Our vision for Vera Soleil is to restore this small farm of two hectares to a modern example of a polyculture farm. There were many, many, many small farms in this region that was the actual economy of this region in France. And we are trying to demonstrate a reasonable and sustainable way of living in today's world close to the land using modern technology but not relying completely on it. I came to Camp Vera Soleil because I'm trying to understand how we can do a better job of restoring depleted land. There's just so much of it across the planet and we've got to figure this out. There are all these meadows, you have mountains in the back, you have these typical French houses like this one. And I know, ooh, this is going to be perfect, especially with this little friend here. This is Maya and she's just the best. Terral and Claudia have only moved here recently and they've got lots of big dreams for how this property is going to look. And it felt exciting. It felt like we were here at the beginning. There's just this free flow of ideas and inspiration and sharing. And the meals and more like the conversations at the table are at least as important as doing the actual work in the fields. They also showed us in a very honest way that it's hard work. It gave us, I think, a lot more respect when it comes to farming and where our food comes from. This is what it's all about, to understand more and increase the respect for the work people are doing and nature is doing. I think the things we did, you can actually immediately see the results.  No. What I saw is like a holistic view. If you just do the land and then you're not living it and understanding it, I don't think it will fly. You've got to connect with the land, you've got to read the signs, the weather, everything. It's all interconnected. Right now we are making more beds to grow vegetables. First time in my life I'm harvesting fertile soil from grass to not let anything go to waste. We did excursions, like going from Camp Wieselay to other places, farms around here, doing permaculture, doing regenerative practices. I liked that we went to different farms. So to see there's not one way, but there are several ways of regeneration. If you learn things in an academic environment or you're reading books about permaculture and environment, it doesn't mean anything to you. But when you get a chance to come out here and actually feel it and engage with it on a day-to-day basis, these problems become real. At Wieselay, one of the biggest points that we intentionally set out to do was create a place for human restoration as well as land restoration. We realized there's a lot of amazing world changers out in the world and oftentimes people get a little burned out, they need a little time to regroup, reset. So our goal is to provide super nourishing food in a supportive environment. Welcome to Sparky's Kitchen! I usually cook for a couple of people at the most and now making meals for eight people three times a day is really an experience. All my fellow campers will say something about the amazing food. I mean, I think I gained a couple of kilos just because we ate so well. I am a high-performance therapist in real life so I work with very motivated people including myself and I'm very athletic. And to be in the kitchen is a departure, to be honest. This is my new life.  When I got here I was truly depleted. What we really needed was to be restored. When we got here on the land and started to just work with the stones and cook really well and keep the vision alive of what we really could see for this place, we started to feel renewed. It was kind of a holistic experience to have here to regenerate not only the landscape, the soil, the farm but also ourselves. You get to work but there's also a lot of space for you. You can step out any time if you think you need a break. You would prefer to have some time for yourself or read a book. That's okay. For me, I'm a city girl and it takes some time to be grounded but then if you are I felt that I did things differently. We did several different types of activities around being able to tune into your body, tune into your spirit. What I also learned is that the power of community, you can do this by yourself but I think the strength is to do this together. It was immediately a very friendly and open-hearted atmosphere. Really interesting people, really interesting perspectives and there's a hopefulness that I'm coming away from here with. To be able to have really good food, get your hands dirty, plant a few trees, be around really smart people, what else do you need? What I felt was that sometimes you have to open up your heart and that just made it complete.


The aftermath of the APC primaries leaves one question unanswered. What is next for the former ministers? And many killed houses raised as communal crisis breaks out in Korgi state. Well, this is Plus Politics. I am Mary Anacorn. Four ministers have become politically stranded, if you'd ask me, after their defeat in the presidential primaries of the all-progressive Congress APC, which was held in Abuja. Former Governor of Lagos State Bola-Ametin will eventually won that primary by taking about 60% of the votes and will be flying the flag of the APC in the February 25, 2023 presidential elections. The ministers who were forced to resign last month after obtaining forms were Emeka Majuba, Minister of State for Education, Gotswil Aqabiu, Niger Delta Affairs Minister, Ogbun Naya Onu, Science and Technology Minister, and Roti Miyamechi, Transportation Minister. And the big question tonight is what is next for these gentlemen? Well, joining us to discuss this is journalist Carl Cinedu and legal practitioner Digi Awopide. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you. Great. I'll start with you, Digi. Now, all four of these men who were seemingly forced to resign and some resigned of their own free will, even before the embryo of whether they should stay or not. Many people had wondered if it was even a good move in the first instance, looking at their political pedigree. I mean, I'm talking about all of these men that I've mentioned, aside from maybe the Transportation Minister and the Science and Technology Minister. Let's start from there. How great an idea was it for these men to leave their jobs in pursuit of this presidential bid? Well, thank you, Marianne, for the question. You recorded a few weeks back you had your program, and I did wonder why these ministers were running, unless they had some sort of assurance from the president or from somebody I own, saying that they had the confidence of the party to secure the ticket. But now the primaries have come and gone where it looks very clear to everybody who can see that it was a very ill-advised decision. I mean, all the means of transport was able to muster some votes, came second in the primaries. The others, basically, Wajima did not show up in priority convention. The minister, Minister Onu, went on a ramp at the convention, but did not secure any votes. We got on a patio, maybe the widest of them all, was able to quickly pitch his tent with the eventual party's flag bearer. So I don't know, maybe it was some form of importance that they attached to themselves, but clearly they did not have the political capital or the political mozoon to get the party's ticket. So it was a very ill-advised decision, and I just hope that for their sake that the money that they spent on the party's form would somehow, someway be either refunded to them or given back to them at the reduced price. A compensation of sorts.  Carl, can you hear me? Let's look at the second runner up, which is the former governor of River State and of course the current, well, former now, minister of transportation, Rosimi Chibike Amici, who also was one of the presidential aspirants on the platform of the APC. Let's stop by looking at his performance, not just as minister, but let's take a look back at him being governor. Could this have also played a role in his shorty of wanting to run for this office and even taking that leap of leaving his current job? So, I will say that we have to look at the two types of methods for system development. The one thing that we have done at the time was to look at the two types of method for system development. To look at the other two.  I'm so sorry, Carl. I'm so sorry. It's very difficult for us to hear you. We're going to try to get you on another line so that we can clearly hear what you have to say. That would make the conversation flow better.  