A new version of Dune is out, both in theaters and on HBO Max in tandem. How is it, Adam? Well, that depends on who you are. Oh, before I grab a bucket and shovel and really start to dig into this adventure, I should ask you to subscribe to the channel. I do a lot of movie-related content here. I think you should stick around. It's worth your time. Alright, let's proceed. From the visionary director, whose name I can't pronounce, that gave us Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival, comes Dune. Or as is properly known as Dwayne. No, that's... that's not possible, right? We have a wide swath of actors that will appeal to all different audiences. We have the teen heartthrob boys, Timothy Chamollet and Zendaya. We have the superheroes, Drax and Aquaman. And we have the always-reliable Stellan Skarsgard and Josh Brolin. You sprinkle in a little Oscar Isaac and you have a great cast all around, which you're gonna need because the movie is two and a half hours long. You know, it has the feel of a Lord of the Rings, where it's a continuous story, the journey's only just beginning, we're gonna get part two in the future. But Lord of the Rings felt, you know, even though it's not completed, the first part, Fellowship of the Rings, had like a conclusion at the end there.  Well, I liked it. And so did the buddy that I went with, and we had kind of an interesting circumstance. We didn't think there'd be many people at Dune. I don't know why, I just assumed it was gonna... One of those kind of niche movies, it would go under the radar, the, you know, the David Bowie one, the Patrick Stewart one came out like in the 70s. It's old, it's campy. I just, I know it's based off a popular book series too, but still, I just didn't think it had the legs, but it was packed full. And we had to pick our seats and we did, there was no seats next to each other. So he was actually a seat up from me, and I was sitting next to some rando. I was sitting next to quite the character too. He was all in on this movie. It's not scary at all. Not a single scare to be found, yet he jumped twice during the movie. Just a full mini body seizure. He'd be watching and suddenly, hand would flail up and it'd be like, and dodged, it grazes the side of my hair, which I look over at him and I'm like, dude, this is not the way to go out. This is not how you wanna die today.  The entire film, talking loudly. I turned around at one point, an hour and 45 minutes into this. I gave him a lot of time.  This is what I said to them, out loud, to strangers. That's how annoying and obnoxious they were being. These were adults. I'm past the point of being generous. I'm past the point of being courteous and nice. If they can't have respect for fellow moviegoers, stay home and watch it on the HBO Max! They didn't stop talking either. So I still liked the film at its two and a half hour run time, at its slow pace, at its lack of action, with a full house in the theater, being obnoxious, chewing candies, slurping their drinks and talking into my ear and having full body convulsions next to me. I still enjoyed the movie without a Coca-Cola classic in my hand because we got there and the line of the concession, short for concession, was just ridiculous. It was snaking around the line. I keep doing this for some reason. So I went in thinking, all right, I'm going to run out to the concession after about 45 minutes when there's a slow lull in the film. I can usually read it pretty well. I'll go out there. Well, I went out there and they already closed the concession. So this is like one of the few times in the history of ever that I haven't had a Coca-Cola in my hand drinking during the film. It was very disheartening. It ruined some of the movie magic for me, some of the experience. Let's talk about the pros. For starters, the CGI is impeccable. It's very well done. It looks beautiful, visually stunning. It begs to be seen on the big screen. I have HBO Max. I could have opted to watch it at home. Part of me feels like maybe that would have been a good idea considering the audience, but another part of me felt like no, this is worthy of the huge IMAX theater experience and that's what I got. All the actors are great. Timothy Chameleus, Chamelema Ding Dong, I don't know how you say his name. He was good. I don't really know him from anything. Young girls do, I guess. He's kind of the big thing going on right now. I thought he was good. He was solid. Zendaya? Oh my God, Zendaya. Oh wow, just knocked it out of the park. What an amazing beauty. What a perfect performance from her. Absolutely stunning. You know, she's barely in it. People are praising her performance.  She's barely in it. And when she's there, it's pretty monotone. A lot of monotone talking in this film. There's not a lot of bombastic characters. Jason Momoa was my favorite character here. I liked him every time he showed up. Little weird seeing him without a beard. That was kind of off-putting. Momoa to me, he loses about 50% of his attractiveness without that beard. He's the equivalent of the beast from Beauty and the Beast when he turns back into Prince Adam, which is my name. And I wish I could marry Belle. But different world, different time. And she's a cartoon character. When he doesn't have the shaggy coat, he loses some of that animalistic, raw sexual minutia to use words that might not make sense. I forgot Javier Bardem is in this. Rebecca Ferguson, my beautiful Rebecca Ferguson. She does thankfully have a good amount of screen time. I always love her. She's just such a treat.  And there's weird stuff going on in this. Not a lot of action though, as I said. So that's going to turn some people off when you have to sit there for, you know, almost three hours. There's a ton of world building. I assume if you've read the book, a lot of this will be very easy to follow for someone like me.  So you're trying to kind of like piece it together. But when it's all said and done, it's really not that complicated of a story. It's just the way it's presented almost makes it more so. It's pretty kind of simple though. Spice is the, that's the hot commodity. Everybody wants spice. You're going to hear that word a lot. If you saw the original film, they're like, spice. They kind of whisper it in a really weird way. It's kind of silly. It comes off better here. As a mere mortal myself, I can't possibly comprehend all the different things that the spice has to offer. I know that it's rare though, and people want to mine it. So there's different factions that want this for themselves to make themselves wealthy, to enrich their communities. And you know, you have opposing forces. It's got the whole Star Wars playbook. I'm pretty sure Dune is older than Star Wars. If not, you can drag me in the comments. But it very much has the white savior thing going on that I know Hollywood, and some people are really rolling their eyes at lately. The whispers of a young man who will return balance and save things and yada, yada, yada. I would be interested to know, because there is a couple lines of dialogue in this film from these women witches, these alien witch women. It's all women faction. And she says at one point, she's like, oh, you made a boy. You were supposed to make a girl.  The girls are way better. I'd love to know if that was in the book, or if that was the writer kind of projecting, thinking, yeah, we know this is a trope. This whole movie has been played out with the whole white knight, saves the day. So let's throw on this couple lines of dialogue about how women rule too. I'd really love to know if that was in the book. I feel like that was tacked on. This movie felt like something that Zach Snyder would look at and say, I've been trying to do this with the DCEU, but never could because I was handcuffed. This is a film that Zach Snyder dreams of making. It's got the eclectic music in the background. It's a very hard, heavy music at the end. The constant chanting was a little overwhelming. It was a bit much for me. Snyder would be just creamy and listening to that. It's got the muted color palette, and for two and a half hours, that can start to drown out, especially during the night shots that... I was starting to veer off about two hours in when they got to the night stuff.  It's just talking and kind of drab colors. After the movie was done, there was herds of people outside the theater talking about it, including me and my buddy chatting about the different things in the film, about what we liked and disliked and the story and where it could go from here and whatnot. So to reiterate, I love this director. I liked this movie. I didn't love it. I watched it and wanted to love it as it was unfolding. I really did, but I liked it, and I'm excited for part two. Didn't even know it was a part one until the Dune came up and it says part one right underneath. I don't remember that being marketed at all. Maybe it is, and I just have been blind to all that. Yeah, so this is not a movie for everyone for sure. My wife, I don't think, would like it in the slightest. It's gonna turn off a good group of people, but for those that are really into heavy sci-fi, into the lore, into all that weird shit, I think you're gonna dig it.


