: Time out. How did he propose? Katie: It was so sweet. He actually—he's such a good dad—he took all the girls out for ice cream earlier in the week. He just said to me like—and he would do this sometimes—he would say: “I'm going to take the girls out to eat,” or “I'm going to take them down to the river to play for a little bit so that you can get some quiet.” He had taken the girls out for ice cream and took them over to his house, actually, and sat them all down and said: “I would like to propose to your mom. What do you think about that?” They all gave feedback; and then, he let them help him plan how he would propose to me. Dennis: Wow. Barbara: That's so sweet! Katie: He showed them the ring, and he let them— Barbara: So sweet. Katie: —he let it be a family affair, which I just loved that he knew my heart well enough to know that I would have felt like something was missing if they hadn't been a part of that. 18:00 Actually, our best friends came to babysit the girls; and he took me back over to his place. There was a picnic laid out—his yard is kind of right on the edge of the lake that we live nearby—and he proposed. Then, as soon as I said, “Yes,” all our girls came running out of the bushes. They had watched the whole thing. Barbara: Oh how sweet! Oh, I love it. Katie: They were so excited, and they had picked flowers. They were throwing them on us—it was so sweet. Barbara: So, did anybody capture any photos of that—I hope? Katie: No. Barbara: I'm just thinking, “Oh, I wish I could have seen that.” It just sounds delightful. Dennis: Great video. Katie: I know! Barbara: Even just a few still photographs. Katie: It was so dark, but it's like seared in my memory forever! Barbara: I'm sure it is; yes. Dennis: So, back to my original question, at the beginning of the broadcast: “Katie Davis Majors, what's the most courageous thing you've ever done in all your life?” 19:00 Katie: That is a hard question, but I think—I think the most courageous thing that I have ever done is to trust God when I can't see what He's doing. I don't think that's a courage that has come from me. I think that God, Himself, has allowed me the grace to continue to trust Him. I think that that's the most courageous thing that any of us can do—is to continue to put our hope and our trust in God, even when we don't really feel like it. He has shown me that that hope does not disappoint me because, even when I don't get what I want, I get more of Him—I get to know Him more / I get to know sides of Him that I wouldn't have known if I hadn't scooted up next to Him like that. Bob: So, you're saying, even if the olive tree is barren— Katie: Yes! Bob: —and the leaves are withering— 20:00 —to say, “I'm still going to trust Him.” That's where real courage comes from. Katie: I think that that is real courage. Dennis: As you were talking, I couldn't help but think of this passage in Romans, Chapter 5. Katie: I love this one. Dennis: “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces— Katie: —“hope.” Dennis: —“hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Katie: Yes! Dennis: God in you—changing you. Katie: Yes. Dennis: Great answer to the question. Katie: Thanks. Bob: Well, and there is a lot of courage that shows up in the book that you've written called Daring to Hope. It's a book that tells the story of how God has been with you in the midst of suffering / how you've seen His goodness in the brokenness of where you live and work. 21:00 I would encourage our listeners: Get a copy of Katie's book, Daring to Hope. You can order it from us, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call to order at 1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” You know, one of the things that, Dennis, both you and I love to hear are stories of redemption—people whose lives were broken / headed in the wrong direction—they were in the ditch, as you like to say—and God intervenes and turns them in a new direction and points them in a new direction—turns their whole life around. Recently, we got a chance to meet with a number of listeners, who said FamilyLife Today was a part of their redemption story. 22:00 Some of the stories we heard were just remarkable. I was sitting there, thinking, “I wish our Legacy Partners / I wish the folks who help support this ministry could be here with us, hearing these stories, because that's what you're giving to when you support the ministry of FamilyLife Today.” You're helping us reach more people more regularly with practical biblical help and hope. And here, as 2017 is drawing to a close, I know some of you are thinking about possible yearend donations to ministries like ours. There is a special opportunity for you to give over the next couple of weeks—it's a matching-gift fund that's been established for this ministry. Michelle Hill is here with details on how we're doing with that matching-gift fund. Hi, Michelle! 23:00 Michelle: Hey Bob…well by now many folks have heard that the match fund has more than doubled (it's now 4.3 million dollars) but the real important number is one, as in that one person listening right now and deciding to give…and maybe you're that one? J I mean really Bob, the match isgoing to be met one gift at a time…and so far over five thousand people have made that decision. So, thanks to each one…like Don from Canton, Ohio? Today we're at NINE HUNDRED SEVENTY ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS...which is great! BUT…if we're going to take full advantage of the match, we'll need a lot of other ones to pray and then give as God leads. Bob: Well, and if you'd like to be a part of helping us take full advantage of the matching gift, you can make a donation today, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call to donate—1-800-358-6329 is the number—1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY”; or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. 24:00 And if you haven't sent us a Christmas card yet, send a Christmas card and just tuck something inside; okay? And I hope you can join us back again tomorrow when we're going to hear a conversation we had, not long ago, with our friends, Don and Sally Meredith. This is a remarkable couple who God used in a significant way to help birth the ministry of FamilyLife all the way back in 1976. I hope you can tune in and meet our friends, Don and Sally Meredith. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2017 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Christian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 1) - Bishop Aaron Blake

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2020 31:36

Christian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 1) - Bishop Aaron BlakeChristian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 2) - Diana PrykhodkoChristian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 3) - Bishop W.C. MartinFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Adopting the Football Team Guest: Aaron Blake From the series: Adopting the Football Team (Day 1 of 1) Bob: Aaron Blake is a pastor and worked for years as a guidance counselor at a local high school. He says nothing in his background prepared him for a conversation he would have with a young man named Melvin. Aaron: I didn't understand what helping a 15-year-old in foster care was about. I had counseled folks with marriage, death and dying, jail—all kinds of situations—but never a foster kid that was in the system that had been in nine different placements since he was in high school. Now, he was sitting in front of me. I said this to him—I said: “Melvin, if I could, I'd take you home with me.” Bob: This is a special on-location edition of FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 13th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll hear a powerful story from Bishop Aaron Blake today as we learn about how God enlarged his family. Stay tuned. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Once again, we've got maybe the world's greatest studio audience joining us here at the Christian Alliance for Orphans' Summit. [Applause] [Laughter] We're going to talk about something that your [Dennis'] heart for this subject has been expanded in a personal way over the last several years. Dennis: It has. Barbara and I have six children, one of whom is adopted—we don't know which one [Laughter]—but our children have picked up the virus—the adoption virus. We now have 21 grandchildren through biological means but also adoption. 2:00 There's a couple here—my engrafted son, Michael Escue—and his wife, who is our daughter, Ashley. Ashley and Michael have cared for 21 foster care children over the years and have emptied their county of any waiting children in the foster care system. [Applause] We have a hero with us that I think fulfills one of the words that Christ gave in His Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, Chapter 5, says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” You are about to meet a hero, who has let his light shine, along with his wife Mary of 38 years. Bishop Aaron Blake is going to join us on the stage. Come on up, Bishop. Bob: Bishop Blake, join us. [Applause] 3:00 Dennis: Welcome to the broadcast and our small studio here; okay. He has been a pastor for more than 35 years. For a number of years, Bishop, you served as a bi-vocational pastor. You were a high school guidance counselor. That's really where the surgery for your heart began, around the subject of foster care—share how that happened. Aaron: Well, the school that I was presently serving had a situation where a number of kids came into the school—that were in foster care. Many times, kids that move from placement to placement had a situation where they lost credits every placement. 4:00 So, being there, as a guidance counselor/social worker, I wanted to find out how we can recover the credits of those kids so that that wouldn't be another setback for them. My journey started when one kid came to me with that problem. Bob: That was Melvin who came to you; right? Aaron: Well, when he came into the office now, he came in the office with a little chip on his shoulder and a little attitude. Bob: Yes. Aaron: He came in and sat down on the desk in front of me. He said, “I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you do; but you can't make me go to class.” I said: “Well, I'm not the principal. I'm not the one that makes you do anything; but when you decide that you want to go to Brownwood High School, let me know.” He sat in front of me. He sat through first period, second period, and third period—and then the bell rang for lunch. He said, “Are you going to let me go eat?” 5:00 I said, “Man, you don't have any lunch because you're not enrolled.” [Laughter] I thought food would convince him that maybe he needs to get a class. He said, “Well, we'll just sit here then.” Then, after the last bell rang, I got hungry. [Laughter] We went to lunch, and that started the dialogue of who Melvin was. On the way to lunch, I noticed he had some biceps and triceps. So, on the way to lunch, I took him through the football gymnasium and dressing room. Something about a sock-smelling dressing room that goes into the head and nostril of a kid—and he said, “Do you think I could play football for Brownwood High School?” I said, “No way.” He said, “Why?!” “You won't go to class!” [Laughter] We go get a burger. We come back— 6:00 —we come back through the hall where all of the trophies and the pictures [are] on the wall. That was my high school alma mater by the way—and two of those championships, I was on—there was my picture. I said, “You see that guy there?” He said, “Don't tell me that was you.” I said, “Yes.” I said, “We won State Championship,”—pulled him by the coach's office. The coach began to talk to him—say, “Hey, isn't this the guy that's going to come play football?” I said, “No way.” He said, “Why?!” I said, “Because he won't”—and then Melvin punched me in the side. [Laughter] We walked off and Melvin said: “Hey, I'll make a deal with you. If you get me on the team, I'll go to class.” I got him on the team / he went to class, but my main assignment that day was to recover Melvin's lost credits. Many kids, across the country in foster care, these things happen. That's why the drop-out rate and the inability to finish high school are high amongst foster children. 7:00 Dennis: You know, you not only cared about his lost credits, you also cared about his lost soul. Aaron: Yes. Melvin had gotten into class, gotten on the football team, and had some success that year. Then, at the end of the year, something happened with his placement. CPS [Child Protective Services] called and said, “We're coming to get Melvin.” The school transferred the call to me. They said: “Would you prep Melvin because we're going to have to move him. We know he's having success, but something happened.” Before I could get to Melvin, the CPS worker had already gotten to the school and told Melvin that he's going to move. Melvin bolted out the door, ran to the side of the building, across the football field and was gone. The CPS worker came and said, “He probably is going to contact you because of relationship.” 8:00 That evening, I stayed at the school late. Melvin came in and sat in the same chair in front of my desk that he sat in the first day that he came to see me. He sat in that desk after running. Perspiration drenched his body / his clothes—running down his face. I couldn't tell the tears running down his face from the perspiration. We sat what seemed like 15 minutes but probably was only 15 seconds. Finally, he squeaked out these words—and they're the reason why I'm here today—he said, “Brother Blake, will you help me?” Well, I didn't understand what helping a 15-year-old in foster care was about. I had counseled folks with marriage, death and dying, jail—all kinds of situations—but never a foster kid that was in the system and had been in nine different placements since he was in high school. 9:00 Bob: Wow. Aaron: And now he was sitting in front of me. I said this to him—I said, “Melvin, if I could, I'd take you home with me.” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “You would take me home with you?” I said, “In a heartbeat.” I said, “But CPS is coming, and you have to go with them.” He said, “Okay.” I learned, six months later, that Melvin heard something that I didn't think I said; but I understood. Melvin told the caseworker that “Brother Blake said that I could come live with him.” [Laughter] They called me and they said, “Melvin said that you said he can come live with you.” I said, “Wow!” While I had the phone to my ear, I couldn't say, “No.” There was something happening in my spirit and in my heart that I couldn't say, “No.” At the same time, Mary was in my mind; and I couldn't say, “Yes.” [Laughter] 10:00 On the way home, now, I rehearsed over and over [Laughter] what I was going to say to Mary. At supper that night, she was just going off about everything. I didn't hear anything she said—[Laughter]—I was trying to figure out what I was going to say. Finally, I said, “Guess what happened to me today” [Laughter]; and then I told about Melvin. I didn't know that Melvin had been in her Sunday school class. She said, “You mean little Melvin doesn't have a home?” I said, “No.” She said, “Little Melvin that goes to school?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “I hope you told them ‘Yes.'” I literally almost fell out of my chair. I couldn't wait until the next morning to call CPS to tell them: “Hey, yes. Melvin can come.” 11:00 I called at 8:00 straight up and got voice mail; but anyway, finally when I got through, I said: “Tell Melvin, ‘Yes,' he can come and live with us. We're ready.” Then they said, “Are you a licensed foster parent?” Bob: The audience knows a little bit about that. Aaron: Yes. Well, I didn't know anything about it. I said, “What do you buy this at?” [Laughter] Well, we quickly found an agency and went through the process. Melvin came to live with us. That is how that story— Bob: That was the first of six foster sons—all of them foster sons—is that right? Aaron: Yes, all of them foster. Let me tell you this story quickly, if I can. Melvin played football. The outside tight end was a foster kid—blew his placement. At practice, Melvin went to him and said: “Don't worry about it. [Laughter] I know where you can go.” [Laughter] 12:00 But then, the outside line backer blew his placement— Dennis: Well, you know how many kids are on a football team. Aaron: Well, I do. [Laughter] So Melvin and Joseph go and say to Buck: “Don't worry about it guy. We can't lose you! We've got to win the playoffs.” [Laughter] So, he came to live with us. [Laughter] CPS called and says: “He has a brother. [Laughter] We love to keep siblings together”; and he came to us. Six boys later, our house was filled up. Dennis: You were a bi-vocational pastor at that time. Your church watched you do this. What was the impact on your congregation? Aaron: I went to my church. I stood up one Sunday—heart was heavy because, at that particular time, there were 30, 000 kids in the system in Texas. 13:00 I also noticed there were an over representation of African-American children—a dis-proportionality—that was also in the system. God began to deal with me that Sunday on the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation without restoration won't work. God has called us, because He's reconciled us by Christ to Himself, and given us the ministry of reconciliation. Then I say, “God, how can I really preach James 1:27, as undefiled religion without understanding restoration of families?—and restoration of children?” So, I stood up that Sunday in front of my congregation. I said, “Guys, how many of you here would help me stand up for orphans?” I didn't mean literally stand up; but a lady in the back stood up and said, “Pastor, I will.” Then another one stood up and said, “I will.” And another one stood up and said, “I will.” A year later, 36 kids were in our church because of Stand-Up Sunday. [Applause] 14:00 Dennis: That's cool. [Applause] Just real quickly—because there's one more of the six that you engrafted into your family that I want you to talk about—you're on a mission now about the entire state of Texas. Share just a quick—if you can—about how you're embodying the ministry of reconciliation there. Aaron: Well, the purifying part of James 1:27—that happened to Mary and I—is that we wanted to make sure that the body of Christ—across racial lines / across denominational lines—understand that the only way that we're going to really understand, as a body of Christ, and heal our nation, and our children, and broken families is reconciliation and restoration. 15:00 The church has been absent with foster care and adoption. They've been absent with racial reconciliation / family reconciliation. It's time for the church to stand up and say: “We are the voice. We have the ministry of reconciliation. And we're for restoring families.” [Applause] Dennis: You and I could fight for the soapbox, at this point, because I think this is a huge opportunity for the church. You are the church—we can make a difference in our individual communities. I want you to introduce us to a young man who you engrafted in—one of the six foster care boys that you cared for. Tell us about Diego. Aaron: Well, Diego, even when we—they would be upstairs at our house, and they would be [makes noises] doing all that kind of stuff. [Laughter] Dennis: Whoa, whoa, what was that? Aaron: [Makes noises again] “What's that?” That was what they were doing when they didn't have all the machines and all the stuff that made the sounds—they were rapping. 16:00 Dennis: Okay. Aaron: Diego would try to come up with lines and lyrics and all that kind of stuff. So, he started rapping back then. Diego was at one of our meetings—that we were having across the state—and I had never told because I didn't want our guys to be put on front street about an incident that happened. Mark had a candle in the window—wind blew in, caught the curtain, went up the wall, and our house burned down. We were having a meeting, like this, and telling folks that: “You need to step up. You need to become foster parents, and you need to adopt.” Then, Diego stands up and says, “We burnt the house down.” [Laughter] Dennis: Great advertisement for foster care; huh? Aaron: Yes! [Laughter] But Diego went on to say—he said, “I knew that my mom”—and he called me Pop—“and my dad, Pop, really loved us unconditionally the next morning after the fire.” 17:00 Well, the boys, the next morning, didn't want to go to school. I said, “What's going on?” They said this, “We do not want to go to school and see PS [Protective Services] come and pick us up at school and embarrass us.” He told the story: “I knew that Mom and Dad loved me because [emotion in voice] we have been moved from place to place for stuff less than that. We knew they loved us.” That's Diego. Bob: Hey, Pop, we've got a little surprise for you. Dennis: There's something the audience knows that you don't. [Diego walks out] Aaron: Oh! [Applause] My goodness! Diego: Love you, Pop. Aaron: I've been dreaming about this. [Applause] Bob: Diego, have a seat. Dennis: Diego, have a seat right here. Bob: We thought this young arsonist ought to come out [Laughter] and—tell these folks that morning when Pop said to you, “It is okay.” 18:00 Diego: Well, like he explained in the story—when we did burn the house down, [Laughter] we burned the house down! [Laughter] Honestly, man, we thought we were headed somewhere else. We thought we were going to another foster home or somewhere else. Man, when I tell you this—this man, after the house burned down—instead of coming to us, and fussing at us and stuff, he took us—the only place open was Walmart®—he just took us to Walmart—bought us some clothes to go to school the next day. So, we went to school. After school, we worked out. We didn't want to get back home because we knew that—hey, we were going somewhere else! The next thing you knew—we were going to a different—of course, your mom's house—moving us into your mom's house and like we were there. 19:00 He was like: “Y'all are my boys. Y'all are engrafted in. There isn't anything you can do to separate basically my love for you.” [Applause] Just being six boys that never had the type of love that [he] and Momma showed us—that love—that was just so awesome. It transformed our life, man. It really changed our destiny and the things that we are doing in life now. [Applause] Bob: You probably don't know this; but Dennis has a favorite assignment that he likes to give to folks, like you, that I think you can probably improv this on the spot. Do you [Dennis] want to give him the assignment? Dennis: Yes. You just heard him, without addressing you, break down, weeping about his love for you, and how proud he is of you, and the privilege of loving you. You've got him, face to face. You've got a chance to give him a tribute. Would you like to do it? 20:00 Diego: Yes. I'll give him a little something-something. [Laughter] I'll give him a little something-something. So, of course, y'all know about “engrafted” and I heard—I think you said something about your engrafted son—I was listening in the back. This man—when we first came to his house, he said, “You are not foster children.” He said, “You are engrafted into my home.” He said, “I'm your Pop and everything that belongs to me, it now belongs to you.” We took advantage of it, too, [Laughter] because we were engrafted in. He said: “The same way with the Kingdom—now, you're engrafted into the Kingdom of God. Everything that belongs to God now belongs to you, Diego.” Of course, I'm a gospel artist—I do gospel rap. I wrote a song called—I entitled my album Engrafted. It just reflects the love that he showed us and the love that God is showing me now. So, man, thank you Pops. I just love you! 21:00 [Studio] Bob: Well, we have had the opportunity today to hear a conversation that took place at the recent Christian Alliance for Orphans' Summit that was held in Nashville, Tennessee. For those of you who would be interested in seeing Diego Fuller do a rap song called Engrafted, we've got a link on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com to the music video that he has put together. You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.” You will see information about the brand-new Engrafted music video from Diego Fuller. There's also information, online, about the Christian Alliance for Orphans. If you'd like to find out more about their plans for next year's summit, follow the link on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com to the Christian Alliance for Orphans website. We also have resources available for those of you who are considering being foster parents or adoptive parents. 22:00 Look for the resources we have available when you go, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com and click the link that says, “GO DEEPER.” Maybe you're not considering adoption or foster care but you still have a heart for helping orphans in our world, we have information about different ways that individuals and churches can be involved in helping address the needs of orphans, all around the globe. Again, you‘ll find all of this when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.” Now, the month of August is a significant month for us, here at FamilyLife. It's actually the end of the year for us. We begin our fiscal year September 1st. So, we're about to close the books on fiscal 2015 and start a new year, fiscal 2016, in September. 23:00 The reason I mention that is because, when you get near the end of the fiscal year, one of the things you're always wondering is: “Will we have the money necessary to cover the budgeted expenses of this ministry?” So, we're asking you to consider making a yearend financial gift during the month of August to help us finish out our fiscal year in a healthy spot. That's easy enough to do. You can go, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper right-hand corner of our screen that says, “I CARE.” Or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY—make your donation over the phone. Or you can mail a donation to us at FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; and our zip code is 72223. By the way, when you make a donation right now, we'd like to say, “Thank you,” by sending you a book from Dennis and Barbara Rainey called Two Hearts Praying as One. 24:00 If you are making your first donation in 2015, in addition to the book, we'd like to add a prayer card that will help you know how to pray for one another in your family, especially when you're going through very difficult times, as a family. Again, all of that comes with our thanks for your support of this ministry. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about heading back to school. Barbara Rainey is going to be joining us tomorrow. We'll tackle some of the issues that families face as they get ready to head back to school. Hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2015 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

You and Me Forever (Part 1) - Francis and Lisa Chan

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2020 26:14

You and Me Forever (Part 1) - Francis and Lisa ChanYou and Me Forever (Part 2) - Francis and Lisa ChanYou and Me Forever (Part 3) - Francis and Lisa ChanFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Marriage in Light of Eternity Guests: Francis and Lisa Chan From the series: You and Me Forever (Day 1 of 3) Bob: You've heard the statistic that the divorce rate in the church is no different than the divorce rate outside of the church? Francis Chan says he's not buying it. Francis: Yes; I mean, I really believe there has never been a divorce between two Spirit-filled believers. They are using stats of everyone who goes to church / calls themselves a Christian, which—and, that's what the Bible / that's what Jesus says all the time: “I know you say that you are a believer. You call Me, ‘Lord,' but why do you call Me, ‘Lord,' when you don't do what I say? [emphasis added]” You know, the whole book of 1 John is—it doesn't matter that you say you know Him—because you don't obey His commands, you are a liar. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, January 22nd. Our host is Dennis Rainey; I'm Bob Lepine. To make a marriage work, Francis and Lisa Chan say it takes more than two—more than you and me. We'll talk with them about that today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. Let me just start off today, if I can, Dennis, by reminding our listeners about the special offer we're making this week on our Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways. If our listeners would like to join us at one of the fifty-plus upcoming getaways that we've got going on in cities all across the country this spring, sign up this week and save 50 percent off the regular registration fee. The offer expires this week. So take advantage of it by going to FamilyLifeToday.com; or call if you have any questions or if you'd like to register by phone. The number is 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the Weekend to Remember is a great getaway for husbands and wives—a great opportunity for you to get some uninterrupted time, where you're focusing on one another, focusing on your marriage, and having some fun in the process. Again, you can find out more at FamilyLifeToday.com; but make sure you register this week in order to take advantage of the special 50 percent offer we're making. 2:00 The website is FamilyLifeToday.com; or call if you have any questions: 1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life,” and then the word, “TODAY.” Now, I've got to be honest with you, Dennis. I have always wanted to meet one of our guests today, because I've always wanted to meet the woman who could be married to Francis Chan; you know? [Laughter] Dennis: Yes; I've wondered that as well! So, Lisa, welcome to the broadcast. [Laughter] Lisa: Thank you very much. Dennis: You've kind of wondered that, too, by now; haven't you? Lisa: Yes; what did I get myself into?—no. [Laughter] Dennis: Well, he's a good man, Francis. Lisa: Yes; he is! Dennis: Welcome back. Francis: Thank you. Dennis: We've had you on the broadcast, and we have battled— Francis: Yes. Dennis: —the soapbox in the middle of the table and the microphones as we talked about the Holy Spirit a number of years ago. Francis: That's right. Dennis: But you guys have written a fresh book called You and Me Forever. 3:00 It's subtitled, Marriage in Light of Eternity. Now, you may not know this, but our Weekend to Remember marriage getaway begins talking about the glory of God / the transcendent purpose of marriage as God intended it. Couples are learning that marriage is about more than just “you and me.” Bob: And most people think it's about them; don't they? Francis: Yes; marriage is such a small part of this bigger picture in Scripture. Bob: But be honest; you didn't have the bigger picture when you went to Lisa and proposed; did you? Francis: No, no, no; not at all. Dennis: You thought it was about you two; didn't you? Francis: Oh, yes! Absolutely. Bob: Tell us how you guys met and tell us how he popped the question, Lisa. Lisa: Well, I knew the worship pastor at the church that Francis was working at, at the time. He and I had kind of grown up at the same church—the worship pastor. So, he had me come over and sing. He, actually, is the one who started feeding both of us these lines of—for me, it was: “You've got to stop dating anyone else. Francis is the one for you.” 4:00 He was so confident! Dan, we thank you still. [Laughter] So, I came over—started going to the church a lot to play lead in their Christmas musical. Francis kind of found a way to ask me out. Francis: Yes; I asked if I could be a stage manager. I told—I was honest with the worship pastor—I go: “I don't really care about your play. I want to meet this girl.” [Laughter] Dennis: So, you paid off the guy, Dan, and told him to arrange the marriage? Francis: Oh, yes. He just gave me a little headset and said: “Hey, go. Meet her.”—you know? [Laughter] I seriously had no responsibilities except to ask her out. [Laughter] Bob: So, how did you—how long, after you asked her out, before you proposed? Dennis: No, no. I want to find out about the first date. Lisa? Lisa: Oh, the first date was great, because he planned it where it was Studio City. It was a far drive; there was a little traffic. It was during Christmas time, so we were listening to Amy Grant on the radio—[Laughter]—her Christmas tape or whatever— 5:00 —and just talking and talking. We went to dinner and just walked around these cute little shops. It was awesome! Bob: So, how long from Studio City and Amy Grant until you were standing at the altar together? [Laughter] Francis: Almost exactly a year; yes, from the first date to the time we got married. We met in December / got married the following January. Dennis: Did you know right away? Francis: Yes; pretty much—yes; after a few weeks, I was pretty convinced. Bob: And how long before you proposed? Francis: Well, we had to wait like five or six months, because it took a while to convince her parents that I was okay. [Laughter] That was the— Lisa: I was the youngest of five, so there was a little bit of having a hard time letting go. Francis: Yes; so they said, “No,” a couple of times to me. Dennis: Really?! Francis: Oh, yes. Dennis: So, you went to the dad— Francis: Oh, yes—asked for the blessing. Dennis: —and he said? Francis: “Nope.” [Laughter] I think my life—my mindset of just doing anything for the Lord / going anywhere—can be a little scary to parents. 6:00 Bob: And do you think your mom and dad were just a little worried about what this man might lead you into? Lisa: Yes; I think they were a little bit scared. You know, they didn't know him at all. So, it took a while: “Let's make sure we really know who he is; because maybe he's crazy for God, or maybe he's just crazy!” [Laughter] Dennis: So, how did you pop the question?—take us to the experience. Knowing Francis Chan, this can't be average. Francis: No; we were going to go waterskiing—back then, people still waterskied—[Laughter] with a bunch of friends. I had set up on this little island, in the middle of the lake—you know, nice little flowers and music. So she kind of knew, as we were walking up there; and it was playing our song, you know. I popped the question there. Bob: So, I want to go back to the first year of the Chan marriage. I want to go all the way back to the starting point, because you both loved God / you both were sold out to Him. 7:00 But you realized that marriage looks different from one side of the altar than it looks from the other side of the altar; right? Francis: Yes; you really do! But I will say, we were warned about so many things like: “Be careful of this. First year is going to be tough. This is going to be crazy.” I seriously felt little to none of that—it was like a dream come true—it really was—like: “Wow! I can't believe I get to be with my best friend. We never have to say goodbye.” It was a dream. Dennis: You clicked. Francis: Oh, yes. Dennis: You clicked together. Francis: Immediately. Dennis: What about you, Lisa? Lisa: Yes; I would totally agree. Although, I am having a flashback of the time he made me so mad that I threw my shoe at the closet just to get a real loud bang out of it. There were moments of just total pride, and selfishness, and silliness that first year; but we kept waiting for the shoe to drop: “When is this going to feel so awful and terrible?” Bob: And the shoe didn't drop, but it did get thrown. [Laughter] 8:00 Lisa: It did get thrown! [Laughter] Dennis: Did you throw it at him? Lisa: It was not at him. It was specifically to make a very loud noise. Bob: And what prompted the shoe throwing; do you remember? Lisa: That's what's so funny. My daughter was asking me that the other day—I said: “Honey, I can't even tell you. I cannot remember, even slightly, what it was about.” Francis: It was probably something I said. I was very sarcastic back then. [Laughter] Bob: You know, as I'm listening to you guys describe your first year, Mary Ann and I would be very similar. Our first year, we didn't hit the hiccups. We kind of enjoyed being with one another, just like you described. But I think it was probably—I don't know—maybe ten years into our marriage, when I was getting ready to prepare for a small group meeting that was going to happen at our house. Couples were coming over, and we were going to start a new study about marriage. I was doing some prep work that afternoon. I was reading through these passages and reading some of the stuff. It dawned on me that: “Oh! Marriage is supposed to be about God.” 9:00 We had said, as couple: “We want God to be at the center of our marriage. We want…” but there is a difference between having God at the center of your marriage and having marriage be about Him. Do you know what I'm saying? Francis: Yes; yes. Well, I mean, even in our marriage, we've, maybe, fought a dozen times?—then, it's only for a couple of hours, if that. Part of what prompted us to write this book was: “How come we don't fight?!” We realized, you know, it's because we haven't been focused on each other—I mean, from Day One. We were three weeks into the marriage when I felt like the Lord asked me to start a church—this is nothing we'd ever talked about—and to look at my new wife and say: “I feel like God wants me to do this. I know we never talked about it.” So, we did what we were told not to do which is: “Hey, don't get right into the ministry.” Well, we're three weeks in, going, “God wants me to start a church.” For Lisa to go: “You know what? I believe God called me to just support you in whatever way you are going to lead our family. So, if that is what you think God wants us to do, let's go.” 10:00 So, ever since the beginning, we've been thinking about others and: “How do we minister to people? How do we reach our neighborhood? How do we reach our city?” Because we've both been on this mission together, that's taken us all around the world now. It hasn't just been about, “Hey, you and me—you're not making me feel good,” / “I'm not making you feel good.” It's about, “Hey, we're here for a purpose.” As we've pursued that, it's caused us to be so in love with each other. Dennis: Lisa, what did you think when he came up with this vision; and it wasn't just a vision for him? It was also a transformational moment for you, because he was going to need you to go do something you weren't necessarily planning on. Lisa: Yes; I think—you know, it's so important for single women / young girls to watch and see that the man they are interested in or the man that they are dating is really walking with the Lord; because that gave me a lot of confidence to say: “You know what? I do trust God in you. 11:00 “I trust that He's showing you a plan / put something on your heart.” That's my role, then—I'm going to jump in; I'm going to roll my sleeves up and “Let's get to work. We need Sunday school teachers. We need to do a mid-week kids' program.” I mean, we were doing so much stuff; but it was so fun in a way, even though it was tiring, it was also just: “We love these people. Let's serve them. Let's do what God put on your heart.” I was so drawn to him, because he loved God in a way that was very different than a lot of the people I had been surrounded by in my own church setting. That is not to bad-mouth them, necessarily, but—wow!—it was like the way Francis would teach and preach, he had this fear of God and this reverence for the Word of God. In fact, before we got married, the best gift I have ever been given was this Bible that he gave to me a couple weeks before we got married. It had my married name inscribed on it; so it said “Lisa Chan” before I was Lisa Chan. And he wrote this whole letter inside of it to me: 12:00 “This is what we are going to commit our lives to. I want to see you wear this Bible out.” You know? Wow! What a gift, to have a husband with that kind of mindset; you know? Dennis: Francis, you believe that we have dumbed down marriage into this horizontal relationship of two people trying to make each other happy. What you and Lisa have written about, here, is that there is a transcendent purpose to marriage that is God-created / God-imbedded. If we miss this, we miss life. Francis: Absolutely. You know, we tend to focus on certain passages in Scripture and not others. When you look at what the Bible says about marriage—yes, Paul wrote Ephesians 5—but even that was really about Christ and the church. But Paul, who wrote that, also wrote 1 Corinthians 7 [verses 29-31], which says: “This is what I mean, brothers, the appointed time has grown very short. 13:00 “From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning; those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing; those who buy as though they had no goods”—and he goes on—“for the present form of this world is passing away.” He's saying: “Those who have wives—just live like you do not, because there is something bigger here. There is this mission—we've got this brief time here on earth, and this is what we've got to be about.” The Bible does talk about a marriage, but the emphasis is this marriage of the Lamb and this eternal marriage that we're going to be in. I mean, if we just sat and wrote down everything Jesus said—every time we wrote down, “husband” or “wife” or “family”—just wrote down all those verses, we'd be shocked! I mean, the way He speaks about family is: “I am so far beyond that. Yes; I created marriage. Yes; I created man and woman, and I want you to live this way. But the point of that is so that the world has a picture of this beautiful marriage that's going to happen one day and this picture of this beautiful Father that we have in heaven.” 14:00 We're just that shadow / we're just that glimpse; but too often, in the church, we make it all about us. It's killing our marriages. Dennis: A marriage that's operating under the authority of Scripture and attempting to live obediently under the Lordship of Christ—living under His authority, even though they are doing it imperfectly—should show God off to a lost world. Francis: Amen. Dennis: And I think it's going to be one of our most powerful witnessing tools in the Christian community, going forward. In fact, I think in one of the chapters, Lisa, you wrote about: “What would happen if marriages got it together and divorce was rare?” Lisa: Wouldn't that be so amazing to have the statistics be: “Wow! Those who belong to Christ / those who are following Christ—their divorce rate is next to nothing”? That is what would make sense, given what we know / what we believe—that we have the power of the Holy Spirit! 15:00 It's like, you know, you think of those times when the Apostles would say, “Brothers, this ought not to be!” That's what goes through our hearts: “People—believers out there—come on! This ought not to be. We've got to rise above and recognize who we are. We are God's children, who have been given His Spirit. We can live out our lives in a very different way.” Bob: Well, the interesting thing is—the statistics we've all heard—that marriage is the same in the church as it is outside the church—well, that's true if “in the church” means you ask a guy, “Are you a Christian?'” Lisa: Yes; right. Francis: Amen. Bob: But if you ask a guy: “Do you go to church every week? Do you read your Bible? Do you pray together?” Now, all of a sudden, the marriage statistics are completely different because believers, who are walking with Christ, recognize, “It ought not be,” and they are living for something different. Francis: Yes; I mean—I really believe there has never been a divorce between two Spirit-filled believers. 16:00 Never in history has there been two Spirit-filled people—people walking in the Spirit—who have gotten divorced. It's impossible! There's only one Spirit. So, one person has to be just not walking with Him in order to leave. I completely agree with you—they're using stats of everyone who goes to church— Bob: Right. Francis: —or calls themselves a Christian—which, that's what the Bible / that's what Jesus says all the time: “I know you say that you are a believer. You call Me, ‘Lord,' but why do you call Me, ‘Lord,' when you don't do what I say?” The whole book of 1 John is—it doesn't matter that you say you know Him; because you don't obey His commands, you are a liar. Bob: Well, in fact, you say in the book that couples who say they have marriage problems need to recognize: “It's not a marriage problem. It's a God problem.” Francis: Amen. Bob: Unpack what you mean by that. Francis: Bottom line—Lisa and I both have made a commitment, individually, to God. I mean, she knows I'm not going to leave her—I can't. I mean, before the Lord, we are going to work everything out. In the same way, she has that same mindset. 17:00 We have this understanding, before the Lord, where He fills my every need, like Psalm 23 says, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” I am not like desperately needing Lisa to fill all of these holes in my life, because I'm such a needy person. The Lord is wonderful! I know the Creator of the universe! I'm going to be with Him forever! I've got everything in my possession. So, He's given me so much life—life to the full—that I just have life to give, and give, and give. I don't wake up in the morning, going, “Gosh, I need so much from Lisa.” I'm filled in the Lord, and I have life to give to her. The same is true for her. When people understand that, then they are not sucking the life out of one another and needing so much from one another; but they are getting their water from this fountain of life, which is God Himself. 18:00 Lisa: Well, and that's why it's so important, too, for those who are in a marriage, where only one of them is spiritually-minded—and they do not have a believing husband or wife—to say: “You know what? It is still very possible for you to display the gospel alone.” There is some loneliness involved in that, and that's not something we make light of; but it is still very, very possible for you to receive what you need from Christ and to love this other person and to display—to the world, to your children, to the people around you—what it means to follow Christ and to display the gospel, even on your own. Dennis: I've known a number of women and men, who have been in marriages like you are describing. I think they are among the most courageous in persevering. Lisa: Yes. Dennis: It is not easy—it is painful / it is lonely. They are not sharing the most important thing about their lives. Lisa: Yes. Dennis: I want to go back to something you just said, Francis—that I just want to put a double underline under. There are two commitments that Barbara and I have made that completely altered our lives—certainly, our marriage covenant—where we decided, “We are not going to leave one another.” 19:00 But some months after we made our marriage covenant together publicly, and became married, we experienced our first Christmas together. We did something that Bill and Vonette Bright, who are the founders of Cru®, did when they started out their marriage. We signed a contract with God—a title deed. We signed over the rights and authority of our lives to Almighty God. It wasn't like it was a permanent contract, where we couldn't renege; because every day, you've got to get up and re-up on your contract and agree. But we signed formal papers—two handwritten pieces of paper—where we gave everything we had and hoped to have to God, afresh, as Master and Lord of our lives. At that point, Francis, it's like—once you've settled the issue of ownership— Francis: Yes. Dennis: —“Who is going to be your master? Who's going to be your lord?” 20:00 Because if you are serving self—and you've got two people, in the most intimate relationship of all of human history / marriage—you've got two people, who are serving self, you know where that's headed. But if you've got two people, who are attempting to bow their necks / their wills before Almighty God and say: “God, would You show up? Would You do Your work in us and through us? Let us minister to each other, but also”—as you've said—“to the world.” That's when a couple, I think, experiences the pleasure of God. Francis: Amen. I mean, there's something about getting your eyes off yourself and onto God and on His mission that just—I mean, it's beautiful to me! It's gorgeous to me when I see my wife serving other people. I just look at her, like, “Gosh, look what she is doing!” You know, being in Africa and watching her—putting shoes on orphans; or feeding them; or counseling some lady in crisis; or walking around, knocking on doors and just asking, “Can I pray for you?” with a baby on her back— 21:00 —it is like, “Gosh; she's amazing!” Or coming home and saying: “Honey, is it okay if this person comes and lives with us? I know he just got out of prison, but…” For her to say, “Yes, yes; we trust in the Lord.” It just makes her more and more attractive to me, because I see her love for Jesus and her faith in His reward. Dennis: Francis, as you were bragging on Lisa, I just reflected on a meeting I was in yesterday, where I was bragging on Barbara. She has a heart for great theology passed on through women—wives/moms—into their families. She's using her artistic ability to create biblically-anchored resources around the holidays that families celebrate to take families back to the Christian roots and allow women—wives, moms, grandmothers—to pass on the truth of the gospel to the next generation and beyond through those traditions. 22:00 I was just bragging on her and, frankly, got kind of emotional about it—because, like you, when you were just smiling as you were talking about Lisa visiting an orphanage / when you see your wife fulfilling what God's design is for her—it can't help but make you proud because you're a team. That's what marriage is—it's a couple who are about God's purposes. Bob: You know, I'm just sitting here thinking about the fact that central to what we talk about at our Weekend to Remember marriage getaways is the whole idea of oneness in marriage. That's exactly what you're talking about here—the two of you being in alignment with one another because you're both in alignment with God and His purposes for you and for our world. That's where oneness comes from. I, again, just want to take a minute and remind our listeners about the special opportunity they have this week to sign up for an upcoming Weekend to Remember marriage getaway. This is a great opportunity for you, as a couple, to block out some time to spend a weekend together and to grow together in your understanding of God's design for marriage. 23:00 If you sign up this week, you save 50 percent off the regular registration fee. That offer expires this weekend; so take advantage of the special offer we've got by going to FamilyLifeToday.com—registering online—or call if you'd like to register by phone: 1-800-FL-TODAY. Be a part of an upcoming Weekend to Remember. We've got more than 50 of these happening in cities all across the country. So join us at one of our getaways. Again, 1-800-FL-TODAY is the number to call, or go online at FamilyLifeToday.com. Let me also encourage you to get a copy of Francis and Lisa Chan's book, You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity. It's a book that we have in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. We're happy to send you a copy. You can visit us, online, to order at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call 1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800”-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” 24:00 Now, tomorrow, we want to talk about what happens in a marriage when you're not on the same page—when one of you thinks God's leading in one direction and the other one thinks, “No, I don't think so.” You guys had this happen, and we want to talk with you about it. Our guests, Francis and Lisa Chan, will be back with us again tomorrow. We hope you can be back with us as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. See you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife® of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru® Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2018 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

christmas god jesus christ family father lord master interview bible spirit marriage africa holy spirit brothers creator parenting suffering forever psalm scripture corinthians overcome ephesians redemption tragedy lamb arkansas apostles eternity couples laughter encouraging copyright day one chan his spirit family life god himself lordship little rock almighty god mary ann cru amy grant francis chan studio city family life today bob lepine dennis rainey me forever bob you lisa chan lisa it bob well lisa yes laughter so lisa well bob so lisa oh fl today

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 1) - Rosaria Butterfield

Unthinkable Courageous Stories

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2020 25:16

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 1) - Rosaria ButterfieldSecret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 2) - Rosaria ButterfieldSecret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 3) - Rosaria ButterfieldFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. A Train Wreck Conversion Guest: Rosaria ButterfieldFrom the series: Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Day 1 of 3) Bob: In 1997, Dr. Rosaria Champagne was a tenured professor at Syracuse University. She was a committed feminist who had no real belief in God. There was one other aspect to her story that made her an unlikely convert. Rosaria: I, at the time that I started reading the Bible, and I, at the time that I started meeting with a Christian pastor, was in a lesbian relationship. It wasn't just my first lesbian relationship. I fully embraced the lesbian community. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, September 16th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Dr. Rosaria Champagne is now Dr. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a pastor's wife and a homeschooling mother of four adopted children. We'll hear her journey this week. Stay with us. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. You remember me coming to you a few months ago and going, “I have just read an amazing story;” right? Dennis: Right. And Barbara had read it, as well. Bob: Yes. And this is—in fact, I would say—I try to keep a running list of books that I read during the year. I would say this is still at the top of my 2013 list—this book—because it's just—it's a great story—but the greatness of the story is the transformation that takes place in what we're going to hear about today. Dennis: Yes. It's not often you hear someone refer to their conversion to Christ as a train wreck; but our guest, [Laughter] on today's broadcast, describes it that way. Rosaria Butterfield joins us on FamilyLife Today. Rosaria—welcome to our broadcast. Rosaria: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here with you. Dennis: I remember when Bob walked in—and I was getting it from him, here at the office—and Barbara had read a review of your book. She said, “This is something you ought to do radio on.” First of all, just to introduce you to our listeners, Rosaria has been married to her husband, Kent, since 2001. They have four children. She is a former English professor who was tenured at Syracuse University. That's kind of where we're going to go back to—to start this story. Rosaria: Okay. Dennis: And she has written a book called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, subtitled An English Professor's Journey into the Christian Faith. Bob: And it's not unusual that English professors would come to Christ [Laughter]—but your particular interest and lifestyle, back in the 90's—that's what made your conversion unlikely; isn't it? Rosaria: Yes, definitely. So, just a quick answer would be, “Definitely.” When I first started reading the Bible, I was reading the Bible because I was working on a post-tenure book. It was a lesbian, feminist critique of the Bible. I was concerned about the rise of the religious right. I was threatened by the rise of the religious right, and I wanted to read this book that got all these people into trouble. So, that's where I started. But I guess, because my life just seemed sort of boring and normal to me, I find it sort of strange [Laughter] sometimes that my journey seems so odd; but I guess that's— Dennis: Well, let's just peel it back a little bit. Rosaria: Okay, let's peel it back. Dennis: Let's talk about—you were a feminist. Rosaria: Oh, yes, absolutely. Dennis: Yes. Rosaria: Yes, committed. Dennis: Explain what kind of feminist. I mean—there is a spectrum. Rosaria: There's a spectrum, absolutely. I firmly believed that a feminist world and life view was a moral and ethical approach to living and, in fact, one that would get us out of so many of the problems that we were facing. When I looked at the world—and I saw racism, and homophobia, and violence of all kinds—you know, there was no way I could look at this world and say, “Oh, you know, obviously, a loving God is in control of it.” So, I—like many, many other people—rolled up my sleeves and said, “Okay, how are you going to think our way of it?” So, feminism, to me, was a very broad umbrella that allowed for the pursuit of individual rights, within what I perceived to be a moral framework. Dennis: And you viewed Christians as— Rosaria: Dangerous. Dennis: Dangerous; okay. Rosaria: Dangerous, anti-intellectual people. Dennis: Yes. They weren't thinkers, and they weren't readers—you wrote about it in your book. Rosaria: Right. And that was—that's not very nice; is it? [Laughter] I am a Christian right now and I could be in charge of the self-help group: “Over-Readers Anonymous”. So, it's not nice to say; but that was my perception. My perception was—as a university professor, I met a number of Christians—this is how these people came across. Now, whether they came across this way because I was deep in my sin or whether this is an accurate portrayal, I will let you all decide. But folks who would tell me that Jesus is the answer—without caring to even hear about what some of my questions might be—you know, questions and answers go together. There is a logical relationship between the two. Or when the Bible was invoked, it was often invoked in the same way that I might invoke a punctuation mark—to end a conversation rather than deepen it. Well, that seemed pretty fear-driven to me. I didn't like it. And then, finally, my biggest concern, though, was the fact that the Bible—many, many people knew what the Bible said, or believed they did—but nobody could tell me why it was true. So, it seemed, to me, just a strange mixture of superstition and patriarchy—where God, the Father, and—the god of patriarchy—came together to oppress people like me. As a university professor, one of my jobs was to be on a war against stupid. So, this is where my war took me, guys. [Laughter] Bob: Your presupposition in life was: “If we can liberate women and eliminate patriarchy”— Rosaria: Yes. Bob: —“then, we will solve many of the evils that we are facing in our world today.” Rosaria: Right; absolutely. Back it up, even further—my belief was that people were inherently good and that the right to individual choice-making was an inherent good. There were material structures that stood between good people making good choices. Feminism, combined with Marxism, offered a way of unlocking that potential. That is what I believed. Bob: Somewhere, in your life, your feminist/Marxist presuppositions and your personal sexuality collided. Rosaria: Yes, they did. That's right. So, the big story for some people—which is not a big story for me, but that's okay—the big story for some people was that I, at the time that I started reading the Bible, and I, at the time that I started meeting with a Christian pastor, was in a lesbian relationship. And it wasn't just my first lesbian relationship. I fully embraced the lesbian community. It sort of snuck up on me. I don't know how else to say it. I was not—I know people who would say when they were nine years old they remember feeling attracted to people of the same sex. I do not remember that. I don't remember feeling attracted to anything but books and horses. [Laughter] So, I went off to college; but when I went to college, I met my first boyfriend. That was a very heady experience. I defined myself as heterosexual and presumed that I would have a heterosexual life. Now, I was also a feminist. I was not keen on marriage. I did not think I would ever want to get married, or have children, or any of that. But I had said to myself, at that point when I met my first lesbian lover, that: “I'm not going back. You know, this is a more moral choice. I am happier. I can be myself.” I loved being in a relationship with somebody who shares my—truly, my world and life view. So, I thought that I was there for life. That's part of why I wasn't a closeted lesbian. My research program went from 19th century feminist studies and it moved into Queer Theory—which is a post-modern, post-structural extension of gay and lesbian studies. So, I went on record as a queer theorist and published articles in that vein. Dennis: You scooted past a statement that I want to stop— Rosaria: [Laughter] Okay, I didn't mean to. Dennis: —and just have you unpack a bit. Rosaria: Okay. Dennis: You said, “It was a more moral”— Rosaria: I did. Dennis: —“choice.” Rosaria: I know. Dennis: How can this be a more moral faith when someone has a post-modern view,— Rosaria: Right; right. Dennis: —which doesn't believe in absolutes? Rosaria: Right. That's right. Well, morality doesn't depend upon absolutes. Morality depends, especially within a post-modern context, on decency for the moment. There are a number of things that you do not have to worry about in the lesbian community. For the most part, you do not have to worry about sexually-transmitted diseases, and you do not have to worry about unplanned pregnancy. That cleans up a whole lot of things for women. In fact, I remember being at a gay pride march once. There was a placard from the Christian community. After the Leviticus verse—that everybody has to quote, of course—the placard said: “AIDS is God's curse on homosexuality.” Then, there was another placard—a responsive placard, from the gay and lesbian community, that said: “If AIDS is God's curse on homosexuality, then, lesbians must be God's chosen people.” Dennis: Because you can't get it? Rosaria: Not in your vanilla forms of lesbian sexuality; no. No, you just can't. Bob: You also just made the statement that some people kind of consider what we're talking about here to be at the crux of your story, but you don't. Rosaria: Right. I don't. I don't, but I will entertain this. [Laughter] I'm also— Bob: You were a feminist, lesbian, queer theorist, tenured professor—and you don't see that as kind of integral to the whole idea of the transformation that's about to happen in your life. Rosaria: Sure. Sure. Sure. It's integral; but see, the train wreck was about my heart. The train wreck was about starting out with this premise that this book—the Bible, here—was filled with contradictions. It was an oppressive treatise against women, and African Americans, and everybody else in between. It was sentimental in some places. It was mythological in some places; but it was hardly, hardly, hardly the backdrop of a world view that anybody could sustain. I went from believing that firmly to many years later—after reading it through many, many times, meeting with a pastor, meeting with various other members of this church community—to seeing this book as an organic whole, whose canonicity was more solid than any other canonicity I had ever come up against—that had an organic revelation that started from Genesis, ended with Revelation—that offered an invitation to me—me?—me of all people?! Right?—that one!—to enter into a covenant with a holy God, Who would reveal His will for my life and to Whom I could share prayers, that He would hear. That is the story. Dennis: Okay. Let's go back, then, to a little men's group that came to Syracuse University. Promise Keepers— Rosaria: Yes, they did. Dennis: —came to town— Rosaria: They came to town. Dennis: —and held a giant rally on the university. Rosaria: Right. Dennis: And you, being the proud feminist that you were, did what? Rosaria: Well, you know—I don't know that—being the proud feminist. I was on a war against stupid. So, what I did is—I spent ten minutes of my precious time, and I knocked out an editorial to the newspaper. I presumed it would be a little dinky editorial and that nobody would ever see it. Well, they gave me a full page. It generated a great deal of rejoinders. Bob: Your editorial said: “Syracuse should have nothing to do with these patriarchs coming to our campus.” Rosaria: It did, and it even called them a cult. It—you know, I was just being myself, gentlemen! [Laughter] I don't know what else to say! Yet, I got all kinds of responses and— Dennis: And you had two boxes— Rosaria: I did. Dennis: —or two sections on your desk. Rosaria: Right—no boxes because I don't like a messy desk—right. You've got to keep it on the ground. This was back in the days when you had Xerox boxes—I was using that expression; and someone said, “What's a Xerox box?” [Laughter] That dates me so much, but I did! I had two Xerox boxes. One, I kept for hate mail. One, I kept for fan mail. Then, this one letter came in. It wasn't hate mail, and it wasn't fan mail. I had to figure out what to do with it. Bob: And the first thing you did with it was wad it up and throw it in the trash? Rosaria: Yes, absolutely; absolutely. Well, I don't think I wadded it up because it was going to go in the recycling bin—because I was a good feminist! It was not going to go in the trash! Come on, gentlemen! [Laughter] Bob: So, you put it in the recycle bin. Rosaria: Work with me. Work with me. Bob: Well, what did this letter, that didn't fit either box, say? Rosaria: Well, it was kind; and it was gentle. Yet, it was also clearly written from a Christian world and life view. It was from Ken Smith, who is my dear friend and became my first pastor. But at that time, he was just this dude who wrote me a letter. It asked me some basic questions that were genuine questions, and he wasn't answering those questions for me. I admired that. I really liked that. I was also a good user, at the time. I admired the fact that here was somebody who knew a lot about the Bible. I was going to need to read the Bible for my new research project; and I thought, “Well, you know, I'll bet this is somebody who could help me with my research.” At the bottom of the letter, Ken asked me to call him back; and so, I did. I thought these were questions that needed to be aired on the phone. We had such a lively conversation on the phone—that he invited me to come to his house for dinner. Sometimes, people don't know this—but the gay and lesbian community is also a community quite given to hospitality. I tell people this—that I'm a pastor's wife now. I believe, strongly, that hospitality is just the ground zero of the Christian life, and of evangelism, and of everything else that we do, apart from the formal worship of God. But I tell people that I honed my hospitality gifts in my former queer community. So, when Ken invited me to have dinner with him—that seemed really like a great idea. He already seemed like my kind of people. Bob: But you came with a little bit of a chip on your shoulder—a bottle of wine under your arm; right? Rosaria: Well, but that was normal! I didn't realize—see, now, I'm a teetotaler; but then, I wasn't! [Laughter] Dennis: But describe your haircut. You said— Rosaria: I did. I had a butch haircut. Yes, yes. And yes—and I had the bumper stickers. I mean, I did realize, that when I pulled my car into his driveway, you know—“What was the— Bob: “What were the neighbors going to think?” You were kind of proud of the fact that the neighbors might be a little bit— Rosaria: Well, you know what? Here's what I discovered in Ken's house. That door was always opening and closing. People, from all walks of life—I met them at that table. I did not meet Christians who shared a narrowly-bounded, priggish world view. That is not what I met. I met people who could talk openly about sexuality and politics and did not drop down dead in the process. Bob: You know what? When I first read your book, one of the things I got most excited about was the model of Ken Smith. Rosaria: Oh, yes, absolutely. Bob: I just—I was high-fiving and going, “We need to read this, all of us, to understand: ‘Here's how you do this.'” Dennis: “Here's how you engage somebody who doesn't think and believe like you do.” Rosaria: That's right. Bob: Yes. Rosaria: But you have to understand that was normal for Ken. Ken didn't say: “Oh great! We're going to have the lesbian over for dinner. Let's be sure to share the Gospel as soon as she walks through the door!” or, “Let's….” He—this was normal for Ken. Ken cares about the heart. In fact, I found Ken's business card in one of the books I was looking at for some writing that I'm doing. The business card said: “When you're ready to talk about God, give me a call.” That's what the business card says. It's just—that's how Ken was. It is how Ken is. There's a book out, right now—that many people are reading. I love it. I'm reading it. I'm getting some of my neighbors to read it. It's called The Art of Neighboring. Before that book, there was Ken Smith—he and Floy, his wife—his beautiful, wonderful wife, who is my first spiritual mother—that's what they did. So, I became a regular at Ken's house; and Ken and Floy became a regular at my house. They did two startling things the first time I had dinner at their house—two things that were against the rule book that I believed all Christians followed. They did not share the Gospel with me, and they did not invite me to church. But, at the end of our dinner, when Ken extended his hands, and I closed mine in it, he said: “We're neighbors. Neighbors should be friends.” I found myself being in complete agreement with Ken. Also, Ken had a way of asking questions; and he had an authority—you know, I had been in a queer community. I had been in a feminist community. In my community, women ran the show. I had not encountered a man like Ken in my whole life. I found that his gentle authority—that when he asked me a question—in fact, I left his house that night and I thought: “I cannot believe you said those things, Rosaria! Why did you give him all that material?!” I found myself actually answering his questions honestly instead of answering with the programmed— Bob: The party line. Rosaria: The party line, exactly. Dennis: Your defenses were down because he had done a good job of loving you. Rosaria: That's right. And you know what? It started with the prayer. I had heard plenty of prayers before—Planned Parenthood, gay pride marches—you know the prayers that the crumbs are there for the heathen, like me, to hear. I had heard—I could have written—you know those are hermeneutic; right? I'm an English professor. I love to study different art forms: “There is an art form to that prayer.” That was not Ken's prayer. It was vulnerable and honest. He prayed to a God Who is not a god I had ever been introduced to. One of the things Ken asked me that night—and I still cannot believe I actually answered him honestly!—I mean, it was just so—it was so out of character for me—but he asked me—he said: “Well, what do you really believe? I mean, do you really—you know, you just really don't believe in anything? What do you really believe?” I said: “I don't know what I believe. I was raised Catholic, and I'm now a Unitarian. I don't really know what I believe,” which was true but not anything I had said out loud. Dennis: You know, your story is a great reminder, I think, to each of us, who are followers of Jesus Christ—that we need to be using our homes— Rosaria: Yes, that's right. Dennis: —to be more hospitable and to reach out with kindness; but as we do that—maybe, instead of providing the answers to people—instead, as he did with you, ask a few questions to find out where the other person really is— Rosaria: Right. Dennis: —and what do they believe and not believe. I think, sometimes, we are so zealous, on behalf of the truth, we want to get to the bottom line— Rosaria: That's right. Dennis: —and if you're going to do that in an effective way, you first of all have to find out where you deliver the bottom line. The best way to do that is by asking some great questions. Rosaria: That's right. Bob: Well, and the story is not over yet. In fact, this week, we're going to hear more of this conversation; but you've really shared your journey in the book you've written called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. We've got copies of the book in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. Go online, at FamilyLifeToday.com, for more information about how to get a copy of the book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. You can also order by calling 1-800-FL-TODAY, 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800- “F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then, the word, “TODAY”. Now, I know this time of year tends to be a time when families get really busy. There's a lot going on. School is back in. There are activities for the kids. The calendar is crowded; and you start to think, “We just can't do it all!” We talked with a mom, a number of months ago, who decided to call a moratorium on extracurricular activities for the family for a year. They took a one-year sabbatical from those kinds of extra activities. She shared with us that strategy and how it impacted her family. If you can help us with a donation at FamilyLife Today, this month, we'd like to say, “Thank you,” by sending you a copy of that conversation that we had with Joanne Kraft about life being just too busy; and we'd also like to send a copy of Dr. Tim Kimmel's book, Little House on the Freeway. Again, this is for a donation to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We're asking you to donate $25 or more; and we'll be happy to send you these two gifts as our way of saying, “Thank you for your support of this ministry.” Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the button that says, “I CARE”, to make an online donation; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY and make your donation over the phone. When you do, just mention that you'd like to receive the bundle on busyness. We'll be happy to send that to you. We do appreciate your support of this ministry, and we're thankful that you're a partner with us. And we hope you can join us back again tomorrow when we'll continue our conversation with Rosaria Butterfield. We're going to hear how she wound up in a local church, hearing the Gospel and responding to what she heard. I hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2013 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 1

