Happy Sunday, everybody. Today, we are going to do something new. We are going to watch me from 2008 do an unplanned exposure, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So it's an experiment. Let's see how it works out. I found these videos a couple of days ago. I have a hard drive full of them and I got to figure out how I'm going to share them. So I'm going to try this today. We're going to, we got plenty of time. There's no rush today. Whoever long this takes, it takes. And the plan will be that I'm going to the videos here in the corner. So that lower corner, little dark square is the video. I'm going to swap it so you can see it. I will stay on screen and we'll just watch it through together. So I can stop it. I can comment. I can tell you what I was feeling and thinking at the time. I could point out all the crazy mistakes and things that I was making. You guys can ask questions and we'll just hang out and go through this and see how that goes. So I'm going to pull up the chat in a second. It's already 26 people. I know this is going to be really busy today. I'm going to do the very best that I can to answer questions as best as I can, but I might not be able to get to all of them. All right. So what can I tell you about this video? I'm going to set the stage for this. Hey, everybody. I get to wear my headphones so that I know I can hear the video. I can tell you, let's see, the audio and the video quality are not great. It was 2008. I had a really crappy digital camera. It's what I had at the time. Some of this is shot in the dark at night. So you won't be able to see me in some of it, but I will let you know what's going on. What else? I look very different. I was much heavier than I am now at my heaviest. If you guys know my anti-depressant story, I was 100 pounds heavier than I am today. So I did you'll see my face is much heavier. I was much heavier.  So you'll see that also. I had no beard, no mustache, and I was 13 years younger than this. So there you go. So I'll set the stage. What this is is in my my legacy business is technology. And I own and operate data centers, which means that I had hundreds of servers co-located in my Internet data centers. People would pay us to keep their servers in our facilities with the fiber optics and the generators and all that stuff. So every once in a while, those servers break and they crash and it would require us to hit a button and reboot and that sort of stuff. So this was at the worst of things. I was really having a hard time leaving the house on my own. The data center was only about three and a half miles away from here. A server did crash two servers and a very large customer that we cared a lot about, somebody had to go and hit the button to reboot them. And I decided that that somebody would be me, which is not a thing I was expecting to do. It's not a thing that I wanted to do. I was terrified to do this.  But I was inspired by watching YouTube videos of people like Billy Cross from Anxiety United and my friend Chris Gamble from Ohio. He's not really involved anymore with the stuff. And Sarah Watson and my friend Emma and Seth.  And I had watched Ben, Ben is in our Facebook group. I watched videos from Chris and Ben that day. They inspired me and I said, OK, I'm going to go do this. So that is the stage. It is dark and I start by getting in the car and explaining what's going on. So we're going to basically, you know, go through it bit by bit. So the question, do you recommend to film yourself during exposures? Well, I can tell you that in terms of this thing that I do now with you guys, I am super happy that I film these like this is tremendously helpful as a teaching tool. I am happy that I filmed them even for my own. I will always tell you you have to be safe. So I wouldn't tell you to do some of the things that you're going to see me do here. I was holding the camera. That was not OK. And I will tell you that the camera for me many times became a safety behavior. And as I got further down in my recovery, I had to start doing things without filming them. But being able to watch myself do these things, go back and see what it looked like was very valuable. So if you have a way to safely film yourself, I'm not please do not hold your phone or your camera while you're driving. It can be a really useful tool, even if nobody but you ever sees them. It is a really good tool. You can see what you were doing. I was able to see my body language. I was able to see the mistakes I was making and it helped me be able to adjust those things. All right, so here we go. I'm going to I'm going to switch this.  So I'm going to go down in the bottom corner of the screen and we'll just we'll do it together. And I will kind of fill you guys in on what's going on. So let's bring this up and I'm going to start the video. The audio isn't great either. So just bear with me. I'm doing the best I can with the technology that I had at the time. Here we go. OK, I'm pretty sure you can't see me because my crappy camera doesn't work in the dark. Or in low light. I'm in the car and I just watched some of Chris's video. And my page or my my computer went off my phone. And I have to go to my office. So it's seven o'clock at night. It's dark. I have to go there by myself. This is pretty much the worst case for me. The only thing that would be worse would be if it was like three o'clock in the morning. So I'm feeling totally shaky, like I was literally shaking my legs are shaking. Bessie says she knows what video this is. How exciting. Bessie, did you know me back then? Am I missing something? I'm sorry if I am, but fill me in. All right, let me keep going. So I'm laying it all out here in this video. This is exactly the way it was back then. I was terrified to do this. I did not want to do this. And watch for the comment as I get maybe a minute or two into the drive when I'm already counting, like, oh, I'm a quarter of the way done. So watch that. And I'm going to do that. OK, back. Yeah, I couldn't be sure you could be able to see me. I'm not sure where you are. I'm in the sand. I'm just trying to find out where you are. Sorry, the sound quality is not so great. I'll try and turn the volume down so you can hear it. And I'm pretty anxious. You know what? I was more anxious at my house thinking about coming here than I am now. I'm pretty anxious right now, but it was worse at my house before I left. So I'm going to keep telling myself that. I'm going to be halfway there at this point. So you know what? I know I look at it. I'm halfway there. So I'm already quartered of the way through this challenge. And I'm just going to think about how good it's going to feel when I do it. When I walk out, actually, when I walk out of the building and get back to my car to come home, I'm going to be. I know I'm going to feel awesome having done this. So. OK, so let me chime in here for a second. You will see. And as I share some of these videos, you'll see things that now in retrospect and retrospect, I know there was a bit of a I was making some mistakes, right? So I wouldn't do some of these things now, namely, some of the ways that I was trying to force myself to think a certain way. This was the very beginning for me. Like this is the first time that I really actually started doing the things that I knew I had to do. And I knew enough about it to know what I had to do. But I didn't nearly know enough like I do now, 15 years later, 13, 15 years later, I would not do some of this stuff the way I do it now. So pay attention to some of the things that I say, because they're not always good practice. But see how I was like immediately like, oh, I'm halfway to the was halfway to the office, which means I was a quarter of the way done with the exposure and I was ready, like, and just, you know, like, oh, I got to get this over with. I got to get this over with. Just tell myself it'll be over fast. I wouldn't do that now. All right, let's keep going. I know the audio isn't great. I'm really sorry. I'm doing the best I can here. Um, all right, I'll be back. OK, we're made here at my office. Going to go in now and. OK, mistake there was I made it here, like I made it here, like somehow I wouldn't make it. That's not true. I wouldn't say I made it here. I said I would now I would just say, OK, I'm here. You know what I need to do? So I'm with you. You can see there's cars here. There are actually people here. There are other businesses in the building. So let's go in and see what we got. This is pretty big. But I'm doing this. This is a little bit hard to watch. I feel like I'm looking at a different person. I know it's me and I remember doing it, but it's it's truly like I'm looking at a completely different person. So it's it's weird to see this slow down. It's got to go slow. OK, now that that struck me because I did watch this about an hour ago or so to see what was all in it. And I was I found it interesting that I had to remind myself twice to slow down. And wouldn't you know it? Thirteen years later, I had to write a book about that. Anyway, thanks for hanging in there with me, guys. Yes, Emily, the difference in my voice. Yes, Bessie, that was the very, you know, some of the beginnings. Remember when I wrote in seven percent slower that I had to remind myself to slow down? You just saw that. And that was the beginnings of that book that I just wrote. And yes, the main thing for me when I watch these videos is just the difference in my voice. It was shaky, it was tentative, a lot of ums and us.  