Thank you, Seth, for that lovely introduction. Leaders of elite 30 Advanced Toastmasters Club and members and leaders from other parts of the district. A very good morning to all of you. And it's my pleasure today to talk about brain compliance, a passion of mine. One of the guests here mentioned that he finds Kenwa difficult. Kenwa itself is not difficult. My advice to all of you is if you are spending a lot of time creating posters, you're wasting your time. Toastmasters has provided us all of the assets that we need to create content, to maintain the branding, to maintain the guidelines. I'm going to focus on the brand manual, the brand portal, the assets that we get, how we should use those assets and how to get those elements into our Kenwa design. So Kenwa should be as simple as possible. And what are the things that we need to avoid? Why we should keep the brand promise? The focus of today's session is more about what is branding and how we can make it easy for us in any software, whether it is Kenwa, whether you're using PowerPoint. That is actually not that important. It's understanding branding. That's why my title of the workshop is brand compliant posters. I have an interesting exercise for y'all. For this session, I created this poster in Kenwa on a scale of 1 to 10. What is the score that you will give me for this poster? 6. Oh, somebody even gave me a 7. In fact, I have deliberately created a poster with a couple of mistakes. And I would like y'all to put in the chat, how many errors can you find in this poster? I have a lot of messages, baby in picture, Craig, you're right. Logo to the left, fonts, date is not visible. And that's very important. There is not enough contrast between the font and the background. And so the date, 16 July 2021 is not visible. Even the text create brand compliant poster that is in black over a dark color that is also considered as not contrast enough. You need to have a contrast between what you write and what's the background. Too crowded, too crowded is not a brand compliant issue. That's a design issue. That's an aesthetic issue. Elite 30 that font, Elite 30 Advanced Toastmasters is an invalid font. You are correct, Farid. First of all, this element, you can see here. Now this is a element from the older brand manual that we had this raise elements. Now if you go to the brand portal, you will not find this element. So if you have this old elements, do not use them. Just go to the brand portal and find out what are the latest elements that we can use. So there were two problems here. The background or the element and the placement, there was not enough space. But even if I place it like this, the problem is this element is an older element. Here there are two problems. The red color is no longer brand compliant. It used to be at one point, but it isn't anymore. And also the font is wrong. The art, this is not acceptable because we cannot use arts and illustrations. This is not acceptable because this is an image. Even though it seems like it's okay to say it's in line with a theme, but no, we can't use images like this as part of our posters. We can't use pictures of babies and here this is not contrasting enough. So perhaps you could convert it into black so that it is visible or one of the darker colors like this and similar thing is here. So maybe you could change it to a lighter color, yellow or white. That is the introduction for the problems that we saw in this. But the question is how do we correct it? So let's see how we can now look at this by fixing this poster and creating a poster that is fully brand compliant. And what are the things that we need to look at when we do that? First of all, let me make a copy of this so that we can start working on it by looking at the different aspects that are available in this design. So the first thing that we want to look at is the background of this. By the way, do you all think that the background is brand compliant that I'm using? You all have not checked out the new brand manual. We had an update a month ago where the brand manual has changed. And now there is more creativity, more flexibility in creating your content. And really the background that I used is a brand compliant background. And you'll say what? We have only these three colors. How can you say that it's a brand compliant background? What they have introduced in the new manual is the use of gradients. So as you can see, I have used this cool gray gradient. We also have something called a maroon gradient and we have also something called loyal blue. So three different gradients are available for us to use. And let me show you how each of this would look in your poster. Let me actually start with a blank page. So we have now the ability to say my background can be this or maroon or gray. Any of these three colors, color codes, you will find them in the brand manual. So we have this 004165, which is the loyal blue. We have the true maroon, which is 772432, that's true maroon. And we have something called a cool grade. So these are the three primary colors. You can use as background. Of course, you can also use white as a background because white is a neutral color. If you are printing it, for example, it's always better to have white as your background because it's clean and therefore you will save ink.  So also shouldn't be used as a background because it is an accent color. It's not a primary color. So the primary colors are blue, maroon, gray, and white as a default color. So that's how you can set up your background. But now we have an ability to also use a gradient. And the gradients you can do by going here in Canva in elements. If you scroll down and you find something called graphics, search for gradient. So basically we are talking about elements, graphics and gradients. And if you click on the gradient, you will see all the possible gradients available to you. The only gradient from this list that you can use. And in fact, if you look at the name, it will show you this is a square gradient and it is recolorable. That means you can change the color once you bring it into your design. So when you place this gradient on your design, it will give you the two colors to choose from. So let's say I want the first color to be something, let's say maroon. And the second color is lighter maroon. And this is actually an acceptable or a brand compliant gradient that we can now use in your design. And it looks cool. If I was to change the color of this gradient from the first color to be, let's say silver color and the second color by clicking on the second color, I change it to this one. This gives me this beautiful gradient. And in fact, this is my favorite gradient for all my new designs. As you can see, I love it. You may ask me, but Kaji, what are these two colors? Never mind. They are all available for you in the brand manual. That means the first color for blue, you should use 00. Let me make it big so that you can say it properly. So if you were to use the blue gradient, you have these two colors 004165. And for the lighter one, it's 006094. Similarly, if you want to use the maroon gradient, these are the two colors. You should note them down in your book because you'll use this all the time. And similarly, when you want to use a cool gradient, you will use this two colors. So that is how we can use the gradients now in your design as backgrounds. That is totally brand compliant. Once you do this, the best thing is to click on this button here, lock so that the element becomes locked so that it doesn't move while you place other things on your design. So we have this one. So our gradient, the background is fine. Next, let's talk about the logo. All we have to do is again, as I was telling in the beginning, let's not waste our time finding things here and there. Your landing page all the time should be website tosmasters.org. Any material that you want to make sure what's the latest material available to me, what's the latest guidelines? Always click on this resources button. Click on the brand portal. That should be your home for everything related to design, including your brand manual. So you'll find it here and you'll also find logo and design elements. And this is what we want right now. So as you can see, these are the only elements that we can use now. If you had elements from the previous manuals, as I said, like for example, this element, it looks okay, but this was okay before, but not anymore because this element is no longer available in the brand portal. Download the logo from here. So let's say you want the color logo. I always advise PNG, not JPG because PNG is the higher resolution color. So if you click on the PNG, you get the logo and to take logo from the brand portal into Canva is so simple. You can simply right click and say copy image, then go to your Canva. Let's say you want to place the logo here, press control V and the logo magically appears on your design and then you can resize it, place it wherever you want. Of course, if you place it here, you already know this is wrong because we need to have space around the logo. That should be what we call breathing space. Next let's say I want to put this elite 30 advanced os masters. So rather than typing it again, let me just copy it from here. The copy is control C and let me go to this slide and say control V here. The first thing that we want to fix is that the color is not the right color. What are the acceptable colors? I could use the loyal blow. It's fine. I can see the contrast. I can read it clearly. I could use the maroon. Could I use gray? Of course not because I can't read it. There is not enough contrast. Can I use yellow? I don't advise it. It's very difficult to read. Can I use black? Yes, we can. What about white? No. So these are the colors of from a brand portal, the primary colors. You can use any of them, including black and white and the yellow, but make sure that they are readable. So let me go with maroon. The second thing is the font. The font is not right to understand what are the fonts that we can use. Let me again go back to my brand manual. So these are the fonts that are available for us. We can use Gotham and we can use Mediate Pro. So these are the two fonts which are considered as Toastmaster fonts. Both of this, by the way, are paid fonts. It's not within a budget to buy this font. And by the way, the real Mediate Pro fonts are very expensive, something like $1000. Similarly, Gotham is a paid font. Of course, there are clones, there are copies. If you are using Windows software or Microsoft PowerPoint, you can download what we call clones, copies of this. They look similar and there is no problem. But in Canva, we don't have this font. We don't have Gotham. We don't have Mediate Pro. So what is our solution or what is the option for us is that we have something called free alternatives. Because we are a non-profit organization, free is good. So the free is Montserrat as the free version for Gotham. Instead of using Mediate Pro, we can use Sosans Pro and both of these are available in Canva. I have to choose one of those. So if I click here and I say Montserrat, I type the word Montserrat and we get different versions. Montserrat, extra bold, Montserrat bold, Montserrat classic. All of this you can use. No problem. Let me try Montserrat semi-bold. All right. So this is the font I can use. So color is fine. The font is fine. We are ready to go. This of course I cannot use because this is an illustration. We are not allowed to use that. This is okay. Together we grow, together we learn. I can just copy it here. Control C, Control V. I don't want to waste my time typing it all over again. Let's bring this one, the date. As you can see the font is Montserrat. So it's fine. Let me paste it here. So we have the theme and the date. Of course we can put a lot of other extra things but I want to keep it very simple and quickly show you where we reach with brand compliance. Maybe you can resize it but all of this is so far good. It is contrasting enough. It is brand compliant font and we are good so far. I can't use this image, picture of a child, not allowed. I can use this one. No problem. Let's say the name DTM SES. It is in Source Sans Pro. That is fine. I can use that. Let me use as it is. And finally the facility of the day. As you can see the font is not brand compliant. It says the font here is Gagalin. It's a fancy font but we don't want fancy font. We want maybe Source Sans Pro. And to do that we can type the name of the font here, Source Sans Pro and select it. And so far we are good. You can make it bold. You can make it italic. All this is fine. I will bring this as it is. Not a problem. And again I can see that the font is Source Sans Pro. It's fine. The color I can change of the text or the background. Everything is so far 100% brand compliant in this poster. All we are left now is the image.  First find images from your club. This is an example of some of the photos that I used to take when we used to meet in person. So these are the best images that you can put in your poster because you are showcasing your club, your members. They are in that environment that Toastmasters encourages, engaged and committed. So this is, in my opinion, the best images that we can use while creating your posters. If you don't have access to images like this, your second resource should be your brand portal. So again if you go to Toastmasters.org, go to resources, go to brand portal and look at professional images. So this is where you can go and pick up any image from the Toastmasters brand portal. And there are several hundred, I guess, images that we can use. All of these are the ones that really convey the Toastmasters brand. If you don't have your club images, second is this option. And the third option, of course, would be to find images within Canva itself. So here if you look at photos, Canva provides lots of free images that you can use. Try to find images that would convey Toastmasters principle. For example, I think this is fine because this is similar concept of engagement, networking, communication. Some of them might be not free. If you are using a free version of Canva, it will ask you to pay. If they are free, you can use them. I always prefer to either use my club images or to use Toastmasters images. That for me is the best way to start creating brand compliant content. And now this is 100% brand compliant. It might not be aesthetically pleasing. There are a lot of work to be done. But that is your responsibility as a designer to decide how it all looks. But all the elements that I placed in this poster now are 100% brand compliant.


