and welcome to this episode of the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. I am your host, Gwendolyn Harris. My guest today is a phenomenal contemporary jazz R&B and saxophonist, songwriter and performer with a sultry and soulful sound. He has played all of the world at different venues and festivals. Some artists he has played with include Gerald Albright, Eric Darius, Najee, The Temptations, Gail Johnson, and the list definitely goes on. I am so happy to have him here with me today. Let's welcome Mr. Tony Exum, Jr. to the show. Aloha Tony, how are you? How great, how are you? I am well. It seems like, you know, I just saw you a few days ago, you know? I know, crazy how it works, right? Yes, so for viewers, I say that because I just came back from the Hampton Jazz Legacy Festival and Tony was doing his thing. He was on stage with Nathan Mitchell and they were doing their thing on the stage. Absolutely awesome. So I thank you for being here. You were in Colorado. Yeah. So I thank you for taking the time to being here with me today. So let's get started. All right. How did you get your start in music? I was about 11 years old and when I was growing up, I had an uncle. My mom was a younger brother who was also a saxophone player.  He went on to represent me as an army musician. So every summer when I'd come back to Colorado, I was raised in a few different places with my stepfather being an Air Force. So I'd come back to Colorado Springs for summertime, you know, so I could see my dad and see family or whatever.  And so one particular summer, he really just stood out. And I thought, man, I can do that too. And so I told him, I said, I want to play saxophone.  And he gave me his first horn. That was probably, what, 1986, 87, something like that. And so that's when I started playing. I was in middle school. I was living in Mississippi at that time. My stepfather was stationed in a Keester Air Force base. So that was home back then. And I started playing in the school band and marching band. Eventually we moved back to Colorado Springs. And that's when I got to my first jazz band at 14, my grade. And I think I really got serious a few years later after seeing David Sandborn at Algeron Concert. Oh, wow. Yeah, my dad took me to a fiddler's green, a real big, amphitheater outdoor venue in Denver, a world famous place. They used to come every summer. Now, I remember my uncle used to always go. I never went with him. He never let me go. He came back home one time with a tape. And that was called Double Vision. It was Bob James and David Sandborn out in Mississippi today, a landmark album in contemporary jazz to this day. And that was my first tape, my first, you know, I'm dating myself, tape, you know, of that music that was mine. He bought it for me. So I listened to that thing all the time. I thought I was grown, sitting in my room listening to Sandborn and Bob James. But I was drawn to the music at that point. So once I started playing in stage band in ninth grade, I wanted to learn how to solo. I wanted to learn how to play. And I started listening. I'd already been listening to jazz my whole life. But I kind of started taking away more serious at that point. And that's kind of how I got my start. So, you know, I played in off to high school, majored in music in college, a university in Denver. Studied with some great musicians there, great musicians, great, just incredible players. Just, you know, he's always had a strong tradition of great, you know, destruction in music, great program there. So that's kind of where I got my formal teaching. After that, I was probably 18 years old. I started playing professionally. I started getting hired to do things, you know, playing private stuff, playing some things in the studio with, you know, some local hip hop and R&B artists. And getting a few shows here and there. But I like a lot of artists. I started out, you know, playing on the weekends, working a day job, you know. But, you know, as I got a little older, I started opening up for some major acts that I've come to call out of screens.  My first big gig was the Shilights and Dell Funnix. And that was, actually, I was like 22 years ago. Year 2000 to be exact, 21 years ago. But that was the big coming out party for me, basically. I did a tribute to Grover Washington Junior, which was incredible. I only have to, I'm gonna fit like two songs in. And so, I had some older guys I've been playing with for a while that back we had, you know, we've had to practice overnight because the other band that I was in, the leader got jealous that I got the gig. So he purposely booked the band someplace else. So I couldn't use those guys. I had to throw a band together real quick to make this work. But his gig ended up getting canceled. So, you know, never forget that we stayed up all night because these guys couldn't play, but they weren't players like out there in the public like that. They just, they liked me. They were more like guys that did stuff in the studio. And the drummer was an older cousin of mine that had been playing for a while. So I dragged him and I was like, look, if you guys could do this 15 minute performance for me, it'd be incredible.   And at that, it was like, the name just got out there.  So people know my family anyway. But to see me on that stage, you know, in front of 2,000 people was big. So I kind of started the whole career, I guess you could say, as far as me considering, or taking more seriously me as an artist, you know, doing something like that. The very next year, I did the same thing, but by myself for Dennis Edwards and his temptations and Jeffrey Osborne. Wow. In between that, I did some stuff with the Manhattan. So for some reason I was getting all those opening gigs, just some great opportunities. And that really kind of started that journey, you know, kind of put the first two bricks in the road, so to speak of my path to where I'm at now. Wow, what an extensive, what an extensive path. So I can say that you're a, I want to say kind of like a military, military brat, like they used to say, because I'm a military. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm an Air Force brat.  I'm army, I'm army. So I'm not going to hold that against you either. But you know what's crazy, when I was in Germany, we lived in the stairwells, you know, it was both. It was army and Air Force. Yes. Over there, of course, two other places. Like even here, you know, there's four cars, some of them there's, Yep. Peterson Air Force Academy, Norad Street, where this is a whole military complex here. Ashley, I think Peterson's now a space force base or about to be, so changing up a little bit. But yes, it's, you get the military lifestyle though. You understand the process there. Yes, yes I do. Most definitely I do. So tell me, I know you play the sax. What other instruments? Do you play any other instruments? Yes, I play keys, piano, play some flute. Okay, so you can pick up the bass just cause I know a lot of saxophone players like to play bass cause you know, Jared Albright's an incredible bass player. My man, Elon Trotman is doing this thing on bass. So I'm like, hmm, I really respect, you know, bass guitar. So I'm thinking about just, just try to see if I could do it. I don't know if I ever do it professionally, but you know. Oh, you're a musician, you know you can do it. You know you can do it. Yeah, you know you can do it. I've been looking for a long time. So I'm like, just do it, you know, see what happens. So what music did you guys listen to in your household? In your household, what type of music did you listen to growing up? Oh man, it was a little bit of everything. You know, when we were, when I was younger, my, we were in Germany, my stepdad used to buy records a lot more than he did when I got older. But you know, we moved to Mississippi. We had a lot of radio stations to choose from. So there's a lot of good music, you know. Contemporary jazz, my mother was always into that. But I was into like part of the funk and bellic and slave and as a little kid, like barely talking, I could recite Bootsies whole, whatever. I could tell you, you throw on Pete P. Funk and I'm singing along with it.  And so, you know, early hip hop. But a lot of, a lot of contemporary jazz, you know, a lot of Grover Washington Junior and Jeff Lord, Refugian, David Sanborn, George Howard, Al Jarreau, Angela Bowfield, you know, coming from my mom's side of the fence. And you know, just the stuff that was out. I mean, Prince, Michael Jackson, the Jacksons, I really liked secretly. I never admitted this before, but you know, I think in the 80s, we all kind of had to sort of get in the good mix of music. So I have to put Earth When the Fire in there. Earth When the Fire was really big in my household. Lots of that. Let's see who else. Hair bands that came out, like I used to secretly, we liked Don Jovi and Beth Leppert and Molly Crew, but I never told anybody that, you know. You know, kind of dug that stuff.  I was a big Jimi Hendrix fan and when I was a kid, only because they wore the costumes, I used to like kiss. I just thought it was cool because I had the wild hair and the crazy costumes and Gene Simmons sticking his tongue out and stuff. I was like, as a little boy, they're like cartoon characters to me. So, you know, I start like kiss, but only because of that. I didn't get into their music until years later, but I had a little bit of rock and roll in me too, you know. And of course, as hip hop started to progress, you know, in the 80s, I was really heavy into that. So as long as it was clean, I could listen to it in front of my parents, of course. Big new addition fan, you know, for whole nine. So, you know, with this pandemic and it looks like we're, after what I saw this weekend, you know, I know you guys are back out on the road now, which is amazing, which is great. What did you do? Because I know it was hard for all of you musicians, entertainers during the pandemic time. Okay. So what did you do during that time? To get through it, you know, to get through that difficult time. What did you do? It was a lot that I tried to do. You know, first I have to say that it was, I was referred to that period of time as the grand equalizer because it put everybody on the same plane too. Almost instantly. A few things that happened in history that were affected every human being on the planet in one way or another. So I tried not to get too down about it.  