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In this lively episode of The Q Now podcast, hosts Mark Bland and Jason Kull deliver a mix of politics, pop culture, and personal stories from KYRO's Gateway Fiber Studios. Broadcasting with a simulcast in "Broken England," the duo reflects on their decade-long journey, announcing a hiatus from KYRO to join Occupy Democrats for a new show airing three days a week on YouTube. They express gratitude to KYRO's owners, John Shepherd and Lee Thompson, for the platform that opened new doors, while inviting listeners to follow their upcoming venture. Joined by guest magician Keegan Emmert, the episode is packed with humor and candid moments. Emmert wows with a fork-bending trick, signed by the hosts, and a mind-bending experiment highlighting their connection. The hosts praise his talent, hinting at future collaborations. Politically, they critique the current administration's “clumsy and unnecessary” policies, like tariffs, and express frustration with media dynamics and leadership, urging listeners to stay engaged. Mark and Jason share stories of overcoming career challenges in St. Louis, emphasizing resilience and authentic relationships. They touch on cultural references, from Bobcat Goldthwait to OnlyFans controversies, keeping the vibe unscripted and relatable. The episode wraps with a call to check out Emmert's Lock and Key Magic and a promise to keep delivering thought-provoking content. Don't miss this heartfelt farewell to KYRO and a bold step into The Q Now's next chapter—stream it on theqnow.com and join the conversation!

Hosts Mark Bland and Jason Kull deliver a fiery episode of The Q Now on KYRO News Radio, airing April 24, 2025, from Gateway Fiber Studios. Shortened to one hour due to a Blues playoff game, the show blends sharp political critique with pop culture banter, focusing on Trump's foreign policy and administration chaos.   The episode opens with a Moscow Times report alleging Trump's involvement in a planned Moscow Trump Tower, explaining his pro-Russia stance amid stalled Ukraine-Russia peace talks. Bland and Cole criticize Trump for prioritizing personal gain over U.S. interests, noting Ukraine's rejection of U.S. proposals to cede territory and its shift to NATO allies. They highlight Trump's ineffective Truth Social pleas to Putin and dismiss his real estate focus as irrelevant to domestic issues like infrastructure.   The hosts then address dysfunction in Trump's circle, citing a near-physical clash between Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over IRS leadership, devolving into accusations of being a “Soros agent.” They debunk Trump's claims of low grocery prices, using Grok to confirm egg prices nearly doubled from $3.37 to $6.23 per dozen since April 2024. Bland calls Trump's team “whiny” and urges Republicans to offer substantive solutions. For levity, the hosts discuss BuzzFeed's gross behind-the-scenes facts from films like The Paperboy (Nicole Kidman urinating on Zac Efron) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (unwashed costumes in 100-degree heat). They tangent into It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia debates, maintaining their irreverent charm.   Closing with thanks to listeners and Gateway Fiber, Bland and Kull vow to “make everyone proud.” The episode appeals to politically engaged moderates, blending outrage at Trump's leadership with humor, reflecting the polarized climate of 2025.  

Jenny Lee, vice president for Arizona International, dean of international education, and professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona, leads the conversation on U.S. international academic collaboration and how U.S.-China tensions are affecting higher education. FASKIANOS: Welcome to CFR's Higher Education Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Jenny Lee with us to discuss U.S. international academic collaboration. Dr. Lee is vice president for Arizona International, dean of international education, and professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona. She is also a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Lee formerly served as a senior fellow of NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, as chair for the Council of International Higher Education, and as a board member for the Association for the Study of Higher Education. And she has also served as a U.S. Fulbright scholar to South Africa, as a distinguished global professor at Korea University, and as an international visiting scholar at the City University of London, the University of Pretoria, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. So, Dr. Lee, thank you very much for being with us for today's topic. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of current trends in U.S. international academic collaboration, especially looking at what's happening with our relations with China. LEE: Sounds great. Well, thank you for the opportunity, Irina. It's a pleasure to be here and to speak with you and all those listening right now. I'll speak for about ten or so minutes, and then open it up and engage with the audience. Hopefully, you all have some good questions that will come up during my remarks. So, clearly, we're entering a very interesting and somewhat uncertain chapter in how we understand the role of higher education globally. So I will begin with some general observation so all our viewers are on the same page. Now, first and foremost, the U.S. is mostly at the top when it comes to the higher education sector. Most of us already know that the United States houses the most highly ranked institutions. And this allows the country to be the largest host of international students and scholars from around the world. According to the latest IIE Open Doors report published a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. attracted over a million students from all over the world. And we're almost back to pre-pandemic levels. We also host over 90,000 scholars. And the primary purpose for them being here is research, for about two-thirds to 75 percent of them. These international scholars, as well as international graduate students, contribute significantly to the U.S. scientific enterprise. The U.S. is also among the leading countries in scientific output and impact, and the largest international collaborator in the world. In other words, the U.S. is highly sought because of its prestigious institutions, drawing top faculty and students from around the world. And with that comes the ability to generate cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs which further secures the U.S.' global position in academia. At the same time, of course, we've seen China's economy rise significantly as the country surpassed the United States in scientific output, and more recently in impact as measured by publication citations, and is outpacing the U.S. in the extent of R&D investment. Chinese institutions have also made noticeable jumps in various global rankings, which is a pretty big feat considering the fierce competition among the world's top universities. What we're witnessing as well are geopolitical tensions between the two countries that have impacted the higher education sector. While these two countries, the U.S. and China, are the biggest global collaborators—and they collaborate more with each other than any other country—they're also rival superpowers. As global adversaries, what we are witnessing as well is increased security concerns regarding intellectual theft and espionage. I'm going to spend some time summarizing my work for those who are not familiar to provide some further context. I and my colleagues, John Haupt and Xiaojie Li, also at the University of Arizona, have conducted numerous studies about U.S.-China scientific collaboration. And what we're observing across these studies is how the scientific pursuit of knowledge, which is fundamentally borderless, is becoming bordered in the current geopolitical environment. International collaboration, long valued as positive-sum, is being treated as zero-sum. Besides the rise of China and the accompanying political rhetoric that posed China as a so-called threat, tensions also grew among accusations, as you may recall, about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and a corresponding sharp increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. Public opinions about China were not favorable, and thus there was not a whole lot of public resistance when the FBI's China Initiative was launched in 2018. This initiative basically signaled that anyone of Chinese descent was a potential enemy of the state, including possible Chinese Communist Party spies in our own universities, even though there was no pervasive empirical or later judicial cases that proved such a damaging assumption. Nevertheless, world-renowned Chinese scientists were falsely accused of academic espionage and their careers and personal finances ruined. In my research that followed with Xiaojie Li, with support from the Committee of 100, we surveyed about 2,000 scientists in the U.S.' top research universities during the China Initiative. And we found that one in two Chinese scientists were afraid that they were being racially profiled by the FBI. We also observed that consequently scientists, especially those with Chinese descent, were less inclined to collaborate with China, less inclined to pursue federal grants, less inclined to even stay in the United States but rather to take their expertise to another country where they felt safer to pursue their research, including in China. In sum, the federal government's attempts to weed out possible Chinese spies was highly criticized as a damaging form of racial profiling affecting even U.S. citizens and, in the end, undermined the U.S.' ability to compete with China. Especially now, as we continue to observe Chinese scientists leaving the U.S. and taking their skills and talents elsewhere. With John Haupt and two academics at Tsinghua University in China, Doctors Wen Wen and Die Hu, we asked about two hundred co-collaborators in China and in the United States how were they able to overcome such geopolitical tensions and the challenges associated with COVID-19 during the pandemic? And we did learn something somewhat unexpected, and I hope valuable. Basically, we found that mutual trust between international collaborators helped overcome such perceived hurdles, including risks of being unfairly targeted. What this tells us is that a chilling effect is certainly real and remains possible, but in the end scientists have tremendous agency on what they study, where they study, and whether or not they seek funds, or where they seek funds. Regardless of the host or home country, international collaboration is important to all countries' scientific enterprise. Coauthors from different countries improve the knowledge being produced, its applicability, enlarges global audiences, and thereby increases the impact of the work. So considering the value, yet risks, where do we begin? Firstly, federal and institutional policies, of course, matter, for better or for worse. But policies do not manufacture trust. The formation of an academic tie does not suddenly occur over a cold call in the middle of a global meltdown, as often portrayed in Hollywood. Rather, this is a gradual process. And the longevity of the relationship helps strengthen that trust over time. According to our research, these collaborative relationships begin as graduate students, postdocs, visiting researchers. They occur at academic conferences and other in-person opportunities. Cutting short-term fellowships, for example, will impact the potential of a future scientific relationship, but its effects may not be felt for years. Same with denied visas and opportunities for travel. Fewer graduate students from particular countries or fields also means a different shape when it comes to global science. U.S. for instance, was not too long ago Russia's biggest foreign scientific collaborator, with the war in Ukraine, those research relationships, as well as much—with much of the Western world, have ceased. All of this, and my related empirical research, was conducted when I was a professor at my home institution. And since July, I've been serving, as Irina mentioned, as the dean and vice president of international affairs at my own institution. And I've been thinking a lot of, what does this mean for institutional practice? For those in university leadership positions, as mine, you know this is a tough challenge. Especially as domestic demand and state funding for higher education is generally declining. And at the same time, internationalization is increasingly central to senior leadership strategies. Universities are continuing vying to attract the world's students, even despite a decline of interest from China. And at the same time, research universities in particular are quite dependent on federal grants. We have our own research security offices that need to ensure our universities have good reputations and relations with our large federal funding agencies and taking every precaution to not be seen as a vulnerable site of intellectual theft. These units tend not to operate within international affairs. And I'm very well aware that in my role of trying to attract as many students from China and develop international partnerships, all of them can be suddenly erased if a Chinese University partner does not pass visual compliance or there is a sudden presidential executive order, as we experienced under the Trump administration. I'm also very well aware that of senior leaders have to choose between my educational offerings and partnerships in China versus risking a major grant from a federal agency, I will lose. We witnessed that with the shutting down of over 100 Confucius Institutes in the U.S., despite a lack of evidence of systematic espionage occurring through these centers. Public perceptions, informed or not, strongly affect the nature of our international work, as in the case of Florida. Such negative perceptions are not one country-sided, of course. A key concern for Chinese and other international students and their parents relate to safety. Gun violence, including on our own college campuses, anti-Asian hate crimes in surrounding neighborhoods, and unfavorable political environment in which studies might be interrupted as in the case of Proclamation 10043, or visa non-renewals are all contributing factors for the decline of interest from China, and uncertain future student exchange as well. In closing, when it comes to China these days no practices are guaranteed. However, I can recommend some while also keeping in mind geopolitical conditions can suddenly change for worse, or perhaps better. I mentioned earlier the value of mutual trust. At my university, we have long-standing relationships with university leaders at Chinese institutions. We've set up dual degree programs in China. Actually, about 40 percent of our international student enrollment are through such partner relationships throughout the world, in which we go to where they are. Hiring staff who speak the language and know the culture are also essential. And, like any relationship, these arrangements have developed over time. They are not built overnight. It takes intention. It takes effort. But in my experience, as trust is established the numbers have grown, and the positive impact is still being felt. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much for that. That was terrific. Let's go now to all of you for your questions, comments. You can use this to share best practices and what you're doing to your universities or institutions. Please click the raise hand icon on your screen to ask a question. On your iPad or tablet, you can click the “more” button to access the raise hand feature. And when you're called upon, please accept the unmute prompts, state your name and affiliation, followed by your question. You can also submit a written question, they've already started coming in, by the Q&A icon. And if you can also include your affiliation there, I would appreciate it, although we will try to make sure we identify you correctly. So let's see. I'm looking for—no raised hands yet, but we do have questions written. So first question from Denis Simon, who's a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Many U.S. universities have curtailed their exchanges and cooperation with China. You referenced that. Officials at these universities are worried that if they appear too friendly toward China they will lose all sorts of federal funding. Are these concerns justified? Are there any regulations or legislation that actually says federal funding can be removed assuming these universities are in compliance with the export controls, et cetera? LEE: All right. Well, thanks, Denis, for your question. I know there—when I saw the list of those who signed up, I know there are many here who can speak to this directly. So I encourage those to also raise their hands and provide input in the Q&A, maybe in the form of an A instead of a Q. But in any case, going to that question, you know, it's a tough environment. And so much in my role, but what I even experienced in my research, is about that perception, that overinterpretation. So maybe signaling that we have this exchange program might draw attention in ways that might lead to suspicions that, oh, well is this, you know, somehow creating an opportunity for us to disclose military secrets? I mean, that's where we take it. A friendly exchange or visit is oftentimes now having to be scrutinized and ensuring that there is no remote violation of export controls, even in educational delivery in a non-STEM field. And what we're seeing is that this—we have our highly sensitive fields, but that kind of scrutiny we're also seeing applied to the institution more broadly. So these seemingly benign programs about language or culture, about fields that are enhanced or help promote so-called American values, are also being watched. So I believe as an institutional leader, again, as I mentioned earlier, having to deal with the possibility of unwanted or unwarranted attention versus not having that program, I think some, as Denis has pointed out, are leaning towards being more cautious. Unfortunately, China—any work with China is considered a risk, even if there is no reason for risk, as we've witnessed under—or, observed under the China Initiative. I don't know if I've fully answered that question, but please follow up if I haven't. And I know others can probably say more to that issue. FASKIANOS: Great. I'll take the next question from Peter—I don't know how to pronounce— LEE: Peter Becskehazy. Hi, Peter. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: There you go. Thank you very much. LEE: I know Peter. FASKIANOS: All right. Good. Well, I'd love if Peter asked his question directly, if he can. Oh, good. From Pima Community College. Go ahead, Peter. Q: Hello, Jenny. Nice to see you. LEE: Hi, Peter. Q: Now my question is, the University of Arizona and other universities have had an inflow of dozens of countries, adding up to the million that you mentioned. Are other countries trying to fill in slots left vacant by Chinese students and scholars? LEE: Yeah. Great question, Peter. And I think you can also share what you've observed at Pima in terms of the patterns you've witnessed. But for us, and as we are seeing nationally, we're seeing India rise. Not at the—not at higher numbers in many institutions, compared to China, but the rate is rising. It's not so simple, though, because we also have relations in India, and trying to set up agreements, and bring students. The competition in India is intense. So even though there's a relatively so-called large market, and the U.S. has been quite successful in attracting Indian students, that is perhaps where the attention is as a more, I would say—I hate to use the word “market,”—but a stable student market. There's a lot more interest in graduate-level education globally, as we've observed. These countries that formerly didn't have capacity now do have capacity. They have online offerings. They have branch campuses, dual degrees, lots of other options. And so the niche for the U.S., whereas before we didn't really have to think about a niche, is really in graduate education. Now, of course, that's not good news for Pima, that's thinking about a community college and other kinds of educational offerings. But for us, we're thinking about India a lot. Southeast Asia, of course, has always been an important partner to us. Africa continues to be a challenge. We know that when we think about population growth, Africa is the future. There's still challenges and trying to identify places where there is capacity. But also the affordability of a U.S. education is a huge challenge. So it's a great question. And, again, I'm curious to know other places in the world people recommend. Of course, Latin America, given our location, is a key strategic partner. But again, affordability becomes an issue. And again, I'm just talking about the traditional international student who would choose to come to Arizona. Not talking about research collaboration, which is less bound by affordability issues. Irina, you're muted. FASKIANOS: How long have I been doing this? OK. (Laughs.) I'm going to take the next written question from Allison Davis-White Eyes, who is vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Fielding Graduate University: We have tried to work on collaborations with European universities and African universities, and met with much difficulty. What trends are you seeing in these regions? And what are emerging global markets beyond China? LEE: Great question, Allison. I mean, if you could leave the question in the future, so because I am visually looking at the question at the same time. FASKIANOS: Oh, great. Sorry. LEE: So, Allison, I'm not sure if you're referring to academic or research. Of course, within Europe, where the government does highly subsidized tuition, it's just becomes financially a bad deal, I suppose—(laughs)—for a student in the world who would normally get a free or highly reduced tuition to pay full price at our institution. So that kind of exchange of partnership, especially when it's about—when it's financially based, becomes almost impossible from my experience. But thinking about research collaboration, it depends on the level. So if it's an institutional agreement, you know, it's—often, these MOUs tend to just be on paper. It takes quite a bit of—it's very ceremonial. You need to get legal involved. It's a whole process to get an MOU. We really don't need these non-binding MOUs for research agreements. Some countries like it, just to display that they have an MOU with a U.S. institution. But essentially, it doesn't stop me as a professor to reach out to another professor at the University of Oslo, and say, hey, let's do a study. Which we actually are doing. So, yeah, feel free to be more specific, or if you want to raise your hand or speak on—and elaborate on that question. So, again, for educational exchange, it is difficult because we are—there's already a process within the EU that makes it very affordable and highly supported within the EU, or if you're part of that bigger program. Africa, again, my challenge from my role as an institutional leader is identifying places where there is already enough mass education up through high school where one would be able to consider, first of all, being admitted to a U.S. institution, but secondly, to be able to pay the cost. FASKIANOS: Allison, do you want to expand a little bit? Q: Oh, sorry. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: There you go. There you go. Q: Right. Dr. Lee, thank you for your response. I think it was helpful, especially regarding the subsidizing of education in Europe. We've been working on some research partnerships. And we have just—you know, really, it has just been extremely difficult with European universities. And I do think part of it has to do with the way things are subsidized in Europe. I was just wondering if there were new and different ways to do it. I do appreciate your comment about the MOUs being largely ceremonial. I agree. And would like to see something with a little more substance. And that will take some creativity and a lot of partnership and work. As for Africa, we have tried to create partnerships with South Africa. I think there's some potential there. Certainly, some excitement. We've had a few students from Nigeria, extremely bright and motivated. I just would—you know, would like to hear, maybe from some other colleagues as well on the call, if there are creative ways in working with these students as well. So, thank you. LEE: Yeah, no. And just to follow up quickly, and, again, opportunities for others to share, academic collaboration, as I mentioned during my remarks, is largely built upon mutual trust. And not to say it can't happen from top down, but really does—is most successful from bottom up. And I don't mean to refer to professors at the bottom, but meaning those that are actually engaged with that work. And so just some considerations is rather than a top-down initiative or strategy, is to identify those that are visiting scholars, already from that country, have networks within that country. What's interesting, as I learned in my current role, is how little my predecessors worked with professors in these area's studies programs, because they're oftentimes treated as a separate or having different interests in mind when actually there is a lot of overlap to identify those that are actually there. Allison, by the way, I lived in South Africa for eight years. And I know it actually takes a long time. My Fulbright started off as a one year, and I had to extend it because even getting the data while I was on the ground takes time. And I'll be honest, I think part of it was taking some time just to build trust the intentions of my work, what was I going to do with that data, how is that going to be used? Was it actually going to be ways to empower them? You know, for those who study international collaboration, know this north and south divide, and I think there are places in the world that are—maybe have some guardrails up from those—not saying this is what's happening in your institution—but someone that they don't know coming from the Global North to study someone else in the Global South. And so how do we create or initiate a collaboration that is clearly, expressly mutual at the onset? And, again, this is where trust can be operationalized lots of different ways, but that even begins with that initial message. I mean, I remember when I started my work, nobody responded to me. They're like, who are you? And I don't care who you are or what your CV says. And it takes time. You know, building that relationship, and that person introducing me to that other person. Like, you know, this is how scientific networks form. And I think, to some extent, this is also how institutional collaborative relationships also form. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to David Moore, who has a raised hand. Q: OK, thank you. I just got unmuted. FASKIANOS: Great. Q: Lee, I appreciate your comments. And I heard your reference to Florida earlier. I don't know if we have colleagues on this call from Florida, but I think they'll know what I'm about to say. I'm the dean of international education at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale. And as of tomorrow, December 1, Florida has to—all institutions in Florida, public institutions, colleges and universities, must be completely devoid of any partnerships in China. And not just China. There are seven countries of concern. And you probably can cite them, most of you would know the other six. But of the seven countries, Broward had four partnerships in China alone, none in the other countries that were active. And so we are now officially done, have to be. And I've had to notify the partners as well as our accrediting body, because these were international centers of Broward where they literally offer—we offered associate degrees, two-year degrees. And students could then transfer to an institution in the United States. Now, this didn't catch us too much by surprise because two and a half years ago our Florida legislature started in on this, really probably before that, where they isolated universities in Florida and said: You cannot do research—sensitive research, whatever, you know, engineering, computer science, et cetera—any research without notifying the state. And there's an elaborate process that had to be—you know, they had to go through to do this. But now it's not just research institutions. Now it's not just those kinds of collaborations. It is, in fact, all partnerships of any kind. We had to end our agent agreements where we were recruiting students from China that were—where the companies were based in China. And in course our programs were not research. They're just general education, two-year associate's degree, maybe some business. But we've been informed now it's completely done. And so I'm actually looking for institutions outside of Florida who might be willing to take over the role that we've had in transcripting students who later want to come to the United States. At least for the first two years in China, and then transferring to the upper division to the U.S. So I'm not sure. You're probably quite familiar with this. I don't know if you know the details of how it was worked out in practice. We were the only community college in the state that had any partnerships. So we were the ones that had to desist. So I want to—there are probably people on the call that are familiar with this, but there might be many others. And I just wanted to say that I'm looking to, you know, open that door to other institutions outside of Florida that might be willing in, yes, take a risk to go into China, but to—I've always felt that these kinds of programs were very good to build relationships, partnerships, communication. Ambassadors really. Where we feel like we were representing American education, whatever, you know, we call American values, democracy, you know, community. We thought we were doing good. But we found out we were—we were not. We were—we were doing something that went opposed to the prevailing political climate, at least in Florida. So that's my comment. I think people should know about it. And thank you for letting me speak to it a bit. Maybe someone will speak up and say they're interested in they can get in touch with me, David Moore at Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. LEE: David, thank you for sharing what you did. This is a really important example of where other states could very well head. And what's interesting, as David noted, we're talking about a community college. When we normally think about cutting ties, it's usually around the concerns about national security. Now, how this translates to a two-year degree that is solely educational based is a pretty far stretch, and yet is being impacted quite severely. So I think we should continue to follow this example—unfortunate example. And, David, yeah, your partners have reached out to my office, and I'm sure to others. But thank you for being available. Q: You're welcome. We have partners—we are also working with your Jakarta, Indonesia center there. So we have that connection. Thank you. LEE: Mmm hmm. Thanks. FASKIANOS: And if anybody wants to share contact information in the Q&A box, you can certainly do that. That would be great. There is a written question from Tutaleni Asino at Oklahoma State University: There was an article today in SEMAFOR highlighting that there are currently 350 U.S. students studying in China compared to 11,000 in 2019. Comparatively, there are 300,000 Chinese students in the United States. Is this a one-way problem, where the U.S. is not investing in international engagements as a result of being more inward looking and other countries having more options of who to collaborate with? LEE: Yeah. Tutaleni, that's—I think your question is an answer. And I think it's—I agree with your observation. So we are seeing that as there's state and public disinvestment in higher education, and including scrutiny about international higher education, we're also seeing a decline and cutting of foreign language programs in the United States. So here we are, a monolingual country whose students mostly go to Europe or other English-speaking countries to study abroad. A very limited number of international—U.S. students who pursue undergraduate degrees in a foreign country. And knowing that the future is global and international, at least in my opinion, does not set the U.S. up well to be globally competitive, even though much of its international policy is around this rhetoric of we need to compete with China. And so you raise a good point. How is this possible if U.S. citizens don't speak Chinese, or have no interest in learning about Chinese culture, or there's reduced opportunities even in our own institutions, I think is something to think about and ask more questions about. FASKIANOS: I'm going to take the next question from Zhen Zhu, chair and professor of marketing, director of faculty excellence, and director for international engagement at Suffolk University: How do you see the trend of U.S. students' interest in study abroad to China? LEE: There is actually growing interest. As many of you know, China—offering Chinese language in high schools is not as unusual as it used to be. There is growing interest as students are thinking about employability in global markets in multinational or international organizations or corporations. It would be fundamental, in fact, for someone who has any interest in international work to pick up the language if they can, and at your own institution. FASKIANOS: Great. Let's see. From—I'm going to take the next question from Jeff Riedinger: Is there a role for universities to play in knowledge diplomacy to sustain international relationships and collaborations in addressing global problems such as climate change and pandemics when national governments may be at odds with each other? LEE: Thanks, Jeff. And hi, Jeff. I'm just going to read over that question so I can kind of digest it a bit. Is there a role for institutions to play in knowledge diplomacy, such as climate change, pandemics, when national governments may be at odds with each other? Absolutely, 200 percent. It is occurring—knowledge diplomacy, science diplomacy. That one individual going on a Fulbright or coming to study here for some extended visit, having these collaborations and, ultimately, you know, science—knowledge production—I mean, there's no bounds. And when we think about the kind of research that may not occur because of these national governments are at odds when it comes to addressing climate change or other global issues, you know, the world is paying somewhat of a price when it comes to that in—when there are overarching concerns about national security. So, you know, my issue has always been with policy you overlook nuance, and with sweeping policies that overlook the disciplinary distinctions and contributions, what is lost in the pursuit of trying to stay ahead of another country in fields and areas that really have no economic or military value, right? But yet, have an important cultural value, or maybe will address something bigger, such as COVID-19. So as I mentioned, the work that I referenced earlier about U.S.-Chinese scientists coming together during COVID-19, were actually scientists who studied COVID-19 together. And again, this was not—this was fraught with risks. They were very well aware that there was a lot of scrutiny about any research about COVID-19 coming from China. There was scrutiny about, you know, where the data was held, who was analyzing it, who was funding it. And yet, these scientists took these risks in order to address how does the world deal with the pandemic. And this was based on interviews of those studies that were actually successful and published. This is where that mutual trust, as I've mentioned earlier, is so important. And without that mutual trust, these studies, I'm pretty certain, would never have been published, because it was not an easy path when it comes to that particular geopolitical climate during the pandemic. FASKIANOS: Jenny, I'm just going to ask a question. President Biden and President Xi met during APEC. Did anything come out of that meeting that could affect U.S.-China academic collaboration? LEE: Yeah. You know, this is tough. I mean, how do you analyze political statements? What do they really mean? And what is really going to change? I think what's clear is that there's an acknowledgment that we're interdependent, but we're also adversaries. Almost a love/hate codependent, in a relationship that we can't just easily separate but we do need each other. But the form that it takes, I think there's an understanding it needs to be more specific. And I don't think that has been clarified yet. I realize I missed part of Jeff's question on what can institutions do? That's such a good question. And I got more into the topic than the actual to-do. What can institutions do? Honestly—(laughs)—I'll just speak as a researcher, to back off a bit, right? To let scientists do what they want to do. Yes, we need to follow disclosures. We need to make sure there's no conflicts of interest. We need to follow all of these procedures. But what I also found during the China Initiative, there was also this chilling climate in which there's an overinterpretation that may put institutions at risk. And to my knowledge, institutions were not at risk to the extent to which their scientists, especially those of Chinese descent, felt scrutinized. FASKIANOS: Thank you. We have a raised hand from Dan Whitman. Q: OK, I think I'm unmuted. Thank you, Irina. And thanks, Professor Lee, for mentioning the Great Wall that that prevents us from dealing with even Europeans who have subsidized education or Africans who have no money. And just an anecdote, since you have welcomed anecdotes, I am an adjunct at George Washington University. But totally unrelated to that, just for free and just for fun, pro bono, nobody pays, nobody gets paid. A course that I'm giving by webinar, it's zero cost. The topic is crisis management, but it could be any topic. And in that group, which there are about eighty people who tune in twice a week, fifteen Kenyans, twenty-five Ukrainians, and forty Kazakhs. I mean, I don't know if there's ever been exchange between Kazakhstan and Kenya. Anyway, my point is things can be done. We share it for free. What motivates the students? A certificate. It's so easy to give them a certificate. And in many countries, they very highly value that, even though it's not a—there's no formality, there's no formal academic credit. But the students are very motivated. And possibly, there may be universities in the U.S. that could—that might want to give a professor a small stipendium to do an informal webinar course, which would create connections, which would be zero cost, basically, and would bridge that gap of funding that you've alluded to. Thank you. LEE: Yeah. Dan, thank you for that. And I think this leads to a kind of a spin-off comment about certificates. Absolutely. Micro-credentials or alternative forms of education, where there's maybe not a full-fledged undergraduate degree but some certificate, I think, is important niche, especially for returning adults or communities where they're not able to afford to take time off. So that flexibility, and obviously now with online education, just becomes so much more accessible and very low cost. Something else to keep in mind, though, is that, depending on the institution you're from, that will make a difference in certificates. I mean, an institution like George Washington University offering a certificate may have some symbolic or perceived value that may be higher than an institution that is lower or are not ranked at all. So this is where, unfortunately—I'm a big critic of global rankings. But unfortunately, it does play a role in how that certificate is being perceived and the attractiveness of that certificate. But absolutely, this is definitely a way to open access especially for places in the world that just cannot physically move or have the funds to support their studies. FASKIANOS: Great. There are two comments/questions in the Q&A that I wanted to give you a chance to respond to about Africa, from Tutaleni Asino and Fodei Batty. Dr. Asino talks about English is the language of instruction and governments in Africa where they're funding education to a higher degree, and thinks that there are opportunities there, but it sounds like all fifty-four countries are grouped together. And Dr. Batty talks a little bit about there are a lot of students from African countries pursuing graduate education in the United States. But South Africa is usually an exception to the higher education American norm in Africa. Most South Africans don't like to travel, especially travel to America. I thought maybe you could just clarify some—respond to those comments. LEE: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing those comments. There's a book I edited called Intra-Africa Student Mobility. And I agree with the comments. And one of the things I didn't mention that I think is important to help us understand the broader global context is that there's actually considerable international activity within the continent. And there's actually considerable intra-Africa mobility within the continent. South Africa is the most important country player in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is globally ranked—has more globally ranked institutions than any other African country. And so South Africa then becomes an important hub. And, yes, as an English-speaking, among many other languages, country, that does attract African students to go oftentimes for a similar sense of shared culture, despite sometimes different languages and customs and backgrounds. And yet, nevertheless, South Africa is an important player within the continent. Not to say that there is no international mobility occurring, but there is increased capacity within the continent that would allow students and interested students to travel within the continent. Not the same extent, of course, as Europe. But the least we're seeing that rise over time. And so it's called Intra-Africa Student Mobility. Chika Sehoole and I coedited the book. We were able to get about eight African scholars to talk about the various reasons students would choose that particular African country, and what draw them. And what was really interesting about this phenomenon is that it goes against this prevailing notion of Africa's victim of brain drain or all going to the north. That's actually not what is happening. But that there is capacity building within the continent. So in trying to answer a different question, I skirted over a lot of the things I could go further into. But hopefully that book will shed light on what's happening within that continent, at least from the perspective of eight different countries. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you for that. I'm going to go next to Jonathan Scriven at Washington Adventist University in Maryland: What are some of the strategies universities are using to make education more affordable in the United States? If that is a challenge, are schools investing more or less in setting up campuses in foreign countries as a way to reach foreign students? LEE: I'm just going to read over that question. OK, yeah. Great question, Jonathan. So what's happening in my institution and many others is a way to attract students is we're providing considerable aid, merit aid, financial aid, aid even to international students. The majority may not even be paying the full sticker price. Now this, of course, will affect the revenue that would have otherwise been generated, but nevertheless is a way to deal with the fierce competition across U.S. institutions for these top students. So how to make it affordable? There's a lot of aid going around at the undergraduate, not just the graduate, levels. And so what are institutions doing? Well, for example, at the University of Arizona for our dual degrees, it's a fraction of the cost of what it would cost to be a student at our main campus. When you have a combination of hybrid or online delivery with a campus partner maybe providing most of the gen ed's and then we would teach most of the major courses as an example, that does significantly lower the cost where that student will still get a bona fide University of Arizona degree, just like they would at main campus. So these alternative forms of delivery certainly make it more affordable, especially for those that opt to stay in their home country and receive an online education, or a flipped classroom model, or a dual degree. FASKIANOS: Great. Denis Simon, if you can—why don't you ask your question? Q: Here I am. OK. Recently, on a trip to China in September, a number of faculty have told me they're no longer wanting to send their best students abroad. They want to keep them in China. And this is all part of the rise of Chinese universities, et cetera. And so it may not be simply the souring of Sino-U.S. relations that has causal effect here, but simply the fact that China now is becoming a major, you know, educational powerhouse. And that also could change the dynamics. For example, even the BRI countries could start to send their students to China instead of sending them to the United States. Do you see anything evolving like this or—and what might be the outcome? LEE: Yeah. Spot on, David. That halo effect of a U.S. degree is not the same as it was when I was a university student. Chinese students, as well as students in the world, are much more savvy. They have access to information. They have access to rankings. They know all universities are not the same. And they know that they have some institutions that are highly ranked and may offer better quality education than the U.S. So that the image of a U.S. degree, of course, is not as universally perceived as it may have been, I don't know, pre-internet, or without the—all sorts of rankings in which institutions are rated against one another. And absolutely, Chinese institutions are very difficult to get into, fiercely competitive, producing far more scientific output than some of our leading institutions. And there's another factor when it comes to Asian culture just more broadly speaking, is that social network tie. Sociologists refer to it as social capital. When a Chinese student, a Korean student, Japanese student decides to study in the United States, they may lose that social tie that may possibly put them in a disadvantage when they decide to come back and compete for a position when they may just have that U.S. credential, but may have either lessened or no longer have that relationship that may have allowed them to get a position at the university, or in a place where that alumni network would have been especially useful. So again, I don't want to generalize, you know, in any place to the world, but there is that component that I think sometimes is missed in the literature. Maintaining that social network is pretty key, especially as jobs, of course, global, you know, unemployment—places where students are competing for positions need to have every edge possible. So that also can be part of that reason they decide to stay. FASKIANOS: Great. The next question from Michael Kulma, who's at the University of Chicago. He's following on David Moore's comments about Florida: Do you know how many other states in the U.S. are enacting or are considering such policies against partnerships with China? LEE: I do not know the answer. So if anyone wants to raise their hand and share about their own state, or put it on the answer part of the question and answer. There are related concerns about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some of that may spill over to China. Hopefully, at some point at the Council of Foreign Relations will have a discussion on Israel and Hamas conflict and how institutions are dealing with that. And so we're seeing a pretty challenging political environment that is clearly spilling over to our classrooms and to our international activities, our domestic recruitment. But I'm not answering your question, Michael. (Laughs.) I'll leave it up to someone else to answer. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. So we don't have very much time left. I thought maybe you could, given your research and expertise, could suggest resources—recommend resources for higher ed leaders and administrators to better understand how to promote collaboration. LEE: Sure. So promoting collaboration, it really—each person at a time. You know, again, MOUs may be signed, and maybe overarching presidents will come together and have an agreement, but there's no guarantee that will ever happen. I'd love to do a study on how many MOUs never actually materialized into real action. So where do we begin? International affairs SIOs out there, identify who are your area studies experts? Who are your visiting postdocs? Who are your Fulbright scholars from other parts of the world? They all represent their own network and are certainly are valuable resources to consider. What I've sometimes have heard even at my own institution is, you know, how do we bring these people to the table? Why are they not at the table to begin with, and then how do we bring them there? And this is a relatively low-cost way to go about this, right? Like, faculty engaged in service. What kind of opportunities can your university provide for faculty service that is aligned with their area of expertise, the areas of the world they represent, the networks they have? And many of—some of you already have experienced this directly. These partnerships often begin with our alumni, international—former international students who decide to go back home. So, again, there's just a lot of exciting opportunity. I love this field because it's never boring. There's always new ways to grow, expand new partners. But it really does begin with that essential element of trust. And that often begins with our own institutions and identifying those who've already started to build that network. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your being with us and for sharing your expertise and background, Dr. Lee. It's been fantastic. And to all of you, for your questions and comments, and sharing your experiences as well. You can follow Dr. Lee on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, at @JennyJ_Lee. I will send out a link to this webinar, the transcript, and the video, as well as the link to the book—your book that you mentioned, and any other resources that you want to share with the group. And I encourage you all to follow @CFR_academic on X, visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. We also—just putting in a plug for our other series, Academic Webinar series, which is designed for students. We just sent out the winter/spring lineup and we hope that you will share that with your colleagues and your students. It is a great way for them to have access to practitioner scholars and to talk with students from around the country. So if you haven't received that lineup, you can email cfracademic@CFR.org, and we will share that with you. So, again, thank you, Jenny, for being with us, and to all of you. And wishing you safe and happy holidays. And good luck closing out this semester before we get to the holidays. (Laughs.) So thank you again. (END)

