Jesus is with us everywhere we go. We're so glad that you're joining us for hope today. So glad that you're with us for these next 30 minutes where we get the moment to encourage you, uplift you and inspire you wherever you are here with Tom Hollis. And Amanda Brock, I know Amanda hasn't been here in so long because you've been traveling and glory-vanting all around. Glory-vanting, is that like alluvanting with the Holy Spirit? Yeah, yeah. Glory-vanting. Good to have you back, Amanda. Thank you. I think one of my favorite moments was with our son. We went down to Pensacola where he is stationed right now. And I think just, and a miracle to me is that he purchased a guitar. He's left-handed, but all they have is a right-handed guitar. He got it and he's playing it. And God gave him a song.  It's amazing. God is working. He's at work. And we're going to learn about that.  What does that mean? What means ambassador? In fact, Paul called himself an ambassador in chains. These guys, man, and all the ladies that were there as well ministering. They planted churches. They had heavenly encounters. They worked miracles. They were shipwrecked, flogged and prison even martyred. And they turned empires and kingdoms upside down. And we've got James with us, James Allen Mosley. He's written a book called The Biography of Jesus' Apostles. You are not going to want to miss this. There's so much great information and how it applies to us today as well. And I think the more that we have to read the Bible and just like seeing how they were doing in their everyday lives, and I think it's a challenge for all of us to like self-examine ourselves and be like, how am I truly walking this out? You know, how am I allowing the gospel or allowing these moments to interrupt our situations? I know Amanda, this is something that you live out on the daily through the Pittsburgh Dream Center. This is, I know like Amanda, you are like on the front lines every day just helping people show them the love of Jesus. Well, and we're excited and it's work, but we're starting our lunch program for the kids in our community. I'm excited. I had to learn, go through some training, but you know what? It's willing to stretch and be uncomfortable because Jesus is going to operate on the other end of that. And those children are going to know somebody cares about them. Ultimately, it's the Lord. It's interesting. Even in my tease there, I said these guys and I was like, wait a minute. There was a lot of women preaching the gospel too. In fact, James even talks about that in the Bible. I know that that's a hot topic in some denominations right now, but I wanted to take a moment to share about Pat Robertson's passing. Pat Robertson was a giant in the church and in the ministry, the type of ministry that we do. Pat was very large in the starting of this ministry. In fact, when God called Russ and Norma to start this ministry, they went and talked to Pat and he had done tons of research already to find and he just like gave him all the stuff and all the different things that they would need is just a, he had an incredible life of reaching people for God. I know personally I watched the 700 Club growing up and I can remember he did a book that had like answers to hard questions. Of course we have a hard questions program. But I remember even as a teenager digging into that book and I'd be asked questions or things that I didn't know and I wanted to know. So I am truly appreciative for what he gave in his life and how he impacted so many for Christ. Truly a pioneer in the faith and so we just want to say we're lifting up our praise for Gordon and the entire family there and also CBN and the whole 700 Club because we know when you lose someone of that magnitude impact, it really does have like touch your heart in a deep way. So we just want to say that we are praying for them. He went on and received his reward in heaven last Thursday. So just really, it's a beautiful thing. You know, I know it's sad when we see people go, but knowing that where they're going and that they are with Jesus dancing on the streets of gold, what an amazing life lives. So I don't believe in imitating anybody else, but I do believe in that there have been people that God has raised up and then they go on and then what about us? Who's going to take? Who's going to step into that breach? Who's going to be raised up not to do the same things that Pat Robertson did, but to do the things that God's called you to do? That is something that God is going to be talking to us about when we learn about these ambassadors, these apostles, when we come back with James Mosley, we'll be right back. Cornerstone television t-shirt, where'd you get it? I am so glad that you asked, you know, this is an exclusive offer for the month of June for you to receive this one-of-a-kind CTVN t-shirt. You can support and support your favorite Christian television network this summer when you go to barbecues, hanging out with family and having tons of fun.  And speaking of cornerstone television, I love their programming, especially that Hope Today show. Yes, we love Hope Today and all of the programs. And you know, with your best gift, request your cornerstone television network t-shirt when you give this month. We have sizes from extra small to 6 XL. It is 100% cotton. It is quality. And we want you to have this on you today. That's right, we have one for everyone. And you get to represent the station you love with your own logo t-shirt. You'll enjoy this wearable reminder that Hope happens here as together we spread the love of Jesus every day. You know, we cannot do it without you. When you give, you help us to impact Pittsburgh and beyond, reaching those of all nations and generations, because we know people need to know the hope and the love of Jesus like never before. So why don't you give us a call at<PHONE_NUMBER>. And request your very own Cornerstone TV t-shirt. That's right. You can also give online at ctvn.org slash donate. We would love to see you out in public somewhere wearing this t-shirt. Maybe we'll have ours on too. Thanks for supporting us. Well, apart from a few well-known stories like Peter walking on the water, most of the readers of the Bible only have a vague notion of who Jesus's apostles were and what exactly they did. But James Moseley is our next guest and he has a fantastic new book out called The Biographies of Jesus's Apostles, Ambassadors in Change. He joins us now. Help us take a deeper look at the lives of the apostles and how they overcame incredible odds to fulfill Jesus's great commission. Jim, it's great to have you here. I love, love your book. Love it. Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me. Well, tell me about as you dove, dived whatever you did into the lives of the apostles and you looked at the scriptures and the historical records. What kind of surprising things came up? Well, a lot really, because it's easy to read past little details in scripture. One of the things that I noticed when I was harmonizing the Gospels is I made a table of the women at the foot of the cross. And what I discovered there is that John says that Jesus' mother Mary was there. But the other gospel writers indicate that there was another woman named Mary Salome, who is the wife of Zebedee. And she was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And therefore what we have is James and John are almost certainly the first cousins of Jesus. So when he called them into ministry, he certainly wasn't calling a stranger. He was calling somebody they had known each other since boyhood. I always wondered about that because he says, come follow me. And they just like drop everything. They walk away, leave their father with the nets there. But it was clear. Obviously, I'm sure they had heard of Jesus. But in this case, there was even a stronger connection. Well, I think so because so we have those two are connected to him. We also look if we study the fathers of Matthew Levy, Simon, James the last and Simon the zealot. It's almost certainly the case in the early church believed that those three were brothers and we're also the first cousins of Jesus. Now think of Jesus taking a zealot who wanted to overthrow Rome and taking Matthew who was serving the Roman Empire, putting him in his ministry team together and making it all work. We could use that in our country today. Absolutely. So tell me about let's start with the first one, Peter, the rock. Tell me about this and tell me what you found out about Peter as you dove into his story. Well, Peter's story is told more than any other story in the Bible. Jesus speaks to him more and he speaks to Jesus more than to any other disciple. So reading through, we find a lot of things that are pretty self-evident in his story. But there are some things that are surprising. For example, remember when they get caught on the on the sea in the storm and Jesus walks on water? When you read the scripture very carefully, you find out this was because they disobeyed Jesus. After feeding the 5,000, Jesus told them, boys, take the boat back to Bethsaida and wait for me there. Well, they didn't. They crossed the sea back to Copernoam, probably hoping that they'd get to Peter's house and his mom would have a nice warm supper for them. But they got stuck on the sea because of their disobedience. Jesus had to save them, save them in this way. Another thing about Peter that I think is amazing. We have that scripture that says, you are the rock and upon this rock, I will found my church.  