Yeah, welcome to Tuesday. I'm J. Phidelis's think tech. More specifically, this is a series called Millennial Mind. And today for our Millennial Mind, we have Christopher Lindsey. We have tracked Christopher Lindsey through his scientific and astronomical career. You know, they named an exoplanet after him, didn't they, where he found one. He discovered one back in Iolani days.  Welcome to the show, Christopher. It's so nice to see your smile and face. We'd like to check in with you every now and then and follow your career. Nice to see you too. Thank you for having me on. Well, it's been a few years and I want to first I want to catch up on USC. They were leaving Iolani trembling off to go to college. How was it? Give us give us a little praise to see about for you and how it changed you. Yeah, so interesting story about, I guess, my college trajectory is I left Iolani after my junior year to go to USC. I applied for colleges early. And just to see, you know, where I'd get in and what the prospects were. But I ended up going. I was thankful to have a full scholarship because USC is one of the most expensive schools out there. So next to NYU, I think, and is an expensive area in Los Angeles. Keep me careful about NYU, Christopher. That's my school. I went to law school there twice. I think there's always a list of which school has the has the richest students. And I think USC is usually second place to NYU. But just barely. You know, we have all the Hollywood people by NYU has all the the investment bankers. It's true fact. And other other wealthy, intelligent people. Anyway, so I was thankful that the trustees of USC paid for my my college education there with the trustee scholarship. And I, you know, I had a great time freshman year, made a lot of friends. I started in the astronomy major. But in that process, also added environmental studies and jazz minors. Environmental studies major and a jazz minor. So let me just count that through. So astronomy, jazz and environmental studies. Yeah, put that you put that in a bowl and mix it up. And what do you get? I guess you get something that looks like me. I think so. But I think that's really a testament to how flexible USC was with, you know, what you wanted to study. And they had a lot of resources for all those different things. You know, in Los Angeles, you have all these famous studio musicians. I play the drums. And one of the drum professors there is, you know, first call on all these studios to play on, you know, the Lion King and La La Land and types of movies. And in the fields of environmental science, there's also a lot of good stuff happening at USC. It's a very, you know, progressive environmental school with a lot of good stuff happening, both on the policy end of things. And also on the scientific end where I sort of fall as you would imagine. I do imagine. USC has a really cool campus out on Catalina Island, which is, you know, a couple miles offshore of the Port of Long Beach. So I was able to go there. You can only see it on some days, am I right? Yeah, if you're in Long Beach, you may not be able to see it on a given morning. Yeah, there's that marine layer that comes in. So frequently we leave the Port of Long Beach on USC's boat and arrive at their Catalina Island campus called the Wrigley Institute. I don't know if it's named after the bubblegum. Not sure. I think it might be. Maybe. Probably not. Anyway, and they have a nice area over there that you get. It's basically a, you know, research campus and a scuba diving situation. And they also have the pressure housing that you go into when you get the bends anywhere on the Southern California coast. If you get the bends, you will be treated by USC doctors at their pressure chamber. It's cool to see. Yeah. And in the fields of astronomy, I was very thankful to work with for four years, Professor of Astronomy at USC named Edward Rhodes, Dr. Rhodes. And he did, you know, wonderful job mentoring me. And I had a lot of opportunities. Thanks to him. USC has some connections with the Mount Wilson Institute and the Mount Wilson Observatory, which is a very historic Institute and Observatory with telescopes, many telescopes that are, you know, older than 100 years. And I'm sure everyone has heard of the Hubble Space Telescope. And Edwin Hubble, the namesake of that telescope, did most of his research at Mount Wilson. And that's where we discovered that there was more galaxies beyond just our own Milky Way, which we didn't know prior to the early 1900s. We just thought that, oh, these fuzzy objects that are now we know to be galaxies are just, you know, little clouds of dust in our own galaxy.  But in reality, it's billions of light years large. And the universe got a lot bigger thanks to research done at Mount Wilson. And I personally worked on the same telescope as Edwin Hubble worked on, which is kind of trippy considering it was, you know, 100 years apart. But it's still up and running. And we took data for Jupiter in support of NASA's Juno mission, which is a satellite that is in a orbit around Jupiter that takes various forms of data studying the planets, atmospheres and finding all about finding out about Jupiter. And we did research on the methane layers of Jupiter using the Mount Wilson 100 inch telescope. This was original research. This was not just being being a member of a class in astronomy. Am I right? No, yeah, there were four classes in astronomy at USC, but this research wasn't really part of that. I actually ended up being the only astronomy major in my year. At the end of it all.  Yeah, look, you look West because while you were in school at USC, we were having a bit of a tumultuous experience here at Mount again. What did you and Professor Rhodes think about looking West? Yeah, yeah, it's hard because I do kind of see where a lot of the animosity and protests are coming from. Because things have been, you know, very hard and unfair for a long time. But I do think that astronomy in Hawaii and astronomy in the world would be a lot better off with the 30 meter telescope on top of Mauna Kea. It's a better site than the Canary Islands. But if I'm being, you know, frankly honest, I don't think that a lot of people really understand why one site could be better than another in such a significant way. And you know, why should sacred land be given up for this telescope that has kind of nebulous benefits in terms of the science? Of course, there's something to be said for the high tech jobs and investment that would come from the telescope. So there's all sorts of things to think about at the same time. And it's, you know, hard to make a decision being so directly impacted by the telescope and also by, you know, the Big Island community in general, and Hawaii community in general. Well, if you but looking at it sort of in an optimistic way and and believing that it can happen here culturally and community wise, what would be your vision for the telescope for Mauna Kea for the Institute for Astronomy at UH for astronomy at Hawaii for Hawaii as a as a home for astronomy? What? Yeah, what could happen here? Yeah, I think that Hawaii really could be, you know, the capital of astronomy in the world. Right now, I would, I would venture to say that a lot of the most cutting edge astronomy is now done in the Otacama Desert in Chile. But due to the orientation of Earth and the solar system in our galaxy, the Otacama Desert in Chile, Southern Hemisphere, perfect for studying the center of our galaxy, which is very interesting and can tell you a lot about galaxy formation, how our galaxy formed, and things about the supermassive black hole in our galaxy, Sagittarius A, all sorts of interesting things. But also in the center of the galaxy, where the Southern Hemisphere is pointing is full of a lot of gas and dust, which obscures stars when you try to look at beyond our galaxy. But the Northern Hemisphere is better for other things in astronomy, such as looking outside of our galaxy towards the the edge of the universe, which is really what the 30 meter telescope would be best for. Because large aperture, you get, you know, the square of the radius times amount of light. And that would make studying very far away objects at the very start of the universe, you know, possible. And it would be very interesting and fascinating to have that data. And if that telescope was located in Hawaii, which I do hope it will be somehow some way, I think that the Institute for astronomy would see, you know, a great influx of of minds from from all over the world coming to, you know, take data on on the instrument.  But, you know, when you have the new instruments, to be honest, our group at USC is kind of the only ones actually taking real data on the on the 100 inch historic telescope on on Mount Wilson.  