I released a single with Bandel Andrew called, Don't Run From Love. Because we had been working on the song before the pandemic and I called him up. I said, Bandel, I said, man, let's just go ahead and put that song out. Because we're going to be sitting here for a while. He's like, you think so? I was like, yeah, man. He's like, yeah, you know what you're right. Everybody's dropping new songs. So, you know, I didn't want to be lost in the sauce, so to speak. So I needed to put the new single anyway. So we released that. And in addition to that, I was able to work a little bit because with Colorado, a lot of the venues stayed open at like half capacity. Or, you know, or 30% capacity. So I had to scale down a little bit. I didn't always have a full band with me. I'd have like a trio. Or I'd do, you know, solo with tracks, you know, I got involved in this thing called curbside culture, which was brought about by a company called the Cultural Office of the Pike Speed Region. And so they picked like seven of us. So we want to try something. We want to try to offer live performance services to people on like a curbside, like outdoors. It was during the summertime, of course. In other words, I could come to your home, set up in your driveway, set up in your cul-de-sac, your backyard, your deck, and do a, you know, hour, 75 minute concert for you and your neighbors, so to speak. So they set up a website and, you know, put us all on there. And it was like myself. I was probably the only national recording artist on there, but I was like, well, look, while we're sitting at home, we're going to work and meet some new fans and make some new friends. So I don't, I don't mind.  So I did that all summer. And no touring, of course. I did one big concert with the group called Dotsero at the baseball stadium. That same thing, mine, you know, that's a 6,000 seater, but we have a triple 18 here in town, but we, they, they, they limited to like a thousand seats so everybody could spread out. And they had a big stage, jumbotron, the whole nine. And it felt like a big jazz fest. And so I did that on a Friday night. And I remember telling the band, I was like, I don't know when we're going to do this again. So let's have a lot of fun. This might be the last one for quite some time. So we had a good time with that. And that was pretty much it, you know, I just kind of worked my way around doing smaller or intimate shows. I was able to kind of sustain with that. And it feels good to be back out on the road, doesn't it? I was having too much fun with, and, you know, Nathan them a craze. I was laughing the whole time. We were laughing the whole time. It's like a big reunion. You know, we had all of us hadn't seen each other in a while.  And Nathan and I got a chance to really, you know, talk and make some things happen. Seeing Will Donato again. Had seen Will in like, oh man, three years.  So that was the thing. It was like a family reunion, you know, and we were all just kind of a little more jovial. Cause it's like, okay, we're back. And I saw that too. I saw, I witnessed all of that. And it did look like it was, I was just so happy to see all of you together connecting and, you know, it was just fun time. This is watching you guys connect, connect back together. I should say. Right. It just, it felt great.  I mean, you know, we all did things that we could as far as releasing music and smaller performances while, while the pandemic was in full, you know, a little stronger, but that idea of like, what we're used to and how we're used to, you know, surviving. And it was like, okay, there might be, we might be in some really new times. This could be a long time before we see that again. It was a lot of, you know, hurry up and wait. And I remember the first part of that pandemic, it was like, okay, stay at home six weeks. And then by summertime, it should be good. Then just kept getting worse and worse. And there was more cancellations and postpones, you know, and, and hardly any touring, you know, especially in the smooth jazz community, very little that. So it was really kind of like, well, what's going to happen? You know, how are we going to navigate through this? So it's a big sigh of relief that we're able to get back out there. It just felt incredible. You know, that was the last stop on a tour I've been, you know, since a couple of weeks before that I started out in Florida and went through Atlanta and New Carolina is up to Virginia. So to cap that off with jazz legacy was just a beautiful thing. That was, it was a great experience. Like I said, I enjoyed watching all of you guys. Now there are many saxophonists out there. There's, there's a lot of them. Tell me what sets you apart from everyone else? I think the one thing that sets me apart is the way I play soprano saxophone. Okay. I have a voice on soprano saxophone that seems to be distinctive and has kind of set me apart. Not necessarily through my own observation, but through what the industry has shown me. You know, you ask Will Donato, he'll tell you I'm like the next, he said you're the next George Howard. He always calls me that. He's like, every time I see him, he's like, man, every time you play that soprano, I just, I don't know what to do. You know, he just loves it. So I've been told that by other musicians and other, other saxophone players. So I think that's the thing. And I think I also have a different, I came up playing, you know, a lot of cover bands, you know, a lot of R&B folks, you know, top 40 stuff. So I bring that energy to the stage. And so I think that's another thing too. I kind of have that kind of R&B-ish kind of a swag. I guess you could say to what I do. And I'm not the only one, I think I'm one of a few guys that kind of bring that, that energy to, to contemporary jazz. So we're going to play a clip here shortly. And just a few minutes, but I want to ask you this question. Your latest single, is it Get At You?  It's Climbing the Charts, you know, and it features Desmond Motown Washington. Tell us about that, briefly tell us about that tune. And then we're going to get into that, that clip of you playing. Oh man, that tune is just, I heard the track and it's just, it just struck me. It was just funky, high energy, you know, just had a cool sound to it. So Desmond is a guy that lives here in Colorado, Spain, who's one of the most talented musicians I've ever worked with. From Motown, from Detroit. And, you know, since he was 17, 18 years old, he was just a monster in the studio, on the drums, on the keys. You know, so he's been wanting to work with me for a while. So we put that song together and I wanted to feature him because I feel like he has a voice that needs to be heard in terms of production. That's him on the piano solo on that song. He's going to produce the track. So I wanted to kind of give him a stepping stone in my world. He's already written for TLC, for Maxwell, for countless, you know, gospel artists already. So he's pretty experienced, but not necessarily on the smooth jazz side. So he gave me a great tune. Lots of energy makes you smile, makes you dance and do like this. And that's what I wanted. So we had good time with it. So set up this clip that we're going to see of you playing. Okay. That was one of my favorite shows that I did before the pandemic. That was the Winter Park Jazz Fest here in my home state, Winter Park, Colorado. We were the kickoff act on the festival. And I had the great Will Gaines on bass who you saw play for Mary Meadows, my guy and some of my local players from out here in Denver. And this is a high energy song, you know, real funky. And we were just at that point midway through the show and just having a ball, you know, at that point, you know, it was like 90 degrees and everybody's dancing. We got thousands of people out there. And all I saw was just a lot of positive energy. So that's what you're going to see in this clip. Okay. Well, let's roll. All right. And your shows are energy. We just have a little bit more time left. And I have a few more questions. And one of the questions is what advice would you give new artists coming into this industry? I would tell them that none of the business part is probably the biggest part of your success. Make sure that you're just as well versed on the business side as you are and your talent and your gift, whatever that may be. Seeing instrumentalist production, you know, songwriting and arranging, producing whatever that may be, or all of the above. Business is very much a biggest part of what's going to lead you to a path to success. It's 90% of it is business and 10% of it is fun stuff. So be well versed on that and always stay humble. Be flexible and be willing to learn and understand one most important thing. Your career is a marathon. It's not a sprint going to take some time.  You'll be fine. And my final questions are, what do I need to or what should we be marking our calendar for to see what projects do you have coming up? What should we be marking our calendars for? And the second part to that question would be, where can people go to find out more about you? Okay, well, let me get the easiest one first. TonyExhamJr.com is my website. You can find out about me there. And of course, social media. So Instagram, TXM Junior and Facebook, TonyXM Junior Music. If you follow me on those two pages, I'll be posting up to date on where I'm at, what I'm up to, what's on my mind, whatever the case may be. As far as what's coming up for me, I got two more tour dates. So Dallas, Texas, I'll see you Friday at the Freeman Cafe. And I'll be in Tucson with my good friend, D Lucas on the 25th at a spot called Brother John's doing a live concert with D. New single will be out by February, 2022. And to let a little cat out of the bag, I signed my first record deal in October. So the new release would be on my new label, which is a BSE recordings, Sony label based out of the East coast. Awesome. Well, congratulations on that. That is so awesome. Thank you. Well, you heard that everyone.  So if you want to know more about Tony, just go to his website, find out where he is and go see him. I've seen him play and he's phenomenal. I'm telling you that Tony, I thank you so much for being here with me today. We're going to have to do a part two anytime you want. Yeah, we're going to have to, I've had to do part two to my shows for real. So we're going to definitely, we're going to have to definitely do a part two. Okay. You and you know, I'll get with you on that because we're going to do one for sure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you again so much for being here. And to my viewers and audience until next time. Aloha and God bless.


