Well, hello and welcome to understand men now. I'm Jonathan Astley of Jonathan Astley comm and I'm so excited to be doing this live Stream for you today our topic the six things men secretly want but don't ask for six things guys want But they don't secretly want but they don't ask for Really quickly if you're brand new to my youtube channel, please hit the subscribe button hit the bell So you can be notified of new videos and if any time during this video the content resonates with you Please hit that like button so I could be seen in the youtube algorithms Really quickly my coaching is what I call heart centered radical honesty It's direct a little tough love and a lot of heart and occasionally use Explosives to enhance the sentence so if an fbomb or two isn't your cup of tea I suggest logging off right now Lastly, these are my thoughts my perceptions my opinions by no means do I suggest this is the truth You have to decide the truth for yourself. I'm a bit of a contrarian So my advice goes contrary to public opinion All right, let's jump into those six things guys secretly want but they don't ask for Well, I want to be candid with you. I actually did this title a slightly different title of this Last year and I thought I'd revisit it from a different perspective But before I do I want to read something to you which I think is very critical for understanding this um so I want to I want to I'm going to take a different take and what I said is but before I do I want to say this The dating process today is a mess I mean, it's truly a shit show From ghosting to micro ghosting to pulling away and saying i'm not ready for a relationship after you did a Someone coming on strong having sex and then disappearing um, this is really a mess out there And I believe that men and women are not truly prepared for the dysfunctionality that exists today due to technology Humans these days are disconnected lonely and worse worst of all divided and the hardest part is the repetitive dating can trigger or reveal All kinds of unhealthy behavior in human beings I actually want to read that sentence one more time the hardest part of all is that repetitive dating can trigger And reveal all kinds of unhealthy behavior in human beings these days so I've been thinking a lot about this. I've been thinking a lot about this. I've just got to send a message here um I've been thinking a lot about this dysfunctionality and and partially and I've talked about this in many videos is that These days we're meeting total strangers. This is not something new to my audience. I talk about this frequently And it's scary to meet a stranger. What did your parents tell you about strangers stranger danger beware of strangers? Don't talk to strangers. So we already have an inherent built-in bias towards people that we don't know now we typically in the dating realm the minute there's this You know attraction that you might see someone's picture and you go. Oh my god. I'm really attracted to him All of a sudden many people become blind. They become truly blind To this process and not to suggest that you have to approach the process with defensive, you know to be defensive I'm not remotely suggesting that at the same time When we don't know anything about the person. We don't know their family.   I'm talking about pathological liars genuine truly narcissistic abusive behavior Maybe the occasional sociopath one out of 10,000. I don't know. I'm just speculating here I'm just saying it's no wonder and and coming back to what I said earlier We at least at least here in the united states There's a significant percentage of people who are lonely that want connection with another human being They want some companionship.  They're disconnected from themselves And worse here. We're a divided country. I mean it is a it is becoming progressively worse I watched the news today and within 15 minutes. I was feeling depressed I mean, I literally my whole body began to shut down just listening to the divisiveness That's happening today and I'm like asking myself. Where is the love? Where is the love of humanity these days? And I know it exists. I mean, I know it exists I'm so happy because in the last 10 days, I've read I've gotten four text messages from clients who have worked with me in the past nine months who are all one is engaged Here, I'll just show her picture real quick her and her guy. They're engaged. I'll do that quickly Um, they're getting married next year. I got invited to the wedding another one is so happy another one I it was so funny this other one texted me this morning telling me about her new boyfriend. They've been going out for 12 weeks now and she held off telling me And I'm so happy to hear this and I'm like sending me the pictures. I want to see I'm so happy So I know people are falling in love And yet the same time I'm a huge believer of doing it from a place of intentionality It's one of the things I I teach in my private coaching is that that recognition, you know, not to go in blindly Go in with a sense of of being inquisitive being Digging deeper than the surface Now, I know many of you know, I've been talking lately about a book written by the guy from e-harmony The book is called two dates two dates written by the guy who started e-harmony. I am not recommending e-harmony I know many of you will complain about e-harmony. I understand that However, it's important. Let me tell you why I'm reading this book It's important to understand that the more two people are compatible The greater success rate they have and what the book talks about is the 25 25 or is it the other way around 25? I don't know how that looks on camera Qualities that the more you're aligned in these areas the greater chance for success the whole premise of their website was you had to fill out 300 questions that gave a sense of your personality and the idea was to take compatibility and ignite it with chemistry And I like that premise because today most people are dating from a place of well if we have chemistry everything Will just magically work out because all you have to do is sit your feminine energy and men will claim you Well, these men you're talking about are really the rare types of guys and the reality is as I said earlier We've got a very dysfunctional population I mean a hugely dysfunctional population of people who want companionship connection and sex And by the way, they're not capable of being a relationship and by the way as a single man out there I am witnessing this from women as well I haven't told you all this But in the last 60 days, I've been ghosted three times I mean absolutely ghosted Now it's micro ghosting. So it doesn't really count, you know, it wasn't relationships Although one person we went out a couple times, but I mean just absolutely disappeared without any courtesy You know, if I'm going to say to someone I'm not interested I I'm man up. I'm man up In fact, I I did a video this morning for my shorts.  Oh my god.  They're not in mid-life They're not they haven't been through like what I've gone through alimony child support visitation rights family court You know erectile dysfunction elderly parents and assisted living and worse now losing a child Many of you know, I lost a child. There's a picture of Connor right there. That's my favorite picture. I'm free That by the way song from the who I feel like he's free from the burden of all the crap we're dealing with today And I know he's speaking to me. I know the other day. He gave me a sign on on someone who was dysfunctional And so thank you Connor Um, and and let me just say this You know, it's it's not look it I'm not trying to be an alarmist. Okay, because people are again, I got four clients in the last two weeks By the way, if you want some help in coaching check out the link to a free discovery call to see if working with your coach is right for you By the way, if the content resonates with you so far hit that like button But what I want to say is not to be an alarmist, but at the same time I think it's really important not to be naive to this process And so I made some more notes here So one of the things I really want to encourage now is I'd like to I think if you want to be in a relationship, you have to stop dating Stop dating and what I mean to say is stop dating from the perspective of gender Expectations and start getting to know another human being From both a you know from a romantic When I say romantic perspective from an attraction based perspective and at the same time building the friendship piece as well And I don't I believe that the best way to do that is through radical honesty to be vulnerable to be authentic and transparent Now that doesn't mean to vomit your feelings. That doesn't mean to give away secrets I'm saying be honest about where you're at in your life That these days most people are going I I really believe the last five years in particular swipe dating Has bastardized the getting to know you process has absolutely bastardized It was a you know, there was a big difference when you used your laptop By the way, let me reframe that Anytime any of these apps got on your phone.  I did a boost on my match profile and I got 50 not 50 35 messages in one evening And I was looking through it I was like I was overwhelmed and and quite frankly there wasn't anyone for a fit for me At least I didn't feel a connection to their profiles or the ones I did feel a connection They were mismatched. They lived thousands of miles away or their lifestyles were so different And so I'm here to encourage An understanding and I'll get to the six things that men secretly want. I promise I'll get to that in a second But again, I'm going to show my relationship iceberg chart. I show this I mentioned this in almost every video But I'm pointing this out because we today are hyper focused on chemistry the tip of the iceberg That's where attraction is but compatibility is about shared values blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity And so these days when I'm talking to someone on the phone, I've got my checklist, you know Because if you're listen, for example, I can't stand people who have extreme political views I'm I'm I'm in the middle. I'm I'm in the middle. I can't by the way.   Magic love does not solve problems compatibility.  I can't stand when I hear this and by the way I think I can't stand it because I've been guilty of it too back 15 years ago. I pulled the you know, I'm not ready for a relationship card That I mean guys listen, it's time to call people out And that's why I said in my video earlier when a guy pulls away You know after he's invested in you Fucking call these people out Now you can do it in a loving way I mean, it's actually possible to do it in a sincere way, but I'm here to suggest calling people out So um another client just texted me a photo of her guy I don't have permission to share it, but she literally just texted to me right now Uh, I'll just do it like this whoosh. She just texted a picture of her and her guy. I'm so excited I'm so excited from that line from uh cat and the half. Um, anyway, so I'm going off tangent And lastly I want to share a quick story I heard from another Coach that there's coaches out there recommending the following to women. This is this infuriates me. They're telling women that if I'm if a man's plan to date with you Is to ghost the guy To create conflict to ghost the guy That makes him want to chase you. I mean, can you believe that?  