Same question. Let's look at Chibike Amici's career and the trajectory. A man who became a speaker in the legislature in his state moved from there to become a governor of his state. I mean, he's had some form of a steady trajectory, which he also presented on the day of the presidential primaries, making a case, in fact, that he had also been two-time governor, two-time governor, a two-time D.G. for Mr. President. He seemed to have had so much confidence. But now that he's no longer the minister, no longer governor, he does not hold any office. And then, of course, let's look at what's happening in the APC in his state. Where does he fall in right now? Well, I think that the former minister of transport, Reto Nerebu Chibike Amici, has the credit, we no doubt, to seek the ice of peace in the land. I mean, having such a very robust resume as it progresses, nobody can define him for as priority to greater office. However, as you know, when it comes to internal affairs of the political party, those decisions as to who become the party's supply bearer and the primaries is left for the party to decide. And in this case, the APC opted to go through the delegate system. And the person who had the most support from the delegates in returning one, although he came a very decent second to Mashua Duvala Tsunubu. Now, I haven't said that. Right now, the minister is, I wouldn't say that often, but without a political office, somebody who has held a political office since 1999, was picked up for eight years, was governor for eight years, was minister after he left his office as governor. And so he's been in the limelight for several years. So this is perhaps a shock to him that he is nowhere in terms of national politics directly as he used to be. He's only got a front-runner. He does not have a table based on a political office for now. But I reckon that his journey in the wilderness will not be for too long because if things go the way the party has planned and if things go the way other people have come fast, that he'll be allowed to come back to his office and do some transport to complete all the projects. You heard Shaywusoni say in the past week that he should be allowed to complete all his ongoing projects. This is one minister who we can say has really done well under the Guarvi administration, although the stain on the CV is the Kaduna bomb attack. That's the stain on the CV. But aside from that, if you've been to the International Airport in Abuja, if you've seen other rail projects that have been completed, you will see that he's done a lot. He's one of the shining lights of the Guarvi administration. But as it relates to political issues now, it might need to do some realignment. You showed that Ashiraju visited his house a few days back. So I think that some international realignments will call to see what the critical potential for the former minister for transport. Carl, I think that we have you on a clear line. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the former transportation minister. For most of the ministers that resigned, they are appointment to contest the ADC primary. I would say that it was simply pure opportunism. Because most of them were counting on the fact that other would be annihilated because of the plumber and litigation that the governorship should come to the Ashiraju political zone. It would make. Go ahead. So it was simply the issue of court defense was not there. Even though most of them have served in various capacities and never really had much to show for it. But the big concerns Nigeria should be asking remains this. Most of these guys have been in and out of governance for the past 24 years. In the 15th start of the Bundayon, who has been in the military era up to now.  Politicians, it's not their main occupation. They should also give way for others to also come and bring in their competitors and also move the country forward. So I don't think that there should be any big deal about what they should do next. They should also go with life. Again, I mean, you can't really say that.  But then there are people who would tell you that this is, this is something that they do. This is the fact. This is their capital in terms of politics being continuously in the mix. Because I mean, I think Daisy made it a very interesting point. The man who was supposed to, who was the first to resign and say he had a political ambition did not show up at the Eagle Square to even make a case for that ticket in the first instance. And I'm talking about the Minister of State for, I think, Science and Technology, if I'm not mistaken. And he didn't show up. So people would ask, of course, even if he knows how to do his job, even if he doesn't know how to do his job, or rather, if he did his job really well, what about what happens to him in the future in terms of politics? And I asked Daisy another question. For a minister, Amici, whose APC in River State is divided, has been unable to have any proper elections or primaries or congresses because there are two factions in that party. And then, of course, at the national level, whether he has been, you know, in meetings or in talks with the flag bearer of the party, that is one on one hand. But what is the political future of Rotimi and Amici? Will he be able to say in the future that I am, you know, the father of the APC, or I am the leader of the APC in River State, these are the people that I'm grooming, because it's one thing to say step aside. Who are the people that these people have fathered that they can say, OK, well, I'll step aside and let you run? Carl? Yeah, Muzio. If we want to talk about the problem, the most of these guys had that the APC primaries was that they really got to discover that they were superstars the way they saw themselves. Because like in the instance of the former governor, who was working at Amici, who was speaker for 80s, governor for 80s, leader of APC in River State, but the surprisingly, the irony remains that in the past two elections, the APC has not been able to shoot candidates in River State. As we speak now, APC is still a marching crisis in River State. So that will also put the question back on the leadership and the general identity. In the case of people like Wajoba and the rest of them, I still maintain that these are people that just came out for the election because they believe that, oh, because the climate that has come to the South East, oh, the house and the death position to take it. None of them came to that context on their own steam and that was why the collapse rule, so at this moment in the primaries. Let me come back to you, Daisy. Let's talk about Goswyl Aquabio, who also seems to be having the same situation in Akwaibong State as Rosimi Amici, where there seems to be some uncertainty for his party and if they would be able to even participate in the elections, being that there are cases that are in court right now. Aquabio, for some, would be a governor who was very... articulate to someone who was able to do certain things and put Akwaibong State on the map. Some people might say different. But he's also a very good orator. You know, he speaks very well, he's able to, you know, get people to join his team. But we were unable to see that happen in his bid for presidency. Again, some people would say, just like Carl, they were just there because they thought that, you know, their level of, let's say, fame would one way or the other get them the ticket. But for Anakwaibio now, who's also almost on the same boat with former Minister Rosimi Amici, do you see him playing his way back into the game as compared to a Rosimi Amici? Well, I think as it relates to... Governor Gontrilo Aquabio, he was the first person to declare support for the eventual flag bearer of the party. And that was the very strategic move. Perhaps he saw the handwriting on the wall that he would not be able to get the party's nomination. But I don't play that hand. Of course, it also means that if should ABC go ahead and win the general elections, it would be in good state to at least lease of claim to the party's victory. I haven't said the borrowing for the various governors and other aspirants who chewed their weight behind Ashwajibor-Latin. So for Aquabio, I think, well, quite on the national stage, he may not have an office as minister. But he's still very much relevant in the South South. And due to for Right Honourable Chibuki Amici, they both are very relevant politicians in their respective states. For Governor Minister Amici, the problem that he has is that he has a very formidable opposition in Governor Yesou Miki. Governor Miki has proven twice that he's not a pushover. And don't forget also that Governor Amici is always quick to remind you that Governor Miki was his mentee, so to speak.  So that, and he also has the power of equivalency going for him. So that's why I think he's been handicapped in rivers. But Governor Aquabio has not been so handicapped in Aquabio. It's still a very, very prominent position in the Aquabio state. However, you will understand that when it comes to politics, there are not interests at play. And those interests are at play in Aquabio. And that's what I have in several court cases. Even though at the convention it declared that the three delegates of Aquabio would vote for Matiago to know who. But apparently because of the court injunction that was served at the convention, they could not really add their votes to Italy because it commands the reality of these people and is still very much relevant in national politics. Unfortunately, they may have to go back home because a lot of the time when these positions go to national state, they forget that they need to also have that back in the court. And I think that's what is lacking in both the case of Governor Aquabio and Dono Amici. But for Amici, I still insist that he has a very formidable position who has the power to go for him. I do not see that if Governor Aquabio leaves office in 2023, I think that he will have a more level playing field to be able to expand his political ideals and be basketball. Okay, Carl, you are in river state. I just want to point to both gentlemen. Notice that these ministers who stepped down in pursuit of their presidential bid were from the south. I am talking about Obonayano, Majuba, Aquabio and Rotimi Amici. Now, last week a reverse politician Tonya Princeville did speak about Tinibu's win as a lesson to the south and not just the south, he talked about the southeast, he talked about the south-south and the middle belt saying that there are lots of lessons we need to learn from the politicking of Asiwaju Abola met Tinibu. Do you agree with Tonya that there's a lot that the south needs to learn from Tinibu's politicking? Yeah, absolutely. I quite agree with that position because what played out in the APC primary was the flag that Carl, are you there? I think that we lost Carl again. Carl, are you there? Can you hear me? We lost that connection, unfortunately. The connection on his end is really bad. Back to you, Deji. So, Deji, just as I said there's a lot to look at. There's a lot to learn from what has transpired. Again, like I said, these four gentlemen are from the south. The southeast and, of course, the south-south. And we see that some