title of my message today is your breakthrough is in the house and it's coming from the story of Luke and it's a story of the birth of John the Baptist and I want to take his story and kind of break it down into four simple things if we get to the fourth one but three for sure and I want us to take those lessons and equip you and encourage you and inspire you to live be and serve in the house of God amen story comes from Luke chapter 1 Luke chapter 1 verses from 5 through 15 I'm not gonna read all of it I'm just gonna pick and choose my verses and verse 6 there's the Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes carefully to obey all the Lord's commandments and regulations they had no children because Elizabeth wasn't able to conceive and they were both a very old verse 8 and Zechariah was serving God in a temple as it was his duty that that week there are things that we go through in life that cause us reproach and that's and that's what this family was experiencing and point number one is that you can be righteous but in reproach you can be righteous but in reproach you can be Christian you can be filled with the Holy Ghost you can be saved you can be serving God but there are areas in your life that are in reproach meaning there are areas in your life that are struggling there are areas in your life that that that that that you don't see them working out there are areas in your life that are afflicted we see Apostle Paul Bible says that you know Bible we see from the Bible that Apostle Paul he was committed to the gospel of Jesus he was really committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and spreading the gospel and preaching and serving the Lord to the point that he chose not to be married so that he can more effectively be committed to to spreading the gospel I mean that's that's a serious commitment and we learn from the life of Apostle Paul that even he had a thorn in his flesh he had an avian of his life where he was afflicted so it is possible to serve God to love God and even walk righteously in his ways to to do all the things that you should do as as as a Christian now we're not talking about perfection because perfection eludes us all we are to strive for perfection but we will never reach perfection or until we are perfected in his image in the afterlife but we can do all things right but yet have certain thing in your life certain things in your life certain area in your life that is defeated certain area in your life that is a struggle certain area that for other people comes naturally but for you you have to fight for it you have to fight through it and sometimes every day see a child bearing is a mostly a natural phenomena for a woman but for Elizabeth Bible says she wasn't able to have a child and you know it's sometimes problem most is hardening thing to to find yourself in a situation where things for others come easy but you have to fight for it you have to wrestle just to make it for others it seems that you know they can just wake up and and roll into that area in their life and just just have it great but you have to wake up and struggle through it you have to wake up and get on your knees and ask God for mercy and favor to just make it through that area and my point is that is that that when you come to Christ oftentimes you are promised a better life but not always you get a better life now you do get an eternal life and that's the most important thing but there are times and there are areas in our life that we struggle in what I want you to see from this story is that it happens so don't be discouraged and almost all of us and I'll probably say with confidence that all of us we do have those areas in our life where we need the Lord the areas that for others come easy but we gotta fight through it maybe in your area that could be an area of finances for others who be area of healing for other it'd be area of loneliness depression for others it could be area of having children while others don't know what to do with our children can see they can't seem to stop making them they're asking for another thing for somebody else you know seems like for another person it's just so easy to to get a relationship this seems like you know they should stop they should probably stop getting relationships because they go from one to another to another but for you you're you're praying and asking and you're fasting and and you seeking a Lord and you're asking God just send me one I'm not asking for many just one but I think all of us have these these certain areas and sometimes those seasons that we go through that it's difficult it's difficult and and and and there's almost seems like there's no explanation for it like why like I'm doing things correctly like I'm doing things right like I'm you know but why these things are not working out and I want to encourage you I'm actually not here to tell you why I don't know why if you're waiting for me to give you a secret how it's you know three easy steps to get out of your season I'm sorry but I don't have that I wish I did I'm just here to encourage you to remain in the house of God we see we see in the story that there's a Zacharias and Elizabeth if they had any reason to be discouraged and to stop serving God it would be them in the cold in that culture in that day not having children was a as a sign of a curse it was a great reproach and if they had a reason not to go to the temple of God if they had a reason not to serve God it probably would be them it probably would be them but they chose to stay in the house of God and they chose to serve in the house of God in spite of their affliction they chose to minister to people because that's what the priests are that's their job their job is they they serve God and they minister to people my second point is that don't leave house of God and your service to God because of your disappointment there are two types of people there are people that because they got disappointed in certain area in their life they prayed and prayed and prayed they believed and these didn't happen they prayed for healing for their mom and and and she passed away and died they they believed for this breakthrough in that area of finances in the area of business and that didn't happen and they got discouraged and they left they were praying for promotion but they got even fired from the current job that they had and they they got disappointed and they physically left the house of God they abandoned the fellowship of the saints and and if it's you they're watching online if it's you they're watching right now and you maybe stumble upon this video stumbled on this broadcast and you're listening to the sound of my voice listen to me you got to come back to the house of God you gotta come back we don't serve God just because we get something from him we serve God because he's God we've committed our life to God we've committed our life to him to his service not so that we get things from him even though we do get things from him and if you remember a message that I preached last he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him he rewards those that serve him we do get benefits of serving God and being in the house of God but we don't serve God because we get something because there were throughout times in the history if you were serving God you actually would not get anything outside of him persecuted beaten thrown in jail and and excommunicated from the community from certain benefits in community and today people around the world they are experiencing those things and so by giving your life to God they are not expecting anything but to suffer loss but we serve God because for who he is and we serve God because we're the reward that we get in eternity is much greater than the reward that we get here and Jesus warned us about said be careful that you're only seek reward here because in this life this reward can be stolen the Roth the moth can can eat it away where the thief can steal it it can rust away but our sight is set on the things above it's set on eternity because at the end of the day we will spend more time there than we will spend here okay if you left God if you left God's house maybe you came here today and then you're kind of still on offense I want to encourage you come back to God come back what I mean by coming back to God come back to his house come back to you serve it but there's another category of people here and those that are watching is that you maybe did not leave the house of God physically or did not leave abandon your calling in your service to God physically but you have done so emotionally and I've found myself in a past in in this state or in this season when you believe for something when you believe for that business to take off or or or that to receive that contract and things did not work out and then and you and bankrupt you lost the house you lost your income or whatever it is you were believing for this for that you will believe in for certain thing in your life you will believe in for certain breakthrough in your life you will believe in for healing and and it didn't come or it's not even there yet and emotionally why you're still here physically but emotionally what we call you got burnt out you got exhausted you got you you you you left service to God while physically you still remained in the house of God I want to encourage you and I want to stir you up today as well this morning listen God sees you God sees your service God sees your commitment and God sees your problem and I'm not saying that after this message your problem would get solved I don't know but what I'm saying is that you have to serve God despite of your affliction you have to serve God despite of your sickness you have to serve God despite of your sad backs and disappointments you have to serve God despite of the fact that your family has still hasn't gotten saved your son is still your son and your daughters are still hooked on drugs they still don't don't serve God they're still not with your church you still have to you have to continually continually and get to serve God with your passion with all of your heart because he's still God and your story is still not over he's still God and your story is not yet over your breakthrough is in the house of God your healing is in the house of God your your your your your blessing is in the service to God we see that in verse verse 7 it says that she wasn't able she was passed it was way past the time of breakthrough it was way past the time of healing it was way past the new normal human abilities but there's always but God there's always when every time every time God is involved in your story every time God is involved in your life there's never an expiration for God's doing so I want to encourage those that that that has that has maybe you you've got burnt out you've got tired you you've got disappointed your things have been delayed in your life continue to serve God continue to serve his people continue to be in his house because this is where God will bring your answer this is where God will bring breakthrough in your life oftentimes breakthrough comes but people already left the house of God oftentimes breakthrough comes but people already left the place of the place of waiting and expectation emotionally and they're not able to cease the moment don't leave the house of God I remember I heard a story story from a person in in Ukraine she was testified actually of her healing she went to doctors she was already of age well let me backtrack a little bit this person yes she went to the doctors and and she was discovered that she's in a late stage of cancer third or fourth stage of cancer and they gave her few months to live at best she was very disappointed and very crashed very crushed and so somebody invited her to a somebody invited her to this crusade to this service she went to the service to this evangelical crusade service she got saved and she gave her love to Jesus and she just she just fell in love with Jesus and she honestly she was just she was happy that she will be going home soon but at the same time she was as she was happy she was I think she was in her late 60s at this point she was also filled with regret that she wasted so much life so much time in her life not knowing God and not serving him so she just got so passionate and on fire said look I have just few months left to live I'm at least I'm gonna use those two months to serve God at the best I can my health is already failing me I can hardly move around so what she did is she lived in one of those multi-story buildings apartment you probably have seen so built back in Soviet Union Soviet Union times of 16 20 stories apartments everywhere and at this point she already assigned her will her apartment her assets to her kids she spread you know she she did her will already knowing that she's passing away and and his last two months she just said I'm just gonna do everything that I can in my power to serve God and let lead as many people to Christ and so in dude in this two months she began to evangelize just literally knock