The House of Representatives in Thursday flagged off the investigative hearing into the alleged loss of over $2.4 billion revenue accrued from illegal sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil exports in 2015, as well as crude oil exports from 2014 to date. Speaking at the inauguration of the investigative hearing in Abuja, Honourable Mark Miller showed not Germans that the Committee has resolved to ensure confidentiality of all information that will be provided. Even though the matter occurred in 2015, it was only brought to the fore by a whistleblower towards the end of 2020. I remember that was the COVID period and in the time between when that allegation came up and now, there has also been the issue of trying to identify the whistleblowers, trying to determine whether or not there was even a reason to commence this investigation.  So of course they were a little skeptical about providing information until they saw that the House was serious about proceeding with the investigation that they started reaching out. So that is what informed. So the fact that occurred in 2015 and we're only having this investigation now is due to the fact that the issue itself only came to the fore towards the end of 2020 and we had to ensure engagement with the involved individuals and to ascertain their identities because we cannot be involved in spurious investigations. After our visit, after our discussions, we go live fourth quarter of 2023. So that is a way forward. At least if we're able to refine some of our crude oil here, we will reduce oil subsidy in the country.


So many of you know that I'm in love and I've actually officially began living with my girlfriend within the last week or at least by the time I'm filming this. And I share this because I've been exploring the idea of love and what it takes for a man to fall in love and to a woman to fall in love as well. And I want to dive deeper than the surface of most people and how they approach this. So I want to also share that I've been rewatching the show Love is Blind on Netflix. And while I am not a fan of reality TV, in fact, I think maybe watching these shows might set you up for some failure. If you buy into the scripted rhetoric of the show, what I find fascinating about it is human behavior and the dysfunction of human behavior. That's right, the dysfunction of human behavior. Because this way the Love is Blind is set up is I believe there's roughly 10 or 15 contestants, if you will. And they're locked in pods and they're men and women.  But they communicate with each other to get to know one another. And what happens during this experience, some of the contestants actually experience either lust or limerence. Now, I should say the reason why they might be experiencing lust is because limerence is happening and limerence is extreme infatuation. And because the dynamic is set to connect with someone on an emotional level beyond the physical level. What happens is I believe in these cases is people are falling in love with the idea of love or the idea of being in a relationship. That's right. And these are younger demographic people in their late 20s, early 30s. Now, some of them might go in with genuine intentions. I suspect most people are going in strictly for the vanity of being on television. And at the same time, and again, I'm not a proponent that you have to watch this. At the same time, what I'm witnessing is dysfunctionality of human behavior based on our standard mating practices. Because most humans believe if you have intense chemistry with one another that you'll actually have relationship with success. And yet what we have learned in the personal development, self-help and spiritual world is that extreme chemistry oftentimes might take off like a rocket and crash and burn as soon as it hits. It doesn't reach orbit, if you will, and be able to circle the relationship. So how do we circumvent this? How do we actually connect with people at a heart center level? How do we connect with people who are genuinely will fall in love and be committed to the idea of love? Well, first we need to recognize that relationship success isn't built on chemistry alone.  You can see how above the water line is attraction, and you can see chemistry is above the water line. What's below the water line is compatibility. And what I want to emphasize is shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. That's right, the need to be with human beings who are emotionally mature enough to actually lean into a healthy, happy relationship. And so if you want to be experienced, genuine love with another human being that it requires being in emotionally healthy state to actually connect with another human being. And that means that both of you have to be in this emotionally healthy state to be able to reach this. And yet sadly, the vast majority of human beings are suffering on the inside in some way, shape or form of not feeling good enough, not feeling lovable, not feeling likable. Because again, the vast majority of people don't genuinely love on themselves. This is why, listen, folks, I'm going to pitch my book every single video. Here's a copy of it. The book is called What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway? A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Help and Spiritual Work. By the way, in the description below, you can see a link to all the books I recommend. Why am I recommending my book at this moment? Because listen, if you're in midlife, and I say midlife is after baby making years and before retirement, that's the age demographic I typically speak to as a coach and what my coaching client tell.  The reason being is just because a person is in their 50s or 60s or even 40s, you might consider them mature by the standards that they might own a home and they might pay their bills on time and such. But do they have the emotional maturity? And unfortunately, most human beings have terrible relationship skills and terrible emotional maturity. You're not familiar with my emotional maturity chart. Again, what I'm about to state is not a fact, but I believe roughly 20% of the population has clinical issues when it comes to their relationship skills. And while I claim that 20% are healthy and that might be generous, the vast majority of human beings are dysfunctional. They have weak skills when it comes to when it comes to conflict resolution skills, for example, one of the fundamentals to find yourself in a relationship where you're fully committed and genuinely can love one another is your ability to resolve conflict. And listen, I know many of you might poo poo the idea of getting married a second, third time in your life and which I can understand why. And yet why I'm such a big proponent of partnership and actually either living with someone or getting married is because if you want to build the deep roots of trust and the deep roots of commitment, then you must be committed to the idea of commitment. That's right, committed to the idea of commitment. And yet, sadly, most human beings now in midlife are not committed to the idea of commitment. Why don't you think about that? Committed to the idea of commitment. Why am I repeating myself over and over again? Listen, ladies, you know me talk about the book Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman, and I just want to share with you chapter one in this book. And this is an amazing book. These are two amazing human beings that have studied human behavior have probably 30, 40,000 hours of work in the study of human behavior. These are eight serious questions to be talking about. And chapter one is trust and commitment. See, if we're entering into the dating process today with little or no trust or commitment, it is hard to actually fall deeply in love with someone. Understanding the dynamics of commitment is fundamentally necessary to be able to actually love another person because trust and commitment. Listen, trust isn't just about fidelity. Trust is, does this person have my best interest at hand? Are they genuinely thinking about my best interest? And yet sadly, most human beings operate from the premise of, listen, men in particular want companionship, connection and sex. Companionship, connection and sex. But what's missing in the dating process is a level of commitment, a level of real, genuine committing to the idea of wanting to get to know someone. And I understand the challenges because these days we're meeting total strangers. That's right. We're meeting total strangers. And if we're meeting strangers, we don't feel safe with the other person. Ladies, tell me the truth. By the way, posted in the comment below, do you genuinely feel safe when you meet a man for the first time you know nothing about? And do you feel safe on the second or third meeting? You might feel the euphoria of chemistry and believe that you can actually trust this person. But look what happened to the women who thought they trusted the Tinder swindler because they fell victim. I don't want to say victim. They fell to the experience of lust and limerence. And they fell to the experience of love bombing. And because of that love bombing, they actually thought this person genuinely loved me. Folks, I read comment after comment after comment on my YouTube page. How many of you experienced men who come on strong and you, I'm sorry to say you buy into it believing it's true. How? Listen, let's think about love for a second. Love isn't about all the grand good things in a relationship. Love at the end of the day is when you're in relationship with someone and they're in the hospital because they have cancer.  That is genuine love when you can be there for someone through the tougher times. And the only way you and he will experience love if you're actively in the dating marketplace today is to be genuinely committed to the idea of commitment. Genuine if you're if you're dating men that are seeking just casual relationships. If you're dating men who are ambivalent and don't know what they want, then actually they're hoping that they can fall in love through a fantasy way. They're they're operating from the premise of well, I'll believe it when I see it. I'll believe it when I see it. I'll believe it when I see it. And yet if you want a man to genuinely fall in love with you, he has to believe it before he sees it. And that means committed to the idea of commitment. And that's my message for you today. So what does that look like a man who's committed to the idea of commitment? Well, I know it's difficult for you to fair it out because many of you are poor in your ability to vet men for their seriousness. This is why, by the way, there's a link right here. Can you see that says Jonathan Asley dot com coaching. Okay, listen, one of my my expertise is to teach you what questions based on your personality, you ask a man to determine his ability to commit and more importantly, his emotional maturity. And when we I said earlier that 80% of the population is either dysfunctional or have clinical issues, you have to be better at this. Otherwise, what's the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So I'm here to say to you, if you want to experience a man who will love you and you'll love him, this needs to happen and that is you both need to be committed to the idea of commitment. Because without commitment, you have a surface level relationship and with a surface level relationship, there's no deep roots of trust. And without trust without that ability to say, I genuinely care about this person's best interest as much as my own. You have a weak foundation of a relationship. Now look, I understand it's difficult out there. You have a completely, not just a dysfunctional demographic of human beings but human beings who have they're really the ground underneath them doesn't feel solid. The ground underneath them doesn't feel solid and what I mean to say is they've got a contentious ex spouse in their life. Maybe they have issues with their children.  