people would say they've lost out. They shot themselves in the foot. Some people would say, well, it was strategic. Some who have declared allegiance for the flag bearer, some of them would say they're winning. But what Tonya Cole said about the fact that there's a lot more that we need to learn in terms of alliances and political pragmatism, do you share the same sentiment? Well, absolutely. I think what you said is very apt to list that constant because what we can see is that Ashwajibala Tunubu is a politician who has been on the same for well over 30 years. He has several mentees, several political godsons and goddesses that he can point to. Many of whom are limited to the limelight who have played a very prominent role in the national development. So, and the man was built bridges across the Niger far north. He has his back in there. Even the title, Jagaban is a title that he got from the north. Jagaban is from the north. So that tells you that he's a very diverse politician who is also very, very competitive in his approach. Very pragmatic. And as when it all seemed as though it was not going to get a ticket, I mean you will see that on Twitter, a lot of people were just saying his ambition was didn't arrive out and they played off the chances of the vice president and other people's chances have been anointed by the president and nobody really saw Ashwajibu getting the ticket eventually. As a matter of fact, a lot of people were waiting for the convention so that you can be put to shame. But eventually it turned out to be the reverse. It turned out to be the major flag bearer given it doesn't have the consensus about anything else. It was still able to pull off the great escape. And I think that it's round at Abebuta perhaps would be the most historic round in the history of Nigeria. Because that round eventually I think forced the hand of so many people and eventually you saw that he got an overwhelming support on delegates. What you may say that those delegates were very satisfied to cast their votes for him but all of our experience also had the same level playing field they could have also gone ahead to do what needed to be done to secure the ticket. Like I said those of them were... I'm not disagreeing I'm just curious when you say they had the same level playing field did they stand a chance against the tinibu? When you say they could do what he did what exactly did he do that they could have done? So what I mean is if you pick up a form to run for the office of the president that's the eyes of the president. You must believe in your chances you must believe that you have the same clout the same persona, the same charisma, the same pockets to be able to win the nomination. So it wouldn't be foolhardy to pick up a form knowing that you had no chance. I wouldn't say that Governor Mechit is not filled to see he had a chance. I'm sure he felt that he had a good chance of picking the party's nomination detailed for the vice president. They must have believed that he stood a chance or they must have believed that the delegates were people of conscience like Pastor Sudevac had he said he said he sent out SMS to us delegates I mean he believed in the ability of delegates to see beyond financial motives and vote for him based on his passion for the country and I believe that even all the other experienced would also say the same that they have a passionate about the country and that they would give him a chance to take the country to greater heights. So if you pick up a form to run for office then you must really believe in your chances otherwise it was a foolish thing to do but those of them who felt that they could no longer have the same right on the wall would not wrestle the ticket from the Jagaban they decided to step down their ambitions in the state, that's my state he did mention that he had a young man as a long way to go and he also had a former speaker as a representative Mr Dimitri Bankoli saying also that he's also a young man and went to cross streets on the Jagaban so a lot of people looked at their current state and their future and aligned that we aligned their position some of them you need to step down like Pastor Sudevac had they got zero votes they did not step down but I didn't get zero votes I'm not very sensitive now but he also went on a round a national round as to justice and conscience and all of those things but politics is politics politics is a kind of politics that requires you to not only have deep pockets it also requires you to have friends in across the country okay finally I hope that Carl you can hear me just to wrap this up Deji has said that a lot of them had level playing field even though Obonaianu had come out to say he felt that there was no justice in terms of power being ceded to the south or the southeast but do you see any mass movement out of the APC or do you think that there has been some calm within the party and that maybe there have been patched and people are holding hands and kumbayaing their way to 2023 Carl can you hear me unfortunately Carl cannot hear us well I want to say thank you Deji for being part of the conversation Deji Abwabiyide is a legal practitioner and of course Carl Cineju is a journalist and thank you gentlemen for being here thank you for having me alright and on that note we'll take a quick break when we come back we'll be talking with minister in Kogi state there have been several clashes within the states which has also led to the loss of lives and property we'll be talking about it after this break


I don't mean to offend anybody, but some of your foundations of what you build your life upon, I promise you might get rocked.  So let's dive into it. I'm going to go over a couple different biases with you guys. So the first one is something called confirmation bias. One of the things that's really funny about being a human is we have this incredibly complex piece of machinery between our ears that is working without us ever trying to use it, without us ever thinking about it, without us ever trying to take control of it. It's working at all points in time and it's doing what it's doing. And if you don't know how it works, it could mess you up a little bit. And that's why you have to understand the way that we work. We think that our opinions are a result of years of rational and objective analysis. Like if I say, tell me your beliefs, tell me your opinions and tell me why those are your beliefs and your opinions. You think the reason why is because they are a result of years of rational thinking and objective analysis as to how the world works and how you operated it, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information that confirmed how you believe while ignoring the information that would have changed your perceptions. So this is just all psychology. These are all facts. It's called confirmation bias. You're literally seeing the world, seeing everything. You're only seeing what makes you feel like you're right and you're missing what can prove you wrong. Another problem with this is that you hang out with people who only think exactly the same as you. Because it's really hard to hang out with somebody who has a completely different opinion on the world. Like if you think of your top five friends, they think exactly the same way that you do. They have the same beliefs that are probably around the same weight. They probably eat the same as you. They work out around the same amount of time that you work out. They probably have the same political affiliations as you. We hang out with people who only think exactly the way that we think, which then confirms even more of our bias of, yes, the way that we work in this world is right. So the friends that we hang out with, that's the first thing that people we surround ourselves with. Here's another thing that's really hard about it. The news that you watch. If you watch the news, your only one promise you that if you're of a political affiliation or certain beliefs, you're only watching the news that is going to talk to you the way that you believe. And to watch news on the other side really rocks the foundation for a lot of people. And the third thing is online. You're probably only following people who think the same as you, which then confirms that the way that you think is right because you can see how many people think this way. This isn't necessarily a negative thing. It's not a positive thing either. It just is the way that it is. But when you understand this, you start to think to yourself, are my beliefs actually my beliefs? Or is it a little bit of nature and nurture? Is it the way that I was raised? You know, my parents told me this, this, this, this, and then I just started hanging out with people who literally have the same beliefs as my parents in some sort of way. Or you could have maybe not enjoyed your parents in the way that they were. So you start to hang out with people that were the exact opposite of them that confirm the way that you believe. Very rarely do I hear people going, yeah, I love to hang out with people that don't think the same as me. I love to hang out with people of a different political party, of different opinions, of different thoughts and feelings and all of that stuff. And there was actually to give you an idea of how people read. In 2009, Ohio State did a study that found that people read, excuse me, spent 36% more time reading essays that aligned with their opinions. People want to read what is going to tell them that they are correct. Now, why is this really bad? Because there's another side of the street and you never really see the other side of the street. Now, this was bad before social media. The reason why social media ends up being worse, makes this worse is because there's algorithms.  