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2019 27:02

Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 1Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 2Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 3FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Love Finds a Way to the Philippines Guest: Gracia BurnhamFrom the series: In the Presence of My Enemies (Day 1 of 3) Bob: Martin and Gracia Burnham had served for years as missionaries in the Philippines. Back in 2002, they got away for a few days of rest and recuperation when, one morning, the door of the cabin where they were staying was kicked in. Gracia: We knew that we were in big trouble, and we knew that we were being kidnapped; but we didn't know by whom. And then, when we realized it was the Abu Sayyaf, we knew what was going to happen because everyone follows all those hostage situations. It's like one starts, and then it ends. Everybody breathes easy for a bit. Then another one starts, and another one ends; and here it was us in the middle of this. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll hear from Gracia Burnham today about the events that led up to the kidnapping and the 12-month hostage ordeal that she and her husband went through. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. It was back more than a decade ago that we had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Gracia Burnham. Together, with her husband, Martin, Gracia had been held captive for more than a year by Islamic terrorists in the Philippines. Her story had been followed by the American media. It was a powerful, compelling story and a story of God's grace and His very real presence in the midst of suffering. We thought it would be good to revisit that story and listen back to what stands out for us as one of the most compelling programs we've featured on FamilyLife Today in our 20-plus years of ministry. 2:00Here is Part One of our interview with Gracia Burnham, originally recorded in 2003. [Previously Recorded Interview] Dennis: We are going to feature a story over the next couple of days, Bob, that, personally, I've been looking forward to hearing the rest of the story. I don't know that I've ever heard of a couple getting away for a romantic weekend that was interrupted in such a dramatic way. I mean, picture yourself in full-time ministry overseas and needing a break. Now, that occurs in missionary staff, and they need to get a break. So this couple decided that they would find a cool spot. They found a cool spot and were sleeping when there was a [knocking sound] at the door. 3:00 And the rest of the story is—man! It's a story of faith, of courage, of suffering that—well, I was riveted by the book, In the Presence of My Enemies, written by Gracia Burnham. And Gracia joins us on FamilyLife Today. Gracia: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Dennis: Gracia, I really have been looking forward to meeting you. Barbara watched me read your book; and she said, "That must really be good!" Bob: A page-turner? Dennis: It is. Gracia and her husband Martin served with New Tribes Missions for more than 17 years. Gracia: Yes. Dennis: They have three children. I want you to tell us about that romantic getaway. You really needed it; didn't you? Gracia: Well, yes. New Tribes Mission Aviation—Martin was a jungle pilot—had been after Martin to become their new chief pilot from the Philippines. He'd just been in the States two weeks. 4:00 The Palawan pilot's dad died. That pilot had to go home to the States for a funeral, which meant that there were Bible translators that needed to get from one village to another; and there were kids that needed to get home from Faith Academy—there was a busy flight schedule on Palawan. Martin called me from the States and said: "I'm not going to be able to come home. I'm going to have to go to Palawan and fly." So, I cleared up my schedule and went to meet him in Palawan. I got someone to take care of the kids where we live, but I knew that he would have jet lag and would need some time to rest. Bob: Right. Gracia: So I called our co-workers on Palawan and said, "Where is a good place where we can go for, you know, just even 24 hours, so Martin can rest, and sleep, and get ready for a heavy flight schedule?" They told me about Dos Palmas, a resort that was an island all of its own, off the coast of Palawan. 5:00 To get there, you had to take kind of a fishing vessel. I told my friends to book us in, and then they told me the price. It was right on the tip of my tongue to say, "Oh, could you just find us a place in town?" And I didn't say it because our anniversary was coming up; and I justified the cost by saying, “This will be our anniversary treat.” And we did. We went to Dos Palmas and had a wonderful time—a beautiful meal / it was really, really nice—and went to bed that night. Then, even before dawn the next morning, that knock on the door—the pounding on the door—woke us up. Three men with M-16s ran into the room and took Martin immediately out. Then a guy came over to me, and pointed his weapon at me, and said in English, "Go, go, go!" 6:00 I said: “No, no, no! I don't have clothes on.” I was just trying to grab something right there by the bed. I grabbed what I'd had on at the beach the night before—just shorts and a t-shirt. They took me right out the door. They emptied all the little cottages that we were staying in that were on stilts over the water. When they emptied all those out, there were 20 of us hostages—3 Americans and the rest were Filipinos. As we pulled away from the dock, they raised their weapons in the air. I guess there were about 15 of these guys. We knew, right away, it was the Abu Sayyaf. They're a Muslim terrorist organization which funds itself by kidnapping and ransom. Dennis: Yes. Gracia: But they'd never been known to be on Palawan. 7:00 We always avoided the hot spots in the Philippines. For some reason, the Abu Sayyaf chose Palawan and Dos Palmas. Bob: So, was it not until that moment on the boat, with the guns raised, that you knew who these people were and what the agenda was? Gracia: Yes, that's when we knew who they were. Bob: Prior to that, when somebody is in your bedroom with a gun pointed at you, what are you thinking? Gracia: Well, we knew we were in big trouble. We knew that we were being kidnapped, but we didn't know by whom. Then, when we realized it was the Abu Sayyaf, we knew what was going to happen because we read the newspapers. A year before, they had taken a bunch of European business people from an island down closer to Malaysia, and everyone follows all those hostage situations. It's like one starts, and then it ends; and here it was us in the middle of this. 8:00 Dennis: Let's leave the speedboat for a moment, and let's go back to when you and Martin met—all the way back to the beginning of your relationship. Gracia: Yes. Dennis: You both were really missions-minded from the very beginning; weren't you? Gracia: Yes, we were. Martin grew up on the mission field. His parents are tribal missionaries. When Martin was a little boy, they moved their family to the Philippines and started working with the Ibaloi tribe—a tribe up in the mountains, where there are no roads. To reach those people, they built a small airstrip. That's how they would get their supplies—a pilot in a bush plane would bring their supplies, and their medicines, and stuff to them.Dennis: Martin grew up with that? Gracia: Martin grew up there. He went off to boarding school at Faith Academy, which was a very common thing to do back then—people didn't really home school back then. 9:00 Dennis: Yes. Gracia: When he graduated from high school, he went to Calvary Bible College in Kansas City. That's where I met him. I was a Calvary student, and we got to know each other. I liked Martin because he was different. A lot of the guys I knew—you know, they really cared about how they looked and had to be—we didn't us the word, "preppy," back then, but they were—you could tell they were just trying their best to be preppy. [Laughter] Well, Martin truly wasn't. He loved jeans, and flannel shirts, and cowboy boots. He was just himself, and I just really liked that. We got to know each other and— Dennis: It started out as a friendship. Gracia: Yes; yes, for sure. Dennis: And then when did he ask you out? Gracia: Ha! Dennis: When it really became a relationship—you became an item for him. Gracia: Well, I broke up with this guy—you know the story—my heart was broken. 10:00 I had just broken up with this guy and thought: “You know, I will never date again. That's it—my life is ruined." And the very next day, Martin walked into the Dean's office, where I was the Dean of Students' secretary, and asked me if I wanted to go to the fall concert, of all things. Well, I decided to say, “Yes.” Dennis: Your broken heart was not healed, but— Bob: A little salve on it pretty quick. [Laughter] Did you, prior to knowing Martin, did you have a missions' orientation? Gracia: Oh, I did. My favorite books were the books about Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor—you know, who went into tribes in Africa and told the chief off. Those were my heroes. [Laughter] I always had a heart for missions. 11:00 Bob: So, your friendship with Martin, which was beginning to grow and increase / his friendship with you, growing and increasing—both of you with a heart for the field—there had to be conversations, in those early days, about where you thought you were both headed in service to the Lord. Gracia: Yes, I'm sure there were. I just really fell in love with him, truly. I was thrilled that he was going to be a missionary; but if he had chosen to be an airline pilot, I would have been happy with that because I just wanted to be with him—if that makes any sense. Dennis: And you were married. Gracia: Yes. Dennis: And how long, then, before you headed off on your overseas adventure? Gracia: We crop-dusted for one summer in Nebraska so he could get some real good training for the mission field. Then we, right after that, we went into New Tribes Mission training; and their training is quite extensive. 12:00 You go to—they call it Missions Institute now—it used to be called Boot Camp. You go for a year of Boot Camp just to see if you can live in Spartan conditions—I guess is what you would call it. Bob: Well, I have to imagine a young bride at Boot Camp. Gracia: Oh, my goodness! Yes! [Laughter] Bob: You know—part of the romance of being married—you can think about: “The mission field will be exciting. It will be fun,” but about the 40th time you're carrying the slop water up the hill, did you have some doubts? Did you think, "Couldn't we serve the Lord in some other capacity?" Gracia: I had doubts about whether I could do it. There were several girls in my shoes—who had just gotten married and gone off to Boot Camp—and, you know, it came time to cook. I didn't know, really, how to cook yet. I remember buying a chicken—you know, if you buy a whole chicken, it's cheaper. I got the chicken home, and I didn't know how to cut it up. Bob: Yes. Gracia: So, you know, I had to go to the neighbor and say, "Could you teach me how to cut up a chicken?" 13:00 How good that was—you know, on the mission field, you end up catching your chicken, and plucking your chicken, and cutting up your chicken. [Laughter] So, you have to learn someday. Bob: But there was never any thought of "I don't know that I want to live for the next 10 years / 15 years in conditions like we're simulating here at Boot Camp"? Gracia: No, no, I was happy to do that. Bob: I mean, you're not talking about, “What kind of wallpaper do you want in the kitchen?” Gracia: No, oh, my goodness. Bob: You know, and a lot of young ladies grow up dreaming of that domestic life. Gracia: Yes; well, you know what? I really loved Martin. It might not make a whole lot of sense, but I was happy to do anything God had called him to do. Maybe I wasn't going to have that little house, with the white picket fence; but life was going to be good because I would be with him, and I would be doing what God had called us to do. 14:00Dennis: You then went to the Philippines, and Martin began to fly. And the reason I wanted to say that is—I want to read a paragraph from your book that struck me because it gives us a glimpse into the character of the man you married. You write: "Before long, Martin knew everything about every missionary. He knew who was struggling financially; he knew which husbands and wives weren't getting along; he knew who was discouraged with language study because they weren't catching on as fast as they had hoped; he saw the newborn babies; he got to congratulate missionary kids on their home school projects; he met villagers who had recently become believers. Martin was the perfect person to hear it all. He just had a heart for everyone he came in contact with, and everyone who knew him loved him.” He was more than a pilot! Gracia: Yes. Dennis: I really like that because, you know, we think sometimes that a pilot for New Tribes Mission is just going to be on a task—flying supplies in / flying people in and out. Gracia: Yes. 15:00 Dennis: And yet he took an interest in the people he served. Gracia: Yes. You know, Martin used to say: “We didn't think of ourselves as the ‘real missionaries.' In our minds, the real missionaries were the people in the tribe—learning the language, doing literacy, doing medical, learning a new culture, planting churches, doing Bible translation. We were just there to keep the tribal missionary in the tribe—that was our goal.” Dennis: In the midst of all these flights, in and out, God was growing your faith at the same time. In fact, there's a story you tell about a time when you were moved to pray for Martin during one of these trips. Gracia: Yes. That was one year just before Christmas. I think it was his last flight before Christmas break. 16:00 It was kind of an unusual flight for us because it was a businessman who wanted a flight to Davao. Martin took him and our buyer. The buyer is the person who buys everything for these eight to ten families that you service out in the jungle—he just buys, all day long, and boxes things up and makes sure they're in the hangar on the right day. Martin was about ten minutes into his flight; and he called me and he said, "We have a problem here.” Then there was silence. I waited and nothing happened for a minute. I called him back and said, “Are you going to tell me what your problem is?” And he said: “I'm losing oil pressure. Something's wrong here. I'm above the clouds—so I don't know what's below us." A few minutes later, he called and said, "I've turned the engine off because we were pumping oil overboard.” 17:00 Before the engine seized on its own, he turned it off. He had just broken through the clouds, and he could see the valley below him. Well, now, he was just gliding into the valley. Bob: And our listeners need to understand that, when you turn off the engine on a plane, you don't just go into a nose dive—you glide for a while. Gracia: You glide; yes. Bob: So he was able to control the plane and keep it flying— Gracia: Yes. Bob: —even though the engine was off. Gracia: Yes. We have an interesting photo—the buyer took a photo of the stopped propeller. It was so quiet in the cockpit and, especially, that businessman was very quiet. They started gliding into the valley, and Martin started looking. There was an SIL Wycliffe Bible Translators' Center down in that valley. 18:00 Martin said, "I'm going to try to make it to the SIL base"; and he did. He said he cleared their fence by about 50 feet—he said—and came to a dead-stick landing. He had called them ahead to tell them about the emergency. They said they had a hallelujah meeting when he got on the ground. [Laughter] Bob: I bet his wife, on the other end of the radio, was having a hallelujah meetin'. Gracia: She was. Oh, Martin!—you know, he always had a sense of humor. That day, when he came home—you know, it could have been a dramatic: “Oh! I was so worried about you!” He walked in the gate. He looked at me, with this twinkle in his eye—he glanced at his watch—and he said, “I told you I'd be home by 10:00.” You know, it was just— Bob: —just another day. [Laughter] Gracia: That's how he was—he just always saw the good. Bob: But didn't you, in the back of your mind, after moments like that, think, "We've done enough here"? 19:00 Gracia: No, I never thought that. In fact, that was the best Christmas we ever had because we were enjoying each other so much. We knew that things could have happened much differently, and we had the most wonderful Christmas. No, we never talked about not doing that again. We loved what we were doing. Bob: But the next time—he might not have made it to the base. Gracia: That's true. Bob: And that's just part of how you live. Gracia: These things happen, I guess; huh? Those things happen in America—you can go off to work, and you have no guarantee that you're going to come home at night. Dennis: Yes, the folks— Gracia: You just forget— Dennis: —on September 11th—you know, the same thing— Gracia: That's right. Dennis: —God has a plan for us. Gracia: Yes. Dennis: We just live under the illusion thinking we're in control. We're really not in control. 20:00 And you're going to hear a dramatic story, over the next couple of days, that, if you were in the middle of that story—as I had to put myself and my wife Barbara—and I had to think, "How would I have translated what was happening?" It was such insanity to think of being captured and kidnapped by a terrorist group and to watch the conditions under which Gracia and her husband lived for more than a year. Today, there are people listening to us who are living in circumstances—that may not be in a jungle spot in the Philippines—but they are in a jungle of their own. The God of the universe wants to reach out to you and let you know He wants to take the insanity and make sense of it. He wants to teach you to trust Him. Jesus Christ is alive from the dead. It's not a myth / it's not a story that somebody made up—He's here—He's alive / He can guide you even through the darkest moment. 21:00 [Studio] Bob: I think about the hundreds of thousands—really, millions of people who heard a testimony of your faithfulness back when this happened in 2002. In the years since then, Gracia has written a book called In the Presence of my Enemies. It was a New York Times best-seller that sold more than 350,000 copies. In fact, you have—since the book was published, you have gone back and revised it, and updated it, and included information in the book about a return trip to the Philippines that you have taken since all of this happened. We've got copies of the updated version of the book, In the Presence of my Enemies, in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. If our listeners are interested, they can go, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com to request a copy. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.” 22:00 You'll see information about Gracia's book right there. You can order it from us, online; or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to place your order. Again, FamilyLifeToday.com is the website. The toll-free number is 1-800-358-6329. The title of the book is In the Presence of my Enemies, written by our guest today, Gracia Burnham. You know, I think one of the things that Gracia's story illustrates is the importance of us having a firm foundation, spiritually, in our lives because none of us knows what's around the corner. None of us knows what's coming tomorrow for us—what events / what circumstances we may have to face. The time to pour a solid spiritual foundation in your life is not when the storms are coming—it's before they come so that, when the storms come, you can stand firm and find your hope and your strength in Christ. 23:00 We're committed, here at FamilyLife, to helping you with that. Our goal is to provide practical biblical help for your marriage and your family, day-in and day-out. We want to effectively develop godly families who change the world, one home at a time. And we're grateful that there are listeners, like you, who share that burden and who have joined with us in this ministry as financial supporters. We're listener-supported. More than 65 percent of the funding that we need to operate this ministry comes from people making donations—either as monthly Legacy Partners or as folks who contribute, from time to time, in support of the ministry. In fact, if you'd like to make a donation right now, it's easy to do. You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen that says, “I CARE,” and make an online donation. Or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make your donation over the phone. 24:00 Or you can mail your donation to us at FamilyLife Today, PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR. Our zip code is 72223. Now, tomorrow, we're going to hear more about the 12-month ordeal as Martin and Gracia Burnham were in captivity, held by Islamic terrorists in the Philippines. We'll hear more of that story tomorrow. I hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2015 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Energy Industry

Beneath the Subsurface

Play Episode Listen Later May 7, 2019 50:12

In the inaugural episode of Beneath the Subsurface, we delve into the exciting realm of AI and Machine Learning as a blossoming new part of the energy industry. Arvind Sharma and Robert Gibson discuss and debate the impacts of disruptive technology, the importance of robust data libraries when building AI solutions, and the future of our industry with AI and ML solutions. With your host for the episode, Erica Conedera, we explore the factors that pushed our slow moving industry to this tipping point in technology and where it could be leading us. TABLE OF CONTENTS:0:00 - Intro1:03 - Factors that brought AI to O&G5:32 - Job creation with AI12:05 - Career paths and team compositions in the industry15:30 - Industry pain point solutions with AI and ML21:32 - Clouds, open source and democratization24:24 - Kaggle and crowdsourcing Salt Net30:51 - Kaggle challenges with Well Data33:58 - Catching up with silicon valley36:49 - Approaching solutions with AI44:18 - Disciplining data and metadata to get to the "good stuff"EPISODE TRANSCRIPTErica Conedera:00:00Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that investigates the intersection of geoscience and technology. And in our first episode, we'll be diving into the dynamic field of AI and machine learning as it relates to the oil and gas industry. We'll be discussing the impact of disruptive technology, the importance of robust data libraries when building AI solutions, and exciting possibilities for the future oil and gas. From the TGS software development team. My name is Erica Conedera. And with me today are Arvind Sharma, our VP of data and analytics, and Rob Gibson, our director of strategy, sales, data and analytics. Thank you gentlemen for being with us today for our first episode.Rob Gibson:00:48Glad to be here.Arvind Sharma:00:49Thank you Erica.Erica:00:51So let's start our discussion today by talking about the factors that brought the industry to AI and machine learning. Why now? Why not sooner? Why not later?Rob:01:03Well I'll start. Um, so thank you for the introduction, my name's Rob Gibson. I've been with TGS for almost 20 years now. And in that time, the thing that I have kind of seen over the 20 years in this company, , and probably another eight or nine in the industry, is that we've always been a little slow to adopt technology. And I come from the IT side of the world, software engineering, database design - so from my perspective, it's always been a little bit slow to bring in new technology.Rob:01:34And the things where I've seen the biggest change has been fundamental shifts in the industry, whether it's a crash in oil price, or, or some other kind of big disruptor in the industry as a whole, like the economy, not just our industry but the entire economy. But in middle of 2014 with the current downturn, that's really where I finally started to see the big shift toward AI, toward machine learning, towards IOT in particular.Rob:02:00But it seems like it took a big, big change in the industry where we lost hundreds of thousands of people across the industry and we really still needed a lot of work to get done. So technology has been able to kind of fill in the void. So, even as the downturn happened, we kind of started to level off at the bottom of the downturn and that's when companies started to see that we really needed to inject some more technology to get those decisions made. So generally speaking, I would say that this industry has been a little slow to move to adopt technology even though the industry has got a lot of money to invest in those kinds of things.Arvind:02:34Um, so thank you Erica for that question. And, I'm going to slightly disagree, more broadly, I agree with rob that um, oil and gas industry is historically a little slow in adopting technology, but, the reason I think is a slightly different, I think a oil and gas work in very difficult area where we need to have very robust proven up technologies to work. And in general, we wait a little bit for the technology to prove itself before adopting into, um, more difficult areas. So if we look at a little bit historical view, um, we have been on the leading edge of technology for a very long time. Um, some of the early semiconductors were built by your physical, um, companies. Um, then, as we moved to, PC revolution, we started actually PC, um, we started to actually pick up PCs into office very quickly, not as good as the silicon graphics people, but, soon afterwards, and then when the technology evolution started happening more in the silicon valley, then we started to regress a little bit. We continued on the part of what we were doing, whereas there was a divergence somewhere between mid nineties where silicon valley started to actually develop a little bit faster and we started to lag behind. And I think as Rob said, that, 2014 was a good time because at that time there was a need for us to adopt technology to increase our efficiency and, fill the gap that was created due to capital constraint. And as well as fleeing of, some of the knowledge base, employees - from our sector.Rob:04:39That's a good point on the technology side because you said that we kind of diverged away from where silicon valley really took off in the mid nineties. I entered into the industry in '94. So for me, my entire career has been that diverging process and just now it feels really good. Like we're finally catching up, not only catching up, but we've got customers, we've got employees who are sitting inside of the top tech companies in the world sitting at Google's facilities, even though they're an oil and gas company, sitting and working with Amazon, with Oracle, with IBM, with all these top names. And yet they're doing it in collaboration with the industry. Where in the past, it was almost like the two things were somewhat separated and now they are on a converging path. They've got the technology, we've got the data, at least in our space. And those two things coming together is kind of the critical mass we need to see some success.Erica:05:32So on that note, what kind of jobs do you think are going to be created in the future as the industries continue to convergence?Rob:05:40You know, that's a, that's a great prognostication. I mean, it's kind of interesting when you look back at like airbnb and Uber and those kinds of things. Nobody saw those coming and nobody knew what that was going to look like five years into their business, not to mention 10 or 15. I think that's what we're looking at in the oil and gas industry as well. We still have to find oil and gas. We still have to explore. We still have to be technologists, whether it's IT technology or G&G technology, we still have to operate in those spaces. But the roles may be very different. I'm hoping that a lot more of the busy legwork is a lot easier for us to work with and it has been historically, but we're still going to have to do those core G&G jobs. I just don't know what they're going to look like five years from now.Arvind:06:29I mean the way I see it is that it will be high-gradation to, like it will be more fulfilling jobs. The future jobs hopefully will be more fulfilling. So because a good portion of the grunt work, the work that everyone hated to do, but they had to do it to get to the final work, like final interesting work. Hopefully all those things will this machine learning and AI and broader digitization will help alleviate that part. And even whether you are technologist, whether you are a geologist, whether you're a geophysicist or whether you're a decision-maker. Like in all of those, um, you will start moving from the low value work to high value work. The technologist who was looking into log curve, they will actually start evaluating the log curve rather than just digitizing it. And that's, in my view, it's a more fulfilling job job compared to just doing the mundane work. And I, so that's the part first part is that what kind of job it, my hope is that it will be more fulfilling.Arvind:07:43Now the second is how many and what type of job, um, as Rob said that, the speed at which this is moving, we, it will be very difficult for us to do the prediction. Is that like if we sit here and say that they are, these are the type of job that will be created in five years, we'll be doing a disservice. We can actually make some guided prediction in which there will be need for geologist or geophysicist or petrophysicist and other people to do in what form will they be a pure geophysicist or a geophysicist who is a has a lot more broader expertise, a computer science and geophysicist working together. Those are the kinds of roles that will be needed in future because for a very long time we have operated in silos because it's not just technology is changing is the way we work is also changing is that we have operated in silos that we develop something, throw it over the fence. They, they catch it most of the time and then actually move into the next silo, and so on and so forth. Is that what-Rob:08:58You hope they do anyway.Arvind:08:59Yeah. I hope that they do anyway, but so that's the sequential process now. Some of them will be done by machines. Some of them will be done by human. And then you have to actually create a workflow which is like fulfilling as well as efficient for the capital investor.Erica:09:19Perhaps less siloed off?Arvind:09:21Less siloed off. So there will be team of teams and the team will actually move very frequently. So it will be almost like a self organization is that these are the four people needed to solve this problem. Let's take those four people and work on that problem. And then when that problem is solved or productionized, then they actually go solve the different problems.Arvind:09:43And so it will rather than back in the days or even today, hi- fully hierarchy of system, it will still be there, will be CEO (Laughter) and but there will be more, um, team of different group and different expertise, um, very quickly building and dismantling and those, that's the agile methodology that will be needed to take this technology and use it for, like basically doing things better.Erica:10:18So to kind of hone in on where you're saying, your background is in both geophysics and um, software engineering, correct?Arvind:10:26Okay. So sorry, I didn't actually talk about myself. (Laughter) So, um, I joined the TGS a little more than a year back, um, started as a chief geophysicist and then moved into this role. But before that, most of my career has been with BP and before that for a software company. So I have worked as a software engineer for some time and then got my PhD in geophysics and then worked for a little more than 10 years in BP all the way from writing imaging.Arvind:11:01So basically fundamental imaging, algorithm writing to drilling wells. So, in my short career I have seen a lot of things and what I do see is that, there has, there is a lot of silos in BP as well as in TGS. And BP is also working on it - breaking. I have a lot of friends there who are saying is that there is a significant effort in technology and modernization is happening in changing the culture rather than- it's not just about changing PC from going from a laptop to iPad. That's a- that's a tool. But the fundamental change will happen in the thought process. And if we want to actually use machine learning and these kinds of digital technology then it needs to be very integrated and the silo mentality is not going to work. You have to look at the problem as a holistic to solve it.Erica:12:02Yeah.Arvind:12:02So, so that's the background. So that's my background.Erica:12:05Yeah. So I asked because I wondered if you think that your career path is going to be the future of the industry, do you think that there are going to be more people with a dual background in both computer science and geophysics?Arvind:12:19So that's a very polite way to say that. My, I am actually looking at that my career is the right career. So, no and yes and no both. I do think that people will become more generalist and they will have deep expertise. And it's counter intuitive - is that generalist and deep expertise is not the same. Like we are used to someone who has a very deep expertise and that are not generalists about other topicsErica:12:57Narrow and deep.Arvind:12:57So very narrow expertise. But very deep and they have shallow expertise, very broad. Those are back in the days I think we are moving towards a deep expertise in several different narrow fields. So you need like, so to truly get good collaboration and innovation, you have to have deep expertise in several different fields to integrate them together.Erica:13:27So Rob, it looks like you're chomping at the bit here. (laughter)Arvind:13:30Deep and broad. So like what we need is deep and broad.Rob:13:34Yeah. When, when Arvind was talking about, kind of the career and, and some of the other topics, two things came to mind on the technology side of things. If you look back at AT&T, they had a choice and they did investigation and some pretty deep research on whether or not they needed to move into mobile cell phone technology. And they made the choice. They did a big expensive study and spent hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars to identify that they needed to be prepared for an industry of say, a million cell phone users by a certain year. And that number was, I don't know, 150 times wrong. It was way, way higher than that. And you could use the same thing with Kodak. They invented the digital camera and then lost the digital camera battle. And struggled in the industry. We want to make sure that we're looking broad enough to understand what's coming down the pipe and can adapt and change to that. Not just from the individual roles in the company, but the company direction as a whole.Arvind:14:34To give a concrete example is that , I have a background in geology or physics and computer science or Rob has background in geoscience and computer science and the data analytics team. It likes our TGS data analytics team. They have, we have people who have the um, physics backgrounds. They have PhD in physics and then they have worked in geophysics and then working on well logs. Then, the other one, Sathiya - he is a geophysicist who now is working on more of a deep learning problem. And a Sribarath is the team leader. He is a geophysicist. Who is it more of a computer scientist who is working on these two problems. So, our team composition itself, the TGS data analytics team composition itself is built in a multidisciplinary fashion.Erica15:30Yeah. So I'm glad that you brought up are our current team here cause I kind of wanted to pivot to the problems that we're using AI to solve for right now. You know, like what, what are the pain points in the industry and how are we using AI for that?Arvind:15:46So, so the pain point in the industry, are I'll talk about one, is it one which is very close to my heart. I was a, so in BP I did a lot of salt interpretation. So anything which requires a lot of human intervention is a big choke point because our data set is getting bigger, larger and larger with a lot more volumes to it are a lot more information to it and we have limited human resources and we want to actually take those human resources and mobilize them to do more high value work rather than doing a lot more um, grunt work. Salt model building is an example. And where we, we actually, our data analytics team started working there. So I'll, I'll work, I'll talk about that later. But that's an example where a lot of judgment call is made early, which don't require a lot of human judgment call early interpretation. Is the true place where automation and digital transformation can actually help.Erica:17:04Rob, what's your take on this?Rob:17:06Well, the Nice thing about what we're doing with salt picking is we're really helping us and our clients reduce the time it takes to get to the indecision. On my side of,of the house, my background with TGS has largely on the well data side of things. So it's not so much about reducing the amount of time of processing the data as it is getting a higher value data set in the hands of our clients. So historically, especially in the onshore U.S., there's a significant lack of data that's reported to the regulatory agencies. So we source that data as do a lot of other people. We source data from our, our, our customers, our partners operators. We process that data, but the most important thing that we can do with that is take that huge volume of data, the largest commercially available in the industry and add more to it so that the operators are able to get to that decision making process. So like Arvind said, if we can avoid the grunt work and get them to the point where they're actually making business decisions, that's what we're doing with our analytics ready LAS Dataset. We're in-filling the gaps in the curves because they either weren't run or weren't reported. We're predicting what the missing curves would look like, based on an immense volume of data. So it's not so much about getting the product created faster, although that is another goal that we've got. Of course, we're a commercial company. We're trying to get products to our customers and make money like anybody does. But the ultimate goal with our current analytics ready LAS product is to get the most complete dataset available so that the operators can make better decisions in the subsurface; drill less wells, drill more productive wells, drill wells faster. All of those things go into why we chose to go down that that path.Arvind:18:50So, looking at a higher level. The question that you asked was like what are the choke points and how we had actually using digital transformation in machine learning and AI to help that. Um, I think we published something like our CEO talked about that in the um, few months, a month back, Norwegian Energy day. There was a nice plot that, shows that most of the time we are acquiring data for a purpose. Like we are acquiring data to solve a geologic problem so that we can actually make a decision whether to drill somewhere, or not drill somewhere whether to buy acreage or not buy acreage by our clients. So when you take that data, you have to convert that into information, that information need to convert it into knowledge. And that knowledge is what enables our clients to make better, faster and cheaper decisions.Arvind:19:51And that cycle converting from data to knowledge to decision and enabling their decision is actually is the big choke point. If you want me to say one, this is that your point is that how to actually take data and convert to knowledge fastest way and cheapest way. And that's where most of our effort is. So salt, model building is an example where we right now it takes us somewhere between the nine months to a few years when we acquire data to provide the clients with the final image that they can do interpretation and make decision. This is too long of a time. In this day and age it needs to be compressed and a good portion of that compression can happen, by better compute. But some of them cannot happen without doing a deep learning where humans are involved in like for example, salt models building where like you can actually throw as much computer it as possible. But since the cycle time requires human to drill that model, it will be the limiting cases that, so there we want to actually enable the interpreters to take our salt net, which is our algorithm and accelerate the early part of it so that they have more time to do high quality work and build and build that model faster, reduce that cycle time so that our clients can make better, faster and cheaper decisions.Rob:21:32It's been interesting to watch the transition too with our industry and the technology at the same time we've moved to the cloud, right? All of our data's now sitting at a cloud provider and if you would have looked at the oil industry five years ago, there's a very security minded mindset around the industry that says, I need to keep that data because it's a very, very critical and I want to make sure the only, I've got access to it. So there was a lot of fear about putting data in the cloud several years ago. Now you look at the cloud providers and they're spending literally billions of dollars on things like security and bandwidth and access, things that didn't exist five, 10 years ago. So that transition to be able to go to the cloud, where all, where, all of our data sits today. More and more of our clients are going there as well. And the nice thing about that is you can ramp up your needs, on compute capacity, on disk capacity, on combining data sets across partners, vendors, other operators, and collaborate and work on that data set together to come up with solutions that you couldn't possibly have done before. So it's, it's fun actually to watch that transition happen.Arvind:22:43It is going a little tangent to the question that you asked her, but, because there's a very important point about the cloud services the the biggest cloud platform is Kubernetes by Google and that's actually open source. So Google developed that and made it open source available for anyone who wants to build a cloud infrastructure. They can have it. That's the, the most to use open source, platform that, available today. So that's changing the way people work. Like red hat or Linux, Unix, Sun, Sun, microsystem or Microsoft or apple. They are very, like, even in technology sector, they are very controlling of what they are providing to their consumers. They control that environment. Whereas now things are changing in which the open source systems like, which is publicly available is becoming one of the most dominant form of a software platform. Um, if you look at android for machine learning, it's tensorflow, Pi Torch. Those are open systems software that is a democratizing the technology so that anyone and everyone can, is able to take that next step and the solve complex problem because the base is available for them. They don't have to build the base. They can actually focus on solving the high value complex problem.Erica:24:24Speaking of both Google and open source and democratizing, problem solving. So TGS recently had a Kaggle challenge, correct, can you speak a little bit about that?Arvind:24:35So, yeah, that actually, so when I joined TGS, I had, one data scientist that we, we were working with, like we were still building the data science team and we started working on the salt net problem. We had an early, um, success. We were able to do some of those things and then we realized that there is like ocean of data scientists who are across the world. We don't have actually access to that Google actually open source and they have, they're working on their problem, they're working on Apple's problem, they're working on very interesting problems. So why they're not working on it at two different reason. One is that they don't have access to it in a second, the problem is not interesting enough for them. So Kaggle was our effort to make it accessible to everyone and make it interesting so that people will work on it.Arvind:25:30So just for the, um, description of Kaggle, Kaggle is the world's largest, data science crowdsourcing platforms. So crowdsourcing is a, um, where you put the problem and it's a platform or website where the, um, the problem description is given and data science scientists to work on their like on their spare time, nights and weekend or that's their hobby or that's their job. And they solved that problem. They submit to submit on that platform and they get instantaneous result that, how a good their solution was. So that's the Kaggle is the one of the largest world's largest platform for that recently acquired by Google. So we actually approached Kaggle that- can we actually put the one of the complex problem that we have on this website or this platform and they worked with us. And so we partnered together to host the oil and gas first serious problem for the automatically building salt model. And we actually, so to Rob's point, um, the hardest problem was getting the data rights that are convincing our management that it's okay to release a certain portion of data. We had to work really hard to create an interesting problem and that once we released that data, um, this competition was very successful in the sense that if they were around 80 plus thousand different solutions, just think of the scope of itRob:27:06From almost 3000 different teamsArvind:27:093,800. So close to 4,000 people. Oh yeah. 3000 team and comprise of almost 4,000 data scientists across the world work on this problem for three months and gave us more than 80,000 different solutions. We would have never got anything like this working day and night with whole TGS working on this problem.Rob:27:32I, I found it interesting because I like did a search on Google for our, TGS salt net.Arvind:27:39Yeah.Rob:27:40And if you look at the results just on Youtube, you'll find probably 20 different videos of PhD students, data scientists getting their master's degree who are using that problem that we posted out there as part of their thesis or as part of their Grad student work to show that, that the data science process that they went through as part of their education. And now that's out there for everybody to use.Erica:28:02So this is a major disruptor isn't it, to the industry because we have basically non geologists, non geophysicists solving problems for-Rob:28:12Yeah it's, it's definitely, we, there was a lot of teams, right? So there was some that had geoscience backgrounds, some that didn't, but most of them, they just come from a data science background, right? So they could have stats or math or computer science or anything. And when they applied this, it was interesting to see the collaboration on the Kaggle user interface where the teams were out there saying, hey, I tried this. What did you guys try? And the whole idea of crowdsourcing and, and the idea that we're kind of in somewhat of a unique position where we can do that. We can, we own the data. We don't license it from somebody else. Um, it's the data that we own that we can put out there. So we've got a huge volume that we can leverage and put it into a community like that where we can actually see some of those results come in.Erica:28:57So to kind of put you on the spot-Arvind:28:59Can I- one thing to say after that to is not just about data owning the data because there are several different companies who own data, even oil and gas company, they have their own data library. I honestly think that, it says volume about TGS, that TGS was willing to take a bet on this kind of futuristic idea and like go on a limb. But, and this is, I'm just giving credit to the senior management here, that they were, they're allowed us to actually go with this. That was one of the bigger hurdle than just to owning data, that management buy-inRob:29:39Second only to data preparation for the challenge itself.Arvind:29:42Second only to the data preparation, it took us a lot of time to build-Rob:29:45YeahArvind:29:45an interesting problem. It's not just about like you have to create an interesting problem to-Erica:29:51to attract the right talent.Arvind:29:52So the winner was a group from a Belarus and the Japan. They have never met. They have never seen each other other than the Facebook.Erica:30:02Wow.Arvind:30:03And did they actually met on this Kaggle platform? They were working on this problem. They found out that there they are approaching with the two different ways and they actually teamed up so that they can combine this to create a better solution. Combining both of their effort and that that's actually happens to be the winning combination. But a traditional method won't allow us to tap into this kind of resources or brain power. That to someone from Belarus and Japan working together whom we don't know solving our problem and that is going to be a disruptor and we have to be ready to capitalize on it rather than be afraid of it.Erica:30:51Right. And that's why I wanted to go to rob, not to put you on the spot here, but as someone coming from the well data side, do you see any potential future Kaggle challenges using well data?Rob:31:05Yeah, the, that could absolutely be in our future. I think at this point we're really trying to frame the problems that we're trying to solve for our customers. And if we decide that one of those problems deserves, some time in the public, like on Kaggle, then we can absolutely go that direction. Not a problem whatsoever. At the moment though, our real focus is trying to figure out where can we provide the most value to the clients and we're kind of letting them steer us in a, you know, a way we have got our own geology department internally so we know what we need to do with our internal well data in order to high grade it to the next level product. However, we're really taking direction from our clients to make sure that we're moving in that direction. So yeah, I could see us having a problem like that, especially if it's starting to get into a Dataset that, , needs to be merged with another data set that maybe, we need support from, somewhere else in the industry. We're in a different industry.Arvind:31:59Just a few minutes on that is,the next problem I think that Kaggle need from oil and gas is a more on the solution side. So the knowledge to- like information to knowledge site in which you are all taking very different type of data set. For example, success failure database for the basin. And building a, prospect level decision that requires a, as Rob said, that collaboration, that the TGS collaborating with one of the E&P company or someone else, like those two or three companies and now bringing their data together because at the end of the day, this integration is what everyone is looking for. Can we actually create an interesting integration problem and put it on the Kaggle competition. So, any listener, if they're in, they have a good problem, they can actually contact Rob, or me. That, because we are always looking for good partners to solve complex problems. We can't solve all the problem by ourselves, neither other people. It does require teams to build the right kind of Dataset, interesting problems in to, to get into the board.Erica:33:22Okay. So we've talked about how we got here to this point in the industry with AI machine learning and we've talked about what we're doing today with the, um, let's move on to the future where we think AI will take, um, the industry. So to follow up on something that Arvind had said earlier, so you had said that we sort of fell behind silicon valley at some point. How, how far behind do you think we are right now in terms of years if you can make that estimation?Arvind:33:58Oh, that's a tough question but I'll try to answer it in a roundabout way. Is it that when I say that we lag behind, we lag behind in the compute side of it, like the AI side of it and some of the visualization and web-based technology when it comes to high performance computing, we were still leading up to very- probably in some of the spaces we are still leading. So storage and high performance compute which is both, oil and gas defense and Silicon Valley. All three are working. Um, we are not that far behind actually we might be at the cutting edge of it. And that was one of the reason that we didn't actually focus on the AI side because we were solving the problem in more high compute way and we are using bigger and bigger machine solving, more complex problems more physics based complex physics based solutions.Arvind:35:04So when it comes to solving physics based solution, we are still, at the front of the pack. But when it comes to solving a heuristic auto machine learning or AI based solution, we are behind, we are behind in robotics and things like that and we are catching up. So when you think of a mid midstream and downstream where there's a lot of the internet of things, IOT instruments, so things are getting is like instrumentized and there are a lot of instruments which are connected to each other and real time monitoring, predictive maintenance. Those are happening and happening at a very rapid rate. And that will actually, we'll, we'll catch up in a few years in, in midstream and downstream side or mostly instrumentation side where we are truly lagging is subsurface because it's not the problem that Ian, and like, silicon valley was trying to solve.Arvind:36:05A subsurface problem are complex. They are very different type of problem; that someplace you have very dense data, someplace We have very sparse data. How to actually integrate that and humans are very good at integrating different scale of information in a cohesive way, whereas that problem is not the problem that silicon like, technology sector was trying to solve. And so we are trying to actually take the solutions that they are building to solve different problem and integrating it or adapting that to solve our problem. So that's where like I see like, so I think it's a non answer but that's what the best I have. (Laughter)Erica:36:49It was a very good answer. So how does this change the way that we're building our products then our approach to getting our products out there?Rob:36:58Well, one of the, one of the things I'll start with is we're actually seeing our clients adopt analytics teams, analytics approaches, machine learning. there's a lot of, there's a lot of growth in that part of the industry. and they've gotten past the point where they don't believe that a predictive solution is the right solution. You know, with our ARLAS product, we're creating an analytics ready LAS dataset where we're predicting what the curves would look like, where there's currently gaps in the curve coverage. The initial problem the customers had was, do they believe that the data's accurate? We're starting to get past those kinds of problems. We're starting to get to the point where they believe in the solutions and now they're trying to make sure that they've got the right solutions to fit within their workflows in their organization. So I think the fact that they've actually invested in building up their own analytics teams where they've injected software engineering, geology and geophysics, a data science and kind of group them all together and carved them off, or they can focus on maybe solving 20% of the problems that they actually, attempt. That's kind of where the industry has gotten to, which means we now have an opportunity to help them get to those levels.Arvind:38:10You see that a change in conferences, and, meetings and symposiums that, like for example SEG Society of exploration geophysicists and, that, conference three years back there was one session about machine learning and last year, machine learning has the largest number of sessions in that conference. So you're looking at a rapid adaptation of a machine learning as a core technology in oil and gas and at least in subsurface, but most of them is at the very early phases, people are trying to solve the easier problem, the problem they can solve rather than the problem that need to be solved. So that's where there's a differentiation happening that everyone wants to work on machine learning and most of the people are actually taking solution to your problem rather than taking problem finding solution for a problem which is relevant. So,Rob:39:21I think that's pretty fair because,you've got to get some sort of belief internally and if you can prove that you've got kind of a before and after, here's what I did to make this decision or the wells that are drilled in the production I've got and here's what I predicted was going to happen. And you can start to see those two things align. Then you start to get belief in something. If you just use something that's predictive only and you've got nothing to compare it to, it may be the right solution. But do you have the belief that your company is going to run with it? So that's why I think we're starting to see them solve problems that we know can be solved initially rather than the big problem of say, if I shoot seismic here, I can predict how much oil I'm going to produce. That's a big problem and it's at different resolutions and scales than we believe we can solve and, and be definitive about it today. but I think that, I think I agree with you that they're, they're really focused on, on proving that this technology, that analytics that AI/ML is going to work for the problems that they know about.Arvind:40:24Agreed only up to a point is that, the reason and why I think it ML/AI solutions are different is because, in physics, one of our basic assumption is that, if we solve a toy problem, you can scale the same way is the same solution will apply on a bigger problem. That's not the case for machine learning solutions. The solution that is applicable for a toy problem is not going to scale. You need to actually retrain the data and the solution becomes different as the scale of the problem increases. So although it's, interesting to see that a lot of a small problem are very easy problem people are taking to- people are solving a lot of easy problem using machine learning. To show that machine learning works, that's good. But to truly take advantage of machine learning, you have to actually solve, try to solve one of the complex problem because you already have a solution for those easy problems.Arvind:41:40Why do we need machine learning? So for example, ARLAS is a good example. Our analytic ready LAS in which we are predicting well logs from the available, well logs. Now if I have only one well, or a few wells then I actually want my petrophysicist to go through the physics based modeling and solve that problem. I don't need AI to solve that problem. I have actually solutions which works there. If the solution that I need is that how to solve this problem on a scale of Permian basin or a scale of U.S. So like what we have done for ARLAS that the first basin we started was Permian is where we took all the data that we have as a training data or actually a good portion of that data as a training data set. We build that model, which is actually based in scale model that can actually ingest all the like 320,000 wells we have. So we used thousands and thousands of well as a training build a very robust model to actually solve that problem and now that solution is available for the whole basin. That's the kind of solutions that are problem that AI is good at solving and has actually best potential not for solving few wells. Learning about AI by solving a few wells is great, but as a product or as a true application of AI, we need to actually look at tackling the big problems.Rob:43:11Yeah, I agree. There's been a lot of, shall we say analytics companies that come out with a claim of being able to perform some sort of machine learning basis and they've got a great interface and everything looks really good. And the story behind it is that it's been taught on five wells or 10 wells in our learning set was in the tens of thousands of wells, which is why I believe in the data set that we've built.Arvind:43:40At a very high level, machine learning is like teaching a kid, like someone has come out of graduate school and they want to actually learn something and you are showing them this is how we actually do. The more things they see, the better they will get, the more experience they will have and the better their capability or work will be. So it requires the, the whole concept of machine learning or AI is that you want to actually train with massive amount of very high quality data set and that actually solves more complex problems.Erica:44:18How do you discipline data?Arvind:44:22So you are saying that did- have you talked to our lead data scientist and he calls him to himself a data janitor, that most of the time he spent is cleaning of the data and organizing the data so that he can actually do the high quality like the machine learning AI work. So if he spends his time like out of a hundred hours, 60 or 70 hours- so he's actually organizing, categorizing data set so that he can do the fun stuff in the last 30 40 hours. I mean that's actually, that's better than a good, most of the places where people spend 90 hours doing the curation and 10 hours doing the fun stuff. And that was one of the reasons why we had to build the data lake because one of the thing is that we need all the data to be readily available in a kind of semi usable format that I don't need to spend time learning about the 2003 data is different than 2015 data versus 2018 data.Arvind:45:34I need to actually consume it as one big dataset. So last whole year we spend actually considerable, considerable amount of time and effort in building our data lake in which we actually took all of our commercial legacy, data set and moved it on cloud. The two things that we did is one we standardized the data set so that lead data scientists don't have to spend on doing janitorial of data janitorial work and a second is creating metadata. So what Metadata is that aggregate information.Arvind:46:06For example, Arvind Sharma what is the Meta data about Arvind Sharma um, that he is five feet 10, I don't have a lot of hair. (Laughter) He drives some car and he, he has gone to- he has a PhD like so some aggregate information like out of her, like rather than cell by cell information about Arvind, what is the minimum, set of aggregate information that you can use to define Arvind. So that's the metadata about any data set. So what we did when we are moving this a massive amount of data set into our data lake for each of these data set, we extracted this aggregate information that where it was recorded, when it was recorded, what are the basic things done to this data set? What is the maximum amplitude in this volume? What is the minimum amplitude in this volume? What does the average amplitude in this? So those things we actually use it because a lot of analytics is that some of the higher level analytics will be about integrating the information about data set, like Facebook uses information about people to make some of the decision. We are not that creepy as that Facebook, but (laughter) it's, it's like taking the information about the data set and actually learning creating knowledge about the basin.Rob:47:37It's interesting when you were talking about the data janitorial work and how we've kind to standardize our data set on the, on the cloud because it kind of brings it full circle back to something you said early on. And that was that we want our customers to be able to get to that decision making point sooner without having to do all that data, janitorial work. I've been going to data management conferences for 25 years and I hear the same thing every year for 25 years. I spend "fill in the blank" percentage of my time, 60 70, 80% of my time looking for data and the remainder are actually working with it. That's what an analytics ready data set it's going to allow us and our customers to be able to do is not have to do all that janitorial work, but actually get to the point where I can actually start interpreting what that data means to me to make decisions.Erica:48:30So looking towards the future of the industry, do you think we're going to continue to ramp up in terms of speed and getting to the good stuff, the fun part? Do you think that's going to continue to logarithmically increase?Rob:48:44Probably faster than we can ever imagine. I think the, I think the change that we saw with companies moving to the cloud companies going toward, service based solutions, companies moving toward high volume, normalized consistent datasets, all of these things have been moving at light-light speed compared to what they were, the, the past 25 years. Up until today, every day about probably about every three weeks. We basically, have got some new technology that's been released that we can start adopting and putting into our workflows that wasn't there three weeks, three weeks prior, open source. It comes back to that topic as well. More and more of these tech firms are putting the data out as open source means we could leverage it and get to solutions faster. So to answer the question, absolutely faster than we can possibly imagine.Erica:49:28Well, awesome. I cannot wait to get to this future, with both of you.Erica:49:41Well, thank you so much for talking with us today. Being part of our first episode of Beneath the Subsurface, it was an absolute pleasure. If our listeners want to learn more about what TGS is doing with AI, you can visit TGS.com You can visit our new TGS.ai platform and, we'll have some additional show notes on our website, to go along with this episode.Arvind:50:06Thank you Erica.Rob:50:07Yeah, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.Conclusions and plugs:Check out the newly launched tgs.ai to dig deeper in to the data with subsurface intelligence. Gain detailed subsurface knowledge through robust analytics with our integrated data and machine learning solutions at tgs.ai Discover Geoscience AI solutions, Cloud Computing, Data Management, and our Data Library. Learn more about TGS at tgs.com