That's advice being told and there's another coach out there I've heard this on on a podcast that said, you know when when you swipe on a guy, there's a on bumble There's a feature where it's 24 hours You let it expire and see if the guy presses the extend button There's an extension button on the the profile here like you can like I'll just show it real quickly you can extend the person Like what fucked this is game playing and you wonder why the process is so fucked up There's a lot of coaches giving really toxic advice out there And so What i'm about to share Is not what men secretly want It's what grown-ups secretly want Men and women of life grown up grown up human beings So let me talk about even though the title is six things guys secretly want but don't ask for This is what six things grown-up secretly asked for but don't But don't want but don't ask. So there's my notes. Bum bum bum Let's talk about it right here number one transparency transparency If it's material to the relationship, then you better speak up sooner rather than later So material things if you have an std Speak up sooner rather later if you've got contention going on at work speak up sooner if you have Financial problems speak up sooner rather than later because this narrative that you'll hook the person and then dump your problems People don't want that if you're not capable of being a relationship or you have something that may cause you Maybe you might have some problems with your children and that's okay But speak up about it be transparent grown-up human beings want transparency number two A commitment to the process a commitment to the process By the way the cup says let that shit go what I mean is Listen, I'm not a big proponent of date or getting to know More than one person at a time. I make a commitment to the process not the commitment to the person I am here to recommend write this down A commitment to the process Give your undivided attention To one human being at a time because this whole circular dating and duty dating is one other reason why it's a cluster Fuck out there and there is advice out there that tells women to date three men at a time Do you know how fucked up?   Listen you might pull if two people got into an argument You might pull away. You might need time to take space. I'm not against that I'm talking about and if you had listen When my son passed away the day he passed away I had a date that night. I had the first date plan that night I could have skipped it And she would have totally understood right, but you know what? I had the balls enough to send a text message saying I had a family tragedy and I have to cancel tonight And then a few days later and she said take care of whatever you need a few days later I shared and she was she was so apologetic. I mean not not apologetic.  I'm talking about garden variety Disfunctionality you guys know my mature my emotional maturity chart. Okay, you see it there It's not a fact. It's an opinion But we're dealing with a lot of dysfunctionality again four clients told me they fell in love. I'm so excited I'm so excited Number did I say number four respect number five acceptance? Look at We're in a world. We're in a world of hurt here in the united states.  I wonder if I saved it. Hold on a second um I wonder if I saved it. She was just literally saying I uh Oh darn it. I can't I got so many I got so many messages now. Oh, wait a minute. Here it is No, that's not it either. I know I saved it, but she was telling me how She purchased the book and he oh no, it was a guy that just wrote me um No, it was a man who wrote me. He said he purchased the book um Where is it? I swear He said he purchased the book for the woman.  This wasn't a woman. I know I saved this email I'm so sorry Oh, here it is um Oh, he says i'm a 67 year old man. I've been following jonathan for a long time I met a 65 year old woman two weeks Several weeks ago online during our video chat. I mentioned radical honesty her she lived up like a firework She said really that's fantastic. Let's do it We've been almost inseparable and can probably add three more date ideas to the book eight dates I've never experienced so open and honest of relationship. We learned stuff about each other Um, that might never have been discussed in a million years It's all started by just being brave and happening having an open heart. Can I get an amen? But ladies isn't that cool that a guy has been listening to my channel and saying I'm going to do what jonathan said. I'm going to initiate the con I'm going to buy the book for her and we're going to do this together Folks, I'm here to offer listen.  I'm not it's all the game playing It's why it's such a mess out there.  It's funny I was speaking to a woman who's 45 years old and she dates men 15 years older thinking they are more mature and i'm like The older a person gets who is unhealed the more dysfunctional they become Boys are immature.  You're no picnic either I got ghosted three times in the last 60 days micro ghosting mind you It just it blows me away and you're you're no picnic to be with either trust me I do understand why there are female coaches out there trying to Make you grow up as well I don't like the word make but encouraging So you know what's going to make everyone you know what's going to help the most I'm going to end on this note and then we'll take questions If you haven't read this book the Hoffman process The Hoffman process it's a deep dive into healing your childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas And if you happen to be in los angeles in the next few weeks I'm going to show you one other thing. Hold on. Hold on insight seminars insight seminars Three seminars back insight in los angeles starts next thursday Insight here the website is please. Please. Please check it out. It's called insight seminars dot or insight S-e-m-i-n-r-s dot or I think you can do it online.  You will Imagine being wrapped in a blanket of self love Just like my book What the heck of self love anyway link below by the way Plug for my book a journey of personal development self-help and spiritual work. All right Run by that quick six things really quickly Transparency a commitment to the process a genuine kindness respect acceptance and trust Can I get an amen? All right time to take questions and if you know my format it goes like this Uh, write the word question and post the question thereafter if you're on the video chat live Or you can purchase a super sticker super chat. There's a little dollar sign Down there below all the monies from the super sticker super chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor asley who passed away There's a picture of him right there.  Let's get started All right, if you have a question post the word question, then write the question thereafter Um, oh my god, there are a lot of comments today. I'm hoping this content resonated with you today Uh, let's go swim in. Okay. I don't see any questions yet post the word question purchase a super sticker super chat, please Oh, here we go Jenny writes Question what do you want for dinner and what will wait? What do you want for dinner and what will you have? Having for dinner. Are you asking me that question? Uh, I'm having a steak as soon as I wrap up today. Also, I'm actually hosting a webinar for my private group called midlife love mastery There's a link below Called my VIP group. I'm hosting a webinar. I think it's called the five things that emotionally attract men blah blah blah blah But um, I'm gonna make a steak for dinner after before after that. I can't decide All right, uh, let's see what rita says question I love technology, but I'm old-fashioned.  Okay um And by the way, one of the most old-fashioned things a woman could do is drop the hankie in other words initiating contact with men That's why the site bumble was created because it literally is an old-fashioned the bumble dating app is basically all about um The bumble app is all about you dropping the hankie But I'd be careful with old-fashioned dating because here's the problem When you're meeting a stranger and I started to say this earlier But I really do believe we have to stop dating and start Changing the process by saying let's invest time getting to know one another without the pressure of dating That way listen. I'm offering this as a suggestion not as a As an absolute But I do believe that if we slow the process down Look at steve harvey wrote a book act like a lady think like a man while i'm not endorsing the book I'm not so certain waiting 90 days to have sex. Ain't a bad idea anymore because ladies the wrong guys will disappear really quickly You know, but here's the problem Distance dating is the really bigger problem here today Proximity is the bigger problem the closer two people live the easier it is to get to know one another the further apart The harder it is to get to know one another and that's one of the real challenges today so You know as far as being old-fashioned Look at you can do whatever you want But it's a dysfunctional world out there So try something different because the old way doesn't work and that whole movie pride and prejudice were the Emotion available man is going to claim kira nightly. They knew each other for about a nanosecond and he was in love with her Really? What world are we living in that doesn't exist? It never did and it doesn't today All right, so that's my two cents on that. Thank you for your question I want to thank lizzander for the ten dollar super sticker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much All right, let's come back here to bump bump Let's see. Michelle m. Cooper Question I met a guy who's still married, but their relationship is over. He wants to start dating But I don't want to be a rebound relationship. What I should I wait? I know you said what I write. Um, you are guaranteed to be one of many transition relationships to him That is almost a virtual guarantee unless he's codependent then he'll latch himself onto you really quickly Do not date people who are not divorced And I'm speaking from personal experience and let me tell you the story This was right after I got divorced Or excuse me We filed for divorce and I met a woman online five months in and she asked me how long have you been divorced? I said I'm separated five months and she wrote me and said reach out to me in 18 20 18 to 24 months After you've had one or two transition relationships and I wrote her back. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready Sure enough four months later. I need a woman great woman fantastic woman By the way, she got we only dated for three months and after we broke up she met a great guy and got married I am good luck. I'm good luck. Jonathan. If you want to get married, you should date me first I swear to god. I think I've got like 10 ex-women I've dated who are all married now. So I must be good luck chuck Anyway, did this woman for three months fantastic woman and I pulled the I'm not ready for a relationship card I was a train wreck And most people are and by the way Divorce is emotionally traumatic.  So Um And I had two transition relationships before I actually met my most significant relationship Five years after we filed for divorce and while that relationship didn't work out. We had six fantastic years together Um, it wasn't meant to be and that's okay It's okay. It wasn't meant to be we are family to one another She was so there for me when my son passed away and certainly when my mother passed away Six months before that she was at the hospital. She was at the funeral She paid for a bunch of things to help us along Um, thankfully she's rich but um You know, thankfully I have good relationships with several of the women I've dated in my life because you know what I tried to end Well, we both ended our relationships with conscious uncoupling and real love and by the way folks Not every relationship is meant to go the distance Most relationships are learning lessons I wasn't ready even though I loved this person I was still going through the tunnel of dysfunctionality when we were together And it took another four years for me now I'm literally finally in a place where I think I could fully commit to someone And I do a shitload of personal development work on myself So I'm here to say By the way, I saw a meme that said, you know, um, it used to be in 1996 You had me at hello and in 2022 you had me at I do therapy I that's one of the first questions I ask women. Have you done therapy? Are you currently doing personal development self-help and spiritual work to heal childhood wounds and traumas or adult traumas? That might affect your ability to be in relationship It only scares the wrong person away ladies By the way, this fear you have of scaring a guy away Look at if you are needy if you're dysfunctional you're always going to scare a guy away Okay, but if you are in your sovereignty your self-worth your self-esteem Your self-confidence Chapter one in my book speak your truth do it with kindness in chapter nine if it's sincere and from the heart You can't say the wrong thing to the right