I mean, look, I spent so much time on camera and talking to the microphones that now it's second nature to me. But I'm a naturally confident person and a naturally kind of bold person. But not then see the difference then. Like what you see of me now is the way I was before my anxiety disorders. But now you're going to you're seeing what it looked like in the midst of it. And I didn't I wasn't like this. I was a different person. Find that like, you know, I'm freaking out. I want to like run into the place and it doesn't help. I have no idea what it's going to sound like in this place. Is that eight billion computers in here? So user gets to help on me and the machine I got to do. I had to yell into the camera because there are so many computers in this place that you can't hear. It's just a little hum of CPUs and fans and stuff like that. So I'm yelling into the camera. And that's why the audio wasn't so great. Look, so afraid I was effing terrified. You're literally watching me scared shitless to do this. And the hardest part, I'm going to say it in a second. I think I mentioned it into the camera is I all I wanted to do was go and hit the button on that server and run out of there as fast as I could. But then I had to wait until I saw the server boot up and the login screen and I knew was everything OK. That weight felt like it was forever. So let's keep going. OK, and turn it around. My heart is definitely pounding. The hardest part for me is this part. The part after I've done what I have to do. And now I got to see if it works. Ronnie, it was a Windows server, which I still to this day hate. I still it was a Windows server. So I had to wait. You know what that is, dude? I had to wait for the Windows login screen, which could be interminable. So here I will go through a little bit. There's no audio here. So I this is what I would do in some of those videos and videos we were sharing back then when I had to cut things. I would I would we would do this and run little captions. So let's go through that because there's no audio here. And I basically said the panic makes me want to run out of there. I can't until I know that the server is back online. I had to wait a minute or so before I knew I could leave. In reality, that was much more than a minute. That server probably took four or five minutes and what's going on in my head at that point is when a Windows server crashes and Ronnie seems to know here, anybody who's a little bit technical, it's a crapshoot. You don't know why it crashed. It could be a disk failure. It could be the operating system as holds. Their databases could have been damaged. In which case I am stuck there for hours to maybe fix that hours. So I was in this to do. OK, Paula knows. There you go. Stressful enough without panic disorder. So I was just trying to get there.  But if that login window does not come up and I don't get a confirmation from a customer that they can see the server and everything is OK, I am literally stuck there. So it would be akin to an agoraphobic like going to the train station and not being sure if they're going to be shoved onto a train that that takes them 100 miles away from home where it would take hours to get home. That's where I was at that moment. That was terrifying. So let's see here. Being able to stay there until the panic goes away is the real goal, I wrote. But that is a bridge to cross on another night. So you'll see some of the understanding of the process and the mechanics and knowing what I had to do. But I was not there at this point. So I knew that I had to learn to stay in that. But this was one of the very first things that I had done intentionally. So here we go. So we'll let that crawl finish. And then it comes back to me speaking again. I think I'm in the car when we get back. Let's see. OK. I did it. All right, let me answer Ronnie's question. Did I find myself thinking about alternatives like getting a colleague to deal with it? Yes. So here's the story.  So the story is I this is I own the business, right? It's my business. This is my facility. I'm the boss. I'm in charge. But I was relying really, really, really heavily on everybody else. And one of the things that made me do this, aside from watching my friend Chris's videos, my friend Ben's videos that sort of inspired me and empowered me that day, which, by the way, listen to the words, inspiration, encouragement, empowering. Where do you hear that now? Like, what do we say the Facebook group is all about? Why does the Facebook group look the way it looks? Because those guys, those people back then inspired me and encouraged me and rooted for me. They didn't just say it's OK. It's terrible. No one understands. And that's why the Facebook group and everything I say sounds like it sounds today. Yes, my eyes were darting all over the place. I was a full of little ticks and safety behaviors. It's true. And yes, Ronnie, so to finish the thought, I wanted nothing more than to have one of my people go there and do this. But I was not not only inspired by the videos that I had watched earlier that day, but I just felt so bad about doing that. That was my business. Like, I'm the buck stops with me. How can I keep struggling that responsibility? I cannot ask people to do things that I won't do myself. So that's what made me do this. It was it was rough, man. Jeff says the squinting to look at the monitor 100 percent, man. 100 percent. That's exactly what I was doing. So let's see what I say here. I just found me. OK, I did it. My heart is pounding. Definitely see the breathing. You hear my breathing like that. I was I was absolutely guilty of the. Like, I would do that a lot. And I would kind of shake like that, too, a little bit. I would shake my hands and I would rock my legs and that that breathing that like like I was doing that all the time. And you can hear it here. My heart was pounding. I was dizzy. My legs were I remember this. It happened yesterday. Watching the spring be right back there. I was on the lower level of the building. So the data center was below ground, right? Because it actually stays cooler on the ground. And now I had to get up. So my choice was I either had to wait for the elevator or to go one floor or I had to walk up the stairs and my my legs were shaking or absolutely shaking. So I don't remember what I did. I think I walked up the stairs, panic attack central, but I did it. And I'm walking out of the building and getting back in the car. That's huge, very huge, very huge. OK, OK, I want you to notice. Yes, I was I was underground. The data center was below grade. So that was a two story building. The office was on the second floor of the data center. And this particular building was was below grant. So I have to go down one floor to get to it. But notice, notice, I did it, I did it, I did it. I, you know, I did not say I made it here. I just kept acknowledging that I did it and I was still terrified. And I was shaky for a good hour after that. And you'll see on the drive home, I acknowledge this. But it is so important that you see where my focus was. This I did correctly. This I did correctly. I did it. I did it. I was allowing myself to feel that sense of accomplishment and recognize it. This ain't pretty, what you're seeing here is in no way pretty. As you could see, it looks like a dumpster fire, really, as compared to what like a normal person would do or any of my employees would not even thought about it. They just they wouldn't care. For me, it was really difficult and it looks really ugly. But I did not focus on how ugly it looked or how I felt. I was really kind of pumped up by the fact that I did it. Ronnie, the data center is about that. I don't have that building anymore. But that building was like three and a half miles away from me. So literally a six, six minute ride at night with no traffic, you know, not that local, not far at all. But it might as well been Mars in those days. So let's keep going.  OK, I'm about halfway home. Yeah, that was huge. I want to answer something here to have cognitive abilities, to access cognitive abilities just can't. I'm going to flat out tell you that you are wrong. You just don't like the way it feels. Now, as you can see in this situation and see in my face, I was not optimal. I was not operating at my optimal level in any way, shape or form. I was a nervous wreck and it showed. So things like remembering passwords and things of things like I was really hard. I couldn't do that sort of stuff. I would have to slow everything way down because I couldn't remember commands and stuff to type. It was really difficult, right? But I could still do it. And so can you. You cannot throw up our hands and say, well, I feel really scared. So therefore, I just am non-functional. You are functional, maybe at a decreased level, but you just don't like the way it feels. That doesn't mean non-functional. Did my staff know that I experienced this? I did a really good job of not talking about it, which was probably a mistake in retrospect. Now they do. But yeah, I tried to hide it, but I thought I was hiding. But clearly, I was not able to hide it because that's that's not normal. That was not normal. Did I feel short of breath of dizzy? Yes, I was short of breath. You could hear that you could hear that. And when you see my eyes darting around in this video, that is the disorientation. That is the dizzy. I felt disoriented, jelly legs. My heart was pounding, I was sweating, and it was hard to breathe. So yes, I felt all of those things. How long had I been housebound up to that point? It was quite a while. It was quite a while at that point. I was months into it for sure, where it was very highly restricted. It wasn't not leave my house, but there were a lot of conditions around it. So let's keep going. That was you, I can't begin to say how big that was. That is not something I expected to do today. I mean, my heart is still racing and I'm shaky and my breathing is not right, but I did it. I got in the car and I drove there and I took care of something and now I'm kind of cold. And I can't, that is so huge.  