Jenny Lee, vice president for Arizona International, dean of international education, and professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona, leads the conversation on U.S. international academic collaboration and how U.S.-China tensions are affecting higher education. FASKIANOS: Welcome to CFR's Higher Education Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Jenny Lee with us to discuss U.S. international academic collaboration. Dr. Lee is vice president for Arizona International, dean of international education, and professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona. She is also a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Lee formerly served as a senior fellow of NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, as chair for the Council of International Higher Education, and as a board member for the Association for the Study of Higher Education. And she has also served as a U.S. Fulbright scholar to South Africa, as a distinguished global professor at Korea University, and as an international visiting scholar at the City University of London, the University of Pretoria, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. So, Dr. Lee, thank you very much for being with us for today's topic. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of current trends in U.S. international academic collaboration, especially looking at what's happening with our relations with China. LEE: Sounds great. Well, thank you for the opportunity, Irina. It's a pleasure to be here and to speak with you and all those listening right now. I'll speak for about ten or so minutes, and then open it up and engage with the audience. Hopefully, you all have some good questions that will come up during my remarks. So, clearly, we're entering a very interesting and somewhat uncertain chapter in how we understand the role of higher education globally. So I will begin with some general observation so all our viewers are on the same page. Now, first and foremost, the U.S. is mostly at the top when it comes to the higher education sector. Most of us already know that the United States houses the most highly ranked institutions. And this allows the country to be the largest host of international students and scholars from around the world. According to the latest IIE Open Doors report published a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. attracted over a million students from all over the world. And we're almost back to pre-pandemic levels. We also host over 90,000 scholars. And the primary purpose for them being here is research, for about two-thirds to 75 percent of them. These international scholars, as well as international graduate students, contribute significantly to the U.S. scientific enterprise. The U.S. is also among the leading countries in scientific output and impact, and the largest international collaborator in the world. In other words, the U.S. is highly sought because of its prestigious institutions, drawing top faculty and students from around the world. And with that comes the ability to generate cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs which further secures the U.S.' global position in academia. At the same time, of course, we've seen China's economy rise significantly as the country surpassed the United States in scientific output, and more recently in impact as measured by publication citations, and is outpacing the U.S. in the extent of R&D investment. Chinese institutions have also made noticeable jumps in various global rankings, which is a pretty big feat considering the fierce competition among the world's top universities. What we're witnessing as well are geopolitical tensions between the two countries that have impacted the higher education sector. While these two countries, the U.S. and China, are the biggest global collaborators—and they collaborate more with each other than any other country—they're also rival superpowers. As global adversaries, what we are witnessing as well is increased security concerns regarding intellectual theft and espionage. I'm going to spend some time summarizing my work for those who are not familiar to provide some further context. I and my colleagues, John Haupt and Xiaojie Li, also at the University of Arizona, have conducted numerous studies about U.S.-China scientific collaboration. And what we're observing across these studies is how the scientific pursuit of knowledge, which is fundamentally borderless, is becoming bordered in the current geopolitical environment. International collaboration, long valued as positive-sum, is being treated as zero-sum. Besides the rise of China and the accompanying political rhetoric that posed China as a so-called threat, tensions also grew among accusations, as you may recall, about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and a corresponding sharp increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. Public opinions about China were not favorable, and thus there was not a whole lot of public resistance when the FBI's China Initiative was launched in 2018. This initiative basically signaled that anyone of Chinese descent was a potential enemy of the state, including possible Chinese Communist Party spies in our own universities, even though there was no pervasive empirical or later judicial cases that proved such a damaging assumption. Nevertheless, world-renowned Chinese scientists were falsely accused of academic espionage and their careers and personal finances ruined. In my research that followed with Xiaojie Li, with support from the Committee of 100, we surveyed about 2,000 scientists in the U.S.' top research universities during the China Initiative. And we found that one in two Chinese scientists were afraid that they were being racially profiled by the FBI. We also observed that consequently scientists, especially those with Chinese descent, were less inclined to collaborate with China, less inclined to pursue federal grants, less inclined to even stay in the United States but rather to take their expertise to another country where they felt safer to pursue their research, including in China. In sum, the federal government's attempts to weed out possible Chinese spies was highly criticized as a damaging form of racial profiling affecting even U.S. citizens and, in the end, undermined the U.S.' ability to compete with China. Especially now, as we continue to observe Chinese scientists leaving the U.S. and taking their skills and talents elsewhere. With John Haupt and two academics at Tsinghua University in China, Doctors Wen Wen and Die Hu, we asked about two hundred co-collaborators in China and in the United States how were they able to overcome such geopolitical tensions and the challenges associated with COVID-19 during the pandemic? And we did learn something somewhat unexpected, and I hope valuable. Basically, we found that mutual trust between international collaborators helped overcome such perceived hurdles, including risks of being unfairly targeted. What this tells us is that a chilling effect is certainly real and remains possible, but in the end scientists have tremendous agency on what they study, where they study, and whether or not they seek funds, or where they seek funds. Regardless of the host or home country, international collaboration is important to all countries' scientific enterprise. Coauthors from different countries improve the knowledge being produced, its applicability, enlarges global audiences, and thereby increases the impact of the work. So considering the value, yet risks, where do we begin? Firstly, federal and institutional policies, of course, matter, for better or for worse. But policies do not manufacture trust. The formation of an academic tie does not suddenly occur over a cold call in the middle of a global meltdown, as often portrayed in Hollywood. Rather, this is a gradual process. And the longevity of the relationship helps strengthen that trust over time. According to our research, these collaborative relationships begin as graduate students, postdocs, visiting researchers. They occur at academic conferences and other in-person opportunities. Cutting short-term fellowships, for example, will impact the potential of a future scientific relationship, but its effects may not be felt for years. Same with denied visas and opportunities for travel. Fewer graduate students from particular countries or fields also means a different shape when it comes to global science. U.S. for instance, was not too long ago Russia's biggest foreign scientific collaborator, with the war in Ukraine, those research relationships, as well as much—with much of the Western world, have ceased. All of this, and my related empirical research, was conducted when I was a professor at my home institution. And since July, I've been serving, as Irina mentioned, as the dean and vice president of international affairs at my own institution. And I've been thinking a lot of, what does this mean for institutional practice? For those in university leadership positions, as mine, you know this is a tough challenge. Especially as domestic demand and state funding for higher education is generally declining. And at the same time, internationalization is increasingly central to senior leadership strategies. Universities are continuing vying to attract the world's students, even despite a decline of interest from China. And at the same time, research universities in particular are quite dependent on federal grants. We have our own research security offices that need to ensure our universities have good reputations and relations with our large federal funding agencies and taking every precaution to not be seen as a vulnerable site of intellectual theft. These units tend not to operate within international affairs. And I'm very well aware that in my role of trying to attract as many students from China and develop international partnerships, all of them can be suddenly erased if a Chinese University partner does not pass visual compliance or there is a sudden presidential executive order, as we experienced under the Trump administration. I'm also very well aware that of senior leaders have to choose between my educational offerings and partnerships in China versus risking a major grant from a federal agency, I will lose. We witnessed that with the shutting down of over 100 Confucius Institutes in the U.S., despite a lack of evidence of systematic espionage occurring through these centers. Public perceptions, informed or not, strongly affect the nature of our international work, as in the case of Florida. Such negative perceptions are not one country-sided, of course. A key concern for Chinese and other international students and their parents relate to safety. Gun violence, including on our own college campuses, anti-Asian hate crimes in surrounding neighborhoods, and unfavorable political environment in which studies might be interrupted as in the case of Proclamation 10043, or visa non-renewals are all contributing factors for the decline of interest from China, and uncertain future student exchange as well. In closing, when it comes to China these days no practices are guaranteed. However, I can recommend some while also keeping in mind geopolitical conditions can suddenly change for worse, or perhaps better. I mentioned earlier the value of mutual trust. At my university, we have long-standing relationships with university leaders at Chinese institutions. We've set up dual degree programs in China. Actually, about 40 percent of our international student enrollment are through such partner relationships throughout the world, in which we go to where they are. Hiring staff who speak the language and know the culture are also essential. And, like any relationship, these arrangements have developed over time. They are not built overnight. It takes intention. It takes effort. But in my experience, as trust is established the numbers have grown, and the positive impact is still being felt. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much for that. That was terrific. Let's go now to all of you for your questions, comments. You can use this to share best practices and what you're doing to your universities or institutions. Please click the raise hand icon on your screen to ask a question. On your iPad or tablet, you can click the “more” button to access the raise hand feature. And when you're called upon, please accept the unmute prompts, state your name and affiliation, followed by your question. You can also submit a written question, they've already started coming in, by the Q&A icon. And if you can also include your affiliation there, I would appreciate it, although we will try to make sure we identify you correctly. So let's see. I'm looking for—no raised hands yet, but we do have questions written. So first question from Denis Simon, who's a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Many U.S. universities have curtailed their exchanges and cooperation with China. You referenced that. Officials at these universities are worried that if they appear too friendly toward China they will lose all sorts of federal funding. Are these concerns justified? Are there any regulations or legislation that actually says federal funding can be removed assuming these universities are in compliance with the export controls, et cetera? LEE: All right. Well, thanks, Denis, for your question. I know there—when I saw the list of those who signed up, I know there are many here who can speak to this directly. So I encourage those to also raise their hands and provide input in the Q&A, maybe in the form of an A instead of a Q. But in any case, going to that question, you know, it's a tough environment. And so much in my role, but what I even experienced in my research, is about that perception, that overinterpretation. So maybe signaling that we have this exchange program might draw attention in ways that might lead to suspicions that, oh, well is this, you know, somehow creating an opportunity for us to disclose military secrets? I mean, that's where we take it. A friendly exchange or visit is oftentimes now having to be scrutinized and ensuring that there is no remote violation of export controls, even in educational delivery in a non-STEM field. And what we're seeing is that this—we have our highly sensitive fields, but that kind of scrutiny we're also seeing applied to the institution more broadly. So these seemingly benign programs about language or culture, about fields that are enhanced or help promote so-called American values, are also being watched. So I believe as an institutional leader, again, as I mentioned earlier, having to deal with the possibility of unwanted or unwarranted attention versus not having that program, I think some, as Denis has pointed out, are leaning towards being more cautious. Unfortunately, China—any work with China is considered a risk, even if there is no reason for risk, as we've witnessed under—or, observed under the China Initiative. I don't know if I've fully answered that question, but please follow up if I haven't. And I know others can probably say more to that issue. FASKIANOS: Great. I'll take the next question from Peter—I don't know how to pronounce— LEE: Peter Becskehazy. Hi, Peter. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: There you go. Thank you very much. LEE: I know Peter. FASKIANOS: All right. Good. Well, I'd love if Peter asked his question directly, if he can. Oh, good. From Pima Community College. Go ahead, Peter. Q: Hello, Jenny. Nice to see you. LEE: Hi, Peter. Q: Now my question is, the University of Arizona and other universities have had an inflow of dozens of countries, adding up to the million that you mentioned. Are other countries trying to fill in slots left vacant by Chinese students and scholars? LEE: Yeah. Great question, Peter. And I think you can also share what you've observed at Pima in terms of the patterns you've witnessed. But for us, and as we are seeing nationally, we're seeing India rise. Not at the—not at higher numbers in many institutions, compared to China, but the rate is rising. It's not so simple, though, because we also have relations in India, and trying to set up agreements, and bring students. The competition in India is intense. So even though there's a relatively so-called large market, and the U.S. has been quite successful in attracting Indian students, that is perhaps where the attention is as a more, I would say—I hate to use the word “market,”—but a stable student market. There's a lot more interest in graduate-level education globally, as we've observed. These countries that formerly didn't have capacity now do have capacity. They have online offerings. They have branch campuses, dual degrees, lots of other options. And so the niche for the U.S., whereas before we didn't really have to think about a niche, is really in graduate education. Now, of course, that's not good news for Pima, that's thinking about a community college and other kinds of educational offerings. But for us, we're thinking about India a lot. Southeast Asia, of course, has always been an important partner to us. Africa continues to be a challenge. We know that when we think about population growth, Africa is the future. There's still challenges and trying to identify places where there is capacity. But also the affordability of a U.S. education is a huge challenge. So it's a great question. And, again, I'm curious to know other places in the world people recommend. Of course, Latin America, given our location, is a key strategic partner. But again, affordability becomes an issue. And again, I'm just talking about the traditional international student who would choose to come to Arizona. Not talking about research collaboration, which is less bound by affordability issues. Irina, you're muted. FASKIANOS: How long have I been doing this? OK. (Laughs.) I'm going to take the next written question from Allison Davis-White Eyes, who is vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Fielding Graduate University: We have tried to work on collaborations with European universities and African universities, and met with much difficulty. What trends are you seeing in these regions? And what are emerging global markets beyond China? LEE: Great question, Allison. I mean, if you could leave the question in the future, so because I am visually looking at the question at the same time. FASKIANOS: Oh, great. Sorry. LEE: So, Allison, I'm not sure if you're referring to academic or research. Of course, within Europe, where the government does highly subsidized tuition, it's just becomes financially a bad deal, I suppose—(laughs)—for a student in the world who would normally get a free or highly reduced tuition to pay full price at our institution. So that kind of exchange of partnership, especially when it's about—when it's financially based, becomes almost impossible from my experience. But thinking about research collaboration, it depends on the level. So if it's an institutional agreement, you know, it's—often, these MOUs tend to just be on paper. It takes quite a bit of—it's very ceremonial. You need to get legal involved. It's a whole process to get an MOU. We really don't need these non-binding MOUs for research agreements. Some countries like it, just to display that they have an MOU with a U.S. institution. But essentially, it doesn't stop me as a professor to reach out to another professor at the University of Oslo, and say, hey, let's do a study. Which we actually are doing. So, yeah, feel free to be more specific, or if you want to raise your hand or speak on—and elaborate on that question. So, again, for educational exchange, it is difficult because we are—there's already a process within the EU that makes it very affordable and highly supported within the EU, or if you're part of that bigger program. Africa, again, my challenge from my role as an institutional leader is identifying places where there is already enough mass education up through high school where one would be able to consider, first of all, being admitted to a U.S. institution, but secondly, to be able to pay the cost. FASKIANOS: Allison, do you want to expand a little bit? Q: Oh, sorry. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: There you go. There you go. Q: Right. Dr. Lee, thank you for your response. I think it was helpful, especially regarding the subsidizing of education in Europe. We've been working on some research partnerships. And we have just—you know, really, it has just been extremely difficult with European universities. And I do think part of it has to do with the way things are subsidized in Europe. I was just wondering if there were new and different ways to do it. I do appreciate your comment about the MOUs being largely ceremonial. I agree. And would like to see something with a little more substance. And that will take some creativity and a lot of partnership and work. As for Africa, we have tried to create partnerships with South Africa. I think there's some potential there. Certainly, some excitement. We've had a few students from Nigeria, extremely bright and motivated. I just would—you know, would like to hear, maybe from some other colleagues as well on the call, if there are creative ways in working with these students as well. So, thank you. LEE: Yeah, no. And just to follow up quickly, and, again, opportunities for others to share, academic collaboration, as I mentioned during my remarks, is largely built upon mutual trust. And not to say it can't happen from top down, but really does—is most successful from bottom up. And I don't mean to refer to professors at the bottom, but meaning those that are actually engaged with that work. And so just some considerations is rather than a top-down initiative or strategy, is to identify those that are visiting scholars, already from that country, have networks within that country. What's interesting, as I learned in my current role, is how little my predecessors worked with professors in these area's studies programs, because they're oftentimes treated as a separate or having different interests in mind when actually there is a lot of overlap to identify those that are actually there. Allison, by the way, I lived in South Africa for eight years. And I know it actually takes a long time. My Fulbright started off as a one year, and I had to extend it because even getting the data while I was on the ground takes time. And I'll be honest, I think part of it was taking some time just to build trust the intentions of my work, what was I going to do with that data, how is that going to be used? Was it actually going to be ways to empower them? You know, for those who study international collaboration, know this north and south divide, and I think there are places in the world that are—maybe have some guardrails up from those—not saying this is what's happening in your institution—but someone that they don't know coming from the Global North to study someone else in the Global South. And so how do we create or initiate a collaboration that is clearly, expressly mutual at the onset? And, again, this is where trust can be operationalized lots of different ways, but that even begins with that initial message. I mean, I remember when I started my work, nobody responded to me. They're like, who are you? And I don't care who you are or what your CV says. And it takes time. You know, building that relationship, and that person introducing me to that other person. Like, you know, this is how scientific networks form. And I think, to some extent, this is also how institutional collaborative relationships also form. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to David Moore, who has a raised hand. Q: OK, thank you. I just got unmuted. FASKIANOS: Great. Q: Lee, I appreciate your comments. And I heard your reference to Florida earlier. I don't know if we have colleagues on this call from Florida, but I think they'll know what I'm about to say. I'm the dean of international education at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale. And as of tomorrow, December 1, Florida has to—all institutions in Florida, public institutions, colleges and universities, must be completely devoid of any partnerships in China. And not just China. There are seven countries of concern. And you probably can cite them, most of you would know the other six. But of the seven countries, Broward had four partnerships in China alone, none in the other countries that were active. And so we are now officially done, have to be. And I've had to notify the partners as well as our accrediting body, because these were international centers of Broward where they literally offer—we offered associate degrees, two-year degrees. And students could then transfer to an institution in the United States. Now, this didn't catch us too much by surprise because two and a half years ago our Florida legislature started in on this, really probably before that, where they isolated universities in Florida and said: You cannot do research—sensitive research, whatever, you know, engineering, computer science, et cetera—any research without notifying the state. And there's an elaborate process that had to be—you know, they had to go through to do this. But now it's not just research institutions. Now it's not just those kinds of collaborations. It is, in fact, all partnerships of any kind. We had to end our agent agreements where we were recruiting students from China that were—where the companies were based in China. And in course our programs were not research. They're just general education, two-year associate's degree, maybe some business. But we've been informed now it's completely done. And so I'm actually looking for institutions outside of Florida who might be willing to take over the role that we've had in transcripting students who later want to come to the United States. At least for the first two years in China, and then transferring to the upper division to the U.S. So I'm not sure. You're probably quite familiar with this. I don't know if you know the details of how it was worked out in practice. We were the only community college in the state that had any partnerships. So we were the ones that had to desist. So I want to—there are probably people on the call that are familiar with this, but there might be many others. And I just wanted to say that I'm looking to, you know, open that door to other institutions outside of Florida that might be willing in, yes, take a risk to go into China, but to—I've always felt that these kinds of programs were very good to build relationships, partnerships, communication. Ambassadors really. Where we feel like we were representing American education, whatever, you know, we call American values, democracy, you know, community. We thought we were doing good. But we found out we were—we were not. We were—we were doing something that went opposed to the prevailing political climate, at least in Florida. So that's my comment. I think people should know about it. And thank you for letting me speak to it a bit. Maybe someone will speak up and say they're interested in they can get in touch with me, David Moore at Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. LEE: David, thank you for sharing what you did. This is a really important example of where other states could very well head. And what's interesting, as David noted, we're talking about a community college. When we normally think about cutting ties, it's usually around the concerns about national security. Now, how this translates to a two-year degree that is solely educational based is a pretty far stretch, and yet is being impacted quite severely. So I think we should continue to follow this example—unfortunate example. And, David, yeah, your partners have reached out to my office, and I'm sure to others. But thank you for being available. Q: You're welcome. We have partners—we are also working with your Jakarta, Indonesia center there. So we have that connection. Thank you. LEE: Mmm hmm. Thanks. FASKIANOS: And if anybody wants to share contact information in the Q&A box, you can certainly do that. That would be great. There is a written question from Tutaleni Asino at Oklahoma State University: There was an article today in SEMAFOR highlighting that there are currently 350 U.S. students studying in China compared to 11,000 in 2019. Comparatively, there are 300,000 Chinese students in the United States. Is this a one-way problem, where the U.S. is not investing in international engagements as a result of being more inward looking and other countries having more options of who to collaborate with? LEE: Yeah. Tutaleni, that's—I think your question is an answer. And I think it's—I agree with your observation. So we are seeing that as there's state and public disinvestment in higher education, and including scrutiny about international higher education, we're also seeing a decline and cutting of foreign language programs in the United States. So here we are, a monolingual country whose students mostly go to Europe or other English-speaking countries to study abroad. A very limited number of international—U.S. students who pursue undergraduate degrees in a foreign country. And knowing that the future is global and international, at least in my opinion, does not set the U.S. up well to be globally competitive, even though much of its international policy is around this rhetoric of we need to compete with China. And so you raise a good point. How is this possible if U.S. citizens don't speak Chinese, or have no interest in learning about Chinese culture, or there's reduced opportunities even in our own institutions, I think is something to think about and ask more questions about. FASKIANOS: I'm going to take the next question from Zhen Zhu, chair and professor of marketing, director of faculty excellence, and director for international engagement at Suffolk University: How do you see the trend of U.S. students' interest in study abroad to China? LEE: There is actually growing interest. As many of you know, China—offering Chinese language in high schools is not as unusual as it used to be. There is growing interest as students are thinking about employability in global markets in multinational or international organizations or corporations. It would be fundamental, in fact, for someone who has any interest in international work to pick up the language if they can, and at your own institution. FASKIANOS: Great. Let's see. From—I'm going to take the next question from Jeff Riedinger: Is there a role for universities to play in knowledge diplomacy to sustain international relationships and collaborations in addressing global problems such as climate change and pandemics when national governments may be at odds with each other? LEE: Thanks, Jeff. And hi, Jeff. I'm just going to read over that question so I can kind of digest it a bit. Is there a role for institutions to play in knowledge diplomacy, such as climate change, pandemics, when national governments may be at odds with each other? Absolutely, 200 percent. It is occurring—knowledge diplomacy, science diplomacy. That one individual going on a Fulbright or coming to study here for some extended visit, having these collaborations and, ultimately, you know, science—knowledge production—I mean, there's no bounds. And when we think about the kind of research that may not occur because of these national governments are at odds when it comes to addressing climate change or other global issues, you know, the world is paying somewhat of a price when it comes to that in—when there are overarching concerns about national security. So, you know, my issue has always been with policy you overlook nuance, and with sweeping policies that overlook the disciplinary distinctions and contributions, what is lost in the pursuit of trying to stay ahead of another country in fields and areas that really have no economic or military value, right? But yet, have an important cultural value, or maybe will address something bigger, such as COVID-19. So as I mentioned, the work that I referenced earlier about U.S.-Chinese scientists coming together during COVID-19, were actually scientists who studied COVID-19 together. And again, this was not—this was fraught with risks. They were very well aware that there was a lot of scrutiny about any research about COVID-19 coming from China. There was scrutiny about, you know, where the data was held, who was analyzing it, who was funding it. And yet, these scientists took these risks in order to address how does the world deal with the pandemic. And this was based on interviews of those studies that were actually successful and published. This is where that mutual trust, as I've mentioned earlier, is so important. And without that mutual trust, these studies, I'm pretty certain, would never have been published, because it was not an easy path when it comes to that particular geopolitical climate during the pandemic. FASKIANOS: Jenny, I'm just going to ask a question. President Biden and President Xi met during APEC. Did anything come out of that meeting that could affect U.S.-China academic collaboration? LEE: Yeah. You know, this is tough. I mean, how do you analyze political statements? What do they really mean? And what is really going to change? I think what's clear is that there's an acknowledgment that we're interdependent, but we're also adversaries. Almost a love/hate codependent, in a relationship that we can't just easily separate but we do need each other. But the form that it takes, I think there's an understanding it needs to be more specific. And I don't think that has been clarified yet. I realize I missed part of Jeff's question on what can institutions do? That's such a good question. And I got more into the topic than the actual to-do. What can institutions do? Honestly—(laughs)—I'll just speak as a researcher, to back off a bit, right? To let scientists do what they want to do. Yes, we need to follow disclosures. We need to make sure there's no conflicts of interest. We need to follow all of these procedures. But what I also found during the China Initiative, there was also this chilling climate in which there's an overinterpretation that may put institutions at risk. And to my knowledge, institutions were not at risk to the extent to which their scientists, especially those of Chinese descent, felt scrutinized. FASKIANOS: Thank you. We have a raised hand from Dan Whitman. Q: OK, I think I'm unmuted. Thank you, Irina. And thanks, Professor Lee, for mentioning the Great Wall that that prevents us from dealing with even Europeans who have subsidized education or Africans who have no money. And just an anecdote, since you have welcomed anecdotes, I am an adjunct at George Washington University. But totally unrelated to that, just for free and just for fun, pro bono, nobody pays, nobody gets paid. A course that I'm giving by webinar, it's zero cost. The topic is crisis management, but it could be any topic. And in that group, which there are about eighty people who tune in twice a week, fifteen Kenyans, twenty-five Ukrainians, and forty Kazakhs. I mean, I don't know if there's ever been exchange between Kazakhstan and Kenya. Anyway, my point is things can be done. We share it for free. What motivates the students? A certificate. It's so easy to give them a certificate. And in many countries, they very highly value that, even though it's not a—there's no formality, there's no formal academic credit. But the students are very motivated. And possibly, there may be universities in the U.S. that could—that might want to give a professor a small stipendium to do an informal webinar course, which would create connections, which would be zero cost, basically, and would bridge that gap of funding that you've alluded to. Thank you. LEE: Yeah. Dan, thank you for that. And I think this leads to a kind of a spin-off comment about certificates. Absolutely. Micro-credentials or alternative forms of education, where there's maybe not a full-fledged undergraduate degree but some certificate, I think, is important niche, especially for returning adults or communities where they're not able to afford to take time off. So that flexibility, and obviously now with online education, just becomes so much more accessible and very low cost. Something else to keep in mind, though, is that, depending on the institution you're from, that will make a difference in certificates. I mean, an institution like George Washington University offering a certificate may have some symbolic or perceived value that may be higher than an institution that is lower or are not ranked at all. So this is where, unfortunately—I'm a big critic of global rankings. But unfortunately, it does play a role in how that certificate is being perceived and the attractiveness of that certificate. But absolutely, this is definitely a way to open access especially for places in the world that just cannot physically move or have the funds to support their studies. FASKIANOS: Great. There are two comments/questions in the Q&A that I wanted to give you a chance to respond to about Africa, from Tutaleni Asino and Fodei Batty. Dr. Asino talks about English is the language of instruction and governments in Africa where they're funding education to a higher degree, and thinks that there are opportunities there, but it sounds like all fifty-four countries are grouped together. And Dr. Batty talks a little bit about there are a lot of students from African countries pursuing graduate education in the United States. But South Africa is usually an exception to the higher education American norm in Africa. Most South Africans don't like to travel, especially travel to America. I thought maybe you could just clarify some—respond to those comments. LEE: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing those comments. There's a book I edited called Intra-Africa Student Mobility. And I agree with the comments. And one of the things I didn't mention that I think is important to help us understand the broader global context is that there's actually considerable international activity within the continent. And there's actually considerable intra-Africa mobility within the continent. South Africa is the most important country player in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is globally ranked—has more globally ranked institutions than any other African country. And so South Africa then becomes an important hub. And, yes, as an English-speaking, among many other languages, country, that does attract African students to go oftentimes for a similar sense of shared culture, despite sometimes different languages and customs and backgrounds. And yet, nevertheless, South Africa is an important player within the continent. Not to say that there is no international mobility occurring, but there is increased capacity within the continent that would allow students and interested students to travel within the continent. Not the same extent, of course, as Europe. But the least we're seeing that rise over time. And so it's called Intra-Africa Student Mobility. Chika Sehoole and I coedited the book. We were able to get about eight African scholars to talk about the various reasons students would choose that particular African country, and what draw them. And what was really interesting about this phenomenon is that it goes against this prevailing notion of Africa's victim of brain drain or all going to the north. That's actually not what is happening. But that there is capacity building within the continent. So in trying to answer a different question, I skirted over a lot of the things I could go further into. But hopefully that book will shed light on what's happening within that continent, at least from the perspective of eight different countries. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you for that. I'm going to go next to Jonathan Scriven at Washington Adventist University in Maryland: What are some of the strategies universities are using to make education more affordable in the United States? If that is a challenge, are schools investing more or less in setting up campuses in foreign countries as a way to reach foreign students? LEE: I'm just going to read over that question. OK, yeah. Great question, Jonathan. So what's happening in my institution and many others is a way to attract students is we're providing considerable aid, merit aid, financial aid, aid even to international students. The majority may not even be paying the full sticker price. Now this, of course, will affect the revenue that would have otherwise been generated, but nevertheless is a way to deal with the fierce competition across U.S. institutions for these top students. So how to make it affordable? There's a lot of aid going around at the undergraduate, not just the graduate, levels. And so what are institutions doing? Well, for example, at the University of Arizona for our dual degrees, it's a fraction of the cost of what it would cost to be a student at our main campus. When you have a combination of hybrid or online delivery with a campus partner maybe providing most of the gen ed's and then we would teach most of the major courses as an example, that does significantly lower the cost where that student will still get a bona fide University of Arizona degree, just like they would at main campus. So these alternative forms of delivery certainly make it more affordable, especially for those that opt to stay in their home country and receive an online education, or a flipped classroom model, or a dual degree. FASKIANOS: Great. Denis Simon, if you can—why don't you ask your question? Q: Here I am. OK. Recently, on a trip to China in September, a number of faculty have told me they're no longer wanting to send their best students abroad. They want to keep them in China. And this is all part of the rise of Chinese universities, et cetera. And so it may not be simply the souring of Sino-U.S. relations that has causal effect here, but simply the fact that China now is becoming a major, you know, educational powerhouse. And that also could change the dynamics. For example, even the BRI countries could start to send their students to China instead of sending them to the United States. Do you see anything evolving like this or—and what might be the outcome? LEE: Yeah. Spot on, David. That halo effect of a U.S. degree is not the same as it was when I was a university student. Chinese students, as well as students in the world, are much more savvy. They have access to information. They have access to rankings. They know all universities are not the same. And they know that they have some institutions that are highly ranked and may offer better quality education than the U.S. So that the image of a U.S. degree, of course, is not as universally perceived as it may have been, I don't know, pre-internet, or without the—all sorts of rankings in which institutions are rated against one another. And absolutely, Chinese institutions are very difficult to get into, fiercely competitive, producing far more scientific output than some of our leading institutions. And there's another factor when it comes to Asian culture just more broadly speaking, is that social network tie. Sociologists refer to it as social capital. When a Chinese student, a Korean student, Japanese student decides to study in the United States, they may lose that social tie that may possibly put them in a disadvantage when they decide to come back and compete for a position when they may just have that U.S. credential, but may have either lessened or no longer have that relationship that may have allowed them to get a position at the university, or in a place where that alumni network would have been especially useful. So again, I don't want to generalize, you know, in any place to the world, but there is that component that I think sometimes is missed in the literature. Maintaining that social network is pretty key, especially as jobs, of course, global, you know, unemployment—places where students are competing for positions need to have every edge possible. So that also can be part of that reason they decide to stay. FASKIANOS: Great. The next question from Michael Kulma, who's at the University of Chicago. He's following on David Moore's comments about Florida: Do you know how many other states in the U.S. are enacting or are considering such policies against partnerships with China? LEE: I do not know the answer. So if anyone wants to raise their hand and share about their own state, or put it on the answer part of the question and answer. There are related concerns about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some of that may spill over to China. Hopefully, at some point at the Council of Foreign Relations will have a discussion on Israel and Hamas conflict and how institutions are dealing with that. And so we're seeing a pretty challenging political environment that is clearly spilling over to our classrooms and to our international activities, our domestic recruitment. But I'm not answering your question, Michael. (Laughs.) I'll leave it up to someone else to answer. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. So we don't have very much time left. I thought maybe you could, given your research and expertise, could suggest resources—recommend resources for higher ed leaders and administrators to better understand how to promote collaboration. LEE: Sure. So promoting collaboration, it really—each person at a time. You know, again, MOUs may be signed, and maybe overarching presidents will come together and have an agreement, but there's no guarantee that will ever happen. I'd love to do a study on how many MOUs never actually materialized into real action. So where do we begin? International affairs SIOs out there, identify who are your area studies experts? Who are your visiting postdocs? Who are your Fulbright scholars from other parts of the world? They all represent their own network and are certainly are valuable resources to consider. What I've sometimes have heard even at my own institution is, you know, how do we bring these people to the table? Why are they not at the table to begin with, and then how do we bring them there? And this is a relatively low-cost way to go about this, right? Like, faculty engaged in service. What kind of opportunities can your university provide for faculty service that is aligned with their area of expertise, the areas of the world they represent, the networks they have? And many of—some of you already have experienced this directly. These partnerships often begin with our alumni, international—former international students who decide to go back home. So, again, there's just a lot of exciting opportunity. I love this field because it's never boring. There's always new ways to grow, expand new partners. But it really does begin with that essential element of trust. And that often begins with our own institutions and identifying those who've already started to build that network. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your being with us and for sharing your expertise and background, Dr. Lee. It's been fantastic. And to all of you, for your questions and comments, and sharing your experiences as well. You can follow Dr. Lee on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, at @JennyJ_Lee. I will send out a link to this webinar, the transcript, and the video, as well as the link to the book—your book that you mentioned, and any other resources that you want to share with the group. And I encourage you all to follow @CFR_academic on X, visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. We also—just putting in a plug for our other series, Academic Webinar series, which is designed for students. We just sent out the winter/spring lineup and we hope that you will share that with your colleagues and your students. It is a great way for them to have access to practitioner scholars and to talk with students from around the country. So if you haven't received that lineup, you can email cfracademic@CFR.org, and we will share that with you. So, again, thank you, Jenny, for being with us, and to all of you. And wishing you safe and happy holidays. And good luck closing out this semester before we get to the holidays. (Laughs.) So thank you again. (END)