person Ha I went off on a tangent like I always do. Thank you so much for your question. Oh, that's not a question there Um, so I hope I answered your question. I'm cooper All right. I did see a super sticker go from heather. Uh, I want to thank. Oh, it's a question No question or request. Would you mind saying hello to my son Isaac? I'll be he'll freak out Loving the bear hugs. Hey Isaac Hello big hugs I love the super stickers. Thank you so much All right, let's see what else we have Oh, I'm on a roll today Cheryl writes How do you order your books that website? That website it can be I can have some titles of different books Oh, by the way, so Cheryl go to jonathan recommends.com in the link in the description below Click on that find the book and if you don't then just click on the link that'll take you to amazon And you can purchase any book I recommend Through there. So thank you so much And by the way, you can get my book what the heck is self love at self love the book.com self love the book.com self love the book.com self love the book.com All right pastel rights Are the midlife men's reaction to breakups the same as younger men? So that's a great question I think Younger men possibly bounce back faster Because the testosterone within younger men is like Fucking shooting through the roof as we men get older our testosterone levels drop and our estrogen levels increase And I do believe that men as they age become far more sensitive as human beings I and sensitive in the scent look at I didn't share this I'm not gonna I don't want to go in the particulars but I had a very I had a very disturbing event happen with a woman Recently and I'll say in the last few months And and she did something a little bit heinous towards me. It wasn't a breakup. It was just a it was a person that was in the dating process She used my son against me My my son who passed away. I don't want to go into the particulars But that left a scar That left an emotional scar So the older we get I do believe men become more and more sensitive It's harder to bounce back And if you've had one experience that didn't work out another experience that didn't work out another experience didn't work out And I often think ladies Harder the reason why I'm single Is because I think on a spiritual level I'm meant to experience all the fucking shit you experience So I can know what it feels like I certainly the reason why I started my my website It's because I know how dysfunctional I was after my divorce and I wanted to give it women advice because I was there And sadly I do believe lately the universe is throwing a lot of shit my way because it's because I feel like the message is this The message is to slow down the process The message I'm hearing so strongly is to slow down the process To actually invest in building trust with one another And it's like this message is coming loud and clear And I'm not a puritan.  This was years ago. I got I got listen I got alcohol poisoning on a date. It's not an excuse.  This is 10 years ago. Give it no 11. No 11 years ago And interestingly enough It was literally three weeks later that I met someone special that I began a six-year relationship So, you know what?   I'm not suggesting it is.  No There's got to be some consequence to bad behavior Because if we let bad behavior keep going and going going then what's going to happen? Then there's going to be a rippling effect and someone's going to get hurt How many of you got okay by a show of hands saying yes, I've been emotionally I don't mean what you've you have felt emotionally hurt by micro ghosting or ghosting or Someone telling you that they're not ready for a relationship because that hurts me So I'm curious does it hurt to feel that and can that wear on you? Please tell me by letting me know in the comments.  Should we call people out on their shit post a comment below and let me know I'm by the way, if you're watching the replay of this, let me know I'm I'm this is a question not a statement. Well, I am kind of making the statement. So all right Ah Thank you so much for your question I hope I answered it Ingrid says I love your book and I'm reading it again. Yay. Thank you Ingrid Um Cassandra says Do you feel like a man with ed is more comfortable with sexting sites? Behind the partners back even though their partner is okay with it and would And why would they emotionally cheat on me? That's a good question I know a 76 year old man that basically says he can't get a heart on anymore And so he basically has platonic friendships Um, if someone has ed it's hard to get a heart on anyway to go on the sites and I think maybe it's just to fill the void You know, I can't speak because that's not my ever expertise but You know, here's the question I have for you. Why do you care what he's doing? What are you doing Cassandra? Folk folks every time you ask a question about why guys are doing things you're giving your power away to men The real question is why are you? I'm not suggesting you Cassandra, but why are you attracted to these men? Why do you stick it out with these men? Whether I mean he might be a good guy. I have no idea But um, the real question is to look inward. Look in the mirror. That's a mirror Was one. All right, you get the gist of it. There we're mirror. You can see me. See you can see me. It's a mirror All right. Thank you so much Let's go swim, man Oh pump pump pump. Let's Let's go. Oh, wow. We got uh Oh roller girl. Thank you for connor Oh I love it. Thank you for the dollar nine nine. I appreciate it. Oh lexie wrote a question. Where is it? I don't see it lexie I saw someone say oh, here's michael Dude, I just shared with you the audience the message you sent me How does a relationship last six years or five or seven or eight and not work out? I asked because I want to know the pitfalls for long-term relationship. Okay, great question So why didn't my relationship work out? Okay folks when I met the woman I was listen I got wiped out in the market crash of 2008 I used to have a seven figure net worth and I actually had to move in with my mom and dad And roughly it around I moved in well, I had my I had moved in with my mom and dad and a retirement home in 2009 2010 I lost, you know, I literally was living off Minimal savings and I had no job at this point But I started my dating coaching practice around 2009 2010 and I was doing it for peanuts But I started to get a little bit of notoriety around 2010 and And I met a woman January of 2011, but I was living with my mom and dad And and she on our second date. She asked me a question. She's a marriage and family therapist by the way, she had her own television show successful woman and And she figured out on our second date that I lived with my folks And she didn't reject me But the problem was was I was deep in my own insecurities and on some level I wanted to be rescued my shit not hers And beautiful woman. We we we both needed to heal our own wounds I needed to heal my anxious attachment style And she needed to heal her father wounds. And so in a way we were a karmic relationship Um, and thankfully we had a very beautiful conscious uncoupling Um, which by the way in the book conscious uncoupling by Catherine Woodward Thomas our breakup was published in a book Actually made the news that as well Because we had kind of a public relationship But the real reason why we ended our our relationship ended was I was still going through midlife crisis By the way, for the record, she's older than me. If I said how much she would kill me um But um, I think I was looking for a mom to to rescue me And she was looking for her own healing and we had a beautiful conscious uncoupling. So coming back to your question I I needed a I needed it took me another few more years to really get my Listen after we broke up. I lost my mom and I lost Connor. So and my business tanked I didn't feel like working in 2019 So I was in no position to be in a relationship with anyone I could barely afford to go out on dates Um, and then thankfully I started my youtube channel and my business has gone through the roof And I finally feel like I can be that that Not that I'd have to be a provider protector, but I can be the man And and plus I've done it. I did the Hoffman process right after my mother right before my mother passed away I did insight seminars. I've spent the last four years. Let me read you Here I'll read you what I wrote my bumble profile just to give you a Just to give you an example um The past four years I've been on a dramatic journey to become become vulnerable authentic and transparent seeking a woman ready to explore the depths of emotional intimacy You up for deep meaningful conversations in a slight warp sense of humor. I'm your guy fyi I've done a course love a course in miracles and I'm seeking an empty nest so to answer your question michael Not every relationship is meant to go the distance But each one by the way, she's been she's in a happy relationship right now She's been with a guy for four years. David a great guy. We play golf together about once a year We have social events because we have mutual friends. So um, don't worry about if it's going to fail Work on being a conscious partnership. Check out the book Spiritual partnership by gary zuccoff spiritual partnership by gary zuccoff Be intentional and co-creative relationship together because you have a greater chance of success Because we didn't do that. But that's my invitation for you. Can I get an amen michael? Thank you so much All right. Thanks for that question All right you know what folks, uh We got time Listen, we got time for a super sticker super chest. We got lots of questions here I'm going to take heather's last question a class question. I'm going to take us from heather Are you a believer that everything happens for a reason? Or is it that we are meant to look back and figure out reasons ourselves to improve and move forward? Well, let's see what the book what the heck is self love anyways says because I think it says here every chapter eight Everything is happening for you and not to you. Let me read you the chapters from my book. Okay Speak your truth do it with kindness Stop effing complaining.  That's goner be of service to humanity Take responsibility for your choices Everything is happening for you not to you if it's sincere and from the heart You can't say the wrong thing to the right person Your body is a machine not a temple The importance of community and developing your tribe Your thoughts create your feelings Heal your childhood wounds choose love over ego or fear There's no separation between the genders Understand and accept others experiences Make personal growth a daily habit Pay attention to the signs Fall more in love with nature Love being alone Love the space you're in Make friends with the voices in your head. That's a untethered soul one Be good steward of your money Don't love others at the expense of yourself.  It's just a matter of degrees When things go wrong shift to love And and my final thought so this book what the heck is self love anyways what I just shared all the chapters oops And so I thought you might get a kick out of that. You know what folks? I think this would be Uh, oh michael one more time my mantra has been be brave and have an open heart michael hold on one second On my front on my door I shoot this on my kitchen table, but on my door open and receptive to love Easy in other words think of it as easy a relationship leading to partnership being open and receptive to love So we're going to end on a prayer right now I invite in I invite in a relationship where we both have mutual chemistry I invite in a relationship Where our communication on our banter Goes on for hours and hours of the time including amazing sense of humor together I invite in a relationship where you have amazing chemistry with one another I invite in a relationship where our lives are blendable with one another I invite in a relationship where we share the same values and have that level of emotional maturity And I invite in a relationship where we can build the deep roots of trust those deep roots of trust That'll invite us to love each other from a level of partnership and that is my invitation for myself and that is my invitation for you all Can you say that prayer with me and can you give me an amen? All right, folks, I think you get the gist of where I'm going We're going to talk about those six things men and women secretly want but don't ask for they want transparency They want a commitment to the process They want genuine kindness. They want respect They want acceptance and most of all They want trust and i'm so grateful that i've gotten four messages in the last 10 days from clients Who are in those kind of relationships and they know the difference and i'm honored to be a person to help that So check out the link to a free discovery call check out my group called midlife love mastery check out my book Share this video like this video if i'm making a difference in your life Please comment below saying you're making a difference in my life jonathan And i'm going to wrap up this video as I always do first off giving myself a big gigantic jotham bear hug of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to someone a pet a teddy bear or pillow and give iter them a hug of love Because hugs are a great source of love and let's face it. We could all use more love in our lives I want to thank margaret and holly and head there and michael and barbara and terry and lexie and miss ford and lily pad and grace and colleen and kelly and uh miss wildish sherry bub bub bub master oh Folks, I hope you have a fab night today and if this really did make a difference in your life Please send this to your friends email it to your friends because I feel like this was an important one to talk about Especially the first 20 minutes of this one. All right. Thanks a bunch. Have a wonderful evening y'all y'all y'all good night now