Episode 0: Character Creation Extra

Carrots and Suffering

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2019 19:21

Before there is a D&D podcast, there was a conversation about who and what we are doing. Listen in. Get some insight. Early episode with rough audio. Transcript: Music Nate: Welcome to Carrots and Suffering: A D&D Odyssey. I am Nate, and I am dungeon mastering as they say. This first campaign is fairy themed. The world is cursed and filled with thorny thorn bushes that are poisonous and bad in all ways. Everybody has curses, kind of like mutations that turn you into animals. We’re going to have a lot of intrigue, some adventure, some swashbuckling and we hope you're here to come along for the ride. This is episode 0 where we talk about making characters. One last programming note: At this point our podcasts are just recorded with a single microphone on a table. So, you'll notice some audio weirdness. We are working on that. Stick with us. Music Nate: Hi, I am Nate, I will be your dungeon Master. Julie: I am Julie, I will be playing a Wizard named Sylpha Lunari. Mandy: I am Mandy, I will be playing a rogue, named Jaelan. Sandra: And I am Sandra. I am playing a Druid named Sable. Nate: This is a campaign, that I ran once before with a very different group of people who did a very different job with it. And so I am expecting it to be fundamentally different. That is the probably going to be the limit of it because they were way in left field. Julie: That is true. One of my hopes for this is to discover what plot ideas and intrigue Nate might have had in mind when he ran it first. Sandra: It was that bad (laughter). Julie: It wasn't bad probably was far off the mark from what Nate intended Sandra: Oh, ok. Nate: No, they were the most Chaotic Neutral team by definition that I have ever seen. Sandra: Very Ohh-shiney. Nate: Yeah, well, I would be like, "All right the nobility is all getting up in your face for intrigue." and they would be like, "Aaaaa... Screw em!" (Laughter) Julie: F- the man. Nate: We are not going to do what you want, we are going to do our own thing. Julie: F-the man, we want to get out of here. (Laughter) Sandra: Get out of here. Nate: We hit some of the major plot points, sort of. Sandra: kind of like, bumped them with your hip and then moved on. Nate: Yeah. yeah. They were like... (Laughter) there was some semblance of what I wanted to accomplish in there and then a lot of just fly by the seat of your pants. Music Nate: So, when our campaign starts, there are some politics going on. So there is a bunch of royal families and I sent you guys an email that has the like listed out. We are probably not going to use all of them, but they are there for you to like add to your character background. The Regent is about to marry off his two kids. So he is going to make a marriage contract with other nobles children and who whoever lands those two jobs. essentially marrying into that family becomes the next regent or becomes the major domo and is responsible for all the daily activities of the city. And so it is really the two most powerful positions for the next generation are open now. So let's talk about your characters and maybe a little bit of how they fit into the world. Let's start with Julie on my left. Julie: My Character is named Sylpha Lunari and she is a young. I imagine her to be 17-19 years old. She is an aspiring mage and courtier in the kingdom. So Sylpha is inspired by a moth and her family manifests really insect like traits. So, her current mutation is she appears extremely slender very large dark eyes, very pale skin and covered in like a peach fuzz. Nate: Peach Fuzz. Julie: She is a... Sandra: Is it actually peach colored Peach Fuzz. Julie: No, I imagine, I imagine it is just a very fine hair like if you ever touched a moth and they are like... Sandra: Is it like human colored? Sandra: Like is she human colored? Julie: She's she is very pale. Sandra: Ok. Nate: So like a white. Moth. Julie: Maybe it has patchy colorations. She is very sensitive to light, when out doors she wears a proper large ladies hat. Sandra: like that is like a foot on either side Julie: well she needs to shade her eyes from the bright light.. Sandra: Ah, ok. Julie: of which she is adverse too, but she sees rather well in the dark and appreciates night life. I want to play this character in contrast to the last character I played in your campaign as someone who is instead of happy go lucky hippy someone who is a little more focused and aspiring and has some amount of concern for political dynamics and power hungry isn't the right word yet, but is invested in accumulating knowledge and yes ambitious and is a little naive. I am looking forward to that. Naive enough to make deals. Nate: OK. Sandra: I see what you did there. Nate: Julie is why into naming things, those are like from moth genie right? Like species genie? Julie: Well Sylpha is like an air spirit and moon moths are a thing. Sandra: Hence Lunari Nate: Ok, ok cool. Julie: I said that I imagined her to be like from like 17 to 19 so I will go with 18. let’s say she is 18. Mandy: She, she is human? Julie: She is human. Mandy: Is she affiliated with one of the houses? Julie: Oh, in my concept of her most recent life event is that she has experienced adolescent heart break so obviously, the world has ended, life is over. Mandy: Right, right. Julie: Just wants to shrink back into the shadows. Mandy: The pit of devastation. Julie: She was rejected in a rather public way and so some part of her motivation comes from wanting to show this person what they missed out on. And I imagine her to be sympathetic to lady Maeve in solving the problem of the cursed kingdom. Nate: Just for background Lady Maeve Is the last of her line one of the reasons for that, is that her mutation is a venomous bite. And the rumor is that cost her a husband and now she is kind of unmarriageable. (Laughter) So the hope for her is that she can land this marriage contract for herself but she is going to have to go big, like real big like maybe solving this curse big Sandra: oh wow. Nate: otherwise it is not going to happen. Mandy! Mandy: Alright, my character's name is Jaelan J.A.E.L.A.N. She is Jessica's age. Nate: Jessica is one of the NPCs from the Evans family. Who is known to be pretty ruthless but is just turning marring age, so what did you say, 16? 16, that is what I had. Nate: Ok, let's go with that. Mandy: Initially, but uhm ok. So Jaelan is an orphan and she was adopted into the Evans family and raised along with the children, but she is definitely not on a status with the kids, like she was raised as their playmate, especially as Jessica's play mate and she is also an assassin (laughter). They have raised her kind of to be, I guess a playmate to Jessica and a companion and you know, hopefully that she will be loyal to her as they grow into adult hood and... Nate: Every royal family needs an assassin. Mandy: Right! You know. Protect her to a certain extent and if need be to kill for her. Now Jessica is kind of ruthless and not above assassination in her own terms. I have to think about the nature of their relationship a little bit if it started off warm and fuzzy and has gotten strained or if they are closer than ever because they are kind of a lot a like. or I have to think about that a little bit her, Jaelan's mutation is that she is chameleon skinned. She is not green as a default but she can blend in. Nate: Is she scaled? Mandy: No. No, she has human skin. but she can take on... but it changes color to match a background. Nate: But it changes color based on what she is around. Mandy: uh.. there might be a lack of control if something is agitating her maybe she disappears when she needs to be seen. (Laughter) That was something I thought of. She is kind of low... She is high on intelligence but she is pretty low on wisdom Julie: That’s, that’s where my character is as well. Mandy: Yeah, so she she's uhm I thought maybe one of her flaws could be a certain compulsiveness Nate: ok, Mandy: uhm... I don't know. I don't know... Sandra: You all are going to make me be the grown up aren't you. Mandy: Yeah....(laughter) I don't know yet how she feels yet about the Evans family as a whole. I mean she is a teenager at this point. If she is feeling rebellious this would be the time. I don't know, I will have to think about that. Nate: And I think given our brief sentence or two that describes the Evans family their ummmm Shady folk. So if you wanted to rebel against them, you would be… Mandy: going straight laced. Nate: Yeah, you would be going straight laced. Mandy: Well, I wouldn't be totally opposed to her possible double dealing on them Nate; ok. Mandy: Like fishing for other loyalties or whatever, but she could potentially could be an inside person of one of the other families even. Nate: Great. Oh, and your class? You went with rogue Mandy: Yes. Nate: Ok. Mandy: I was thinking about multiclassing when we start leveling up with fighter Nate: Ok. And rogue powers, you get you get to be really good at like two things. What two things did you choose? Mandy: There were four it told me to pick proficiencies at, which was acrobatics deception, investigation and stealth Nate: ok. That just sort of paints a picture of what you're going to be good at. Alright. Sandra. Sandra: My character's name is Sable Mirkwood. She's also 16 years old and was raise with thee Matron Baroness Verathi, who is a druid and known to be a druid. So she has kind of dark straight hair in the bright light flashes colors, red/purple more than anything else, tries to keep it up and out of the way. Raised by the baroness so probably follows the druidic ways So she worships nature she always, anytime that she is seen is wearing the garb she always has the gloves on she always has the long sleeves, she always has the leggings on and the boots. She wears a tunic over that with a belt. And a very functional knife hanging off of it, a couple of pouches handing off of it. And has a hand carved walking stick that could clearly whack someone over the head pretty good If need be. She's also got really dark eyes. So obviously still has the whites of her eyes, but it’s hard to tell what color her eyes are. She’s thin and small, so maybe 5 feet tall. She is human. And thin but she doesn't look frail. I mean she carries herself pretty well. As far as her curse what you can see is... I mean she covers up so whatever that is. And I would think that her curse is pretty darned hidden. Nate: Ok. Sandra: She doesn't make it abundantly clear. So should I Tell people what it is. Should I... Nate: I think for our audience it would be better to know what it is. So she has poison skin. So, like frogs, like the tree frogs that older groups would use to, their skin secretions to tip the ends of their arrows. That kind of thing. So she has got poison skin and it killed her mom and was poisoning her dad so they literally just left her out in the forest. Nate: Woops. Sandra: Which is how she came to be the Baroness's Nate: Ok. Mandy: Is she pretty well known as the baroness's? Everybody knows who you are? Sandra: I would think the Baroness would say that she is her… Nate: Charge? Mandy: Ward? Sandra: Yeah, ward or charge. Nate: Ok. Mandy: Yeah. Nate: the druid can turn into animals and has other powers. Sandra: Yeah, can talk to them. Control them, things along those lines. Nate: Yeah. The rogue eventually gets extra mobile, their main power is usually stabbing things very well. (laughter) and then our wizard just gets progressively more powerful magic. Music Nate: Welcome to the midroll this is where normal podcasts have advertising, but we don't have advertising. Sandra: No. Nate: Not at the moment anywhere, which brings us to what we are going to do. Which is some cute animal facts Sandra: we found them on Mental Floss. Nate: Let's see. Let's only do the cute ones. Sandra: Yeah, let’s do the cute ones. There you go. The chevrotain, do you know what a chevrotain is? Nate: No, I have no idea. Sandra: it is an animal that looks like a tiny deer with fangs. (Squee) Nate: Oh.. I think I saw those once, that’s horrible. That’s horrifying. Dragonflies and Damsel flies form a heart with their tails while they mate. Sandra: Oh, that’s really cute. Nate: It is. I don't actually think like that isn't purposeful, I don't think they were going for a heart Sandra: I don't think they would know what a heart is. Nate: Oh, hear we go. Sea otters hold hands while sleeping so they don't drift apart. Sandra: Prairie dogs say hello by kissing. oh.... Nate: Here we go, that is pretty good. Music Nate: So that brings us to my next question. Which is really directed toward all of you, which is how do you know each other, I mean, its a small town it is very hard to hide in this town. So, no matter what, you are probably aware of each other But I am assuming you want to have a more positive relationship than that. Sandra: I thought, the original idea wasn't it, that we like met at school in some way, like none of us are actually of the noble class, correct? But we are noble adjacent. Mandy: Right. Maybe we all went to finishing school. Julie: noble adjacent, yes. Sandra: ya. Nate: Ok. So you guys were all basically tutored together. Julie: or minor noble family. So you guys were basically tutored together, so you are not serfs in the sense that you guys are poor and uneducated you went to school and you all went to school together. Mandy: And I would think we all, I mean I say finishing school because I think we probably all know how to behave in noble social situations. Like we have probably all been to the parties and gatherings of Sandra: Though we would also have our own quirkiness, like I am raised by a druid who... Julie: all the etiquette classes. Sandra: Like you would probably be better... Mandy: like we know which fork is which at a 16 course dinner (Laughter) Nate: ok, you've got the skills. All of the important ones. Sandra: well to some degree, I mean Sylpha I would see as probably being best it. I mean your mom, literally is a social butterfly, right. Julie: Yeah Yes, and she wishes that I were more gregarious and interested in involving myself in politics where as I would rather, sit back, observe, and am kind of a book worm. (giggle) Sandra: Oh, my god! The puns in this are going to be terrible. Nate: they are, yeah, because Julie is here. Sandra: They really are. While they are going to be... with the moth yeah. Nate: But there is opportunity too. (Chuckle) Julie: Let me tell you about my Ant (laughter) Music Nate: The next question for you all Is there anything you would like to accomplish with your character over the course of the campaign and we will start with Sandra this time. Sandra: well honestly if she could find a cure, she would want to. Mandy: For the poison skin? Nate: OK. Sandra: Like staying wrapped up for the rest of her life is not exactly how she wants to live. I mean she is a teenager, it would be nice to hold hands with somebody. Nate: Without sticking to them and then killing them. Sandra: Yeah. Julie: perhaps you can find somebody equally deadly. Sandra: But then we would just kill each other. Nate: A porcupine lad? (Laugh) Sandra: that doesn't seem very workable. Nate: no no. Sandra: we just look longingly at each other from across the room. Mandy: I poison you I make you bleed. Nate: We touched once it was magical. Mandy: its like the x-men rogue problem. Sandra: Right, exactly. I have got the rogue problem. Nate: Alright, Mandy? Mandy: I, I hadn't really thought about goals in the game to the honest, I think she probably understands her role as Jessica's companion as probably about to get a little more intense, because they want this marriage contract and she is probably part of making sure it happens so that is probably an official goal for her (Laugh) but I haven't really thought about what she wants. Nate: Alright. Sandra: Maybe she hasn't even thought about it. Mandy: She hasn't really thought about she, I mean she raised in this particular capacity, so yeah, she may not have given that much thought. Nate: I think what we are going to focus on, what I would then take away from that to focus on as the dungeon master is the relationship that you have with this sister like character As sort of the back drop of what we are going to figure out. at least in the short term. Mandy: I see, based on what you have told us about Jessica, I see Jessica as being a bit over her. Probably, even, you know as in the relationship she has probably got a superiority thing going over her, over Jaelen. I mean that could be a thing. Nate: Ok. What do you think Julie? Julie: As far as character goals, I think the character is generally apathetic about the outcome of who marries who in this current drama that is all the buzz but she is sympathetic to lady Maeve and this character is naive but ambitious and so she does want to propel herself into some kind of permanent, perhaps court mage and establish that kind of opportunity, or solve the problem of the thorns and be able to explore opportunities elsewhere. But I think she is vested in creating some sort of opportunity for herself and advancement in the kingdom. Nate: Ok. Music Nate: Well that is the end of episode 0, where we created characters coming up next, we'll start an actual adventure, where all adventures start in a bar! We'll see you next time on Carrots and Suffering: A D&D Odyssey Music

master protect sea raised laugh wizard laughter evans ant screw shady moth npcs carrots druid sable regent d&d baroness naive damsel sandra oh character creation mental floss dragonflies realplay chaotic neutral i tell julie it laughter so nate here

Government Digital Service Podcast Episode #1 - An interview with Neil Williams

Government Digital Service Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 28, 2018 36:33

In this episode, we interview outgoing head of GOV.UK Neil Williams about his time at GDS, learning about agile and scaling the nation's website. The full transcript of the interview follows: Angus Montgomery: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Government Digital Service podcast. My name’s Angus Montgomery, I’m a senior writer at GDS and for this episode I’m going to be talking to Neil Williams, who is the head of GOV.UK. And Neil is leaving GDS shortly for an exciting new job, so we’re going to be talking to him about that and also talking to him about his time at GDS, because he’s been here since the very beginning. So I hope you enjoy this episode and let’s go straight into the conversation. Neil Williams: I'm going to Croydon Council. So leaving not only GDS- Angus Montgomery: South London? Neil Williams: South London. South London is the place to be, I have to say. Yes, not only leaving GDS, but leaving the Civil Service actually, because local government is not the Civil Service of course, to go and work in Croydon as Chief Digital Officer for the council there. They've got a lot of ambition, and it’s a really exciting time for Croydon. People laugh when I say that. Angus Montgomery: I just laughed as well. I didn’t mean to. Neil Williams: Croydon has this reputation that is completely unwarranted, and we’re going to prove the world wrong. It’s changing massively. It’s already gone through a lot of change. You're probably aware of some stuff. It’s got a Boxpark. There’s a lot of reporting around the Westfield/Hammerson development that might be happening, which we very much hope is happening. Also Croydon Tech City. So Croydon’s got a lot of growth in the tech industry, tech sector. Fantastic companies starting up and scaling up in Croydon, and that’s all part of the story. Plus the stuff that’s more in my wheelhouse, that I've been doing here in GDS around transforming services. Making the public services that Croydon provides to residents and business to be as good as they should be. As good as everything else that people expect in their day to lives using digital services these days. Angus Montgomery: So not much on your plate then? Neil Williams: It’s quite a big job. I'm excited about it. There’s a lot about it that’s new, which is kind of giving me a new lease of energy, the fact that I've got this big challenge to face and lots of learning to do. Which reminds me a lot about how I felt when I first working with GDS in fact. Just how exciting I found the prospect of coming and working for this organisation, and being part of this amazing revolution. I'm feeling that again actually about the job in Croydon, [00:02:33] about the work to be done there. It seems like the right time. It’s a perfect time and place, where I am in my career, those things coming together. It’s a really good match. So it came up, and I put in for it, and lo and behold I am now Chief Digital Officer in Croydon Council from mid-October. Angus Montgomery: You’ve been at GDS since before the beginning, haven’t you? Seven, eight years? Neil Williams: Yes, I was working it out this morning. It’s seven years and two months. I was 34 when I started working in GDS. I'm 42 now. I just had my birthday last week. Angus Montgomery: Full disclosure. Neil Williams: Yes. That’s maybe too much information to be sharing. I didn’t have grey hair when I started. My youngest child was just born, and he’s nearly eight now. So yes, it’s been a really big part of my life. Angus Montgomery: So you can track your late 30s and early 40s through images of you standing in front of number 10? Neil Williams: Yes, and unfortunately quite a few embarrassing pictures of me on the GDS flicker. (Laughter) There have been a few regrettable outfits for celebrations and milestones launching GOV.UK, and celebrating GOV.UK birthdays, where looking back on it I may not have worn those things if I had known it was going to be on the internet forever. (Laughter) Angus Montgomery: Now you say that, there’s an image of you… I'm trying to remember. I think it’s at the Design Museum, when GOV.UK won the Designs of the Year, and you're wearing a Robocop t-shirt. (Laughter) Neil Williams: Yes, I am. I can tell that story if you like. That’s one of my proudest GDS moments, I think. Maybe we will get to that later. Do you want me to do it now? Angus Montgomery: Well, no. Let us know where that came from, because this is… Well, just as a bit of context, because I've gone straight into that, but you’ve been head of GOV.UK since the beginning, and in 2012, shortly after GOV.UK launched, it won the Design Museum’s Design of the Year Award, which is an incredible accolade. I can’t remember what it beat, but I think it beat several… That’s one of those awards where they judge things like buildings, and cars, and new products, and mad graphic design. So for a government website to win that award was really incredible, I think. Neil Williams: Yes. Actually, we were talking about it the other day, and Mark Hurrell, the head designer on GOV.UK, he said it’s actually the first time a website ever won that award, which I had completely forgotten. Yes, it was amazing. That was 2013. We had launched GOV.UK in 2012, as in replacing Directgov and Business Link, which were the previous big super sites for public services. Then we were well into the next phase, which was shutting down and replacing all of the websites of departments of state. I was very much working on that bit of it at the time. My head was down and working very attentively, in this fairly crazy timescale, to shut down those websites, and starting to look at how we were going to start closing down the websites of 350 arms-length bodies. A huge project. In the midst of that, in the midst of that frantic busy period, someone approached me. It was Tom Loosemore, Etienne Pollard. One of those early GDS leaders. Saying, “Oh, there’s an award ceremony. We’ve been nominated for an award, and we need some people to go. Can you go to it?” Angus Montgomery: “We need some people to go.” That’s an attractive… (Laughter) Neil Williams: Yes. It was just like, “We need a few people to make sure we’re going to be represented there.” Angus Montgomery: “To fill the seats.” (Laughter) Neil Williams: I now know that they knew that we were going to win, but I didn’t know that, at all, at the time, and I didn’t really think much of it. “Oh, yes, fine. Yes, I will go along to that. That’s no problem at all.” I think it was the same day. I'm not sure whether it was that same day or a different day when I was given notice, but anyway, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t dress up for the occasion. So I rock up to the Design Museum in my jeans and in my Robocop t-shirt, an OCP logo on it. The evening included quite a lot of free alcohol. It was quite a glitzy affair, and I was definitely under-dressed for the occasion, but I thought, “That’s fine. We’re just here to be part of an audience.” Hanging around at the back, having the free canapes, partaking of the plentiful free wine that was being distributed. Then Griff Rhys Jones, who was presenting the award, gets up on stage and announces the winners in each category, and we won our category. Much triumphant jubilation and celebration. Then went on to reveal that we won the whole thing. We won the Design of the Year Award as a whole. Which then led to this photo call. By which point I was quite drunk as well. I had no idea this was going to happen. Yes, so there’s that famous photo of a bunch of GDS people accepting the award, all quite smartly dressed, apart from me letting the side down with my Robocop t-shirt. Angus Montgomery: Tell me how you got involved in this thing in the first place. You’ve been in the Civil Service before, but you're not a career civil servant, are you? Or you hadn’t been. Neil Williams: Well, yes. I would like to think of myself as not being a career civil servant. I started in the private sector, in a communications publishing agency. It was a magazine agency. I thought I wanted to be a journalist actually. I did English at university. I thought I wanted to be a journalist. Went into publishing. Was passionate about publishing and the power of the printed word. Distributing information to people. Equipping them with information. Informing people and so forth. I went into corporate publishing, as a way to learn about publishing, but whilst I was working for that company the internet was becoming a bigger deal, a bigger thing. I was also mucking around in my spare time with comedy websites. That was known by my employers, who then said, as they were starting to think about, “How do we get in on this?” they asked me if I wanted to run the London office of their new digital offering to their clients. I leapt at the chance. That was a really good leg up for me. That’s where I learnt about digital, about building websites. So that was a great place, where I learnt… I said I wanted to be in publishing and journalism. The information is power thing excited me, and of course doing that digitally, doing that online, massively more so. More empowering people. I fell in love instantly with the immediacy of what you get with publishing to the web, and providing services over the web, and getting the feedback, and being able to improve based on the fact that you can see in real time what users are doing. That’s been my passion ever since. After a few years of doing that… That is now a dwindling small part of my career, when you look back on it, so it’s probably true to say that I am a career civil servant. A few years in a digital agency. Then I wanted to see the other side of things, and be client side, and see something through to its outcomes, rather than just build a thing and hand it over. I joined the Civil Service. I joined the government communications profession. Angus Montgomery: I know it well. Neil Williams: And my first gig was in the Department for Trade and Industry, as it was then, as an assistant information officer. A young, eager civil servant. There were some digital elements to that job, but actually quite a lot of my earliest Civil Service gig was going to Number 10 every week to do the grid meeting, which is the Alastair Campbell era. It’s still the process now. And I was moving around within the department. So there’s an eight-year period, which I'm not going to go into in any detail,where I moved around between different departments, doing digital things. I worked my way up the greasy pole of the Civil Service. From a web manager, managing a bit of a website and looking after the content and the information architecture, through to running whole teams, running the website, intranet, social media side of things. During those years I did a lot of work on product development, around online consultation tools and digital engagement platforms. And lots of frustration actually. So this brings us to the beginning of the GDS story. Angus Montgomery: This is the 2010 Martha Lane Fox bombshell? Neil Williams: Yes. The old way, the traditional way, and this is pretty common not just in government but everywhere, websites sprung out of being a thing led by communications teams. “It’s just another channel for us to do our communications.” And it is, but it is also, as we all now know, the way that people do their business and transact. People come to your website to do a thing, to use a service, to fulfil a need. It took a long time for the Civil Service to recognise that. For many years myself and others in the digital communications teams within departments were getting increasingly frustrated. A lone voice really. Trying within our departments to show them the data that we had and go, “Look, people are coming for things that we’re not providing them with. We need to do a better job of this.” A lot of that falling on deaf ears, not getting prioritised in the way that it needed to, and also clearly fragmented across thousands of websites, across all of these organisations. A lot of great work was done before GDS, and this story has been told on the History of GDS series of blog posts, which if people haven’t seen are really well worth looking at. Tom Loosemore has talked about this before, about standing on the shoulders of giants. There was enormous effort, over many, many years, to digitise government, to centralise things, to put users first. Directgov and Business Link were the current incarnations of that, of a service-led approach, but it was just a small proportion of the overall service offering from government, and it was still really quite comms focused. The conversations were about reach, and there was advertising to try and promote the existence of these channels, etc. Lots of it was written from the perspective of the department trying to tell people what they should do, rather than understanding what it is that people are trying to do and then designing things that meet those needs. So GDS. In 2010, this is a really well-told story, and people are pretty familiar with it now, but 2010 Martha Lane Fox was commissioned to review the government’s website, particularly Directgov. She took a broader remit, and looked at the whole thing, and, in summary, said, “Start again.” Angus Montgomery: ‘Revolution, not evolution’. Neil Williams: ‘Revolution, not evolution’. Yes, that was the title. Angus Montgomery: And everyone at GDS, or who has been at GDS, has said, like Tom, that we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, and huge amounts of work was done beforehand, but why do you think Martha’s report was such a turning point? Because it was, because it led to a huge amount of change. Neil Williams: Yes. It’s a really pithy, succinct little letter. It’s not reams and reams of paper. It was just quite a simple call to action really. Which was to say, “You need to take ownership of the user experience, in a new organisation, and empower a new leader, and organisation under that leader, to do that, to take a user-led approach.” That was the different thing. Take a user-led approach, and to use the methods that are being used everywhere used. Government had not yet really caught up to what was going on in the wider technology industry around ways of working, agile and so forth, around working iteratively, experimentally, and proving things early. Rather than upfront requirement specs, and then out comes something at the end which you then later discover doesn’t work. Those were the two things really. It was that focus on user needs, and work in that different way, which was bringing skills into government that hadn’t been here before. Design, and user research, and software development skills that hadn’t previously been done in-house. It had always been outsourced. Angus Montgomery: So it was a clear and simple strategy, or strategic direction, from Martha Lane Fox’s report. There was a clear mandate. This has been talked about a lot, that we had, or GDS had, Francis Maude backing it at a very high level, and giving it the mandate to- Neil Williams: Yes, absolutely. That was the other thing. It wasn’t just Martha’s letter. It was absolutely a kind of perfect storm of political will and the timing being right. Yes, the Martha letter came out when I was Head of Digital Comms, or some title like that, at the Department for Business. I had moved around between departments. Ended up back in the Department for Business again. It was advocating something pretty radical, that would be a threat really to the digital comms view, to a comms-led view of controlling our channels. That was an interesting situation to find myself in, right? I was reading this stuff from Martha and thinking, “This is brilliant. This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is absolutely the right thing.” But then internally my job required me to do some more maybe circumspect briefing to the minister and to the director of comms about, “Actually, well, this is a risk to us.” So I was doing both of those things. I was talking internally about the positives of what this could mean for government, but the risks to our organisation, but publicly I blogged… I thought, “This is brilliant.” I blogged enthusiastically, because I had a personal blog at the time, about my thoughts on how this could be the beginning of something really exciting. That’s the thing that led me to meeting Tom Loosemore. Tom Loosemore, who as we all know is one of the early architects of GDS, saw my blog post, and got in touch and said, “Let’s have a chat.” And that’s how my journey into GDS started. It started by answering that email from Tom Loosemore and going for pizza with him. Angus Montgomery: The power of blogging. Neil Williams: Yes. We had a chat over pizza, where he was talking about his ideas for getting an alpha. Getting a team together that could produce something quickly, as a sort of throwaway prototype, that would show a different way of working. Tom was saying stuff that was exciting but contained many new words. (Laughter) He was talking about alphas and agile ways of working. I don’t know what these things are. Angus Montgomery: Now we’re at a stage, at GDS and throughout government, where agile is a touchstone of how we work, and it’s accepted that doing things in agile is doing things better, and there’s lots of opportunity for people to learn how that works, and what that means, and apply that to the things that they do, but at the time, as you said, this didn’t really exist in government. You, as someone who had worked in government, probably didn’t know what agile was. Neil Williams: No. Angus Montgomery: How did you learn about it, and how did you know that this was the right approach? Neil Williams: A mix of reading up on it. Initially just going home and Googling those new words and finding out about these ways of working. But also it immediately spoke to me. I had been through several years of several projects where I had felt just how awful and frustrating it is to build websites in a waterfall way. I've got some very difficult experiences that I had at [BEIS], when we rebuilt the website there, and it was project managed by a very thorough project manager in a waterfall way. I was the Senior Responsible Officer, I think, or Senior User I think it is in PRINCE2 language, for the website. As the website was progressing we had a requirements document upfront, all that way of working. We were specifying, with as much predicting the future and guesswork as we possibly can, a load of stuff, and writing it down, around, ‘This is what the website needs to do. This is what the publishing system needs to do’. Then handing that over to a supplier, who then starts to try and interpret that and build that. During that process, seeing as the thing is emerging, and we’re doing the user acceptance testing and all of that stuff on it, that this is just far away from the thing that I had in my head. So there’s already a gap between the written word and then the meaning that goes into the heads of the people who are then building that thing. Then also all of the change that’s occurring at the same time. Whilst we are building that thing the world is not staying still, and there is an enormous amount of change in our understanding around what we want that thing to do. Trying to get those changes in, but facing the waterfall approach, rigid change control process, and just feeling like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. It was really frustrating. Then when I… Back to the question about how do I learn about agile, and some of these new concepts, it was really only when I got in there. I knew what the bad thing felt like, and I knew that that wasn’t right. I knew that you absolutely need to embrace the change as part of the process, embrace learning as part of the process of delivering something as live and ever changing as a website. Then I came in as a product manager, initially part-time, and then full-time when GDS was properly established and able to advertise a role, and started working with Pete Herlihy, who is still here now in GDS. Angus Montgomery: Yes, on Notify. Neil Williams: Yes, he’s lead product manager on Notify now, but back then he was delivery manager. Again, Tom Loosemore was making stuff happen behind the scenes. He was the person who introduced me and Pete. He said something along the lines of, “Neil’s the guy who knows what needs to happen, and Pete’s the guy who knows how to make it happen. You two should talk.” So we did. I learnt a lot of what I now know from working with Pete and working as we then built out a team. Working with some terrific talented software developers, designers, content designers, and so forth, and user researchers, in a multidisciplinary way. Learning on the job what it meant to be a product manager. Obviously, reading up about it. I went on a few courses, I think, too. But mostly learning on the job. Zooming back out a little bit to the GDS career experience, I've learnt so much here. I've never learnt as much probably in the whole of the rest of my career as I've learnt in my time here. Angus Montgomery: Because that first year was learning about agile, putting a team together. Learning how to build this thing. Learning how to land it. At what stage did you realise, “Oh, we’ve done this now. This thing is landing, and it’s getting big, and it’s successful. Oh, wow. We’re in charge of a piece of national infrastructure now”? Neil Williams: That’s an interesting question. I always knew it would. We knew what we were building at the start. We knew we were building something- Angus Montgomery: So you never had any doubts that this was going to work? Neil Williams: Oh, God, yes. We had absolute doubt. The prevailing view when we started was that, “This will not work.” Not internally. Internally, it was certainly a stretch goal. (Laughter) It was ambitious, and it felt a little bit impossible, but in a really exciting way. That is one of the key ingredients of success, is you want your team to feel like something is only just about doable. (Laughter) There’s nothing more motivating than a deadline and a nearly impossible task. Also a bunch of naysayers saying, “This will never work.” And that really united us as a team. Angus Montgomery: So what then happened? Because I think we talk quite a lot about the early years, and a lot has been written, obviously, and GDS was blogging like crazy in those days about the early stages, and how quickly you built the thing, and how quickly you transitioned onto it. One thing that we have talked about as GDS, but probably not in as great detail, is what happened when it then got big, and you had to deal with issues of scale, and you had to deal with issues of… Something a lot of people on GOV.UK have talked to me about is tech debt. That you built this thing very quickly and you had quite a bit of tech debt involved. How did you deal with that? Presumably you always knew this was a problem you were going to have to face. Neil Williams: Yes, to a degree. That 14 people that did a bit on alpha scaled very rapidly to being 140 people. There were lots of teams working in parallel, and building bits of software just in time, like I was just talking about. Just in time for… “We’re not going to build anything we don’t have to build. We’re just going to build what’s necessary to achieve the transition, to shut these other websites down and bring them all in.” But that approach means you're laying stuff on top of other stuff, and things were getting built by different teams in parallel, adding to this growing code base, and in some cases therefore duplicative stuff happening. Where maybe we’ve built one publishing system for publishing a certain kind of format of content, another publishing system for publishing another kind of format of content. Then in the process we’ve ended up with two different ways of doing something like attachments, asset management. Then we’ve got complexity, and we’ve got bits of code that different teams don’t know how to change without quite a steep learning curve, and so on. And that was the case everywhere. Given the pace of how fast we were going, and how ambitious the timescales were for shutting down what turned out to be 1,882 websites… (Laughter) Exactly. It was incredible. We knew, yes. We knew. It was talked about. It was done knowingly, that, “We are making things here that we’re going to have to come back to. That are going to be good enough for now, and they’re going to achieve what we need to achieve, but they will need fixing, and they will need replacing and consolidating.” So we absolutely knew, and there was much talk of it. Quite a lot of it got written down at the time as ‘This is some tech debt that we’re going to definitely need to come back to’. Yes, we weren’t blind to that fact, but I think the degree of it, and the amount of time it took to resolve it, was slightly unexpected. That’s partly because of massive personnel change as well. Straight off the back of finishing… Well, I say finishing. GOV.UK is never finished. Let’s just get that out there. Always be iterating. GOV.UK’s initial build, and the transition, and the shutting down, the transition story of shutting down those 1,882 websites, had an end date, and that end date felt like a step change to many people. As in lots of people came into GDS in those early days to do the disruptive thing. To do the start-up thing. To do Martha’s revolution. Then at that moment of, “Actually, we’ve now shut down the last website,” to lots of those people that felt like, “Now we’re going into some other mode. Now we’re going into actually we’re just part of government now, aren’t we? I don’t know. Do I necessarily want to be part of that?” So there was some natural drifting away of some people. Plus, also, the budget shrank at that point. The project to do the transition was funded and came to an end. So actually we were going to go down to an operational smaller team anyway. So a combination of attrition, of people leaving anyway, plus the fact that we did need to get a bit smaller. Also, at that time, that’s when the early founders of GDS left. Mike Bracken, Tom Loosemore, Ben Terrett left around that time. Which also led to some other people going, “Well, actually, I came here for them. I came here with them. And I'm leaving too.” So that meant that we had the tech debt to deal with at a time when we also had quite a lot of new stuff. We had all of this unknown and not terribly well-documented code, that was built really quickly, by lots of different people, in different ways. Plus people who weren’t part of that joining the team, and looking at it and going, “Oh, what have we got here? Where do I start with this?” (Laughter) So it took a long time. I think it’s common in agile software development to underestimate how long things might take. It’s an industry problem that you need to account for. Angus Montgomery: Well, this is the interesting thing, because it feels to me as an observer that there have been three main stages of GOV.UK so far. There’s the build and transition, which we’ve talked about quite a lot. There’s the growth and sustainability years, I suppose, where you were sorting out the tech debt, and you were making this thing sustainable, and you were dealing with departmental requests, and you were putting in structures, and process, and maturing it. Now it feels like we’re in a new stage, where a lot of that structural stuff has been sorted out, and that means you can do really exciting things. Like the work that Kate Ivey-Williams, and Sam Dub, and their team have been doing on end-to-end services. The work that’s been going on to look at voice activation on GOV.UK. And the work that’s been done that Nicky Zachariou and her team have been looking at, machine learning, structuring the content. And it feels like now, having sorted out those fundamentals, there’s a whole load of stuff we can do. Neil Williams: Yes, absolutely. We’re iterating wildly again, I would say. (Laughter) We’re back to that feeling of early GOV.UK, where we’re able to turn ideas into working software and working product relatively quickly again. Some of the stuff we’re doing now is greenfield stuff. Again, a lot of the ideas we had way back when, in the early days of GDS, about making the publishing system really intuitive, and giving data intelligence to publishers, so that they can understand how services are performing, and see where to prioritise, and get really rich insights about how their stuff as a department is working for users, we’re getting to that now. We’re starting to rebuild our publishing tools with a proper user-centric design. Which we didn’t do enough of, because we had to focus on the end users more in the early days. It’s great to be doing that now. We’re also deleting some stuff, which were the mistakes that I made. (Laughter) Which feels good on my way out. Some of the things that we did, that have stuck around way longer than we intended them to, are now being deleted. We’re now able to go, “Actually, we know now, we’ve known for a while, that this isn’t the right solution,” and we’re able to change things more radically. Yes, we’re doing really exciting stuff. Thanks for mentioning it. Angus Montgomery: What are you most excited about? Because Jen Allum, who was lead product manager on GOV.UK for a couple of years, I think, she’s taking over now as head of GOV.UK after you leave. What are you most excited about seeing her and the team do? What do you think is the biggest challenge that they face? Neil Williams: I'm thrilled that Jen is taking over the job. She obviously knows the product, knows the team really, really well, and she’s absolutely brilliant. There is some incredibly exciting stuff happening right now, which I will be sad not to be here for. You mentioned one of them. That’s the step-by-step navigation product, which is our solution for, “How do you create an end-to-end holistic service that meets a whole user need?” If you’ve been following GDS at all, which if you're listening to this podcast you probably have, then you will have seen stuff from Lou Downe, Kate Ivey-Williams, many other people, around end-to-end services and what we mean by services and service design. Around good services being verbs and bad services being nouns. Government has the habit of creating schemes, and initiatives, and forms, and giving them names, and then they stick around for a very long time. Users end up even having to learn those names in some cases. The classic example is, “I want to SORN my car.” What the hell does that even mean? Whereas actually what they want to do is take their car off the road. It’s an actual thing that an actual human wants to do. Nearly every interaction or task that you have with government requires more than one thing. You need to look at some content. You might need to transact. You might need to fill in a form. You might need to go and do some stuff that’s not with government. You might need to read something, understand what the rules are, and then go and do something offline. If you're a childminder you’ve got a step there, which is you’ve got to go and actually set up your space and get it inspected. Then you come back, and there’s more to do with government. Those things need setting out clearly for people. It’s still the case now. Despite all of the great work that we’ve done on GOV.UK to improve all of this stuff, it’s still far too much the case that people have to do all of that work themselves. They have to piece together the fragments of content, and transactions, and forms that they need to do. So what we are doing with our step-by-step navigation product is that’s a product output of a lot of thinking that’s been happening in GDS for many years, around, “How do you join services together, end-to-end, around the user?” We’ve got that product. It’s been tested. It works really, really well. To look at you might just look at it and go, “Well, there’s not much to that, is there? That’s just some numbered steps and some links.” Yes, it is, but getting something that looks that simple, and that really works, is actually a ton of work, and we’ve put in a huge amount of work into proving that, and testing that, and making sure that really works. Making it as simple as it is. The lion’s share of that work is actually in the service design, and in the content design, going, “Let’s map out what is… Well, first of all let’s understand what the users need. Then let’s map out what are the many things that come together, in what order, in order to meet that need.” Angus Montgomery: Before we wrap up I just wanted to ask you to give a couple of reflections on your time at GDS. What’s the thing you're most proud of, or what was your proudest moment? Neil Williams: That’s tricky. I've been here a long time. I've done a lot of… I say I've done a lot of good stuff. I've been around whilst some really good stuff has happened. (Laughter) Angus Montgomery: You’ve been in the room. (Laughter) Neil Williams: Right. I've had a little bit to do with it. It’s got to be the initial build, I think. Other than wearing a Robocop t-shirt to a very formal event, which I'm still proud of, it’s got to be the initial build of GOV.UK and that was the thing that I was directly involved with and it was just the most ridiculous fun I've ever had. I can’t imagine ever doing something as important, or fast paced, or ridiculous as that again. There were moments during that when… Actually, I don’t think I can even tell that story probably. (Laughter) There were some things that happened just as a consequence of the speed that we were going. There are funny memories. That’s all I'm going to say about that. If you want to- Angus Montgomery: Corner Neil in a pub or café in South London if you want to hear that story in the future. What was the scariest moment? Or what was the moment when you thought, “Oh, my God, this might not actually work. This thing might fall apart”? Or were there moments like that? Neil Williams: I don't know. No, I think we’ve always had the confidence, because of the talent that we’ve brought in, the capability and the motivation that everyone has. When bad things have happened, when we’ve had security threats or any kind of technical failures, just the way that this team scrambles, and the expertise that we’ve got, just means that I'm always confident that it’s going to be okay. People are here in GDS because they really care,and they’re also incredibly capable. The best of the best. I'm not saying that’s an organisation design or a process that I would advocate, that people have to scramble when things fail, but in those early days, when GOV.UK was relatively newly launched, and we were going through that transition of from being built to run, those were the days where maybe the operations weren’t in place yet for dealing with everything that might come at us. There was a lot of all hands to the pump scrambling in those days, but it always came right and was poetry to watch. (Laughter) Those moments would actually be the moments where you would be most proud of the team and to be part of it. When it comes down to it these people are really amazing. Angus Montgomery: Finally, what’s the thing you are going to miss the most? Neil Williams: Well, it’s the people, isn’t it? That’s a cheesy thing to say, but it’s genuinely true. I've made some amazing friends here. Some people who I hope I can call lifelong friends. Many people who have already left GDS, who I'm still in touch with and see all the time. It’s incredible coming into work and working with people who are so likeminded, and so capable, and so trusting of each other, and so funny. I laugh all the time. I come into work and it’s fun. It’s so much fun. And we’re doing something so important, and we’re supporting each other. The culture is just so good, and the people are what makes that. Cheesy as it may be, it’s you Angus. I'm going to miss you. Angus Montgomery: It’s all about the people. Oh, thank you. That was a leading question. (Laughter) Neil Williams, thank you so much for doing that and best of luck in the future. We will miss you lots. Neil Williams: Thanks very much. Thank you. Angus Montgomery: So that wraps up the very first Government Digital Service podcast. I hope you enjoyed it - we’re aiming to do lots more episodes of this, we’re aiming to do around 1 episode a month and we’re going to be talking to lots of exciting and interesting people both inside GDS and outside GDS and we’re going to be talking about things like innovation and digital transformation and user-centred design and all sorts of interesting things like that, so if you’d like to listen to future episodes please go to wherever it is you get your podcasts and subscribe to listen to us in the future. And I hope you enjoyed that episode and I hope you listen to more. Thankyou very much.

god history head learning english business design government united kingdom trade straight laughter fantastic hanging gov users ended designs robocop angus equipping googling south london cheesy zooming internally chief digital officers distributing informing croydon digital services civil service beis alastair campbell design museum ocp notify gds service podcast prince2 martha lane fox boxpark government digital service business link neil williams laughter so croydon council laughter it mike bracken tom loosemore i back angus montgomery

That Blind Tech Show 08: Twitterrific on the Mac and Downcast is Back andSonos Gets 1 Bigger. (Transcription provided)