I will take another question here. Did you see the smile? Bethany says I look happy. In that moment, I was shaky and still not feeling very good at all, but I felt amazing at the same time. You could see it in my face, it's still kind of shaky, but at one point I think I did smile. I realized like, holy mackerel, I actually did that. And yes, I felt like a superhero that had one foot in the grave. It's a weird dichotomy of feelings at that point. You feel amazing because of the accomplishment, but then you don't feel good because you don't feel good. But yes, I was happy that I did that. I was super happy. Let's see here. Was I taking antidepressant at this point? No, I had, there was no chemical protection here, which is me in the face of the anxiety and the panic. So no, I was not, I was two years out at that point. I was finding it hard to imagine, tell me about it, man. Like watching this, I feel like I'm watching it, looking at a different person. It's really amazing, right? I use distraction as a compulsion from my OCD with taking a video. Okay, that's a good question. I'll answer these. Like, hope you guys are all right with the fact that I'm stopping to answer any questions. We're only have about another minute or two left in this video. It's not that long. So would it be a distraction? I will tell you that I recognize that all of us in our little YouTube group that we had back then that were sharing videos with each other, we all realized at some point, like I have to start doing some things leaving the camera home. So yes, it became a crutch for me. I would talk to the camera, even though I knew nobody was watching, but I had to really stop doing that. So I had to start doing things without taking my little orange Fuji digital camera. The terrible camera, by the way, as you can see, but I would take it with me everywhere and I had to stop doing that because I quickly discovered that it was a soothing behavior. It was distraction. If I narrate this, then I feel better. And this is one of the things, by the way, if you missed the beginning, this'll stay in my YouTube and in the Facebook group and everything, you can go back and rewatch it. But one of the things that I discovered was, first of all, that was a distraction. And the talking about it made me feel better and that is why we, in the Facebook group, we do not let people go live because we've had, sometimes people get, they're doing their exposures, they want to go live during the exposure and I don't, we don't let that happen because trust me, if there was live back in these days, we all would have just been hitting the live button again and again and again and that wouldn't have been helpful to us. So that's one of the reasons why we don't do live exposures because you need to be able to do these on your own, right? What do you think would have happened? You know what, let's finish the video, then I'm gonna take, and then I'll just come back on the screen and we'll answer the rest of the questions. Good question, Paul. I'll answer it. Let's finish. And obviously it feels really good. It's gonna feel better once I'm actually home and calm myself down. I would not have done this if it wasn't for the videos I'd be watching and Chris and Billy and Sara C and I forget Emma, I think that's your name. Very cool. So I want to let you guys know that even from far away, you're doing some good for somebody and you know what, when you're doing good for somebody, then you're doing good for yourself. So thanks. Okay, I'll see you later. All right, let's see, is there an end roll? No, that's the end of the video. All right, guys. So it wasn't very long, it was like 10 minutes, right? You know that in a way like that's emotional for me, especially the end there. Like I meant what I said. I was talking to my friends and we were all trying to help each other out and they did that. Like they put me up on their shoulders and let me do that. And people ask me all the time, why do you do this thing? That, that, you just saw it, that, that. I owe that forward. If nothing else, I owe that forward and that's why I started doing this. So let's take some questions here. We'll put them up on the screen. Paula says, what do you think would have happened if the route didn't work and you were in front all nighter? That's a really good question. I know that the proper answer is, well I would have focused on the task and slowed down and done all that stuff. And I would have discovered that I can handle it. That at that stage would have been what I would probably would have called a flooding experience, right? Not planned with no exit at night where there's no one else in the building. What happened is it was late enough so that the other people in the building, they were offices. Actually there was a therapist on the second floor, which is funny, right? There was actually a therapist there. They would have all left. So I would have been alone in that building, which I had been many, many times. I spent many at 3 a.m. in that building all by myself in that basement doing stuff. As did everybody that worked for me. That was just part of our job sometimes. But in all honesty, Paula, the answer is I probably would have called for help. At that stage of the game, I will admit to you guys that I don't think I was ready and able. That's why I would never. So that's an honest answer. I probably would have called one of my guys to help me out. And I would have stayed. I would not have left. I wouldn't have said I'm going home. You go do this. I would have stayed, but I would have called for help. I will admit that. That's true. I was capable of solving the problem if I had to stay there for four hours and solve it. But I would have called for help. Now, this is why when people say, I'm tired of this, I just want to rip the Band-Aid off and I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to run this so I'm going to do it. And then you know what? Do you know anybody more aggressive than me about this stuff? And I couldn't do that. I knew enough to know that that wasn't, I was not ready for that. That would have been a negative experience. So negative to the point where I know I don't want to do that again. So this is one of the reasons why we talk about being incremental, right? And we don't solve this thing by just putting ourselves in no escape situations where you can't, there's no out, you're trapped. That's difficult. Your exposure should have a planned exit and that wouldn't have had one. So that's the answer to that. Let's see, however we feel during a panic attack, we still remember those moments. Yes, it completely is. Okay, let me put this up on the screen because this is really good. It could be helpful in order to stop thinking you might lose control and go crazy. So that's why this is one of the things people say, should I journal? Like, should I keep a journal? All right, well, you know, I wasn't a journaler but as you could see, I shot video. And in a way, now that I think about that, a little bit of revelation here live, my videos were a little bit of my journal and I was sharing them with my friends, but they were for me too. And I have tons of videos that never saw the light of day. I was the only one that ever watched them. When you can record what you did and concentrate on what you did, I can look back at this video, say two weeks later and say, look how scared I was, but I did it. But I did it, like that is hugely helpful. So I appreciate this comment, videos and a success journal.  I mean, something as simple as, I didn't think I could do that and I was uncomfortable and afraid, but I did it and I did it. That is a success entry in your journal right there. It's not flowery, it's not pretty, it's not gonna change anybody's life, but it could change your life incrementally. So when you get stuck in, but it feels like I'm gonna go crazy, but this time you can go back to that and said, oh yeah, I felt like I was gonna be crazy then too, but I did it. So that's a good thing here. Jeff says, you seem aware that you were dealing with panic, but that getting home was a certainty. Yes. So I did know that, that's true. Like I knew enough about this to know at this stage of the game, Jeff, this is a good point. I was 100% logically, I knew, 100%. There was no question in my mind. I knew that this was not, oh, it might really be a stroke or the doctor missed something. I was beyond that at this point. I already knew. Doesn't make it any easier. As I'm sure you guys can all understand, it doesn't make it any easier. Okay, I'm gonna answer this question just because I feel like being snarky. Who does super slick professional panicky exposure videos anyway? I know a lot of like really, really expensive anxiety coaches that ask their clients to do that. And if they're not slick enough, they make them do it again. Because you know, marketing. Let's see. Yes, well, this is the reason why I'm, I'm sorry, I can't see your name because of the restricting thing clear. You're in the Facebook group. See how you are now, but have a glimpse how you used to be. Like one of the things that's a core value, and I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. It's very, very kind words. One of the things that is a core value for me is never do, never tell anybody to do a thing that you are not willing to do yourself. And I know why I wrote a book and said I was you.   But when somebody comes across, you know, some of my content on social media and they decide you are insane. I clearly cannot endure a panic attack. I must go to the hospital. You don't know what it feels like.  If somebody had told me you clearly don't know what panic is, I would have taken their head off in those days. It would have really bothered me. Now, I just sort of silently laugh because as you can see, I didn't know. All right, let's see. I feel emotion. Oh, that's okay. If you missed the video, this is gonna stay in the Facebook group. It'll stay on my YouTube. Totally fine. So you can go back and watch it. No problem. Let's see here, paying it forward. Yeah, that's it, man. That's what I'm trying to do. Okay, so let's see here. Sounds like by the measure, but you measure flooding with it. No, okay, so here's the way I would measure. Jeff's a good question. It is a little bit the time and the exposure. So time and distance, let's talk about strictly agoraphobia because that's what we're addressing here, right? And that's what that video is about. With agoraphobia, it is time and distance. Those are basically your two variables that come into play. Time and distance are really equal because if you're gonna go more distant then there will be more time. But you can also work in short distances with extended periods of time. Flooding isn't necessarily defined by the amount of time. It's generally, the hallmark of flooding generally is, and I probably have to look at what the actual clinical definition is. See me in two years when I've done my degree. But generally speaking, people will talk about the lack of escape. If you are trapped in that situation, if you are trapped. Am I ever really trapped?  