pretty good turnout for a nice weathered Friday, so thank you all for making the time to come here today. Today we're going to discuss Afghanistan and crisis. Where do we go from here? The security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. And just two weeks ago, a massive truck bomb in Kabul killed 150 civilians and injured 300 others, making it one of the worst attacks in Afghanistan since 2001. This incident highlights the continued crisis, just as the Trump administration considers what direction it should take with US policy regarding America's longest war and during a time when Ambassador to Afghanistan has yet to be nominated. As Afghanistan's regional neighbors, the US, EU, and NATO convened in Afghanistan this week to engage in conversations around the Kabul process, an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. Our panel will help answer a few broad questions today. This includes what steps will the Trump administration take and what policy should it adopt, how should the US weigh the costs and benefits of the various options on the table with the idea that increasing troop numbers is not the only viable solution. To discuss these issues, we are joined by Peter Bergen, Vice President of New America, John Dempsey, a fellow with New America's International Security Program, and Yanni Cascinos, a senior fellow with New America's International Security Program as well. I'll give you a quick bios for each, and then we'll start with opening remarks. John Dempsey will start. We'll head over to Yanni and then with Peter Bergen to close out before we open it up to questions. John Dempsey is a former senior advisor to Ambassador Richard Holbrook and his successors in the State Department's Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he oversaw US government rule of law and election policy in the region from 2009 to 2016. Yanni Cascinos focuses on foreign policy issues with an emphasis on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. He is the CEO of the Hoplite Group, a company focused on sustainable and innovative solutions to complex problems in the most challenging environments and harshest conditions. He has been based in Afghanistan for the past seven years and is retired from the US Air Force in 2011 after a 20-year career in special operations. And lastly, I mean, I do feel like I need to introduce him just to be consistent, but I think Peter Bergen doesn't really need an introduction. He is Vice President of New America and is also director of the ISP program here. He's the author of several New York Times bestselling books and recently published the United States of Jihad. I should say that we sit on you with Deputy Director of the Fellows Program here and an Afghan-American who wrote a book called the Kabul Soccer Club based on the time in Afghanistan. So John, we'll start with you. Thanks very much, I'm pleased to be here. And as I was to say, it's great to have such a turnout on a beautiful Friday afternoon in the summer here in Washington. I'll keep my remarks very short and so we have time for discussion and that I will still moderate and then for Q&A. But right now, it's a pretty pivotal point in US-Afghanistan relations as the Trump administration undergoes its review of policy and is about to make a decision on its strategic direction in the country. And I was fortunate a couple of months ago to be invited over to the White House with a group of experts on Afghanistan and the region to meet with the new National Security Advisor, General McMaster, before he went out to Kabul to help frame some of the policy choices that he and his team were gonna be facing going forward. And without going into the details of that discussion, the first thing he did say to us, the group of people assembled, was how surprised he was at how little attention Afghanistan was getting here at home in the United States and even within the government to some degree because people were so consumed with putting out the fires of the day, be it in the DPRK or Syria with ISIS or what's going on with Russia. And yet Afghanistan is America's longest war. Now in its 16th year, General Nicholson, our commander on the ground, is asking again for more troops, potentially for an indefinite duration. So this conflict doesn't seem to be coming to an end anytime soon, and yet it's getting very little attention. And so what General McMaster asked of the group assembled there that day was to try to get this out there into public discourse, to hold events like this and make sure that people are debating what the policy options are and understand what the stakes are for decisions that are going to be made. And it's been encouraging in the last couple of months to see this gaining more attention here in Washington at least so that policy makers understand the stakes and are able to weigh those as they make their decisions. In the last couple of months, Afghanistan's also been in the headlines for a couple of other reasons, first in April of course, with the decision to drop what's called the mother of all bombs in eastern Afghanistan which I think highlights a new phase in the war, at least new from the US perspective since 2001 in that there's a rising presence of ISIS and Daesh in the country that adds a new level of complication in terms of what the US approach is going to be to pursuing its strategy in the country. And of course, the events of the last week I think highlight again just how grave the situation can be with whoever that was if it was the Haqqani network or some other group that was striking literally at the heart of downtown Kabul at rush hour for one of the most grim attacks we've seen in recent years followed by then the shooting of peaceful protest or quote unquote peaceful protestors the next day followed again by a triple suicide attack at the funeral for one of those protestors. So the news just kept pouring in and set a rather depressing tone as the US interagency mulls over its options and comes up with its strategic decisions. That said, it's not all bad. I think earlier this week we saw 25 or so give or take a couple of countries and international organizations convened in Kabul despite the attacks last week and the security concerns to kick off what's known as the Kabul process and try to reinvigorate international support to the country and explore what avenues there are to eventually reaching some sort of political settlement that can end the conflict but there's a long way to go. If you step back and look at the trajectory of things over the last few years one can't say that the war in Afghanistan is going well. In 2016 for sure the Taliban did not take any provincial capitals which is a change from the year prior when they held Kunduz city for a few days but by and large the war seems to be on a downward spiral as the Taliban gain more ground now holding approximately 40% give or take 5% of the country or having at least influence over that 7,000 Afghan security force casualties last year alone the highest since that institution was set up the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since 2001 corruption seems to be on the rise despite what seemed to be sincere efforts of President Ghani to root that out the migration crisis seems to have abated somewhat but brain drain continues and the Afghans who are necessary for the future leadership of the country still seem to be looking elsewhere for their future and hedging their bets the economy is still overwhelmingly dependent on foreign aid which is unsustainable we're not gonna be able to continue this indefinitely and of course the government in Kabul the unity government that was set up in 2014 and I'm happy to discuss the reasons that was set up and the US role in that during the Q&A but has not really been able to govern effectively for a variety of reasons we can get into later and so I think stepping back and looking at what is America's goal in Afghanistan and what should the Trump administration be doing basically the goal is the same as it was in 2001 it's to keep Afghanistan from being a territory that harbors international terror groups that want to plan, launch or plot attacks against the United States our allies and our interests around the world and so General Nicholson's approach to getting three to 5,000 more troops may make sense tactically in helping to achieve that strategic aim but I think one would be justified in asking given that we have 8,400 or so troops on the ground today adding even if you go to the high end of 5,000 or double that and say you give them 10,000 more troops it's still a small fraction of the number of soldiers we had on the ground at the height of the Obama surge when they were with NATO approximately 140,000 US NATO troops fighting this war and they weren't able to get the job done so what is General Nicholson going to do differently with 15 or 20,000 troops that we weren't able to do with eight or nine times that a few years ago I think one possible answer to that is focusing on the duration of the commitment as opposed to the number of troops I think the duration is what's key in this given that when Obama announced the troops surge in 2009 he subsequently or simultaneously announced the drawdown plan when they were gonna start withdrawing when they'd be coming home and effectively allowed Taliban and their Pakistani sponsors to wait us out and say okay they're going to surge but then they're going to leave they don't have the staying power where Afghans were going to be here forever and we'll have our chance if we go in there and we have a long-term commitment to the Afghan government and Afghan security forces backed by a few thousand American troops to train, advise and assist that might give the Afghan security forces some sense of assurance that we have their backs that will be there for the long haul as they professionalize over the coming years and decades and that we'll be able to strike out when necessary as we see terrorist elements or Taliban amassing to do something catastrophic like try to take a provincial capital or something like that. In conclusion to my opening remarks I would focus on 2019 I think as a pivotal point over the next four years and I hope the Trump administration focuses on that as well as they decide the direction they want to take it's tempting to always look at the upcoming fighting season as the key and try not to move beyond that and because the potential for disaster is real and we really have to focus on what the Afghan security forces and their international supporters are going to face over the coming months but we also need to take a longer term view and recognize that in 2019 there were supposed to be presidential elections in Afghanistan that are going to hopefully result in a government that is viewed as legitimate and has resilience and that the Afghan people support and following the 2014 election debacle we cobbled together this unity government but it's viewed widely as illegitimate as weak as on its last legs and as somewhat of a puppet of the West and the Taliban really have no incentive to negotiate or try to enter some sort of deal with that government so long as they don't see it as having staying power. So if we can work over the next couple of years to set the table for 2019 to make sure that that presidential transition results in a government that has a mandate from the Afghan people from around the country and that can really serve to unify the country backed by the presence of international forces with an open-ended commitment I think that then you're starting to set the table for what could be potentially meaningful peace talks going forward with the Taliban. I'll stop there but during the Q and A I'm happy to talk about the reconciliation prospects as well as some of the regional implications and the other option that I think that Trump administration may be weighing which is why not just disengage entirely? We've been there for 16 years, hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of Americans killed, many more Afghans killed and we seem to be losing. Why not uphold the Trump pledge of America first, spend that money at home and rebuild infrastructure here rather than spending all of this time in a losing effort. So I'll leave it there, but thanks.  