So, before I begin my broadcast tonight, or at least the topic or portion of it, I just have a personal share or confession I'd like to make with you all is that I tend to watch a lot of other YouTubers, particularly in the relationship realm. And lately I've noticed quite a few women YouTubers out there criticizing feminists, the feminist movement and feminism as the problem with relationships today. In fact, they completely seem to throw women under the bus and that the problem with relationships and dating today happens to be entitled women. I'm going to say that again. The problem in relationships today according to these YouTubers is the problem is women and entitlement. And while I will say there is some level of entitlement out there within human beings, I can say that there's a significant percentage of the population that is very self-centric and myopic in the way they view their dating, what's the word, the dating marketplace, if you will.   And her greatest gift is her youth. And without her youth, she's going to have little chance of landing a guy to take care of her financially. And in fact, many of the men who are in on this bandwagon basically proclaim that a woman's value is to be subservient to a man and that they should bow at the knees to a man to support them financially.  And what I mean to say is, and by the way, I'm only a proponent for women because I began dating coaching to help women improve their profiles so they can meet men because I kind of operated from the perspective of a man's point of view and helping women who I spoke to in the online community. I didn't realize it was going to morph into me being a champion for women in particular in the dating, mating and relating realm. I'm really not a champion of women. I'm actually a champion of personal development, self-help and spiritual work so someone can genuinely love on oneself so they can actually experience a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship whether a man or a woman. So I wanted to get that off my chest because, and yes, I curse on occasion and yes, I yell on occasion. Okay, I'm passionate. I'm here to say there's a reason why I yell. There's a reason why I curse is to wake people up to the idiocracy out there that's in the advice realm. And not to suggest my advice is the end all be all to everything. I know folks, I can have a righteous attitude at times and I can pontificate at times, but part of it is because I'm like your big brother. I just want to protect you from all the garbage out there. And at the same time, I'm not here to suggest that I'm above it all either. So this topic today about when a man ignores you and again, I focus on helping women understand men. I really noodled on this and I wanted to take a different approach today on the concept of being ignored and that approach is could ignoring someone be a form of abuse? I'm going to repeat that, could ignoring someone be a form of abuse? And why I wanted to lean into that today is because I was watching the HBO series called The Vow and it's about the supposed cult called Nexium and the leader Keith Renear and how he used mind games and manipulation to create practically a harem of women that were absolutely submissive to him. And one of the techniques he used was a manipulation technique of gaslighting and ignoring people so they can feel a sense of anxiety. Because when you get ignored, all of a sudden you start feeling like, what's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? Am I being punished? What can I do differently in this circumstance? Have you ever felt that or you felt ignored by someone in relationship?  How could I do something differently? And then you begin obsessing over it over and over again. Is that possibly when you're in, you know, here's the thing, when we look at the dating marketplace today, oftentimes it used to be if you wanted to get laid, you had to get married and these days all you simply have to do is say a bunch of nice things to a woman, intimate that you want a relationship, a few dinners and then sex can be had and many cases men go overboard. We call this love bombing. I sometimes have, I haven't loved bomb per se, but I've certainly over exaggerated my interests in a person. I think that's because I was experiencing either lust or limerence. And if you're not familiar with lust or limerence, I highly recommend googling it. Why I'm sharing this with you today is when someone comes on strong or even comes on with interest, such interest that they proclaim a sense of desire to be in a fully committed relationship with you to then all of a sudden ignore a person, you know, without true cause. And what I mean to say is, sure, somebody could have something going on at their professional life and they might temporarily be preoccupied. Okay. I certainly know that most of you know, I lost a child and during that time I was so preoccupied that I actually ignored a lot of things in my life, not relationships per se, but in that space I was so scatter bearing that I didn't pay bills and I ignored a lot of things. So there are certainly situational things can happen. But I wonder, could ignoring a person be, as I said in the beginning, a form of abuse if it's done intentionally? And so I want to, I want to lean into this because what I think could be happening, some of the reasons to ignore someone could be that the man's life is in absolute chaos. I can't tell you how many women come to me seeking relationship advice. And when I hear the backstory of the guy, he's out of work, he's got issues with these kids, he's going through a contentious divorce. His life is in absolute chaos. And when the ground underneath somebody doesn't feel solid, it's, it's, it's quite possible that they could, they want that companionship connection and sex. And yet they're incapable of leaning into a relationship. And when someone's life is in such chaos, like what, for example, when I lost my son, by the way, there's a picture of Connor right there.  And we're going to talk about that in a little more detail in a moment when a man starts to ignore you or pull away. The other reason why a man might ignore you is he might have someone else on the side. The reality is, is these days with these devices, we can have multiple relationships communicate with multiple people all at once. And for many of you ladies that find yourself in long distance relationships, where you barely see one another, it's quite possible a man or woman could have multiple partners at the same time. This is why I'm such a big proponent of establishing partnership based relationships where in the early stages of dating, once you've committed to wanting to be in a relationship together, once you've made a vow together to explore a relationship that you spend on average three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interest, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork, building skills, both in your personal and professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to either moving in together, getting married. That's, that's my world. Okay.  Your world might simply be I want a casual relationship. I don't have time for a fully commended relationship. That's okay. I will tell you this. Dating triggers the number one emotional health issue most people are faced with. And that is I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable and I'm not likable. Dating triggers that. And when we've had habitual situations where we go unfulfilled in relationship, we can find ourselves emotionally, emotionally void of actually being able to get close to another person. This is why when I wrote my book, folks, what the heck is self-love anyway, a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. By the way, there's a link below to get a copy of my book in the book recommendations is to help shore up one's own love cup. And folks, you don't need to love yourself to call in a soulmate love. I will say the door opens much wider when you love yourself. The door opens much wider. The problem with a lot of women today is they don't know how to vet a man in the early stage of dating. That's right. Look at this. Here's a link right here. Jonathanasley.com forward slash coaching. If you'd like some support in that, check out the free link. Check out the link to a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. Because listen, I just want to read my notes for a second and I will share in a moment what to do if you're being ignored or a man is pulling away. Because the other reason why he might be ignoring you, it's a control thing. It's a manipulation tactic. Certainly narcissists use this, sociopaths use this, people that have very little actual individual self-esteem and their job is to tear down your self-esteem. I want to read you something that I read. What to do? What to do when this happens? There are many reasons he could be giving you the cold shoulder. He could be punishing you. He could be trying to play the field. He may be trying to get the upper hand in the situation or he could feel insecure about himself and your reciprocation of his attention causes him to ignore you. The chances are unless he's upfront and honest with you, you will never know why someone is ignoring you. Now again, I want to differentiate from those temporary circumstances. That's a lot different when someone is intentionally pulling away ignoring you or even if you're in a significant relationship and all of a sudden they disappear. That in my opinion is a form of abuse. So what do we do in these cases? What is the empowered approach? What is the empowered approach? First, I think it's time, ladies, that we reflect on the relationship and the facts, the facts. And what that means is there's a, listen, human beings operate from an emotional level, but they also can operate from a logical level that creates an opportunity, I've got to read my notes, that creates an opportunity to regulate your emotions. But many of you, believe it or not, many of you ladies are as equally as emotionally constipated as men. Many of you don't know how to regulate your emotions. I was watching a documentary that talked about, I believe it was John Glenn, who is the first person to orbit the earth.  I don't know that specific fact. I'm now going from memory. But I want you to think about that. The capacity to regulate your emotions. I know when someone, I've known in the past when someone hasn't returned a phone call to me, my anxiety level shoots my blood pressure through the roof. Especially if I'm dealing with a technical problem or I'm dealing with India on some issue with respects my website or not my blood will boil. So regulating our emotions is something that it's time to learn to do before you ever enter into a relationship. This is why today I want to talk about two books. One is called the language of emotions by Carla Lauren. What you're feeling and what your feelings are trying to tell you. By the way, there's a link below to all the books I recommend. Highly recommend reading this book. In addition, emotional intimacy by Robert Masters, folks. And last but not least, I highly recommend reading the book nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg. By the way, this should have been called compassionate communication. Why am I recommending these books? Because folks, if you want to be in a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship, then it's time to form that relationship through healthy emotional intimacy. And that happens through what I teach in my private coaching called radical honesty. Radical honesty. It is time not to take, listen, you can focus on, listen, I don't believe a first date should be a job interview.  