Greetings everyone. So grateful to be here with you and share these beautiful, beautiful ideas, letting the truth extend and shine. And today I think I will honor a request. I have had a request for the manual for teachers from A Course in Miracles. Some of you know I went through the text section by section and at the end of each section I recorded a workbook lesson. And some of those earlier workbook lessons I recorded a prayer and some commentary at the end of those audio recordings. So some of you have listened to those audio recordings of the text sections involved by the workbook lesson and some commentary or prayer occasionally. And today I'd like to honor the request for the manual for teachers from A Course in Miracles. So I will go through this and share what comes to me because this is a precious undertaking to open your heart, open your life, your willingness to be used as a teacher of God. Not that that's some kind of title that has any special meaning but basically to teach love, teach only love. For that is what you are and that's what it means to be a teacher of God. So for some of you you've gone through the text and the workbook and perhaps this is something that you have been waiting for. To dive into the manual for teachers and to accept yourself as a teacher of God, opening your heart to the living Christ, following the instructions of the Holy Spirit. As I was growing up we had a saying that we heard at this time coming into springtime in the year since today is March 20th. We had a saying that referred to the month of March and the saying was in like a lion, out like a lamb. And so this month when I was growing up was symbolic where I was growing up in the Midwestern United States of a change of transformation. It was coming out of winter and coming into spring. Coming out of the very harsh conditions of winter and opening into April. We also had a saying for April, April showers bring May flowers. So you're coming out of the lion into the lamb, the soft showers, soft spring rains and that precedes the flowering in May. Right now I'm recording this down here in Mexico at the Lake Chapala area and everything is flowering. The trees are flowering. There's purples and pinks and reds and all kinds of flowers and beautiful green. And we're surrounded by the mountains and looking out right now on a blue lake, the mountain in the distance. So today I will begin the manual for teachers and let's just see how far the Holy Spirit takes us today. I'm going to start here with the introduction to the manual for teachers from A Course in Miracles. Introduction. The role of teaching and learning is actually reversed in the thinking of the world. The reversal is characteristic. It seems as if the teacher and the learner are separated, the teacher giving something to the learner rather than to himself. Further, the act of teaching is regarded as a special activity in which one engages only a relatively small proportion of one's time. The Course, on the other hand, emphasizes that to teach is to learn so that teacher and learner are the same. It also emphasizes that teaching is a constant process. It goes on every moment of the day and continues into sleeping thoughts as well. So right there from the first paragraph, it's like allowing your definitions, all your past experiences of the role of teaching to be lifted up and to come with open-mindedness to be shown what it means, what the role of teaching and learning actually means. And we are being told from that first paragraph here that the teacher and learner really are not separate. It appears as if in this world that the teacher and learner are persons, separate persons, and one is giving something to another rather than to himself. So in this world, when you teach, you're supposed to be teaching somebody. And yet what we're realizing is this teaching goes on all the time. The teacher and learner are the same and it's pointing us to the idea that really you're teaching based on the thoughts that you have in your mind. If you have thoughts of Holy Spirit, you're teaching forgiveness and love. If you have thoughts of the ego, you are teaching attack, grievances, separation. And this teaching is going on at a mind level and yet human beings perceive themselves at the level of form, at the level of personhood, the mass, the persona of ego, the subject-object-split, the perceiver and the perceived. It all seems to be present there and of course this manual has to reach the mind where it believes it is. So if you believe you're a human being, this manual is going to be addressing you as a human being, but with the purpose to lift you higher and higher in awareness to see that actually you're the dreamer of the dream of this world and have never been a body or even in a body, have never been a person, or just convinced through belief that you are a person in time and space. So let's go to the second paragraph. To teach is to demonstrate. There are only two thought systems and you demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time. From your demonstration others learn and so do you. The question is not whether you will teach for in that there is no choice. The purpose of this course might be said to provide you with a means of choosing what you want to teach on the basis of what you want to learn. You cannot give to someone else but only to yourself and this you learn through teaching. Teaching is but a call to witnesses to attest to what you believe. It is a method of conversion. This is not done by words alone. Any situation must be to you a chance to teach others what you are and what they are to you. No more than that but also nevertheless. So it really simplifies everything if you see that you're always just teaching yourself and you're demonstrating what you teach really by your attitude, by your state of mind and you are demonstrating that you believe one or the other of these two thought systems is true. So really it's a matter of conversion of coming clear and clear on what it is that you want to demonstrate. What it is that you want to teach yourself and others moment by moment. No more than that also nevertheless. The curriculum you set up is therefore determined exclusively by what you think you are and what you believe the relationship of others is to you. In the formal teaching situation these questions may be totally unrelated to what you think you are teaching. Yet it is impossible not to use the content of any situation on behalf of what you really teach and therefore really learn. To this the verbal content of your teaching is quite irrelevant. It may coincide with it or it may not. It is the teaching underlying what you say that teaches you. Teaching but reinforces what you believe about yourself. Its fundamental purpose is to diminish self-doubt. This does not mean that the self you are trying to protect is real, but it does mean that the self you think is real is what you teach. This is inevitable. There is no escape from it. How could it be otherwise? Everyone who follows the world's curriculum and everyone here does follow it until he changes his mind, teaches solely to convince himself that he is what he is not. Herein is the purpose of the world. What else then would its curriculum be? Into this hopeless and closed learning situation which teaches nothing but despair and death God sends his teachers. And as they teach his lessons of joy and hope, their learning finally becomes complete. So you're getting a glimpse of what this is about, of teaching joy and hope, of not necessarily with the words, but the attitude, your outlook, what is in your heart, what is your state of mind. That is what you are teaching and you are bringing lessons of joy and hope. You have come to transcend all sense of hopelessness. You have come to teach that despair and depression and death are not real. And it's your attitude that teaches this. Regardless of the form, regardless of the situation, regardless of the seeming consequences and images, you are here to teach the Holy Spirit's joyous lessons to bring hope. And finally to have your teaching and learning become complete. And now the last paragraph. Except for God's teachers, there would be little hope of salvation, for the world of sin would seem forever real. The self-deceiving must deceive, for they must teach deception. And what else is hell? This is a manual for the teachers of God. They are not perfect, or they would not be here. Yet it is their mission to become perfect here. And so they teach perfection over and over and over in many, many ways until they have learned it. And then they are seen no more, although their thoughts remain a source of strength and truth forever. Who are they? How are they chosen? What do they do? How can they work out their own salvation and the salvation of the world? This manual attempts to answer these questions. So you can feel that this is the lead-in. This is just the introduction to a calling, to your life's calling, to your life's purpose, to the reason you are here. Out of all the seeming things, self-concepts, pursuits, careers, jobs, all of the many, many functions that the ego has made up, as part of its fictitious world, as part of its strange illusory time-space dream, this is what it's all about. This is what it all comes down to. And we're going to go through this because this is a calling, the calling of your heart, and the joy and the happiness and the love come from answering the call. This is an invitation from the Holy Spirit. This is an invitation with open arms from Jesus Christ. And we open to receive the meaning and to clearly comprehend what this calling entails. As it said at the end of the last paragraph, who are they? How are they chosen? What do they do? How can they work out their own salvation and the salvation of the world? Here we go. This manual attempts to answer these questions. Number one, who are God's teachers? A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this. Somehow, somewhere, he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interest as a part from someone else's. Once he has done that, his road is established and his direction is sure. A light has entered the darkness. It may be a single light, but that is enough. He has entered an agreement with God even if he does not yet believe in him. He has become a bringer of salvation. He has become a teacher of God. They come from all over the world. They come from all religions and from no religion. They are the ones who have answered. The call is universal. It goes on all the time, everywhere. It calls for teachers to speak for it and redeem the world. Many hear it, but few will answer. Yet, it is all a matter of time. Everyone will answer in the end. But the end can be a long, long way off. It is because of this that the plan of the teachers was established. Their function is to save time. Each one begins as a single light, but with the call at its center, it is a light that cannot be limited. And each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it. To the call itself time has no