So, I'm here with Matt Leib, who is a writer and a comedian and host of Newsbroke on AJ+, and also a member of the Chosen People. Now, Matt, from your vantage point across the pond, I'm just kind of wondering what you make of the recent fury over anti-Semitism and racism and leftism and all that kind of stuff. Well, it seems like it depends on where you are, on your side of the pond, as I've come to learn, it's called. It seems like there is, I mean, you correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there is a kind of a smear campaign going on where Jeremy Corbyn and other anti-Zionist members of the Labour Party are being kind of just generally smeared as anti-Semites by, it seems like, a lot of different Jewish mainstream institutions in the institutional community, as well as the kind of mainstream body politic. Is that right, or is there legitimate issues of anti-Semitism happening? It's funny, because I think there is a lot of levels on which you can appreciate this, and untangling that is not something that the media has done particularly well because precisely tangling it has been quite a useful thing for people who do want to collapse those categories, because that's kind of useful if you do support the state of Israel and want to completely raise the possibility of all criticism of it. So there have been instances of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party because kind of, of course there have been because it exists in society, and society is anti-Semitic, right? And also there's a level on which people are scared. I don't know what the situation is for you, but talking to relatives, talking to friends, people are genuinely scared of a rise in anti-Semitism, particularly in this kind of couched in the terms of like, oh we were allowed to be wiped for 70 years, but they won't let us cling on for long, right? And I just kind of am struggling to pay adequate attention to those fears as genuine because they are genuine, right? There is a rise in anti-Semitism, but I think that's kind of mainly down to, or mainly being driven by far right elements that are kind of emboldening something that happens across society and then you get these kind of conspiratorial thinking. So it kind of, there have been elements of smear, but to call it a smear campaign really kind of undersells the depth of the problem, which is we are kind of facing a rising, rising racism, right? Right, right, yeah, I mean I call it a smear because I'm not entirely, you know, up to date on what exactly the claims are, and I know that in the United States we do not have at all a robust conversation about what is anti-Zionism and what is anti-Semitism and how the two can be different and how the two can intersect.   This is such a kind of baffling historical moment to me because you're completely right. There's a kind of comparable situation in the UK in that a lot of the sort of most well-respected, if you will, formal institutions of like Jewish civic life like the Board of Deputies and that sort of thing who are very much, you know, behind this discourse that there is this unique problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and in left-wing thought in general have formed this kind of alliance with conservatives which I don't know whether this is just my personal naivety or my personal biases politically speaking but that seems like such an odd moment to me because these people are people, you know, as you say, mobilized by racism and anti-Semitism which is like the power of the idea of Israel in gluing together these groups which really shouldn't be friends, they shouldn't be working together. Yeah, you'd figure that one of the things that people, especially other Jewish people, couldn't look past as the fact that these right-wing groups and right-wing leaders have so many Nazi supporters. Being side by side with Nazis just seems like maybe an indicator that you might be on the wrong side of an issue but that's just me personally, I have a certain distaste for Nazis, something about the haircuts mostly but I mean also just they don't really have style. Yeah, yeah, Nazis, not adequately dapper which is my main beef with them.  The suspenders and some, you know, I guess they've lost the shave heads and now they're doing only the half shave but to me it just is like everything just looks very out of date. Anyways, I do feel like what it does say, you know, the fact that you see these weird alliances of pro-Israel groups and pro-right-wing neo-fascist groups is that Israel is more and more kind of accepting its role as a more and more fascist, imperialist type of state and that to me is something that needs to be looked at and dealt with honestly and not with, you know, kind of a blanket name calling like, you know, I definitely do not like when people will say, oh, Israelis, Netanyahu is a Nazi and whatnot because I do feel like there is kind of, it's a much more sensitive issue than just like, oh, you know, we call everyone Nazis, you know, it's a lot different especially being that the state was literally created in the wake of Nazi atrocities. There are other ways to call people a bad person, right? Yeah, absolutely, fascist works. I feel like a fascist is, you know, a lot of them, especially on the far right in Israel, do not totally shy away from their racism because they feel justified in it and I feel like the word fascist is I think a nice, you know, it's a succinct term for kind of that side of politics, of the political spectrum, especially with Likud Party and other further right parties. Could you talk a bit more about that, just to explain why? Why I would categorize, well, just in terms of the, it's not just in that they are fascists but that they're kind of accepting more and more that they are. More and more I see open discussion about expulsion of Palestinians from, not just from the land which is currently occupied but also, you know, stripping of rights of Arab Israelis. You know, more and more you're seeing just kind of an open discussion about disenfranchising the Arab population within the legal borders of Israel, not to mention the, you know, de facto apartheid you've got in the West Bank. So I think it's the fact that people are openly discussing it as a, almost like, well, this is a legitimate, you know, political platform to be just openly anti-Arab, says to me that, you know, it's become more and more clear that this is a part of the body politic in Israel that has become kind of energized and feels like they have kind of some moral ground to stand on whereas, you know, before there was at least some semblance, some, you know, pretense of, oh, we would like to create two states, you know, the two state solution was this idea that was seen as this great compromise that we're working towards if only, you know, the other side could, you know, be reasonable but more and more it's clearly impossible and I don't even think they openly advocate for it on the right too much anymore in Israel. They are pretty much on the right, you know, just for greater Israel, which is basically just a complete annexation of the occupied territories. To me that spells out, we have accepted we want to create this official apartheid state and that's something to look out for. I'm not a big fan of apartheid. apartheid, you know, controversial apartheid, kind of bad these days. I know. Yeah, it's weird that these are controversial opinions but, you know, apparently they are. Apparently it's weird. I think to point out the kind of political rather than ethnic or religious underpinnings that organize those motivations and organize the sort of political ambitions of the state of Israel, basically treating it as a state like any other state, which is kind of what we're supposed to be doing. Right. But, you know, it makes much more sense of Netanyahu's attitude to really anti-Semitic foreign leaders like Orban and Hungary and like Trump because ultimately his loyalties don't lie with Jewish people per se. Like he's very happy to sell out people in the diaspora but, you know, he will ally with his political allies because his political allies are far right nationalists with territorial ambitions and like fascist underpinnings. Those are the, those are the like axes of solidarity between them, not whether or not they want to protect Jewish people because, you know, they will happily, he will happily accept support from people who will happily accept support from people who, you know, march through Charlottesville chanting, Jews will not replace us, which we will. They are wrong. We will replace them. Yeah, I'm very excited to replace them. It's just, you know, it's going to take a little while since we are less than a percent of the population of the world. But eventually we're getting there, you know, person by person. Yeah, imagine how much like orchestrating world finance we do when we're only like one percent of the population. It's kind of impressive. I know, I know. I know. I mean, I personally own five banks myself. So, you know, I hope you're carrying your weight and owning your share of banks and media. Oh, good, good. But yeah, I feel like, you know, the kind of open embrace of fascism, you know, or at least of other fascist regimes by Netanyahu and, you know, Likudniks is just, to me, is just kind of like the obvious, obviously where we were going this entire time.  Right?  But yeah, no, it's one of those things that's happening and, you know, people speaking out about it have to deal with, I think, a lot of ignorance, I think, on the general population of a lot of, you know, at least of America. I feel like people don't really know what Zionism is and they have heard of anti-Semitism and their only examples of it had been for a long time, you know, basically people calling something that's anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic and going, oh, I guess that's people hating Jews. And then we have these open displays of anti-Semitism by the right and people need to find a way to, you know, kind of go, you know, because no one wants to accept the idea that there's Nazis walking around on the streets. It just sounds so ridiculous. So people go like, well, what are their, what are those Nazis position on Israel, you know?  