But then he says upon this rock, upon this boulder, I will found my church. So what he is probably saying is you Peter are a pebble, but upon me, the rock, I will found my church. So Peter is a chip off the old block. Absolutely. I just was wondering, you know, how did you come to Jesus? You, you have so much material and I, you know, from the beginning, like, what did that moment look like for you? Well, when I was 12 years old, I was sitting in Boca Raton and a bridge watching a sunset and I came to the conclusion just looking at the world around me, God had to be there. It God had to exist. So I decided I wanted to find him and I began a quest for that. So I began reading Plato and Aristotle and felt like that was leading leading me that direction. I went to Oxford University and studied philosophy, hoping that the dons there would lead me to God, but they, you know, really had no interest in God. And so I began to travel the world thinking that in different cultures or societies, I would get clues to who God was. I went and I lived in Italy for two years. And the the joy of life of the Italians made me think maybe I'll find it here, but I didn't. And so I stepped, I kept going further East. I went to India and when I went there, I got a job opening up an American company in India. And my first day there, I met the owner of the company we were supposed to work with. And he said, why have you come to India? And I said, well, sir, I came to set up this company between your company and mine. He goes, no, no, no, no. Why have you personally come to India? I had no idea he could guess this, but I said, I'm looking for God. And he said, I thought this might be the case. So I took the trouble of preparing these books for you. And he brought up a big brown box filled with books of all the religious traditions of India. And he said, but I caution you, do not become a metaphysical tourist. We have so many people from the West who come here looking for spiritual things and they just get lost. And so I spent two years in India. I crossed the Himalayas. I met the Dalai Lama. I trekked through a jungle to meditated a Sufi shrine. I studied Islam. I studied the Quran. I know it better than most Muslims know it. But it was like having a telephone and I was hoping God would be the other end. But not only when I picked it up was there no God, there wasn't even a dial tone. So I came back to the U.S. Finally discouraged.  So I went to the church on the way in California and they had an altar call. And frankly, I was skeptical. I didn't even like the environment. I was just not really feeling at home or comfortable. And I thought, well, if I'm scientific enough to unravel the world and look for God and all these other places, I can walk to the front of this air conditioned aisle. So I did. And my prayer was kind of insolent. If I were God, I wouldn't have been very happy with that prayer. But I just said, God, I don't know about this. But if you're in this and if I can accept Jesus in my life, I'm open. That was my prayer. I didn't even repent, but this light went on my heart and I thought, well, that's just the moment, but it didn't go off day after day after day. And I found after a little while, my heart had become a believer. My heart had become saved. My head hadn't. So then this is how I began writing all these books. I tried to tear the Bible apart to say either my heart or my mind is going to end up being right. Well, my mind ended up being wrong and all the battering rams of intellectualism that I brought against the Bible shattered against its impregnable gates. And I learned of its inerrancy and its majestic miraculousness. Jim, this is so incredible. Like just hearing your testimony and your story of how you went to India and you were like reading all of these spiritual books. And what would you say, you know, from your experience of it was powerfully said, the light went on with inside of you never went out. So what would you say from, you know, your experiences being in India and studying these different religions to Jesus? What is the difference? What really makes it this thing? The difference is it's true. So so there's a saying, particularly in Islam, that there are as many pathways to God as there are hearts to men. But that is not true. There is only one way. It's Jesus. He's the way of the truth in the life. It's like C.S. Lewis said there are many sides to every question until you know the answer. And then there's only one. And that's what that's what it is, is that is that is that God is unique and he gave a unique pathway for us to find him. And if we don't follow that pathway, it's like taking a map. If you're trying to get to Florida, but you take the wrong wrong road, you're not going to end up in Florida. And that's what God has given us is the pathway to salvation. You know, as I was reading your story, you said that as you were searching in these other religions that every once in a while you'd catch this little flicker like in your heart of like, Oh, Oh, there's the light. There's the thing I want. And then it would go away. But when you came to Christ, that thing came on and never went away. When that first came on with Christ, I thought it was the same thing. I thought it was the ambience. I thought it was the mood. It was the moment was that it was the people around me, which sometimes those things do sway you. If you go and practice an Eastern religion and you're constantly repeating some kind of a mantra, after a while you auto hypnotize yourself, sometimes a whole room will hypnotize themselves with these things. And you feel like you're having a transcended experience, but it's either one of two things, something that will pass or something that's dangerously evil. And you should walk away from it. Wow. So with the book, what was your purpose in writing the book? Why? Why dive so deep into I know you taught through the through the Bible for many years at your church. And you do meticulous research. I mean, there's so much in the book. It's amazing. But why? What was your purpose in writing? What can we learn from? Well, at my church, they asked me to just take over for an adult theology teacher for three Sundays. And I said, OK, and I was really nervous because I'd never done it. And I didn't know the Bible well enough to do it. And you know what happened in church when you volunteer? It went on for 10 years. So I went up, I went, I ended up teaching the Bible through three times verse by verse to an adult, a group of adults. These adults included a rocket scientist from JPL, a professional theologian, people who had known the Bible and studied it for their whole lives. They were far beyond me in their expertise about the Bible. But I figured the best way to learn is to teach. And all I have to do is stay one week ahead of them. So as iron sharpened iron, we work together on this project. And I wrote original course material for all these classes, which ended up becoming 18 books on biblical theology. But why I did the research I did is because when I tried to teach all the Gospels harmonized together, I'd run into problems. You know, and then I would go look at other resources and you'd have people confused about was Jesus born in 4 B.C. or in 2 B.C. How do you solve these differences between these Gospels? And I would back up and say to the class, whoa, whoa, whoa, we have to go somewhere else. I have got to take some time to figure out how we reconcile these apparent discrepancies. And I'll tell you this, there are no unresolvable discrepancies in the Bible, not one. There are about 50 challenges to the Bible you run into. After that, the skeptics run out of gas and here's an excellent answer for every apparent problem.  And I've understood as I've looked into him a little bit, understood my own personality in doubting things and questioning things at times. What was surprising about what you found out about Thomas? Well, Thomas may have been the least doubting of the Apostles rather than the most doubting of them. So for example, when Jesus said that they were going to go to go to Lazarus home because he died, they said, they're trying to kill you in Judea. Why do you want to go back to Judea? And Thomas was the one who said, let's go.  When the other Apostles saw Jesus appear on Resurrection Sunday, they asked for the very same proofs that Thomas asked for. They got to touch then his nail holes. They got to touch his body. He even took out a piece of fish and ate it in front of them to prove to them. When Thomas met with him, he asked for the very same proofs that the other disciples had asked for. He was no more doubting than they were. But his response to when he ascertained that Jesus was really there physically was to utter the most theologically profound statement in Scripture, my Lord and my God. Yeah, I love that. So take that everybody about Thomas. What else? What other things kind of stuck? What's I know that you've got a list of surprising things that you found as you as you did this deep dive. Tell me some more. Well, you know, one of the things you get from skeptics is that the Gospels weren't really written contemporaneously with the mission of Jesus that they were written by people who pretended to be apostles years afterwards and things like that. But we can find in Scripture evidence that that is not the case. So, for example, in Matthew 13, Jesus tells his disciples that you are scribes in the new kingdom of heaven. What is he telling them? He's telling them you are scribes. You are going to be writing all this stuff down. When Jesus delivers the sermon on the mount, all the 12 apostles are not there. Matthew, who is the only apostle to record it, he is not there. Only Peter, James and John are there. So that begs the question. Where did Matthew get the exact text of this most beautiful sermon, this most beautiful discourse in all of human literature? Where did he get it? One of three places. Jesus told him afterwards word for word. The Holy Spirit gave it to him afterwards word for word or what