It's through the telephone. You pre-qualify someone to check off certain boxes to determine if they're actually capable. Now, is this going to, you know, this is just like, this is putting the odds in your favor that someone is emotionally mature. Because the reality is, folks, I know if you're brand new to my channel, you may have not seen this chart of emotional maturity and relationship skills. Now, this is not an fact that's merely an opinion, but I would believe roughly 20% of the population has clinical issues. And while I say 20% are emotionally healthy and has good relationship skills, I'm being generous there, the vast majority of humans are dysfunctional. You have an eight out of four out of five chance to end up with a dysfunctional human being or someone with clinical issues. So look at ladies, let me give you an example of this. If I asked you all to put in the chat box right now, what do men think about always on a first date? What do men think about always on a first date? Put that in the chat box right now. We all know the answer. So here's the thing, if we know this about men, let's just also just step in and say human beings are rather dysfunctional. So rather than jumping in emotionally in the relationship, operate from logic. And as I said earlier, operate with the facts. What are the facts? His life is a mess. He barely communicates with you. He strings you along. In the early stages, his actions didn't match his words. Those are the facts. But Jonathan, I love him so much. I know I can make it work. Ladies, many of you are clinging to the fantasy, the fantasy that a broken person, if you waited out long enough, will somehow magically grow up emotionally speaking. And yet the facts tell you otherwise. You know, it's interesting. I speak to women after a breakup. And do you know almost every single woman who's spoken to me after they've had a breakup with a man, they all say the same thing. I knew something was wrong right from the beginning. And I went against my better judgment. That's your logical side. Your logical side is actually evaluating your well-being and yet your emotional side and both this is true for men and women alike. We allow that because we have this amazing chemistry. And it's such off the charts chemistry. I've never experienced this with anyone else before. Folks, do you know healthy love actually is calm love? It's not off the charts chemistry. Certainly with my beloved and I, I have an amazing, we have a great chemistry with one another. But it's not the first time I've experienced great chemistry. Because I don't set it apart as being something so specs spectacular and so scarce. I operate from the premise that it's abundant in the capacity of our lives. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know. If it is hit that like button, please share this video, please subscribe to the channel if you're brand new. So individual empowerment is the antidote to the potential suffering you might have in the future. In fact, I think of it as a vaccination to emotional chaos is doing personal development, self-help and spiritual work. Look, I'm your big brother. I wish I could be there on a first date for you. I'd have the shotgun out pointed at the guy's face and say, what's your intentions with my little sister? See, you have to operate as your own matchmaker. You have to operate as your own protector because ladies, very few people are going to stand up for you.  However, if you're working with me, I'm your big brother. I'm your protector. I will help you out. Okay. All right.  Again, provided it's not situational in his life, okay? Because that to me is a form of abuse. And I don't want any of you to be abused. All right, this would be a great place to wrap up our video.  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 teddy bear pillow and give enter them a hug of love. There's a teddy bear love because we can all use a lot more love today. I want to thank Pam and Stormy and Lisa and Claire.


You've all now, I think, read about the defense leak, this leak of massive quantities of classified information on the Discord channel, leaks that came out of gaming groups on Discord that suddenly started publishing top secret and secret documents from the defense department.  It took people a while to figure out where it was coming from and the extent of it. There are always all these disparate leaks about Ukraine and about Russia and then about Israel. And nobody quite knew what a make of it all. It ultimately turns out this afternoon, the FBI arrested a Massachusetts airman by the name of Jack Teixeira regarding the documents leaks. It turns out that he, I assume it's him, we don't have all the evidence yet, but I assume it was him, that he worked at the military base, had access to this top secret information, managed to somehow take photos of it. And then early this year started writing out, from the photographs, typing out what was in the photographs and distributing on his little Discord channel. It turns out that he has a Discord channel of teenagers and 20-somethings, most of them under 24, I think. People in the United States, but also overseas, Ukrainians, Russians, and from other places around the world. These were kids who, young people, all guys, as far as I can tell, enamored by this guy who had leaked information. He was some kind of guru to them and they were all gaga over what he had to teach them and tell them. And part of what, in order to keep himself respected by this group, in order to keep himself as the leader of this group, he started leaking out this information to show them, look how important I am, I have access to this top secret information. This is all on the Discord channel. These are not people I think who've ever met each other personally. And he started, so it's not like he had any kind of big motive to leak this information, some social agenda to leak this information, or working for some foreign government, as far as we can tell. So as you can tell, he did this to show off, basically. And then this small group which had this information then started leaking it on other Discord channels. After a while, he got tired of writing out or typing out what was actually in the photographs of the documents he had printed. So he just started posting photographs. And of course, those photographs led to the clues that are now getting him arrested. So I haven't read up the latest about everything we know about him and about, but there was a very good Washington Post article this morning. I think the Washington Post in some senses were maybe ahead of the FBI, where the Washington Post had interviewed some of the people on this Discord channel that had not yet been interviewed by the FBI. But it does look like about a couple of a few hours ago that the FBI had met at a rest and this guy is in jail. A couple of quick points on this that I've made in the past, but I think are worth repeating. One, there's too much top secret and secret stuff floating around that people have access to. I mean, presidents, vice presidents seem to be walking off with this stuff all over the place. Young national guard airmen have access to Pentagon secret documents that have to do with the Ukraine war and with the intelligence agencies assessment of what is going on in Israel. That's just bizarre. Why would anybody have access to this in a military base? I mean, this is intelligence that should be accessible by only people who need this intelligence. Clearly an airman in the national guard doesn't need this kind of intelligence. So something is fundamentally wrong with the way national security mechanisms are working in the way this information is being kept, this information is being distributed. Again, this comes on the heel of the fact that we discovered that politicians are just walking away with documents.  It doesn't mean it's not siloed. Don't you have clearance for the stuff that's relevant for you? It just seems bizarre to me that this is so accessible and so easy and that it took the authorities so long to figure this out. And then the second issue is, which I've also talked about many times, and that is that there's just too much that is secret. And one of the things that came out of this is the extent to which the United States is spying on its allies, the extent to which we listen in on conversations of Israel's spy agency and Israel's politicians. And we know from Snowden that we listen in from leaks surrounding Snowden that we listen in on Angela Merkel. We know that we listen in on politicians and on defense department officials and others. We know that we listen in to all this stuff.  We thought that it's so wide that we lose the focus on the real enemy. We lose the focus on what the real problem is. I think I told you that I was at the NSA, spent a day at the NSA, this is years ago, this is after Snowden, about six months after Snowden revelations, and it was astounding to me the amount of intelligence the NSA accumulates about so many different things and how non-strategic they are. And maybe they're not the ones that should be strategic. Maybe it's just the fact that they get requests from the people above, from the people in the White House, requests that are not strategic and have nothing to do with a real focus on the national defense and the national security of the United States. But it is, there's too much information, there's too many secrets. The government should not be keeping so many secrets from us, and then these secrets are too easily accessible, too easily accessible. I guess Michael A. says, if you have top-secret clearance, you have clearance for everything. You know, I had top-secret clearance in Israeli intelligence. I had access to a lot of stuff, but I was in a particularly department responsible for a particular country, and the intelligence I had access to was on that particular country. And yeah, I guess I could ask for access to intelligence on another country. I'd have to show why it was relevant to what I was doing. But there's no way I could, I could just access, at least in those days, not so long time ago, I could access just broad intelligence that was top-secret, just because I happen to have top-secret clearance and was working on, in those days I was working on Jordan, right, and then I was working on Lebanon. But that didn't mean I had access on Egypt or I had access on Saudi Arabia or I had access on Iraq or Iran or something like that. It was top-secret in the context of what I was doing. He has an Amin in the National Guard. What does he need information about Israel, Ukraine, and all the other stuff that he released? There's no connection between them. So there's no, in other words, you shouldn't have regular access to stuff that is not immediately relevant for the things that you are working on. And yes, if you have top-secret clearance and you show a need to broaden your access, then it should be granted to you. But you should be able, you should have to show a need.  And who can walk away with it? Take photographs on the iPhone and walk away. Supposedly when you go into a room with top-secret stuff, you're supposed to keep your iPhone out. You're supposed to not have a camera with you. So, I mean, there are massive failures here of security and I suspect that there are massive failures of security throughout the entire system and this is not the last or the least of the kind of security leaks that we have. These particularly security leaks were particularly helpful to the Russians because they involved some pretty important information about Ukraine, its plans and what was going on and Russia's benefit. Actually, one of these documents, I don't know if you saw this, it's just, it's kind of funny, but it tells you a little bit about how this all works. One of the documents that had to do with American estimates of casualties on the Ukrainian and Russian side, when it got distributed out there, one of these Russian propaganda, I don't know, entities out there took the document and then doctored it, reduced the number of casualties on the Russian side and increased the number of casualties on the Ukrainian side and redistributed it as if it was the original document. So, the Russians were using some of this just as their own propaganda to try to pretend that they're in better shape than they really are, but the real damage here was that certain secrets about Ukraine's plans for an offensive in the spring were revealed that certainly helped Russian intelligence, certain information about Ukraine's anti aircraft, anti air defenses was also leaked, which is going to have potentially a profound impact on Russia's ability to attack Ukraine. So, this was very helpful to the Russians and very harmful to the Ukrainians and that is incredibly unfortunate. Thank you very much for your announcement when we go live and for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.