So let me just say first of all, I like to start these conversations by saying my name is Yanni and I have a problem, it's Afghanistan, it's an obsession, I sort of stick with it for better or for worse and it's part of my 12 step process through recovery to actually admit it right up front. So that's my first statement. The second thing is I've never been associated with anything to do with Afghanistan certainly in the last 12 years that we haven't been at a panel that somebody will say, well, this is a pivotal point in Afghan history or the US relations. It's always a pivotal sort of moment that we all are gonna have to deal with. So I think, and I know John will agree and certainly Peter, that what's really needed here is a comprehensive strategy forward. It's not some sort of destination that we need to say that whether that destination is 2019 or whether the destination is reconciliation and political settlement, whether the destination is winning, as weird as that may sound. Put a hashtag on it and it sounds good, but it's not really a good plan. So my training in the military for the most part was I was a planner. So I always like to kind of plan backwards from the objective, if you will. So whatever that thing that we wanna put the hashtag on, we kinda have to figure out a comprehensive plan forward, which is sometimes the thing that eludes us or the realization that that strategy is gonna be hard. It's gonna be long, it's gonna be something that we're gonna have to spend an intellectual effort and quite frankly go through some hard days trying to get there because even in 2009, 10, when President Obama announced the strategy with the near immediate, this is when it's gonna end, there was actually a comprehensive plan in place.  The trouble is that people started running into the challenges that are associated with those plans. And quite frankly, we start falling into the traps of saying, well, that was a good plan, but it's so hard to do. So we start falling into terms such as, afghan good enough, well, Afghanistan, it's been corrupt always. Really, I mean, I don't think so. I like to see the evidence where that is, but it's easy for people that really don't know anything about Afghanistan. This is their well intentioned, but this is their tour there. They're looking at it as a 12 month or 18 month assignment. And so they just fall into these traps of saying, look for an excuse almost to just disengage rather than continue with a longer term approach. The perfect example is this reconciliation conversation. Of course, a political settlement is how these things end, of course. But nobody wants to talk about how to get there. They just wanna talk about such subjects as the Taliban, well, they're so misunderstood. You know what, 150 people at least killed. When you have a week that you have about 700 people killed or wounded within a two, 300 meter radius. I'm sorry, I'm about as forgiving as anybody else out there, but that is not misunderstood. These are not brothers. They're not cousins. They're not even distant relatives. These are terrorists. Now, we can mince the words as much as we want, but they are terrorists. We need to talk about them. Okay, we don't, some tendencies to say, well, Pakistan, they're okay, fair enough. You wanna talk about Pakistan, that's fair. However, I actually look at what's the, I've been taught to think that what can I affect immediately, I mean, I can blame space race for a lot of things that are happening on this planet, but I really can't affect them that much. The Kabul government, we can affect a lot. Before you go to Pakistan, India, the region, the world, the planet, the interstellar galaxy, let's concentrate on what we can actually affect the most. So I would say that, again, a comprehensive strategy is something to focus on. It has to start with our engagement with the Afghan government and how we make them a stronger partner, a more resilient element to fight against the Taliban or the enemy forces, because, like John said, 3,000 people, I mean, I'm sorry, that's almost not just an underwhelming number, it's also intellectually numbing to think that somehow this by itself is gonna make a difference. So the last thing I'll say, and I'm really looking forward to the questions, is if you remember that scene from my cousin Vinny, where you walk up and Vinny shows up and this is his first engagement with the judge, and he says these two young men, the two youths are innocent, and the good Southern boy judge stands up and says, oh, let me get this straight, so you wanna skip the arraignment, you wanna skip trial, you wanna skip the judge, and you just wanna go to dismissal. Okay, fair enough, it's not gonna happen. So again, the comprehensive strategy is how we get to whatever the goal is, and unfortunately, all we're talking about destinations, nobody wants to talk about the journey. So with that in mind, I'll pass the floor over to Peter. Well, I'm picking up on a number of points that John and Yanni made. I mean, I think it's important to understand that whatever we do in Afghanistan, we're not, this is about writing a situation which is in very, very deep trouble. I've been visiting Afghanistan since the Civil War of 1993, I was there under the Taliban, I've been back many, many times. And five years ago, everybody in this room could have all gone out for a nice lunch in Kabul without fear of being kidnapped or bombed or murdered. That's impossible today, and I mean, Yanni lives there, and it does a lot of security work there. And so I think that in itself is important because if you can't have a group of people from outside live securely in Kabul, you can't really have any business. And it's very hard to run an NGO. And so that's just one aspect of how bad the situation is. And John alluded to this 40% figure, I mean, and people have different formulations, but I think that about a third of the population, which is a better metric than perhaps the actual geography, are either in areas either controlled or contested by the Taliban. Now the population of Afghanistan is 30 million. So you're talking about 10 million people. ISIS at the height of its power in Iraq and Syria controlled 8 million people. So if these figures are correct, and we hear them all the time, the Taliban now control or contest a larger number of people than ISIS did at the height of its power. And so whatever we do, we have to respond to a situation which is in deep crisis. And in fact, this is really a tremendous opportunity for the Trump administration because they have an opportunity to turn this around. And the most important thing is not the number of troops, as John and Yanni have said, the difference of between 12,000 troops, 15,000 troops, yes, there's a military difference, but the most important thing is what we say about what we're doing. And the most important thing that we can say is we're here for the long term, and we're here until Afghanistan is a state that is sort of at peace with itself and its neighbors where the Taliban are essentially a marginal force who are evented politics or whatever we're gonna say about the end state. And we already have a strategic partnership with Afghanistan till 2024. So we already have the architecture in place for us to do this. And the question of disengagement is an interesting one. We have already run this videotape once before and it was disastrous for American interests. In 1989, we closed our embassy in Afghanistan. The Clinton administration then essentially zeroed aid out to Afghanistan into which a civil war, we were blind when the civil war happened. We were blind when the Taliban came to power and we were blind when al-Qaeda essentially positioned itself in a manner that allowed them to attack us on 9-11. So why run this videotape again? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. And we've run another version of this videotape in Iraq where we essentially turned off the lights and laughed and into the vacuum came ISIS. And there's a big difference between Afghanistan today and Iraq in 2005 because it's kind of a narrative, a leftist narrative or liberal narrative that somehow American presence is disliked and kind of causes antibodies. Sometimes that's true. In Iraq in 2005, a vast majority of Iraqis wanted us to go. If you look at polling data from the Asia Foundation today, most Afghans, a very large majority, want international forces to stay, to stay to help the Afghan National Army, to stay to help the Afghan National Police. And John is completely right. We had 150,000 US and allied troops in Afghanistan in 2009. I don't know the answer to the question I'm gonna pose which is, okay, what is different today that makes having 15,000 American troops and let's say 10,000 other NATO, what's different? I mean, is one difference that the Afghan National Army is actually a more effective force? You mentioned that 7,000 of them are being killed. This is not the Iraqi army that deserted in their droves in 2014.  