Maybe they've got issues at work. Maybe they have health issues. Sadly, with an aging demographic of singles out there, we're going to have more health issues that makes it difficult for some people to lean into a relationship. I know many men that want companionship and connection but they don't even have their equipment doesn't work and so they enter in for a moment they pull away because they're afraid they can't satisfy their partner. And so there's a variety of things that need to happen to be able to commit to commitment and that is to have the ground underneath you to feel somewhat solid. And as we age and as our single demographic continues to age, it's going to be more difficult.   Look, I started this broadcast with sharing my news of now living with my partner. In fact, this is our new digs. I'm videotaping this from the bedroom because I haven't created my studio yet upstairs. In addition, I will introduce her to the community. She's a little bit bashful right now. She's not ready to shoot videos and I'm not going to introduce her name. I know some of you are going, what's her name? What's her name? What's her name? Well, when she feels comfortable coming on the camera, I will introduce her name to you. Why I'm sharing this with you is, look it, it took me five years after my most significant relationship ended before I met this wonderful, fantastic human being. I kissed a lot of Fragets in the last five years. In fact, after my divorce, I kissed a lot of Fragets. One of the fundamentals that kept me going was a mantra. And that mantra was simply this. God universe spirit. I'm in a juicy, delicious, healthy relationship where we have amazing chemistry with one another. And our communication can go on for hours and hours at an end. And we resolve conflicts and differences with ease. And we share the same values and our lifestyles are compatible with one another. And we have already built the deep roots of trust. Folks, act as if you're already experiencing this. Act as if you're already experiencing this relationship. Sadly, many of the women I work with are bitter. They're jaded. They're hurt. They have disdain for the process. They have disdain for women out there. Which makes that, if that energy you put out of frustration, anger, disdain, judgment, jadedness, bitterness, then you're going to attract more of that in your life. This is why I recommend book after book after book. One of the books I don't have here, but there's a link below, is The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Why do I recommend this book? Because it's time to change the mindset within you. This is why, folks, I've been reading, okay. So coming back to the reality shows, we watched Married at First Sight. And I was fascinated with this show, partially because they were required to commit to the process of getting to know one another by meeting a stranger, getting married, and then living together for eight weeks. Well, folks, let's be real for a second. Until you actually live with someone, you don't know who they really are. What's fascinating, though, we've been together for a week. Look, I'm still a bachelor. I haven't gotten used to always putting the seat down on the toilet seat. I mean, sometimes I just forget because it's been a habit for so long and I do remember 80% of the time. She likes a much cleaner home than I do. I was a bachelor. I didn't mind dishes in the sink for a day or two. Actually, she said as a bachelorette, she was that way. But now I'm being more conscious and aware because my partner's best interests are in my best interests. So how do we get there? How do we? This is why I shared with you the show Married at First Sight is because I just started reading a book. It's called Marriage Ain't for Puncts by Dr. Calvin Robertson. He's a pastor. Why I'm fascinated with this book is because when our mindset is set on commitment, again, committed to the idea of commitment, committed to the idea of partnership, there is a greater chance of actually leaning into deeper love with another human being. And that's my invitation for all of you is if you really want to, what's the title of this? You'll fall in love and he will too when this happens, when two people are committed to commitment. They have a greater chance of success than the casual cavalier ambivalent way we're approaching the process. Listen, I've shared a lot of content today, a lot of principles. Many of you watch my channel. You might say this is a repeat for those who are new. I hope I'm integrating some thoughts, some ways of looking at things that allows you to see the bigger picture instead of the fantasy.   If the guy is a dysfunctional human being, it doesn't matter if he's not committed to the idea of commitment. It doesn't matter. Trying to fix my back pillow. All right, listen, I think you get the gist of where I'm going. Those who know my live streams know this is going to be the time for Q&A. So if you have a question for me, I'd like there's a little chat box there. If you have a question, write the word question and post the question thereafter or purchase a Super Sticker Super Chat. All the monies from the Super Sticker Super Chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley. It's my son who passed away four years ago now. And in his honor, I've started a scholarship fund. So there's a little dollar sign at the chat box where you can donate or if you're watching the replay, you can purchase a Super Thanks. And again, those monies go to help defray the cost of personal development and also donate to two amazing causes that I'm a big proponent of. And that is the Hoffman process and insight seminars. So now let's take a look at the questions we have in the Q&A board and we're going to take questions for the next 10, 15 or 20 minutes. All right, and I'm sure many of you are going to comment that I'm wearing a suit. I'm sure some of you have noticed that I definitely thought it'd be nice to start my video, my first video for my new digs with my new partner looking kind of suave. So I hope you enjoy that. So let me know. Let me know if you like the suit. All right, let's see what questions we have here. All right, Lisa writes question. Why don't men get out in public more? It seems like a lot of them are not doing social activities. Well, I think since the pandemic, great question, by the way. And I think since the pandemic, we have seen a decline in the desire to go out in the real world. I think there's a fear going on right now for many people. I think also the convenience of being able to shop from home, whether it's Amazon, whether it's DoorDash or Grubhub here in the United States. I think we're seeing, listen, I became quite a bit of a hermit during the pandemic and I think that's bled over to today. I think many people are shifting out of that. I noticed my girlfriend and I were talking about singles cruises has actually increased quite a bit. I think that's a great place to maybe consider. Listen, there are plenty of single cruises where people go just to have a good time. And who knows, you might meet someone special along the way. Certainly other venues, personal development workshops, a lot is opening up. So I think your question, and by the way, I think women are just as, I'll tell you the clientele I work with, they are, you know, just as resident, what's the word I'm looking for? Reluctant or hesitant to do social activity. So I don't think it's a gender-based thing. I think it's a human-based thing. So Lisa, thank you so much for that question. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's see what else we've got out here. If you have a question, post the word question or purchase a super stick or super chat. Dan says, you look very suave. I prefer your casual t-shirts better look. Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Lisa does write. You're right, Jonathan, but when I shop at home, I get the wrong thing or it's broken when it gets to me. I experienced that as well. Let's see. Mel says, cruises require MK. Oh, I think you mean money. Yes. I mean, I think you have to invest in yourself. But the benefit is you get to travel and see part of the world. So I think it's a win-win. Again, if you have a question for me, write the word question and post the question there after or purchase a super stick or super chat. Let's see what else we've got going here today. Let's see. I don't see any questions in the board. Come on. Lisa does say untethered soul is a wonderful book. Thank you so much. I totally agree. All right. Thank you for your questions.  By the way, my girl, oops, wrong one.  