meaning. There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, God's Son is guiltless and in His innocence is His salvation. It can be taught by actions or thoughts, in words or soundlessly, in any language or in no language, in any place or time or manner. It does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the call. He has become a savior by his answering. He has seen someone else as himself. He has therefore found his own salvation and the salvation of the world. In his rebirth is the world reborn. How beautiful to be free of the past. And most importantly, we just read, it does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the call. Whatever the past has seemed to be, it's all been an opportunity right now for answering the call, for hearing that call and answering, for saying yes, for saying I am committed. I will follow. It's saying yes to the calling of the heart to be a teacher of God, to be a demonstration of God's love and light and happiness. This is a manual for a special curriculum intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms all with the same outcome. They merely save time. Yet it is time alone that winds on weirdly and the world is very tired now. It is old and worn and without hope. There was never a question of outcome or what can change the will of God. But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about. For time is in their hands, such was their choice, and it is given them. So having accepted the call, now everything comes to you. Everything that your mind needs to fulfill its purpose, to demonstrate love, to demonstrate truth, to be the light of the world. Everything is given that would help, that would be helpful in serving this function. And we are looking at this in terms of what are the practicalities. So we've just gone through the teachers of God and now we look at their pupils. Who are their pupils? Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God's teachers and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not on whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him. In order to understand the teaching learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the Course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, where the will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality being of him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God's Son, and that same instant was God's answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality, it never happened at all. The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open, yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free, you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there. As the Course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the curriculum or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it is already learned. Time really then goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is the pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is inevitable because he made the right choice in that instant that was very ancient in which he now relives. So has the teacher too made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past? God's will in everything seems but to take time in the working out. What could delay the power of eternity? When a pupil and teacher come together, a teaching learning situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching. God's teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose. And God has promised to send his spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The demarcations they had drawn between their roles, their minds, their bodies, their separated needs and interests, and all the differences they sought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interest as his own. So we can see that there are no accidents. There's nothing at random. There's nothing that's fortunate or unfortunate. It's all part of a prearranged plan in which the teacher and pupil come together at the perfectly appointed time. And it's all basically a replay of this ancient instant in which everything was handled. Everything was answered in one instant by the Holy Spirit. So it seems to be a playing out in time, but really we can see that this is not a curriculum that is dependent on time in any way. That the Holy Spirit uses relationships to loosen the mind from its belief in the past, from past present future, from linearity, from duality, and gives it an opportunity to teach and to strengthen for itself and for the whole universe that all that I give is given to myself. Teaching and learning are the same, and teacher and pupil are actually the same. Because we're coming at this from the level of perception, from the level of linear time, then our next section is number three. What are the levels of teaching? The teachers of God have no set teaching level. Each teaching learning situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although the ultimate goal is always the same. To make of the relationship a holy relationship in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless. There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore the plan includes very specific contexts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other. The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters, a, quote, chance meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult, by chance, in quotes. Two students, quote, happening to walk home together. These are not chance encounters. Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another. Perhaps the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him. Perhaps the students will become friends. Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of this separate interest, if only for a moment. That moment will be enough. Salvation has come. It is difficult to understand that the levels of teaching the universal course of concept is meaningless in reality as is time. The illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. In time, the teacher of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with a single decision and then learns more and more about the new direction as he teaches it. We have covered the illusion of time already, but the illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to say that any level of teaching learning situation is part of God's plan for atonement, and his plan can have no levels being a reflection of his will. Salvation is always ready and always there. God's teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same. Each teaching learning situation is maximal in the sense that each person involved will learn the most that he can from the other person at that time. In this sense, and in this sense only, we can speak of levels of teaching. Using the term in this way, the second level of teaching is a more sustained relationship in which for a time two people enter into a fairly intense teaching learning situation and then appear to separate. As with the first level, these meetings are not accidental, nor is what appears to be the end of the relationship a real end. Again, each has learned the most that he can at the time. Yet all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy. God is not mistaken in his son. The third level of teaching occurs in relationships which once they are formed are lifelong. These are teaching learning situations in which each person is given a chosen learning partner who presents him with unlimited opportunities for learning. These relationships are generally few because their existence implies that those involved have reached a stage simultaneously in which the teaching learning balance is actually perfect. This does not mean that they necessarily recognize this. In fact, they generally do not. This may even be, they may even be quite hostile to each other for some time and perhaps for life. Yet should they decide to learn it, the perfect lesson is before them and can be learned. And if they decide to learn that lesson, they become the saviors of the teachers who falter and may even seem to fail. No teacher of God can fail to find the help he needs. So this is giving us some levels. We read about the casual encounter in which salvation can come in an instant just by love and kindness being shared. We also learned about the second level of teaching which was a much more sustained relationship with two people for a time enter into a fairly intense teaching learning situation and then appear to separate. And then the third level of teaching, those are lifelong teaching learning situations in which each person has given a chosen learning partner who represents and presents him with unlimited opportunities for learning. So at the level of form there seems to be different levels of interaction, frequency of contact. To most people these would be very different relationships, certainly a casual encounter and a pretty sustained relationship and then a lifelong relationship. All of these seem to be very different. But each one presents an opportunity to teach what you would learn. Each one, each encounter, each relationship is an opportunity to see the sameness, to see that the teacher and learner are the same and that really there's only one mind and that one mind is always teaching based on its thoughts. So the purification of thoughts, the giving up of all ego thoughts, all attacks, all judgments, all grievances, clearing the mind, emptying the mind of all erroneous thoughts we could say, paves the way for an experience of real thoughts, thoughts that you think with God, thoughts that have an eternal nature. They are eternally loving, eternally kind, eternally gentle and that is the point. The point of everything is going through this conversion transfer of training to open up to be a teacher of God, a demonstration of God's love of thinking with God, not trying to think against God. The human condition in its linear form, of course, is a projection of the belief that it's possible to think apart from God and to have a will that's separate from God's will. And this is the ego. So as we allow the ego to come up and to be exposed and to be released, we return to our real thoughts, the thoughts we think with God. Four, what are the characteristics of God's teachers? The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes. They come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly and their superficial, quote, personalities are quite distinct. Nor at the beginning stages of their functioning as teachers of God have they yet acquired the deeper characteristics that will establish them as what they are. God gives no special gifts in eternity, but God does give special gifts to his teachers because they have a special role in his plan for atonement. Their specialness is, of course, only temporary, set in time as a means of leading out of time. These special gifts born in the holy relationship toward which the teaching learning situation is geared become characteristic of all teachers of God who have advanced in their own learning. In this respect, they are all alike. All differences among the sons of God are