And it's like, well, if you think about that, you know, that's, it's hating Jews either way. Yeah, I mean, precisely because of the particular evangelical character of a lot of the, you know, anti-Zionist, sorry, Zionist anti-Semitism in America and kind of in the UK, but not to the same extent. Like, they just, like, they like Israel because they don't want to have to deal with Jews in their own country. And, right, exactly, it's literally going like, no, no, no, put them all there. We love Israel. Just send them there. And then we can have our own white state.  Everyone's really into the ethno-state idea. And you know, so it's kind of a perfect time for right-wing Israeli politicians to be like, oh, you guys want an ethno-state? Well, guess what? We're building one right here in the Middle East, you know? It's just... It's what I made earlier. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, did you say ethno-state? And then you pull one out. It's just, it seems like, to me, more and more people are kind of learning about, I guess, the situation in the Middle East with regards to Israel-Palestine, but it still feels like the nuance of the discussion is still not there. And so you have, and you know, I don't know for certain if that's the case in the UK, but you have people slipping up and definitely having their anti-Zionism veer into anti-Semitism. And it's one of those things that needs to be looked at and condemned when it happens and also understood as a learning curve because there is, you know, there is a difference between people who legitimately want to see, you know, the end to the occupation and don't actually hold any hate in their heart towards Jews and people who discuss Zionism and use the word Zionism as kind of like a code word for all the Jews, you know, and it's hard to untangle that. I mean, precisely because it's, there's a lot of, I guess, in terms of the like self-promotion of like the Israeli state that is kind of quite invested in collapsing those categories because... Oh, sure. You know, like, and it's just really frustrating when leftists who want to end the occupation just, I mean, essentially take Netanyahu's word for it that the interests of Jewish people are completely identified with the interests of the state of Israel, which is just like completely not, I mean, like, apart from the fact that most Jews don't even live in Israel, there are like many, many, like, you know, dissenting Jewish people there. Like there are many people in and outside of Israel who are critical of like Israeli policies and you know, there's a lot of, you know, they're trading on a lot of very understandable historical fears like in this promise that like, you know, we will keep you safe from future trustee, future Holocaust, future pogroms. All you need to do is kind of like identify your interests with us and like if we were to, you know, I guess like think about self-determination and what it would mean to combat antisemitism in a more holistic way and a more like diasporic way than just like shove them over there in the ethno-state where they won't bother anyone and they can keep themselves safe. Right, right.  Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean it's such a weird thing to this idea, you know, that's sold to people that the Jewish people are better off all moving to Israel. You know, this idea that like first, you know, like, you know, the thing about eggs is they're always safe if they're in one basket. You know, people will say always put your eggs in one basket.  I mean, you've got actual military everywhere and I personally don't feel safe with people with the, you know, M16s walking around everywhere and also yeah, it completely discounts the diaspora who are living safely and I mean, you know, as someone who's lived in the United States my whole life, I feel pretty comfortable as a Jew, even with Charlottesville, you know, I see that and I go, this is definitely scary and I don't, you know, put it past Americans for a second to not be like, you know what we haven't done? We haven't done a mass expulsion of Jews in a while. We should try that. That sounds like a lot of fun. You know, it's something that absolutely could happen but to act as if it's, you know, somehow safer for everyone to move to Israel to me is just seems like, I mean, it just seems like a sales pitch to me, you know, seems like, you know. It's not safer for like Mizrahi Jews or like, you know, North African Jews who are like, experience a lot of violence and a lot of marginalization within the state of Israel as Jewish Israelis. It's like, there are like other levels going on there. Even if it was a state of just Ashkenazi, white, European Jews, it would still not be that I don't feel comfortable at the dinner table with my own family all the time.   I mean, it's just it's antithetical to literally my entire life experience. And I think the life experience of most Americans, you know, which is like, you know, diversity is a thing. Diversity, you know, most Americans, you know, we live in we live in cities and diversity has not been at least for me a negative experience. But then again, I've never lived in an all all white town or something like that where where, you know, maybe if I'd grown up that way, I'd feel feel differently. But I just don't it's to me, it's antithetical to to everything that I've been taught and everything that I grew up with.  But maybe I'm wrong. That's what I think. But I think this kind of discussion around like safety in Israel sort of is illuminating of the way in which like the category of Zionism like the idea of Zionism is often confused with, I guess, like the concrete reality of Zionism as instantiated, right? The current Israeli state because there have been many different. There have been many different strains of Zionism. Exactly. I, you know, and like many of them have been like liberal and progressive or whatever you can you can say that, you know, those are like, you know, structurally inadequate or flawed, you can disagree with them.  It's just not true. It's not helpful. But right, I completely agree. Yeah. And there is this sense, however, in which like they like government like uses this idea of like Zionism is something that was set up to or something that is intended to confer a certain level of like safety on Jewish people and just kind of use that to claim that to make that historically completely inaccurate claim that Israel was set up by Jews in order to keep Jews safe, which I mean, again, is like just an enormously impressive effort on the part of, you know, British people in particular to like not talk about colonialism. We hate talking about colonialism because it's like, you know, that's the thing that's missing from this debate is that when we talk about the founding of, you know, the founding of Israel, you know, it's not Jewish refugees who set it up.  They were going through all these like styles of like semi like post-colonial management. Like that's why it was set up not by it was burning man for some of them. Some of them were just thought it was it was basically burning man.  They'll be hella right. It'll be good. Well, yeah, we'll live, you know, and, you know, it's not to say that, you know, many of them didn't want to live in peace with their with their Arab neighbors.  And it's like, well, they were right this whole time.   And it's like, yes, this is true, but this is not the impetus for the creation of the state. You're conflating the two things, and it's not the same. But yeah, I mean, these are discussions that, you know, are hard to have, I think, with most people, because you are kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's even for people who know about it, it's, it's a hard to see. No one really wants to die on that hill of like, of, of defending the Palestinian people.  It seems like too, too much of a risk. It's like why, especially in America, I think where, you know, people are, a lot of people are so invested, especially on the, on the left in, you know, so many of our own problems, you know, so to speak, and in this country, you know, people feel like it's just another thing happening in another country. And I don't want to delay, delegitimize my own movement by, you know, talking about Palestinians marching with them, you know, marching with their banners, and, and it's, you know, it's a, it's a bummer, because I mean, a bummer is, it's a real bummer. I'm from California, to me, a bummer is that's like, that's, that's real high up there in terms of tragedy. It is, you know, because these are real life atrocities, you know, we're seeing the real, I mean, I don't want to say the beginnings, because it's been happening for a while, but we are seeing the kind of coming to fruition of a apartheid state happening. And, and, you know, it's de facto, like I've said before, it's de facto apartheid now, but, you know, if greater Israel were to happen, it would be an apartheid state. Unless, of course, they were like, you know, they did a turn, all of a sudden, there's M night Shyamalan twist, where they do a one state solution, and everyone gets voting rights. Then I'd be like, that's amazing. And no expulsions. Okay. But that, you know, prove me wrong. Maybe what's that? Yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, that, that would be interesting. But, you know, that's, it's, that's not what the plan is. And yeah, it's, it's definitely hard to, to get people interested in it and to, you know, to put their bodies and their minds on the line for, you know, for this, and, you know, I feel like it sounds kind of almost crank to sort of repettle the lines we were talking about, not we, I was like, I was like, eight, but like in like 2002 or 2003, like around the time that the Iraq war was happening, talking about like, how these kinds of these policies in the Middle East aren't, you know, this kind of like, distant moral battleground that like, Western leftists use to like, you know, signify their like moral virtue, they're actually bound up with Western imperialist foreign and domestic policy in terms of you securing military bases, securing access to certain resources, like water and oil in the area, it kind of is about, you know, gas and oil. And I feel like that, you know, again, when we return to like the material and political realities, the, the kind of the cracks in this sort of media war to like collapse Zionism and like protection of Jewish interests and anti Zionism and anti Semitism just begin to show because when you think like, actually, this isn't, you know, it's not about protecting like a small minority of the global population, it's about protecting a global majority of the world's resources. Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, you know, if, you know, if we if you can even get that far in the discussion with people about what what the purpose of America's unconditional support of Israel is, you know, if you can get that far, then, then, then great, but most people, you know, they, they, they can't push themselves that far.  And, you know, and all of a sudden, they start repeating anti Semitic tropes about Israel's actual actual power. And they'll, they'll, they'll, you know, talk about how Israel calls all the shots. And you're just like, okay, okay, calm down. Let's, let's erase some of your pre programming here.  You know, so everyone kind of wants to avoid the subject is it, you know, you're never sure what somebody's going to say.  Yeah, it feels sort of odd that like those kind of really brutal political realities end up being wrangled out by like really awkward dinner conversations with like your aunt, who has this, you know, hasn't really thought through harass you to foreign policy or whatever, but is, you know, has this nostalgic idea of Israel because she like had a nice summer there when she was 19, something like that. Right, exactly. Yeah.  You know, this all Zionism is is a safe home for the Jewish people.   And it's yeah, it's it's it's not good, because we we've got to be able to discuss the realities on the ground of what Zionism is, versus the kind of like nebulous, you know, theoretical what Zionism, you know, could have been or, you know, what not, or the, you know, what the wishful thinking. So yeah, it's yeah, it's hard. Yeah, the reference to the plurality of historical ideas of Zionism's plural, as a kind of get out close to avoid talking about what Zionism looks like in the contemporary state of Israel is this classic retreat to language that, you know, a lot of people do because they don't want to talk about the thing that makes them uncomfortable. It's the whole like, you can't be Islamophobic. Islamophobia isn't racism. Islam is a race. Right. Yeah. And on the on the other side, it's the it's the people who are like, I can't be anti Semitic, because I myself am I have Semitic origin. And therefore, and it's like, you know, it's these semantic arguments where you're completely useless. They're only used to muddy the point that's happening, you know, it's it's used to stifle conversation so that you can't actually, you know, confront the actual issue, you know, set before you. I mean, this happens to me all the time. I am a member of several different Facebook groups that are Jew book groups, giant, you know, Facebook groups filled with just Jews. And and the arguments that that we have, the mostly arguments that that I have are people like when I posted I did a video for AJ plus about anti Zionism and anti Semitism. It was a video about how we are now living at a point where you can love Israel and hate Jews at the exact same time. And, you know, the way people were choosing to not discuss that issue was go, Oh, well, you work for Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is, you know, funded from the Qatari government.  And it's like, you know, people do a friend. I know it's it's a lot of steps.  But, you know, I that's, that's what they say. And, and, you know, there's a lot of creative ways that people have learned in order to kind of not discuss an issue. And I feel like with this issue in particular, there's a million ways not to talk about it. And, and there's a million reasons not to talk about it because people feel uncomfortable with it, which is not good. And also that kind of the way of not talking about it properly also, I guess is one of the functions of this like tangle, discursive, and it strikes me that those like tactical diversions in order to not talk about the thing is precisely one of, I guess, the functions, the ways in which the appearance of combating antisemitism is used. And that's to essentially embolden Islamophobia, because there is this kind of, you know, this racist stereotype that most Muslims are anti-Semitic, simply by virtue of being Muslim.  Right, yeah. The Jews are used by white people in order to justify their own hatred of people of color all the time.  Yeah, exactly. If anyone's hating Jews around here, it's me. Yeah, it's, it's, to me, an obvious ploy.  But, you know, it's, I feel like there's something about being within the tent of whiteness in the institutional Jewish community that's seen as the safest place you can be. It's and so they're going like, even if that means aligning ourselves with people who just two decades ago, openly hated our guts, they're now accepting us and trying to protect us. And hey, you know what? If that means not speaking up about blatant racism in our own community and in the white community in general, then fine, as long as we stay white, we're fine. And I think we've learned that like, that whiteness is conditional. And, and so it's, it's, you know, at least with the, the rise of Trump and everything like that, you've got people for the first time ever, I've got people saying that I am not white, which, you know, just, you know, when I first heard that I was, I got real mad, I got real white about it too. Like my monocle fell off and everything.   And it's, it's interesting, because you're seeing a lot of different reactions to that, you know, what does it mean that, you know, these white nationalists are now holding whiteness so precious that we don't count anymore as white people. What do what do we do? And, you know, I think the a lot of the institutional Jewish community is going to have to make some decisions about about where they put their allegiance. And if in America, if you continue to ally yourself with Israel, as you know, the voice of the Jewish people in the homeland is the Jewish people, you're going to end up with a lot of strange bedfellows now. And if you can accept that, then, you know, Mazel tov, but I personally cannot accept that.  That's the kind of the character of the sort of fear that I'm seeing amongst the like British Jewry, if you say, because it's that fear of like losing one's place in, like, in the whole of whiteness, which means that because, I mean, that tells us a lot about the wages of whiteness, both as like a material reality, because, you know, like the structural institutional is anophobia and anti black racism and that kind of thing. It just is is institutional and material in the way that anti semitism isn't any more right in the UK, now. And it tells us a lot about the power of whiteness in including you in the sort of the institutions of social life and all these like, you know, amazing benefits that comes from being white, being white is great. You don't get harassed by the police. Generally, it's brilliant. Right. Right. Like of course, people don't want to lose that, right? Because we're told that the only way to access those kinds of like, what should be like, basic criteria of like, living in any society, the right to housing, right? Exactly. Be like shot on the street. The only way to access that is to be white. Right.  This is brilliant. Everybody stay calm, do whatever you can in order to remain white.  But you know, a lot of people will, you know, stay silent on that because they don't see themselves as allied because to see themselves as allied would be to see themselves as, as not white. And that's something that's something no one wants to be. Right. Yeah.  And, you know, often, as I think it is with with anyone who is of a particular, you know, category of people outside the norm, you are the representative of all those people.      And I just it's one of those places where I feel safer talking about it as like an, an inter community issue. But, but yeah, I mean, we, we definitely benefit from being white, we have white privilege, we, we reach all the material markers of being white, we get just by the way we look and kind of the acceptance of Jews, you know, the recent acceptance of Jews in Western society. And it's, it's not something that people feel like they want to give up. And it's not something that, you know, it's just, it's, it's a very powerful thing, white supremacy, very powerful. And it's, it's going to take a lot of work in order to, I think, get our own community woke on white supremacy. Especially first, you're gonna have to teach them what the word woke means. And, you know, then you teach them the rest. But, but yeah, it's, it's definitely the material gains from whiteness.   And yeah, it's, it's hard, that kind of like the wages of whiteness are precisely why I'm so I'm so confused when people are like, there's this tiny global minority who are controlling an enormous amount of the wealth and power and they have these elites who form these institutions in order to keep power and wealth amongst themselves. I'm like, yeah, it's cool white people.  You were literally controlling everything.  It's, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's craziness. But you know, I mean, I think all racism is, is, is insanity, basically.  