The egg of life, the original eight cells of the human body, a form that takes place shortly after conception. This particular biological cell division is important because the body coming into form is perfectly and evenly divided into the four elements, with a yin and yang of each, giving you eight perfect spheres. These spheres each contain a fractal of the whole, each representing a core aspect of the various parts of the human spirit, as represented by different body parts. These eight spheres become the first physical representation of the complete eight chakra system, of which from root to root connects the physical energy of the earth through the body to the higher awareness of the unified field, and its infinite connections to everything. The eighth chakra is the root of the next world, connecting you with your eternal self, beyond the limits of the physical body, and as with the heart, a half-step hides this portal for those who have reached the higher centers. Hey there, so do you remember how I mentioned chakras are like lenses of reality? I wanted to expand on that, so I built this model for you in order to explain it better. Think of chakras like your field of awareness, and depending on which one you're focused in, your awareness becomes focused and narrow or wide and expansive. When you're enroute, a survival focus, your perception is focused on one thing, surviving the crisis or situation. It is a very thin beam. But now if you're in the third eye, your other chakra is covered and satisfied. Your expanding vision grows very wide in order to see all of the connections.  The third eye is all about seeing the geometry, so it can focus on a very specific shape, or expand its vision to a very wide understanding of all of the patterns and how they connect. You can imagine how you might switch between them on the fly. Let's say you're camping out with some friends in a moonlit night. Everyone feels safe. Maybe there are some brotherly bonds being created, and you're telling a story, sharing meaningful experiences with your companions. In this moment, your primary or dominant chakra is the throat. And then the bear shows up. Everyone panics. Now nobody feels safe and everyone scatters away running for their lives. Everyone's reality lens drops down to the root focus, survival mode, and it will remain there until everyone feels safe again. After which we scale back up the lower levels until we reach our equilibrium with each other, wherever that is with that particular group. That example, of course, is only one of many possible responses to the crisis of the bear showing up. Depending on the awareness of the group, the responses could vary anywhere from calmly turning your back and walking away in peace all the way to an energetic nod to the bear that they are friendly, and that if the bear is interested, they'd love to do some photography together. Human-to-animal communication is far more simple than we realize. What is required is a stable foundation of understanding and mental emotional connection to that which you're connecting to. The process of being there is in fact that very shift in awareness and transition into the higher centers. Into the heart, beyond the wall of the first half-step. I previously regarded this as a half-step, which it is, and with some further research into harmonic theory and some inspiring discussion with some close friends, we've also decided to refer to it as a mirror wall. In practice, when you see it through these chakra lenses, it just shows you what you know, and when you step through it moving into the heart, everything gets bigger. It's through the looking glass dial. This mirror wall, or half-step, is essentially an invisibility wall that hides the higher chakras from spirit when it's exploring the lower ones, still new to this reality. But once a level of mastery has been established within the first three chakras, spirit can catch a glimpse of, or even move into, the next part of life experiences. Now let's bring it full circle with this. What we're looking at here is the human-eight chakra system, the primary chakras or nodal points running up and through the body. Human energy, from sexual to electrical, moves in the pattern you see here. The transition steps are located between the third and fourth chakras and the seventh and eighth chakras. The difference between the system, seven and eight, or twelve and thirteen, is really all in about how you're analyzing the data. It's all the same data, just different dimensions of observation. Let me show you the geometry of how this actually works. We've looked at this before, and this time we're gonna look deeper. The key here is actually many keys. It's all inlaid in a piano.  Those black keys are mid-steps between each of the white keys. In music theory, they're called sharps or flats, depending on which key you're using as a reference point. Officially, this is called a half-step. Normally, one white key to a black key is a half-step, and with the black key in the middle, from white to white is referred to as a whole step. However, when it happens between two white keys, this is an unusual transition, the less common, but still pertinent, 90-degree shift in tones throughout the audible spectrum. If you mapped it on a simple wave graph, it might look like this, up and down, yin and yang, between the white and black keys, except for two places. The transition that we're talking about is literally a 90-degree turn, the space to where there are no black keys between white keys. If these are all 45-degree turns oscillating to and fro with each other, then these spaces between the white keys are a 90-degree turn, and you remember all about those from lesson 7, right? And this is actually a pretty big deal when you relate it to consciousness. That half-step between white keys is a point of transition, the singularity in aha moments, where all of the dots of your life all connect with each other in a new way, where you bridge your newly mastered lower centers with the previously unknown higher centers. And when you are willing to step through that doorway into what's next, step into the higher centers, everything changes. Thank you for watching. Before you go, we have a few quick announcements for you. The first is that we love you, because that's what the world needs more of. The second is that Team Spirit will be at the Tucson Gem Show this year for La Grande Gatheringa. We have a sacred box of original spirit shirts, which we intend to create an equal exchange for the creation of more, whatever and however that may look like. Third, we will be doing some group spirit side chats wherever we park our RV, or in some awesome space that becomes available. We really have no plans. We're just going to show up. We're even going to try and get Ray to do one of his famous transformational workshops. Fourth, and finally, go subscribe to the Team Spirit YouTube channel. We're going to do our best to put out a lot of behind-the-scenes and live-action stuff here over the next year. In fact, you can get started by watching these.


Hey friends because my mom and sister had so much fun staying in Animal Kingdom Lodge I decided to try to get another resort stay There wasn't much I can actually pick from because it was within the week But I did succeed and I got us another night at a different resort and I think they're gonna like it a lot Let's go do this and This time we are staying at Disney's Beach Club Wow, this place is gorgeous Look how festive the decorations are on the walkway over the bridge to actually get to the Beach Club. I like that It's very very pretty Tis the season to be jolly Watch the fountain spray it's water Follow and look at the little beach ornaments they have but there it is The Beach Club. Wow, isn't it pretty? I couldn't actually Park up front here.  So she's inside. I missed her reaction to the lobby But I'm sure she still likes it a lot. Oh, I can smell it already I love the smell of this lobby or this resort It's so wonderful beachy smelling The first thing we see when we walk in is the gingerbread carousel That is insane. Isn't it? This is made of all gingerbread and it's Peter Pan thing. Look at there's Wendy's horse And then there's Tink's horse Wow, how cool is that and look at the detail even up top? Everything it's all made of gingerbread the podium the ship amazing What are you trying to get a picture of? The gingerbread carousel it says all the ingredients 100 pounds of honey 200 pounds of flour a hundred pounds of eggs 10 quarts of egg whites Wow so much Look at the pretty trees and decorations they have in here, too. Don't you guys like it in here? Yeah, you smell right? Yeah, that's what I'm gonna say.  All of it is just so wealthy they aimed in lit. It's very nice very quaint Normally, it's actually very busy in here because a lot of people come to see like the gingerbread carousel or the Gingerbread train station while the miniature city over at Yacht Club, but so far it's not too bad.  It's so beautiful. Isn't it? Oh, let's go this way.  Oh, yeah, this is one of my favorite parts of Beach Club is this little area in here It's so nice and it's quiet You come here actually Just hang out read a book drink a Bud Light. Who knows? Watch the Niners game. This is destiny and look they won 48 to 46 You guys don't know this, but I'm a 49ers fan Santa yeah I didn't see Santa Oh Look at how beautiful this is isn't it and we're staying in the villas, but I didn't see this tree Look at that. It's the first time I've seen that Wow, very pretty and the color fits exactly underneath What would you call that a chandelier? It fits like perfectly in there We can play some pool later on. Oh Yeah, look at that nice pool table Or we can just hang out in the breezeway, which is just as beautiful. Wow Look at that picture of the boardwalk up there. That's stunning We're going up. We're on the third floor I'm backing up backing up backing up. Look at you getting pretty good at this Look how pretty the floors are and the doors So nice I'll tell you what this is a much shorter walk than the Animal Kingdom Lodge like literally work right off the lobby Which I like a lot. Oh, we're here 361 oh it smells so nice in here. Oh Look at this. It's very nice. Oh Pretty I Like it a lot. Oh The toilets up next to the shower You don't got a separate door for the toilet. I'm sorry Gotta put Stacy on as we explore the room a little bit This villa actually has multiple places you can sleep Obviously, we have the bed then we have the couch which is also a pull-up couch and then of course This little baby right here. I'm gonna take these chairs away. Oh Yes, and then we're gonna Press that button. I think somehow. How's this work? I don't know We figured it out.  