temporary. Nevertheless, in time, it can be said that the advanced teachers of God have the following characteristics. Trust. This is the foundation on which their ability to fulfill their function rests. Perception is the result of learning. In fact, perception is learning because cause and effect are never separate. The teachers of God have trust in the world because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a power that is in them, but not of them. It is this power that keeps all things safe. It is through this power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world. When this power has once been experienced, it is impossible to trust in one's own petty strength again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him? And who would place his faith in the shabby offerings of the eagle when the gifts of God are laid before him? What is it that induces them to make the shift? The development of trust. First, they must go through what might be called a period of undoing. This need not be painful, but it is usually so experienced. It seems as if things are being taken away and it is rarely understood initially that their lack of value is merely being recognized. How can lack of value be perceived unless the perceiver is in a position where he must see things in a different light? He is not yet at a point in which he can make the shift entirely internally, and so the plan will sometimes call for changes in what seem to be external circumstances. These changes are always helpful. When the teacher of God has learned that much, he goes on to the second stage. Next, the teacher of God must go through a period of sorting out. This is always somewhat difficult because having learned that the changes in his life are always helpful. He must now decide all things on the basis of whether they increase the helpfulness or hamper it. He will find that many, if not most, of the things he valued before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he has learned to new situations as they arise. Because he has valued what is really valueless, he will not generalize the lesson for fear of loss and sacrifice. It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters, and circumstances are helpful. It is only to the extent to which they are helpful that any degree of reality should be accorded to them in this world of illusion. The word, quote, value can apply to nothing else. The third stage through which the teacher of God must go through can be called a period of relinquishment. If this is interpreted as giving up the desirable, it will engender enormous conflict. Few teachers of God escape this distress entirely. There is, however, no point in sorting out the valuable from the valueless unless the next obvious step is taken. Therefore, the period of overlap is apt to be one in which the teacher of God feels called upon to sacrifice his own best interest on behalf of truth. He has not realized as yet how wholly impossible such a demand would be. He can learn this only as he actually does give up the valueless. Through this, he learns that where he anticipated grief, he finds a happy late-heartedness instead. Where he thought if something was asked of him, he finds a gift bestowed on him. Now comes a period of settling down. This is a quiet time in which the teacher of God rests awhile in reasonable peace. Now he consolidates his learning. Now he begins to see the transfer value of what he has learned. Its potential is literally staggering, and the teacher of God is now at the point in his progress at which he sees in it his whole way out. Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do. How simple is the obvious, and how easy to do. The teacher of God needs this period of respite. He has not come as far as he thinks, yet when he is ready to go on, he goes with mighty companions with him. Now he rests awhile and gathers them before going on. He will not go on from here alone. The next stage is indeed a period of unsettling. Now must the teacher of God understand that he did not really know what was valuable and what was valueless? All that he really learned so far was that he did not want the valueless and that he did want the valuable. Yet his own sorting out was meaningless in teaching him the difference. The idea of sacrifice so central to his own judgment, his own thought system, had made it impossible for him to judge. He thought he learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for. And now he must attain a state that may remain impossible to reach for a long, long time. He must learn to lay all judgment aside and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance. Were not each step in this direction so heavily reinforced, it would be hard indeed. And finally there is a period of achievement. It is here that learning is consolidated. Now what was seen as merely shadows before become solid gains to be counted on in all emergencies, as well as tranquil times. Indeed the tranquility is their result. The outcome of honest learning, consistency of thought and full transfer. This is the stage of real peace for here is heaven's state fully reflected. From here the way to heaven is open and easy. In fact it is here. Who would go anywhere if peace of mind is already complete and who would seek to change tranquility for something more desirable? What could be more desirable than this? So what happens when you trust God? What happens when you follow the Holy Spirit? What happens when you relinquish all values of the world? When you desire the peace of God above all else? As an actuality. What happens? What traits spring from this trust? What state of mind follows? What characteristics are characteristics of a true consistent teacher of God? Honesty. All other traits of God's teachers rest on trust. Once that has been achieved the others cannot fail to follow. Only the trusting can afford honesty for only they can see its value. Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do. No thought opposes any other thought. No act belies your word and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything. The peace of mind which the advanced teachers of God experience is largely due to their perfect honesty. It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception and self-deception is dishonesty. There is no challenge to a teacher of God. Challenge implies doubt and the trust on which God's teachers rest secure makes doubt impossible. Therefore they can only succeed in this as in all things they are honest. They can only succeed because they never do their will alone. They choose for all mankind, for all the world and all things in it for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances and for the Son of God and His Creator. How could they not succeed? They choose in perfect honesty sure of their choice as of themselves. Tolerance. God's teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible. Judgment implies that you have been deceived in your brothers. How then could you not have been deceived in yourself? Judgment implies a lack of trust and trust remains the bedrock of the teacher of God's whole thought system. Let this be lost and all His learning goes. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable for who could judge otherwise. Without judgment are all men brothers for who is there who stands apart. Judgment destroys honesty and shatters trust. No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn. Gentleness. Harm is impossible for God's teachers. They can neither harm nor be harmed. Harm is the outcome of judgment. It is the dishonest act that follows a dishonest thought. It is a verdict of guilt upon a brother and therefore on oneself. It is the end of peace and the denial of learning. It demonstrates the absence of God's curriculum and its replacement by insanity. No teacher of God but must learn and fairly early in his training that harmfulness completely obliterates his function from his awareness. It will make him confused, fearful, angry, and suspicious. It will make the Holy Spirit's lessons impossible to learn. Nor can God's teacher be hurt at all except by those who realize that harm can actually achieve nothing. No gain can come of it. Therefore, God's teachers are wholly gentle. They need the strength of gentleness for it is in this that the function of salvation becomes easy. To those who would do harm, it is impossible. To those whom harm has no meaning, it is merely natural. What choice but this has meaning to the same? Who chooses hell when he perceives a way to heaven and who would choose the weakness that must come from harm in place of the unfailing, all-encompassing and limitless strength of gentleness? The might of God's teachers lies in their gentleness for they have understood their evil thoughts came neither from God's Son nor his Creator. Thus did they join their thoughts with him who is their source, and so their will, which always was his own, is free to be himself. Joy. Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy goes with gentleness as surely as grief attends attack. God's teachers trust in him and they are sure his teacher goes before them, making sure no harm can come to them. They hold his gifts and follow in his way because God's voice directs them in all things. Joy is their song of thanks and Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation. Defenselessness. God's teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from understanding who created them and what God created need defense. No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds that nothing was there. Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived, but he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God. Generosity. The term generosity has special meaning to the teacher of God. It is not the usual meaning of the word. In fact, it is a meaning that must be learned and learned very carefully. Like all the other attributes of God's teachers, this one rests ultimately on trust, for without trust no one can be generous in the true sense. To the world generosity means giving away in the sense of giving up. To the teachers of God it means giving away in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many the other ideas in our curriculum. Its greater strangeness lies merely in the obviousness of its reversal of the world's thinking. In the clearest way possible and at the simplest of levels, the word means the exact opposite to the teachers of God and to the world. The teacher of God is generous out of capital self-interest. This does not refer however to the small self of which the world speaks. The teacher of God does not want anything he cannot give away, because he realizes it would be valueless to him by definition. What would he want it for? He could only lose because of it. He could not gain. Therefore he does not seek what only he could keep because that is a guarantee of loss. He does not want to suffer. Why should he ensure himself pain? But he does want to keep for himself all things that are of God and therefore for his son. These are the things that belong to him. These he can give away in true generosity protecting them forever for himself. Patience. Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety. Patience is natural to the teacher of God. All he sees is certain outcome at a time perhaps unknown to him as yet, but not in doubt. The time will be as right as is the answer. And this is true for everything that happens now or in the future. The past as well held no mistakes. Nothing that did not serve to benefit the world as well as him to whom it seemed to happen. Perhaps it was not understood at the time. Even so, the teacher of God is willing to reconsider all his past decisions if they are causing pain to anyone. Patience is natural to those who trust. Sure of the ultimate interpretation of all things in time, no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear. Faithfulness. The extent of the teacher of God's faithfulness is the measure of his advancement in the curriculum. Does he still select some aspect of his life to bring to his learning while keeping others apart? If so, his advancement is limited and his trust not yet firmly established. Faithfulness is the teacher of God's trust in the Word of God to set all things right. Not some, but all. Generally, his faithfulness begins by resting on just some problems remaining carefully limited for a time. To give up all problems to one answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely. And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. Yet each degree, however small, is worth achieving. Readiness, as the text notes, is not mastery. True faithfulness, however, does not deviate. Being consistent, it is wholly honest.  Being based on fearlessness, it is gentle. Being certain, it is joyous. And being confident, it is tolerant. Faithfulness then combines in itself the other attributes of God's teachers. It implies acceptance of the Word of God and His definition of His Son. It is to them that faithfulness in the true sense is always directed. Toward them, it looks, seeking until it finds. Defenselessness attends it naturally and joy is its condition. And having found, it rests in quiet certainty on that alone to which all faithfulness is due. Open-mindedness. The centrality of open-mindedness, or perhaps the last of the attributes the teacher of God acquires, is easily understood when its relation to forgiveness is recognized. Open-mindedness comes with lack of judgment. As judgment shuts the mind against God's teacher, so open-mindedness invites him to come in. As condemnation judges the Son of God as evil, so open-mindedness permits him to be judged by the voice for God on his behalf. As the projection of guilt upon him would send him to hell, so open-mindedness lets Christ's image be extended to him. Only the open-minded can be at peace. For they alone see reason for it. How did the open-minded forgive? They have let go all things that would prevent forgiveness. They have in truth abandoned the world and let it be restored to them in newness and in joy so glorious they could never have conceived of such a change. Nothing is now as it was formerly. Nothing but sparkles now which seems so dull and lifeless before. And above all are all things welcoming for threat is gone. No clouds remain to hide the face of Christ. Now is the goal achieved. Forgiveness is the final goal of the curriculum. It paves the way for what goes far beyond all learning. The curriculum makes no effort to exceed its legitimate goal. Forgiveness is its single aim at which all learning ultimately converges. It is indeed enough. You may have noticed that the list of attributes of God's teachers does not include things that are the son of God's inheritance. Terms like love, sinlessness, perfection, knowledge and eternal truth do not belong and appear at this context. They would be most inappropriate here. What God has given is so far beyond our curriculum that learning but disappears in its presence. Yet while its presence is obscured the focus properly belongs on the curriculum. It is the function of God's teachers to bring true learning to the world. Properly speaking it is unlearning that they bring for that is true learning in the world. It is given to the teachers of God to bring the glad tidings of complete forgiveness to the world. Blessed indeed are they for they are the bringers of salvation. So in this manual for teachers in this development of trust we see that the characteristics of God's teachers must surely follow. Based on a very sincere and deep trust in the Holy Spirit these characteristics are but effects state of mind that reflects forgiveness that reflects release of the ego and focus on faith in God and God's teachers. The Holy Spirit leads the way. What we've just heard is an invitation from the Holy Spirit an invitation from Jesus to come into function that the world has been waiting for that everyone has been waiting for that opens the gateway to the kingdom of heaven within that leads the mind back into true creation Spirit, eternal, divine and it is noteworthy that it does not matter the past the past roads that you seem to take it does not matter what you think you've done wrong your failures in the past do not matter just an openness, sincere openness to follow, to be shown the world anew to perceive the world differently to be willing to admit I have been mistaken in the past in the way that I've seen my brothers and sisters the way that I perceive the world in time and space all of this was part of a mistaken perception but now I choose to learn anew now I would teach what I would learn I would demonstrate the consistency of the miracle I would be consistently miracle minded seeing the false is false seeing that no images can tell me who I am the world cannot tell me who I am the world is the past but inside me is the great comforter the instructor the voice for God that will lead me higher and higher in states of awareness opening and opening to remember the love of God and everything that I seem to need as I take this journey to be a teacher of God everything I seem to need will be provided the means are given the means are included in the end so welcome to this manual for teachers this segment has been a lead off for an amazing journey a little mini journey here at the end of the course of miracles that we will take together that we will go into very deeply together what we have is a great lead off and now we open ourselves to some amazing topics to come for example what follows next in our next episode is how is healing accomplished the perceived purpose of sickness the shift in perception the function of the teacher of God is healing certain should healing be repeated how can perception of order of difficulties be avoided and then basic questions like are changes required in the life situation of God's teachers how is judgment relinquished how is peace possible in this world how many teachers of God are needed to save the world what is the real meaning of sacrifice how will the world end is each one to be judged in the end how should the teacher of God spend his day we've seen this one before how do God's teachers deal with magic thoughts how is correction made what is justice what is the peace of God what is the role of words in healing how are healing and atonement related does Jesus have a special place in healing is reincarnation so are psychic powers desirable can God be reached directly what is death what is the resurrection and more and then finally we will close this segment of teachings with the clarification of terms so stay tuned I love you all many many blessings Amen


Welcome everyone. This is a tremendous day for South Australia. I've been fighting for many many years for us to join the great wine capitals of the world and I think when we joined up in July last year we were very felt very pleased to be welcomed into such a privileged group of cities around the world. The collaboration that will happen in the wine industry will have at many different levels but education is so important. If we look at someone like Peter Gago, ducks out at Roseworthy, that Adelaide University connection that has been there for so long and I think we've always done really well in the winemaking and in the vineyard sort of area of research. Now it gives me great pleasure to present Peter Gago with this certificate as our great wine capitals global network ambassador.  You know when you combine tourism with education and business enterprise how can you go wrong? From a South Australian winemaking perspective our market yes is South Australia as a subset of Australia but gee big things are happening offshore and that's where we spend most of our time. Now these 10 cities Adelaide included of course I'll be I think across about four or five of them in the next four or five months so my role isn't too onerous we're there anyway but now we have some incredible contacts and isn't that what a global network is all about? We create opportunity for others business is all about the two-way street everyone wins and if we do this properly Adelaide will win the University of Adelaide will win the wine industry wins.  I think for the University and our students primarily this formalizes a whole lot of interactions around student mobility and exchange so having students travel from one country one region to another is a fantastic way of exploring global opportunities in wine business probably behind that a whole lot of opportunities around joint research collaboration particularly given our different positions on the globe how we manage our supply chains how we manage our brands location close to China their location close to Europe and new market opportunities so this is a really significant event for us I think for South Australian wine business this opens up a whole range of opportunities for collaboration at a very small and very small primary level with small producers trying to understand and exchange best practice I think the French producers would love to learn a bit more about Australian wine production and I'm sure vice versa so this is a wonderful opportunity for both sides because one piece I would say which is at the moment missing a bit in one business education is providing to our students a real international experience so they do have it you know with little time visiting discovering one region but what we're trying to work in this cooperation project is something much more deeper where actually the learning experience from the beginning could be based on two very important high positioning wine region around the world Bordeaux and Adelaide very positive learning experience and this is why I think Bordeaux and Adelaide in that regard are very much complementary and there is a lot to learn from one to another


The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Ba-do, ba-do, doo-ba-doo, doo-ba-doo, doo-ba-doo, doo to keep the bad bacteria. The preceding was a production of New Mexico State University. The views and opinions in this program are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the NMSU Board of Regents.