They may not be the world's greatest army, but it would make more sense for this approach if indeed the Afghan National Army is showing some ability to work well. And so those are really the main points that I wanted to make. And I will just amplify the point that both John and Yanni made. I mean, I was at CNN on December 1st, 2009. We had the speech that President Obama was gonna deliver at West Point. And the crawl at CNN at 3 p.m. on the screen before he gave the speech was about the withdrawal, not about the search. And we were about to search 40,000 more American soldiers into Afghanistan. The story became about the withdrawal. So this was the most counterproductive messaging strategy in history. It made no sense. And no American president, whether she is a Democrat or a Republican, is going to withdraw from Afghanistan because it would be so politically costly to do that and then have something go wrong, which is an attack in any way. Think about Benghazi as a political matter. And then think about an attack that was somehow cooked up on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border after you've ordered withdrawal. It's just not gonna happen. So we shouldn't be talking about withdrawals. It doesn't make sense from a military point of view. It doesn't make sense from a political point of view. It doesn't make sense at all. So the final point is what we say about what we're doing is the most important thing we can do in addition to what we actually do. And we should signal a long-term commitment. We've been in South Korea since 1953. South Korea went from the poorest country in the world to one of the richest. There's a lot of difference between South Korea and Afghanistan, but an American national security umbrella that is welcomed by our Pakistani friends who, after all, don't want a giant civil war on their border either, and the Afghan people, that is where we want to be. Great, thank you. I'll just start off by asking you a few questions. John, let me start with you. You have a very unique vantage point in that you were part of the Obama administration for seven years, and we're working with Richard Holberg in those first days when Obama took office. Can you give us just a comparative analysis between how President Obama approached the Afghan situation compared to how President Trump is working on it and looking both at the first 100 days and then also now the six months in, if it's possible to go that far back for you. Sure, I mean, there are obviously distinct differences, but also a lot of similarities in terms of coming in with a blank slate, at least the administration has its own blank slate, and they're going to start reviewing from scratch and coming up with their own strategy. I think President Obama had spoken much more on the campaign trail about Afghanistan than President Trump did, but we heard virtually nothing from either candidate last year about Afghanistan. It didn't feature in the US debate, and whereas in 2008, as President Obama hammered McCain and Hillary during the primaries on Iraq, he also wanted not to seem weak on national security, so his attack was always, you took your eye off the ball. Osama bin Laden is still out there. You left too early. The war in Afghanistan is getting out of control because you went into Iraq, which was the wrong war when you should have been focusing on the right war, and if I'm president, I will focus on the right war. He sort of painted himself into a corner such that when he won, he then had to figure out, well, how am I going to then address the right war? And as part of that, there was a big interagency review. He appointed Michelle Flournoy and Bruce Redell in the first three months or so to conduct a review of policy, which was then followed subsequently by a number of reviews conducted by General McChrystal, General Petraeus, then a full interagency review involving the State Department, the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and others that ultimately resulted in his decision first to approve a troop increase that President Bush had already authorized early in 2009, and then at West Point, as Peter said, to announce both the increase of 40,000 or so, and simultaneously announced one, they'd be coming home. Whereas what we see now with the Trump administration is much more difficult to predict. It's much more of a blank slate in terms of understanding where he's coming at, and he did make a couple of remarks in interviews over the course of the year and a half campaigning where he suggested, I think, that it's a terrible war, we shouldn't be there, but we can't pull out type thing, and which gives you very little indication as to where he's going to come down on this. I do think in the Obama administration, the dissenting view came largely from Vice President Biden and some others who thought surging was a mistake and that we should be focusing strictly on CT, counterterrorism as opposed to what McChrystal ultimately advocated, which was this counterinsurgency effort and putting in 100,000 plus troops and building governance around the country. Biden thought that's not in our national interest, we should just have a base at Bodrum and strike terrorists where we know they're hiding and leave it at that. Right now within the Trump administration, I think there's the Biden plus point of view, which is not only should we not be doing nation building in Afghanistan, but we shouldn't even be having bases there and troops on the ground, aside maybe from a special force presence and that we should be saving the money and spending it elsewhere where America's national interests are more immediate meaning here at home and then treating Afghanistan sort of like Somalia or Yemen where we send in missile strikes or drop special forces in for targeted raids that leave it at that. Just a quick follow up, I mean, as a career diplomat to not have an ambassador in place six months in, what does that mean for colleagues of yours back at the State Department? I mean, there's a Sharjah who's in Afghanistan who had already spent a tour there before who knows the country, who's handling things, but I don't think Afghanistan's unique in this administration. I mean, he's not filled a number of key national security positions. Afghanistan is one of them and we hope that they will appoint somebody soon who gets confirmed, who's able to speak and have a direct line to the White House and whom the Afghans and others in the region understand is empowered to make decisions and speak on behalf of this administration. That's gonna go a long way, I think, towards making sure, for example, the 2019 political transition goes smoothly if that person is in place, empowered and able to get the Afghans to sort their political differences out. Peter, question for you. I mean, you said there's about 10 million Afghans who are now under the control of the Taliban with a control of contested. But about 10 million people. And so when we look at the average Afghan, I guess it'd be helpful to understand what that means for the average Afghan, both inside and outside of those areas. And I just wanna follow it up with just a quick follow-up point of, when I was in Afghanistan back in 2006 when things were relatively calm, when I was interviewing people for my book, the one thing I kept hearing and it was very much said under hushed tones was that our life was better before under the Taliban. And so there was a segment of Afghans who very much voiced that concern. And today I wonder how they would feel when that's vision is being actualized. And I'm sure the Afghans don't want that, but there is a segment of Afghans who are not happy with the international security forces as well when they've had civilian drone attacks. Their homes have been raided. Where, what does this mean? You know, it's a very nuanced, complicated question, but what does this all mean now for the average Afghan in terms of their life moving forward? It's a high thing, it's kind of a hard question to answer. I mean, I think if you look, polling data in Afghanistan has I think been fairly consistent since 2005 by the Asia Foundation and people can correct me if I'm wrong, but these are country-wide very significant polls and I think the Taliban usually rates at about 10%. So it's not like they have this huge constituency of people who think they're great now, but there are some people who clearly think, and John was in the rule of law sector, you know, Taliban does provide judicial services and it does provide some kind of security, you know. So to the extent they have an appeal, I think those are the two things. The Afghan judicial system is very corrupt and then that's why the Taliban came to power. They offered security and that, you know, so, but I think it's a clearly security at a tremendous price and one of the interesting things about Afghanistan today is there's a lot of people who, you know, had kids on 9-11. They're in their mid-20s or late-20s now. It's a whole new generation. I mean, they're not gonna go back to a situation where their girls can't be educated or women can't have jobs or they can't watch TV or I mean, it just, I think it's gonna be, and so one way we should think about this is we wanna give the time for the next generation of these 20-year-olds to grow up and because over time, I think the historical forces are moving against the Taliban. They're not, what are they offering? I mean, John mentioned reconciliation and sort of Yani and I wanna pick up on that because I'm enormously skeptical about reconciliation with the Taliban, not that it isn't a desirable idea just because we've run a controlled experiment with negotiations with the Taliban or Pakistani friends have negotiated multiple peace deals with the Taliban, all of which they've reneged on and the Taliban doesn't recognize the Durand line and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, and the Taliban's multi-polar organization and what are they actually, what are they prepared to offer the Afghan people about what they have never really, as far as I know, presented a real, what are we prepared to live with other than we just don't want foreign occupation? So I'm skeptical about the reconciliation process with the Taliban because we've been talking about it for a long time. What is it yielded? It is yielded one thing, which is Bo Bergdor, which I think I personally thought that was the right thing to do, but it hasn't yielded, it's gone on for years and years and years and years and years and it's never really, the Taliban have never really said, look, this is the kind of vision we have of the society that we can live with and I don't think they, maybe they're incapable of making those kinds of statements, but I do think there is a new generation, the Taliban are increasingly offering very little to that new generation. Yana, you just got back from Kabul a few days ago. You were, I assume were there when the bombing happened. No, I came back a couple of weeks ago, but yeah, my folks, one of my security chief had a big block, basically land in the chase car that he was in, he was that close to the blast that some of the debris fell on top of him, so it's personal, although I wasn't there, I was there for the attack on the hospital and then also the bulk attack was something that we all felt, even though I wasn't anywhere near Mazar, but yeah, that's the timing. So a two-part question, what was the Afghan government's response to the bombing and then moving forward a few days later to the Kabul process? I mean, there's been a number