I think more likely the other apostles who were there, the three who were there, told him because can you imagine being a new scribe in the kingdom of heaven and sitting there on Mount Aramo and listening to the sermon on the mount and not saying to each other, are you getting this down? The other thing is this. Jesus ministry lasted 1,350 days. 770 of those days, which is 57% of his ministry, he disappeared from the pages of scripture. He drops out of history. What is he doing with his disciples at that time? He's probably rehearsing with them. He's probably going over their notes. Did I get this right, Master? Did I get that right, Master? Did I understand this correctly? Because he was going to launch them in the most world changing mission the world had ever seen. And he would have probably taken that time to equip them. So I'm just wondering, do you have a preference like version wise of the Bible that you prefer to study from or maybe what's a tool if someone wants to dig in for themselves? Well, of course, that depends on where you are as a Christian. So if you are really looking for, if you're more scholarly, you probably want something like the ESV or the NASB because that's a little more of a word for word translation. But if you are more new to Christianity, you're probably going to want something like the NIV, which is a more dynamic equivalent. In other words, it's thought for thought instead of word for word. As for me, what I do is I use, I try to use the Greek text. Now, that might sound like, oh, yeah, I can't do that. No, you can. You can go to sites like Bible Hub or Blue Letter Bible and anybody can get into the Greek in which God has rendered these manuscripts. And God chose this Greek language, not because it would be too mysterious or hard for you to understand. He chose it so that everyone could get it. That's our Hebrew scholar over here. I love when you said the Blue Letter Bible. I like highly, highly recommend just like when you're able to deeply dive into the Bible and just read word for word. But one thing I wanted to ask you because I feel like you have a very unique position in the body of Christ. And you can relate to a lot of people right now that are skeptics. There's like, and it doesn't even matter if it's Gen Z millennial, no matter the age of a lot of people who are questioning is God real? How can we trust the Bible? What would you say to that person that's watching right now about what they can believe is true? Well, I would say that we probably don't have the time right now, but I have a little discourse that I go through where I can prove without recourse to faith or recourse to the Bible that God exists and that he is the God the Bible says he is. Now, if we can do that, then I've gone with skeptics and with atheists and I said, OK, just prove what I've just said. Now, the other thing is this, people always ask Christians, prove that God exists. Well, I ask the counter question, prove that he does not exist. If you analyze this logically and philosophically, you'll find to prove something does not exist is not a possible thing. So if you're going to be an atheist, you have to believe in something that cannot be proven. If you're going to be a Christian, you can believe in something which can absolutely be proven only by logic. And then if you look at all the other religious traditions, there's no more competitive, compelling, true, and spiritually changing communication than what we have in the Bible. So why would you settle for something worse? Why would you settle for something unsatisfying, logically deficient when you could have the truth? Well, speaking of the truth, we're going to dig in right now to Matthew 4, 18 and 19. I can't wait to hear more about this. But it says, and Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. Then he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. All right, talk to us about this scripture in the context in which it was spoken. When I first read that scripture as a new Christian at 32, I thought that these men were just dropping their nets and exercising a special kind of faith because they were following a complete stranger. In fact, they probably knew Jesus from childhood. One thing we know for sure is that they knew Jesus from many months before when they first met him at the Feast of Tabernacles and called him the Messiah. When he met John and he met Philip and he met Nathaniel and he met Peter and they went to the wedding at Kana. He was not a stranger. So the faith that they were exercising here was something different. They were deciding to change their lives from being acquaintances of Jesus to getting all in with Jesus. They were going to go into full time ministry and they understood that by dropping their nets. So say there's somebody watching right now that is similar to where you've been. You know, I just heard a statistic that 72% of people say they believe in God. Okay, now that sounds good except a generation ago it would have been over 90%. So there's this real struggle that many people in recent generations have had with the existence of God. What would you say to someone as a challenge to them to not give up on the idea and the truth of God? If you believe God exists, I would ask this question. If you could know him, would you not want to? Why would you not want to know God?  Wouldn't you like to know that you have a final good happy place that you're going to? And if knowing God would mean that, why wouldn't you want to know him? So if you do want to know him, then what you need to do is follow traditions that will lead you to that direct relationship. And if you examine all these other traditions, whether it's Hinduism or Taoism or Islam, you will find that they don't make that promise. Only Christianity makes that promise. So why would you be scientific enough to test if it's true? Because if it is, it will be life changing beyond all imagination. And if it's not true, all you've done is waste a little faith in time. But it is true. So you will never waste faith and you will never waste time when you're exploring your relationship with Christ. I love how we're just talking right now about the truth. And I love that Jesus says, I am the way.  And I recently saw on TikTok over the weekend that there was a man who was a former Islamist. He was of ISIS. And he was having this moment and he said, Jesus appeared to him and said the very same things. I am the way. I am the truth. And I am the life. And in that moment, he said, he knew it was Jesus. And Jesus said his name to him.  And we just wanted to come here and tell you that there is a truth, that there is someone that paid the ultimate price for you, that laid it all down and it is all written in this beautiful book called the Bible. And if you're watching today and maybe you've been questioning that we say keep asking those questions because we know that God is real and he's going to reveal himself to you. He is not afraid of your questions. He's not afraid of your doubts. He can handle it because he wants to have an intimate relationship with you.  I'm ready to turn my life to Jesus. Give us a call at our prayer line at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Even if you have questions, give us a call because we want you to know the greatest hope of all. His name is Yeshua. His name is Jesus.  Have a great day. On tomorrow's hope today, discover the secret to receiving your miracle. Pastor and author Judy Jacob shares from her personal experience of turmoil and victory as she encourages you to reach for the unreachable, believe for the incredible and walk in faith toward your miracle. Don't miss tomorrow's hope today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.


Hey guys, it's Nate, aka The Foot Account, and welcome back to the channel. EA have all of a sudden decided to go full rat mode with footies. We have a huge SBC League to talk about, and we even have ratty cards being released in SBCs. Right now, we had the Le Coix SBC yesterday, one of the most ratty center backs in the game. We have a vignette that is upcoming via the swaps program, and this SBC League is massive. I know a lot of you guys have seen it, but it's making prices move already on the market, and it just seems like EA are now deciding to put out all of the meta rats as special cards in footies, which is kind of crazy, but it is what it is. So we'll take a look at that, and of course, look ahead to a big Wednesday today on FIFA because Wednesdays are voting days, and what is really big about today's voting day on Wednesday is we're gonna figure out, most likely, what this next week of FIFA will look like in terms of what the focus is, right? We have had Sierra this week, Brazil last week, Premier League week one, what's gonna be our focus this next week? Is it gonna be France? That's what everybody thinks right now, based off of Le Coix and his other league that we have, but I think we really need a dynamic duo leak or a voting SBC today to really cement that and make sure that that's what's gonna be the case. So we're gonna look at all that and more in today's video. If you're enjoying footies at the moment, or if you're hyped for this league card, hit the thumbs up and subscribe if you're new. This is the big boy leak right here, and, oh boy, is it a big one. It is a card that has had no specials at all this year until now, Ferland-Mendi has added to come via footies premium SBC. I wanna talk about that for a moment too, a premium card design for a five star skill moves, five star week foot, Ferland-Mendi. Now, this is an insane card, absolutely insane, right? These are stats predicted, but this is the special card that everybody has been wanting to see during footies. I would say a top three most requested footies card to be