That's a fun little thing that happens. But yeah, yeah, I mean, whiteness in general, whiteness is, is such a, it's another hard concept, I think, to, to kind of talk about with people, because you do have people who are, you know, white people who are ignorant of their own privilege, have the hardest time discussing and facing the concept of whiteness, because they having lived with it, don't realize the benefits that they, they get just from being white.  That's, that's how they look at it.   But it is, it's an understandable thing if you are not taught, you know, if you don't have kind of like a robust discussion or an education on race in America, you're not going to learn about any of the benefits. And so all you hear is people being mean to you on the internet. And it's, it's crazy how, how much that, that affects people.  But I have to stop myself because I don't have the time, so much time in the day to do it.   Yeah, I mean, you have discussions like you were having at the moment in the UK where, you know, like people are talking about racism a lot without any kind of material understanding of what it means to be white, which is a kind of confusing, a confusing presumption because what you're talking about is something that is, you know, excluded from this like normative category of power, without wanting to face up to or talk about that category in and of itself. And it just means that you ever get like really, really bad faith, frustrating discussions like the ones that have dominated the, the last six months. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's every argument is now starts off in bad faith. No one is having any discussions from different sides of the political spectrum, in which the two opposing ends don't believe that they want to disenfranchise each other, you know, it's, you know, or in some way are lying to each other or somewhere are part of some sort of cabal of people who are trying to secretly replace them. So it's, it's a, it's a bad place to start any discussion.  I don't feel like, you know, there's a lot of I, I love to make fun of liberals. It's one of my favorite. It's the best. It's one of my favorite things to do. But they are, I think they're infinitely closer to having kind of a understanding of whiteness and understanding of race discourse than people on the right, who I feel like, you know, at this point, it's like, once you start allying with Nazis and once you, you know, start, you know, waving their banners around, I just go like, I don't think I'm going to get through to most of these people. But, you know, I do feel like we, you know, it's just organizing and is the only way to do it. Organizing and educating and getting people to understand why we make fun of liberals so much, you know. But, and I do think that one of the things that we have to offer as socialists that, that liberals do not have to offer, that they can get woke on is the capitalism's role in white supremacy and how the two are linked and, you know, the kind of erasure of the, you know, any critique of capitalism from any of these conversations is, I think, what gets us back into kind of like these, you know, bad faith conversations where, where no one believes that anyone has anyone's best interest in mind or is not trying to mislead them in some way, you know. Having a robust critique of capitalism when discussing race and anti-Semitism and Israel Palestine, I think is very important for most people to understand because, you know, everyone understands, you know, money and everyone understands capitalism and how it works, or at least some aspect of it. We live through it, like we kind of experience, like we have like a physical experience of it in the way that not everyone has a physical experience of like racism or what it is to live in Gaza. Right, exactly. But we do understand that we all have bosses and our bosses seem to care more about making money than they do the welfare of their employees for most people. So, you know, having these discussions and just kind of extrapolating that concept and thinking of it even bigger, you know, now consider countries and geopolitics and how capitalism is kind of, you know, critiquing capitalism might help you understand it further.  He is a libertarian. I promise I won't tell him. OK, thank you. Your secret is safe with me. OK, good, good, good. Matt Leib, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me.


You know? It's just very simple to to, it's very simple to grab. If I didn't need to use this, or workpiece legs, I'm going to get approximately, the problem is they scoot all over the place when you're trying to get clamps on them. So there's a technique that Nick talks about to get these into my clamps here. The reason I, and there is a little problematic, the reason I had a piece of wood in there to hold the jaws open, I've got that out of there now, and this is not going as well as it should. But the point is, is to get these into the clamp, the panel clamp.  If you're six foot six, you're the samurai carpenter, you've got a lot of experience with them and you got a lot of strength, then maybe you can control these puppies. But as you can see, the, even if I let it just go by itself and just try to keep it straight, I've gotten myself now locked into the wood. So this is probably not, probably not a method that I'm going to try to use in the future, because I, I'm trying to use these wrist for tennis, and I really don't want to break them with this drill. So this compass set at one inch happens when you're filming. Now I'm going to see if I can find my lid. Good luck with that. I'll be back. I didn't find it. That'll go on my blooper video.


Well, welcome to my talk.  I consider myself a lifelong learner. I've been very curious about a number of subjects growing up. And I find the problem solving creativity of information security to be particularly interesting to me. I have at different times been a teacher, an artist, and most recently I work in governance, risk and compliance. Previously, and information security have also been a lead in a sock where I would handle escalated investigations and also work with interns and other analysts. I'm currently on a cyber case cyber education board also where we work to give students education about information security. A lot of people ask me how to get into information security and it's very difficult entry level for cyber security positions is typically a pretty high bar. It tends to work better if you are going from IT rather than going from another field. But this is one of the things that I think can be changed if we approach things a little bit differently. If you look at these requirements, they're very high. So what do I mean when I say diversity oftentimes diversity means ethnicity or racial background. I believe that it's actually far larger than that and can also include diversity of thought, a diversity of experience, diversity of domains. So I believe there's many different ways to approach diversity. I am going to talk about racial and ethnic diversity because that is forefront of what most people think about when they consider what it means to be diverse and cyber security. But I do want to also say that it's much larger than that. One of the reasons why diversity is important is because the US is becoming a more diverse place. So diversity in the United States is reaching a critical mass where the census data says that in 2020 over half of the children born identify as minorities. In fact, by 2044 the projection is that over half of US citizens of Americans will be 50% or greater in minority status or minority identification. So that's one reason to consider it because it's changing and it's becoming the country that we live in. Another reason is this. These three particular groups, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino and women are underrepresented in US tech occupations. So if Black or African American makes up 13% of the population of employees across all occupations, it's only 8% in tech field. Likewise, Latino would be 16% across US occupations, all US occupations, but 7% in the tech field and women would be 26%, whereas they represent 49% of all people in occupations. So these groups are by nature underrepresented. There are certain pockets such as District of Columbia where in all tech jobs 29% of the population is actually Black or African American and across all occupations is 34%. So there are pockets where this is not the case. In fact, it's very high. It's above average where typically US population is depending on what you look at 8% to 9% African American. So wide diversity. Another reason why diversity are these four other bullet points. If all you cared about was public image of your company or to drive innovation, or to increase profitability or simply to be more secure. Those are also reasons to become more diverse. I don't think they're the best reasons. But there are other reasons. There are many different reasons why diversity is important. So what does this have to do with hackers? Hacking, like many things is morally neutral. It can be neither good nor bad, or it can be something that is not necessarily criminal. I don't believe it is. I believe that hacking is the art of creatively problem solving, possibly getting around a barrier, possibly understanding something at a level where what you do looks amazing. Outside audience. So I think that hackers offer a unique and great opportunity to possibly change this problem for all of us. So let's talk about the action plan. This action plan is derived from what I have understood about design thinking systems thinking and risk management frameworks is kind of a. A jumble of those 3 concepts and put together into 5 actionable steps. Like many frameworks and information security, this one is a feedback loop. So it's not necessarily a linear progress. But for these purposes, we start with empathize and then align ideate model and deploy. And I'll talk about what each of them mean and then show examples of how they can be used in particular scenarios. Starting off with empathize. But empathize what I mean is to put yourself in the place of. So empathize and to discover patterns of behavior. What