That Blind Tech Show

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 29, 2018 60:19

That Blind Tech Show Rolls Again. Bryan brings Allison and Jeff back to the sho to talk about some of the latest Tech news, gidgets and gadgets and the latest from Sonos. We are proud to announce that Twitterrific for the Mac is Back, Downcast just got an update and AOL Messenger is no longer. Jeff gives us an update on the fire that hit Enchanted Hills Camp above Napa, CA and how we can all contribute and support #RebuildEHC. Be sure to check the links below to learn more about what the heck we were talking about. :) Check out the Twitterrific Blog and Subscribe to keep up with the latest from iConFactory Google Bought Apple or Did they! Twitterrfic for Mac is here How to get apps back in iTunes 10 Safari Long Press Shortcut Gestures. Do you remember to ever long press? Read more about Enchanted hills Camp #RebuildEHCand contribute what you can and lend your support. Give by phone: Call Jennifer Sachs at 415-694-7333 See Transcription below. Thank you for listening. Send us Feedback via email Follow us on Twitter @BlindTechShow That Blind Tech Show is produced in part by Blind Abilities Network. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Transcription: That Blind Tech Show: Twifferrific on the Mac and Downcast is Back andSonos Gets 1 Bigger. (Transcription provided) [Music] Alison: Sonos One's which are the newest iteration of the play one, are the ones that have Lady A built-in. [Music] Alison: I did put the Eyes Free Fitness app on my phone and I'm hoping that you know buying some of the workouts for that, I will literally have no excuse not to, not to do it because my phone is always with me no matter where I go. Bryan: Somebody in New Zealand had something about unboxing one very early before the rest of the world which..... Alison: Oh yes Jonathan was very very happy that you know when he get, when these items come out he gets them a day ahead everyone else because New Zealand is a day ahead. Bryan: He should let people know that. [Laughter] Alison: He really doesn't gloat about that enough, but yeah. Jeff: So Alison you use your phone on a daily basis. [Laughter] Alison: The face ID, I'm still, I find myself still kind of getting used to this new thing called face ID. Jeff: I want to see the Grinch again this year. Bryan: So you want me to come visit? [Laughter] Big smiles okay, three, two one, welcome back to yet another episode of that blind tech show. I know it's been a very long time since we've been here in fact you've probably heard a lot of us on other great technology podcasts. I know our friend Allison Hartley recorded one of her regular tech doctor podcasts as well as she was on with the great people over at main menu. And you may have heard Jeff Thompson on with AT Banter and I believe he's got another podcast coming out with the good folks over at Mystic Access and you may have heard me on Blind Bargains but we finally got the band back together again and we're here to talk you through some of the holidays and the goings on now, so I'm going to go ahead and say yeah how you doing over there Allison. Alison: I'm doing okay, it's the day three of a four-day weekend so I'm just kind of milking the the time off work for all it's worth, I've been reading good books that I'll talk about later and eating lots of food, lots of pie, so much pie. Bryan: There's never such a thing as too much pie. Alison: No never. Bryan: What about you Jeff, how has your Thanksgiving holiday been? Jeff: Well pie is a continuum. Alison: Yep. Jeff: It's been great here, I've been bacheloring it, the family's been gone, and I'm living it here with the dogs, happy Thanksgiving, it's Thanksgiving everyday now. Bryan: I'm actually down in Florida still recording you see, we're all about bringing you the show. Holidays don't stop us. One thing I was very excited though on the plane ride down here, I was very excited some of you might have heard about therapy pigs getting kicked off planes. [Pig noises] I'm happy to report there was no therapy pig on my plane down here, just get old Nash in me. How about you Allison, have you ever been on a plane with a therapy Pig? Alison: I have never been on the plane with anything more exciting than another guide dog, I have to say. Bryan: What about you Jeff have you ever traveled with any pigs? Jeff: No but it, it would wouldn't be that bad if it was therapy bacon. Alison: Oh yeah. Bryan: That is true, that is true and for those of you not hear about that story it's actually not the first time a therapy pig has gotten kicked off a plane so, go ahead and check that out, it was one of the more humorous stories and, you know, it's great that they stand up for our rights as guide dog service dog users, but seriously, therapy pigs. [Pig noises] Now Allison, I think you're probably the only disappointed one because I'm hearing the Soup Nazi said no soup for you, no home pod for you this year? Alison: Yeah I mean I have really no reason to be disappointed. I have speakers coming out of my ears. [Spring noise and laughter] Alison: Quite literally right now cuz I'm wearing headphones but, I am, I am still interested in getting the home pod when it comes out, home pods I should say, cuz I want to get a stereo pair. I have my Lady A controlled Sonos speakers now, and I'm finding that that is honestly filling a lot of my needs in terms of playing satellite radio and playing any song that I could possibly think of. I do still want to get the home pods because I hear that the sound quality is gonna be even that much better than the Sonos speakers, but I'm not, I'm not tearing my hair out, if these new Sonos hadn't come out I might have been a bit more disappointed, but I'm okay. Jeff: Now you said they're gonna be better sounding than the Sonos? Alison: They are, they're going to have more tweeters and better far-field microphones for understanding you, the only limitation in my opinion it's gonna be Siri, I know this is a controversial subject on an Apple themed podcast but, Siri is terrible. Bryan: You will get no argument out of me, Siri and I, we're not even dating anymore, the relationship is over and.... Unfortunately this is not surprising news, Apple you know when they used to meet their deadlines, we talked about it this summer, it was a little odd that Apple was talking about this, it almost reminds me of you know back 10 years ago when they used to say there's an attack coming, it's not coming today, it's not coming tomorrow, but it's coming, and I kind of feel that's the same thing with (inaudible) Alison: Yeah. Bryan: Apple pod, they're not gonna be out today, they're not gonna be out tomorrow, but they will be out, probably around the same time that the Amazon app comes to the Apple TV. Alison: I would, I would say you're probably right there, and I would say that when they do come out they're gonna be a couple of years behind all of the other smart speakers with better AI. It's really, it's kind of gonna be sad almost. I really I want to see Apple push forward in this arena, but unfortunately you know, I, I've played now with Google assistant, I've had a Lady A in my life, I have been playing even with Bixby on a, on a Samsung phone, and yes you give something up in terms of your data, and in terms of your privacy, but when you're putting security above all, the AI, and the assistance itself becomes very limited in what it can do, and it's really starting to show in Siri when there are so many more worthy competitors. Bryan: Yeah, the Apple really missed the boat on the the home assistant and you know, Tim Cook was wishy-washy on it for several years and now it's just gonna be a speaker, I really have no interest, I mean I'm very happy with my Echo devices, heck, I got a small apartment you know, I've got one in the living room. They're $30.00 now over you know, the weekend... Alison: God Yeah. Bryan: I just don't have, I'm like, well do I really need another one, and I'm like, I've got one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and I don't spend much time in the kitchen so you know it's, there's no point really in getting another one but I, you just can't say no at that price and, how was the Google assistant, did you like it? Alison: I do, I actually I have a Google home speaker that I don't have plugged in at this point but on the Galaxy I mean it's just, you can just ask random questions and instead of saying, let me check the web for that, here's what I found, it actually just gives you the answer to your flipping question. Bryan: Yeah. Alison: It's really amazing and then you can ask like follow-up questions and it jives with what you were talking about and it answers intelligently. I just, you know maybe the home pod speakers will come out and something about Siri will blow us out of the water or something out of the speakers, about the speakers will blow everything else out of the water because they've had a little bit more time, but I'm starting to get a little impatient with Apple's obsession with, I know they want to get it right, and I know they want to have a really polished user experience, but that user experience is starting to suffer because of that need to be so meticulous, and so perfect. Jeff: Well I think they've actually, having it come out next year might be a good plan for their stocks in a way because people are buying the eight, or the ten, those are big items, and you're talking about $349.00 here. It's hard to comBryan when everybody else is you know flooding the market with these $29.00 minis, and dots, and Amazon, what do they have seven different items now in this department? The Look, the Show, the Tap. Alison: Now Google has three, I mean, it's a lot. Bryan: And, I'm hearing about headphones, Bose, I think there is a set of Bose headphones which you know, I couldn't afford those, but that have the Google Home built into them so we're starting to see more and more even headphones with these kind of assistants built into them and, I think Apple, you know, they've just been left behind and, not every company needs a home assistant so, I really don't see what the marketplace unless you are a big music listener, you know, or have capitol to spend, I really don't see the point to it, I guess I don't have a fine ear for music because I think the Echo speaker sounds fantastic and everybody I know that's into music says, "Are you kidding?" Alison: Oh no, oh God, no no no no no. Especially the Dot. The Dot is barely passable for spoken word, but even the big Echo, drives me crazy because it tries to simulate fake stereo, but it doesn't quite get it right on the one speaker so, it's, it drives me nuts. Bryan: What's the opposite of perfect pitch? Because that's what I have. [Laughter] Jeff: Either you have it, or you don't. Alison: Yeah. [Laughter] Jeff: So with the Sonos, you have two of them, that's the Sonos one you have two of them. Alison: Yep. Jeff: That does perfect stereo? Alison: It does, yeah I have them equal distant from each other on a table, and the stereo separation is amazing, it's really beautiful. Jeff: Oh that's great. Bryan: Are there multiple different kinds of Sonos? I've just heard phenomenal things about Sonos speakers, or is there one product line or are there different kind of product lines for the Sonos speakers. Alison: There are in the non smart, non Lady A connected Sonos products, there are three, well four technically different tiers of Sonos products, and it all depends on the number of tweeters that are in each speaker, and with all of them you can pair to get a stereo pair with the Play Ones, Play Threes, and Play Fives, but they become very expensive, and they have a sound bar, and they have a subwoofer for the television, but you couldn't pair Lady A with a skill now, to make all of your Sonos products somewhat controllable via Lady A, but the Sonos One's which are the newest iteration of the Play One, they look exactly the same except they have microphones, are the ones that have Lady A built-in. Bryan: Yeah well everything, everything seems to be getting smarter except Apple News, which you know, I often go through Apple news and my subscriptions when I'm putting this show together and, lately I've been noticing there's about two articles and then everything goes back six weeks, and they just don't seem to be coming out with a lot of content and as Jeff and I were talking about, a lot of ads you'll see an article, title of an article, title of an article, then an advertisement, and then a bunch of text, this is something about Apple and an ad and everything. Jeff have you been using Apple News, and have you noticed how down hill it seems to have gone? Jeff: I've noticed it's changing a little bit at first, the ads you can't even read the ads because that, all it does is give you description of it, and you have to skip over it, so they're not trying to sell to the blind. The thing that I noticed about Apple News is Apple shuts down at about four o'clock on Friday, there's no new news, they just kind of rehash the same stuff until Monday, and it's just like looking for an app update. If I get one on on Saturday/Sunday, someone paid extra to have that pushed out. Bryan: Yeah maybe I should go back to Newsify and actually reading my RSS feed for technology news. I'm not seeing that much content coming through there, I was I was really excited when Apple news came out because I thought it was gonna be great and I enjoyed it at first, I was using it all the time, but now I'm seeing less and less content and a lot of that content, there's nothing worse than when you're reading an article and like a paragraph into the article, all of a sudden advertisement is starts being read to you... Alison: Yep. Bryan: It drives me absolutely bonkers, and Jeff you actually said, and I'm curious because I read a lot of television recaps in Safari, where I'll say, Arrow episode, season six episode three recap, and it will, I'll find an article that will describe the action and a lot of times these articles, a paragraph in it starts reading an ad to me, you just got a pop-up blocker, now do you think those pop-ups might block those in article advertisements, or just really block pop-ups. Jeff: Actually it's not a pop-up blocker, that is native to the Safari app where you can turn that on or off and it blocks pop-ups. Now some colleges, if you're a college student, they use pop-up so you might want to beware that you might be shutting off something and not being able to gain access to so, try it out. What I got was Purify and that's P U R I F Y, it's a content blocker, and when you get that you, you purchase it, and I got it for a dollar ninety nine, I don't know if that was a Black Friday deal or a special over the holidays but, a dollar ninety-nine, it's very popular app according to Nick, my buddy up in Canada, and what it does is it works on your browser. So what you do is you purchase it and then you have to go into your Safari app settings, go down and just below pop-up blocker, you're gonna find content blocker, and then you have to enable it by turning it on. Bryan: Allison, have you ever used any kind of pop-up or ad blockers or anything? Alison: I do also use Purify and I find that that eliminates a lot of the ads on the websites that I use. What I love now also is reader mode for specific websites in iOS11, if you activate reader now, it's an actionable item and you can go to Auto reader and you can tell it that I either want reader to be active on this website all the time or, all the time for everything, so I have some very specific websites for which I just have reader all the time and I never have to worry about any extra crap on the webpage. Bryan: Where is that setting where you could set it specifically for an individual website? Alison: When you actually turn on reader and you've got reader selected, then there's an actions available, it might even be available for you to select it, and one of the actions is automatic reader when you flick down. You double tap that and then it comes up with a message that says do you want to enable reader for all websites or just on this domain and, you could turn it on for just on this website, and so like 9 to 5 Mac for example and a couple of other more the, more of the busy Apple news sites, I have since I do so much Twitter reading on my phone, I've got automatic reader turned on and it's changed everything. Bryan: Yeah that's something I'll have to, you know I I use the reader all the time, but I, and I remember hearing about, that you know, you hear, about so many new settings but I've never played around with it so, that's something I'm really gonna have to make use of, and by the way if you're out there and if you know of any specific ad popup blocker that might work in individual apps, let us know, you could tweet us in at BlindTechShow or shoot us in an email at thatblindtechshow@ gmail.com, let us know about that. This next thing is really interesting because I was down here listening, I have an app where I'm able to get any NFL audio feeds and everything, and the one thing that drives me bonkers because my dad's a little older so sometimes he forgets is I'm watching the Washington Redskins game here on Thanksgiving with him and I'm listening to the Redskins radio, the only problem is streaming audio is a good minute and a half to two minutes behind real time, and he keeps commenting about what's on TV and it's just driving me insane, I'm like Dad, remember it hasn't happened again you know, so, one thing that would be nice is if FM radio actually just worked on your iPhone which supposedly it could according to this article, we'll put in the show notes that it's built into the phone but Apple just will not activate it. Have you guys been following this story? I know it's been in the news a lot lately. Alison: I've heard two things about this, I've heard that Apple for whatever reason has just decided not to activate it but then I've also heard that the newer modems actually don't have the FM radio so it's a moot point. Bryan: Mmm okay, what about you Jeff if you've been following along to this? Jeff: Yeah I have but, you know it's to me it's like, is it, is it, am I dying for it, I don't know, I really don't know. Bryan: I think it'd be nice, just, you know to be in real time. I don't understand why they can't get streaming audio to be at least maybe you know a second or two behind. I mean it's just such a significance difference, I've got it put on do not disturb, otherwise I'll get notifications about a score in a game, you know, before it happened. The fascinating thing is during the, the Yankees playoff run, I went to my local bar with a pair of my head with the headphones with FM radio, and sure enough FM radio would get it like 30 seconds before television would. [Laughter] Alison: So there's no perfect solution. Bryan: No, there's not, I'd be like, I'd yell out "damn it" and people were like "What are you talking about, they've yet to throw the pitch". [Laughter] So yeah, there's there's no perfect solution. Jeff: I like tuneIn radio, I like stuff like that. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: If there's an emergency or something we got those alarms that go off and everything. I don't see myself turning it on, I don't know, it's just, it so interesting, there's so many resources, so many different avenues that I can get information that, just one more to be on the phone and then, where's my antenna. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: You know it's, now that we're Bluetooth everything so, do we have to wrap it in tinfoil? I don't know. Bryan: You just hold it up in the air while you're walking down the street like an umbrella. [Laughter] Am I getting a signal now? Damn it, the signal is better over here. You know it's funny because the one thing my headphones don't get is AM radio. Jeff: I think it's just as important to think about this. Now do we really want that on there because everyone was so excited when like your Amazon device could make phone calls. As soon as you make that phone call you're standing there for about two minutes going I can't walk away. Alison: Yeah, yeah. Jeff: It's not fun. Bryan: No no no, like I've said for a very long time, the worst app on the iPhone is the phone, and it's also my least used app. I wonder if I could take it out of the dock and put it on like page nine. [Laughter] Alison: You could yeah. Bryan: Yeah, you know it's funny yeah I've been down here in Florida like I said for a week and everything, so I've been in a lot of automobiles which in New York City you know I'm not in cars a lot, and I've noticed my phone still thinks I'm driving sometimes. Alison: My phone thinks I'm driving when I'm not even in a car, like I'll be laying in bed and all of a sudden that do not disturb while driving thing will pop up and I'll be like I'm just reading a book, can you go away? [Laughter] Bryan: But do you have a waterbed so maybe you're moving. [Laughter] Jeff: Too much coffee. Alison: Unfortunately no waterbed, but it's crazy I wish, I have it set on activate manually, so it should not be popping up at all, but it's driving me nuts. Bryan: Real quick for a millennial crowd, water beds were beds with water in them in the 1980s. [Laughter] Look them up. Jeff: California has regulations on waterbeds. Alison: Yeah. [Laughter] Right. Jeff: The other thing is someone told me about the notifications you know that, while you're in a car if you turn it to what is that the Bluetooth setting in your car mode, that that's supposed to trigger it, I don't know sometimes that some things are on, some things are off, I don't know. Bryan: Yeah, and I've got mine set the manual where I'm supposed to be able to turn it on, I have read in a lot of places and I think we may all be running different versions of betas, or some people may be having this problem, others may not and supposedly some people claim it's fixed in a certain beta. I don't even know if I'm running that beta, I think I'm one update behind, you know there's been so many betas out that I can't keep up with them, and a lot of updates coming out too, I notice all the time I seem to have like 80 to 90 updates every few days cuz, I self update, what about you? I know you guys self-medicate, do you self update? Alison: Well I'm constantly working on self improvement, self updating, oh oh you mean apps, yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: The apps, I like to make sure tha,t I like to read those little release notes, and the worst is we update our app fairly regularly, we're not going to tell you what we're doing. Alison: Nope. Jeff: If you get a self-improvement app, would that be self defeating? [Laughter] Bryan: I don't know, you know what, email us and let us know what you think. You know a lot of people are big fans of the Star Wars saga, but have you guys been following the blindfold game saga. Alison: It's been it's been rather epic. Bryan: It has, there's been multiple parts you know. We had, we even had my favorite was Blindfold game Strikes Back you know. Alison: And they did to their credit. Bryan: They did, they struck back hard. I'm a, you know I am a big fan of the games. Blindfold Uno, I've bought plenty of them, I know some people don't like them, I think Marty does a phenomenal job and, God I love the trivia games, and there's nothing like when you've got a, you're sitting in the store you got a few minutes to kill. I've actually set my Blindfold Uno to unlimited scoring so I've got like thirty thousand points in there, it just keeps... [Laughter] Every time the computer gets within ten thousand points of me I think it's cheating you know, but, he really does a great job with a lot of those games. Marty is a businessman and he makes these games you know, out of his love of making games for the community as well as to make money and... Alison: Sure why not. Bryan: I couldn't believe what, when Apple was telling him he needed to roll them into tab less apps in the App Store. It really seemed like Apple didn't know what they were talking about I, you know you could Google Marty's website, I'm not sure the exact site but blindfoldgames.com probably, or just google it, and he's got a blog that'll explain everything that happened if you're not aware of it but, I was really shocked at the stance Apple took against him starting out. Alison: I can summarize briefly if you'd like. Bryan: Sure. Alison: I've been fairly involved in reading about it. So essentially what happened was, and there's a whole detailed timeline on the website. Bryan: Start with episode 1. Alison: In episode one Apple was going through the review process for some iOS11 related updates for Marty's games and they noticed that a lot of the games used the same template. Now Apple technically has a rule that apps cannot be clones of one another, and not looking at the content of the games which are all different decided that these games are too similar and so we're going to have to reject these updates because they have the templates are too similar and you have to make the the gameplay different. Well the whole beauty of the blindfold games is once you know how to play one, you can pretty much figure out you know, several more, so Marty defended himself and said look while these templates are all very similar, the content within them is very different, but Apple didn't want to hear it, they heard, they're like 80 apps is too much. You have to compile them into less. Bryan: A handful, yeah. Alison: Amounts of apps. So Marty's stance, with which I agree, is that then that would make the apps too large to download because they all contain different voice files, and sound effects, so they're already you know pretty sizable downloads anyway, and it would hurt discoverability. For example if all the card games were in one app, somebody might only play one or two, and that might hurt his chances at making more revenue, and the man has got to be able to make some sort of money off it. Bryan: Sure. Alison: I get it. So eventually it came down to a lot of members of the community myself included, advocating with Apple to make them understand that this is a different type of situation than just the average you know, Yahoo up there trying to clone a bunch of flappy bird apps for example. And it worked, they understood, they eventually understood and had a conversation with Marty about, hey we understand that these games are different and now it's it's okay, when the review was passed and Marty at one point he was going to be taking down the games because he just didn't have the resources, either financial, or time wise to do the rewrites that Apple was starting with, so I'm really glad that this ended up, ending happily, and I got into some, some real Twitter spats with a couple of people who really think that, that oh, it's just blind people whining. No, it's, it's people advocating for games, which are truly different in the App Store, and yes blindness does have a little bit to do with it because we have a shortage of accessible games as it is, so don't take our choices away. Bryan: Would you summarize saying basically that Marty basically after the the Clone Wars beat the Empire? Alison: He did. Bryan: Yes. Yes. [Laughter] A Star Wars theme, yeah, no, not to make light of it, it was great that Apple reversed it's course and, Jeff, any comments? Where you following along on the Blindfold saga? Jeff: I was more or less following Allison on Twitter, I'm stalking again Allison. Alison: Oh no. Jeff: But Jonathon Mosan wrote a letter, other people in the community got going on, it was nice to see everybody come together for that you know, like some people were pretty negative, they were saying like "oh yeah, they come together this, but not for jobs" Alison: Some people were jerk faces about it, and I will call them out for that. Jeff: Other people were saying like "Oh Apple, they played the blind card to Apple" it's not that, it's like Allison just explained, it's more like that. It is kind of neat to sit back and watch how different people rise up to certain things and other people take sides, you know the bottom line is the guy is doing something. he has to make money. If he bundles them all up, and you only like one of them, you're not going to buy 8 you know, it makes sense, business sense for him, and I'm glad Apple saw it that way. Bryan: I think he's got a great price plan, because you know, yes, he's got a ton of games you know, nobody buy them all. You could test them out, you know he gives you a free amount of games with each one which I think is fantastic. How many mainstream games out there allow you to test it out before buying it? Alison: It's true. Bryan: So basically what we are saying Marty, "Stay Strong!" Jeff: And may the Force be with you. Bryan: You know something that just came to the app store new and I, I've gotta actually take a look at this, because I haven't exercised since last millennium, The Eyes Free Fit, you know Blind Alive some of you may know it as, I looked up Blind Alive, i couldn't find anything related to exercising. But if you look it up under Eyes Free Fitness, and this just came to the app store last week, and I looked through it, you gotta buy the programs, but it looks like they got a ton of different exercises in there, and I know they've been around for quite a while and on a lot of podcasts. Have either of you guys ever done any of their exercise programs? Alison: A long time ago I bought Cardio Level 1, and it is really great, and really descriptive. I did it a couple of times, I'm really bad with sticking with exercise routines no matter how accessable they are. So, it's really a motivation issue, its not an issue with the workouts themselves, but now I did put the Eyes Free Fitness app on my phone and I am hoping that, you know buying some of the workouts through that, i will literally have no excuse not to do it because my phone is always with me no matter where I go. Bryan: Yeah. How about yourself Jeff? You're an outdoor mountain man, have you ever indoor exercised? Jeff: I was actually testing her website with her so I got to get a few of those and she was next to me in the booth at ACB in 2016. It was in Minneapolis, it was really fun, it's really great that she's taken it to this level now that, you can even hook it up to your health app inside your phone too so.... Bryan: Wait a minute, there's a health app in the phone? [Laughter] Jeff: Page 9 Brian, Page 9. Alison: Page 11 yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: It's next to all of my pizza services. [Laughter] Jeff: So I suggest if people want it, it's Eyes Free Fitness, it's well described, that's the whole intent of it. She uses people who are professionally trained to come up with these exercise routines, but then there's also some stretching ones, and all that stuff. So it's pretty versatile, and they got some Yoga stuff in there, and then there's.... Alison: Pilates. Jeff: Yeah, lots of good stuff in there. Bryan: Yeah, yeah, my only complaint about this app and what she does, is she makes the rest of us look lazy. [Laughter] Can I set a New Years resolution in November, where that's my plan is to, exercise and, you know, a lot of people say they want to get in better shape. I would just like to get into a shape so.... [Funny sound effect and laughter] Alison: See it's a good time for me to get back into this because now I'm walking everyday with Gary with our neighborhood in Napa being so walkable that I actually am in a little bit better shape, so I feel like these exercises would be really great, you know especially if on the weekends when we walk less, it would really help me to get in even better shape. I'm still a far cry off from where I want to be and I still eat to much, but that'll never change. [Laughter] Bryan: I don't even eat that much, I just eat all of the wrong things, I've learned if I like it, it's bad for you. Alison: Yeah, that's kinda where I'm at too, I don't find that I eat these ginormous portions, I mean although I do like a healthy portion of food, but yeah, it's not the good things. It's a little light on the leafy green vegetables and such, although I like fruit. Jeff: You know one of the main things about exercise and all this stuff that we're talking about is the mindset and it takes a while to get your mind wrapped around it. I've been using a trainer for, it'll be coming up on a year and I finally got my mind wrapped around it after 10 months. I mean, it really takes something, I used to be in really good shape, I used to do a lot of stuff, I used to run and all sorts of stuff. But I am not being chased anymore so... you know. Bryan: It's may favorite line, "Do you still run?" "Only when chased" [Laughter] Jeff: Yeah, I think people who want to get back into it sometimes it takes a little commitment. You can buy these from $19.00 to $25.00 or something like that, but you have it, you can do it in the privacy of your own home, it's accessible, and it describes all of the stances, all the positions, well described steps, so if that's what it takes to get your mindset involved in it, it might be a good start for you. Alison: Yeah. Yeah can get as of out of breath or sweaty as you want, as quickly as, however quickly it takes and it doesn't matter because it's just you and yeah. Jeff: But make sure you have your phone notifications for driving set right. [Laughter] Bryan: Either that or in my kind of condition make sure you have 911 on speed dial. [Laughter] I got a good work out there, you know we're recording this the day after Black Friday, it's not even Cyber Monday yet but you'll hear this after Cyber Monday, and it was a low tech Black Friday for me because I got some clothes and everything, no technology but I wanted to ask you guys, what about yourself Allison was it a techie Black Friday Cyber Monday for you or no? Alison: No cuz I, I bought what I want throughout the year, I don't, I don't have the the impulse control to wait three months for something to go on sale on Black Friday, I just buy it when I, when I have the money and what I want it / need it. So Black Friday / Cyber Monday are always kind of a bit of a letdown for me cuz I'm like, oh this thing's on sale, oh wait, I already have it, this thing's on sale, wait I already have it. ]Laughter] Bryan: Got it got it got it got it got it need it you know. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: I just went shopping at Allison's place, I just walk to her house. [Laughter] I'll take that, that, that. [Laughter] Ain't got it, ain't got it, ain't got it. Bryan: You know it's not a big tech year for me because I'm not upgrading, I do need to get a new key chain cuz I have one of those key chains with the Lightning charger and for some reason the Lightning charger broke off of the key chain so, one of the things I heard somebody talking about was you know I've got all these kind of what I call lipstick chargers where you have to plug the cord into the charger. I heard they now got a charger out there that has the lightning charger built into it as well as a USB built into it and I think I'm gonna probably get something like that. Alison: Send me that when you find it. Because, send me the link, yeah because that is something, you know, I love my anchor batteries. I have the ones that are like even 20 thousand milliamps witch are a little bit bigger but I just put them in my purse, but yeah you've got to have the little the cables for your Apple watch and for your micro USB devices and your, your lightning cables all together and it's just it's a little bit much, it gets to be a little bit much to carry around. Jeff: Jack really makes a couple of these. One is a six thousand, one is a ten thousand fifty claiming that X needs more power so they made that one. They do have two cords, one is the Lightning port cord and the other is for all the Android stuff, your mini USB plug, and there's a third you can plug a USB into it so you technically you can actually have three by both outputs going at one time. My concern since their dedicated cables on there, are you committed to that if, what if the cable goes bad you know, I, I don't know but it does get a 4.5 out of 5 ratings on Amazon. Myself I like the big ones. Alison: Oh yes send me that one. Jeff: Cuz size does matter. Alison: It does. [Laughter] Bryan: Hey hey, this is a PG podcast. [Laughter] Alison: What, we're talking about, we're talking about batteries. Bryan: Oh. Jeff: I must admit I like big batteries. Bryan: I've heard that about you. Now Allison you've had the iPhone for a while now what are your thoughts? Alison: I basically really like it, it's nice and fast, I like the size, I have it in a leather case because it's glass on both sides and I do not trust myself with glass on both sides and I have dropped it and the leather case has saved me a couple of times. The face ID I'm still, I find myself still kind of getting used to this new thing called face ID. I find that it's very accurate. I find that even when it doesn't get your face it learns from the experience and it has been consistently doing better but it's not as fast as touch ID, the gestures for bringing up home and app switcher are pretty fluid and elegant I think. Bryan: Are you used to doing those after having the press on the home button for so long or does it take a little training yourself? Alison: I'm used to it now, I've had the thing now for a couple of weeks so I've gotten it back into my, into my muscle memory now that this is just what you have to do because there's no home button and luckily I'm not using any other older devices to confuse me, that's convenient but yeah it's it's never going to be as fast I don't think. Jeff: So Alison you use your phone on a daily basis? [Laughter] Alison: Pretty much almost every minute of every day. Bryan: Are you happy with the purchase, are you happy with the upgrade? Alison: I am because I wanted, I wanted the latest and greatest technology and now I've got it and I realized that sometimes that comes with some caveats so I am happy with it, there are some times though when I have just become resigned to entering in my passcode. For example if I'm laying in bed and I want to unlock my phone, I don't want to have to sit up put the phone all the way in front of my face, get face ID to authenticate me, wake up the husband, wake up the dog, so I just enter in the passcode and it's that's even become a little bit faster. Bryan: My dad was having trouble with his phone recently and I finally found out what the problem was. Alison: Yeah. Bryan: He's running an iPhone 4. [Laughter] Alison: Oh for goodness sakes. Bryan: Yeah, I said.... Jeff: Wait, you, you said it's running. Bryan: Yeah, barely, yeah he can make phone calls that's about it, I said no wonder you're having so many issues with everything else and yeah, he's getting ready to get a new one because my mom did order the iPhone 10 and he's gonna get the hand-me-down. I guess he's gonna move up to a 6 which is all he really needs. Alison: Yeah. Oh that'll be quite an upgrade for him. Bryan: Oh yeah, yeah, so but, my mom's got the 10 coming, she's got the, she ordered it online and has the two to three week wait so, I will not, not get to play around with it while I'm down here and everything but I've been you know listening to you on with Dr. Robert Carter not to be confused with Dr. Richard Kimble. Not that anybody but me. Alison: Not to be confused with John Kimble yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: I thought of Richard Kimble immediately but I'm probably the only one that did that so but you know you guys had a great walkthrough of the iPhone 10 and somebody in New Zealand had something about unboxing one very early before the rest of the world which... Alison: Oh yes Jonathan was very very happy that you know, when these items come out he gets them a day ahead of everyone else because New Zealand is a day ahead. Jeff: He should let people know that. [Laughter] Alison: He really doesn't gloat about that enough no but yeah. Bryan: Allison did I hear you do laundry every now and then? Alison: Every now then, you know I, the house-elves or my husband will not comply and I have to do my own. Bryan: Are you testing out that new GE, was it the GE product that you're testing out? Alison: Yeah so, so I have purchased the GE talking laundry box and actually we were in the market for a new washer and dryer anyway so we got the compatible washer and dryer and I've actually been doing a lot more of my own laundry and enjoying the heck out of it now that we have this talking machine because it's so easy to set all you really have to worry about is the start button and the little knob that controls the settings because the different wash cycles, because it verbalizes everything, you turn the knob, it verbalizes if you're on like cold wash, or towels and sheets, or casual wear, or bulky items, and you press Start and it says starting load on bulky items with an estimated 70 minutes remaining and there's a button on the box that you can press if you need an update of what, of time remaining and the dryer is much the same you just mess with the one knob, you can set your cycle and it just works. Our old washer and dryer we had the little arrows marked, but the one thing would spin, and there was another arrow that you could accidentally move, and Jeremy was really the only person who could set it without getting the other thing to spin, so I'm glad to be able to have some agency over my laundry once again. Bryan: And this works with all GE washer and dryers I believe right? Alison: So on the website it does say that it is, should be compatible with most, it should be compatible with the ones that have the ports in the back, the technician ports, but then it says these are the compatible models and it lists just a couple of different models. Slightly more expensive, that are compatible, I think that you can get this to work with older GE models if it has the port for technicians to hook up, but it's better I think in terms of the software working is optimally as it can if you can buy the the newer ones. Bryan: Yeah full disclaimer if your washer and dryers from 1974 and is GE..... Alison: Probably not going to work. Jeff: I do laundry and the thing on my washer and dryer mostly my washer is, there's that plastic cover that covers things up so you can't really tell the dial, so I took a needlenose pliers, it was excruciating sounds but I got that piece off of there, then I put some little markers on there, so now I just put my finger down there and I just turn it and everyone uses it that way so, yeah I don't recommend anybody to take a needle nose and tear that apart unless you know what you're doing but, yeah that's how I access that. Bryan: Yeah when you're like me and you live in New York it's great because I've got like fluff and fold where they pick it up and deliver it and it's pretty cheap and yeah I'm spoiled like that I think I've mentioned that on the show before. One of the things we did want to mention to the listeners if you do not have knfb reader you're just making your life harder, and it's a phenomenal app, I believe and don't quote me on this but I believe it's on sale at least through Christmas for about 50% off. Normally it's $100.00, I believe now it's $49.95. Go ahead and get that app, you'll make your life a lot easier if you want to read your bills or anything along that. Jeff: I really think if you're a student that that's the app to have. Seeing AI is a good app for a convenience, it's just a quick shuffle through the mail, but if you're gonna do bulk reading or if you want to save it and all sorts of things, you know, that's a workhorse the knfb reader app. Alison: I agree. Bryan: Yeah luckily I think all of us have easy names to pronounce, but I have a friend named Keith Strohak, and every time I tell Siri call Keith Strohak, it says did you mean Keith Sholstrum, did you mean Keith Beyer. It drives me bonkers, I have to go in and manually do it and I will put this link in the show notes. Did you know that you could teach Siri how to save names properly? Jeff: Mm-hmm. Alison: Yeah. Bryan: Okay I was the one who didn't. By the way ask Siri to pronounce Charlize Theron because I heard that's another name that she can't pronounce. Alison: Oh boy. Bryan: Yeah so if you're if you're one of those people and your name is Mustafi Mustafasin or something, go ahead and read this link and you know, maybe you could teach Siri how to read your name and everything. Jeff: The trick about it is that it asks you for the first name and then it asked for the second name, well I didn't know it was doing that so I said Laurie Thompson that's my wife, and then I said Laurie Thompson again. I wondered why it asked me twice, so every time she calls, are you sure you want to call Laurie Thompson Laurie Thompson? I left it I thought it was kind of cute. Alison: That is. Bryan: Now Jeff was a great guy and he posted you know happy holidays to everybody on the Blind Abilities Facebook page and I chimed in with my typical bah humbug and he thought that was you know the happiest he's ever heard me, and that's because he didn't hear how mad I was that my old Grubhub app that I've been running for several years because GrubHub has refused update is now officially dead. I finally had to update it and I don't know what I'm gonna do because this happened shortly before I left New York. I kept getting server error, server error, and I could not do anything so I had to update the app, GrubHub prepare for the barrage because I am gonna be hammering you every day now with fixing your heading navigation. I don't know. Alison: Now that your life depends on it yeah. Bryan: Yeah you know. Jeff: It's time to get that Blind Alive app, get that exercise going. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: Screw GrubHub. Bryan: I still gotta order dinner. I still gotta order dinner and everything. Alison: Try Postmates, try Doordash, you said Eat24 doesn't.... Bryan: Doordash I just heard about so yeah that's one I want to check... Alison: Yeah Postmates is also very good. Unfortunately in Napa our only choice really is Eat24, and that only has a couple of options. Bryan: Yeah you know one of the other things I plan to do when I get back from Florida is, because I've been running my old laptop here my Mac air, and it's so nice because it's running Sierra, and things have been running so smooth, as soon as I get home one of my first acts to do, I'm rolling High Sierra back, have you guys, I know Jeff's been playing High Sierra, Allison, are you still using High Sierra..... Alison: I am and for the limited number of things that I do on my Mac it's absolutely fine, I haven't really had any problems. Bryan: Editing text, when you're working with a lot of text and emails or documents and everything, it just befuddles me and everything, you know sometimes you gotta use the option key, and I did report this to Apple, quick nav does you know, when you use quick nav with words, it does not follow the insertion point, we did test it it is getting kicked up to engineers, there is a navigation problem with quick nav in Hi Sierra. Alison: That's unfortunate. Jeff: Yeah I'm using the beta's and you know it keeps on changing so I don't really complain about it I just keep using it and I know, I know it'll get better, so I just putz with it. Bryan: Yeah well Jeff you said you're running the latest beta and it's, you've noticed an improvement so, maybe it won't be the first thing I do when I get back to New York you know, maybe I'll give it one more update. I am not running the beta so I never run the betas on my computer and the word to the wise if you value productivity do not run those betas. Alison: Yeah, or have a partition on your hard drive or a separate hard drive on which to run them. Jeff: Oh my MacBook Pro [Inaudible] I'm not doing the betas on that so I can always go back to that if I need to but, you know I I usually forget that I'm slowly tweaking my muscle memory like you said Allison, and pretty soon I'm just readjusted. Changes happen and I don't know. Alison: Yep. Bryan: Chit chit chit chit oh wait, do we have to play now to use that song? In a more positive segment, I know we've rolled through some some negativity here, we don't want to be negative all the time but you know these are just some things that were pissing Brian off now because, Brian's been known to get pissed off. I always like to hear you know, what you guys watching, what you're reading, you know especially the holiday time of the year, there's a lot of great content out there. Netflix just seems to be piping everything out. Allison what you watching, what you reading? Alison: Well I'm still trying to work my way through Narcos, I have not had as much time for for Netflix recently, but I've been reading this really great book, I'm not sure if it's available on any of the freebies, unbarred or well book sure it's not free but it's practically free. I got off of Audible it's my Brandon Sanderson it's called "The way of Kings" it's part of the Stormlight archive series, it's an epic fantasy series, long long books, the first book I think is 45 hours long and I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and it is absolutely amazing it's quite frankly taken over a lot of my life this holiday weekend. [Laughter] But it's amazing. Bryan: Well we're thankful that you were able to fit time in for the podcast. [Laughter] Alison: I did, I did have to interrupt my reading to.... [Laughter] Bryan: That 45 hours, that might take me 4 and 1/2 years to get through. Alison: Well I read at speed, I'm not gonna lie, I cranked it up to 3x and I can understand it just fine, so I'll get through it pretty quickly, but there's then two other main books, and then a little novella in the middle to read so. Bryan: That's a, that's a big.... Alison: It's gonna be ten books so... Bryan: Wow, wow, what about yourself Jeff, you been reading anything, watching anything? I know you've had some time alone there or are you just thinking in the dark? Jeff: I really got nothing, I guess I am thinking in the dark, family's been gone and I've been catching up on a bunch of other things that I hadn't been able to get back t,o and yeah, I got to get back to it so sorry you don't have anything to contribute. Bryan: That's okay Jeff. Jeff: Oh sorry. Bryan: I just finished down here with my parents you know I, they they were very nice and they watched, because their sighted with described video, the second season of Stranger Things, and the first season if you have not seen it as phenomenal I said to myself I don't know how they're gonna do a second season. It was really good so, it was very enjoyable, if you have not checked out Stranger Things on Netflix, you're definitely gonna want to check that out. I know we're gonna watch another series on Netflix that just came out I'm blanking on the name, the guy that was in Dumb and Dumber, not Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels is in it, it's a Western that just came out on Netflix. I'm hearing great things about it of course I'm, like I said, God, Godlessness, or Godless or something, it's a Great Western, and I've heard from other people it's very good and everything and, yeah I've still got the same four books. You know it's so funny I'm one of those people that loads up all the audio digital content to all the devices for the travel and then I end up listening to podcasts that I have on my phone. [Laughter] During the travels so, like I said this is a That Blind Tech Show, we're gonna wrap it up here. We are at Blind Tech Show on Twitter. thatblindtechshow @gmail.com if you want to email us in let us know what you think, let us know what you like. You can download our feed through the Blind Abilities podcast speed of your podcast player of choice, victor reader stream or download the Blind Abilities app. Allison what do you have coming up the next few weeks leading into what's that holiday Christmas? Alison: Just a quiet Christmas at home, gonna take maybe a couple of days off and just probably still be reading the Stormlight archive honestly, although I, although I may do a reread of Harry Potter, I lead such an exciting life. [Laughter] Bryan: Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that. What about yourself Jeff, family coming back or have they given up on you? Jeff: My folks for 17 years they've been going down the Texas but they stayed up this year for the holiday so I got to go to spend time with them Thanksgiving. We were all up there and so they're here so we're gonna have Christmas there and my daughter and grandkids will be coming up mid-December, we try and offset it each year and so yeah, a lot of lot of family holidays and I want to, I want to see the Grinch again this year. Bryan: So you want me to come visit? [Laughter] Yeah I'm not a big holiday person so Thanksgiving I guess is our big holiday and, we just wrapped that up down here and Thanksgiving, I'll be heading back to New York in the next few days and you know, it's funny I'm sitting here in shorts and it's 80 degree weather so it doesn't feel like November, and then I'll go back to the 30 degree weather and, yeah amazingly Nash is not even shedding that much here in Florida, you would think he would get rid of that winter coat, but he is panting like it's August. This is That Blind Tech Show, maybe we'll have one more before the year hopefully, you know, all of our schedules have been so crazy we haven't been on a regular schedule, we plan to hopefully eventually get on it, but for now we are out. When we share what we see through each other's eyes, we can then begin to bridge the gap between limited expectations and the reality of blind abilities. For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at BlindAbilities. Download our app from the app store Blind Abilities, or send us an email at info @blindabilities.com, thanks for listening.

christmas god tv new york amazon netflix texas canada new york city thanksgiving google apple ai nfl star wars spring tech kings holidays western new zealand dad yoga iphone funny harry potter force black friday new years android auto mac minneapolis id stranger things apple tv audible new york yankees tap yahoo lightning echo samsung siri pg ge app store grinch arrow jim carrey safari bluetooth usb doordash pig cyber monday redskins strikes back slightly tunein clone wars washington redskins charlize theron tim cook napa narcos enchanted dumber godless bose google home transcription grubhub sonos stay strong purify jeff daniels brandon sanderson acb apple news bixby black friday cyber monday downcast blindfold high sierra ios11 godlessness tech show soup nazi jeff thompson seeing ai great western robert carter richard kimble sonos one stormlight jeff it jeff yeah jeff well jeff you jeff no jeff oh laughter so blindalive aol messenger eat24 mystic access allison hartley newsify jeff now at banter bryan you enchanted hills camp bryan it jeff actually alison no eyes free fitness bryan so jeff mm blindtechshow