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Over the last couple Sundays I've said that Hebrews Chapter 6 contains one of the strongest, most uncomfortable warning passages in the Bible, and that's true. We saw that last week. But also, I want you to know that Hebrews Chapter 6 is more importantly about the resurrection glory of Jesus — and that's what I wanna show you this morning. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus! Thank you for his atoning death and eternal life. Thank you for all of your blessings to us in him. Speak to us now, we pray. Help us to receive your word, in Jesus's name, amen. Remembering the ContextThe first thing we should do is back up and remember the context of this passage. What we've been looking at over the last two weeks in Chapter 6 has been a digression within the writer's larger argument. There's been a detour, beginning in Chapter 5 verse 11 through here in Chapter 6 verse 20. The writer had been going one direction — he was encouraging these readers to endure in faith, to hold fast their hope, to cling to Jesus — which we can do because of Jesus's high priestly ministry. That was introduced at the end of Chapter 4, but in order to really explain how Jesus is our high priest it means the writer needs to talk about Melchizedek, but that's where he hits the brakes in 5:11 and takes a turn into the spiritual condition of these readers. Melchizedek is too hard to explain to them because they've become dull (or sluggish) in hearing. They've deliberately stayed spiritual infants. They just want to stick to the non-controversial milk-only! But the writer of Hebrews won't have it. Like a good coach, he calls them up. He calls them to become who they are, to be carried on to maturity. And one of the reasons he does this is because this perpetual spiritual infancy makes them especially vulnerable to apostasy. The writer warns about apostasy beginning in verse 4 but I want to make sure you catch the connection between falling away (in verses 4–6) and the immature Christians mentioned right before it. The reason the writer commands these Christians to leave behind the milk-only and to be carried on to maturity (verse 1) is because their deliberate immaturity — their dullness (or sluggishness) in hearing — is truly a slippery slope. If they stay in this sluggishness it means they're on the brink of abandoning Jesus.And so the writer calls them up. He says in verse 9 that he's convinced of better things for these readers. They're not going to fall away. Their faith is genuine. Their salvation is real. But now on what basis can he say that?That question is where we're at. We saw verse 9 last week. The writer is confident in the salvation of these Christians, but where is that confidence coming from?Well today's text gives us the answer in three parts. The writer of Hebrews is certain in the salvation of these Christians for three reasons:God seesGod sworeJesus is risen We're gonna focus on these three things. I want you to see first that God sees. That's in verses 9 and 10. 1) God Sees (verses 9–12)Verse 9 is where the writer is certain of these Christian's salvation. Verse 10 grounds that certainty. Look at verse 10: “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.” In short, the writer says that God sees the evidence of their genuine faith. What is that evidence? Well let's read this verse carefully. We're gonna start at the end and work backwards. Look at the end of the verse where he says “serving the saints, as you still do.” That's their work. That's what they're doing. They have been serving the saints, and they are still serving. It's visible. It's happening out here as an ongoing way of life and it shows something. See that word “shown” in verse 10? This is key. What does their serving show?Look at verse 10, look at the words: “The love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints” Do you see that? These Christians serving one another shows their love for God!And it's their love for God that manifests the genuineness of their faith. And this is a theological point I wanna highlight here in Hebrews Chapter 6. We saw last week that those who fall away are ultimately those who do not have faith. They don't trust in Jesus. But to be clear again, they did have some knowledge of Jesus. Sometimes we can make the mistake of equating knowledge with faith. So we need to be careful here. Those who fall away in verse 6 knew about Jesus, just like Judas knew about Jesus. The issue is that their hearts didn't embrace him. Those who fall away do not love him. Genuine faith in Jesus is a faith that loves Jesus. That's what makes a genuine Christian. That's how Christians are different from demons — because demons probably ‘know' more than we do. Jonathan Edwards makes a really good point on this. He's commenting on the story in Luke 8 when Jesus encountered a demon-possessed man. Luke 8:28, “When he [the demon-possessed man] saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” Edwards says, “Here is external worship. The demon is religious; he prays: he prays in a humble posture; he falls down before Christ, he lies prostrate; he prays earnestly, he cries with a loud voice; he uses humble expressions — ‘I beseech thee, torment me not' — he uses respectful, honorable, adoring expressions — ‘Jesus, Son of the Most High God.' Nothing was wanting but love.” See, the demon's knowledge about Jesus made him dread Jesus. And so we should ask: What does our knowledge about Jesus make us do? If you're a genuine Christian it makes you love him. Just like it did for these Christians here. They loved God, which was shown in their serving the saints, and God saw that. He's not unjust. He doesn't overlook reality. He's just and he sees. He sees the genuineness of our faith.And so the writer encourages these Christians to keep showing that genuineness.Verse 11, “Show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.” And they should continue to manifest their faith for a purpose stated as a negative/positive. This is verse 12. Keep showing the genuineness of your faith — verse 12 — so that you not be sluggish. And the word here translated “sluggish” is the same word translated “dull” in Chapter 5, verse 11. That's the whole reason we've been on this detour. The readers were sluggish in hearing, but now the writer says there's a different way. He calls them out of their sluggishness. ”[Manifest the genuineness of your faith so that you are not sluggish, but instead] be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” And before we get to verse 13, I just want you to notice that pair of words in verse 12, “faith and patience.” The relationship between those two words is really what this entire book is about. It's enduring faith. It's faith with patience. Faith that holds on even when you don't get everything you believe all at once. Like for example, say that God makes you a promise, and you believe that promise, but the promise is not fulfilled right away. What if the fulfillment is still a long ways out in the future?Can you think of any Old Testament examples that fit this category?Abraham. And when these readers saw these words: faith, patience and promises — boom! Abraham comes to mind. The Old Testament doesn't only have negative examples of unbelief (like we saw in the exodus generation), but there's also positive examples of faith, and Abraham is at the top of that list. And this is the second reason the writer is certain about the salvation of these Christians. It's that God swore.2) God Swore (verses 13–18)Now growing up I was taught not to swear. I was blessed to be raised by parents and a church that took the Bible seriously. So Let your Yes be Yes and your No be No, which means I could never “swear on my momma's grave” — no matter how cool it sounded — and I absolutely could not swear by God. But, did you know, God swears by God. Look at verses 13-15, “For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, ‘Surely [that's the ‘swear'] I will bless you and multiply you.' And thus Abraham having patiently waited, obtained the promise.” The writer is saying that the reason Abraham — who had faith and patience — obtained the promise is because God swore. That's the point. So the writer has mentioned Abraham, but this is not really about Abraham. This is about God's promise to Abraham, and he wants us to know that it's important that God swore that promise. That's a relevant detail. That's why he includes the quote here in verse 14. Look at verse 14 and find the quote marks. This line, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you” comes from Genesis 22:17. God swears this to Abraham after Abraham shows that he was willing to sacrifice Issac. And you remember this story in Genesis. These first readers, because of their Jewish background, they definitely remembered this story. They knew it by heart.God had already promised Abraham going back to Genesis 12 that through his offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and Abraham had already believed God and was justified. But in Chapter 22, Abraham's faith was made manifest. It was made visible by his willingness to obey God even when it didn't make sense. Because everything about the promise was riding on Isaac! How could Abraham have descendants that outnumber the stars if he and Sarah's only son was dead?It didn't matter. That's how deeply Abraham believed God. He knew God would do what he said. And God saw this faith. And God doubled down on his promise. God repeated his promise to bless and multiply Abraham and this time he swore it by himself.Why did God swear by himself? Well, why does anyone swear? Look at verse 16: “For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.” I like how the NIV translates that last part: “and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument.” In other words, swearing, or an oath, is a confirmation that's meant to settle something. Because of the oath there's no dispute or argument that the person will do what they said. The oath is a final confirmation — and the oath is always connected to a higher authority. When people swear by authorities higher than themselves they're making themselves liable to that higher thing. They're saying, if I don't do what I'm saying, I must answer to this thing I've sworn by.Here's an (bad) example: So if I were to say to you, “I swear to God, tomorrow I'll buy you a cup of coffee.” That means I'm not answering to you about the coffee, but I'm answering to God, and because I'm answering to God, it gives more confirmation that I'm going to come through on the coffee.And the higher the authority we swear by, the more confirmation it is that we're going to do what we say. And we get how this works. At a lesser degree, this happens all the time with our signed contracts and agreements. We have human ways to express that we really mean what we're saying. We live in a world that operates this way — so now behold the kindness of God! God doesn't ever need any kind of oath to back up his words. Because God never lies. What he says is. But look at verse 17: “God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose…” The “heirs of the promise” is us. This is those who share the faith of Abraham. The writer is talking about Christians here, including the first readers of this letter and us today. God desires to show us with maximum certainty that he's going to do what he says, so he accommodates us. He comes down to our level, in the terms of how we deal with one another, and he guarantees his promise with an oath. But because there is nothing greater than him by which he can swear, he swears by himself. God swears by God! Which means if God breaks this promise he would be in conflict with himself. Which is all impossible. God has put his very being on the line — “so that by two unchangeable things” — it's already impossible for God to lie, but now he swears by his unchangeable nature — by these two unchangeable things, verse 18, “we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” Get this: God swore his promise to Abraham so that we would be strongly encouraged to keep believing, to hold fast to our future hope. We need faith and patience now, like Abraham had, and God has given us the greatest possible reason to have faith and patience — and that actually comes in verses 19–20.Remember the question is: Why is the writer of Hebrews so certain in the salvation of these Christians? It's, first, because God sees. It's second because God swore. And now it's third because Jesus is risen. 3) Jesus Is Risen (verses 19–20) Look at verse 19, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul...” Now the “this” in verse 19 is referring to “the two unchangeable things” in verse 18. It is God's promise and God's oath has been the focus starting in verse 13. That promise and oath is our “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” And the writer uses a nautical metaphor here. We all know what anchors are. Ships use anchors so that they don't drift. An anchor is what makes a ship stay put, or hold fast to where it is. Well, the certainty of God's promise and oath is the anchor of our souls, of our faith. That's why we can hold fast. I think it's important for us to see that the way the writer of Hebrews encourages our faith is by talking about the object of our faith. He turns our attention to God and his faithfulness.Even in verse 15, when he mentions Abraham as an example for us to follow, the focus is not on Abraham himself, but it's on the certainty of God's promise to Abraham. We definitely should imitate Abraham's faith, but the writer gets there not by saying “Be like Abraham.” But he's saying: “Look how faithful God was to Abraham.” And now in the second part of verse 19 and verse 20 he's doing the same thing. He says that God's promise and oath is a strong encouragement for us to hold fast, to keep believing — that is our sure and steadfast anchor of the soul — and now his next step is still not to get into the mechanics of how we hold fast. He is keeping our eyes off ourselves and they're fixed on this assurance. And this assurance, this greatest certainty of our salvation, is seen in the ultimate display of God's faithfulness. The greatest certainty of our salvation is seen in the ultimate display of God's faithfulness. Q: What is the ultimate display of God's faithfulness?Well in this passage, the ultimate display of God's faithfulness is that he has already fulfilled his promise and oath. And this is where this passage becomes distinctively Christian. If you glance back to verse 13. These verses about Abraham and the two unchangeable things — pretty much every Jewish person in this day would hear that and say “Yep! That's great. I agree.”But now the writer of Hebrews takes the next step and says, not only is God's promise and oath true and certain, but it's fulfilled and active right now.Q: How? How has God fulfilled his promise and oath?Well, it has entered into the inner place behind the curtain. The word “hope” is added in verse 19 by English translators to help us out. It's really just the word “it” which refers back to “anchor” which explains the “two unchangeable things,” God's promise and oath.In other words, God's promise and oath is our anchor of the soul that has entered into the inner place behind the curtain. And that's Levitical language. Entering behind the curtain is what the high priest does. This sends us back to the Book of Leviticus. And that phrase “the inner place behind the curtain” occurs only one time in Leviticus, in Leviticus 16. And remember Leviticus 16 is the very center of the Book of Leviticus. And what is it about? The Day of Atonement. One day a year, the most holy day on Israel's calendar, the high priest would enter the Most Holy Place, that inner place behind the curtain, and he would go there to make atonement. He would sprinkle the blood of a bull on the mercy seat and by that God forgave Israel's sin.And remember that the earthly tabernacle and Most Holy Place was only a copy of the heavenly one. The truer Most Holy Place in the heavenly dimension where God dwells, and that's what the writer is talking about here.So God's promise and oath has entered that heavenly Most Holy Place as the high priest would do, and now we ask:Q: What's the connection between God's promise and oath (“two unchangeable things”) and the high priest? How do they fit together? Well, where's the other place in the Bible where God promises and swears? It's Psalm 110:4, “Yahweh has swornand will not change his mind,‘You are a priest foreverafter the order of Melchizedek.'” Psalm 110 is an amazing psalm because it is God the Father speaking to God the Son, the Messiah. God promised and swore to the Messiah that he would be a priest forever like Melchizedek. Just like he did to Abraham with a promise and oath, God gave maximum certainty to the Messiah that this would happen. He would be high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. God swore this would happen. And it has. Because Jesus has gone there.Jesus has entered into the Most Holy Place as the fulfillment of God's promise and oath. Jesus has become what God promised and swore to him in Psalm 110.Q: Now when? When did God fulfill this promise and oath to Jesus?Easter. On Friday, Jesus died for us as our sacrifice. He was dead and buried. Which is a problem if you were promised to be a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. You can't be a high priest forever if you're dead. And so on Sunday, the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead, and he ascended into heaven and entered into this Most Holy Place to make atonement for us as our High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek. Which means, he is our High Priest forever. Forever means he will not die, he cannot die — because he has conquered death. He continues forever. He lives forever.Which includes this moment, right now. Listen: the greatest certainty that we have for our salvation is that Jesus is real. That in this moment, in the heavenly Most Holy Place, he has made atonement for us and he lives for us. And where he is is where we belong. And where we will be in the future, world without end.And now we come to this Table in celebration.