Forsyth Technical Community College is pleased to be a national leader in preparing the biotechnology workforce for the future. Biotechnology and life science has been one of those areas that has suffered the least decline as much of our economy has been challenged over the last seven or eight years. In North Carolina, biotechnology employs well over 57,000 people. It's nearly a $65 billion industry for the state, so regardless of your career path or your desires or your strengths or weaknesses, you can begin exploring opportunities in this particular area. One of the major things that we're doing here is to create tissues and organs for patients and one of the major areas of focus is to use these tissues for our wounded warriors. We have currently several programs going on at the Institute aimed just at the goal of translating these technologies from the bench to the bedside for our wounded warriors.  All the people in my lab were extremely impressed of the skills that I had coming straight out of school. I have never thought that I would learn what I have in such a short period of time. I'm more comfortable. I feel like I'm successful and I can be successful in the future. I was students who were coming from biotechnology. They're not necessarily going to a biotech company. There are other fields also that we traditionally don't associate with biotechnology. For example, winemaking is a growing field. North Carolina is investing a lot in vineyard and growing the wine business. They need a lot of microbiologists for quality control, for fermentation. As a matter of fact, we have a major course here that is fermentation on the program here. So a lot of our students who take this course and who finish our program can go and work in the wine industry. Another industry that we never thought about before is the beer industry. Beer is growing. Micro breweries are growing as a specialty. The food industry also, they need to control the growth of bacteria or microorganisms. So anybody coming out of the biotech program is obvious that they will look at biotechnology or biotech companies as an area where they will go to work. But they have a lot of other areas that are suitable for these students also or graduates to make a good living.


Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankarayesh Academy. We at Shankarayesh Academy are happy to share with you about the pre-storming 2021 program which is the prelims test series for the upcoming 2021 UPSC civil services preliminary examination. Shankarayesh Academy has started admissions for the second test batch and this has started from 11 December 2020. Our pre-storming program is India's first full-fledged artificial intelligence supported preliminary test series. All the required details are provided in the description of the video about this program and also in the comments section. With this, let's move on to the analysis part. These are the list of news articles taken up for today's discussion and their page numbers in different editions of the newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the time stamping of the discussed articles are provided in the description box and also in the comment section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers. Now let's move on to the analysis of first news article. Now this news article from sports column of the Hindu newspaper talks about the approval given by the sports ministry for the inclusion of four indigenous sports Thangta, Mallakkam, Gatka and Kalari Payetu. These indigenous sports are to be part of Kelo India Youth Games 2021. The games are scheduled to take place in the state of Haryana. In this context, let us have a brief understanding about Kelo Indian Games and also about Thangta, Mallakkam or Mallakkam and Gatka. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. Kelo India program has been introduced to revive the sports culture in our country. At the grass root level, this is to be achieved by building a strong framework for all sports that are played in India and shows to establish India as a great sporting nation. Now the components of this Kelo India is given here for your reference. Here Kelo India Youth Games is a part of Kelo India program. This means play India Youth Games. It was formerly called as Kelo India School Games. These games are held every year in the month of January or February and know that they are national level multi disciplinary grass root games in India that are held under two categories under 17 years school students then under 21 year college students. Every year best thousand kids they will be given an annual scholarship of 50,000 rupees for a period of eight years so as to prepare them for the international sporting events and this scholarship of 50,000 is annual scholarship of 50,000 for a period of eight years. Now let's see about Thangta. See it is an art of the sword and spear. It is the traditional martial art of Manipur in northeast India. Here Thang means sword and Tha means spear and the proper name for this game is Huan Lalang. It is a method of safeguarding. Now this martial art it integrates external weapons like sword and spear. It has an elaborate system of physical culture that includes meditations and rituals. Some of the sword and spear forms are entirely ritualistic though they are composed of material techniques. Now they are to be performed only at special occasions or under special circumstances. Now there is unarmed aspect of Thangta. This is named as Saritsarath. Now traditionally this Saritsarath is taught once competence in weapons was gained. Now let's come to Malla Kump. Malla Kump is an ancient traditional Indian sport. Here Malla means gymnast and Kump means pole. In south it is also called as Mallar Kumbh. The origin of this game can be traced to the 12th century because it is mentioned in Manasolas which is a classic by Chalukya in the year 1135 AD. Now this game as well known across India Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have been the hotspots of this Mallar Kump. More than 14 states at present participate in this game at the national level. There are at present different forms of this game. One is plain Mallar Kump where a vertical wooden pole is fixed on the ground. The second is hanging Mallar Kump where pole is suspended with the help of hooks and chains. Then we have cane or rope Mallar Kump. Here a cotton rope replaces the wooden pole. The performers are expected to strike various yogic poses without knotting the rope in any way. Then there are other forms such as baseless Mallar Kump, fixed bottle Mallar Kump, then revolving bottle Mallar Kump. Know that the exercises associated with this art are to make the body light and strong. Next let us come to Gatka which is an ancient fighting technique in the state of Punjab. It is played with wooden sticks. It is associated with Sikh history. Sikh battlefield art called as Shastar Vidya. It comprises of practice and usage of various weapons and physical exercises by Sikh fighters who are called as Nihangs. During the British colonial rule the British eventually banned the weapons of Sikhs so as to prevent rebellion and anti-colonial sentiments. After this the art survived as folk sports in certain changed patterns by replacing sword with stick. So now Gatka has evolved into a style of stick fighting instead of sword fighting between two or more practitioners. Here the wooden sticks are called as Sothi. They are used to simulate swords. The present form developed in later 19th century and it has two sub styles. One is called as rasmi or traditional then kail or sport and these sub styles we have from the year 1920. The basic technique here is based on stop and attack the opponent technique. So these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this news article from sports column. We saw about Kaila India games then about Tangta of Manipur, Mallakump mainly practiced in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh now extended to 14 more states then also about Gatka. Now let's move on to the next news article. This editorial article talks about recent labor unrest that erupted in a unit of Thayvani's company that is operating in our country. Actually it is reported that several thousand contract workers at this company are angry over the alleged non-payment of their wages. This company is called as Vistron. Reports say that some of them indulged in violence and have destroyed property, factory gear and iPhones at the plant early on December 12 and this unrest has caused loss of millions of dollars to this contract manufacturer that is the Thayvani's company in this regard which forced it to temporarily shut the manufacturing plant. In this regard the state government has arrested around some 160 persons and the center has asked the state government to start an inquiry to identify those indulged in violence and also to ensure that the investor sentiment is not affected because of the incident. So the author of this editorial talks about the lapse that happened from the part of government and the particular company in managing the labor conflicts. In this context let us discuss the important points mentioned in this editorial. The syllabus relevant for the analysis is highlighted here for your reference. So we know that the government of India launched Make in India initiative in 2014. Now this had a primary goal of making India a global manufacturing hub by encouraging both multinational and domestic companies to manufacture their products within our country. It also aims to facilitate job creation to promote or foster innovation to enhance skill development and to protect intellectual property. Now let's see the views of the author. The author is of the opinion that if designated officials for hearing labor grievances had reacted adequately when they came across such grievances of the employees then this protest could have been well avoided. The author also opines that poor enforcement of labor law by the government was another main reason for the cause of unrest. This is because poor enforcement of labor laws favors the employers and not the workers are the employees. In this regard we also hear about reactions against the new labor codes. Now we know that the parliament has recently passed the four labor codes and attempt to consolidate and to rationalize the central labor laws. Now these labor codes as we know include codon wages, codon industrial relations, codon social security, then codon occupational safety, health and working conditions. Many of the provisions of these codes have been termed as anti-worker by trade unions and workers