does the other person need? What does the company need? What does the job description need? What are they trying to feel? And then align, align your focus. Once you understand or believe you understand what the need is, how can you help? How can I help? What is it about your skill set or your gifts, talents, your background that makes you the ideal person to help? Ideate. By ideate, I mean to come up with creative solutions to come up with many solutions to come up with many different ideas. So ideate and to design solutions. This is something that is probably the most iterative step where you are going again and again and again thinking of different ways to make solutions. And what's driving this is you're thinking, what does change look like? Model. Once you have gone through the process of empathizing, focusing or aligning and ideating. What does a model look like for a change that can be proposed? And what is it? How does it stand up to being assessed? How does my thinking need to transform? You might find after going through this process that you either have blind spots about certain things or you didn't understand something fully. And your thinking might actually need to transform to come up with a good solution. Finally, deploy. Deploy the best model. And once you put it out there, look and see what works and what doesn't work. You might find after going through this entire process that you're right back at the beginning again and having to begin anew, but that's okay. That's the idea of the framework. So let's apply this to different scenarios. Let's say for instance you are not an information security, but you want to get into it. So you might find a job description. And from this job description, the first thing you would do is to identify the need and empathize. What are they looking for? Followed by aligning or focusing. What can I bring to what they're looking for? And then ideation. What are my ideas for how I can offer a solution to what the job is looking for, what the hiring manager is looking for? Model. You might find that you have an idea for a 90-day plan, what you would do if you were to get the physician. And then for deploy, once you're in your interview, all of your background research that you've done in preparation should give you a really good idea of what questions to ask, what to look for, and what to present as you are being interviewed. That's just one way to approach that.  You might want to have them join a student group. And so you're thinking what do they need? They need to know more about this. They need to be around other people who are also interested. You find a student group, and then they will align their focus and find that there might be a particular part of information security that they most enjoy. As they participate in a group, as they get to the ideation phase, they might discover that there's different ways they can learn this skill. And so then they create a model or work on a project, perhaps with other people, and then test and see how it goes, see if it's something they are interested in, see if it's something they're not interested in. Finding the knowledge to either is great, in my opinion. Some things you want to explore to see if you like them or if you don't like them. And then you might not be aware of other things that you could enjoy about information security. So all of it has been official. Let's say you're an educator and you don't know anything about cybersecurity, but your students are interested in it. In this case, you might want to partner with existing organizations, such as ComTIA or Code Club. Code Club is a particular interest if the students that you work with are between 9 and 13 years old because they don't even require that you have coding knowledge to participate. But they offer really good resources for students who want to know more about coding. Or perhaps you're not an educator, but just know a student. And these are some resources that you might direct them to that have been curated so that you can narrow down some really good resources that they can explore. Or you might encourage the student to participate in a capture-to-flag CTF competition. Blacks and Cyber and other villages are doing them this weekend. Let's say that you are an employer. We've talked about entry-level opportunities are not always entry-level. Perhaps you can work with hiring managers, HR, under departments, and to either cross-train existing employees at the company or to look for intangibles and bring other people in who might not meet all of the requirements for a job description but have the potential for success.  And for that, perhaps what you need to do are to look at best practices and see who do you already know or who do you need to find to help you with cybersecurity and information security. Let's say an idea above fits and you just want to help. You can volunteer a few hours at a conference like a information security conference or a hacking convention or any number of different tech conferences. Perhaps you're skilled or proofreading and editing. Maybe you can review resumes. Maybe you know a lot about a very niche area or you want to share what you've learned. You can answer questions or support existing efforts. I would encourage you to remember what it was like to get started and to always be willing to share your journey or your skills with others. Now this article from CBS News says that U.S. has almost 500,000 job openings in cybersecurity. A lot of these openings are entry level. Some are advanced and some are very advanced. And it would be great if we can get more minorities or people who identify as underrepresented groups into these jobs. But getting them in is not the only difficulty. In this particular article, Tech Leavers, it found that a number of people up to 40% of black, Hispanic and Native American men left jobs for unfairness and racism in the workplace. So cybersecurity information security by nature can be a very difficult and stressful job. And having to contend with other barriers and other obstacles. A lot of people find they want to leave once they enter the job. So what can be done? I believe many things can be done. But one of the things that needs to be addressed is the cultures. The cultures of companies that are hiring people. And there are probably a number of fundamental things that will need to begin to change. So how can we make it better? Mentoring goes a long ways as far as keeping people in jobs like this, helping people to deal with obstacles. Building an inclusive culture is very important and professional development. It's not enough for someone to take a position and just be entry level for rest of their career. There need to be opportunities for advancement and growth. So I think this is bigger than any one company or organization can address. So what have we collaborated? There are technology innovation incubators popping up across the country. And there are several relatively new incubators or pathways for cyber in Southwest Ohio, Central Ohio, and other parts of the state. Also, I think cross industry partnerships might be a very good idea in the future. And cyber talent pipelines starting sometimes with students in high school or even younger. So what if we could create true entry level cyber positions? I would like to see this get to the point where one day there are cyber apprenticeships as a normal thing. Or where positions are scalable or mentoring is a recognized acceptable and beneficial part of the job. So to review cyber security diversity framework has five parts. Empathize and discover patterns of behavior. What do they need? Align your focus. How can I help? 98 and design solutions. What does change look like? Model and assess together. How does my thinking need to transform? And deploy the best model. What works? What doesn't work? Hope you can see that diversity makes us stronger and will all benefit from it. If you'd like to contact me, you can find me on the Waxon Cyber Discord. Or at LinkedIn. There's an archive of my previous talks, this talk, and also downloadable slides on my GitHub repository or you can email me.


See, see, as soon as I put that leg in there, it shapes that body. She feels that and she shapes that body around. But we're still driving with that hip. This rain controls this side of the body. This leg controls that horse pushing out that circle. One fluid move. And one of the reasons I wanted to do this video, I've had a lot of different guys come the last couple months and bring their colts and stuff. And it seems like everyone, that horse is just here and just bound up. And you know, guys are doing a good job and trying to do a good job, but they're their own worst enemy. And I know that because I've been there and I fought with the horses and scratched my head, banged my head up against the wall and tried to figure out what I'm doing. And I was the one that was making them in a bind and making them where they couldn't do what I really wanted them to do. So you have to think about that horse and think about what I want to get across and what's the easiest way for me to get across what I need to get across. And you can see right there, there's, I mean, you do it at a walk or whatever, but you get that front end moving. That is the whole key. You've got to get that front end moving. That's the turnaround. And if a horse is turning around like that, everything takes care of itself. The horse automatically is rocking back. The horse automatically is bringing that nose. His nose has to follow that leg. And it's all one motion where you take that back, back, back, back, back. Then we pull through and there's no flow there with that cow at all. If a horse is stepping with that front leg, they're automatically rocking back. They have to be. And that's ultimately all we want a horse to do. I mean, we don't, when we're showing the horses and stuff, they don't have to back up before they turn around. They can't, they don't have time. They hit that stop, they load up, rock back, and they get through that turn.