Too PG for Jeopardy with Lilly Chin

Strong Feelings

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2018 41:22

When Lilly Chin knew she couldn’t lose during Final Jeopardy, she decided to give a joke answer: “Who is the Spiciest Memelord?” But that joke became a meme itself—turning Lilly into not just the College Jeopardy champion, but an internet sensation. Today, we chat with the MIT grad student about what it was like to be on the show, how the internet treats women in the public eye, and how her brush with fame changed the way she looks at online visibility. We also talk about Lilly’s research on soft robots, mentorship, Twitch streaming, and doing it all for the stories. > We’re so used to thinking about women in terms of their outward appearance that even when it’s on a very academic game like Jeopardy, people are still defaulting to thinking of, like, an object of attraction. > —Lilly Chin, MIT PhD student and College Jeopardy champ _Note: We’ve donated net proceeds from this episode to RAICES, the largest immigrant legal services organization in Texas, and ActBlue’s fund supporting 12 organizations working with migrant, detained, or deported children and families. Please join us. _ Links from the interview: Lilly’s website The infamous “Who is the spiciest memelord?” clip The Jeopardy subreddit Talia Levin’s article about appearing on Jeopardy, “Big Tits for $600” Justine Sacco’s tweet about AIDS in Africa So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson The “right to be forgotten” concept The field of soft robotics Also in this episode: Creating intimate spaces online, from our newsletter to Tiny Letters to private Slack accounts Shopping feminist, ethical, local, and just plain good companies Why Katel has the best sweatshirt ever Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers to see what they’re talking about. WordPress—the place to build your personal blog, business site, or anything else you want on the web. WordPress helps others find you, remember you, and connect with you. Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off your first paid month. Transcript Katel LeDû [Ad spot] Shopify builds software to help anyone with a great idea build a successful business. In fact, more than 50 percent of the entrepreneurs who use Shopify are women, including me! I use Shopify to power abookapart.com and so do people in 175 different countries! Now Shopify needs more great people to join their team. Visit shopify.com/careers to see open positions, learn about their culture, and so much more [music fades in, plays alone for 12 seconds, fades out]. Jenn Lukas Welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. KL I’m Katel LeDû. Sara Wachter-Boettcher And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And we did it, everyone. We did it! KL What? SWB We got Jenn’s dream guest on the show. JL Is it Kesha? SWB Ok. We got Jenn’s second dream guest on the show. That would be Lilly Chin, who’s the 2017 College Jeopardy winner, and a current graduate student at MIT. We talk with Lilly about what it was like to be on the show, how her final Jeopardy answer made internet history, and how the whole experience changed the way that she looks at things like networked culture and online visibility. KL Ugh you know something that really got my attention in Lilly’s interview, I’m really wondering if we can start there for a second. If you subscribe to our newsletter, I wrote a letter to introduce Issue #4 and I talked about how I used to get really bad panic attacks, and I still struggle with a lot of anxiety, and I’ve, you know, done a lot to sort of figure that out. It’s still an ongoing process and while I felt really great to have a platform to share something really personal like that, I also felt really exposed and, I don’t know, it made me think that like, I kind of forget that, you know? We’re in a room talking to each other and it feels really safe and supportive and we’ve had such good feedback about the show, which is great, but, I don’t know, you kind of forget that you’re really putting yourself out there. SWB Yeah, I think about this a lot because I think podcasts do feel intimate, and they feel intimate for the listener, too, but you don’t really who might be listening. And I mean I think with something like a newsletter, you don’t know where that might end up or where it might get screenshotted and shared around. And I think, you know, we’re going to—we’re going to talk with Lilly a little bit more about this, but there’s ways in which that kind of like hyper-visibility or like constant networked feeling online can make it hard to know what context you’re in—and the context shifts on you sometimes without you realizing it. [3:04] KL Totally. I mean even writing that letter for that issue, I was like, ok, this went out to, you know, a hundred some odd people. Thank you for subscribing. But it lives in… forever in internet, and like anyone can find it. And I had these moments the day after we sent it out where I was like, ok. It’s just like, it’s out there. And I think, I don’t know, like it’s a weird feeling. SWB What was making you feel like vulnerable or exposed about it? Or like what is the fear that you have about this letter existing out there where you talked about anxiety? KL I mean I think part of the anxiety that I talk about is the sort of spiral that happens where you start to feel small or weak or like you’re not, you know, up to snuff or you’re not like performing or you’re just not like the person that you’re “supposed” to be. And I think that just is compounded when there’s eyes on that—when people are looking at it and you’re offering it up. And I think ultimately I feel, like I said, very grateful—and I’ve said this I think, you know, to you, if not, you know, recorded it—I’m really proud of the therapy work that I’ve done, and I’m so, so happy that I get to share that. But it’s also, like, weird [laughs] and raw. And so yeah, I don’t know, this whole thing has been like a process a little bit. JL Yeah, it’s never just one feeling. It’s not like [yeah], “Oh ok. I know I’m going to feel exposed so I don’t want to do it,” because there’s things that make you want to share all of this like with people too. The internet’s not just like, “Uh well I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I’m outta here.” It’s very much like not one-sided. SWB And I think some people probably have that feeling. Like I don’t what’s going to happen, so I’m outta here. But clearly we don’t, because we keep doing this podcast [laughter]. And so we are—we have things we want to talk about and things that like… it’s not just about, like, “I want to talk about this,” or even, “I want other people to listen to me”—although I do, I want everybody in the world to listen to me. I’ve got a lot of opinions— but, that I think that the kinds of stuff that we’re talking about and sometimes struggling with are things that are really normal and that are under-discussed. And just the act of having natural conversations about them in a shared space is really powerful [yeah]. But also there is risk there, and I think that that’s one of the things that we have to kind of like constantly make peace with, or at least I feel that, that like I have to make peace with what kinds of risks those might be. And so, you know, we’ve talked about this in the past, right? It’s like, “If I tweet that, what kind of randos are going to come troll me?” And is it just going to be your, like, everyday rando that I can block, or is it going to be actually something more sinister? And like those are real like internal monologues that I’m having on a regular basis. At the same time, though, there’s something to me that’s a little different about both like podcasting and also something like a newsletter—or like, I subscribe to a lot of people’s Tiny Letters—that is a little bit more intimate feeling, and in some ways almost feels like there’s been a resurgence in that. And I look at it almost like a way to reclaim space. Or reclaim something that’s not exactly privacy, but that it feels a little bit more private in a world where so much of our communication feels so, like—actually as Lilly talked about—hyper-networked [chuckles]. [6:34] KL Mm hmm. Yeah. Or like, just branded. And that can feel weird too. I mean I love that some of my friends have Tiny Newsletters because I feel like I’m reading their journals, which is such a cool—it’s such a cool feeling, you know? JL It’s got that same feeling of like, you know, blogging back in the day, or like, you know, it felt just more like … I don’t know, more connected with the people. And I think that’s sort of like what’s nice about the podcast, too, and getting feedback about the podcast is I just feel like it’s a different way to be connected with people. SWB Blogging has certainly changed a lot and, you know, now it’s like, what’s the difference between a blog and an online publication? What is Medium? Like everything has sort of collapsed into like one big text box on the internet. And some of these spaces that we’re talking about give it a little bit of definition, you know? I think the same thing about a lot of the like private backchannel Slack accounts I’m in. I’m in a few of them that are like professionally focused, kind of… but what they really are is private communities of people who I’m close to for one reason or another where we can talk really openly and honestly about things that are happening in our professional world, but in a space where we have absolute trust with people. And I find that to be really valuable, and I feel like that’s where I turn so often to process how I’m feeling about things that are happening in the world. Where like that used to be Twitter, and that doesn’t always feel safe enough. Or sometimes it’s not even about safety. It’s like, sometimes that just feels too loud. KL Yeah. Well [quiet sigh] my therapist what says that what we’re doing is a gift. So. I just want to share that [laughing] with you. SWB Oh my god. If anybody listening has not listened to the episode where we interviewed Katel’s therapist, it is so good. Talk about a gift. Like that—that was a gift. KL That was really wonderful. JL And if anyone listening has not subscribed to our newsletter yet, you definitely should because it’s full of more little gifts. SWB If you aren’t subscribing to our newsletter, we started it about a month ago and we are doing it every other week. We have, like, super-intimate letters from us about things happening in our lives, plus a whole bunch of links and things that we love. And it is called, maybe fittingly, I Love That [laughter]. So if you go to noyougoshow.com/ilovethat, you can subscribe and you can also check out the back issues [music fades in, plays alone for four seconds, fades out]. [9:02] Sponsors SWB [Ad spot] Before we get to our interview with Lilly, we’ve got a couple awesome folks to tell you about. The first is Harvest. Harvest makes software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. It’s super easy to use on the web or via the app, and it’s made my work life way easier over the years. I’ve seriously been a customer since 2011. I can barely remember 2011. Harvest does all kinds of stuff, including integrate with other tools you love like Basecamp, Slack, and Trello. You can also send and manage invoices right from your Harvest account, and even take online payments. Try it for free at getharvest.com and get 50 percent off your first paid month with the code noyougo. That’s getharvest.com, offer code: noyougo. JL [Ad spot] We’d also like to take a moment and thank our friends at WordPress. WordPress has been a supporter of NYG since the start, and we’re big fans of theirs too. After all, it’s how we run our website, noyougoshow.com. We trust WordPress because it’s super easy to set up and customize, but it’s also really powerful. For example, we added plugins to host our podcast, and also gather sign-ups for our newsletter. You can even set up a ‘buy’ button or add an online store. Plans start at just four dollars a month, so what are you waiting for? Start building your website today. Go to wordpress.com/noyougo for 15 percent off any new plan purchase. That’s wordpress.com/noyougo for 15 percent off your brand new website [music fades in, plays alone for three seconds, fades out]. Interview: Lilly Chin JL Lilly Chin is a graduate student at MIT working towards a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her technical research interests are in robotics hardware design. She studies how old and new forms of media collide, chiefly in video games, film, and internet culture. You might recognize her name, as Lilly was also the 2017 College Jeopardy Tournament champion! And she even created a meme while doing so. Welcome to No, You Go, Lilly. Lilly Chin Yeah, it’s great to be here. JL Oh so we’re super excited that you’re here. We’re big fans of Jeopardy both at my house and at work [Lilly chuckles]. I have to tell you that we followed the College Tournament really intently, and we were definitely all rooting for you when you were on. LC Thanks [laughs]. JL [Laughs] We had this joke that I was going to miss who won because the final day of the tournament was also actually my son’s due date. LC Oh! Oh! Oh. [Laughs]. JL And uh, sure enough, I went into labor that morning. At one point during labor, I think I definitely said to my husband and doula, “I wonder who won College Jeopardy.” [Laughter] We were very stoked the next week to find out that it was you. [11:29] LC Oh thanks [laughs]. JL [Laughs] So what got you interested in being on Jeopardy? LC The RA from my dorm, actually, he had been on Jeopardy the summer before and we had all like made viewing parties and gone to see him. So when it came time for the test to be taken, he was like, “Oh, you all should just take it and see how you do.” And so it actually took a couple of tries before I was on the show, but then, yeah, my second time I tried out I got on. So. JL Nice! That’s awesome. What—what’s the audition process like? LC So it’s pretty cool. The first round is just this online test and it’s just really quick-fire, just asking you trivia questions. And if you do well enough on that, they invite you to an audition, which is in person. And the producers themselves definitely have a ton of energy because at the end of the day, Jeopardy’s a TV show. So they want to make sure that you’re really excited, that you have some sort of stage presence, and that, like, you know, you’re actually the person who took the exam since it’s all online. JL Hmm. Yes [laughs]. Were you nervous going into that? LC I was very nervous the first time, but the second time I actually was thinking like, “Oh, I have to go all the way to New York. It’s kind of a pain,” and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go. But I had a lot of fun, so I ended up just going. And I think being more relaxed the second time around helped me out, like, be more natural in front of the camera. JL When did—do you find out right away if you’re going to be on? LC Oh no, so for the tournament you actually have to wait for like a month or so. I had forgotten actually when I got the call that I was going to be on, and for adult Jeopardy you actually have to wait. You’re in the contestant pool for like a year and a half before, so you’re just waiting there. JL Wow! [Yeah] So when you found out and then you went to the show, what was the energy like on set there? LC That’s really interesting. because it’s—like you have 15 people that definitely don’t know each other just sort of randomly in this place. And the thing I was struck by was that the set was actually quite large, right? Like you’re so used to seeing it on the TV just like cutting from the clues to the contestants and back again, but like actually seeing it as a space that you inhabit, it was really interesting. I guess also the energy is [stammers] it’s just the same thing of like, oh I understand, all of these contestant producers are really trying to hype you up and have you really excited. And so at the end of the first day, I just immediately went to bed. I didn’t even have dinner or anything. Just like, conked out, because I was just so exhausted from being that high-energy. Yeah the next couple of times I went on the show actually it was a lot more comfortable, because I knew how sort of the filming schedule works. But it’s a very tiring experience. [13:46] JL How did you prepare for being on the show? LC So I did trivia in high school, so like Quiz Bowl and those things. So I had most of my trivia knowledge from there. But I would say like the one month before the show it was like learning about betting strategy, reading up of what the common questions are. I don’t think I did as much preparation as other people did, but definitely looking into betting strategy was a big one. JL I feel like it’s such a wide variety—like, you never really know. I mean there’s like some repeats on Jeopardy all the time in like topics but it’s like, how could you possibly narrow it all down? LC Yeah, I mean, it’s a funny thing, right? Because it’d still a TV show, so you need to have the answers be things that people at home will be like, “Oh! I’ve heard of this before.” So you can’t have it too obscure. I—I remember one thing funny though is that the popular culture is definitely like, right, like I’m a 2000s kid and so I think one of the things was like ’80s and ‘90s TV shows, and I was like, “Well, I know I’m not going to do well in this.” [laughter] Yeah. JL I know I think—my co-workers and I always watch that, and that’s, like, definitely our alley so [laughter]. So we mentioned a bit in the intro that you are also the creator of a meme, which happened during Final Jeopardy. Can you tell us that story? LC So I had seen like people give funny Final Jeopardy answers in the past. So I decided beforehand that, oh if I ever have a chance to do a lock game, like a game where I would win no matter what, I would put some funny answer down. And I decided to do “dank memes,” but then I was like, oh that’s probably not PG enough for Jeopardy, so I decided “spicy memes.” And then on the Final Jeopardy thing it turned out it was a “who is” question, so then I said, “Who is the spiciest memelord?” And got Alex Trebek to say it on national television [laughter]. [15:26] KL That’s amazing. LC Yeah. JL So it was not planned? LC I knew that like if I had the chance, I definitely wanted to say it, but it was also not planned for how viral of a reaction was gotten. Like it turned out—I was just thinking about my friends. Like, “we watch memes all the time at home, they’ll like it.” And then it turned out the internet also [laughs] really likes memes. So I did not plan for that at all. Yeah. JL Right. Yeah. How has that—how has that been? LC So I’ve been actually thinking about writing more academically about this experience, but this idea of the sudden burst of fame—like I was on the front page of Reddit twice, there’s like a million views on that video, and then it suddenly has a spike and then this long tail of just there’s still this ambient fame, especially since I’m still at MIT for graduate school where people, especially other students, will recognize me. But, you know, just the other day I was in the North End and got recognized on the street, and it’s not something I’m expecting. And this idea of like, you know, this sudden burst of fame. Like going up and then going down again and then suddenly like, “Oh reruns are happening, I’m getting a lot more Facebook messages from randos.” It’s sort of interesting, and it’s also interesting to be known more for Jeopardy than for my research, which is something I’m more excited about, I guess. But at the same time, the fame that I’ve gotten from Jeopardy might’ve helped me in terms of like recognition for my own research, right? Like whenever my advisor introduces me to someone else from a different lab, she’s like, “Oh do you know that this is the [laughing] Jeopardy winner?” [Laughter] So that’s an interesting balance. Yeah. JL You’ve even taught a class about this, right? At MIT? LC Yeah. So there’s an educational studies program where MIT undergrads and grad students can teach high school and middle school students. And so this was related with the comparative media studies part, where I really enjoy sort of showing that like it’s not just like analyzing books or film, like you can actually do all of these cool analyses of contemporary media culture. So that’s what I was trying to do was take my current case example and being like, “Look: here’s how these media analysis techniques can really help you understand what’s going on in your life, even if it’s something as weird as like national television.” [17:34] JL I mean have your views changed a lot about what it’s like to be a public figure? LC Yeah. I think I’m more confused—I get more and more confused about why people want to be famous. Like when I’m doing my Twitch streaming, I think it’s interesting that there’s always like these people who are like, “Oh I want to make it big,” and there’s some crazy statistic about one in three British children want to be a YouTube star when they grow up [laughter][oh]. Yeah it’s because I mean that’s what you’re growing up with, and that’s what you’re seeing as your content. It’s not like TV or movies as much anymore. It’s like, “Oh, I see these kids making videos on YouTube.” And I’m sort of like wondering why people want the fame, because like I kind of get it, right? Like I want my research to have exposure because then more people are thinking about my ideas and I think I really appreciate that. but then at the same time it’s like there’s so much attention to your life. Also like the harassment part of it, and it’s a weird public/private divide that I’m not sure people know fully what they’re getting into when they sign up for this. And some people enjoy being like a figure of controversy, right? Like Kanye West and Donald Trump come to mind, where it doesn’t matter what the press is but as long as people are talking about you, it sort of continues like some gratification. JL Right. I mean there’s—I mean you talked about being on the front page of Reddit and there’s also a Jeopardy community subreddit, and how does it feel to, like, look at people talking about you? LC I was worried at first that there was going to be—about the internet hate. And there’s a Woman of Jeopardy Facebook group where people sort of like commiserate about the experience. Yeah there’s a really good Vice article that’s called like, “Big Tits for $600,” and it’s just sort of like a very good compilation and just sort of talking about the experience of being a woman on national television and sort of what that means. So I was—I was a little bit nervous about that, because I had read these stories before, but when it came down to it and I saw what people were writing, it just sort of seemed so petty that people were coming up with these impressions of me after 20 minutes of national television. I was actually more taken aback the second time I went around for the Tournament of Champions where people were actually extremely nice and just sort of doing analysis of the game and less about me because I had braced myself for all of this verbal abuse, and then when it wasn’t there and people were just really kind it’s like, “Oh she tried really hard,” it was really not what I expected and sort of threw me off guard. JL For those who don’t know, on Reddit you can like you have like a little identifier that says that you were a contestant on the show to prove that it’s you. And I’ve seen like a couple of people definitely get into the threads with other people and reply to some of it, and I feel like a lot of is positive but then, you know, as you mentioned, like with women I’ll see a lot of comments like, “Oh her—” Not about you, about like other contestants that will be like, “Oh I hated her! Her voice was so annoying.” And it’s like wow! [Chuckles] People are harsh. [20:19] LC Yeah it’s just also like… in some sense of being like a female figure like in the—in the spotlight, it sort of puts you up. Like we’re so used to thinking about women in terms of their outward appearance that even when it’s on a very academic game like Jeopardy, people are still defaulting to thinking of it, like, as an object of attraction or something. JL You’ve talked about, you know, you have an interest in the “fight to maintain one’s identity and narrative in a hyper-mediated network culture.” [Mm hmm] Can you describe a bit what that means? LC What I found really is that … usually you have some control over your own identity. It’s very closely tied to you. Obviously you can’t control everything about what people think about but you, you know, you talk to people it forms an identity. But what happened is that with Jeopardy there was this very immediate division between myself and my image, right? So like millions of people saw me saying, “Who is the spiciest memelord?” on national television and so some people—so some people are trying to co-opt this as like, “Oh look! It’s a meme culture.” And then other people are like—Jeopardy itself is trying to co-opt this in saying like, “We need to target the 18 to 35 age demographic for advertisements and this is like, you know, a cool kid.” So they kind of go over and it’s like, “How do you do fellow kids?” And my friends from high school when they were like, “Why—why are you on my Instagram feed?” And I was like, “What?” And it turns out that they had used my image to advertise on Instagram to try to encourage more people to apply for the college test. Which I think is crazy like sure, yeah, I signed off all my rights, but in some sense, right? Like their curation of my image is no longer outside my control. I’m like fighting against, you know, Jeopardy, I’m fighting against 4Chan, I’m fighting against all of these forces about who gets to control my image. So it becomes an interesting thing, because I think this happens on some level to everybody, right? There was a good article talking about how Snapchat is dying and this idea that even on Facebook, even on Twitter, all of these things were cultivating our own personal brand of how we want to come up with. That everything is now sort of a online interactive CV, and there’s not really a chance for you to be yourself because you’re worried about how it’s going to be taken either way. So not everyone has this experience of, like, “suddenly national television is taking my image and running with it,” but we’re always sort of trying to deal with this idea that now that everything’s on the internet, there’s so many different forces that you’re really trying to curate something, and is it even possible anymore? [22:47] JL Do you think it’s possible? LC I think in some sense you have to accept that like you no longer have control of your image which [chuckles] is—which is kind of like what I’m doing. But at the same time, so this is coming from a book I read from Jon Ronson, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. It’s this idea where individual people have to sort of be their own PR firm. That like you have to do, like, this brand curation. I think it is possible, but it becomes a lot more effort and you sort of have to understand what you’re doing, right? There’s a lot of talk about the right to be forgotten, because it’s like, oh kids don’t understand what they’re doing and you might say something dumb on the internet. I don’t think we ever had the right to be forgotten, like within your community—it’s the classic like, you know, small town, scarlet letter, everybody knows what you did wrong—but I think encouraging more people to understand how these forces happen and how to better protect yourself, I think that’s sort of the best you can do. JL I do a lot of public speaking in the web field and I remember like the first time that I got back from a conference and the conference had posted pictures of me, and of course I’m, like, in mid-word so my face is all distorted, and it’s just like, I’m like, “Oh my god, that’s awful!” But I was like, “Hey, I guess I made it.” [Laughter] And I remember now because I have like, you know, people will be like, “Hey, can you take a picture?” And then they’ll like, you’ll take a picture of them and they’ll want to see the picture to like see if it’s ok [yeah] and I don’t—that doesn’t happen to me anymore. Like I’ve just given up on that battle [right][chuckles], because I think there’s so many bad pictures of me on the internet. But I did a talk one time for a Girl Develop It group here which was like sort of trying to encourage more people to get into public speaking and it was just sort of like, you know, “What’s the worst that could happen?” And I went through and showed highlights of all the terrible pictures of me on the internet and it just sort of was like one of those, “Well, like really what is the worst-case scenario of this?” And sort of, “Is it that bad in protecting yourself, like maybe against the things that are really bad? Not things like, ‘Oh here’s an unflattering image of me’.” LC For public speaking, you go out there and you know really clearly that, “Oh I’m going to put out a face and I’m going to present myself and so I should prepare myself for, you know, being judged by other people.” But now with the internet, it’s less clear that really like anything that you do, like, it could be subject to like people seeing it and people making judgements of it. There was a famous case, which is Justine Sacco who made a tweet that was like, “Oh I’m going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding, I’m white.” [Oh yes] Yeah. JL Before she got on a plane, right? LC Right. [25:15] JL And then she got off the plane and there was an obvious amount of backlash, yeah. LC And but the thing was, is that she only had like 200 followers before that, and so she probably thought, like, “Oh I’m just going to make this like off-color joke to like my 200 friends,” and then so what she thought was a private transaction actually blew up into like a huge like, you know, trending on Twitter like number-one thing. And I think that’s really the idea that I’m trying to get at is that it’s less clear what your private and public actions should be. So you sort of overprotectively try to curate everything. And then you sort of, like you were saying about the pictures, it’s almost impossible to do that. JL Right. So you know all of this, like you know all of the potential [laughs] for repercussions of being on the internet and what can happen. But that said, like, you are still like I think sort of embracing this public figure. So, as you mentioned before, you have a Twitch stream, right? LC Yeah. JL Tell us a little bit more about that. Like, what makes you stream? And what sort of things are you streaming? LC So I stream on Twitch, and Twitch is primarily for video games, and so I started streaming because one: I had the Jeopardy fame and I was like, “Oh, this would be a good platform to jump off on,” and two: a lot of my friends stream speed runs, which are trying to play video games super fast and I was like, oh, as a media scholar, I don’t understand why they do it so the easiest way to learn would be to do it myself. And it started off from this academic interest and then it turned into, I really appreciate the community. There are a couple of people from Scandinavia who like tune into me like super regularly, even though it’s like 3 am in Sweden time. And I find myself that like I’m putting on this like show for them, that I enjoy talking to them. I enjoy like, you know, discussing the video games, or like what’s going on in my life. And that’s sort of an interesting feeling, like it’s gone beyond just like, “Oh I want to put my ideas out there,” and it’s to, “I want to talk to these like two or three people,” and then I make more friends and it’s quite nice. JL It’s again that balance, right? Like here’s a potentially like field that we’re like opening ourselves to all this potential negativity, but you keep finding really positive things. [27:20] LC Because in some sense the reason why it is still [chuckles] a positive experience is because I have like, you know, ten people who watch me regularly on a twice-a-week basis, right? And similarly I have sort of private I guess IRC, you know, like internet chat channels that I do with my friends, and in some sense like the only reason that these are still nice is because they’re public, but they’re still private in a way. And sort of finding these spaces on like an increasingly networked world is difficult. In the past it used to be that you would be in these local communities, right? Like, “Oh, I live in the Cambridge area so I’ll like talk to all of the people in Cambridge and find similar things,” but now in some sense we’re creating local communities but on the internet. So it’s no longer local geographically but it’s local in terms of interests or maybe like respect for each other and things like that. JL Like you were you saying, you know, you just jumped into streaming because you wanted to learn more about, which is just so neat like to just like, “Ok. I’ve got an interest in something. I’m just going to do it,” is that generally how you live your life? LC Yeah. I definitely do things because like, “Oh, it’ll be a lot of fun.” Or like, “It’ll be a good story out of it.” The whole thing about doing the spiciest memelord was definitely like, “I’ll get a good story out of this,” or like, you know, even trying out for Jeopardy in the first place. JL I think that’s like such a neat idea. You know, I was reading a bit on your Reddit AMA, you had said, “One of my guiding principles for whether I’m wavering between whether or not I should do something is, will I get a good story out of it?” LC Yeah [laughing] exactly. JL This year the College Jeopardy Tournament of 2018 just happened and you also offered advice to the folks taking part in it. And you’ve also been an MIT Women in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science mentor. And worked with Girls Who Code. You are a mentor extraordinaire! LC Oh. I don’t know. It’s just like, I have advice and, like, I appreciate all the people who gave me advice. So it makes sense to just sort of give back because I can. Yeah, I don’t know, I thought it was interesting because recently someone came up to me and was like, “Hey, do you want to be part of my admissions consulting group, where like, you know, parents pay a lot of money and you, like, review essays and stuff like that?” And it just felt really bad like because—because on one level, right, I enjoy doing this work and like it would be nice to get paid for it. But on the other hand, it felt like contributing to these systems of like people not getting the mentorship that they need just because they don’t have the right networks or they don’t have a ton of cash, and it feels like the right thing to do is to—is to give back in whatever ways you can. Like oftentimes I feel like I’m not giving as much as I could. I was a MedLink in the dorm system, which basically like we’re students and we live in a dorm and we have basic first aid training. And we also know about all the medical resources on campus. So if people are having relationship troubles we can point them to mental health or, you know, if they got a cut we have band-aids and things. And I think that was one of like most rewarding experiences because it’s not just that, “Oh like I want to help people because like it boosts a resume,” or something like that. It’s just that people are—people are having trouble and you want to help them out how you can. I guess like I don’t see… I feel like I could do more for mentorship like because like, as you’re saying, like I’m doing a lot of different things, but at the same time I feel like being there and at least like reminding people that there is somebody who cares is important. [30:31] JL Right. It’s really neat so I mean you find it rewarding, I’m assuming. LC Yeah. Like I said I have a sort of insecurities about, am I actually doing enough to help people? Because when you’re doing so many things, like, is it on a superficial level or not? That’s why—that’s why I was a little—I was a little like taken aback when you were like, “Oh you’re a mentor extraordinaire.” Because on some level it’s just giving advice to people because you’ve been through these experiences and, you know, they haven’t. Even the older grad students when I’m freaking out about things and they’re just being like, “Yeah I freaked out about this too,” it’s sort of comforting [chuckles]. JL So what’s next? What has you super excited? LC I’m really excited about my research, especially now that it’s summertime because I don’t have—sort of going from undergrad to grad school is this transition away from other people are setting the curriculum, and like telling you what to learn, to I’m setting my own path and like my own research. So I’m working in soft robotics. So usually when you think of a robot it’s this hard metal skeleton, but soft robots is this thing, “Hey! What if we make robots out of rubber or silicone, like soft materials, so that they’re safer around people and they can pick up squishy things?” So I’ve been working on, how do we make these soft robots work? How do they grab things? I’m also really excited about sort of this Jeopardy paper that I’m doing: how do we think about fame and identity using myself as a case study, but sort of broadening it to other people. And then finally, I guess, the combination of these two interests is as robots are becoming more and more commonplace, as algorithms and big data are sort of changing the way we approach things, how can we have people still be like comfortable with this—with these new algorithms and things? Like it’s more than just like, “If I have the robot from the Jetson’s show up like can I interact with it?” It’s more on a fundamental level of when I say “AI” most people don’t know what this means. And it’s actually pretty understandable but we need to stop thinking about scientists as like, you know, these like mad scientists who are doing whatever they want in their lab coats and more of something approachable, especially as the future is heading towards that direction. [32:15] JL We’ve talked a little bit before with one of our previous guests, Alison, about this idea of what the scientist—the white man in the white lab coat. LC [Laughing] Yeah exactly. JL [Laughs] The crazy hair. And I think like generally, you know, you start talking about robots and generally there’s like the, either like, “I am intimidated by that subject,” or like, Skynet questions I think starts being thrown out. LC Yeah. I think, especially for my research, right? So soft robotics, it’s intentionally for like, you know, being around humans instead of not being in a factory somewhere, and I remember someone—there was a conversation about like, what does the future of work look like? And they were like, “Oh! You know, service jobs will be ok because who wants a robot to take care of grandma?” And I was like raising my hand, I was like, “Actually this is literally my [laughing] research!” And so on some level, I really want to tell people the thinking behind it of like the direction because I can’t predict the future of what research is going to be like, but to reduce the fear of like, “What does AI mean? What does deep learning mean?” I think would help people understand like, ok, like one: this is a future that I can understand; and two: this is a future where I can actually belong in. JL So, what are you telling people? LC So one thing that I need to keep remembering is that when I am not in MIT, and everyone’s working on like robots and drones and what have you, that like most people when they hear “robots” they’re like, “Woah! Like you must be really smart!” And I’m like, “Wait, no, I’m not. I’m not that smart.” And it’s just like—it’s just like, you know, you know how to build things, you know how to build things with Legos and stuff like that and when also when people hear “algorithms” they think of like ones and zeros flying everywhere, but at the end of the day an algorithm is just a set of instructions, you know. When you follow a recipe you’re already following an algorithm of some sort. So I think like, you know, it’s the same thing of like being able to talk about your experiences and sort of destigmatizing things whether it’s like, you know, “Math is hard,” or like, “Algorithms are mysterious black boxes.” I think just explaining things and, you know, being patient. I mean I think that people are going to realize at some point that robots are just a tool, right? And that like you still need to remember that like tools are for humanity. [34:23] JL Lilly, before you go, where will the next place be that we see you? LC Hopefully on, like, the cover of the New York Times for some cool robot research. KL Yes! Also you’re welcome back here anytime. JL Definitely! LC Oh, thank you! [Laughs] JL Please let us know how the soft robotics are going. And how we can make sure to [Katel laughs] welcome our new overlords. LC All right [chuckles]. JL So. KL Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us. LC Yeah, thanks for interviewing me [music fades in, plays alone for two seconds, fades out]. KL So this week I want to say a “fuck yeah” to Pride Month, because June is Pride Month and I’m—that’s awesome. It’s also my birthday. Just PS. Just letting you know. And, I don’t know, this got me thinking about some of the folks that I follow on Instagram, and one of them is a brand called Wild Fang, and I really love them because they like they really walk the walk. They’re—they—they sort of say they’re not just a brand, they’re a band. And I—I love that because they’re very focused on the people who buy their clothing, and their very feminist, and they like—you can see that in everything that they do, including the fact that they give a lot of money that they raise to charity. And this month a percentage of their proceeds is going to The Trevor Project, which is the world’s largest non-profit organization focused on suicide prevention and crisis intervention among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth, which is fucking amazing. So this just got me thinking and we sort of started talking a little bit about who we’re shopping and brands that we’re supporting and I think it just led us to talking about like paying attention to that a little bit more. [36:32] SWB Yeah. One of the things that I’ve really been noticing is just, it feels like there’s a lot more options all of a sudden for brands that I can support that are doing things that are important to me or that are offering products that are like just more inclusive and also just better suited to like me personally. And it seems like a big sea change that’s happening just in the last couple of years. Like for example I know a lot of folks go absolutely wild for Everlane, and one of the things Everlane does is like, they do luxury basics is their market. Luxury basics like reasonably priced or something. I don’t think that’s their actual tagline. And one of the things that they do is they tell you exactly how much of that money was spent on paying the garment workers, how much of it was spent on shipping, how much of it they get as profit, and so it’s really clear exactly where that money is going, and I think that that is, you know, that’s like one example of a way that they’re kind of trying to set some new standards. I’m really excited to see organizations that are like making cool shit with a good cause in mind, making cool shit that is going to serve a wider range of people, just making cool shit while throwing away some of the like bad practices of retail industry. KL Another place that I have bought a couple of things from which is just like a fun clothing shop that does like t-shirts and sweatshirts. It’s actually… I’m wearing this sweatshirt in my photo on the website and it says, “Smile,” and it has like a possum and it just has, “Smile,” is crossed out and it says, “Nope.” Which I fucking love. It’s like my favorite sweatshirt, and it’s by a company called Culture Flock, and they are a company that, quoting them, “believes in equality for all, being kind to others, and protecting the planet, and having fun every day.” And I love that because it’s very simple, but they’re also—we’ve talked about this on the show a couple of times, about like place and that you can do really fucking cool things in like a lot of different places—and they’re based in Springfield, Missouri, which I think is super cool. JL I’ve also been trying to remember to shop local. And trying to pick up things at like places nearby where I live, because just like people in Springfield, Missouri, there’s places everywhere that have a lot of—a lot of local, great shops near there. So I’ve been trying to remember to do that instead of doing my very easy and convenient ordering that I do sometimes, sometimes I’ll go down the street to get the baby shampoo that I need instead of ordering that and getting it in five days. KL Totally. It also like feels really good when you can see the person who is either, you know, either owns the shop where they’ve obviously done a lot of thinking about what they’re stocking there or, you know, they’ve even made it. It’s very cool to buy something directly from that person. JL Totally. [38:44] SWB I just really like the way that we are having a lot more conversations, at least like in the circles that I’m in and I think like in the circles that maybe a lot of our listeners are in, about sort of what we’re buying and where it’s from, and why we’re buying it, and it’s not to say that I’ve stopped all like bad impulse buys when it comes to, like, t-shirts that I think I’m going to love and then I don’t love or whatever. But it really has made me think a little bit more carefully about the way that I think about things like fashion, or the way that I think about like who and what I’m supporting. But yeah! I’m like really excited to see just a lot more options and a more stuff that I can feel better about and not just feel like I’m, you know, just spending money on fast fashion. So I guess I would say, fuck yeah to having way more options when it comes to places we could shop locally, places we could shop online, and maybe an even bigger fuck yeah to the fact that now I know what to get Katel for her birthday, which is definitely going to come from Wild Fang. KL Yesssssss. Fuck yeah! That’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia, and produced by Steph Colbourn. Our theme music is by The Diaphone. Thanks to Lilly Chin for being our guest today. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please make sure to subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcast. Aaaand subscribe to our newsletter! Your support helps us spread the word, and we love that. We’ll be back next week with another great guest [music fades in, plays alone for 34 seconds, fades out to end].

tv new york texas donald trump ai pr woman talk british new york times phd africa philadelphia mit twitch missouri sweden champions reddit math lego apple podcast harvest smile snapchat cambridge vice fuck tournament aids luxury plans future of work pride month jeopardy algorithms slack pg cv wordpress computer science shopify laughs springfield mm chin scandinavia trello electrical engineering alex trebek basecamp skynet trevor project irc 4chan nyg north end jon ronson girls who code raices jetson reddit ama everlane actblue been publicly shamed final jeopardy quiz bowl girl develop it big tits mit phd sara wachter boettcher justine sacco katel yeah so steph colbourn laughter so college jeopardy tiny letters

Flex and Material Sets with Chris Hunrath

OnTrack with Judy Warner

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2018 40:47

The rise in flex applications across all industries from medical to automotive, aerospace and military uses means more opportunity for material suppliers to innovate and meet demand. Here what industry expert Chris Hunrath has to share, from general guidelines for designing circuits unique for flex and materials that can be autoclaved over and over. Listen in to this week’s OnTrack expert to learn about flex and material sets. Show Highlights: Medical applications (i.e. instruments for surgery), automotive, aerospace, military Foils - as you go thicker, its harder to make electrodeposited. More bend cycles out of rolled and yield General Guidelines for designing circuits unique for flex: In general, avoid circuits making turns or bends in bend/flex area - don’t make the circuits go in different directions there and also avoid plated holes in those areas. From a stackup standpoint, balance the construction. Thinner is usually better. Look for opportunities for cracking at the bend point. Cross hatch ground planes have multiple advantages. Pyralux HT, DuPont - new product with unbelievable thermal performance. A continuous operating temperature. Imagine a flex circuit that can be autoclaved over and over. We are a material sciences company. There are really unique ways to put these building blocks together. Links and Resources: Pyralux HT See all the show notes Hi everyone this is Judy Warner with the Altium OnTrack Podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Today we have another incredible subject matter expert that you'll be familiar with because we've had him here before, which is Chris Hunrath from Insulectro and we're going to talk about flex and material sets and all kinds of really great things. So hang tight for that. Before we get going please, I invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn, I share a lot of things there for designers and engineers and on Twitter I'm @AltiumJudy and Altium is on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Today Chris has some Show and Tell and so I encourage you if you - Chris will take time to describe what he's showing, but if you want to see it, feel free to go to our YouTube channel at Altium, click under videos and you'll see all our podcasts there. And you can click on this podcast and then you'll be able to visually see the materials and things that Chris is referring to today - and that's always available by the way - on YouTube so we record simultaneously in video and in audio so just know that's always an opportunity there for you. So Chris, welcome back, thank you. Thanks, Hi. Thanks for joining again. So at the end of last time's podcast, we were talking about the rise in flex applications and sort of the increasing amount of business actually Insulectro's doing around flex materials, new materials are going out so I really wanted to take this opportunity to learn about what is driving this uptick in flex, what applications are driving it , what the cost, performance implications of that is, and so let's just start with what is driving this uptick in flex? So a lot of it's medical, you know, and the way electronics are finding their way into medical applications. Actually it's everything, it's automotive, it's aerospace military - military has always been a big user of flex, but of course you know, all the new inventions that are used in medical applications - certainly some devices are implantable and that's something that's not new, but then we're seeing a lot of applications where instruments are being created that are used, for surgeries and things and they use flex circuits and that's because you can make things very small which is always an advantage when it comes those applications and we're even seeing some applications where the products are reused. They're being sterilized, autoclaved, what have you and then they're being reused. But lots of new techniques, lots of new devices being developed using flex. Most people are familiar with traditional flex applications like your laptop screen, very often the interconnect between the main system and the screen is a flex circuit. You know the old flip phones all had flex circuits, your inkjet printers had a dynamic flex circuit between the printhead and the actual motherboard and the printer, and actually that's something I do want to point out is, you know we describe flex applications in two main buckets. One is dynamic flex and the other is the flex to install and it's just exactly what it sounds like is flex to install. Typically you're only bending the circuit once or twice to fit it in whatever it needs to go into and then that's it. Whereas dynamic flex, the part’s flexed in use many, many, many times. I think that something that most people can relate to because you can see it, is the flex inside copy machines right, you can see that dynamic flex moving again and again and so are the materials - the entire circuitry is rated to have X amount of dynamic motions for the life of, it or how does that work? Yeah actually that's a pretty good point and that can become very complex. A lot of it has to do with layer count, the base material. You know the most popular base material for flex circuits in reflow assembled PCB - a little different than printed electronics applications - where you're using conductive adhesive, but if you're doing reflow assembly, the most common material's polyimide film, and one of the most common materials is Kapton, but the thickness of the materials, the type of copper circuitry, the thickness of the copper foil - all those - play into a number of bend cycles even the type of copper, whether you use rolled annealed, which is very common in Flex, versus electron deposited- Okay -well that can get very complex. There are some good design guidelines out there by IPC and others you know. Again I always shout out to the board shops, some of them have good teams that help people choose the right construction, right stack up to get the most bend cycles out of the device. Are those the two most common types of copper used in flex by the way Chris? Is a rolled anneal an electroless? Oh it's electro- deposited. I'm sorry electro-deposited okay. Yeah - and yes but unless you're dealing with very thin foils rolled annealed is the most common. That's what we call 'RA foils' the most common. Actually I have a sample here. This is some Pyralux clad. You can't see the dielectric inside, but it's got rolled annealed copper on both sides and it can vary from - you used to be limited to half ounce or 18 micron and thicker so a little side note on foils: as you go thicker it's harder to make electro positive foils because it's more plating time on the drum. With rolled annealed it's the opposite, thinner foils are harder to manufacture because you need more rolling processes to make the foil thinner and thinner and thinner. I see. You used to be limited to 18 micron or half ounce, now we can get rolled annealed coppers thinner, down to 9 micron or quarter ounce. You can get a rolled annealed, but the structure is much better for flexing because the grain boundaries are in this direction platelet-type, overlapping grain boundaries which is better for bending. Any foil boundaries are like this and if you bend it you can cleave the grain boundaries in. You get more but it's not that easy - foil doesn't work and flex but you typically get more bend cycles out of rolled annealed. Okay very good. That's something actually I didn't know and it's something I've talked to my friend Tara Dunn, who's in flex - and it's just something that's never come up so I think that's kind of an interesting point. So, you mentioned with military applications - because my background - military was always SWaP right, Size, Weight and Power - so are those the same type of things that drive the other applications - obviously in smaller spaces - we can fold things up on themselves and get them into smaller packaging. When you talk about the dynamic, what other kind of things sort of drive the desire and the fit for flex? So something that's applicable to both military and medical, is you want to reduce the size, so I have here - this is a 50-ohm SMA coax right. It's basically one circuit, you've got the shield layer, the shielding around the center conductor - but this is one channel or one circuit and I have here flex, and you can see how many circuits you have on this piece. So, imagine if you had to have one of these - for each one of these- For each channel right. Now if you - depending on the design, whether it's strip line, micro strip, and whether or not you have in-plane shielding, it might be every other one's a signal. But still the weight and size is the difference between having cables right, which I'm holding up right now, versus having a flex circuit is huge right. And in the case of medical, some of those traces can be as narrow as 20 micron. So you can fit a lot of circuitry into a very small space. And you know depending on the on the medical device. We see some of our customers will build circuits that are very, very long and very, very narrow, and you can imagine how they're used in surgery and other medical applications. And you might have twenty circuits on that part but it's in a very, very, very small space. Oh that totally makes sense. Now - just to be clear 20 micron circuitry - it’s not easy to do, it's doable, not easy to do, but certainly 50 microns is, most board shops can do that these days and again you can fit a lot of circuits in a small space and of course they can flex, they can bend. But in the case of rigid flex where you have a rigid part and bridged with a flex part - and here's another example where you have this - is not necessarily rigid flex but you'd have components here and then a connector here. You're replacing all these cables right, of this section, so that's how it drives weight and space and even reliability. Fewer interconnections tend to be more reliable so that really helps. So flex has been growing quite a bit for us, for our business and so, a lot of its based on DuPont Kapton and DuPont Pyralux products and then they - there's a B-stage system for laminating the different layers and of course the core, or the clad material as the foil on both sides and then our customers will print and etch to whatever pattern they need and put those layers together as building blocks. Right so let's talk a little bit about design for flex since most folks listening here will be engineers or layout folks. What are some things that people need to keep in mind about designing these kind of circuits that's sort of unique to flex? So there's a couple of good - again some good guides out there - both by IPC, DuPont has flex manuals, for different types of categories. Whether it's multi-layer, single sided, double-sided flex, they have some good guidelines on that, but in general what you want to avoid is you don't want circuits to make turns or bends in the bend area. So, for example, I'm going to use this one is an example again. Okay. If this is the flex area in this middle section here, you wouldn't have the circuits go in different directions in that area, so you might want to keep them. You want to keep them basically parallel in that area and you also don't want plated through holes in those areas. Again these are just real general rule - basic guidelines. The other thing you want to avoid is what we call an I-beam effect, where you have circuits directly above each other with a dielectric in between. You want to stagger them. That helps, again - more important for dynamic flex than bended, to install, but it's important not to have the I-beam effect because that could lead to cracks... That makes sense. -concentrates on bending. And in general from a stack up standpoint, you want to try and balance the construction. Thinner is typically better. There's again - there's all kinds of iterations there's - if it's a multi-layer flex - there's loose leaf constructions where you wouldn't necessarily bond the different layers together in the flex or bend region. You'd have them not connected. A bookbinder system is another way to do it where depending on the direction of the bend, the layers that are on the outside of the bend are actually longer. The layers on the inside - and again the fabricators that are skilled in that know how to space that - and to change the length of the circuit. But you know from a simpler standpoint, or from a more general standpoint thinner is typically better balanced. Balanced constructions are typically better for flex. Well balanced construction is always a good idea, I'm just saying but I could see that right. Because I think you - what you're saying if I'm hearing you right, is you have to look for those opportunities for cracking right, or stressing at the bend radius, because that makes sense right. Just from a physics standpoint it makes sense that things would want to give or pull right? Right, when you bend a flex circuit the other side compresses against it right, and every circuit will fail at some point. It's a matter of how many cycles you get out of it before it fails. Right how do you measure those cycles by the way? Well there are some standardized tests and there's an MIT bend test - there's some other testing that's done to see how a particular material, or even a design or stack up performs where it's bent repeatedly until you get failure. And then you can - you can rate the stack up or the and/or the material. Where can you get that data? You mentioned IPC as a source. Is there any other thing - resources you could share - that I could share with the listeners where they could maybe look at some of these readings? Yeah actually so DuPont's website, the Pyralux website, has some data on that and certainly some of the folks there could put your listeners in touch with some of the design guidelines. Okay alright I know some folks there if you and I can't find him through the website then Jonathan just came in to talk at IPC designers Council Orange County I'll reach out to him see if... Oh Jonathan Weldon, yeah he's a great resource for that. So speaking of Jonathan Weldon, he's been working with HDPUG; they've been looking at shield layers or for reference planes and they've been looking at the difference in solid planes and cross hatch systems, and so this is just a simple - this is actually a simple test circuit microstrip construction where you have a reference plane on one side and your tracer on the other. Imagine if there were a strip line construction and you had copper on both sides with your transmission line in the middle, one of the challenges with all PCBs, and especially with flex, is absorption of moisture and then that moisture released during assembly causing delamination and one of the things that you can do to mitigate that is to bake the parts. Well if you have soft solid copper areas - baking does not work as well - because the moisture has got to go around the copper it can't go through it. Right. So cross hatch ground planes are great for two purposes. One is, it's a moisture egress for baking, the other advantage is it's actually better for flexibility it makes the part more flexible. Hmm, that makes sense. The downside is the high frequency applications - you can run into some issues. Yeah. So and one of the interesting things that Jonathan and company, they were looking at, was the difference between a round opening and a - what's typically used as it's.. Kind of a diamond shape? Exactly, exactly and really it's more of a square turned on its side, but yeah the diamond shape versus the you know... It's funny how a circuit design is always in orthogonal patterns but that's not necessarily the best way to go and anyway the round shape was better for signal performance. Oh, for the high speed applications? Yeah it makes sense because if you took a circle that fit inside a square you actually have less open area so... This is true okay, alright. Yeah, so there's some interesting data on that but I would recommend to a customer, depending on their their frequency bandwidth bit rate, depending on what kind of design it is, that they would look at using an open plane. It works basically with a screen, for lack of better words, versus a solid plane because the reliability goes way up. Okay now you just made me think of something. Last time we talked, we were talking about prepregs and glass, being reinforced right. When you're using adhesive systems for flex, I'm assuming they're non-reinforced? Right. It's a more stable material though so tell us a little bit about that, about the stability, the dimensional stability? Yeah so - so really in flex circuits the Kapton film, a polyImide film, because it's a thermoset, it is acting like the fiberglass in your flex circuit. Okay. You don't have skew issues because there's no glass, so you don't have micro-DK effects. Now if you do have a crosshatch plane, you will have a different - you'll have a micro impedance effect if you would. But that usually doesn't change with differential pairs unless - again depending on where you put the traces - but you don't have the fiberglass micro-DK effect at all. Now, Kapton's interesting - it's very thermally stable but it's not as mechanically strong as glass reinforced laminate. So it tends to change more from mechanical distortion than it does for thermal. It's not shrinking like epoxies do when they cure. Certainly when you - when you remove all the copper (and I actually have a piece here) this is a piece of Pyralux AP, with all the copper etched off. This is 100 percent polyimide, used to have copper cladding on it and the copper's been mostly etched off. You can see a little bit of copper left from the tape I use to run this through an etcher, but the material is pretty strong but it can distort mechanically, more so than thermally. So again this is kind of like the fiberglass in a regular PCB, and then you'd have B-stages of some sort, to put all the layers together. So the actual substrate is creating the stability in the case of flex? Okay that makes sense. It's a polyimide film, in the case of Pyralux, which is a DuPont branded flex material it's based on Kapton film. Okay so we talked about ground planes, we talked about where to not put - - is there any other sort of design for flex things that you'd want to mention that are just rather commonplace? Yeah so there's a lot of things, for example, you could use a pad that's a little bit larger than you would normally use that would go underneath the cover. Now let me backup a little bit and talk about cover lay. So what cover lay is, it's basically Kapton adhesive laminate, that is the flexible equivalent of solder mask. Now unlike solder mask which is used in PCB, which is photoimageable, cover lay has to be mechanically formed and then laminated over the circuitry. So you have openings and this - again this is a another good example - you have openings in the cover lay I don't know if you can see that on this? But there's openings on the cover lay for each individual pad and then that's laminated over. One of the ways to get more reliability out of the pads is to make the pad a little bit bigger than the opening in the cover lay. So you have cover lay over the perimeter of the pad - it's kind of like what we call solder mask defined pad and rigid - except you're doing it in flex, and that's that's one way to get reliability. But there - again there are a lot of different things in flex that you should be aware of, and that's where some of these design guides and things... Okay well we'll try to track some of those down and put those in the show notes because I think that would be really helpful to have something kind of, tangible. Something I remember learning from someone else, is also talking about tear dropping pads? Yes. Is that something that you would recommend as well? Yeah that's good for a couple of different reasons. One is that the more material that goes under the cover lay, again helps mechanically support the pad. It's also important - typically you don't put holes or pads into your bend area, but it could be an area where you could concentrate bending. So in other words, you go from a trace to a pad, that's going to become a concentration of - right at the edge of the pad - concentration of stress and so if you do the teardrop, that distributes that stress over a larger area and helps prevent circuit cracking. But again, you would try and avoid that in your design. We would make that a bend area. And actually, speaking of rigid flex, one of the things that you would typically do is the cover lay would go into the rigid portion only 50 mils. Okay. -Okay and then you would keep the cover lay and its adhesive out of the plate through hole areas in the rigid portion and rigid flex - and that's also a 'keep out' region for plated through hole so you wouldn't want plate through holes going through that region. So again a lot of this stuff is spelled out in some of the manuals that you get from DuPont and others. Alright, I'll reach out to Jonathan and - and you and I can scrounge up some things and we'll make sure to include those here. Last thing I wanted to talk to you about - which I was just stunned by - is that you told me that DuPont has come out with a new material that has unbelievable thermal performance. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah so - classically in flex, you have your your B-stage, or adhesives that are part of the package, and then you have your core materials, which are your building blocks and you print and etch your core, just like rigid, and you would have - you would put them together with either your rigid or your flex adhesives to make a multi-layer system. What's different about this new product, it's called Pyralux HT, and in fact, I got my Pyralux HT mug here... Nice, nice. -but instead of using acrylic or epoxy adhesives to bond the Kapton layers together, you would use this thermoplastic polyimide layer. It's got a very high melting point and thermoplastic's already used in PCB, people familiar with EPI-P and LC, those systems. The only way thermoplastics work in PCB, or reflow assembled PCB, is to have a high melting point otherwise it would melt at assembly. So this is a piece of the thermoplastic polyimide that DuPont manufacturers. It's the HT bonding film. This could either be a cover lay or it could be an adhesive layer to put - to make a multi-layer PCB. Okay. -But the nice thing about this, is it has a - 225 Celsius operating temperature, which is very, very high. What does that convert to in Fahrenheit? Oh gosh - 225 C it's over 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I see, 225 - - Fahrenheit okay I wasn't hearing you correctly, so it was Fahrenheit okay. Oh no - hang on, 225 C, I should know all this without me - - 437 Fahrenheit. Wow. So you know, some applications... -and that's an operating - continuous operating temperature? Which is crazy, cuz some materials can take that heat for a little while but not continuing operating temperature right? Right, so most PCB materials that go through a reflow assembly, which is either done at 260 Celsius, depending on the type of solder work, or 288 C, they can withstand that for a short period of time most PCB materials survive that. It's the operating temperature most epoxy systems will come in around 130 to 150 C operating temperature - maximum operating temperature. That's wild, so I'm guessing - so what are the applications where this will be exciting news? So applications where you had, fiberglass, coax or some other applications like that where you had wired - high temperature wired connections - or cable connections, you could replace now with a printed circuit board. So engine compartments, aircraft engine compartments, aerospace, down hole, I mean there are a lot of different applications. Even from a medical standpoint. Imagine making a flex circuit that could be auto plated over and over and over again. You don't have to worry what's gonna... I was gonna ask you about that earlier. I don't really know what temps they autoclave at but you mentioned that before that medical applications could - to cut autoclave to kill the bacteria, but like what's the normal temp of an autoclave, how many times can you do that? So we have one customer that builds some parts that are autoclaved at 135 C but it's with steam, and it's hard on circuits, it's hard on electronics. Yeah seems like that would be. But for HT it wouldn't be any issue because you're nowhere near on the melting point. Now it will absorb some moisture, which could be removed from - could be removed with a bake but a lot of applications it won't matter if the assembly is already done. It doesn't really matter. Okay. You know there is some change in the transmission properties of the material when it absorbs some moisture. Again that could be removed with a bake but that is one of the challenges with reusable medical devices, is sterilization and how well the materials hold up, and an HT would be good for that. The downside of HT, is it does require a 600 degree lamination - Fahrenheit. Okay well there you go, so how many board shops have lam presses that go up to that temp? So we took a look at our customer base, and it's not a lot of them, or some of our customers had laminate, or have lamination presses that are capable, they're rated that high, but they haven't been turned up that high for a long, long time. So it's funny, some of our customers have started making some HT, all the weaker heaters, that the press might be 10 years old, they turn it up for the first time to a higher temperature; they start popping heaters and they have to go and replace them. But actually we're seeing a trend though. A lot of our customers are buying laminating equipment and right now that's a whole 'nother story because lean times are way out on equipment in general, but what we're seeing is people are making sure they have that high temperature capability and it's not just for something like HT, it's for LCP and FEP as well. Okay. They have some good properties, electrical and and signal properties. They do. That's a big deal these days. Performance wise they're very good. Right they're harder to fabricate but they do have some good properties you know. Even - we talked about last time - repeat glass-reinforced PTFE materials, some of them require high lamination temperatures. Yeah they do. Yeah all right. One more material I do want to mention - sorry - so this material actually is a Teflon Kapton laminate it's called... -wait hold on - Teflon Kapton? Oh okay. It's called 'TK' - it's a Pyralux product from DuPont and so it has a core of Kapton to act as the XY stabilizer, but then it has a Teflon material on both sides and again, this is a building block but it's very low loss, and very low DK. So a DK of about two and a half with a very, very low loss. But unlike glass reinforced Teflon systems, this has no fiberglass so, no skew and no detrimental effect from the fiberglass. It's using the Kapton instead, as the stabilizer, because if you had a piece of - I should have brought out a piece of Teflon - but PTFE films you can easily - it can be mechanically stretched. Yeah, one time when I was in the RF and microwave board space, I had the board shop I was working for take all the materials like Rogers, Taconic, whatever and I had them strip all the copper off and I went like the 4000 series 6000 series 3000 series all the way up to 58, 80 and strip off the copper. Because when you see them clad, they don't look that different from each other. But I'm like here's Teflon - this is like a piece of rubber, and imagine heating that up, exposing that to aqueous hot processes and so I think that really helped people to understand how vastly different they are and I think it was a good visual actually to help people understand how radically different these are and when you start stripping off all the copper and you have fine lines and all that then it's - it's a whole different animal. TK material is - the core material is nice because the Kapton layer does provide mechanical strength. Again though, the TK, instead of requiring 600 degree lamination, it requires 550. So it's still a high temperature product which requires the right press book, the right materials, and lamination, and it also requires a press being capable. And the other too is the board shop needs to get accustomed to the dimensional changes during the lamination process with these materials. Right. Again - a lot of it's mechanically driven, but you need to know how to work with it so that's something I think the boardshop needs to have experience with. Well and I imagine that you're not going to see these materials outside of sort of high performance or high speed capable board shops? That's true... -I don't know if that's true I guess I'm looking to you for an answer in there but it's an assumption I would make. Here's the interesting thing about AP, AP by itself, is actually pretty good electrically. It's the adhesive layers you use that incur a lot of the loss. So then if you get into the thermoplastic systems that have better electrical performance, now you're getting into the temperature range. So it's one of those give-and-take situations, but you can mix and match the materials to some degree. You could use, for instance HT bonding film with AP clads, your operating temperature would default to the AP operating temperature, which is still pretty high at 180 °C, but electrically it's pretty good. You get away from the acrylic and the epoxy adhesives, which aren't great electrically, in terms of loss, dielectric constant so yeah, I think as I think as board shops become better equipped with high temperature systems, you'll see a broader use of these materials. Right, I mean the market is going to drive us there one way or the other right, if there's a demand then the board shops will do what they need to do. One thing - a comment I want to make about that is - I was in one board shop and I was stunned and then just felt like wow I could've had a V8 moment, is they were providing really high speed, high performance circuits to some high-end military stuff, and they had moved completely away from rigid high performance laminates and used multiple layers of flex materials and the performance - and I'm like - oh well that seems like an obvious, but I had no idea that was even happening. Is that something you have seen, where they just use... Yeah, if you wanted to get rid of skew completely you could use a film based system. Yeah it was crazy, I mean that makes sense and I'm sure there's some challenges there cuz I could tell they had to rigidize the bottom, or put some kind of carrier or something, because they didn't want it to flex quite that much but they just stacked these film systems on top of each other and I'm like huh, didn't know you could do that but they were clearly doing it on a routine basis so that was interesting. Yeah I've seen some board designs where you might have 12 cores of Pyralux... Yeah,right. -and then use regular rigid prepreg as a bonding system so and the board's not - when it's all done, it's not flexible it's rigid. It is rigid, but it's a weird - it's weird to see anyway... I actually have a board here. Ok let's see it. Unfortunately it's single sided so it's kind of like a potato chip, but because there's only one layer of copper and one layer of prepreg, but this is actually DuPont's AP product with Isola's tachyon prepreg, and it's a spread glass prepreg. So you have the spread glass prepreg on one side and you've got the Pyralux AP in the other. So you minimize how much glass is in here, which really drops the amount of impact or micro DK effect which would lead to skew and other signal performance issues. So there are lots of different ways you could use the flex materials even in a rigid design. Yeah I did see that and I was shocked and I - it's something I hadn't heard a lot about. Anyways well, we're about out of time today, again. But thank you so much, every time I talk to you, I feel like I learned so, so much and it's fascinating to me where the industry is going and what's happening with flex and it's exciting it's really an enabler right and these high, high temp products and that so it's a really exciting time to see. We always break through one way or another it's just interesting to see who gets it done. So it's very interesting to see what we're doing with flex. Oh thank you Judy for giving us the opportunity to talk about some of the materials we supply but yeah it's - these are all building blocks and, I kind of view it as a material science company in tech... You are yeah. -we provide all these different building blocks to meet the need of what the customer needs. And there is - and there's really unique ways to put those building blocks together so it's fascinating to learn about. Ok so something I didn't ask you last time, but I'm gonna ask you now. Are you a geek or a nerd? [Laughter] So the best way I heard the two described is the difference between a geek and a nerd is - a geek is the one who gets things done. Oh interesting okay. So I would like to think I'm somebody who'd get stuff done, so that would put me in the geek camp but in any case. Alright check geek, and the second question I have for you: on a scale from one to ten how weird are you? [Laughter] Oh gosh, I would say - five. I'm sorry but if we're in this industry we're at least 5 or above. I think we have to be a little wacky to do what we do - okay well thanks I appreciate it so much and again, we were talking on the phone yesterday we have more to cover, so I'm gonna for sure have you back again and talk about printed electronics which is on the rise and you know a lot about. And also I'm very excited to talk about - oh there it is! Electronics, that's a whole other - whole other world of electronics and yeah. Wait, wait, wait bring that back and tell our listeners what exactly that is. So this was printed with a zebra label printer where the - and no changes to the machine by the way - but the special foil is put into the system where you normally put a roller with a pigment film, so instead of printing a black label you're printing metal foil so yeah, it's kind of interesting. Yes what is that for? Well this is something did for me at our booth this is just an antenna but you could really you could make electronic designs on the fly now... Dude, you're still not answering my question here. What is that intended for? So I'm gonna use that for an antique stereo I have. I have an antique FM stereo the tube, old tube radio, I'm going to use that as an antenna. I see - oh see definitely five-weird. I say I'm gonna make that matrix instead of the hot crazy matrix I'm gonna make like the geeky-weird matrix and so yeah - you're at least at a five -high and a geek. But anyway printed electronics is pretty exciting, I mean and again, it's all material science based. As the materials get better you're gonna be able to do more things. Higher conductivity inks, higher temperature inks, I mean there's all kinds of things you can do in that area. Typically the substrates are different - they're typically lower cost, lower temperature capable substrates, but you could - you can make all kinds of things so we'll get it the next time. Okay we'll definitely do that and the other thing I'm excited to talk to you about - because I know nothing about it - is paste interconnects and you shared a little bit, so anyways we have at least one or two more podcasts ahead of us, so for our listeners; stay tuned and we'll make sure and share everything Chris has talked about today and hook you up with resources through DuPont, HDPUG, IPC, wherever we can find and we'll make sure and share those resources that will help you lay out a better flex and onboard as much information as you can. So Chris, thanks again, we'll see you next time and we'll tackle another hot topic. Again this has been Judy Warner with the OnTrack Podcast. Thanks for tuning in and thank you to Chris Hunrath from Insulectro, we will see you next time. Until then, always stay on track.