Let's see. Lisa says, you look very Carrie Grant-ish. Well, thank you so much. He is one of my idols. He was the quintessential, you know, elegant man I felt. So thank you so much. I appreciate that. You know, it's interesting. My girlfriend mentioned, shared with me after her most significant relationship ended five years ago. And she was married prior to that. She actually spent a, she went on a journey of investing in herself. She went to a couple of workshops, but one of the things she did to invest in herself was to travel the world. And granted, I recognize she's in a fortunate situation to make that happen. But during that journey, much like the eat, pray, love journey, she was able to get to know who she was on the inside and recognize that she wasn't dependent upon men for her happiness. And repeat that. She wasn't dependent upon a man for her happiness. So I just want to say invest in yourself, whatever that is, come back to loving on yourself, just like what my book talks about. All right. So let's see. We've got another question here. Lisette says, what made your girlfriend a keeper? You know, that's an interesting question. So I think a couple of things had to happen before I was ready to see her worth. One of the things is I was, I had to be in the state of readiness. And let me just say this, my most significant relationship before I met my beloved was five years ago. And for a good year after that, I was still entangled in the emotional effects of this six year on and off again relationship. And thankfully she met someone very early on that allowed me to detach from it. While she and I remain close to one another in the sense that we're family to one another. And my girlfriend has met her and we're actually going to my girlfriend. My girlfriend and I are going to my ex-girlfriend's house for a couple of weeks in a few weeks. Or an event. It's because she and I develop, we consciously uncoupled and then we, the love between us was not of a romantic nature. It was actually more of a familiar or family nature. So why I'm sharing this with you is first, I'd say that first year after her and I broke up, I was, you know, very much still attached to her. That many men can be rather attached to their most significant relationship. This is why I highly recommend vetting men to determine are they still, they still actively pining over another relationship. So number one, I think it took me about a year to heal from that. What happened during that year also was I lost my mother to cancer. And then six months later, I lost my son to an accident. That emotionally devastated me. I was in a state of not being ready for a serious relationship. And in the year after that, I didn't feel like working. So my business was down. So the ground underneath me didn't feel solid. And so for four of the last five years, I wasn't in a state of readiness when she and I met online and we developed a friendship. I think what was happening during that next year that we developed a friendship before we physically met, was we approached it from a non-romantic perspective. We were just, because she lived in another state, we were 1700 miles away. I didn't take it seriously. She didn't take it seriously. What I mean to say is we didn't seriously approach a relationship with one another. And at the same time, we developed a friendship with one another speaking occasionally over the phone.  But what happened when I met her though, it wasn't love at first sight. It was probably lust or limerence at first sight. But what I found was unique about her was right off the bat. She wasn't attached to an outcome. She wasn't attached. She wasn't overly attached to me. And she was not attached to the outcome. She was rather chill. In fact, I jokingly say she acted like a guy. Okay. She acted like a guy. I still say that to her sometimes.  It's number one. Number two, she is incredibly chill. She's chill.  It was like, Oh my God, I couldn't make you happy. You know, it was like, it was like, if I said black, you'd say white. I'm not agreeable to be with. The other thing is we just kind of aligned in our values. We're aligned in our mindset. And what was interesting or what's interesting since this time, I find how we literally, we, we literally are thinking the same thing at the same time.  And it's funny how I make a comment and she goes, I was just going to say the same thing to you. So a lot of pieces had to fall into place for me to appreciate who she is. And I think most importantly, I fell in love with her, her weirdness. I've shot a video on this before, but I will tell you she is in my mind. She's a little bit unique. She's certainly different than most women I've ever met. And she's a little bit weird. And what I appreciate most is her uniqueness. And she's unafraid. She's unabashed. And I respect her for that because A, she was never attached to the outcome with me. And she was never overly attached to me. Probably I, I probably love her just 1% more than she loves me. That makes me keep me in because a lot of women give their power away to men. I sadly see women over and over again, give their power away to men believing that if you just overly accommodate a man, he will naturally love you. And then you make your life dependent upon a man. And it's no wonder you're experiencing rejection over and over again. I highly recommend reading two books, Getting the Love You Want by Harvelle Hendricks and Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. By the way, Harvelle Hendricks and Helen Hunt. Why I recommend these books is you are oftentimes attached to the wrong guy for all the wrong reasons. And when you learn why this happens, you can understand that it's not genuine love you're experiencing. What you're experiencing is an attachment to the idea of what you think this person might end up being if magic fairy dust changed everything. So why am I in love with this person? Because you know what? She's just a cool, chill chick. And I dig that for her. All right, I hope that answers your question. Thank you so much for that question. I truly appreciate it. All right. Let's see what else we have here. If you have a question, post the word question. Oh, bear with me, everyone. Let's go swim in. What made her a keeper? I already shared that. Mel says, what's your opinion about counseling, Jonathan? So I'm a big proponent of human beings going to do some personal development, self-help, spiritual work, even therapy. And I say even therapy. I mean, including therapy, I should say. I'm definitely a favor of couples doing counseling. You know, last night, actually a dear couple, this couple who are friends of mine who are incredibly wise, called my girlfriend and I. And they're a perfect counselor should we have a problem in our relationship. They're perfect people to help kind of unpack the challenges in our relationship that may arise.  I'll be candid with you. Sometimes we use plant-based medicine to allow our ego to shed, which genuinely allows our heart to be more present, more open because the medicine actually takes away all the noise that can go on in our head. And we do a half day, or I mean, actually it's almost a full day of just unpacking stuff in our lives and ourselves to connect at a heart-centered level. So we're beginning with a counseling practice very early on in our relationship because I want to build the strongest foundation for our relationship. And we started our relationship with camping literally by our fifth, sixth time we saw each other.  And we create a nice nest in the house with candles and such. And that opportunity really connected a heart-centered level. Folks, if you're not familiar with the book Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters, again, there's a link below in Jonathan recommend books. I highly recommend you understand the mechanics of true emotional intimacy because, listen, 80% of divorces are initiated by women. Why? Because they feel a complete lack of emotional intimacy. And yet many of you are clueless to how to create emotional intimacy.  You have the capacity to shift the emotional narrative. But Jonathan, I'm just supposed to sit back in my feminine energy and let a man claim me. Listen, you can be in your feminine energy all day long when 80% of the male population is either got clinical issues or dysfunctional and there's a high probability you're in that category as well because it's 80% of human beings. Then guess what? Sitting in your feminine energy, hoping that Prince Charming will claim you is cuckoo thinking because you can't sit in your feminine and expect something to happen. You actually have to create action to shift the narrative by, listen, ladies, it's time to initiate deeper conversations than the surface conversations many of you are experiencing. Many of you know I read this meme on a regular basis, but I want to read it again today because this is the foundation I built my relationship on. Let me put that right here.   I like people with depth who speak with emotion from a twisted mind. I don't want to know what's up. Do you know the vast majority of people today are communicating in their vices romantically? How's your day going? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. The surface level rhetoric isn't going to go deeper and create the roots of trust with one another. And folks, men are clueless because they're winging it. You just need one thing from a man. Is he committed to the idea of commitment? Then you're in charge of everything else. And guess what?  I'm a puppy dog. I follow her around because I genuinely like her.  But guess what? When a guy likes you, he'll lean in.   I say this over and over again. Personal development, self-help, and spiritual work is the antidote to emotional chaos. And dating triggers are lack of self-worth, self-esteem are not good enough. Like no other, I'm going to say trigger, like no other trigger that ever exists. So when you're prepared with your vaccination, you won't fall to the experience of choosing the wrong person or get sucked in. You'll actually be, you'll be that what I love about the book is why men love bitches. Bitch stands for babe in total control of herself. If you want to be that person that is in their empowerment, then do the work ahead of time. And then you'll become a magnetic attractor for what you want. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. If you find value in this, please like this video. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. And again, check out the link if you want to learn to vet for emotional maturity. All right, let's see what other questions we have. Brenda says, question. I'm a widower for two years. I have men asking me out. I'm interested in acts cold and hot, mainly cold. I really don't know what to do about this. Brenda, why do you like a man who acts hot and cold? What's the attraction to being attracted to cold? That's my invitation for you. Why do you like this guy? Is it possible you might be experiencing love attachment? Is that possible? What's happening? Because there's, I'm going to tell you something.  Next. Ariana Grande song. Thank you next. Okay. I wouldn't invest in someone who isn't investing in you. That's my invitation for you. Mel says, I'm sorry for your loss, Jonathan. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Sunshine one says, question. Can you be friends with a guy that broke up with you to supposedly work on himself? Or should you just walk away? He seems like a genuine nice guy, just a few months later. Listen, I think it's rare that two people can be genuine friends for the, one of the reasons is, is how deep of a friendship do you want with somebody because you want a life partner who's your best friend? And will this person be a deep friend in your life if you have a new partner in your life? Number one. Number two, you can only be friends if you eliminate emotional communication. That's right. Emotional communication. If you are communicating on an emotional level, then what can happen is you do this.  So you're putting yourself in harm's way. I'm saying harm's way. By remaining friends on an emotional level with somebody, oops, on an emotional level with somebody who is a former partner. So I just, you can have a social relationship with someone, but I wouldn't have a relationship where you talked about deep emotional. By the way, does anyone get this? Does anyone figure out the danger of having emotional conversations? You can end up having emotional sex with one another and be hooked for a longer, longer period of time. When my girlfriend and I, my previous relationship ended, we just talked on a social level for about a year or two. Actually, we now, we don't ever really talk on an overly emotional level. We just talk about social things and our social circle of friends.   