So today, let's begin reading here in John's gospel in chapter seven I'll read verses 53 in chapter seven and verse one in chapter eight And then I'm going to be moving into really looking at verses two through eleven, but verses 53 and verse one are really introductory comments that I'll be making to lay the Foundation for the study that we'll be looking at today found in verses two through eleven So beginning at verse 53 in John 7 and reading at verse 1 in John chapter 8 John writes everyone went to his own house but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and So when you look in chapter 7, which we're not going to do but were you to look into chapter 7? You see that the Lord Jesus Christ has been ministering. He's been ministering all day And so at the end of the chapter the day is now concluding and evening has come and the people that he's been ministering to are now beginning to disperse notice how it says in verse 53 everyone went to his own house and So people were going to their own houses, but verse one Jesus went to the Mount of Olives so on the Mount of Olives is a place there that's called the Gardener Gethsemane and This garden was more than likely owned by one of Jesus's followers See the Jews didn't have gardens in the city They had them in outside of the city because it was not lawful for them or not permissible for them To to use fertilizer and things like that within the framework of the city so they would have their gardens outside and so people would own private gardens and They had this particular garden there in this region called the Mount of Olives The garden was called the garden of Gethsemane again more than likely owned by one of Jesus's disciples and His disciple would offer him the use of the garden whenever he had need now by this time It is a place that Jesus often went to if you were to look at John 18 verses went into its mention there How that in verse 2 Jesus often met there with his disciples so this particular garden is a garden that Jesus went to often and So it was owned more than likely by one of his disciples and Jesus would stay there when he was in Jerusalem on occasion Now what the contrast is when it says in verse 53 everyone went to his own house He goes on to say but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives While others returned to the comfort of their homes Jesus walked to a garden This is because he had no place of his own no home of his own So he would use that which was offered to him in Matthew 8 verses 19 and 20 It reads a certain scribe came to him and said teacher. I will follow you wherever you go Jesus said to him foxes have holes birds of the air have nests But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head And so Jesus lived a life that was set apart He didn't own things of his own, but he relied on the on the giving of those who followed him This kind of life that he lived though gave him a deep personal and physical understanding if you will of the needs that human Beings have and Jesus as you read your scriptures Is a person is a man who went through everything and Every kind of thing that you and I go through it you read your Bible And you see that there are things he experienced that gives him insight and understanding to us From a human level physical experiential insight He suffered for example with fatigue. He got tired just like everybody else in John 4 verse 6 It says that Jake Jacob's well was there Jesus therefore being worried from his journey sat thus by the well was about the six hours So Jesus experienced physical Fatigue he went through grief. He went through rejection. I say at 53 verse 3 says he's despised and rejected by man A man of sorrows acquainted with grief. We hit as it were our faces from him. He was despised We did not esteem him. So Jesus went through fatigue. He experienced grief. He knew what rejection was like He suffered through loneliness John 16 verse 32. He said the hour is coming Yes has now come that you will be scattered each to his own and will leave me alone Yet I'm not alone because the father's with me So he went through those things and he knew the pain of betrayal Psalm 41 verse 9 even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted who ate my bread Has lifted up his heel against me. And so I'm saying all of that to lay a foundation Jesus Christ Understands us. He's gone through what we have gone through it gave him a deep personal understanding of our needs and Though he owned everything he created all things He didn't demand that people care for his needs in second Corinthians 9 verse 7 Paul said it like this He said leap let each one of let each one give as he purposes in his heart not grudgingly or of necessity For God loves a cheerful giver And so he used that which was freely offered to him With that said that's beginning to give us kind of an insight into where he is Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and he spent the night there now early in the morning verse 2 He came again into the temple and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery when they had set her in the midst They said to him teacher this woman was caught in adultery in the very act now Moses in the law Commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say this? They said testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear So when they continued asking him he raised himself up and said to them He who is without sin among you let him throw a stone at her first and again He stooped down and wrote on the ground Then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience went out one by one beginning with the oldest even to the last Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst when Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman He said to her woman. Where are those accusers of yours as no one condemned you? She said no one Lord and Jesus said to her I do and he stoned her. No, he didn't say that Yeah Jesus said to her neither do I condemn you go and sin No more I want to look at that with you today. I don't condemn you go and sin no more The next day it says in verse 2 early in the morning Jesus is out at the temple It's a daybreak and he's beginning to teach the people and those who were hungry for His teaching came to him to learn and the words that Jesus Christ spoke Were so profound that people were willing to get up early and to make the trek to that temple Just to be there with him as he shared Now there were reasons why they would come and listen to him his way of teaching had an authority That was unlike any other rabbi on one occasion in Matthew chapter 7 verse 29 Matthew says that he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes You see when Jesus would teach the word of God, he didn't quote other rabbis He didn't quote the the teachers in the past as as the rabbis during that day would you see the rabbis of Jesus time when they Were teaching would say as Rabbi Shama I have said or as as Rabbi Hillel has said or whatever Rabbi Gamaliel has said they would quote other rabbis They would quote the writings but not Jesus Jesus would say you have heard it said of those of old but I say unto you and when Jesus would speak like that They said this man has authority. He doesn't speak like the other people. He doesn't teach quoting others He is the authority. He taught them Matthew says as one having authority not as the scribes And when he taught people would be gripped by the things that he had to say no one ever spoke words like this man earlier in chapter 7 They had sent some some officers to arrest Christ and they had come back But they hadn't arrested Jesus and the Pharisees were upset and it says in John 7 45 The officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them why why have you not brought him and the officers answered? No man ever spoke like this man So when Jesus would speak people would be spellbound They would get up early to go hear him to hear the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth They wanted to hear this man with his incredible heavenly wisdom that he would give to them They got up early in the morning. They went to the temple. He showed up They were there waiting for him so that as he would share the words that would proceed from him would feed their hungry souls I can still remember in the early days of my Christian faith when we were going to church We'd go to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa. These are the days before there was a church Building as we have today. This is before there was a tent that was put on in a bean field This was down the street in a small chapel and the chapel was built to hold maybe 300 people But you had to get there early for the evening service Because you wouldn't have a seat and there were times that there were 100 200 people sitting on the floor 300 people seated in the in the chairs and 200 of us scattered in the floor Then they had to open up the wall and they had to put glass walls there They put speakers for us to be able to if we came in late And you know what late was late was if the service of seven o'clock late was being there at seven That was late because you actually stood in line to get into church And that's what would happen with Christ when Jesus would speak his authority and his profound words and and the Graciousness in the way that he spoke in love and and and the power of the Spirit were all there And so the people would show up and they went early and this is early in the morning at day break It's six six thirty in the morning or so and they're they're waiting for him as he's teaching and he's sharing with them Speaking with that authority speaking with that eloquence gripping those people as he speaks Isaiah gave a prophecy related to Messiah It's found in Isaiah 50 verse 4 and it says the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned That I should know how to speak a word in season to him who's weary. He awakens me morning by morning He awakens my ear to hear as the learned And so the words of life that he poured out attracted them They came to hear they would listen and they wanted to know there were times that they would stay with him for days at a time You remember when he he multiplied the fish in the loaves He did that after he'd been there with them for so long that the he said I don't want him to leave this place because they may faint along the way We need to feed them they would be there to listen to him because the words of life that poured out of him were worth listening to and So these words of life are what they've come for and it says again in verse 2 early in the morning He came again into the temple all the people came to him He sat down and taught them when a rabbi was speaking words of That were heavy he would be seated as he taught and so it would show reverence for the word of God and the Importance of it and so as he was speaking he was giving them lessons But at this moment he's about to give them a visible lesson a visible lesson about God He's going to reveal to them something He's going to reveal to them in a very practical way that that God is loving that God is gracious that God is forgiving And that God is merciful and And the way this lesson is going to come about is is in the way that he he tashes He treats a woman a woman who was caught in the act of sin He's not going to minimize her sin by the way, but he will amplify the power of forgiveness You see the way he's going to deal with this woman is going to reveal God and it's also the way we today Who are representatives of the kingdom of God? It's a way we are also to treat others who have entered into sin He's not minimizing her sin, but he is amplifying the power of forgiveness The church is the body of Christ and the world is to see Jesus as we live out His word by his spirit in their presence When they look at us They're to see a representation of what God and his grace and forgiveness Actually produces in a person's life We're supposed to be used by God to reveal to the world What the invisible God is like in the Old Testament the scripture taught that that they were not to make a graven image There were no idols to be produced by the Jews because we worship the invisible God in the New Testament God said this is what I am like by taking upon himself human form and dwelling amongst men So that they may behold him filled with grace and truth So they might wonder at the gracious words that came from him and the church Who's been born again into the family of God is intended to reveal that to a world that