I Like it a lot The view though is just literally Epcot construction you can actually hear Epcot from here Huh, I think British Revolution is playing over in the United Kingdom Pavilion. That's what I'm hearing. That's pretty awesome I guess Look at the little starfish handles Well, I like that The bathroom vanity area is so nice too. Look at all this Nice countertop Good water flow the pressure seems nice Very nice Okay, so since we're staying at a beach club, what cool things are there to do at Beach Club? Well to answer that there's the whole boardwalk resort and the pool and the water slide So we're gonna go explore some of those great amenities and just overall enjoy the experience of the resort No, I'm backing up backing up backing up. Come on There we go.  They have so many different rooms You can just relax that from the sun room to the breezeway to the drawing room with the pool table Just plenty of places to lounge at this resort.  Oh, I like it all. Oh, and they've had me warming up and over here. Oh, wow. Those all look fantastic. Don't they? Oh Yeah much too good Can also get some made items like sandwiches rib dinners chicken dinners.  Come on. Let's go lead the charge We didn't make it far and we realized that they're doing s'mores in a campfire So we got to stop and get our marshmallows. Whoo. I'm gonna bring in the camera.  Isn't it?  That's the plan You're fine And there we go, just how I like it burnt How I like it.  I already know what's happening It would be awesome if we can get out here for sunrise sit on one of those swings and just Watch the sunrise over the boardwalk How pretty would that be? And I cannot wait to ride this waterslide Look at it It starts at the top of that ship right there And then you go all the way across the walkway and into the pool Which I'm about to show you the pool because that's pretty fancy itself The pool has a sand bottom. How cool is that? I love it They even have a lazy river here. How awesome is that?  I mean if I might be like Foreign to this but like I know he's known it's here But it still memosumorizes me every time because I've never heard of it before I've seen it here They also have a nice little bar near the pool, but also a quick service location a lot more Quick service locations here than they had at Kadani village I would say that you got to check out beaches and cream while you're here But beaches and cream is under refurbishment. They do have a temporary location, but it's not all that But they have other offerings that you may enjoy You can always hang out at Martha's graveyard or vineyard Can dine at Kate Mae cafe and if you like seafood, that's a good spot But if not, I would find somewhere else Look at the sand castle Where? Right there It's starting to get a little bit dark out and I noticed that the main pool out front closes at eight o'clock Which is kind of strange considering the pool back by the village closes at 11 But I really want to ride that waterslide. So I'm gonna go change get in my swimsuit grab the gopro and hopefully Record going down that slide if it doesn't work. It doesn't work and I'll let you know after this So I don't know whether or not that footage of going down the waterslide worked But I gotta say that waterslide is probably the best waterslide on disney property for resorts I loved it you start off slow and then fast and then there's literally waterfalls on the slide itself hitting you Pretty awesome. I really liked it a lot Another thing I really like about the pool here is that they actually have three hot tubs Like I said before one of them is just for adults 18 years and older And then the other two are just you know for families and everything like that But because they have three that gives them the option to actually have an adult only one pretty awesome Another thing I like about this pool is how they have a gigantic sand walkway right here That you can actually go from like sand straight to like the pool We get your feet in there. Look at this is how cool is this? Oh boy It's a little hard to walk on It's like you're right in a beach They got like Sand shovels and tails and then right into the water Oh, there's the ducks look at that The ducks are building a sand castle. Let's try to zoom in on them Yep, the ducks are building a sand castle So kind of funny the pool actually connects to all the different spots like it goes all the way through The lazy river over to the jacuzzi area It's massive in here and my mom actually swam where floated all the way to the other side And now she's cold. So I'm gonna walk over on the other side and I get to drive her jazzy over to pick her up I'm excited. I actually haven't gotten to drive the jazzy much, but oh, yeah, I'm driving today Like I said, all the pools are connected like it goes right here Underneath this bridge over to this pool around that fin under that bridge and then again another bridge The lazy river is right in the center Pretty awesome.  Oh, it's not even turned up all the way. That's what I'm talking about Where is she now? I think we got to go this way. Maybe. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's narrow Extreme off-roading There we go I'm coming There she is So I got out of the pool and I decided to go change I couldn't find my mom. I look in the arcade and she's literally in the arcade What are you doing? I love guitar hero So we might as well check out yacht club while we're here and just do a grand tour Mom's going back to beach club though Ha ha Mainly so we can come over to yacht club. We can check out the little christmas town A little village here with the chuchu train How cool is that? Mickey's village The front side of mickey's village is just a basic town But on the other side is where they actually have all the disney properties And look you can see they have a yachtsman at the top of the hill Captain's grill very cool and the other side is beaches and cream and a bunch of other stuff They do have a tree here. That's just the right height. Look at it It's just barely touching the ceiling But it is a tree and it's got a whole bunch different yachts ships boats spades and tackles How about we spin this globe and wherever it lands on my finger? I'm going to visit next I am going to mutt Asia somewhere in Tartitan or persia That's where i'm going I don't think I ever sat on this couch But i'm always judging hotel resorts by their lobby furniture and this looks like it might be a winner Very deceiving. It's a very stiff couch Very stiff. No comfy. No spring. No bounce. No sinking in kind of like you're sitting on a metal chair It feels nice though Let's go captain. Don't go down them steps. You're going to go down over the side The outside of the yacht club is really nicely decorated But we're going to head to the lighthouse because we're going to catch a boat onto the other side for boardwalk Because we're getting some ice cream. Yeah, when do we get ice cream? You can go to the swan and dolphin in hollywood studios or you can go to boardwalk and epcot We're going over the boardwalk Here it comes Backing up back and up back and up Push your hair waving in the air There's the boardwalk We're going to stay on the boat and go for a little ride though But then we're coming back and we're going to hang out here for a little bit and get some ice cream And since we came over here to epcot and you can actually see the united kingdom pavilion right there I think it's time mom rides The sky liner You excited to ride the sky liner? Yep, mama you excited or you scared? Nervous nervous. Oh, you're gonna be fine Oh, we got the yellow one Is there no tint on the windows? Oh no, perfect Oh, I didn't know they locked them in place like that.  So Yeah, but once you're up here it actually gets very It's happening Like Can see spaceship earth back there different language today Whoop we're driving past the boardwalk now Look at all those cars down there Okay, now this is the only turn on property So this one is a little rocky because we're gonna actually go to the left So just to prepare you Oh boy, we're coming in coming in. It's gonna get rocky mom. It's okay You're okay. See isn't this crazy? We hope you are enjoying your journey on the most magical flight on earth. We are now traveling along. What are you trying? Well, we're going over some disney buses. That's the disney plus bus Well, how do you know if the disney plus I seen the side of it Okay Don't look mom. Don't look don't look for stopping. Don't worry. We're stopped My mom loved it. Didn't you love it? I did a little scary though a little scary But now we are at the main loading station one that goes over to anim art of animation pop And then Hollywood studios and we're heading back to Epcot should be fun Oh, and I noticed that the next one is actually one of them without tint So usually if you're up and you're going through like the regular way, but because we have Electric wheelchair we're using this loading station So you can't really request one But if you do want to request one and you're going to stand by way Then they usually accommodate and tell you to step to the side and it's always good to get a clear one Because then you get a better look outside What's first being developed? They are both made up You see that big cure right there? That's American Adventure The American Pavilion facing straight towards Epcot right down the center Yep, isn't that awesome? That's awesome Are they gonna have ratatouille 2? No, that's the ratatouille ride coming mom Yeah, it's gonna be really fun Are they gonna have mouse running all over the place? No, you're gonna shrink down to the size of a mouse and avoid getting stepped on Really? Yes We made it back now. Do you really think this is a safe form of transportation? Scary but safe Scary but safe you heard it there folks Now we are walking over to Ample Hills to get our ice cream Luckily we got off when we did because Ample Hills closes at 9 30 It is 9 o'clock now, so we didn't have time to wait for a boat But we'll get our ice cream and explore the boardwalk a little bit And here we are Ample Hills. I can't wait to get some munchie ice cream and rice crispy treat Google lied Look at that. They're open till 11 bond bond. I should have never trusted you It's hard to decide right? So many different flavors. Obviously. I always love snap and munchies, but I don't know. What are you guys thinking? I'm gonna get snap mail pop. Oh, yeah. All right Snap mail pop. What are you gonna get in it?  