All right, that's my invitation for you. Thank you so much. Janice says, would it be nice to vent, vent, vent to a man when trying to develop a friendship or commit with him? You know, I think venting has some benefits, but it depends.  I can see a number of different venting scenarios that actually makes you look like a victim. Venting can oftentimes be complaining and complaining is victim consciousness and victim consciousness is the biggest turnoff.  Venting usually requires the desire for assistance. So when you vent to someone say, look, I need to vent something and I'd like to get your opinion about it, then it's healthy communication between two people. But if you're just venting to complain, you are setting yourself up for failure. That's my invitation for you. All right, let's see what else we have. Lisa writes, question, as someone with a few health issues, I feel a bit like damaged goods. How can I overcome that?  You know, I think it's important to recognize that if you have health issues and you're seeking a relationship to be aware of how that might affect another person to be in this dynamic. And I don't know what the health issues you have, but I'd be aware, how would this affect a relationship with someone? Let's say, for example, you had AIDS. That might be a scary thing for another person to take on. Maybe you have herpes. You know what? Herpes isn't that big of a deal.  I'd say nine out of 10 men don't have a problem with it. And about a third of the population has it. So it's not that uncommon. What about physical ailments? If it affects your ability to be in a relationship, then I think what you have to first recognize is accept it within yourself. And if it is problematic within a relationship, then ask yourself, who's the type of person who would accept my physical limitations? I know women in wheelchairs who have met amazing men. I mean, I'm serious about this. I was watching a video the other day. My girlfriend showed it to me. A woman without arms, you know, and she's married and has a child and she has no arms. So it's quite possible, but I think you have to be in a position where you accept your limitations and recognize how that would affect someone else and prepare them for those limitations. That's just my invitation for you. Lisa, big gigantic hugs to you. Thanks so much for that question. All right. Candy says, the suit is perfect. The way you are wearing it is perfect to look and that is very nice looking. I'm curious, did your girlfriend help you decide what to wear? Or was that just you? Actually, I was watching a video of a dear friend of mine. He's a dating coach for men. And I saw him literally in a very similar suit. I go, I own that suit and a very similar shirt. And I go, wow, he looks sharp. And then when I showed it to my girlfriend, she goes, yeah, that looks sharp. So it was probably seeing his video and then showing it to my girlfriend caused me to decide to have a little bit sharper look for you all tonight. And I might continue with that look. I kind of like this more polished look than my more casual look than from the past. So thank you so much. Everyone, what do you think of my suit? And how do I look? Let me know. All right. Amanda says question going through my second divorce. How do I get to a place of readiness and obviously in a better place of self love to attract the right person? I would start reading the books I recommend. I'd start going to personal development workshops. I would start doing yoga. I would start meditating. I would read the book, The Untethered Soul. Again, there's a link below the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. I would read the book, Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. These are amazing tools. It requires effort. It requires effort. It requires at least an hour a day of investing in yourself and self care isn't manicures and pedicures. Well, that's self care. Self love is nurturing your soul. Like I said before, a vaccination to emotional chaos. And that's my invitation for you all, is to invest in yourself. So do that for a year or two and you might find yourself in a great position to be ready for an amazing partner in your life. So Miranda, thank you so much. I don't even know how to pronounce your name, Mr. or Mrs. Moon. So question, how do I, oh, I guess I'm not sure. How do I talk to my boyfriend without him shutting down? He avoids serious conversation. It makes me even more anxious trying to talk to him. You know, I just say, look, if you can't have a serious conversation, I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. I didn't sign up for a surface level conversation.  I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. I didn't sign up for a surface level conversation.  Listen, living is about squeezing the juice out of life. It's about biting into an orange and let it all melt, you know, spread across your face and just savoring it, which requires going deeper than the surface.   I wish you all the best. You aren't on the same path that I am at. And I'm going to move on to someone who has a capacity to actually lean into grown up conversations. But if you're afraid, thank you next. Because there's no magic fairy dust to change someone unless they're committed to the process of commitment. What is the story in this video? It's about choosing people who are committed to the process of commitment. And I know so many amazing men who are in that capacity to go there.  If you haven't seen this chart, please forgive the... I don't have a new chart up, but look at this. There are three types of people actively dating. They're the users, the spenders, and the growers, and the builders. And while this is not a fact, merely an opinion, I believe 20% of the population uses other people. And while growers are the people that can grow into a relationship, most people are spenders.  Folks, why are you spending time with spenders? You should be investing time in the people who can actually lean into a real relationship. Get busy living or get busy dying. Thank you, Ms. Moon. I appreciate it. Michelle writes, Jonathan, I asked a man on a date. Have you got any advice on what sort of things to ask him to determine whether or not he's a right man for me? By the way, there's a link below right here. It says, Jonathan Asley coaching. What I teach you in my private coaching is the questions you ask based on your personality. You go through my propriet... Listen, women all come to me for coaching. Jonathan, I know what I want. I know what I want. I know what I want. Then they go through my six-week boot camp, my proprietary coaching program. And do you know what they say every single time? They say things like, why didn't they teach me this in school? Why didn't my parents teach me this? Why didn't I learn this before I married or dated the wrong guy? And women who invest in my program, I get calls each week. Jonathan, I met a great guy. Jonathan, I met a great guy. Jonathan, I met a great guy. And they know the difference because they have learned, A, how to choose the compatible person for them. B, how to vet for emotional maturity and how to vet for compatibility. And what my program does is integrate your intuition so you can eliminate people just purely sometimes by what they said on the phone first conversation. I can't give you those answers. You're going to have to invest in yourself. And again, the women who invest in my program seem to be meeting great guys very quickly. So, Michelle, thank you so much for your question. Let's see. Sherry writes, Question, if a partner suddenly drops out of a successful three-month relationship, what's the difference between being empowered and chasing him if I want to reconcile? Well, being empowered is making the overture to reconcile once. That's being empowered. If he's not interested, being empowered is saying, bye-bye.  If a person, most likely, his life was in some sort of chaos and the ground underneath him wasn't solid. This is why he bailed on the relationship. You can't fix a person's foundation. They can only do it for themselves. So I suspect that's what was going on. And your empowerment is to say, I'm moving on. I wish you all the best. Sherry, thank you so much for that question. All right. Let's keep going. Are you finding value in this conversation? Is it making a difference in your life? Please let me know. Please say this is resonating with me. Just say, right here, Hollywood says it resonates. Definitely. I'm so happy to hear that. All right. Wow. We have lots of content here. I'm not able to get it to at all. Let's see. Lena says, if you send that to me, I can create and laminate that chart. This is right here, right there. Right there. Just put a screenshot of that. All right. Thank you. All right. What else we have? You know, folks, I've actually got to run to the dentist. So I think it would be a great place to wrap up today. I chipped a tooth while I was out to lunch with my girlfriend. Folks, I am deliriously happy. I am so grateful. There's a picture of her. And where is it? Right over there. I'm so grateful. I met an amazing person in my life. And I can tell you it took me five years to get here. It didn't happen overnight. A lot of personal development work for myself. Putting out the right energy on an energetic level. And most importantly, it was choosing someone who was committed to commitment. Folks, if you want a man to fall in love with you and fall in love with him committed to the idea of commitment. Allows the roots to develop for deeper love. Because the surface level love of chemistry is just surface. And lust and limerence isn't love. And I invite you all to experience that in your life. And I am so grateful that I met someone special. Hold on a second. I met someone special. And this was a picture of us on my birthday. So I can share with you. I'm very blessed. And I will she will be shooting videos with me hopefully soon. And I will introduce her name to everyone. When we've done that. All right. I think this will be a great place to wrap up this video. First off, if you have something to share, please post a comment below. Hit that like button. Please share this with your friends. Please subscribe to my channel. And I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do.  I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love. If that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone. A pet, a teddy bear pillow and give it or them a hug of love. Because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it. We could all use more love in our lives. I want to thank. I want to thank. Elena and Michelle and candy and Lisa and Tria and pantress. I can't pronounce these names. Miranda. Tara. Lexi. Mel. Claire. Cece. Miss moon. Elena. I already said that. Gloria folks. Thank you so much for allowing me to enter your life today. I wish you all the best and hope you find. An amazing partner in your life. The partner that you should be looking for is the partner within yourself first. Thanks a bunch. Be well. Bye now.