released this year, and it looks like we're getting it based off the leak. Now, what's massive about this? Well, it's Ferland-Mendi. Probably gonna be the best French left-back in the game. People still use his gold card. Like, they've used his gold card up until and through team of the season. That's how good this guy is in the game. This card is going to be absolutely disgusting in the game. He's gonna be five star, five star. He's gonna have all the links in the world. But the interesting thing that I noticed right off the bat here is he is a premium card design, which means he has the premium links. So he links like a foot hero. Now, the weird thing about this is the only cards that we have received that are premium footies items so far have been through the voting SBCs. So think about guys that won the vote, right? Rafinha, Luis Diaz, Kai Havertz. Those guys all got premium cards as they won the vote. Or premium cards have come via the dynamic duo, right? Those are the only two places that we have gotten premium cards. This Ferland-Mendi is being leaked as a standalone player SBC that is a premium footies item. I think, I don't know if EA is changing it up this week, but that is different. Because if you think about all the other footies favorites that we have had, they've all been the regular footies cards, like Laquan, like Ferran Torres, like Jabril So, like Jonathan David, right? These are all of the favorites cards or just random footies SBCs. They haven't been the premium item. So that makes this one a little bit interesting in its own right, something to notice. Either it's an error here and then foot share if it's wrong and it's not going to be a premium or EA just knows the gravity of the situation and wants everybody to go out and do Ferland-Mendi so they're just going to make them a premium item. I could see both of those things happening. But regardless, Ferland-Mendi getting a special card, absolutely insane. How much is this going to cost? That's really a question that I have. The most expensive SBC that we have had during footies has been Luis Diaz, 278,000 coins. I would be surprised if this Ferland-Mendi is less than 300K. I know fodder is not that expensive on the high tier. So if they make it three, four squads to complete, you know, I can see this guy being anywhere between 300 and 500,000 coins to complete because EA just know the situation with this card. He's also going to be five-star, five-star and sometimes they do place a higher price tag on some of those players that are five-five, but that's just an insane card, right? And of course, this SBC and the league of this dropping yesterday already moved cards on the market. I want to take a look at some player prices because as you might expect, people are already preparing and getting ready for this SBC. First of all, you have the links to this card going up in price. Vinny Jr. yesterday in a short hour time span after the league was tweeted, went from 1.07 all the way up to 1.25 million coins. He's now back down to 1.16 and he was even a little bit lower than that before, but slightly bouncing back up. Same thing happened with Militow. Militow went up 100K from 230K all the way to 330. I was telling people, we were live streaming when this happened. I was like, guys, get out, sell the card because these cards, think about it, they have been in packs for the past two weeks and these cards are probably going to be in packs again. This Friday, I think some of the team in the season cards are going to maintain their stay in packs during batch number three, even though we'll have a lot of shapeshifters in packs. So I think these guys could still get some more supply. So if you sold, bought anywhere before this and sold here, GGs. Now I did buy a couple of Militow's at like 255 because I thought, okay, people bought them up. They sold them back down. He went down to like 250. Now he's kind of slightly rising back up again because this leak still is a very serious SBC that could be coming. So that was kind of what happened on the market in terms of links to Mendy. Now, of course, cards that would be replaced by Ferland Mendy, right? You have two sides of the coin here. Cards that link to him and cards that would be replaced by him. Taylor Hernandez left back team in the season, arguably the best French left back in the game right now. He went from 330,000 coins, nose dived to 240, rebounded back all the way to 320 where he is right now. So we almost rebounded back 100% in price. If you have this card, I would sell it. I would get this one out. He's rebounded back from his initial Panic sell to crazy, right? Like a card like Ferland Mendy causes this type of Panic sell and it's actually a great opportunity to sell that card and also Marcelo's captain's card. Marcelo is still down a lot. He didn't rebound back as much as Theo did. Theo probably has helped out by the fact that there's a lot of cereal. I love right now, but Marcelo's 400,000 coins went to 240, bounced all the way back to 300 and now he is 280K. I think that Marcelo and Taylor Hernandez both are going to fall further. The only reason that they would not fall further is if this Ferland Mendy is like five, six, 700,000 coins, very, very expensive and he's not five star, five star. Basically think about the Ronaldinho situation. If everybody looks at that and says, I don't want to do this SBC, then maybe Marcelo and Taylor Hernandez could go back up a little bit, but I don't see that happening with a footies card, these SBCs have been very good value. A five star, five star, Ferland Mendy would just be absolutely incredible. So I think that those cards have more potential to continue to go down, but that leak in itself, just this card right here is crazy. Now the other question we have to ask is when in the world is this going to drop? And some people are thinking Nate, could this be on Thursday? Could this be on Friday? My gut feeling is it's going to be on Friday, but really we have no idea. And if you remember last week, I think we had Jibril So and Farron Torres on back to back days, like Wednesday and Thursday, we had Le Quai yesterday, I really don't know when this Ferland Mendy is going to be dropped. Again, it's just, the SBCs have been dropping pretty randomly, apart from like the voting SBCs, we know we get those on Fridays and we get those on Sundays. That's why I'm really curious about this Ferland Mendy because it's a standalone. Like I said, it's the only premium footies SBC that we have seen a leak for that is standalone SBC. So like Ferland Mendy's gold card is still 9K, like what? I don't know when this SBC is going to be dropped. I would say the least likely chance would be today on Wednesday. I think Thursday, very high probability. I think Friday has a high probability as well. So we will just have to wait and see what happens, but that is a huge, huge SBC leak. As of course you would expect, and it's going to continue to move more cards on the market when it does drop. That's just going to be a card that like everybody wants to get in their team. So we'll be looking out for some more information on that. But like I said, EA is going full rat mode. We got the Laquois SBC yesterday, which you know, his card doesn't look that amazing, but it's Laquois. I'm still going to do it because he's probably insanely overpowered in game as he has been all year long. I would have liked a little bit bigger of a boost, but still a decent card, only 140K to do, not terrible crafting it with some fodder, right? And of course we have this 98 Benyeter that is coming out during swaps too. So it's like EA has flipped the switch and they're putting out like all the ratty players. Watch out for like it or not those Sanchez. I don't even know who else could be dropping, but you know, it just seems like we're getting those types of ratty players at the moment. Now let's talk a little bit more about today on Wednesday because it's going to be another pretty big content day. Yesterday on Tuesday was okay. We had Laquois, we had the re-up, we had a brand new 94 plus shapeshifter player pick, not a bad day of content. Not super insane though either. Now today on a Wednesday will be a pretty big day though because the 85 times 10 is re-upping. That's going to be an SBC that everybody's going to want to do. The 86 plus re-ups as well and so does the 90 times seven. So a big day and now those categories per usual and normally, right? Nothing super surprising there. Now also today is going to be our votes and that's where it gets interesting because we do not have any leaks about a dynamic duo at the time that I'm recording this video. If we have a leak of a dynamic duo set of players that is French or if the footies voting is French today, it's based around all French players, that would make me think that this next week of FIFA is going to be based around French. I think, or France, right? I think it's a little bit too early to just assume that based off of the Mendee and based off of La Croix that it's going to be a France-based week, but I think that's the front runner 100%. And I feel like that could be the case but I don't want to try to guarantee anything until we see either of those two things that I just mentioned today because that would be kind of like the kicker. That would be a sign of all right, EA Sports. We kind of know what's coming based off of this vote and based off of this leak, what this next week would look like. And if that's the case, like we saw last week on Wednesday, it was a great time to go out and buy Serie A cards last week on Wednesday because some of their prices started to rise back up. So even if you think about some players right now that are maybe some of the most elite French special cards in the game, I think about maybe some