That's a little much All right. All right. All right do it do it I got a cup and a cup of 6.99 you get two scoops So I got one scoop of munchies one scoop of snap. I like it a lot mom got herself a waffle cone With uh uli-gui butter cake and butter pecan This cream was great and we're all finished now But we're gonna get some novelty photos because this is actually free with your annual pass if you don't know that So uh, I sent Bonnie and mom in there and then I'm gonna actually watch them out here Get your heads together Perfect Ready three two one Now do a silly face three two one Last pose The boardwalk is just so beautiful at night. It's just such a great experience to walk around and kind of just hang out Just one thing I have to say about the boardwalk. They have the room to put such a massive tree here Why go so little? I mean I understand maybe they want like that little charlie brown look, but I mean compared to a lot of the other resorts Wow, it's still a beautiful tree though. I'll give it that One of my favorite little bars to hang out is definitely the Bellevue lounge. Look at it in here So homie. It's like you're sitting in a living room Look at their playing Old classic Christmas music out of the radios. Usually they have news broadcasts happening That's awesome And just look at the decorations We're going right ma You got this Look at all this And now on to the lobby of the boardwalk and we're gonna see the gingerbread boardwalk That's one of my favorites as well Okay, the lobby here at the boardwalk makes up for the small tree outside because this is absolutely Like elegant. That's all I can say the chandeliers The classic little Christmas trees with the amazing ornaments. I love it And of course, like I said the boardwalk gingerbread. Look at this Unbelievable the flying fish Trada alfora The boardwalk bakery and look on the inside. I wonder what they're making in there Mickey and Minnie Ah, they're making some gingerbread men some carrot cakes Looks really good. I see me clairs in the back Great job guys.  Look at these chairs Unbelievable, but these aren't the chairs that I want to show you because the chairs that really stand out Are definitely those chairs Look at that Have a little seat, don't you? So obviously we know that they are creepy, but they are actually nanny chairs And these were actually used in carousels. Isn't that awesome and there's four of them So you see two here and there's two more in the lobby somewhere else Well, not in the lobby in the resort. So if you do find them, let me know We ended up going through the general store and look at this. They have an abracadabra Actual shirt. I'm really interested in that actually. That's pretty awesome. Plus he's also misty boardwalk shirts They're very cool. What do you guys think about this as a new hat?  I think that's gonna do it for us tonight We had a lot of fun Did the whole entire boardwalk resort went to all the resorts We need to do swan and dolphin, but we'll probably do that eventually But overall I'm really loving beach club. So love the life you live. We'll see you next time. Bye


Hello people! Welcome back to another video. Today we're going to be talking about suicide. It's a bit of a sensitive topic, I realize that, and it's definitely gonna be demonetized by YouTube because they don't like that kind of stuff. It's not good for advertisers, but I'm gonna do it anyway because it's a topic that's quite, it's quite close to my heart. I've had quite a lot of experience with suicidal thoughts.  I'm 21 now, so I started when I was about 13 or 14 to have quite recurrent suicidal thoughts and I've had attempts in the past. So today I'm gonna go through the main reasons why people commit suicides. I'm gonna set it out in a couple of different points. This video is basically just an important set of things for you to try and regulate if you are suicidal and it also gives you some points if you're someone that you love or someone that you're friends with, suffers with suicidal thoughts and how to help them in those key points and those key areas in order to make sure or help keep them alive, which is the main important thing in this video. So the first aspect of suicide usually comes from pain. So when you're very severely depressed your poor mental health manifests as actual physical pain. It's not like any sort of pain that you could describe in like other sort of terms, so it's not like a physical pain that is very easy to locate where you're in pain but when you're severely depressed your whole body just sort of feels like you're you know you're suffering or you're like bleeding out or something but it's really difficult to describe. This is one of the main reasons why people want to end their life because it's a very uncomfortable thing and the issue with it is that depending on how long you've had it for and depending on severe your depression is the pain can be, it can interact with the negative force that you have about the future in yourself and make you feel like you want to end it. It's just insufferable and it's prolonged and it's all the time from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep sometimes it goes up and down in waves but it's always there and it's very difficult to live with that.  A lot of people who don't understand depression very readily compare it with being sad. I could tell you that being sad is completely different to being depressed.  Sadness can also feel quite cathartic especially if it's you release it and you cry but with depression it's it's very difficult to cry because it sort of keeps you under a level so if you imagine this being the level where you're gonna cry and you're gonna release it and feel good after and feel sort of cathartic about it depression sort of stays under that and just keeps prolonging itself for days and days and years and months and it can be very very difficult to combat but there are a lot of ways that you can combat this sort of physical pain. This is through things like exercise and you know laughter and socializing and distractions so those are sort of the the main things that help you deal with that that pain as well as um psychotic medications um antidepressants they can they can help a bit with that. Not entirely but you know it's from person to person it may may work very heavily for some people and for other people it may just sort of dull it down a little bit. You know a lot of people who are depressed they tend to to drugs and alcohol and unhealthy ways of coping with it in order to get rid of that pain. The dopamine rush that you get from from drugs and alcohol and and whatever sort of mitigates the pain that you feel and that's why a lot of people turn to that but there are other ways of dealing with that stuff you know the supplements and exercise and as I said laughter and stuff like that. The next point is an issue with hope and is an issue with positivity. When you've had depression for a long time your brain changes. Depression changes your brain in the short term when you have it but if you have it for prolonged periods of time you sort of associate yourself with that that depressive feeling and a lot of the thoughts that you have the negative thoughts that you have about the future and your hope that you're going to get better and the hope that you're going to be successful and have relationships and friendships it can sort of be very ingrained in your mind because especially when you you're suffering for a long time you have it's it's sort of um it's sort of self-fulfilling because you're depressed and you're hopeless about it so you don't do anything about it and then that sort of tells your brain because that you you can't you can't get out of it and there's there's no point so ways that ways to cope with that if you are depressed um is to and I know I'm not going to say to think positively because it's a very difficult thing to do when you're depressed and you can you obviously if you if you've talked to people about it before and psychiatrists and counselors they'll say try and think positively and it can seem very condescending but the main thing to do is to try and not mitigate those negative thoughts because it's very difficult to not not do that but try and slip in a few positive thoughts even if it even if it kills you to slip those little positive thoughts in there and try and like build up your your natural reaction to to issues and life events um by doing it on a regular basis and you can it can actually help and a little bit with that another thing to do with that is making sure that you make promises the promises that you make to yourself you're going to do them um so this means don't make promises to yourself and know that it's a very difficult thing to do and not do it because you're teaching yourself that you can't have control over yourself the other aspect of that is making sure that the things that you do are very very small um and they gradually increase and as you as your depression sort of alleviates and making sure that you do those things each time you do that you tell yourself that you can overcome it and that you can have control over yourself that it can make you feel a bit more hope in yourself a bit more confidence in yourself that you can do with it and it's it can be very invaluable things try and try and learn to do um especially with myself i've had a lot of times where i promised myself that i do these remarkable things and sometimes i achieve them because i put the work in and sometimes i don't and there's times that i don't really not my confidence in myself and it can exacerbate a lot of the negative feelings about