doesn't see God And so that's one of the reasons why our lives being transformed Are such evidence that God is real our light so shines before men that they they behold our good works And then they glorify our father who is in heaven So the church is supposed to teach the world What God is like Now there are members of the church who who who Present God as kind of like a tolerant grandfather So he looks down upon earth and he sees the sins of men anything that a professing believer does is just fine with him Well when they teach like that it gives a rise to a lack of convictions and no personal holiness But on the other hand there are those who present him as mean and overbearing is a tyrant filled with anger And if you step out of line he'll deal with you severely And that's produced angry professing believers who teach that God's always mad about something The result of both camps is people reject God because of his professing followers And that has led to more antagonism Open antagonism towards God as well as those who say they represent him Perhaps some of you may have read or heard this last week or so There was a minnesota state university associate professor by the name of eric sprankel Who suggested that the virgin mary did not consent to being impregnated by God and thus God violated her Yeah, this professor wrote this is a tweet Tweet what an odd word, but anyway, this is a tweet We used to have a bird called tweety bird, but anyway the virgin birth story Is about an all-knowing all-powerful deity impregnating a human teen There is no definition of consent that would include that scenario. Happy holidays He also wrote the biblical god regularly punished disobedience The power difference between deity versus mortal And the potential for violence for saying no Negates her yes So this just came out. I think was last week now Richard Dawkins some of you have heard him perhaps you've heard of him or read His writings Richard Dawkins is a well-known atheist.  And that's what many people think about god that is megalomaniac that he's He's he hates everybody's homophobic, etc So the question has to be asked is it true is this what the bible teaches about god Is what they're saying about god true Well in this incident before us We're going to see jesus teach them about god in a very practical way And he's going to teach them about the mercy of god And he's going to teach about the abundant forgiveness found in him You see in the old testament book of daniel in chapter nine verse nine Daniel said to the lord our god Belong mercy and forgiveness Though we have rebelled against him When you read the writings of of john the apostle The apostle john wrote the gospel of john First second and third john as well as the book of revelation And when you read his writings You'll discover that that john gave us what are called three definitive statements about god John 4 24 he said god is spirit And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth In first john 1 5 he said god is light And in him is no darkness at all In first john chapter 4 verse 8 he writes he he who does not love does not know god for god is love So he said god is spirit god is light god is love and what we're going to see with jesus He's going to teach him about truth and light and he's going to show them what love is He's going to reveal to the people what god is like Because because god is a god who hide it himself therefore he needs to be revealed And jesus is going to reveal his father to these people And so it says again he sat down and taught them verse 3 The scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery and when they had set her in the midst They said to him teacher this woman was caught in adultery in the very act And so jesus is teaching very similar to what i'm doing now He's seated his audience is listening he's sharing about the lord And then suddenly there's a disruption Suddenly there's these people coming in and you can imagine it's very loud What's going on is very distracting and they're entering into that portion of the temple that outer court where jesus is teaching And as they come in they're disrupting everything and they come and they bring this woman It says in verse 3 that they brought to him a woman caught in adultery and they set her in the midst And said teacher this woman was caught in adultery in the very act And so as jesus is teaching this disruption takes place And the scribes and Pharisees have come with a woman when you read your bible and it says scribes The scribes are the the legal experts. They were the they were legal experts in the law of moses They were students of the law of moses and they were teachers of the law They were the phd's the theological trained people the Pharisees The Pharisees speak of a religious group.  They're only had about 6 000 Pharisees They were centering most of their activities around jesuslam But they had a tremendous amount of influence and so the legal experts the religious people come and they're dragging this woman Before the lord jesus christ notice verse 3 says they brought a woman to him that they had caught in the act of adultery Now just the day before these leaders had tried to have jesus arrested that they were foiled But their failure didn't deter them. They continued trying to find a way to accuse him Now this is taking place during the feast of tabernacles And so that's a religious group and there are a lot of people who are present But notice how john says they brought to him this woman. He uses the word brought He says they brought that word brought means to compel to seize forcefully. It speaks of them dragging her It's not as if she was just walking calmly in other words They had her probably one arm one had one arm the other had the other and they're dragging this woman as she's coming in Before the lord she's not coming on her own free will she's being dragged when they speak to her to him about it About her in verse 3 it says it says they brought to him a woman caught that word caught means to grasp eagerly They grabbed her in the very act of sexual intercourse And when it says they set her that means they they forced her to stand still in front of everybody So this woman is dragged in Forced to stand as they shout out the accusation Jesus is teaching about god and what god is like and what god wants to do in people's lives And then they begin to accuse her. She was caught in adultery in the very act Now when they say that That means that there were at least two people who had seen her in the act of sexual intercourse If they did not have eyewitness, they could not make this accusation You see adultery and that's what they're accusing her of is a capital offense It required witnesses to determine if it was true In deuteronomy 1915 It reads a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he's committed On the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be Confirmed and so they caught her these at least two in the physical act of intimacy And they bring her in charged with adultery And adultery is a grievous sin. It is prohibited by the seventh commandment Exodus 20 verse 14. You shall not commit adultery In jewish thinking it was one of the three gravest sins along with murder and idolatry A liberal commentator by the name of william barkley said Every jew must die before he will commit idolatry murder or adultery It's sexual intercourse With a married person other than your spouse It was recognized As a great moral crime Bringing destruction to man's relationship with god And man's relationship with others Because adultery destroys families The framework of society Throughout the scriptures from the old to the new it is a serious sin and god warns against it Hebrews 13 14 for example marriage is honorable among all and the marriage bed undefiled But fornicators and adulterers god will judge It's a very serious sin in the eyes of god And so they're bringing this test case to jesus and notice in verse five how they say moses in the law commanded us That such should be stoned. But what do you say? So they introduced their case by appealing to scripture Moses says they should be stoned to death So they're appealing to scripture. There's a philosopher by the name of pascal who said this He said men never do evil so completely And cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction And so they were speaking moses said Such should be stoned to death Now verse six makes it very clear They said this testing him That they might have something of which to accuse them And so basically they put him in what would be called the horns of a dilemma Moses said this what do you say if he says Well seeing that moses says that she should be put to death Then I say she needs to be put to death now if he says that Then they'd have an accusation to lodge with the romans because the jews Didn't have the right to conduct capital punishment without the authority of rom According to john 1831 when they had brought the the Pharisees had brought jesus before paunch's pilot It says pilot said to them you take him judge him according to your law But the jews therefore said to him it's not lawful for us to put any man to death We don't have the freedom to do that So if jesus said well then stoner then they could say he's violating roman law But if he says let her go then he breaks the law of moses as they understand it he'd be a heretic He's disregarding the law of moses and so they could say he does not value the word of god And so what you see is their concept of authority as well as their concept of scripture Authority is wielded with severity. It's used like a hammer The scripture is used to harm people And not only that but you see what they think about people She's just a test case She's not even a real person Notice how it says that again in verse five moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. What do you say? Such should be stoned. They don't even see her as a woman. They don't see her as a person They see her as a thing They see her as this kind or this sort They don't care about it. You see the way they they feel about people because they humiliate her in public They accused her in public and they condemned her in public what they're doing is setting a trap and they want to spring this trap on him Someone said when the wicked go about to make a snare for good men They make a snare for themselves And that's what's about to take place So as this is taking place here notice verse six where it says But jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his fingers though. He didn't hear So when they continued asking him he raised himself up and said to them He who is without sin among you let him throw a stone at her first And again, he stooped down wrote on the ground And so jesus acts as if he's not even listening to them He stooped down and writes on the ground So his initial response seems to be ignoring them You see he knew more of what she was like than her accusers ever could They knew her actions But he knew her reasons jesus knew her story And what it was that resulted in her involving herself in this kind of sin By ignoring them. He's given him time to think You're demanding the death of a person The taking of a human life is never a light decision But as he's there not responding initially verse seven says well, they continued asking So by his lack of response, perhaps they thought that they had caught him. So they're pressing him But when they continued asking him he raised himself up and that's when he said if you're without sin throw a stone at her In his answer he reminds them that they're not appointed and recognized judges They were citizens who didn't have the legal right to make this kind of demand. They weren't judges They couldn't determine punishment What they were doing was assuming the right to make this judgment. So seeing that you're not a judge Jesus speaks of the qualifications to judge. He says only those who have not committed serious sin like this sin should put her to death As this is taking place, let's look at it a little bit and ask ourselves some questions Had any of these men ever lusted after a woman? Had any of these men ever committed sexual sin themselves? and if so Would they be willing If they hadn't ever done any of that would they be willing to put her to death? Or if they had would they be willing are they sinless themselves? Listen, if you're appealing to the law of moses, you need to remember what the law requires In deuteronomy 17 verse 7 it says the hands of the witnesses must be first