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Job Insights #4: Apps With Productivity in Mind for Education and in the Workplace. Transcript Provided

Blind Abilities

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2018 39:04

Job Insights #4: Apps With Productivity in Mind for Education and in the Workplace. Transcript Provided Welcome to the 4th episode of Job Insights with Serina Gilbert and Jef Thompson. We focus on Employment, Careers, enhancing opportunities and bringing you the latest innovations from across the Vocational Rehabilitation field to ensure your choices lead you down the career pathway that you want and succeed in gainful employment. From getting started with services, to assessments, Individual Plan for Employment (IPE) to gaining the skills to succeed and tools for success, Job Insights will be giving you tips and tricks to help your journey to employment and break down the barriers along the way. On this 4th episode of Job Insights Hope Paulos joins Serina Gilbert and Jeff Thompson in the studio and they talk about productivity apps and software. From the classroom to the workplace, these apps are geared towards making your daily challenges a bit more manageable, efficient and productive. Hours Tracker, Black Board, Drafts, Files, SeeingAI, Dictionary Thesaurus Pro, KNFBReader and Bookshare’s Read To Go app are all mentioned with some great discussion about how we use these apps. A great little Scan Stand named Foppidoo makes the scene and a conversation on Lift and Uber gets quite a chat as well. You can check out the Meet Me Accessibly book from Jonathan Mosen and learn about Zoom on the PC. Join the Job Insights crew and download some apps and give them a whirl. Hey, productivity rocks! We hope you enjoy this Job Insights episode and you can send your feedback and suggestions to the Job Insights team by email at JobInsights@BlindAbilities.com Follow the Job Insights team on twitter @JobInsightsVIP Job Insights is part of the Blind Abilities network. A big Thank You goes out to CheeChau for his beautiful music! Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Job Insights #4: Apps With Productivity in Mind for Education and in the Workplace. Transcript Provided [Music] Female voice: I feel like I'm getting a lot better education so yeah, I think, I think the online learning is an equalizer. Jeff: Job Insights, a podcast to help you carve out your career pathway and enhance the opportunities for gainful employment. Female Voice: But sometimes I require KNFB Reader when I have more than one page that I want to kind of read continuously. Jeff: Learn about resources for training education and employment opportunities. Female Voice: Blackboard, that is a learning management system and a lot of universities are using them as well for classes. So this particular app is available on Android, iOS, and PC, and Mac of course. Jeff: We will hear from people seeking careers, employment, from professionals in the educational field, teachers, and innovators in this ever-changing world of technology to help you navigate the employment world and give you Job Insights and enhance the opportunities to choose the career you want. Male Voice: Fopydo people sounds good and I actually at that time asked my son, and I, it was actually a play on the on Scooby-doo. Jeff: And you can find the Job Insights podcast on BlindAbilities.com, part of the Blind Abilities Network with hosts Serina Gilbert and myself Jeff Thompson, and you can contact us by email at JobInsights@BlindAbilities.com, leave us some feedback, or suggest some topics that we cover. On Twitter at Job Insights VIP, and check out the Job Insights support group on Facebook where you can learn, share, advise, and interact with the Job Insights community. [Music] Female Voice: Lift also released an update to their service dog policy saying that an allergy or fear of animals is not a valid reason to not pick up an individual with the service animal. Jeff: But hey it's a good learning tool, because it's just repetitious and pretty soon it just starts coming to you, mm-hmm, so I dug right in, when I saw they had flashcards I went Wow! [Music] Jeff: And now please welcome Serina Gilbert and Jeff Thompson with Job Insights. [Music] Jeff: Welcome to Job Insights and this week we're talking about apps, apps that you'll use in school, at the workplace, and these are productivity type of apps, and with me today of course is Serina Gilbert how are you doing? Serina: I'm good Jeff, how are you? Jeff: I'm just doing great and we got a guest today all the way from Maine. Hope Paulos, how are you Hope? Hope: I'm doing great, how are you? Jeff: I'm doing good, we're all doing good, so that's good. Today we're gonna talk about apps, you know some of these apps are mostly productivity type of things, stuff that you'll use to, you know get things done and that's, that's what we're, we're all about here on Job Insights. So Serina, last podcast you said you were holding out on us from what you're gonna tell us, is the cliffhanger over or are you gonna tell us? Serina: Oh we've got a little bit of a wait cuz we have to talk to Hope first, we have a guest. Jeff: How about you Hope, what do you got? Hope: I certainly don't have a cliffhanger. [Laughter] Serina: We set her up there Jeff! Jeff: yeah. Hope: Yeah you did! [Laughter] Jeff: So Hope, how's it going out and Maine? Hope: It's going well, the weather is nice finally, when I talked to you and Pete last time, it was March, and it was in the 20's, 20 degrees. Now we are in about the 60's, 70's, so I am absolutely loving it, birds are chirping, the guide dog is going for walks, he's enjoying it, Jeff: Is he bringing you with? Hope: Oh yeah of course! [Laughter] Jeff: That's great! Serina: But Jeff needs to know if you planted any Apple trees? Hope: No. Serina: Only PC trees? Hope: Only PC trees. [Laughter] Jeff: Oh that's the running joke isn't it? So when it comes to productivity type of apps, Hope what did you bring to the show today? Hope: Sure, so I have a couple of them. I don't use this particular one very much right now because I do work for Apple, and Apple has me on a strict schedule so I don't need this particular one, but for people who are freelancing, the name of the app is called Hours Tracker, it's a free app and basically it allows you to track your hours of course, hence the name, but it also allows you to track your earnings, and it will deduct the taxes as well. So it will tell you how much is deducting for taxes. So it's great for individuals who are freelancing. The second app that I have brought to the show is Blackboard. That is a Learning Management System and a lot of universities are using them as well for classes, so this particular app is available on Android, iOS, and PC, and Mac of course. This will allow you to do your classes online literally anywhere and actually a couple of the blindness organizations were working in tandem to get this particular app accessible. It's extremely accessible, there was only one thing that I commented on a couple weeks ago and I sent feedback in to the iOS developers and they fixed it. They're very very good about fixing issues that people might have. The other app that I brought, that I brought to the show is Learning Ally. This is an app that will allow you to download books and it's also good for individuals who are dyslexic and who have low vision because I believe it will allow you to magnify the print in the actual book so you can read along with the narrator which is quite helpful. That's more University as well, University-type app, Productivity app and of course the last app would be the Bookshare app. The Read2Go, this allows you if you have a membership to Bookshare, which I believe most students can get for free, it allows you to read the books on your phone be it Android or iOS. Jeff: Now on the Hours Tracker, is that what it's called? Hour Tracker? Hope: Hours Tracker yeah. Jeff: Hours Tracker. So when you're doing the setup, your presets, do you put in your wage, and then it just calculates it and are you able to output that anywhere, or is it just something you read? Hope: Absolutely, so this particular program allows you to put in the wage, and it allows you to put in whether or not taxes are withheld, so technically even if you were, you know not freelancing, if you working a job as an employee, a W2, you could use it as well. Basically it allows you to put in your breaks and your lunches and things like that, and it lets you know when to go on the break, and when to go to lunch, and when to clock out, and when to clock in. [Music] App Voice: Sample Job, 0.05H today, 0H button, clock out now or long-press for extras menu, button, next clock out now, button, cause now, button, break now button, break now, sample job 0 H on break 8:10 a.m., 0.02H button, end break or long press for extras menu button, end break. Hope: It also will let you know, like you can, you can set a reminder to have it automatically clock in when you get to work, and yes you can send it, I think it's a CSV file, or CV file, something like that, a database file, and it will put it in an Excel spreadsheet I think as well, so that you can show it to your employer. Jeff: That's kind of neat. Serina: That's pretty cool I like that. Hope: Yeah it's a it's a pretty neat app for sure. Jeff: Intuit the makers of QuickBooks and various tax applications has a program and it might be part of their bundle and I believe you can buy it separately, I believe it's called Self-Employed, but that sells on a monthly subscription for 7 to 8 dollars a month. Hope: Yeah this is free and I think, I'm trying to think if I paid for anything, I think I did just because I was freelancing at the time and I wanted them more, more, so it has a lite version and it has a full-featured version, but even the full-featured version wasn't some really really, you know cheap price. Jeff: A one-time fee? Hope: A one-time fee yeah. Jeff: That makes perfectly good sense, economically I can track that pretty good. [Laughter] [Music] Jeff: You can download Hours Tracker free from the App Store or the Google Play Store. Hourlys Tracker is free for up to 21 days of time entries and if you upgrade to the pro or professional, you get rid of all the ads, unlimited amount of entries that you can make, the only difference between the professional and the personal is you can have unlimited amount of jobs in the professional, and you can upgrade to the professional or the personal in the in-app option. The professional will run you $9.99 and the personal will run you $5.99. Once again, a one-time payment, I was really intrigued when I heard about Hours Tracker, I downloaded to my iPhone, and started using it right away, I named a job, I started the time, and when I was completed I stopped the time. I also had the option to input the time that I wanted it to start or input the time that I wanted to stop, otherwise you could do it in real time and that works out really nice. There's also an option that you can take notes and keep them with that job. I found that the accessibility on Hours Tracker on my iPhone was second to none, all the buttons were labeled and the intuitiveness was what I expected for when I have started logging the job, putting in the hours, getting out of the job, putting notes in, was just exactly how I expected it would work and it did work that way. Another small part of the accessibility, it lets you cancel a pop-up or dismiss the pop-up that comes up, and I really like that because if you've ever had a pop-up pop-up and not be able to get rid of it, that's not good. So after kicking around Hours Tracker on my iPhone for one job, I personally recommend this for anybody who is self-employed or someone who works on projects and just wants to have better records of the time they spend on their projects and jobs. [Music] Jeff: So on the Blackboard, I remember I have not experienced Blackboard yet, but I remember going to college and I was at the mercy of every professor that was experimenting by putting stuff on the web and accessing it through a link they give you, and if it was accessible you got lucky, so Blackboard is a collective effort to make it accessible for everyone. Hope: Absolutely, so it all depends on the type of class you're taking obviously right, if people don't know I'm going back to school to become a teacher of the blind and visually impaired and so all of the courses need to be accessible to me. So the professor's will tag their images so that I can know what's going on, their quizzes are all accessible, obviously the discussion boards are all accessible, and I use a combination of the two apps, so I use the combination of Blackboard and I use Learning ally to be able to do my classwork, and literally like I said, I can do it anywhere. With the phone if I have a Braille display and/or a Bluetooth keyboard I can do my homework on the beach or in the park you know, so literally anywhere and that's huge compared to when I was going back to school to get my undergrad degree, like you know 2009, that's when I graduated so it's, it's huge it's a huge step up. Serina: Yeah I remember using Blackboard when I was doing my master's degree which would have been gosh, probably around the same time as you are doing your undergrad, so I finished in 2010 and so, I don't know, 2007, 2008, somewhere around there's when I started it and they used Blackboard for everything. My program was pretty much 100% online, we didn't have the app back then, we just had the website, but even back then the website was pretty accessible. I rarely had any difficulties with it and I was going for the rehabilitation counseling so the professors were a little bit more cognizant of accessible media and documents and things like that. I loved using blackboard because it is easy to log on to, you know if I was on a break at work or whatever, or at home trying to get a discussion posted or something like that. Hope: Yeah it is really easy to use extremely easy to use. Jeff: Is that why you opted to do your classes online, not that you're on an island out off the shore of Maine, but..... [Laughter] Hope: Yeah I think, I think it's easier because I've done classes on site to, not having to do as my masters, but having to do with my undergrads degree. I find the digital world to be a lot more accessible, I just remember going to classes on site and didn't have a lot of input from the professor. The professor was teaching to a lecture hall full of I don't know, a hundred students, I just felt like I was kind of left out and wasn't getting all the notes that I needed to get, whereas here taking the classes online and using, again the combination of Blackboard and Learning Ally, I'm able to take the notes that I need, I'm able to contact my professors if I need to. I have peer to peer interaction as well. I feel like I'm getting a lot better education, so yeah I think, I think the online learning is an equalizer. Jeff: Mm-hmm. Hope: Of sorts. Jeff: Yeah that's great because you know everyone has to do what works for them and if you found a good way of doing it that's great, having those two apps makes it all accessible. Hope: For the most part yeah everything is accessible, even from registering for classes, I go to Missouri State University, so using Missouri State's website is accessible. It's just huge, it's what we're able to do as people who are blind and visually impaired with a digital world, it's absolutely huge. Jeff: So is that something you looked for when you were looking for an online course that they did use Blackboard? Hope: Not really, I didn't know what they used, I contacted them, I did ask them in the beginning when I was registering for the program what they used and I could have used Moodle, Moodle was another application, another learning management system that I'm familiar with and either one I would have been fine with. I looked online and and saw the collaboration between the two blindness organizations regarding Blackboard and I'm like okay this is going to be fine, this is gonna be great, I know it's gonna be accessible, I contacted my professors beforehand and gave them my accommodations and all that and said I need extra time and because it's a digital world they can input my time-and-a-half for quizzes and allow me to have that time and you know they can input that in Blackboard and all is good. I can't speak enough good things about accessibility and digital stuff. Jeff: So let's see, there's Learning Ally, we will put that in the show notes, we'll put Blackboard in the show, we'll put all these in the show notes so people can click on them and go right to the App Store or the Google Play Store and we'll have the links there, so back to the cliffhanger. [Laughter] Jeff: Hi Serina. Serina: And I thought of one like while we were sitting here, so even you'll be surprised Jeff. Jeff: Ooo. [Laughter] Serina: My absolute number one favorite app and I see it all over all of the groups like iPhone and iPad apps, and the assistive technology group, all of them, a seeing AI, I don't think it's any surprise there. That app allows me to be a lot less dependent on a human reader to just go through what's in my mailbox that I get at work. Now I can just kind of okay, yeah I need someone to finish reading that to me, or oh, this is just something that needs to go in the file, it's cut down on how much time I have to spend with somebody sitting at my desk with me going through stuff, and it's free, which is amazing to me because I remember reading gosh, I think it was like two years ago when Microsoft had their hackathon and they had released a video about seeing AI and they were showing a demo of it and I was like, well that's cool but it'll never come out and if it does it'll be super expensive. And then all of a sudden there's a link, and it's free, and it works, like amazingly and it, I can't thank Microsoft enough for that, that actually was a big surprise for me. Jeff: Yeah, you just open it up and boom, short text is reading. Serina: Yeah, from across the room right Jeff! [Laughter] Jeff: Yeah, that happened to me and, I shouldn't say it but I was that Orcam demonstration when they were having the little issues, and I was reading the wall that had their sign on it, so I was like wow, this is already talking, just out of the box, just turn it on and there it is. Male Voice: I use seeing AI all of the time to determine what's in my medicine cabinet, for documents you know I use seeing AI for short text. [Music] Female Voice: I use the document reader all the time, not gonna say it's as good as KNFB Reader because it's not. I did a test between reading my mail with it and with KNFB Reader and I found KNFB Reader to be far more stable, but I still like the app, I use it a lot, I'm glad that it's one of the tools in our toolbox. Female voice: For reading and stuff I used to go to KNFB Reader all the time but it just seems like Prizmo go and seeing AI is so much easier that I tend to go to them more. Male Voice: Seeing AI is my main go-to app and I use that, the short text channel mostly if I can't identify an item with that I will switch to the product channel if it has a barcode. A lot of the apps like [Inaudible] and Aipoly Vision and [inaudible], I've deleted most of those off of there because I can accomplish the same thing with seeing AI [Music] Male Voice: Jeffrey I see apps like Aipoly Vision, [Inaudible], Identifee, of course the KNFB Reader, I think seeing AI is becoming the main tool in the toolbox. Jeff: And you know, all the other channels that they have on their to four options but that's the one I use all the time because, you open it up it works. Serina: Yeah there's a handwriting one too that I've tried only a couple of times, but it surprisingly did recognize the handwriting enough for me to figure out at least what the note was generally about cuz sometimes my clients will stop in and I can't see them, and they'll leave a handwritten note at the front desk and obviously it's probably dependent on the individuals handwriting but I was at least able to get the name of the client and know, okay I'll just call them and see what they needed. Jeff: Hmm, well that's good. Serina: That one's in BETA I think. Jeff: Yeah you always wonder when they have a little feature that's in there and they tag the word BETA after it's like, you better use it now because it may not be there! Serina: Or it's like the disclaimer don't trust this feature. It might not work right! Jeff: Mm-hm try it on a doctor's prescription. [Laughter] Serina: Oh gosh. Jeff: That's the to test. Serina: This is totally not productive but when seeing AI first came out, we were playing with it in my office to see how old it thought everyone was. [Laughter] So all of my co-workers were like changing their hairstyles or putting on glasses or taking off glasses to try to trick it to make it think that they were younger. Jeff: That's a great use of state-funded money. [Laughter] Serina: Hey! Jeff: I know everyone's been doing that, it's kind of a novelty thing and that's like artificial intelligence to me when they're built into apps to me, it's like you know when you go to the carnival, you know, they'll guess your age and you win the whistle or something but you know, I'm not into the novelty stuff but that really does work. Serina: Hope, do you use seeing AI for any of your school work, or since it's mostly digital do you not have to use it a lot? Hope: Yeah I use it sometimes, I use it for work actually to find out whether or not my Mac, my work Mac is gonna turn on correctly. We have so many policies in place at Apple that sometimes voice-over doesn't turn on correctly and so I use either seeing AI or I also use AIRA for that, but most of the time I just grab my phone and you seeing AI. Speaking of the, or how old people were, I actually did that last weekend I think it was on my grandmother's 93rd birthday. I went up to her and took a picture of her and had seeing AI tell her how old she was, now again she's 93 right, so it said a 65 year old woman is smiling, or looks happy or something like that and she's like, wait, did it say 65? [Laughter] Hope: Shes like, I like that! So it made her day. Serina: Yeah. Jeff: I actually think for women they do have a built in algorithm that knocks off a couple years just to you know, keep the customers happy. Serina: No it added 10 years to mine, no matter what it says 10 years. Hope: Oh really. That's funny! [Laughter] Jeff: The algorithm breaker! Serina: Gosh. [Laughter] The other one that I use is obviously very similar to seeing AI but sometimes I require KNFB Reader when I have more than one page that I want to kind of read continuously. To my knowledge I don't know that you can scan multiple pages in seeing AI and if you can, somebody let me know, cuz I actually like it a little bit better. But sometimes when I'm working from home and I don't have access to my flatbed scanner but I need to read some printed like medical documents or things like that, I'll take out KNFB Reader and just scan a whole bunch of pages all at once and then read it, through it continuously, so that's very helpful, and then also you can save on KNFB Reader in their file system, and I think I saw on the latest update that now they can sync with Google Drive and Dropbox now to, so that's kind of a really cool feature that they've integrated in there now. Jeff: Yeah I like the KNFB Reader when I have like, I might have 10 pages of something to read and I don't want to take a picture of each of them so I put it on double sheet and then batch mode and when I turn the page it'll sense that, so you know you got the page turning then ch-ch-ch. KNFB Reader Voice: Manual picture button, automatic picture, picture from ste..., alert, please place your device on an empty document stand and align the camera with the aperture, okay, button, flash off, button, multi-page mode off, button, multi-page mode on. [Camera Sound Effect] Serina: Do you have a stand that you use with it? Jeff: Yeah I do, its the Fopydo and it was designed by Thomas Wardega, and here he is. Thomas: Fopydo sounds good, and I actually at that time asked my son, and it was actually a play on the on Scooby Doo. So basically this was designed from the ground up for people who are blind and visually impaired and along that process I learned to work with people who are blind so I went through a couple of revisions of the stand before I even started selling it just to make sure that people are happy with using it and that it fulfills whatever is needed from a scanning stand for people who are blind and visually impaired. [Camera Sound Effect] Jeff: It comes with a set of instructions that you can scan, you can put it together, once you got it together it just folds right up and you can put it in a suitcase, it takes up very little real estate. Serina: Oh I need one, and does it work with any phone or? Jeff: Well back when I talked with him he said it would handle, if you balanced it right, and iPad Mini, so I, I guess your your beast of a phone, your iPhone X may work. [Laughter] Serina: Yeah and put the link in the show notes cuz I've been, I thought, I had somebody looking for one before and they were like $50, I'm like mm-hmm, I'll just hold it up, you know. [Laughter] Jeff: Having the batch mode on the KNFB Reader really makes it viable product for someone that's in school that may have to be scanning a lot of pages. Serina: I definitely need one of those. Jeff: Yeah we'll put the link in the show notes and I believe he sells it on Amazon and if you have Amazon Prime, there you go, ten, twelve bucks. Serina: Primes getting expensive though it's like $120.00 starting this year. Hope: I think there's a discount for students. Serina: It's half off for students cuz I had that for a couple of years, and then they got smart and realized that I'm not a student anymore because my school let me keep my student email address for years, and I don't even think I have it anymore now. Now they make you verify by sending in like a schedule. Hope: Oh really? Serina: Yeah. Hope: Similar to Apple music, they do the same thing. Serina: Yeah, and I think Spotify does the same thing too. Hope: Yep. Serina: They got smart. Jeff: So we'll have to put the link in there for Amazon Prime half off for students, that's good news. Serina: Yeah that's it, and half off of Apple music and Spotify, not that those are, those could be productivity apps because if you need music to stay focused. Hope: Technically yeah, exactly, that works! Jeff: Or books. Hope: Yeah. Jeff: Amazon still sells books. Serina: Who orders books anymore? Jeff: Does anybody use Audible for books? Serina: I do not, I totally looked at it, but every time I looked at it I just can't, like I think it's thirteen ninety-nine a month for so many credits and one, the amount of credits you get for that amount is equal to downloading one book, and I haven't found that it's better than just using BARD, because they usually have especially if it's a best-seller what I want anyway. Jeff: Mm-hmm and the BARD app is totally accessible too. Serina: Yeah it's, it's a little old school sometimes, it has its glitches but it gets the job done. Hope: It can be yeah, exactly. Jeff: But it's, it's something that if you do send in a report and stuff like that they'll fix it? We can hope for the best right Hope? Hope: Yeah exactly, yeah sure, I'll write them, I'll give them a good report! Jeff: There you go. Hope: Sure. [Laughter] Serina: Well and it's hard because I know, I think that's run by the Library of Congress so that probably takes like an act of Congress just to get a glitch fixed you know. Jeff: Oh good one! Serina: I didn't mean it to be all cheesy but it's kind of funny. Jeff: Yeah it is, it is, it's nice when things work and you know, you were talking about seeing AI when you open it up short text just starts. I got an app called Drafts, just like the seeing AI, when you open it up it just works the short text is working, do you open it up and the cursors waiting up in the upper left-hand corner and you can start typing, you don't have to open up a new file. The neat thing is if you're in a meeting and you're taking notes and you can set it for certain increments of minutes that pass by and then next time like you open your phone, say it closed, it'll start a new file automatically. Serina: Well that's cool. Jeff: So you're not adding to your recipe you wrote two days ago that's still sitting there, do you want to save it, you don't know if you should save it, it automatically, so if you set it up for 10 minutes, if 10 minutes goes by, it saves it, and opens up a new one, just ready to go, so it's like a new sheet of scratch pad for you, can actually do some markups on it, yeah share it anywhere you want, it's really cool. I do the cut and paste and then just pop it into an email, bang! Serina: I like that, is that a free up too? Jeff: Yeah Drafts is free, I think it's called Drafts 5, there is a professional upgrade, a pro version and that is $20 a year or two dollars a month, but you can do a lot with just the Drafts app. I just love that because when you just want to take down a note, I don't like going into, I use pages because it syncs up with my apple orchard but when I'm at someplace where the meetings starting and I open up pages, you know it has to load up, it goes to the recent, and it seems like, you know all the gears have to spin around five times before anything happens, but this one opens up just bang, it's ready to go. Serina: I especially have that problem using the native Notes app on the iOS devices. Ever since they made it where you've got some notes on your iPhone, some on iCloud, some on Google Drive, or Dropbox or wherever, it's so hard for me to figure out where my notes are anymore that I just don't use that app anymore. Jeff: And that's my second app that I was going to talk about, it's the files app in iOS platform on the iPhone. Files, if you don't know where it went because it says, oh it's stored on the iCloud, or on the desktop in the iCloud, or on the iCloud Drive or wherever, and you start hunting around, but if you go to files and go to most recent, it'll check all those files, all those different drives, all the different places on your phone and everything, but if you go to recent and then if you click up on top you can go back and actually go specifically only to one area where you think it is, but if you put it on all, its checking all those drives that you have synced up with it and you can usually find it, so when I get lost for a second I just open up files and go to the most recent and there it is. Serina: That's a good tip, I didn't know that. I never really knew the point of the files app. Jeff: Yeah check it out, open it up and just see, and you'll see what you've been doing lately. Seirna: So I have one more that you do not know that is my favorite apps to use, any guesses? Jeff: Hope, what do you think it is? Hope: Hmmm, Uber, no it's not productivity, nevermind. [Laughter] Serina: Well technically it is, I do use Uber and Lyft a lot for work actually because I have to go as part of my job, I have to be at high schools and things like that and I am almost an exclusive Lyft user personally. Jeff: And why Lyft over Uber? Serina: I just have found just with my personal experience in the city that I live in that I've had better luck with Lyft drivers as far as friendliness and I have a service animal so, I've never been rejected on Uber, I'm actually, the only place I was was actually on Lyft. I found that the cars have been cleaner and the drivers just seem friendlier and with Uber I specifically am NOT a fan of the, if we wait more than two minutes, we're gonna charge you policy. Hope: Oh that's not good. Serina: Yeah that's a newer policy, maybe in the last six months and that policy just really bothers me especially when you're visually impaired. Drivers will say they're there and you're like where? You know, and if they're automatically gonna charge you, I think it's, I don't, I guess it's maybe like five dollars, if the driver has to wait I believe it's more than two minutes, like that's stressful, it's already nerve-racking like being like, hey I've got a service animal, are they gonna drive right past me, are they gonna pick me up, and then to know they're also gonna charge me an extra five bucks if I can't find them. And then they also tend to do the walk here and meet your driver thing. Jeff: Oh yeah. Serina: And I've never had that happen with Lyft no matter, I've been in downtown Denver and that's not happened before, but Uber will send you up a random parking lot or something to meet your driver. Hope: Oh wow! No thank you. Serina: Yeah so that's more why I'm Lyft exclusive, and then on the driver side I'm not quite sure how it breaks down, I don't remember how much the drivers get but I know with Uber it's not like a set percentage that the drivers get as far as, like I think it with Lyft the drivers get 75% of the fares With Uber, nobody really knows what percentage of the fare they get because they can, I've had drivers say like, yeah I've done rides Denver to you know, the DIA Airport and sometimes I get 60, sometimes I get a hundred, like there's no, I guess transparency with it. Jeff: Mmm-hm. Serina: And I can only speak to you know what I'm told, but I just personally feel better about using Lyft and for those who don't know, Lyft also released an update to their service dog policy saying that an allergy or a fear of animals is not a valid reason to not pick up an individual with a service animal and I feel like that's a very strong policy, and that's telling you where they stand on that very clearly, and I'm not, I'm not sure if Uber has come out as strong as they did. But that's all for a whole another podcast, you have to use all that when we talk about transportation. [Laughter] Jeff: No that's, that's good information because in my neck of the woods my wife uses Lyft, I use Uber and yet, I've been noticing that at certain peak times the price goes way up and other times it's low, and the waiting time changes, but you know, if it were two minutes, it's sometimes it's as low as thirty seven cents, but other times it's higher, you know, so things, I think it's the area you're in that really has, it makes a difference between which one you use, it is productivity because you got to get places and it's nice to know you can get there. Serina: And on time and on your own time. Jeff: Good. Serina: But that was a really good guess that brought on a whole another discussion, I liked it. [Laughter] Serina: But honestly we're on the app right now. Jeff: Ahh, zoom zoom. [Laughter] Serina: But part of my job is to train other people and to hold conference calls and things like that, and to my knowledge as far as like a true training platform where you can record and share your screen and things like that, I found that Zoom is the most accessible system out there that's also used by like companies all over the place. I know Skype is out there, but I don't know if Skype lets you like record the calls and things like that, I don't, like independently, not by pushing it through a different software but just right in the program recording it and having that access to be able to share your screen and still use your PowerPoint effectively and things like that. Jeff: Mm-hmm, and we're doing a neat thing for the first time here and we didn't know if we could do it but Hope sat beside us waiting patiently for us, but we figured it out and we're recording on two ends right now. Serina: Unless I pushed the wrong button again which is very possible. [Laughter] Jeff: Another cliffhanger, stay tuned next week when we find out! Serina: That will be our opener next week. Guess what I actually did it right! Jeff: You know, I'm starting to like Zoom because it's like I can't even tell you, you guys are here, because typically when we're using Skype in my headphones, I have this hiss when other people aren't talking so there's continuous hisses going on and then in the editing phase. So Zoom's really good and I really like the feature where you can send an email and people can just click on the link and they connect right up. Serina: Yep, it makes it really really easy. Hope: So a question I have, you mentioned sharing your screen, how accessible is that with voiceover? I heard through the grapevine that the voice-over will read actually what's on the screen. I don't know if it's true or not? Serina: So I haven't had a chance to test that because at work we don't use any Max, and then when I'm on a Zoom call and I am a participant I'm not usually on my iPhone. Hope: Right. Serina: So if you are leading the meeting and you're sharing your screen, it's actually pushing through a video of your screen, so it's almost like, I just imagine like a webcam watching your screen or whatever. Hope: Right, so I would assume it's not accessible then. Serine: Correct, but and I don't remember the keystroke, maybe Jeff knows, but I know in the latest major update to the OS on the Macs and iOS, you can have it essentially perform an OCR on the screen like live, with the software on the Mac, but I haven't had a chance to truly test that out just because I'm not usually on Apple devices when I'm participating. The way that I work around that, because I do have to present to individuals that use screen readers as well sometimes, is I usually will send my PowerPoint out ahead of time so that they can follow along while they're listening to the meeting, but then they also have access to the chat panel and everything else, it's just the visual of the video that they're not quite having access to but I, I just send it out ahead of time. Jeff: Yeah I haven't dug too deep into this, but Serina told me about Jonathan Mosen's book, and he did a full fledge book on using Zoom for calls and meetings and stuff like that, and yeah, I believe you can get that on Mosen's consulting on the website, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes. Serina: Yeah the book is called "Meet Me Accessibly" and it's very current based on, because I listen to maybe four or five chapters so far, and it sounds like he recorded it maybe in June of 17 and he does a really good job of letting you hear the screen reader and how it interacts with everything and going through all the different settings and explaining what exactly it is that they all do. Jeff: Yes he does he has quite a few books on Mosen's consulting so when you get there, just look around and he has tutorials on a lot of different topics, he's into the Mac, he's into, no not the Mac as much anymore, but he's into the PC, Microsoft. Serina: All these plugs Jeff, you're going to need to get some royalties! [Laughter] Jeff: Hopefully I get their name right and their website right. Another app that I have that I use and some people laugh at this, I use Dictionary Thesaurus Plus, and if you get the dictionary you can upgrade and you get, its a combination of Dictionary and Thesaurus Plus and I get the word of the day, and I'm just waiting to get that specific word to send Serina because she laughed at me when I talked about this app before. But it's just kind of neat because in there, they have flashcards and I'm on the bottom, they're not labeled but I figured out what two of them are, flashcards, so I took insight today just when I was skipping around there and I made a flashcard so on one side it says insight, on the other side it says the definition, so someone could actually go through there if they have a 10 word list that need to know or learn, like they're in school and they could actually input the word, get the dictionary, and there's also a button that says go to page, so if you want more definition you can just click on it, brings it right to the dictionary page and it's just kind of a neat resource if you're into that you know. If you want to know what words mean. Serina: Well that could you, I mean you just brought up a good point though, that could be a really good study aid for somebody if you're in a class where there's a lot of maybe theories, or specific definitions you need to know, you could load all those in there and while you're on the bus or whatever kind of be going through those, probably a more fun way than just reading the book. Jeff: Yeah and that's why I did it, like when I took Spanish, I made, I made note cards. I took these note cards and I brailled on one side, and then on the other side I had some other Braille, the translation in English to what it was, so I could just go through, and people were like joking with me like, Oh flashcards, it's like it's something for the kids or something, but hey, it's a good learning tool because it's just repetitious and pretty soon it just starts coming to you. Serina: Mmm-hmm. Jeff: So I dug right in when I saw they had flashcards, I went wow! So I really like that and it's, uh I think there's a fee for the upgrade, might be a few dollars but you can get download at all for free and test it and then in the in-app you can upgrade. Serina: Nice! Jeff: Well I think we got a handful of apps here that you know through experience we, we've been trying, we've been using and stuff. Some of these apps if you find them useful click on the show notes, download them, check them out, and if you have any feedback or suggestions on the apps that you want us to do on our next show, give us a jingle, drop us an email at JobInsights@blindabilities.com, on Twitter at Job Insights VIP, and uh, let us know what you think. Serina: What are we talking about next tiem John....John? Wow! Sorry! [Laughter] Jeff: Well Sarah! [Laughter] Jeff: What will our next one be on? Serina: I don't know, we have so many topics, normally I'm like, let's take this, let's let Hope pick the next topic, no pressure! Hope: No pressure yeah right mm-hmm! Let's do transportation since we kind of talked a little bit about it in this one, that would make sense. Serina: Getting to work. Hope: Yeah, absolutely. Serina: Perfect. Jeff: Getting to work, school, college. Hope: Yeah. Jeff: There you go Sarah! Serina: Stop it! [Laughter] Jeff: And if you want to contact Hope, she's on Twitter. Serina: If you want people to have it? Hope: Yeah my Twitter is Fidelco, capital F as in Foxtrot, I, D as in Delta, E, L, C, O, 4, the number four, ever. My email address is hopepaulos@gmail.com, so hopepaulos@gmail.com. Jeff: Well Hope thank you very much for coming on to Job Insights, it's really neat to have you and we're gonna have you back as soon as possible here for our next round table. Hope: Thank you so much Jeff and Serina, it was wonderful being here. I appreciate it! Serina: Yep, you have a great day! Hope: Thank you! Jeff: Do you know it's nearly midnight and you said have a great day? Serina: Well this will come out during the day. [Laughter] [Music] Jeff: It was a real pleasure having Hope Paulos join us on the show today, all the way from Maine, and next week when we're talking about transportation all the way from New York we'll have Joe De Niro, so stay tuned to the next episode of Job Insights. And a big shout-out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music and you can follow him on Twitter at lcheechau, as always thank you for listening, we hope you enjoyed, and until next time bye-bye [Multiple voices] When we share what we see through each other's eyes, We can then begin to bridge the Gap between the limited expectations and the realities of Blind Abilities. Jeff: For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on twitter at BlindAbilities, download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that's two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com, thanks for listening.

new york university amazon spotify learning english apple ai education speaking zoom spanish microsoft mind iphone congress uber female os workplace pc productivity android amazon prime maine mac apps ios skype ipads delta library careers audible lift beta employment files excel cv gap app store drivers lyft scooby doo bard powerpoint bluetooth dropbox dictionary library of congress drafts google drive macs self employed icloud google play store quickbooks iphone x scooby w2 braille ocr ipad mini missouri state foxtrot aira csv missouri state university blackboard learning management systems moodle inaudible vocational rehabilitation jeff thompson serina hope for seeing ai icloud drive orcam bookshare learning ally jonathan mosen jeff yeah jeff well knfb reader jeff you jeff good hope it jeff oh jeff so prizmo laughter so jeff there jeff yes jeff do jeff for jeff is hope so individual plan jeff now jeff does fidelco job insights jeff mm serina gilbert

Job Insights Extra #2: Advice from Team Sea to See on Transitioning and Rebranding Disability Through Achievement (Transcription Provided)

Blind Abilities

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2018 13:36

Job Insights Extra #2: Advice from Team Sea to See on Transitioning and Rebranding Disability Through Achievement Welcome to Job Insights Extra, part of the Job Insights Podcast with Serina Gilbert and Jeff Thompson, a podcast focused on the world of employment, career pathways and gainful and meaningful employment. The Job Insights Extra podcasts are success stories, interviews and demos that enhance the experience of reaching that career you want. In Job Insights Extra episode #2 we share the insights from Team Sea To See, a team entered in to the Race Across America (RAM). The team of 4 will tandem bike race across America dipping there wheels in the Pacific Ocean and racing non-stop to the Atlantic Ocean. While they were in the Blind Abilities studio promoting the race, they hung out to talk about a topic they feel is very important. We asked them what advice they would give to a student transitioning from high school to college and the workplace? Jack Chen, dan Berlin and Tina Ament each took turns talking about their personal experiences and gave us some very good insights and we are glad to share the conversation with you all on episode #2 of Job Insights Extra. Full Transcript Below You can check out the Race Across America podcast with Team Sea to See on Blind Abilities.plain-sight-meet-team-sea-to-see/ And check out Team Sea to See on their Facebook page. You can learn more about Rebranding Disability Through Achievement on the web at Lime Connect Thank you for listening! Follow Job Insights on Twitter @JobInsightsVIP Do you have any suggestions or feedback? Send the Job Insights Team an email Job Insights is part of the Blind Abilities Network. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the Google Play Store. Transcription: Job Insights Extra #2: Advice from Team Sea to See on Transitioning and Rebranding Disability Through Achievement [Music] Jeff: Welcome to a Job Insights Extra and today I want to share with you some job insights that came from Jack Chen, Dan Berlin, and Tina Ament. They're three quarters of the team of Team Sea to Sea, and they're entering the race across America this summer and some of the feats these three have been in is quite astonishing. From climbing Kilimanjaro, to racing in ultra marathons, world champion Hill climber, Google lawyer, a US attorney, co-founder of a major food company, the list goes on and on. And be sure to check out the podcast with the Sea to Sea race across America. I'll put the link in the show notes and you'll learn so much more about each of these individuals and the feats that they've accomplished. While I had them in the studio I asked them some questions about transition age students and employment and I really appreciated them taking the time to answer these questions and being willing to share their experiences and advice with us, so please welcome Jack Chen, Dan Berlin, and Tina Ament on transitioning students and employment. We hope you enjoy and thanks for listening to this episode of Job Insights Extra. Job Insights is a podcast that is helping you find careers and gainful employment through innovations and opportunities and you can find the job insights podcast on blindabilities.com, part of the Blind Abilities network, and as part of the Job Insights podcast we will be bringing you the Job Insights Extras consisting of interviews, demonstrations, and news surrounding employment, careers, and jobs. With host's Serina Gilbert, and myself, Jeff Thompson. And you can contact us by email at jobinsights@blindabilities.com, leave us some feedback, or suggest some topics that we cover, you can also follow us on twitter at Job Insights VIP. So while we're here I want to take this opportunity to ask you a couple questions about transition and employment and some words of advice. Dan there's a topic that you brought up and it's about people not knowing what they can't do, something of that nature, can you explain what you meant when you said that? Dan: Yeah it's so, it's so true in human, you know our existence, and so often I mean, none of us know what we can't do, we all know what we think we can't do, but until you put it out there and actually try it, actually go for it, we really don't know what their limits are. And so often what we're pushing up against as blind individuals just happen to have it highlighted more than others, but this is universal, we're pushing up against our perceived limitations. That's something that all of us can challenge, that's why this message can be universal, you know beyond blindness, beyond disability. We catch a lot of attention because we're a cyclist who was blind, or a runner who is blind has done X Y Z, and I hear the comments all the time from folks that say yeah, I can't believe you run a marathon, I can't believe you did an Ironman, I could never do that, and that label right there, it's like, you know no, you probably could do it, you just, it would need a lot of work and and you know we tend to limit ourselves quite a bit right there. And it's so freeing to have those limitations removed, just that idea that you know we really can do whatever we want to do, it's just where we're going to focus and whatever we're going to put into it, so attitude, effort, and discipline is really what it all comes down to. Jeff: Dan, you mentioned at around age 30 you went through some vision loss and that you said you weren't even much of an athlete, now I don't know what not much of an athlete at the level that you're at right now means, but could you explain that? Dan: Yeah definitely, you know I started losing my sight when I was 7, and it was a slow progression all the way up through my 20's and by 30 I was pretty much legally blind you know early thirties. I was an amateur athlete, I was the type who would run two to three times a week 2 to 3 miles a time, I jogged for 20 minutes on the treadmill, I go to the gym once or twice a week and lift weights up until I was about 39 years old and then I had moved from New York City to Colorado, given up a lot the public transportation, was feeling pretty down, I mean I was, I was really low for a while, my whole family had moved out here with me, for me to start my own company out here. I realized at some point that I needed to take on something to kind of turn my mental state around and that's when I just started, I started running, I started just running around my neighborhood you know three miles at a time. Soon realized I needed to find a goal and so signed up for a half marathon and took it from there, so I've been running now, I did my first half marathon, well it'll be seven years ago, let's see I'll be eight years ago in September, so I've really started what I would consider converting myself into an average middle-aged dad about eight years ago into what I would define myself more as an athlete now, and it was completely done just by saying, I was going to do it. I joke with everybody, I definitely don't have the genetic gifts for running or pretty much any endurance sport, but I have the willpower to do it, and you know will trumps skills almost any day. Jeff: Mm-hmm, now you also climbed Kilimanjaro, I mean is it just because it was there, or did you go down to your local gym and just start wall climbing and want another challenge, how did that come about? Dan: Well you know it's because it's there. [Laughter] Jeff: Well there you go. Dan: Just kidding it's, yeah that's it, no it was just a challenge, you know was something that you know I love mountains I moved to Colorado like I said about ten years ago now and after being out here, I love being in the altitude, I love being in the mountains. You know for me what a lot of this comes down to is this idea of setting a goal and going out there and focusing on it and seeing if we can achieve it. Part of the excitement is you know is one of my good friends has a quote that he often says "if something excites and intimidates you it's worth doing" Jeff: Mm-hmm, that's a good one. Dan: And that's what RAM is to me, that's what I think RAM is to all of us on the team. None of us are sure we can do it, but we're all excited by it. Jack: And I think it's a really important point Jeff to drive home is, a lot of people count themselves out before they even get started right, I mean they ask the question can I, but they don't say I can, and so I think that for all of us, I think I would say, where our blindness started, our lives really began, and what I mean by that is, it's easy for folks and this is not just cyclists of course, but for anybody to have something significant happen to them, and in their lives, or to be treated in a particular way, our fifth grade teacher told me very specifically that, you know you don't have to work so hard, government's gonna take care of you, don't stress out, don't, don't work so hard in school, because that was a kid who I really wanted to do well when I was younger, and I struggled, and so the mentality sometimes sets in that, well I do have certain limitations and I should really count the costs, and, and for me I've come to the point now where I say, well rather than thinking first about whether I can do something I say, how can I do it, you know, so it's not can I, but how can I? And that extra word adds an incredible amount of power and success in one's life, and that's kind of one of the things that we want to communicate. Jeff: Well put, very well put Jack. Tina, being that you lost your eyesight early on, how did you overcome the obstacles that you faced? Tina: Well to some extent, with a lot of help, a lot of support from family. I grew up in the days when my parents fought to get my sister and me into public school and we sort of fought for every you know, between them and, and, and us individually, we fought for every little thing, and on the be careful what you wish for side, you know there were, there was a lot of bullying, you know back then teachers didn't care if kids picked on us, there was no stigma attached to bullying or any of that, so a lot of it was between that and being military kids who had to move all the time, you just had to learn how to jump in and swim, like essentially. I think having sports and activities was a way to belong and I can remember when I was a, in fourth grade and I had a little bit more vision than I do now being forced into gym class, and the day that we were doing soccer drills and I actually saved a goal and the class cheered for me was you know one of the greatest days of my life. I mean who remembers a silly a PE class in fourth grade, but I do because it was sports was a way do you belong with my sighted peers and I think it's so important for anybody with a disability or, to have the chance to fit in because it's, it's such a big part of growing up in the states and you know, sports, music all these kind of activities that kids do, my parents and my sister and I both, we had to push ourselves to get off the sidelines and be able to do something to belong. So I think you know, doing sports through, for me I'm a very competitive person, so like Jack, I always wanted to do well in school and was sort of you know very self motivated to do well, but it was hard and you did have to deal with low expectations, because a lot of teachers and and people didn't expect much of you, and you know you had to find it within yourself to decide, hey I'm gonna go for what I think is important because, you know nobody's going to tell me. Jeff: Tina what advice would you have for someone who is transitioning from high school to college to the workplace, and has their job sights on employment? Tina: Be your own best advocate. I think that the hard thing about leaving high school is, and then about leaving the education environment going into the work environment, is that the older you get the less built-in support systems you're gonna have, so my advice would be to learn early on how to advocate for yourself and how to dispel people's assumptions about you. When I started at my law firm out of law school there had been another blind attorney who worked there before me and he had left to go and teach and I started maybe six months after he did, and I got put in the same office as he had been, and I remember one of the partners coming in and saying, don't let this firm decide that you are Max, you're not Max, you're you, and not that Max wasn't a great guy and had a lot of you know great talents, and, and nothing against him, but you have to overcome people's assumptions that either, they know what's best for you, or whatever some other blind person did is what you do. So I would say learn how to self-advocate and learn how to recognize people's assumptions for what they are because sometimes you won't necessarily see them unless you're on the lookout for it. Jeff: That's a great point, how about you Jack? Jack: One of the things that's absolutely key is to find people who have done this thing, whatever it is that you're doing before you, if that's possible. And one of the great things that I've also been involved with is creating a network of people who have incredible talents who have disabilities. It's called Lime Connect and its motto is to "rebrand disability through achievement" and one of the the great things about this organization is there are ten thousand, ten thousand plus other people out there who have disabilities who are doing what you're doing, and who can act as a resource, and you know when you go to your first job interview and they ask you a question that you don't know how to answer, like for example they come to you and say, hey, well how are you going to draw this drawing? Well you go back to your network and you say, hey guys, anyone else face this issue, how did you deal with it? And just being empowered by having this as a resource is incredible, incredibly valuable I think. I know I didn't have that when I was growing up but, sounds like Tina didn't have that when she was growing up, but now there are resources available just, you know, quote unquote click of a mouse. You can find people who are similarly situated with you or people who've gone before you so, finding those individuals who know what you're going through and can help give you some advice and some support along the way, that our resources are out there, so go find it. Jeff: Dan, I know these are two tough people to follow, but you want to give it a shot? Dan: Tell me about it. [Laughter] Yeah sure I mean, I have a little bit different perspective too because I lost my vision a little later in life so I was into my career and working hard at it. I hid it for years you know kind of that fake it to you make it mentality, and then I had an epiphany at one point, I had this whole change in attitude that was so great for me, and the advice I would give to someone is to be yourself you know just be comfortable in your own skin, you know at the end of the day, you are who you are and nobody can change that. The second thing is, with that in mind, don't be afraid to ask for help. You know if you need some help, if you need to tap into your resources, if you need to ask somebody, hey can you tell me where this is, don't be afraid to ask. The third thing is, use the limitation as your advantage, you know, one of the things that whether we like it or not, and it's just what Tina was alluding to here is, the standards are set lower for people with disabilities. So not that, we have we do not have to live up to these standards, but that's our benchmark now. So it gives us the opportunity to achieve above and beyond these standards, so look at this as an opportunity. Opportunity that the shackles are off, my expectations are low on what I'm going to do, so I'm just going to blow it out of the water. Because my my downsides of being wrong is quite minimal, so take advantage of that, you know just go for it! Tina: I would sort of add to that I, I think the one thing that sometimes you know I let for me or discourage me as, you know as I said before people are always making assumptions about you and the first thing they're going to make an assumption based on, is that you're blind or differently-abled, and so much of the time I mean, you don't know how many times I get on to public transit and somebody says, do you know what stop you're going to? As though I would get my fare card, dress up and work clothes, and get on the train having no idea what stop I wanted to go to, [Laughter] So it's it's sort of like half the world assumes that you're feeble-minded, and then a quarter of the world assumes that you're some sort of superhuman like you must have Steve Austin bionic man hearing and of you know computer chip implant for a memory because you actually get up and function in the world, so a lot of the time I just have to remind myself not to let either of those assumptions you know, or people say like, oh well you're just so much more doggin and determined because you do your sports, it's like well no, I'm not a Superman, I'm not a bionic woman, I don't have a Harry Potter time turner so I can do twice as much training as anybody, I'm just a person who doesn't see, and so when you strip away a lot of the assumptions, you have to remind yourself, like I'm not as great as some of them think and I am not as feeble-minded as some of them think I am. But you have to I think really look to your own self to try to decide where your self-worth comes from because assumptions that a lot of people make about you are so bogus and so out of hand that if you listen to them you'll drive yourself crazy. Dan: To put that into you know perspective too, in our modern capitalistic business world here too, I would love nothing better than all my competition to underestimate what we as a company are capable of doing, and then you get out there and you just outperform it. It's one of the classic mistakes that people make you know in life and in business, and it's one of those things where we again can turn the disability, we could turn the perceptions others have of us into a positive. Jeff: That's great, turn it into a positive! [Music] Such a great opportunity to talk to Jack, Dan, and Tina, team Sea to Sea in the Race Across America this summer. That's Ram, Race Across America, we'll be covering it, stay tuned, and such a great thing that they shared such great advice, such transferable advice, it's not just for school, not for employment, but life itself that they shared with us today. Thanks for listening to this episode of Job Insights Extra and be sure to check Job Insights on the Blind Abilities Network. We hope you enjoyed, and until next time, bye bye. [Music] [Multiple voices] When we share what we see through each other's eyes, we can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations and the realities of blind abilities. Jeff: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at Blind Abilities, download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that is two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening!

america new york city google advice opportunities colorado berlin harry potter sea superman iron man transitioning pe disability ram app store rebranding mount kilimanjaro pacific ocean atlantic ocean xyz google play store transcription steve austin race across america jeff thompson danto jack chen dan berlin jeff well dan well laughter so jeff for team sea job insights jeff mm serina gilbert

Fancy, via South Philadelphia (Bonus!)

Strong Feelings

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2018 26:19

Hey look, it’s a bonus-ode! We sent our demo to a bunch of friends, and they sent us back, like, a zillion questions. So we thought we’d answer a few on air—and then ask you a question of our own. > Does it alienate potential clients if I’m tweeting a lot about sexual harassment in tech? Do I care? > —A listener from San Francisco As always, we’ve got the show notes—and a full transcript—right here. Show notes How many bottles of wine does it take to answer your mail? Technically none, but it’s more fun this way. In this week’s mailbag, we talk about: The, uh, pleasures of Pennsylvania’s state-run wine and spirits stores. What it means to do “big” things, and the reasons women often minimize their accomplishments (it ain’t all imposter syndrome, folks). Whether this podcast is business or pleasure (it’s BOTH, dammit). Why the Instant Pot is “all game no shame.” What growth and career progression look like when your job’s not a standard 9-to-5. The personal, the professional, and the ramifications of tweeting with reckless abandon. Karen McGrane’s “Give a crap. Don’t give a fuck.” inspired Sara to get more vulnerable in her writing. The fact that Katel’s a CEO. Just sayin’. Thanks as always to our friends The Diaphone for the use of our theme song, Maths, off the album of the same name! Transcript JENN LUKAS: Welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. KATEL LEDÛ: I’m Katel LeDû. SARA WACHTER-BOETTCHER: And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. SWB: Hey everyone, today on No, You Go, we’re doing something a little bit different. You see, we sent out our demo episode to a whole bunch of friends recently, and we started getting a lot of questions back from them. So what we thought we would do is go through that mailbag and answer some questions. And we thought, even better, let’s open up some wine, and answer those questions with the mics on. So, why don’t we go ahead and see what our listeners have to say. [Intro music] SWB: So, Jenn, what are we drinking tonight? JL: I have good news for you, this wine is already started. We are drinking tonight a lovely Côtes du Rhône. ALL: Mmmmmmmmm KL: That’s fancy, for fancy ladies. JL: It’s from the wine cellar of 11th Street Liquors. [Laughter] SWB: I was gonna say, it’s fancy, via South Philadelphia. KL: That’s right. JL: The South Philadelphia State Store. Thank you state store. KL: We don’t mess around. SWB: Okay, so let’s see what’s in the mailbag!” KL: So, a listener from Vancouver, Canada asks, “How did you know you wanted to do big things?” SWB: That’s such a tough question. I spent my childhood and early adulthood feeling really ambitious, but kind of not knowing where to put that ambition—like not being clear what I was working toward. And it was not until probably my late twenties that I had some idea of what I might be working toward in my career. I feel like it was more of a gradual figuring out on my part, to get an idea of what made me tick, what made me feel satisfied, so I knew where to put my energy and wasn’t feel like I was throwing my energy all over the place. KL: It doesn’t always necessarily feel like big things, but I am always looking for things that make me feel uncomfortable and nervous, and speaking in front of people makes me feel that way. So, I don’t know, this just feels like really good practice, and it’s exciting. JL: I think I’m with you in that I don’t necessarily think of them as big things, but I guess that’s the same as answering one of those questions like, “Well, my biggest weakness is caring too much.” [Laughter] So, I don’t want to be cliche here, because, they are big things. I also don’t want to sell anything that I do short, or anything that we do short. I think thought that if they’re things that I really like doing, it makes it easier to then get into it. So I think I just always wanted to do things that I really liked doing, and sometimes if you really want to do something that you love, you have to go big. KL: Totally. And it might not feel like, oh, I’m going to embark on this huge thing to you, because you like all these things about it. SWB: I think it’s also, you know, tying back to something we talked about in our first episode was that we really wanted to talk about being ambitious, and what that means. And I think that’s a scary word for a lot of people to use, and I think maybe particularly for women to use, because it’s like, you’re not necessarily socialized to think that what you’re doing should be ambitious. So it’s like, I don’t really think of anything I’m doing as being big things, but when I look at what other people are doing, I think that they’re all doing big things. So maybe I am doing big stuff and I am just not—I’m minimizing it. JL: Yeah, totally. Yeah, you’re completely right. And we almost get used to downgrading it, and thinking that is wasn’t a big deal, and it almost becomes a self-defense mechanism. KL: Yeah, like just in case it doesn’t happen, or you fail, or you stumble. SWB: Or in case somebody out there shits all over it. KL: Yeah, sure. SWB: That’s certainly something that I have felt. When I started writing publicly about my work—not writing in my work, but writing about my field—I was very nervous that people would think that my ideas weren’t valuable, weren’t adding anything. Or that they were just plain wrong. I think that a lot of people have that sensibility. You know we talk about imposter syndrome, and feeling like what you’re doing is not that important. And we try to tell women to be proud of their accomplishments. But part of that is a very real fear, because there are definitely assholes out there who will tell you that what you’re doing doesn’t matter, isn’t valuable, or isn’t good. It can be healthy to protect yourself a little bit, and it can sometimes also be difficult, I think, to like, parse out the difference between minimizing your accomplishments because you don’t want to take up too much space, or minimizing your accomplishments because you don’t want to be a target. You know, I’ve definitely had—not too bad so far, but—my share of trolls who have come after me for things I’ve written or said online, and a lot of their arguments really boil down to: How dare you? How dare you have thoughts and opinions, and how dare you exist in the world sharing them? How could you not see all of that around you all the time and not kind of internalize that a little bit? JL: Sara, I think that’s a great point. So, how do you know you want to do big things? Well, if you’re willing to put up with that shit, then I guess you know that you want to do big things, because you care about it even with the potential negatives that come with putting yourself out there and doing big. If it’s important to you enough that you can be like, eff those jerks. SWB: Totally. Like most days I have that feeling. I can put a middle finger up and get out there and do what I want to do. There are times, though, when the assholes get the best of you. And I think that’s okay. I tend to look at it as like, part of doing ambitious work is also recognizing that it’s not like, one unbroken line of progress. You’re going to have those moments where you’re really feeling capable and you can get a lot done, and you feel confident to get out there and talk about your work, and then you’re going to have those moments where you don’t feel that. And that’s okay. Because it doesn’t mean you’re not going to have another idea or another opportunity to get out there and bring your ideas to the world. JL: Here’s another question that we got: “My attention is spread thin across so many things.” She wants to know: How do you have time for hobbies? Do you have time for hobbies? KL: Sometimes I’m not even sure what my hobbies are anymore—we’ve talked about this before—because I feel like there’s a lot of crossover between things you love to do and things you’re doing for work. But I did realize recently that I haven’t read a full book front to back in a really long time. That made me super depressed. That’s one of my goals this year. So I know that’s not necessarily a super glamorous hobby, but you have to prioritize it. SWB: Well I also think, you know, what counts as a hobby? Is this a hobby? On the one hand, I think that this podcast is a super-serious part of my work, in the sense that I am putting a lot of focused time into it, I’m taking it very seriously, we’re thinking about things like sponsorships and producers, and we want this to be something that is polished and legit. On the other hand, it is also an opportunity to hang out with some of my closest friends, and drink wine, and order Thai food, and laugh—and that’s a good social activity. And so where does this sit? Like a lot of things in my life, I feel like it sits somewhere halfway in between. And I’m okay with that. That said, I think, you know, we talked about this a bit in our first episode, and you do have to have time that is not work time, and you do have to have things in your life that are not work things. For me that includes lots of physical activity; I really like to make sure that I go running and I go to the gym and lift. And it also means that I spend time reading books, and I don’t read all of the professional books that people around me seem to be reading. I sometimes do read books in my field, but I spend a lot of time skipping those in favor of picking up fiction, because I feel like that’s a healthier choice for me. KL: I just want to say that I do read the books that I publish. Just to any authors who are listening, I just want to make sure that you know that. [Laughter] JL: Do you know the last book that I read? It was called Solving Child Sleep Problems. [Laughter] KL: Sounds accurate. SWB: So, a really fun hobby. JL: It’s really great. I actually listen to the Audible book when my child wakes up at 2am, and I nurse him. KL: Is there a hobby that either of you have that you used to do earlier in your life that you wish you could bring back into your life? SWB: Not exactly, but there is something that I used to do way more of that I realized a little while ago had fallen by the wayside a bit on, which was cooking. I have always liked to cook and I really like to be able to make things from lots of different types of cuisines, different types of foods. And for a long time my husband and I would cook pretty much every night. Originally, we couldn’t afford to go out to eat all the time, and we still liked to eat interesting and good things, and healthy things, and things that come from vegetables, and so we would cook them. Over time, you know, I found that we would have more disposable income and it would be easier to go out more often, and that’s fun, but I was starting to really miss the feeling of setting down my work and doing something that was a complete shift in my brain and doing something with my hands. And so I have been trying to make sure I set my work down earlier more often, and really spend a little bit of time on the whole chopping, cleaning vegetables, prepping things, sautéing things—all of those little bits of cooling that are not necessarily fancy, but that I want to have a pause to make a meal from scratch. And so I have been really making sure that I am making time for that more evenings than I was for a while. JL: I keep going on the opposite spectrum. We now have an Instant Pot, and we do not do as much. KL: Hey that’s not shame, that’s all game. SWB: Instant Pots are great. I love my Instant Pot. Can we just do like an Instant Pot episode? JL: But yeah I don’t mean to keep bringing it down, but I’m going to be honest: no, I don’t have time for hobbies. That’s just not a thing I have time for anymore. So I do sort of as Sara was saying consider this a hobby, because it’s not my 9 to 5, and I really enjoy this. So I guess it is how you define hobbies. If hobbies are something you choose to do that doesn’t necessarily pay your bills, then yes, this would be a hobby for me. I like, seriously schedule every hour. I don’t preschedule it, but every hour of my day it’s either at work, or with my 10-month-old, or sleeping. So every hour I’m spending not trying to catch up on sleep is I guess a hobby. So then this would be a hobby. But other things I keep struggling to try to make time for. I don’t exercise or cook as much as I want to. To go to a yoga class, oh my god. KL: It takes planning. JL: And the yoga class near me is an hour and a half. Who’s got an hour and a half? KL: That’s so much yoga. JL: It’s like, so much! SWB: I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I hate yoga. KL: I love it, but those are long classes. JL: Yeah, they’re real long. So then I try to do online workout videos where I can, but even then, you have to do it when your kid’s napping, and I think, if my kid’s napping, then maybe I should be napping. Everything’s a choice now. KL: Yeah, and you’re like, don’t hop around and thud around on the floor. SWB: Well okay, so I know that when you have a small child, that becomes so painfully clear that everything is a tradeoff. It is definitely easier for those without small children to make some of those choices about how they spend their time. But all of us are making tradeoffs about how we spend time, right? JL: Yeah. SWB: A lot of it has to do with what gives you energy, what makes you feel good. And for some people, they need more of that pure downtime. And other people, myself for example, kind of lose their shit a little bit when they have too much downtime. So like, if you take me to a cabin for a weekend in the mountains, and you’re like, let’s all hang out in this house all day, I’m like, that sounds awful. I am going to die here; when are we going outside for a walk? And other people don’t feel that way. So I realized, for me, I need less of that really downtime stuff, that stuff that’s really relaxing for other people, I need less of that. And that having something like this, that is sort of a creative outlet, and I’m making something, but is sort of low-stakes—that is very positive for me and that feels good in my life. JL: Let’s get another question! KL: Yeah, here’s one from San Francisco: “Something I’m interested in lately is the notion that when you’re on the corporate career track, there are clear “stages”—early career, mid-career, senior level, etc.—that are tied to titles and responsibilities. When you’re in a smaller company or work for yourself or as a consultant, that sense of being on a track isn’t so clear. What does it mean that I’ve been a consultant for 10 years? How do you talk about that or even THINK about that?” SWB: I have the same question; I’d really appreciate if someone could answer that question for me. [Laughter] KL: That is such a good question. I think that is actually an issue, a little bit, in companies in general where there aren’t necessarily clear tracks everywhere. And I think that’s also just because the way we work has evolved so much in the past decade, five years. SWB: Yeah, and I think, Katel, you’re a CEO—which is, first off, badass. Katel’s a CEO, I like to tell people that. But secondly, okay, well, you’re not getting promoted. Which is cool, because you’re in charge, but what does that mean for what growth looks like, or what the next level looks like for you? How do you know what that is in your job? And it’s unclear. You have to define that in new ways that we don’t necessarily have vocabulary for. KL: You do, and I think that is one thing that I learned along the way. I sort of had to take a lot more ownership of it than I kind of expected to. I had to—not necessarily decide, but navigate, and say, okay, I think it’s time to make some sort of progression upwards or to over here, and try this new responsibility out or whatever. And I think you kind of have to forge that ahead a little bit for yourself. And if you’re at a company that has more team members, get people who are going to advocate for you to make that happen. SWB: And you know, for me, I think about this listener who says she’s been a consultant for 10 years. I haven’t been a consultant quite so long. But it’s been over six years, long enough to ask myself some of these same questions. Like, do I just keep doing this forever? And for me, what I’ve found is that I look for constant reinvention. Am I changing up what I offer to my clients? Am I changing up how I spend my time? Writing books is a big piece of that. Not that that is a right answer for everybody, but that being an author is a different kind of role and a different kind of work, and that has allowed me to grow in different ways than doing consulting alone would. And also looking at, am I feeling like I am gaining in some fashion? And some of that is like, am I gaining in influence? Or am I able to have conversations with a different level of person in the companies that I am working with than I was originally? And I try to take stock of those things and see if I feel like I have growth on those fronts. And for me I have found that to be a really helpful way of looking at it. KL: I love that. And I think you have to take it on to craft that into your, you know, quote-unquote story, in terms of what you tell people that you do, and how you tell that. JL: Yeah, I think when I was consulting, I would go back to my resume or my LinkedIn, which some people may not use, which is fine, but whatever you’re using to track what you’re doing. And I would add new entries. I mean, I was consulting the whole time, but I would mark projects that I was doing. And sometimes having a form to fill out, where you’re forced to list what you’re doing, and like your accomplishments, will help you start writing down the things. Like, oh yes, I did this this year, or I did this side project. And when you start listing them, it’s a way to make sure you’re—my mom would always say this—“are you keep track of everything that you’re doing?” And I’m like, “yeah, mom.” [Laughter] KL: Yeah, you’re accounting for it. JL: Yeah. So some sort of place where you can track that, whether it’s your personal portfolio or your resume or LinkedIn. Something where you’re actually writing down what you’re doing, whether you’re trying to get more work, or you’re trying to move into some other position at some point. SWB: I also think that some of this comes back to the way that women particularly are socialized, right? Because so often we have been taught to not make too many waves, the idea of advocating for yourself and stating what path you want to be on, and saying, “I want these responsibilities, I want to go here”—that is not something that many women are practiced in, or that many women feel safe to be able to do. And so I think part of that makes it more difficult for us to put ourselves out there and kind of stake a claim and say, “Look at all the things I am doing. Here’s the direction that I’m going in.” And it’s more comfortable to say, like, okay, is somebody else going to define my next job title for me, my next role for me. And it’s hard, because on the one hand work has changed so much in the past few years, as Katel mentioned, and obviously gender norms are changing, too. But we still have so much historical baggage around them that they definitely have not caught up with the way that work is changing. That can just make it extra challenging for women, and I don’t think that we can resolve that, but I do think we need to be able to talk about that. And I think creating the space to talk about that is really important, because it’s a real thing. KL: Yeah, and I hope that more people, more women will feel like, at least they can practice talking about it, and I think that’s a big step, too. Even if you can practice talking about it with a friend or a colleague, that helps a little bit. SWB: Yeah, totally. Well I think that kind of bleeds into the next question that we got from a listener, which is, how do we blend “professional” and “personal.” Imagine there are definitely finger quotes around both of those. She says, “does it alienate potential clients if I’m tweeting a lot about sexual harassment in tech?” And then also, “Do I care? How do you figure this out, and what are the tradeoffs for that?” I love this question. I love this question because I have thought this question in my head a hundred different times. Nothing gets better if you can’t talk about it, and I’m tired of feeling like I can’t talk about the things that matter to me, and so I am navigating the ramifications of that. JL: Yeah, and I think on that note, you can choose how you want to tweet about things, you can choose how you want to talk about things. You don’t have to say, well I can never talk about politics, I can never talk about sexual harassment. But you can choose how you talk about those and you can talk about those respectfully. And I think that’s sort of a way you can navigate it. And you don’t have to do that either, you can go out there swinging, if you want to. It’s just a matter of what feels comfortable for you and how you want to represent yourself. But to be honest, yes, I think you do have to assume that anyone at any point can read what you are writing if you’re putting it out there, and that people will make opinions on you based on that. Of course, that can also win you work and friends and relationships, also. I mean I think there’s two sides of that. SWB: I also think that what might be safe for me to do is not going to be safe for everybody. I mean, I’m relatively established. I have a pretty strong network. I have a name behind myself. I’m also from a certain class, you know. I went to college! You know, for me, the tradeoffs don’t look the same as they would for somebody else. JL: You also a have a book, and this is like, something that we know you’re passionate about. So I’m not going to see your Twitter and be surprised reading it there. SWB: No, but in fact to write that book I had to have already made this choice. I had to make the choice to say, huh, I might alienate some tech companies that might otherwise hire me by writing this book. Am I okay with that? It was an uncomfortable choice that I still have fears about, but I guess—we talked about this in the last episode—but I realized that I was going to be unhappy if I chose the other option, if I chose not doing this. That was going to be something that I would regret. And so I decided that I was going to be really honest with myself, like, this might cause me some problems, but I am going to do it anyway, and I’m going to navigate those as they come, because it’s that important to me. JL: And finally our last question: “Who inspired you? Who made you feel like you could step up and be visible as a speaker, writer, etc.?” SWB: So there’s obviously lots of people who have inspired me over the years, and I think that’s true for all of us. None of us can boil it down to one thing or one person. But somebody I’d really like to mention, particularly in relation to the previous question about the personal and the professional, and how do you blend them, is Karen McGrane. So, Karen McGrane is known in the mobile content strategy and UX fields. She’s a wonderful speaker, and I used to see her at conferences and just think, what a badass. And I was so impressed by her work. And I remember one day, I used to edit a magazine called A List Apart, and we got a piece from her. It was supposed to be a column—she was a kind of regular writer—and it was entitled, “Give a crap. Don’t give a fuck.” And I remember getting that and thinking, like, oooh, can we publish this? And I think she kind of asked that question when she sent it, too. And she talked about how being great means being vulnerable, and it means not giving a fuck what other people think. And it was this kind of really intimate piece of writing, and it took me aback a little bit, because it was so good, and it was kind of unexpected from somebody who I thought had paid so much attention to crafting that professional profile. And I think that that’s when I first realized that maybe I could have some of that, too. Maybe I could bring intimacy and vulnerability into my work and into my writing, even writing writing about my work, and still be perceived as professional and still be perceived as credible. I went kind of like whole-hog that direction, and that kind of led me to where I am now. And so I’m super thankful for that, and I think about that a lot as a really inspiring moment in my life. JL: When I worked at Happy Cog, we had reviews every few times a year, and one of our goals was being, like, a thought leader in the industry. And so, we were all really encouraged to put our thoughts out and share. And that was one of the things I really loved about working there, this whole idea in the mid-2000s of really sharing what you were doing, and that it was just a community. And so I think between Jeffrey Zeldman and Greg Hoy, I had a lot of support of like, getting my thoughts out and putting myself out there and really talking to different people and trying to submit to conferences. And I did my first conference talk—it was a group talk—but I co-presented with Mark Huot. I did front-end and Mark did backend, and we were constantly pairing together, and so he was always super supportive of me. It was easier to get started with a friend, so that was an easy way to break in. Like, how do we do this? Well let’s do it together. And it feels way better to have had that person standing there next to me—literally next to me—while I was presenting. I made Mark go with me to every talk I was doing. [Laughter] SWB: He’s here right now. [Laughter] KL: Hey Mark! JL: Hey Mark! KL: On that note, I just want to say that both of you inspire me. I know that’s cheesy, but— JL and SWB: Awwwwwwww! KL: You do, because you’re both so smart and creative and funny, and I love being around you, and you just inspire me to try new things, and I’m just so grateful. JL: That’s awesome. SWB: Thank you, Katel. You inspire me, too. [Laughter] SWB: There’s a circle of inspiration now. KL: There’s a rainbow flowing across the sky right now. SWB: Well, before we spend the next 45 minutes talking about how we each inspire the other over and over again, I think we should move on to our very final question, which is actually a question all of you. We’d really love to hear who—and what—you want to hear on the show. Are there people you’d love for us to have on as guests? Are there topics that you’d really like us to tackle? Are there things that you’d like to be able to do, whether that’s getting up on stage and giving a talk, like Jenn was talking about, or writing a book, like I was talking about, or anything else that you would love us to talk about or bring experts on to talk about. If you have an idea, let us know. You can go to noyougoshow.com to send us a message, or tweet us @noyougoshow. JL : That’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. No, You Go is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia. Our theme music is Maths by The Diaphone. You can find us online as Sara mentioned at noyougoshow.com, or on Twitter @noyougoshow. We’ll be back next week with another brand-new episode. [Outro music]