Good morning, everyone. Welcome to PC 314 Media and Technology and Ministry. This is lecture number two. We are going to pray together and then get started. Can I ask somebody to pray? Kannan, can you pray? And we will start, please. Yeah, I'll pray. Thank you for this wonderful time. Lord, give us a good understanding about your subject. Lord, give us a good connectivity to enjoy an uninterrupted lesson. Lord, help everybody to join quickly to study. Lord, give us a good understanding of your word and your wisdom. Lord, help us to understand easily so we could use in our mission. Lord, in Jesus' name we pray. Thank you, Kannan. All right. Good morning and welcome everyone once again. This course on media and technology is meant to be just a practical course. And I'm speaking mainly just to share information that you can use in your ministries in the area of media and technology. And like we said yesterday in the very first lecture, you will be having, you know, specialists of IT people or media people doing the work. But still you will be involved in a lot of the decision making and also you need to provide oversight. That means to watch over what they are doing, ask the right questions and sometimes you may, they will be looking up to you to make certain decisions. And so it's good to have some information that will help you in this process. And so I'm going to be touching on various things in the area of media and technology which will be useful, especially looking at it from a Christian leader perspective. If you're leading a ministry, leading a church and you want to, your organization, your church or your ministry is going to be using media and technology. And then as a leader, you know, having some understanding of these things will be useful as you interact with your IT team or media team and are involved in the decision making process. So we're coming from that perspective. Right. So let's pick up from where we paused yesterday. I will share the PDF. And yeah, so yesterday, we did a little introduction on the current trends definition. And then we went into the second chapter. Maybe we're talking about digital engagement strategy. That means you need to think how you are going to engage people inside the church and outside the church. Right. Now, I'm just making a comment here, especially given the political scenario that we are facing in India.  The government in the state of Karnataka, that is where we are is trying to push in some, you know, what they call as anti conversion laws. And these laws, now the anti conversion laws are existing in a, I think, 10 states across India, but they're not really enforced in a very big way. But the laws that they're trying to bring into our state, the state of Karnataka are, it's like a big, big net that anybody can get trapped in that. That means any form of sharing the gospel with anybody under any situation can be considered as an attempt to convert somebody. And they are trying to, you know, the laws that they're trying to bring is like, even if there's an allegation, it means three years in jail. No questions, you know, and until you prove your innocence or it could end up in 10 years in jail. So these kinds of laws they're trying to bring. Of course, they have not yet been passed in the legislative council and even if they, if they are passed, they will definitely be challenged in the Supreme Court. So the likelihood of these things being enacted is, I don't know, almost very slim. But the point I want to get across is, you know, the things around us changing, we also have to be very thoughtful about how we are using these technologies.  We can't just simply go and do things and then end up in trouble. You know, so we have to be careful. So thinking through on a strategy, whether you're serving people inside the church or people outside the church. It has to be a very thoughtful approach when they're using media and technology and also take into account the environment within which you are working and influencing people. Now, so yesterday we stopped all the way till here. We went all the way here saying, look, when you are evaluating the progress of your digital engagement, that means you're engaging with people using media and technology digitally. We need to be asking the right questions to know whether we're really being effective.  These numbers are okay, but they don't tell you the real story. Okay, so you need to ask other kinds of questions to know if what you are doing is really making a difference in the lives of people. So you've got to ask real questions. Some of the examples, I mean, just some examples of how you can digitally engage people, you know, is, for example, suppose there was, you know, in church, you were giving out cards to, you know, like usually what we do is when there are newcomers, we tell them to fill out a contact card and say, please tell us your name. So sometimes if you find that that's not being very effective, people are not filling it out, then you can think of something else like, hey, if we give them a free book online, any ebook, maybe it will incentivize them, maybe give them an incentive to go and fill up an online contact card. These are just examples. I'm not saying you have to do it. I'm just saying, this is the way you can think, you know, that if you give them something free online, maybe they will fill up, they will enter their name and mobile number and email address and then take the book, maybe, okay, or another idea is, you know, because you're finding, if you're finding a lot of topics that the children want to, that we need to talk to children about, you know, you could have an online discussion once a week on topics that are related to kids, you know, what they like to talk about and things that they are interested in or topics for adults, you know, things that they may be interested in, things like that. So you can get people online. And of course, a lot of us are already doing a lot of things online. So this may be something we're already doing. However, you can think about changing your website to target a different kind of audience, positioning your website in a different way, so that it can reach people. You know, if the people that you want to reach are seekers mainly, then you position your online presence to attract those kinds of people. Or if you want to do something to help marriages, you can do a podcast to talk about marriage and help people that way, or you can even do an online marriage retreat. And, you know, a lot of couples can participate, whereas if you do it in person, and especially the situations we are in now, it's difficult to do in person, but, you know, something online. So these are just ideas that different churches have used and, you know, that we can, if you start thinking differently, you know, we want to target these kinds of people. So let's do something like this. You know, you can think of ways to reach people. And sometimes I just put an exercise here, I'm not expecting you to do it. But just think about if you want to target teens and young adults, so in this age range. So suppose you want to target them, what would you do? Well, you want to identify the platforms where these people are, you know, so in your region, or the region you're targeting, or where are these teens, what platforms are these teens, young adults using. So to find out what platforms you can go online, there's a lot of research data. And now this data is about what US teens are using.  And so then what you do is then you need to develop a strategy that engages teens and young adults in those platforms. So like based on some facts and research, you can develop a strategy. So just to think along those lines. Now what we're going to do is I want to get into some of the details of how you go about engaging people using these platforms. Okay, I want to go into some details on that and give you some practical tips or ideas to keep in mind when you start doing these things. So today we will just cover one, we'll just talk about websites. Okay, so I've given you the PDF. Now, you know, as a church or as a ministry, having a website is all I would say it's almost necessary these days. Now, before it may be, I don't know, maybe prior to 20 years ago, you know, people used to have brochures. We used to print out brochures, which will give people some basic information about our church or ministry and will hand this out.  Now, brochures still have certain value. But not every today, you know, many people have moved away from traditional brochures to just a website. Now it's cheaper. You don't have to face paper and ink and money on printing. And it can be accessed by anybody, anytime, anywhere, right? So it doesn't depend on you handing out a brochure to somebody. They just can find you online and so on. And very interestingly, if you have a church website that is done well, you can actually attract the kind of people you want to come into your church. So I can say like for APC, of course, we don't have in person services, but when we do have in person services, a good number of people find us online. Like they search for a church in Bangalore. They will find us online and then they will come to church. So it's a passive, I mean, you know, we are not making a lot of effort to go and bring these people to church. You know, they find us online and then they come. And then we are trying to do this not only for our church in Bangalore, but we had our one website, apcw.org, has also been set up in such a way that if somebody searches for a spiritual church in Nasik or a spiritual church in Kohima or, you know, they search for a spiritual church in Bangalore or a spiritual church in Kalyan, you know, the places where we have outage, they will find our website will come up there. So the same website is helping, you know, bring people to our outreach churches as well. So it's been done that way. So one website is serving not just the church in Bangalore, but it's also serving our outreach churches around the country. Because when people search in their region, they will find, you know, the link to that particular church. And I share with you how to do it. So really, when you build a website, there are certain things to keep in mind when you build a website for a church, for your church of ministry. Okay. Don't just, you know, don't just create a website and say, okay, I got a website up. The point is, is it serving the purpose? And there are certain things you need to keep in mind to make sure that your website is actually serving the