the future and hope and it's a very important aspect of why people commit suicide because obviously if they're if they're gone if they're not alive anymore then they're not going to have all those those thoughts and they feel like that's the only way to get out of it because it's not going to go away because that's how they think and they think negatively and they don't have any hope about the future and it's it's a very difficult place to be the third point is this is one of the big big sort of things is a belief in in some positive things about yourself this can come in many many sort many forms a lot of the time a lot of depressed people if they have that pain and they have the no hope about the future there's there's something else that really keeps them keeps them from doing it and that's a belief that them being around is going to be positive for the people around them for example if you don't feel good about yourself and you don't feel like your ending your life is going to affect people in in any sort of way and you may even believe that if you kill yourself it's going to positively affect people because they will have to deal with you or if you feel like you're a horrible person you need to do bad things and then when people and if people reinforce that and you know get annoyed that you can get upset at you it can really sort of exacerbate the the feelings that you you'd be better off better for people and that you weren't alive this is is one of the sort of last things that you need to kind of keep the check on this is one of the things that other people can help with a lot the way that if you're trying to help someone who is suicidal the way that you can help with this is by telling them that they are a good person and that they can do things these are these are called positive affirmations when you're depressed you're very susceptible to other people and other people's opinions of yourself so if someone that loves them quite a lot or is a good friend of them it tells them they're a good person and tells them that they bring positive positiveness to their life and other people and you know if you if you're in a job you can help people you know if you're a scientist or you social media or or media if if you if they believe that having them being around is helping people and people like having them around then it can put a stopper on their desires to kill themselves if you're suicidal yourself you can help with this as well an important thing to do when you're depressed is to try and keep up your morality and your view of yourself you can't be going around doing stuff that's bad for other people you need to sort of try as much as you can to be sustaining and doing doing positive things like helping other people you know for example with myself i started a youtube channel because i was incredibly depressed and in a very bad suicidal state and i felt like i wasn't helping anybody and i wasn't any good in the world and having that sort of mindset where having you being around helps other people and people appreciate you and appreciate the effort that you put in it can make you feel like there's a point to being around even if you don't enjoy life even if you're in pain so that's sort of the end of the video i'm just going to conclude it a little bit so it's sort of like a triad if you think about it you've got the reasons why people kill themselves the things that keep them around and the things that if they're not you know reinforced positively and in each sort of section of the of the triad it can lead to somebody firstly being in a lot of pain secondly not feeling any hope not feeling like they could get better feeling like suicides are the only option and then the last thing which is the opinion of themselves and whether it's good for them to live and whether people want them to live and whether they feel like they're negatively affecting someone's life either people around them or positively affecting someone's life if you're trying to take care of someone who or trying to support someone with mental health issues taking into account that triad that those sort of free things and trying to alleviate that and trying to focus on that even the just the last bit just the last bit about making them feel like they're worth having around can do wonders for people this is where where support network's people come in talking to people who are depressed telling them that they can do it and they're worth having around and people are not going to feel positively if they die and it may seem like a very obvious thing to you but depression changes your brain very heavily and that sort of image of of helping people and feeling like you bring you bring positivity and joy to someone's life other than yourself can keep people around as I said talk to people positively give them give them positive affirmations make sure that they feel like they are a good person and that they're worth having around and it can do immense wonders for you know suicide prevention I know it's been a bit of an intense video there's been a lot of videos recently about depression and and suicide on my channel I realize it's a pretty heavy subject and not many people are very they don't particularly want to watch this kind of stuff but if you if you're depressed this is this is for you guys if you're considering suicide this is for you guys I know it's incredibly it's words cannot describe how horrible it is especially if you've been having it for a long time or maybe it's just come out of nowhere and it's really intense working on those things can help a lot and telling each other and sharing this video with people that you know can help a lot for you as well because they'll know what to do and not many people know how to to help with suicide they just turn to the normal things of you know I think positively and you'll be okay and you know all that kind of stuff that doesn't really help so thank you very much for watching it's a little bit of a shorter video than usual I'm trying to shorten my videos down as much as I love talking on the camera and I love just keep it in it going and stack it up the time on the camera and yeah I need to start fixing that stuff don't I if anybody out there who is is is going through a really rough time I'm sort of at the point of my channel where I'm growing but I have the ability to talk to people individually so if you go to my facebook page at Asperdisk Grove just like just like how it is on the youtube channel you can send me an instant message and I'll try and help you as much as I can with that I've got a lot of experience with it and I know it helps and I'll try my best and I do care about you a lot which is why I'm making this video I'm not going to make any money of this it's just for that that purpose if you like the video please do like it it helps a lot with me and it helps me keep going and understand that it is a good video and people want more of this stuff if you subscribe to my channel you know it's growing quite a lot recently and I'm really excited to see how how far I can take it and any sort of support just a little click of the button would mean incredibly so so much to me tell me what you think in the comments let me know what you think of this video did it help did it ring true for you has it helped you understand more about what you can do for people who are going through suicidal thoughts and ideation and let and just let me know you know just sticking down and comments thank you very much for watching people I'll see you in the next video see you later


Well, it's my pleasure now to welcome the Director of the Crisis Management Planning Directorate, part of the Diplomatic Service of the European Union, Walter Stevens, who's just given a very powerful keynote at our conference. So welcome. Thank you very much. The aim of these conversations is to share with people who can't be at the conference some of the key issues and themes and challenges that we're discussing. But let's begin by what is your Directorate and its role? What are you fundamentally doing? Well, my Directorate is in fact strategically planning all the missions and operations that the European Union is doing as part of the common foreign and security policy. And that is very much in Africa. By that, it's also on our own continent, in the Balkans. We're also working for the moment on Libya. We have been able to develop also a mission sometime ago in Ache in Indonesia in order to help peace agreement. So that is our role. We also review, strategically review, the existing missions because of course the strategic context is changing. Take, for example, Afghanistan, where we have now the whole transition in Afghanistan while the role of our mission will change also. And we have to adapt that role also to the changing context. And then we also very much work with partnerships. So partnerships for the missions and operations that we have. And that's one of the lessons that we have learned that we have to work more closely with partners. For example, also Australia, but of course also international organisations like the United Nations, like the African Union, ACOAS, and also third states like Norway, like the United States, like Canada and others. This question of partnerships, the scale of the sort of international challenges that you're dealing with is almost mind-boggling. It's some of the most serious problems in the world with enormous consequences for human life and well-being. A gentleman from the audience asked you three tough questions about what you were doing to assist the Kenyans in their work in Somalia, what you were doing to try and deal with the 40-year crisis and instability in the Congo, what were you doing to try and stop weapons getting to the myriad of militias in Africa? I think you had four minutes to answer these three questions. But what I got from your answer was that you need the support of the local government, the local governance that exists to whatever degree, that unless they engage with you, your hands are almost tied. Is that the lesson or have I overstated it? It is definitely a lesson. If you really want to change the situation of a crisis, you have to have the buy-in of the local government, of the national government and all the authorities. If not, you're