organizations. Some experts even say that they give more power to the employer particularly in the context of hiring and firing sometimes even arbitrarily. Also many are of the opinion that the newly introduced labor laws are serving as the root cause for unrest of workers in various firms. It is reported that using the shield of new labor codes what they aim to achieve companies are increasing workers and are trying to employ more workers under the contract system rather than under permanent system. See the manpower at Vistron plant rose to 10,500 workers from the permitted 5,000 workers in a short span of time and report of inspection conducted on this plan states that though 10,500 workers are employed in the factory the HR department of the human resources department has not adequately been set up with personal or sound knowledge of labor laws. In this regard let us see some of the shortcomings related to these codes. First let's take code on wages. See this code omits the principal employer's liability to pay wages if the labor contractor failed to pay the wages. This is a major issue because in India majority of the workers are contract laborers. Then the code also takes away jurisdiction of codes to some extent as visible in section 57 of the code. This means that workers can no longer access codes as they already do but they can approach usually or generally first the quasi judicial body and then the appellate authority which are set up under the provisions of this code on wages. Then let's see some provisions and issues with respect to industrial relations code 2020. Now this code mandates that every industrial establishment employing 20 or more workers shall have one or more grievance redressal committees. Now their purpose is for resolution of disputes which arise out of individual grievances. Now this grievance redressal committee shall consist of equal number of members representing the employer and the workers and they are to be chosen in such manner as may be prescribed. The chairperson of this committee shall be selected from persons representing the employer and the workers alternatively on rotating basis every year. Now talking about the issue with respect to this code the code introduces new conditions for conducting legal strike. Here employees are prohibited from going on strike without giving a 60-day notice. Now this means the condition for legal strikes has been made more stringent as the time frame for the notice to go on legal strikes has been increased and they say that it is almost impossible to call a legal strike. So the author is of the opinion that enforcement of labor laws for employees benefit is the need of the hour or workers benefit is the need of the hour. Only this will make India more attractive and contrasting alternative to China and in China labor exploitation is widespread and labor friendly practices also do have a good correlation with respect to efficiency in terms of production etc. The government should also enforce compliance with the labor laws so that labor employer disputes are treated fairly and there are also a lot of apprehensions over the provisions of a new labor codes and these should be cleared out and systems for employees grievances should be made more responsive. So these are some of the suggestions from the side of author with reference to these lapses that we find in management of laborers in our country. With this let's move on to the analysis of next news article. This article is with reference to economy and as recently we are seeing relaxation of COVID related restrictions and the economy is slowly bouncing back. This can be observed from the performance of economy in Q1 and Q2 of financial year 2021. In Q1 the economy declined by 23.9%. In Q2 it declined by 7.5%. Here in Q2 the decline is much lesser than the decline observed in Q1 and in Q2 there were more relaxations compared to Q1. In this article the author gives inputs on what can be done to improve the current position of Indian economy. The author opines that if the Indian economy maintains the GDP growth in second half of 2020-2021 at the level of the previous year then the contraction for the entire financial year can be limited to about 7.7%. And if there is GDP growth at least in Q4 then also the overall contraction in 2020-2021 can be limited to the range of 6 to 7%. However this requires increase in government expenditure. Now coming to private sector there are also green shoots as many indicators like collection of GST, output of coal, steel and cement and also growth in manufacturing they point to better performance from the side of private sector. At the same time some segments like the hospitality sector will take time to recover. So on the whole it looks like the setback of the economy can be limited to minus 6 to minus 7 percentage. Now for next year it is important that Indian economy grows at 8 percentage so as to compensate the decline in financial year 2021. And even with a strong growth of 8 percentage in financial year 2022 we will only be back to the position of the Indian economy at the time of end of financial year 2020 that is March 2020. Therefore it is necessary that Indian economy grows at least at a minimum of 8 percentage in next to financial year. One of the main requirement is that restrictions that are imposed as part of COVID-19 should be withdrawn and the country should go back to a normal state. Now for purpose of accelerating the economy much focus should be given to those sectors that can act as lead sectors or engines of growth wherein government capital expenditures should be made. And closing borders may appear to be a good short term policy to promote growth but the author opends that it kills all round growth. And to accelerate the economy we need a strong increase in our exports and much of India's growth must rest on domestic factors. And growth should be both consumption driven and also investment driven so steps should be taken for making investments because investment driven growth in a developing economy can sustain growth over a long period. Now if you see in terms of monetary policy RBI has taken an accommodative stance which is visible with the reduction in interest rates through changes in policy rate then by providing liquidity through various measures. So there is sufficient justification for having such accommodative monetary policy because 2020 had been a difficult year because of COVID imposed financial challenges. However as we move forward we need to be more cautious. Then if you come to the fiscal space the fiscal deficit of the center may be around 6% of GDP in this financial year and coming to government expenditures which are important the author opends that in the second quarter of financial year 2021 the sector public administration defense and other services has performed to the level of disappointment. This is because in this sector alone in the quarter two there was a contraction by 12.2% and we talk about government expenditures because they play a very important role in arresting the momentum of economic contraction and for this to happen continuously government revenues should also pick up with their rise in GDP particularly at least in the next financial year. Then to accelerate the growth the falling investment rates must be stopped we are witnessed falling investment rate from 38.9% in 2011-12 to 32.2% of GDP in 2018-19. So this aspect should also be given adequate importance. Then strong effort must be made to improve the investment climate. In this regard national infrastructure pipeline is a good initiative but the government must come forward to invest more on its own because we see large shares there in this pipeline from the side of private sector which may not contribute as expected. So government should step in in those positions and with respect to investment climate one of the factor that influences this climate is non-economic factor which is social cohesion. So that has also to be maintained which has links with economic growth and with India want to achieve a status of 5 trillion economy by 2025 from the level of 2.7 trillion in 2019 we need to grow continuously at 9% for 6 years from now. So this growth has to be achieved with adequate job creation and infrastructure development and well-being. So these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this editorial article. Now let's move on to next part of the discussion. This data point article states that India has voted against a UN resolution that sought a moratorium or a temporary ban on death penalty. Article states that for the 8th consecutive time India has voted against this resolution. However it is found that number of countries are supporting the moratorium and this number of countries has actually increased from around 104 countries in 2007 to 123 in 2020. And the article observes that though India opposes moratorium on death penalty and though Indian criminal laws do prescribe death penalty as punishment India has very rarely executed death penalties. Now we know that India follow rarest of the rare doctrine and we don't have a uniform guidelines across the courts to identify those cases that qualify as the rarest of the rare. Having said that we see a trend where in number of cases where the courts pronounce death sentence has increased in our country and also around the world. However execution of death penalty has come down and one more trend and a distressing picture we observe is that close to 50% death penalties were given in relation to sexual offenses in recent years. In 2019 it is 50%, 41% in 2018 and 40% in 2017. So it is distressing because sexual victimization is becoming gruesome and is unbearable and many of the courts do find the criminal acts related to sexual offenses as qualifying rarest of the rare. So these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this news article. Now let's move on to the next part of the discussion. We have come to the last session, the practice questions discussion session. See this question, consider the following pairs, Kalari Payattu, Kerala, Katka, Bihar, Thangta, Manipur. Which of the above pairs are correctly matched? The correct answer for this question is option B, 1 and 3 only. Gakta, if matched with Panchap, it would have been correct. And regarding Kalari Payattu, we also have a previous year prelims question in the year 2014. Now see this question, two statements are given. They're asking which of the above statements are correct. Recently India voted against moratorium on death penalty in the United Nations. This statement is correct. At the UN there is an increasing opposition among world countries for moratorium on death penalty over the years. This statement is incorrect because there is an increasing support among world countries for moratorium on death penalty. Correct answer is option A, 1 only. See this main question with the vision to make India a global manufacturing hub and to improve the lives of labour force of the nation. Government of India has revamped the labour laws. Critically examine the provisions of the new labour courts. You may write answer for this main question and post it in the comments section. With this we come to the end of today's the Hindu News Analysis. 