I think that that it would be important over the next, you know, 50 years, like how Keck, oh, my dog, I'm sorry, just how Keck, how Keck impacted the field of astronomy so much, I think that the 30 meter telescope could do the same thing for the next, you know, a few decades. And my, oh, sorry, my ideal belief for the future of astronomy as a field in general is, especially with this the SpaceX launch that just happened, which was amazing. I really hope that one day, you know, giant telescopes in space could be could be the future in some way. They're very hard to engineer, of course, we saw that with Hubble multiple, you know, resupply missions costing billions of dollars to get that running, but Hubble, you know, changed science forever. And even, even, you know, I guess the general population understands the beauty and importance of the Hubble Space Telescope. And I think that could be true in the future for future space telescopes, but also deep fields from extra, extremely large telescopes could also, I think, bring that sense of wonder. Well, yeah, I want to I want to go off that to ask you sense of wonder indeed. And then it strikes me that with all the trouble we have on the planet right now with coronavirus with protests with, you know, call it political aggression and all suppression of minorities and the like. You know, where, where does it all fit? These people, you know, engaged in, you know, various contentious activities around the planet, or victims of the coronavirus or other, other phenomenon. What do they care about astronomy? What does it mean to them? And therefore, what does it mean to us? Why should we get excited? Why should we care, Chris? That's a very good question. And a very, you know, deep and expansive question. I think that, you know, it's, it's true that some things, in my opinion, come before, before astronomy, you know, I don't think that it's, it's a good thing to, you know, put blinders on and ignore everything that's happening on the world to go look at, look at space. But I think that fundamental research into how the universe works, which is, at its core, what astronomy is, you know, since the beginning of time, we wondered, Oh, you know, does there, does the universe revolve around Earth? You know, no, does the universe around all of a sudden, no, you know, learning our place in the universe, and can kind of, in some sense, bring us all together because we're all part of the same community. That's in a very small point in the vast great universe that exists outside of Earth's atmosphere. And I think that it's important to learn about what's outside of us so we could value more the community that we have down here. Yeah, put things in perspective. Oh, yeah. And there's a lot of those, you know, pictures that I look at, especially of Earth from space, that you think about, for example, there's a picture that Buzz Aldrin took on Apollo 11 of, you know, of Neil Armstrong, and the Earth in the background. And the only people, you know, that have ever lived and died that aren't in that picture is our Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on the on the module, but everyone forgets about him. And that can really, you know, at least for me personally, you know, put some perspective into into these widespread, you know, conflicts, and maybe we should all all treat each other a little better. Seeing that, you know, we're very similar, even though, maybe down here on a microscopic level, you can only see differences. But from a from a space based view, you know, community is is very important.  But I don't think that's, you know, that's really, really helpful to anyone, to be honest. Yeah, you have to be able to articulate a few that supports your own, your own science. Otherwise, science cannot live by itself. It is an expression of community. Alright, let's let's go forward and talk about the transition. By the way, you got you got a free ride at USC. Yeah, I did. And I also worked as a resident assistant for three years, which was very fun and rewarding and a growth experience for me, but also gave me free food and free lodging, which is which is very good deal. What a deal. I know it's a great deal. Other schools don't give their arrays free food or free or free housing. That's very thankful. And on top of all of that, can you share with us how well you did? In what sense, my my personal growth, or I did, you know, fairly well in my classes, it was definitely an adjustment going from, you know, junior year in high school to my my first year of college, you know, living outside of why for the first time that I can remember. And yeah, it was the first semester was definitely a change for me.  I got a C plus in calculus one, and I already knew how to do calculus. So I don't know how that happened. I missed one of the midterms due to over over sleeping, which is probably why. But I never did that ever again, or miss assignment colleges all about isn't it? Yeah, but I ended up, you know, magna cum loud. And I, you know, I had a lot of other extracurricular activities, not only research, but you know, doing the RA, doing the RA thing, doing scientific scuba diving, which was, which was very fun, participating in music. And I, I want a couple awards. I feel weird talking about, you know, myself, myself and my college men so much, but I'll just list some of them for you. I was a Warren Bennett scholar, which was a leadership program at USC named after a famous leadership guru who advised, you know, multiple presidents, and was the, you know, one of the higher up administrators at the university and was the president of a couple other universities. So Warren Bennett scholar was a great way for me to meet some other, you know, great leaders and some other people that, you know, I generally wouldn't interact with outside of the, my sciences path. There was a lot of, you know, political science, international relations students, global health students and people that are really, I feel gonna make a big difference in the world from USC. So that's good that I am very thankful to be able to be in that same program with them. I was also a, okay, I'll just finish and we'll go to the pictures. Yeah. Okay, I'll just listen really quick. I was a thematic option scholar, which was a honors track in the kind of English, which is not really my, my forte, to be honest. But it was, you know, very fun. And I got to learn from some, some great professors about areas of study that I never would have looked at before. I took, you know, an Arabic literature class that I've never would. And why not? Why not? Yeah, that was last semester too. So my last semester, I was reading a bunch of those books that really give an eye into that, that region of the world that I hadn't really thought about before. Yes, great. I was Renaissance scholar, which just means that you had major minor in, in very different fields. I was also a discovery scholar, which means I wrote kind of a thesis, some of my, of my research work at USC, which was, which was good. And I also wanted an honor called the Order of the Laurel and the Palm, which is, I'm not, it's supposed to be for a exemplary leadership and high achievement. I'm reading it. Good. But it's given to, you know, a couple, 10 or 12 students every year at USC. And I'm, and I know a lot of the other people that won that award. And I was very thankful to be recognized in the same plane as, as those great leaders. Recognizing you're not finished reading, but recognizing we have only a limited amount of time. I want to take a, I want to switch off here and go to the photos. Can you briefly describe that was all okay. Oh, perfect. Perfect. I must have known. Let's, let's quickly go through your photos and you can identify them. Then I want to talk about Yale. Yeah. This is the Juno probe, superimposed on an image of Jupiter, which we were doing, you know, additional observations for using the ground based telescope. Because Juno, when it hits the Parajove passage, which is its closest passage to Jupiter, it is very close to Jupiter's surface. And the, the cameras are taking pictures of, you know, various different abundancies of different molecules on Jupiter, trying to learn more about its composition and atmosphere. And we take, you know, global, global, Jupiter's globe, pictures of Jupiter, to kind of place the Juno probe in context of the wider planet. So that's just a picture of Juno and Jupiter. Okay, what else? We know the story of Juno and Jupiter. I'm sorry, this is just a funny thing. I don't have to go into it. But Juno, Juno is the Roman name for Hera's wife. And Jupiter is, I'm sorry, Juno is the Roman name for Hera, who is, you know, Zeus's wife, and Jupiter is the Roman name for Zeus.  