on the doors and sharing the gospel of Jesus sharing what she experienced just just literally a few weeks ago few a month ago what she experienced what Jesus did for her and and she continued to share a month went by another month went by she started a home group in her apartment from all those people that got saved already into her thing three months went by four months went by she already now remember she's thinking she's gonna die she already raised up a leader so they should their leader can take her take over her home group five months went by six months went by she had to split her home group because there's two you know too many people now she has two home groups that she's overseeing eight months go by and she's like I'm not dying what's happening I'm feeling good actually now remember doctors are already discharged you're pretty much telling her do you gotta go and make your things with your family and then pretty much spend last moments your family and die that was it that's all they could do so she decided to go back to her doctors and said listen I'm supposed to die six months ago like what's going on and doctors examined her took her blood work sent her to all these things and then and after a while they came back they came back and said listen now like we don't know what's happening but you are recovering still a bit of trace of cancer in your life but but you are you're doing significantly better whatever you're doing keep doing so she continued on serving God continued on spreading the gospel in her old age late 60s became a leader of multiple home groups and eventually she was completely cured and healed and she lives till this day I want to tell you that don't wait till you get to that place where you are point of no return and say wasted all my life should have served God serve God today serve God today there's blessings in serving God there is there's things that you will tap into that otherwise you will not be able to to to to get there are things that you'll be able to receive from the Lord that otherwise you will not be able to to get don't leave the house of God despite of your reproach don't leave the service to God despite of your reproach because I want to tell you something that we read in Elizabeth and Zachariah story is that we read down the verse that everybody heard of the miracle that they received Bible says they were in awe of what happened and they were said and they were saying God has visited you God will visit you God will visit your family God will rewrite your story God will bring breakthrough in your life God will bring that healing to your life and God will bring deliverance into your life but even if he doesn't when you cross to the other side you will be able to stand before him not with full of regret but full of gratitude and appreciation that you had a chance to be involved in his work that you had an honor to be involved that you did not waste your gifts you did not waste your talents you did not waste the time God has given you on this earth that you were able to do everything in your capacity despite of certain areas in your life that was struggling you gave it your all and often times not often times we see from the Bible that Jesus appreciates appreciated the gifts that were given to him that were given out of sacrifice remember the woman Mary remember that she gave she gave her best it was a sacrifice it was a sacrifice for her that service that we give God even despite of certain areas in our life being afflicted that's a that's a sacrifice that the Lord is very well pleased it's a sweet aroma to him and I want to tell you that God will locate you he will locate your story the point number three generational blessing come for the life of faithfulness see we all we all want generational blessings well I should say probably parents want generational blessing young people unmarried people they're quite selfish in their own in their ways it's all about them their career and then you know how to go further how to do things like that even if you think you're not selfish you're selfish trust me when you get a when you get when you have children you know what you'll know what I mean your life your life becomes your life becomes about them yes you still have a life you see of Korea you see of calling but your life becomes about them your life becomes about how can I do my best to lay a foundation and to to give them the best place to start off in their life spiritually financially educationally emotionally you you really work you know there was things in your life you ignored as a single person you're like yeah I'll deal with those later you had some anger issues you had some lack of patience you have this and that when you have when you have children it makes you think twice or ten times like do I really want to do that do I really because you know they're watching you know you're you're imprinting on them you know you are you are laying a foundation in their life that they're gonna start from and you want to give them the best chance in life because life is already full of challenges full of obstacles full of struggles life already throws a curving you know what they call it curveball into your life you know and you got to figure out how to swing and not miss and so you know when you when you become a parent it becomes very apparent to you that your life is different at that point you live differently you're consciously approached in different and then I think every parent here would say yeah I want to pass on a generational blessing to my family but I want to tell you the generational blessings God doesn't just spread generational blessings like little free treats to everybody generational blessing for you generational blessing to you and everybody else no generational blessings are special generational blessings belong only to those who commit a lifetime to his house and do his service I can go from story after story after story from the Bible and prove it to you and show it to you that generational blessing belong to those who commit their lifetime who are committed in the house of God in his service for a lifetime you know I stand here today and I've shared the story last last message that I was speaking to you know I stand here today understanding that my life today I am where I am today not because of my own efforts not because of my smartness my my my strength my wisdom my accolades my my achievements as a matter of fact if it was left up to me I probably I will definitely not probably definitely would have not been here if it wasn't for the mercy of God in my life I would not be here I would not have what I have I would not have the marriage the family ministry finances the things that I have today because I was trying really hard to screw up my life some of you that know my story you can say amen to that one I see Larissa back there like mm-hmm listen my my life I understand that I stand on the shoulders of my parents and their lifelong commitment to serve God and I understand that even not just my parents my parents stand on the shoulder of their parents of my grandparents of a lifelong commitment to God my dad is a pastor and got a chance to minister around the world and raise up more many churches and raise up this church and leaders and do what he is able to do not just because he's also great and he has these you know he has this discipline and this commitment in his life and all the stuff which he does have it but he also stands on the shoulder of his mom and dad who would not miss a service who three times a week right though you guys would walk seven ten miles three times a week they would walk five seven miles enough many miles that we would not walk today to church spent three four hours there and walk back with 16 children I mean imagine that's that's you know we can't get out I can't get out with two kids without destroying half of the house from the house to get in in the car and dry three minutes okay that's a they weren't nobody special in the sense of they weren't ministers anointed men of God they weren't these these some high-profile how high-flier people spiritually or physically or financially they were just common people common farmers common people in the village of Ukraine that nobody knows or will know but they were committed to God and God took their commitment and blessed them generation and even that going back to my great-grandfather who served God and I believe he was in jail but I know for sure that he was that he was a murderer for Christ he gave his life for the sake of the gospel generational blessing belongs to those who commit their life belongs to those who have longevity with God forgot to read your verse let's go to Luke chapter 14 chapter 14 chapter 1 verse 13 says this but Angel said don't be afraid Zechariah's God has heard your prayer your your your wife Elizabeth will give you son go to verse 15 for he John John the Baptist will be great in the eyes of the Lord if you look in the story of John and you think like John became this mighty prophet of God just out of nowhere Jesus called him the greatest prophet but no John was standing on the shoulders of law a lifelong commitment longevity service in God's house he was standing on the shoulders of his parents we actually don't even see anything special about his parents that that stood out to be that they were maybe some kind of a high priest or they were anything special Bible says that it was his turn to serve in the house of God so he was amongst many other priests it doesn't say that he was a high priest or anything of that sort he was just a common priest he was a he was of Aaron's tribe and so that was his way of serving God so was this always as Elizabeth and he was just doing this week in week out month in month out a year in year out just committed to the lot that was thrown in his life but he was faithful in it I want to encourage you today especially those of your parents and those of you that are not parents you will be remembered this if you want to pass on a generational blessing in your life you got to stay committed to God through long time through your lifetime we look in the story of David God has blessed Solomon greatly I mean wisdom we're talking about riches fame I mean all of those great things use you think that this was because of Solomon no it wasn't God actually clearly said because of your father David as a matter of fact if you read after Solomon and next I know probably a dozen of kings or I don't quote me on the number even when they screwed up God Bible says God shown the mercy because of their father David generational blessing listen I want to encourage you today if nothing else changes in your life in your personal life remember you're laying a foundation for a generational blessing come on come on come on and the last part that I want to encourage you with is that verse verse 13 and just says God has heard your prayer God hears our prayers I don't know what are you praying for what are you believing for what are you expecting from God but God hears your prayers it might take 10 years 20 years 25 years 30 years whatever it is it might be already past the time that you were expecting it but God hears your prayers your prayers don't have an expiration point your prayers are not the prayers that if I didn't get it if I don't get it by Friday then well I just wasted praying Monday through Thursday then those prayers were in vain listen not one prayer goes unnoticed by God God has his timing God has his pace and God will fulfill every prayer you pray God will make things prayer will make things that were unable things that you were not able to do make it become able God will make things that you weren't able to accomplish he will make you be able to accomplish them God has his speed God has his grace and even if it's past the time that you think you should have had this that or the other listen when God does something it will propel you and you will recover even those years that you thought you were lost you will have great miracle listen if you have experience in delay in your life it's not when you will receive your miracle it's not just gonna be a miracle it's gonna be a grand miracle it's gonna be a miracle that everybody around you would know that God has visited you it's gonna be a miracle that that the Bible says that people were in awe of the Lord's doing in their life God here's your prayer for he will be exceedingly great in the eyes of the Lord that's gonna be your answer it will be great it's not gonna be just good it's not gonna be just okay it will be great the longer it's delayed the more it's cooking amen God has his perfect timing


The study aimed to describe stigma among primary care providers, PCPs, in the United States using a validated questionnaire, and found that higher levels of stigma were associated with male gender, medical residency, lack of personal exposure to mental illness, younger age, and less frequent treatment of depression. This article was authored by Andrew Kluemper, FarmD, BCPS, BCPP, Lauren Heath, FarmD, MS, CAP, Danielle Loeb, MD, MPH, and others.