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I'm Ernie Bauer with the CSIS Southeast Asia Program, and I'm here today with Vietnam's Ambassador to the United States, Le Cong Phong. Thank you for joining us, Ambassador. I'd like to ask you a couple questions about Vietnam, and Vietnam's very strong leadership of ASEAN over the last year. You just chaired ASEAN, Vietnam chaired ASEAN, of course, in 2010, and Vietnam contributed just an enormous amount to the dynamism of ASEAN. Could you talk a little bit about what you thought were the key accomplishments of Vietnam's year of chairing, and what was Vietnam's strategy for leading ASEAN? This time, the second time the Vietnam chaired the ASEAN, since we entered the Association in 1985, it is not an easy job, I think, but thanks to the support from the ASEAN colleagues and from the dialogue partners, we have, I think, successfully acting as a chair of the ASEAN Association. It is an association, and our principle is based on the consensus, idea and consensus, agreement in Vietnam, and any issue or problem that we, the ASEAN countries, involve in discussion. But we have been in the year trying to heighten the spirit of ASEAN. Some really we try our best to make the ASEAN country and all the activities of the country to push forward the ASEAN charter, and to build up effectively the ASEAN Association. At the same time, we also try to deepen and plunder the relation with the dialogue partners, particularly the East Asia partners, and outside like the U.S., Russia, India, and some other countries. We think, even to be a successful chair, we had to also heighten and consolidate the central ASEAN, trying to do what the ASEAN states and ASEAN people expect us to do, that is to continue pushing ahead the development, economic development, social development in the ASEAN, trying to fill the gap between the developing and developed countries in the ASEAN. We are also trying, and I think in this field is a successful one that is to strengthen the security and stability in the region, trying to work together with the dialogue partners, the ASEAN, trying to, let's say, make the people be secure in the region. And besides that, we concentrate on the rising issue like the maritime security, the conflicts of disputes in the region, how to solve it, how to tackle it, in order to maintain the development, and also maintain the security and stability in the region. You certainly had a great advance this year, which was, to many of us who have watched ASEAN develop, surprised that the ASEAN defense ministers could already get together and agree on an ASEAN defense minister's meeting plus eight. Why was that important to Vietnam? Is it a new security architecture that you're trying to build? You are right to say that is a new security architecture for the region and in large for Asia and Pacific. As the situation develops so fast and sometimes unpredictable, and as the whole nation in Southeast Asia and Asia and South Pacific are engaging themselves in the globalization and integration, so Vietnam think that the finance minister, the economist are working together. Why not? The defense minister and these people are sitting together discussing and reaching an agreement, or at least they discuss among themselves. It should be a great contribution to the situation in the region. Because of that we proposed and agreed by the ASEAN states and it's good that we can be in the first meeting of defense minister in Vietnam. I think the minister, the defense minister of the country, participating in the conference were happy with the result of the meeting. As I mentioned that while all these countries, the ASEAN countries and plus eight countries are working together for the security, for the economic development, for the veterans of education or labor forces, they all need to have the defense minister to talk about what they should secure. The military people should secure the idea, the goal of the region and the participants. I was happy to see our secretary of defense, Secretary Gates, agreed to come very early I think and he was happy to come to Vietnam. Do you think that one of the outcomes of the ASEAN defense minister's meeting plus was that they would meet every three years? Is that often enough? I was surprised that it wasn't going to be an annual meeting. I was surprised to learn that everything will take place every three years. I was not in the meeting, I was not in the discussion of all these ministers, but I personally think that it should be because we are going to have the annual summit, we are going to have the annual summit with US, China, India, Japan, Korea, that's ASEAN plus one and ASEAN plus three with Korea, Japan and China. So I think the defense minister also should have the annual meeting. It's better because there are a lot of things happening here and there in the region, in Asia, in the Pacific, if something happened that we need the idea or discussion of the defense minister and had to wait for another three years, it's still long to wait. It's better to have annual meeting. But I think the ministers there, they discussed and they came up to the conferences then, making it every three years of meeting. And I think in the process from now until 2014 or 13, there's something that required meeting of the defense minister. I hope they will meet. Not waiting for three years, as they agreed. You talked about the ASEAN 10 plus the 8 that are part of the ADMM plus, those are the same eight countries that comprise the East Asia Summit and Vietnam chaired the East Asia Summit this year also. Why is the East Asia Summit important to Vietnam and what did you, what does Vietnam think about the process going forward? But probably speaking, we want ASEAN strong. We want ASEAN developed and with current situation, no one can stand alone to develop his own country, his own society. And the same with ASEAN, ASEAN is linked to the region, to the whole world. ASEAN want to be strong, both politically and economically. They need to cooperate with the neighboring countries and need the countries concerned. That's why we think East Asia is very good, like a doctor, that the relevant countries meet together because we have the dialogue with this country in the region. So they need to be there, they need to discuss the East Asia situation, East Asia security and stability, East Asia economic cooperation. And if that, that's a block, be strong, ASEAN will be strong. So I think that that's the ASEAN push by the ASEAN country. But do you see competition, sort of competing architectures taking place here? On the one hand there's the East Asia Summit, as you mentioned there's also the ASEAN plus three. And some analysts suggest that maybe some countries in the Northeast Asia might prefer the ASEAN plus three because it's got a very robust agenda and the East Asia Summit is relatively new, I think it's five years old. Well, ASEAN wants to cooperate and work together with the architecture ten plus three. That's not enough for ASEAN, that's not enough. We need to get other people to be involved in the region because with Russia, India, Australia, New Zealand, U.S. that's why as the chair we propose an agreed upon by ASEAN we have invited U.S. and Russia to be the full participant of East Asia Summit. Turning to U.S.-Vietnam relations, we just celebrated 15 years of diplomatic relations. You were there? I was there for the 1,000th anniversary of Illinois and I saw the parade, it was fantastic. But in terms of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship, 15 years have done pretty well together. I wanted to get your comment on that. Where do you think the relationship is headed in the future, the U.S.-Vietnam relationship? It's only 15 years, but I think our two sides have made the long steps in promotion of bilateral relations. And we both, I mean the administration, the people are happy with the achievement we recorded in the last 15 years. We have deepened our mutual trust, mutual confidence. We have continuously furthered the bilateral relations in economic and technology, military security. So I think there's no reason why we are not going to have a much better relation in the next 15 years. Could you see the two countries normalizing military-to-military relations in the near future? We are trying to do that. And I think the U.S. side is going to do that. But normalization is a long process. We normalized our liberal declaration in 1995 and we work hard and we can see where it is now and how it is now. For the military cooperation and normalization, I think it takes some time. We both want to intensify the military cooperation. And I think the other people look at our military cooperation and they will feel happily that, okay, these two guys, U.S. and Vietnam, are working hard to intensify their military cooperation for their own benefits and also for the benefit of the region. You know, when you talk about security in Asia, you have to think about the South China Sea. It's obviously been an issue that's in the papers of late. What's Vietnam's perspective on arising China and some of the tension that you've seen in the South China Sea? Do you think the architecture that we've been discussing will be helpful in resolving those tensions? The South China Sea is the... It might be a little bit hard for the people concerned. I mean, the regional countries and also outside of the region. But for the South China Sea, we have to make clear that there are at least three issues that we have to deal with. The first one is the security and stability and peace in the whole region. South Asia and East Asia and Pacific. This issue or this problem, let me say, is the concern of everyone in the region and even in the world, because a lot of people going through here, a lot of people having relations with the country in the region nearing to border in the South China Sea. So everyone is concerned about that. Everyone is interested in following the development in the region. So let's say that it is a global or inlet region of problem that people concerned have to take care of. The second issue is the maritime security. It's crucial for the development. It's crucial for the security in this region. And it, for most, concerned the country having the interest in seeing the security maintained for the maritime in this region. A third issue that is territorial dispute. It is not relating to other countries. It is relating to the agreements of the region. This island, this is the water industry. I think this kind of issue has to be solved on the basis of international law and international practice that international community has had. And no one wants war. No one wants to have conflicts, hard conflicts there. And that is relating to the concerned countries. But of course the concerned countries also expect that outsiders, it is not the claimants of the issue, can render the assistance, support, encouraging the claimants to talk together, to negotiate, trying to find out a good solution that is acceptable to the Iraq claimants. So I understand that ASEAN and China have agreed to meet in December, December 22 and 23 in China to talk about implementing regulations on the declaration of a code of conduct in the South China Sea. Is that your understanding and do you think that China may be evolving its position on this issue? The code of conduct was first proposed by the ASEAN back to 2001. I was the one who worked on that. But because of the different reasons, because of the different ideas from China and ASEAN, we downgrade it from COC to DOC. But in thinking of the ASEAN country, we always run to push the DOC to the stage where there are principle and regulation minding the ASEAN country in China that is code of conduct. And I was pleased to hear that the ASEAN and China agree to start talking about that. As they just come back to where we were in 2001, we discussed about COC, and finally we got the DOC. Now we've got a DOC, we are going to talk about the COC. Hopefully the ASEAN and China will reach near to the code of conduct. It will be not fast. It will take some time. We've already had nine years ahead, I guess. Do you think it will take some more time to come to agreement? No, if we start talking about COC, I don't think it will take full nine years because from the proposal of COC and we get the DOC, it takes about two years. So if the ASEAN country, I think, all want to have the principle of regulation provided and minding and directing all the activities of the countries in the region, relating to South China Sea, the islands, power. But if China show the same idea, I think we will not have to wait for nine years. That would be a welcome development. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has been in Vietnam twice this year, I believe. And at the ASEAN regional forum, she spoke out about these issues that you're talking about and said that the Americans are interested in a resolution based on a multilateral approach and rule of international law. Will Secretary Clinton's comments helpful to ASEAN in that situation? What the Secretary commanded is in line with the ASEAN idea and ASEAN view that everything has to be settled reasonably according to international law and practice. And by another, encourage the negotiation spirits in the region. And it, I think, more or less, it helps. Well, last question, and I appreciate you taking the time. You've been ambassador here for, I guess, now almost three years. Over three years. Over three years. What major accomplishment would you like to see finished before you wrap up your term as ambassador in the United States, whenever that may be? To be more concrete, I've been here for three years and ten days. Okay. Nothing you're counting. Yeah, because I arrived on the 6th of November. Today is the 16th of November, exactly three years and ten days. And I'm happy to see that, looking back three years, I'm so pleased to see the development of my life relations. It's not much, but I have personally contributed a little bit for the development. When I arrived, I promised myself that I have to make U.S., the number one foreign investor in Vietnam. It was last year, 2009. This year, I'm not sure, but it may not be the number one. And now U.S. ranking about fifth or sixth. You know, Vrong. Yeah, you know, Vrong. So I'm pretty sure that number one will come. Sometime, maybe after I leave. I know when I leave, because my government has informed me that it will take me back or stay, still leave me here. Another thing I'm happy with, that is education. It's great. A lot of activities relating to educational cooperation between the cool country has taken place. Many of colleges, universities of U.S. are going to Vietnam thinking of ways to cooperate with university colleges, cooperate with the government of Vietnam on education. That's good. And when I arrived, it was only 6,000 Vietnamese students. Now it is over 13,000. That's great. So you more than doubled the number. More than doubled in three years. It's great. I understand the Vietnamese students are the largest of ASEAN countries. Vietnam is the largest student population in the United States. Yeah, I think it is. It is only over one tenth of Chinese students. Chinese about 127,000 is the biggest. Another thing I also have to say, that Vietnam and the U.S. are trying to join together in economic development, APEC, which you are going to host next year in Hawaii, the TPP, that we both are negotiating with the other eight countries, seven countries, including Malaysia. I request and declare that in Japan that Vietnam will be official member of TPP. What I want to see when I finish my term is that economic, military, security, education, cooperation continue to be promoted. We have to be faster if we don't have the differences. We have some number of things that differ from each other. That's why I hope that if the time to come, whether I'm still here or I've been living, we try to tackle and solve the differences that exist in between our relations. But we have to be practical that some of the differences take time to be solved. But the more we solve, the better for the relations. Ambassador, thank you so much for coming today. That's a great goal and I think all of us hope we can help you and help our government achieve those goals. Thank you very much. Thanks, CSIS.


So, what we will do is that we will continue along these lines today, but what I want to sort of focus on is this idea that if you think about a lot of biological macromolecules they are characterized by internal states and we will see examples, but the most immediate example is for example that of proteins. Proteins can exist in multiple conformational states depending on various factors and again we will see some of these factors and these are sort of discrete states. So, you can say that at some point maybe a folded protein looks like this and in another environment or in contact with another ligand a protein might looks that same protein might look like that whatever, but these are sort of discrete states. So, you can label these states this is confirmation state 1, 2, 3 whatever and you can then ask things like what are the what is the probability that when you look at this protein you will find it in this state versus this state versus this state ok. So, this is something that is very common biologically that you have these internal states of macromolecules they could be proteins it could be DNA it could be whatever, but if you think about it from a statistical mechanics perspective this is the language that you can use to treat this is very similar to this sort of two state or two state systems that is very that you should know very well from statistical mechanics. Either two states need not be two n state systems, but discrete sort of set of states where you can count the number of states that are possible for you to access. So, all the machinery of statistical mechanics the simple machinery sort of of two state systems without getting into continuous energy levels or things like that this very simple discrete state machinery you can carry over very nicely into this biological realm if you consider this if you consider this discrete states of macromolecules. So, that is what I will try to focus on today. The first example is that of ion channels and again as you know cell membranes often have these inbuilt ion channels in them to facilitate movement of ions into and out of the cell. You can have specific ion channels for example, potassium ion channels which only allow potassium to pass through sodium ion channels which only allow sodium to pass through and so on. The ion channels will often exist can exist in two states they can be open or they can be closed ok. So, it is not that this channel is always open and things are continuously passing through. This channel might ordinarily be in a closed state and then no ions can get through here when required in response to certain environmental or whatever internal changes in the cell. If the cell requires this sort of let us say potassium ions to come through it will open this channel and then this ion will come flow through in inside or outside of the case made. So, again these are distinct. So, this ion channel is basically something like a transmembrane protein. So, here is my cell right this is a transmembrane protein it is embedded in the membrane it connects the outside of the cell to the inside and can exist in these distinct conformational states the closed state like this where you cannot see the pore anymore or this open state where this sort of subunits shift up and this pore opens up and your ions can pass through there right. So, this is an example of what I mean when I say that these macromolecules ion channel in this case can exist in these discrete states in this case roughly you can say two states open and closed right and you will see this in all channels the mechanism by which it sort of opens and closes the channel will be different. There are various routes that biology has evolved in order to pass in order to control when these channels will open and when this is this will close. This for example is a particular example of a petition channel I think in bacterium not I am not sure actually in which organism and this has a voltage this has a voltage dependent gating. So, by controlling the voltage difference between the inside and the outside you can control how often this ion channel will open or close ok. Alright. So, let us look at this example first that of an ion channel. If you think about the flux of ions or the current that is passing through this ion channel. So, here I have an ion channel ions will small ions will pass through this depending on whether the channel is open or closed. If I think about how the flux of this flux of these small ions or the current will look as a function of time right how does that look that looks something like this. Here is an actual trace of an ion channel reading ok. So, when the ion channel is closed there no current is passing through. When it is open you have some amount of current in this case around 2 picoamperes amperes that is passing through the channel. So, that counts the sort of flux of these small ions that are passing through this channel. And what I want to say is that I want to represent this by in a gross sense in a two state system which means that the ion channel can be closed or it can be open which means I will sort of remove all these squiggles small small squiggles and say that macroscopically the ion channel has only two states that are available to it. It is closed and in the closed state I will call the current as 0. In this when it is open I will call the current as exactly 2 ampere. So, I will neglect all sort of fluctuations around this ok. You can see that in the real case that is not true for example, somewhere over here you have a current something like 1 picoampere right. So, it is not an all or nothing system generally, but roughly that is what it looks like right. You can sort of choose a threshold beyond which you will call if I could choose something like 1 picoampere or something and I say that if the current is less than that I will consider the channel to be effectively closed. If the current is more than that I will consider the channel to be effectively open right. So, this is an this trace is an idealization of this, but you can just say by looking at it is not a not that bad of an idealization. It captures the sense of this stochastic opening and closing of these ion channels. You can generate these sort of smoothening curves yourself. So, for example, here is a full trace of this current through an ion channel over a long period of time. What you can do is that you can construct a histogram of the various current values. So, for example, over here is something this is zoomed in view of this part of this trace right. So, this is this dip over here and you can you can take some window of time delta t. You find out what is the current in that window and you construct a corresponding histogram. You do that over this whole sort of trace and you get this histogram of this current values as a fraction of and how long it spends with that particular current value. And looking at this histogram you can sort of then decide that what is the current path. So, this axis is sort of the value of the current right. This is the height or this is a fraction of time it spends with that current. So, you look at this histogram and you can say that well roughly what thresholding should you choose in order to convert noisy data like this into smooth discrete two states over data. So, for example, once you have constructed the histogram I can say that well this looks to be roughly the middle of this histogram this bimodal distribution that I obtained. So, I will cause call this as my threshold current anything that is less than this. So, all these points I will group into a closed ions closed state of this ion channel all currents on this side I will group into the open state of the ion channel. So, that is sort of a practical prescription to how to go from this sort of real experimental data into this idealized two states of the data. But once you have done that again we can use this terminology of this two state system from stat mechs. So, for example, when the ion channel is closed I can say that my state variable which I represent by sigma that is I am going to call that as 0 if the ion channel is open I will call that the sigma is 1 right. And when it is open let us say it has some energy when it is closed it has some energy epsilon open and epsilon close. And then once I have done that I can calculate what is the probability that I will find the ion channel in the open state right. So, for example, what is the partition function the partition function is e to the power of minus beta times this energy right summed over all possible microstates. The microstates in this case are true because you have a two state system. So, it can either be closed or it can be open. So, this is my partition function. Once you have the partition function you can easily calculate what is the probability of the channel being in the open state right. So, the probability is therefore, what e to the power of minus beta epsilon open divided by this partition function. Sigma is a state variable. So, that is what I used to index my microstates of the system. So, generally in a gas you would say that it is position momentum whatever right. In this case this internal variable which characterizes the state of my system is whether the ion channel exists in a closed state or