In this segment, we're going to talk about the investment multiplier. The investment multiplier is a very important concept, a somewhat difficult concept that lots of students have trouble with. The investment multiplier wasn't invented by or created by John Maynard Keynes, but it was used by John Maynard Keynes to help explain a number of things. The most important thing was, why is capitalism so volatile and unstable as it had been in the 20s and in the 30s when Keynes was writing about this? The second thing that the multiplier does is it helps explain why government intervention through fiscal policy, either the government spending money on projects like we have been doing recently since President Obama's fiscal stimulation. You can build roads and bridges and schools and whatever the government can do this helps stimulate the economy or it can cut taxes and if consumers or households spend the money from the tax cuts, which they may or may not do, that will help stimulate the economy. So it's important for both of these reasons. So the first question is, why is capitalism so volatile? So as you probably know or have talked about, in the 1920s the U.S. had this tremendous boom in which income grew and unemployment was low and labor productivity was high, financial markets were triumphant, everyone was making money on the stock market and then we had a financial crisis and the financial crisis helped drag down the real economy so that we entered by 1933, a really deeply depressed condition with GDP having fallen by almost a third and unemployment increased to 25 percent and then we stayed there for quite a while. So why does this happen? The culprit probably is in consumption spending because although consumption spending is very large, maybe two thirds on average in the modern economy of total GDP expenditures, it's not very volatile at least by itself. Generally speaking, consumption is not a fixed proportion of disposable income but a fairly fixed proportion of disposable income. Normally we're not going along in some situation and all of a sudden instead of spending two thirds of disposable income on consumption or 90 percent of disposable income on consumption, it changes a lot initiating a problem. But investment is volatile, in fact investment is potentially extraordinarily volatile. Why is this the case? Well think about it, when firms are making investment decisions, they're asking themselves, should I take ten million dollars of my own money or we borrow ten million dollars and build a new plant and is that a sensible thing to do? And the answer to that question says it all depends on how profitable the plant will be next year five years from now and ten years from now. So businesses should be stimulated to make investments when expected future profitability in the area they're investing is attracted. But how do we figure out what expected future profitability is going to be? How does a firm know now what the situation in its business line is going to be five years from now? And the answer is it doesn't. No one can tell it, there's no source of information. The future is unknowable or as Keynes stressed, the future is uncertain. So this means that business psychology becomes very important. So if the firm is optimistic and confident that the present is great and the future looks great, it'll invest a lot. If the firm is a little nervous about the current situation and thinks maybe the future situation isn't going to look so good, there's no reason at all it should invest. So business psychology which means that sometimes people get rose colored glasses and think the future looks terrific and everybody invests and sometimes it works the other way around and these can change depending on changes in the economy or changes in policy or changes in politics or whatever. This is also true about financial markets. Financial markets are notoriously unstable and are based on hopes and dreams which are optimistic sometimes and pessimistic sometimes. So there's a reason why investment is so unstable. But the problem or the challenge is investment is not two-thirds of GDP, investment may be 15% of GDP. So how do you get something like the Great Depression in which GDP falls by a third from, let's say, a third collapse in investment spending? Well, it doesn't seem obvious. I mean, if investment spending collapses by a third and investment's only 15% of GDP, then GDP maybe will collapse by 5%. Here's where the multiplier comes in. What happens if things look bad and businesses decide to invest less? They stop ordering. They cut down on their orders for the production of equipment. So if they cut down on their production of equipment, then the firms that generally sell this equipment will have to see their orders go down and will have to lay off workers. When they lay off their workers, those workers now don't have jobs and income, so they can't spend money. So they stop buying cars. So when they stop buying cars, the auto industry has to lay off workers in the car industry. Now they don't have income and they can't buy houses. So now we have a layoffs in the housing industry. So because investment affects household income and household income then affects consumption, we can get a kind of a mutually interacting dynamic that can pull us up in the good times or pull us way down in the bad times. So what's the relationship in the end between how much, if investment falls by a dollar, how much will GDP fall by? Cancel it was about two and a half times. That is if investment fell by a dollar, eventually GDP would fall by two and a half dollars. So this helps explain why investment, which is not a large percent of GDP but it's volatile, can cause a large decline in GDP. Now, there's a good side of this or a flip side of this. Suppose the economy is stagnating, it's in a deep recession. All right, the government can spend money to help move the economy out of recession, but the government may not be a huge spender either. The larger the spender, the easier it is to do it. So what if the government spends a dollar? Well, here the process works in reverse. So if the government spends a dollar, let's say it buys, it pays someone to build a road, then that someone has to buy workers to build the pay, someone has to hire and pay workers to build that road. The workers then have new income and they can buy new cars. The car industry will hire more workers and they can buy new houses and it works in the opposite direction. So the bad news is that investment is volatile and has a powerful impact on GDP. The good news is that the government can intervene to partially compensate for investment volatility or if the economy is in a rather bad situation, it can intervene and the power of the money it spends is greater than the expenditures. So that makes fiscal policy powerful.


So, question about newsletter versus social media content. I mean there's so many different ways of thinking about this and people do it in different ways. I keep it simple, and I simply think of my email newsletter as a service of convenience to my readers. So, some people follow me on social media, and they might catch me my posts every now and then, you know, they happen to catch it on social media great that's fine. But if they say well I definitely want to not miss, you know, George's newest stuff for George's best things, then subscribing to my newsletter allows people to make sure they see it, because it's in the it's in their email inbox. So I always, I obviously since I do it this way it's been, I've been doing this way for years, it seems to be working great. My open my newsletter email newsletter open rates are higher than industry average industry average is somewhere around 20s. My newsletter open rate is in the low to mid 30s, sometimes high 30s. So you can see it's way higher than industry average. So in other words the fact that I, I completely repeat in my email newsletter exactly what I wrote on social media. People don't seem to mind in fact they sometimes, sometimes they didn't see it at all on social because there's so many posts, but sometimes they appreciate the reminder. Because they saw it and they didn't read it or they didn't watch it and now they get to, you know, now they have a bit more time they're reading newsletter they have a bit more time. So I recommend thinking of it that way your email newsletter is a service of convenience for people who may have missed your social media posts. That way, that way it's, it's all integrated. There's no need to create. And I know some of you like to write love letters to your audience and you, you have so many email newsletters are called love letters right. It's like, come on. Right. In my, in my opinion it's a little bit. It's a little bit overdone or or not overdone but okay whatever it's up to you. But if you want to write a special little note for your newsletter that somehow doesn't feel appropriate for social media audience. I think anything you put on newsletter, given that's going on to lots of people, dozens hundreds thousands. I don't know how big your email list is. It deserves to be put on social media too. It's like what's the difference. I mean, anyone could afford to do your email. I mean, whatever you put on your email newsletter is public information is public. Anyone can forward it to 1000 people and you would know. So, well, I guess you could track the open rates or whatever but doesn't matter. Whatever you put on social media should be put on your newsletter and vice versa. There is no difference. So, make it easy on ourselves. Those of us who are solar pernurge particularly, you don't have a team to like think through the fancy. This goes here this goes there just put it everywhere. Just put it everywhere. Keep it, keep it simple. So I hope that helps. And also just one more reminder is, I really invite you know you feel like I don't want to be redundant or boring on social media because my newsletters are so long and if I copy and paste them. You know, you can let that go. Social media posts, the longer the more ideal readers you're going to get the shorter, the bigger your audience will be, but far less ideal readers, like if you've just put an inspirational quote on social media. Like, you'll get followers and, but then you realize after a while that wow many of them are not my ideal readers or ideal clients. And so longer articles post on social media could be hundreds of words, even over 1000 words. That means you're going to get more dedicated readers that actually probably are your ideal clients, more likely. So I invite you to be redundant on social media, because people need to see something multiple times before they even read it. And then even after they read it, they need to read it multiple times before they understand it. So be redundant on social media. Don't worry about being boring, because I found after years of doing it that the longer the more ideal the audience becomes. So I hope this helps.


Good morning. Let me start with my wish you and your family as happy new year. I had great honor receiving your support to serve the union at the last PP 2014. As the secretary general introduced, I'm only one new recruit for this new management to serve the responsible for the TSP, telecommunications standardization bureau. I wish to say I want to be young innovation for the future of ITU. I had the opportunity to visit all regions and meet many excellence ministers, regulators and experts who involved in this ICT developments last year. That inspired me to set up an ITUT vision that is valuation and efficiency to develop standards to meet our members' investments. Therefore, I should strengthen the professional capabilities in TSP as well as coordination and collaboration. Today's information society is a result of our great effort, ITU members and partners with development and deployment, broadband and mobile networks. I'm pretty much sure this information society continuously grows and more close to our daily life. PP 2014 identified many of issues and areas to be carried out for the union next four years for the future of information society, such as the Connect 2020. I believe this vision should have a crucial role for building a digital planet which will be realized around 2020 with trustworthy information infrastructures such as fixed mobile hybrid networks, various services and applications coming from IoT, big data and so on. Excellencies and distinguished guests, I wish to close my remarks thanking your support to allow TSP to continue its challenge for building of this digital planet 2020. Thank you very much.