in putting him to death Are you ready to take that stone and cast it at her? And as he's asking and they're thinking Again at verse 8 he stooped down and once again he wrote on the ground This is the only time recorded in the new testament by the way that Jesus is recorded as Writing anything. It's the only time that you ever see him writing It reminds us of the ten commandments When you look in Exodus chapter 32 and other passages that speak of this You'll see that when moses was given the commands He was given two tablets Two sets The first four commands related to man's obligation to god the next commands Related to man's obligation to man And the two tablets you see man's relationship with god as It informs his relationships with other people And then these law and prophets are all wrapped up in this one command. Thou shall love your neighbor as yourself So I find it interesting that is recorded that he he wrote And the question is being asked now What is he writing? He wrote twice. What is he writing? Because he's stooping down And he's writing it may be that in the time that he's taking to do this He's showing a bit of mercy to her accusers giving them time to think And there are a lot of a lot of people who wonder what is it that he could have been writing? Well, obviously when scripture is silent, we really don't know We don't want to impose on scripture that which we don't know It has been wondered out loud though whether or not he might be writing the command that they're appealing to It's a possibility of course Leviticus chapter 20 verse 10 Could be that command, but here's what the command says The man who commits adultery with another man's wife He who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife The adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death Where's the man? If you want to appeal to scripture And you want to put a woman to death And you're asking me to judge And you quoted moses saying such should be stoned Then here's my question to you Where's the man? Because the law if you want to appeal to it isn't just against the woman The law was against sin Sin Committed by a man and a woman And we all know and it hasn't changed a whole lot and here in the 21st century That women And men very often don't pay the same penalty The man Sleeps with the woman and goes off with his buddies does whatever he wants Doesn't think anything about it Whatever But the woman pays the price Always has Probably always will It's a woman who worries about getting the venereal disease It's the woman who concerns herself whether or not her honor has been lost It's the woman who has to face her parents when she comes home if she's still living at home It's the woman who may get pregnant And the man he just goes off and does whatever he wants And I'm not talking down on men. I'm simply saying that's a fact That's what happens guys don't pay anything close to what the woman pays when it comes to intimacy like this And so here's the woman standing there and who knows how she's dressed. It says she was caught in the very act I wonder if they gave her the the time to to at least be dressed. We don't know It's not that they would take her out nude I'm certainly didn't but perhaps she may have just had enough time to grab a rover something She's there with the shame you can't imagine. I can't imagine Just think about it if if if that happened here in this room right now If those doors burst open in the back and somebody was being dragged here up the aisle and everybody would be Be seated in and shocked disbelief and there's and they said liquor you talk about a god of love Well, this one here. It just was What do you say? And how would she feel because very often we don't really even think about how that young lady would have felt How did she feel? You know, one of the things that I I have grown to To grown over the years in this is is to have a love and a compassion for those who've been caught in sin like this I can't imagine the shame she would have felt But I also have gone so far as to begin to think what was her life like because during the time Of christ the idea was that a that a woman would one day She would she would be betrothed to a man The man would pay a dowry for her because he'd valued her He would give her a great wedding She would she would be loved. She would have babies She'd be a woman of of respect in her community Those were the things that they aspired to they wanted to be a great wife and a great mama They wanted that And and many women to this day still do We still see little girls who who no matter what we try and say oh They'll decide whether a boy or a girl later. Oh, no, they don't there's something deep within them That the little girl will play with a doll and play house and and and and we we've seen that Raising our daughters. We have granddaughters. We've seen that where they want to get married one day I have little granddaughters who're talking already about one day when I get married and I'm saying no, you're not Not getting married. No, you're not, you know, oh, it's going to be my baby Nobody's going to marry you but you know that that's already in their heart to be a mama to be a wife and this this young lady guys What makes her any different What would make her any different That all of the young ladies that and little girls she grew up with and we we have to put Ourselves in that place for just a moment to to try and understand where compassion comes from I mean something happened in her life something hurt her deeply Something that made her willing to do what she was doing And we could talk about sin nature and how we have a propensity to do that Which we desire and to violate god's law because we have sin that's wrapped up within us.  He commanded us in the law that such should be stoned. What do you say? We don't care about this woman It's not this woman we're worried about We were watching her because she had a reputation. That's how we were able to burst in on her while she was in the very act It was a sat up And we were able to take her and we caught her and we are eyewitnesses and the law says she must be put to death What do you say? And this woman had no dignity She was not being cared for or loved in any way shape or form She was a victim of what these men were doing It's interesting how it says in verse nine After he had said if you have no sin be the first to cast a stone at her and he's right in on the ground It's interesting how verse nine says those who heard it being convicted by their conscience Went out one by one beginning with the oldest even to the last And jesus was left alone in the woman standing in the midst From the oldest to the last why the oldest at last because the older we get the more sins we've committed There's no center like an old center So when you're younger and i've seen this would be true in my own life as a younger man I was much more rigid As I grew older I grew more merciful Because the longer you live the more you understand that bad decisions are made Bad decisions are made and sometimes they weren't made because you wanted to sometimes they were made because Circumstances gave you permission to and you yielded to the temptation rather than praying and seeking the lord You made your mistakes and your sins and you know it as you grow older You eventually get to the point where you like that man who was standing next to that south righteous man That jesus speaks of when he said he just kept pounding on his chest saying be merciful to me I'm a sinner you get to that point in life after a while where you realize You're not as good as you think you are you're not as good as you thought you were when you were a kid As you grew older you had greater opportunity And so you can almost see these guys with with with these heavy stones in their hand And one by one you can almost hear those stones as they release them and they start hitting the ground Until there's the younger ones who are still standing there because the younger ones Don't think they're that bad But the olders were older were convicted by their conscience From the oldest even to the last Time and failure is supposed to combine to produce self-awareness Time and failure self-awareness Should produce humility Because I know that i'm a failure So what's going on here? Well jesus is working within the law without accusers. There's no punishment In john 8 17 it's written in your law that the testimony of two men is true And so what he's doing is he's frustrating their plans Job 512 says he frustrates the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot carry out their plans And that's what he's doing And now it says in verse 9 second portion that jesus was left alone in the woman standing in the midst It is not said that all the people went out but only her accusers So jesus is teaching us how to act in the face of sin How do you act? You act with an offer of grace to the sinner What is my attitude to be like towards them? well Gracious Because it says in verse 10 when jesus had raised himself up Saw no one but the woman He said to her woman Where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? No one lord And so jesus said to her neither do I condemn you Go and continue in sin No, he didn't say that He said go in sin no more Go in sin no more How did he respond? Grace Is there anyone here accusing you? I could almost say I'm he was he was 33 years old, but as an older man I would probably have said is no one accusing you baby Because I call the younger women that I work with baby because I like my my daughters And I see them that way.  Oh, yeah, that's okay. Okay fine. I just don't want you to think I'm weird You know, but I can hear the tone of christ. I guess that's what I'm trying to say That's no one accused you Where are your accusers? Have you ever heard that? I have I have Where are your accusers? I've got plenty of them, but I don't accuse you What's that do to you? I don't accuse you No Go and sin no more. He's not giving her permission to stay in sin. He's not saying go back to your lover He didn't say that See, this is one of the areas the church needs to grow in You're not giving someone permission to continue in sin. You're giving them grace so they can be free from it And that's what jesus is doing here He didn't teach that adultery was was acceptable. It's not it's a grievous sin It destroys families and there's eternal punishment because of it No, he wasn't giving permission to sin. He's giving her freedom from its power And that's what grace does It sets you free from sin's power Sin shall not have dominion over me Because i've been set free by the blood and power of jesus christ, you see That's how it works in the christian life and that's what we offer other people He offered her grace. He offered her forgiveness go. He says sin no more Don't continue in sin any longer And what is he doing? He's getting he's setting this woman free The one whom jesus sets free the sense that's free is free indeed He's setting her free, but he's also modeling god in front of the witnesses who are there He's showing them the god that we worship isn't this brutal tyrant who violates weak human beings will He's a god who loves who draws us According to jeremiah 31 3 The lord has appeared of old to me saying yes, I have loved you with a everlasting love therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you Jesus in luke 1910 said the son of man has come to seek and save that which was lost What do you teach in us lord? to be compassionate to be understanding But to walk in a holy way If any man be in christ, he's a new creation all things are passed away behold all things have become new You don't go back to the vomit. You don't go back to the mud You go into the light you walk with christ your life is changed by the grace of god christmas So many people say no it's about family Getting together eating a little too much maybe drinking a little more than you should That's christmas No, it's not Christmas is god with us God's showing us what the invisible god is like A god of love and mercy who is willing to take upon himself human flesh that he might pay the penalty that I owed I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god But god took upon himself my sin and he set me free That's Merry christmas That's why we say merry christmas because the baby who was placed In a manger who was also placed on a cross And then he was placed in a tomb But on the third day he rose from the dead And he ascended into heaven and he sends the spirit to dwell within those who love him He transforms our lives through the grace mercy Compassion and forgiveness of god and so when jesus was there And these people were saying tell us what god is like he showed him God is full of mercy and compassion filled with grace and love and he forgives And he does not condemn and he sets you free to live for him so that you not only walk on this earth But you can leap and praise god in heaven He walked not only on earthly streets, but one day you'll be walking on streets of gold And you'll be thanking the lamb who ever lives for the salvation and mercy He showed to you because of his goodness to man That's the god that we serve not an angry vindictive god But a righteous loving father who gave his son so that i might know him That is the god that i praise that is the god of my mercy We need to remember that we need to remember that Every day