purpose, right? Now, how do you go setting about a website? And of course, you would use the help of some, you know, people, a web developer and a graphics designer and you will get them to help you build your website. But as a Christian leader or a pastor, some of the things you need to keep in mind is, you know, the platform on where you want to build your website. So typically we would say, you know, use a content management system, right, rather than developing a website from scratch. So usually these days, nobody builds a website from scratch. They use a platform, a content management system, right? One of the, what we use at ABC is we use Joomla. This is an open source, meaning this whole platform is for free, right? You don't have to pay for it. You can download and use Joomla for free. It's a content management system. The advantage of the content management system is you can update your website very easily. You know, if you want to update anything, I just email our IT person within minutes, it's updated. The website is updated. They don't have to do any, you know, a lot of hard work. Actually, our website is being updated on a daily basis. Lots of, you know, I mean, new things are being added to the website. Our daily devotion goes up, our sermons, videos, sermon notes, translated books. So, you know, there's things are being updated, our events, services, all that. So on a weekly basis, there are many updates being made to the church website. And because we're using a content management system, it's very, very easy to do. Okay, so when you want to build your church website or a ministry website, ask for this.  You say, no, I'd like to use a content management system. Are you familiar using Joomla or WordPress or something like that? You know, I would strongly recommend Joomla. It's one of the most robust and you can do a lot of things with it. So use that. Okay, so what's the advantage of using content management system? You can do lots of changes, customizations. It's very easy to use. Many developers are there who know how to use it. Okay, so keep that in mind. Now, if you want to do something by yourself, then you might use something like WordPress. And that's something you can learn to use yourself. Now, one important thing also I want to say is whoever you get to do your website, make sure that you retain full control of your website. And we have actually helped a couple of other Christian organizations run into problems. They hired a developer to do this work for them. And what did the developer do? He or he or she, the developer kept full control of the website with the passwords and everything. So the organization had no control of their own website because the developer kept control. So now the developer can play games if the developer wants. So you need to be careful, especially when you're using anybody. Even if it may be somebody from your church, make sure the control of the website is in your hands as a leader or the church. That the login information, the registration is all done in the name of the church and keep that in control. Otherwise, the developer or consultant, if they are the only ones who know the password to the whole system, they can take control of things. So we've had to step in and help some other organizations regain their website and do their work and so on. So just to keep that in mind when you are setting up your website. The next thing you would do in setting up a website is to choose a domain name. That means what is the domain name people are going to type in to come to your website. Something to keep in mind is choose something that is short. For example, our domain name is apcwo.org. Now, why did we choose that and not all people's church, Bangalore.org? Now, if somebody has to type in all people's church, Bangalore.org, it's many characters they have to type. Or all people's church, World Outreach.org. Again, that's a long name that they have to type. So we said, okay, let's just go with the first letters apcwo.org. So it's very short. It's easy. Of course, it's something that they may take some time to remember. But once they do it, then it's very easy for people to remember apcwo.org. That's it. And it should be related to the name of your ministry. So that's what apcwo. It's related to the name and they can easy. So it should be easy to type understandable words. And it's a mnemonic apcwo is a mnemonic for the long name. So choose a name that's easy to remember and easy to spell. So if you, for example, if you choose a name, that's a Greek name, then people may not know how to spell it. For example, if you say Kyros. So for us who know the word, it's easy. It's K-A-I-R-O-S. But for somebody who doesn't know the name, you know, is it C-H-A-I-R-O-S? Is it K-A-I-R-U-S? So they'll be confused by that. So choose something that's very, very simple. So, for example, if your name of your church is Hope City Church Bangalore, then maybe you can see if H-C-C-B.org is available, Hope City Church Bangalore, just Hope City, you know, something short and easy that you could see if it's available, right? And so you can go to whois.com and search and see if that domain name is available. So if you go to whois.com, you can type in a domain name and see if it's available. If somebody else is using it, it'll give you other options, right? And usually you would use a .org domain. So then they know it's a nonprofit or religious organization. If .org is not available, then it's okay to use .com or your country-specific, you know, .ian or whatever, you can use it. There are other extensions that are available, which you may use in case the main ones, .com, .org, or your country-specific is not available, you may use others. But try to use, you know, as a religious organization or a nonprofit, if you try to use .org, that is most advantageous, okay? Once you decide on your domain name, you may look it up in whois.com. Let's just, you know, let me, I hope all of you are following me. Is it getting too technical? You're following me so far? Yes, sir. Yeah, it's okay, right? All right, so example, okay, okay. All right. Okay, let me go back to sharing. All right, so for example, if you go to whois.com, you can see if a particular domain name is available, right? So let's say you're starting a new ministry and the name of your ministry is Hope City. Yeah, I'm just making up something, okay? Hope City.org. So if that's the name, so you search, it'll tell you, you know, is Hope City there? Okay, Hope City is unavailable. So somebody else has already taken that. HopeCity.com is also unavailable, but it's telling you that HopeCity.co.in is available. HopeCity.io is there and HopeCity, with other extensions, are there, right? So it knows Bangalore HopeCity. I'm searching from Bangalore, so it's saying Bangalore HopeCity is available, right? So if HopeCity is not available, then what if you're trying to do HopeCity.org, right? So HeadCBangalore.org, so try to see if that's available. And yeah, HeadCBangalore.org is available, right? So that's interesting. So maybe you could use HeadC.Bangalore.org, HopeCity.Bangalore, or HeadCBangalore.in, if you want to use that. And then, so you can then select, and then you have to register your name, right? That means you have to buy this name, right? You have to buy this domain name. It's $948 for one year, $10 for a year. So you have to buy this name, and then you own it, right? Then you will own this domain name, HeadCBangalore. So that's important to do, okay? I just shared with you how to look it up, right? So like that you can look up any name you want and register it, okay? Let's go back to this. So you choose a name that's easy that people can find easily, remember easily. Then you need to, of course, you need to buy that domain yourself. That means you will own it. And then you set it up for hosting and register your website domain name, okay? That means this domain name that you have bought, let's say, HeadCBangalore.org will be registered with ICANN. So that's the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, right? So you register with a hosting provider. I'll give you some names to do that.  So basically how the Internet works is when somebody searches for a name like HeadCBangalore.org, it first goes to the registrar.   It's actually, there will be an IP address. So this register will say, oh, you need to go here, right? And that means where you are hosting your website. And then from there, they will get the information, like they will see your website. So when anybody searches, it actually looks up in a registry or registrar, and then that registrar points to where you are actually hosting your website. And that website is sent back to the person who is searching, right? So you need to register. Now, if you don't register, then they won't find it, right? So you're a hosting provider will usually do that for you. Now, some common that there are many, many hosting providers. You can use hosting providers that are specific to your country. We usually use hostica.com, or sometimes we host some of our things on Amazon Web Services and so on.  The simplest thing to do is to use a hosting provider like hostica or somebody else.  They will also register it with the registrar, right? So you need to buy your domain name, and then you can put it on a hosting provider. If you want to simplify this whole work, let me just share this with you. Once you know that Etsy Bangalore is available, what you can do is you go to your hosting provider. You go directly to the provider that you have chosen, and then you can actually buy the domain name there. So when the advantage here is you buy it, they will host it, and they will all register it for you. So everything is done by hostica. So if I do the same thing here, EtsyBangalore.org, and I search, then it will tell me the same thing. It will tell me that EtsyBangalore.org is unavailable. Hmm, how come? Oh, maybe it's because I had selected it here. Okay, because I selected it, it's already, I need to let it go. All right, let me see now. It should become available. I'm not sure. Let's see. It's still unavailable, but anyway. That's because I had selected it on the other website, but EtsyB is doing something different. EtsyBangalore.org should be available. EtsyBangalore, I wonder why. All right, whenever we select some other name. It's also unavailable. I'm not sure why these things are unavailable. Maybe they're all booked by others. But generally what will happen is if you search for a domain name here, and then once you find a name that is available, you can buy it here. So they have HopcityIndia.us now. You can actually buy it here. And so it says Hopcity.com is available. And these people will do everything for you, right? They will, okay, so it's available, right? HopcityIndia.com. So you can buy it here. You can buy it directly with the hosting provider. So they will host it. And they will, you know, you can buy the domain name. That means you will own this domain name, HopcityIndia. They will register it for you and they will host it for you. That means they will, you know, do the work of registering it here and pointing it to their server because you're hosting it with them. They will do this work for you, right? So you don't have to worry about it. Once you buy it with the hosting provider, everything is taken care of. Right? So remember there are certain things you need to do. One is your domain name. Choose something that's your domain name. Choose something that's very easy. People will remember very short, easy to type. It shouldn't have any complicated spelling, all of that. Second, you need to register it and host it.  