Let's touch Antenny in the Madhouse. Let's touch Antenny in the Madhouse. Beneath the throes of a dying world and the growing drums of war. Beneath the din of the cannibal carons and the COVID culture wars and the miserable late night comedians pushing jokes out through oceans of pain. Let's touch Antenny in the Madhouse where there are more empty homes than homeless and more jails than universities, where there is so little scarcity that we have to artificially create it and so much excess that we ship our garbage overseas, where the news is more worried about a French submarine deal than Yemeni kids starving under Lockheed Martin bomb weather, where they harvest our digital information and push for us all to get digital identifications while piling used fast food packaging on top of any part of us that is real, where future generations, if there are future generations, will scarce believe that there were once whales. Let's touch Antenny in the Madhouse and remind one another of our uncorrupted essence. Let's kneel together, foreheads touching beneath the gunfire of ecocidal advertisements and Pentagon prayers, of screaming red children and oceans of oil and be intimate and be infants and press into that point of primal innocence within each other and let our resistances dissolve to being at one, to being at one with each other and to being at one with the whole bloody, screaming, sexy, sacred mess.


How are you? Are you just joining us? Welcome, this is White in the Morning on your favorite channel, White254. And I would just like to remind you how you can interact with us at White254 Facebook, White254 channel on Twitter, White254 underscore channel on the Graham. You can stream us live, by the way, on a daily motion. Or you can just watch us here. Either way, we're here. You're welcome. We're gonna have a good time, all right? So we just had two very interesting conversations one with Stephanie Agata and the second with Brian Sakwa 101. And we're about to have our last convo of the day. Talking money. One of my favorite things to talk about, yes. There's a quote, Kenyans like to say, I don't know if it's all Kenyans, but Julisema, Julisema, Julisema ni watuni, so many mimi. One day you could be saving, nice, nice, nice, nice. Then tomorrow the money that you have saved is saving you. We're about to find out how to break that chain chain, all right? Hashtag is where the wedding. Let me allow my guests to introduce themselves. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. Yeah, you look good. Oh, thank you. Please introduce yourself to the people. My name is Tom Charles. Tom Charles is a speaker and founder of Motisha. Motisha is a public speaking and training company where we offer public speaking services, including motivational talks, seminars, leadership training, and financial management trainings. So our main base market is like institutions, schools, principals, we have youth groups where we handle investment issues, yes. And then in the corporate world, also, we do sales training for salespeople, yeah. And my favorite kind of guest, all I wanted was your name and your social media, but you've given me everything.  You've not done anything wrong. It's fine. It's fine. It is fine. All right, so you've just described Motisha. This is a company that you run? Yeah. You're the founder and CEO? Founder. Founder, yes. Not CEO? No, no, CEO. Is there a difference? Yeah, yeah, there's a difference. What's the difference? You can change the CEO, you can change the founder. So sorry, so sorry, so sorry. OK, I think we're going to have fun with this conversation. Right today, yeah, we should. You have said motivational speaking, public speaking, and things like that. So you do the training yourself? Yeah, I do the training. Oh, really? How does that work exactly? From point A to point Z. Maybe B. We book an event, create content, package content, go to the event, deliver content, whether it's training, whether it's a seminar, whatever it is, we deliver the content and everything in between. All right, so today our main focus is financial literacy. What is financial literacy? Knowing about money. What is money? How does money work? How do you get it? How do you keep it? How do you use it? And how will you lose it? People don't really talk about that. But people do lose money all the time. All the time. Now, in this age and era of taxation, we have a taxation bill that has just been tabled, parliament, and they're taxing everything from wigs to washers.  Honestly, the taxes that are coming, the excise tax, the VAT is at an all-time high. How do we learn how to spend wisely? You know, for you to spend, you first need to earn it. So I think for beginners, we need to start from life. How do we talk about receiving the money in the first place? Because we have this notion of, I'm going to make money, I should make money. We don't make money. De La Ruda does that and gets closed. That's a story for another day. We take money, we receive money. There's an exchange of money. And from my end, my perception, money is a thank you note.  And when you do something for someone, all day is like a thousand years ago, they'd be like, thank you so much.  Do you do that?  So like, it's a thank you note. So for us, that understanding is important so that when you have lots of it, you're like, I'm adding value. You're like, I'm doing great stuff to people and they're saying, thank you. But then when you don't have any of it, you're like, who did you serve again? No one. What value did you bring? None. What problem did you solve? So who said thank you? No one. So do you have the money? Okay. All right, so how do we lose money? And how do we know we're about to lose money? When we try saying thank you to so many people without receiving so many thank yous. When we try. Well, your lingo is so enticing. And I think that is the easiest way to put it. When we try to use it to get so much than we have earned and earned in the sense of the value that we've given. Yes. So if I did a job and I got like a towel and someone comes to me with something interesting, a shoe, a suit or anything and it's 3,000. What do I do? Branch, I'm Shwari, I'm copper, anything. So I want to bring to myself something that is worth more value than the value I've brought to the marketplace. And so I'm buying these at like a value which is so high. And of course I'll spend above what I have or what I can afford. And then it's gone. And then there is always that desire. Anytime you have money, you'll spend it. As long as you have money, you're going to spend it. If you have 1,000 or if you have let's say 10,000 to live with for a month, the month will end, you'll have zero. If you have like 20,000, the month will end, you'll have spent all of it. So like the way our brains work is like, if it's there, it will be spent. Yeah, if I have some cash, where are the opportunities to spend? I'm sure I'll have something nice, a hotel, it will be all gone. When you don't have it, you don't have those options. So you're like, just in the house, just staying there, Netflix, yeah. Just Netflix and chill, yeah, because you don't have the capacity to spend as much. I don't have the capacity to spend as much as the person I need. The one they need urgently.  Hey, you're shouting, hey. But what's the remedy to that? Because as you've said, excuse me, as youths, it's exciting that just coming out from school or coming out from whatever phase of life have just come out and then coming into the workplace. Though finally we're being told our first thank you. And yeah, we want to do something with it. We want to feel like, yo, nani, I'm independent. Eh, nobody can, ah. And I want the brand new phone. I want, like you said, the shiny shoes. I just want everything.  How do we remedy that? How do we come to the sober mindset of, by the way, we must need to make the dreams come true. It's an understanding of why that happens in the first place. Why does it happen? First of all, self-esteem issues. Wow.  Oh, you're smart, you're very smart, sorry. Thank you. Yeah, with how much you have, like with how much you can present, like with how you can package yourself like the physical expression. And then when you have lots of cash to spend, you'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In high spirits, when you don't. When you have something to spend, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you are in a room and like you're the best dressed, you're like, boss. I mean, that is all. But when you're in a room and you feel like, ah. That kagai. Hey, look who is way above me, you feel like. Self-esteem is pegged on what you have to show. And then the second thing is peer pressure. You know, we think peer pressure is the high school thing, you know, copy assignments to do this. No, peer pressure exists in our society right now.  And then everyone in your circle expects you to live in a certain way. Everyone expects you to present yourself in a certain way.  Like, are you sure you just want to use like, border when you can do like Uber and stuff and, you know, cause now there's that expectations. And then we also feel like, anyway, let me just, I don't really want them to know that I don't have, you know, of course I work maybe, especially those guys who work at financial institutions. Yeah, the pressure there, you know, it's just something else. Yeah, I've been there for a while. Really? Yeah, and so you find like you're so broke, but then you have to keep up the appearances.  