Hello to you, our lovely patrons, and welcome to the next episode in our prestigious pint series, where Paul and I have gathered together some of our heroes and inspirations from our career in agile. This episode we chatted to the retrospective lady, what we call her, not what she calls herself, Esther Derby, and that was actually the first portal conversation. How does she feel about being known for just a fraction of her suite of works over the many years that she's been inspiring all of us. We've got some really exclusive insights into how she got into the world of retrospectives, but also her interests in other areas, her inspirations herself, how she's been learning and developing and growing over the years, and her hopes for the future. It was for us absolutely fascinating a whole hour that just absolutely flew by. We hope you find it as interesting as we did. Cheers! I'm good. And Esther? I'm happy to be here. Yes, welcome to the bar. Thank you. We'd offer to get you something, but it's a little early in the day for me. Yeah, so you have to imagine that we're going to go and get you a drink, but we are having a drink. Great. What are you drinking? I'm drinking, well this is a very good question to ask, I'm drinking a hobgoblin. Oh, that comes from near me somewhere. Isn't that a local witchwood? Is that near you? No, it's not near me at all. I forget I mentioned it. It's a sort of fruity IPA with a devilish twist. It's a nice colour. How about you, Paul? I'm trying to be good. Again, my wife's reminding me of the fact I shouldn't drink too much. So I'm drinking Thatcher's Zero, which is cider, but it's non-alcoholic cider. So I think she's dropping me hints quite often now. Is it tasty? This is the first time I've tried it. I'm about to try it for the first time, and I will let you know. Sure, it's just apple juice. Exactly. I don't really have a great or most discerning palate. It generally just takes expensive apple juice for the apple juice. But I'll give it a try. All right. Well, I've never heard the phrase hard cider until I went to America. Is that the only kind of cider you have in your country? Yeah. Very nice, but it is essentially apple cider. And I'm drinking water. And how is that? Municipal tap water. It's just fine. Yeah. It's always good to stay hydrated. Cheers to you, Esther. Yeah, cheers, Esther. It's nice to see you and hear from you again. Cheers. Yeah, very nice to see you. So it hasn't been, I was going to say recently, but it's probably not that recent, but you have moved relatively recently. Eight years ago. Not that recent at all, Jeff. Really, eight years ago. Yeah. Yeah, it time flies. Yeah, I moved from the largest metropolitan area in the state, which is a significant city, Minneapolis, to a town of 110,000. And the town I live in is on the tip of Lake Superior. So I don't know how much you know about U.S. geography, but if you think over to this big box, my state is right in the middle of the shares border with Canada. And Lake Superior connects to Lake Michigan, which connects to a whole bunch of other lakes, and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. So we get ocean-going ships in the port in my town. Brilliant. Which I think is just astonishing turning off my notifications so we don't get any dings in the background. So yeah, 17th, 17th busiest port in the country. See a bit of a ship spotter? No, not at all. It's just happened to... Well, I mean, I do, I do, I do notice the ships when they're in harbor and when they're sitting waiting to go into the docks. My wife's a bit of a ship geek now. She's got a little app that she can see what ship it is and what's on it and you thought it's route and find out where it's going and she loves that. Amazing. I don't know if you can do that here. I suppose you can. You're not really into ships, are you, Paul? No, not really. Don't get many ships in where I live, Land Blocks County that is Wiltshire in the UK, but no. Well, I am 1,200 miles from the coast, so... That must be bizarre, yeah, to get proper shipping containers and container ships just in your backyard. Very strange. So what have you been up to? What have I been up to? Well, like many people, I am trying to work while at from home during a pandemic. So I've been, you know, I've been figuring out how to take some of my workshops online that are able to go online and doing some writing and... How do you found the whole online thing? I am grateful that I am able to connect with friends of mine all over the world. I am enormously grateful for that. And I find that certain conversations work very well over Zoom. You know, I can still have really great consulting conversations and coaching conversations with people, but there are other things that just aren't the same, like conferences. It's not the same. Yeah, it's those kind of side corridor conversations, which you just, you can't manufacture those really, can you? It's the opportunity meetings that, yeah, for coffee or whatever. I haven't run across any software that does that well. And it's also, you know, it's just not the same, you know, if you're giving a talk, you can relate to the people in the room, and you can ask them questions, and you can bounce off what their concerns are, and that's much harder to do. So that's how I'm finding that. Have you had to turn stuff down, Esther, because I certainly have in terms of conferences, my workshops, I know it just won't work. The stuff that I do won't work. And have you had to turn many gigs down just because online conferences won't work for you? Well, I find a way to make them work. I mean, I think that's one of the things that's been really interesting, because I see a lot of people taking their regular workshop and putting together a mural board and saying, okay, it's the same workshop. We're just going to do all our stickies on a mural board. But I found that that actually doesn't work for everything. So I've been looking at how what can you do asynchronously and what do you need to do in a synchronous conversation, which I think is the challenge that we're facing in all sorts of work right now. What can we do asynchronously, and where do we save our energy for being on Zoom calls? Because being on a Zoom call for three hours or all day is just deadly. And we apologise now for putting you on another Zoom call now. It was my choice. You obviously won't need any introduction to our listeners, but you are part of our Procedures Point series, where we've been rounding up some of our heroes and inspirations. So one thing I'm really interested in, and Paul and I are both guilty of this to begin with, is that a lot of people, I think we saw you as the retrospective person to begin with, because that's where we first came across you in our direction. The retrospective waiting. But you were a lot more before then and a lot more after then as well, and we've worked together on different things like conflict facilitation and so on, the different organisations. But I think, do you still find people refer to you as, maybe not to your face, but the retrospective lady? Yeah, I think there are people who know me for that, and that's okay. I think it was doing retrospectives in a thoughtful way as a contribution to the field. So I don't reject that title, but you're right, it's this much of what I do. I mean, I started as a programmer, and I was a dev manager, and I've been a consultant for many years, so it certainly does not indicate the breadth of my experience. You were doing, you were writing about leadership before retrospectives. The retrospectives thing came along at exactly the right time when everybody was crying out for, how do we do this really difficult but important ceremony when we don't have a huge amount of soft skills within the organisation and emotional intelligence within the organisation. Or facilitation skills. And you gave the community such an easy way of doing that, that it really resonated. But we were talking to Roman Pichlow the other day about how he's sort of referred to as the product owner guy, and he doesn't really like that in a way because it's kind of a label that appreciates how much people invest in that part of his character. But we kind of do that, don't we? We do tend to sort of reduction that reduction. Yeah. Well, it's easier for people to figure out. I mean, in a lot of ways, I'm in terms of leadership and management, I'm a generalist. But that's hard for people to figure out. Oh, how can she help me? She said, you know, whatever your problem is, I can probably figure out something that will be helpful, as long as it's not deeply technical because I haven't written code in a long time. But that's hard for people to kind of latch on to. So I think it is easier for people to latch on to one thing. Do you have a particular thing that people come to you and you enjoy more than others? That's an interesting question. I don't think it's a thing. I think it's the interactions. Okay. So I really like working in partnership with people where we're, you know, I'm a sounding board, but I may have some advice based on my experience. So, yeah, that kind of working in partnership, helping people figure things out, I think is great. That's what I really like. And sometimes that's in whole organizations and sometimes it's one on one. Since pre, if you go back pre pandemic, how are you over the last since particularly, because I was inspired heavily by your work around retrospectives, and I know you mentioned that's only a fraction of what you do. Do you think you've changed over the last kind of 15 to 20 years in terms of what you, how you work or what you enjoy? Well, I, I certainly know different things than I did 15 or 20 years ago.  We won't go any further. So, you know, I'm certainly Dave Snowden's complexity work has informed the way I think about things. So I've incorporated more of that complexity awareness into the way I work. Yeah, you know, I just, I've learned a lot of things along the way. I've learned much more about the importance of empathy. That's an interesting one, because I would, empathy is something that I would, one of the words that I would almost instantly attach to you. So it strikes me as, as, as almost strange that that's something that you've almost grown in. Because it's almost, I just assumed that something that you were naturally born with a superpower almost. Do you know what I mean? No, somebody, it's interesting, somebody was said on Twitter, you know, I was trying to talk somebody into, you know, going across the street to hear Esther Burby talk about something.  