team of the seasons, even like a team of the season, Ben Yetter, that would be a card that I would want to keep an eye on. It's a little bit tricky this week because we're going to have the shapeshifters back in packs. So any of your French cards that are shapeshifters like Kalulu or I think of the Mouquiele, that's really a lower tier card that is a French shapeshifter. But looking through some of the special French items on the market, all I would say is just try to make sure you're finding some cards that are really, really rare. Like is Ribery or Ginola going to go up that much? Probably not a ton because nobody can afford him. Conte, same thing. All the France cards are really, really expensive. Claude Maurice, 84,000 coins. I mean, he's a left-back, so he might get hurt by the value of, he might get hurt by the release of a Furlan Mendy. Now, his price is actually up at the moment. I think he just gets really rare in spikes, but that's a card that I would be very careful with buying. I might look into some of your team of the seasons, even though they still could be in packs, there's a lot of team of the season cards that are French that could do bits, right? Maybe a Chalmeny, 45,000 coins. Like he's basically fodder anyway. Benyeter, 190,000 coins. Dirt cheap. Payet, 40K, really, really cheap. Really good card. You saw the Brazilian goalkeepers did really well. I would keep an eye on like La Fonte and Yoris. Those would be cards if it's gonna be in a French mode this next week. Keep an eye on him. Even a guy like Terrier, like these guys that are so close to that fodder range. Like Chalmeny being 45,000 coins. Like that's crazy, crazy cheap. So not telling you to go and buy these cards. What I'm just trying to say is I'm putting some ideas out there with some French cards that might have potential movements up in price. I think people are already starting to look to buy like Kunde or Fakir. Kunde was 45K, did he jump yesterday with the leak? Yeah, maybe a little bit. He went back down to 43. So stuff that I would say to watch out for would just be your French cards. And hopefully some of your French cards that go out of packs, if they're not in batch three that would help them out later on this weekend. But it would probably be a good time right now to think about putting together your French team. And that's what we talked about last week too, right? If there's gonna be a French based week on FIFA start to maybe put together, wow, I have a lot of French icons. I was playing with a full icon squad in Champs Playoff yesterday. But start to maybe plan out, okay, I've got X, Y, Z French players in my team. What kind of players would I need to fill some gaps? Right, you know, like I've got a goalkeeper. I've got left mid striker. I think I've got a pretty solid French team. Yeah, absolutely, we are sorted when it comes to our French team. But look through your club, look at the players that you have and then kind of decide from there as to what you might need to go pick up while prices are a little bit lower before we get to the weekend on some cards. You know, just kind of think through some of those things. So that's why Wednesday is such a big day today because it'll just give us that knowledge of what is coming next. Now also 85 times 10, all those other SBCs that are refreshing today on Wednesday as well. We have to take a look at SBC fodder, absolutely we do. Because fodder is still, of course, at its inflated state. 84s, 83s, 83s are 4K, 84s are about 6,000 coins. These guys, you know, they did go up a little bit yesterday, but just not as much. I mean, Ami Martinez was like 6.6K, he went up to 7K. All your 84s are 7,000 coins yesterday. Could they go even higher today? I think that's absolutely possible and I would continue to say a guy like Acunha at 6.2K, 6.4. If you're trying to trade with any cards today, I still like the 84s. The only thing I will say about today on Wednesday is with the voting day, they will most likely drop a voting day SBC which will bring a little bit of tradeable supply to the market. Not a lot, but just a little bit. But again, you have so much demand, 85 times 10s. People are always gonna be doing those and people are going to wanna do those today, for sure. So I think your 84s could rise up a bit. I think you're 85, I love 85s, man. They're such a good flip too. Because some of these 85s, they still hit prices of like 11 to 12K. And if you can get them in the low nines, like in Diddy was 9.8K and spiked to 12 to 50 yesterday. Like that's almost a 3K swing. You pick a couple up on bid at like 9.3, 9.4K. You sell at 12. You know, cards like that are the ones, I would still do a bit of a club stock before content today. I think that's a smarter move. I doubt that these cards are gonna go lower after 6pm content today. I'd be very surprised with that. So maybe do a little club stock per usual, put those in the club, set yourself a little bit ahead before we get into today's content time. And once again, if we're still talking market, I have to shout out these shapeshifter cards and their prices. And especially with the objectives this week for, you know, we looked at it in last night's video, guys like Timo Werner, some of your Dutch and some of your Germany players have risen in price just because of the objectives that have required some of those players and it's made their cards prices rise up. But shapeshifters in general, I would really be looking to take the cash, guys. I really would because all of these guys are gonna be back in packs. I think at least 75, if not even 100% of all the shapeshifters will be back in packs come this Friday. And even the hero cards included in that. Yes, Ginola, Gomez, Morientes, Junberg, they're gonna need to lower some price ranges because I think like, okay, Rickens price is 16,000 coins. But I know some of these shapeshifter cards are at the bottom of their range. And just like some of the other earlier specials, they need to get downgraded ranges. So, you know, I would just say in general, be careful with any shapeshifter cards that you own, especially the really, really rare ones. A guy like Kyle Walker, I know that 1.7 mil, you know, he is worth a lot. He's already started to go down, right? I mean, we started talking about this stuff even on the weekend and you've already started to see prices drop down a bit. You especially think about, wow, Kyle Walker was 1.6 mil and now he's at 1.77. But especially if you think about so many people going to a French team, this next week of FIFA, if it is French-based and they drop a lot of really, really good cards, that's not only gonna impact people playing and, you know, doing squads for a cup, right? A lot of the French cards, they make it into people's main teams. And, you know, people would sell a Kyle Walker like this potentially to go out and get, you know, players like Amendi and find other French players that they could use to link him and their team. And some of these cards, especially getting back in packs with the people changing their teams around to build around French players. And at the same time, the shapeshifters in packs, I just really think that some of these shapeshifters have a pretty, they have a long way to fall. You know, I got like Ronaldo still being like 12 million coins. You know, a lot of his price drop is just gonna be purely panic selling. I think that he can drop under 10 mil. It might not be until Thursday because I don't know if we're gonna get a loading screen today on Wednesday. That's more probably a Thursday type thing, but that's something you have to watch out for as well is when we do get a loading screen like that, you're gonna start to see some panic and you're gonna start to see some people list. And it just kind of comes down to, are people gonna start listing earlier than that? You've seen the price drop offs, like we mentioned, right? Even with the Mendi League, this Marcelo card is still kind of inching down at price 335, 33 flat for Marcelo right now. But I think a lot of these top tier shapeshifters are just overpriced and you're gonna see their prices fall today, tomorrow, and into the end of the week because they are probably coming back into packs as a part of batch three. So it's just crazy times right now because there's so much anticipation for Friday. Batch three in packs, shapeshifters in packs. We now have this Mendi SBC that we're all kind of like anticipating and waiting for. The hype is building for Friday. It's gonna be a really, really, really big Friday. Swab tokens.  Is that the name of the SBC that we had yesterday? I think that was the one. No, no, it was performance is key. This is our brand new SBC that was dropped yesterday. And according to Footbin, it's only 4,000 coins to do. So thank you, Esports, for finally making a token SBC really cheap instead of it being 20K like it was earlier on. But today's a big Wednesday. We're gonna be live streaming at all, twitch.tv slash the foot account, link down below in the description. I'm excited to see if they drop Ferlan Mendi early. I wouldn't mind that because I wouldn't mind having something to kind of craft for. Do 82 plus player picks, 85 times 10, and turn in some of those kind of craft that SBC before we get to Friday. I wouldn't mind that. But also, on the other hand, a Ferlan Mendi feels like it should be dropped on a Friday. It's just that big of a card. It feels like that's when it should be dropped. So let me know in the comments what you guys think, when that SBC is gonna be dropped and what your thoughts are for these next coming days of FIFA Ultimate Team inside of Footies. But if you enjoyed the video, again, hit the thumbs up on it and subscribe if you are new. It has been Nathan Foot Account, and I will catch you guys later. Peace out.