Episode 3: Interview with Koraly Dimitriadis

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 9, 2017 27:44

Australian poet, author and performer Koraly Dimitriadis is the author of the controversial Love and F**k Poems, a stunning book of poetry which has been translated into Greek with rights sold into Europe. As an opinion writer, she has contributed to publications such as The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC, SBS, Daily Life, Rendezview and The Saturday Paper. Koraly has turned her poems into short films, called The Good Greek Girl Film Project, courtesy of an ArtStart Grant. In November 2016, Koraly's theatre show Koraly: I Say The Wrong Things All The Time, will premiere at La Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton, from November 30th through to December 11th.Get to know Koraly's work at KoralyDimitriadis.com.What You'll Learn:1. What inspired Koraly to write Love and F**k Poems.2. Listen to Koraly read aloud three of her poems.3. What to expect at Koraly's upcoming show and where to book tickets. FULL TRANSCRIPT Elizabeth: Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris, the show that connects Authors, Poets and Songwriters with their global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-caliber guests, I want you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. Today I’m delighted to introduce poet, author and actor Koraly Dimitriadis. Koraly is the author of the controversial bestseller Love and F**k Poems, a stunning poetry book which has been translated into Greek with rights sold into Europe. She is an opinion writer and has contributed to publications such as Daily Life, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC, SBS, Rendezvous, and The Saturday Paper. She has made short films of her poems called The Good Greek Girl Film Project, made possible with an ArtStart grant. This November, Koraly’s theatre show, Koraly: I Say the Wrong Things All the Time, will premiere at La Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton, Melbourne, from November 30 through to December 11. Koraly Dimitriadis, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris. Koraly: Thank you for having me, Elizabeth. Elizabeth: An absolute pleasure. Koraly, I’m a huge fan, and I love the poetry in your fantastic book Love and F**k Poems. A few things really impressed me about you. Firstly, the courage you show in writing so transparently about your life. Secondly, how you’ve handled the men who inevitably get the wrong idea about you. And thirdly, though some critics describe you as brash, you have a beautiful tender aspect. Can you please tell my listeners what inspired you to write your through-provoking book, Love and F**k Poems? Koraly: I think it was a long journey of repression for me that led to writing the book, so I spent most of my life just doing what was expected of me by my culture and my family, and got married quite young at 22, not really knowing who I was, not having explored my identity or my sexuality. And all my creativity, because I was steered into a professional career as an accountant and a computer programmer, and so I lived a kind of repressed existence, both creatively, sexually, in many different ways, and my feminity as well… Elizabeth: And certainly being an accountant would do that to you, wouldn’t it. Koraly: Yeah well, it’s actually working as a computer programmer. I have an accounting degree. But yeah, I think it was definitely the birth of my daughter at around 27 and I started to question my life path and what I wanted to teach her, and what kind of role model I wanted to be for her. Did I want to teach her to do what everyone wanted her to do, or to be a strong independent woman that makes her own decisions and chooses her own life? And up until that point I hadn’t really made my own decisions. I felt like I was influenced and just did what people decided for me. And I was very suffocated. And a few years later when I kind of exploded out of my marriage and my culture and the creativity came along with that. And I was writing a lot – a lot - of poetry at the time. I was doing a course at RMIT, and particularly I was studying with Ania Walwicz, and I remember going along to the poetry class and saying to her, “I want to be a poet. Just teach me to be a poet.” And she’s like “I can’t teach you to be a poet. There are no rules in poetry.” And I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was like “Are you for real? There’s gotta be some rules.” And her encouragement really liberated me and I started writing a lot of poetry. I mean it was all happening at the same time, like coming out of my marriage and my culture. And then I remember one day I went and saw Ben John Smith at Passionate Tongues. I don’t know if you know him. He writes a lot of sex poetry, and very honest, kind of Bukowski kind of poetry. And when I went there, I never thought “Oh! You can actually write sex poetry, write about sex.” I talked with him, and he was really another instigator in me – you can write sex poetry, you can write about sex. I had just left my marriage and was exploring my sexuality, and the poetry just came along with it. So from there I wrote Love and F**k Poems, the zine. Elizabeth: Which is so great, and there are so many aspects to it, which we’ll get to in the interview. When you are writing, who or what is your major support? Koraly: My major support? Sorry, what do you mean? Elizabeth: So when you get into that zone of writing, do you draw on anything in particular? Do you draw on support from people, do you draw on support from coffee and chocolate? Koraly: Well, I used to have a lot of sugar when I was writing, but I stopped eating sugar 2 years ago for health reasons. Elizabeth: So what happened? Koraly: I had some issues with my stomach, so it was really good for my health, and I haven’t turned back. I still have a bit of sugar, but not as much as I used to. But anyway, I probably draw on – I feel like writing is quite an isolating process and I don’t feel very supported when I’m writing; I feel alone. That’s what I would say, but that’s where the best poetry comes out. You’re actually face to face with your true, raw, honest self, and there’s a lot of fear there, but there’s also a liberation, going “This is who I am; this is how I feel”, and I’m going to turn this into a poem. Elizabeth: And you do this so well. Koraly: Thank you. Elizabeth: So do you have a favourite poem, or is this like asking a mother if she has a favourite child? Koraly: Umm, wow, that’s a really good question. Do I have a favourite poem. I guess I have poems that I think are my strongest poems, but no, I would say that I love all my poems equally, even the ones that haven’t been edited properly and might never see the light of day. And there are a lot of those. Elizabeth: As I said, Koraly, I love all of your poems. However, I do have three favourites, one of which is Long Awaited Coffee Date. There is such an intensity within this brilliant poem. Can you please read it for our enjoyment? Koraly: Oh, okay sure. Well no one’s ever told me that Long Awaited Coffee Date is their favourite poem. Elizabeth: Well I’m unique … will tell you that. Koraly: Okay. The Long Awaited Coffee Date When she steps out into the sinister night She knows he wants more of her So she leads him to a slim alley Down the bluestone where nobodies meet Their lips softly touching Hands slithering down skin His tongue in her mouth now Lips wide, senses ablaze And she knows she’s not going home Tonight. It’s dark when they enter his place Quick to close the door, He nudges her flush to the wall A swift movement of her skirt He pulls down her underwear Locates her with his cock And already he’s inside Sighing in relief and ecstasy This f**k months overdue Her palms hit the wall He entwines his fingers with hers Slowly moving inside her His lips and tongue on her ear She removes a hand to touch herself But his hand is quick to follow He tells her to let him do it But she pushes his hand away Because she’s climbing now And he’ll only delay it, ruin it “F**king hell!” he curses “Why do you have to control anything Since the moment we met Why won’t you just let me f**k you Why don’t you just let ME f**k YOU!” Elizabeth: Wow. (Applause.) That’s so great. Going back to your book, in your acknowledgements for Love and F**k Poems, you thank a mutual friend of ours, the exceptionally clever editor and writer Les Zigomanis. Les has his own novel due for publication in 2017 with Pantheon Press, called Just Another Week in Suburbia. In the acknowledgements, I was intrigued to read the following: “Thank you to my editor Les Zigmanis for being the tough editor I needed who had every right to kill me during the editing of this book." (Laughter) So dramatic, Koraly! Can I ask what happened, without privacy invasion? Koraly: Look, Les and I have an interesting relationship. Back in I think 2010, Busybird (Publishing) was the people who published a short story of mine. Elizabeth: And what was it called? Koraly: Blood Red Numbers, and it was about a psychotic computer programmer. (Laughter) Elizabeth: Was it based on anybody in particular? Koraly: Yes, I did draw inspiration from working in the corporate world as a computer programmer. Elizabeth: I never guessed! Koraly: Les and I formed a professional relationship at that point, and he had been following my trajectory on Facebook with Love and F**k Poems. By the way when I published the zine I didn’t expect anything to happen with Love and F**k Poems; I just wanted to have something to sell at my shows. Elizabeth: Can I ask you explain what a zine is for people who … Koraly: Ah okay, it’s kind of like … It gets its name from ‘magazine’, and it’s basically like a small kind-of magazine without you like, usually you can print off it at a photocopy place. It’s not a quality book. And I just started putting a couple of copies in Polyester Books and it just started selling really well. And so when I’d sold quite a few copies in bookshops, and I was saying to Les one day, I said “Oh, I’ve got to write my next book.” And he’s like “What are you talking about, you know? You’ve got to turn Love and F**k Poems into a book.” And I was like, “Oh okay. Do you want to edit it?” And he’s like “Yeah, okay.” Elizabeth: He’s editing my next book too. Koraly: Yeah. He’s a very – I guess ‘cause I’m quite raw and honest and he’s quite raw and honest in his editing, he doesn’t hold back … Elizabeth: He calls himself ‘brutal’, actually. Koraly: Yeah, yeah, so I think, because we are both raw and honest, it creates a kind of interesting dynamic. But that’s what you want. I mean, my director Olga Aristademi from Cyprus who’s directing my theatre show, she is also very raw and honest. And I think I really draw to people that challenge me and challenge what I’m doing, because I want to be a better artist. So Les is a great supporter of my work and he is always very helpful, and I really like working with him as an editor. Elizabeth: You know, he’s wonderful. But I want to get back to that question, because I think you avoided the answer. Koraly: Which one? (Laughter) Elizabeth: You were saying that he had every right to kill you. Now being a nurse, I find that really difficult to cope with. Koraly: (Laughter) I think I meant that in a tongue-in-cheek way because I go over things a lot and I want things to be perfect and I feel … Elizabeth: Perfectionist. Koraly: And so … and also because you know, I feel like he invests a lot of time in editing and I feel I owe him for that. And I have a lot of gratitude, so that’s how I show my gratitude, by saying that he should have killed me. (Laughter) Elizabeth: We love gratitude, that’s for sure. Your brilliant show – Koraly: I Say The Wrong Things All The Time – will debut on November 30th. What can theatre-goers expect from the show? Koraly: Well, this is the first time I’m putting on a full theatre show with sets and lights and sound and it’s a big team. There’s the people at La Mama and there’s my own team of lighting designer and set designer and all those people. I think there’s ten of us, even though there’s just me on stage. I’ve taken my poetry and turned it into a play, a narrative, a story. And as part of that it includes actual acting rather than just performing my poetry, and creating a story that people can go away and think about. I really want to connect with people, mostly women, but people in general that have problems, that struggle with being honest with who they are, and people around them. Because society does want to put us into pigeon holes, and I’ve experienced that before. Like I said, you know, my own experiences of – you know – being steered in particular directions and not being who I want to be. I want to inspire people to be themselves and to not be afraid to be themselves, and to know that, yes, it is difficult sometimes, especially in certain cultures and religions, to stand up and be who you want to be. And there are prices and sacrifices to be made, but it’s so worth it, because it’s your life. You only have one life. And why wouldn’t you want to live that life how you want to live it. Why do we have to live according to how other people expect of us? We should just live our own lives and be happy. So that’s what I want to inspire people to do as part of this work. Elizabeth: And I find you incredibly inspiring, so thank you so much … being so courageous. Koraly: Thank you. Elizabeth: Another one of my favourite poems is My Words. Koraly: Another person actually said that to me recently. Like, really? Like, it’s not one of my favourites. (Laughs) Elizabeth: Yes. And do you know why, Koraly? Because I feel it reveals your depth. Can you please share that with us? Koraly: Ah, okay. Yes. I’m actually going to read that poem at a White Ribbon event tomorrow. Elizabeth: Oh, wow. Koraly: And also give a speech. And they want me to read that one too, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Elizabeth: Do you want to talk a little bit about that event? Koraly: Yeah, it’s just a event about violence – invisible violence against women, and how emotional manipulation can be a form of violence, and how do we empower women to stand up against that. And I’ll be sharing my story like I did with you, you know, what I experienced growing up. Elizabeth: That’s wonderful, and again, very brave. So My Words … Koraly: My Words A long time ago when I was another person And I wore another face I wrote short poems to try and make sense of myself. One, with every wrong footing there is a right Two, two steps in the wrong path equals one in the right Three, do not abuse yourself for the blessing of a mistake Four, regret is a naïve word – pray for mistakes But that’s all bullsh** when your actions hurt people you care about Like I care about you. I have cried many tears in my life All about things people have done to me, and my hardships, and my sad, sad life I’m 32 years old, and tonight, for the first time, I’m crying tears for someone else. Pain I inflicted with my words Oh yes! My wonderful words, my powerful narcissistic words. Oh yes! I’m a poet, and don’t I do it so well. I can make the crowd collapse into silence, Like your silence, your hurt silence. I wanted to crawl into the phone, scoop up the pain in your chest, And bury it inside me Not just the pain I caused, but the other pain too, The pain you hide from me. I heard it clearly for the first time tonight. In my mind there is an image of the person I dream to be You make me want to be that person. Pity I had to hurt you to realize that, or to realize I care So much more than I thought I was capable of And so I write this poem, a pathetic attempt to make it better Even though the decision you made was actually best for me And you proved you cared more than my self-sabotaging mind allowed me to believe So here’s to my attempt to make it better Here’s to my bullsh** words; it’s all self-indulgent crap My actions hurt people I care about They can hurt people I care about … People I care about … Like I care about you. Elizabeth: Beautiful, beautiful. (Applause) Koraly: Thank you. Elizabeth: What do you do in your spare time to unwind, other than write poetry? Koraly: (Laughter) Do single mothers actually have that time? Elizabeth: I don’t know. Koraly: I would say that I love to go out dancing. Elizabeth: Oh wow, what sort of dancing? The Spanish Festival’s coming up this weekend. Koraly: Umm, anything like – I mean I like dancing to alt rock. I also like dancing to techno music, just anything. Elizabeth: You’re a dancing queen. Koraly: I’ve been told I’m a good dancer by my director Olga as well, so … Elizabeth: Pity we can’t see a demonstration on a podcast, Koraly. Koraly: Actually I’ll be dancing in my theatre show. Elizabeth: I’ll be there. Koraly: So dancing I would say, and also … Elizabeth: I might come up and join you on stage. (Laughter) Koraly: Dancing and also spending time with family and friends and going and seeing bands, that kind of stuff. Elizabeth: Any particular bands you love? Koraly: I like going to the local pub and listening to whoever’s playing, Elizabeth: Do you have a website or blog where my listeners can find out more about your work? Koraly: Yes, I have a website: www-dot-Koraly-Dimitriadis-dot-com. I used to have a blog, but I’ve since closed it because, I used to blog quite a bit when I was kinda in that explosion phase. I was blogging a lot and I kept blogging up till a year ago when I started getting articles published in publications. And then I just wanted to focus my energy on writing articles, and so I closed my blog. But people can go to my website and there are links to all the articles that I’ve published, there. Elizabeth: And there’s links to some film too, isn’t there. Koraly: Yeah, there’s links to my films. Elizabeth: That’s great, really great. Koraly, this is a signature question I ask all my guests: What do you wish for for the world, and most importantly, for yourself? Koraly: I wish for no war, and for peace, and equality across races and gender and sexuality of course. And a brighter future for my daughter, a world that is more peaceful than what it is now, so I don’t have to worry about her when I’m gone. Elizabeth: Can I ask how old is she? Koraly: She’s 9. And also for myself, I would like to progress with my art and make a living from it. (Laughter) Elizabeth: Yes, for sure. Koraly: That’s what I would really like. So but also I would like to inspire women and empower women, and that’s ultimately why I do what I do and put myself on the line. Elizabeth: I think you certainly do inspire women. Do you want to touch on some of the male reactions – I know you’ve had some fairly dramatic male reactions. And as much as we love men and admire them and so forth, sometimes I think they get the wrong idea, and need to be put on the straight and narrow with your work, so here’s your chance if you’d like to take it. Koraly: I think actually in Australia, the men are quite well-behaved when it comes to my art. They will contact me and tell me they like my art but they won’t usually make a pass at me. Whereas in Greece and Cyprus the men won’t hold back and they will send me very explicit messages and they will make commentary on my body, and it becomes … And I think the reason for that is because women’s writing overseas is not very respected. In Greece and Cyprus, especially the fact that I write about sex, makes me even less respected and probably means that I just want to have sex and will you have sex with me, that kind of thing. I don’t get that in Australia. A train driver once wrote me a note about how much he likes my work, on a train technical form, and sent that to me, and I kept it. I thought it was quite funny. But you know he wasn’t making a pass at me. He was commenting on my work. And that’s fine – I don’t mind that. What I mind is when men comment on my body and think that I just want to have sex. I just ignore them, like, as if, you know. I mean, most of the poems in Love and F**k Poems are about one guy as well, so it’s not … you know … it’s not like … People get this idea that I’m like sexually wild or whatever, but it’s kind of the opposite, so … Elizabeth: I think it reflects more so on themselves, maybe their hopes and wishes for their world. I want to wrap up with one of your poems which resonates so well with me and my female friends and my enlightened male friends, and the poem is Temple. Koraly: Ah, Temple. Okay. Temple My body is a temple you shall not cross Unless you are worthy of my communion I have been angry, desecrated my spirit, But I needed to do that to arrive here. Because I deserve happiness I deserve love I deserve someone who will give to me Just as much as I give to them And I want it – I want love L-O-V-E Love. I want to embody ecstasy inside alleys In dark corners, underneath stars, Everywhere with my man Explore our darkness and our light And if you’re not looking for the same thing MOVE ON. And in the meantime, men can come, men can go, I’m not looking I’m happy on my own And I will worship my own Temple. Elizabeth: So powerful and beautiful. Thank you. I have tears in my eyes. Koraly: Thank you. Elizabeth: We look forward to your fabulous theatre show, Koraly: I Say The Wrong Things All The Time, at La Mama Theatre, on November 30 to December 11. How do we book tickets? Koraly: Through La Mama website. So if you Google “Koraly: I Say The Wrong Things All The Time”, it should come up. Elizabeth: And look, I’d like to contest whether you do or not, because you say plenty of right things, Koraly (Laughter) Koraly Dimitriadis, thank you so much for guesting on Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris. And remember parents, when reserving your tickets for Koraly’s show, it is not a child-friendly show, so book your favourite person to mind your children, and come along and enjoy the genius of Koraly Dimitriadis. Thank you everyone for tuning in to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris, and may all your wishes come true. Koraly: Thank you for having me. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

Episode 7: Interview with Michael Salmon

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2017 54:59

Elizabeth Harris visits Michael Salmon's studio in Kooyong, Melbourne, and learns from the children's author, illustrator, and entertainer of school children, what 50 years in the arts has taught him about - Learning to trust your instincts about what early readers find funny. The importance of branching out and diversifying if you want to thrive as an author and illustrator in the long term. How your personality and people skills (or lack thereof) can influence your success in the arts. The pleasure of giving back to the community when you've attained a measure of professional success. How did a beloved children's book make it to the centre page of a newspaper, and its main character become 600 kilos of bronze outside a public library in the nation's capital? What's the connection between Michael, Healthy Harold (the Life Education giraffe that visits schools), and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation? Follow Michael as he travels around Australia visiting Indigenous schools and schools with students of diverse ethnicities, backgrounds, and levels of English fluency. Find out more about Michael Salmon's work at MichaelSalmon.com.au. Notes:Robyn Payne is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and audio engineer of 25 years’ experience in the album, film, TV and advertising industries. She composed the music for the theme song 'Victoria Dances', which is featured in host Elizabeth Harris' children's book, Chantelle's Wish, available for sale on Elizabeth's website at ElizabethHarris.net.au. The lyrics for 'Victoria Dances' were written by Elizabeth Harris. FULL TRANSCRIPT Elizabeth: Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris, the global show that connects authors, songwriters and poets with their global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-calibre guests, I invite you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. Today I’m delighted to introduce the highly creative and entertaining children’s author and illustrator, Michael Salmon. Michael Salmon has been involved in graphics, children’s literature, TV and theatre since 1967. He started his career with surfing cartoons, and exhibitions of his psychedelic art, and then joined the famous marionette troupe – The Tintookies – as a trainee set designer stage manager in 1968 (the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Sydney). Since then his work has been solely for young people, both here in Australia and overseas. His many credits include his Alexander Bunyip Show (ABC TV 1978-1988), pantomimes, fabric and merchandise design, toy and board game invention, writing and illustrating of 176 picture story books – which Michael I’m absolutely flabbergasted and astonished and in wonderment at, and everybody’s laughing at that, or maybe he’s laughing at me, I don’t know. (Laughter) I’ll say it again – 176 picture story books for young readers. Several million copies of his titles have been sold worldwide. Michael has been visiting Australian primary schools for over 40 years. His hour-long sessions are interesting, fun, humorous and entertaining, with the focus on students developing their own creativity, which is just fantastic. Suitable for all years, many of these school visits can be seen on Michael’s website, which I will ask you to repeat later. Michael: Okay. Elizabeth: Several trips have been up to the Gulf of Carpentaria Savannah Schools and to the remote Aboriginal community Schools on Cape York Peninsula, as a guest of EDU. EDU – what is that? Michael: Education Department, Queensland. Elizabeth: The Australian Government honoured his work in 2004 by printing a 32nd Centenary, special edition of his first book The Monster that ate Canberra – I like that - as a Commonwealth publication … for both residents and visitors to our Capital. Every Federal Politician received a copy. Michael: Even if they didn’t want it, they got one. (Laughter) Elizabeth: Michael was also the designer of ‘Buddy Bear’ for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation (Port Arthur 1996). The Foundation financially supports Children/Families who are victims of violence/violent crime; they are currently running an anti-bullying campaign in Australian Schools. In 2010 the ACT Government further recognized his work by commissioning a bronze statue of his first book character ‘Alexander Bunyip’. Unveiled in April 2011, it stands next to the new – and I’ll get you to say this, Michael … Michael: GUN-GAH-LIN. Elizabeth: Gungahlin Library in our Federal Capital. Thank you for saying that. Michael has presented ‘Bunyip-themed history sessions’ for audiences of School Children at the National Library of Australia since 2011. School touring and book titles continue, which I’m blown away by, because you’ve written and illustrated 176 books! Michael: Some of those were activity books, to be fair, but they were necessitated – writing, the requirements of children, and illustrations, so they were all lumped in together, basically. Elizabeth: So Michael Salmon, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. Michael: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure, and thank you for visiting my studio here in downtown Kooyong, Melbourne. Elizabeth: We are delighted to be here – Serena Low and I, everybody – Serena being my wonderful tech support. Michael, we have been Facebook friends for some time now, which is a wonderful way to keep in contact with people. But do you think social media has affected children adversely, and stopped them from reading and enjoying children’s literature? Michael: Do you know, in order to answer some of the questions you asked, I probably pondered this one the most. It’s strange times. I’m 67 years old now. If I go back to when I was a teenager … Elizabeth: Looking very dapper, I may say. Michael: Yes, thank you, thank you. (Laughter) It’s amazing what no exercise will do. (Laughter) Things have changed so much. If you go back to the fifties and sixties – which both you ladies will have to look at the old films and see reruns of Gidget and all that kind of stuff – however, the main communication of young people several, several decades ago, socially, would have been the telephone. Invariably, houses only had one line that mums and dads would need. But the girls mostly – and perhaps the boys too – would be on the line talking to their friends and all this kind of stuff. And that was the only direction of communication. Perhaps letters and whatever, but certainly the telephone was the main thing. Now how things have changed these days. Having 12 grandchildren ranging from – what are they now, 2 to 24 – I’ve seen a whole gamut, and I see daily just how much social media – the iPads, tablets and things – are taking up their time and the manners in which they take up their time. Elizabeth: What a wonderful family to have! Michael: Well, it’s certainly a bit like a zoo (laughter) – I hope they don’t mind me saying that – and I’m the head monkey, but that’s about it. That’s true. But if you think of a child – and one of the main loves in life is visiting schools, and over the many years in Australia I’ve visited many, many schools – and just see what the teachers are up against these days. And often the teachers are – it’s well-known – surrogate parents on many occasions. Often it’s left to teachers, whether it be librarians or very kind teachers … Elizabeth: Challenging job. Michael: … To instill in the children a love of literature and how important reading is. But I think of going back to my youth and my toy soldier collection and making and making balsa wood castles and Ormond keeps and whatever it may be, playing in my room with this fantasy world I had grown up in. Elizabeth: What an imagination! Michael: Well, my father read to me – when it first came out, back in the fifties, and I was quite young, but – The Hobbit, C.S. Lewis and the Narnian … – beautiful. I was brought up in those kind of – and he also read most of Dickens to me, as well as Kipling. Quite incredible stuff. So my father was a major player in my love of literature. And I’m not sure that it happens hugely these days, but I grew up in a world of imagination. And it wasn’t any great surprise to my parents that I entered the world I’m in, which is the fantasy world of children, because I never got out of it, basically. 67 years we’re looking at at the moment. I would say mental age is about 8 or 9. (Laughter) Elizabeth: But you make very good coffee for a 9-year-old, Michael. Michael: But it did eventuate that sitting in my studio in the early hours of the morning, if I start laughing at a concept or whatever, I know full well through the passage of time that preppies or Grade Ones or Twos or kinders will start laughing at it too. So you get to trust your judgement after a while in the arts. You get to know where your strengths are. But going back to your original question, I have a couple of grandchildren who are absolute whizzes on their tablets. They’ve gone through the Minecraft thing; they’ve gone this, they’ve gone that. Almost an obsessive kind of stuff there. Elizabeth: It’s an addiction, I think. Michael: Sometimes, you must take time away from the use of imagination. Because let’s face it, in using our imagination, our creativity – and creativity can be cooking a magnificent meal, it can be keeping a well-balanced house. There’s all kinds of creativity, or it could be the artist creativity, but that’s such an important thing, of finding who we are. Elizabeth: Yes. Michael: And to have children taken away to a certain extent Magic Land which is absolutely fine until they become obsessive or addictive, as some of these things are, there’s a great danger that children are – shall we say – not able to evaluate or to progress their natural talents etcetera coming through, especially in the arts. Elizabeth: I totally agree with you. Michael, you’ve written and illustrated so many books. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, 176. How do you decide what to write about? Michael: Well, it’s probably – I’ve always written from a cover idea. There’s a book of mine going way back. It’s one of my old favourites, a very simple one, which is called The Pirate Who Wouldn’t Wash. And when I talk to children and they say where do you get your ideas from, I say sometimes you get two ideas that are unrelated and you put them together, and because hopefully my books are rather funny and I was brought up in the fifties on things like The Fabulous Goon Show, Peter Sellers, and Spike Milligan. I loved Monty Python which was a direct sort of baby from The Goon Show. So my love of comedy has always been UK-based. And so that strange juxtaposition of whatever, so I thought, okay, a pirate, and perhaps a person who doesn’t like to wash. And you put them together and you have the pirate who wouldn’t wash. And then you simply – it’s easy if you have a vivid imagination – you list a whole lot of encounters or what could happen to a pirate who wouldn’t wash. Elizabeth: Could we talk about that? I’d love to talk about that. Michael: A monster, and then someone who doesn’t like vegetables. Which was one of my stepsons, William, and he was ‘Grunt the Monster’, which was one of my early characters. Refused to eat his vegetables. His teachers went to great lengths to find out how he could eat them, disguise them in milkshakes or whatever it may be. So it was William I was writing about, one of my younger stepsons at that stage. And at university when he went through Architectural course, he was called Grunt, because they knew full well the book was based on him. So it’s good sometimes to disguise – but nonetheless feature things you see around you. Elizabeth: How did he cope with it? Michael: He loved it, he loved it, he loved it. Elizabeth: He got attention? Michael: He got attention, all that kind of stuff, and he had one of his best mates who let everyone know that he was called ‘Grunt’ – that was sort of his name. But at some stage, I think he uses that – he lectures in Architecture around the country these days. He’s gone and done very well, dear William, and he will sometimes use that as a joke. Elizabeth: Yes. Icebreaker. Michael: Icebreaker, exactly. Elizabeth: Was there a pivotal person who influenced your career? And if so, can you tell us how they inspired you? Michael: Probably apart from the people I’ve mentioned previously, the Tolkiens and the Hobbits and the Lord of the Rings and the C.S. Lewises and that sort of thing, I’ve always loved the classic British thing like Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. These are very famous books that everyone read at one stage. Back in those early fifties, my father was at Cambridge University so we were hoisted out of New Zealand; we went to live in the UK, and it was such a great time for a child to be in the UK. It’s still suffering war damage from Second World War, and London still roped off sections of it - the Doodlebugs, the flying bombs that the Germans sent over to hit London. So it was a rather strange place, but the television was brilliant. I was a Enid Blyton fan, a foundation member of the Secret Seven Club. Elizabeth: Were you really. Michael: Even though based in Cambridge, we looked forward to every month of the Enid Blyton magazines, so I grew up on The Faraway Tree and the Secret Seven and the Famous Five. I had my badges, I had all the merchandise. But also on the television in those days was a show we never got to hear in Australia – Muffin the Mule. There was also Sooty the Sweep, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. Andy Pandy was another one. Most of those were for kindies and little bubs. Basil Brush was a little bit later on. And British television was always superb, especially for children. Blue Peter and some of those famous shows was a little bit later on. I mention this because I had ten years of my own show on ABC which you’ll learn later on, and used puppets and things which I’d seen being used on British television. Elizabeth: Can you tell us about that show please? Michael: The show itself … When Alexander first became a character, it was a Michael 'Smartypants book', a little book I had published in 1972. This is The Monster That Ate Canberra. And this basically the genesis of the television show. I thought I would do a – I wasn’t a university student but it was like a smartypants university student publication, because the bunyip himself was not the Kangaroo – was in fact an oversized pink bunyip, more like a Chinese dragon. However, the monster was the public service, and so it was like a joke about the public service. Because back in those seventies and late sixties, large departments were being taken from Melbourne and Sydney and relocated in Canberra, Melbourne Commonwealth finance and other things, so Canberra was being flooded with the public service. And that was why Canberra was being set up, but anyway, as a youngster back in 1972 when I first wrote that book, I envisaged this large King Kong kind of character over Civic, which was the main principal shopping centre, the oldest shopping centre, going on Northbourne Avenue as you come in from Sydney. There’s this large monster devouring things, but this monster has a problem: he is short-sighted. Anyway, he saw the buildings – the famous, iconic buildings of Canberra as objects of food. So put them into – like the Academy of Science, a gigantic apple pie; the National Library, which was recently built, at that stage and still looks like a gigantic birthday cake; and I had the Carillon looking like a Paddle Pop or something like that, which are all to do with objects of food. And the bunyip devoured them. And the Prime Minister – the original Prime Minister back then was (William) “Billy” McMahon, and when he chucked, we had then changed to Gough Whitlam. So Prime Minsters changed within the reprints of this book. The best thing about this … way way back when Gough Whitlam became our Prime Minister, one of the first things he did was institute an office that had never been there before, called the Department of Women. It was there specially to consider and to aid passage of women in Australia into jobs and a whole range of things that had never been heard before in a male-dominated kind of world. Elizabeth: I’ve always been a fan of Gough, so I must say … (Laughter) Michael: Well, Gough appointed a single mum called Elizabeth Reid – Liz Reid – and she was a very famous lady and she really championed the cause of women, you know, equal rights, and these ridiculous things that should have been fixed a long time but hadn’t. So Liz Reid was pictured in the centre page of the Woman’s Weekly, soon after Gough – this was one of his first appointments, Liz Reid. And there was Liz with her little bub – so she was a brand new single mum. Elizabeth: Oh wow. Which in those days would have been scandalous, wouldn’t it. Michael: Oh yes, but Gough was famous for that. He already went out specially with the arts. Regardless of how he was considered as a Prime Minister, he was certainly a great patron of the arts, Gough Whitlam. Elizabeth: As I said, I’m a fan. Michael: In this picture, centre pages of Woman’s Weekly, double spread, was little bubba. And in little bubba’s hands, supported by his mother, was a copy of The Monster That Ate Canberra. Elizabeth: Wow! How did you feel? Michael: I thought, “Fantastic!” I got a call within a week from one of the biggest educational publishers in the world, called McGraw-Hill, asking “Can you tell us a little bit about this? And I was described as this is probably not how I would think, and I said “No, but thank you very much for calling.” So the most unusual thing sort of kicked up, and we were reprinting this book again and again for Canberra, because Canberra was laughing its head off. Elizabeth: Good on you Ms Reid – and baby. Michael: So we had a theatrical presentation, pantomimes based on it with the local Canberra youth theatre. ABC then serialized it on radio, and then came to me – this was about 1977 or so – saying, “Would you consider having Alexander Bunyip on television?” Elizabeth: Wow. Michael: And I said “Yes please, thank you very much.” And it was through a mate of mine, quite a well-known scriptwriter for Australian films called John Stevens, and also director of plays and whatever around Australia, and he was one of the directors of the young people’s programs in ABC, who were based at that stage in Sydney. Anyway, Alexander got on television through this rather, uh, strange path he led, entertaining the people of Canberra. Elizabeth: Can I ask you with that, and throughout your life, you have enjoyed such great success, and certainly rightly so. Have you found that there’s been what has been seen as insignificant moments, turn into huge, huge achievements for you? Michael: Well, (I) try to step away from cliché but sometimes it’s hard to, when I say you make your own luck. But the fact that that for example, one of my main – I love it – the statue of Alexander Bunyip, 600 kilograms of bronze outside the library. Elizabeth: In that place I can’t pronounce. Michael: Gungahlin, that’s right, Gungahlin. Elizabeth: I’ll practise it. Michael: I’ll tell you how that happened. Sometimes on Google if you’re an artistic person and you’re an author or illustrator, if you just put your name in and see what’s the latest thing, are there any new entries. Sometimes schools put in things in comments or whatever. Sometimes odd things about your life come up – business life, work life. And there was a situation that occurred, when Gungahlin Community Council had discussed whether – because John Stanhope, who was the chief minister of the ACT at that stage was putting up statues left right and centre, because he wanted a lot of edifices in Canberra to entertain people. Elizabeth: He was a visual. Michael: Yeah, visual person. And someone said, “Why don’t we have Alexander Bunyip?” and there was general laughter. But that was supported in the Council vote of Hansard, you know, the documented notes taken in that particular Council session, and I saw this online. And so I merely wrote to this person, sent them one of the more recent copies of The Monster That Ate Canberra, and said “That sounds great. Let me know if I can help.” Elizabeth: Absolutely! Michael: Gosh, one thing after another happened, and the head of the Council Alan Kirlin, with John Stanhope, got it organized, and within a year there was a brand new statue being launched by John Stanhope, one of the last things he did before he resigned. He’d done some magnificent work in Canberra. So new ministers were appointed etcetera, so John – the statue was launched, and I made a speech which was dedicated to my mum, who had died the year before. She was a Canberra girl, and I thought that would be nice to dedicate, at least mention her. I’m sure if she were around - in ethereal style - she wouldn’t miss out on that one, I can assure you. Elizabeth: I’m sure. Michael: But when the statue was dedicated – the statue stands there – Elizabeth: Can we go back, because I would like to talk about that speech about your mum. Can we talk about that? Michael: Yes. Well, my mother Judy, as I said who passed on in 2010 – the statue was put up in 2011 – was a very … went bush Port Douglas many years ago, before Christopher Skase was up there. (Laughter) So I used to go up there and visit her. A hurricane holiday house, which is simply a house in Port Douglas without any windows. It was up in the hills towards the Mosman River valley. Elizabeth: For those who don’t know Christoper Skase, can you please touch on him briefly. Michael: Christopher Skase was one of our major financial entrepreneurs who died over in a Spanish location owing millions of dollars to many people. He was like a younger brother of Alan Bond. That’s where Christopher Skase fitted in. I don’t think New York or Spain ever really sort of – Elizabeth: Recovered. Michael: Recovered from the Australian paparazzi to see whether Skase was in fact dying or whether he was in a wheelchair with breathing apparatus, wheeled out by his ever-loving wife Pixie, who is back safely in the country now. But that’s by the by. (Laughter) Michael: My mother was a fairly gregarious character. Elizabeth: Bit like yourself. Michael: (Laughter) Pushy. Elizabeth: No, no, no. Delightful, and entertaining. Michael: Judy was one of the younger daughters of her father, my grandfather, Canon W. Edwards – Bill Edwards. He was a young Anglican curate who’d been badly gassed on the fields of Flanders and the Somme in the First World War. Elizabeth: Oh dear. Michael: But he was an educationalist, as well as a very strong Anglican within the church. So he was sent on his return out to Grammar School looking after that in Cooma. When Canberra was designated as the place to have our new capital, the Anglican Church from Sydney said, “Please harness up one of the buggies, and take six of your seniors and go look at four different venues in Canberra that we are looking at to have a brand new school.” Elizabeth: Wow. Michael: And they chose the most beautiful place, in a road called Mugga Way just at the bottom of Red Hill, which is Canberra Boys’ Grammar. He was their founding Headmaster. Elizabeth: Was he! Michael: But the fact was that they settled on that because they pitched their tents under the gum trees. They woke up with the sound of intense kookaburra noise, and thought this was perfect for a grammar school, or any other school for that matter. Elizabeth: Oh, beautiful. Michael: They were all talking and whatever it was. Elizabeth: Bit like sounding the bell, you know. Michael: (Laughter) So going back to those days, that was the start of Canberra and my family going back there to the thirties of last century. However, back in those days in the Second World War, my father had graduated from school in New Zealand, and was sent across as one of those New Zealand young soldiers to become an officer at Duntroon, the training college. The Defence Academy they call it now, but good old Duntroon. So when he graduated, it was the end of World War Two, and he was sent up to war crimes trials in Japan, as one of his first things the Aus-New Zealand ANZAC forces when they went up there to look after things for a while. But my mother was quite a brilliant lady, and she would always be the one painting and decorating and doing all this kind of stuff. Always a dynamic kind of person. And apart from loving her very much as a mum, she instilled in me this gregarious, rather exhibitionist kind of thing. Elizabeth: (Laughter) Thank you Judy. It’s Judy, isn’t it. Thank you Judy. I know you’re here. Michael: So Judy was responsible for – in younger, thinner days, long hair, beads, not necessarily hippie stuff but just total exhibitionist kind of stuff. Elizabeth: Oh I’ve seen photographs of this man, everybody. My goodness, what a heartthrob. Michael: I looked like I could have been another guitarist in Led Zeppelin or something. Elizabeth: I’m actually just fanning myself with my paper. (Laughter) Michael: But anyway, it’s all a bit of fun. Elizabeth: Did you ever sing? Michael: No, no, no. I was actually a drummer at one of the schools I attended. Elizabeth: Were you? I like drummers. Michael: Yes, but not this kind of drummer. In the pipe bands at Scotch College, Sydney. I was a tenor drummer. Elizabeth: Okay. Michael: So they have the big, the double bass drum or whatever and the tenor drums and the drumsticks - I forget the name – like the Poi they have in New Zealand. And the tenor drums – you have to have coordination if you want to play the tenor drums as you march along in your dress: the Black Watch dress. Elizabeth: Isn’t learning music so important, which reflects in other areas? Michael: It is, it is. Elizabeth: Can we talk about that? Michael: Well, I think that – not being musical but having written lyrics in my pantomimes – and down at a very amateur level worked out what a bunyip would sing about, or go back to an early blues song or doo-wop kind of song when Alexander is stuck in a zoo in the pantomime. So I had great fun. So my musical experience – I was lucky to have some very clever people, including one gentleman who until a few years ago was one of the Heads of Tutors at Canberra School of Music called Jim Cotter. Now Jim Cotter and I – he wrote my first music for me, for the pantomimes I used to do way back in the early days. And then Peter Scriven – he was the head of the Tintookies Marionette Theatre, who were all under the auspices of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in Sydney at Potts Point. And Peter had engaged him to do – I was doing some sets – it was the first show, our first children’s show at the Opera House – and I did the costumes for Tintookies. It was a revamp of what Peter Scriven had been doing back in the fifties. And Jim had some brand new music, and so my musical experience was purely admiring music and talented people who did that, realizing that it was not my forte. Elizabeth: Aren’t they clever. Michael: Nonetheless, by writing lyrics and giving some vague, vague “rock ‘n roll and I like it” -like, you know. Not exactly “Stairway to Heaven”, you know what I’m saying? Elizabeth: (Laughter) Who was your favourite band at that stage? Michael: Ahh, I grew up in the Sixties. I got myself a hearing aid the other day. You can hardly see it – one of these new things. But essentially, I’ve had to, because I spent a lot of my younger life surfing in the eastern beaches of Sydney. The promotion of bone growth over the ear – there’s some kind of term for it – and they had to cut away the bone if I were to hear properly. And I thought, I don’t want my ear cut, so I’ll just leave it as it is at 67. But also too, I do attribute some of those early groups to my lack of hearing these days, because I did study for my exams with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. Pretty much one of my favourite groups of all time was a group that spread, with different members going to different other groups, were The Byrds in America. Dylan songs. “Mr Tambourine”. Elizabeth: Yes. Was it Eric – Eric somebody? Or did I get the wrong group. Michael: We’re talking about David Crosby, Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn who changed his name and became Roger, or was it the other way round. But they had the Dylan. They came out with “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Elizabeth: Yes, I know that song. Michael: Their next one was ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’. Then they went into more Dylan of, “All I Really Want to Do”. And these are hits of the Sixties. Elizabeth: You could sing a few bars. Michael: No I couldn’t. Not even Dylan-style. (Laughter) But I love those songs, mainly because - Elizabeth: They’re great. Michael: Jim McGuinn had a 12-string guitar, and it was this jingly-jangly feel to their songs that I loved dearly. But another group which I must tell you, because I met up with them in real life, which is one of my favourite groups, is The Seekers. Elizabeth: Oh! Miss Judith! Michael: Now Keith Potger is a good mate of mine. We go for gentlemen’s clubs like Savage Club; he’s a member of Savage, enjoy long lunches, and often with some other guests. Elizabeth: Athol Guy? Michael: Yes. And Judith Durham – where you’re sitting there – came and sat down there with her manager a few years ago. Elizabeth: My goodness! Michael: She’d seen a presentation – Elizabeth: She’s beautiful. Michael: Oh, magnificent. And her voice! Elizabeth: Angel. Michael: Judith had seen a production by Garry Ginivan, who is one of the principal Australian children’s entrepreneurs for theatrics, theatres. He’s just finished doing Hazel E.’s Hippopotamus on the Roof kind of stuff, and I’m not sure if he’s doing Leigh Hobbs’ Horrible Harriet. Now that’s going to the Opera House. I’m not sure if Garry Ginivan’s doing that for Leigh. He did for Graeme Base. He did My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, and also brought packaged stuff like Noddy and Toyland, Enid Blyton and other stuff like The Faraway Tree. So anyway he was presenting Puff the Magic Dragon – and I’m just looking around the room to find a graphic of the poster, because I’d designed Puff the Magic Dragon. Elizabeth: Did you? Michael: And they used that for all the promotional material and stuff there, but it was the puppet that I designed. And Judith went along to see – it was at The Athenaum Theatre here in Melbourne, a few years ago now. Elizabeth: Lovely theatre. Michael: And she liked the whole idea of the dragon, and she rang me. And so here was this most beautiful angel on the other line … Anyway, she was round a couple of days with her management. She was at that time – this was before The Seekers got back together and did all that magnificent tours they did over the last five or six years, Andre Rieu included. Judith is a honky-tonk girl; she loves the music of spiritual and going across to honky-tonk, like Scott Joplin, the ragtime, and all this sort of stuff. Elizabeth: Oh, fun! Michael: And she had written several things that she wanted the sheet music to be illustrated to sell, as part of the Judith Durham empire. And she did the ‘Banana Rag’. So immediately I did the illustration for her. I didn’t take any payment. I said, “Look, Judith, might I be impertinent and ask you to come to one of my clubs and sing – come to dinner?” She was a very strict vegetarian and looked after herself incredibly well after a terrible accident where she had to look after her whole system and she’s done that magnificently. So there she was singing, and this was when The Seekers had just released one of their LP’s, called “Morning Town Ride to Christmas”, which was for children’s songs, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house of these senior gentlemen at the club I was talking about, one of these good old Melbourne clubs, when she sang “The Carnival’s Over”. Elizabeth: Oh yes. Michael: Absolutely superb, so that was more than enough payment for doing some artwork. But since then, I continued … and met the desperate Keith Potger. Elizabeth: Weren’t you lucky. Weren’t you lucky. Weren’t you lucky to have that gorgeous woman. Michael: I was lucky. I was lucky. But I had to tell you, Judith - they had an article on her website, and she’s on Facebook as well - had at that time recorded with The Lord Mayor’s Orchestra here in Melbourne. It was called “The Australian Cities Suite”, and she had written a song for every major city in Australia. And I remember she and I were trying to do a book together, a book based on a song that her husband – who passed on through, oh gosh, what was it – the wasting disease, muscular disease … Elizabeth: MS? Muscular Dystrophy? Michael: Muscular Dystrophy. I’m sure that must be it. He put in a song called “Billy the Bug and Sylvia Slug”, and so we put that into a book. And I took Judith along to see some of the heads of various publishing firms in Sydney as well as the head of ABC merchandising in their ivory tower down in Haymarket area. Beautiful beautiful premises they have there, ABC Studios. And so Judith was much heralded in both places when I took her as my guest to introduce this book to her. The book didn’t work unfortunately, but she did start singing in the car as we’d arrived early in the carpark of the ABC citadel in Haymarket. She started singing. And we were all sitting there. And she started singing songs again from The Seekers. Elizabeth: I don’t think I’m ever going to stand up again. Michael: So here we are in Kooyong, and there’s the beautiful strains of Judith Durham singing songs, and I thought, “It doesn’t get much better than this.” Elizabeth: Oh wow. Michael: I don’t think Deborah Harry could have done the same. Elizabeth: Do you think Judith Durham would speak with me on this podcast? Michael: Judith is a very accommodating person, and I’m sure that if you ask through her management, Graham her manager would – I’m sure - she would look at that favourably. Elizabeth: Would I have to wear a ball gown? I have a couple. To meet the Queen. Michael: Meet the Queen. (Laughter) But anyway, I suppose too, in my business – and Australia is not a huge place really, when it comes to who knows what and we talked before about the degrees of separation. Elizabeth: Absolutely. Michael: And so, a lot of my stuff has been … involved with, because of my work, a lot of singers and whatever via The Hat Books. I remember Russell Morris, not in this place but a previous place. Elizabeth: “The Real Thing”? Michael: “The Real Thing” Russell Morris. Brilliant, brilliant, and had the two LP’s as well. Elizabeth: And Molly, Molly is attached to that – he produced it, didn’t he. Michael: Yeah, but Russell Morris had this concept that he came up with his wife 30 years ago. It was about a toy that was pre-broken and you had to fix it. The whole idea of the toy was that you had to re-glue this broken toy. Elizabeth: Right. Michael: It was ceramic, and he was so keen on it, but I just didn’t think it was going to work. He was a man with an incredible imagination – Elizabeth: Russell Morris? Michael: Russell Morris. He had this toy concept, but it didn’t work, because I don’t think kids want to sit around re-gluing a toy that has been broken. I don’t know what he was on. Elizabeth: He was quite resourceful. Michael: Ah, he is. Look at the way Russell Morris has revived in recent times. And he’ll have to excuse me. I don’t remember, but I’ve certainly listened to his two LP’s – albums as we used to call them, back in the old days – that he did. All bluesy and whatever, and he’s still got a magnificent voice. Elizabeth: You know, there are so many Australians that are not – what should I say – recognized as they should be, I think. And such talent. Michael: Ah, yeah. Elizabeth: And do you think we need to go overseas, like in the old day. I was listening to a program last night, actually, and Brian Cadd was on it. Love Brian Cadd. Beautiful, beautiful music. And he said you know, back in the day you had to go to London. Michael: Yes, yes. Well, look at Easybeats and stuff like that. Elizabeth: Do you think people need to go? Michael: Brian Cadd and The (Bootleg) Family (Band), that’s what he calls his group, they are reappearing at – they are doing an Australian tour this month in February – I saw it on Facebook, actually. Elizabeth: You know, a friend of mine who’s a pastel artist, highly acclaimed – we were talking about this, and she said in this country, she’s just not recognized and she really needs … She’s working in a boutique! Michael: It is a problem. You know on Facebook, which is one of the loves of my life, you see a good deal of Australian up-and-coming authors and illustrators, and ones that you dearly wish would … And I do believe that you if you earn it, you deserve a place in the sun – your ten minutes, twelve minutes of fame, all that kind of stuff. And if you’re smart enough, after your time has been, you then start doing things which reinvent yourself. I’m not talking about Madonna-style, but I’m talking about coming up with new things, being aware of new trends and seeing whether you can adapt your talents. Elizabeth: Being a survivor. Michael: Being a survivor, absolutely. Because let’s face it, and I’m very grateful – for example, the schools around Australia – 45 years… Elizabeth: I’m sure they’re grateful to you too. Michael: I go into the schools and there are teachers there that say, “Look, the last time I saw you Michael, was when I was in Prep or Grade One, and I loved your books then and I still love them." I’m just so thankful. Elizabeth: How do you feel, other than gratitude? Michael: Well, this is one of those major things, of feedback you get. And some of them come up and say “I started drawing because of you drawing”. Elizabeth: You’re inspirational! Michael: There are just those things there that I … and also entertaining. Doing a bit of stand-up comedy, giving out very silly prizes like Barbie books to Grade Six boys for good behaviour. I know Preppies will never forget those things. Elizabeth: Can you talk us through – when you present to the school, how do you do that? Michael: This year I’ve got a ‘Michael Salmon’s Monster Show’ which is talking about more or less the same thing, but some different pictures to ones I’ve been doing before. Essentially what I realized right at the start is if I do some speed cartooning, right in the very first picture I draw there, and do it so quickly in a great show-off manner, you get the kids hooked. Elizabeth: It’s magic; it’s in front of us. Michael: Because the little ones, they say “Look what he did! Look how fast he drew!” And I always knew that that particular facet, if you did it correctly, the little Preppies in the front – because we do try to get mixed grades, with the Grade Sixes at the back – is that you would have their attention if you kept on. So I sort of talked about the way I invented characters and how it happened. Bobo my dog who is not here today – dear Bobo in the book I wrote called Bobo My Super Dog, where I sort of – he saves the world a bit. Elizabeth: Of course he would. (Laughter) Michael: Oh, I don’t know. Let’s just go back to the bit about Australia and the people who are trying to make it, and they are doing their very best and you see their brilliant talent. And it’s very evident on Facebook – it’s one of my major purveyors of talent – the ideas that people come up with and all that sort of stuff. I mean, you’ve got some brilliant people here in Australia. You look at Leigh Hobbs for a start. Now he belongs to the Savage Club as I do, so I catch up with him for lunch on occasions. And there he is with his two-year tenure in his position championing children’s books and children’s literature around Australia. His cartoons are very much like Ronald Searle, the famous British cartoonist, who did the original cartoons that accompanied the original published books and also the film versions of St Trinian’s movies, of schoolgirls and things like that – the naughty schoolgirls. And Ronald Searle was a brilliant, brilliant artist, and he had the kind of nuttiness in his cartooning that Leigh Hobbs had. You look at Leigh Hobbs’ stuff – they are very, very sparse, great placement of colour, they are done in a very slapdash manner. It all works together beautifully – from Horrible Harriet, to Old Tom and whatever. And if you’ve got other people – what’s that book by Aaron Blabey – something or other Pug? (Pig the Pug) I bought some books for my very young grandchildren for Christmas, and I thought, “I haven’t seen these books before.” And here he is winning awards and YABBA (Young Australians Best Book Awards) Awards and all this kind of stuff. And so much talent around. And it’s hard in Australia to make a living as an author, because the royalties and stuff, even if you are one of the top ones, may suffice for a while but aren’t continuing. Elizabeth: And yet Michael you’ve done that – for 50 years – haven’t you. Michael: Only because of schools. 45 years in schools and 50 years in the arts. But mainly because I branched out and did things like theatre – the television show. You saw when you first entered the merchandise for 'Alexander Bunyip'. Spotlight stores were behind me for fabrics for a decade, and they finished not a huge many years ago. And that had nothing to do with 'Alexander Bunyip'. But the fact of really, of diversifying. Elizabeth: Okay. Michael: And the books for me lay a platform. When Mum or Dad read a book at night to their children, and it happens to be one of yours, and it’s something they like, and they happen to be one of the lead buyers of Spotlight stores and they say “We must do something about this guy”, and they came round and sat where you’re sitting, and they said “We’d like to offer you a deal.” And I thought, “Oh thank you. That’s great!” Elizabeth: But can I interject? The vital part of that is certainly that there is talent and diversification, but it’s also the ability to connect with people - which you are very skilled at. And the warmth that you have … Michael: Well, thanks to my mother, because she was a people person. Yes, you’re quite right – it does help to be a people person if you’re an artistic person. Of course sometimes it doesn’t flow. Some of the best children’s authors are not people persons. So you can’t expect to do anything. I learned long ago of creating an impact on your audience – start and hold them if you can from then on, and then you can impart any message you want. And the only message I really impart to the children is about developing their creativity, for them to start working on the things they’re good at, or keep drawing or singing or whatever it may be. Elizabeth: I really want to segue into something from those comments about your work for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. That is so, so pivotal. Can we talk about that? Michael: Yes. Do you know, in general terms, it’s really good if you’ve had success, I’ve found, especially in the arts, to find venues and areas and avenues to give back to society. I hope that doesn’t sound too corny. Elizabeth: It sounds beautiful. Michael: Up here, I’ve got some – when I was one of the patrons of “Life Be In It” for the Victorian – Elizabeth: Oh yes! Michael: And I designed – not the vans, those large pantechnicon vans that went around and advertised anti-drugs and – Elizabeth: It was Norm, wasn’t it. Norm. Michael: Norm was “Life Be In It”. This was the Life Education Centre, the one started up by Ted Knox at King’s Cross Chapel, but they went to a huge thing. Large pantechnicon trailers filled with the latest kind of things, and all round Australia, but particularly in Victoria – because that’s where my expertise was, helping them design big wheels to go on, painted by local mums and dads. And I also do it to do some fundraising. But Life Education had a Harold Giraffe as their logo, and it’s still going gangbusters. So these things would go to schools, and like the dental van they locked you in that, and they would see these incredible digital displays of bodies and drugs and anti-drugs, things like that. Magnificent, magnificent. That was one thing I was involved in. A good mate of mine, a school librarian called Marie Stanley, who’s since not a school teacher anymore – a school librarian – she rang up soon after 1996 when the horrific Port Arthur thing had occurred. She had been seconded – Walter Mikac, whose wife Nanette and two daughters Alannah and Madeline were shot dead – he knew he had to do something. So he went to see the Victorian Premier at that stage, Steve Bracks, and also saw John Howard. And between them he got funding to set up a St Kilda Road office and start the Alannah and Madeline Foundation which is purely there to help the victims of violent crime – the families, the children – provide them with some kind of accommodation or support or clothing, needs, or toiletries – a whole range of stuff there. So they seconded Marie Stanley from Williamstown North Primary School. Because I’d visited her school many times, she rang me up and said, “Look, Michael, I’m doing this, I’m on salary, but I need your help. Could you help me invent a character?” So I came on board with Alannah and Madeline (Foundation) on a purely voluntary basis, which is my pleasure, and we invented a character called Buddy Bear as a very safe little bear and a spokes figure, whereby – and there are behind me as we speak in this interview – there are Buddy Bear chocolates up there. And they did something like five million chocolates with my name and my design on it through Coles stores and Target stores … Elizabeth: You know Michael, next time we meet I need a camera. (Laughter) Michael: That’s just 'Buddy Bear' stuff. And 'Buddy Bear' has gone on strongly and it’s now part of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. But they got involved in a very important … the main focus of anti-bullying. And I was the person – I want to say one thing, because it’s true – I suggested that they should go – violence and all this stuff for families was terrible enough – but if they wanted to go to the bully, they really should get into the heart of the matter. And to me, I said to them once, “Look, please. I’ve seen what we’re doing. We’ve got Buddy Bear as the spokes figure for violence in the home. But we really should be hitting schools and things with something that centers around bullying and have an anti-bullying campaign. And you know, it is one of those things which is said at the right time and the right place. And now we’ve got Princess Mary of Denmark who is the international head of 'Buddy Bear' and they’ve got their own thing over there because of her Australian connection with Tasmania. We have the National Bank who are the sponsors of the 'Buddy Bear' program of the Alannah and Madeline (Foundation), so we have a fully-fledged charity. But the early days of inventing 'Buddy Bear', and a lot of people who gave their time and effort for no cost as I did, and pleasure to get the whole thing going. But it was all through initially Walter Mikac, thinking that with his deceased wife and two little girls, he had to do something. He was a pharmacist by trade and he was a smart man – he is a smart man – and he set the wheels in motion. And so it was a - ‘pleasure’ is not the right word. It was satisfying to be involved with a program that was ultimately going to help children feel better and safe and especially with this bullying thing, of being able to … Elizabeth: Personally, I love fundraising and I do a lot of it. And actually we have on the agenda this year a fundraiser for another children’s author: Pat Guest. His son Noah, and Noah has Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy, and the family need a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Michael: Yes, yes, yes. Elizabeth: Pat’s a wonderful person. He’s published five books and counting, and has written one about Noah called That’s What Wings Are For. He has actually podcasted with me. So I’m going to put you on the spot now and ask you if you would like to create something – Michael: Absolutely! Let me know … Elizabeth: I haven’t even finished my sentence! Michael: No, no, no, the answer’s yes. The answer’s yes. Elizabeth: The generosity! Thank you. Michael: No, no, my pleasure. You talk about the – do you pronounce it ‘Duchenne’? There was a very famous fundraiser with that society up in Cairns several years ago, where various artists and musicians and illustrators were asked to provide – and they said a ukulele – so you had very famous artists and musicians and illustrators creating and painting their own version on this practical ukulele that was sent back to Cairns and auctioned off for charity and raised a whole lot of money. Elizabeth: You know Pat, I think, would love to meet you. And I know Noah – the whole family are just beautiful people. Michael: But I’ll have you know, only because of that connection where they contacted me saying “Would you like to …” and I had no knowledge whatever of the disease and the toll it took. Elizabeth: I’ve nursed a couple of boys with it. Michael: From my recollection, would it be quite correct to say it’s quite gender-specific? It hits boys more than girls? Elizabeth: Yes. The two children that I nursed were brothers, and they passed. So we want to focus on the positive side, and this Saturday, actually there’s a trivia night which is sold out – Michael: Oh good! Good, good. Elizabeth: And it’s Eighties music which is my thing – I love that – so hopefully I will win, everybody. Don’t bet on me, Michael, but if there was a ticket, I’d invite you. But we’re looking at later in the year and we have some great people. Dave O’Neil wants to do a spot – Michael: Oh yeah, good, good, good. Elizabeth: And he podcasted with me. And like yourself, pretty much before I got my sentence out, he said 'yes'. Robyn Payne whom I wrote my song with for my children’s book – she wants to write a song. So we’ve got many … and Robyn Payne was in Hey Hey, It’s Saturday for many years. She was in that band, and Robyn’s incredible – she plays eight instruments. Michael: Right, right, yes, yes. Elizabeth: She’s performed at the Grand Final; incredibly talented lady. I just ran into her the other night with Neil, her husband, and Steph who’s a good friend of mine and recently performed with her on stage as well, they’re looking at writing a song for Noah. So it’s taking off. Michael: One of the best fundraisers I’ve been to is a yearly event – still going – the Alannah and Madeline (Foundation) did. I don’t keep in contact with them directly; it was just a pleasure to work in, but what they did at the Palladium Ballroom – have 'Starry Starry Night'. Now 'Starry Starry Night' would have almost anyone who’s anyone in show business, on television and the media, would be there, from the jockeys at Melbourne Cup who would be singing Village People and whatever. Quite brilliant. And they had a huge host. We’re talking about – and I’m not exaggerating – 50 or so celebrities attended that. Black Night night and it really was a “starry starry night”. I haven’t attended for a long time, but I did my duty and it was a great pleasure to be there and part of it. But that was a brilliant fundraiser, and still continues as a fundraiser for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. Elizabeth: Oh, I’m so honoured that you said yes to me before I even finished my sentence. Thank you so much! Talking about stars, I’d like to go to my signature question, and then we’ll say adieu to you. Michael, this is a signature question I ask all my guests: what do you wish for, for the world, and most importantly for yourself? Michael: Well, as we’re sitting here in early February of 2017, because of all these incredible events that are going on every quarter of the day from the United States there, where the world order seems to be rapidly changing, and oddities occurring there and without going into it too heavily we all know what we’re talking about, I have a hope that the situation in America remedies itself, and that the situations change rapidly, and that America gets back, because as the biggest country in the world for what it is and known as, because we need the stability of America etcetera, so it’s a fairly direct sort of wish that America gets its act together again soon, and maintains something that we can trust in. Because America really is being that main country in the world. Elizabeth: Do you see a way – does that start one person at a time? Is that how things start to change? Michael: Gosh, as we’ve evidenced with the Women’s March and a whole range of stuff now that the immigration – oh dear – it just goes on, goes on. And without going into a full-scale discussion of that, my wish is that America gets back together quickly, and maintains and gets someone new in charge. I don’t know how that’s going to happen – impeachment or … but something has to happen, so that the world can feel stable again. And that’s not grandiose, but that’s probably affecting a lot of people in the world. As every new edict or special signatory thing is signed in the White House, the ripples it sends across for instability is quite amazing. We’ve never seen it before, unless you were there during Chamberlain days when Neville Chamberlain was talking to Hitler, and some of those – not grandiose or high-flying stuff, but it does affect especially Aussies who love America dearly, and America loves us. Elizabeth: But to me your books so beautifully reflect history. Michael: Some of them do, some of them do. It’s like a Facebook page – I really do love entertaining people and making them laugh. And that’s probably the last part of your question – I really would like every child in the mass audiences I encounter, we’re talking about 500 or so - I would like to think that every child had an opportunity – not because of anything to do with my talk that may be instrumental , it doesn’t really matter – the children of today can reach their potential, and the energy and the talents they have are recognized. Not squashed, quashed, forgotten, put to one side by society or families, issues, whatever it may be. Elizabeth: You know, that reminds me of a good friend of mine, Andrew Eggelton. So Andrew Eggelton is an interesting man – he’s a New Zealander actually; he’s a Kiwi – and he believes in the Art of Play. So his wish is that everybody gets to use their God-given talents. Michael: Ditto, ditto, absolutely. Because you do see the children out there. Just to give you an example: I spoke to close to 12,000 children during a tour that I organized myself – I do have some other agents organizing other states … Elizabeth: How do you look after your throat? Michael: Thank goodness I’ve always had a voice that can throw – a loud voice – I was captain of a rugby team in my machismo days. I was in New Zealand, and as a front row forward you don’t usually have a shy, retiring kind of personality. When you go out to tour, and on that tour we toured everything around the Riverina, we did places like West Wyalong, places you normally drive through as you are going up the back roads to Dubbo or some place like that. Then we went to Sydney, the western suburbs schools, and even this morning I had a phone call from one of the agents for a school near Loganlea. The school called and they want a couple of sessions. Most of their students are refugees with English ESL, so English Second Language. I would say English third or fourth language. Elizabeth: How many children at that school? Michael: Seven hundred. She said – the agent who rang me – and this is the first one in the tour that’s coming up late July for southeastern Queensland – “The reason no doubt that you’ve been invited to this particular school” which I know well, is because my act is highly visual. You don’t need a lot of language to understand it, because I draw all the cartoons. Or I’m caricaturing children, or getting them to caricature me. It’s almost like – ‘international language’ is not the right phrase – but it’s almost like a human comedy or whatever you call it. Elizabeth: It’s like smiling. Michael: It’s like smiling, and the more the merrier. So up there you’ve got the refugee children. You’ve got a lot of – and I really enjoy going to the Tongan or Samoan or Fijian or Maori schools or New Zealand, because I used to play rugby and I played with so many Islanders over the years and I’ve got some good mates there. And especially up there in southern parts of Brisbane, before you hit the Gold Coast, it’s always challenging, and I love to go up there, so it’s great to hear that. And the same thing applies to Indigenous schools up on the Gulf of Carpentaria, they call them, the Gulf Savannah schools up in Cape York, where you go to places like Weipa and stuff like that. And some of the notorious – notorious because of the troubles that have occurred – there’s a couple of places along the Peninsula there – they are trouble spots and have been for many years. Elizabeth: You know Michael, that just says so much about you, because so many people would not go within cooee of those places, and it reflects your beautiful generosity. So I want to thank you very much for guesting on Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. And I think we need a Part Two. It’s been an absolute delight and thank you so much. Michael: Thank you very much, and thank you Serena too. I babbled on a bit, but fifty years – fifty years of working in this country – there’s been a lot of water under the bridge. A lot of people, a lot of children, and I’m just very lucky. I consider myself very lucky to be in that position, to have that rapport with kids, and to just get on with them and entertain them and enjoy them. Elizabeth: I consider those children and us very, very lucky to have met you today. Thank you so much. Michael: Thank you guys. Thank you. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