Welcome back, we're so glad you're here. If you're a returning viewer, a listener to the nonprofit show, and if this is your first episode, welcome. We're so glad that you found us. Today we are thrilled to have with us today in conversation, Lotus Kaplan. And she's here as Chief Development Officer of Family Promise to talk to us about a very interesting concept. And I've heard more and more about this Lotus, so I'm excited to learn from you. But this process is community-based program models. And Lotus has a lot of experience and an insight to share with us when it comes to this community-based model. But before we hear from Lotus, we want to remind all of you, again, those of you that have joined us before or perhaps this is your first time, today you also have the two of us. So hello to you, Julia Patrick. Julia serves as the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I am her fortunate sidekick in March of 2020. She reached out and said, I have this kooky idea, are you up for it? She said, let's do it. I don't know what I'm signed up for, but we have together produced nearly 900 episodes. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. And we wouldn't be here today if it weren't for our amazing presenting sponsors. So thank you to our friends over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. Many of these companies, if not all of them, have been with us on this journey for the last four years, marching towards that 900th episode. I keep mentioning that and every time I mentioned it, Julia, including the two of us, our jaws drop, our hair like catches on fire. So yes, every single day you can find us every weekday, you can find us here for the nonprofit show. And if you happen to miss us and it doesn't quite fit into your schedule, that's okay, we've got you. You can find us, you can scan load, sorry, you can scan and download that. I just made like a celebrity name. You can scan. Scanload, it's kind of cool. I might have to like add that. Scanload. Yeah, you can scan load, you can scan this QR code and load the app onto your phone. And just a couple of hours after our live conversation right now with Lotus, you will receive a notification that the program, the episode, is now available on your app. We're also still on your streaming broadcast platforms as well as your podcast platforms. So wherever you choose to consume and maybe even binge watch or listen to your entertainment, you can find the nonprofit show right along with everything else. Last night I was binge watching Survivor and so we're pretty much right along there, like same kind of channels, but without further ado, Lotus, thank you for waiting so patiently. We are thrilled to have you with us today. Again, our viewers and listeners, today we have with us Lotus Kaplan and as the Chief Development Officer at Family Promise here in Arizona and that is FamilyPromiseAZ.org. Welcome to you. Hi, welcome, welcome. How are you both? We're good, we're glad to have you. And if you would tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about the mission of Family Promise. Okay, well, I'm actually fairly new to Family Promise. I started here in August or in April, I'm sorry, in April of this year and I was really moved by what the mission was here, which is helping families that are without shelter, find sustainable housing. So we end the cycle of generational homelessness. So it drew me here and it actually is, I didn't know this when I joined. I assumed that I was joining a Arizona local non-profit and come to find out it's actually a national non-profit with national offices in New Jersey. And we are actually the largest shelter for families in the United States. That's fantastic. And I shared in the Green Room Chatter, maybe even before we went to the Green Room Chatter, my own mother, Lotus, is a volunteer for Family Promise and she lives within the Columbia, South Carolina area. And so I've heard about Family Promise. So very aware that it's a national organization and you use this community-based program and I'm curious and I'm kind of putting you on the line here, were you familiar about community-based programs before you joined in April? Good question. I actually volunteered prior to joining. So that's what got me really interested. I had come and done some of their events.  I had gone to a couple of the galas and the fundraising events. And then I joined in volunteering at one of our community-based partners, a church who houses our families because that's how our model works is that we don't fully shelter in our facilities. We utilize the community to help house and feed our families which puts them back in the community actually and we'll talk more about that, but it really gives these families like a sense of belonging and hope as opposed to like staying in a traditional shelter. So that's how I became really passionate about it. I'm like, oh, I'll just come spend the night. Oh, you guys need food, I'd love to. And then as I got more involved, I was like, wow, this is an amazing organization. And an opportunity became available. So I said, I'm jumping on board. I love it. Thank you, Jarrett, for asking that question because I think sometimes for me, Lotus, some of the most inspirational pieces of our visits and chats with our guests is what compelled them to do this work. And the organization and their journey because it takes a special type of person to navigate the very tough topics that we navigate. And the first thing I think that we wanna start with is like, what is the strategy of a community-based program? And maybe like, why? Like, what is the formation of it? Because I think we hear this and we think, oh, we know what that means, but maybe we don't. So let's start there and have you help us understand it. Okay, well, community-based really truly means that we really involve the community. And there's this, not just a sense of like, oh, I volunteered, but there's an engagement and ownership that happens within a community-based programming model where there's communication and collaboration with our partners throughout like whatever, whether it be organizations, volunteers or the actual like organizations or churches that house our families. There's a strong emphasis on like ownership of this is a community problem. It is not something that's gonna be solved. Like from the 10,000 feet view of homelessness, it's kind of like overwhelming, daunting, it's us versus them. But then when we bring in the community and recognize like we're as strong as our weakest link within our community and help to raise them up, it just makes us and our whole environment much stronger and happier. So that's really what's important about the community-based model. That's why we're super passionate about it. It was difficult during COVID because as things shut down, like the partnerships kind of went, whoa, we're not allowed to house like what do we do? So even two and a half years later, I think this is two and a half years later, it's building back the partnerships and kind of restructuring them with some flexibility as to how this can now work in our sort of post COVID era. But it's so fascinating and homelessness is certainly a national issue. If not a global issue. And so really looking at this from the community standpoint, it's so very clear and I've had the great privilege as well, Lotus, to work in the space of homelessness and have even more awareness of like what's in my backyard and it's so prevalent. And especially during the heightened days of COVID, there was like very limited resources and so many of us felt helpless. Can you talk to us about meeting the specific communities? You know, like there's so much within this. I love that Family Promises National because this really does, I believe what I'm hearing and feeling is it takes this community based program across the nation, right? Completely across the nation. So can you talk to us about meeting the needs of these specific communities? Right, well, you know, in terms of meeting the needs of our clients, we know what our need is, right? As our organization, we know that we need to help these families into self-sustainability. What we look for is partnerships that align with that need, right? So that involves like having an assessment, needs assessment. When an organization or a church comes to us, we can say things like, okay, well, does your mission align with our mission? So thinking more across the board in terms of nonprofit, it's finding community partners that align with your mission. In addition to that, do their resources complement the resources that we have? Because it's one thing to have the passion and then alignment. But like for example, if a church really wants to be a partner with us to house families, if the church is really small and cannot give private quarters to the number of families that we have available or that we're servicing at that time, maybe that partnership has to be changed a little bit. Okay, well, you can't house. Let's think of different ways in which we can have a partnership. So having that kind of like asset mapping of what resources you are able to provide, what resources we need or we're able to provide for you. Seeking organizations that intersect, maybe not exactly like for us, it's really easy to say like, oh, well, a church, their mission is to help people in need, right? But looking for other organizations that can intersect somehow, like, I don't know, a sports team, right? That has really nothing to do with what we do. However, our local, maybe sports team will say, you know what, you serve as families. We would love to have a partnership where we maybe offer a basketball clinic or a football clinic or something that brings some normalcy to our family's lives. And the same can be said in other nonprofit sectors, like finding intersections. Yeah, so, you know, I'm fascinated by this because nonprofits don't always play well together. And, you know, we can have, especially founder-oriented, newer nonprofits or nonprofits that might have a very specific mission-based approach or faith-based approach or philosophically-based approach. How do you navigate the voices in the room to play well together? Well, we were talking a little bit about this in the green room. Like, we, as a nonprofit, you know who you are. You make your identification, you know, clearly known. And if there is that intersection, you were saying as well, like sometimes there's just not a fit. Yeah. But it's funny because in this particular realm of nonprofit, what's interesting is that it's such a prevalent problem that I feel like from my limited experience, you know, being here is that all the nonprofits having to do with homelessness, we are a support system. Like we create, you know, we've been able to create this community because when a problem is so big and great, recognizing the need that it will not take one, not two, not, you know, it will take the entirety of our efforts in order to solve something. Well, that's profound. And when other nonprofits understand that, then, you know, that's where the partnerships can be. And then understanding there's enough for everybody. There's enough of this problem for literally everyone to help with, you know? So it's that capacity building. And many of us can't keep up, right? Like it's so prevalent. And I don't feel like we're even making a difference. I know we are to the individuals that are, you know, seeking shelter and receiving some of these benefits and the need is so great, right? Like it just continues to expand. I love that you brought up the intersection of, you know, maybe a sports team and things like that. I grew up in a very athletic family and, you know, all I can think about is sports teams, right? Like there's showers, there's multiple showers, there's large areas to congregate, whether it's, you know, congregate meals that this, you know, company or sports team can provide. And really saying like, okay, community members, you wanna play a part in this, what assets, what resources, what availability do you have? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it takes that leadership too, like having the buy-in. So education and some training about like, well, no, you, you know, I don't service pets.  