And I find that really ironic, because that's not where I started out. Okay. I mean, I started out, you know, in programming, because it was so much easier than talking to people, which it really isn't. But, but yeah, I was described as maxi analytical. And I came from a family, I grew up in a family that was extremely critical. So you get very analytical and very critical and empathy doesn't necessarily find much ground to grow in there. So I made a conscious effort to develop my capacity for empathy. And I guess I succeeded. Yeah, it's not, it's not something I grew up with, which makes me aware that when I, you know, when I run into people who, who seem to be lacking in empathy, or don't see the value in empathy, that they can change. I mean, it is possible to develop that as a, as a characteristic. Are there any, that makes sense? Are there any characteristics that you don't think we're capable of developing? That people aren't capable of developing? Well, I think people can develop almost anything. It's, it's what's the, what's the effort involved and what's the payoff? I mean, I'm not, I'm not sure I will ever be good at chess. Just not how my mind works. I mean, I could probably train it to work that way. But, but it's not, it's not what I'm interested in. So I think that, you know, I think people can develop all sorts of traits. And, and, you know, our brains, our plastic, we can, we can develop new neural pathways. And if we attend to them, they will eventually carry more weight than what our original habits were. So you still, as did you still get involved in facilitation? Are you still doing active facilitation now for larger groups? Not in this, not in this time. No. No. Um, and I think remote facilitation is its own thing. Okay. I think it's, I think it's, you know, it's, it's its own skill. So I was at a, I was at a conference in South Africa a couple years ago. And, you know, how it is when you go to dozens and dozens of conferences, I was, at a certain point, you just was like, Oh, I hope I can find some session to go to. So I wandered into, I wandered into a session on remote facilitation by Kirsten Clacy and Jay Allen Morris. Do you know those two? Okay, so I don't know Jay. Well, anyway, I wandered into their session and it was the best, the best advice on the mechanics of remote facilitation that I had seen. Okay. And it is, it is, it is its own thing. You know, they've written a nice little book about it. This is pre COVID as well. So this is before the pandemic. Yeah. Oh, they rushed the publication of the book. Right. Okay. Yeah. So I actually introduced them to my publisher and I said, you should write a book. Yeah. You should publish it. What was that one piece of advice that stood out for you? I don't know if it was one piece. It was just the, you know, the whole, the whole thing. Okay. You know, I think maybe it was that, and this, this applies to moving workshops online also is that you just have to be a lot more explicit. Yeah. Right. You can't be hand wavy. No.  But that's not the case in a remote setting. Right. So I think you just have to be a lot more explicit. I think you're right. I find my, I'm having to repeat myself maybe two, three times and then you get nothing back. It's like, is that, is that okay? Is that, does that make sense? And it's like, I find myself almost a semi patronizing way of thinking, should I have to say that? Or I think actually I do have to say that because you have to be, like you say, a lot more explicit online. Yeah. And, and, and I often have, you know, duplicate what I'm saying and writing so people have them in two places. And I chunk, I chunk information differently. So here's the first part, they do that. Here's the second part, because, you know, people's attention is pulled in so many more ways in, in a remote setting that I think it the ability to retain is different. Do you think it will bounce straight back? Let's, let's say everything's going to be fine. Everything will be rosy at the end of it. And there's a, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, all those nice cliches, but a year from now, let's say two years from now, do you think we'll be doing things differently with, with the back of what's happened? Yes. In what way? Well, I think that there were many, many workplaces that had taken the stance of saying, no, no, no remote work, everybody has to be in person. And so we've now realized that, oh, yeah, well, we can accomplish a lot when we're not together. So I think, I think that's going to have a lasting effect that people are going to be more open and more sophisticated in how they incorporate remote work. I'm kind of curious about, and concerned about what's going to happen to all of the, all of the mothers who have left the workforce. I think that's going to really have, have an effect on things. And whether they come back, right, because I mean, I, I occasionally run into organizations that expect people to maintain exactly the same level of productivity they had pre-lockdown now. And, you know, our context set collapsed. You know, we used to have a separate home and a separate work. And now, oh, look, you're in my living room. And that's true for everybody. You know, we're in, we're in their spare bedroom or the living room or the kitchen and the kids are there. And so I think it's, you know, completely unreasonable to expect that there will be no change in performance. Because, you know, as I already said, you know, we're at home during a pandemic trying to work. We're not actually just working from home. So I, I worry what's going to happen to all the mothers who, you know, something had to give and it was a job. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of hopeful that actually the greater flexibility will make it easier. So we're getting, we're seeing changes in stance over here. And this isn't just to do with work. It's to do with school as well. So having had a lockdown through the winter, my kids were being told, we stay normal school hours. But then they realized, well, actually, they were, they were not getting to see sunlight. And because by the time they finished school, it was dark. And so that, well, that's not a good idea. So maybe what do we have to have, you know, regular school hours, maybe we could be more flexible with that. And similarly, we're seeing workplaces saying, well, you know, you don't necessarily need to be online nine to five, because you can do things a lot more flexibly now. And so the flexibility could potentially make it easier. But equally, it can be abused as well. And people can get left behind. Well, that, and that gets back to, you know, what has to be synchronous and what can be asynchronous. Right. And there's a lot of things that kids do at school and that people and adults do at work, that, you know, they are actually able to do it on their own and then come back together to integrate or to discuss or to decide. Yeah. So that my kids, for example, they shifted to up until I think 1230 or one o'clock or something, they were in regular type, you know, together with teachers and things. And then the afternoons were very much sort of self-directed, you know, give them some problems to solve or go out and do some exercise or whatever. And they're learning, they're figuring it out. I wonder whether, this is a question I was going to ask the two of you and be unfair for me to ask it without really having thought it through myself. I'm kind of thinking as I ask it, but whether the kind of questions that people are asking you have changed now. I think where my mind was going with this is around sort of second-guessing people's thoughts. So, you know, I get a lot of scrum masters, for example, who say, I don't really know how people are doing when they're at home. And I don't really want to pry, but I don't want to ignore them. And I can't pick the signals up as much as I used to. So what do I do? Do I check in with them more often or less often? These kinds of questions are different to the ones that I was getting asked before. Are you seeing any kind of different questions? Do you want to go first, Esther, from you? No, I was going to let you go first while I thought about it. Good, yeah, good ploy. I think people, I do get a lot of people asking now in classes and workshops about how to deal with those situations. It came up just today, actually. And we were talking about team, I'm going to say, I think it was like a kind of a team building activity or a team building exercise. And we talked about the applications of it. And we said, there's the standard responses to a new team that needs to learn how to trust each other on that stuff. And someone said, well, actually, this is going to be essential when teams that have been online for a long time need to, they actually come back into an office, mainly with people that they've never actually met before, have only ever met via video camera. There's people that have been employed and taken on new jobs and they're being working with teams maybe for up to 12 months now that they've never actually met. So I think maybe a lot of the advice stroke techniques that we're using are going to be used in a very different way and people are going to expect to see maybe different responses from people doing these things because they just haven't had that physical working together connection before. Well, I mean, this isn't necessarily, well, it is a work context actually, but you know, there are lots of people that I met online long before I met them in person.  You know, it was just kind of an added and welcome dimension. It's really nice. But I think it's, you know, we lose all of those opportunistic opportunities to get to know people. So the questions I'm hearing are like, well, you know, like you mentioned, Jeff, how do I stay connected with people? You know, if I can't just walk around and have a casual conversation, how do I stay connected with people?  And it doesn't have to be an hour. It can be half an hour. I get people, occasionally, I hear people asking, you know, how do I know people are working? Well, you know, you look at the output.  As long as they're getting the work done, I don't care. It goes back to that flexibility thing. But I think one thing that people don't ask me about, but I think is super important is how do you, how do you create networks now? How do you maintain all of those? You know, this is not someone I'm working with directly, but, you know, you know, I, I, I talked to them and I learned things about the organization or I run into them at lunch or I run into them at the coffee bar or wherever. So I think one of the things I'm talking to people about doing is having some sanctioned time for idle chatter. Yeah. You know, either before a meeting or having a, you know, if you're doing Slack or something like that, having the specific channel that's set aside for that, that's broader than just, just the immediate team. It can be for the immediate team, but, you know, having one that crosses boundaries is helpful. In person, I'm coaching at the moment actually mentioned something to me and I didn't delve more into it at the time because it wasn't really pertinent, but the seed was planted in my head and then it was sort of germinated by almost a cold call email I received on the similar kind of topic. And he said that he was having, I can't remember the term he used, but basically it's like a random coffee call. So in his company, you can sign up to be a part of this group where anybody in the organization gets paired with somebody else, somewhere else in the organization for a 15 minute chat. And it's their way of trying to just increase that connection across the company and an attempt at networking. That almost like you've actually just got stuck next to them in the queue in the canteen, that type of thing, you know. I love that. It's also institutionalized informal chats, if you like. Yeah. I think it would be helpful to give some people some primer questions on that though. That could be difficult for certain people. Yeah, almost like speed data, I suppose, isn't it? That kind of a few quick questions to icebreakers type questions. I think that, yeah. And he seemed to suggest that it was something that you were given a little bit of preparation for, if you like. Not training in, but, you know, and this is some of the things that you could be talking about and here's some examples of things that went well and so on. I thought it was an interesting idea. I think they're just going to see a lot more of those types of innovations to address those types of problems. So one of the companies I am familiar with, they have all sorts of, and they've been doing remote work for a long time, they have all sorts of little, I don't know what they call them, but, you know, little sanctioned groups. So it might be the people who have chips, like your wife, or it might be people who knit or it might be people who homebrew, you know, but they have all of these groups where, that cross-organizational boundaries and cross-organizational levels. And that's another way that they maintain networks in a remote distributed setting. But I think it's super important. Is there a risk with that, and this is a question for both Jeff and Esther here, but is there a risk that people get tooled out with this stuff though? And that's what I've seen now, particularly with this, we're in our third lockdown now, is that the notion of the novelty of tools and zoom and all these slack and everything, all we can use these tools and that was very exciting and that was quite innovative in the first few months. But now I think that's quite, there's an apathy to that. Another, the last thing I want to do when I finish work is to open another tool to talk to more people online. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think people are zoomed out for sure. They're completely... So I think it is, I agree, but I think there's a almost, it's going to sound a bit weird, to go back to mobile phones, you know, almost regressing to mobile phones. But the old voice call, that's where, that was the medium that this sort of coffee chat thing was over. It was not a zoom thing. It was, there's no video. And so people would, yeah, yeah, people would often be out for a walk. They wouldn't be in the office. They would be, you know, wandering around, wandering around the corridor, or even having their lunch, you know. So that kind of thing. Well, for many years, important conversations happened over the phone. And the golf course. We're over the phone. Yeah. And, you know, some people actually find that they can concentrate better. They're more attuned to nuances in tone and pacing and so forth than they are on Zoom. And Zoom, or, you know, whatever it is you're using, Teams or BlueJeans or whatever, it's highly, you know, these spaces are highly evaluative, you know, like we're always looking at other people and some of our empathy seems to be a little stripped away, but we're looking at their house. We're looking at ourselves. Yeah, of course we are. Yeah. Yeah. And this, so this came up with, we had a chat with, with Mike as well, Mike Conant about this, that, because Mike was saying that we talked about face to face. So obviously, Agile Manifesto principle about we valuing face to face. And I'm not necessarily sure, because we were talking about is Zoom face to face. And Mike was, Mike was on the side of saying, Well, yeah, I think it is. And I'm, I'm thinking, No, I don't think it is. So what's your view on, is this classed as face to face conversation, this conversation we're having now for you? I think it is different than if we were in, you know, if we were really in a pub together. And I think part of it is that, you know, people are more evaluative. And you can't read the cues as well. And it's more tiring, because your focal distance doesn't change. It's always the same unless you look out your window. So, yeah, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't have a dogmatic opinion on that. Mike was always also unsurprisingly very, that's the word, appreciative of you. And in particular, of being quite insistent that retrospectives were part of scrum. And grateful as well. He wasn't really pushing for that. And he's glad that you did. Do you remember that? I don't remember pushing. He probably didn't use the word push. And that's probably, yeah, my spin. But suggesting that it was a good idea. Well, I, you know, I think if you're going to say that your method is built around inspecting and adapting, you need a way to inspect and adapt your, you know, the way you're working, as well as your product. So it's a logical fit from that standpoint.  I mean, it's not, it's not the only way you can improve. I mean, people make improvements informally, but, but being a little mindful about what sort of improvement you want to make, it only made sense to have something like a retrospective. Was there anything in particular going on around that time that sort of led you down the route of writing our retrospectives with Diana? Is there a reason that that was there at that moment in time? Well, so Diana and I were introduced to each other by Norm Curth, who wrote the book on project retrospectives. So at the, you know, at the time he wrote that book, you know, projects could last a year or two or five. No, so, so we had the three of us had started the retrospective facilitators gathering and that's where we first started thinking about, you know, how can we do this in a more compressed instead of a year? What do you do if you've got, you're looking at two weeks a month. So that's where we first started really looking at it. So that would have been I don't know, 2002 or 2003, somewhere in there. Yeah. That we first started, started maybe even a little earlier than that. I'd have to look things up, but that was what the impetus was. And yeah, and so now it's been what, it's been 16 years since that book came out. Good Lord. And it's still topping the charts. Yeah, it's still selling really well. And I think it's time for a second. Is that a hint? Is that an exclusive? Nothing has been signed. I still use it now. Is there anything so without, without talking about a potential second edition, but is there anything that you think you would go back and adjust if you had? Oh yeah, absolutely. So one thing I would do is I'd put a lot more emphasis on using data. Okay. Someone actually said to me once, retrospectives are not for data, they are just for feelings. So I would be much more explicit about how to use data in retrospectives, where it fits, where you need objective data, where you can deal with subjective data, how that fits into problem solving and figuring out what to improve. So that's a big one. Obviously I would include much more on distributed or remote retrospectives. How to work with those. And there are some other things I would just, you know, I would just change. I think we, we talked about goals in the retrospective and I think that word confused people because we were talking about what topic are you going to focus on really. So I would change that. I'd probably switch out some of the activities, you know, that I, you know, some of them have turned out to be difficult for people to facilitate. You know, so different set of activities and probably much more about how to think about a focus and then how to put exercises or activities together in a way that has a flow to it. So, you know, what your focus is determines what the data is going to be and the data, you know, that determines what kind of thinking process is going to be useful for generating insights. You know, does it have to be something really analytical or are you looking for something more creative? And then how do you decide?  So those are some of the things that I would do differently or add to. Yeah. Nice. You've got, I can't hear you. Jeff, you're on mute. We'll edit that bit. Yep, that never happened. And hypothetically, how, how high towards the top of your product backlog might something like that be? So this is, this is like the, this is the, the curse of being a generalist is that I'm interested in a lot of things. Yes. And I'm, I'm always presented with interesting projects. So, yeah, where is it on my list? You know, it, it, once conversations are further along, the priority may very likely change. That's actually a kind of question that I was going to ask you, because not, not in a, what do you regret kind of way, but in a simply that you must have had so many opportunities and you wouldn't have been able to do them all. Is there anything that you wish you'd have had more time to have done at the same time? If you like, that doesn't make sense as a question, but do you know what I'm going with it? Well, I mean, we all make choices about where to spend our limited time and our limited life energy. Wish I bought more Apple stock 20 years ago. Well, yeah, there's things like that. But this year has been interesting for that, because I haven't been traveling. So, you know, I spent a lot more time thinking about the garden. I spent a lot more time, you know, making garments, specifically garments with pockets. Women's garments are often made without pockets. Not something I noticed. Well, notice your daughter's clothes. You have a daughter, right? Well, yeah, 18 years old now. Oh, wow. Might be a little different now, but particularly kids' clothes never has pockets. So. So you wish you'd made more clothes or? I've just, I've just spent my time on some different things. Since I haven't been traveling. And it sounds like there's an element of enjoyment out of that. You enjoyed that part of it? Oh, yes. I enjoyed making garments with pockets and then wearing them. I found it funny that I've actually missed some things that I never thought I would miss. Oh, like what? Well, I never thought I'd miss getting on a train. Is that just because you haven't done it? You think, oh, I wonder what it's like. Not that you would enjoy being on the train, would you? Right now, I would love to get on the train for a couple of hours. I haven't even driven a car. My car got taken away in summer last year. I haven't owned a car for almost a year. So there's no point. So now I haven't been on the plane like you. I still haven't been on the plane for a long time. And that's not something we're used to. And it's funny the things that I miss. And I'd speak to people who to begin with, there was a sense of, oh, it's brilliant. I don't have to do the commute. But actually, when they look back, the amount of processing they did, decompressing they did, and actually splitting work and home in that commute, there's an element of that that they do quite strongly in this. Well, that's where people listen to podcasts. That's where I read books on airplanes. That's almost exclusively where I read. So I listen to audio books now. Like you said, Jeff, there is that flexibility. But I think the downside is the down time, is that certainly I can probably speak for my own opinion. But I notice with you, Jeff, as well, emails or text messages I get on the weekends. I think, Jeff, it's like Sunday night and you're working now. And so there's more of a blurred line between now, what's down time and what isn't. Whereas those journeys home from work, that train journey home was a way to literally download it and then close the laptop, wasn't it? Whatever it might be. Yeah, I think both the processing time and the transition time was an important element that's that's gone because our context of collapse entirely. I'm a lot more appreciative though. So you say what you missed, Jeff, but there's things that I've noticed that I didn't realize that we're there during the last 12 months. So a good example is my local area. I think if anything, because I've been walking with my family a lot more than I ever have. And literally, I don't think I've ever walked as many miles in a calendar year. But there's this part of what's to where I live that I probably would never have visited by foot had this pandemic never happened. Is that a similar thing for you, Esther? Have you discovered anything new during the last 12 months that you didn't realize was there? Well, I mean, we haven't had a strict lockdown, but we have certainly been advised not to have unnecessary, unnecessary adventures outside of home. But yeah, I have gotten into the habit of walking two and a half miles a day with a couple of friends of mine. We stay far apart, but we walk on the same trail. I never thought I'd be walking when it was below zero Fahrenheit, but I do. And so that's that's been a habit that's really been lovely to cultivate. And you know, sometimes I just stick it out of the house. I just go for a drive. So I've seen parts of this area that I hadn't seen before. That's been kind of lovely. I think it certainly has put a spotlight on in this country and then certainly in my family, within these four walls of everyone's mental health and how important that is. And I'm noticing, maybe you just do notice it, notice it online and through our community a lot more, but a lot more people focused around mental health, mindfulness and well-being. And I think that's if anything positive is going to come out of this, then I'd be hoping that organizations pay a lot more attention to that as a result of this pandemic. One can help. Yeah. One can help. Do you see organizations that have completely regressed have gone the other way? So instead of that flexibility, that self-organizing nature of trusting people to get on with their work without you know, having to check up on them. Have you seen organizations that have regressed back to? Well, there was a huge run on tracking software. Oh, really? Yes. There was a huge run. No way. You know, companies scrambling to get software installed, keystroke trackers and web tracking what websites people were looking at. It's huge, which it is so destructive of trust. Yeah. And you know, yeah, I mean, just the whole idea of we have to know what you're doing and your productivity is in your keystrokes is so antithetical to the kind of work we actually do in developing software.   