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Episode 2: Interview with Patrick Guest

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2016 52:20

Patrick Guest is an Australian children's author, Olympic physiotherapist, and father of three. He is most noted for his children's books That's What Wings Are For - dedicated to children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and their parents, and The Ricker Racker Club, written for his boys when their baby sister joined the family. Find out more about Patrick's work at PatrickGuest.com.au. What you'll learn: 1. What Patrick's first career was, and why he gave it up for writing.2. The true story that inspired Patrick to write That's What Wings Are For.3. How The Ricker Racker Club is being used to touch and inspire school children in Melbourne, Australia. 4. What success means to him. FULL TRANSCRIPT Elizabeth: Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris, the show that connects authors, songwriters and poets with a global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-calibre guests, I invite you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. I’m delighted to introduce children’s author Patrick Guest (PG) – father of three, Olympic physiotherapist, children’s author. Patrick Guest – born into an ever loving, ever growing family, 7 siblings, in the beachside suburb of Seaford, Melbourne, Australia. Patrick was blessed with all the things that make a childhood magical – plenty of family, friends and freedom to explore this wonderful world. An assortment of careers along the way – cobbler, elephant washer, failed accountant, anatomy demonstrator at Monash Uni, national team physio for Mozambique. Little wonder he’s been dubbed the Forrest Gump of Frankston. Adventures and stories seem to follow him around and now he’s writing them down. 5 books, (signed with a little hair) in the past 2 years, many more in the pipeline. Patrick Guest, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris. Patrick: Great to be here, Elizabeth. Elizabeth: Great to have you here, Patrick, on this lovely sunny day in Melbourne, believe it or not, we’ve got the sun. Patrick, we recently discovered we attended the same secondary college. Patrick: We did. Elizabeth: I had to smile when I read you initially became an accountant. Please tell my listeners about that transgression - and how you escaped. Patrick: Ah, the transgression. Let’s start with that. Look. Fear, insecurity, there was a recession kicking in. But really I think, as a 17-year-old, having to work out what subjects to choose, I didn’t know how to make that decision at 17. Elizabeth: So you did Economics … is that right? Patrick: Economics, Accounting, Legal Studies, Maths. I was really probably inspired at that time by my favourite TV show, Family Ties – Michael J. Fox. Elizabeth: Wasn’t he great? He’s great. Still. Patrick: At the time, I think back now – what a dork he was – it probably says a lot about what a dork I was and still am. I thought he was cool. Elizabeth: He was funny, and you’re funny. Patrick: He was cool, and I thought “Who do I want to be like?”, and I thought “Michael J. Fox”. I went down the corporate path, which was a terrible decision. I don’t regret it – I made some friends for life, and I realized early on that money doesn’t make you happy. Elizabeth: It’s such an important lesson at that age, isn’t it, cause many people learn that quite late, if at all. Patrick: Yeah, so that’s something that has stayed with me, and I’m really grateful. Elizabeth: Was there a pivotal moment when you realized “This accounting thing is just not me”? Was there an incident? Patrick: There was. Elizabeth: Can you share that, or is that private? Patrick: No, no, let’s share this. It’s all about sharing in this session. So I’m walking down Flinders St Station, and I’m walking down in my suit and tie, down the ramp… Elizabeth: How old were you at the time? Patrick: It would have been in my first year out of graduation, maybe 22 or something. 21, 22. Walking down the ramp, with cattle class, just walking down, we were all off to work. Against the flow, this lady came through the crowd and just gently put her hand on me and said, “Smile!” Elizabeth: (Laughter) I promise you it wasn’t me. Patrick: She just said “Smile” and I’m walking down – I must have looked so miserable. Elizabeth: Was she an angel or a real person? Patrick: I don’t know. But I hear where you’re coming from there, because from that moment – and I blame Banjo Patterson – and maybe my dad for putting me onto Banjo. Elizabeth: Why? It’s good to blame other people, isn’t it? Patrick: My favourite Australian poem would be The Great Clancy of the Great Overflow… Elizabeth: Oh wonderful. Patrick: …And where Banjo writes: And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste, With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy, For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste. So that poem was just ringing in my ears as I was off to the office sitting there, and from that moment I had come to the end of my fancy – I had a lot to change with Clancy. But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy of the Overflow. And for someone who had had that instilled in him, the spirit of adventure at a very young age, and parents – wonderful parents that had fostered that– and here I am in this shoebox, little partitioned office thing, and it just wasn’t for me. Elizabeth: Soul-destroying. Patrick: Soul-destroying. For some people it isn’t, and some of my best friends have continued along that path, and it’s a great path for them, but for me it wasn’t. Elizabeth: We need everybody, don’t we, the array of professions and tradespeople, everybody to do their bit. But you had much more important things in store, Patrick. Which brings me to – our school was really quite traditional in lots of ways, being a Catholic coed college, with all the gender bias that goes with that. And I remember going back to Economics, and I remember being one of the few girls in Chemistry and Economics, because it was always the boys who were going to be the accountants, and the girls were going to be teachers or nurses. And in fact I did go on to be a nurse, but I was very happy to do that. So to me in our school, there was a real gender bias. And you address this in your fantastic book, The Ricker Racker Club. Can you tell us more about this great book please? Patrick: The Ricker Racker Club is based on a real club, invented by real people: my two boys, Noah and Reuben. So Noah and Reuben were roughly 4 and 3 at the time when the Ricker Racker Club was formed. And there was one hard and fast rule: No Girls. (Laughter) There were a few other rules: do something incredibly brave, do something incredibly kind, but the real rock-solid rule was No Girls. And then what happened… Elizabeth: I’m sure that’s changed now. Patrick: …They had themselves a sister, little Gracie. Gracie was born, and really the story of The Ricker Racker Club is what happened next after Gracie. Now Gracie is perfectly named. She is pure grace, she is pure joy. She does have an intellectual disability, and her capacity for joy is extraordinary. And she would – as happens in the book – walk up to the wolf next door and give the wolf a big hug. Her courage, her kindness, her unique joy, won the boys over very quickly. They won us all over, and the story sprung from there. Really, it’s a celebration of the joys of being a kid, and the innocence of these rules. They’re not coming from a nasty place, these rules – just boys being boys. But then, just the power of kindness, if there’s one thing that runs through all my books, it’s the power of kindness… Elizabeth: Yes, definitely. Patrick: …to change hearts. So that’s how that happened. And really The Ricker Racker Club is about a father saying to his two sons, “Be good to your sister.” Elizabeth: And you do it so well, Patrick. Patrick: And so it’s done really well. Elizabeth: When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Patrick: From the moment I could write. So I started very young. I do remember a series, ‘Powerful Patrick’. And I must have been about 5 or 6. I was doing the pictures back then and I was stapling them together, making these little books. And I’m sure Mum and Dad delighted in them. But I’m not sure anyone else did. Elizabeth: Have you still got them? Patrick: I haven’t been able to find them. Elizabeth: Oh no. Patrick: I hope I can find them one day. Mum was always a little bit of a hoarder, so it’ll be somewhere in the house. They’re still in the same place I grew up in, so they’ll be somewhere in that house. So I’ve been a natural storyteller my whole life. The vehicle for that telling a story was just verbal stories and emails and love letters to Lisa my wife … I’ve always found a way to put things on paper. But certainly through the barren accounting years, then really trying to work out where my lane was that had been lying dormant, and then the birth of Noah – my first son, Noah – came a flood of stories and the desire to get these things down on paper. The rest is history. Elizabeth: What was it particularly about that event - the birth of Noah – that opened the floodgates, so to speak? Patrick: Well the birth itself…even before the birth I was starting to work on a book. But it’s, I think it’s just this natural, just as we have a desire to breathe, have food and water, a desire to be heard and understood, and then as a parent, it’s just this innate desire to share stories and to bond through stories. Elizabeth: Legacy. Patrick: Legacy. What my dad did was the same with me. My grandfather – I vividly remember my grandfather declaring over me that “You’re going to be an author one day.” Elizabeth: Oh wow. Did he write? Patrick: My grandfather, no. It was more my grandmother – she was a gifted storyteller. She kissed the Blarney Stone a few times, Ma, and... So it’s flowed through, that Blarney Stone – the kissing of the Blarney Stone gift has been passed through, through Grandmother to my dad. Elizabeth: We have a similar heritage then. Patrick There you go. And I can see it in my kids as well. Noah and Reuben, they love telling stories and they love hearing stories. So it’s been passed on for sure. Elizabeth: That’s fantastic. Can you advise all the aspiring writers out there how to get started, and more importantly, how to keep going? Patrick: How to get started… I can only speak, maybe quote Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” So I can only speak from the authority of my own experience. I don’t have a technique or a tactic or a ritual that I go through. I pray. I pray, and one thing that I’ll say to people when asked this question – again I don’t want to get too preachy here – but if you want to get creative, it helps to get in touch with your Creator. That’s all I can say. That might be a bit controversial but for some ears, but that’s what works for me. I don’t get on my knees and say “God, give me another book!” Elizabeth: “Give me a bestseller or a …” Patrick: “Give me a bestseller!” What I actually do is I surrender my agenda. Elizabeth: So ego is left aside. Patrick: Ego is left aside, and any preconceived ideas are left aside. So I’m not sitting there going “Give me inspiration”. I’m giving myself out, and saying “Take away”. Elizabeth: Use me, as a conduit. Patrick: “Use me”, and if that’s to be the best barista in Mornington, or go back to my cobbling beginnings, or elephant-washing beginnings, so be it. So most of – no, really all of – my flashes of inspiration you could say… There’s that great poem by Rumi, Listening, where he says, “When that voice speaks, may I sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears.” So when I’m hearing that voice, that is always followed by a period of prayerfulness or meditation which just opens up that creativity. Sounds easy. I know when I hear that voice, and I sell my tongue, I know that there’s a double emotion. Joy, and dread. Because I know that I’m in for some hard work. Elizabeth: ‘Cause writing can be hard work, can’t it. And the discipline that’s required – and you know you may not particularly feel like writing that day – but you have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Patrick: Yes, so back to the question, which was “How do we keep going?” How do we start? For me, I don’t really start until I’ve heard the voice, I’ve heard that voice, I’ve heard that spark of inspiration. How do I keep going? I know that I won’t have peace until it’s done. So I’m listening to that voice but I also know that it’s a collaboration after that. So I’m seeking opportunities to get it on paper or get it onto the computer. And they are taken in the busyness of my life with 3 young kids and a fulltime job as a physio. I have to be creative just to find that time. So often it’s my wonderful patients – patient patients – lying on the physio plinth – and I’ll just seek an opportunity to say, “Now that you’ve got all those needles all over you, there’s no way to run out of here. Would you mind listening to my latest? What do you think of it?” Elizabeth: Do they come back for another appointment after that, Patrick? Patrick: Normally they do. I don’t think I’ve managed to scare anyone off yet. Elizabeth: I might need to book for a session. Do I have to have a needle? Patrick: Not always, but it does – has that influence on my clinical judgment. Might be, if I’m honest. But I call it ‘bibliotherapy’. That works well, so I’m looking for opportunity. Sometimes I’ll pull the car over and send myself a text message for a sentence. Or middle of the night, off to the computer, or scribbling in bed on a bit of paper. I don’t have a routine about how to get these things down. Elizabeth: 2 a.m. is a common time for me to receive a sentence too. Patrick: In the shower can be a good place – you can scratch it into the wall, into the mist, write it down, whatever it is. But I’m in the posture of seeking the opportunity to find that time to write that down once I’ve heard that voice. Elizabeth: Can we talk about your work – who you work with, the wonderful men and women that you care for? Can we talk about that? Patrick: Yes, so 2 days a week, I work at the medical centre at Victoria Barracks, which is a service based in Melbourne. They are wonderful, so when I first started working for the military, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about war and the work of the military. Elizabeth: In what way? Patrick: I’d been a bit of a hippie, a bit of a peace lover, a bit biased against the war machine, or whether it’s a valuable service that the Army and Navy and Air Force offer. And then you get to meet these people and hear their stories. Elizabeth: Amazing. Patrick: Amazing, the sacrifice made. I see the plague of PTSD is becoming more public or known as an extension of the epidemic of general mental health problems in the world. As a physio you get a front row seat really, and you get the rare – it’s a real privilege to offer probably two of the greatest needs of the human being: to be heard and understood, and to be touched. Elizabeth: Yes. Beautiful. Patrick: To be touched. There aren’t many mainstream medical professionals that offer both. So as a physio you’re in a really good place and space to offer that service and in that way to gather stories. So in that way it does feed into the other half of my career, which is becoming more than half really, the writing side of things, and the gathering of stories from the confessional plinth is part of that, and the sharing of stories is part of that. Elizabeth: They’re exceptionally lucky to have you. Patrick: Goes both ways. Elizabeth: You’ve had wonderful success with your book sales. What does success mean to you? Patrick: About three bucks fifty? (Laughter) So I remember when my amazing editor and publisher Margrete Lamond sat me down – we met face to face for the first time – she’s based in New South Wales – one of her first pieces of advice was “Don’t give up your day job!” Elizabeth: I’ve had the same advice before. Patrick: So in terms of success it’s been humbling and mind-blowing to think that That’s What Wings Are For – my first book – has cracked the magical 10,000 books sold in Australia within 6 months. Elizabeth: Wow. Congratulations. That’s wonderful. Patrick: So now we’re into our second year of sales. I’m not sure where we’re up to now, but has been picked up internationally and translated internationally to Chinese and Korean and several other languages. What does it mean to me? It means that – it gives me a voice, a chance to talk to your lovely self, and to visit schools. I love that side of being a writer. Most writers are more comfortable in a darkened room tapping away. To my surprise, I was a very reluctant public speaker but I absolutely love going out to the schools. On Wednesday, I had a full school assembly, hundreds of kids there, and the audience and ability to speak and share… Elizabeth: ‘Cause you make that fun, don’t you. We’re just going back to The Ricker Racker Club for a moment, and can we know how you make that fun for the kids? ‘Cause the parents listening there would be really interested – we know we’re there to do hard work but school can be fun as well. So how do you make it fun for them, Patrick? Patrick: Well, The Ricker Racker Club – I invite everyone to join this very exclusive club, The Ricker Racker Club, IF they pass the test. So I read the story, but along the way we pause and issue challenges to the members of the audience to come up on behalf of the whole school, see if they can pass this test. So we follow the story. And one of the characters is Max, and in the first week he sticks his head into the fox’s hole. So I make up a little fox’s hole, and find a willing kid to stick his head into this fox’s hole. The whole school are counting 20 seconds and I bring out this little stuffed fox. So the poor kid doesn’t know I’m tiptoeing up behind him and “Raaaahhh!” Elizabeth: (Laughter) Do you get a lot of screams? Patrick: We get a few of those, and then the villain of the book is this wolf next door, which is based on a great German Shepherd that lived next door to me, and I have the scar to prove, the moment the basketball flew over the fence. I rescued the basketball – and Chance (the dog’s name was Chance) – got me. And so the wolf next door – it would normally have a wolf suit – and it’s normally the PE teacher who dresses up as a wolf. Elizabeth: Would you go to our school? They’d love you. Patrick: I’d love to. Elizabeth: Ours is a service school, so you’ll like it. Ours is a service school, so we have a lot of service families that go to... Nice connection for you. Patrick: I’d love to come out. Absolutely. So the kids build up and up and at the end, “Who wants to join this club?” “Yeah!” “Who wants to learn the secret password?” “Yeah!” So I force it down a little and say, “Unfortunately you haven’t done quite enough yet.” Elizabeth: (Laughter) Oh my, the kids will go “Oh what?” Patrick: So it’s a case of “Do not put up your hand, do not raise your hand, unless you are extremely brave.” All the hands go up. “I mean it, I’m warning you now – extremely brave.” Elizabeth: What age group are we looking at, with the hands going up? Patrick: Prep, all the way to 6. Elizabeth: The whole school, wow. Patrick: At this point, some of the Grade 6s I can tell – folded their arms; it’s a bit babyish for them. So picture it: I do target them a bit at this point. So I’ll normally look for the guy who’s lost interest – the kid can be too cool for school here. And I’ll grab this fellow and bring him up. “So on behalf of the school, let’s talk about Courage. Courage comes in many forms. You’ve already demonstrated Courage by standing up in front of the whole school. But Courage comes in many forms. The courage to make a mistake when you know it’s going to get you in trouble. You’re scared of something. And then there’s taste buds. So we go back to Week 3, if you were listening, what did Zack do in Week 3?” And he’ll say “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.” Again in a loud voice, “What did Zack do in Week 3?” And you get the book out again: Zack drank a tomato sauce milkshake. At this point I’m standing behind him with milk, and then I bring out the tomato sauce. And what’s he do now? At this point he’s shaking his head ‘no’. And the school have already started the chant without encouragement: “Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!” So I make this milkshake, this foaming tomato sauce milkshake… Elizabeth: Oh no. Patrick: And I pause again and say “Unfortunately my friend, Zack did that for one person. You’re doing it for 700 people right now. That’s not enough. So I look around – I shop for the largest Brussel sprout I can find. And I bring out this Brussel sprout, drop it into the tomato sauce milkshake, and present it to this fellow. Elizabeth: Poor kid. Patrick: The poor kid. Originally, I used this – it occurred to me that this is peer group pressure of the highest order. So I now use this as an opportunity for this poor unfortunate kid to – they’re saying no at this point – I really esteem that courage. I say “Look, you have done something extraordinarily brave. Everyone here at some point is going to face a baying crowd of people saying ‘Drink! Drink!’ or whatever. Elizabeth: That’s so clever, Patrick. Patrick: And to say no in the face of that, is true Courage. So I give him a round of applause and he sits down. “Now who wants to be a legend?” (Laughter) So someone else comes up. Or I’ll turn it into the “What would the kind person do now?” Or even better. “Maybe there’s a teacher in the audience…” Elizabeth: So what I’ll do is I’ll leave it there, because if the school listens to that one they won’t book you. I will leave them in suspense. When I first read That’s What Wings Are For, I was sitting in a coffee shop, with tears rolling down my cheeks. The other patrons respectfully averted their eyes. And you know you’ve found a great book when so much emotion is ... Can you please tell us about your inspiration for That’s What Wings Are For? Patrick: So That’s What Wings Are For … Maybe I can mention one of my favourite poems of all time, which is The Hound of Heaven. The Hound of Heaven, for those who don’t know, written more than a hundred years ago by a homeless opium addict in London, Francis Thompson. So he was asking the big question: how could a loving God allow such suffering in the world, and particularly in his own life? And the penny starts to drop about halfway through. He says maybe, just maybe, You allow us in Your love to burn and burn until we become charcoal, and You pick us up and You create Your masterpiece. So That’s What Wings Are For – I’m not calling it a masterpiece – it certainly came from a burning charcoal in process. And that process was the great sadness in my life. My son Noah has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is a devastating condition that involves the wasting of muscles. And the heart’s a muscle, and it’s a devastating disease. So in light of that I was asked to write a book about a certain blue dragon Bluey, who is the mascot for all the families affected by this devastating disease. So I was working on another book at the time, and I was asked to write this book. And I jumped at the chance, but I also knew there was a heavy responsibility writing that. So really you can look globally at that and look at the whole community impacted by that, but really it was a love letter from a father to a son. Elizabeth: Beautiful. Patrick: And that’s how it was written, and that is something I do say when I go out to the schools. You’ve heard Ricker Racker – it’s quite a boisterous, joyous occasion. When I go out to talk about That’s What Wings Are For, I basically start off in a fun way, and then I bring it back sharply and I say, I bring out Bluey, the actual mascot, a blue plush teddy, and I say “I actually met Bluey on the worst day of my life.” And to have a school go from being quite boisterous, and the teachers go “Shh! Shh! Shh!” to your pin drop in one sentence… Elizabeth: Wow, that’s powerful. Patrick: They get it. They get it. From the preppies all the way up to the Grade 6s, they get it, and there’s a real reverence suddenly about the book and why it was written. And then I explain what’s happened from there and we go from there. I still struggle to read it without crying, but they are tears of – what will I say - I heard this line yesterday – “what we sow with tears, we reap with shouts of joy”. And there’s something joyous – it’s bigger than me, this thing. It’s bigger than me. Elizabeth: What you’ve created is magnificent. Patrick: Thank you. Elizabeth: You’re welcome. You mentioned in an interview that 80% of That’s What Wings Are For was written over breakfast with your family, and then one sentence that brought tears to your eyes took you 3 months to write. Can you please share that sentence with my listeners and what it was that finally led you to discover the sentence that made you cry? Patrick: What it was was my incredible ego. I just – it went to my head. The idea of being a published author and all this went absolutely to my head. Elizabeth: Well you are only human after all. (Laughter) Patrick: Well, I’m sitting back there, I’m imagining red carpets, imagining walking up the stairs. It was shocking! And here I am, I’ve written a book for my sick kid, and my ego’s having a field day. At this point I hadn’t even had the manuscript finished… Elizabeth: You were strutting around… Patrick: It was appalling. I’m embarrassed about it, at the way I was carrying on in my head anyway. So we needed – Bluey needed a reason to be doing what he did ultimately, which is find a reason for his wings. And I was trying all these sentences about sending him off to Margrete, and very gently and respectfully she would be saying “That is rubbish.” (Laughter) Elizabeth: Thanks Margrete. She just knew there was more to you – she knows how deep you are. Patrick: She knew how to push the buttons and what’s right. And equally my wife Lisa as well. And more so my wife Lisa, she has a great ability to tell me when I’m writing something that’s rubbish - and good as well. Elizabeth: Good. Patrick: So the to-ing and fro-ing went on for months. And then I had this moment of “You complete goose! What are you doing?” And certainly at that moment I decided that every cent from this book would be given to charity, which it always should have been anyway, and I made that decision, and entered some prayer and reflection, and within really minutes of making that decision – within minutes – I was given this sentence. And I have to set the context of that time. And at the time we had a crudely termed … we called it a ‘year of adventure’ – you could call it a bucket list, and we were doing all sorts of things around the world. So the sentence – Bluey was coming back from the Royal Children’s Hospital. It was broadened to be a magical building filled with magical creatures with all sorts of ailments. So at that moment when Bluey looks out, and when I’m reading the story to the school, I’ll have people close their eyes and put their hands on their hearts, and feel. Elizabeth: Which I’m going to do now. Patrick: And if you keep feeling, you’ll feel something. You may not feel it straightaway, but if you keep trying, you’ll get there. You’ll feel something warm and fuzzy. And that feeling has a name; it has lots of names. Kindness, and hope, and love, and what happens – and at this moment, Bluey looks across, and I share this sentence: “Bluey saw the boy’s soft, floppy legs, and at that moment, something happened in Bluey’s heart. He stopped for that moment thinking so much about his own situation, and he looked inward. He looked out, and saw this boy sharing a similar path. That word ‘empathy’. That changed everything for Bluey; it helped him work out what his wings were for.” So we go on from there. Elizabeth: Beautiful. That compassion for another person. The author-illustrator relationship is such a pivotal one. Can you describe what is important to you in such a relationship? Patrick: Respect, and trust, and space. So ‘let there be space in your togetherness’. Certainly for the first two books – the first one, Daniella Germain, extraordinary talent. And then the same with Nathanial Eckstrom, rising superstar of the illustration world. So first book, I had no contact at all with Daniella until after all the illustrations were done. Had no input into the illustrations at all. So in terms of relationship, it’s one of trust. Slightly different with the second book – some feedback. Poor Nathanial, I saw his amazing illustrations, but – and it was amazing that he managed to draw my 3 kids without having seen a photo of them, quite accurately – except for Gracie wears glasses. And I just politely asked whether he might pop glasses on Poppy (Gracie is named Poppy in the book). So he went back and put glasses on. Then I had a look at that and thought, “No. Makes her look too old now. Can you take the glasses off?” So that was a bit of a diva moment for me, I suppose. But other than that it really is letting go and not being too precious and trusting in the selection of the illustrator – that’s up to the publisher – and I trust Margrete to make that decision, and she hasn’t failed me yet. I know how she is with me with the words, and she’s that way again with the illustrator. Elizabeth: What a wonderful person to find! Patrick: She is great, she’s fantastic. Elizabeth: What are you working on at the moment? Patrick: Well, the undercurrent to all the picture books that have been picked up in the last couple of years has been a novel for children called The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle, and I’ve been working on the story for more than 10 years. And it comes and goes, and then another idea overrides that. But I keep coming back to The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle. That is lying dormant again, but I know I will go back to that, so there’s always that in the background. That story is the story of an old man who loves to tell stories. And he has this great secret. Great secret, that he's burning with this secret, to share it with his grandson Arthur. Long story short, he gets invited to the World Storytelling Competition in Marrakesh, Morocco, up against the greats of storytelling. Professor Chinwag from China, Lord Blabbermouth from England. I won’t give too much away, but he makes it to the final and he tells this great secret, but the secret is revealed slowly as the story goes along. Elizabeth: Suspense right through… Patrick: Right through. It has been a lot of hard work, also joy, and I have a sense that one day it will happen. I’ve also recently finished another picture book manuscript that is very, very dear to my heart, called Tiny Dancer. Elizabeth: The Elton John song. Patrick: The Elton John song, so hopefully Sir Elton will approve, and that’s really dear to my heart, and I’m in an acquisitions meeting on that one. And we’re in the process of illustrating and that process does involve some word changes. My next release which will be next year, I thought that was going to be a book called The Second Sky. It sounds like – based on this week’s emails – it sounds like it will be called Rabby the Brave. Elizabeth: You’re just prolific – you’re pounding on aren’t you, one after the other. Patrick: Look, it’s been a blessed couple of years. There’s been a very rich vein of inspiration and creativity that’s happening at the moment. Really grateful. Elizabeth: We’re very, very pleased too, I must say. Can’t wait to read them. What do you like to do in your spare time to unwind from all this work you’re doing – the physio work with the military, your family, and all this wonderful writing you’re doing? What do you do to unwind? Patrick: I’m clinging to my childhood in terms of chasing a bouncy ball around. I still play basketball. There’s a competition going on in Victoria Barracks actually, so at the ripe old age of 45, I’m taking on the burly soldiers, I’m taking on the burly soldiers in this basketball competition. Elizabeth: Well you have to keep up on being brave. (Laughter) Patrick: I love it. I must say I’m shamelessly, every goal I score – there aren’t many of them – I’m celebrating them like they could be my last. So there’s the fist pump and the whooping after every goal I score. And would you believe I’m still sort of – don’t let Lisa know but I’m still playing football. Full contact. There’s a wonderful competition – Reclink, midweek, battlers’ competition. You may have heard of the Choir of Hard Knocks – Reclink was spawned from it and there’s a football league for battlers, whether it be homeless refugees or people battling addiction. So we’ve set up a team in Frankston, and I’ve been the … Elizabeth: You are brave. (Laughter) Patrick: Madness, absolute madness. And so I’ve been the physio, the chaplain, the halfback flank and the water boy, whatever goes on, whatever’s needed for that team. And there’s just something primal about playing Australian Rules football that I just can’t let go of. And if I ever get the chance, I’ll go out surfing as well. Elizabeth: Isn’t it great to tap into that raw energy and just let yourself go? Patrick: It is. With surfing, it’s one of the few pastimes or sports where you spend 95% of the time staring at the horizon. So you get a chance to unwind – then it goes from the serenity to scrambling for your life. It’s great. Elizabeth: It’s a bit of a metaphor, isn’t it? Patrick: It’s great. Yes, so those are the 3 main things. Elizabeth: Do you want to remain in the children’s book genre? Patrick: Absolutely. Maybe one day a book for grownups, but certainly at the moment I’m loving – when you write a picture book, you are writing for grownups – you’re writing for two generations. Elizabeth: It’s that connection, I think, with parent-child. It’s so special. And you both learn so much when you’re reading together. Patrick: Absolutely. And I’ve been trying to make the transition from picture books into early readers, and I’ve found that quite hard. I might have to leapfrog that and go into older early readers. Because to go from a picture book to an early reader is – you got to dumb it down. You really have to dumb it down. That’s a crude way of saying it, but you do. There are certain concepts you have to avoid, and using poetry or metaphors is a bit more tricky. So maybe that’s not for me, that niche. So certainly The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle is for an older reader, an older young reader. And then the picture books as well. I might stick to those, to genres within the broader children’s book genre for now. We’ll see what happens after. Elizabeth: You’re so insightful. Because you haven’t actually studied Creative Writing or completed a formal uni degree in writing, and yet your knowledge is so vast. Is you’re your intuition at play again, do you think? Patrick: Not sure. I think it’s a blessing. Don’t want to use the word ‘gift’, but I think it’s nothing to be proud of if it’s a gift. Elizabeth: I really have to disagree, because so many people are given, receive gifts, it’s then what you do with that gift. And so many people do not do anything with what they’ve been blessed with. I do think you can claim that proudly and whoop, like on a footy field. (Laughter) Patrick: Maybe. I do love whooping when there’s a sense of victory, a sense of accomplishment – once you finish that manuscript, submit to send, and you know it’s off, and have such a beautiful relationship with Margrete. I should mention Alyson O’Brien, who is also with Little Hare – I’m increasingly involved with her. I know that they will read it and give it the full attention and get back to me quite quickly, so that agonizing wait has been reduced to, in some cases, a few hours now, which is great. Elizabeth: It’s cause you’re so clever, and they know it. Do you have a website or blog, Patrick, that my listeners can go to find out more about your wonderful work? Patrick: Yes, there’s a shiny new website, “Patrick Guest dot com dot au”. I know nothing about the technical side of websites, and a great friend of mine, Jeffrey County, has helped set that up, and it’s sparkling. Elizabeth: Aren’t tech people great? I’m not one of those. Patrick: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There’s no way I could do that. So that’s up and running now, so there’s opportunity to email me and contact me through that. Happy to do that. Elizabeth: Patrick, this is a signature question that I ask all my guests. What do you wish for, for the world, and most importantly, for yourself? Patrick: That’s a big one. Look, the first thing that springs to mind is a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Elizabeth: I’m with you. Patrick: That would be the first thing. But if I thought more about it, more broadly… Maybe I could go back to Ernie Pigwinkle, The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle. So I’ll give away a little bit, so we get to the end of the story. We’re at the World Storytelling Championships, so Ernie, this old man from Ballarat, has made the final and won, thanks to his grandson. So the secret starts off as “Do you know why dogs wag their tails?” We move on from there to “Why dogs and cats fight – the origins of war”. Then he finishes with a little song, a little poem he says to the world: It’s a war that’s continued to this very day. It’s a shame that Dog and Cat couldn’t think of a way To listen and learn and be understood, And love one another as all of us could. You don’t have to carry on like a dog or a cat. You’re not a baboon or as blind as a bat. There’s a heart in your chest and a brain in your head. So before you lose faith, hold on instead. Hold on to your faith in the goodness of others. Never give up on your sisters and brothers. You’ll see for yourself, as sure as the sun, That there’s something worth loving in everyone. He says that. Elizabeth: I need a box of tissues. [Laughter] Oh Patrick, my goodness, that’s so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Patrick: That’s the world premiere of The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle and… Elizabeth: What a coup on Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris. Wow, Patrick! Superb. Patrick Guest, thank you so much for joining me on “Writers Tete-a-Tete with Elizabeth Harris”. We look forward to more of your stunning work. I totally agree with you: hugging is what wings are for. Thanks for tuning in everyone, and may your wishes come true. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

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Episode 1: Interview with Rosalie Ham