Alright, what's going on everybody? Jake here, it's Thursday, got the day off work and we've got a few things we need to do today. Not least of which are the gym of course and cardio, but first of all I'm actually going to do something I've been putting off for two weeks straight which is finally changing the ownership and registration of my car to my name because the owner in Melbourne had just put on 12 months red row which costs 600 bucks or something and now I'm not going to be able to use it because I'm going to have to use Northern Territory registration which is fucking annoying but you've got to do what you've got to do and we've got a day off so I'm here Alright so that was pretty stupid, car needs to go over the pits and get a road worthy check even though it's just had one a week ago in Melbourne So that's fucking annoying and there's too many cars there at the moment so I'm going to go to the gym but actually first I need to go to the bank and get a piece of paper saying that I have paid out my personal loan so then I can give that to my other bank who I'm getting my home loan through so they can believe me when I say that my credit rating's good so Westpac's right there anytime fitness is just back there and that will be my next hour and a half I'd say headphones on, let's go sweet so we got that, she was a nice lady funny how someone being nice to you can put you in a good mood so thank you lady at Westpac Alright this shoulder's done, off to sort out the car now I seriously think I've got a problem and it's an addiction and it's an expensive addiction and it's a supplement addiction I couldn't leave anytime fitness without buying something but in saying that I did need it so Oh Amino Energy I ran out of that so I've got Watermelon this time that is my go to as some of you guys will know so I've got some more of that, it should last me about a month MTS Machine Greens Plus Multi I did a review on that not long ago and I've just got through my first tub so yeah it's some good shit I have it first thing in the morning mixed with my creatine and acetyl alkanatine takes the taste away from both the other ingredients and yeah it goes down easy so that's how I take that and I thought I'd invest in a tub of Noxigen as well I haven't had that for a few months and from what I remember it really really brings out the vascularity and cause I'm getting leaner obviously it's just going to be even more so that'll be cool so yeah it's been another 150 bucks Sponsors where you at man? Sponsors bruh but nah I'd actually never get sponsored by a company that I didn't want to use their products or I didn't you know use their products now so MTS Optimum Nutrition Like what else do I use?  There's always something wrong isn't there? We got the ticket the golden ticket to ownership of this car So let's go Oh there's another 800 bucks but this menu number plate bruhs So we're all legal we're all good to go And now I'm going to take that certificate of ownership as well as the proof that I paid out my personal loan to my new bank manager So then I can get this fucking loan for my house approved God it's been a mission Yeah we're making a quick detour I gotta go for a piss so fucking bad And what am I going to do get some more Amino energy for the games because I still haven't eaten yet So it's getting on like two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm still fasted Done some fasted shoulder training So yeah chuck them down there Oh mate that feels better Right now I can actually relax So I've got the sup stack it's just going to join all my other supplements But yeah as I said put some ice in the shaker get some Amino energy going watermelon Fucking beautiful mate absolutely beautiful I love it Especially seeing as I'm fasted I need the caffeine and I need the Aminos I could probably go have a protein shake and that wouldn't affect the fasting but I'm not going to so There's the dogs outside let's go see the dog shall we And actually whilst I'm out I will cook up this pumpkin that I've been meaning to do for a few days So all I'm going to do is put the oven on 200 degrees I'm probably going to be out for like 40 minutes which is going to be perfect So I'll just cut that all up and I'll show you when I put it in the oven Alright guys what we've got here is about one kilogram of raw pumpkin just chopped up into pieces And the way I do it is like I'll chop it up so that I've got a nice round edge of skin And all of the pieces are just sitting on the skin you don't need any oil it's not going to stick at all And all the pieces being you know standing up from the bottom get cooked evenly So it's great it's like your own your own like baking tray sort of thing So yeah yeah pumpkin skin is your own baking tray Remember that one Bingo we're looking good we're looking good There's 40 units in the complex that I'm buying I made a video recently about buying my first property which is what I'm doing at the moment as you might have guessed And the first 10 units of 40 are going to be done by they're actually getting valued at the moment so that means they're pretty much near completion And mine is in the second lot of 10 so we're looking at valuation the end of September and settlement and give me the fucking keys at the end of October So how long we got three months two and a half months It's nothing really is it it's going to take ages lucky I got a holiday coming up soon But anyways so it's 230 and I am going to get some food of some sort though last week oh sorry two weeks ago I bought 20 pre-made frozen corn nutrition meals Specifically sort of a bodybuilding they've got the macros on the front blah blah blah and I love them man they're so nice so easy So right now I'm going to go back to the gym and buy another 20 as well as another box of quest bars So that's even more fucking money spent on the sups today oh my fucking god Well it's actually food it's not sups is it and so then I'm also going to go to the supermarket get a few things I'm going to get some egg whites some turkey breast I'm going to get some pumpkin some veggies frozen berries and that is about it So I'll show you my haul when I get home it's probably going to take about an hour so see you then Alright guys right here we've got 20 of these frozen core power food meals and I can't wait to crack into those Over here is my six favorite quest bar flavors now take a good look guys Cookies and cream chocolate chip cookie dough s'mores white chocolate raspberry mint chocolate chunk and coconut cashew Love a bit of coconut and cashew nuts so they should last the week and yeah alright they are in there The pumpkin unfortunately I didn't actually turn on the oven before so that is still raw as fuck but it's cooking now Guys just had a sudden burst of motivation as happens sometimes you know I don't know if you guys are the same but it happens to me Usually I would not leave the house because the pumpkin's on but I'm going to put the timer on to 40 minutes and that will do quite nicely I'm going to go and hit some triceps I'll get a little bit of footage Seeking work out of the day hit shoulders this morning triceps this afternoon still fasted and after that I will be having my first meal which will be nice and big protein, carbs and fats everything I need And I'll see you at the gym Alright guys here we are we got two scoops, amino energy which is only 100mg caffeine and two scoops of what's it called, noxious So we're looking for a good pump triceps let's go I've spent a shitload of money today luckily I earn a billion a reason why I'm still living in Alice Springs I mean It's so remote here but people have you know jobs that are paying well so they make that sacrifice and basically that's what I've done for at least the past two years So I've lived here for five years but it's only in the past two that I've sort of started earning decent sort of money or enough to keep me here anyway So yeah Alice Springs it's been my home the last five years who knows how much longer Thanks for watching thanks for tuning in day in the life episode one done Thursday the 6th of August 2015 I'm out


Oh, hiya gozaimasu. Watashi wa name wa Christyndes. Adding a lot of, what is she on about faces?  Good. Remember that feeling, because that is how your international customers feel when you don't localize your product. So why am I here today? Right now, I lead the international product team at Twilio. Previously, I've led teams to expand into and across APACT, both in a zero to one startup and mature state enterprise settings. My specialisms are B2B, enterprise SaaS, and regulated industries. Let's warm up. Here are two very similar looking Cadbury dairy milk chocolate bars. Other than the wrappers looking different, what else do you spot? Look, the nutritional outcomes are roughly the same with minor differences here and there. The one on the left is sold in the UK. The one on the right is the Australian version.  They love talking about how their version is just so much better and different. But why? When the functional spec looks nearly identical, let's take another look. Here I highlighted three things. One, product info. Think of this as product marketing, AKA how Cadbury talks about their product. The UK one is made with fresh milk from the British Isles and Ireland. The Aussie one is one made from sustainable cocoa and two proudly made in Tasmania, which is in Australia. What this tells me is what local customers care about. So UK folks like their dairy, like their local dairy, but where it's made matters less. Aussies take pride in locally made products and sustainability is top of mind. Two, let's move on to the sizes. 