It's 2023 and this year is already bringing fist fights and problems for the host of the Q, but sometimes in moments of pity, great things happen too!  Justin Deming has been handling life in the Northeast for a few years now and with some family things to handle, he makes a trip back to the midwest and his home town when he gets a chance. Out the Blue Justin decided to show up for the Q and we couldn't be happier to welcome him back for the show.  First up it seems the crazy over the top aspect of republicans is starting to become more noticeable. In Missouri they made sure that the female also wore suit jackets like the MEN, because they need their women to represent being more manly in the state government. Well it's not only here, but  in Florida Ron Desantis is creating all kinds of issues with CRT and Trans discussions and all of it...why? Well we really don't know but the men discuss these and a few other states attacking really marginal and weird things.  Next up is the 2nd round of the TOPC: Best One Hit Wonder. In the last round many great candidates put their name in the ring but only one can out on top. This time around Just A Friend, Cotton Eye Joe and few others throw their name in the ring to find out what is the best one hit wonder according to the QNow and if you don't like what you see, you can play along at home.  And finally Mark once again had issues at MMWA but they decided to offer Mark a opportunity he could not pass up. Commissionership of the MMWA. Anthony Castaldi the head of the organization challeneged Mark to take on Shaft for control of the right hand of power. With it Mark and the Kings of Revolution can position themselves better for control and moves within the organization. So everything seems to be on the line for their upcoming Feb 11th match. But Mark and the boys discuss all of it! 

Drew Pinson joins on this show with so much going on, it's hard to keep up.  First things first, Mark Bland and Drew Pinson tackle the 4th of July Shooting in Highland Park, IL and the subsequent Jayland Walker shooting over the 4th of July weekend. But it's tough for Mark to keep coming on the show discussing kids getting shot up for no reason, or another unarmed person being shot and killed. It's taking it's toll on everyone and these men discuss. Next Mark talks a little about the business of wrestling and how the people in the business today come from a different background  than others in the past, and with so many differing backgrounds, the needs of the wrestlers over the years have developed behind the scenes assistants and other people that help with their careers. This comes from a story about Buff Bagwell firing his social media person. This then turns to a discussion about outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson and how he needs to resign (and did after this show). Finally Mark and Drew decide to take on soame questions of love and this leads to Drew explaining his background in the world of bartending and working in places where KINK is a thing. Download and find out more! All on this episode of The Q. 

Man it's been a week for Ted Cruz. He has made the dumbest comments regarding doors and the Uvalde shooting. He has thrown his hat in the ring to give daily quips about gun control...but nobody is telling Ted what he really needs to hear. Well that my friends is why the Q show is here!  First up Mark welcomes Drew Pinson and Jason Kull to show to discuss the newest developments going on with the Uvalde shooting at Robb Elementary last week. It seems the police were less than prepared and then got a little worried about being shot by the killer. Things that we will definitely address on this episode.  Also, Mark has been thinking that this is the beginning of 2022 summer, and right after is the fall and the elections. Which will be the beginning of non stop stupid commericals and people trying to get everyone's attention for 2024 poresidential election...but who truly has a shot on the GOP side with all these bad shootings and things going on...well the men discuss and figure it out!  Finally Mark and the guys were talking off air what the greatest TV sitcom of all time is. So Mark found a list on the internet and figured, lets see who is better at guessing. So Drew and Jason square off in a game of "who knows better" with the Greatest TV Sitcoms of all time!  Pay attention, this show goes by fast! 

Q: Now that we are on a path of recovery, we find ourselves in a disruption where there is a disruption in global supply chain and there is volatility in commodity prices. In this background, what is your assessment of the FY2022-23? Ans: >India has, over the years, resolved many of its structural challenges impacting macroeconomic performances >External risks facing India are US Fed increasing interest rates and geo-political issues around the world >External risks will impact commodity prices, oil markets etc >Indian economy in a healthy position – demand growth expected, corporates ready to invest for capacity creation >India looking at long-term growth at 6% to 8%     Q: While there is usually known question on India could register a better growth than other emerging markets. But even by RBI's own admission, right now the bigger issue is inflation. How do you see inflation impacting business? Ans: >Not all cost increases can be passed on to the consumers, as it impacts demand >Corporates absorbing inflationary impact will have effect on margins >Rising interest rates will also impact corporate bottom lines >Corporates may shrink some of their margins because they cannot pass on all the inflationary impact to consumers     Q: Mr Sinha, it has been a long wait for private sector capex to come in. Especially during the pandemic, investment has mostly been driven by state and central governments. While there are some signs of a turnaround by private sector capex, by when do you think it is really going to pick up? Ans: >Private sector capex picked up in infrastructure sector. Corporates raising capital from outside the country and working on capacity utilisation >Power sector witnessing robust growth in demand >Power sector in need of rapid capacity expansion to meet the demand growth >Power sector needs more coal, as more than 70% of India's power consumption is met from coal >Demand is picking up in cement, real estate     Q: Hospitality, tourism, retail, cinemas – as you know these have been the worst hit during the three waves of pandemic. These are also the sectors that are struggling to go back to the pre-pandemic levels. Govt has taken some steps. Do you think that is enough? What more do you think can be done to revive these sectors? Ans: >More than govt assistance, industries need the economy to pick up >Although Covid-cases are picking up a little bit, it's thankfully a milder version >Economic activities should carry on. People are also going to carry on with their normal lives >As people carry on with their lives, hospitality, tourism, retail sector will see huge pent-up demand      Q: The National Monetisation Pipeline and the National Infrastructure Pipeline – the two ambitious plans on which the govt is building revival program, a lot of these would be through public-private partnership. Previously the private sector has not had many good experiences with the PPP model. So, do you think there is a case for a complete overhaul of the PPP policy? And what are the assurances that the govt can extend to the private sector that the earlier incidents will not occur again?  Ans: >Power sector enjoys robust dispute resolution mechanism in relation to PPP and the govt is responsive to problems >Govt needs to walk the fine line of getting people to commit to the contracts and also extending some leeway >In a volatile economic environment, the govt needs to be more flexible Watch video

Q: Can you give us an overview of the current job market in terms of job postings at Monster as well as Quess as a large employer? Ans: >Online job posting increasing steadily across sectors >Travel, tourism and offline education sectors picking up slowly >Hiring in IT, retail, BFSI and fintech organisations have been healthy   Q: What are some job trends that you're seeing going into 2023? Ans: >Demand for skilled manpower to increase in BFSI and new sectors like crypto etc >Demand for sales professionals to increase in fintech, retail, ecommerce, social commerce >Technology companies turning location-agnostic >Fresher hiring picked up during the last two-three months Q: In your view, what is causing this high attrition among mid-level employees? Ans: >Demand-supply mismatch resulting in attrition among mid-level employees >More employment opportunities chasing fewer candidates >Differentiator between organisations is the quality of manpower at work   Q: Now we come to your other platform QJobs, which you launched for blue and grey collar workers. What explains the traction in this space? Ans: >Much of the blue and grey collar recruitment was offline >Employers have been dealing with suboptimal processes >Candidates as well as recruiters moving online now >Formalisation happening in blue-collar recruitment space >Digital literacy of blue-collar candidates gone up Watch video

What started as two podcast is now a podcast network...and the best mindset...Always Forward Media. Welcome to AFM...AFM is the home of The soulardians, Cognac Corner, Hight off tha Glass, Black of All trades, Mizz Me After Dark and The Q Now. We were bless to debut as the dopiest podcast label ever at Jay Towns retirement party at her bar Off 55 bar and grill. We had a blast recording this and now we hope you enjoy hearing it....#AFM

What started as two podcast is now a podcast network...and the best mindset...Always Forward Media. Welcome to AFM...AFM is the home of The soulardians, Cognac Corner, Hight off tha Glass, Black of All trades, Mizz Me After Dark and The Q Now. We were bless to debut as the dopiest podcast label ever at Jay Towns retirement party at her bar Off 55 bar and grill. We had a blast recording this and now we hope you enjoy hearing it....#AFM