of peace processes that have taken place over the course of 15, 16 years. Is this any different? Can we hope that there'll be a better outcome for the lasting peace in the country and in the region? Yeah, I think we have to address some very sort of big elephants in the room to talk about some of these subjects. For one, this isn't a stalemate, we're losing. We can argue about it, but we are losing. Again, they're not sort of distant cousins, they're terrorists. The team that we have forward, the Sharjah de Ferris who was there before, in my opinion, he's not doing very well and to be even more blunt about it, I think he's making some really bad moves that are actually hurting any chance of success there. General Nicholson, very nice guy, incredible friend, incredibly talented, been there a bunch of times, but some of the things that are coming out of his office and his congressional testimony, I just am beyond shaking my head because these are not the words that should be coming out of people that have spent an enormous amount of time there. So when you put the context of the everyday Afghan that I deal with quite frankly all the time is a lens that they don't understand our positions because quite frankly they defy reality that they're dealing with right there. I'll give you very specific examples. His business on me, and I'll get to the bomb, I won't forget. His business on me, you had two factions, basically an element that had joined the Afghan government. It was a political party in Afghanistan. They had laid down their weapons, they embraced the political process and for a long time they were led by the then minister of economy, Arhandiwal and one of their senior representatives, Mahmohan is the first deputy to the chief executive, Abdullah. So these are people who are actually joined the government and have embraced it. Brake Hekmatyar is the other half of the equation if you wanna think of it in halves. Well the other side of the coin, no pun intended. And they are from Peshawar refugees but really literally conducting insurgency operations inside Afghanistan and killing both Americans, Afghans because in their mind they're pursuing the jihad. So somehow bringing this guy from Peshawar is viewed as a positive event and not an entire segment of his business on me who has joined the government. So the real specific example is my Afghan friends, some of them in his Bizlani of the government variety are coming to me and saying, why is the Afghan or the US ambassador to Afghanistan pushing for Hekmatyar to be the leader of the his Bizlani party? Why? And of course I don't know if that's true. Let's just be real. I don't have any data suggesting that that's what the position of the ambassador is but in open press there has been this overwhelming push towards embracing Hekmatyar as if he's gonna be the one that's at the example that the Taliban are gonna follow because Hekmatyar joined, therefore we are gonna join. I think I mentioned in the previous discussion here there's a reconciled Afghan Taliban that said, we don't like Hekmatyar. Taliban don't like Hekmatyar. In fact we rather, I had asked them years ago would you partner with his Bizlani in some way and they said we rather petition NATO for membership rather than embrace Hekmatyar. I mean that kind of sort of animosity towards him. So when we think of things like that that somehow one thing may lead to the other these are nonsensical issues that quite frankly Afghan hands if you wanna think of them that way folks that have been focused on Afghanistan multiple tours in Afghanistan, these are like just don't make sense. Fast forward to the attack in Kabul. What happened with the Afghan government? The Afghan government basically went into an automatic mode. We are going to say this is bad, we're gonna do this, we're gonna try to go to the hospital for some pictures which is how the protests started. The protests actually started because family members were like no, don't come to the hospital because effectively don't make this into another picture opportunity and then the next day certain elements some very angry at the fact that this has happened and by the way anybody who's been associated with Afghanistan the nightmare scenario is one of those trucks of that variety packed with explosives, half the weight I think of the Moab, so this is the mother of all trucks, the Moat is gonna explode in a very sensitive area and it's gonna actually take out. So this is not something we haven't considered as a nightmare scenario. We had a couple of years ago in the Shah Shahid area of Kabul another truck that went off and it leveled an entire neighborhood of which by the way the Afghan government then said, oh yeah, 15 people died, give me a break. You know what I mean, 15 people and the so-called free media which Afghanistan has by far the most free media of anything sort of went along with the 15 because that's the official numbers but in reality when you survey the damage it's just beyond anything, you know? So when you have this anger at the protest, what happens next, you have basically a shooting incident in which seven protesters, by the way they weren't exactly so peaceful, they're throwing rocks. They're throwing rocks at police officers that are just literally trying to maintain some sort of semblance of security and I think that basically the Afghan government was ill-prepared for this protest. Previous protests when the Hazaras came out and the Enlightenment movement had multiple protests in Kabul they had put barriers, they had put containers, they had segregated certain areas, they had separated from people being able to freely enter those secure sort of sites. They didn't do it this time. So they were caught in a bad situation and it just got worse. So then the next day obviously you had a funeral procession that also went bad and you had about 20 out some people die and about 90 injured, which it tells you that the Taliban or whoever it is can actually strike not only with some serious access but they also can do it quickly. They can turn around and retask people that may be doing X, Y, Z and they're put on the funeral with shoe bombs. So this is a very advanced insurgency. This is a very serious problem, what we're dealing with and we need to, again, our help should not be fighting the Taliban, our help should be focused on getting the Afghan government to be better in fighting the Taliban because that's actually who's on point with this. My last statement because it sort of strikes also the feelings of the ordinary Afghan is we're not forcing the Afghan government to actually stop making the same mistakes. We're not holding them to account for some of these mistakes that are happening. So while we're talking about an indefinite commitment, I think it's super important that our indefinite commitment comes with some definite conditions as to why we should stay and how we will continue to stay. And that's not a hit on President Ghani and his government because he's trying very hard. I mean, nobody will suggest otherwise, but I think the point is that we're not helping them by not placing these definitions of how these limits because we're allowing those, you know,


Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? The truth is, it depends. In my opinion, breakfast is probably the least important of the day. The purpose of breakfast is breaking fast. That's what it stands for. There's many cultures that don't eat breakfast. Our ancestors never ate breakfast because there wasn't any way to store food. There wasn't any refrigerators. So we had to find breakfast. We've been told that starchy breakfasts like corn flakes or cereals are great for us. In fact, this is a myth that was started as a way of getting Americans to eat grain products. The problem with dry cereals or French toast or pancakes is that these are pure sugars and they spike your blood sugar.  So let me tell you the right way to eat breakfast. Breakfast should be a way of delivering healthy fats into you and healthy greens into you.  So that's why I developed my green egg sausage muffin recipe. It's featured in my new book, The Plant Paradox, which is available now. It's everywhere books are sold. And I want to cook it for you today to show you just how easy it is to make a healthy breakfast even on the busiest morning. To make 12 muffins, you're going to need a pound of Dietzel Farms turkey or Italian sausage or turkey chorizo. I personally use a fantastic vegetarian product from Quorn that's called Grounds. Grounds is exactly like ground turkey or ground beef. You won't be able to tell the difference. This is made out of the roots of mushrooms and a few little bits of egg white. Quite honestly, it's my go-to choice. Now I've already browned that pound of turkey Italian sausage and I'll show you what we're going to do with that in a minute. So what you want to do is heat the oven to 350 degrees while you're lining all this up and then put some muffin cups in a standard 12 cup muffin tin. Now you take your bag of spinach.   The more water you get out, the better it's going to be. Okay, now we're going to start putting all of these ingredients in a Vitamix or a Blendtec. Throw that in there. We're going to put the eggs in there. These are good omega-3 eggs. So we're going to put five eggs in there. Don't be afraid of all the eggs. They're really one of the keys to making this an enjoyable muffin. And please don't throw the yolks away. The yolks are the most important part of the egg. Okay, we're going to add the rest of the olive oil and all the rest of our ingredients. The salt, the Italian seasoning, the minced onion, the black pepper, and our two cloves of garlic that we've chopped. Okay, so we've got that all in the blender. And we're going to pulse this for about a minute. And that's actually pretty good. Okay, now once we have all that mixed around, we're going to transfer that into a bowl. And then we're going to stir in the sausage or the corn grounds. Okay, and then we're just going to mix that together. And we're just going to fill these muffin cups almost to the top. And so once we've got all this filled, we're going to put that in the oven, and we're going to bake it for about 30 to 35 minutes until the tops start to brown. Okay, so they're ready, and you'll notice they've nicely browned on the edges. I like to do this on a weekend. And then I store them in a glass container in your refrigerator or wrapped in wax paper in your freezer. The beauty of this is this is breakfast the way you want it to be. Try the plant paradox, you're going to love the book, you're going to love the recipes. They're designed to improve your health, not damage your health. Because as you know, I'm Dr. Steven Gundry, and I'm always looking out for you. Look familiar? That's the Department of Health and Human Services Food Pyramid. It's how we were taught about diet for years, and in my opinion, they've got it all wrong.