Bingo, we're back. 10 o'clock rock on a Friday. Wow exciting show. We have HTA here in force We have George George Cichetti, and he's the chief executive of the white tourism authority and we have Leslie dance who was the marketing director of Hawaii trip. What a treat to have you here guys. Thank you for coming down Thank you very much for having it's an honor privilege to be able to be here with you great So We'll talk more about exactly what you guys do there But the first order of business is talk about the tourism conference. It's coming up in September late September What's on what's on in store for us? Well in September 26 through the 30th. We are we're gonna have our annual white tourism Conference and we really changed it up this year J We went from a what was normally a one day kind of a day and a half of a Conference where it was very a lot who centric and we got up there talked about the numbers were up We're down. We decided through our travels these past 15 months that Hawaii is uniquely positioned to have a global tourism Conference that would have people coming in from North America It would have them coming in from Asia and we could all collaborate work together and see how we could continue to build our business Yeah, that's great. Um, this this requires a new approach though, doesn't it? I mean you recall this transformation of tourism What's the transformation and what do you have to do to make the transformation? Well, well, and I'm gonna have Leslie speak speak on some of the specifics but we decided that we're gonna make it instead of us coming in talking at you we're gonna come talk with you and We're gonna it's really gonna be an opportunity for our local businesses to for the first time really be able to Network with our global partners for the first time. We have 50 people from coming from China. That's that's new That's not not happened before we have over doing it in Mandarin aren't you? Yeah, I've worked weeks on my Mandarin if you just ask me anything But we're honored to have 50 people coming in from China. We have well over 200 from Japan It's really gonna be a global mark a marking program So we'll have over I think we have close to 60 tracks that we have set up for the week that will address everything from from technology to about some of the new Innovation that the team is you know, I really encourage them challenge them to ideate new innovation because the work that it's changing They're it's changing by the minute and you got to be with it. Yes, so good that you are You know the thing about you know about going global like this it requires another approach in marketing Doesn't it the product becomes different the approach becomes different the outreach is different Yes, we want to we want to be able to see show the world that we're leading in tourism that we've got the most innovative ideas and In respect and I think that this is going to continue to grow And we do have the about 60 tracks and then we have sessions within those tracks We talk about culinary tours and we talk about sports marketing We talk about we're gonna launch our new website as well as some virtual reality stuff So and each day is tied to a pillar of our strategic plan. So there's a rhyme and reason to everything we're doing It's different though. I mean it seems to me that from the time I started following this Which was right at that the convention center was built when the middle 90s and it's gone more global in recent years I think one important demarcation was a peck because a peck was big There were governments involved with a lot of people coming from with high expectations and the culture At least the tourism at the convention side seemed to be changing that and then we have we have about others too But we had the world conservation congress last week and this week and also building a culture of attracting people from far away And having them really have a good time having them stimulated in the intellectual process This is a real challenge. It's a lot different than a smaller national or local kind of conference And you have to build a new culture around the way you do that And that's it's really in line with what we're trying to do Jay, I mean if I could just step back leisure has always kind of been our Our key leisure and then number two is romance and they're both, you know Those things that we just continue to talk about and and those are the guys the the baby boomers and all that come back 5 10 15 20 years They've put us here and we we want to protect that but we have to ideate new innovation that's going to be prepared for the future and so You know going after millennials and going after that MCI business like you this recent conference We had it's still going on and tomorrow's the final it just shows that Hawaii can truly stage a world class serious world class Event and at the same time those 10,000 participants that came here for IUC and can enjoy Themselves when they're not at the conference. It's the best of both worlds So the MCI business is very important to us Internationally as the meetings conventions incentives and these meetings like the IUC and like APEC and Many others that we're bringing the convention center are extremely important. It's important to our our lodging partners Um, it's very important to them towards our segment of business as well Yeah, let's talk about tourism in general for a minute. It seems to me these large conferences have A number of effects. It's not just that they bring in people for that conference, but they make a statement about Hawaii Uh, we we become matured in the process would become a uh, I must be talking your language now You know, we have a brand that appeals to more people Because we have these these conferences going on and even if the people coming have nothing to do with the conference Still somehow the existence of the conference that the fact that we can pull it off really well Changes our appeal to other groups. A lot of our speakers are coming earlier staying late too because they want to enjoy the island So what does tourism look like these days george? Well, tourism is changing as I mentioned By by the minute, I mean if you look at the the the visitor industry worldwide has become much more global You see what technology is kind of throwing into it and I would just use a couple examples If you see if you look at what air bnb and home away and uh alternative accommodations have have put in there It's it's based on technology. It's a platform. That's all it is It's it's worth what 80 billion dollars and they don't own hotel room. It's a platform that's based on demand So same thing with uber if you look at uber when it's done the transportation again It's it's technology And it's and they're worth 69 billion. They don't own a car So it's it's but it's based on demand people want these things So our challenge is how do we incorporate those business models technology and everything coming at us With our current model making sure that it's sort of the level the playing field is level making sure that The regulations are in place to make sure that everything, you know The health and safety and welfare of visitors using these is is there So those are those are your challenges and if we don't address those as well as address What are the needs of the millennials? What are they going to come here 15 years in a row? Probably not They like to come here and what they like is we're hearing is they want authenticity They want to come somewhere where off the beaten path.  They go Where are the locals eat? Where are the locals hike? Where are the locals swim? Which brings them out into the community. Yes Because if you look at our pillars of strength and it's it's um It's interesting I tell I tell my team because other people have asked me numerous times final cares from Jeju island or is China they go, george, how do you guys do it? You've had you want five years of record growth How do you guys do it? We're kind of like the benchmark of of tourism. We really are people look at us as How how do they get there? And so we don't divulge all our secrets Well, nobody's watching And I'm sure they won't get it from this show We won't but I would tell you that the the pillars that we really stand are embedded everything we do is the Hawaiian culture It's it's something that we obviously It's important to us. We not only do we recognize but it's important that we perpetuate it It's embedded in everything we do the aloha spirit the Hawaiian culture Um, and then the other thing is our natural resources We we think it's real important that we find the balance between our visitor industry and the respect of our local residents In the in our natural they are a natural resource. They are a natural resource. They are there are ambassadors We can't do this without them and we don't lose sight of that and that's not saying it's not without his challenges um, so that's real important and it's kind of uh It also embedded in our in our strategic plan. In fact, it's number one is protecting our natural resources Our oceans need to be clean our I could protect our coral reefs You know our rainforests on Maui and all the islands are it's important I love with the deal and our we help fund um A cleanup uh along the napoli coast to clean up the molly the napoli coast to get it back to its original You know Because we've got to present an image of hawaii as as being what what people romantically, you know remember it to be Namely clean and beautiful and romantic. Yeah, I applaud the deal and our for what they did out there. It was fantastic So how do you actually get the word out? You know there's first of all there's a lot of things happening here And we can talk about the news if you open the paper any day the news is likely to have an impact on tourism And we should all be aware of that, you know, we're not playing only to ourselves. We're playing to the world We're playing to our most important industry But how do you convey that message when you go out? What's the way you reach the world? Well, we have a great global marketing team based in every market that we are attracting visitors from So there are on the ground eyes and ears and we feed information to them and we look at platforms that can benefit multiple Areas like australia Japan, korea, china, hong kong southeast asia So we have you know really good people in really good places that help us spread the word Yeah, i'm sorry Yeah, and I would if I might add just locally one of our missions and going from an 800 person conference Is to go to a 2500 and hopefully three and then five make it a global conference that Part of the mission putting heads to the bed bringing people here to experience Hawaii is kind of widening our scope of Influence for the first time we're going to have it's always been very traditional Kind of brick and mortar, which is very important It's it's our foundation But as these new technologies come in the market and all of a sudden you have alternative accommodations You have time-sharers you have, you know, the traditional B&Bs that work in people like Foodlands and abc's Involved and have a voice in our industry and now