There's not people running those. There's people that build these things called algorithms. Algorithm is a computer that just, you know, a line of code that says, if this person clicks like on this person's post, show them more of their posts. And so what happens is we create with algorithms, with the people that we hang out, the news that we watch, the algorithms that exist, we create an echo chamber of only hearing our beliefs. Because here's the way that Facebook works. Let me just give you a real quick example. I understand the algorithms at a very deep level, because I think of everything on a computer, all of these social medias, and algorithms. That's the way that I was able to build a following of over 3 million people between Instagram and Facebook, is I was always thinking algorithmically, and I was always thinking psychologically, if I can understand the way that people think and I can understand the way that computers think, I can then put out information that people want to see and then also it can start to go viral. Facebook only makes money when you stay on Facebook, because then you see the ads. The only way that they're making money is through the ads. That's it. There is no other way that I'm aware of. There might be other things that are outside of it, but Facebook as a company makes their money by selling advertisements and putting those advertisements in front of you. They make money when you stay on Facebook, so they will give you what you want. So if I'm of a specific political party and I start to like certain things, which I'm not a part of any political party, but if I was and I start to like a certain person's stuff, Facebook is then going to show me more people who I might not even follow, who have the same political affiliation as me. Why? Because I want to read things that confirm that I'm right. So you're seeing even more of what makes you think that you're right. All of those things firm up the belief that anything different than what you believe is absolutely incorrect. And you can feel it physically, can't you? When someone challenges your beliefs, you can feel it physically inside of your body as if you're getting attacked. That's why you see so many adults acting like children in the comment section of YouTube and Facebook and Instagram is because they are literally feeling physically attacked by other people because they don't like seeing things outside of what they think is right to them. So you only like to be told what you already know. How ridiculous is that though? To think that we already know everything and everything that we know is right. How ridiculous is it for me to be like, I already know everything and everything that I believe is actually correct. That's ridiculous, isn't it? And consciously I think everybody who's listening right now knows how insane that sounds. For me to go, I'm right on everything that I think and everything that I believe and everything that I know is correct. And I already also already know everything.  That sounds, I would never think that way. I'm not like that, no way. But if I were to bring up a big issue that you believe in, whatever that big issue is and tell you that you're wrong, then we can really see how you react. Then there's usually a trigger and that trigger shows you where you're not free.  If someone comes out to me and brings up some big issue and I get pissed, it's showing me where I'm still stuck in life. That's in the moment, you know, how you spend your time with people. Who you spend your time with, what you spend your time learning. We will only search for things that teach us, not always. And I'm going to say always. But most of the time, unless you're aware of it, we will search for things that are going to show us that what we believe in is correct. What about when something you believe ends up being bad? Or you voted for somebody and they did something bad. Now we roll into what's called another cognitive bias and it's called choice supportive bias. First off, we have confirmation bias, which means that I'm only going to read the news that supports my beliefs or I'm only going to hang out with these people that support my beliefs and it's not just political beliefs, but it's all types of beliefs. It could be religious beliefs, it could just be spiritual beliefs, it could be whatever it is. There's so many different beliefs that we have. I want to be around people who support my beliefs. So now we roll into another cognitive bias, which is called choice supportive bias. When you make a decision, whatever that decision is, we will only see the positives. This is so crazy when you actually started to think about it. We will only see the positives in that decision most of the time and not see the negative. Let me give you a real good example. I have an iPhone. I had a Samsung for the longest time and I switched about five years ago, four years ago to an iPhone.  So let's say I have an iPhone. We'll make it something just silly and simple that does happen. I have an iPhone and overnight it decides and wants to update.  My friend Alan, who has a Samsung, I do have a friend named Alan, he has a Samsung. We always talk about this and we always make fun of him because we're like, hey, I'm going to airdrop you some photos, Alan. Oh, I can't. So we always make these jokes with him, but he's hardcore. He will not switch because he's just so hardcore in it. And so let's say my phone updates and something fails. And my friend Alan comes over and he's like, well, yeah, of course it did because that would never happen with a Samsung. What's going to happen with me? I need to then back up my choice to have bought an iPhone. This is the perfect example of choice, supportive bias. I made a choice. I need to now support that choice and show why that choice was right. So I need to back up my choice for the iPhone. Oh, yeah, well, you know, maybe it messed up today, but Alan, we know that the pictures are so much better on the iPhone. We know that the ecosystem makes it so much. You know what? I don't care if it fails because eventually when the bug gets fixed, I'm at least going to have the ecosystem. The ecosystem is the best part of it. We see this happening all of the time with political parties, don't we? Democrats versus Republicans, one party does something wrong. And you know, let's say I'm a part of a political party X and my political party does something absolutely wrong. I'll just look over it and explain why my party is still better. And then political party Y does something wrong. And my friend who's part of political party Y is, oh yeah, but you know, that's okay because we're still better in this way. And what happens is if I'm part of political party X and political party Y does something bad, I'll only see they're bad. But I won't see any of the good stuff that they do because I have to prove to myself why my decision to vote for political party X was the correct decision. Then person of political party Y will only see all of the bad in political party X and they won't see any of the good because we have to confirm and we have to show that our choice was the right choice, even if it's blatantly obvious that something's wrong. We see people do this all the time with presidents that they vote for. And no matter what country that you're in, I'm sure you see this, right?  Why do we do this? Why do we have to feel? I mean, if you really think about it, it's a frail ego is really what it is. We as humans want to feel like we're really concrete in who we are, what we believe in and what we do a lot of times. We don't even like knowing that we're wrong and we don't like being told that we're wrong and we don't like someone proving that we're wrong and we'll do anything to see ways that we're not wrong. So we tend to rationalize our choices, especially when they're bad. Why? Because we have to tell her, oh my gosh, that was a bad person to vote for. Oh my gosh, that was a bad political party to vote for. Oh, that was a bad, you know, purchase of my iPhone. We have to show ourselves why that thing that we decided to do in our past was correct. So we have to know who we are. Nothing makes a f- and I've worked with thousands of people. Nothing will shake a person up more than when their beliefs of who they think they are are foundationally shook up. It's so hard for them to do it. It causes something called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance means I believe that the world is this way. I believe that this is right and this is right and this is right. And we can get facts on facts on facts as to why that's wrong and you can literally see somebody attack before listening to going, oh sh- I might have actually really been wrong. It causes cognitive dissonance. The way that I think that the world is is actually not the way that the world is. So what's the solution? I know that nobody listening to this consciously, you know, wants to consciously be stuck in their way. Unopened to hear other people's sides and other people's stories. Because if we don't open ourselves up to hearing other people's opinions, eventually we're going to get old and senile and stuck. Like you've seen people who have been stuck in their ways for a long time and it gets more and more hard and concrete the longer that they live that way. So what can we do? Challenge ourselves. When you have a belief, ask yourself first off, is this my belief or is this a belief that was put into me as a child? Is this what my parents believed? Is this what society told me to believe? Is this what my friends believe? So I just kind of followed the group. Challenge your beliefs. Start asking yourself, is this what I truly believe in? Is this belief right? Challenge your thoughts. Challenge your past decisions. And be open to the fact that maybe we're not right a lot of times. Maybe we're wrong a lot of times. It's okay. And be open to other sides of the road, other sides of the street, other people's opinions, thoughts. And just think, maybe I'm not always right in everything that I believe. Do different things. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Go talk to someone who doesn't think the same as you. Allow yourself to be challenged in ways that you've never been challenged. Nothing is worse than someone who thinks that they're right. Stays in that decision for the rest of your life, and gets old and hard and senile and, oh, I'm concrete in who I am. That's called a fixed mindset. I don't know about you. I want to have a growth mindset of I can change. I can be different.   This is why a lot of people get older and they get ridiculously firm in their beliefs. We see it all of the time. And so you have to realize, we have to be open to not being right all the time. We have to be open to learning to the fact that what we believe in isn't correct. We have to be open to the fact that, you know what? The way that I see the world is actually not correct and we have to be okay and not have a small ego that just gets shook so easily to go, you know what? I'm learning. I'm growing. I made a decision in my past. It wasn't good. I'm trying to improve. I'm trying to get better. This belief that I have, let me challenge it. Let me figure out where it came from. Let me see if it's actually what I believe in. Because I don't know about you. I constantly want to try to learn and grow. And when I understand that these biases exist, I understand why I think the way that I think. I understand why I act the way that I act. And so if you can understand these two cognitive biases, number one is confirmation bias, be around people and do things that make you think different that are outside of the way that you think. Ritu is choice supportive bias. Maybe my decisions in the past weren't right. Maybe that purchase wasn't right. Maybe that vote wasn't right, whatever it is. And realize that to get into something called cognitive dissonance where my worldview has flipped over on top of its head and now I have to start to, you know, pick up the pieces and put it together is a good thing. The more that I can get my brain blown into shreds and then try to pick up all the pieces and put it back together, the stronger that I feel my mind gets. It's the same way of growing a muscle. The only way to grow a muscle is to go in and, you know, lift really heavy and destroy that muscle for it to grow.  It's the exact same way with your brain and with your mind.  There are studies that have been done that found out that up to 50% of the memories that you have in your head are not accurate. They're not true. Up to 50% of them. And a lot of times you're actually not even remembering the actual event. You're remembering the memory of the actual event. So it's kind of like playing telephone, right? Where, you know, somebody says something in someone's ear and it goes around and by the time it gets to the last person it's a completely different phrase. Or it's also kind of like if you've ever used a copy machine, like if you take a copy machine and you place it on the copy, you know, you take a picture, you put it on the copy machine, you copy it. And then you take that copy, not the original picture but you take that copy and put it on the copy machine and you copy it. You take the next copy and you put it, you copy it and you copy it and you copy it and you copy it and you look at the original photo and then you look at 15 copies in you're looking at it and you're like, yeah, this doesn't even look the same. That's how a lot of our memories are. Now this is not done in a malicious way in any sort of way.  And so you might have a memory but it might be completely different than the actual truth because of how many times you've gone through it. Also though, people that you talk to, people that you work with, people that are your employees, people that you're close to have this exact same thing. And so there's three different types of things that people do when they remember something and they tell you about it. So if I'm remembering a memory, an event, whatever it is, and then I'm going to tell you about it. The reason why this is interesting is because I can do one of three things. I can generalize, I can delete, or I can distort. And I teach coaches how to grow coaching businesses and part of that, you know, I teach them how to coach other people. I teach them how to grow the business but I also teach them how to coach other people. And I tell everybody, when you're coaching somebody, be very aware that they're going to delete, they're going to distort, and they're going to generalize the stuff that they tell you. And once again, it's not their fault. It's not malicious. They're not doing it on purpose. They don't even know that they're doing it. Most people are not even, I would say 99.9% of people are not even aware this is going on. But it's important for you to understand because number one, you need to understand this about yourself and you're going to find out why that's important just a little while. But it's also really important for you to understand other people as well. Now, before we dive into these three different things, there is something really important to bring out. Before I talk about generalizing, deleting and distorting, there's one really important thing to bring up. Everybody is viewing the world differently. So you and I can be in a room and we could be looking at the exact same room but we're all seeing something differently. It's like we're all wearing different colored glasses. Like if I'm wearing red glasses and I'm looking at the world and you're right next to me and you're wearing green glasses and you're looking at the world, we're going to be seeing all of the exact same stuff, same bushes, the same cars, the same sun, sky, leaves. We're going to see all of the same stuff but it's all going to look different simply because we're wearing different colored glasses and that's the equivalent of people who are filtering their reality through all of their programs, through their life, through their past, through their judgments, through their traumas, through everything that's ever happened to them. So I'll give you an example. Let's say me and you are walking down the street, right? We're walking down the street and we walk by a dog that's on the other side of a fence and maybe the dog runs up to the fence, doesn't even bark, just runs up to the fence and let's say that when you were younger you were attacked by a dog and I wasn't and then later on in the day you might say something, oh yeah, what about that dog when we're on the walk? I might be like, I don't remember any dog, what are you talking about? But you might remember it and you might remember it simply because the sight of the dog that you saw running, clicked into your head, reminded you of an event, a trauma, it put your body into a heightened state of emotion. It brought all of your attention to that dog to make sure, is this a threat? Do I need to run? Do I need to fight? Do I need to flee? What is it that I need to do? And so even if I didn't notice a reaction from you, your body did a ton of different things biologically, neurobiologically, all of those things did a ton of different processing and it was a super heightened state. You need to make sure you didn't get attacked because simply you were attacked when you were a child. But let's say at that exact same moment that the dog was there, I was looking at some palm trees and the reason I was looking at palm trees was because I've been thinking about putting palm trees on my property. So I've been in the market for buying palm trees. I've been talking to landscapers where they've designed where the palm trees are going to go.  So we're in the exact same moment at the exact same place. But you're seeing a dog because of the way that the world is filtering through your brain. I'm seeing palm trees because of the way that the world is filtering through my brain. We're seeing the exact same thing, but we're both seeing something different. That's why memories, a lot of times, oddly enough, it's hard to say, can't always be trusted because I was completely unaware of something that was happening and you were completely aware of something that was happening as well. We're both walking on the same street, but we're both seeing and remembering two completely different things. So that's the first thing to know before we dive into the three different ways that the world changes, right? Let's dive into it. Generalizing. So people will generalize what's going on. So when I used to work in a sales company, I had trained a couple thousand sales reps under me and my sales reps used to come in and they used to do these things called phone jams where they'd sit down and they'd want to make calls to set up appointments so they can, you know, set up their demonstration and go sell their products. Every single phone jam this would happen. Someone would come in to work and then they'd work for about an hour and a half, two hours and I'd walk up to them and I'd be like, hey, John, how's it going? Something along these lines would happen every single time. Oh, I've made so many phone calls but nobody's home. And I would say, nobody's home? Yeah, nobody's home. And I would say, we used to be in Fort Lauderdale, is where I had my office. So that's Broward County. I would say, John, there's 1.7 million people in Broward County in the surrounding areas within 30 minutes of our location. 