Is anyone going to be on the line? We'll be up to near us. Don't know, let's see if we find out. Are you going to record if no one comes on? I swear. Please don't swear. Good evening. Hello. I can't imagine this. Hi. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Where are we? What's the name of this place? This is in the Metadata, so they'll know. Is that one person on line? Yeah, we've got to watch it. Who'd have thought it? This time alone. 5% Who is it? Hi. Hi. What's your name? Where'd you come from? Oh, I've gone. What a mistake. Anyway, I'm drinking The other lager. The other lager. Because we're at The Other Palace, which is a theatre in Victoria, in London. We've been out for some culture. Yeah, we've been enjoying the arts tonight, haven't we? You know us. We're going to see showstoppers. It is late. It's late than we expected, to be honest. Who's that? Vadim. Yeah, it's late than we expected. But, um... Hi. We're going to prepare a bit going on. Hi. For a busy day, we managed to grab a quick bite of dinner, and then just across the road from my hotel, was the showstoppers. And if you've never seen the showstoppers, I thoroughly recommend it. Paul's seen them before. I hadn't. But they improvise a musical every night. Yeah. So they take suggestions from the audience. This is in the west end of London, so you're in the theatre land anyway. So they take suggestions on types of musicals or composers of musicals from the audience. Vocations. They try and weave them into two 45-minute acts. And it's very, very good. How they do it, I don't really know. Improvising a play is one thing. Improvising comedy is another. And singing. Improvising singing and comedy. Incredible. And Irish dancing. Yeah. It was good. It was very good. So I was completely in awe. And I was chatting to two people next to me who'd never been before. Well, one person had seen... I think one person had seen them before. But they were kind of... They were of the opinion that it was too good to not be scripted. Really? One of them was. So I'm loving it. I'm loving it. But I'm not convinced that they haven't scripted some of this. And I was trying to explain that that's... They've got techniques that will help them. I'm sure they have. And this is their job. This is how they get so good at it. They do it every day. But also part of it I think is just believing that you can do it and you will do it. Yeah, a lot of it is... There are tricks. There's a lot of repetition. A lot of callbacks to old... They won't always think of new things. They'll go back to... They reintroduce old songs even... So especially at the end, don't want to spoil it for everyone, but they'll tie it back to a song that they've done earlier on. Yeah. And if they're really struggling with the words, you notice they repeat a verse or repeat a chorus. There's a lot of them on stage as well. So they can bounce ideas or bounce things or ideas. Have you tried that before? Yeah. Only one out of the six needs to come up with something. But it... Well, something that's related to what we were doing today in a way. Coaching's a little bit impromptu in that you can't script what someone's going to come to you with. You can't script how a conversation's going to go. Yeah. And you kind of have to trust the process in a way and just roll with it and see where it goes and believe that it will go somewhere good. And also believe that you have the ability and the... the capability to deal with wherever it goes. Again, you're looking for cues, aren't you? Audible cues, visual cues from your client or whoever you're speaking to. Yeah. Opportunities to... not to dominate, but to add. One of the... I'll tell you one thing I noticed. That's my wallet. One of the things I noticed that I think helped them and I think helps a lot of teams and a lot of coaches is keeping it simple so they didn't try to overcomplicate it with ridiculously long words. No. So they're... it's easier to rhyme a simple word and build a simple word into a... into a song than it is to build a complicated word into a song. And keeping... coaching simple, keeping work simple makes it more effective. So there is a... there is a technique and I've done some song improv. Give us a song. I've done some... Give us a venue. Give us a musical style. That's a suggestion from the audience. Paul is right now. No, Paul won't. I'm not good enough at it. There are some... I mean, some of the cast are actually in here now. I'm tempted to get them over, but... no, but... jazz. But a lot of it is about thinking... you only think... to... you only need to think of two words that rhyme. Think of the first word and then obviously you use the first word on your first line and you're just going to think of the word that rhymes for the first line. It is a lot more simple than it... than it might appear. A lot of it is fear.  As long as it... you know... there was lines in that that probably felt flatter than there was one. Well, going wrong has two... two benefits. So first of all, the woman who thought it was too good to not be scripted I actually joked with her and said so you actually want them to screw up. To prove that it's real. And so that helps. That's natural. But also a lot of the... the better engagement they've got from the audience was when they struggled to find a word that rhymed or they got something wrong. They spilled over each other's words or people enjoyed that. And that makes people seem normal. Yeah. One of the characters was too keen to get involved but he realised he was acting in a character and was going to start abusing his own position. His own wife. And that just caused more hilarity rather than shame. That's good. So, yeah, if you are... if anyone watching this or even watching this on repeat will be in London or anywhere near London. The show stop... We're not going on commission for this, by the way. But the show stop is here until the 16th of March in the other palace theatre. What street are we on? Palace Street. That's Palace Street. That is Palace Street. It's literally by Buckingham Palace. So, six people online, yeah. That's probably a record for us. Which is the time of day to do it. We didn't ask before what time of day people would like to do the live stuff. And this was completely kind of a... Howdy. Howdy. How boy. That's Corey. Oh, Corey. Is that Corey Bryant? I haven't said what I'm drinking, by the way. It looks... It is. So, this looks like... It is like this. Like Coke. But it's got a dropper vodka in it. It's just a drop. It's a dropper vodka in there. I don't know what vodka. It's Belvedere vodka. No. Syrup. It all tastes the same to me. Syrup. It was you. All the cricket. Oh, there's a cricket going badly. Cricket's going badly. So, we talk about Smajasta. We win. We talk about... Yeah, Smajasta. Go on then. Give us the topic. We'll improvise. Any questions? We've got Robin. We've got the Dean. We've got Corey. Who else have we got? Wendy's has a good comment for you all. Give us an agile topic. And a musical style. And a location. Remember that everybody else can see your comments. It's just us. Component teams. Component teams. Okay. Well, all right then. So, component teams. Functional specialists. Who are excellent at one particular thing. The opposite of what we saw tonight. Yeah. I would say. So, you've got... But then you've got... You've got musicians. So, there is a musical element to this. Yes. There was three musical people. The music was provided. The lighting was provided by a specialist. True. So, the things that you can see off stage. Those are still things that have to make that work. True. Notice as well. So, the narrator. There's a narrator who kind of gives you... Do you think he was the same narrator every time? No. So, I know that they're rotating. So, Pippa is over there. She sometimes... Who's on first name terms. Check me out. But no. But other people... So, they switch the narrator. But they don't generally speak to the musicians. But they have... So, the narrator tonight. I can't remember his name. But he also was playing the guitar. I don't even know if he was adding accompaniments. So, he's still T-shaped. But this is the thing that a lot of people... Careful. I'll say a lot of people. There's a common assumption from a lot of the coursework that we get around. We ask... One of the questions we ask is make an argument between feature teams and component teams. And it seems like the agile answer is feature teams. Yet. Yet. Still within agile organisations, there could well be a place for component teams. And in balance with feature teams. And I think that's actually quite a healthy thing. Okay. To have an element of kind of technical or expertise for complex area. That perhaps needs a sense of maybe a quicker, a shorter cadence to get more emergency or more tactical fixes done within a complex technical space. Component teams more valuable in the obvious domain. Complicated domain rather than complex domain. Ooh, we're onto a bit of connecting now. So, I'm not putting down that. I'm saying that... If you can analyse and you can... But it's more of a known area, isn't it? It's more of a known component. So, I want to do a value stream map to show what the weight stays... Oh, it's disappeared. That's back. I want to do a value stream map to show the weight states between the component teams. I've done that before on any tips. Trying to show why feature teams are better, in my opinion. So, you want to run an experiment to prove something that you already believe? To disprove that component teams are useful. I think you should run any experiment with an open mind that you might be wrong. But value stream mapping... So, for me, the two big differences... The big difference between the two states are efficiency and effectiveness. So, component teams are very good at being efficient. They should be very good. They are capable of becoming very, very efficient. Feature teams probably won't. They won't be efficient. There will actually be quite a bit of dead time in feature teams. But they will be more effective. They will get more value done rather than be more utilised. And I'm saying between complex and complicated. So, if you can perfect something, if you can work out how to do something the right way and be effective in a somewhat predictable environment, then a component team will probably do a better result. Also, it's a relation to definition of done as well. If you've got a scrum team that can't get done done, then having a component team to cover the aspects of the lifecycle that are outside of done is probably the best way to deal with an imperfect scenario. I also wonder whether there's an attraction or a repulsion. That's the right word. Opposite of attraction? Yeah. For people to work in