What started as two podcast is now a podcast network...and the best mindset...Always Forward Media. Welcome to AFM...AFM is the home of The soulardians, Cognac Corner, Hight off tha Glass, Black of All trades, Mizz Me After Dark and The Q Now. We were bless to debut as the dopiest podcast label ever at Jay Towns retirement party at her bar Off 55 bar and grill. We had a blast recording this and now we hope you enjoy hearing it....#AFMContact the tribe email at Thesoulardians@gmail.com~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Marcus Boston Twitter & Instagram: @MoBoston314Cecil W Adams Twitter & Instagram:@Cecilwadams ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Follow The Soulardians On IG & Twitter:@thesoulardians & @soulardians~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Older adults have continued to receive much needed services and many new ones during COVID19, with the help of Area Agencies on Aging.  These agencies were started in the late 1960's as part of the Older Americans Act.  Over the years, thanks to advocacy, more funding has come available to add services like counseling, vision support and much more to a program that originally focused on food and transportation.  During COVID19, even more support has been provided by these agencies and their community partners.  Mr. Jody Barker, Director of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging shares many of the ways this region stepped up. Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country.  We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude whether you're in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado.  The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer.  Learn more at Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.     Transcript: Cynthia: This is Aging with Altitude, welcome to all. This podcast is brought to you by the Pikes Peak Area Council of Government's Agency on Aging. We strive to provide answers, assistance, and advocacy for our elders. Thank you for joining us today. Our topic today is COVID-19 Now. I am your host, Cynthia Margiotta, a geriatric social worker and volunteer with the Pikes Peak Area Council of Government's Area Agency on Aging. With me today is Jody Barker.   Jody Barker: Thank you, Cynthia.   Cynthia: Thank you for coming. A little bit about Jody... Jody is the director of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging, which serves three counties: El Paso County, Park County, and Teller County in Colorado. He has served in many roles in his twenty-two-plus years in senior service organizations in Colorado. Among those roles have been editor of the Life After 50 newspaper, the director of operations for a home care agency, Central Colorado Regional Director of the Alzheimer's Association, and director of the Colorado Springs Senior Center. Jody's greatest joy is matching services with seniors and their families or enabling staff and services to do so. Jody has served on various boards and commissions over the years and currently is on the Colorado Commission on Aging, appointed by Governor Hickenlooper. I'm impressed!   Jody Barker: Thank you, Cynthia.   Cynthia: Well, thank you, Jody! I have known you through several of those organizations, all are so great.   Q: So, let's get started with our first question about COVID if you don't mind? Jody, how are you at the Area Agency on Aging? How are you still meeting the needs of our community?   Jody Barker:   A: Well thank you, Cynthia, it is a pleasure to be with you today. When the governor's order began in early March, we knew that we would have to continue operating even if we had to close our doors. March 17th, St Patrick's Day, as a matter of fact, we packed up what we needed to serve our community. That included telephones and paperwork and our computers and we began to work remotely. So, even a sense March, even with our doors closed to the physical building, we are still 100% operational. We have even added services that I'd like to share with you later. The exciting thing is that our staff has taken this as a really exciting challenge. We continue to answer all phone calls, we're reaching out to our clients, we're reaching out to past clients, we are reaching out to our community to continue to serve them every day.   Cynthia: It's amazing how much you're doing and I can't wait to talk about that. As the emergency orders have changed we are seeing changing guidelines. As of today which is June 3rd, 2020, in case you're listening to this a little bit further down the road, we are at the Safer at Home stage or in the Vast Great Outdoors.   Q: What does that mean?   Jody Barker:   A: There's a lot of interesting thoughts around the changes in the orders that have been provided by Governor Polis. Originally, as you know, we were in a Stay-at-Home order. It was necessary for all involved to really flatten that curve. This way, we could really understand more about the disease and how it was affecting our community. Of course, because covid affects upper respiratory issues, it has been very challenging for older adults, especially those with underlying health conditions. The Stay-at-Home order was crucial, to begin with. As those in leadership, especially those in the healthcare field, began to understand more about the disease in early May they changed the order to Safer-at-Home. This allowed us to have a little more movement, like maybe going to the grocery stores or getting out and about to pick up a restaurant order instead of sitting in a restaurant to eat. That was was crucial.   Now, with this most recent phase, The Vast Great Outdoors, it simply is an encouragement for people who are able to enjoy the outdoors. Here we are now, on the very front end of summer and this week has been more like summer than June! It feels more like July and August kind of weather. It is very hot! The great thing about this new phase is that it is an encouragement to people who are able to get out and go to their local parks with appropriate social distancing or maybe go for a walk in their neighborhood. There was concern earlier on about even just stepping outside your home. Now, people are encouraged to open those windows and get some fresh air and to lessen the social isolation that was so important early on. Now, we want to encourage people who can, to get out there. There are actually a couple of exciting changes with our providers who are helping to promote the new orders that we will touch on.   Cynthia: It is so important to get some fresh air and to get a little exercise, even if it's just walking around the block to take take the dog for a walk. I mean, I have a neighbor who takes his wheelchair and he goes and walks his dog. I think it's important to do that!   Jody Barker: Even in my neighborhood here in town when we are able to get out for a walk, we see so many people out walking their dogs or going to the park. It is people of all ages, you know? So it's really exciting to see people moving about! It's an interesting change from the last two months but when we think about what it truly means for older adults, it's crucial. This is because the older Americans Act, which is a major source of our funding to the AAA, was written in 1965 to reduce social isolation. That is the primary directive around our funding and our programming. Imagine what that's had to look like in the last two months with the Stay-at-Home and even the Safer-at-Home safer orders in place. People we have served in a variety of areas, whether that's senior center programs, transportation to doctor visits, transportations to church or classes at the Senior Center, lunches at the Senior Center, all of those had to change on a dime. All of that was intended to help protect the safety, health, and well-being of older adults, as well as the rest of the community. But, it's probably been most difficult on our older population because someone who lives at home, to begin with, and maybe looks forward to that three to five days lunchtime with their friends at the Senior Center, suddenly are being asked to stay at home. That can be extremely challenging to their health and mental well-being.   Cynthia: Yeah, absolutely! We could talk about that for hours, gotta get out gotta be involved as much as a person is able.   Jody Barker: Exactly! An interesting comment came to me a few weeks ago from one of our volunteers who said she was talking with some neighbors. One of her neighbors, who is an older adult, said, "you know, I feel useless because I'm used to volunteering and now, I'm not allowed to. I feel useless." And so, one of the things that our advisory committee is working on is actually not only volunteering for seniors but involving those seniors in that volunteer project. This is to give people a purpose and to give people activities and things to look forward to. I know what will touch on it here in a little bit, but there's so much going on to not just serve the seniors but incorporate the seniors into the process. We're all working on this together.   Cynthia: In a sense, that's serving them.   Jody Barker: Absolutely!   Cynthia: You know you've known me for a while and I'm a big advocate of volunteerism. I think it's a very important part of being part of the community. I think, you know, if you can when you retire don't go sit on a chair! It drives me crazy! If you can, go out and volunteer. If you can't go anywhere, find a way to volunteer from home. People can write notes or they can make phone calls. I can talk about it for hours...   Jody Barker: I think what we have to remember is that there are opportunities for outreach, not just to our older population but for those older adults to participate in that process. Maybe there's an assisted living or retirement community or a skilled nursing facility in your neighborhood. Call those places and say "I'd like to write someone a letter." You have no idea how much of a positive impact that person can make.   Because maybe you live at home but you might have three or four rooms to move about in. But someone right now, during this time, who lives in assisted living or a skilled nursing facility is being asked to stay in their room. Their meals are delivered to them, their activities are brought to them in the hallway, and they are being asked not to leave their room due to social distancing.   So even just taking the time to write a note to an older adult who lives in a community near you could make a world of difference. You don't have to ask permission, you don't have to be part of a larger group, to do that. You can pick up the phone, you can write that letter on your own, and it will be such a positive impact on the staff and on the residents.   Cynthia: Just the thought of me being in a room for a month... I'm an extrovert and I would have no hair because I pulled it all out. I absolutely think those are wonderful things we can do. I mean, we can even write a note to our neighbor. It doesn't have to be an official volunteer program.   Q: So tell me, what are some of the service delivery changes and supports that have been implemented that you have found interesting or effective or both?   Jody Barker:   A: That's a great question! As you might imagine, as we started hearing more about this virus and as it began to grow, even at the end of February, before we closed our physical building, before the Stay-at-Home orders came from the governor, some of our providers were already beginning to make plans and make changes to their service delivery. For example, one service provider who many of you will know is Silver Key Senior Services. They are the primary meal site provider for El Paso County. So, when you think of meal sites, you're thinking of Colorado Springs Senior Center, Fountain Valley Senior Center, and the Mountain Mennonite Church in Palmer Lake. Those places receive meals from Silver Key Senior Service's kitchens. They're hot and fresh meals that get delivered to people who come into a congregate site. These people meet up with their friends. They might come early for a class or stay late for a concert. That is their time to get together. As you might imagine, as soon as that Stay-at-Home order came into place in mid-March, that service had to stop.   So, what did Silver Key do? Silver Key immediately implemented appropriate social distancing. They increased their home-delivered meals. They increased their pantry of delivered meals instead of people coming in via transportation on a Silver Key bus, going to the pantry to do their own shopping, and then get back on the bus to go home. Silver Key tried to reduce that contact in their pantry. The pantry is big until you start putting 15 people with shopping carts in there. You know, it can get very crowded. It is shoulder to shoulder sometimes. To avoid this, what they started doing is packing up those pantry boxes and delivering those to their regular pantry clients.   That was one thing that they did, another thing that they did is they converted those congregate meal sites into what are called grab and go sites. For example, every Monday at the Colorado Springs Senior Center, the Silver Key Senior Services blue meal truck shows up. Instead of daily pickup, they prepare multiple meals and flash freeze them. This way, clients have all five meals for the week. Clients also have the opportunity to pick up fresh produce, dairy products, and things like that depending on what silver Key has on hand or what has been donated.   The Senior Center, normally provides classes such as educational classes, moving for better balance, tai chi, and more. Those are the kind of programs that we fund with the Older Americans Act and Older Colorado Act dollars that we administer. For obvious reasons, they had to close as they were not allowed to do congregate-type programs like those physical classes. So what they did was they started making calls of reassurance. The YMCA and the Colorado Springs Senior Center host over 16,000 members who are over 60 years of age. So, staff and volunteers began picking up the phone and calling in to check on their constituents. In addition to this, they created what they call a phone buddy program. Silver Key would invite someone to the program and have that person tell a little bit about themselves. They would then collect a little bit of information from an older adult who is interested. They then paired volunteers with participating older adults. So, think of it almost like a pen pal program, but by phone. The Senior Center has begun to host those pairings of phone buddies. Instead of Senior Center staff making those calls out daily, weekly, twice a week, those phone buddies can now be a lifeline to one another. All they have to do is pick up the phone to check in with each other, talk about common interests, and that kind of thing.   Silver Key is also providing some meals to people who do not have access to the Senior Center to pick up their own meals. They're delivering those meals on a case-by-case basis. The Fountain Valley Senior Center, as you know, is one of those congregate meal sites. They have now become and one of the Silver Key grab and go sites. Under the front of the building, they have set up a drive-through system. People line up in their cars and they can pick up the meal, they can pick up information, they can check-in and see how they're doing. One of the exciting things that I heard about, as it relates to Fountain Valley Senior Center, was that the city of Fountain did not layoff their staff, but sent a great many of them home to work remotely. This is because they did not have the same functions during that early stay-at-home process. Someone from the city government contacted the Fountain Valley Senior Center director, Jolene Hausman, and said what can we do? How can we help at this time? And they began with 20 city employees making those calls of reassurance. These employees were making over 100 calls a day. At first, it was only going to be a couple of weeks. Now, it is becoming an ongoing project because the seniors love it and staff from the city love it. Now, Jolene is talking about when things slow down, she would like to have a barbecue so the city employees can meet their phone buddy. The Senior Center is actually been talking about putting on something when it's safe to do so. So that those phone buddies can meet one another.   It's just been really neat to see those programs, even some of the smaller programs like Teller County Senior Coalition, based out of Woodland Park. This group has provided fresh fruits, vegetables, and even restaurant meals to their clients. This way clients are getting choices and variety, not just the same box of food every week. There is just a lot of neat things going on.   Unfortunately, some of our providers were limited. Providers who were contracted with us to provide certain services like transportation, suddenly found themselves not allowed to provide their service. So, they reached out in other ways like helping with telehealth or counseling services to make sure that people's needs are being met.   The irony in all of this is that it's changing almost daily, and definitely weekly, as our providers determine what needs must be met. Providers are determining what the outreach needs to look like as they plan for the future. Right now, we don't know what congregate programs are going to look like for the next few months or the long term. However, I would encourage people to take a look at the Colorado Springs Senior Center website at epymcappymca.org.   On the website, they can find the Colorado Springs Senior Center. They have already begun art classes using the online zoom system. So, zoom, if you're not familiar, is really more of a teleconferencing system where you can log in and see each other if you have a smartphone or a computer at home. Using the camera on your computer or smartphone, you can see one another and you can see your teacher. They began art classes using that online platform last week and they had something like 16 or 20 people from all over join that class. So, they are going to be doing a variety of both free and fee-based classes as they begin to look at what serving the community needs to look like with these new circumstances.   Cynthia:   Q: These are some mighty changes, yes?   Jody Barker:   A: Yes! These changes are distinctly different than what we traditionally thought of about senior services. I'm really excited that so many of our providers are looking at how they can continue to serve the needs of our community in a new way.   We have about half a dozen services that we provide directly out of our offices by our staff. These services include family caregiver support services. We are also going to be doing our own support groups via zoom and by electronic media. The exciting thing about this is that it means we can provide services to those who are caring for older adult family members, spouse, or parent. Instead of just the caregiver coming to a support group, he or she can invite family members from across the nation to join the caregiver in that support group. We now have the electronic technology in place to be able to do that. So, real silver linings are coming out of the challenges that we've faced due to COVID-19.   Cynthia: Yeah! You know national support groups would be an asset ongoing.   Jody Barker: Absolutely!   Cynthia:   Q: I like that idea! Will there be issue-specific support groups, or will they be more generalized?   Jody Barker:   A: I believe they're going to start somewhat general to begin with, but there is discussion around some more specific topics. So, if someone has a specific challenge or need in a certain area that person will be able to sign up for that specific support group. To expand on that, you know the Colorado Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association is also doing something very similar. It may be nationwide, but they're beginning to do a lot more online support groups for that very reason. Again, it's one of those silver linings that has come out of the changes that we are having to make as we do our best to meet the needs of our constituents. Even though we can't be face to face, we're taking advantage of technology to meet those needs.   So, even internally, where we would normally have a Medicare class here in the office, right now everything is converted to the webinar. We were able to have more of those classes and are able to partner with other agencies in town so that we can make sure we get the word out. Because these classes are done by webinars, we don't have to worry about partner space and social distancing. It gives the people a lot more flexibility in getting the resources that they need, as well.   Cynthia: I take the Medicare 101 class almost every year and I'll tell you I don't know how Roma does that! There seems to be a different rule every year with Medicare, so I think those would be great classes!   Jody Barker: Absolutely, absolutely! You know, if our listeners are interested in getting more information about those classes, they can go directly to our website at PPACG.org and click on the aging banner. That will take them to a variety of pieces of information where they can sign up for those webinars. If you're not sure about that, you can also call us directly at 719-47120964712096. That phone number is manned during regular office hours and it is very likely that you would need to leave a detailed message with your contact information and name so that someone will get back to you. Our staff is fully operational.   Cynthia: And for those of you who don't have a paper with you, we're going to repeat all of these wonderful sites at the end. Jody is watching me take notes here so that I get them right, which won't happen so you'll have to correct me.   Q: Next question, what thoughts and discussions have come up around serving different populations such as rural areas, different ethnicities, lower-income, and, of course, our seniors?   Jody Barker:   A: As you might imagine, the Area Agency on Aging primarily focuses on our population who is 60 years and over. That's who the Older Americans Act was written specifically to provide services to. Most of the conversations we have are around that. However, we do partner with several other agencies like the Independent Center, the Resource Exchange, and others like that which provide services to adults with disabilities. So sometimes there's some crossover in information. So, if someone's not sure who best to call, always feel free to call us at that main number (4712096) and we will help guide you. You know, we will ask a few questions and determine if that is a service that would come from us, or if it's a service that might come from one of our providers, or if we should be referring you to a partnering agency. It's always good to have that phone number in mind. That's the primary phone number here at the office and it will also lead you to our senior information assistance network staff.   As you may know, we also have a yellow book that we just got printed! COVID did not stop us, it delayed us a little bit. Really, COVID didn't stop us. Those are now being delivered. Even if you're used to coming to the office to pick those up, you can still do that! We were the generous recipients of two newspaper-style boxes that are located at our parking lot. So you can drive right up and pick up both our yellow book and our Adult Medicaid and VA Guidebook. We still have those available, even though we might not be here in the office. I wanted to make sure we talked about that.   Conversations around serving other parts of our population can really be a challenge. You know, zoom and Skype and similar platforms like that, as it relates to technology, not all of our seniors have those capabilities. That can sometimes be a challenge. Despite the state budget shortfalls that we're expecting, there is still discussion about how to bring broadband to our rural areas. That discussion has not stopped. So, for those of you might who live in a more rural area and don't have access to the Internet, know that you're not forgotten. That still continues to be a high priority for many of our legislators. With that being said, we're just looking at greater opportunities to work with partners. As you may know, even though AAA serves primarily three counties, that's our region (region four) for the state of Colorado. Our S.H.I.P that's our State Health Insurance Program, counselors actually serve more counties than that. So we typically work with partners in those outer regions anyway. This extends all the way down to the New Mexico border, to make sure that we're reaching those populations. Right now, it's a continued and ongoing conversation. I can't really say that we've figured out how best to do it, but it's certainly important for us to make sure that we're remembering those populations as we're figuring out how best to reach those areas. A couple of opportunities that we're exploring is greater reach into eastern El Paso County, for example. So some of our providers, including Invida who run a bus service, have reopened their rural area bus services. So if you live in the Calhan area, that bus service has restarted. Or if you live in the southeastern portion, along Hwy 94, Invida has restarted that route as well. There's increased outreach and increased opportunities to get engaged. Now we're just looking at all those opportunities to see what that's going to look like in the future.   Cynthia: Good for you. You got to keep working!   Jody Barker: We have not stopped. Like I said, even from the day that we had to physically close our doors, we continue as a staff. Our providers out in the region continue to serve. As I said, some of that is changed. The service delivery might look a little different but know that we're all still working on this making sure that our seniors and their families have the services that they need or know that they have access to services.   Cynthia: I'm sure some of these changes are going to be ongoing.   Jody Barker: That the expectation, yes! Because we don't really expect to have traditional congregate programs for some time yet. Now, even as we're speaking here on June 3rd, this afternoon there's going to be a presentation by the governor's office around what the next phase of opening may look like. It is intended to be specifically focused around senior services. Right now, a lot of those recommendations are coming to us as things to consider. The requirements are really following the guidelines of the health departments in particular regions around the State.   Cynthia:   Q: Do you know where people can listen to that? Will it be on TV?   Jody Barker:   A: This is very last minute, we were just alerted to this about an hour before we began this conversation. So I don't know where it will be if it will be recorded, if it's going to be a press conference, or if it's going to be just service delivery information. I don't know yet but as we know more we will certainly update our website. You can also go to the El Paso County Health Department website to keep track of things like that, as well.   Cynthia:   Q: What has the collaborations and leadership looked like across Colorado?   Jody Barker:   A: That's really been exciting to be part of in this time. Despite the challenges in the State of Colorado's State Unit on Aging, which is a division of the Colorado of Department of Human Services, has been extremely helpful. I'm also part of an organization that includes all of the AAA directors around the state. So collaborating between the State Unit on Aging and the Area Agency on Aging has been really exciting to be part of right now. There's a lot of discussions, there's a lot of questions, there's a lot of idea sharing, and that collaboration has been really positive. We've also included the in those conversations service providers so that they can hear and ask questions directly of our state office as well. It's been very positive right now. There has been a lot of flexibility in how we're able to use not just our regular funding but some of the emergency funding that we're starting to see come into our area.   Cynthia:   Q: Then what does planning look like going forward? Where can people get information and resources?   Jody Barker:   A: As part of the Governor's discussion this afternoon, we expect to hear some recommendations and potential guidance around what reopening phases might look like. It's going to take some time though, so we don't really know. We would ask people to be patient around that because there are a lot of unknowns that we are all dealing with. Even just two weeks ago our messaging was very different than it is today because things are changing so often. I would encourage people to go to or call, the El Paso County Health Department if they have questions. They can also contact their direct service providers if they are already a client of Silver Key, Invida, or Fountain Valley Senior Center. Those providers are getting the same information that we are. Of course, they can always contact us here through our main phone number: 4712096 that we talked about. As I said, that's our senior information and assistance hotline. Typically, you can leave a message anytime, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Our operating hours are typically from about 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. We try to get back to you just as soon as we can or forward your voicemail to the appropriate staff member who will call back. There are two areas right there. We're trying to continue to keep our information as up-to-date as possible.   Cynthia: You know family members that are out of the area, I just want to add 719-471-2096. You can call about services for mom and dad! Yeah, you are very welcome to do that.   Q: My last question here, is well second to last, but some of us would like to continue getting updates on COVID?   Jody Barker: Specifically, around COVID-19, there's a lot of information out there online, on the news, on TV, and on the radios. Sometimes it's a little challenging to really understand what's real. Yes, that's a good way to put it, what's real? I would encourage people to follow up with the county health department in their area, whether that's here in our area, El Paso County Health Department. Teller County has its health Department. Park County has its own Health Department. I would encourage them to find a way, whether by website, phone calls, or regular media information, to get connected so that they can get that direct source of information about what's most crucial for their area. As you might imagine, around the State every County typically has a Health Department. Their rules and requirements might be a little bit different and their expectations and recommendations might be a little different from County to County. I would encourage people to get connected with their specific county. Don't look at information from a neighboring state, don't look at information necessarily even from a neighboring county, it could be very different. Find the one in your area and stay connected. That way, you can get the most accurate information anytime. For us here in El Paso County, as I said, it's just simply ElPasoCountyHealth.org.   Cynthia: I think that would be a better place to find things then, I don't want to insult Facebook, but Facebook. Some folks might hear it from the wrong person and they would put that on Facebook and it may or may not be true.   Jody Barker: Correct, the El Paso County Health Department has medical professionals who are specialists in disease control, population information, and what's going to be best for our area. That's really where I would recommend people get directed for that very specific disease information.   Cynthia: Every area is a little different.   Q: Now, let's talk a little bit about the new programs and the providers that you have started here over at the Area Agency on Aging?   Jody Barker:   A: Sure! As I mentioned earlier, we have about a half dozen programs that we provide out of the Area Agency on Aging that include our senior information and assistance program that we've referenced. It also includes our family caregiver support center, that's where we do some of our support groups and caregiver support, just like it sounds. We also do this senior insurance and assistance program that's our S.H.I.P. program. We also are the region's ombudsman office and the ombudsman, if you're not familiar with that terminology, is simply an advocate for older adults. In our case, the ombudsman specifically advocates for those who live in long-term care facilities like assisted livings and skilled nursing facilities. So our ombudsman serves in that area as well. We also, through some of our funding, are able to provide homemaker and personal care services. Those are our primary services internally.   Now, our partnering with agencies that we contract with might be some of those like we've mentioned, such as Silver Key Senior Services. A lot of people think of Silver Key as meals-on-wheels, the congregate meal programs, and transportation, but they do so much more! We're very proud to partner with them. Some of the other services that they do, like case management and so on so. We also have providers who provide additional homemaker services or respite care for those family caregivers. For example, we partner with Colorado Legal Aid, which provides legal services free for folks. We also provide some services around visually impaired services, dental and dentures, mental health screening and counseling, caregiver counseling, home safety renovations. As you might imagine, more people are staying at home. Actually, we've seen an increase in requests for grab bars, railings, and that kind of thing. So we're proud to contract with several other providers like that. We are also able to provide nutritional counseling and education. So, if someone wants to receive nutrition education, they can simply pick up the phone and call their primary provider like Silver Key, in our area, or the Teller Senior Coalition. We will get you routed, but you can call Silver Key directly. We received that education and then those health and exercise classes we talked about that are provided at the senior centers and other congregant programs. Again, some of those have changed. You know how that works has just had to change because of COVID-19. There's a lot of exciting ways that our providers have reached out to make those changes to continue to reach their constituents and clients in making sure that social isolation is reduced as much as possible.   Cynthia: There's a lot more going on in this office than the few employees that are sitting in the building when that was possible.   Jody: Exactly and even for us, even though we have our regular programs, because of COVID-19 we also started doing what we call "calls of reassurance". Some of our providers do that as part of their programs, but we started doing that as well. As you might imagine, someone who may have come in in February to have questions answered around Medicare, suddenly find themselves without transportation and unable to go grocery shopping. You know, we're asking them to stay at home or be safe at home, and maybe they don't have access to those some of those services. So we took it upon ourselves to begin working backward through our contacts and making sure that clients that we had served, for whatever reason in the past, know that they can call us for questions. They can use us for referral services to get referred to other services throughout the community and ultimately just to be reassured that they know that they can call us at any time. As you might imagine, our providers have seen an uptick in those who signed up for services because folks are trying to stay safe and healthy. If that means receiving a few meals a week versus going to the grocery store than those people are reaching out for those services. So it's been really exciting not just working with our staff here as we've made those changes, but also working with our providers who are juggling and making those changes and adding to those services.   Cynthia: Making those changes! It's a great idea. I'm just going to repeat some of the different things that were brought up if you have paper and pencil. One is if you're interested in the yellow book, there's a website where you can also look and see the website. So for those of you who are family out of the area, you might look at that website is ppacg.org yellowbook. Or, you can call the phone number to talk to someone and you might need to leave a phone number and message but that phone number is 719-471-2096. You can get that information along with the Medicaid Veterans Benefits Book. You can stop by here, at our office, and pick up yellow books as well as the Medicaid book. They have a little kiosk outside. The location is not really a difficult location to understand. We are located about two blocks north of Colorado Ave on Chestnut, and you go through these big gates which are open during the day, I don't know at night. During the day, you can just drive through and you'll find it in there. That's where the offices are as well. Whenever it opens, you can always come to visit during that time. Another one that Jody mentioned was the YMCA ppymca.org. They're doing online and zoom art classes and other classes as well.   Jody Barker: They're going to be doing some exercise classes, art classes, as well as some presentations.   Cynthia: That is so great.   Q: Then, are there others that you wanted to bring up that I missed?   Jody Barker:   A: Sure, yeah! As you might imagine, all of our providers are listed on our website. The easiest way like, like Cynthia mentioned, is just going directly to ppacg.org and clicking on the aging button. That really gets you into the Area Agency on Aging portion of the website where you could find an electronic copy of the yellow book, an electronic copy of the Medicaid program, and an electronic copy of the VA benefits guidebook. You can also find listings of our service providers. There some that are local that will provide the largest percentage of our programs and organizations like Silver Key. You can also just go to silverkey.org or you can call them directly. If you're calling locally, the number is 719-884-2300. They will route you to the appropriate department, depending on the service you need. If you're calling for a family member and you're out of state or out of the area just remember the 719 area code. Again, that phone number is 884-2300. You're always welcome to call us here. As I said, leave a detailed message, your name, and telephone number, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. We will ask a few questions and we're happy to get you referred to the right services. You can save yourself a lot of time. Sometimes it can be challenging to go through the amount of information that's available to us so we're going to help you with that. Give us a call directly and we would love to do that on your behalf and get you pointed in the right direction.   Cynthia: Wonderful, thank you so much. I appreciate your time here with me Jody. That's the show and thanks to all for being with us today! Take good care of yourself.  

The phrase, gilding the lily, comes from a Shakespeare play, King John. The line in the play is actually, "to paint the lily." The quotation reads, in part, "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily / To throw a perfume on the violet. . .. / Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." What it means is simple: when you already have something beautiful, e.g., a lily, gold, a violet, don't attempt to make it more beautiful. All you do is risk ruining it. For a cross examiner, this is a golden rule - DON'T GILD THE LILY. In other words, once you've gotten the answer that you wanted or a good answer, leave it alone, don't attempt to make it better because you really just risk making it worse or ruining it. How? For example, you've gotten the witness the admit to describe the room in which he says a crime occurred that he personally observed incorrectly. Leave it alone. Instead, so many questioners in search of the "dunk" or in an effort to "make the point even clearer" ask further questions and clue the witness in that he made a mistake. For example, rather than leaving the wrong description alone, the lawyer follows up with more: Q: Now, you've described a room with a single bed right? A: I believe so. Q: You mean a narrow bed as opposed to a queen or a king, right? (now the witness is clued in because the lawyer is going back and trying to make this point again. Realizing that he made a mistake, he backtracks on the lawyer) A: Well, it might've been a queen or king size bed. I wasn't really paying attention that closely at that point because I was so startled by what I saw. The lawyer has gilded the lily. Rather than leave the answer alone, he tried to improve on it with more follow up only to ruin it. In Episode 17, I explore this phenomenon and encourage you all to stop, respect the good answer and don't gild the lily to make it better.