widening the scope of of influence because the visitor industry impacts them It impacts not only the 200,000 that we employ it impacts Thousands hundreds of thousands below them that benefit by the visit the 8.6 million visitors that come here And we'll have it we have a village square which is central In the convention center and there's lots of booths with people like george was speaking about for the conference for the conference itself Yeah, and they and we also have a tech hub Where you can go experience the virtual reality and the new website and then we'll have a social media room Where people can sit and blog and do whatever they'd like to do And we have a stage in the round so it's going to be a real hub of activity For everybody a lot of people working on software, you know to support the tourism industry because we know more about it Than really any other place, you know the hotel operations your operation The numbers involved it begs for software, you know You know, I um, I Something you were looking to a minute ago. It's it's a multiple direction street. Whoops. We have a slide This is the app This is the app and I saw this in the materials prepared for the show and i'm fascinated with the app So while it's on the screen, can you tell us about the app? Well, the app is um designed for people attending the conference as soon as they register they get an opportunity to download the app They'll be able to use it from the audience for audience participation They'll be able to check their schedules where they want you can communicate between each other at the conference itself So it's a really good Collaboration tool. Yeah as well and we we set the standard by doing it. Yeah, I was built that And I and I think the um, you know the thing about the conference you're doing late September It's more than just the professional conference. It's much more than that the leverage is obvious and huge So a travel agent comes from pedaluma california It's not that she's going to learn more about The industry or see the exhibits or rub shoulders and all that she's going to go back to pedaluma california And she's going to pedal hawaii, right exactly huge huge leverage that way Yeah, I mean and when you look at it, uh, and that's really really important that we continue to brand hawaii And and um and again with the hawaii culture the olahasa spirit the welcoming spirit. It's a safe clean welcoming environment hawaii is in demand right now and so Getting that awareness Is extremely important to us and as leslie had alluded to this conference is going to be so different that Every island is going to be able to come over and showcase its own unique experience and activities and farm to table We've not done that before it's been very oahu centric and now Maui, kawaii All have a lot their own. Yeah, they're all in the village square. They're gonna anchor it So that's going to be something completely new. So when we come back from this break I'd like to talk about the effect of the international market the new International marketplace and some of the other, you know a brick and mortar projects In waikiki and outside of waikiki and how they affect Not only tourism, but the secondary effects of tourism like buying condos that kind of thing So when we come back want to talk about, you know, how you flow all this out, you know into the economy Okay, we'll be right back That's uh, george sagetti and leslie danz from hda Aloha, I'm kawi lucas host of hawaii is my mainland every friday here on think tech hawaii I also have a blog of the same day at kawi lucas.com where you can see all of my past shows Join me this friday and every friday at 3 p.m. Aloha Hello, and i'm patrick bratton. Please join me for global connections every thursday at 1 p.m Where we talk with a variety of guests about various international Issues historical issues both here in hawaii and abroad range from security human rights Ethics and all sorts of other things. So please join me. I look forward to talking with you and seeing some of my guests Aloha everyone. I'm maria meran. I'm here to invite you to my bilingual. So viva hawaii on think tech hawaii Every other monday at 3 p.m. We are here to talk about news issues and events local and around the world Join me aloha Okay, we're back. We're live with george sagetti and leslie danz of a hawaii tourism authority talking about tourism talking about this big conference and doing it in september And and i'm trying to keep current on how they're doing and how they see us and how we see them and the world How they they all see us Okay, so you're talking to break about technology and the huge effect it has To show people that we are aware. We are current. We are cooking here Right, and this is a great statement to make you can't afford to do it any other way No, well our virtual reality, which i'm very very excited about is going to be you're going to start like in a google earth view And then you're going to go on a hang glider down in the clouds You're going to hear the wind and there's going to be some music and then you choose the island You want to land on it and then you'll be welcomed by a host from that island and you'll have a different experience on each island So it's really exciting So the other thing we were talking about in the break which i think is worth discussing here in the second part of our show is You know dealing with the community and that means dealing with the legislature It means dealing with the public and and reminding them because people forget, you know, you are the engine of our economy You guys are so important, you know to the future at well in the current You know economy in every way in our state people forget that it's all So much of it is derived from tourism. How do you do that? How do you make sure that the ledger the square building? You know remembers this every day in every session well, um It's extremely important I think part of our mission at the tourism authority is really to continue to Give good information and educate and be be very open transparent very You know open communication and so this year we're inviting all 76 of our legislators to come down And as well as our county council statewide to come down because they're key to it I mean they they we we need them every step of the way and they've been very very supportive But I also want them to see The many stakeholders and and really the challenges that we have that we're being attacked from so many big global I mean from countries coming after our business and none of this happens None of these successes of these past five years happened by accident. It takes really a team Uh, well, we may be the tip of the spear. It's real important that we have our lodging. We have our access We have our transportation all on board talking and collaborating together So i'm asking the legislators to please come down Join us come come come network with uh with these hardworking people and these businesses It's our economic engine and come see what we do and uh and vice versa Or just thank them for all that they do in support and uh support in the tourism authority Getting to the community of that's very very important because as the price of this As the experience rises, which it has Everything has to be shipped in here. And so everything has kind of gone up But as that all goes up, it's important that the experience that we have for these visitors goes up with it So we do support a lot of community events a lot of festivals and a lot of things that will the visitor come here And they'll go wow this hallow festival Because you want that to happen you want that to continue People to know that there's someone out there, you know, including from far away that cares about their cultural activities Yeah, exactly enhance the visitor experience enhance the visitor experience I tell people it'd be one thing if we had an Eiffel tower that they could come to over either Or they had the golden gate bridge or they had, you know, the the Vatican We don't have any of that We have to find other ways to get people here to come here time and time again year after year And that's our secret. That's what we work on. That's our idea the new innovation make people welcome Make sure the experiences are all there make sure the resources are protected and finding that balance and uh, so that's our challenge You referred to challenges, uh, I mean a couple of times and I need to ask you, you know, what are the challenges? What do you worry about? I mentioned that everything in the newspaper somehow impacts tourism It impacts you, you know in your effort to make tourism better and better Um, what are the things that bother you? I mean there are things out there that are troublesome to the local population Are they troublesome to you too? Yeah, they really are. I'm from the private sector. I'm a businessman I'm not I'm not from the hotel side or political side. So the things that were me are just making sure we don't get complacent You know, I've always had the philosophy that when times are at its best Even when our brand private sector business is when you need to challenge your team to manage at its best Because when it goes down is too late. Now you're just putting on fire. So the just complacency making sure people aren't comfortable You know people come no matter what because that's not really the case There are other things there's world events going on that are out of our control And if you look at what's going on in europe it's far away far away that we can't do anything about it But will that will that resonate with visitors that are thinking about traveling me putting their hands in her pocket And maybe this year we're not going to go out this year those kind of things we can't control But for us not to at least look at them and say we need to you know, you've you've got world events You've got economic events. You've got I mean even mosquito change weather events Exactly mosquito-borne diseases. I'm I applaud the governor and the department of health what they're doing on fight the bite I think it's very important that we educate and we message to our local Our residents that there's things that we can do to control that And uh, but they know it's a game changer is things like zika. So we're always watching that and we again applaud the governor And department of health. We've been very active and in fact, we're flying out to Maui on Monday to address 200 people and that's one of our things is to talk about what we can do to To address fight the bite and be a part of it things like that we look at I don't lose sleep over it because I think my team is really Um, we're always thinking ahead. We want to be ahead of this thing. So to do that I mean, it's just you know because tourism and for that matter the brand of tourism is is is delicate fragile It's fragile in some ways Yeah, it could change overnight and who knows why and as you say it can't control some things So we have to be watching it all the time Absolutely j and that's one reason we're kind of trying to expand our voice when when I go see someone Like a paul casasa a bc's or jennai wall of food lines who have been Are going to