those teams. I'm a bit disconnected now because I haven't developed for a long time. There are two different types of benefit, I think. You can get a lot of stuff done very quickly and focus if you're in a component team. You get very, very good at something. And you have a bit more certainty and a bit more predictability. Is that an attractive thing to a developer to see there's a growth of knowledge in a specific area. I can become more specialised. And I can get deeper. And there's maybe a reward in that, a recognition in that. And there's a comfort there as well. There's a comfort. But equally, you don't really grow wide, you grow deep. And so for people who get bored quite quickly, feature teams give them exposure to other areas. So I think it's a different... I would be attracted by both of those personally at different times. I would like to have something a little bit more predictable and repeatable and work with peers on something and develop an expertise in something. I do also get bored. And the idea of pitching in and doing something that I'm not an expert at but am able to contribute, I like that as well. What's that point? In tears of mapping out a value stream before, aren't you? Are there any tips on doing that? Just observe. Watch. Follow the... Not follow the money, but follow the ticket. Oops, I missed that. What's a bit about? Here's Jamie. Jamie, I have to say thank you to Jamie. I met Jamie for the first time last week. Last week? Last week. At a user group meeting. And it's the first time I've ever been to a user group meeting where someone has met me with alcohol. They gave you a... Jamie gave me a bottle of... I can't remember the name of it now. It's a Devonshire cider. It's very nice. Yeah, so... I haven't opened it yet, Jamie, but it's in my fridge at home. I shall have it over the weekend. But thank you for that, Jamie. Nice to meet you. Long time listener. Long time follower. At the pubcast. Yeah. Any other agile topics? I think we've done it before. We've nailed that one, smashed that one out of the park. You did say we might get more people from across the pond. Yeah. We've got nice people. It's almost like a community. It's almost like this thing's working. Get double figures, we've made it. I'm assuming people couldn't hear us okay given that people asking questions. It's quite noisy in here. Yeah, so we apologise for the background noise. It's more of a posh pub. It just feels like posh in here. Yeah, it's a gin palace, technically. Gin palace. They do lots of cocktails. Have you seen the show Stop a Cocktail? I saw Improvised Cocktails. It's under the bar. It's part of the show. You can ask them to improvise you a cocktail. So they'll give you that one. I've seen agreements the best way of recording what's been agreed. Oh, there's a question. The noise is part of the show. So the cocktail is quince gin, creme de fraise, that's the strawberry. And cream, lemon and fresh strawberry. That's the air cocktail, but you can improvise your own. Team agreement is best way of recording what's been agreed. Next level scrum master, technical master of coaching certification. Alright, so there's two different ones there. Team agreement is best way of recording what's been agreed. And should the scrum master's next level of focus should be around technical competence or coaching competence. I have a pretty strong feeling about the last one. Let's start with the first one then. Team agreement is best way of recording it. This is my phone, I can't show. We've got a poster as you come down the stairs at my house. As you come down the stairs from upstairs to downstairs. There's a bit of wall there. And we've got a poster on there that the four of us created. There's not five of us, but four of us created. My wife, me, my son and my daughter. Our team, our family values. Things that we believe we stand for and stand we believe in as a family. And we have fun, we are the good guys, we make mistakes, we apologise, those kinds of things. And I think you see quite a lot of those things around now. But that's something that we all see every day. Every time we go downstairs. You think you can remember them now? I can remember a lot of them, yeah. Yes, however you record them. Having them somewhere that you see them regularly. Just burns them into your conscience, if you like. Almost subliminally. I know, where was it? I can't remember what company it was now. But they had in the toilets, the company toilets, they had around the mirror. The sort of corporate values type thing. In terms of capturing them and displaying them, I think that's secondary to the actual formation of them. I think if they're done well, reinforced and well facilitated, I think they should be quite memorable. We were doing something today around team values. And one of the things that we pushed the group to do today was to really make them specific. So we started off with the conversation about, as a team, what do you believe in, what do you stand for, what kind of team do you want to be? And then we asked them to say, how would you know you're actually living those values or not? What are you actually prepared to commit to doing at a behavioural level to put those values into practice? And we asked them to create statements and say, we commit to XYZ. And the response was, that was a big thing for them. That was quite difficult for them to do, but quite powerful. Even if those commitments are relatively superficial, it's bringing it home that they actually have to do something. And the interesting thing is when you call people out on them, that's probably when they become more real. Because it's easy to write them down, say them once, and then never look at them again. But if they are specific enough that it's not easy to be broken, but you can identify them. Because you've done it on a different forum, but you've asked to be called. Remember, you did this, you asked, call me out when I do this. And I've given everyone permission to say, if I do this, call me out on it. And if it happens, then all of us and everyone goes, oh, we can't do it. Or in a team meeting, if people are using the laptops, and I'll say, can you turn the laptop off, please? It's like, that's all. That's the reminding people. That's actually something we agree to here. But then how that person reacts to it is key. If I've asked to be called out on not doing something or on doing something that I said I didn't want to do, and my response is defencing, or I sort of make an excuse for it, or I make the person who's called me out and it feels awkward or guilty, then it's less likely to happen again. So I really try and make the point of thanking that person, not only for going out of their way and doing what is probably uncomfortable for them, no one really likes doing that, but also for what it allows me to do to correct my behaviour and adopt a different behaviour. Then that's more likely to happen again. So, long way around, if you can make it visible, brilliant, if you can put it in a format that people take notice of, brilliant, but more importantly that, yeah, making it memorable. And the more specific and actionable, and just repetition, just almost daily assessing how are we doing with these things. And even if you have managed to do those behaviours or meet those commitments or live those values, just find one example of where you could have done it a little bit more. Because that then just makes it OK. It normalises the idea of imperfection and it normalises the idea of continuous improvement. Second question. Technical or coaching? I know where you stand on this. So I'll play devil's advocate on this then, because I know where you're going to come from. So I'll fight the corner here on technical. Let's debate this. So the value of a technical scrum master is they can be a advantage as an extra pair of technical eyes on a problem. They can give a perspective. They can maybe give a more systems thinking look at a problem and understand it from a technical standpoint. In Nokia certainly, when I would do it in Nokia, there was a kudos and a kind of a go-to person as a scrum master. Technically had an awareness of, so the production system went down, there was scrum masters that I worked with. Scrum masters that I worked with that would be able to nail well, it would be worried this, this, this, this or this. And those are the people that are attracted to problems because they generally would be able to discover something quite, you know, analysed, problem solved, fault checked quite quickly. That's an advantage. Having a more global view of the problem, rather than an individual would deal with it. Okay. I think if you offered me the choice, the opportunity to have technical knowledge, would I take it? I think we're biased, because we've never been technical. You have? Not technical enough. When you introduced me, you introduced this Java guru, Paul Goddard. But no, we've never been, I know some very good, very good scrum masters who were very technical and had a level of respect that I would never have got from their team because they could, they could talk on a level technically with their scrum masters. I'm really, I'm internally struggling with this. If I could push a button and I could give myself technical skills and knowledge, would I do it? But you're not interested by technical things? No, because I didn't do it. But I quite enjoyed it. When I did, so years and years ago, I went on the SQL server because of the visual, but I quite enjoyed it. You can write SQL statements by yourself. I did a few now and then. Select all from? Yeah. I did that. Select statements. That's about all I remember. But I quite enjoyed it. Select style. Select style. So my argument has always been I'd be too tempted or too blinded by what I know to be neutral, to be objective. And I think my naivety, my lack of knowledge, I consider that to be a help. But is that my cognitive bias kicking in and justifying my ignorance? I don't know. I'd really like to think that I could have that knowledge and still be neutral. But I know from other areas of my life that I struggle to be neutral when I do have some knowledge. So sports coaching, for example, I find it a lot harder to be neutral. And I default too quickly to pass on technical knowledge or whatever. Robin says technical knowledge can be useful if you know when you are wearing an SM hat. It's gone. Ah! Ah! It's gone. When you are wearing a technical hat, an SM hat, and when you are not ensuring that it's something you're wearing, it's certainly a leader. Yeah, true. I'd love to be able to do that, I think. I just don't trust myself enough. Maybe it's a physical hat you could wear. Yeah. To say, look, do you want me to, and ask the team the question, do you want me to answer this from a technical viewpoint or from a neutral stomach to viewpoint? This is good, but loads of comments, Geoff.  