in an open state. So, that I am calling by this variable sigma. Sigma looks like probability which one looks like probability this one sorry say the transform epsilon this one this you can consider this is the Hamiltonian of my system. This is the energy of my system right. So, think about it when the when sigma is 0 right the ion channel is closed then this term does not play a role then what is the energy of my system it is 1 minus 0 into epsilon closed which means it is epsilon closed. Similarly, when sigma is 1 then this term does not play a role and the energy of my system is epsilon open. It is just a convenient notation of writing that it is the energies are epsilon open if it is closed epsilon closed sorry epsilon open if it is in the open state e closed if it is in the closed state. So, this then is the probability of finding my channel in the open state right or if you want to write in terms of the delta the difference in this energies then it is this form the standard form that we did even last class for this roughly for this ligand receptor sort of a finding. Can you change this probability? So, this says that well I have some energy for this ion channel to be open some energy for when it is in the closed state and the difference between these energies tells me how often I will find this ion channel in the open state. Can you can you shift around these probabilities and it turns out that you can do that experimentally. For example, here is voltage gated channel and you these are the traces of this current that is flowing through the ion channel as you apply different voltages across the membrane right. So, here is minus 125 minus 105 minus 95 minus 85. So, as you can see as you change the sort of voltage that you apply you change the probability of the open state as you go from top to bottom as you go from top to bottom it becomes more and more likely that you will find your channel in the open state. Here almost everything was closed here a lot of it is open. So, in this sort of a language what you could say is that what you are changing is the difference in energies between the open and the closed states. So, you can estimate using that formula that you know p open is e to the power of minus beta delta epsilon by 1 plus e to the power of minus beta delta epsilon you can. So, this delta this p open becomes a function of this applied voltage. Therefore, this change in energy delta epsilon also becomes a function of the voltage and that is what you sort of estimate. So, this right most column is estimated from this formula that what is the effective difference between the open and the closed state energies as you apply more and more voltage. So, that is one way and you can of course, plot this as well and again this looks like a sigmoid curve. So, this probability of being in the open state as a function of this applied voltage looks somewhat like this sigmoid curve again which is something similar to what we saw in this ligand receptor binding case. This is one way. So, this is for voltage gated channels. So, you can play around with how long what is the probability of finding the channel in the open state. Another way is for example, if you have mechanosensitive channels you apply some tension to the membrane and again the tension contains the probability of how long will it be in the open state how what is the probability of it will be in the closed state. So, for example, here is a sort of some data from a mechanosensitive channel and again it looks somewhat similar the more and more tension or pressure that you apply you change the probability of it being in the open state. So, here for example, is a is a simulation of such a mechanosensitive channel this is the PSO1 channel. So, here is your ion channel protein as you have as you change the tension across the membrane your ion channel can open up and it can allow ions to pass through it yes does it vary linearly yes not generally I mean there might be channels where it does, but that depends more on the specific mechanism of the voltage gating, but generally I would say the answer is roughly yes. So, I cannot say with certainty the curves that at least I have seen mostly look sigmoidal. It may be a very strong the nature of the sigmoid might be weaker or stronger depending. So, if you are thinking in terms of for example, the hill function the degree of the steepness of the slope can differ, but generally as far as I have seen they all mostly look sigmoidal, but that is not a comprehensive answer there may be channels where it does not, but so what you are saying is here that if I say that instead of delta epsilon I put v right then this looks looks like a sigmoidal curve right. But on the other hand I do not know what would happen if I put a v square there no. So, but what I am saying is that if I put a function like this v square what will that p open versus v look like? It will still look a, but this is no longer a linear dependence right. So, that is what I am trying to say that you will get curves which look like this, but just because it looks like this you cannot say that this delta epsilon dependence on v is going to be necessarily linear. But as far as I know it will not be something so wacky that you will get something like this that is what I am trying to say. So, something like this is a hill function with a greater degree of n, but yeah. So, generally it can be nonlinear, but it will not be completely off the charts right. So, what will I say? So, this is mechanosensitive channel. So, here you are what you do is that you change the tension across the membrane and that allows the channel to open and close and as the channel open and closes you get ions passing through ok. So, you can ask that well can we sort of estimate the sort of probability. So, here the probability was the function of voltage for mechanosensitive channels it is going to be a function of for example, the tension that is applied across the membrane. So, can I calculate the probability that the channel will be in the open state as a function of the tension that you apply across the membrane. And again this tension is applied again by different proteins different proteins can come and bind they can change the local curvature of the membrane as you change the curvature you can change the tension that this location feels ok. Yes, yes right. So, in this mechanosensitive channel. So, you have this lipid bilayer right which is my membrane something like this and then you have this channel which is embedded over here sorry whatever you get. Now let us say another protein comes and binds somewhere over here on this membrane ok. By binding it changes the local curvature of this membrane that will cause the tension of course, over here that will cause it and in fact, we will see an example of proteins which does that in a in a couple of slides. So, what I want to estimate then is this probability is this probability that I will find this channel in the open state as a function of the tension that I applied. And of course, you can do nice modellings taking into account whatever the various properties of the surface, but what I will show here which is from Phillips in a very 0th order sort of estimate. So, here is what Phillips. So, here is the sort of basic 0th order model. You consider a membrane which is under tension due to some external force which could be due to this protein binding and so on. And as you apply the tension you lower this open state energy and it makes it more favorable for the channel it is open ok. So, that is my assumption it could be the reverse way. I just assume a channel where the more tension I apply the more favorable it becomes for this channel to become open. And so, my model this is that I had this channel. So, now I am looking at it like from top. So, I had this ion channel which is closed which is embedded in in this membrane ok. This thing is my lipid bilayer membrane this is my ion channel ion channel which is now closed ok. Depending on how much pressure I apply let us say this channel has opened up. So, whatever things was here it has gone to somewhere over here ok. So, that is what it says that when it was closed it has a radius of r now it has gone to r plus delta r. And similarly this outside membrane has also spread out of it because of the supplied tension. If you assume that the membrane area is sort of conserved which means basically that whatever you do this lipid bilayers will sort of rearrange themselves, but they will not pop out of existence or new things will not come in. So, if I assume that the membrane area is sort of conserved then I can calculate roughly what is the change in the membrane radius when the radius of the pore goes from r to r plus delta r. So, simply by using conservation of area. So, that is roughly of the order of r by this r out which is the membrane radius times this amount of change in this pore radius delta ok. This is again a very 0th order I have assumed that this membrane is a circle and so on because I just want to get a hand waving estimate. Then you can calculate what is the work done by this external force the force which is sort of applying the tension and that you can calculate. So, the work done is the force times this change in the radius delta r out right. The force is the tension the tension is the force per unit length. So, it is tau into 2 pi r and then this change in this radius delta r out which I just write as this. So, but what you get this 2 pi times r delta r is simply the change in radius area of the pore which basically means that this work done is proportional to the tension that you apply and it is proportional to the change in area. So, that is all that is that I want to sort of get out of this. There will be various other things over here depending on the properties of the membrane. I just for the moment I just in this sort of basic hand waving model I neglect all of this. All I say is that the more tension that you apply the more work that you are doing the more the change in area of this membrane protein this trans membrane protein which is the ion channel the more work that you are doing ok. So, I have an estimate of the work that I am doing as a function of the tension that I am applying and now I can go back and do my same thing that I say that at 0 tension I have some energies epsilon open and epsilon closed right and then as I change as I apply some tension I have to include this additional term which is tau times delta a and that will only come when the channel is open ok not when the channel is closed. So, I now have this additional term I had this thing earlier I now have this additional term which models in this very very crude way the effect of the tension. Once I have that again I can do the same business of calculating the partition function and calculating the probability of finding the channel in the open state which is now going to be a function of your of the apply of the tension that you apply to this membrane and you can again now plot this of course, and will again look sigmoidal. If you apply a very large amount of tension you are almost guaranteed that the channel will be in the open state which means that your p open will go to 1. If we apply no tension it will come go to a low value which will depend on this difference between del epsilon open and epsilon closed. So, and that is what you see. So, if you look at how the probability that you will find the channel in the open state as a function of this tau it looks again like the sigmoid curve. This is plotted using this formula with some values of delta e and delta tau delta a sorry typical values of delta e and delta. So, all of this has this sort of thresholding or sigmoidal behavior that acts beyond a certain whatever voltage or a certain force you will suddenly find it is more probable that your channel will be in the open state ok. So, this is one of the most simplest examples of this two state systems the opening and closing of ion channels. Yes? Yes. So, what I am saying is let me draw a little better than surrounded by a circle right. This is when my channel is in the closed state. Then when my channel is in the open state the protein occupies somewhere over here and my overall membrane goes from what it was to something that is slightly larger.