Well, no, I don't serve, I don't really care about pets, but you do care about the people that own the pets. So, or, you know, like thinking outside of that box a little bit and not staying completely in your lane because all of those, like we said, intersections, that all comes together within a community. It's all woven into one. So being mindful of all of those pieces and the role that you can play in them is positive, powerful. One of the things we said earlier was, you know, oftentimes we catch ourselves wanting to be all things to all people. We need to talk to us about that because I do love the partnerships and, you know, ownership and engagement. So how do we, I'm gonna say, and I don't even love this term, but how do we stay in our own lane, right? And create this like symbiotic, you know, relationship with other community members? I love that you mentioned animals because while an organization might not be animal welfare of the individual they're serving, the family they're serving, the community they're serving comes with a pet. So can you talk to us about this? Okay, let me think on that one. Can you repeat the question? I think what we're looking to talk about is this community ownership and like how do we understand, and to Jarrett's point, honor somebody else's work and their commitment, what might not be ours, but then we let everybody have a piece of it and engage, because to me, Jarrett, and you and I, I mean, you and I are perfect to have this discussion because we see it every day. There's a lot of ego involved and there's a lot of righteous behavior involved. Like this is my mission. This is what I know to be true. This is what I think is right. And if you don't follow me, you know, then you're out, right? So how do we kind of come back in in this community-based model and say, okay, community, there's ownership here in your lane, as Jarrett said. Yeah, well, I, you know, for me, one of the big things I always have to remind myself regardless is like communication and collaboration are like the cornerstones of everything when you're working with people, right? The ability to communicate your needs, share what you need from other people, give your strengths, and then also being able to collaborate. It's a give and take process. No matter, you know, regardless of what field you're in, I try to be mindful of it's a give and take process. There is no one right. There is no one wrong. There is not one right way. And we can figure out a way to collaborate and work together. And that helps build some trust. I mean, and that's a thing that takes time, right? Building a trusting relationship with other organizations that may or like, that you say like righteous or really or just this is how it should be, that takes time to build trust that we're not stepping on you. You're not stepping on us. We are all working together towards a better, brighter community. But at the end of the day, we're humans. I don't know. I just feel like this is such a hard mountain to climb. And I don't know. I mean, do things have to just get so bad and so overwhelming that the nonprofits work together and embrace this community-based model? I don't know. I mean, Jared, what is your opinion about this when you look at the landscape as well? Like what do you see? Yeah, you know, I do see a lot of collaboration and I love Lotus that you brought that to the forefront, collaboration, communication. Like that needs to be the cornerstone of moving forward where I see a lot of ego and even, you know, this is what I do kind of that ownership, Julia, is more around the financial support. I feel like in the 1.8 million nonprofits registered in U.S., we feel that there is not an infinite amount of financial resources, right? And so that's where I see where it's the road is what if they get the big grant and we don't get the big grant or what if they get the majority of it and that leaves us with smaller piece of the pie, you know? But we're seeing a lot of organized funders, I should say funders, looking at this collaborative funding model, you know, from this community-based program, you know, we have this in our local community where, you know, there's some funders that say you can only submit if you have three partners, you know, looking at that model to say, we want to help you. We want you to help you and others. How do we build this collaboration? And I do think that brings us to our next point, Lotus, about flexibility. And I'm really curious in this community-based program and the model that you speak of with Family Promise, where and how flexibility and modifications play a role. Yeah. Well, in working with the population we work with, flexibility is kind of like our middle name, right? Because every need is different from family to family and from partnership to partnership. So it's a constant like feedback loop with our partners, you know, having like we have, for example, for our model, we have like a coordinator who takes on the ownership within the partnership from the other, you know, from the church and constantly having communications with them to be like, okay, well, this worked for you. Okay, well, this didn't work for you. I mean, obviously we stay very aligned to our mission and being aware of cultural sensitivities and things of that nature, but outside of that, we really allow our partners to have a voice in what the model looks like, how it's shaped currently and how it can improve for the future. So there's a lot of like pilot testing, you know, pilot, test it, examine it, let's take another iteration of it. And that's done in collaboration with our partners because what maybe worked a year ago or pre-COVID or, you know, for this particular organization that we work with, they might not have the space or similar resources. So it's a constant like being modifying, just being mindful, like always being mindful of the mission, we're willing and able to make modifications. One of the things that we do do with our partners is that we have like a covenant or a contract of some sort. So it really outlines the basis of what we do, what they do, so we have like guardrails as we walk along the road together, right? I mean, we may like swerve a little to the left, we may swerve a little to the right and they may as well, and that's okay because we have a covenant or a contract with them that kind of keeps the guardrails in place. So we still are walking in the same direction towards the same goal. Every time I hear a guardrail, I can't help but think of my own bowling game which is really horrible, but you have the bumpers, you know, and it's like, okay, we might go a little bit this way, a little bit this way, but we're still moving the same forward direction. Lotus, I'm curious with Family Promise, being a national organization, one thing Julie and I have witnessed over the last four years of doing these episodes is geographically the needs are different, right? So I'm curious if you can speak to the, you know, overarching national kind of family promise, communication, collaboration, because every, you know, every community in our nation is ever so slightly different. The need might be there, but how it's met is different. How does national provide perhaps guardrails or resources to really guide, if you will, the local communities as they're spread out so far? Well, it's interesting. We're in an interesting time period right now because as we were talking about earlier, COVID kind of really threw this huge monkey wrench and tried to freeze our, you know, ability to help. And one of the things that's coming out of this sort of post COVID era is the change a little bit to how the model works. And so in some instances, knowing, you know, Family Promise National Setting, listen, our goal, our mission is to provide self-sustainability, right? To families to end generational homelessness. What that may look like in your neck of the woods might be different in that, you know what, you are in a small community and you don't have the number of partnerships needed to sustain like a congregational network like we have, but you have space and land. So perhaps it might be something like, well, you can build like we have now some static sites that have that are working into affordable housing because part of the homeless problem is finding sustainable housing. Like once we're able to stabilize them, we're finding like they can't afford housing because the housing prices have gone up. So we've kind of had some different iterations that are being piloted and tested nationally. And then we meet regionally within Family Promise. So if your nonprofit has like partners or a regional or, you know, other locations, it's important to get together and have summits or conferences where you discuss these things, what worked for one, what didn't work for another, the pros and cons. I think what's important too is people are resistant to change sometimes, right? So sometimes- I've heard that, I've heard that about some people. Some people, right? It's a little difficult for them to adapt. So I think it's important when you are working with others is to celebrate when an adaptive change happened and it was successful, right? Taking time to celebrate these successes and knowing like, oh my gosh, somehow we made it through together. Like somehow we did this, we made this adaptation and we are better for it. And then also recognizing that one didn't work. What can we do better next time, right? It's okay. It's okay that something didn't work and we will improve. We just keep on moving towards improvement. Yeah, I'm a huge proponent, right? Like if it doesn't work, celebrate that too because try it, right? And you can learn from absolutely every single opportunity. There are so many amazing CEOs that have been celebrated for their failures. And for me, I'm just, I'm a huge proponent for that. That might be a little bit of the disruption in me where it's like, hey, let's go against the grain. Let's do something a little different. Lotus, thank you. This has been fascinating. Again, for those of you watching and listening, Family Promise is national. So we are so grateful to have Lotus Kaplan join us today. She's the chief development officer for Family Promise in Arizona. And you can find the website, familypromiseaz.org. And again, if you are a community member, which we all are and you have joined us from another part of the region, please look into Family Promise in your community. You might be able to be a wonderful collaborator and contributor to the national crisis of homelessness and the needs that families have. So Lotus, it's been so enjoyable. Thank you for your time and your expertise on the community-based program model. Thank you. Have a wonderful day, ladies. Appreciate your time. It's been great. I think this has been an amazing conversation, Jarrett, because you and I meet so many amazing people every day on the nonprofit show, but a lot of times I spend time off-camera trying to connect to those folks, right? Because they're doing their just amazing work here, but they really need to be knowing these people over here and moving together the parts to make a better whole.  Everybody, again, if you needed to be reminded who we are, I don't know if you need to be reminded, but I'm Julia Patres, the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared R. Ransom, the nonprofit nerd herself, the CEO of the Raven Group is my trusty sidekick. And again, we're here because we have amazing partners. I would say, Jarrett, in our own community piece, right? 100%. Yes. Yeah, I mean, in the community that we serve and that we really have dedicated our lives to our community-based partners include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that really make up our community and they can be a part of your community as well. Lotus, we're gonna invite you to listen and take into your heart our sign-off because it goes like this. We invite everyone to remember to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Thank you, ladies. This has been really wonderful. Thank you.