He’s invited by some of the world's top salesmen to help them sell more.    He’s incredible...and amazing at it - I’ve learned SO much from him.    Every time he speaks, I take out a pen and paper...    (Hint, hint...cue, cue...to everybody here!)   Please take out a piece of paper and take notes!    This is a man who’s likely to make MORE money arrive in your pocket just by listening to him... ;-)   Mr. Myron Golden. Myron: Hey, Steve. How are you doing, man?    Steve: Fantastic. Thanks for being on here, man.   Myron: Absolutely my pleasure to be on Sales Funnel Radio, talking to one of my favorite trainers...teachers… ‘OfferMinds…’   Ooh, did you see what I did there?! ;-)   Steve: That's good!     Honestly, thanks so much for taking the time. The feeling is mutual.    I have notebooks upon notebooks from your things.    Every time you come speak...or anytime I’m at Inner Circle or one of Russell's events, I’d fill a WHOLE legal pad.    And thinking…     "Oh, man, that was amazing."       "No, that was better than the last."        "Oh, my gosh, they're getting better…”      Myron: You're kind, thank you.   Steve: You are just an incredible salesperson.    You have so much skill and so much knowledge...    I've watched you unplanned…    (...and I know you've done this multiple times!)    ….get up and pitch someone's product better than they pitch it to an audience that doesn't know you…   AND you'll make MORE sales than the actual owner of the product!   How do you do that?! I know that's a huge question, but that's amazing…   HAVING NO INHIBITIONS   Myron: First of all, how I do that in particular, is how I sell.    First and foremost, I have to believe in the thing that I'm selling. If I believe in the thing that I'm selling, then it's easy for me to sell it.    What I mean by that is...   Most salespeople don't even realize that they haven't gotten out of their own way yet.    Most people who sell things, whether they sell cars, or sell shoes, or sell online courses… or whatever...     … they believe that selling is doing something ‘TO’ people not doing something *FOR* them.    So first and foremost, I look at selling as a service.    I look at it as something that I do *FOR* people’ that makes their lives better. It makes the world a better place because people like me are selling.   So I don't have ANY inhibitions.    For example...a pitcher will have pain in his shoulder, and he can't throw the ball as fast, or a golfer will have pain in his back and he can't swing.    Because subconsciously, his body knows that, “This movement is gonna hurt me or hurt someone.”    Right?    When we are incongruent or when we have incongruence about selling in general, that makes it hard for us to sell things.    I think the thing that I have going for me when it comes to selling is that I have *NO* incongruence in me whatsoever.    If I feel like a product isn’t good, then I wouldn't sell it to somebody in the first place!    Does that make sense?    Steve: Yeah, that makes sense.   Myron: I get out of my own way.   Steve: And I mean, you've done that multiple times.    I saw you do that at Dream 100 Con.    I mean, you're the guy that Russell Brunson asks to come re-pitch ClickFunnels' amazing offer after he's pitched!   Myron: Yeah.   Steve: It's impressive.   Myron: I'm honored. I'm honored by Russell. I appreciate him more than I can say...  I've got so much belief in what he offers, that selling a Russell Brunson coaching program is easy for me to sell.   (...even though he doesn't consider himself a guru, okay? I'm gonna call him my bounce-back guru.)    Because I went out, made a fortune and had a lot of great things happen in my life.    And then…    I went through seven years of life devastation.   Like every year, major tragedy after major tragedy, of some kind, happened in my life.    ...from 2007 through 2013.    I signed up for another coaching program in 2014 and I just didn't like that kind of work.    I don't believe that the key to success is to find something you're passionate about and the money will follow.’’   I DON’T believe that's true.   Steve: I don't either.   Myron: But I do believe that…    If the work that you’re doing doesn’t match the person that you are, you will never create wealth or massive world change in that arena - because your ‘doing’ has to match your ‘being’.  Right?    The coaching program was great; they had a lot of people making A LOT of money...it just wasn't the kind of work that suited me.    After that in 2015, I joined Russell's Inner Circle and my life has been on an upward trajectory financially, ever since then.    Selling a Russell Brunson coaching program? That's like the easiest thing in the world for me to sell!    Because he is the one person who I can point at and say, incontrovertibly, has helped more people to become millionaires in a shorter period of time than ANY other human being I've ever known of.   Steve: Yeah, not even just “known of”. I've never heard of anyone doing that!   Myron: Exactly.    And he's not an MLM guy. He's just a guy who teaches you frameworks that work.    So standing up and selling his product is easy because…    I wasn't selling the product I was selling the payoff   ...and I know what the payoff is because I get paid from that payoff all the time!   So that's why, if I can look at something and it makes sense, then it's easy for me to see how it makes sense...    ...then it's easy for me to say HOW it makes sense in a way that's easy for people to receive.   Steve: It's powerful stuff! And you know what's funny?   I feel like there's a lot of people who are jumping in entrepreneurship…   (which is great!)   ….but they do it under this notion that it's NOT sales, it's “entrepreneurship”.    But  like,  “ Eh, entrepreneurship IS sales. It's a sales role."   Myron: Yeah, exactly.   Steve: And if you're lying to yourself about that, you're already a bad entrepreneur!   To be an entrepreneur is to be a salesperson.   Myron: Exactly.   Steve: How can people be better?    How can they get rid of the inhibitions around selling?   Myron: Let's start with this.    So as you just said…   The reason that people say, “I'm an entrepreneur, I'm not a salesman,"    (What does that even mean?)    ...that is because they think there's something inherently wrong with sales!    But I'm gonna fix that right now.    BLOOD & SALES   …. the people reading right now - they can agree or disagree.    If you disagree ...here's what I'm gonna say to you…   ”You've been wrong before… congratulations, it's happening again!”   So I happen to have some money in my pocket….   ….if you take some money out of your pocket, any amount of money… and you look at that money - just check it out - and you’ll realize that:    All of the money that you have...    All of the money you will ever have...   To do the things…    You desire to do for yourself...   For the people that you love...   The causes that you care about...   The only reason it's possible for me, you, or anyone else to ever have money is because somebody somewhere sold something to someone for a profit.    PERIOD.   (I wasn’t gonna go here, but I will…)   Money is like blood, right?    Money is like blood, in that, money is stored in a bank.    Where's blood stored?    Steve: In your body.   Myron: Well, no, it's stored in a blood bank.    Money is stored in a money bank, right?    Steve: Oh, I get what you're saying.   Myron: Blood is stored in a blood bank.    Blood has to be in circulation in order to give life to your body and money has to be in circulation in order to give life to the economy.   Steve: I love that.    Myron: Right? So money is very much like blood.  Blood carries oxygen to every part of your body.    Money doesn't really carry oxygen, but it does help you breathe.    … because when you don't have any money, you feel like you can't breathe.   Steve: That's true.   Myron: Right?    But also…    Money is a mass noun, just like blood is a mass noun.    Yesterday, I went and got some blood drawn - I didn't go get ‘A blood’ drawn, I got SOME blood drawn.    … even though it's singular, it's a mass noun.    So you have to put “some” (which is plural) in front of a singular word.    You'd never say "I gave A blood," because that doesn't make any sense.    I gave SOME blood. Well, guess what?    When it comes to money, you wouldn't say, "I gave A money..."   It's SOME money.    Money and blood are both mass nouns.    Money and blood are both fungible.    Q: Now, what does fungible mean?    Well, you drove my car when you were in Tampa.   Steve: Yeah, great car, beautiful car.   Myron: With my name on the floor mat.   Steve: On the floor mats right there, that was...wooooo!   Myron: I drive a Bentley Continental GT.    If I let Steve borrow my car, when he brings my car back, my car is NOT fungible.    It's a car, but he can't bring me back a Volkswagen Jetta and say, "Here Myron, here's a car."    You have to bring back the same car!    ...or at least the same kind of car in, at least the same kind of condition.   (Preferably my car, right?)   So if somebody borrows a car, a car is NOT fungible.    If somebody borrows my golf clubs...    (… I wouldn't let somebody borrow my golf clubs 'cause those are my babies!)      But if I did, it's like, "No, you can't bring me back some other golf clubs."    "Well, they're golf clubs! What difference does it make?"    No! Golf clubs are NOT fungible.    If you give blood at a blood bank and then get in a car accident, you need to go get some blood… they don't have to search through millions of pints of blood to find the exact blood you gave!   Steve: "Oh, here are your cells!"    Myron: Exactly.    They just have to find the same blood type.    It's like with money.    Money is fungible.    If you loan me $5, you don't care if I pay you back the same bill.    Or if you owe me $50 then you don't care if I pay you back a $50 bill. Or two $20s and a $10 or five $10s or 10 $5s.    You don't care.    Q: Why?    A: Because money is fungible.    As long as it's the same currency type (#American dollars), you don't care.    You don't wanna loan me $50 in American dollars and I give you back Costa Rican dollars.    That wouldn't work.    So…    Money and blood are very much alike.   So here's what you gotta realize.    The only reason any of us EVER have any money in our pocket to do…   The things we wanna do    The things we desire for ourselves    The things we desire for people we love or the causes that we care about    … is because somebody somewhere sold something to someone for a profit.    Here's what that means:    Just like money is the blood, it keeps the economy alive, money is the lifeblood of the economy.    Salespeople are the heart of the economy that keeps the blood flowing.    If you are in sales, free yourself from the idea…from this ridiculous Hollywood notion that selling is somehow doing evil in the world.    Hollywood does way more evil in the world than salespeople!   The government tries to demonize business and salesmen and entrepreneurs while they do WAY more evil in the world.     Here's what you gotta realize...    Being a person who is in sales (a salesman or saleswoman) is one of the most noble, honorable positions and vocations in the world.     You make the world go ‘round.   Once you realize how essential salespeople are in the world and how much joy they bring into the world?   Salespeople bring joy into the world!    Remember how good you felt last time somebody sold you a new car? Or somebody sold you a new house? You felt great!   Why?    Because they sold you something that made your life better.    Salespeople bring more joy into the world than almost any other profession.    So once you wrap your mind around what selling really is…   … that FREES you up from all those internal conflicts and incongruencies that create the cognitive dissonance that restrict you from going out and making your offers boldly.   Steve: I 100% believe that.   Myron: That was a long answer.   Steve: But it's an amazing answer.    It drives me crazy…. "Money's evil."    Money is NOT evil, money is an amplifier.    I feel like (most of the time) when someone is NOT good at sales, usually they need to redefine their relationship with money.    They have so many *false beliefs* around money.   Myron: Absolutely.   Steve: Do you find that to be true?    Myron: Absolutely.    I'm gonna say, money IS an amplifier, but I'm gonna add a caveat.   Because money IS an amplifier…    If you're bad, money will make you a worse person, or give you the opportunity to do more evil in the world.    If you're a good person, money will give you the opportunity to do more good in the world   HOWEVER…   Money itself is NOT bad, nor is it neutral. Money itself is good. Money is a good thing.   Steve: Right.   Myron: How can you say money is a good thing?    Q: What is the substance that represents wealth around the world since the beginning of time?    What's that substance?    Steve: Gold.   Myron: Gold, that's right.   Steve: Yeah.   Myron: Gold is the substance that represents wealth.    The first time gold is mentioned in Scripture is in the Garden of Eden.    Here's what God said, "And there was gold in that land, and the gold of that land is good."    Now, wait a minute, wait a minute!    Help me understand something here.    The Garden of Eden is a place where all the food is free.    The Garden of Eden is a place where there were only two people who ever lived there, Adam and Eve, (last I checked, they were married to each other).    There were no stores, there was nothing for sale, and yet God put gold in the Garden of Eden and then, He made sure He told us it was good.   Money is good. It's not neutral. It's not bad. It is inherently good.    You can do bad things with money, but it’s inherently good.    A car is inherently good - it's not bad to not have to walk everywhere you go!    It's good to be able to get places faster and it gives you the ability to save time and put more experiences in your life.    But people have run over people intentionally with cars!   You can do something bad with something that's good but it doesn't make the good thing bad - it just means that a person did a bad thing with it.   Steve: And the person did it, NOT the car, or the gold, or the object!   Myron: You know how you talk about the Capitalist Pig it really irritates people?    THIS MAY OFFEND YOUI'm gonna say something that really irritates people.   Steve: Yeah.    Myron: I'm not attempting intentionally to offend anybody (that's not my intention) but if they get offended…. they should probably grow up a little bit!    So the government talks about gun violence, right?    Steve: Yeah.   Myron: Oh, there's no such thing as gun violence.    I know, I just lost a bunch of people....but I lost the ones I wanted to lose.   Steve: Sure.   Myron: Okay?    There's no such thing as gun violence. I have a whole bunch of guns, not one of them is violent.   (I know I just lost a bunch of people… but I lost the ones I wanted to lose)   Steve: Me too. It's so funny, they're just sitting there and they never harmed anyone.      Myron: They don't do anything to anybody.   They just mind their own business!   In fact, they don't even mind their own business ...because they don't do anything.    They just sit there until I go to the range and I practice.    There's no such thing as gun violence, it's people violence and some of those people use guns.    Nobody talks about...   Steve: Car violence.   Myron: Car violence.    Nobody talks about fist violence.    It's stupid, it's like saying, "My stupid pencil failed that test."    *Your pencil didn't take the test*    Steve: I'm gonna use that one!    I wish I would have known that when I was in elementary school, hah.    “My pencil's broken!”   Myron: "My pencil...I can't believe this... What kind of pencil is this?!”   Steve: So we've gone through and said, “Okay, in order to get better at sales, you really need to embody…” Myron: You have to fall in love with it.   Steve: Sales are incredible.   Myron: You have to fall in love with it.   I love sales and salespeople.    Pray for salespeople every night when you go to bed. Thank God for them every morning when you wake up.    Stop being, "I can't believe that person tried to sell me something."    When somebody tries to sell something to you, get excited about it and watch their process and see what you can learn.   Instead of , "I can't stand these stupid infomercials. I can't stand these stupid commercials….”    I like infomercials… I really love them!    Steve: Me too! I watch them for fun.    Myron: Goodness, they're so entertaining!   I'm like, "Ooh, that is such a great idea!"    Steve: Oh man! So we’re saying …   THE STRUGGLE IS NOT REAL!   Number one: You can't even learn any of the skills or real tactics that you teach if you can't even accept the fact that…    Sales ARE good.   That money IS good.   Myron: Absolutely, absolutely!    And that you are doing good in the world when you sell things to people.    Do you understand that people only buy something because they value the thing they're buying more than they value the money?    It's kind of amazing when you think about it.   Steve: Yeah, money is GOOD. Sales are GOOD.    I'm writing down some of the notes here...    What else would somebody need to do?    I mean these are all major foundational pieces before you even get into tactics…   (or even things that you'll be speaking at OfferMind about)   So what else can somebody do to just increase their sales?    They're like, "Hey, I've got those things, I know sales are GOOD. I know money is GOOD."    What would be the next step?    Myron:    Realize that the struggle is not real, it's imagined.    “But sales are SO hard!”    No, no, no, no, that's just a story you tell yourself.    Sales are NOT hard, you're just NOT good at it.    I love what Jim Rohn said his mentor told him.    He said, "Mr. Rohn, Mr. Rohn. Don't wish it were easier. Wish you were better."   Steve: Ohhhhh...there's some zing on that!   Myron: That's juicy, ain't it?    Steve: It's a little sting, there. A little spicy.   Myron: Yeah, he was like, "Sales is hard."    No, no, no, no. It ain't the problem.    Sales are not hard. Sales are really, really easy! You just don't know how to do it.    Jim Rohn said his mentor, Mr. Earl Shoaff asked him, “So how much money do you make?"    He said, “Well, I don't make that much. I'm broke.”    His mentor said, “How is it that you, being 26 years old and a healthy American male...and you're broke?”    He said, “Well, I can't help it. This is the job I have. This is all they pay.”   His mentor said, “Well, now Mr. Rohn that's not true. Let me ask you a question. Are there people who work for your company that get paid more than you get paid?"    He said, "Yes."    His mentor said, "Well then, that's not all they pay. That's just all they pay YOU."   And I said, "That is so good!"   Steve: I totally I can hear his voice as you say that. You do it well!   Myron: That's all they pay *YOU*    So what we have to realize is…    Mr. Rohn said, "It's too expensive."    "No, Mr. Rohn. The problem is not that it's too expensive. The problem is that you can't afford it."    We always wanna blame it on something outside of ourselves.    We always wanna relieve ourselves from the responsibility to do the thing, but the reality is... the reality is that sales ISN’T hard…   “…I just haven't learned how to do it yet!”   I'm gonna tell you something, Steve.    I have NOT always been good at sales.    When I got started in sales in 1985 selling insurance and investments through a company called AL Williams, I was not even good enough to be bad yet.    I was so bad, I was worse than bad!    I got started in October of 1985 and I did not make my first sale until April of 1987.    I was working and doing presentations... and I was woefully awful.    See, here's what happens.    Most people are not willing to be bad long enough to get good.   I was making offers and doing presentations from October of 1985 to April of 1987.    (By the way, if you're counting that's 18 months before I made a single, solitary sale.)   Shortly after I made that first sale, I became the top salesperson in our office month after month after month after month.    Some of you will say, "Well, Myron. How did you do that? What was it that changed for you, that took you from not being able to make the sale, to being the top salesperson in your office?"    *EASY*    I ran out of all the ways that wouldn't work.   Steve: Mat time!   Myron: The only thing I had left? The ways that it WOULD work.    It's so amazing, Steve.    People resist the only activity that can help them get better at the thing they are desiring to do.   They'll create all kinds of creative avoidance around not doing the one thing, i.e.,    Making offers   Doing presentations.   DON’T HIDE   I'm gonna tell you something, I've got a young lady who's in one of my high-end coaching programs.    Her name's Eileen, I think you met her.    This particular coaching program is $40,000 and they have to put at least half down and then they get on weekly bank drafts, right?    So she's like, "Myron, I really wanna get in this and I don't have the money. I don't know what to do."    First of all, she came to me and she didn't hide from me.    She came to me and said, "I don't have the money. I don't know what to do. What should I do?"    I'm like, "This person's gonna be awesome."    … because when they didn't have the answer, they knew there was an answer…   ... and so they ASKED for the answer instead of avoiding the place where they could get the answer.   Steve: Yes. I'm a student of exceptions.    If you don't have the means, or you don't have whatever...    JUST FIND ANOTHER WAY.    It doesn't mean that you're blocked!   You keep moving!   Myron: Yeah, exactly.   Here's what I told her:    "Eileen, you already have a $4000 offer. Raise the price to six and make more offers.    In fact, take the people who are in your current database right now and give them a date at which you're gonna raise your price to $6000 and give them an opportunity to get it now for only $4000.    Raise your prices."    I said, "Then the second thing you wanna do, raise your prices and make more offers."    Now, here's what make more offers means to me: *Collapsed timeframe*.    Take the number of offers you would do in the next year and do that in the next month!   Take the number of offers you'd do in the next month and do that in the next week!   Take the number of offers you'd do in the next seven days and do that many offers today!    You will have the money in less than 30 days.    She called me a week later, "Myron, I have the money."   Steve: That's SO cool.   Myron: It’s something as simple as “make more offers”.    I can tell you story after story. That's not unusual, but it is unusual to find people who are willing...   To make an offer!    Adjust the offer and then make that offer to another person when somebody says no to their offer   Make that offer just the way it is to 10 more people just to see if the problem is the offer... OR if it’s just the way they're offering it.   Steve: Right, right.   Myron:    Most people won't allow themselves to stay in the game long enough to figure out how to win the game.   Steve: You know, it's funny. I went back and I recounted how many tries it took me... and it was 33 failures over six years!    It was painful...   Myron: Well, why didn't you quit?    Steve: Right? Yeah, I know.    Someone was like, "Why did you think you could keep going like that?"    I was like…   I realized that failure is largely made up. You just learn. Everything is progression. It's not win-lose, it's just progression.   Man, I had a lot of garbage in my own head around the beliefs in money that I had to overcome.   Myron: Absolutely.   Steve: Before I could even sell what I was making in the first place.   ALL WORK *WORKS*   Myron: Absolutely.    What's really interesting that a lot of people don't realize?    They'll say, "But Steve, it's not working! But Myron, it's not working!"    I say, "Okay, first of all, let me help you understand something. All work WORKS."   Steve: I'm gonna put that on my ceiling!   Myron: All work works. There's no such thing as, "I did that thing, and it didn't work."    Oh, it worked.    "No, no, but I made the offer and nobody bought."    It still worked.    "Well, if I made the offer and nobody bought, how can you say it worked?"    See, work is a two-sided coin.    Q: What are the two sides of the coin?    There's the work I do on it    There's work it does on me.    When the work I do on it doesn't do what I thought it would do...then the work it does on me ALWAYS does what it's supposed to do!   I know all work works.    So when I'm working on something that seems like it's NOT working, it's still working on me.    It's so interesting, we were talking about how you had six years... six years you tried all these different things and none of them "worked."    You had six years of failure, about 30-some odd failures but here's what we as human beings fail to realize.    Repetitive use of a limited ability will always produce an increased capacity.    What do I mean?    If I wanna get in shape and started doing push-ups, and I wanna do 30 push-ups, but I can only do five, here's what happens initially after I do five.    The next day I can only do three, right?    Because push-ups, in the beginning, don't make you stronger at first, they make you weaker because of fatigue.    So people think when they become fatigued from the activity that they wanna get good at, they think that means it's NOT working.    But you have to do it over and over again.    Repetitive use of a limited ability will ALWAYS produce an increased capacity.    Unless you do the activity repetitively, it cannot increase your capacity to do that thing.    Eventually, if you do five push-ups today, and three tomorrow, and then five the next day, and then three the next day, and five the next day... all of a sudden, you get down one time and then it’s 21.    Where did that come from?    Repetitive use of a limited ability will ALWAYS produce an increased capacity.    Over that year and a half when I was making presentations and nobody bought, what I didn't realize I was learning two very valuable lessons.    I was learning how to NOT work for money.    I was learning how to hone my message and how to adjust my approach and then go back and do it again.   And that's what I mean when I say I literally became the top seller.    Went from a year and a half no sales...to making a sale...to top salesperson.    “How did you do that?”    I ran out of all the ways that wouldn't work. The only thing I had left were ways that would work.   Steve: I totally get it.    It's kind of the same thing for me... after a while, I was like, "I don't know how else to be bad, or make it not produce cash.”   Myron: Exactly.   Steve: So just so everyone else can see, I've taken so many notes that I even turned the page…   ….now I'm going down this side of the page with notes!   I have so many notes and what's funny is that I've listened to you speak so many times...    Every time I hear you speak, more and more comes out!    I have a greater understanding of why I behave the way I do.    Not just, "How do I sell more?"    It's, "How do I actually behave better?"    It's really fascinating and I want to thank you for that.   Myron: Absolutely, my pleasure bro.   Steve: So you're gonna be teaching a lot of stuff at OfferMind and you're gonna come speak...   Myron: Yes.   Steve: And at the point where you're gonna come speak, people should have a great idea of what their offer actually is.    The core offer, what they should be doing.    Horse blinders on about everything else and just hyper-focused on that one core offer…which is what I'll be doing on the first day.    But you're gonna come in and teach them how to offer the offer.   Myron: How to offer the offer in a way that people expect it.    So many people make the mistake of thinking that the offer is their person.    What do I mean by that?    What they'll do is say, "Well you'll get so many hours of my time."    I say, "How many hours of your time?”    What I want less than hours of your time is for you to have hours of my time!   Steve: Right.   Myron: Okay? So they'll sell their person.    They'll sell their pieces, "Well, this has got five books, 17 videos and 47 audios."    Well, nobody cares about the pieces.   Steve: No, I don't want that.   Myron: Nobody cares about the pieces.    They'll sell their process.    It's fine to teach people the process after they've taken advantage of your offer, but don't sell them the process!    If you sell them the process then they're not gonna buy it.    I'm gonna teach you how to offer the offer...    Q: ...and so how do you offer the offer?    When you're selling to somebody you don’t sell them the process, you only sell them the payoff.    You don't sell them your person, you don't sell them the pieces, you don't sell them the process.    Q: What do you sell them?    You sell them the payoff and you use a concept that I call Emotional Cooperation.    After you use Emotional Cooperation… (and I'll teach you what that means when I get there - at OfferMind…)    ...then you use what I call Logical Justification.    When you combine Emotional Cooperation with Logical Justification, you become what I call a Psychological Artist.    You can hang pictures in people's minds for them to refer to that help them see your offer in a more favorable light. OFFERMIND???Steve: That is powerful stuff and I’m taking notes like CRAZY.    If anyone's watching or listening to this now, and they're like, "Will OfferMind be worth it?"    ...first of all, if you're NOT convinced by now… I don't know what to tell you!    What would you say to somebody who's like, "You know what, I don't know if I should show up to OfferMind?"   Myron: What does that mean?    Steve: Right.   Myron: No, no, I know what you mean.    I'm like, "I don't know if I should show up for OfferMind?"    Some of the greatest marketing and sales minds in the world alive today are gonna be there teaching you how to get BETTER at creating offers, and offering those offers…   ...if you don't know if you should be there…? Perhaps we should come get your family and take them to safety!?!   It's that kind of deal.  THE TWO THINGS...One of my old mentors, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones... I love that man and he was so amazing.    He changed my life in so many ways.   Steve: Oh, I didn't know he was! Oh, that's cool. Wow.   Myron: Oh yeah, I knew Charlie.   Steve: Oh, that's amazing.   Myron: Yeah, I knew Charlie.   Steve: Cool.   Myron: He lived in the same town as me. I used to go visit him.   Steve: That's amazing.   Myron: Like, I would go hang out with him.    Charlie used to say:    Your life would be the same 10 years from now as it is today, except for two things, the books you read and the people you meet.   When he said, "The people you meet", he is talking about the people you associate with.    I have found that NOTHING in this world ... in this life...changes your life for the better like going to live events.    Live events are my vibe.    I get to meet people and interact with people.    If I had never gone to Funnel Hacking Live, I wouldn't even know you and we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.   Steve: No, definitely not.   Myron: When you were at Funnel Hacking Live in San Diego, 2016 and I was at Funnel Hacking Live 2016... I don't even know if I remember meeting you.    Do you remember meeting me?    Steve: No.   Myron: Probably not. No.   Steve: No, no.   Myron: Probably not, right?    We were both there, just as attendees.     And now you're having your event, and I'm coming to speak at your event!   You learn from me, I learn from you.    We make each other's lives better and we help each other's students, it's like...    ...does it get any better than that?!    Steve: I don't know?!   Myron: You will meet joint venture partners and they can open doors for you that you can't open for yourself just by going to live events in general...    But OfferMind! Like really?!!    I mean where will an assembly (other than at Funnel Hacking Live) of this level of marketing and sales genius be converged in ONE place at the same time other than OfferMind?    If you're not there ...where else would you be?!    Steve: I don't know? I've asked the same question.    I'm like, “I don't know why you wouldn't show up to this, it's pretty ridiculous…”   Myron: Your life will change.    I love what JR Ridinger used to say, he is a guy who is the president of a network marketing company I used to be a part of.    He said, "You can change your life in two days."    How long is OfferMind? Two days or three days? Two days?    Steve: Two days.   Myron:    You can change your life in two days. You can get more accomplished in two days than you get accomplished in a whole year by being smart enough to get yourself to that next event. Steve: There’s something about it...   Myron:    It collapses timeframes   It gives you a synergy    It gives you a level of focus that you can't get...that's diffused when you're out here doing your own thing in the workaday world.    When you come into a space where there are that many people focused on sales, focused on marketing, focused on offer creation, dude, it changes everything.   Steve: Yeah.   Myron: Yeah, I'm speaking at OfferMind.    But I'm not just going to OfferMind 'cause I'm speaking, I'd be going to OfferMind if I wasn't speaking.   Steve: Yeah.   Myron: Let's not get it twisted, ladies and gentleman.    Steve needs to go to events, I need to go to events, Russell needs to go to events.    The teacher who has stopped learning has lost his right to teach.   Steve: Okay, amen.    I think about like wings on a plane.    I tell everyone, if you're being coached by someone who's not also being coached, stop listening to them!   They're not practicing the very thing they're teaching you.   Myron: Absolutely.   Steve: Get away from them.     Myron: Absolutely.   Steve: Oh man.   Myron: Don't get stuck like Chuck in a pick-up truck.   Steve: Well hey thanks so much for being on here, thanks for being in Sales Funnel Radio.   I'm just incredibly excited to have you on.   Myron: Me too.   Steve: Guys, go to OfferMind.com and grab your ticket.      By the time while I'm saying this right now, we're pretty much out of VIP seating -  stuff is filling up very quickly.    Go get your ticket and we'll see you September 2nd and 3rd!   You’ll get to listen to Mr. Myron Golden teach you how to offer the offer that I'm gonna teach you how to build on day one.   Myron: May I borrow one of your words?    Steve: Yes.   Myron: BOOM!   Steve: BOOM!   BOOM!    If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good.   But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right?    That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.    So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.    Wanna come?    There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days.    You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com.    Again, that's OfferMind.com.