So all of these moons of Jupiter are named after the other women in Jupiter's life. And the probe to go sent to look at them is named after Jupiter's spouse. It's great to be a god like that. Yeah, all kinds of options. And they keep on finding more and more Jupiter moons, which is, you know, cool. And there's a lot of them. Okay, now the next. I can resist the picture. So this is scuba diving. Myself scuba diving in the Bahamas, which was a class given by USC, a summer class, which was, you know, very fun rewarding. We were looking at coral reefs in particular, and which is a, you know, tragic situation right now. They're very sensitive. Coral polyps are very sensitive to small changes in water temperature and acidity. And we were looking at possibly using small pieces of coral and attaching them to artificial structures to encourage the rate of growth of the coral animal, which usually grows, you know, slower than your fingernail, but can be increased in growth speed by putting it closer to the sun at during the day when they can get the maximum amount of sunlight. Because symbiotic plant cells basically in the coral polyps generate energy for the coral polyps using the sun. And putting it deeper in the water at night, when these coral polyp animals can consume more nutrients that are more abundant at deeper levels. So we were looking at that while in the Bahamas. That was on an island called Elutera, which is a, you know, very thin crescent, crescenty island with, you know, probably 1000 or so people that are living on it. So it was very, very interesting. Oh, great experience. Yeah. Okay, we got any more? Yeah, we are. So this is a couple of the people that you know, a couple of my mentors and fellow students outside of the dome of the 100 inch telescope on top of Mount Wilson. And the second man to the left, looking at it is Dr. Rhodes. And the one right to the right of myself, third from the left in the middle is Steven Pinkerton, who is another one of my mentors. He's a graduate student right now. Yeah. Okay, I want to, we only have a little, little time left and I want to take a moment. So did you apply to various schools or did you go sailing directly to Yale? I applied to a lot of schools, actually, it was a very, I don't want to say difficult, but it was definitely a challenging process. When you apply to physics and astrophysics and astronomical PhD programs, they're funded, you know, so it's kind of like a job in some sense, asking to be funded to do research from universities.  And there's a lot of competition as well.  And you take a test, just called the physics theory, which was a standardized test that tests your knowledge of basically all of physics.  So it's a lot to study, you know, thousands of years of collective human knowledge. So I spent about a year studying for the test. I still didn't do terribly well. But I got into a couple places. And there was a lot going on at Yale that I really wanted to be a part of. And also my mentor at USC, Dr. Rhodes, has a good relationship with some of the professors at Yale, because Dr. Rhodes tried to hire them for USC, but lost that bidding war, I suppose. So are you on a free ride at Yale too? Yeah, so they, I want a fellowship called the Gruber Science Fellowship, which is all all PhD students are funded in the natural sciences generally, because you do research for the university and you also teach. But I have have additional funding from a group, the Gruber Foundation, which is a foundation affiliated with Yale that does a ton of very interesting stuff in, in biology, chemistry, genetics, and in, and in social sciences too. They have a fellowship at a law school for, for women's rights studies and things like that. So it's a wide reaching organization. And I was, I'm thankful to win there. There's one of their science fellowships. That's great. So it's going to take you a little while to finish a master's in science, I guess, in astronomy. And then my guess is you'll take a PhD. Yeah, maybe you get accepted to the PhD program, and you get a master's on the way.  And you're committed to a PhD in some, some area of astronomy. Yeah, well, you don't have to choose an advisor immediately. That's one other thing that is, is cool about Yale is you, you kind of, you know, do a couple projects with a couple different people and see which kind of area, which advisors, student relationship you like, and, and which area of astronomy and astrophysical science you want to directly go into, whether that's, you know, that could be studying black holes and extremely energetic objects or studying, you know, objects in our own solar system. There was a study by a Yale professor named Greg Laughlin that was looking at that Oumuamua long cigar shaped asteroid that flew through our solar system, going zillions of miles an hour, very strange object that was, you know, interstellar, it didn't it's not part of our own solar system. And that's very interesting, because we've never really seen terrestrial things outside of our solar system. I'm sure you're going to see all kinds of things that will surprise and delight in the next few years. But I have two more questions before we, before we have to leave. And one of them is, what are the chances with all of this that you'll come back and make a career, or that you could come back and make a career here in Hawaii? I think it's, you know, very possible.  And I would, you know, love to teach astronomy and physics at, you know, any university really, but I think it would be especially, you know, impactful here in Hawaii, to do teaching and research. And especially if there's world class telescopes on Monacoia, still like how they are now, I would, I would love to be able to access those because, you know, astronomy is a pretty expensive science in the grand, in the grand skew of things. If you don't have the generally in history, only the richest people did astronomy. Sure. The consortium that's expected to build a 30 meter telescope is putting in 1.5 billion. So that's expensive. Let me go to my last question. And that is to put this all in perspective in the world in which we live. Yale is not sure what it's going to do as a university. And that includes astronomy. It includes your program. It includes, you know, the your activities on or with campus. Where does that stand now? You're in, you're supposed to go.  What is Christopher going to do? Is he going to go there? Is he going to go remote? Is he going to wait? Does anybody know? Yeah, I wish I knew too.  And, you know, from USC, that's, that's, you know, a good thing to have and a lucrative degree to hold. But it would be very hard to, you know, find, find work at the very, at this very moment in, you know, in, in what as a job that you would want to have, that was when me, but in academia, it's somewhat, once you get the position, it's somewhat insulated from, from these, from these goings on in the, in the overall world that affect the economy so devastatingly. And, you know, Yale is has has a lot of money. I've heard that though.  And part of that will be towards my, my stipend and my research continuing. What about COVID, though, Chris? What about COVID? What about social distancing and masks? What about remote connection like we're having now? Yeah, so my last semester at USC. Classroom experience. Yeah, my last semester at USC was, you know, remote for the most part. But they USC put out a statement saying that they would have in person college classes for those that want it. They would also have the option to take it online up until Thanksgiving. So they're cutting the semester short, squeezing more into less. And Yale hasn't put out a statement like that. But I suspect that their college might, might do a similar thing with shortened semester in class for those that wanted.  So you're going to have to go to class? So and I would, I would go to class, I think, with a mask and far enough away from everyone else. There's not too many people that, you know, are accepted and go to astronomy programs. So in my year, there's less than, you know, I think there's eight people that you won't have any problem social distance. Yeah, there's a class. It's not like a beginning OCam class, like at USC, the OCam lectures are, you know, 200, 300 people. But not many people study ours. But I want to circle back with you, you know, next time we can and find out how you're doing. I'd like to see more of you and talk to more of you and keep in contact and connection. That's Christopher Lindsay, a proud graduate, a graduate, an early graduate of Ilani, and a spectacular career at USC. And now only the best at Yale. Thank you so much, Chris. It's wonderful. Thank you very much. Aloha.


Welcome to All Hands Update. I'm Petty Officer Andrew Johnson. The CNO's Navy Global War Game 2014 began at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, September 8th. More than 80 service members from the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan are participating this year. The exercise allows commanders to hone their abilities and capabilities in defeating anti-access and area denial strategies. Global War Game 2014 also focuses on continued improvement of command and control or C2 of joint operations in different environments. Participants will integrate, coordinate and align how they gain and maintain access in several scenarios. The exercise brings naval leaders from around the world together to work closely with one another to create a more seamless joint environment. For more information, check out last year's game report on the Naval War College website.