1.7 million people. And you're telling me that nobody is home? Nobody. There's not one person of 1.7 million people. And they go, oh, well, it's not that nobody's home. It's just, you know, the people that I've been around, that I've been calling haven't been home. I'm like, okay, how many phone calls have you made? Oh, I've been making a ton. I've been here for two hours. Okay, how many have you made? I don't know. I haven't been tracking it. Okay, John, give me your phone real quick. And I'd have them give me their phone. I look at it and I go, John, you've literally been here for two hours. You've made seven phone calls. How many of those people are not home? Well, three of them didn't pick up and four people said no. Okay, so John, do you realize what happened here? You called three people who weren't home. And then you generalized that 1.7 million people would not be home. Do you see how when you speak in absolutes of nobody is home? How that is going to change the actions that you're going to take? Because think about this. Let me take myself out of this situation and just talk directly to you guys.  Nobody likes me. There's never any opportunities for me. Whatever your absolutes are, when you have an absolute, it's really hard to pull yourself out of that absolute.  So when someone says nobody is home, does that motivate them to make more phone calls? No, of course not. It actually demotivates them from making any more phone calls because why would they keep making calls if nobody's home? And so what happens is in this case, this is just a simple example, but I want you to think of how many times in your life you generalize and place an absolute over something that is not absolute. Nobody's home is an example. Or you've been on a couple of bad dates and there's no good guys left.  So people tend to generalize whenever they retell a story. This is important for you to know so that you can work on your own personal moment and start thinking about how you generalize, but it's also important for when you talk to other people and people are telling you the story you can go, oh, yeah, that's a generalization. No big deal. I don't need to call the person out but I can hear them speaking absolute so I can hear them generalizing what they're talking about. So that's the first thing people do is they will generalize. The second thing that people do is they will delete.   So how often do you delete? Think about that for a second.   How often do you hear other people take bits and pieces of stories and delete certain aspects of it, right? Or someone's like, oh yeah, you know, people have done this before, right? Oh yeah, I just can't find a good guy. All guys are cheaters but they forgot to tell you that they cheated on him first, right?  So how often do you delete the information and not necessarily tell the truth but you just remove a couple pieces that are kind of important for people to know, right? So that's the second thing people do is they will delete. Good for you to know, for yourself but also for other people.  And this happened with one of my team members, one of my people that are on my team and we were talking about appointments. This is actually this morning and he didn't have his week fully booked up, right? Today's Thursday so it was this morning. So we're talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Today was Thursday and which means he only has today and tomorrow to get the rest of his appointments booked up. And so he said, he was going to come up short for his weekly goals and he said, I did everything I could do which is, you know, once again taking all of the blame off of himself and putting his blame externally and I was like, okay, you did everything you could do which is a form of deletion, I'm sorry, distortion. I said, you did everything you could do? And he's like, yeah. And I said, everything? And he's like, yeah. And I said, okay, is there a possibility that you could have stayed up until midnight? And I don't want him to stay up until midnight but I just, you know, gave this example that you could have stayed up until midnight trying to book up the rest of your week? And he's like, yeah. And I go, so did you do everything you could do? He's like, well, no.  When you blame on something externally, it takes all of your power away because you don't have power or control over anything externally. The only thing you have power or control over is yourself. Another example I gave him, I said, okay, let's say that on Monday, let's say that he wanted to do 20 appointments. I'm just going to use an example, right? He wanted to do 20 appointments. That was his goal and today he's short of those 20 appointments is not going to hit that number. What if on Monday, I would have said, listen, I don't even want you to work until midnight. I want you to work just working hours, just nine to five. And if you get these 20 appointments booked up, I will pay you $1 million cash. But you have to get those 20 appointments booked up. You have to complete the 20 appointments. Do you think that if I would have brought that to your attention and told you that, that you would have gotten your appointments booked up? And he's like, yeah, I would have. And I said, so is it true that you did everything that you could? And he's like, no, I guess it's not. And I was like, do you see how that's a form of distortion? You distorted the story. And there's no judgment. I'm just trying to make him aware of it so that he can now have power over his own life and his own narrative because I want him to hit his goals. I want him to make the money he wants to make.  And once he is aware of that, the next time it pops up, he's able to change his narrative to fit so that he can hit his goals. So, you know, if I would have given him a million dollars cash and I said complete 20 appointments, he would have probably completed 40 appointments just in case he heard me wrong, right? Don't you think? He would have been like, I gotta make that million dollars. I'm gonna do 40 appointments just in case. Maybe I heard him wrong. Maybe he said something. Maybe I didn't completely understand. If I do 40 though, I know I'm definitely gonna hit that number. So you can distort reality because did you do everything you could do? No. That was a distortion. So when you look at these things, you have to realize that all of the memories of your past, you've got to look back at them and realize that we give a lot of power to our past. We get a lot of power to our story and we are the way that we are because of our past. How often do we think that? How often do we say that? I am the way that I am because of my past or I am the way that I am because of my mom or because of my dad or because of my sister or because of whatever happened to me. But how true is that? If up to 50% of what we remember could be false. Maybe we are the way that we are because of our perception or could be false perception of what happened to us in our past. So maybe we're giving out all of our power away to something that isn't even actually true and might be completely false. Maybe what we're doing is we're basing our life off of a past that isn't even actually true. Maybe what we should do is we should start thinking deeper about everything that we do and go, you know what? If that's the case, if maybe a lot of the stuff that I see and hear and heard in my past and all of these things might not be true, maybe I can take my own power back and go, it doesn't matter what happened in the past because half of that isn't even true in the first place. What matters is what I do right now. What matters is that I'm going to take all of the blame, all of the responsibility. I'm going to put it on myself and say, you know what?  Because at that moment, you take your power back and you say, it doesn't matter if I delete, it doesn't matter if I distort, it doesn't matter if I generalize, it doesn't matter what happened to me in my past, it doesn't matter what color glasses I wear. I'm going to let go of all of that BS and what I'm going to do is I'm going to step into a powerful version of myself because if my past isn't 100% true, then the only thing I know is true is where I'm sitting right now and the actions that I take right now and the actions that I take right now will then create the future that I want because your memories aren't necessarily true. So don't base your life on the past, base your life on the future of what it is that you're going to create. This is going to be kind of groundbreaking and mind-blowing for a lot of people. 99% of people listening to me right now or watching me, however you're consuming this content. Your perception of yourself is completely false and let me explain to you why that is. There's a quote that's really good that I'm going to give you from, Charles Cooley, and the quote summarizes all of this perfectly and he says, I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think that you think I am.  Let me say it one more time. I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think that you think that I am. So what exactly does this even mean? Well, let's dive into it. Most people think that they are who they are through their own perception of what they think other people think they are. So I think that I am the person that I see that you think that I am. Now, this is a really big problem because we're dealing with a perception of a perception, right?  And it all starts off because in reality, the way that we learn the world and how to navigate through the world is through our parents, but we also learn who we are through our parents. We start off and we become who we think our parents think we are. That's the reason why parents need to be so careful with what they say around their kids and what they do around their kids because the children are literally going to build themselves up based off of what they see, what they think, what they hear. Children become who they think their parents think they are, right?  It's a terrible thing. And a lot of people never get over it. Why? Because even though a lot of people consciously know, as adults, once they grow up, they consciously know that the things that may have been said to them when they were little, tiny children and they were just a sponge, they might consciously know those things are false. But in their subconscious, their subconscious is still holding it as true because they're not consciously thinking a lot as a child.   