Like, you... Belanuma. Did you just? You don't have. But you can't tell them, why? Because you're working. Any Nairobi. Yeah, that is someone from home. They won't understand. So you have to go in debt just to like satisfy that to cover your face, put on that facade. I'm good. I'm telling you a secret. Yeah? Niquom Dogo, there's a time, and this memory has stuck with me for some reason. I think it changed my life when I became an actual adult. So Niquom Dogo, there's a time, I had, I don't know, something was happening in the family. I think there was an event or some sort, but I had to go home. So I had an uncle. Uncle, what did you check in the garden? Uncle, hi! You said you had 20 bucks to buy sweets? No. What do you mean you don't have 20 bucks? What do you even mean? What? 20 bucks? Niquom Dogo, sir. You said you didn't have 20 bucks. But maybe, I have 30. I have 20, I have 30. Sorry, ma'am. Yeah, it's okay. Okay, you're throwing mud on the story, but you have a point. You have a point, do you have a point? Yeah, probably, maybe I have a point. Next time, next time, do you have a point. But the point is, growing up, I don't realize that I have 50 bucks to buy sweets. Yeah, sure, sure. And I don't know if I have 50 bucks or not. We don't have. How do we become financially liberated? Because that's a goal I have in life. All right, before that, they usually say, most of us when we get our job or get into that business, we usually believe at the end of the month we will have lots of money. But then what happens is, at the end of the money, there's still a lot of the money. A lot of money.  But now when it comes to financial literacy, it's like the willingness and the commitment to just know about money. The avenues to receive, the avenues they'll get out and just be able to secure those and then to grow it. That is investing and everything. You'll be like, all right, now I have this much. Do I want to just keep this much? Or do I want to risk and potentially earn so much more or maybe lose it all, so that risk. Learning will help you make an educated risk or if you can say that. So that, yes, you're putting your best foot forward, but at least you know what you're doing.  We didn't really quite understand the thing. It disappeared.  And for us, it's an understanding that everything is not just about having the money in your hand. It's not just about, okay, I have it here. It's also about like, how did I get here? For some of us, it gets here because we worked the whole night. For some of us, it got here because we spent our money on an investment. We invested in someone else's business. So while that business was running, we were also doing our own thing, and so it got here. Then again, the second thing now after it getting here, where will it sleep? Will it be like my fancy desires? Will it be like addictions and stuff? Will it be like me being just reckless? Because any of those, yeah, you'll have lots of it. Just a quick one. There's so many people who believe, if I earn like a hundred K, man, I'll never be in debt, like never, like never. People earn like millions and they're in debt. So when you have lots of money, the desire just grows. You get more, and instead of like vets, now you want something else. You want fielder. Now you are in that space and the paycheck increases, and now it's higher. And now Toyota, it's not Toyota anymore. Who does that? Let's go to BMW, Audi and stuff.  So unless you are able to like, all right, this is enough, okay? Yeah, I don't have to move to a two bedroom house. I'm just okay right here. Until you're in that position, like, yeah, I need like maybe one shoe every three months, and not like three shoes every month, until you're in that position, you'll earn more, but it will still find a way to slip out of your hands. I have a strange question to ask, and this is just me being curious. This to call, May, May's mental health awareness month. It sounds a lot like mental health is very in touch with money and finances, because you've talked about addiction. That's something where your money can honestly just be siphoned for no reason. You've talked about self-actualization, where you know, you don't have to compete with anyone. You don't need to, you don't need to compete with anyone. This is job description, but don't work. You want, or I see someone else who is driving a particular brand of car, and I say, I got. When you're in that position, you don't need to compete with anyone. You don't need to compete with anyone. So it sounds like mental health has a lot to do with it. I would say money has a lot to do with that other one, but it's more or less the same. They say money is not the most important thing in the world, but money influences every important thing in the world. Wow. And mental health is one of the most important things in the world. So like, just an extension, money will influence your marriage, money will influence your education, the level and everything. Oh, sorry. I'm like, I speak and everything, so it's... Yeah, yeah. Shutting the tabs of you're talking a lot of truth. Oh, oh, oh, sorry about that. Money will influence, like, the love, family, how closely need it. It will influence religion, to engage in the society and stuff. Money will influence everything.  Sorry, I had to take up a bit of silence. But he went, okay. Yeah, it's religion. Religion and money, they're just connected. So like, money is connected to everything. That's just basically it. So even mental health, money is connected to that. Yeah, because the things we call money wounds. For example, there are some of us, if, for instance, I bought this suit like X amount, if I'm asked at home how much I bought it, I'll be like X minus like one K or like 1500, I'll have to say my price, yeah. Like, people will ask you, how much do you pay for rent? Instead of like, it's 17,000, you'll be like, ah, this one, just 12,500. You are kind of ashamed to be like, to really tell the truth. Because of how you perceive you and them, you don't really want to make them feel bad or anything. Yeah, and then there are those of us who, money is that thing, as we say it, that brings them excitement. Or money is that thing that they have to like, have keeps them on their toes. They spend it so that they don't have so that they can work. If they have, I, if they have, I. Hey boss, today A-Bana, today I'm here. Then look, you can't know what to when that, and I can't say no, you can't go. Yeah, and now in addition to that, we have something called money comfort zone. Like, there's amount you are usually comfortable with. And even with the salary or anything, yeah, it's just like the normal comfort zone, but when it comes to money, when you get into this, if it's like 60,000 to like 70, if especially those who are in business or sales, that the salaries and wages fluctuate, if you earn way below that, you're like, ah, no, this is not me. You get to that zone, you are okay. You realize you're going to exceed your targets for the month, you've like reached that zone, and it's like third week, the last week you want to be working. Because you reached your zone and chances are high you are going to exceed it.  So it's quite important in addition to like, understanding your mental orientation towards money, like understanding your safe space when it comes to money. Yeah, there are people, if 10K is not somewhere, or 100, they are not comfortable. There are people, if 10K or 100 is there somewhere, they're also not comfortable. They just want to be jumpy and everything, yeah. All right, so we've talked about actually making the money, it's in our hands now, talking about how to spend it. So that, I want to phrase it intelligently. What's your name? What's your name? Come on, Mr. How? At what level on Facebook? Why 254 channel on Twitter? Why 254 underscore channel on the ground? Hashtag of that day is why in the morning, we're just talking about financial literacy with Tom Charles over here, and the founder of Morticia, and we are trying to demystify a couple of things, money-related. So the thing I see troubling the youth a lot is, okay, to my work hard, and hard is from whether you're self-employed, whether you have odd jobs, am I your salary, whichever way the money's coming, it's coming. But it's not staying. And does saving mean that you have so much money, now you have enough to save, or is saving a mentality for okay? I don't have the amount maybe I wish to have, but I will intentionally set aside this amount to save. And when do you start investing? When you've saved enough, or which one comes first even? Savings or investments, which one is smartest? All right, to answer the last question first, you need to save first. Yeah, now, most of us, when we are looking for avenues to invest, like start a business and everything, we ask ourselves like, where am I going to get the funding, the capital and everything? And loan, yeah, loan. But you see, that's a very bad idea, a terrible one. Because the first business is likely going to fail, like chances are so high it's going to fail. There's so many things you don't know about the business, there's so many things you have not learned, there's so many mistakes you're going to make. And so the business is going to fail.   Chelsea, fine. When you come back in the morning, you are okay, you are at zero.  