Every true believer desires to be like Jesus. So I wanna talk to you about how the Holy Spirit helps you to fix even your biggest flaws. There may be frustration in your life because of where you are spiritually. Maybe you're struggling with a habitual sin. Maybe you're dealing with a certain mindset. Maybe there's something in your character that you know is not Christ-like. And you are asking the Holy Spirit to help you be delivered from that brokenness. Let me show you a portion of scripture here. You might identify with this, Romans chapter seven, verses 15 through 17. I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it. Now here, Paul the apostle is not saying that he's not responsible for the sins that he commits, nor is he saying that the believer is free of consequence if they should make a mistake or sin. Rather, what's being communicated here is that we ought not to identify with the sin nature.  Let that be a declaration. Let that be a public prayer. Let that be your hearts cry, Lord, purify me. Make me more like Jesus. I know what it's like to read through the scripture. I'm sure every believer does. And as you're reading through the scripture, especially when you study the life of Jesus, you're saying there are so many ways I'm not like the Lord. There are so many things in me that need to be conformed to the image of Jesus. And there's this cry in our hearts to be purified. There's this cry in our hearts to be completely set free from sin. There's this cry in our hearts to have that new nature manifest within us as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Now, the Bible says in Malachi chapter three, I'm gonna read verses one through three. The Bible speaks of this refining fire. God will purify you. Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, say at the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth?  And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Here the scripture is talking about the purifying nature of the Lord. He is like a refiner's fire, fire that purifies gold, gold under the heat, having all of its impurities removed. The scripture also mentions about how this process can be repeated in the life of the one who loves God. Psalm 12.6 says this, And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times. And as we receive that word, likewise we are purified continually by the word of God. Now, when a refiner would go to purify gold, that fire would be used to bring the gold to a high temperature that only gold could withstand and not the impurities within it. Think about that. As believers, we are spirit. We are children of the most high God, yet there are still certain contaminations in the flesh in the sin nature, I should say. But as that fire purifies, spirit remains, flesh is removed. The character of Christ remains and the character of the old man is removed. It's the process of sanctification where he transformed into his image from glory to glory becoming more and more like him as we behold him. Now, the refiner would understand that the gold was purified, that the impurities were removed when the gold was so pure that it was reflective. In other words, the refiner knew that the gold was done with purification when the gold caused his image to be reflected in the same way. The believer, as he or she is purified, reflects the nature of Jesus more and more. I wanna be a reflection of that light. When people look at me, my heart cries that they would see Jesus. Yes, I'm far from it. No, I have not arrived. No, I'm not perfect. But my heart's cry is that when I speak to someone to hear Jesus, that when I interact with someone, they sense the love, the peace, the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. I know that's your heart's cry too. And so we have this standard. We have this measure to which we aspire that is the character of Christ. We wanna be like him. We wanna be patient like he is patient, loving like he is loving. Think about the fact that when someone would interact with the Lord, that they would walk away with this sense of profound transformation. They knew that there was something different about him. They knew that their life was altered from just one interaction. That's what I pray, Lord. Shine through me so brightly. Let me carry your glory in such a way. Let me host your presence in such a way that the mannerisms, the words, the thoughts, the way I speak and treat people, let that bring transformation to those around me. Knowing it's not me, but it's you working through me. That's your heart's cry. I know it. Why? Because you're watching this. Because you're listening to this.  I want to be more like Jesus. And again, we come to these places of frustration where we're saying, why am I doing this? Why am I thinking that Lord, help me, deliver me, set me free, cause me to be refined, cause me to be purified? Matthew 3.11, the fire that the Messiah was to bring was the fire of the Holy Spirit. Watch this, Matthew 3.11, I baptize with water, those who repent of their sins and turn to God.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Here's a quote from my book, Encountering the Holy Spirit in Every Book of the Bible. It's a commentary on this particular verse. Actually, it's a commentary too on Malachi 3. The more time we spend with the Holy Spirit, the more refined we become. He burns away the flaws of the flesh and ridds us of our unhealthy habits. The Holy Spirit, above most other things, desires to conform your character to the character of Christ. Each moment you spend with the Holy Spirit is a moment in the refiner's fire. For every second you spend with him, you are being transformed. He purifies your conscience. He purifies your motives. He purifies your mind, your actions, and your speech. Fire burns, fire brings discomfort, but fire ultimately purifies.  Allow him to refine you. The Holy Spirit is the refiner's fire. Now, there are many ways that the Holy Spirit brings purification. There's conviction, of course. He sends godly influence to us, of course. Of course, also, he works through the Word as we read the Word. We are purified, there's prayer, there's worship. There are many ways that the Holy Spirit puts us under the refiner's fire. But I wanna focus on one of the ways that the Holy Spirit fixes our biggest flaws. And it's something that's not really talked about that often. In fact, it's not necessarily going to be the most sought-after message. People don't wanna hear about this, but it's still a truth we see in Scripture. I wanna talk to you about how the Holy Spirit uses trials to make you more like Jesus. Now, I understand that God favors his children. God, yes, is a good father. He desires to bless you. He wants to bless you in every possible way there is for you to be blessed. We understand that as we read Scripture. But we can't ignore the fact that the life of the believer is going to be filled with trials. And never spiritual defeat. Spiritual defeat is that inner defeat, that lack of peace, lack of joy, lack of love. Rather, we are to have love, joy, and peace even in the midst of trials. And in fact, these trials under which we are placed, this fire in which we are put, refines us, trials make you more like Jesus. Trials represent the fire of purification. And all too often, we try to fight trials. And even in the church, we have certain types of lingo that we use, and we wrap entire mindsets, theologies, doctrines around lingo without basing things on Scripture. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Many believers think the word breakthrough means the day I never have another trial again and everything is exactly as I want it to be. And often, as believers, we imagine that if we keep praying, we keep worshiping, we keep living holy, that eventually we're gonna get to this place in life where we have everything exactly as we want it to be. Well, that's not breakthrough. Breakthrough isn't code word for the day I never have any troubles again. Breakthrough isn't a code word for the day I have everything that I want and nothing is ever taken from me again. We'll never reach that. And we have to stop, please hear this, we have to stop putting off our joy and gratitude, waiting for the ideal situation to present itself. In other words, we're constantly looking for more before we have joy.  