So if anybody searches, they will find your website. Now, when you go about building your website, I just want to share some important things. You got to think about what kind of website do you want to have, right? Don't, this is where you as a leader should give your input, okay? Don't let the developer or graphic person just decide that for you, right? Because this is your ministry, your church, and you are the one who knows correctly where you're trying to go in the ministry, right? So you need to tell them that, hey, I want this kind of a website. If you're targeting young people, of course, you want something that's very contemporary and so on. If you are targeting a different kind of audience than a classic look, a very standard look is fine. The other thing you also need to tell them is what are you trying to achieve with your website, right? Your website could be informational. That means it's just an online brochure or it could be for content. That means you're providing resources. You want people to keep coming back to keep using the resources that you're giving out. Maybe it could be to raise support, maybe to sell products, or maybe to get people to sign up for events and conferences. So these could be different objectives. Now, for what we have done for APC is we said we want apcwo.org to be a repository, a place where people come to find free resources, right? So, of course, it'll have information about the church. So to some extent, it has information. Yes, it'll have information on how people can give their dyes and offerings or contributions. We're not selling anything. We will also use it for people to sign up for events. But our main motivation is it's apcwo.org. It's like a central repository, right? So we have built our website like that. So we have sermons right from 2004. So that's about 16 years worth of Sunday sermons with all our sermon notes, PowerPoint. So there is the video. There's the audio. There's the sermon notes, PDF, and there's a PowerPoint. And it's there, you know, like for the last, since 2004, it's been collected there. And then our books are there, free books. And then we're translating the books into languages. Then our daily devotionals are there. So really, people keep coming back because they want resources. And some of the trends we will see is usually on Friday, Saturday, the number of visits to our website will increase. You know, so it's almost like people are using it to prepare their Sunday sermons and things like that. You know, we will see these trends happening when we look at the statistics and we see people coming from every, you know, different parts of the world. But this is our objective in the website that you want people to come back and use these resources to build themselves up spiritually. Okay. So what is the objective? So APCwo.org has been built as a resource center for spiritual Christian content and we continue to develop that. So you may, you need to think, okay, what do I want to achieve with my church website? Okay. And then there are certain pages that are usual, you know, people, you have the home page. So on the home page, it is the first page people will come to. So it's the first impression they have about your church or ministry. What do you want to tell them? And keep in mind that, you know, most people look at a page, maybe for 30 seconds, right? They'll come to look at it and they may immediately go to where they want to go to. Right? Maybe they're looking for, okay, how do I contact this church or, you know, who's the pastor here or things like that. Right? So they look at a page maybe for 30 seconds. So in that 30 seconds, you need to make an impression. They need to get a good sense of who you are, what you are. So that's why if you look at our home page intentionally, we've put everything there because they will just scroll. They get a good idea of who we are that we are doing many different things. We're catering for families, for children, for youth, for professionals. So intentionally, we've put a lot of that so that, you know, even if they scroll in 30 seconds, they just scroll up and down. They get a good feel of, okay, this church is catering for, you know, a wide variety of people. Things like, oh, this church has free books and music and all. So everything is there. In 30 seconds, even if they scroll just through our home page, they will get an idea of who we are. They don't have to click on anything else. Right? From there, they can then dig further if they're interested. But even if they have 30 seconds and they just scroll to home page, they'll get an idea of who the church is. So you've got to think through on what you want to communicate to people when they come to your home page. Then there are other things, you know, like, okay, people will want to know more about what is this church about or I'm a new person here. How can I get connected or what are your upcoming events? Who are the people, you know, the leading the church? Or how can I contact you? Where are your Sunday services and locations? Okay. So these are typical things that you need to make easily available and people expect these things, right? They expect something that says, contact us. Okay. That means, you know, they want your name, your address, email ID, location. Okay. They expect something of about us. Okay. Who are you? You know, and so these things are usually expected and people come to a church or a ministry website. Some other things to keep in mind are use graphics and colors that are very pleasant and that are relevant to the audience you're using, reaching out to. Very important. There must be no spelling errors or errors anywhere. Okay. This is something very important. You have to really work hard on this because, you know, it's easy for errors to come in or spelling mistakes to come in. And so you have to work very hard because this leaves an impression on, you know, on, on how the church works. Right. If there are errors and spelling mistakes and things like that, it leaves a very bad impression. Especially if you're reaching, you know, the educated, the, you know, the kind of people who, these things matter. Right. Keep content updated. So if you have a website, the, you know, the information must be current.  It's like from two years ago. And then that, then that means they haven't updated it. Then there's no point in having that website. When you have links, all the links must be working and there must be no broken links. When they click on something to go somewhere, it should work and make it very easy for people to use. Okay. Some things that you could do is make, you know, try to, you know, one simple thing is you can let people share their information, like sign up for a database or register for upcoming events. So usually when, when once people like your church minister, they'll want to do this and they will want to be part of your mailing list and you can collect that information through your website. You can share your social media accounts. We will talk about this a little later. One last thing I want to mention, and maybe I will talk more about this next week, is even if you have a website, this number six is so important. That means your website should be discoverable online. Right. That means if you have a website and people can't find you, then it's almost like no point. Right. So this is called search engine optimization. That means when people search, they should be able to find your website. And this is something you have to do very, very intelligently. So maybe I will explain this next week a little bit more in depth. And this is something you must ask the people who are managing a website to do for you. Right. So as an example, suppose we go back online, you know, so let's say I want to, I'm in Bangalore and I want to find spirit filled, spirit filled churches in Bangalore. Okay. So think about, okay, when somebody comes to your city, how will they search for your kind of church? Right. So for example, APC. APC is a spirit filled church. So usually when, when somebody's in Bangalore and they're searching, they would probably type spirit filled churches in Bangalore. Right. So when they type spirit filled, what do they see first year first in the list, they see all people's church Bangalore. Right. And they see us on the map. Right. So we are ranked number one here. And then if you go down here, our website is number one. Right. So this doesn't happen by accident. You have to intentionally, what is called a search engine, optimize your site so that, you know, people are most likely going to click on the first website that comes up. Right. So when somebody searches for spirit filled churches, they find us. What else would they search? Somebody may search for word based churches, word based church or churches or word based churches. So you see some other churches have come up here, but we are number one here as a word based. If somebody searches for word based church, we are number one in the list. Right. So, you know, they have to find out. So like that, you know, if people search, let's say, you know, these are typical search phrases people will use somebody in Bangalore. They want to find a church. They would use this. Right. So this is how if you design your website and search engine, optimize it, they will find it. Right. So think about our Bible college. Right. So if people search for online Bible college, there are lots of other things and you see ABC Bible college comes in number one. Yeah. Right. These are our ads. I mean, these are paid. People have paid for this. These are ads ad here. This is an ad. This is an ad, this is an ad, but the first one without an ad, is ABC Bible college. Right. So we have intentionally, you know, search engine, optimize it. So people search for online Bible college in this region. ABC Bible college is number one. No. So you think about another search phrase. Free Christian books. See if somebody says for free Christian books, APC is number one in this region. They will find us first. APC books. Free Christian books. All people search. They search for that phrase. We are number one. Right. So they will find us and they will, you know, go and use our books. Right. So of course there are other Christian books that are offered for free, but we're right here on top. And it's like, most likely they will click on this one first. Yeah.  