just on your own. As a matter of fact, for all the missions and operations, it's not like we come in like that from the sky. We do that on the basis of a UN Security Council resolution or an invitation by the local governments. Again, you can try to help the local governments, but it's in the end they who have to take ownership of the whole process and work on it from different fronts politically, but also sometimes in security ways like with defence and police. We are looking now for the moment at a very severe crisis in the Sahel that has been developing over the years with a lot of drug trafficking, human trafficking, combining that with terrorist elements of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, and a lack of state control in large parts of the countries in the region, Mali, Niger, but also Mauritania, which have allowed to develop these Islamic radical groups and take control over parts of the territory. When you want to do something about that, you need the first of all a solid basis in the national states where you're trying to act, and they need to buy in. They need to take up their responsibility. We can only support, and that goes also for the United Nations. So there is a lot to do about combining political elements, but also supporting capacity building and maybe sometimes intervening with military or supporting with police functions. If a country is in bad trouble and a lot of people are dying, but the government is ambivalent about whether they want the European Union to help them, what lessons have you learnt about how to build trust so that help will be accepted? Yeah, sometimes, I mean, things have to be done against the will of the Dan rulers, take Libya for example, where the whole population came in revolt against their dictator, Gaddafi. But there are other examples, I mean, that sometimes governments do not have control anymore, are contested, and you become part of a conflict which is also involving the national government. For example, we had to intervene a couple of times in Congo in order to protect populations which were attacked by militias. But you can only do that if you have sort of an international agreement to do that, because it's tricky to intervene into local situations. And you cannot do that according to international rules like that. You have to have a sort of a mandate, you have to have a sort of an agreement by the international community, preferably of course the United Nations to do that. So there always has to be a legal framework, whether it's the local government inviting someone in, such as I think happened in the Solomon's, and we've heard about Ramsey, the mission here, or where that's lacking and a large population is in trouble, you go to look to the UN for a legal framework. So that's one key lesson. What is a transition? Can you explain that, and a transition that you're involved in at the moment? Well, a transition, you have many forms of transition. If you look, for example, at the Afghanistan for the moment, I mean, a lot of efforts have come putting that, military, police, but also politically and developmental. But the point is now that we have to give things more in the hands of the local authorities because we think they become more and more capable of taking things in their own hands. And I think that is the key of transition, that is making the local authorities, the national governments, more capable of handling the situation. We do that, for example, in Kosovo, where we are there to help the Kosovo authorities, a new state that is recognized by at least half of the international community, but they need help to set up their capacities, their police, their justice, their institutions. And that's why we are there. And so we help them, but at one point, they have to take responsibility of their own. And that is, in fact, guided or should be guided by sort of conditions, benchmarks that are capable of taking over things. So transition is, in fact, going from a sort of an international solution into a more local solution where the local governments is capable and willing of taking over responsibility. So with places like the Congo and Somalia, where there's been such long-term instability and high levels of violence and insecure national governments, is that a fair, simple way of putting it? Do you just have to always be on about capacity building? At whatever opportunity you get, you seek to build local capacity. There's no shortcut. I think that's key. I mean, look at Somalia and also the Congo. Somalia certainly is what we call a failed state. And there are many failed states, unfortunately. And the key essence of a failed state, what do you look for when it's failed? Well, a failed state means that it doesn't have the control over its own territory, that it doesn't have the control of its own population, that it doesn't have the support of its population, that it cannot rule like a normal country should rule. I mean, that the citizens have at least law and order, that they have economic development, that they have some institutions on which they can count on. In the African incident that you have a policeman and there is a crime that someone has brought in a normal international law situation to a court. But unfortunately, it doesn't exist in many countries. So we have to help these countries to bring that to their own populations. And why? What's in it for the European Union? You're in extreme economic trouble. Why are you investing in the Horn of Africa and in stability in the Horn of Africa? What's the fundamental driver of that for the European Union? Well, Somalia is very much linked also to piracy. And of course, piracy is a huge cost for international shipping. It's a huge challenge and danger for international shipping, not only for the European Union, but internationally. And of course, you can address this piracy issue at sea, which we do, but it's only addressing symptoms. So you have also to address the situation on land where you have a huge reserve of potential pirates. And you can only do that by bringing stability and at least some form of economic development and governance on the Somali lands. And that's what we try to do by helping the government of Somalia by supplying them with some security forces, which they can at least have control over the territory. Secondly, also helping them in the political process. They have now a government that has a plan that can move forward. Of course, I mean, the challenges are still immense and help them also with development means in order that they have a sort of a living and they don't have to go into piracy. Which in a way comes to another key message from your presentation that everything has to be integrated so that you can't just deal with the military or just deal with the civil or just deal with the economy. It all must be dealt with concurrently. It all must be linked up. Otherwise, you will end up in very strange situations. Let me talk, for example, about Mali, where we have been investing, European countries, but also the United States, huge amounts of development money. And there is still so much terrorism, so much radical Islamists, so much drug trafficking in that country. And parts of that country, the northern parts, has really become a sort of a safe haven for terrorism and all kind of radical groups. If you are not working also on the political system and make sure that the government does the things right and this is now what the international community wants, then you're lost. I mean, trying to address that situation only with military means wouldn't work. You have to have your whole story together, linking up the different elements. It must be so hard, economic development, when drug trafficking is so profitable. Exactly. There was a speaker at this conference who included in the summary of his presentation this quote, transition is the strategic end game for a military mission and the phase when the robustness or otherwise of mission success becomes apparent. It's nicely said. I took that to mean that once we leave, if everything goes wrong again, our mission has not been successful. Now, that is a very hard measure because as we transition out, the myriad of international players transition out of Afghanistan, will those little girls be safe on the way to school? That remains to be seen. To give you an honest transfer, I think as some speakers said in this seminar, that the transition, our transition and the Afghanistan transition is very much time-driven and not condition-driven. I think there's still much work to be done. The only thing is of course how much effort can we put and continue to put into that. I have the impression that sometimes that situation is also determined by out of Afghanistan political decisions because of the final cost and the tremendous effort that has to be made by, for example, the United States and others in order to continue that. Where does the management of public expectations come into this? Because you know that if, as people leave Afghanistan, if a whole lot of girls' schools are blown up or acids thrown in their face and the things that get in the media, the population of democracies will be saying, why are our taxes going into community development in these nations where such hideous things happen? Why have our men and women died? Do you see what I'm saying? This is the kind of, is part of the challenge of the lessons learnt in this civil military sphere, the need to communicate with the populations that are funding these actions? Definitely also, yes. That must be very hard. Luckily there is a multitude of messages coming out of these countries not only by official instances but also by NGOs and news agencies which bring out let's say a multi-dimensional picture of what is happening. But indeed communication is important. But I think communication should also be a little bit transparent and tell the real story. Many efforts have been done and maybe we have the tendency sometimes of being a little bit negative because we have not reached the end state yet. Can I just thank you, not only for this interview but for flying from Belgium to Sydney, Australia and I know you're flying back to Belgium this afternoon. We really thank you for your time, thank you. And you have such a lovely city.