In fact, it's the opposite. It's in the trials that we become more like Jesus. Of course, God can use seasons of blessings and rest and there are seasons of blessings and rest, but we cannot ignore, please hear me now. And this is me trying to balance some of the mindsets that we have. We cannot ignore that there is a component that needs to be in the life of the believer and that component is trials. We must learn to endure trials, not to try to bypass them, not to try to rush through them, not to live our lives in such a way where we avoid them, not get angry with God and feel abandoned and feel like he didn't keep his promises and feel ignored just because we face hardship, but rather to face that hardship, to be placed in those trials and to allow the Lord to use those trials to purify our nature, our motives, our mindsets, our attitudes, everything about us. Now, trials, again, aren't the only way that God purifies us, but it is one of the primary ways that God purifies us. Let's bring this statement to a balanced place again. Yes, God desires to bless you, but that doesn't mean that there will never be seasons of trials. And yes, you will go through trials, but that doesn't mean there will never be seasons that we would call seasons of blessings. I mean, technically, biblically speaking, every season is a blessed season. But most often, when people use the term blessed season, what they mean is where everything seems to be going right and just the way they want it. And that's not always going to be the case. And in fact, many believers put off their joy. They say, okay, I won't fill that joy in peace yet. Let me wait until everything about my situation changes. And then once I get into that ideal situation where everything's good in my finances, relationships, business, ministry, mind, emotions, health, everything, then I'll start to have joy. Then I'll start to have peace. And the problem is life just doesn't work that way. I can't tell you how many believers I've spoken to who tell me things like, brother David, I've been under a curse for 20 years and I can't break it. And they prayed all the prayers. They went to all the deliverance sessions. They read all the books. They came to our meetings too. And they come back and they say, David, I'm still under attack. And I say, wait a minute, let me ask you, are you confusing trials for curses? Just because something is going in a non-ideal way in your life doesn't mean you're under the power of Satan. We're gonna cover more on that in a moment. But we have to stop confusing trials for demonic attack or trials for a curse. Because what happens then is you learn and this is gonna help deliver somebody right here. You learn and you're programmed now to go through life focused only on the things that are not going the way you want them to go. And you therefore miss the blessing of God in every season. Every season has something for which you can be grateful. Every season, there's a reason for you to have joy and peace. Every season, there's an opportunity for you to grow in love. Every season, God is near. So why wouldn't every season be a season of joy? Again, we think that the outer circumstances should dictate to us how we feel in the inner man. When the inner man who is always in fellowship with God should dictate how we perceive these outer circumstances.  Oh, when is it gonna end? When will it finally stop? When will God finally come through? Why did he abandon me? Why hasn't he keep in his promises?  And I say, has this been 20 years of God abandoning you? Or has this been 20 years of you perceiving life as a completely negative thing? In other words, are you choosing to just focus on what's going wrong or what's not happening? Or what's not aligning to your ideal circumstance? Because in every season, there's something you can focus on and say, I'm thankful for this, I'm grateful for that, I'm blessed because of this reason or that reason.   He answers everybody's prayer, but mine's that we go into this place of self-pity, self-loathing. And even we begin to try to manipulate God by saying things like, why are you ignoring me? And we don't realize that he doesn't respond to that sort of emotionalism, he responds to faith. Or you can be the kind of believer who faces a trial and says, even in this trial, I have joy, peace, love, and grace because of the presence of God within me.  Did you hear what I said? Please, that's for somebody.  Life comes with negative circumstances. Jesus said, in this world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. So in other words, he's saying, look, you're gonna have trials. Things are going to go wrong. You're living in a broken, fallen world. There's nothing we can do about that. But even in the midst of the brokenness, even in the midst of the fire, we can choose to see through the perspective of the spirit rather than the perspective of the flesh, rather than the perspective of circumstance, rather than the perspective of emotionalism and self-pity. And we can say, even in this circumstance, I have victory. Even in this trial, I'm stabilized within by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Even in this unideal circumstance, I have love, joy, and peace, and the character of Christ is being developed in me. Every Bible figure you read of had trials. Paul the apostle, from all the way from Adam and Eve, boy, did they have trials, all the way down to modern day, every believer has had trouble. Jesus himself was crucified. You think that, you think that in his mind was a season of comfort? Well, why do you think he was praying with such anguish that he began to bleed in the garden because of the anguish that was coming upon him from the crucifixion? Think about all of the martyrs. Think about the early church, how the government pressed against them and tried to shut down the gospel message. Think of every apostle and the trials they went through. Do you think they went, oh my goodness, Satan's attacking me? Oh my goodness, I'm under a curse. Oh my goodness, God's abandoned me. No, they said, even in the midst of what's happening, I know who I am. Even in the midst of what's happening, I have things for which I can be grateful. And I'm not saying to you that you can't experience sorrow or have emotion by no means. Of course trials are gonna bring with it negative emotions. Of course, you will face heartache. People, believers face very real problems that invoke very real, very strong emotions. You lose a loved one, you're gonna feel that. You're gonna feel that. You lose a business, you're gonna feel that. You lose a ministry, you're gonna feel that. People turn against you, you're gonna feel that. I'm not saying we are not to fill the emotions of the trials. I'm saying that even with the pressure of those emotions, even with the pressure of those trials, even with the feelings, the sense of betrayal, the sense of abandonment, the sense of sorrow, even in the midst of those things, there's a more powerful sense within us that is the Holy Spirit with love, joy and peace overflowing and that pushes back the darkness. Now you can feel the emotion of a trial, but that doesn't mean you have to live in the emotion of that trial. Let me say that again. You can feel the emotion of the trial, but that doesn't mean you have to live in the emotion of that trial. Rather, we turn our mind to the things of heaven. We fix our eyes on the things above. We see from the perspective of eternity, not from the perspective of the here and now. Again, every biblical figure you will read of all throughout Scripture, Old and New Testament, they faced hardships and in those hardships, God was near. In those hardships, they sensed the presence of the living God and that same living God is with you in every trial. Again, we often mistake trials. Now I'm not saying the devil doesn't attack. Of course he does, but sometimes life is just happening and as you go through those issues, if you think that every time something bad happens to you that you're under the power of the enemy, my goodness, you're gonna always think you're under the power of the enemy because bad things constantly happen. But you have to decide, again, and this is a point I really wanna drive home with you. You have to decide, am I gonna go through this life clinging to every negative thing and saying, whoa is me, this is why I can't serve God, this is why nothing ever works out for me, this is the perspective through which I'll see all things or are you gonna cling to the goodness of God and when you face the trials, you can still have a victorious mindset because of what you're facing. I'm not just talking about positive thinking. I'm talking about a heavenly perspective. I'm not saying you can't feel emotions. I'm saying that despite those emotions, you can still have joy and peace. I'm not saying that you can't be realistic about your trials and your struggles. I'm not saying that you won't sometimes need encouragement. I'm saying you don't have to live in the identity of the struggle. You don't have to live in the circumstance. You don't have to live from that perspective of defeat because in all things, as we'll read in a moment, we are more than conquerors trials come naturally because of the world's brokenness.  And if we keep seeing trials as a sign that we are abandoned by God, if we keep seeing trials as a sign that the devil gains some power over us, then we will always think we're defeated because trials will always be there. It's not until we go home to glory guys that we're gonna finally be free from all of these things and have our rest.  This just means there's seasons of both. Now as I was saying, trials can come naturally, but they can also come as a result of foolishness. You know, your new nature that God gave to you when you were born again, that new nature is gonna come through. If you're a child of God, what's in you will eventually come out. There's no avoiding it. Even our own acts of foolishness backfire on us. Think about this. The flesh is constantly warring for more influence. Now when you give the flesh control, when you submit your life to the flesh through acts of disobedience, you of course give the flesh more influence. But watch this now. This is how powerful the new nature in you is. This is how profound the transformation was. That even when you commit a sinful act of foolishness, the flesh causes consequence and those consequences come back as correction.   