I'm going because I'm too afraid. I got to go home, deal with it. And then I lose a big client. So I could make that choice that I wanted to. But really I would have been trapped with no planned exit and no way out. That really is what kind of defines the flooding thing. It is beyond my control. I cannot get out of this. Very difficult, right? So let's see here. No, no, no, no, no. Thank you. Oh, you're very welcome. Let's see here. Somebody asked me, go up here. Okay, dealing with anticipatory anxiety. Okay, well, I mean, honestly, I did a podcast episode on anticipatory anxiety. It's not special anxiety. So if you go to the anxioustruth.com and search for anticipatory, the search term, you'll see that. It's not special anxiety. It's the same thing. And anticipatory anxiety is an exposure like everything else. We learn a new way to relate to that, even when it's anticipatory anxiety. And we get to practice our skills like learning to live in the moment and not living the task before it happens. So it's really an opportunity to practice. I don't have any tips for just making it go away, but in the podcast episode, you'll see that I do give some tips and techniques and things like that to actually relate to it better. So anticipatory anxiety is just another expression of the same fear, right? And it's just another opportunity to practice. It's exposure like anything else. So let's see. You're very welcome, Olivia. Thank you for sharing it. No problem, no problem. Visual journaling, that's kind of what I did. Kind of what I did. Let's see here. I'm a little confused about the planned exit. Okay, so no, you're not supposed to think about running away or avoiding. So I know this is really subtle. The planned exit would mean, for me, the exposures became, as I get better at this and I understood more about what I was doing, I'm gonna kind of already understood. When I put the concepts into play, it would be today my exposure is, I'm going to get in the car and I'm going to drive in a two mile radius and I'm going to drive for 35 minutes and I will not return back home until that 35 minutes is up. When I made my 35 minutes, I was done. So it's not really, and it's not fair to say that the exposure is just go out and stay in the case of an agoraphobic, it's not, right? So in that incremental and sort of graduated exposure thing that we talked about, or graded exposure, then I wouldn't increase that. I'm gonna be out for 40 minutes. Then it was like, okay, now I'm gonna drive three miles but I'm all be out for 15 minutes and expand that to 30 minutes. Then I'm gonna drive five miles and then expand the time at five miles. So that's how I would do it. The planned exit is my goal in this exposure is to do this task for this amount of time at this distance or this many repetitions and then I'm done. If I'm going to extend that because I want to and I have the opportunity to, then I will. But when I hit that planned exit point, I'm done. I'm done.  It's not just a continuous exposure forever. That doesn't work that way. So it's not a plan to run away because trust me, when I was out for that 35 minutes, there were plenty of times that I wanted to run back home. I would drive past my house intentionally just to practice not going in. There were times during exposures when I would say, I got 18 minutes left.  Like I was, I was timing it. But I would drive past the house intentionally just to like, oh, I could just easily pull into the driveway and end this. And I wouldn't, I would practice going away from the house again when all I wanted to do was go in there. So I hope that helps in terms of the planned exposure. So let's see, I think we have, did I get to the end of the comments? Let's see here. Was I still carrying mints and safety things? Did I have mints and water in the car? There's a chance, Ronnie, that I did. There's a very good chance. I don't remember this specifically, but I always had a pollen spring water and I always had a pack of, I had Altoids. None of you guys remember Altoids. They were like super strong. They still make them, but they're terrible. But I would always have Altoids and water. So there's a good chance that I had Altoids with me. And another thing that I probably had with me is I probably had my Xanax in the car that I never, never, ever took. That's not a badge of honor. I'm not claiming a victory there, but I would carry it. I carried it for a long time, even though I never took it till it, it baked in the car, it froze in the car. Like clearly I had to throw it away, but I took it for a long time. So let's see here. Okay, so Cara just did a plane trip. And Cara, by the way, you are killing it. We're very proud of you. The necessary airplane I took. Pretty sure I wasn't ready. And when I was on the plane, I was thinking we'll never do this again. Was it flooding? Well, no, it wasn't because you know that that will end. You know that like, well, I get on the plane and was it an extra challenge? It sure would. But you know that that plane is gonna land. Like I'm taking a flight, that flight takes three hours or however long your flight was, I don't know. And at the end, the plane will land and I'll be able to get off the plane. So it does have a planned exit to a certain extent and you were able to prepare for it. Flooding is more a thing that, and look, sometimes life makes us. We don't have a choice. That's true. We can't always avoid it, but it depends on how so much of flooding could be looked at retroactively too. Like how did it turn out? You know, how did it turn out for you? It turned out really well. Like, and I saw the way you talked about it afterwards. Like it was really uncomfortable. It was terrible. I hated it, but I did it. But I did it. Look, I'm doing it. Look, I'm doing it. Admittedly, that long exposure on a plane makes it so that, well, that was not a fun experience. So you're probably anticipating the return flight now is gonna be really difficult, but you did it. So it could be a bit of a great area. Don't worry about it, Kara.  Not necessarily, right? Did you ever have scenarios in? Sure, all the time.  It's like, yeah, definitely, absolutely. I had panic disorder and agoraphobia. I didn't have a fair amount of, I don't know. I probably, 50-50, whether I would have been diagnosed with OCD in any given session, maybe, maybe not, don't know.  So I had all of that stuff. What I have thoughts that would spike my anxiety? Yes, how about this one? Well, it's eight o'clock at night. I sure hope nothing crashes at the data center. So the video we just watched, yes, that thought that something could go wrong and I might have to leave the house would absolutely bring my anxiety level way up. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being full, one panic, I'd easily go up to a seven and eight just thinking about that in those days. So yeah, hell yeah, always, I did, everybody does. That's not an unusual thing. So let's see here, am I an oddball? I can drive across the state at night. Or evening when it's dark out during the day. But I usually stick within 15, 20 minutes tops I can drive in the evening during the day. Okay, no, okay, I'll put it on the screen. So are you an oddball? No, you're not an oddball in any way. This is actually a really, really common thing. Because remember, the exposure of driving isn't to driving, like the exposure is never to the task. So I'm not a oddball. Like the exposure is never to the task. So I know we talk about so much driving and for me it was a lot of driving, right? Driving or going to the shops or staying home alone or going out to dinner, whatever it is that your challenge is, it's not that. You're not learning to drive. You're learning to confront that anxiety and the panic and the feelings and the sensations, right? So it's super common to be exactly that way, dude. Like because in the end, you're not afraid to drive. You're afraid of how you might feel. And so if you're in traffic and you get stuck at red lights and you get stuck in traffic and you can't escape really quickly and those feelings come up, you can't get away from it. So very, very, very common. You'll stick within 15, 20 minutes because if you get trapped in traffic and you panic, what happens? If I'm trapped in panic and my anxiety begins to rise, if I'm trapped in traffic and my anxiety begins to rise, what would I do? What would I do? I can't pull over. I can't get away. I can't do whatever. So my guess would be that your drive across the state at night thing is not hard because if something happens, you can pull over. You can call somebody. There's an escape for you. That's very, very, very common. So don't feel bad about that. That means you got to work on it. That's a clue that you need to work on that. You need to spend more time locally in the day driving in traffic and learning that when you have to sit in traffic, those uncomfortable things will come up, but you can handle those. You can move through those, all right? Let's see. Okay, these are good questions. I'll hang out for a little while, 40 minutes or so. We'll keep going. You talk about not being able to talk to our lizard brain, but when I'm out driving and I see an ambulance, I feel calm. How is that possible? Okay, well, that's not a mystery either. When you're out driving and you see an ambulance, you feel calm because the ambulance is held, right? That's held. So if something goes wrong while you're driving, if the dreaded panic hits, if you have a panic attack or a high anxiety spike or all the symptoms and you're terrified of them and you think you need to be rescued, there's qualified rescuers right there in that vehicle. So I'm not surprised at all at that. Why wouldn't you think that? And that's not a problem. You're not making any mistake. That's automatic, dude. That's automatic. That's not a mistake. You see that as safety and it makes you feel better. All right, that's okay. That's not a crime. That's just you being human. That's what brains do. So that's okay. It's not, you're not doing anything wrong. Okay, I did a video. Now, this one is not like a archive video. It's a very early podcast episode about body language. So if you go to my website, the anxious-truth.com and search for body language, you'll see that I did a video where I was driving now as well into sort of the recovery zone at that point. So it doesn't look like this one and I'm thinner and you'll see the whole thing. But I talked about that, your body language.  I had a list longer than I am tall of these little fidgety habits that I would do as soon as I would start to get anxious. I would tap my foot, I would shake my leg, I would shake my hands, I would do this.  