45 grams in the UK, 75 grams in Australia. Now that's a huge difference. And it's a major element of the product experience. It will certainly take me a lot longer to finish a 75 gram bar than the 45 gram one. So maybe that's where the extra satisfaction comes from. Lastly, let's compare the ingredients. The UK version has lower milk solids and much lower cocoa solids. And they also use vegetable fats while the Aussie one doesn't. Could that be why the Australia one seems smoother and creamier? Maybe Aussies are really onto something here. Now this is just one example of product localization for something as humble but as evergreen as the Cadbury dairy milk. Let's take a step back and ask the fundamental question as we product managers do. Why expand internationally? International expansion is fundamentally about growth. The base high processes is that customers elsewhere have a similar or the same problem to solve and that your value, your product value proposition resonates with them. Most software products are by definition global from a distribution perspective. Many companies after they've found repeatable success in their home country would start tackling new markets simply by selling their original product overseas without any enhancements. Initially, you may see hockey stick growth with minimal GTM motion simply because the base is so low. A GTM first approach is extremely common and can be very cost effective. You definitely want to obtain basic validation of product market fit before investing further into productization. What's crucial at this phase is how not to overlook the valuable GTM customer feedback loop early and frequent and finding clear signals from the noise. Any qualitative or quantitative data that you collect at this point will prove useful in the case building phase for productization. Invest in the infrastructure, tooling and processes that capture these data. For example, does finance report revenue and margins by country? How do you collect country specific feedback? And how might you attribute country to your user product analytics? Don't assume any of these would be available out of the box because they won't. And without these cuts of data, you will have a hard time building a case. You may think, okay, so GTM first, productization next. How long should you wait and what happens if you wait? Things to look out for. In most cases, with some GTM motion, your international business would start growing and fast, probably upwards of 50% year on year for the first few years. The initial phase of growth causes complacency and can be dangerous. You may decide to delay product internationalization investment because of how fast it's growing. But sooner or later, you will start seeing slowing growth rates because your international customers can tell that you're not really local and they can't help but to wonder if your product is really suitable for them and can be trusted. Meanwhile, competition, both local and overseas, would likely have caught up. To be specific, if your home market is, say, in the UK and you're trying to expand into Spain, you will have competition from both the UK and elsewhere trying to do the same. And all of you will likely find a Spanish homegrown competitor very hard to beat. Now, timing is a difficult question to answer without context. My recommendation is to monitor metrics such as slowing growth rates, deteriorating win-loss ratios, conversion and retention. Make sure you have a way to do this in an international slash country cut. And it might also be valuable for you to compare against historicals in your home market. So I've distilled my learnings over the years down to three takeaways with some examples. Here's what we're going to cover next. To be clear, I am by no means the voice of authority on any of this because, one, context really matters. So there's no one-size-fits-all approach. And two, the intent behind these is to help you avoid some common pitfalls. And I will certainly welcome follow-up discussions and feedback. Number one, play it like a team sport. Product management is by definition cross-functional. This is only more true with international expansion, which is a company strategy problem. To set yourself up for success, make sure you have top-down buy-in and sponsorship. Cross-functional alignment is your best friend. So invest in how to work with each other, collaborate and engage. Now, let me take you through a concrete example. Let's begin with some context. Twilio is an enterprise company that headquartered in the US. We're highly distributed with folks all across the globe. On the product level, Twilio has a mature multi-product portfolio. Most people here would be familiar with our communications API, such as SMS and voice. But we also have an application layer that sits on top or adjacent to those API primitives, such as Flex, our programmable contact center, and segment the customer data platform. Various degrees of interdependencies exist within the Twilio product portfolio. As the international product team, there are two key groups of stakeholders that we partner closely with, and the first one is the GTM team, including sales, solutions engineers, support, customer success, CX, who have boots on the ground and serve as our eyes and ears locally at various different customer touchpoints. The second are our core product teams. These are folks who ultimately own the individual vertical product lines. The international product team has inbound and outbound dependencies with them, and we must be able to host trade. The cross-cutting nature of my team means that we must be in lockdowns with these partners all the time. The first step was a stakeholder and role mapping to identify who they are, what they do and own, and importantly, what outcomes motivate them. Then we must ensure these folks actually know who we are, understand our roles. So we created team charters to clarify purpose ownership, and along with a country maturity model, which is a framework to benchmark and articulate our vision of how our product suite may evolve towards a lovable stage to international customers over time. We ran lots of roadshows to get feedback and evangelized up and down the company. The moment I realized the evangelism was working was when the Twilio C suite started using terminology from our country maturity model back at us. That was truly an aha moment for me. Twilio folks respond well to data. So our strategy team built a model that pulled in time, revenue, effort estimates, et cetera, to output a country priority list, which we rallied the whole company around. On a country-by-country basis, my team examined deal-win-loss ratios and reasons, conversion metrics, NPS, CSATs, to stack-rank feature gaps per country. We used numbers to argue and measure, but we didn't forget that we were all humans and loved the story. So we illustrated customer pain points by visually demonstrating international customers less than ideal, sign-up flow, for example. And we collated customer verbatims from the research that we conducted. Together, these were extremely effective. From an operational standpoint, we stood up async Slack channels and regular forums for information exchange and communicating decisions made. Our team also depended heavily on our program managers to manage cross-team dependencies. It took a village, but I can't stress enough the importance of strategic alignment as a success condition for international expansion in a matrix organization. Number two, go deep first, wide later. If you've ever moved to countries, you would appreciate how different it is to visit as a tourist versus living in it, especially if you don't understand the language. The letter gives you an understanding that goes much further beyond the service. This is why your international expansion journey, when you start, you want to go deep rather than wide to de-risk doing too many things, but none of them well. Go after a low-hanging country that is culturally similar and has a reasonable town. For most US and UK products, this means other English-speaking countries, namely UK, US, Canada, Australia, the effort to productize for these countries are low, relatively. The next example is about the Twilio self-service funnel. Overall, Twilio has a pretty healthy growth funnel. However, there was a general perception that our international onboarding left a lot to be desired. To validate this, we deep-dived into our North Star metric related to product activation. We segmented between Twilio US and international, first as a whole, and then country by country. We weren't surprised to see conversion being lower outside of the US. What we weren't sure was why. To get answers, we started with our top country, the UK. Our theory was, if we couldn't even fix the UK, we can forget the rest. So we mined our onboarding survey for feedback. We ran competitive benchmarking against other regional or local competitors, and we took a customer-centric delivery, sorry, discovery approach. We used Twilio's core jobs to be done to map out exactly how UK customers were either not served at all or underserved. We then formed hypotheses, ran tests to zone in one, what exactly we needed to change. As a product manager, I believe it's easy for you to think that everything's broken in your product and you want to fix everything. I totally get that, but the reality is you can't really fix everything because you don't have unlimited resources. So an action-oriented approach to discovery is crucial in helping you focus on what truly matters to your customers. The third one, speed versus scale. You may be dissatisfied with my third lesson as I don't have an easy answer to offer. The age-old question of, should you build for speed or scale, my answer is, it depends. And I'll show you through two examples. So I once did localization at a zero to one startup. It was company of 30. We were still trying to find product market fit. Our approach to localization was constrained. Due to our limited runway, we had no choice but to optimize for ARR. So we decided to brute-force our way through and add a two-nil locales. We didn't have time to craft our own UX copy, so we co-wrote them with our prospect customer. Localization was 100% menu and flaky. Many of our choices we made back then still make me wins today, but we needed the deal. In moments like this, do the things that don't scale. And delight your customer instead. Now, let me contrast that with how we've approached localization at Tulio. A little bit of extra context. We were targeting five-plus new locales. Our product web assets set on a rather diverse tech stack, which was a result of organic hypergrowth and through acquisitions. Meeting everyone where they were would have been prohibitively expensive and inefficient. So we decided to centralize and platformize. Our team evaluated different internationalization standards and picked one. We built tools and processes to enable teams to become self-sufficient in internationalizing. For example, we provided a linting tool. We centralized and automated localization. So as soon as anybody merged a pull request, we would detect if localization applies and kick off the end-to-end process, including QA. This took all of the individual disparate, repeated effort away from many, many product teams. So as a result, not only did we gain internal efficiency, more crucially, we were able to provide high-quality, consistent, localized customer experience at lightning speed to market and scalability. As I prepared for my talk, I reflected upon what I learned. Quite honestly, it became obvious to me that international expansion is not different from any other product management roles. It's highly context-dependent. My recommendation is to treat international just as another customer segment. Lean into your PM fundamentals, roofless prioritization, customer centricity, be data-driven, leverage storytelling, and make well-reasoned trade-off decisions. These are all skills that you possess already today. So it actually sounds quite simple, don't you think? Let's go global with your product.


That's a song, isn't it? I'm freaking resilient. There was a video. Let me see if I can find it. Watch those people that bounce back from everything. Those men to destroy them, those are God's people and they're not to be messed with. You are God's people.  I feel that with everything that's been thrown at me, don't mess with the light. Don't mess with the light.