you know, negative self-talk, I was the queen of it back when I was a lawyer. And I've learned that that's not really useful, right? Because if you spend your whole night rehearsing what you didn't do well, you're more likely to do the exact same thing the next day. So welcome to the podcast, Sharlane. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm really excited too, because you are talking to me from the UK.  Yes, indeed. Yes. So first things first, let's start off. What's the difference between a barrister and a litigator? Or are they the same? Oh, right. OK, no, they are quite different. So in the UK, you can either be a solicitor or you can be a barrister. So typically, solicitors would work within law firms. So when you're thinking about your typical corporate lawyer, whether you are a litigator, whether you do M&A or transaction work, or you work in construction, you will be a solicitor working in the law firm. And if you are going to court as a barrister, then you will be a barrister. So that's really the difference.  And then if you're one of the lucky ones, you become a partner. Yeah. OK, and I did see that your background is in big law. Now, when we say big law in America, it means something completely different, right? Aren't there like five really big firms in the UK? And it's pretty much one of those that you go to. Big law would be one of the large American law firms. So I think the definition would be really reliant upon what would be considered big law in the world of American big law. And I did work at American firms, but we also have a different language. So to speak, we have the Silver Circle and we have the Magic Circle for UK law firms as well. So, you know, there is a bit of a sort of gentle fight, if I may say so, as to whether or not you're working for a Silver Circle or Magic Circle, but really, it's top leading law firms. Yeah. And so by top leading law firm, I'm thinking really long hours, lots of stress, high demand. Was that similar? Yeah. Yes. But also amazing client exposure and fantastic colleagues. I have to say that ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to work, you know, as part of the big law or the top law firms and really wanted to serve at the highest level. And I'm super grateful. My years there have really made me the professional that I am. And I wouldn't I wouldn't change it, you know, even if I could go back in time. There are a few things I would tell my younger version of myself. But I would stick to the big global world. Really, I'm grateful to work with them now. So OK, yeah. So I wanted to just jump into that because, you know, I love to watch movies about England and the UK. And I'm always like, Bearster, Bearster, Solicitor, what's the difference? So that's why I had to change up the beginning a little bit. Of course. So, Shailene, would you explain your background and how young were you when you decided you wanted to be a Bearster or a Solicitor from a very young age? Well, OK, I'll take you all the way back then. Yes, I wanted to be a lawyer since I was a little girl. My dad was very successful. He was running his own company. And I used to be working in his office, you know, playing with paperwork and seeing him put on a suit on every day going on all those business trip. And I remember being maybe like five or six, maybe 10, growing up and being like, you know, Daddy, what do you do when you want to when you love paperwork so much? Because, well, my darling, you become a lawyer. So for me, it was really my dad that inspired me to become a lawyer and to have an international career with a global reach and to serve at the highest level. So very early on, I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer.  I really wanted to be involved in conflict resolution, dispute resolution, so that's why I chose. OK, very cool. And so I find that very fascinating because you currently are a coach. You're an NLP coach and also a primal health coach.  Do you think your background in watching your dad was like, I bet I could help them do things better. Well, perhaps a bit of a vulnerable moment in my life, but I feel like I need to share it. The reason I wanted to be a lawyer was my dad, but the reason I also stepped out was my dad because, sadly enough, as I was going more and more successful, building more and more hours and really thriving in the world of litigation, my dad actually had a burnout driven heart attack followed by a stroke. And that major episode made me reconsider my priorities a little bit. I very much was working with the level of intensity that my dad had been working his whole life. And it made me question whether what I was doing was sustainable. So, you know, I never questioned my passion for the law. I loved it, but I didn't have any self-care tools. I genuinely don't remember sitting in law school and being attending a class on how to take care of yourself, how to be a resilient lawyer, how to be lasting long into your career. You learn all this amazing legal knowledge, right? But how do you sustain that? And I learned very young, you know, from being at uni, attending top university. I studied at Cambridge. I was sleeping in the library, pulling all-nighters and all the other stuff you need to do to be a top student. Right? Again, I don't regret that, but I learned some habits that actually were quite detrimental to my health that I didn't realize. And my health deteriorated. You know, I was suffering from insomnia. I was so anxious. And I thought, you know, this is not just about me. This is not just about my dad. I saw some of my most powerful colleagues burn out. I saw some tragic story about very, very sad health, scare or health diagnosis that really put a career on hold. And I thought to myself, how can I become the coach that I wish I had, specifically for the legal world, specifically for high-achieving elite professional that really want to have it all, but actually often they get stopped by a health diagnosis. So my mission was to understand my blind spot. So what I perhaps didn't do so well in terms of my self-care, and I take 100% responsibility in that, but also how could I help other professionals on their journey to keep doing what they love to do, but in a way that would be a bit more sustainable? I love that. And how's your dad doing now? Is he much better? Oh, thanks for asking. You know what? He's the healthiest version of myself. He was my inspiration and he followed the blueprint that I was educated on to the letter and he just did a pilgrimage, which was a huge achievement considering his heart condition and he's healthier than ever. And also still very active in the corporate world and do a lot of things to support entrepreneur and a lot of charities involvement. So yeah, he's my deli inspiration. And if you're listening to the podcast, you can't see me, but I'm over here clapping. I'm like, yay, yay, yay, I'm so happy. So all right, good. And if you are watching, thank you for watching. So I am starting to record the podcast. I'm keeping the audio, but I'm also recording YouTube. So if you're interested in seeing what I look like, what Shalene looks like, please check out the YouTube as well. So Shalene, let's jump right into what you do right now, right?  What is a typical day like for you? Do you have typical days? Oh, that's a really great question. I love it. So my typical day are actually walking the talk in terms of self-care. I've learned the hard way that if you don't start your day with a bit of self-care, then you're probably not gonna do it. So the only kind of running back when I was a lawyer was running to the coffee machine and to the print room. We used to print back 10 years ago, not so much anymore, but that was the only kind of running.  But I make my self-care non-negotiable part of my day. So I'll wake up, I do a bit of gratitude journaling, a bit of breath work, make sure I get some sun into my eyes, go for a walk, go for a run, just get that done. First thing. So my diaries are blocked out in the morning because I need to take care of myself because I know that I burned out before and I don't wanna burn out again. Then it's all about my clients and how I can serve them at the highest level. So I schedule everything. I schedule my meetings, but I also schedule my breaks.  So I make sure that I have time to cook healthy and I make sure that I sit down, mindfully. And I also split my weekdays according to time zone because I serve American clients as well as Asian client and European client. So I have dedicated days of the week to serve dedicated time zone.  So I have my US days, my Asia day and my European days so that I can factor in adequate sleep. And I often get that client question. It seems that you were working till midnight last night and then you were available. I was like, yeah, I know. But I did do my sleep optimization. I did do my self-care. So I can actually show up the next day and show you at the highest level because I factored that in. Back when I was a lawyer, I can assure you that I did not do that. You know, it was work, work, work, work, work, work. Don't sleep. Don't eat mindfully. Don't prioritize my body. Hope that it doesn't break. If it doesn't break, just make sure to fix it somewhat. And I've learned to listen to my signal. Then I also do dedicate a lot of time for my family and my partner. They're very important. I also learned the hard way. You know, my first marriage did not survive because of the intensity of my work and my life. And I've learned that, you know, if you don't invest time into your relationship, those relationships will break. So I do take my partnership very seriously and I make sure that I invest a lot of time. Even though we've been together for many years, we still plan out date nights.  And I make sure that I have power up and power down. So, you know, in the morning, I do my self-care. And in the evening, I make sure that I schedule a bit of time to actually reassess, right? What was the highlight of my day? What did I do really well? What could I do more of? How can I be even better? Like, what was the highlight of that day? How did I serve? What difference did I make? How did that impact me emotionally? Because I've learned that if you don't sit down to power down, you go into would have, should have, could have. I did that for many years and you close off your day and you're just going into to do this mode and you're going, oh my God, I didn't do this and my goodness, I didn't do that. I was master at that, you know, negative self-talk. I was the queen of it back when I was a lawyer. And I've learned that that's not really useful, right? Because if you spend your whole night rehearsing what you didn't do well, you're more likely to do the exact same thing the next day. What did you do today that you didn't even know how to do last week, last month, last year? Look at the progress. Look at this earlier version of yourself.  Did you know that you could do the things that you're doing today, right? Sometimes we really need to tune in to that inner cheerleader, right? Because we lean on to other people to give us feedback, but actually we don't always have portable cheerleaders. So it's really important that we learn how to be our own best cheerleader. And then really, how are you developing and how are you progressing professionally and personally, you know? Okay, I hear you, you had a very tough day and you've had negative feedback or you haven't shined your brightest light, but what did you learn from that? What did you learn from that so that next time the same situation shows up, you approach it differently? Well, that in itself is a victory too, isn't it? Yeah. So I am writing all kinds of notes in the margins. I'm like, wow, this is teaching me. This is so great. Did you learn all of this through your trainings for meditation, breathwork and all of the courses you took? Yeah, absolutely. This is really, to me, this is what being a hybrid performance and wellbeing coach. I have done a lot of house related coaching certification which is really vital. But to me, that wasn't enough because if you just look at the person's wellbeing but you don't look at the impact on their performance, which let's be honest, when you're talking to elite performers and successful professionals, they really care about how they perform at work, right? So you've got to bridge that gap between how the wellbeing optimization speaks volume to how they shine when they come into the office. And that's really where you plug things in, right?  