They're smarter than I am.   But the problem with that is that we're living our lives through what we see in other people and we also have a really big problem and the big problem is that people who are talking to you as a child, as you're growing up, as a teenager and even right now, every single person has a skewed perception based off of their childhood. So looking to somebody else for information on who you are is like looking into a broken mirror to see what you look like. Let me say that again. Looking to someone else for information about who you are is like looking into a broken mirror to see what you look like. You'll never see the true picture because everybody who you talk to has different paradigms and different perceptions of the world around them. And so you're going to be seeing yourself through this broken perception which isn't true. And so if you base your entire life based off of someone else's perception you're going to be living something that's completely false. Imagine this real quick. I'll bring this together so it makes more sense and it's not as abstract. Let's imagine that you remind someone of their dad. Maybe you look like him. Maybe you talk like him. Maybe you have the same type of personality. Let's just say that they loved their dad. He was an amazing man. He did everything that he could. He's still around.  And you remind that person of their dad. Then they are going to have amazing feelings around you. And that's going to show when they are around you. And when someone has amazing feelings toward you and they let that show, well, what's going to happen? It will make you feel good about yourself. And you'll think, man, I must be a good person. You feel good when someone feels good around you. So if they love, if you remind someone of their dad whatever it is that reminds them then you're going to have this perception of yourself through that person who loved their dad and be like, damn, I must be really awesome because that person really liked me. Now let's flip it.   Then what are they going to think of you?  It has everything to do based off of their perception of another person in their childhood that they're bringing to them now. They're not going to like you. Not because it's your fault but simply because of their own perception of what you remind them of. And it might make you feel worse about yourself because you don't even know that you remind them of their dad.  That's why it's so important to find out who you are and decide who you're going to be. You know, if I ask you right now let's play a game. Let's do this together. If I ask you, who are you? I want you to answer right now. Answer it in your head. Who are you? Answer it. Think about that for a second. Take a few seconds. Who are you? Say it out loud. Bring as many things into your conscious awareness that are you. That say who you are. Right?  Oh, I'm Rob Dile. Some of you might say I'm a mother of two. I'm a father of three. I am 35 years old. I am from Florida. I am a brother. I am a sister. I am a cousin. I am a CEO of a beverage company. I am a janitor at the beverage company. Whatever it is, you're going to say these things. I'm a college graduate. I went to the University of Florida. When I ask you who you are, you're going to start naming off external things.  None of those things. Your name. That's your mother or father, your age. Where you're from.  I'll give you an example that makes let's just really try to dumb this down as much as possible so I can just make it so it's as simple as I possibly can. I drive a 2018 Ford Raptor. I am not a 2018 Ford Raptor.  Of course you're not.  Well, I bought the car, which means that I have quote unquote, achieved the buying of a car. So then why would you, if I'm not a Ford Raptor, then why are you a college graduate? Why are you a mother? Why are these are all things that you have done?  At the deepest sense, you were someone else before you birthed children, weren't you? Who were you? Because you're always looking to the external to figure out who you are.  But at your core level, that's not who you are, right? If I say I'm Rob Dile, that's just a bunch of, you know, sounds that were put together and given to me at birth. I wasn't Rob Dile when I was born though. So who am I? Oh, let's get really deep, right? At a core level, who are you?   And it becomes this big wake-up love figure. I don't know who I am because people base who they are based off of the external, not the internal. We base it off of other people's perceptions as well.  You weren't a parent when you were four years old, were you? Hmm. So being a parent is something that you've done. It's something that you've accomplished.  So who are you? You know, I wasn't a Ford Raptor driver when I was four years old either. These are all just external things that we've accomplished over time or gotten over time.    Think about that. And this is why it's so messed up and this is why we could go so deep into it, right? I'll give you a really good example through a story and how this can change, how this little tiny mini-perception can completely change your life, right? There's a story about this kid and he's in the 11th grade and he's been failing all of his class, 9th grade, 10th grade, barely getting into the next grade and his parents are called in because he has this, you know, he's about to have to probably redo the 11th grade. He's getting terrible grades. He's not showing up at school. He's not hanging out with the right kids, all of that stuff. And his mom forces him to go take the SAT because she's like, I really want you to get an education. I really want you to turn your life around. And he's like, it doesn't make any sense.  I feel all of my tests. I've never gotten good grades.  She's like, just go and take the SAT. So he goes and takes the SAT and for those of you guys that aren't in America, SAT is just a test that you have to take in order to get to college and he takes the SAT.  He gets a 1480 out of 1600. He gets such a good grade to show him how smart he is. His mom actually thought he cheated, but he didn't cheat and he realized he didn't cheat. He knew he didn't cheat and he went, oh my God, I'm actually smarter than I thought I was.  And so he looks at this and says, I'm smarter than I thought I was. Maybe if I did so well in the SATs, imagine what would happen if I started studying. So he starts waking up earlier so that he can study. He starts changing who he's hanging out with. He starts showing up to school more because he's like, oh my gosh, but I'm smart, maybe I can actually do better. And he changes his entire life around, starts getting amazing grades, gets into an Ivy League school, becomes a super successful entrepreneur. And here's the crazy thing about it. Every 12 years, the SATs, what they do is they review all of their tests and they go through them. And when they went back through this guy's test, he got something in the mail that said that he actually didn't get a 1480. What he got was a 740. What happened was the machine accidentally doubled his score. So he got a 740 out of 1600, which is not good. But he thought he got a 1480. But because of the fact that his little, literally a couple numbers on a piece of paper changed his entire perception of who he thought he was. He started showing up differently. He started realizing that he was smart. He started taking, you know, time to wake up earlier. He changed the people that he was around. He started studying for his exams. He started going to school and paying attention more and taking all of the notes that he needed to. His perception of himself changed based off of seeing a few numbers on a piece of paper and what happened because his perception of his self changed, he changed. Now think about how powerful that is for that person to change their life completely based off of, literally, four numbers on a piece of paper.  You can be, literally, whoever you want to be.  So who do you want to be? Because this entire episode, all I've been talking about, how all of the things that you think you are are complete BS. So if that's the truth, then who do you want to be? You can wake up every single day and decide who you want to be. And I don't mean I want to be somebody who's a millionaire.  I want to be somebody who's driving a Ferrari. I want to be someone who's got an amazing family. I want to be an amazing parent. I'm not talking about any of those things. Those are all still external. And this is why it can be hard because we base our, literally our entire perception of everything based off of external. I want to turn it to internal.   Who do you want to be internally before any of those things come up to you? Do you want to be kind? Do you want to be loving? Do you want to be humble? Do you want to be sweet? Do you want to be generous? Who do you want to be at every single moment of your life?   No one else.  You want to figure out how to go from where you are to where you want to be. You set your GPS.  I want to be kind. I want to be loving. I want to be sweet. I want to be generous. I want to be giving. I want to stop judging people. I want to think the best of people that I possibly can.  It changes how you show up in the world.  And when you're so firm into who you truly are, other people's perceptions mean nothing to you. Outside circumstances mean nothing to you. They don't change you in any sort of way. So what you need to do is you need to get a pen and paper out and say, who do I want to be?   Imagine if he didn't get that. Imagine if he got the real results, where he could be. The exact same thing is true for you. What you see on that piece of paper of who you want to be, how you set your GPS, is going to change where your life goes from this moment forward. I'm blowing to anybody else and nobody talks about how the b**ch is literally b**ch. The b**ch.