So in free sermons, of course there's, these are all US based websites. They're numbered on top, but you see we are listed on page one. We come here. One, two, three, four, five. We're on fifth, rank fifth on page one. But these are really big websites.  So these are really global websites, big, very big ones. But out of that, we are number one here. Outside of that, you know, we are offering free sermons. Right. So what I'm saying, so I'll stop here now. Just going back to this PDF. You have to optimize your website for search engine. So that when people search by certain phrases, the goal is your website must come up within the first two pages. Because usually people will look in the first two pages. After that, they may not go to the third page. Right. So how do you do it? You know, and I will share more on this next week. Okay. Are you all with me so far? You, you understood any questions so far? Right. So we are learning new things. Interesting. Thank you. Okay. Welcome. So we will continue this next week. So the goal is you build a website for your church or your ministry. There's a certain way to build a website. And your website must be searchable. Okay. And we'll explain how to do it next week.  Right. And Google search does it. It does it by region. So in your part of the world, it should come up there. Then they will find you. They'll come to your church or they will look at the information on your website and all that. Okay. We'll stop here. We'll continue this next week and share some things. Okay. Get somebody close and prayer please before we go. Okay. Go ahead. Thanks. Thank you. Praise you for this wonderful day. Thank you, Father. As with learning. Yeah. So very important in our days of father. Thank you for wisdom, knowledge of God to handle and proper way to win many souls for the kingdom. Father, help us to learn more on the equip. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Dad. The only people using for different ways that we use for the way to win many souls. Thank you. Praise Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you, everyone. Have a good weekend. Restful weekend. And we'll see you next week. Bye now. Thank you. Thank you, sir.


And if you guys want you to know we have just officially named you co-captains of our winter meetings coverage But unfortunately that ends tomorrow, but at least for the night your co-captains Short live, but hey we appreciate anything we can get over here in San Diego But you know talking about Aaron judge and whether or not he will be named captain It really seems like it's not if but when and speaking to Hal Steinbrenner early this offseason He's clearly open to it Anthony Rizzo this postseason already called Aaron judge the captain That is the way he is viewed and when I look at this 360 million dollars is an awful awful lot of money But there were reports that San Diego was putting a four in front of it He did leave a little bit of money on the table. He wanted to be a New York Yankee He wanted to wear pinstripes and his legacy in pinstripes is important to him Yeah, I think Aaron judge has exhibited that it means a lot to him Obviously this was a business decision to the salary means a lot, but Meredith you have had conversations with him I have had conversations with him He understands what it means to be a Yankee and when your general manager is giving interviews and mentioning Cooperstown I mean that's what you're talking about right now with Aaron judge and you're talking about Monument Park And everyone has talked about a captaincy. He has 220 homers in his first 729 major league games He's got a nine-year contract the average is 31 homers a year. He gets to 500. So that's another hallowed mark I think this was the right move even if you're not a Yankee fan I think him staying in pinstripes just feels like that's where the story was supposed to go It really does he is the face of the Yankees and you look at this upcoming season 2023 He's gonna be 31 heading into that season. We know when he is on the field He is one of the best players if not at times the best player in baseball We saw that during the home run chase. So how does he say on the field? Well, we talk a lot of numbers around Aaron judge tonight. We're throwing around 360 million during the season We threw out 62. Here's the number I think was most important to Aaron judge in 2022 157 he played in 157 games Meredith I think if he stays on the field and figures out a way to stay on the field the numbers will come after that He actually played in 148 games in 2021 So he's played in 94% of the Yankees games in the last two seasons. He is a talented player We know he has that mammoth 282 pound body, but I think the Yankees have done a nice job of giving him days off and making sure when the moment is the most Important he's ready to play it is definitely clear that the Yankees have a plan in how they manage Aaron judge And it should be fun to watch over the next nine seasons Bob back to you


Here we are in lesson 2 and we're going to look at types. We in Julia box We in the folder that we created to put our lesson files in You can either download this file which I'll make available or you can just say new and Create a new Julia notebook. So let's go into types, which is our second lesson Once again, remember these are all cells if I double-click in the cell first of all you can see it is a marked down cell and I've marked it as a heading one the largest Type that can be a displayed in HTML code there We'll look at the second cell there my two little hashtags there two little pound signs Indicating this this is a heading to Introduction so types variable types Now I've written a few things yet. Let's just go through them. Remember just as in Mathematics we have numerical values and they are the certain type if I just have the value 3 I could call that an integer If I have a value 3 over 4 this fraction I can call that a rational number 0.75 now the computer variables can also hold different types That's how a computer language is structured now. Remember it's actually the object that's inside of the variable that has the type But we'll get to that in Computer jargon specifically in Julia these things are also called types Now every time we create a variable That variable holds something and that something is of a type say for instance We were to say x equals 3 then the name of the variable is x and it holds an Integer value, which is 3 in this instance Now this value that it holds is called an object in in Julia and all Everything that's held inside of of of variables in Julius are objects Now Julia has a dynamic type system. What does that mean? It means you don't have to explicitly declare a data type when you create a variable Now in languages with what we call a static type system You will have to do something like this this comes from a different programming language I would have to say integer x equals 3 and this semicolon to end that line of code So I would have to declare that this variable is going to hold objects that are of an integer value And here I've assigned the one up one such object, and I called it 3 you don't have to do that in Julia although you can if you wanted to you can declare a type and Sometimes this is quite good to do because it When you declare type it holds that specific area in your computer's memory And it makes for quite a bit of faster code execution now the types that are available in Julia are Formed in a hierarchical structure structure, and that's what we're going to have a look at next


Stevenson falls to a wider day at Owens Mills Gymnasium, Glenn Clark with head coach Jackie Boswell.  How close do you feel like this team is being able to put together for 40 minutes? I think we're really close. I thought the first half was really indicative to carrying over what we did on Wednesday and I'm really proud of them for that. We're throwing some new stuff out of them and I think they're handling that really well. I thought probably the best first half we played all year and hopefully we can play two halves before this thing's over.  We've seen players try to get aggressive and try to have that. Do you want that? Do you want to see players maybe step up and say, look, demand the ball. Be the one that this goes through. Yeah, that's what we talked about the other day about finding a way to win. We talked about it before the fourth quarter started. You can't hate to keep relying on their youth, but somebody's got to step up or this is going to be the last seven games or last six games the way it's going to go. We'll keep going at it. They're working hard. I just don't want them to get their heads down. They care about each other. They're good kids and they're working hard, so I just want to pay off of them. I know it stings and not coming to victory, but I thought it was a pretty good day here at Owens Milk Gymnasium. The atmosphere is pretty nice. Yeah, I just want to give a shout out to our pet band and to all of our fans actually since we've been back from break, even on Wednesday, you know, obviously we're not doing very well. Our record doesn't reflect that, but it definitely is not being reflective in the support that we have. Top-down administrators, professors that are here, other teams, coaches. Just from the bottom of our heart, it means a lot and we feel you. We feel like you got our backs, so we appreciate that and kudos to the pet band. Fantastic. All right, coach. Keep at it, all right? And we'll see you back here in a couple of minutes. Keep at it. This is Jackie Boswell. I'm Glenn Clark. Go Mustang Sports.tv.