Like if there was a COVID pandemic back in those days, I would have been dead easily because all I did was touch my face continually.  It was hard, man. It was hard to break that. It was hard to break it. So let's see here. Let's see here. Well, the flooding discussion is always a tough discussion. Something switches on a look like the person that shows up in the ear, lots of tears snot into him. Well, Paula, I appreciate you being, you know, a little bit humorous about that, but that doesn't make it flooding, right? It doesn't make it flooding. Just to be clear on that, it means that you feel unable to tolerate or handle what's going on at that moment. And then you express that emotion where you begin to cry and maybe you get emotional about that. But that doesn't necessarily make it flooding. That could happen to you if I walked, if I knocked on your door right now, I gave you some terrible news. Thankfully, I don't have to do that, but you might have the same exact reaction. It's too much for you, right? It just feels too much. That doesn't necessarily mean you were in a flooding experience. It just could be that you were a little less resilient that day, that can happen. So the flooding thing is a tough discussion to have because people get really fixated on it. Am I flooding? Am I doing it wrong? Am I flooding? You're all good. Let's see here. Sue says, Sue, are you in the area? My fellow PJ tells me that you recognize where I am. How do you not get no other drove? That was on route 347 going into Mount Sinai, if you know the area. How do you, let's see. I'll take a few more of these. How do you get past not worrying about driver booster VACs after a not good experience? Okay. Okay. Well, I can answer that question.  That's vaccine anxiety is not special anxiety. It's not like, and you know what?  There's no, I know everybody wants to ask you about the vaccine and like, what do you do about that? You don't do anything about that. You go and get the vaccine while you're scared to get the vaccine. There's nothing I could say. How do you get around having to drive to your data center at night and reboot a server? You do it. You do it scared. You watched me do it scared, right? So that's kind of the way that works. The same thing with the vaccine.  It is not indicative of reality necessarily, but even if you do feel badly, then you'll feel badly for a few days. That's okay. You cannot take that and say, well now I must act as if it is a certainty and I have to protect myself against certain doom.  Doesn't like, I wish you didn't, but that's just the way it's gonna be. Let's see here. Let's keep going. Try and get to the end here. Can we just summarize what you did right and wrong? Sure, I can summarize that. This one didn't have a whole lot of wrong. There was some of my thinking wasn't right. And when I was verbalizing in retrospect, I could say I started out just looking at like, how fast can I do this and get back? So in the beginning when I said, look, I'm already, I'm halfway there. That means I'm a quarter of the way done. I was already anticipating like, how fast can I get out of this? So that wasn't so great. I kind of fell into that. There's some other videos that I found I haven't watched a lot of them, but where I was literally telling myself that I shouldn't expect to panic. Like, I know I'm not gonna panic. And that was a huge mistake. So maybe I'll show some of those at some point. But I think the idea that I could, I should somehow be shooting for doing it as quickly as possible and getting back home. That was a mistake. What did I do right? I slowed down when I recognized that I had to slow down. I just allowed everything that needed to happen to happen. And I acknowledged the achievement those are the things that I did right more than anything else. They were very important. So let's see here. Oh goodness. Slimmer is not even the, I mean, at that point, I would say that I was down maybe 50 pounds for you guys kilos. What is that? 70, 80 kilos, something like that. So yes. Oh no, it's the other way. 20 kilos, I forget. I'm always backwards. But yeah, I was down about 50 pounds for my heaviest, but I still had a lot of weight to lose. So yes, I'm certainly, certainly built much differently than I am now than I was then for sure. Did the anxiety have to do with my weight? The anxiety did have to do with my weight. I don't wanna get into it too much. I talked about that in my medication episodes. It was the medication I was on for sure. Not only does it seem to put weight on people unexplainably, I won't say it was unexplainable. It dampened my judgment to the point where I ate terribly and far, far, far too much. Even though I knew I shouldn't, I did it anyway. So there's that. Let's say I pinch my cheeks, says Kara. The pinching thing, I would pinch my cheeks. I would pinch my forearm just to make it hurt. So, you know, that I can feel. You gotta stop doing that. So I get that, I really do. I know I live there my whole life. So Sue understands where I was driving. I drove past the Seaport Diner onto the route 347. Now there's like local talk. Johnny, we talked about flooding earlier. You have to go back and rewatch or look it up. So let's see here. How do you get out of the intrusive thoughts that keep playing it? You allow them to be there and you just let them come true without resistance and then they don't. So then they don't, that's how you do it. Like when you're looking to try to find a way to stop them from happening or prove them wrong, that's your problem there. You gotta just allow them and start to go through them. While I be streaming more of my exposure vids, I will, I don't know how I'm gonna do them or how it's gonna work, but we'll see. Not 100% sure. I haven't figured out how to do this yet on which ones I'm gonna share and in what format or even where, but I will keep you guys posted. Look, we're at the end of the comments. We did it, 45 minutes. Guys, I appreciate you all coming for this little experiment. I didn't know how it was gonna turn out. I think it turned out okay. I hope you didn't mind that it was kind of nasty, that the quality wasn't so great, but I hope you got something out of it. I hope you learned something from it and if nothing else, this crazy dude with a microphone that keeps telling you that you can do scary things, did scary things. I did scary things every fricking day for a very long time to get better. So, you know, and I'm not special, so I believe that in my heart. I am no more special, smarter, whatever, stronger, braver than any of you. It's not. So there you go. All right, folks, I will see you again. While we're doing Recovery Monday tomorrow, I'm gonna post on that shortly. Tomorrow's Recovery Monday livestream at two o'clock Eastern, as usual, will be, what are we talking about tomorrow? Attacking symptoms does not work. Tomorrow we're gonna talk about why we don't attack symptoms as part of Recovery, so I'll post about that shortly. You guys can, I'll see you tomorrow for that. And that's it. See you guys next time. Thanks for coming by. Appreciate it.


The Tax Administration Procedures Act, or TAPA, is a draft piece of legislation that seeks to revise, consolidate and harmonize the rules relating to the administration of the tax laws of St. Lucia, and to ensure the efficient collection of taxes and other fees in the nature of taxes. Comptroller at the Allen Revenue Department, Marcia Vite, explained that the TAPA is currently being used by other international and regional jurisdictions. She said Antigua, for example, has been using the TAPA for quite some time. The common parts of those legislations, like the Income Tax Act, the VAT Act, we've sought to take these and put them in a piece of legislation for ease for the taxpayer. So you will find that the collection sections of these pieces of legislation are very similar, so we put it in a TAPA. You will find that administrative parts of the legislation are similar. We put it in the TAPA. So the TAPA is basically for the taxpayer, for ease of reference, and for the business person. IRD's senior legal officer, Catherine Spooner, welcomed the media coverage of the piece of legislation, which she noted was circulated to stakeholders, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the St. Lucia Bar Association and the Accountants Association, for comments. These comments will form part of the second draft of the TAPA. So we will not be finalizing the bill until we've done the second level engagement, and thereafter we'll be putting it on our website for a wider circulation. Spooner emphasized that the new draft bill is framed to provide an important balance between the rights of a taxpayer and the obligations of the IRD. There are a number of provisions that were not otherwise clear in the other pieces of legislation I'm having to do with the rights of taxpayers. It also, I think, is very important to know that it identifies timelines by which the IRD and or the controller should act. Failing that, the taxpayer rights kicks in. So no longer will a taxpayer have to sit back and say, I have not heard from the IRD. If we are not meeting the timeline, the taxpayer now initiates the right to act against the IRD. So I think this bill is important and it underscores the rights of a taxpayer. The drafting of the Tax Administration Procedures Act commenced in 2020 with the assistance of an international organization. The IRD controller highlighted the arduous task of putting legislation together, and after numerous internal reviews, the first draft was circulated last year in 2023. But there is actually nothing new. The individual pieces of legislation remain, it does not replace them. So the Income Tax Act will still be the Income Tax Act and the VAT Act of course and all the others, the Insurance Premium Tax Act, etc. They would remain and they will be utilized because it's only the sections that are similar that will be placed in the top for ease of reference. The controller has given the assurance that the draft Tax Administration Procedures Act will soon be placed on the IRD's website and public comment will be welcomed via a specific email address. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glenn Simon reporting.