colleague, John, that is calling from the bay. So we are back to the West Coast with John, and he will talk about flight sense technology that can really enable touchless button. So very, let's say, on time for the difficult period that we are living. So, John, I will turn to you if you are connected and I see you here. Eddo, I am. Thank you very much for introducing me. And I'd like to talk to everyone about the touchless button. This is not a new sensor, but a new application for this sensor. I'm from the SD Imaging Group. Most of us are in Europe, but I'm in California. And with that, we'd like to get started. We have a result. Oh, thank you. About half of you have used the time of flight and the rest of you want to know about it, which is great. And I'll spend a little more time on that slide as we get to it. But let me introduce the topic at the moment. The applications for a touchless button are pretty varied, but it turns out during the day you touch an awful lot of things.  And they would be just a little bit better in this age of COVID if you could just come close to the button and not actually physically touch it. We can enable this very easily. It's a sensor that's been around for a while and it's just we proved it works quite well. And I'm going to show you how to do it. The key advantage to a touchless button is that you don't have to touch it. It's obviously very sanitary, but it also when you clean it, you know, one quick swipe of a rag, there is no cracks or crevices. It's completely behind a solid piece of glass. And you can just work acrylic and you can just wipe it down very quickly. It's very reliable. It's all solid state. There's no moving parts. And it's very secure. If you built an ATM out of one of these things, you could hit it with a hammer and still wouldn't be problem. Acrylic is a great material for being vandal proof. And we can strike for that. So how does it work? For those of you who didn't know about it, time of flight, this blue graphic here shows one photon going out of the emitter and hitting a target and coming back. But that's not exactly how we use it. The emitter is a vertical cavity, surface emitting laser. It's a VIXL and it shoots millions of photons out and hits that target. And when the sensors come fly or the photons come flying back, they're captured by a spad, a single photon avalanche diode that has to be pretty much invented. And that stops the stopwatch. Knowing that time, you measure, you take the time, divide it by two and multiply by the speed of light and you get the travel time. You get that answer in millimeters and it's pretty darn accurate. And with that, you can determine when the finger actually comes within a few millimeters or a few inches depending on your application of the button. So what can you do with it? Well, traditionally, these types of things do the G-detect on your phone. It does the autofocus assist on your phone, but you can also use it to turn faucets on and off, open garbage cans, even start a coffee maker if you wanted to. And oddly, there's a picture of a mirror there that the sensor can be used to determine how far your face is and adjust the brightness of the mirror, the light on the mirror, clearly, and to see what's going on. But used in a different application, we can take the STM development kit that we have on our website and determine how to build a touchless button. So I'm going to push a little video here and show you how it works. As you see the, maybe you don't see it. There you go.  In another mode, we can take the same thing and prove it works with dimming. Should you want to do that? As my hand, come on, there we go. Thank you. As my hand comes in and out, watch the numbers go from 99 to 31. See it? And then determine how close my hand was, set in just dimmer adjustment, and then move my hand away. And it also works as an on-off switch. So under the covers, how does it work? The red line in this graph shows 255, the artificial maximum. And as my hand comes closer and closer, you can see the red line drops closer and closer to zero. And then as I take my hand away, it drops back to 255. I took this graph in a bright California sun outside. And as you might well imagine, that's the worst case possible.  What you see are four very quick button presses. In a different graph, this is indoor. This is a lot easier to do. And you can see somewhere around, as on my finger, it's closer, somewhere around 15 or 20 millimeters, you can kind of see where you can actually see the finger getting close. Outdoors, you pretty much say it's close, but much more accurate indoors. And again, four simple button presses. If you are considering a high voltage like a light switch, ST's got a development board. This one will plug underneath the bottom of that setup I just showed you. And it has the ability to control up to three lights. I'm not sure how you'd actually implement that, but that'd be the way to build a mock-up of a light switch. And you could be testing in a matter of hours. All my flight sensors, time of flight sensors can do this. They can do tap detection, double tap detection, swipe direction, level control. Additional features you can do left and right swipes if you use the more advanced VL53L1 or L1CB in a multi-zone scanning mode. And all of them can do different ranges. So basically from the smallest to the largest, you can get distance. And I'm not sure why you'd need a switch that works at four meters, but I suppose you can do it. Gesture recognition is good for music control, IoT functions, hands-free tub Bluetooth on your earphones, and VR glasses were used for that. And it works in all these applications. If you're trying to do a right, left swipe, you can see, maybe you can't see, it's pretty small. But as you can see, my hand swiping back and forth, there's a zone one and a zone two. And these two zones allow you to detect whether the hand was swiped to the right or to the left. If you don't want to use the development board we have out of the imaging group, you can buy a discovery kit available from ST. And it has all the sensors that you want to use in addition to my time of flight, which is that little circle there in the lower left. And with that, perhaps we have some questions. Okay, yes, John, you have been quick and I think the videos work very well. So, you know, this was also the beauty to try videos with a live event. And maybe if I just can add, John, these IoT discovery kit, just correct me if I'm wrong, these provide not all the sensors including time of flight, but basically we are providing also the sensor to cloud connectivity, right? What has been described before, so perfect. So, people can really bring time of flight, the sensor data to the cloud easily thanks to this IoT discovery kit.