And we have reasonable standards recognizing that, you know, we're at home during the pandemic. There's one company, well, this is not just one company I spoke to, but I'm sure it's quite more widespread that was requiring if, you know, if your toddler needed some attention for, you know, two minutes, you were supposed to clock out. Really? It's crazy. Imagine the overhead, the cost of actually doing that. I know. It's like it would, it would be far more time than you would spend dealing with your kid. You know, and it's just unreasonable. It's unreasonable. It comes from a significant insecurity, doesn't it? There must be some very dysfunctional drivers behind that. Well, it comes from the idea that the whole job of management is to extract maximum labor, right? And that, you know, we have, we have purchased your time for eight hours a day, and you must be, you know, with your fingers on the keyboard. It's crazy that some companies still, still work that way, isn't it? Even today, 2021. Well, that whole mindset is deeply, deeply embedded in management thinking and management practices. Even now, you think that even, even now, that's not changed in, you know, do you think that will ever change? Do you think that's here to stay? Well, I think if people realize where it comes from, it might change. But, you know, I, you know, we aren't taught the history of management. We're taught management theory that is essentially based on observational studies, right? So like our management theories are based on how people manage, right, rather than, you know, actual motivation of humans and, and how people work best in groups. You know, a lot of the people are probably sick of hearing you say this, but a lot of the practices that have made their way into, into productivity thinking are directly tied to extraction of maximum labor. Because accounting practices, early accounting practices, emerged on plantations using enslaved labor. Yeah. That's where they really started doing, oh, we have to account for all of our expenditures and all of our outputs to our distant owner, right? So I think until people kind of, you know, realize that and say, huh, that's not what we want to do. Exactly. Yeah. Until they'd realize that. Yeah. Has there been anything do you think that's sort of significant event or person or something that's had a really significant impact on that shift in that, in the right direction that you, that that's had a really impact? Well, what comes to mind for me, this is a long, roundabout answer, is an interview I saw with Meg Wheatley. I could probably find again, if I, if I looked, but they were, they were talking about some study of coal mines in, I believe it was whales, where the conditions were so bad that the managers would no longer go down into the mines. So the miners organized themselves and productivity went up. So, I mean, we've known that for decades. We've known that self-organization works for decades. And what Meg Wheatley said in this interview was, we've known that for decades, and people will always choose control, but choose control over productivity. It's crazy, isn't it? It's crazy. When people ask me why that is, I don't know why, but my instinct is, is to do with safety and risk. And that it seems like the safest thing to do is to let somebody else make the decision or to pay somebody to make a decision. But it's a, to me, it's that, it's that false certainty. And in a way, you're selling off value for a certain level of certain lower effectiveness. Well, for the illusion of control. Yeah. Is there another main reason behind that? People go for control? Well, I think, you know, I think, you know, so I actually think it is much more informative to read the history of management than to read the theory of management. And the history of management is people who had wealth and education being the owners and people who had far less access to resources and far less wealth and far less education being the workers. And so there's a separation of head and hands. And it comes through very clearly. And if you look at Taylor, right? And that, that also feeds into our management practices, even though it's utterly, you know, particularly in the fields we work in, you know, it makes no sense.  So those traditions make no sense, but they are embedded that that thought is embedded in the practices. And so it comes out in how people practice management. So I perhaps, I'm not saying that I'm, but so Robert Greenleaf, I see as someone that inspired Scrum to a degree. I think there's a link there somehow, even if, even if Ken Shraib was particularly dismissive of it. The idea of servant leadership, underpinning the role of Scrum Master. And I went back and read his Greenleaf's work a year or two ago, just for the hell of it, I think, and was amazed at how relevant it was to what's going on in the world now, still 70 years later. And one of the things that stuck out for me is actually on this topic, because he said back in the fifties or whatever, the vast majority of people will choose some kind of order over disorder, even if that disorder is delivered by a brutal non-servant. And in the process they lose their freedom, the majority of people will choose it. Now, he didn't really explain why he thought that was the case. And it was 70 years ago. So maybe things are slightly different now. And maybe we're not quite as tolerant as we were then and subserving as we were then, I'm not quite sure. But I think it's an important factor, because I get a lot of people saying to me, well, yeah, self-organization, I can get it in theory. But when I give people the opportunity, they just don't take it. Well, I think there can be a number of reasons behind that. Part of it is that people are, because they're new to it, they are not necessarily adept at creating the conditions for healthy self-organization. Because there's always has to be a balance between where are you headed and what are your constraints? And if people don't have those, it can be overwhelming. So we have to figure out everything. And that means everybody is going to be arguing about what we're supposed to be doing and how we're supposed to be doing it. And that's not that fun. So I think people are not yet adept at, here's the North Star, here's the outcome we're headed to. Here's the boundaries. So the economic boundaries, the time boundaries, the tool set you can choose from. Here's an abhorrent solution, here's what we want to see more of, that would actually create a sort of container in which people can figure out how to work with that problem. So people, I think, are self-organized and people are just kind of left with nothing. It's like, so then what do you do?  They've been arguing for two years about what to do. And I asked the manager, well, did you step in and talk to them about the girl? And she said, no, they are self-organizing. I didn't want to interfere with their self-organizing, which is absurd. Right? So that's the kind of reason that I think people have problems with it. And people who have been under control, management control for many years, and then suddenly it's like, oh no, now we want you to self-organize. Skeptical much? Yeah, I can see why people are skeptical. I can see why people who are given no boundaries and then make some kind of mistake and get slapped down further are hesitant. I get that. I think, so this pandemic is a good example of this, is that I still think that employees need, and it doesn't have to be heavy-handed kind of controlling management here, but there's an air of not certainty either, but safety, isn't it? That this is, yes, we acknowledge this is a scary time, but we've got, these are our strengths as a company. These are our constraints that we're working with. This is how we're going to provide that sense of safety for you as staff and employees. And I think you can still provide that without necessarily, I've seen the other way where CEOs have come down very hard to say, look, we need to take back control of what we're doing here. We need to keep an eye on you. And that's not safety. That's taken it too far the other way. I want to ask you a question. And I know I've asked you a lot of questions, but I want to ask you, I've said that you are one of our heroes, you're one of our inspirations. Who have been your inspirations in your career? Well, sorry, I simply have some congestion. The obvious one is Jerry Weinberg. I met Jerry in 1991, 90 or 91 somewhere in there. For those of you who don't know Jerry, he wrote one of the seminal books on computer programming, this is psychology of computer programming. He was really focused on the human aspects of developing software, even though he made significant technical contributions, he was on the Mercury project. So meeting him and then studying with him and then working with him. And I co-taught a workshop with him for the last 12 years, up until the time he retired at age 82. So that was... Yeah, that was one of my biggest regrets, not going on the PSL course when I had the chance with you two. Well, we'll do it again. He bequeathed it to me and Don Gray, so when we can get together again, we'll do another PSL.  Anyone else? Probably Jean McClendon, who is not in this field. She was actually a licensed clinical social worker, and I learned a lot about how human systems work from her, and I learned a lot about openness from her. Cool. Yeah, cool. So that's true. That's good. And I'm conscious we've already taken a lot of your time, but I'd like to end on a future-looking thing. So what are you hopeful for for the next few years, five years, time? That is a tough question. I mean, you know, in terms of the world, I hope that we have an opportunity here to get some deeper international cooperation on climate issues. So I feel I feel some hope about that right now. Yeah, yeah. I hope for our profession that we we continue to look at more ways to develop software effectively, and that we learn how to manage software development more effectively. And are you hopeful for that? Do you have hope? I have to have hope, or I would just give up. I mean, I don't, I don't, you know, what I really care about is making workplaces more human. That's what I really care about. That's what motivates me. And I don't think that that work will be done in my lifetime. But I think I'll do the work while I'm here. Absolutely. That's all we can do, right? That's all we can do. I'll keep doing the work while I'm here. And, you know, it's a it's a big systemic problem. You know, it's tied up with, you know, the history of management, it's tied up with how management is taught in in MBA schools. It's taught, you know, it's tied up in how what people see model. But we can create some different models. And, you know, like, you know, I know that there are people who are managing differently because of stuff that I've done and that other people who are working on these issues have done. So, you know, we'll see some change. Yeah, see some change. And it won't be done in my lifetime. And there are always going to be people who want to exploit. I can't, I can't stop that. I don't think you can stop that. But yeah, I have some hope. Partly I have hope because I think, you know, people, you know, when I started work, we had certain expectations that this is just how you did it.   And I think, I think people coming into the workplace now aren't going to put up with that crap. They want responsibility. They want feedback. They want meaning.   There's nothing unreasonable about that. So I think some companies may have to change if they want to have really, you know, the right stellar employees. So that gives me hope. Yeah, I like that. And that's the one thing, I think, that makes me, it's the one part of the Greenleaf work that I think maybe we've got passed, because I think that what some people call entitlement, what some people call rebellion, I think, is just a sense of knowing what you're worth. And I think that's what my children's generation is growing up with. And I think that's good. That's a good thing. That's what our organization, our workplace need. And that's why I think his statement there, the vast majority would choose disorder, even if it meant oppression, I don't think is necessarily true in now the next 20 years, I hope. And so that's a nice, nice way to end that. Thank you, Esther. Thank you for joining us. And a personal thank you for all that you've done and all that you continue to do and are going to continue to do. Yeah, thanks very much. Cheers to you. Great to see you. Yeah, cheers.