Trying to bust a wheelie or maybe a kiosk spin. We're gonna make sure your bike is set up right to ride freestyle today on Purefix TV We're back again in the wonderful workshop with our resident mechanic and rider George. It's good to be back Amanda Good to see you. All right, George So we've been getting a lot of questions from riders who want to set up their bike for a fixed gear freestyle as a trick rider yourself What's the best way to set up this bike? To set up the bike as a trick bike I start off with the handlebars. What I've put on here is a BMX style handlebar We use these risers because they're the easiest to pull up on when you're trying to do maneuvers I also make sure to keep them full length because the wider the bars the more you have control Also, there's a crossbar across the top for added strength for hard falls or hard drops or even big jumps It keeps them straight and keeps them sturdy. What I've added to complement the handlebars is a BMX stem These stems are quite heavy-duty. They'll go through a licking and keep kicking. It's also shorter But this gives you is clearance for your legs for your knees if you're spinning the bar around If you have a long stem when you spin it around, it's going to be even closer to you So this is ideal for doing tricks on your fixed gear freestyle and in the end of that I also have the grips. These are BMX grips. These are Ories They've been around for as long as I can remember and they're a trusted and they're a great grip They're soft and they stay well. So another addition is the wheel set. I used a 60 millimeter deep dish wheel This is going to give you the most life out of bumping, crashing and jamming. To complement that I got a 32-seat tire. This is going to be bigger. This is going to make it so when you hit hard falls It doesn't hurt the rim It's going to give you more cushion and it's going to give you more fun on your bike Because you're going to be able to ride home after you beat it up at the end of the day Now an important thing is your pedals.  The last thing you want to do is not be able to ride because you have a head injury All right. Thanks for all the tips George Welcome. If you guys have anything to add to the conversation go ahead and drop your comment below But keep it clean guys. You can also hit us up on Twitter at purefixTV as always until next week


who you're giving to us, to equip us with your word and to equip us for the walk ahead. We commit this class onto your hands and we pray that by the spirit of God, you will direct everything that is taught here and that Lord our instructor will speak by the inspiration of Holy Spirit and every one of us Lord will be impacted by the knowledge of what it takes to build your kingdom and that Lord will be driven every day by the kingdom and that Lord will be driven by the things and the purposes of the kingdom to see your kingdom established here. We praise you and we thank you for a wonderful class in that class. Let it be your holy name for in Jesus name we have prayed. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you Sayin for leading us in prayer today and we will continue from where we stopped in the last class. So we have started the Kingdom Builders the new publication we were doing Kingdom of God in the last several weeks. So Kingdom Builders is what we are doing now and we just started like with some of the introductory notes there. So chapter one we looked at that briefly and then we came over to chapter two which is about the King and the Kingdom. So a couple of things we said in chapter two is that you know we must first of all learn to relate to the King when we talk about Kingdom Building because our relationship with the King is what will help us be a true Kingdom builder. So it's easy to get lost in serving God in terms of activities but you know if we don't have that personal connect and that deep relationship with God then we're really missing out on the point and then we saw how in what Paul writes to the Corinthian Church he says that there are several co-workers different ones God calls to do you know something that is that they are called to do and we work together with the fellow workers and all of us together are building God's Kingdom and we also saw that the foundation must always be the Lord Jesus and we have to build only on this foundation. So Kingdom Building starts with Christ as the foundation. So some of these key truths we have seen in the last class and we also saw the fact that we must give glory to God because ultimately even though we are all serving in different capacities it is God who gives us the ability to serve him so that's what we were talking about in fact we were talking about giving glory to God and making sure that whatever we do that is about the Kingdom of God and that is about glorifying the name of God and we must be very careful that nothing should try to attract God's glory you know onto our lives. So that is another very important foundation that the Kingdom Builder has to get straight before doing anything for God's Kingdom. So I think we were on page 8 so we will begin once again from page 8 and this is APC publication Kingdom Builder so if you haven't downloaded your copy yet you can do that from the website you can just go to apcwo.org forward slash books and get your PDF version of Kingdom Builders yes. So yeah we said that the person who is sent is supposed to supposed to glorify the person who sends him because that's that's what Jesus said so it's not about the glory of you know somebody who is given the task but the giver of that ability and call that's the person that we are out to glorify and we must make sure that we never try to take God's praise or God's glory there's a scripture in our notes here from Isaiah 42 and verse 8 which says I am the Lord that is my name and my glory I will not give to another no my praise to God in which is so that's the kind of God we serve in the Old Testament there are many scriptures where where you see that our God is jealous in that sense okay and it's jealous here it's not a negative jealous but it's it's more like you know God's honor and God's glory is something that nobody can share and nobody can withstand because we are mortal beings and the kind of glory that God deserves he is immortal we we saw that scripture that Paul wrote to Timothy he said you know that he dwells in light immeasurable light the great God so he is this great God whose glory we cannot even you know dare to contain so there's no question actually there's no question of sharing in his glory and God also spoke and said that he will not give his glory to anyone else so why are we talking about this here because when we get into kingdom building it's very easy for us to slowly change our mindset you know when you have more influence when you when you seem to be recognized when you sort of get a hold of what God wants you to do you know sometimes in that in that sense of power or sense of influence in a very in a very subtle way we can move on to a place where we are basking in the glory that that comes from appreciation that comes from applause that comes from you know like just being recognized so when we start out saying okay I never never want to take God's glory it'll just make us more careful and we'll make sure that whether it is in the beginning or you know later on on our journey wherever we are we are clear that it is only God who deserves our glory and it is only God who deserves all the glory because the other thing that can happen is that okay we are willing to give God the glory and most of us say that most of us pray that we say okay God we give you the honor all glory to your name but somewhere in in our hearts 99% of the glory goes to God 1% I'm sure God won't mind you know so that's like a feel good for us we don't we we take that 1% and we feel yeah God is okay and I also feel great to be you know basking in the glory that I'm receiving but you know one beautiful example that the early church said for us is when Peter and John they go and they heal a man who's crippled and how long is this man crippled he was crippled for 40 years since his birth he never walked so at the gate beautiful they go and they minister a miraculous healing or recovery to him and when people look at them all the people surrounding that place they look at Peter and John as if they do they've done something amazing as if these two people are not human beings but God so they respite at that time they look at the crowds this is an act 312 they say why do you marvel at this or why look so intently at this as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk okay so you notice that the early church we talk about it working working in incredibles manifestation of God supernatural power but they were always careful to direct the appreciation of man the applause of man the praises of man to the person who deserves it that is God so Peter and John even in this case they say why are you people looking at us it's not us but it is God okay and this man you know what has made this man walk and then they give them the explanation that he gave strength through the power in the name of Jesus so now that's an example we can all always have and direct the glory back to God and when it comes to kingdom building we see that Jesus said about himself he said I do not receive honor from men so that is also something that we must receive in our own hearts and keep that as an attitude throughout otherwise receiving honor from men becomes our motivation okay it can be a good motivation but many times it can be a wrong pull on us because we might end up doing things for the praises that people have to give us okay of course the flip side is praises come from people but you know if you rely too much on what people have to say even when criticisms come we will we will be molded by that so we don't want to depend on what people are saying in order for us to build the kingdom on God so at our core we must depend on the applause that comes from God and so you know a kingdom builder has to be secure in these things and make sure that the motive the motive of hearts is correct and that our eyes are fixed on God and not on people so in Jesus's times you had Pharisees and hypocrites who would do the right thing but you know looking at the motives of their hearts Jesus commented many times and said look you want to receive the reward of man but that's not what is important but the reward should come from God so in kingdom building you let's remember that we must be careful not to please men okay one teslonians 2 verses 4 through 6 this is on page 9 if someone can read it I think that will be very helpful one teslonians 2 verses 4 through 6 page 9 kingdom builders shall I read man yes yes I'm gonna please do thanks but as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel even so we speak not as pleasing men but God who tests our hearts for neither at any time did we use flattering words as you know nor a cloak of covetousness God is witness nor did we seek glory from men either from you or from others amen thank you thank you so we see the clarity in Paul's attitude there whatever Paul did he's saying it's not to seek the appreciation of man but he starts out by saying his desire was to be approved by God so in what we do the first question that we have to ask ourselves is does God approve of this is God happy with my preaching teaching ministry any form of ministry that I'm engaged in and if God approves of it my honor comes from God and you know let's say even man approves it that would be wonderful man honors it that would be wonderful but if in case you know it's approved by God but not by man it's still okay because at the end of the day our conscience is clear and we know that God is happy with what we are doing so that's the way a kingdom builder must move forward and what to do when appreciation comes from man okay and honor comes from man there's a wonderful scripture in Psalm 115 and verse one which can be a prayer so in this verse the psalmist writes not unto us oh lord not unto us but to your name give glory because of your mercy because of your truth so whenever appreciation comes from man we can direct it back to God and say God not to us yes you know we are being recognized but Lord whatever we are receiving not unto us but Lord let the glory be to your name it's only because of who you are so your mercy your truth your faithfulness in our lives that we are able to serve you we are able to work in your