Yes, there will be trials because of that. Now I'm not saying that all trials come as a result of sin. We're gonna talk about naturally occurring trials in a moment. But I'm talking right now about the acts of foolishness that bring upon us trials that would have been unnecessary. I'm saying that the new nature in you is so powerful that even when you surrender to the flesh, the new nature will gain influence to the consequence that comes from those acts of foolishness. I'll show it to you. Hebrews 12, five to 13.  He said, my child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves. Wow. Let me read that again to you. The Lord disciplines those he loves and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.  Whoever heard of a child who was never disciplined by its father, if God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever? Shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in his holiness, no discipline is enjoyable while it is happening. It's painful, but afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in his ways. So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.  Is this not the mercy of God? Is this not his grace? It's like Jonah who ran and God destroyed his ship. He destroyed his means of disobedience. So as a believer, if you become rebellious, God brings correction and destroys your means of disobedience. This is not the removal of your free will because remember, we already surrendered to him. We already asked him. We already made him the Lord of our lives. We already believed and put our faith. We chose to place our faith in him in response to his calling. And so now that you have this new nature, this new nature is going to gain influence one way or another so that even when you act in the flesh, the consequence that results from foolish living is the correction of God so that not even the flesh can gain the upper hand in the long run. Somebody say, thank you Jesus, that's the grace of God. So you may be discouraged saying, well, I did this and this and now God's punishing me this way. His correction is not his rejection. His correction is purification. I wanna say that again.  His correction is not his rejection. His correction is purification. That's the mercy of God. That's the grace of God. So that even as believers, when we make mistakes, the consequences of those mistakes bring on purification and it doesn't always necessarily have to be very severe. Sometimes it could be as simple as being convicted. You do something, a little compromise here or there, not that there's any such thing as little compromise, but I think you know what I mean. We make these little compromises and then we sense the conviction in our spirits and that conviction is enough to cause us to go, let me correct that, I don't wanna do that again. That's the correction of God. And sometimes it's a little more severe because the decisions we make are a little more foolish. But here's the thing, God will keep you. So if your trials are a result of your own foolishness, that's still purification. We can thank God for that, what mercy he has. Now sometimes as I was saying a moment ago, trials are also a result of just existing in this world. Being a Christian, persecution comes against us. People misunderstand us.  Why? Because we're his followers. So trials can come as a result of your own foolishness. Yes, but trials can also just come. And so instead of obsessing over the idea that you may have done something wrong, biting your nails going, God, what did I miss? Where did I go wrong? Look, if you did something wrong and he was punishing you for it and you asked him, Lord, what did I do wrong? He would bring to you, remember it's what you did wrong and then be over with. God is not immature. He's not gonna fold his arms and say, well, you gotta figure out why I'm mad. Or you gotta figure out the problem.  No, you say, Lord, what did I do? He'll reveal to you what you did. And if he doesn't, then it's just a trial that came about as a result of existing in a fallen world. And we have to acknowledge that sometimes that's just the case. And some of us are bound by the obsession of trying to solve the mystery of what we did wrong. Some of us are bound by the obsession of trying to solve the mystery of what we did wrong. Not realizing that if it was a punishment for something that we did directly, God would make that clear by the Holy Spirit. So nevermind with this idea that God's keeping some secret from us because he's being petty and angry and he's mad. And will you figure out why I'm punishing you? Well, you should know why I'm upset with you. No, God doesn't do that. Why? Because when he brings correction, it's very clear. God's correction always comes with clarity. He'll tell you why he's doing such things. You'll know why there's punishment. But if it's not punishment, if it's just a regular trial, then stop obsessing. Stop saying, what did I do wrong? God, why did you punish me? God, why are you distancing yourself from me?  But you endure these trials the same way you would endure any trial. And that is just to keep your eyes on Jesus, keep moving forward, keep the perspective of the faith, see things from the perspective of eternity. James 1-2-4 says this, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. Four, you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow.  Sometimes trials just come about as a result of living in a fallen world. And what does the Bible say to do? Obsess over the origin, the paranoid Christian, oh my goodness, what did my ancestors do that's allowing this?  Oh my goodness, what did I do that I forgot about that God's not telling me for some reason and they're fretting, they're fidgeting. Oh my goodness, I have to figure this out. Or you could just repent of any sin that you've done, realize that God is a merciful God who communicates with us, who gives us conviction over our wrongdoing if there's something specific and who gives us strength for every trial. So when you're going through a trial instead of fretting, rejoice. Now that's easier said than done.  I know that doesn't surprise you, but I wanna be honest. I haven't fully mastered this. I'm not rejoicing in every trial I try to. Every trial that comes my way, I try to keep that perspective. I'm gonna rejoice in this. I'm gonna have peace. Thank you Jesus for giving me an opportunity to be more like you. Thank you Jesus for giving me an opportunity to trust you when I don't understand. What an opportunity that is indeed. That he would give us this way of becoming more like him. How can we possibly ever grow in strength without weight? How can you ever develop patience without waiting? How can you ever develop, truly develop unshakable peace without shaking? How can you develop unconditional love without being put through some conditions? How can you have peace beyond all understanding unless you go through some trials for which you have no understanding? It's under the weight that the muscle grows. It's under the pressure of the trial that faith grows. That resistance brings strength. That resistance brings training and conditioning. And as you become conditioned, as you become trained, your faith grows. Your ability to have peace is strengthened. Your ability to show unconditional love is strengthened. Your ability to have joy overflowing in the midst of sorrowful trials is strengthened. You cannot have development and growth without resistance. Philippians 1-6, and here's where we can definitely rejoice. Philippians 1-6 says this. And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Jesus Christ returns. He's gonna complete it. He's faithful. You see trials as God's abandonment. You should start seeing trials as God's involvement. He's using, it doesn't cause them necessarily, but he uses them to make you more like Jesus. Well, didn't you pray, make me more like Jesus? You pray for patience, God will give you tests. You pray, Lord, teach me to love like you love.  You pray, Lord, teach me to have peace in every situation. He's gonna give you every situation. You pray, Lord, teach me to trust you. He's gonna put you in situations where you don't understand what's going on. Because only when you lack that understanding of what's going on can you truly say, I'm fully trusting in God. God, I don't understand, but I trust you. It's the only way to be happy in Jesus as the old song goes. Two things, trust and obey. Just trust and obey. You're going through it, trust and obey. No, it hasn't been 20 years of God's abandonment. It's been 20 years of a bad perspective. And we need to fix these things. Isaiah 64, eight through nine says this, and yet, oh, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, you are the potter.   Please don't remember our sins forever. Look at us, we pray, and see that we are all your people.  Say that to the Lord, Lord, you are the potter. I'm the clay.  There may be aspects of your nature that you would rather keep, but God would rather get rid of. There may be mindsets in you that you're clinging to, stubbornly, but God says, no, those have to go. Those have to go. You're the potter, I'm the clay.  This is such a powerful portion of scripture. Romans 8, I'm gonna read verses 31 through 39. Just allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you now through his word. Just receive it, say, Lord, I receive it. Type that in the comments section. Lord, I receive your correction. Say it, say, Lord, I receive your correction. And listen to this, listen to this. Romans 8, 31 through 39. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? Here's the condition. If God is for us, who can ever be against us?  Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one, for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one, for Christ died for us and was raised to lie for us. Think about that, think about that. He died for us and he was raised for us. And he is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death? As the scriptures say, for your sake, we are killed every day. We are being slaughtered like sheep. No, verse 37, watch this, watch this. The conclusion, no, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us. And I am persuaded that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love, no power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord, Father, I pray, that you would help us give us the grace to rejoice in the fire, purify us. Say that to him now, purify us. Refiners fire make us like pure gold. Cause us to be reflections of the image of Jesus, I pray. Lord, we thank you for the potter's hand. And Lord, help us to focus on you. Help us to walk in joy, love, peace, trust, even in the midst of life's most trying times. In every season we trust you, our hearts cry as simple. Make us more like Jesus. Holy Spirit, we thank you that you can work out even our biggest flaws, help us to surrender to you, to submit to your refining process, teach us to not struggle and fight when the potter's hand moves about. Teach us to not resist when the refiner's fire is purifying us. Thank you, Jesus, for every life being affected now by your word. And Father, I pray in the name of Jesus even now, I want you to receive this. Heal your people, deliver them, set them free in the mighty name of Jesus. Just receive this, the touch of God's power on you right now.  Others may feel like an electricity. Some even report sometimes feeling like waves of water or even like a weight coming on the room. Even if you feel nothing at all, it doesn't matter. I just don't want you to fear. Don't be afraid. That's the touch of God. Lord, I thank you. Heal and deliver as only you can. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray, I want you to say it because you believe it, say amen. Well, if you think others need to hear this message, make sure you share it with your friends. Also, leave a like on the video that actually does help to spread the message all around the world. And also don't forget to subscribe to the channel where I release sermons and teachings on the Holy Spirit, prayer, spiritual warfare and similar topics. We also broadcast our live events from around the world where the power of God moves and many are saved, healed, delivered and empowered. Now listen, I'm asking you to give me just a couple more minutes because I wanna share something with you about you getting involved with this ministry. You know, this ministry is God's. We're just stewards. This is the Lord's ministry. And we are seeing all around the world through the media, through the content, through the live streams, through the events that we host everywhere. We are seeing lives transform. People are being saved. That soul's coming into the kingdom. People are being healed. Real, true, miraculous healing. People are being delivered from demonic bondage, from addictions. And believers are being empowered through the touch of the Holy Spirit and the word. Disciples are being raised. Ministries are being refined because of the word that's going forward. And I need your help. You see, the gospel is free. We don't charge for the content. We don't charge for the live streams. We don't charge for any of our events, unless of course it's like a dinner or something that has material costs, but any event like an evangelistic service or a healing service, an encounter service, those are free. Why? Because freely we receive, so freely we give. And I'm asking you to support this work. We use the biblical model for ministry, which is to freely give and then ask the people to give and then the people give according to their own free will. So will you consider right now helping us out? Look, we're seeing expansive growth. In this season of ministry, particularly, we're seeing the crowds just grow and grow and grow. And we need to get bigger facilities to hold larger events because we have to turn many away at many of our events. Thousands show up over each weekend and we wanna make sure that we are making sure that we, how shall I say, we are stewarding well the growth that God is bringing to his ministry. And so this is where I need your help. Will you become a supporter of our ministry? Sign up today to become a monthly partner. That's a monthly gift, it's an automatic gift. You sign up one time and then it's automatically going to go. You can sign up for a monthly gift by going to davidhernanisministries.com slash partner. Your monthly gift makes more of a difference than you realize. We have thousands of monthly partners from around the world. I'm asking you to do your part. Those monthly gifts help us to plan. They help us to project for the future. They help to bring a greater stability so that we can reach out with more projects and do more ministry works and plan better for events. Monthly partnership is very key to what we're doing. So what you consider going right now, become a $30 a month partner if you can. There are so many things we give monthly to streaming services and gym memberships and gaming platforms and services of all kinds. We should also be able to support the gospel. So do that today, davidhernanisministries.com slash partner. You can also give a single donation by going to davidhernanisministries.com slash donate. Whether you're giving one time or monthly large or small, it all counts, it all helps. I'm just asking you, do something today. Ask the Holy Spirit. Pause right now and ask the Holy Spirit how you should support this ministry and let the Holy Spirit guide you. Just trust His voice and make sure you're supporting this ministry today. Again, I thank you for that. It's that souls might be saved. It's that believers might be empowered. It truly is a work of God. And until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God.


What's up guys, Matt Beck from Free Salon Education. I got another video for you guys. I stopped into the salon and I wanted to put together a haircut really quick so that I'm consistently putting out haircuts for you. But now I'm outside because the salon is packed and busy and so I can't film this intro in there. But I got a great step-by-step haircut. Here is the end result. It's an asymmetrical cut. It's a little bit windy around here. Let me get up against the brick wall so you guys can see. So asymmetrical cut. Really hard lines into the back, round layering and it gets longer in the front. We did a lot of dry cutting techniques so I think that you guys will take a lot from this cut. I did do one similar to this but definitely the technique is a lot different. And yeah, that's pretty much it. So I hope you guys enjoy this haircut. Please leave in the comments. Let me know once again. I love getting the comments and the feedback and what you guys want to see next. So thanks for checking out the video. Here we go with our step-by-step haircut. All right, so we're gonna start off the haircut using a right hand side parting and then I'm gonna draw a diagonal forward parting from mid-crown down to just above the ear. Then I'm gonna continue that diagonal forward line to the opposite side of the head just above the ear as well. So it's basically like creating a horseshoe shape around the top of the head going through mid-crown. Then I'm gonna draw a triangle shape in the back of the head sitting right at the crown and then the point of the triangle should end right about the occipital bone in the center back of the head. All right, now I'm just gonna twist it up, clip it away, and one last little section we're gonna do a diagonal forward line from that triangle from the point of that triangle to behind the ear. That will section off what we're gonna use as our triangular graduation later. So I really wanted to keep that kind of diagonal back line that's going across the back of the head as my round graduation shape. And then we have that small triangle or that small square for our triangular shape later on. You'll understand what I mean in a couple minutes. So I'm gonna start off our round graduation. This, my finger angle is shifted towards me just a little bit. I wanted to preserve a little bit of extra length right behind the ear to start off because we're gonna square off that line across the ear, which you saw at the beginning. So as I continue through working diagonal back, I'm creating a rounded shape in the back of the head, following the round of the head, but I'm using a stationary guide to keep a nice, heavy weight line. The thing I love about this haircut that you saw at the beginning is that it has that heavy weight line so you get to really see the shape that we created. And then I just keep that same finger angle working all the way through the back, which allows me to continue it and then end up in a triangular graduation feel because of the over direction of the hair. The thing I love about cutting asymmetry this way is that I'm putting a little extra weight, probably weight that I don't quite need over to the left hand side by over directing everything that far. But the great thing about that is I can always go through in the dry cut and cut some of it out and draw different lines with it. So that's what you're gonna see me do when we blow it dry is I will remove some of that weight. All right, now just keeping the consistency, I think that's the biggest thing here. Don't take too much hair. You'll notice that I took little sections, even though this was a stationary guide and I could have taken all of it at once and cut it, I would not have had the same result because the more hair you try to cut at a time, the more pushing you get with the scissor blade so you're not gonna have consistent lines in a haircut. Okay, so quickly I wanna discuss my thoughts on over direction. So when we look at the head shape, I look at it in different corners. The key thing here is let's say corner number one is directly behind the head, directly center back. Corner number two is in between center back and behind the ear. Corner number three is behind the ear. The reason I look at the head shape in corners is if you pass hair, if you try to over direct hair past two corners, what you're gonna end up with is lifeless, heavy hair. So with this rule, anytime I'm on the head shape, I always look at it.  