Hey everyone, welcome to today's day trading recap for Friday, July 9th. Nice way to end the week, a little over $2,000 today, 2020 to be exact. Still a red week. So let's go over the trades for today and I'll come back and recap the week. Starting with the Mighty 90, just one Mighty 90 in DKNG for plus 285. Did a pairs trade in Dow versus Nasdaq for 123. And then the big profits came in the runners.  Apple plus 456.  Facebook 442. Small loss in Microsoft for 72. Netflix plus 222. Nvidia 285. Roku 350. Square 285 and Tesla 380. All right, so let's take a look at these and show you what we did. Let's start with the Mighty 90, which was in DKNG. So DKNG had a little weakness coming into the day. It was flushing. Had a nice little volume spike here. You can't really tell because later in the day there's this massive spike. So it makes all these look small, but it was coming down had a volume spike. So we got long right here and caught this bounce for a nice $285 winner.  And so I really scaled down my position size and kind of refocused on making sure I was cutting my losers quickly. So I scaled down my position size again today, but took a lot of trades and just just a lot of doubles and singles. And so no home runs just kind of pecking back away. So on to the runners. Apple booked 456 in Apple. Apple was really strong. And so when it started consolidate above yesterday's high here, the blue line got long and cut this run up right there for a nice 456. Boeing, I got hit twice in. So this is two different trades. That was the 736 dollar loss. But right out of the gate, had some big volume to the upside, started to pull back, got long right here, started to push up. I was really close to getting out of part of my position for a profit. Excuse me. And then it just rolled over. And when this thing started, oops, when this thing started flushing, like I said, trying to cut my losers quick. So I just, I just cut out of this thing and it got out now. Obviously, it ended up bouncing. So I would have, I would have been fine, but obviously we don't know that in, you know, that's hindsight trading. So cut out of it, took a loss there. And then later, it pushed back up above the highs. And so when it pulled back again, I looked to, I looked for another continuation thinking, okay, Boeing started chopping around and then it was ready to take off. And then it pulled back again. I added right here, kind of a little bounce booked a little profit on that. But then when it rolled back over, I just cut out and ended up taking a loss of minus 736 on Boeing for both of those trades together. Facebook plus 442. So Facebook, even when the market started off selling off in the morning, Facebook stayed strong. And so when it started to consolidate here, I took a little long position looking for a continuation higher, chopped around for quite a while, had to be patient here. Finally, it popped up, got out of some. I think I added back in here, popped up, got out of some. So nice trade in Facebook for 442. Microsoft was a small loser, could have been a winner. But again, I was just kind of cutting, cutting quickly. So Microsoft was strong, pushed above the highs of the day, pulled back, got long right here, popped up, got out of, got out of some of it. And then when it started to roll over, I just got out of the rest and took a basically a scratch minus 72 bucks. It ended up popping back up, but looked like it was going to roll over the market was getting weak at that point. So just closed it out. Netflix plus 222. Let's see, what did we do in Netflix? Oh yeah, this is a downside runner. So it's really choppy all morning. And then finally, it pushed through that. So when it bounced up to unchanged, got short right here, and caught some here, bounced back up, flushed down. I got out of, got out of my last piece down here, which just ended up being a really good exit because this thing just started to rip higher. So plus 222 in Netflix. Nvidia plus 285. Nvidia. So this was, this was a couple different trades. I know when it pulled back to unchanged here, I got long, got this bounce. There was something else in here. I can't remember exactly where it was, but that was the, that was the majority of it right there. So in plus 285, I was kind of in and out of a lot of stuff, just taking small profits, cutting quick losses. And so I would, you know, I would really call these more scalp type trades as opposed to runners. We didn't really let them run too long, but we're, we're entering based on our runner criteria. And just, it just taken profits quicker. Roku. So Roku, a couple of things in Roku. One, had a almost, almost a spike in volume higher than the first. So we ended up on this bounce, got short, fell over, got out of three quarters of the position just on that move there. It was a quick, really nice profit. And then when it bounced up and started to kind of consolidate here, cut out of the last piece. So that was a small winner. And then later in the day, had this massive volume push. So when it pulled back here, it got in long and just this little pop here was good for a nice profit. I was afraid that this push and this volume was exhaustion and I was right. But when it pulled back, I thought, okay, we'll probably go back and test the highs at least one time. And so I just took my profits right there. There's only a couple contracts very small. So booked a nice profit. So net net plus 350 on Roku. I think that was good for 300. And the other one I ended up booking 50. So plus 350 between the two. And then square plus 285. A lot of trades today, like I said, a lot of just doubles and singles in square. So square had this initial weakness bounced off of unchanged came all the way back up to high. So when started consolidate here got long and caught that push right there for plus 285. And then lastly, Tesla, a couple of different trades in Tesla. I can't remember the first one exactly. But in Tesla, whenever, whenever Tesla pulled back, strong pushed above the high of day and then came back down to unchanged here or came back down to yesterday's high, got long here, got a little bounce. I think I got out of some when it pushed back down, got in again and cut another bounce and I was out. So a couple little trades in there. I think there was there's one other one in here. I can't remember exactly where it was. But anyway, plus 380 net net in Tesla. All right, so those are all the trades for today, plus $2020 on the day. Let me bring back my sheet. I'll recap the week. Tuesday and Wednesday, like I said, were painful days. And so net net on the mighty 90s for the week, a little over $2,400 loss, only a 57% win rate. And then and really 2200 that was in a Boeing trade that just went bad. So and I'm not I'm not mad at how I manage that one. So, you know, just just not a good week in the mighty 90s. Two pairs trades for plus 37350 exactly like last week. And then the runners net net minus 1940, only a 50% win rate on the runners. So net on the week minus 398650. So not a good week after one of my best weeks of the year last week, came back and puked this week. And so here's how it broke down. Tuesday minus 2600 Wednesday minus 3600. And then, you know, just significantly reduced my position size didn't take very many trades yesterday on Thursday, book 268. And today, still get my position size super small. I don't think I ever had a position over 3000 and buying power, most of them were around 1000 to 2000, and still booked over $2,000 on the day. So I really like the way that that I traded today. So if we look at the days of the week total, Wednesday had been my best day of the week. And that is now that has now been overtaken by Thursday. So Thursday over 13500 profits for the year booked on Thursday is still over 10k on Wednesday. But now, Friday is right there with it as well. Tuesday continues to be my worst. And Monday is right behind. Obviously, we didn't trade on Monday due to the July 5th market was closed. But one thing to note on Wednesday one, because it had been such a great day from a P&L standpoint, I would I would go into Wednesdays. And I know I did this Wednesday, I can remember specifically thinking and being aware of it thinking, okay, I had a big loss yesterday. But it's Wednesday, I'm going to, you know, have big position size or decent size positions. And I'm going to get all that back in that completely backfired. So that's part of why I had to refocus not only to scale down my position size just to refocus, but also refocus on the discipline of cutting losers quickly. And so we're back on track the next couple days, the last couple days here. So look forward to building on that into next week, we'll be streaming live in our day trade, live stream room every day next week. Look forward to seeing you then if you guys have any questions, let me know. Have a good weekend.


This evening, several minutes after five, an explosion occurred in close proximity to the embassy. All our workers are safe, all our diplomats are safe, our security teams are working in full cooperation with the local Delhi security and they will investigate further. There is a sound of an explosion. We saw it in our office for two or three minutes and then we went out. There was a tree over there and some smoke was coming out.