So I like to think of it as a domino ripple effect, like do a little bit of a self-awareness, self-assessment checklist and have a little bit of a look at your habits daily and which habits really feed in your performance and which habits actually hinder your performance. Yeah, which I can imagine will be really difficult for high performers because they're like, no, everything I did, everything is pushing me to where I am now, right? And you're like, but we could tweak some things of it, you know? Yes, absolutely. So, Charlene, what was the decision like when you decided to leave Big Law? When you said, I love this, it's incredible, but there's more. What was that decision like? Look, it was hard. I'm not gonna pretend that it was an easy decision. It was really hard and I'll be very candid. It was also financially bold, you know? When you move from a place where you're very secured financially and as I was saying, I was also married at the time, so the same year I left a marriage, I left a very secured financial career that was set on a very good path and I had this intention to set up an online consultancy and we're talking way before COVID, right? So people thought I was mad. Online, who's going to do online consultation, online coaching? And well, you know, call it luck, call it good intuition, but it actually became successful very quickly because it came from an intention of serving, right? I just wanted to stick with what I know, which was the legal and corporate world and actually be vulnerable and not go and be the one that says, oh, I know better, not at all, but more like, okay, I really messed this up in my life really badly. And I come from a place of deep humility and I've actually gone on a quest for many years, taken all the different wellness tools and different coaching institutions and different teachers and spiritual masters that I've met. I went to live in India and I went to live in Indonesia and I went to live in Nepal and just really gathered all those beautiful pairs of wisdom to then integrate them back into the corporate world. And often I get the question, but then why didn't you stay in India or in Indonesia? It sounds pretty good, right? I was living on a beach and the answer to that is actually, that was never my intention. My intention was to go get my answer and come back to a world that I love. My passion was to be the one that could be of service in an industry that I know, but that also no suffers so often and with so much taboo associated with burnout and mental health, because whether you're talking to a corporate executive or whether you're talking to a brilliant lawyer, who wants to admit that that one organ that they use all day long, their brain, their mental health is the one that's suffering, right? Because when we look at the world of athletic performance, people break bones, they get injured. Okay, they put a cast on, right?  That doesn't happen, but actually, a burnout is really about having been chronically deprived from relaxation for years and years, having been chronically overdoing and also sort of chronologically under being. And I really believe that you can have it all. You can do amazing and be super performant and successful, but you really do have to insert tiny little moments of rest and recovery and adequate relaxation so that you can sustain this in the long game. Wow. And I can imagine your clients are like, what is rest? I go on holiday a couple times a year, isn't that enough?   And I think perhaps what's quite unique about my coaching proposition and methodology is that I'm not necessarily an advocate for those big, huge transformations.  That's not what I believe in. What I believe in is actually inserting consistent one to three minutes every two hours, every 90 minutes of self-reflection, of self-care, of breathwork, of mindfulness consistently. So, when I get a client that goes, okay, that's it. I've booked a three-hour yoga class. My life is gonna be transformed. I hear Allen Bell's ringing and I'm thinking, okay, wouldn't it be better?  We're negotiating here, nothing's set in stone, but wouldn't it serve you better? If we said three minutes every morning, one minute break after each key meeting and six minutes at night, how does that sound to you? And if I give you a protocol that you can stick to, not today, not tomorrow, not next week, but for the rest of your life, how does that sound? See? And it's actually those incremental fraction, those micro habits, they compound. It's like an investment, right? You don't just make a fortune by being lucky one day. I mean, you can, but most likely it's because of compound, right? And self-care is compounded as well. So, if you take one minute plus one minute plus three minutes plus six minutes at the end of the year, that's a lot of hours of self-care. Yeah. Wow. I'd love that. And I feel like that would resonate so well with executives and high achievers because we know you didn't wake up one day and you became a lawyer, right? It took all the little steps of this and that and then all accumulated and compounded. So, so Shailene, one of the reasons the podcast is called You Are a Lawyer is because I feel like we can never forget the education, the experience, everything we learned when we were going through the process, right? Yes. What is one thing that you learned from law school or from just the experience of becoming a litigator that you carry with you every day? Resilience and precision, definitely. I learned to be resilient when I was in law school and perhaps one of the reasons was, you know, English was not my first language. So it was pretty tough gig going to Cambridge University as, you know, a foreigner essentially and studying law, which was already quite hard but in another language. I think that really gave me the confidence to be bold. And when I set up my consultancy, although I had supporters, I also had people that thought it was a bit a bit of a hopeful thinking idea.  I think as a lawyer, you learn the skill of being an advocate as a coach. Isn't it exactly what you are, right? Just advocating and then precision, right? Law is about the details, it's about understanding the facts and the sequence, the codes and the effects.  Let's deconstruct that. Let me reverse engineer this. I wanna hear exactly where you are, I wanna meet you where you're at, but I wanna deconstruct reverse engineer to understand what's the root cause, right? How it is. And that's a skill that I learned from being a litigator, right? When you do witness statement and when you need to look at all the different pieces of evidence and you need to do all this research and you need to tease out information and build trust, right? As a coach, if my client doesn't trust me, there is no coaching that can happen. So- There's no coaching, they won't tell you the truth, it'll be- Exactly, exactly. So I do think that having that lawyer and inspiring trust and being a safe container and being able to hold space and again, precision, precision, precision. That's super important. Yes, precision and resilience, that is excellent, excellent. Well, Charlaine, thank you so much for talking to me and the UR Lawyer audience. I truly, truly appreciate it. Thank you, it was an honor and here is to a sustainable future in law. Yes, absolutely. And just real quick, so are you French? What is your background? Oh, yes, I am French. Okay. French born, set up a business in the UK and currently serving in America, Asia and Europe. Yes, I love that. So everyone, please check out Charlaine. We have her details listed in the show notes, they're also listed in the YouTube video and thank you again. YouTube, bye. Lovely to talk to you.


Summer may be over, but the weather is still deadly. It's a bleeding felter of the day. I'm just vlogging on a calm street. I love NPS. My second year in DCU and I am bloody buzzing because I have just moved out. Woo! This is going to be... Whopper. My mom didn't cry when she said goodbye. I was like, actually get over yourself. To the big city we go, motorbike man. So phase one of my journey is complete. And now I have 35 minutes to get a Dublin bus to DCU for the first lecture of the year. We are on our way. We're back, back, back again. Say hi Gemma. Say you love NPS. Say your blog name. I don't know. Promote yourself. And we are back. We are back, we are back. That's what made me uncomfortable. Whenever you did that voice, you said one thing and I threw the phone.  Freaky. Secure the bag. Wednesday. I'd like to give a massive thank you to everyone that came to our Get To Know event and our Introduction to Cameras Workshop. But now...


Well, g'day. Are you ready for some Moodle mischief today? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Are you ready for some Moodle mischief today? I love Moodle. Do you love Moodle? Good answer, otherwise wrong room. So if you take Moodle and H5P, awesome, right? So there is no excuse for your course to look anything like this. Unless you want it to. So today, we've just got a whole bunch of random ideas of what you can do with H5P. But I'm not gonna say a single thing about each one until this is interactive, right? So if you thought you're gonna sit around like that cat, So as I show each, well as my lovely assistant shows each screenshot, you're going to have to tell me which tool or tools were used. No pressure. Which one? I'll give you a hint, it is H5P. Is there anybody here? Presentation. That one's not presentation. No. It's not interactive book. You get one more shot. Close question set. Yeah. All right. So she's keeping me on pace. That's right. The only thing I wanted to say about this one, yeah, yeah, it's all about me, right? Got it? Yeah. But you told me that it's what you. Yeah, yeah, I know. You're the boss. The only thing I wanted to say about this one was remember with H5P, you can bling it up with some images. Don't always just have to go with the defaults now by all means. With that in mind, what's being used here? Interactive book with course presentation. So have you used interactive book much? Yeah. Just fake it. You can lie. I'm not going to check you again every day, right? Got it. Cool. So in the interactive book, you know, you've got lots of content types, right? And there's a text one and there's an image one and stuff, but it puts it one after the other. If you want a bit more control, then course presentation means you can put it together, right? So you can do whatever you like. Brilliant. Yeah, I thought so. OK, what is it? Well, it's going to be a very long session. It is collage within. No, not column, but thanks for playing. It says it up the top lesson. Are we in the blackboard room? I think yeah. I think we must be. Shall we move? Yeah, I think we should. It is the collage. So this is H5P collage within a lesson. So I got asked the other day, you know, if you don't use Photoshop and stuff like that, how can you bling up what you're doing? How can you make it look a bit better? Why not use some H5P and embed it into what you're already doing? What's this? Drag and drop? Inside the interactive book. Double points. Nice. All right, so I've seen a lot of drag and drops. I hope that you're challenging yourself to add some visual elements to it. It doesn't have to be text-based. All right, so get a little bit creative. Now, with creativity in mind, you can also theme what you're doing within Moodle. OK, yeah, we all know Moodle themes, but I'm talking in your Moodle course, in your H5P, get a little bit creative, think about, is there some way I could theme what I'm doing? So, for instance, something we prepared earlier, so anyone, go on, bonus points if you can guess what I've used here, because I've given no clues. Everyone's going... Course presentation did I hear way up the back. So course presentation where you can take a theme and they were just using free images, right? I didn't have to cost me anything. And you can take that theme throughout. Now...  I'm playing with you.  