the problem with sin is it's so easy to see it in your neighbor and when it comes to seeing it in yourself you go blind sin is something that is so easy to see in your friend but it's nearly impossible to see it in you and the reason why it's hard to see a sin in you it's not because there is no sin but it's for the same reason it's hard to see dust in the room it's not because there is no dust there is no light and when you bring the light the dust comes light didn't bring the dust light revealed the dust and that's why what we need in our life is the light of Jesus Christ when you draw closer to the Holy Spirit he doesn't remind you of your sin it's just his presence is so holy that it makes anything that's not holy stand out to you he can't treat his sin if he doesn't diagnose his sin properly there was a man named joseph and the potiphar's wife jumped herself on him to have sex with him and joseph replies back to her and he says this thing that you want to do right now is wickedness before God now it will be fine if joseph would have been a disciple of Jesus it would have been fine if joseph would have been disciple of moses but there was no 10 commandments there was no law that would indicate that sleeping with somebody else's wife actually your boss's wife was a wickedness before God joseph runs from that how could a man run from something that so many men today struggle with because in joseph's world lust was not weakness lust was wickedness most men today see lust and pornography as it's my weakness it's not your weakness it's your wickedness we call abortion choice we call homosexuality love we call lust and pornography weakness we can never defeat a sin until we call it for what it is if you call cancer fever Advil will never cure you of cancer as long as it's weakness issue a struggle at this thing that I have all the boys have it in the neighborhood we all the men struggle with you know what men struggle with when they come to the gym and they can't lift 500 pounds that's a struggle looking at porn is not a struggle it's a wickedness and until and until you see porn as wickedness you will not defeat it and the master says you are wicked and it seems rude but you cannot defeat a sin that you don't identify with God's definition


Thank you. I have the tough task of being before lunch, so thanks for that. This is also the first time I have ever spoke at a conference, so sorry if this goes horribly wrong and you are all hungry. I wanted to get into this with just a bit of background on me. I've been working with WordPress now for about 15 years, mainly in the agency space. I ran an agency for about 10 years, and then moved over to my current role, current role, which is Head of Design and UX at Bigbyte. For those who don't know Bigbyte, we are a WordPress agency working primarily in the enterprise space with mainly publishers, but that sometimes varies. We work with a WordPress VIP goal partner, which allows us to work with some quite big names in publishing, which is really cool, and a lot of global news teams and enterprise brands. Now, obviously, everyone in this room understands what I mean by that, but I have struggled recently to describe what I do. In the past, I would say I'm a web designer, which covers a lot of ground, but now explaining this to outsiders or friends, family, new people I meet. I'm not really sure how to describe what I do, so I'll end on something like I make websites. I'm more broad, but yeah, or even more broad, I work in tech. Now, this doesn't really matter, but it's kind of got me thinking a little bit about how we actually make websites these days in the kind of modern era, and in the past, when I worked in an agency, the process of making a website would kind of look something a bit like this. A client would give a pretty bad brief, and then I'd throw a design together and make it look pretty, and then we'd put some lower mipsum in where the content goes. We'd kind of put that together in HTM on CSS and JavaScript, and then there'd be another process that we'd define as something like put it in WordPress, which would basically mean making a theme, putting in some custom fields, asking the client to log in, and then we've got a website. Now, obviously, that's not the best way to make a website, but we kind of all got by a little bit using that method, but thankfully it doesn't really look like that anymore with kind of modern technologies and JavaScript and React and Gutenberg and headless architecture and agile methodologies. It's kind of, it doesn't look a lot like that, and thankfully we have kind of evolved a lot since then, and especially in this enterprise space that I kind of work in now. But in truth, when I look at it now, I don't really make websites, and this is why I give a shout-out to Aruba Ahmed at WordCamp US, who gave one of my favourite talks there just recently in Washington, DC, and she said, you're not building a website, you're empowering someone else to build a website. And that kind of stood out to me as quite a powerful message, especially in this modern era of working with WordPress and Gutenberg and full-site edit in particular, where everything's a block and we're always breaking things down into component parts, and I think we look at the web differently now, at least I do. And when I see everything in that kind of reusable components and patterns, and that's usually appealing to me, obviously, as a designer, coming from a design background, because there's an obvious correlation there between block-based editors and design systems, and that kind of covers a lot of my client-facing role at Big Bite, working with brands, and typically clients that we work with were brought in as a development partner, so these organisations will have big teams already with a lot of UI designers, UX designers, researchers, QA testers, even sometimes developers, and were kind of brought in not to design a website, but integrate into their teams and use WordPress as another tool in the arsenal, really, of creating content. And I think the changes over the past couple of years to the editor has made really WordPress the best CMS on the market, I think, and I often find myself in pitches to potential clients against other content management systems, and I always like that, obviously, because I enjoy speaking about WordPress, but I do truly believe that WordPress is kind of best place to integrate into any company of any size, so we often see organisations on legacy platforms, often custom-built, and it makes it so difficult for them to complete simple tasks, even something like putting an embed on a page, it's often very difficult, and their editing experience is kind of a lot of fields, it's not flexible, the zero flexibility when it comes to layout, custom post types, things like that, so we worked with Gumtree a couple of years ago, and you can see here we've kind of got an overview of a design system on the left-hand side that we kind of worked with their teams to produce and worked out how we would kind of take that design system, build that out as WordPress components, which you can see in the middle here, and then how that will render on the front end. In previous to this, they were kind of, they were obviously a fairly big organisation, but it was actually taking them like three or four hours to create a blog post even, which is just crazy, and often they would need assistance from developers, and I think the best thing for me working on something like that is to kind of empower users to be able to create dynamic content really quickly and easily, and I think that's where the flexibility of the editor kind of comes into its own, especially at this enterprise level, because it's actually, it's unusual to have this kind of freedom and flexibility at this level, and why shouldn't someone in a marketing team be able to kind of pick up a system and build out a post at a landing page with this kind of level of flexibility, and that's why I think WordPress is kind of best place to do this, so we've used WordPress, we've used Gutenberg from the start really, and we've made, we've probably made quite a few mistakes along the way, and I think one of the things that we've learned particularly recently is this idea of kind of working with the core platform, and I'm really glad that this talk kind of comes after Tammy and Sarah, because they're kind of like hit on a few points that I was going to try and get to, and they probably did it a lot more eloquently than me, but basically the core platform now is so good and so powerful that it really gets you most of the way there, I think, but in the past, particularly when we started using Gutenberg at the beginning, we were building custom blocks for absolutely everything basically, we were struggling to do kind of complex layouts, so we built something like a column builder, or we struggled to make that into, you know, semantic sections, so we'd make a section block, and you know, basically what we've got here isn't too far away from what the core platform looks like now, but it just goes back to this idea that we want to work with WordPress and not against it, and I think the problem where we see clients getting into is when they go against this idea, and that's always where people trip up, and that's not necessarily just the editing experience, that could be anything, it could be the architecture, it could be, you know, not working with post types correctly, or taxonomies, or URL structures, that's always where people trip up, so a big bite, like I say, we work a lot with publishers, and oftentimes that means the front end of the website is completely decoupled from the editor, so in some cases that means a single article could be popular in multiple different websites, could be apps, magazines, it could be even prints sometimes, so in these circumstances we're really only solely focused on the editor, and making that as powerful as possible, with kind of this idea in mind, how do we make creating content easier, more efficient, and faster? So we've worked quite a lot with The Times recently, and obviously the previous talk talked about Headless, and this kind of, this is a Headless system, so again we're kind of, how we use it isn't someone who is, you know, editing the homepage and templates, and you know, custom, you know, editing car features, the journalists who want to write, edit and publish stories, so given this, what can we do to make that car edit an experience of WordPress better for