be coming to our conference for the first time as well as other retailers Ask them, where would you be without the 8.6 million visitors coming here in the 15.2 billion? They spend in our economy Where would we be as a business if we had to rely on only the 1.3 residents and all of us are All of us benefit by this this visitor industry So what will the international market do international marketplace have as an effect, you know I mean my generation we used to go to wakiakina. It was like our backyard. It was like our neighbor But you know when big hotels and the prices change and the traffic congestion to get in there and all that harder Movie theaters went away and now it's not so often except for like, you know, like weddings And and you know adversaries and neat meals and good restaurants on but How can you bring the community into waki-ki? Is the international marketplace something that will do that other other projects like that? I um, you know, I kind of we sat on the sidelines and watched the the back and forth on that and we got both sides Keep it the way it was and then other ones. In fact, I talked I spoke to someone the other day That was very opposed to it and then when they went into it this opening They said, you know what they changed my mind. This really is nice in that We have to continue a look to to revitalize our product to keep up with the times and as much as you want to keep You know, I I just did an address to helo and I told helo. I said keep helo helo You know, that's a very good point, you know, keep helo helo because we need that authenticity We need that hawaii. It never does. But in waki-ki. That's a that's a different Visitor that wants to come in they want they want that that that's shopping experience and that you know, then So I I think what we see with the ritz-carlton coming going up I think is kind of revitalizing that coheo in that side, which needs it in and And then even the four seasons out at who will I I think that's going to be a plus because when we were in china The one thing I did here is that oh, we we we don't know enough about you But we understand you don't have any five star hotels and I I said no we do we have we have we have it all We have the whole gamut from people from popular price to to mid-range to You can go You know lanai for four seasons to hula life four seasons or any of our top five five star hotels So let's talk about the future for a minute Where's it going? You know throw everything in the pot all the vectors and factors and influences and possibilities Where is tourism? Where is hda going in the next five or ten years? What do you see continued growth? continued infrastructure Problems that will level it problems that will put it at risk. How do you feel it's going to go? You really want an answer for that one? You're good jay Yeah, you're really good I wouldn't be sitting if I didn't think this team could do a really good job And that was part of my thing coming in sessing part of my challenge coming in sessing all the internal process and looking at the long term Short-term and long-term and and so these 15 months. We've been doing that putting together a really good team. That's that's really Innovation is top of mind for them making a difference top of mind with them We're trying to find that balance. We don't think people always ask me What's the capacity number and that's something that we don't really talk about Could I open the could we open the floodgates to China and have 10 million visitors coming here? Would that be compatible with our natural resources? Probably not So we try to really find the balance. We look at spend we look at We look at like I said the mci business that will bring meetings and conventions because they spend So it's really important that we find that balance. I even talked to Lodging teams and I say and I'll talk to them and say george. We don't have to have a record year We just need to know we're going to be kind of where we are because I think they're real happy with with the Past I mean 2016 was not supposed to be a really good year for us and 2016 is paying out to be a pretty good year And 17 look at knock on wood. You know, I'm going to always accentuate the positives, right? That's my Personality is to always kind of look at the the the glass half full and I think The long-term thing is we've just got to make sure that we keep in mind keep that balance And make sure that we always have that that we have our residents as partners We have access to I mean, it's really important that all the all the Trade partners are in this thing together. We're all paddling the canoe together And we also have to look at make encourage travel the neighbor islands Yes, I was going to ask you about the neighbor islands is so different now than owahu They look at different community all together. He said you got to keep helo helo Yes, it's so important because it offers a refreshing difference and cultural depth So we need to do that and I think it's a great marketing piece to say don't stop in owahu There's so much more to see what people do stop in owahu Kind of get them out to the neighbor islands So neighbor island access is one of the things that we continue to talk about and it's challenging right now But a neighbor island access is everywhere we travel between china, japan and where we go They go, how do we get to the neighbor islands because each island will have its own unique experience all the way from the lava Flowing into the ocean to the big island to the Jurassic park coastline of the polycos to the rainforest of mali. They all have unique An exciting and memory making experiences that we know that people will come back one year for wahu Maybe one year for mali maybe one year for koai. So there's that's kind of in our plan We need to reinforce that and encourage that Do you market each neighbor island separately trying to give each one a persona? Yes, we do each one has a different personality And we and we talk about that in all of our marketing materials And how we message things that we bring out that unique personality of each island So they all have their own, you know points. Yes, so you know favor one over the other, of course They're all our children trying to sell separate personalities They're all our children. They're all part of one big family I was going to say, you know HDA is much more than trade association or government agency You know because they you are the center of our economy and that's the way it is That's the total reality nobody can argue that And and you affect so many other aspects of our lives and our economy and so it puts a burden on you for sure You have a kind of fiduciary burden because you are the center But then the other thing and this is the more important thing is that you are us We are you we are together in this as you go when I say as general modus goes so you know as you go So we go And that's the message really that this conference That's why we're trying to get 2,500 people there maybe 3,000 because it is Our success is their success their success is ours. It's a team effort You know, it takes a team to live the dream, right? And I just want to get more stakeholders and more voice networking and You know working together and meeting one another. That's where this conference is about This isn't about us sitting up there for a day and a half saying, you know Korea's up percent this percent, you know, that's not what you can go on our website and get that We want this to be much more interactive George. Take take a look at that camera, right? The one in the middle there should ever read on it Okay, and tell tell the young people tell the millennials here in Hawaii why they should consider Join tourism industry becoming part of this what the opportunities offer them Well, I would tell you because the millennials now And everyone recognizes now I'll surpass the baby boomers in population the millennials are everyone's target The million the millennials for us are extremely important because Hawaii I what's what I what I see with the millennials is they want to go to places that look at their resources protect their resources And and they're willing to spend more to to destinations that do respect their their resources and put the appropriate Whatever it takes to make sure that they're protecting it. So I would ask the millennials to come over here and experience Hawaii The unique every island has its own unique experience We'll have the technology that they need to be interested in go on their smartphone They can go see where the locals eat they go see where the locals hike They're gonna see where the locals swim and dive and I think that's what's Attractive to the millennials. They don't want they're they're not tourist. They're not tourist They want to make their own postcards. They want to make they want to write their own agenda and that's what we offer in Hawaii And also the millennials that live here This is our home, right? And so, you know, let's promote our home together And I think that's the tourism industry is a big industry here in Hawaii People should respect it and want to work in there. So, thank you. That's uh, Leslie dance marketing director And also Jordy Sighetti the CEO of Hawaii tourism authority. We are honored to have you. We have a delightful day. Thank you. Thank you guys See you


Man, Davidson is trying to set the tone for Wisconsin. Made a couple of baskets, now it's going to make you respect him a little more. Maybe leave some open area for you to have. I am. And today's shoot-around. Aaron Wiggins on the floor now for Maryland, number two. Here's Fernando. And he gets physical with him as he came. No help though. No help at all. It's too small. Yeah, and I know that sounds crazy. A late addition to this Maryland quartet.  Probably in a lot of ways the future of this program with his great size. Next line drive rejected by Fernando. Obi-King took it in. But another queen swatted it away. I love this weak side help. You got to be aware of that. There's nothing falling for Wisconsin. And that's the problem when Trice is handling the basketball. He's got to find guys. So he's not the team's best shooter. He's not out there to knock down shots. There's Obi-King that came up at that time. Here's Fernando.  It's going to keep Maryland relevant for a long time. Switch right there. The Badgers are on a bit of a rung. He cut it down to 13. Once down by as many as 21. And Bruno Fernando sitting with those three fouls has impacted this Wisconsin spurt. Cowan! Whenever he wants it. Whenever he wants it. They have a chance to cut it to 10 if they knock down a three. And Revers is going to launch. Now to a great start led by 18 at the break tonight. 5-49 a two possession game. Davidson off the pick. Davidson who you know is clutch. And this is what, this is the culmination of it. They're believing in each other. No question. Revers for three. There gets your shoulder. Never shot away from the big shot. One minute left and a one point deficit for the Terps. Remember he's got four. For three. That's been the best shots. If you're Maryland stay on the ground. Now foul a jump shooter. Open for Revers.