That's what I believe, that you can actually be, obviously, ignorant. I'm not faking my lack of knowledge. No, I know. But I think, again, bringing back to Nokia as an example, if I was to summarise this as a facial expression, if I came across as stupid or naive, there'd be a... not everyone, but there'd be a kind of a... I'll do that better. So that kind of response that you're slowing us down, that type of thing. And... it lends itself back to what we were talking about today about our desire to solve solutions fast. So I think it does fuel that need an extra problem solver technically could solve a technical, complicated problem faster. A technical solution. Get more engineers around the problem because there is a solution. We just need an extra pair of hands to produce it. Yeah. And Toyota, they're... Yeah, very much so. Very much the technology. Chief engine. Chief engine. Yeah. I always had a problem with that. But they... I was the chief engine there with basically this from after all. Yeah. A technical... like a guru. Yeah. I think Ken Swabel was... because he was tongue-tied, he was a small talk, he kind of viewed that as not a bad thing. And Jeff Southerman views it as not a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just think it's dangerous. I think more bad can come a bit, the more good can come a bit. Potentially. Potentially. There's a bigger downside than there is a bigger upside. Yeah. In my view. But... it's possible. Everything's possible. We've got about five minutes left. Any more questions? You can ask us anything. We didn't lose... AMA. Five minutes left. You could put it in. We'll use some might. Not bad now. I'll get some improviser though. What's in the box? About to see my first use group presentation and any tips. For topics or... presentation? Give us some more details, Robin. I know you're probably typing frequently. Is it a short lightning talk? Is it a long session? Presentation. Presentation. Um... What's got the topic? Talk slow. Be natural. That's it. That's easy to say, isn't it? Be natural. Be yourself. Most people tend to speed up when they're nervous. Slow down. It's presentations. 30 minutes on a board. So you know the topic? Yeah. So don't second guess yourself. I think the biggest mistake that people make is they assume that they're there to... the audience is there to trip you up. I think that's most people's concerns with these things. Um... Yeah.  Enjoy it. Smile. Make a connection with people. No, I wouldn't say that. Well, I wouldn't say that. It's not appropriate. It's the vodka talking. It's not appropriate. It's a tip that I was given by an improv teacher years ago. I've told you about it. It's not appropriate right now. No, that's harsh, because there's an inject and you're deliberately assuming it. Now you've got to make something out of the tent if that's what it was all about. Use emotion. Use emotion. There's my tip. Yeah, so I'm a big fan of, at the moment, this big thing at the moment for me is positive affirmations. So, imagine, not necessarily imagine, but repeat all the things that are positive about what you're doing. So, tell yourself regularly that you know the topic. Yeah. Um... that people don't want you to fail. No. All the things that you can think of that are true and are also helpful, list them out and just repeat them to yourself regularly. Um... practice breathing. Obviously, practice what you want to say. Keep it simple. Don't overcomplicate it. It's good. Good luck, Robin. Where's the talk? It's like a really long satellite delay. It's like the Martian. Hello, Robin. Robin, come in. Nice coat. Well, it's in... Please, please.  Yeah, yeah. They'll look after you, yeah. Home tent. Don't be afraid to say you don't know. No one's perfect. Be vulnerable. Be yourself. Be natural. Enjoy it. Yeah. Set yourself some realistic... Cheers, Corey. Set yourself some realistic success bar as well. Don't... Another mistake that a lot of people make is they... It's not a conscious thing, but they assume that their presentation has to be perfect. Their talk has to be perfect. If you sit... Nobody gives a perfect presentation. You watch some of the best presenters in the world. In fact, there was a really good, um... There was a really good video recently about some guy... It's going to be quite vague. But he was... Some guy who'd just been elected, I'm going to say, to Senator somewhere in America. And, um, he was doing his sort of acceptance speech, like, uh, thanks speech. And, uh, he's... One of his kids came on stage, that toddler. See this? And, uh, so his wife and his older kids were in the front row. And his little kid, all right, sort of wandering on with his blanket and stuff, wanders onto the stage, completely breaks the guy's flow. But he runs with it and makes a few jokes about it.  And he just... And then he picks him up and starts talking about, you know, how family's really important and how you've got to look after the parents. Parents have a hard job and everyone laughs and has a joke about it.  It's quite good how you cope with the unexpected and cope with failure. Have a little, uh, just embrace the moment. A bit like the impromptu that you're talking about earlier on. That's what Richard Bryant said to me was, uh, the mistakes, the mistakes is the gold. That's where the real stuff is. When you make mistakes, that's where the magic happens. Look forward to the mistakes. Do it. Hard time to go. That's it, finish up. It's quite late.


We're any thousand subscribers I cannot believe that seriously Thank you everyone who has subscribed to my youtube channel. Thank you everyone that likes my content Thank you everyone that has watched one of my videos. Thank you everyone that has commented on one of my videos. Seriously like This is insane for me But the last week has just been like so fast I think we've gained like two thousand subscribers or one thousand subscribers within the last week and it Man, oh man. It's been fast. Hey, so seriously. Thank you everyone that has subscribed to this YouTube channel I'll be fighting Stop it. Oh that works God damn it someone must be talking about me But for reals guys, I don't know what to do for a twenty thousand subscriber special video I seriously don't know what to do. So that's what I'm gonna be asking you guys to help me out Just like comment down below like some video ideas for twenty thousand subscribe because like I've been thinking of so many things But like not unlike not I just want to do all of them But then at the same time I I just want to like do one of them and it's just so difficult So it'll be better if the doof squad the best freaking YouTube subscribers out there. That's you Choose a 20k special It doesn't matter what it is the one that's got the most thumbs up is the one that I will do So comment down below what you guys want me to do for a 20k Special video. This is just me thanking you guys. So there when I had to do that special video I can just get straight into it. Okay But yet again, thank you guys for 20,000 subscribers. You You seriously don't know how much this means to me I've been doing YouTube for what four five years and now we're up to 20,000 subscribers It's just like, you know, I never want to give up my dream of entertaining people and I'm happy that you know There's people that are staying to help make my dream come true Like I have no idea what I'll be doing if I didn't do YouTube I seriously don't know what my life would be like I could not be here because I YouTube and just my subscribers has just made my life so much happier like oh I'm so glad I decided to do YouTube. It's it's my getaway zone. It's my happy place It's you know all that so seriously. Thank you guys So much for being just awesome to me and I promise that me Logan Will um make good videos to you because that's what I'm here to do I'm supposed to be the best YouTube out there out there. Okay, I do fast reactions I make my fast reactions quality content because I am quality content. Oh, yeah Yeah Hmm, but also speaking of quality content. I have made another channel So now I got two separate channels and I plan on uploading this. Oh, I'll tell you what they are first My first super channel is ASMR channel and every Sunday from now on I plan on uploading a YouTube video around 12 a.m New Zealand standard time, which would be 8 p.m. No seven Seven eight. No 8 p.m. Korean standard time and finally for all my subscribers that has subscribed to me for gaming content Like the first 1000 subscribers. No, not first like first 500 subscribers I'm made a gaming channel and I plan on making a gaming video on black ops for today So they'll be up tonight and then also I got to do some some kpop reaction stuff today I don't know I want to do daily kpop reactions And then I want to do the ASMR once a week and then gaming video It's just whenever I want to record a gaming video So they could be multiple times a week one time a week two times a week three times a week But anyways, that stuff will be in the description down below and also in the comment section So you guys want to subscribe to those then do that because I asked people if they would want gaming content on this channel And then they said no, I put it on another channel So I want to do that, but seriously once again Thank you all for subscribing to my doofiness Seriously, like I'm the biggest doof out there and I appreciate that you guys are supporting me So yeah, I'm gonna let that especially gonna be all for this video I hope you guys did enjoy and if you guys did then definitely show some support by leaving a like and also comment down below If you're gonna subscribe to those YouTube channels and also like my 20k special video Comment that down below as well and also subscribe if you guys are new to the channel because there will be more content on Free channels now, so I'm just gonna be so awesome Wait, I'm already awesome. What am I talking about? Just subscribe and yeah, I'm in that I hope you guys have a great day and just keep on smiling and ah y'all subscribe


For waiting to talk to a marine when there's a problem, it's too late. And life is tough. Being a marine is tough. Nobody said this was going to be easy, but you can deal with this. It has to be dealt with. You've got to understand there's a lot of people that care about us. The nation cares. So let us help. Let us help. Let us help you help yourself, and let us help each other. If you can't do self-aid, okay fine, then your buddy's there to do aid.  There's nothing wrong with that. Thanks. All right, see what you can do with that. I'm still not sure it's going to do anything in it.