them, so if we take a look at, this is a typical article on The Times side, there's nothing, you know, too scary though, we've just got headline, stand first, featured image, tags, taxonomies, content, so if we kind of take a look at the editor and look how we could use this to kind of get pretty close, I'll be quick, so we can get, you know, quite a lot of the way there, but actually if we take each of these individual elements there is a bit more complexity to them, so for instance this headline at the top, that's actually displayed in numerous different places across the site, so that could be on the homepage or a sidebar, and sometimes that needs to be shorter, so that title actually needs to be shown in multiple places, so we've kind of taken this core platform, and I think that goes back to what you were saying, tell me about understanding this platform and how you build kind of correctly on top of that, and we've kind of came up with this block called the multi title, where you can see at the top, we can switch between article, homepage, SEO, we can shorten that down in the homepage, and then from there, there's other things that we can take from this to kind of make this edit an experience better for them, so you can see that we could maybe take some of the typography, some of those colours, and this is actually what the edit looks like on the Times now, so you can see that you're starting to bring in some of the styles, and you can see how that is more empowering for a journalist to create content in there, because then if we just start putting in blocks and images and text and links, even embeds, as you're building up that article, you almost don't even need to preview, because you're getting a very good idea of what this looks like on the front end, and you can imagine how refreshing that is for a journalist, especially compared to what the word used to use it. Now obviously on top of that, working with a lot of these brands, there is a need to create more custom functionality, we talked a little about revisions earlier, now revisions is something that we've had to put quite a lot of work in, this is what revisions look like now, and you can see going from this kind of very pretty visual editor to this, it's not quite the same, it's almost made more for developers, a journalist is kind of going to struggle to go from there to this to understand what's happened, so we've had to kind of build our own revision system over the past couple of years, and you can see we've taken that idea of that visual editor, brought that into revisions, and we're able to kind of render those in here. Now as I was talking earlier about the columns and going back to kind of using core WordPress, obviously with the phase three things coming, in an ideal world, what we'd like to do is be part of that development of that revision system, bring in some of these learnings, and then hopefully use that as a base back to that idea of working with WordPress, and then if we need to build on top of that we can. Just finally quickly, there is other things that we do that are completely custom, probably never will be in core, or frankly should be, so we do quite a lot of work on the New York Post with Ali, who also work on this site, and you can see the images on this are generally collages, and the process of doing that is kind of how you would imagine it to be, so someone would write an article, put in five or six images, they would send that off to the photo desk, they would take those images, put them in Photoshop, they'd have templates, put those images in it, send it back, they'd upload it to WordPress, it's a very long process, so they asked us if we could essentially do this in WordPress, so we built this collage career, it looks a little bit like this, so we have all the templates on the left hand side that the knees, a slot for each one, you can upload media into it, you can even do cool things like putting in overlays, you can change the position of that, and then we can save that out into the article. So that kind of covers quite a lot of ground, but there's so much that goes into this, and obviously I don't have time to go into a lot of it, but we have, along with some of our friends, these other agencies, produced a white paper recently called WordPress for Enterprise that kind of digs into more of this in terms of security, architecture, scaling, hosting, that you can read, and I think the key thing is the way we're building for WordPress now is probably not going to be the same in five years time, ten years time, and you can even see with things like AI coming at the minute that that's going to change things a lot, and all of us in the kind of agency space experimenting with this, and no one really knows what it's going to look like, but I think, again, going back to that idea of WordPress being this kind of flexible tool, and us being able to stay agile and nimble and adaptive emerging technologies, I still think we are kind of best place to grow with that, so thank you. You can also ask me at lunch if you want, if everyone wants to eat, in terms of the UX of custom feed, custom functionality. Yeah, one thing I was going to say actually, particularly when we're talking about revisions, and one thing I think I need to get better at, and we as a company need to get better at, is kind of contributing all that back into the core community, and I think, I do lean on a lot of that stuff, and even taking patterns and components from Figma, and being able to use that as a base UI, and I think we do that from a development point of view as well. We have some developers from BigBuy who might be able to go into that in more depth, but again it just goes back to the idea of using as much of the core components as possible, so the experience of moving from the core platform to something custom doesn't feel alien, and it feels like you're using the same software, even obviously it is custom. I love your revisions, because I use revisions a lot, a beautiful, very beautiful thing. So what's blocking you? Is it something the community could do to make it easier for you to contribute back, because I'm sure there's not just a BigBuy, but a lot of places that we could actually integrate into the core software, but we need to make it as easy as possible for people to do that. It's a tricky one, and it is something that I've been thinking about a lot, and obviously coming to events like this is pushing me more in the direction of being able to do that, and obviously meeting people and having these discussions. I do quite honestly find it quite daunting a lot of the times to kind of, if you're not already part of that, making that first step in there. So maybe something like revisions, because I know that is something that's high on people's minds. Maybe I think we just need to talk to people who are involved in that process and bring some of our knowledge and learnings. That can be for me from a product angle or development, because with that in particular, we have ran into a lot of problems. It's a very tricky thing to get right revisions. Obviously everything that I've gone through there is around this idea of it being flexible, but actually, a lot of times when you pitch that to clients, you show that to someone who's not in market and they're like, whoa, that's too much flexibility. We don't want people messing about with stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, there is a lot of stuff that we have to do in terms of permissions just on a technical point of view. But I guess it's also getting companies to buy into that vision, because I think people are just not used to that. So I think there is a challenge there of just getting companies to trust that process and trust their users to use these tools that are obviously very powerful. But I think a lot of people's first things think is, well, that can only go wrong. But yeah, there are obviously safeguards that you can put in place there. But yeah, it is quite an interesting area and something that we always come up against with clients.


Welcome to Data Doctor's video, Gender, Mr. E. or Mistake. Gender. There doesn't seem to be much to discuss, except here, where we deal with records or lack thereof. It's not always clear, due to omission or mistakes or bad handwriting. Women are marked as males and men as females, as has happened to Mr. E's profile recently. He's worried he'll have to give birth to his or her children since he's a woman now. But let's get back to the video. What if no gender is specified at all on a profile? How do we tell then? Often by their first name. When a wiki tree profile for someone named Alfred is marked as female, or Edith is marked as male, we stop to wonder, is that right? It certainly triggers a gender suggestion. Statistics can be a useful tool, and here on wiki tree plus, that tool is available for genealogists of all experience and interest levels. When suggestions from the gender group appear, such as for Brian here, click on his first name from that report. An analysis shows you the statistical percentages of Brian being a male or female. My French-Canadian ancestors often named their children Joseph Marie and Marie Joseph. Here is the analysis of those two names together, showing which are males and females. And what if their first name is unique? Choby, Doreal, Lorenth. That's when research comes into play. Look at their relatives and their relatives' records. Good places to start are census records, obituaries and wills, where family members are named in a group. Sometimes a unique name is accompanied by a more familiar name, and you can search for both at the same time. For instance, here is an analysis of the name Almana Jane, with no gender indicated. There is also only one Almana on wiki tree, again with no gender specified. The analysis of all the Janes on wiki tree indicate a strong likelihood that the profile is of a female. Most of the time the gender question can be resolved, but there are exceptions. Unnamed stillborn infants are one. Without documentation, we'll never know, and a gender suggestion should be marked false. A research notes heading should be added to the profile, explaining the lack of gender. As for Mr. E., he'd really appreciate someone setting his record straight.  You are invited to like this video, and even leave a comment if you wish. Also, keep up to date with new videos by subscribing to our wiki tree YouTube channel. On behalf of the Data Doctors Project, thank you for watching.