Oh my God, I got to read the entire book tonight. It's good resale value. I do spend so much time reading books that I hate. I probably won't know my kidding. Too lazy. Ow, I just punched myself in the chin. A new year is upon us. I don't know how that's possible, but here we are. I don't really tend to be the kind of person that does New Year's resolutions. I mean, I do, but I also don't.  This is not the point of this video, but I'm just like, I often do resets for myself while I'm like, okay, well, starting next month, or okay, starting next week, or okay, starting next year. So like, I definitely do that. But like, I don't, like, so New Year's, like, I do it as much as I do at any time, but it's like a time when everyone's doing it. So like, I'm actually posting a video about it, whereas normally I wouldn't post a whole video where like, my resolution for next week, ow, I just punched myself in the chin. My resolution for this year is to not punch myself in the face so much. Oh my God. Okay, so I've come up with, I actually thought I'd only have like two or three, and I started writing stuff down and I was like, man, I have a lot of things that I want to change or like, want to be better about. So I actually ended up with a perfect 10. They aren't ranked in terms of like, priority or anything. I just like wrote down 10, I was like, 10. 10's good, 10's good. So my bookish or booktube, book adjacent book related resolutions for 2022, off we go. So my first one is to read what I own. This is always a goal of mine. And actually towards the latter half of 2021 was a little bit better about that, or like I really only bought books. Actually, that's a different resolution. So I'll talk about that in a second. Where I was like, when I would set up my TBRs, obviously there'd be stuff that's like, I've agreed to buddy read this. I've agreed to do a read-along for this. My patrons have picked this for me to read. I better get it or it's a book club book or whatever. But as I would like fill in the rest of my TBR, I was like, hey, there's series that I intend to finish that are on my goals for this year. And I oftentimes purchased entire series and wouldn't go. So oftentimes that means reading what I own because I already own the whole series because I just commit, you know? By finishing series, I was already reading what I own. But then in general, I would just kind of like look at my shelves and be like, what do I own that I can stick on my TBR? So I really, really want to do that. Cause I wasn't like, it wasn't an official goal of mine, let's say, but I was like getting better about that anyway. So I would like to continue that and really plant my flag in that goal as like, yes, read what I own because I think I probably like, at the end of, the end of 2020, at the end of 2020, I had to put my own books on Goodreads for Bethany because we were doing like a TBR swap thing. So like she had to know what I already own, which forced me to do the exercise of actually looking at all the books I own that I have not read. So it was pretty bad. And I think it's still pretty bad, but I don't think I bought as many books in 2021 as I did before, or at the very least, the books I was buying was largely like special editions or like things that I already owned that I wanted a different cover of or things like that. Or it was books that like I needed immediately. So anyway, this kind of ties into a few other goals, but like that's my, I don't know how I have that much to say about a goal that's read what I own because it's a pretty straightforward goal. Anyway, goal number one is read what I own. Number two is to prioritize finishing series. So that kind of ties in. I haven't actually, I don't have a video going up or anything like that where I have like an official set of series that I specifically want to finish. Like I did last year, and I did actually pretty good with that goal. I might do a check-in. I probably won't, am I kidding? I'm too lazy. I did pretty good with finishing series or making progress on series that were on that list from last year, but I don't have any like specific series this year that I'm like these ones. I want to finish these ones. I just generally want to like make progress on series instead of starting new ones, especially ones that I own to tie into the first goal. These all kind of tied together. They're all kind of like versions of the same goal. So my third goal is for Book of the Month specifically to both keep up and catch up. So last year, in order to keep up, my method, my goal, the way I was approaching that was to always read the Book of the Month in the subsequent month, but I also frequently get add-ons and I also have a bunch of books left over from previous, like before I started doing that. So I do have like a backlog of Book of the Month with books that I still haven't read yet.   But so like my, I like escalated my old methods. My old method was like the Book of the Month, like of the five they give you that are like Books of the Month, the one that I would get that would, I would have to read it the following month. And then my new, have like up to the ante now, any book I get from Book of the Month, I have to read the subsequent month. So like in an effort to like actually read what I get, but also to like keep from just getting add-ons to be like, well, this too. I'm like, well, am I gonna read it next month? No, well, then not that too. So hopefully that will both like keep me from getting too many Book of the Month Book, Book of the Month Club books and also get me to read the ones that I do get. But also again, this goal was to catch up and keep up. So that's to keep up, but then to catch up to try to put more Book of, old Book of the Month Club books on my TBR. So like if I don't have any add-ons in the following month, then to like add on an old Book of the Month Club book that I have. So that I have every month probably at least one or two Book of the Month Club books on my TBR.  Number four is to make time for research books. So I mentioned before in like an announcements plans changes video that I have a bunch of books that I've bought for like research for my own writing and they just sit there. And like I have taken a peek here now and then when there's like a specific thing I wanted to look up as writing, like as I've been writing, I'm like, man, I just, I've gotta look this up right now. But like a lot of them are not the kind of book where I can just like go and specifically look a thing up. They're gonna be more like, I don't know, just like general knowledge that I think could either help me to build my world better or help give me new ideas for like, how like some specifics to do with like magic systems or something like that. Or just like general like general knowledge that I think will be really useful for me to have to draw upon or to like further my understanding of like what things like into what I want this to be like we're actually like or how that did work or like how I can mess with it. So like the more I understand about the types of lore, the types of history, the types of geography, the types of battle, the types of like eras of history, et cetera, the more I know about those types of things as they have been, the more just general like well of material I have to draw on to either be like, you know what, it would be really cool if like I did the exact opposite of that. Or I'm like, ooh, they did that. I had no idea. Actually, yeah, I really want to like highlight that they did that. They're definitely gonna do that in my world. Or like, oh, you know, like I was having my magic go like this, but like there's this like interesting old myth about et cetera. And like a piece of that myth kind of really goes with my magic system, but like makes it even cooler. So like stuff like that where like I can't just look it up because I don't know what I'm gonna find. All that to say, like I have a bunch of books like that that are just like stacked next to my desk in this like in the hope that like I will read them. I'm like, I'll put them here next to where I write and then I could just look at them and just cry about how I read them. So I want to prioritize reading them because I don't put them on TBRs. I don't really want to put them in wrap ups. Like it's just for me. It's like literally just for me. So prioritize actually reading them. And like I'll probably mark them on Goodreads because I can't not. I love checking off things on lists, but like I won't put them on TBRs. I won't talk about them in wrap ups and like just be fine with that. Like, okay, so you made time for this research book which means like your wrap up is gonna be five books this month instead of six or seven. So like, so what? So like to prioritize that. Number five is just set daily reading time.  