G'day all. We're here at Swanreach which is the main base camp. Some 300-400 people staying here and we've got the staging area here behind us as well. That's to support the Gippsland fires and there's a number of major fires occurring here at Gippsland. And look, the thing that I've noticed first up here is the camaraderie between Forest Fire Management, Parks Vic, SESA here, CFA, a real collaborative effort. Some of the challenges for these particular fires is the time of year. The reality is a lot of the tourists are moving into the lakes entrance, the Bensale-Painesville lake tires area all through Gippsland, some head up into the bush as well. Alpine Road is now closed and so we really need to make sure all those tourists are well and truly aware of the situation that we have here to make sure they're protected. We need to make sure the residents in these communities and some of those are quite remote are quite protected. But also our people, a lot of tree fall. They've been at this for quite some time.  And look, to be fair, it hasn't been a real public facing issue down here at Gippsland and they've been working tirelessly now for some weeks and just doing a really, really tremendous effort. And as I say, some of the biggest back burns I've seen, just a tremendous effort by our volunteers. And to be fair, they will be looking for help as we move on. The last one for me and a lot of our people, a lot of you, will be out on the fire line over Christmas, New Year's. That's the way we do it in CFA. Thank you for what you do. My message would be, please stay safe, obviously number one priority. But next thing is that if you get a chance, try and spend some time with your family. It's just so important that you try and catch up with your family at this time as well.  Thanks for what you do. Cheers.


Well, because of the work that I do and because of the threads that I write, I feel like I'm in a very unique position to talk about the themes in the Layer 2 ecosystem and the trends that I'm seeing. So I'm hoping to give you a bit of a bird's-eye view of the Layer 2 ecosystem today and what I'm seeing in the themes. So to start with off-chain data, off-chain data in roll-ups is here to stay. I think it's fair to say. On the roll-up level, we're seeing a push to give users a choice of off-chain data in ZK roll-ups that looks like Validiums and Volitions, and for optimistic roll-ups that looks like Arbitrum Nova and Metastow's optimistic data availability. Really the question you should be asking yourself when you're considering off-chain data for your DAP is what does this mean for security? What does it mean for my users' funds? And I think that there's a lot to consider there. If we accept that off-chain data is here to stay, then we should be thinking about ways to make those DAPs more secure despite the off-chain data. Some DAPs don't need all of their data on chain, and those that might need more security, there are some solutions. One thing that I thought was really interesting was an article that actually came out today by Polinja, who's someone on Twitter that I follow. You may have heard of them suggesting that we have split security data sharding on roll-ups. This is literally an idea that came out today, so as far as new trends, I expect to see some implementations of this sometime in the near future, but definitely not right now. But that should help with some of the security concerns around off-chain data and roll-ups. We're also going to continue to see progress and innovation on the bridging front. We just saw Georgius talk about some really interesting ideas about how we can have composability. But some of the things that I want to talk about are how popular Layer 2 bridges right now are centralized, and they keep the fees rather than sharing them with their users. That's not really a paradigm that we like in the Ethereum world. We don't really like centralized operators. We don't really like middlemen, so I'm expecting to see that paradigm being challenged. One thing that we already are seeing hot protocol has announced that they're going to be more community-centric, so that's just one early example of sort of that shift that I think we're going to see. We're also seeing really interesting work around ZK proofs to improve bridge architecture. We can use ZK proofs to verify, so Suez Bridge created a proposal called the slush proposal doing just that. We can also use ZK proofs to create light clients with ZK snarks, which is a relatively new idea. So Synced Bridge wants to do that, so that's what you should look up if you're interested in that. So I would definitely keep an eye on ZK proofs within bridge architectures as a way to improve those architectures. Also in case you missed it, L2B announced last night the release of their bridge dashboard, which is really exciting because I think the more information that we give to users about the security of the bridges that they want to use, the more we can push bridge protocols to work to increase security. And also we're giving users that data so they can make the informed decision about which bridge is right for them. When it comes to optimistic rollups, we're going to see these protocols branch out and really dive into innovative optimizations. I've called them optimistic optimizations, which I think is kind of fun. Arbitrum Nitro and Optimism Bedrock are both huge steps forward for the ecosystem. Yesterday at the rollup day event, Vitalik actually proposed several possible ways that we could decentralize provers and also diversify provers. And luckily for us, both Arbitrum Nitro and Optimism Bedrock are already architected in a way that should allow for multiple provers and different types of provers. One of the cool things about both Arbitrum Nitro and Optimism Bedrock is that they're sort of paving the way for allowing validity proofs within optimistic rollups, which is really cool and something I would definitely keep an eye on. Rollups with layer three capabilities will honestly be able to eat up a lot of the market if they get off the ground with offerings like privacy dApps, permission dApps for institutions, games and even creating space for alternative L1 chains to execute on top of the layer two and ultimately still settle on Ethereum, gaining Ethereum security. Success here will depend largely on ecosystem support, documentation and ease of use. This is also kind of a new theme. Recursive proofs exist on StarkNet now, but they're still pretty new. And I haven't seen any actual implementations of layer threes yet. If you have, let me know. I'd love to take a look. But I do think layer threes will be part of the discourse in the coming months and years as all of the ZK rollups especially mature and go to mainnet. Speaking of ZK rollups, ZK EVMs are likely to dominate the attention of the layer two space in the coming months. ZK EVMs are really exciting and something a lot of us have been talking about for the past, I don't even know how long, honestly, since layer two kind of became a thing. And the reason they're exciting is because they are theoretically compatible with existing Ethereum tooling, making them much easier to use. They allow for a shorter waiting time to exit to get finality and also because they use ZK proofs and we all love math. Well, I do anyway. And I think as these protocols enter mainnet, the debate will turn to what counts as a true EVM? What is close enough? What is EVM compatibility and how much of it do we need for a ZK EVM to really operate the way that we expect it to? We'll also be talking a lot more about the innovative architectures and use cases that ZK EVMs allow. So I'd say things are getting a little spicy in the crypto verse around various ZK roll-ups that are entering the ecosystem. I posit that competition is good and I hope we can turn the spice into something constructive and eventually coalesce around some helpful standards. I think we're sort of in that diverged converge area when it comes to ZK roll-ups and we're still on the diverged side. But hopefully we'll get to converge soon. And we're going to see a debate about how important ZK EVMs are and that's also going to necessarily mean a discussion of how Starknet's non-EVM ecosystem compares. We'll see more comparison materials and discussions of how security, decentralization, et cetera, compares between the two types of ZK roll-up protocols. There's no question in my mind that the ZK space is red hot right now. And I expect ZK roll-ups to really take the stage, going into 2023. If you had to pick one theme of anything that I've mentioned, it's ZK roll-ups and probably ZK EVMs in the near future. So it turns out seven minutes is not very long. I'm literally being told right now my time is up. So I did create a list of some more trends to keep an eye on that I didn't really have time to dive into. I'm particularly interested in the modular blockchain designs of protocols like Celestia and how they will relate to how those learnings can be taken into the layer two ecosystem and maybe make changes there. So you might be thinking, how on earth can I stay on top of all of these ecosystem developments and the space moves really quickly? And that's a valid concern. So I provided you with a list of some of the Twitter accounts that I follow that have some great educational content. I really recommend following these people. It's the best place to start. And then from there, you can kind of see who they follow and what they're posting and become as educated as you want to be about the layer two space and how the ecosystem is growing. So in conclusion, layer two is here. It is changing fast. And it's bringing some of the most exciting innovations imaginable to the Ethereum ecosystem. And again, my name is Faena. Thank you all for your time. Sorry for going over time. And I hope that this talk was educational. Thank you, Faena. Thank you so much.


Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Camille Grammer lives the luxury lifestyle you'd expect and know if you watched the series. She and her ex-husband Kelsey Grammer once owned a stunning five-acre equestrian compound in Malibu Hills, which was awarded to her in the divorce. After this property Camille went on to own a couple other beachfront Malibu estates and most recently calls a mansion in Brentwood, California home. This place boasts features like a massive 56-foot swimming pool out back and today we're gonna check out a few of her beautiful homes. In these videos we don't reveal any addresses and even though I've done a house tour of my own place please do not show up at any private residences because it's not safe for anyone. Camille Grammer mayor is a TV personality, model, producer, actress and more who was well known for starring on the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She's an original cast member of the show being on it since season one and while she's no longer a main character she still often makes regular appearances. Camille began her career as a dancer, model and actress and worked as a producer and writer for GramNet Productions. She was famously married to actor Kelsey Grammer from 1997 to 2011. In fact the January 13th 2011 episode of Real Housewives in which Camille admitted to her then-husband wanting to leave the marriage it was the highest rated episode of the season. Camille is still working hard in Hollywood though and making bank with an estimated net worth about 50 million dollars. No wonder she's been able to own beautiful California mansions with features like horse stables, private tennis courts and panoramic ocean views.  If you like this one you can check out other vids we did on Housewives like Kelly Dodd and Lisa Vanderpump which we'll link to at the end. Be sure to subscribe and ring that bell for notifications because we post brand new content daily. As always you can follow me on Instagram if you want and now let's get into this video. Back in 1998 a year after Camille and ex-husband Kelsey tied the knot the couple forked out 4.5 million dollars for a five acre equestrian compound in Malibu Hills. The French country inspired a state which was awarded to Camille in the divorce settlement bonus featured 6,645 square feet with seven bedrooms and 13 baths. It recently popped back on the market in 2019 for a whopping 20 million and needless to say that price tag will get you all deluxe features you could want and more in a home. The pad included a riding arena, six-stall barn, carriage house, lily ponds, organic vegetable garden, fruit patches and rose gardens just to name a few. Camille's former palace featured a two-story ballroom fully furnished her liking and offered a stunning crystal chandelier as well as panoramic views of the mountains and ocean. One selling point were the glass doors here that made the room almost alfresco and led out onto the patio. There are chef's kitchens and then there's Camille's former kitchen which was literally designed by a world-renowned chef. We're guessing her ex Kelsey pulled some strings to get famous chef Wolfgang Puck's help in designing the space. The room offered soaring wood beam ceilings and more than one island for meal prep and even a pizza oven. The amazing master suite was larger than life and had a fireplace, sitting area and French doors all underneath elegant vaulted ceilings. Knott's mention the doors led to her private balcony overlooking the grounds. Then the en suite looked more like something out of a spa than a master bathroom with relaxing tub, spacious vanity, sitting area and massive glass shower. Other features in the former grammar mansion included an indoor outdoor breakfast nook, wood paneled office, wine cellar, gym and home movie theater. While indoor features go on forever the grounds of Camille's former compound are almost more impressive. There are two spas, the swimming pool, bath house and 17th century stone gazebo. Knott's mention there was a full tennis court which we often saw Camille playing on during the first season of Real Housewives. The property also featured beautiful gardens, orchards and ponds that look to be inspired by Monet paintings. Just like any good equestrian estates the former couple even had six horse stables, a riding ring and an old world equestrian facility. Considering Camille was no longer with Kelsey she did sell this property and relocated to another Malibu abode. Back in 2018 Camille's then Malibu estate was sadly destroyed in the Woolsey fires. Tragically the Woolsey fires destroyed about 1,600 structures and spread across more than 96,000 acres which included her beloved property she spent 3.3 million on in 2016. This was clearly where Camille moved to following the sale of her marital compound. However as of June 2021 Camille's 2016 home has been completely rebuilt and sold for nearly 6 million. The contemporary new home rebuilt in the place of Camille's former spot offers 5,500 square feet and boasts four bedrooms and 4.5 baths. Technically the new digs are slightly smaller than the former 6,100 square foot Mediterranean villa built in 1992. Some of the notable changes in the rebuilt included an illuminated pool surrounded by square open grid paving and palm trees with a balcony hovering above. Then the new kitchen included a large island with two overhead light fixtures, glass paneled cabinets and open to a sitting room. But still this place was not nearly as impressive as the Wolfgang puck kitchen at the former mansion. Finally the master bedroom included glass sliding doors that open to a balcony, a built-in fireplace and massive walking closets. Tragic fires aside Camille had somewhat of an obsession with Malibu. Back in 2016 she picked up a second Malibu home on one of the city's most desirable stretches of sand pro-opping 6.55 million dollars. As soon as Camille moved into the beachfront home she completely gutted the three-story place including updated bathrooms, floor to ceiling glass sliders opening to an enormous deck and a peninsula snack bar dividing the dining area and brand new gourmet kitchen. Camille did a number on the kitchen too including all white shaker style cabinets, solid surface countertops and medium-grade stainless steel appliances. But like I said that first kitchen was hard to beat so I can see why she would have trouble being satisfied with any other cooking space after that. Despite the hefty price tag the home was only equipped with 1,632 square feet and three beds and three baths. Within that the home included a combination living and dining room stretching the width of the house and the top floor was devoted almost entirely to the master suite. This room included a surmounted fireplace, glass reading nook and small terrace with coastline view. Camille's master bath here came with marble flooring, a soaking tub with a view and skylight top shower. There was also an additional room that could easily be used as an office, nursery or even a yoga room. The charming abode included two guest bedrooms one of which opened to the courtyard while the other located on the lowest level included access to a dining lounge deck with hot tub, outdoor shower and access to the beach. Probably Camille's biggest flex at this pad was the deck that spanned the entire house complete with barbecue area, alfresco dining spa and fully furnished overlooking the Pacific Ocean. What more could you need in a Malibu beach house? Not a bad life when the family could watch seals from their deck at the comfort of their own home. And if you want a luxurious beachfront property you're in luck as Camille listed this home for rent for 25k per month back in October 2019. After putting that Malibu house up for rent you're probably wondering where Camille moved to and for once it's actually not Malibu. Camille and her new husband David Mayer found their latest real estate venture in October of 2019 dropping 5.85 million dollars on a New England traditional style estate that features 5,483 square feet and boasts six bedrooms and six baths. In addition the double gated property includes a two bedroom guest house and detached three car garage. Located in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California the beautiful residence comes with a number of formal living and dining room spaces decked out under vaulted beam ceilings, crown moldings, oversized windows and Fleetwood sliders with patio access. Her dining room here is decked out in a cheerful yellow color which is certainly unique and makes for some positive vibes. Meanwhile the all-new gourmet kitchen offers butcher block countertops top of the line wolf and sub-zero appliances and a stainless wine refrigerator. The adjacent family and breakfast room opens to a brick patio with built-in barbecue via chic French doors which is ideal for hosting. The showstopper of this property has to be what's called the pub room and grand party lounge complete with brick fireplace and wet bar trimmed in custom rich wood. I want one. The two bedroom guest quarters are ideal for living staff or overnight guests if Camille and her hubby feel like entertaining. However the former owners use this space as an office and art studio so the possibilities are endless. The over half acre spread also offers lush grounds with grassy lawn palm trees large terrace with fireplace gardens and private sitting areas. The most impressive feature Camille has back here is definitely the massive extra long 56 foot swimming pool perfect for morning laps if you're into that sort of thing and a sitting area here also boasts another fire pit. Alright so I think I'll bring our Camille Grammer house tour to an end here. We took a look at the real housewives of Beverly Hills star and her amazing properties in Malibu she owned over the years as well as her current property in Brentwood Los Angeles. I for one am surprised at the place she lives at now isn't in Malibu too because with the other three homes it's clear Camille was in love with the place. After seeing all those houses she snagged what did you think? It's hard to pick a clear-cut winner here all of her spreads were pretty cool. The first spot with ex-husband Kelsey Grammer had a ton of features. I really liked how she fixed up her second home after that terrible wildfire. The third spot was smaller but prime real estate. Then we have her final home which featured that Pub Room and Grand Party Lounge which is an unreal setup. I'm real torn here. If I had to choose though the first Malibu mega compound was the clear winner. Not because it was so huge but I loved the old world charm. Let me know your fave home of Camille's in the comments down below. Thanks for watching don't forget to follow me on Instagram and I will see you all in the next video. Bye!


Hi, I'm Dr Praveen Ghanagi, working as a consultant neurosurgeon and head of the department of Neurosurgery, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore. Endoscopic neurosurgery is basically done through the endoscopes, either through the natural orifices like in the nose, or small incisions in the skull or a small craniotome, where the different conditions can be treated.