QuickBooks Desktop 2023 Bank Reconciliation Month Number 2 Deposits. Let's do it within 2-H QuickBooks Desktop 2023. Support Accounting Instruction by clicking the link below giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website broken out by category, further broken out by course. Each course then organized in a logical reasonable fashion, making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page. We also include added resources such as Excel practice problems, PDF files, and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable. So once again click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it. Here we are in QuickBooks Desktop. Get great guitars practice file. We started up in a prior presentation going through the setup process. We do every time maximize in the home page to the gray area in the view drop down. We've got the hide icon bar open windows list checked off open windows open on the left reports drop down company financial looking at that profit and loss. We're looking at you P and L we're going for the month of February January through February. Let's say from 010123 to 022823. And then we'll customize it font into the numbering change to 14. Oh, yes. Okay. Then reports drop down again company and financial this time the balance sheet. The big balance sheet customize it from 010123 to 022823. And I'm going to make a little bit of a change here. I want to see the two months at this point in time. So I'm going to see the breakout by month here. So then I'm going to go to the fonts and numbers and bring the font size up to 14 as is our custom. Okay. Yes. And okay. We're now looking at the bank reconciliation for the second month after having done the first month already. Recalling that when we did the first month bank reconciliation, we have some problems unique to the first month that are often there. That being that the beginning balance is something that we have to add into the system. It might not tie out to the bank reconciliation or the bank statement. And we have to account for that. Once that's done, once your beginning balance is right, once your bank reconciliation process is on track, then following bank reconciliation should be much easier as will be demonstrated here in the February bank reconciliation, which is more like what we would expect to be happening on the normal process going forward. So if we go back to the bank statements, let's take a look at the bank statements over here. The last time we had the bank statement for January and we ended up with a cleared balance of the 61-241-85. Note, remember that that cleared balance does not represent what our book balance is as of that same date because we have the outstanding checks and deposits. So the system is now tracking the items that are cleared versus unclear. That's what the bank reconciliation is doing. When I get to the second month, I'm going to have some items when I go into the bank reconciliation, which will be in the banking dropdown and reconcile. We'll have some items in that worksheet that were items that were written entered into our system, in other words in January, but which didn't clear the bank, which we didn't check off in other words as cleared in January. That's the point. So we're going to have some of those items in the February reconciliation, that being part of the timing difference that we have to deal with. And then we'll have the unclear transactions we would expect to have at the end of February, which won't clear the bank possibly until we would expect say March. That will be the general process. So we're going to have the same kind of concept over here. We're going to go to February. Notice that this beginning balance for February should match the ending balance for January. That will be the case with your bank reconciliation. That's also why you really need to do it with the bank reconciliation. You don't want to just run a transaction detail report from your online banking because you don't have that really static delineation of this is the end of one period and the beginning of another period. That's what you really need to reconcile because you're trying to see where the differences are as of a certain point in time. So from the bank side of things, this is the ending balance last month. This is the beginning balance for this month. That one ties out, I'm sure, and we don't have that beginning balance problem because our reconciliation was done properly last time. Let's check that out. Banking drop down. We're going to go to the reconcile. I'm going to say this is for the check-in account. It's automatically populating for the second month. The end of February, that looks good. The beginning balance now ties out 61, 241, 85. So when I'm reconciling, I can just check that off as something that I'm good to go on. So there is that. And then the ending balance is going to be, what do we say it was? It's going to be 50. It's going to be 101, 590, 05. 101, 101, 590, 0.05. 101, 590, 05. 101, 590, 05. Okay, that balance, of course, doesn't match what's on our system side of things because we're going to reconcile between the two. I'm not going to add service items or interest here because I like to add those. Once we reconcile, I think that's easier to do. So I'm going to go ahead. Now also remember that if you got last time wrong, meaning if this beginning balance doesn't tie out, then you're going to say, well, is it worthwhile then for me to undo the last bank reconciliation, which shouldn't adjust anything or make any changes to what you input into your system. It just means that the reconciliation process, tying our books to the bank books, checking off all the stuff in January would be, you'd have to redo that. And if your beginning balance is off, it might be worthwhile to do that. So that's how you go in and kind of fix the prior months if you needed to. So I'm going to go ahead and say continue. And so there we have it. Now our beginning balance is proper. So everything is good to go. We're going to be focusing in on just the deposits this time as we did in the prior month. Remembering that deposits should be fairly easy because usually there are less number of deposits than checks, although we're hoping the dollar amount will be greater. The deposits will not be easy if you don't have the matching of the deposit format, the grouping of the deposits, the same on the bank statement as you have in QuickBooks. Remember to do that. If I go to the home page, you got to make sure that when you're collecting money from the customers that you are depositing them into the bank, possibly using the undeposited funds to group cash deposits and credit card deposits possibly in the same format as they will appear on the bank statement, which means you might have to discuss that with your banking institutions like credit card companies to get a system down that works so that you can then make your bank reconciliation easy. Otherwise, you'll be adding stuff up when you reconcile making a tedious process out of something that should be an easy one. So let's go back to the bank reconciliation and we're also going to be always tying out from the bank statement to the books because if it's on the bank statement, then it should be on our books. If it's not, then the bank statement is either wrong, which isn't typically the case, or we need to add it to our books. If it's on our books but not on the bank statement, then that could quite well happen because those will be the outstanding items. The deposits will also have dates that are going to be more relevant than check dates because if it's a deposit, it should clear the bank within, you know, four days or something like that. And then also, if you add cash deposits, you won't have any other thing else really to tie out to, but if you add electronic transfers, you also have that bank memo detail that could help you in some cases as well. All right, so we've got the 3407250. Going back to here, we're going to say here are the deposits. 3407260, notice the deposit should always be after, some point after we entered it into the bank because obviously we would enter the information before it cleared the bank. It could never be the other way around. It might be messed up in my practice problem if I messed up a date somewhere, but it should always be that way, right? We entered it into our bookkeeping first and then it cleared the bank. And then we've got the 12250, 12250 here, 12250.  And then we'll highlight this one. Bam, 450870. So there's the 450870. Boom, and then bam. And then the seven, I'm going to do these two at the same time because I can memorize. I'm just going to picture those two in my mind, check them off at the same time. 750, two at a time, two at a time. That's the amazing memory skills I have. I can remember like two, so you're supposed to remember seven. I can't do seven, okay? I can't remember phone numbers, but those two I did. So there's that one. So then, so that means that if I go back on over, we haven't checked these off, but now I've got the beginning balance. I've got the 5198120 that ties out to this. So that checks off. And if I can check off all of the decreases, then my cleared balance will match the banking ending balance. And that will be shown here with the cleared balance, matching the ending banking balance, which will not be the same as the book balance on the balance sheet as of the cutoff date into the bank statement for February because there will be the unclear items. In this case, these two items are unclear. That will be the reconciliation, the difference which will be shown on the bank reconciliation report. Now note that these two unclear items, they are of concern. We're going to say, okay, we have these two items. We deposited these in February. They're not cleared on the February bank statement, but they're not a big concern because they're close to the end of the month. And when I'm reconciling, I'm going to reconcile at some point after February. So I'm going to have to do the reconciliation process at some point in like March. So I can go on to my online banking if I have that and see if these deposits cleared in March. If they did, then I'm not worried about these two deposits. I'm like, okay, that looks legit. That looks good. I still have my money. I'm good to go on that. And I'm going to show these as unreconciled. They're the timing difference that will be able to tie out my book balance to the bank balance. And if I can tie that out exactly, I'm not just verifying those items that are not on the bank statement. I'm verifying that all the transactions, even the ones that are checked off are legitimate by doing that. I'm have a huge internal control, not only over cash, but also over all the other sides of the transactions within the double entry accounting system. And cash is in all other cycles as we have discussed huge internal control. So in future presentations, we'll go on to the payment side of things and continue with the process. I'm going to go ahead and leave right now. We'll get a cup of coffee. We'll come back and we'll continue on.


I am here to bear witness to what we have heard. To Evie Schellenberger, I say thank you. Thank you for your courage to speak to this assembly. Yours was not an easy task, revisiting a time of deep pain. To Sarah Winger-Shank, I am profoundly grateful for the strength of spirit you have demonstrated since you accepted the presidency of AMBS. With admirable courage and grace, you undertook an investigation into a troubling legacy you inherited. Your leadership brought us together today. Thank you. To the current board members who have joined us today to lament with us, commit to policies and practices designed to prevent abuse and to proceed with greater transparency if it does. Thank you. To the employees of AMBS, thank you for your statement of lament, diligence in assessing Yoder's writings and commitment to abide by the AMBS sexual misconduct policy, thereby creating a safe space where honor and integrity toward all will be maintained. In bearing witness, I am stating publicly, we have heard you. We acknowledge your confessions and apologies. And in return, extend deep gratitude to each of you. We respond with appreciation, your commitment to work toward creating a safe space for all who walk these halls, students, teachers, administrators, staff and guests. May this day lighten the burdens you carry. May forgiveness and healing, seasoned with grace, bring new hope and courage to you and all who now lead and will lead AMBS. To the Yoder and Miller families, thank you for adding your voices in this service of lament. We grieve the undeserved pain you have suffered as a result of this very sad story. Know that you are not responsible for the actions that led to this day. May God's abundant grace bring healing to your wounded spirits.