kingdom wherever you have positioned us so in kingdom building the motives of the heart are more important than the work itself we also see that in the kingdom there is authority which is given for us to exercise and you know that that that is an incredible thing because otherwise nothing will get that no no work of God will get that so God empowers us he gives us dominion he gives us authority and we can use it and we can see wonderful things happen now when Jesus sent out some disciples to go and do the work of the ministry in the book of Luke they come back thrilled and they say wow at your name Jesus we saw demons fleeing we saw this happened we saw that happened so they were moving in the authority of the kingdom but again you know it's important for us to know where this authority is coming from otherwise you know we can get all excited about the work that is being accomplished by the power of God and we might think that it's all happening because of us so being submitted to the king positioning ourselves in right relationship to the king when it comes to authority is also equally important so James 4 7 it says submit therefore submit to God resist the devil and he will flee from you so how can you exercise our authority resist the devil and he will flee from you is the exercise of our dominion but before that comes therefore submit to God so our authority flows from the place of submission and we've said this when we talked about believers authority in the last semester we said to the extent that we are submitted to God we can exercise our dominion and authority here on earth so our dominion authority in a sense it is you proportional maybe wrong word but I think you get the point but it's proportional to our submission to God so the the greater submission we have to our king the greater authority you and I can walk in so submission to God is extremely important submission and obedience and we can position ourselves in that manner to be an effective kingdom builder so here it's put in a better way the statement says to the extent he rains in me to that extent he can be through me so we let God rain and we stand submitted under his authority okay the next thing when we talk about kingdom building we said that there are fellow workers there are co-workers in the kingdom of God so we're all serving together now it is also possible to be so far we talked about having the right motivation within ourselves now it's also possible that we elevate people above God when we observe them serving well now naturally it's you know it's a it's a reaction we all have a response when we see someone serving well we we you know give them a very high high place in our minds and we think oh wow this person is honorable they're doing a good job in the ministry that is fine but if we you know on making that person greater than God that also wouldn't be correct so to glory in man is is not something that God is happy about so there are again you know scriptures that are enlisted here I won't go through all of them but one Corinthians 4 6 I read that it says now these things brethren I have figuratively transferred to myself and a follows for your sakes that you will learn in us not to think beyond what is written that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other so puffed up on behalf of one against the other so you see in the temple church what had happened was you know Paul ministered and then for a while he wasn't around so he had another minister Apollos take his place and you know serve there in the church but later on Paul comes to know that there were factions in the church so there were people who liked the way Paul ministered the way Paul preached but then there were others no follows was a very you know well-learned eloquent man that's that's how he came across so there were people who said no no no Apollos is better than Paul so factions you know came to be in the church and there were there were divisions and some people were supporting Apollos some people were supporting Paul so in that context he's telling the people look what is this is Apollos someone or is Paul someone ultimately it's God who gives the increase and it's God who you know God who blesses the work that we do we are all fellow workers in the kingdom of God and on the part of the believers he says look it's it's not right at all that you you get talked up on behalf of a certain worker in the kingdom of God so how does this apply you know to us basically when we see ministers of God well even let's say like in the kingdom or or in our church or something like that where shouldn't we shouldn't be elevating them above God okay so yes we honor that but we must be sensitive you know not to put them on a pedestal and sort of worship them the way we worship God because ultimately it is God who deserves all our glory and that glory should never go to man in any way okay now I'm just going section by section so there are there are important points mentioned in some section all the sections some of them flow but you know you might also feel that you know certain concept is a little disconnected from the previous point that I made but please just bear with me so the next part here is about being accountable to God who will judge all things so again you know accountability in the kingdom of God is very very important now Paul writes he says there are two passages given here so in these passages basically what Paul is saying look if I think about my own life I cannot find something that is wrong okay not right but basically he's saying in my own understanding I feel like I've dealt with everything I've brought it before God I have asked for forgiveness I have tried to live righteous but still I don't judge myself because they become the right time towards the end of the age when it is Christ who will judge all things okay and Christ who will judge all things rightly so we will just wait for Christ to judge everything so and you know while he talks about this basically he's saying that ultimately we are accountable to God okay and a kingdom builder needs to live in that manner having accountability so here in our notes you know it's beautifully put down that accountability means being true to God but at the same time accountability means being true to ourselves being true to our family being true to those we serve true to those who watch over our lives so having a clear conscience okay and making sure that our motives are right making sure that you know we are doing things right and for the right reasons so that's what a kingdom builder would do and you know why how does this apply it applies in many ways in fact it applies all the time you know when we are judging ourselves being true to God and being being true to ourselves you know every now and then as as someone who's serving God this question will come to us isn't it like it could just be somebody maybe our superior asking us a question saying hey have you done this now at that point I can say anything that I want but if I'm true to God and if I'm true to myself you know I'm walking in integrity I'm being accountable to God now maybe the person who entrusted me with that task won't research and find out whether I'm telling the truth or not right it won't matter maybe it'll never like I can just sort of get away with it but when I walk with the attitude that look I'm accountable to God I have to be true to myself in what I'm saying and I have to be true to God that that will preserve us to serve God with purity okay and I gave you one small example now this way everything we do in kingdom building right now for some of us we will set up churches we're talking about house of God in the other course we will run churches and there are so many things involved the way we manage money the way we we communicate with the people the way we manage human resources in everything we need accountability if we are not accountable you know one way or the other right and you know and and I don't know if we will talk about this later but as long as we maintain this pure conscience right we will be able to serve God well but you know there is the danger of self-deception that we could come into the most dangerous thing is when I know something is wrong and I know how to justify that okay so as a kingdom builder in the smallest things if we can learn being accountable to God accountable to ourselves right then that carries on with us no matter what we do it because small is not the issue but being sincere having a clear conscience in fact Paul writes to Timothy he says when you entrust the ministry to faithful men he also adds a point he says find people with a good conscience the people who are true to God so these things matter they matter a lot so this this section is talking about having accountability and you know making sure that we are transparent okay to all the people who God has put in our lives so that you know that there isn't let's say a false front in front of the church and then you know you have another front elsewhere because that wouldn't be the right way of living and of course it would never be the right way of serving God or building his kingdom okay so we need to be accountable and in the section there's also an encouragement to you know be true to God in such a way that we don't make our life about our reputation because when Apostle John writes to the seven churches in the book of Revelation he addresses one particular church in Sabbath and he says that I got the Lord Jesus comments about this church and says I know your works that you have a name that you are alive but you are dead okay so what's happening with this church in Sabbath the church has a reputation you have a name okay so again you know it's about being true to oneself it's about being true to um uh that that uh person that we project because when we are being true now you're the same thing in this church it had a name that it was alive but it was actually dead so having a front in before people and then being someone else there is a disconnect in that and that's lack of integrity but instead if we can maintain our accountability to God then we will not so much you know worry about our reputation we'll continue to live our lives accountable to God and whatever you know that whatever reputation that brings us you know that's that's fine so basically having integrity right and I'm being accountable to God not worrying too much about our reputation okay so again this is very important for a kingdom builder because you see it's sometimes easier to uh be accepted by people because the people think we are unminded okay now behind the scenes the story can be very different now God can be disappointed in our lives right our walk with him our private walk with him you know our accountability to him the truth of our hearts all that nobody knows only people see outside and you know sometimes the pastor always says this person says like see the anointing comes from God so when we are ministering in that anointing actually the ability is from God right and sometimes God works in spite of us God works in spite of us but we cannot think that oh okay just because I'm able to do powerful ministry I'm seeing the demonstration of God's supernatural power every time everything is fine with me oh it may not necessarily be fine okay so but for the people they only perceive that oh this individual is so anointed so anointed that's okay that's a good thing but ultimately it's God you know who sees everything and what is the point in you know having the approval of man while God is disappointed you know having a reputation that we are alive we are anointed behind the scenes only God knows the reality so you know these are things these are foundational things in the life of any kingdom builder that you must be careful to give glory to God we must be careful to receive our honor from God we must be careful not to exert you know any any human being above God we must be careful to be accountable be true to God in every way so some foundational things here that we want to talk about before we go any further in kingdom building so based on what we've discussed in this chapter I think I'll pause and have your thoughts right now we could talk about no we said that it's important for us to deepen our relationship with the king okay when we say kingdom building Christ should have the three elements so that is very important and kingdom building should follow from there so how can a kingdom builder maintain this strong relationship with