Now you have to start like the depression and the thing. Yeah, so save to invest. And then when the business is growing, you can take out debt to boost it. If you're now sure this is taking shape, now the resources I have cannot sustain my clients, like I needed an office space, and now I need like one more assistant or like an employee, or now I need these equipment, now you go take out loan, because you have verified your business concept that it works. Yeah, okay. Just because that business worked out for someone, it does not mean it's going to work out for you. So until you confirm and verify that it will work for you, just use your own money. Yeah, the first one was the first part of the question. The difference between, you just answered the difference between savings and investment. So do you need savings is that it's too, you have a lot of money. It has clicked. So you cannot tell yourself like, when I have enough, I will save. You will never have enough. You will just like never have enough. So what happens is there are two main important things when it comes to finance. There are important things. Oh, there are two things we need to consider. Important things and urgent things. Savings is very important, like extremely important. It's not urgent. No one will point that down to your head to be like save some cash this month. No one does that, right? It's not urgent, but it is very important. But so when money comes in, most of us we focus on the urgent things, rent. Okay, okay, okay. Shopping, shopping. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, the urgent things only. And so if you don't have a budget, you didn't like note things down like the expenses you have for the month. You will come to realize like, okay, I've spent money on everything that is urgent. I've left out things that are important. I've left out some cash for savings. I've left out maybe some cash to like philanthropy or stuff. If that is something you do, I've left out some cash for myself, like self-care and everything. Those things are important, but they are not urgent. And so when it comes to saving, it's like just receive your cash and be like very intentional with it. Yeah. Talk to me about budgeting. You said that I think it's very important. So for example, if my salary is 10,000 shillings, and also should dictate where I live, right? The amount of money coming in should dictate where I live. Because I cannot be earning 10,000 and my rent is 8,000, correct? So work me through budgeting. They say, budgeting is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. No, it's a punchline. Are you telling your money where to go instead of... Wondering where it went. Yeah, we've all had that tau and we're like, wait. It's not that one. No. Not that one. This one, it's not that one. No, this one, it's not that one. Where did that go? Yeah, so because what happens is we take our good time when we know that, ah, now it's in the account, mobile banking, so 5K I'm going to send, 7K I'm going to pay rent. You know your budgeting, but with your mind. And of course in five hours you're going to forget. And when you forget what happens, you go back to default, which is handle what is urgent first. You had a list of very important things in your mind, yes. But now when you've forgotten about the list, your mind goes to what was very urgent. Yeah, the issues that you think are very pressing, you will handle all of them.  Understand. So ideally what is recommended would be like 10% saving for starters or like five, because it's the consistency and the habit that matters at first. So that you get into that zone, you'll be like, I am someone who saves money.  You'll be like, I am someone who does this because it's like for like the last 12 months, you've been saving.  So 10% is acceptable or five, depending on how you are. Because of course everyone is different, yeah. And then the others you can now go with like, how much do you want to set aside if you have debt to pay? Because we do like have debts, living expenses. Now when it comes to expenses, it's like at least not more than 30%, let's say 25, should go to housing. Yeah, so if it is not fair, if it is 10K, hey, put up a top in your bag, 2500. But that is like, now that is important. If you want to live in a good house, you just increase your earning, yeah. But so make sure 25% goes to like the housing. Now you have like a good, let's say you started with like five percent savings because this is something you've never done. The problem with us, that is where you started with like you save some nine K and then the next day it saves you because in your mind I'm like, now this month, this month, So you just jump all in, you know, you don't have a strategy, you don't have a habit, it's not in you, the next day the agent wants, what is that P in your KCB, did I apply for mobile banking and then you go and withdraw but if it is a consistent habit, you know that this has some intention like am I serving, maybe mostly for three things, am I serving for emergencies like we all know emergencies will come, like it will pop up like someone is sick, like you've lost something, like this has happened, emergencies will pop up, yeah are you serving for that, do you have enough for like a month's upkeep or two months' upkeep, you know and possibly, if possible, like just save for a while and when you reach some threshold just leave that account then you know, this one is for emergencies, yeah in case your close family member or someone is really close to you once like thou urgently, you're not going to your salary or somewhere else, you have like a fund for emergency in case things go bad at work, you have like somewhere to fall back on, understand and this is a question we usually want to ponder on during our seminars depending on of course on the level of the guys we are interacting with would be like maybe if you have a 5,000 problem right now, how will you handle it or if you have a 10,000 problem, of course depending on our audience and so you find guys who are who and like 30 or 50 or 70k but if they have a 15,000 problem right now, they'll go in debt you know because savings it was important but it was not, it was not the thing there was not that consistency, if they wanted they could have but they just didn't yeah the second thing you save for your desires and ambitions and everything he'll tell me but yeah those kinds of ambitions you'd be like I've always wanted to do this you know because it's a fact reaching for those dreams and ambitions kind of fills you to go to the next level you know you work so hard for a while for like 3 years you go and enjoy some good time in Mombasa or like Zanzibar or whatever and then you're like boss next time SA and so you kind of do some work you know because you know at the back of your mind I'm doing this for something yeah it's not in vain so for those ambitions so that you also feed your soul you're saying such nice things this morning child so wow you're asking nice questions way okay in conclusion as we wind this conversation up which is quite unfair honestly but what happens how do you get yourself out of a bad situation let's say maybe you didn't budget well life happens so you find yourself at perhaps negative something instead of zero negative something how do you get back on your feet you don't grade yeah you don't grade you just go lucky if you're living in a two bedroom just like an ego candle really cheap so that you have something but of course to most of us ego plays a huge role and you just can't take that you of course you can't afford the house now but you're like let me just copper let me just take debt let me just you understand yeah so you downgrade so that you see the money you are supposed to like save like pay debts now you have a large chunk because your expenses are lowered if you are like filing your own kind everything you kind of downgrade take public service like you just downgrade first ego if you settle things now when I let ego back when the leg on a mission you have to say but at first you just need to like okay the first because you are earning understand so it's either you need to really improve your earning potential which at that moment will be hard because you need to like invest in something and if you invest it means you need to put in both time and money of course money is now the problem so money you cannot put in you may look for a second job or a third or anything but then it will still come back yeah you get more money you spend more unless you are able to like downgrade and then with MBA too I'm not I'm not okay take things slow whatever is surplus you sort out your issues it may take like six months or like one year but at the end of it you become a better person you know it's about who will you be you know yeah you're a wise man Tom Charles we're going to take this conversation elsewhere after this you are tuned your shinda that's the only problem otherwise I try to find Facebook on Twitter hashtag of the day has been why in the morning Charles would you like to say something before we close it up last remarks last remarks for everyone yes please money is hard to make but easy to spend but easy to lose so make it don't lose it our social handles if I may it's more t-shirt services on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and for YouTube it's more t-shirt speaking your personal account on Facebook is at Tom Charles K.E. yes if you want to recharge you can holla us at 0768-205-511 0768-205-511 all right you heard it can't take away or add on to that but I can tell you to have a fantastic day from myself Valentine or at Colony Val from Stephanie Ayeta from Brian Sockel 101 we wish you a fantastic day we'll see you when we see you be good