Unless you're doing it for some other purpose. But let's just say for a flattering result, I don't wanna over direct the hair past two corners. Now, as you see in this haircut when I'm over directing the hair back, I'm over directing it from corner number three to corner number one. This is a pretty extreme over direction. You can see how much weight it pushes forward, but I keep working my way through. Then as I get to the opposite side, what's gonna happen is if I kept over directing the hair to that point, the hair's just gonna turn into be very, very heavy. So just keep that in mind. Now we're finishing up the left hand side of the head, keeping that over direction, keeping that consistency, keeping our elevation nice and low. Now that triangle that we sectioned off in the back, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna continue through that, cutting around graduated shape. The only difference in this part of the haircut is that the elevation will be a little bit higher because I wanna build that shape up. I already built my strong line through the base of the haircut. So now I'm just lightening it up because if I brought all of that down to one length, it would be way too heavy of a shape for my liking. But if you guys wanted to build up extra weight down there, you absolutely could do that as well. But you can see continuing that over direction, it will turn into a triangular shape as I keep moving through, but just quickly going through nice little high elevation, pretty much creating a 45 degree angle at that point. You'll see that 45 degree angle come to life right here because I'm gonna use that as my guideline. So what I just cut and then what I cut, the very beginning of the haircut becomes my guide and I'm gonna go through with a slight diagonal forward parting of the hair and keeping my fingers parallel to the parting and working my way through creating a 45 degree angle, nice round shape on the right hand side of the head. This is now a traveling guide, so I am allowing that weight to kind of move with me. And then once I get to the very end of this section, I will be over directing everything straight back. So we're gonna move, now we're at about mid-ear. Now at this point, I'm gonna cut my guideline to start my stationary guide. So everything will come back to that point. Keeping the stationary guide, it's really just, I like that it's gonna kind of soften up the front. It's gonna toss a little bit of weight around the cheekbone area instead of squaring off the entire side of the haircut. I like to add just a little bit of a kick of weight into the front. So you can see how that kind of falls down. It also gives a little extra weight if she wants to brush it back. Now I'm gonna go division point of the head from the high point or kind of mid crown down to behind the ear, over directing everything back again, blending it with that 45 degree graduation that we created in the back. Just swinging that hair around. Now, when we talked about weight and corners earlier, this is where we're breaking my rule of thought, but that's why we're gonna go in and do a ton of dry cutting techniques at the end. So we are passing this around pretty much every corner of the head once we get to that side of the haircut, but this is a little bit more of an extreme haircut as well, and you will notice that I am doing some extra elevation in there to help lighten up the weight load that's gonna happen as that hair swings around the head and falls. So just keep in mind that flattering weight control is gonna be the two corners, but if you want this extreme weight like you're seeing here, then you can pass it around as many corners as you want, but you're probably gonna be doing some dry cutting in it later. So quick flat wrap, and then we'll do some iron work. You can see how much weight is sitting on that side. What I love about this is you can see that great shape we created with the 45 degree angle on the right side, and the left side, you can see how heavy it is. We're gonna go in and do a ton of dry cutting techniques that I think you guys will like. It was my whole thought process on this haircut was to show you guys all these dry cutting techniques. So now that line work, you can see how it's kind of like a crazy line at the bottom there. That's because we elevated the hair. So we created more of a solid line in the back, but because we were elevating across the side of the head, now I'll go through with my dry cut, the point of my Mizutani puff-in, and create that nice solid line throughout the side of the haircut. I love doing detail work with this scissor because the blade is so strong. It's perfect for dry cutting, and it really helps me create those lines. All right, so we're continuing into the back, outlining that shape. I've talked about this quite a few times on my latest videos, but using that point of the scissor just to draw out and outline your haircuts looks so good. I mean, you need to make sure that you have consistent shape within the interior of the haircut, but when you're working on the outside of the haircut, it just kind of makes everything melt together. So here's my triangular shape that we were pushing forward earlier. So just going through with the tip of the scissor, creating that outline. Anytime you elevate hair, it diffuses the outline of the haircut. So in order to get those strong lines in there, you have to go through and detail it. Now we're gonna go in with a tease cutting technique. Thing I love most about this technique is it just removes so much weight and bulk and creates a lot of texture and movement in your haircuts. This can really make any really strong shape, have kind of a shattered effect to it with a lot of texture. It's definitely a trick that you wanna put into your bag of tricks that you have for the salon. But the way that we do that technique is to half open, half close. I'm doing the same thing with this slide cutting technique, just half closing the scissor. This is all with my Mizetani Puffin, glides right through the hair. It's meant for dry cutting only, so it's definitely a cool scissor for that. So all this slide cutting, tease cutting, all of it is a half open, half close of the scissor. You're sliding the scissor into the hair, which will remove some of the hair, but not all of the hair, which will give you that texture and movement. More slide cutting through, just blending that shape. Again, we passed over multiple corners, which I talked about, so you're gonna have a lot of extra weight to work with. Now I'm gonna go through the point cutting technique. Key thing here is that I grabbed the whole crown of the head. I started low, started point cutting, and as I'm point cutting, I'm sliding up the hair shaft, and that is creating texture throughout the entire crown of the haircut, which is really cool, gives it a really cool effect. Same thing here, point cutting through, sliding my fingers out, just working that point cutting technique. Do a little bit more. Key thing with my point cutting is that I have the stationary blade, that's what's hitting my finger, so you'll notice that my wrist is flipped. Some of you guys may cut your point cutting in the complete opposite direction.  Now we're gonna go through with another point cutting technique. Over directing the hair towards myself, and then working the same exact way, steady blade into the hair, and just working back and forth through the section, removing bulk from the haircut. Again, we passed over those corners, we do have extra bulk we can mess around with, but it does create a lot of texture, and that's what this haircut's all about. We're gonna do the same exact technique on this side, so we'll do a little bit of point cutting through there, just softening the edge. What I do is I lift horizontally, wear that little heavy ledges on the haircut, then I go through and I point cut that section, so it falls nice and soft. We'll finish up the outline of this haircut. There's that little bit of extra weight that we cut from the triangular part, and now we're gonna go through and do a little bit of no-thumbs technique. If you guys wanna learn this technique, check out some of our past videos I've done and shown this step-by-step. I hope you guys like this haircut. You can definitely use a lot of these techniques every day in the salon. Make sure you subscribe, hit like, share with your friends, and we'll see you guys on the next video. Thanks.