the king okay so maybe we can start there and then you can also share your comments on this whole thing about accountability and honor and all of that and then we can move on to the next chapter here so how can one maintain a deep relationship and connect with the king as a kingdom builder yes yes I think one is to keep our sights on him like uh being doing being intentional about uh seeking him because in fact being what I'm understanding being a king kingdom builder is not something that comes easily it's something that you have to to work hard toward so keeping our eyes on Jesus reading it with praying and holy spirit will will move us thank you yes thank you thank you mangy so mangy saying uh to keep our eyes fixed on god that will help us stay on track okay abhishek taking it to the next level he's saying die to self yeah definitely definitely abhishek um yeah so as you're serving the lord that's where the submission comes in right so the extent that the lord reigns in me is the extent to which he will be able to reign through me so when we die to self we let him take over completely okay so samuel I'll come to you say samuel says you did deeply in the word of god and okay say yeah so sorry sorry say just a moment I just muted you please excuse me I will finish reading samuel's comment here and then you could unmute yourself I hope that's okay so I was saying samuel has mentioned deeply rooted in god's word and constant fellowship god speaks through his word not lying at all times no matter what circumstances okay yes thank you thank you samuel yes say please go ahead yes so what I just also want to add was um constant self evaluation of where we are standing and how we carry out our service in building the kingdom because it's very easy that unconsciously we're just giving to taking the glory you know listening to the praises so just sometimes reflecting on our day to day or month to month activities or service of how we did this just basically stepping back and reviewing you know with the holy spirit speaking to us so that we can we can quickly repent and turn away from taking the glory or you know taking the praises and the applause of men I think that way to help us to help us stay in check in ensuring that we never steal god's glory in building god's kingdom here that's yes yes thank you say that's true so you know keep ourselves in check at all times and be careful to give the glory to god which is due to him uh and how oh yeah Anita says the same thing periodic check on our spiritual life checking what actually drives us to ministry okay great uh Charles excuse me it is quite possible to get distracted while we are in the kingdom ministry we can find the epsilon's who can take our attention so first spiritual Anthony I'm not alert it will be easy to concentrate on the gate and fail to see the king okay we need to know our king and keep posted about his room yes sure sure Charles um and I think when we uh anchor in our relationship with the king uh in some way you know uh it helps us it always helps us to come back um and relate rightly with god see for example I am saying now as a kingdom builder if I am engaging in some form of ministry and I'm only getting busy with ministry and you know there's people's praises there's people's honor coming my way but I'm not spending time with god or I'm not spending time with the word of god prayer things like that where I am deepening my relationship with god and having my intimacy with god uh you know somewhere my my conscience uh it will lose its sensitivity because when I come back into the presence of god every time I have to be accountable you know every time there will be the ministry of the holy spirit come with me about hey you said this you did that that was not right so I have to set it right in order for me to deepen my relationship with god so keeping that relationship maintaining that relationship on a daily basis is very very important okay and more so when things get busier because otherwise we lose that anchor and once you've lost your anchor your ship is all over the place so and that's what you know many of you are saying here not get distracted have a periodic check and all this works when we are in relationship with the king so maintaining that relationship is the key okay uh devi says having genuine fear of the lord yeah very good point there so having genuine fear of the lord it is his work overall correct remember we said uh the kingdom thy kingdom it's not my kingdom it's not your kingdom it's not my church it's not your church it's his church I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it so we must recognize that the work is his work and we are his servants then Charles is saying the sensitivity is quite paramount daily encounter yes true true Charles so we must maintain that okay how do we respond when we go unrecognized you know when when we're serving and let's say you nobody appreciates you for the work that you're doing how do you react to that so far we talked about receiving all the honor no let's suppose there's no honor coming your way okay and that's as joyful has anyone had an experience like this in kingdom building where you were not appreciated many times pastor especially if you're a woman minister okay yeah yeah sure Billy you wanna I mean if you don't mind you want to share some more yes yes pastor so uh so Billy sorry to interrupt you uh another point is that this is on record and generally it is course on youtube after the recording so you know you could share whatever you're comfortable yes yes yes please go ahead uh so thanks for the reminder anyways yes so definitely there are challenges that we face especially I I feel like uh when you're a when you're a woman you're not easily accepted or the new minister also is like you know you don't have that acceptance I would say and appreciation but then I just feel like this question that you have asked is a tide to the question the previous question that you spoke about and the discussion we had it's all tied to our relationship with our king when that relationship becomes a deep one a one that is intimate when it becomes that uh it becomes the matter of the heart when you're so passionately involved with God when you're so passionately involved in that relationship and then what happens like something that was driving me throughout in no matter what the challenge was there's something like you know that you live for the audience of one not for anybody else that you run this race as the book of Hebrew says like you know the we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and run this uh you know in the Amplified Bible it's talks about the appointed course that is set before us and we keep running that no matter whether you get the appreciation or not whether you receive the honor or not whether you're accepted or not but you're doing it for the king so that keeps you going in spite of whatever challenge or comes up okay um yeah sorry I got logged out of the call and I'm sure Bula you you've shared right I missed what you shared though yes I did so I actually thought I my internet got disconnected no no no it it was me I hope you shared fully and you didn't uh yes I did yes I did okay great great great thank you thank you so I'll watch it I'll watch it on YouTube yeah sure thanks yeah thanks Bula thank you for sharing so yeah it can happen that you know we don't get recognized but then again the right attitude comes from uh being anchored in our relationship with God so that's something you know we can maintain uh because of our intimacy with God okay um another thing here uh these questions are by the way in your in our notes and you know very relevant and pertinent questions uh how about you know getting our identity from a ministry or a ministry affiliation is is that is that something we struggle with and if we do then you know how do you deal with that getting our identity from a certain uh it could be a denomination it could be a you know maybe a very successful ministry how do you deal with that and could you rephrase your question okay uh basically it's like you know sometimes we we have a sense of pride that we are we are associated with a certain ministry or a denomination or you know a group of people a group of ministers of God or a certain minister of God who is very successful and um it's as if we are drawing our identity from that so i i just talked about not elevating people okay so in that context i'm saying um you know do we make that a big deal our associations with people do we make that a big deal or how do we deal with our associations yeah it does is that rephrased better samyal um not sure like um so what are you saying so we are doing we're doing God's work yeah but uh let's say let's say we want them to come to apc or for fellowship so are you asking should we mention apc at all or should we not like no it's it's not just about uh you know bringing someone to the ministry uh it's it's more like you know gaining your identity from that ministry for example uh let let me say um now that i i am part of apc if if it brings a sense of pride to me that hey you know we are better than everybody else uh and you know my identity itself is is rooted in this if anything happens to my association with you know apc and the ministry that i do it shouldn't be like i'll i'll hit rock bottom you got it my identity should be in christ and my identity should be in the king while i'm building the kingdom yeah you gave you gave the answer i gave the answer yeah i'm sure so yeah so these are things uh to think about and to just set our hearts right um as we go about building God's kingdom and child says uh yes identity can be drawn like serving in an evangelistic enterprise and that you are moving sit cities with the gospel and you could tend to boast of it and introduce yourself and tell the people of your profile correct correct yeah so uh yeah not to make that an identity yes you know sometimes uh it is needed because then people wouldn't know like if if somebody asks you where are you from which ministry do you work for it may be important to say i am from this ministry and this is the role in which i serve but at the end of the day you know that association that ministry association shouldn't be everything because what happens when people don't introduce you like that uh you know it's sad to say that ministers of God can get offended that oh no they didn't tell my they didn't talk about my years of experience uh you know i i i wasn't introduced properly so you know uh yeah so that's what we're saying uh we must have our identity in Christ uh and these are but functions right uh whatever we are we are doing uh in different ministries okay and Avni is saying yeah so having our identity in the ministry or our associations like we could say oh uh i i serve with pastor so and so okay and that becomes my identity now what happens if i'm not going to serve with pastor so and so for whatever reason right god says okay now you move to another part of the world and then you're on your own what happens to your identity so uh these are things that you know we have to work on hmm so it's also saying uh bishop introduced not as a bishop can run hurt yeah correct so yeah so but if you have the right identity then it won't matter it won't even matter uh sometimes when people don't know your name right you go you serve and they they don't even address you by name it's fine because you went there to serve god you went there to impart to the people you've done your part so you know you're happy you're accountable to god um and that's what matters at the end of the day so having the right motives and to know that god is going to judge the hearts god is going to judge the work that we do um uh so you know we stay true to our conscience we stay stay true to god and at the end of the day give all glory to god and that's how a kingdom builder should serve okay so uh at this point let's go ahead and take a 10 minute break we'll come back and uh we will look at the next chapter here which has to do with the holy spirit directing the work of a kingdom builder so yes so uh let's go for the break class and see you soon thank you


develop a deep learning framework for multimodal data fusion for adult and pediatric brain tumors. Multimodal data models combining histopathology imaging and gene expression data outperform single-data models in predicting prognosis. This article was authored by Sandra Steyet, Yeping Lina Chiu, Yuanning Jing, and others.