There are exceptions, but like to try to make it like a set time, both a time of day and an amount of time, that I try to always make reading time every day. Like I mean, I got through 177 books in 2021 and I have a lower reading goal. I don't want to read as many books or like I don't want to try to make myself read as many books in 2022. But that said, it's just been kind of like chaotic where I'm just like listening to audiobooks all the time, just like trying to get through stuff and then like it'll be like the day before the live show for like some read-along I'm in and I'm like, oh my God, I got to read the entire book tonight and so then I'm just like every other priority goes out the window because I'm just gonna like binge read this book. It's chaos and that's just kind of how I am as a human. I work better under pressure and I have to give myself deadlines if no one else does because if without a deadline, I will never do anything. So I want to be a little more just like gradual and like set aside time to be just just reading to not be like, oh fuck, this is due tomorrow because there's a live because that will still happen, let's be real. But yeah, to find a time of day that works for me, I'll try out different things and then find one that works for me in a set amount of time, probably an hour or two hours and then to the best of my ability to keep to that and then, you know, if I have something else going on that day that cuts it short, that's fine. Or if I have something going on that day that makes me push it up an hour or push it back an hour, whatever. Some days I would say I won't be able to at all because life happens, but to be structured about that and to like make it just like a natural part of my routine. My next goal, it will make some certain specific people looking at you Jess, really happy and that is DNFing. So I'm on record of saying that I almost never DNF books and I still struggle with that because like, I've often said it's because when I review a book I don't want to have to say, well, maybe by the end this gets better, maybe by the end this is fixed, maybe by the end this is explained. Like I don't want to have to qualify anything. I want to be able to say I've read this whole thing and the whole thing was this and it never got fixed and it was garbage all of my three or whatever the case may be. That said, I do spend so much time reading books that I hate and then oftentimes I don't even do a review for it. Like if I really was going to do a review for it, like an in depth, like let's pick this apart here, we go, okay, fine, probably finish it because like may as well. But I don't even post how many individual reviews and it's just for a wrap up in which like I'm not gonna say that much about it in a wrap up, it's pretty quick fire, a rapid fire. Like why do that?  So my new policy for myself is that I will DNF books that I really, really hate unless it's like a book club book or something like something that's like an obligation book or like I'm supposed to be reading this for like my patrons picked it, something like that. I mean I will, I'll read the whole thing. But if it's just like a book that I picked up like if it's a book of the month club book that I really hate or if it's just, yeah, whatever. I will DNF it like pretty early on if I really think I'm gonna hate it. And then if it's a book that like, I've been kind of holding out hope for but like it's just like not, it's just not doing it. It's getting worse. Part of the reason I also hate DNFing is because I have always believed that you can't rate a book if you've DNFed it because I just don't think that's fair. And that I can't count it towards my good read goal. So oftentimes it's that too. I'm like, well, I've spent this long with it. Like this is gonna count for something. So my new policy with myself is that if I have read at least 75% of the book, I'll allow myself to rate it and to add it to my good reads like goal. Like as a book that I read for the year. And if it's less than 75%, then no, I just DNF it and I will DNF it. I'll be better about that unless I plan to actually do a dedicated review for it. I will DNF it if I'm not liking it. So that's my new plan to increase joy in my life. Okay, so I already mentioned this. My goal number seven is to only buy books that I intend to read immediately. So, or special limited editions because like those are like here today, gone tomorrow. I spend way too much money on special editions but I love special editions. Speaking of bringing me joy, not just like randomly buying books because I'm like, oh, this looks cool. Maybe I'll read that someday. Like, okay, well then wait, buy it someday when you're gonna read it. Unless it's like maybe there are instances where like, especially with the UK, like they'll run the hardcover for like a week and then it's like gone forever. So for a few things like that, I might, if I'm like, if I'm pretty sure I'm gonna love this, if it's an offer that I know, if it's something that like, I'm fairly certain I will or it's really good resale value. If it's something like that, we're like, it's not a special edition but it is gonna be limited in some capacity where you gotta get it now or never. Then I'll, you know, then I'll buy it. But otherwise only buying a book if it's like for this or next month's TBR. Otherwise just, just wait. Number eight is to step out of my comfort zone a little more. This has always been a goal of mine. It is always a goal of mine. Continues to be a goal of mine. Book of the Month really does help me with that. As much as I've been kind of like considering, maybe I, maybe I should give up the subscription because I often end up hating. Most of my pango bookstore front is just all of my Book of the Month books that I'm like, read it, ate it, here you go. But that's it. Because they so often don't have, you know, SFF, then I'm forced to choose something that isn't necessarily something that I have heard of or that I would have normally picked up. And I like that it makes me try out new things. Even if I end up not always and frequently not liking those things. It forces me to step out. And I also feel like it's oftentimes like with people who've never read SFF before are intimidated by like, I don't even know where to start or what I'm gonna like. So like me, primarily reading SFF, that's how I feel about Litvick and mystery and things like that. I'm like, I don't know what I like. There's a lot out there. It also gives me like, allows me to dip my toe into some of those waters so I can get a little more familiar with like what those genres do have to offer so that I know that what I can go out now and look for more of. Yeah, so that's one of the main reasons I keep that subscription even though I end up hating. At least have what I read from. But yeah, but outside of that, I mean, I do want to be better about because just like I have research books that just sit there waiting for me. There are a lot of like nonfiction or Litvick or historical or mystery books that have caught my eye that have been of interest to me. And I just don't pick them up because like when push comes to shove, if I'm choosing between that and an SFF book, I will choose the SFF book. So I want to try to be more conscious and intentional about not always choosing the SFF book and sometimes prioritizing something else. Goal number nine is to actually write Goodreads Reviews. I used to be really good about this and it's been a long time since I was good about this. And yeah, part of it is that I had so many books to read last year and I just kept adding more and more and more and it's insane. That's why I don't want to do that this year. Like it's cool. Like I'd like knowing that I could read that many books in a year, but okay, I know that now. So like I don't need to prove that to myself and I can just like ease up. But yeah, so like I would like to actually write down Goodreads Reviews one because like it's fun to look back because now when I've done some rereads in 2021, when I would go to mark this book, you know, as reading again or as read again, then my old review would be there and I'd be like, oh yeah, what did I have to say about it? And I'd like, I enjoyed going back and reading like what I wrote when I first read it. And it also, I feel like the books that I have written a review for, similarly to like when you actually do a spoken like a video dedicated video about it, which I will not do for every book. Absolutely not. I just won't for all the other books that I don't do a dedicated review for, like a video for having written a review will help to keep it more in my mind. As you know, people always say like you really understand something if you've had to teach it. So like writing a review has like forces you to like put into words, how you feel about it. And I feel like makes it stick in my mind more than it would otherwise. Even like a few minute sum up in a wrap up wouldn't do it as much as writing a review. So I want to be better about that. I don't know if I'll do it for every book and I will probably fall off that wagon, but I want to try to get back to doing that. And my last goal is to actually post on my Instagram. Again, I used to be so good about Instagram. I'd often prioritize Instagram over YouTube because I had so much fun taking pictures for my books to grab. And then I just like, I posted like four pictures maybe in 2021. I have like cool props and beautiful editions. Like what am I collecting all these beautiful editions for? All these amazing bookish candles, et cetera. And I've been posting about it on my bookstagram. So like, I've just been, I've just gotten lazy honestly. And it's also because I got a new phone and like the app that I used to like transfer photos from my fancy camera to my phone wasn't working on my new phone. And I couldn't be arsed to figure that out. So I just stopped. But I mean, my phone's camera is actually really good now unlike my old phone. So there's no excuse. I'm just lazy about it.  So yeah, those are my goals for 2022. Let me know in the comments down below if any of these goals are your goals. If you think these goals are stupid, if you think these goals are great, whatever you want to let me know. I post videos on Saturdays, other random posts as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe, join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.


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