  This week Aaron and Tracy chat with Brad Rodriguez of Fix This, Build That about ways to establish your DIY confidence and potentially transition it into a business.   LET’S CHAT! You can always call and leave your questions and comments on our voicemail! 978-709-1040   NOTABLE MOMENTS : - Brad was in corporate America for 17 years before he went this route. - He sets defined goals and thinks ahead for what he wants to accomplish daily in the shop to make his time more efficient. - His philosophy for Fix This, Build That is: Educate, Inspire, Entertain. - In terms of getting your feet wet with DIY, Brad suggests: “Start with something you’re going to have success with”. - A skill Brad wants to add to his arsenal is metal working. - His favorite wood to work with is walnut. - This is Brad’s favorite project to date (a side-board cabinet): https://fixthisbuildthat.com/diy-sideboard-cabinet-woodworking-plans-2/ - Tool Must-Haves for the beginner: 3 piece cordless 18 volt set (drill, driver, circular saw), orbital sander, tape measure, pencil, carpenter square. - Brad recommends letting other people know you’re into woodworking, because people will cycle through tools and pass them on or give you a heads up about estate sales etc. - Some of Brad’s favorite resources are Pinterest and Google image searches. He’s also inspired by hotels.   SOCIAL QUESTIONS: Q: As a maker is it hard to stay on top of personal work for your home and family? A:  It absolutely is. Brad also talked about the guilt of balancing projects between children.   Q: What is your “woulda shoulda been” career? A: Brad’s always thought he would be a good litigators.   Q: Now that you do your hobby as a business, what do you do for fun? A: Brad enjoys the business side of the making (the analytics etc.), but is working hard to step away from the business and focus on hobbies again. Right now the down time is dedicated to the kids and occasional Netflix.   FIND BRAD: Website | https://www.fixthisbuildthat.com The Gram | https://www.instagram.com/fixthisbuildthat Podcast | https://madeforprofit.com/episodes YouTube | http://youtube.com/c/fixthisbuildthat   FOLLOW US on Social Media: Website | https://howtohome.com/ Instagram | http://bit.ly/2WqVfSp Twitter | http://bit.ly/2RRyYij Facebook | http://bit.ly/2MC3Hdc Youtube | http://bit.ly/2SifqTH   SUBSCRIBE to the How to Home Podcast: Itunes | https://apple.co/2DL0lSp Android | http://bit.ly/2B9k7Fm Stitcher | http://bit.ly/2DM0W6c Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2GcRCKo   THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR FILTERBUY.COM

David Keller, CMT, is president and chief strategist at Sierra Alpha Research LLC, a boutique investment research firm focused on managing risk through market awareness, and author of the blog, Market Misbehavior. David calls himself a right-brained person in a left-brained industry and prides himself on his ability to bridge the gap between academic and practical finance. He is past president of the Chartered Market Technician Association, and most recently served as a subject matter expert for Behavioral Finance. David was formerly a managing director of research at Fidelity Investments in Boston as well as a technical analysis specialist for Bloomberg in New York. At Sierra Alpha, David combines the strengths of technical analysis, behavioral finance, and data visualization to identify investment opportunities for active investors and enrich relationships between advisors and clients. He uses his blog to teach readers about investing through metaphors, most frequently paralleling the process to aviation and flying. The blog platform also provides him the opportunity to make observations on market psychology. On top of this, David is a featured contributor on StockCharts.com, where he authors The Mindful Investor column, and on the See It Market platform for “smart, unbiased financial minds”.   David is also a published author; his articles have appeared in Bloomberg Markets magazine and he edited the book, Breakthroughs in Technical Analysis: New Thinking from the World’s Top Minds (Bloomberg Press). His talents took him to Waltham, Massachusetts, where he was an adjunct professor for three years at Brandeis University International Business School. David has a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a bachelor of arts degree in music from The Ohio State University.    “One of the reasons we fall into a lot of behavioral challenges or poor decision making as analysts is because you are programmed to do just that … pound the table, put your foot down and insist that you have the right answer … to be completely fair, probably almost half the time you do not have the right answer.”  David Keller    Worst investment ever  Markets begin to recover after bottom of 2009  In mid-2008, David left New York to work for Fidelity Investments in Boston and what followed was a very difficult first year on the job from a market point of view. The market topped out in late 2007 while a lot of stocks topped out in early 2007. Then 2008 started a little weaker. It then continued its sell-off into autumn on that year. The market bottomed out at the beginning of 2009. His March, April and May was very confusing and there was a great deal of volatility at the low points. Through 2010, 2011 and 2012, market start to recover consistently, with some surprises along the way. People were starting to put 2009 behind them.   David’s wrong turn begins as he goes bearish in 2013  In mid-2013, David took the completely erroneous view on the markets by turning bearish on US stocks. Of course he now knows that that was not the time to be bearish as the next few years showed strong growth across the board, especially in the US. The upshot for him leading up to it was that he was very focused on the March 2000 high, when the S&P was nearly right on the 1550 mark. And then in the beginning and then late stages of 2007, it reached almost the exact same level. So as the market had once again approached the same level, it triggered in David the beginning of his wrong call as he was expecting a repeated pattern when, he has realized since that if he had looked at all the evidence, it would probably not have supported his call.   How did that impact David professionally?   He said he learned a lot. As an analyst and as a professional researcher, he pointed out that in such jobs you need to take a stand, to have an opinion. One of the reasons we fall into a lot of behavioral challenges or poor decision making as analysts is because such professionals are programmed to do just that – pound the table, put your foot down and insist that you have the right answer. He admits thought, probably almost half the time you do not have the right answer. The markets make for a very humbling report card for your calls. So he learned very quickly that while it is important to have an opinion, it is also very important to have the humility and intellectual honesty to understand when your call is not working out and then being open and clear on what evidence has caused me to change your mind.   Road to when ‘Dr. Doom’ realized he was wrong   It was definitely a contrarian idea to be bearish at that point because stocks in general were pretty strong and the US market looked very good, riding at record highs.  He realized that he’d made his mark when the trading desk chief referred to him as “Dr. Doom” to a group of people. The driver behind his call though was not just the market being at new highs. He had looked at price momentum in different ways. One common way that technical analysts measure price momentum is with an indicator called the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which says that when something goes up, how much does it tend to go up? And when it goes down, how much does it tend to go down? It is a ratio of the average up moves versus the average down moves. And what you’re looking for is when a market moves to extremes, and that is one of the reasons why today, a lot of analysts are turning negative on the US markets. So that was another piece of evidence that told David that the market had risen a lot, and that it was probably too much, and that he believed he needed to be defensive.   Sector levels supported his bias   The third item he was looking at was sector levels. He remembered that tech stocks in particular were underperforming. This group he expected would do well in a bowl phase, and it was not doing well anymore. On the other hand, consumer staples, were doing quite well. So what he realized there and what he realized from that sector perspective (when did he know he was wrong?) was when he looked at the sectors and saw technology, weak; staples, strong; he has realized since that because those conditions supported his argument, he had succumbed to confirmation bias, and decided he was bearish. Still suffering under the spell of such bias, he then just tried to gather evidence to support that call. As the market continued a little higher, he doubled down in the worst way, and was trying to continue to back it up with only the evidence he wanted to find.   Looking at individual stocks is also insufficient   He learned too that looking at individual stocks was not a good enough indicator either and that there is great value in looking beyond the market. If you’re thinking about asset allocation, he said, it is not good enough to just look at equities, or look at global equities or emerging markets as a bundle and make an overall decision based on only on that. When you look at the country level or the sector level or the group and stock level, you start to see movements and themes that can help you understand a sort of deeper level below just an overall market call. He learned a lot about how to qualify what he is seeing from the top down and by also doing a lot of good bottom-up work. He said the bulk of the screening and detailed work he does not was derived from the lessons learned during this period.    “Having the humility and having the intellectual honesty of understanding when your call is not working out and then being open and clear on what evidence has caused me to change your mind.”  David Keller    Some lessons  Have the honesty and courage to admit that you are wrong. Then state what you need to do differently. Admit that your thesis is not working and have the courage to change your perspective.   “It’s OK to be wrong, but it’s not OK to stay wrong.”   David Keller, quoting one of his mentors  You’re not married to your call. Make informed decisions based on what you think the probabilities tell you, but you have the equal opportunity to change that when the evidence supports it.   Keep paying attention. Watch for and understand when things are changing. David takes a page out of flight training here when he learned “situational awareness”. When flying an aircraft, it is essential to have awareness of what is happening outside the aircraft, so you do not fly into a mountain, another aircraft or the ground. A big part of David’s process is having situational awareness of the markets and really understanding what he is seeing around him.   Tracking trends closely is highly valuable. Anytime the market approaches record highs or a stock goes to new highs, start to question it. When the market is strong, switch into more of a trend-following mentality and stick with things that are working, avoid things that are not working, and just look for signals that the trend has reversed.   Dig to a deeper level to gather evidence behind your call. Don’t just start with “I think the market” or “I think this position is doing XYZ, it’s going below that” and then look for evidence evidence support or contradict the position you are taking. You can look at many factors, such as the advancers/decliners, which is a measure of how many stocks are going up, how many stocks are going down. It remained strong through much of 2013, then hit a peak, but it never really came down that much. And in the end, it went up as the market continued higher. And so recognizing that the average stock was still holding up was an important signal to monitor.     Andrew’s takeaways  You will eventually be wrong.  Enjoy the moments when you are right, but you will, eventually, be wrong. It is inevitable.   Hold back on your contrarian instincts.  Sometimes momentum can push through harder and longer than you think.   Avoid confirmation bias.  The way to do that is to use David’s “second level” idea to look deeper and for views contrary to yours.  David adds here:  Another meeting he used to do in one of his companies as a group was called The Devil’s Advocate meeting, in which an appointed person had to take the other side of a thesis and argue against it. A lot of times the group would disagree with the designated contrarian but it did make everyone think about what the other side of an investment thesis was and what chain of events could cause that opposing scenario to happen. Often, he said, such a discussion uncovers weaknesses in your initial thesis that you would not have arrived at otherwise.     Actionable advice   Always have an exit plan. Here David talks again about his experience as a student pilot, as he’s working toward his private pilot’s license. One thing he has learned with any flight plan, you must always look for what you’re going to do if there is an emergency. One thing is to identify emergency landing areas, such as other airfields, highways, golf courses, so you always have these options, and if something happens you execute that side plan. IN trading, David always says if XYZ happens, then he’s wrong and needs to change it. So he always has a stopping point for a long position or a short position. He always has a price level or a movement or an event or a signal that will cause him to re-evaluate his position, no matter what. He lays out this plan in the beginning, and then the key is sticking with that and having the conviction to actually do it the moment the warning sign triggers.   Q: Now pay attention, 007. I’ve always tried to teach you two things:  First, never let them see you bleed. James Bond: And the second? Q: Always have an escape plan. Desmond Llewelyn, in his final film appearance as Q in the James Bond series (1999, The World Is Not Enough)     No. 1 goal for next the 12 months   David just launched his own research firm about a year and four months ago so he will be working on that.   At StockCharts.com, where he writes a column called The Mindful Investor, he is going to launch a TV show for this online network in the next few months.   He is also looking forward to starting a podcast of his own.    Parting words   David says it was very therapeutic to finally admit his weaknesses to everyone.     “I love what you’re doing with this podcast, it’s a pleasure to be a part of it.”  David Keller     You can also check out Andrew’s books   How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market   My Worst Investment Ever   9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them   Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points    Connect with David Keller  LinkedIn  Twitter   Email  Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast   Further reading mentioned   David Keller, editor (2007) Breakthroughs in Technical Analysis: New Thinking From the World’s Top Minds    

If you ever sat down to create a sales message, you’ve probably gone through a process to discover a few vital things about your target audience.   You’ll want to know:   Vehicle-Based False Beliefs   Internal False Beliefs   External False Beliefs   Which Stories to Craft   The Source of their Current False Stories   ...there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes in the pursuit of a message that sells.   All of which is great! HOWEVER, (all caps for emphasis) a lot of times marketers skip over one VITAL area along the way, and that is…   Who's already highly likely to give you money?   *THIS IS SO IMPORTANT*   If you ignore this question you’re going to create a customer who:   Takes a lot of convincing to buy   May not be ready to buy   Is high maintenance   I'm not saying you're NOT in the right market, I'm saying, you're selling the wrong person in that market.   CHANGING MY TARGET AUDIENCE   I actually went through this situation at the beginning of this year... During January, February, and March of 2018,  I was selling in the wrong zone. I was like, “Crap, I’m selling the wrong customer. I'm selling a more challenging customer.”   It's not that I'm NOT willing to help those people...   But I'm here to make a change in Steve Larsen's world before I make a change the world business, and you should be doing the same.   Before you focus on ‘changing the world’ you need to cash out hard and make a lot of money. Capitalist Pig, Baby!     So now before I even decide to start selling a product, I run through this brief checklist so I know if it's even worth pursuing… and that’s what I’m going to share with you today…   BUT FIRST, how’d you like to join me for a mud run?   MY MUD RUN FUNNEL   You may not know, but probably the third funnel I ever built was for a charity 5K warrior mud run.   We had fire pits, mud pits, and crazy obstacles where you put on armor to tackle them. All the money went to the charity for the Fisher House Foundation which helps support bring family members to the bedside of injured service members.   I was still in college, and it was my first event funnel. The funnel worked and the way we promoted it worked very well. We got on the news several times, and 650 people show up for the event. Then we used the funnel after the event to raffle off some cool items too. I enjoyed it a lot. It was very validating for me to sit back and be like, “Oh crap. I knew this would work, but man this funnel stuff really works.”   Looking back, it's funny how long it took me to build a simple two-page event funnel. I remember finding random places on campus with fast, free internet. I think it took me 40 hours to build!   SELLING MUD RUNS TO COUCH POTATOES     I have a question for you:   Q: If I'm selling a mud run, who is the easiest person to sell?   A: Somebody who already does mud runs, right?   If you’re thinking, “Yeah, Stephen, No Duh!”  You’re right, it is, “No Duh!” But a lot of the time, people don't have that approach with the products they sell.   Now let's flip this a little bit…   Q: Who would be the most challenging person to sell a 5K warrior mud run to?   A: Someone who’s never run a race in their life:   They like being clean all the time   They don't own a pair of running shoes   They don’t like being outside   That person is gonna be a hard sell - they don’t even WANT to do a mud run.   Let's talk cookbooks:   Q: Who would be the best person for me to target if I'm going to sell cookbooks?   Yep, you’ve guessed it…   A: Somebody who already buys cookbooks.   ...BUT there's a lot of marketers out there who create their product, and it's a freaking 5K warrior mud run, they're like, “I want to change the world.”   So they focus on selling to somebody who has literally lived their entire life on the couch...  Because it means they’re changing the world while they do business.   I'm NOT saying you shouldn't try to change the world. I want to change the world too. BUT as far as a product goes, that's a sucky way to do your marketing. I'm trying to get you to think about how you do your targeting.   There seems to be this theme going on, especially for a lot of new marketers, but even for experienced ones…   They find the vehicle, internal, and external related false beliefs   Craft stories.   Set up all these campaigns and sequences.   Make ads and creative   Create content.   ...They make all this cool stuff,  but it's targeted at the person on the couch rather than the person who's already in motion doing the thing.   I see this often. I wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t true.   A CONFESSION…   Probably once every other week, I’ll start looking for NEW books to buy on Amazon. I’m looking for ways to spend money because I need a dopamine hit. I know that's what I'm doing...   Check out the episode where I talked about emotional buying  and D.O.S.E. (it’ll change the way you market ;-) )     I'm like, “Huh, I haven't read those hundreds of books on my shelves... What if I go buy more books? Oh yeah, that makes sense.”   I love books, so I spend $200 on more books. and I do that routinely.   Here’s a couple of the latest books that I'm really excited to read I don't know these authors, I've not been asked to say this, I'm just stoked... I mean, look at these titles:     #1: Marketing to Mindstates: the practical guide to applying behavior design research in marketing.   “Oh, baby! Can you imagine the mental ecstasy? Woo! That's going to be a good one, right?”   #2: Changing Minds: the art and science of changing ours and other people's minds.   “Wow, that’s some tiny, tiny font, but that's really cool stuff, I'm excited about it.”   I'm excited to read the book Changing MInds, I'm not dropping on the book at all, but if you're focusing on changing the minds of your customers, it's highly likely that you're skipping over the easy buyers. It’s NOT gonna be an easy sell.   If you wanna sell books, then your target audience should be book buyers IN MOTION MARKET ANALYSIS   I know without a doubt, one of the reasons all my stuff has done so well this year, is because I'm targeting people who are already in motion, doing the things that I'm selling.   I'm NOT trying to convince somebody, “Hey, come do a mud run, I know you've never put on running shoes.”   I'm convincing the person who is running:  “Hey, you like that run? Why don't you come over and do this run? Super cool!  I'll give you X, Y, and Z.”     The length of the bridge to the sale is super tiny! GETTING HOT? Let’s talk about hot, warm or cold traffic… Check out Eugene Schwartz, baby...     When you hear people say, “Oh, you've got to create a bridge...”  You need to remember that NOT all bridges are the same length.   I think of it as an education bridge  and the education bridge required for hot traffic is very short. Why? Because they're already in motion.     The education bridge required for cold traffic is freaking huge.   In fact, there are NOT many products that ever really hit true cold mainstream traffic. It's usually the hot and the warm traffic that’s sold to... that's it!   If I'm going to sell anything, I'm looking to sell it to people who are already taking active steps in their life -  because it means I don't have to work on rebuilding dumb false beliefs.   I'm still going to rebuild false beliefs, but it's way easier to knock down the false belief for HOT or WARM TRAFFIC. COLD TRAFFIC; it's like freaking Fort Knox. It's super hard for me to break down those kinds of walls. Cold traffic doesn’t even want those walls broken, a lot of them don't care:   “You mean I didn't have a problem before and you're trying to educate me that a problem exists? Oh, I don't want MORE problems in my life!”   Cold traffic is really challenging. WHY MLM?When I left ClickFunnels, the product I started selling was an MLM product. Why did I choose that?   The reason I chose MLM was that I knew people in that space were already trying to do funnels, but there wasn't anybody who had stepped up and said: "Hey, here's where you can come learn about MLM funnels.”   That's partly what I mean when I say: listen to what the market's telling you. The market is telling you how it wants to be sold.   The market said, “Stephen, would you please make cool funnel education in the MLM space.” Well, it didn't actually say that…  but I was looking, and I was like:   “Crap! Y'all are trying to do this stuff. Why don't I just set something up? Here's the training. Here's the pre-built stuff. Here’s Q&A sessions. Here's the bam, bam, bam, boom. Done!”   It was a big success out the gate because, metaphorically, I was selling people who were already doing mud runs.   I was selling people who already owned running shoes…   A lot of them were already trying to build MLM funnels - they were just sucky... Does that make sense? COLLECTING CUSTOMERS   It's so much easier to do what I call customer collection.   Selling Hot Traffic = Customer Collection     Cold Traffic = Customer Creation     I know I've talked about this before, but customer creation is really, really challenging. Not many markets ever survive that area.   Customer creation, that’s a different beast.   Y’all know I'm a ClickFunnels fanatic, and I will be forever... call me minion or whatever…   If you think about what Russell did, that man's a genius because when he first started ClickFunnels he sold to hot traffic.   He took ClickFunnels and put it into the website space; he threw rocks at websites. He said, "Hey, websites suck, why don't you come over here and start doing this funnel game?".   Q: Now who does that attract?   A: The people who are already likely customers.   ClickFunnels didn’t create customers, it collected customers.   Think about that... and think about how you're marketing right now.   When you think about the length of the education bridge you require your customers to cross before they're able to purchase... make sure you're not trying to build a MASSIVE educational bridge just for prestige. THE WRONG SALES MESSAGEI'm super psyched guys, I’m getting to do some really fun consulting soon. I can’t tell you yet because the contract's still going down, but it's a cool place that makes a lot of movies that you’d know.   However, I’d make a BIG mistake if I went in and said: "Hey, let's sell to the people who DON’T watch movies already".   That'd be stupid… don’t do that!   When I start building a marketing message...   I'm gonna to sell mud runs to the people who already running races.   I'm gonna to sell cookbooks to people already buying cookbooks.   I'm going to go sell software to people who’ve already bought software.   I’m gonna sell movies to people who already watch movies   BECAUSE it means I don't have to go in and say: "Hey, you should buy this thing.”   Super fast, easy way to sell.   Otherwise, you’ve gotta go through this massive convincing game and the convincing game sucks. I HATE it.   You get into a feature war...   If you feel that you've been in a feature war with your customers, you're selling the wrong person. I'm not saying you're NOT in the right market, I'm saying you're selling the wrong person in the market. THE SHORT BRIDGE TO A FAT WALLET   If you watch the way ClickFunnels is run and other successful companies that blow up fast, one of the things they're really good at is grabbing the super easy hot traffic who need a short education bridge, from other markets.   Then when they can feel that the market's starting to dry up, they DON’T turn to warm traffic, they just go grab the next market… and the next market.   Russell's like, “Let's go sell the B2B space. There's a group inside of that B2B space that would love to build funnels. Now let's go to the supplement space. Yeah, let's show them how it works for supplements. Let's build a few supplement funnels and do a few episodes about it.”   BOOM!  Easy buyers to pick up.   That’s how a company without any VC funding, any of their own money, or any kind of debt, in general, gathers hundreds of millions of dollars!   They're NOT getting distracted by trying to create new customers... they didn't focus on Customer Creation for the first three or four years. It's only been in the last like six months when ClickFunnels started doing things like the One Funnel Way Challenge, which I help run…   ONE FUNNEL AWAY   My explicit role in the One Funnel Away Challenge is to help create a customer.   I'm there to groom, I'm there to sift and sort, I'm there to get people out who shouldn't be in there;  the people who are going to be the most challenge customers.   Sure, they could buy but they're NOT dream customers.   Dream Customers:   Want the short education bridge.   Are fast purchases.   Have faster success stories.   Don't fight me along the way.   If I'm going to sell a mud run, I'm NOT going to sell to people who've never run ever because they're going to ask me dumb questions like:   Should I warm up?   Should I tie my shoes?   Should I bring a water bottle?   Should I get good sleep the night before?   ...You know what I mean?   I'm not making fun of anybody, but you gotta understand...     DUMB QUESTIONS?   If you want to see if you're selling the right person, look at your support tickets.   Look at the questions coming in after customers buy from you to see if they’re short education bridge style questions?   I'm not going to give you a parameter here, but you'll start to see, “Oh sweet, I'm getting a lot of good questions there…” or, “Oh man, I'm getting a lot of dumb questions.”   They’re not dumb questions in themselves, but they represent:   I did not create the right marketing. I created the wrong bridge. I'm selling a more challenging customer.   Millions and millions of dollars are created just by soaking up the easy buyers who are already in momentum and want to purchase things that you place in front of them.   Every time I see somebody on Facebook saying, “We just turned on ads for cold traffic.”   I want to reach through my screen, give them a hug and then slap them. I'm like, “No! why?” Don't ever create ads to cold traffic,  especially out of the gate.   People create brand new products and the first thing they go do is create cold traffic massive bridge marketing. *Rough* That spells somebody who's gonna fail and call funnels a scam later on:   “I put all this money in and it didn't work!”   Yeah, duh! You're trying to sell a mud run to somebody who's never got off the couch. They're NOT gonna do a mud run for fun.   So, to help you avoid making this mistake, I want to walk you through my quick Target Audience Checklist. THE TARGET AUDIENCE CHECKLIST I'm part of a cool project that I can't tell you about yet, but I just spent three days writing an EPIC 25 page project. I've got legal pads and paper all over the place, filled with ideas...   One of the things created was a CHECKLIST to help people briefly identify if they're targeting the right person.     So before you even move on to creating a marketing message, finding false beliefs, and telling new stories. All that stuff that we do…   You need to ask the questions:   Am I even talking to the right person?   Is this the easiest sell?   Is this the sale have the smallest education bridge?   You want to be able to say, just, “Oh, hey, there's a mud run in your area. Here's the date, and the cool offer that comes with it.”  AND Sweet! It’s sold.   Let’s think about this in terms of business-building...   If I'm going to sell a business building education program, business-building events, business-building information products, or coaching, whatever...   #1: I would expect to sell people who already have a business.   Okay, feel me when I'm saying that.   If I'm going to sell something called, "How to build your business”  it’d be a drastic mistake for me to sell people who don't have a business yet.   This can feel counter-intuitive… but it’s true!   If I'm selling business building education, the best purchaser will be somebody who already has a business and who's just looking improve.   It's going to be a much larger bridge for someone if they're building a business for the first time. They’ve got to deal with all the mental crap besides all the strategy stuff.   The mental junk that goes down inside someone's brain the first time they build a business is huge.   I deal with that all the time; thousands of people saying things like:   "Well, I know you said to publish, Stephen, but what if someone reads what I’ve written?”   People have asked that! I'm like, “Isn't that the point? Yeah, hopefully, they do. Then you can ask them if they liked it?”   There's a lot of mental stuff that goes down…   So if we're going to sell business building education and programs, you should sell people who already have a business. *Easy Sale*   #2:  I'm going to sell to somebody who's already been list building.   If they know enough to build lists, we're talking easy drop in the hat sale.   #3: I'm going to sell to somebody who has a product that's at a similar price point to mine.   It’s soooo easy that to sell a $15,000 product to a person who also sells something around 15 grand - in their mind, the can easily justify the purchase. They're like, “Oh man, that's one sale for me.”   BUT if I target somebody who's still at a nine to five, they're like, “15 grand! Holy crap, that's like two or three months of work.”   You know what I'm saying?   It’s gonna be really hard to get that individual to say, “yes!” So I'm going to target somebody who already has a business, and who sells an expensive product... because they can justify it:   “Oh yeah, you're right! Hey, that sale we just got let's just take that cash over to Stephen.”   #4: I'm going to sell to people who already have an internet presence.   They don't ask questions like, "But how do I build a social media profile?" They’ve already solved that problem.   The length of the education bridge needed is represented by the number of problems they've already solved in order to use your product.   If a bridge is super freaking long it means they have a lot of problems to solve.   They haven't walked through a lot of things that are required in order to be successful with your product. They’ve far more problems than the person who’s hot traffic.   I'm NOT saying you shouldn't help them, but gosh, just freaking sell somebody who’s already:   Likely to buy   Highly likely to be successful   Highly likely to do exactly what you say   When I sell somebody that's hot traffic versus somebody who's cold traffic, my business and my personal happiness increase by leap and bounds. Personally and emotionally, I feel better.   #5: If I'm going to sell to people on how to publish, the easiest sale is to somebody who's already publishing.   Are there as many people? No, but they're fast sales.   There are still MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to be made before you have to throw in the towel and start selling warm traffic.   I'm super pumped, I just bought mycontentmachine.com…   Nothing is there yet, so you can’t check it out yet, but I'm super stoked because I want to teach you how I created my content publishing machine. WARNING SIGNS   So, to wrap up; think about this…   If you have to defend your product like it's a dissertation for your Ph.D., it's highly likely that you’re NOT selling to, or haven’t figured out how to speak to, hot traffic.   Mega Hot Traffic is:   Problem-Aware   Solution-Aware   Educated Already   They just need to see your solution - which makes it really simple to sell to them.   Take a look at who you're selling to see if you’ve picked hot traffic; the easiest sale with the shortest education bridge?   If you're not selling anybody yet, when you build your product, (or if you do affiliate marketing), make sure that who you're targeting is already massively dispositioned to purchase.   This usually means your customer is already purchasing something similar to your product, and they just need something new to buy to scratch the itch.   Then all you have to do is…   *Just stand in front of them*   Until Next Time - Keep Crushing It!   Hey, just real quick:   A few months ago Russell asked me to write a chapter for a secret project he was doing. I had to write a chapter for a book, this was the letter I got from him.   He said:   "Hey Stephen, let me ask you a quick question...   You suddenly lose all your money, along with your name and your reputation, and only have your marketing know-how left.     You have bills piled high and people harassing you for money over the phone.   You have a guaranteed roof over your head, a phone line, an internet connection, and a ClickFunnels account for only one month.   You no longer have your big guru name, your following, your JV partners. Other than your vast marketing experience, you're an unknown newbie...   What would you do from day #1 to day #30 to save yourself?   Russell Brunson   Hey, if you want to see my answer and a bunch of other marketers who also answered that in this amazing book and summit, just go to 30days.com/stephen.   You can see the entire summit, you can see the book, you can see what we wrote in there and each of our detailed plans. Just go to 30days.com/stephen.