I'm not sure that you're playing with me. All right, so we've started out the theme and then we take it through to the next slide. So we've continued the theme throughout, using which tools? Yep, so we've got Hotspot within Interactive Book. Nice, all right. So you can continue the theme, still using a whole bunch of different tools. You can theme in many other different ways as well, so it might just be your choice of language, it might be the choice of the way you name things or the images that you bring along. What tools this? It's not the Interactive Book. Branching scenario, winner, winner. Okay, so branching scenario to create a game. Okay, so again, using a series of images to then bring that theme right throughout the game. Now, just a reminder to think a little bit differently when you're doing stuff. Anyone here done Moodle for more than a couple of years? Fake it till you make it. That's over 40 years now. So one of the challenges that we have often is to not just keep doing things the same way, right? So take the moment to think about things a bit differently. So for instance, what's been used here? I think you're right. I think I only built it, why would I remember? I think it was in an Interactive Book, but I gave you no clues here, so good job. But simply, yeah, video, but what's underneath it? Accordion, yeah, all right. So accordion is a really cool little tool. As long as you get a bit creative about it, otherwise it just becomes a lot more text, right? But in this particular case, it was used to provide the transcript for the video, right? So just a nice, simple way of doing that, because I'm a simple girl from Australia. Ooh, what's been used here? It's actually not hotspot, but you could do it with a hotspot. I can actually hear the brains working, can you? They are sleeping. They're asleep? Yeah. Well, you could sing, that would stop that. No, no, no. I sing you that. Damn it, I shouldn't have said that. She said, if she was saying I had to sing. She's not singing. It is an Interactive Book moving right along with a course presentation, but in surface mode. All right, so when they click on things, other things popped up. I'm taking drugs. What's this one? Hotspot down the bottom. Interactive Book with course presentation, nailing it. Nice, yeah, keep going. They're getting a bit good. We have to spice it up. If you can't get this one, I'm walking off. It's a hotspot. If it was a test, then they might want me to walk off. So hotspot is a really cool way of providing more information without it becoming a whole bunch of text, a lot of scrolling. So for instance, so this was a medical one, and so it was a list of reasons for things. So putting an image with hotspot and have the text appear. Because I'm simple. Another way of doing what? Hotspot. And so this is just creating links off two different websites.  Ooh, what's this one? It's not cards, but close. It's in that realm. It's guess the answer, which was kind of ironic, given what I just asked you to do. Irony, anyone? All right, so I quite like guess the answer. When you want the learner to do something, but you don't have to keep them highly accountable, you know, you just wanna provide a bit of engagement. It's not a bad tool. Stick some images in it. Ta-da. Ooh, what's this one? SA, I love SA. Anyone else use the SA much? Not enough, I think. Documentation. Documentation, yeah, I don't use that one. Yeah, sorry. No, this one's SA. This was SA within column though, so you can have that bonus point from earlier where you said column. But SA type is really cool. If you haven't used it, do go and have a look. Really good where you do wanna keep the learner a little bit more accountable. Okay, so you want them to type something in. So all you need is the question. Some sort of model answer. It doesn't have to be a definitive right or wrong. And the sort of wording that you're looking for, it's quite cool. What is he? Accordion at the bottom, gone the low-hanging fruit. Love it. With, I think I heard someone's course presentation in surface mode. All right, so there's no right or wrong. You can use the without surface mode. In this particular case, wanted to just bling it up a little bit and create my navigation. So just different options. What's this one? And still no one yelled it out. Let's dance. You get too bad and we're gonna dance and I'm a really bad dancer. So it is course presentation. It is in surface mode once again. Just different ways of providing information. What else have we got? Oh, I like this part. So, really, really, really encourage you to think about putting things together, all right? So, traditionally, we've all got the friend that proudly shows us the Moodle course, that put hours of work into it, right? They love their Moodle course and they show you and your reaction is, it's hideous. What were they thinking? It's just this big list of stuff, all right? You can do better than that. Think about how you can put things together. So, with that in mind, let's put some things together. Okay. If you can't guess by now, what's being used? Interactive book with course presentation. Using surface mode. Beautiful with accordion. Nailed it. Oh, look, they're experts now. By the end of this, don't need us. Cool, what else have we got? And again, interactive book, course presentation. What else is there? Yeah, so just multiple choice question in there. Beautiful. So, I've given it a way that it is in surface mode, so essentially, the learner can click on something, then it opens up, gives them the audio as well as the text version of what the person would have said. What's being used interactive book with drag and drop? Beautiful, nice. See, they're getting it now. Yeah, they've got the hang of it now. What's being used, interactive book with, this is gonna test you. It's not choice, but close. Someone said, it's close. So, I'll be honest, I had to go look it up. I built it, and I had to go back in and check what the heck I'd used. I used to be blonde. All right, so it's course presentation with single choice set. So, yeah, within the interactive book. What could possibly go wrong? All right, beautiful. Course presentation in interactive book with, drag text, yeah, or drag the words. Yeah, beautiful, nice. Interactive book, hot spot. They're going okay. We'll see how they go on this one. So it's lesson, if you didn't get lesson. Order, now that says order. Yeah, so it's, I think it's technical name is sort the paragraphs. Yeah, but same thing. The only thing I would wish for is that sort the paragraphs was available in a lot more places. You're kind of limited where you can put it. It's kind of a separate thing still. So this one is embedded into a lesson. But obviously that's not gonna work brilliantly if you don't want them to be able to skip ahead. So you got to think through when you embed. What else we got? What is it? So it's drag the word or drag the text, yeah. With course presentation in interactive book. They're getting it, right? Yeah. They don't, I can get them building my courses for me. Actually it's not a video, but you're close. It is, it's video. Yeah, so it's course presentation in an interactive book with audio on top, with a question, yeah, multiple choice question underneath. You can see how my poor brain works. All right, what else? Okay, what is it? It's a lesson. Yeah, if you don't at least start with a lesson. What's the HPIP bit? Image pairing, I think I heard someone say. Yes, I'm just going to say that you did say that because they're going, yeah. So it's image pairing in a lesson. So I cheated a little bit, right? So I wanted them to match up some words. So I just made some images, not highly accessible. Moving on. What is it? What does it say at the top? It's a lesson with, it is a form of audio. It is one of the speech ones, it's dictation. Yeah, yeah. I'm a bit careful which ones I use because some of them say only in some browsers and I'm allergic to that. Come out in a terrible rash when I have to specify a browser from here. All right, yeah. Okay, what else have we got? Okay, what's at the top? It's a lesson. What's embedded in it? Drag, yeah, drag the text. Winning, ooh, what do we got now? It's actually the dialogue cards, but it's in that realm. Yeah, I can never remember whether it's flash or dialogue. These are dialogue cards. I'm actually a big fan of dialogue cards. They're kind of a way, if you get to a point where you're like, ooh, enough text already or you keep using accordion or something else, I'm quite a big fan of the dialogue card just to bling it up a little bit. So we've got dialogue card on, course presentation within, interactive book, with also a question. Beautiful, like the thing. At the top, lesson embedded with the 360 virtual tour. Yep, beautiful. So basically they just click on each of those things and it can give you more information. So another pretty quick, easy way to create something interactive. Up the top, above the timeline. You're not wrong. So we've got a lesson embedded in the lesson as timeline. Timeline's actually not a bad little tool. I kind of like it. And remember when you're doing it that you can put some images in there. So I've got background image, but also each of the items you can use an image as well, which is pretty cool. Okay, so at this point, wanted to remind you if you haven't recently, explore the settings in each of the H5P content types. Because often we just shove stuff in, right? With great care. And we just go with the defaults. But it is often worth actually having a look at what's in the settings. So let's do that. Oh look, which content type is it? I'll tell you, if you got that one wrong, I'm leaving. It's drag and drop. Okay, so drag and drop can be brilliant or really, really hideous and badly done. Okay, so a couple of tips. Think about whether you want to use a background image. Sometimes it's not appropriate. Sometimes it just creates noise and mess. Don't do it. Other times it can be really handy rather than it all being text. And remember when you're doing the image you can either put it as the background image or you might decide to put it within the task itself. So you've got those options. The other thing that people often don't play with is sizing. So play around with the sizing so that you can maximize how you want it to work and try it on a couple of different screen sizes, make sure you're a happy camper. Do you know which one this is from? It's still from drag and drop. Good job. In fact, it's from the same one. So in drag and drop, couple of things to check out. Background opacity, whether you want to control that or not to control the look and feel of things. I quite like the enable auto align but it doesn't always work. Depends what you're building.  Do you know which content type we're within? Same thing, nice. I should have brought lollies. Next time we'll bring lollies. So one of the things that I do within here quite often is play with the sizing. Don't get too creative obviously but sometimes by default it looks really big and clunky. So sometimes I'll play with bringing that text size down so they can fit things in a little bit nicer and also background opacity. Do you want the text to stand out or not? It depends what you're building. Ooh, which one are we within? It's still drag and drop. Good job. Hey, I'm not a big fan of applying penalties although I'm a big fan of messing with people but in this particular case I don't apply penalties because it tends to confuse the learner. They're like, but I got some of those right and their maths, their brain just breaks. All right, so think about when you want to use penalties or not and also the drop zone highlighting. Depends what you're building. It's worth playing with that whether you want to give away where they're dropping things too. And often I'll enable the full screen so that if they want to they can make it bigger. Not often will I show the title but again it depends what you're building. What else we got? All right, which tool is this one out of? Yeah, get your right. It says it on the page. Interactive book. There's probably two things that I change here frequently. I'm not a fan of someone just reading. I use interactive books for doing stuff. So I will change it from read to start. And the other one which I didn't bother grabbing a screenshot of is the one down the bottom where it says your scores have been submitted for review which I set them all up that the facilitator doesn't have to do anything so I just get rid of the for review so that the learner doesn't think someone else is going to look at it. Cool. Now we have another shining light on the stage this evening. Sarah's going to take us through. Do you want to swap? You want to stay there? Yeah, yeah, come on. Okay, I'm going to share with you a few tips related to the H5P. It's like she has been showing you a lot of possibilities of H5P. What I'm going to do is to share a few tips. If you have been building H5P activities in Moodle probably you might know most of them but it's like just in case. Since Moodle 3.9 you can create your own H5P activities using the content bank. Have you noticed that we have two different views in the content bank? By default the default one is the icons view but there is another view, the list view. And when you switch to the list view you can see for instance, the places where every content in the content bank is linked and also the household. Just like you can see the size or any more information but that's it's maybe you haven't realized that there are these two different views and you can also switch quickly. It's like if you are in the Barcelona course you can switch to a different course to a different content bank in a different course using this selector. That's super easy. So next slide please. Are you ready? I only do a little courses, I don't, yeah. Okay, one thing that people is asking all the time is like when should I embed something or when should I create an activity which is the difference between both. It's like when you want to save the score and you want to know the results of the students you should use the activity is the only way that you can save this information in the database so if you want to see to recover this information and to check that you need to create an H5P activity and then you will be able to see using the reports all this information. If you just want the student uses your H5P activities for training or you want to make your content, your course content nicer as Mickey showed you you can use the embedding option. Using the embedding option is super easy because you have since model 3.8 this nice button, the H5P one and you can use this button to link any of the contents that you create in the content bank. So it's like you need to go to the content bank first create these contents and then whatever you want to add this H5P in a lesson, in a page whatever you want, you only need to use this H5P button and the content automatically will appear there. There is one thing that it's like, next slide, that when you use this button you need to make a decision, you need to decide if you want to link to the content or if you want to create a copy. David, I'm not sure if you are here but this is the slide that you want to this is the number of the issue that you need to take to annotate. It's like, what's the difference between making a copy or linking? If you are using a single model site, the recommendation is to use the link because when you use the link, when you access to the content bank and edit your content it's automatically updated in all the places that this content is used. You edit only the content in the content bank and done, everything in all the places where this content is used will be automatically updated. But if you are using more than more model sites for instance you have your regular model site and then at the end of the year you make a copy and you save all your courses in a different model site. This linking option is not going to work for you or is going to give you some issues that will be fixed in the issue that you have here so if that's something that you are facing we recommend you to vote this because that way we will know that a lot of people is interested in fixing this issue so yeah, vote, comment, or even better patches are always welcome so if you have the people that are interested in fixing this, go for it. We'll be more than happy to help you to review it or whatever, so yeah, next. Since model 4.0 we have also a new tiny thing but it's something that it will help teachers to edit to find the content in the content bank because when you have an activity or you have added an H5P content in a lesson and you want to edit it, you have to go to the content bank and edit it and sometimes it's not easy to find these contents because you have a lot of contents in the content bank. Since model 4.0 you have this link the edit H5P content if you have the right permission for editing the content so you don't need to go to the content bank and it's super easy to find and to edit any content that you have in your model courses. One tip, by default if you have a course with more than one teachers and you want to all the teachers be able to edit all the H5P contents our recommendation is that you change the permission for the manage any content from the content bank capability and you add the teacher to this capability because that way anybody will be able to edit all the activities created in a course otherwise only the author, only the person that will create the content will be able to edit this content so that's also something that you can consider especially if you have more than one teacher in a course. You were almost there so. There is an interesting thread in the forum and in the community forums there is a forum a specific forum for the H5P activities and this thread is one of the most popular ones to decide if we should use the H5P plugin or the H5P code activity. I'm going to share with you a few of the differences between both and also a couple of problems that we have identified. It's like the decision as Andrey explained yesterday during the keynote is over to you. We are making a lot of decisions and this is also one of them. For instance, differences with the H5P that we have in code is that you can embed the content anywhere so it's something that it was not that easy with the H5P plugin. So for me, just this is super nice because you can use H5P easily in lessons, in pages, wherever you want, not just the H5P activity. So yeah, that's really nice. The reporting, when you are using the H5P activity is much more better. It's not because we did it, it's because it's like we got the, sorry, thanks, because we got the feedback from the users and that's what they say. It's also best integrated with the gradebook. I have to say that sometimes some activities are not stored, the grades in the gradebook but that's not, it's happening with the H5P plugin and also with the H5P activity and it's because some content types doesn't support the gradebook thing. So it's depending on the content type. In some cases, this gradebook information might not be there. The content bank is, we think it's a good idea.  I like the content bank. Okay, thanks. Yeah, it's like you have a place, a centralized place in a course where you can have all the contents and then you can use these contents in all your courses. So it's like, yeah, it's amazing. It's from the administrator's point of view. It's easy to manage the H5P content types. It's like you have the list of libraries, you can see which versions you have for each library. You can upgrade them. There is a Chrome job which is automatically updating them every week, every month. So it's like, amazing. It's like we have a couple of issues. The other one, not this one, yeah, just go back and it's like, I'm all, there is a couple of missing features, let's go for it. One of them is like the students must complete the whole activity for saving their results. There is an issue for implementing that. It's like for now, if you don't arrive to the end of the activity, the results won't be saved with the current version. And the other is like the integration with the H5P hub. There are these two issues, so yes, please feel free to comment, to vote, to send patches to us. They are more than one group. This is a list of other issues related to H5P. The same, feel free to order it by, see that? Yeah, okay, thank you. Questions? Just helping speed you up. Okay, it is time, but wow, we have a lot of questions. Okay, up to you, it is time for the coffee break, but if you want to stay and ask questions, we'll welcome that, okay. Quick question, great presentation, some wonderful ideas. Celis, with H5P and the content bank, that's course-centric, right? Much like a question bank for quizzes, can it be opened up so that teachers in other courses have visibility and access to that content bank? To make it easy to share the objects? They can use, if they have access to the courses, it's like, if I'm a teacher and I have access to other courses, I will be able to use any content in the content banks in other courses. Understood. The answer is yes. All right, Brian, thank you. Well, go ahead. Hi there, thanks for the great presentations, first and foremost. So I would like to address the elephant in the room that currently there has been a statement by Martin Dugyamas that apparently the roadmap of H5P and Moodle Core don't really align anymore from a recent MUA town hall gathering and I would like to know if there are any further developments on this because especially in Germany, we are currently having lots of content being created in H5P and the baseline problem a lot of projects are facing is that they don't know which H5P implementation they have to support, which in turn also leads to, well, which H5P version are they even able to support? And yeah, I think this is the perfect place to try to get some current information on this issue because that's really quite serious for us right now. It's like, I'm not the person to answer that, it's like I'm just a developer, but what I can say is like we have been doing a lot of effort to integrate H5P in Core, so I don't think we are going to remove what we have in Core and we love what we have and we know a lot of people is using it and is happy with that, so I have no idea about the future, but I don't think it's something that we are going to remove easily, so yeah. That's the only thing, maybe that's something that you can raise to Martin. Yeah, okay, I will try to do that because I think it would be really helpful to get an official statement on this soonish rather than later, thank you very much. More of a technical question, we're having issues with, so we've got drug and drop, stealth activities in a data room in a course and then we embed it into a book, okay, so we've got students that are complaining because on some of the devices, the words are outside of their visible and it's supposed to, when it's embedded, it's supposed to adapt to the screen so the words usually appear. I've tried a different setup, I've tried changing the size and it's still an issue, are you aware of that issue? Do you have any advice on how to fix this? I haven't, I don't know any issue related to that. Maybe you have a theme that it has some CSS that it's interfering, it's not a... No CSS. I would suggest raising an issue in the tracker and then we will take a look, it's like yeah, maybe that's something specific or something that we've missed, do you have them face this? No, I haven't had that problem. Okay, all right, great, thank you. Can we migrate from SCORM package to Hatch 5P? Can we migrate since I see the migrate tools from SCORM package to Hatch 5P? Yeah, it's like in the previous slide here, I forgot because Mickey decided that I didn't, I was talking too much, there is a migration tool so it's like yeah, you can... No, from SCORM, no, no, not from SCORM, no. At least I don't know if there is any tool to migrate from SCORM to Hatch 5P but yeah, that's something that should be raised to the H5P community, maybe they... Thank you for your presentation and adding to my colleagues thoughts about H5P core against mod H5P, we've run into issues with sharing content between instances that are running different versions. One mod H5P, one core H5P and core H5P running in more modern library version like one to four and mod H5P still being one, one to two and thus it being only able to share one way is there a plan to keep that more in sync? Yeah, I think that it depends on the content types, it's like I haven't tested that but it's like sometimes, I'm looking there before, yeah, Maya mates know the answer, I haven't tried, I'm not sure if, yeah, I'm not sure if there are issues between different content types, you said, yeah, you haven't, it's like when you look at the content type activities, there are kind of upgrading processes, I don't think it should be a big problem. It actually wasn't depending on the content type but it was the core library that was a different version and we were able to migrate from activity to, from mod H5P to core but not the other way around. Okay. It's not a question, it's just an answer. There is a hidden parameters in, yeah, it's in the code, it's not available in the UI, the admin UI. I don't really remember the syntax but I can send it to you or post it somewhere and what it does is when you back up the H5P, it will add extra libraries but then the backup process will take much longer and then you can move your H5P from one instance of model to the other one. It's something internal, yeah. We put it in the config PHP file because it's not in the interface. Yes, thank you very much. Now that you mentioned it, it's something we've disabled because of performance issues for the core spec apps, yes. I only turn it on when I need to move it from different instances. Otherwise turn it off.