Allan Zeman is a tough interview. That is not only because the chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Group has been interviewed so many times that it's tough to find a new angle, but also because he's an expert in circling a question back to promote his business. As you listen to Zeman talk and see how his mind works, you understand how this man turned three short Chinese words into a formidable brand. If you are familiar with the father of Lan Kwai Fong, you know the self-made business tycoon has been a China bull forever. He is planning to open ten or even twenty (depending on which interview you read) Lan Kwai Fong centers in China over the next decade. That's a risky bet, considering the slowing Chinese economy and a decline of high-end spending. But Zeman believes his projects will be unique enough to stand out and attract consumers, even as most malls in China are likely to suffer in the coming years. We will wait to see how well Zeman's ambitious plans in China turn out. But I would advise on taking his success as a fact, because like he says, "I have always been a winner." Please read a Q&A of the interview, and don't forget to subscribe to China Money Podcast for free in the iTunes store, or subscribe to China Money Network weekly newsletters. You can also subscribe to China Money Podcast’s Youtube channel or Youku channel. Q: China's first tier cities have seen housing prices increase dramatically in the past few months. Does this concern you? A: Those cities have been going against the grain of the other (smaller) cities in China. But as we have seen in Hong Kong, New York, London, if prices get too high, eventually there must be a correction. Beijing is looking at instituting some measures to slow down the rise, which I think will happen. Beijing understands that if prices get too far out of whack, they have to do something to look after everyone. Q: Do you see a price correction this year? A: Within a year, I would predict there could be (a correction), but it won't be a dramatic correction. Perhaps a correction of around 5%. Long term, (housing prices in) first tier cities will continue to be strong. To me, I look at (owning a property in those cities) as putting money into the bank. You don't have to worry for the long term. Q: For smaller cities in China, the so-called second and third or fourth tier cities, how bad is the oversupply problem? My own brother and sister live in a third tier city in China, and each of them own three to four apartments. It can't be sustainable? A: The oversupply problem is very serious. But this is not limited to real estate. There is oversupply in probably every commodity, as the previous administration kept people working to support employment. It will take a number of years for oversupply to work its way down. We were just visiting our Wuxi project, meeting with the Party Secretary there, who told us the area we are focusing on has seen housing prices escalating lately. So, certain areas will manage to attract people as urbanization in China continues. Also, Beijing has implemented policies to slow down the construction of new property projects. Q: For places that can't attract people, a famous Chinese real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang has suggested that they should be demolished? A: No, that's not the answer. Potentially, the government can buy some of the property to lease out as low-cost housing, or the government can buy it as long-term investments and slowly sell them off. The Chinese government still have a lot of reserves and resources to manage the problem. Q: Now let's move onto commercial property. I read when you first saw the design of the LKF Haikou project, you didn't really like it and made some changes. What did you change? A: We had our in-house architecture team work with the project to improve on many things. You must think from the customer's perspective: How do you get them to the second floor,

Jeff and Jon talk with a local brewer, Lee Robinson, Founder and Co-Owner of Bentonville Brewing Company. A Discussion with Micro-Brewer Lee Robinson of the Bentonville Brewing Company Q: What is the difference between nano and micro-brewery? A: It's based on volume production, what you can do annually. How many barrels a year - in Arkansas it's 500 barrels a year is a micro-brewery. However this number increases every year, the bar keeps on raising for what can be considered as micro-brewery. Q: How do you sell your beer? A: We self-distribute and we don't go through distributorship because that means a lot more costs,a lot more kegs and lot more inventories to get a good percentage of the keg. Q: Your run your own tap room? Where is your tap room? A: Yes, we run our own tap room. Its over here at 1000 Southeast 5th St in Bentonville, Arkansas. Q: What is your background? Is that where you met Gavin Edwards (co-owner)? A: My background is actually finance and real estate. Yes, we have worked together in real estate over the last few years, he was a realtor and I was a loan officer. He came into the brewery a little bit later in the game. It was me and another friend of mine who started it. Q: About your brewmaster, how long he's been doing it? A: About 2 or 3 months now. But before him, we brought in a guy who is experienced so it is from that person where our current brewmaster has taken his technical background from. Q: When you guys decided that you wanted to do this, how did you come to an agreement? Who's gonna do what? What does the partnership look like and all that fun stuff? A: A lot of handshakes and verbal. We do have a new operating agreement now but that's probably one thing that we should have defined more clearly early on. We should have written out in detail what and whose role should it be because many would not do the roles they said they would do. We did some other things, trading equity for work and build-out and stuff like that but it didn't quite go as we planned but we all got it done in the end. I did all the licensing with the TTB and ABC, a lot of stuff, I didn't know about. You can read all that stuff online but depending where you live at, you will have different circumstances to go through in getting a license. Q: Now that you're in the game, are you getting a little more confident with all that works, getting the traffic, getting the brand out there and all that? A: Yes, we're very excited how things are going so far. Our first brews were actually very good beers.The first time we had a bad batch, they got messed up, we got the wrong yeasts and we just flushed it down the drain. Q: What do you think the outlook is for craft brew? A: I think it's very positive right now especially here in Benton County and in the Little Rock area, there is a lot of growth happening, there are a lot of breweries coming out. Q: How has it been so far? Did it meet your expectations? Exceeded? A: It has met my expectations. Right now, we're paying the bills so that's pretty good. We're not really into real profit yet. Q: When you get to capacity, what's the plan? What will you do to expand? A: That's where it gets a little risky to me. We can add a little more areas and space but we will soon outgrow that space and that's gonna be the next challenge - what we are going to do, should we stay in this small craft brewery or do mid-size brewery and that is where the risk will come in.  It is something we should plan and think about thoroughly. Q: Are you going to can as well? A: If we decide to go, we need to move to another facility. That maybe an option for us. Q: What do you think about some of the labels that are out? A: Sometimes more is less, that is my personal opinion. I would like to keep it simple and basic and focus on the beer. Q: What's keeping you up at night? A: Right now we are trying to maximize production and also manage accounts, making sure to keep all accounts that we have. And also, what beer to produce. Q: How many different types of beer that you have now? A: We've got 5 different types. Q: Do you guys offer anything other than your own beer? A: We have some wine in our brewery. We have some brewed coffee from Airship coffee. We're looking at local root beer. Q: Are you having fun? A: Yes, I really enjoy starting business and running them day to day Q: What about cleaning and water quality? A: The whole brewing process is cleaning. Brewing is not difficult, it's a lot of hard work, taking good notes so you'd know what you did right, what you did wrong. And making sure that everything is very clean so you don't get infections. With the water quality, we run it through a carbon filter and we treat it with different salts to balance the water to the beer that we're gonna make. Follow Bentonville Brewing Company on Facebook Our contact info: Jon Cadieux jon@455mediagroup.com www.455mediagroup.com www.bentonvilleworkplace.com Jeff Amerine jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com www.startupjunkieconsulting.com www.oric.io    

Ep#16: Orna Ross and Joanna Penn answer members' questions on writing, publishing and promoting books. Here’s the questions posed to Orna and Joanna this month: Q: I’m toying with the idea of using Facebook ads for 1) collecting email subscribers by offering some free content and 2) promoting my books directly. I’ve been through Mark Dawson’s 3 free videos and probably have enough information to try this .. should I do it? Q: Google Play: What is it? Should I put my books in there or not? What royalty revenue could I expect? Q: Now that I’ve published my first book, I am getting contacted by book promoters who promise to publicise my book for a fee. How can I tell which are effective and which are not? Q: After hitting some technical problems loading my books onto Ingram Spark, I missed the promo offer (open to everyone). Can you advise when and if a new offer for Alli members will be launched soon? Q: When hiring a proofreader is it best to engage them for two sets of proofreads – digital and print or just digital? Q: As a self-publisher/writer should I purchase my ISBN’s directly from Bowker? I see there are other sites offering ISBN’s for less money, but are they legitimate? Q: Are there any book cover designers available who can format a color design for a modest book who do not charge lots of money to do so? Q: How can I get review copies of my book at a discount? Q: What publisher would you recommend to do a self-published non-fiction book that has both black and white and color pages? Our weekly Self-Publishing Advice broadcast is brought to you by ALLi, the Alliance of Independent Authors. This Member Self-Publishing Q&A is one of four regular shows, which include a more advanced salon, a beginners' salon and a special guest highlight presentation from the Indie Author Fringe, ALLi’s free online author conference. Find more author advice, tips and tools at our self-publishing advice center, www.selfpublishingadvice.org. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at www.allianceindependentauthors.org. Now, go write and publish. About your hosts Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, as well as writing non-fiction for authors. She is also a professional speaker and entrepreneur, voted as one of The Guardian UK Top 100 creative professionals 2013. She spent 13 years as a business IT consultant in large corporations across the globe before becoming a full-time author-entrepreneur in September 2011. Connect with Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn Orna Ross launched the Alliance of Independent Authors at the London Book Fair in 2012. Her work for ALLi has seen her named as one of The Bookseller’s “100 top people in publishing”. She also publishes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and is greatly excited by the democratising, empowering potential of author-publishing. Connect with Orna on Twitter @OrnaRoss

In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest Bing Lin, portfolio manager at Hong Kong-based US$1.4 billion-under-management Keywise Capital Management, speaks to our host Nina Xiang about why he believes there are still many major overseas listed Chinese companies with fraudulent accounting practices, and how 2014 will be a great year for shorting certain overseas-listed Chinese stocks. Read an excerpt below, but be sure to listen to the full interview in audio, or watch an abbreviated video version. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free in the iTunes store. Q: China announced plans to launch a Shanghai-Hong Kong stock connect pilot program in six months. How will this impact hedge funds investing in the Greater China region? A: In general, I think it's good news. We will see the valuation gap among large cap stocks between the two stock exchanges close up. Also, for some small- and mid-cap stocks listed in Hong Kong, their valuation might increase. While for some domestic Chinese small- and mid-cap stocks, they will see negative impact because of their relatively high valuation. Q: We did see the Hang Seng China AH Premium Index, a measure of the valuation gap between the A-share and H-share market, rise to 95 on the news. That's very close to the 100 level that signals parity between Shanghai and Hong Kong listed shares. What type of trading opportunities does this create for hedge funds before the program's official launch in about six months? A: We are buying high quality names (based on fundamental research). For example, there are many small- and medium-sized companies listed in Hong Kong that are generating earning growth of 20% to 30% year after year. But they are traded at single digit multiples. The reasons are that there is little (research) coverage on these stocks, and big institutional investors and local Hong Kong investors tend to buy mostly big-name stocks. In China, the small- and mid-cap stocks are trading around 30 to 40, over even higher, multiples. So with the current regulatory change, we think it will serve as a catalyst for value to be realized. Q: The Shanghai Composite is valued at 7.6 times 12-month projected earnings, compared with five-year average multiple of 12.1. Do you see the market sentiment turning any time soon? A: The Chinese macro environment is weak, and the stock market is undervalued. But it's hard to time the market. If the macro issues in the Chinese economy, including bad loans in the banking sector, risks in shadow banking, over-supplies in the property market, are dealt with, they might provide catalysts for the stock market to turn around. Q: Now let's talk about Keywise Capital. Give us a brief introduction of the firm? A: We are a Hong Kong-based hedge fund with US$1.4 billion under management. Our strategy is long-short equities. We typically buy high quality names at reasonable prices, and short those with broken business model or accounting fraud in the Greater China region. Q: A short position Keywise engaged in was China Metal Recycling Holdings, which has been wound up because of accounting fraud. Do you still see many opportunities to short Chinese companies based on accounting fraud? A: Based on my experience and observation, I think there is still widespread accounting abuse among listed (Chinese) companies, even some large ones. There are no strong forces in Asia, in general, to go against those companies. Due to culture issues and regulatory framework, hedge funds here have not been aggressive in pursuing those opportunities. Q: What type of accounting abuse is there? A: For example, revenue recognition. We are seeing some companies booking revenue on a gross revenue basis, which will massively inflate their revenue. A lot of companies also have unfair related party transactions, such as acquisitions. They may be paying inflated price to a small business,

In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest Sam Gupta, CEO of Grand Trunk Capital, explains why he is bullish on the Indian economy and markets, why Indian banks will consolidate in the next two years, and the reason why he prefers to work with the management team. Listen to the full interview in the audio podcast, watch an abbreviated video version, or read an excerpt. Q: First give us a brief introduction of Grand Trunk Capital? A: Grand Trunk Capital is a private investment partnership, (managing money) for institutions and family offices. We focus on special investments in India. Previously I managed a fairly large fund in partnership with Soros Management called QIF Management. QIF Management was at points in time the largest overseas investment fund in India. The strategy (of Grand Trunk Capital) is to focus on five or ten best investment ideas across sectors and geographies within the Indian markets. We are not a trading fund. We tend to take longer term and focused positions in Indian companies where we think there is sufficient mispricing and where we see sufficient upside down the road. Our strategy is very search based, value driven and focused on catalysts. Q: Can you talk about the performance of the (Grand Trunk Capital) fund? A: The fund was up 42% in 2012. We had a very bullish view on the banking system in India, and started buying some Indian banks towards the middle of the summer. That worked really well for us. We also took opportunities in the media space because of the catalyst of regulatory changes. One of our largest investments, (United Spirits), was bought out by Diageo, the world's largest liquor maker, at a significant premium. That's an investment we got into in early 2012. Q: Now you are raising more capital for Grand Trunk Capital. What do you think makes India more attractive? A: What's interesting about India vis-à-vis Russia, Brazil and China is that India is primarily a domestic market. It has a young population. Most of the economic activities are about feeding and satisfying their needs. So when the world slows down, India is impacted much less than other emerging markets. India also has a very diversified economy. Almost 50% of the Indian economy is services based. So it is a bit of a paradox that the Indian economy is both a more diversified economy and also a more basic economy. Q: Normally, how big a stake do you take when investing in a stock? A: We try to take less than 10% of a company, but we've taken more than that in some companies in the past. Q: Are your investments passive, or do you try to influence the management of the company? A: Once we take a minority position, we try to stand on the same side with the management. In India, management team tends to control half of any given company. So their well-being and wealth is tied up with the price of the stock. The legal system is also stacked in favor of the management, so as an investor, you can only do so much. But we feel comfortable with most management teams in Indian companies, at least those managers we like. They generally are appreciative if we give them good advice. Q: You also offer special situation investment opportunities to investors. Tell us more on that? A: Sometimes we work with management in unlocking the value of their company. It might involve halving off a division, making an investment in a new project. Of course, we invest along with the management, which is probably the best price you can get to invest. So we give co-investment opportunities in these special deals for our core fund investors. Q: Can you give us an example of a recent special situation opportunity that you have looked at? A: We launched a fund in late 2012 to take arbitrage opportunities among Indian banks. Some Indian banks are trading at a massive discount to their larger peers. Some of them are good acquisition targets in the next two years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-JOTF4pxeI&feature=plcp In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest Howard Marks, co-founder and chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, reveals his thoughts on China’s economy and its investing environment. He also gives a surprisingly frank evaluation of Oaktree Capital Management’s performance in China. Listen to the full-interview in the audio podcast, watch the shortened video version or read an excerpt. Q: You’ve just completed a trip in China, and Oaktree has had an office in Beijing since 2007. How would you rate China’s investment environment? A: I have a lot of respect for China’s long-run economic outlook. But this is a period when (China’s economy) is slowing. There are some questions about how it will land – whether it’s hard or soft – of course you know I don't claim to know the answers. Also, China’s customers – the U.S. and Europe – have been growing very slowly themselves. So that will have a retardant effect on China’s economy as well. The combination of the two suggests that China is in for a slow period. On the other hand, valuations in China have corrected quite a bit from two or three years ago when everybody assumed China’s outlook was flawless for eternity. Prices have come down considerably both relative to valuations in other countries and in absolute terms. That’s very healthy for the investment outlook. Q: What unique challenges do you face investing in China? A: A controlled economy probably has the ability to do better in the short term. In the long run, there is not much experience with that. Many (such experiments) in the past haven’t lasted. Of course, China is making a compromise between a controlled economy and a less controlled one. The world has yet to see how it is to do business in China dealing with issues such as property rights: whether foreign private investors can do well as owner of businesses. It’s important that people do not assume that business-as-usual in China is the same with business-as-usual elsewhere. So if you don’t know how property rights will be treated, then you should try to avoid situations that pivot on that issue. For example, in our distressed debt investing, we often invest in the debt of the companies that fail to pay for their debts because we have creditor rights that can give us access to the value of the company. We don’t know how creditor rights will be treated in China, so we probably won’t invest in (this method). Q: Is that why Oaktree’s operations in China has been in private equity? A: (Yes,) in private equity and slow going. We raised a fund a few years ago. We invested slowly. It’s not fully invested yet, and probably won’t get fully invested. It did not invest in distress-for-control or loan-to-own situations for the reasons we discussed. We will continue to move carefully. Q: So can we look at Oaktree’s presence in China as first, to be there, secondly to learn how to handle those challenges? A: We of course try to make money. But you are right, it’s important for Oaktree to plant its flag and learn the way. As we gain experience in China, hopefully, we will perfect our methods. One thing I want to stress is that we are not going to go in and assume that the methods we applied in U.S. and Europe will work there. Q: How would you score Oaktree’s performance in China? A: First, let me say that it’s hard for me to talk about Chinese investments as opposed to Asian (investments). We haven’t done that much in China properly to have a meaningful sample. I would say it’s been about a C+, in absolute terms. We haven’t lost money, but I don’t know how others have done. So maybe the answer is “as good as anyone,” but I really don’t know, and I wouldn’t venture to guess. Q: Now onto your book, which you just launched the Chinese version last week. This is a book that contains your secret recipe for success accumulated during your 44 years of investment career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfOr1yTj7jo&feature=plcp In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest and veteran investor Jim Rogers shares his bearish views on the Chinese property sector, and explains why those who argue that the RMB is approaching fair value are wrong. Listen to the complete interview in the audio podcast, watch a shortened video version, or read an excerpt below. Q: We are in this high-speed train from Tianjin to Beijing going at 350km per hour. Are you impressed? A: Yes. I am. I came over today and it’s very quiet and very smooth. I couldn’t believe how wonderful it is. It’s better than an airplane. Q: This is a perfect showcase of China’s infrastructure boom during the past few decades. How much longer can this boom go on? A: I’ve driven across China a few times. I know there are a lot of space and a lot infrastructure needed to be done, so there will be more to come. Q: Last time we talked, you said the Chinese property bubble will have an ugly burst. We’ve seen housing prices drop, but by small margins. Will it get much worse?  A: It’s actually been dropping a lot in some places. But, what I’m worried about is that the Chinese government is loosening interest rate and bank reserve requirement ratios too soon. If they loosen too soon, as they did once before, the bubble got much worse, and people will lose more money ultimately. Q: You predict that the U.S. economy will go into a downturn next year and 2014. How will that affect the Chinese economy? A: With the largest economy in the world having problems, everybody feels it. If you sell to Wal-Mart, you will feel the pressure. By the way, Europe is slowing down. So you have two of the largest economic blocks slowing down, China's (prospects) will be clouded too. Q: As you know, many economists are calling for the Chinese economy to warm up again, if not during the second half of this year, then early next year. You don’t think it’s the case? A: No, because I expect the U.S. and Europe to slowdown in 2013 and 2014. Sure, some parts of the Chinese economy will be fine, but most of China, especially those dealing with Europe and the U.S. will have problems. China is spending billions of dollars to clean up its air and water, so (environmental technology and) water treatment sectors will do very well. If you are in agriculture, you will not care if America is in trouble. Also, some parts of the Chinese economy will still have a hard landing, such as the property sector. So it’s a mixed bag. Q: Now, let’s look at something more immediate, the Euro-zone crisis. If Greece and other countries exit the Euro-zone, how big an impact will China feel? A: Greece leaving the Euro-zone will have no effects on China, but the knock-off effects will be felt in China. Most Chinese don’t care where Greece is. They don’t care what happens to Greece. They don’t care if Greece falls into the sea because it’s not going to affect them. But the subsequent economic slowdown will affect China and the Chinese people. Q: You have been a long-term bull in commodities, despite a downturn at the present. What is the best way to play the trade right now? A: If you are very good at stock picking, you can buy stocks of commodity producers. But studies show that you will be the most better-off if you buy the commodities themselves. If you don’t know commodities, you can buy an index or an ETF. Index and EFT investing outperform most investors 75 or 80 percent of the time, year after year. So If you know what you are doing, buy stocks and the commodities themselves. For most people, it’s best to buy an index or ETF. Or, you can invest in countries like Canada or Australia where commodities are produced. Q: Imagine yourself as a Chinese citizen. Stocks have been in disarray; the property market is in the middle of a correction. There aren’t many choices for good investments. Where would you put your money?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAIsTn6zIhc&feature=plcp In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest Nick Cao, China head of investment and capital transaction at Knight Frank, discusses China's commercial property sector, which has gone through an explosive growth phase after early 2010, when home buyer restriction policies dragged down the residential property market. Q: Since the government launched home buyer restrictions, the commercial property sector has been going rapidly. Some are concerned about a bubble. Are you? A: It depends. I would say China's commercial property sector is still less developed than the residential side. We see two different groups in the commercial sector. One is the large developers in China, such as China Resources and China COSCO. They moved into commercial properties before the tightening measure was initiated. But the other group is forced into the commercial sector because their residential sales have stalled. And they operate the commercial sector as if they are still running residential properties. Lots of these (commercial properties) are poorly designed. Some of them are in tier two and tier three cities. Take the city of Shenyang. There are oversupply issues. We see ten large shopping malls within two kilometer distance. So that’s scary and there are a lot of concerns for investors. But, overall I wouldn’t say it’s a bubble because in China, there still lacks good quality shopping malls (in many cities). Q: For the past few years, the transaction volume in commercial property has doubled. Do you see that continue? A: I would say, yes. Because China's economy is moving from manufacturing-based to services-based, so this generates stronger demand for office space. Some international firms are expanding into second tier cities in China, which requires high quality office space. Also, the government is promoting domestic consumption. That’s demanding more retail shopping malls. Moreover, the insurance industry in China is just allowed to invest in commercial real estate so (investment) demand will still be quite high. Q: We have seen residential property prices double in the space of one to two years. Will the same happen in commercial property? A: No, I don’t think it’s going to happen that fast. It’s all case-by-case. For example, if there were two shopping malls next to each other, their prices would move very differently (depending on how well they are managed). Q: But we often read reports on ghost shopping malls across China. It seems as if you still believe that the fundamentals of commercial real estate is strong demand driving up supply? A: When you talk about ghost shopping malls, you still have to look at it case by case. In China's tier two and tier three cities, it’s still very hard to find good quality shopping malls. Yes, there are lots of them that are vacant. But that's because the developers don’t know how to run a successful shopping mall. Q: So where do you see attractive investment opportunities in the property sector right now? A: It’s mostly still in tier one and tier two cities. In tier one cities (Beijing and Shanghai), the problems are that supplies are limited. As we know, foreign investors are not allowed to buy assets. They can only buy offshore equity, and those have already been acquired by investors already. Most of the opportunities are available in second tier cities. There is very limited competition in the retail sector. If you have strong capabilities in running a retail mall, there are great opportunities. But of course, In China, the leasing term, general market practice and the tenants are very different. so foreign investors really need strong local partners to succeed. Q: So, how much price appreciation do you see in commercial real estate? A: For retail properties, you can get eight percent yield on retail properties in good locations. Q: Now, for local investors,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpZDy_ISkU&feature=plcp In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest Michael Werner, senior research analyst covering the Chinese and Hong Kong banks at Sanford Bernstein & Co., discusses Chinese banking stocks, their exposure to local governments and the property sector, and whether Chinese banks will see their non-performing loan ratios skyrocket. Listen to the full interview in the audio podcast, or read an excerpt. Q: First, let’s look at Chinese banking stocks. In terms of valuation, are they attractive? A: I still think the banks are attractive. We’ve seen a very strong increase in terms of the share prices over the past three to four months. But I still think you will get incremental news that will help the valuations of the banks. As China’s Central Bank eases monetary policy that will help with valuations, thought it might not be the best for earnings. I still think for the next two to three months, we still have some upside for the banks. Q: Now let’s turn to the fundamentals of the banks. Many people are concerned about the banks’ exposure to the property sector and local governments. How big a risk are these? A: Yes, these are certainly risks to the banks. But I think the market has overstated the risks. We really saw that toward the end of last year. The market was pricing in for some of these loans to go to zero in terms of valuation, which in our view is simply not going to happen. The listed banks that we cover, they had around 11 to 12 percent of their loan book exposed to local government loans. On the property side, you have around 15 percent going into residential mortgages and maybe another 10 to 12 percent going into commercial real estate. In our view, the residential mortgages are very safe with very low loan-to-values. There is a very good track record of people paying off these loans. On the local government financing vehicle side, certainly there will be some problems. But I think the bulk of the loans are going to end up healthy. But there will be a good five to ten percent of the loans that will have trouble repaying. That’s a couple of years out, and the banks will have enough time to earn up enough reserves to provision against that. On the commercial real estate side, the banks have actually reduced their exposure. They do have exposures, but they tend to have exposure to the largest, the best and the most liquid of the property developers. So I don’t think that will be a problem. The largest concern that we have are the local government financial vehicle (LGFV) loans. Q: So, where do you think the non-performing loan ratio will peak? A: Our best guess right now is around 2.5 percent. Right now, the NPL ratio for the whole banking system is around one percent. Getting into 2 or 2.5 percent in the next couple of years is actually in line with what we have seen in other countries that experience slowdowns. We think the Chinese economy will slow down to 7 to 8 percent at the end of this year to early 2013. Q: So are you saying there are not as much trouble as people fear? A: That’s absolutely correct. What we have seen in China is relatively good underwriting standards. I think that Chinese banks are going to surprise people on how well they are provisioned and what the ultimate NPL ratio will be. Some people have been forecasting 8 to 12 percent (NPL ratio). That does not seem likely in our viewpoint. The government will definitely help put in place policies that will mitigate these risks. Just like during the past few years, the banks have been earning a lot of money, and the government has put in place very restrictive policies in terms of capital and provisioning. Now on the other end, when economic growth is slower, the regulators will relax some of those restrictive measures. That counter-cyclicality (in policies) is actually positive for the banks. About Michael Werner: