It is cold. I felt nothing in my shell as the still ambiance echoed in the deep sea. Placed alongside several others of my kind, I imbued an immature being.  Baffling as it is, I was left alone. Together we sit, line by line, embryo by embryo. There were hundreds, if not millions, that lay amongst my shell. And yet, mother never came back. Left in the deep sea, we grew and grew with the absence of a parent figure. Why would she produce such a vast amount of embryos and leave us bare? In spite of this, I had grown enough to think my own thoughts, to become self-aware. But these thoughts also brought several ominous ones as well. Left with my siblings, I began to mull over the truancy of my mother. It had shaken me to my core, thinking that she had left me to rot on my own. However, such thoughts eventually left me, washing away in the flow of consciousness. She's calling. She's calling. She's calling. As I felt the water rush over me, I could feel vibrations amongst the shells. My brethren were shaking, as if to escape, to leave. I watched from my own shell, my prying eyes staring right into theirs. Where could they go in this dark environment? I saw as many of their carapaces starting to crack, wriggling around in their now broken shells. They slowly grew accustomed to the water. Like grains of sand, they began swimming towards the surface, towards the light, which was overshadowed by a tiny figure. Something was happening, and I didn't know what. Eventually, I heard the sounds from the surface, loud and abrupt. My siblings have been swimming towards their demise. Why must I watch as they approach their demise? Why must I watch while they took the initiative? Why have I been left alone? I shook violently. My stomach started churning, saliva dripping from my throat. At that moment, my brother emerged from my mom, and we both looked, looked up with two pairs of eyes, as a loud roar emanated from the heavens while we thought, Oh, she's calling, it's time to wake up.


I'm starting a new series and this will be called Be Rich. This is not going to focus on how to become rich. This is going to focus on how to be rich. Because everybody is focusing on becoming rich and a lot of people don't know how to be one. And we all know a lot of rich people who are not good at it. For those people who think if you have a lot of money, it automatically makes you good at being rich. It's kind of like having a lot of children, it makes you automatically a good parent. Having a lot of money doesn't make you good at being rich. The same way as having a lot of children doesn't make you good at being a parent. And so Bible has a lot to say and we're going to learn about that. Today's message is the first installment and I'm going to title it Being Rich at What Matters the Most. And so if you have your Bible, we will take our text for this series from Timothy from the New Testament in 1st Timothy chapter 6 and verse 17 and down. Apostle Paul tells Timothy he says, Commend these things to those who are rich in this present age. Not to be hardy, not to trust in uncertain riches but in living God. Who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come. That they may lay hold of eternal life. Now, I understand some people today, maybe it's your first time. When the pastor said what rich, your heart is not doing good right now.  Perhaps you've experienced where pastors or ministers, they stole money from the church. You've experienced where people lived off of the poor. And the whole goal was give, give, give, give. And I want you to put your prejudice and your experience aside just for a little bit. And I want you to hear with your heart what God's word has to say. I am not afraid to talk about money because Bible talks about money. And God talks about not just about money but how for us to live. And plus it takes eight hours of your day on the average. It's an important part of your life.  The good news is you are rich. The bad news also is you are rich. Statistically, and it says that if you make $33,000 a year, a household income, you are on the 1% of the richest people in the world. Now, I understand, you may argue and say, well, Vlad, you don't understand. In some of those places, the living costs are extremely low. But today just comparing based on the income, if your household makes $80,000 a year, you are on 0.1% of the richest people in the world. So most of us in this room who have a job that pays a minimum wage, you are from one to four of the top richest people in this world. Now, you probably don't feel rich. That's one thing about being rich. You never know that you are rich and you don't feel rich. Like I meet with single people who are never ready. The people who say I'm not ready for marriage usually are ready for marriage. It's the guys who always scare me that they say I'm ready for marriage, that you know they're not ready. It's kind of the same thing with riches. The rich people usually don't feel rich. Nobody here today feels rich. Nobody feels that this applies to them.  The good news is for most of us here today, we qualify for this verse is that we are rich. But what I want to focus on is not necessarily we'll have serious, where we're going to talk about how to hustle and how to work hard and everything. But what I want to focus on today is not how to get richer, but how to become good at being rich. And what does Apostle Paul, what does the scripture tell us about being good at being rich? And we're going to break this verse down. We're going to go through it as quickly as we can. The first thing that Apostle Paul says, and if you are taking notes, I want you to write this down, he says, do not be proud as a rich person. Don't be proud as a rich person. Pride is so easy to see in other people, impossible to see it in yourself. Pride comes naturally for the rich people, and we don't like proud rich people. Nobody likes that. When you are arrogant and you are rich, it's not good, it smells, people don't like it. But it's not just that people don't like it, it's that God don't like it. Why do rich people have a greater tendency toward pride than poor people? Because of our value system. Because your worth is not based on Jesus, your worth is based on your net or your wealth. And when your worth is based on your wealth, you will either be depressed or proud. And many people today, your worth is not based on Jesus. And so when you don't have nothing, you feel worthless. And when you get something, you feel worthy. And you feel entitled. You feel you're better than other people. And while we judge the rich people who are bad at being rich, if your worth is not based on Jesus Christ, it will be based on your wealth. On your appearance, on your accomplishments, on your accolades, or on your failures, or on your past, or on people's opinions, or on your weaknesses. If I can borrow Jacob and Zacchae for an illustration, let's give them a round of applause. Quickly brothers. So I want you to hold this. And so Zacchae is going to represent a person whose worth is based on Jesus. The Bible says the righteous man, a good man, he builds his house on the rock. Have you noticed one thing that every season the rock remains the same size? When it's winter, when it's summer, it's pretty much the same. Now it could decrease just a slightly, but it's pretty much the same size. It doesn't grow and it doesn't shrink. Your worth in Jesus doesn't change when you get married. Your worth in Jesus doesn't change when you get a job. Your worth in Jesus doesn't change when you get out of poverty. Jesus loves you the same and you have to know your worth in Jesus. And it's solid and it's heavy. Somebody give God some praise right now. But there's alternative of where pride comes in for rich people and where discouragement comes in for poor people is when your worth is flexible. Fluid. When your worth is, when you don't have a job, you feel worthless. You don't have a boyfriend and you don't have a girlfriend, you don't have a house. You're not maybe with certain, you're not keeping up with illnesses. And this is how your worth feels like. And then praise be to God, you get a promotion. I want you to start bloating it.    Now pause for a moment and I want you to tie that up. Just tie it up. Yeah, that's good, you got it. So I want you to see that both, I want you to see that both people don't know how to be on the stage, number one. But the real illustration that I want you to see is this. Is that this person looks way bigger. When your arrogance is inflated self-worth. Write this down, arrogance is inflated self-worth. It's when your worth grows with your income. When you think you're more important because you have money now. People should listen to you more, why? Because you have more money in your bank account. Because you drive a nicer car. Arrogance and pride is natural for wealthy people. If their value system is based on their income instead of who they are in Jesus.  You remain the same whether you have money or you don't have money. But when your value system is now dependent on having money. You feel more important, you get mad when people don't recognize you as more important. Your value system is inflated. Now your money is inflated, there's nothing wrong with that. Your money is increasing, that is good. When your money increases make sure your self-esteem doesn't. Your self-esteem is connected to the Calvary, not to your bank account. Your self-esteem has to be connected to the cross, not to your portfolio, not to your real estate, not to your car, and not to your clothing. And that is the only guarantee rich people have not to be proud in the midst of their wealth. Can somebody say amen? Why? It takes one problem in our country, this size. And when you touch a person whose identity is in Jesus. Rain came, the floods came, and the house who was built on the rock stood. I lost my money, I didn't lose my mind. I lost my house, but I didn't lose my family. I lost everything I wiped out in that stock market crash. But listen, except myself, because my worth, I'm still the same valuable in the eyes of God. I don't walk around with my head down, why? Because I know my worth. Hallelujah. It takes one car accident. It takes one financial situation. And what is left of your self-worth?  Why? Because when you live in pride, you will have to live in pity if your self-worth is connected to your net worth.  Can somebody say amen? Are you with me? That's why I believe that rich, rich people must understand before you start giving your stuff, giving your thanks. Real generosity doesn't begin with giving things, it begins with giving thanks. Let me write, let me say, I worked on this point a lot, so I feel like I didn't get enough receptivity. My self-esteem is not based on it, but this message is. Real generosity doesn't begin with giving things, it begins with giving thanks. It's acknowledging who's the source of everything you have. A king of Babylon, he got out and he looked at all the kingdoms. And there was a warning that he will crumble and he will fall just like this balloon. Daniel gave him a warning, he says you're gonna be nothing if you don't acknowledge God as the source of everything. And the Buccanezer doesn't obey that instruction, so he gets up on his palace and he says, isn't this all of mine? Didn't my power build all of this? This is my glory.  And he lost his mind. Every person who gets inflated with pride because of their achievements very soon blows up by losing their mind. King Saul did exactly the same thing. Somebody else got more prosperous. It was David and King Saul lost his mind. Herod had people worship him and the Bible says warms came and they ate him. You can be rich or you can be poor, but base your identity not on your income, not on your dress code or what kind of restaurants you can afford to eat in. Not on the brands of your clothes or the brands of your devices or where you live, your zip code, what kind of neighborhood. Base your identity on Jesus Christ. Then you can stay humble. I love the story about King David. King David is still at the end of his life and in 1 Chronicles, in 2 Chronicles, chapter 29, David is donating money to the temple.  And so it's pretty much about 7 billion dollars worth of stuff that he gave to God. And the people gave 118 tons of gold and then he gave 200 something tons of silver. He gave all of that money away and David says this in his prayer. He says, God, I'm not worthy to be this generous. And he says things like, he said, blessed are you, O God of Israel. He said, yours is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty. Then he says, both riches and honors come from you and you reign over all. In your hand is power and might. In your hand is to make great and to give strength. And then he says, but who am I? Who are my people that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you and of your own we have given you. For we are aliens and pilgrims before you.  This is a billionaire giving over $7 billion in an offering to God. And he says, God, who am I to offer billions of dollars to you? To my knowledge, nobody's here as a billionaire, but we could borrow this attitude in the state we are in today. Generosity doesn't begin with giving things. It begins with giving thanks. You can't be generous in your giving if you're not generous in your thanksgiving. If you can't lift your hands. If when a song is singing, your heart doesn't feel gratitude for being alive.   And you're going to suffer from that. And I challenge the rich people in hunger generation. Do not be proud. Say this with me, my worth is not based on my net worth. My net worth. Are you with me? The second thing that Paul is saying is, don't be proud. He says, don't trust in riches. There was one more rich person in the Bible that we meet. And this rich person, he had a great year, great income flow. His business quadrupled. He meets with his financial counselors and he says, which we should do. A lot of money coming in. We got stocks went up, real estate went up, everything is going good. And so they met together and they decided to do this. Why don't we upgrade, update, upgrade our company, update our buildings, upgrade all of our cars. Let's also move into a better neighborhood. Let's launch into a new territory, bring our product into a new territory. So when I read that, I'm like, this is, that's a wise console. When your money is coming in to, to upgrade, to update, to go further.  Now there are parts of the Bible that I wrestle with. I read and I'm like, I don't like it. This is one of them. The man did not take a trip to Las Vegas. This man did not bring prostitutes and alcohol and drugs and say, let's party it up. He actually used his finances to upgrade, to move forward his business and his life. This is nothing wrong at first, but Jesus says this.  And not only that, what bothers me is what Jesus is next. He says, so is everyone who becomes richer in money, but not in God. Because he says tonight I will come and ask for your soul. What will these things be? Who will they be left to? And then Jesus talks about being trusted. So for us, what are lessons from this is a lot of times it's normal. We live in a culture where you don't buy new things because your things are broken. You buy new things because they're available. It used to be you only upgrade because the things that you're having don't work. You buy new shoes. Why? Because the ones you have have holes in them. You buy new car. Why? Because that car, the transmission died. Today we no longer do that. We update and upgrade for two reasons. You either got a promotion or the Apple released a new product.  I know it's iPhone 10, but there's something's wrong with the screen. I can't go 12 feet into the water. I can only go 11 and a half. I need something that goes in 12 feet. You haven't been near the ocean for the last 10 years. In case I ever go there. And I'm not against upgrading and updating. When it comes to Apple products, I'm the first one that's guilty. That's why I said this verse wrestles with me. But Jesus is saying to not trust in riches. And I want you to write this down and repeat this with me. Say, I will not trust in riches, but in him who richly provides. Don't trust in riches. Trust in him who richly provides. And that is visible by your upgrading and updating systems. What do you do when your income increases? Do we just rush right away? Hey, that means I need to update. I need to increase. People need to know that I am prosperous. Let that verse wrestle with you because it's wrestling with me. He tells to the rich people. Apostle Paul, he says, not only we have to not be proud. Don't trust in riches. We trust in God. Don't make your wealth your source of your source of worth. But he says this. He says that do good. Do good. And to me, what that speaks of is not to cut corners. Don't try to be, don't be bad trying to be, trying to be rich. A lot of times when you start accumulating money, it's easy, especially if you can afford good lawyers, to start cutting corners. Start becoming dishonest with our finances. Start, especially those of us who are generous. Generosity does this weird thing to us, where it feels like we are excused from living honest. I know people who, because they give, they feel like it's okay now that they are not honest before God for the financial life that they're living. They don't need to necessarily pay taxes. They don't need to pay their employees. They can steal a little bit there. They can lie there. They can change things there. Why? Because I'm generous. King Saul did that, in fact. God told him to destroy Amalekites. He went and he didn't destroy the Amalekites. What he did is he saved the farthest and the biggest for himself. And when Samuel came back, Samuel says, what is this sheep that I'm hearing over there? And Saul says, oh, that's for God. And Samuel rebuked him. God was asking you a plain simple thing to do. Don't think your generosity can overcompensate your lack of honesty. That means live honest in your finances. Don't steal. Do good. Do good is don't steal. I remember me and my wife, we started, we embarked on this extra generous lifestyle in 2013. At the end of 2013. And something happened. I liked this TV show that stopped producing episodes with the main character there who was Jim Caviesel, the guy who was in Passion of the Christ, called Person of Interest. And it was on Tuesday night. It was airing at 9 o'clock. And it had commercials. I don't like commercials. But at that time, they had this thing called Lime Wire. For those of you, there was Torrents where you can download illegally the whole TV show. I used the word illegally because it is illegal. But I didn't see it as illegally. So what I would do is that I would come from church and just download the TV show that would show up at 10 o'clock, at 6 o'clock. And my excuse was for this. I just don't like to sit through commercials and I cannot sit till 10 o'clock because I have to be at church next morning. So I had these three godly reasons for which I was downloading things that were not legal. And then I had a last one is this. I'm ripping Hollywood. They're already wicked. What difference does it make? And I remember one time the Lord convicted me.  I said, No, I'm not. He says, you're downloading stuff illegally. And I followed the God. Why are you not convicted me for watching stuff? Why are you convicted me for watching things that are downloaded illegally? And then when I start paying for the things that I wanted to watch, I watched a lot less. And me and my wife, we made a decision after that. Is that content or things we're not going to get things that are illegal? Some of you may say, Well, there's nothing wrong with that. Invite a police officer and ask him if it is. A lot of people, they steal things or they sell things for those of us especially who really want to sell. You know, remember when I was selling my car that had a salvage title and I knew things were wrong with it. And the first time I sold it, I dropped the price so low and they asked me what's wrong with the car and I told them nothing. They're like, So I'm like, I'm just generous. And God convicted me. He says, fix the car and tell them the truth and raise the price. And I have to raise to deliver. Fix that thing. I raised it as high as I could and I told them the truth. I didn't plan to sell it. I just wanted to be honest. I said, this was wrong. This was wrong. This was wrong. And I was about to leave and he says, I have a check and full price the guy gave it to me. Now I'm not saying it would always happen like this but rich people, you're good at being sneaky. You're good at cutting corners. It's hard to become honest as a rich person. That's why Bible challenges us. Do good. Don't become bad in trying to be rich. Number four, be rich in good works. Be rich. Apostle Paul says be rich in good works. Meaning the only thing I must be richer in my faith than in my finances. What Paul is saying is that make sure your finances are not the only thing you're growing in. Make sure your bank account is not the only thing that sees the increase. Make sure your stocks are not the only thing that's increasing right now. But make sure your faith is increasing. Your good works is increasing. Be richer in things that matter. Not just finances. I remember in 2013, toward the end of that year, our youth group at the time was the youth pastor, our youth group was stuck. We were not growing as God wanted us to grow. We were not seeing salvation for two years at that time already. Me and my wife, we had two rental properties. They were not nice. They were not necessarily new or anything. They were older but I was under 30 and having two rental properties, for me it was a big deal. And so we were trying to save to build our own house and by 30 to build our own house and everything. And you know what God convicted me with? Is this kind of this theme that I'm speaking to you about. God was saying, why is that you're increasing in houses but you're not increasing in my grace? And I said, God, well, your grace is your business. This is my business. Those two church and state were separate. Don't mix those two things up. And I felt challenged by God. Listen, it's not right that your finances is growing but your ministry and your calling is not. And so we leveraged our finances and said, you know what, we want to pause, I'm growing in finances and we want to grow in our spiritual life. Now, for your record, I worked at the church and so I had a prayer life but I knew that things were not growing as they supposed to be growing. And so I decided that I'm going to be richer toward my faith, not just toward my finances. The crazy part is things worked out with the house. Everything worked out. But today I see an increase of my faith and I see an increase of what God is doing in this place.  You don't just work out on your chest and then have chicken legs. You got to work out on everything.  Your good works are not worked on and Paul is saying it's good that you're working out on your finances. He says, make sure you get rich as well in your good works. Come on, Seba. Number five, be ready to give. The example of the poor widow teaches us that Jesus looks at our finances not in a sum but in percentages. How do you give as a rich person? I give you three principles or three tips to give as a priority, as a percentage and as a progression. As a priority, as a percentage and as a progression. Meaning, make giving a priority.  Give before you pay all your bills. Don't make giving at the end, make giving always in the beginning. Secondly, make it a percentage. Don't give spontaneously. Percentage, you may say, oh, but you know, is it in the Bible? It is. Jesus looks at the widow who's giving a small sum of money and Jesus measures her giving by not how much she gave but he measures it by the percentage this giving represents in her finances. Because what she gave was a little but it was the highest percentage. God in heaven doesn't measure our giving by the sum but by the percentage. Because if a person gives $500 and they have a million dollars it may look a lot more than an intern who gives $5 and they don't have much because they're looking for a job. They're barely paying through or a retired person, elderly person. What I want to tell you today is this is that God wants you to focus on your percentage. This is the best is becoming for us is that we have a certain percentage and we try to increase that percentage. And the good percentage to start with is you can start with 10. Bible has a lot to say about 10. Now, you might not like the whole 10 or 10. Start with 12. You say, no, the whole 10 is hated. Make it easy on yourself. Start with 15. 15 is way different than 10. Whichever percentage you start with keep it and then grow it. 1% or 2% or something.  It's kind of like saying hey I feel like going to gym today I'm going to go to gym. But those of you know that that never works. That's why you're still paying for gym membership and you never go there. You just set up. You set it up every day I'm going to go. Or these days I'm going to go. Same thing with giving. You set it up and then you go with that. Are you with me? Let's go a little bit further. And number six, Apostle Paul says be willing to share. Be willing to share. So it's not only he's challenging rich people. Hey, stop, be proud. Trust in God instead of in your riches. He says do good. Meaning don't do anything shady.  You prioritize giving. You put your giving in percentage.  You become rich in good works. But then he says be willing to share. And so I've been meditating and I said, Lord, how does this apply to me? And I found out that a lot of rich people, what they have is they have extra stuff they don't use. And what we typically do with that stuff is we sell it. And Paul is saying to share it. So it's very practical. You got a new phone? The old phone is still really, really good. That Paul doesn't say don't ever sell anything. He just says just don't sell only. Start sharing. A lot of generosity is not limited to giving money. It's to giving things. It's to giving things that are good, that we have in our possession, that we can be blessed with others. Apostle Paul and John walk to the temple. They didn't have money with them. Paul we don't have right now with us. And many people use that verse and say, look Paul and John were broke. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that Paul and John forgot their wallet. That didn't mean that they didn't have money. Because the church had money. The people donated money there. But Paul and John just didn't walk with the wallet to the temple. But they said, hey, we have a gift right now. We want to give it to you. Jesus at the last supper, he didn't have money, but he washed the feet of disciples. God doesn't want us to limit generosity to giving money. Because some of us, that is the easiest thing to do.  Like we had a guy who has a company and we really needed to do that concrete in the front. It looks so great when you guys walked in. It doesn't look great. And, you know, this week it was raining. And this gentleman, he came in, he brought his crew. He brought his company. And they did the whole, the whole day. And, you know, we asked him to give us the bill and he says, hey, I'm just blessing. I just want to be, I just want to share. Come on. And you know what we say? We'll receive. Come on somebody. Are you with me? Share. You know, this, another thing that does not mean that all of us Christians here, we simply have to start expecting every person in our church to give us stuff of faith. I need to say that. Because a lot of, we have photographers, we have hairstylists, we have construction men, we have teachers, we have writers, we have proofreaders, we have media people. And a lot of times, what happens with church people is that we expect things for free. I believe in not getting anything for free, but getting things for something. Because otherwise it's not right for us. Let the people give things for free if they want to. But if they don't, sometimes like if I'm not able to pay in money, I said, listen, if you do this for me, I'll be able to do this, this, this, this. It's going to pay a lot more than money. If not then, okay, let's give you money now. But you have to be able to share. One poor person was sitting under the bridge and a rich person was walking by, gave him $5. Next day, gave him $5. Third day, he didn't have the money. The poor person, he said, tomorrow it's 10. Don't live like that. Like we give cars in the church, don't expect a car that's too low, even if you need a car.  By the way, I said your aim higher. Aim for the stars, you'll land on the moon. But aim higher. Don't have a poverty thinking. Let's learn to share. Me and my wife made a decision that everything we have in our house, including a house, that our goal before we die to be able to give everything that we own. And as of today, pretty much everything except the house, because we don't own it yet. We still have mortgage. I'm believing for somebody to pay for my mortgage. If God speaks to you, it's going to go for a good cause because we want to give a house away one day. And so we want to give everything that we own one time from couches. We had a good couch, we had a good kitchen table and then had a computer washer and dryer and a lot of things that we would have and wanted to put on for sale. But at the same time, you know what? Let's find somebody that we can bless. And at the time we needed those extra 50, 60, 70 bucks. But as a rich person, God tells me learn to share, not just to sell. Are you with me? Lastly is store a foundation for eternity. Paul is saying to the rich people, is don't just fill your IRA, but also fill your IEA. Meaning, not just your individual retirement account, but fill also your individual eternity account. Paul is saying is that retirement is good. It's good to say for your retirement, Roth IRA and whatever it thinks that you put in your retirement and putting each month something aside, even though retirement is not necessarily very scriptural, but nevertheless our culture does it. It's a good thing to do. God bless you. But you are not going to live very long on your retirement. Nobody in this room is guaranteed to get to their retirement. My uncle who passed away, you know, just not long ago, you know, he didn't get there. Nobody's guaranteed. I'm not guaranteed. I will live to my retirement. Nobody in here is guaranteed. And while it's good and wise to say for your retirement, something that you're not sure you're going to get there and how long you're going to live that we don't know, what is sure is you will live forever in heaven. And that's where you need to be moving your finances too. See, some of us think in this room that when I die, I'm going to have mentions in heaven. Who told you that? Bible doesn't tell that every person is going to have a mention. Bible says that those who are in Christ will go to heaven. But what you're going to live in in heaven is really dependent on you. Don't think God is not Bernie Sanders. He's not going to build every person the same house like Ajo Projects. That's not God. God has different measures of rewards. God is not going to reward the same way me as seasonal reward Mother Teresa. God in heaven has different things for different people based on what we did with what we could on this earth. So that's why it's good to be rich on earth. What's better is when you die so you're not broke in there. Now in heaven it's still good to be broke because you can sleep on the streets made of gold. But it's better to live maybe in a mansion, right? So I borrowed this from Pastor Martin and Sylvia. We went to Nigeria. I went to Nigeria three times in my life and we had these things called Nairas. In Nigeria these are money. These are things you used to buy things. And when you bring these into the United States they are completely worthless. You can't buy a taco with these. It's like a lot of them. There's like 500, 220. But in America you can't buy much with it. Now I was in Nigeria and I still brought some stuff here. I can tell you one thing is that you live here you can't take your dollars with you to heaven. They're gonna be left on earth and in heaven they're not gonna do anything but what you can do with these Nairas and is what you can do with your things is you can convert them. You can convert your gifts. You can convert your stuff.  You can convert your clothes. You can convert your words. You can convert your smile.  Can somebody say amen? I want to challenge the rich people in this room.  I want to challenge the rich people in this room. Don't trust in your riches. I want to challenge the rich people in this room. Be rich in your good works. Do good. Serve others. And what more about your eternity than your retirement? Amen.


George Bruno with the 21 report. We are at the 21 summit in Orlando, Florida The year is 2020. This is a big year And I'm having a talk with coach Greg Adams. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much George appreciate it. Absolutely Your first time at the 21 convention. Tell me what you think. Well, it's good to see it in person I'm just glad I got to see it in person. I've heard about it for about three or four years and I always had an idea of what it was Until I got here and saw it and you can see the people in the audience You see the men that are here committed to listening to other content creators give their message You get to see them relate to you. Hey, I watch you on YouTube and you see the man behind the screen I mean, it's just changed my idea of what the conference is the professionalism the staff the way everything is organized It's giving me a different perspective about this particular idea and I'm ready to put some more fire into it Yeah, yeah, it didn't take very long for you to just be one of the guys here like Yeah, you are now One of the guys right one of the team here and the way that I know that is I'm looking at how the Attendees are responding to you. Yeah, you can't even walk out there without being surrounded Right by guys, right. That means your message is important Sometimes you don't get it, you know, you're looking at numbers half the time. Oh, I got this many comments this many subscribers So that's how you're evaluating your message If you have a book you're looking at how many they sold but not until you meet somebody in person that says I know you and I watch you and they can recognize you just walking down the hallway it gives you a different perspective on The value you're presenting to these to the people and not only that I look at even the content creators Even the people that have big personalities Even if you don't agree a hundred percent with what they say there's a mutual respect across the board for everyone And that's important everyone understands what we're doing why we're doing it So you put all of that behind you and you don't bring any of that up No one's kind of confronting each other or arguing and saying I'm right about this Everybody has a mutual respect for the next man. So that's encouraging and it encourages you to keep going and doing what you do What would you say your main message is this weekend, right? Well, I had an opportunity to talk twice so far and I'm gonna talk one more time to the to the ladies tomorrow That's right. You're on three stages three stages. Well, so it's been a lot of work I do all of this we do the dinners and then I stay up until it's midnight here Where we are, but it's early nighttime in California time, but The first two messages I got to talk about the free agent lifestyle So that is basically the encompassing message of what I talk about That's the book that I wrote and I got to describe it of how I got there Not necessarily what's in the book But why I wrote the book and a lot of guys can relate either been divorced you had bad breakups You're dealing with children and a lot of guys can relate to that So I got to introduce some of that and then the next talk was directly to father So that was the patriarch and the idea was that there's a system that is designed to remove the masculine Man from the home. All right. What are the consequences of that? So you're talking to a dynamic group of men divorce divorce fathers men who want to have kids and There were people in the audience that I was trying to relate that message to and that could understand it on that level so Amazing opportunity to be able to talk to these people about it and a lot of people gave me great feedback from it. It's great Typically your message is for men. Yeah, that's pretty much who your audience is but you're gonna be speaking to women right soon What do you have in store for the ladies? Well, I'm gonna talk about the femininity the lack of femininity and The presence of femininity and men Okay, we're gonna talk about how they deal with femininity because in our society now Femininity and men is celebrated and for femininity and women they don't want it So the roles are actually switching a little bit and we're gonna talk about the confusion and chaos That's created from that and why we are now most there's more single women than ever There's less married people. There's the birth rates declining So I'm gonna try to put a context on that and talk about how we're basically causing confusion But the reason why we're doing it is for our own selfish needs of resources here So I'm gonna put that message into play. I'm also going to talk about the book that I wrote about feminism And we're gonna talk about why we got here. It's it's interesting to me to tell you the truth There's a group of women here that are looking For a message and they're coming to these particular groups of men forward I think that's phenomenal for them to take that step and they're willing to be open-minded and listen and Take something from it. I don't know what they'll take from it, but they'll take something I think you're gonna get a few amens in there to be honest with you right a lot of men say There's no good women out there, but from a woman's perspective When a woman looks at Her prospects in the men's community, right? The fact that you said that many men are being feminine when that's being celebrated that's got to grieve a woman They don't want that. I mean you would think they would want that. That's what the media is pushing politicians are pushing The great narrative is that they want men to show their feminine side, you know They want them to be emotional express themselves. Yeah, that might work once or twice, but that's not what they need They need a rock Most women are looking for rocks. They were looking for strong men after a while You keep presenting that presence that feminine presence to her She's gonna lose respect for you and this is the dilemma overall That women have unfortunately though. It's kind of like playing both sides of the coin They're getting the benefits of Men's femininity, right? You're okay. You don't want to be competitive in the workplace We'll take those jobs and they'll step it up for those resources. So we're at a really critical crossroads and in gender dynamics However, this group of women are saying got figured us out and they're willing to listen. Yeah, yeah You have a couple books. The first one is free agent lifestyle. Yep And you have a recent book called the evolution the evolution tell us about that basically the America's reverse engineering of American women. All right, so what feminism is is basically the reverse engineering of American women There's a lot of celebration of feminism and of course Women are in the workplace now. They're competing. They're making more money They now make up the vast the majority of the employed workers in the United States by 51% But the reality is there's been a scoreboard of feminism that they're not revealing. Okay, there's been a lot of things that have come Basically not good results from it But you're not gonna hear it unless people dig out that information and that's been a great amount of that book digging out That information and presenting it a lot of people don't like to accept the information and that's a critical word They don't want to accept that that's a byproduct of feminism, but I believe in cause and effect I believe in an equal and opposite reaction to everything. Mm-hmm. So whatever positives you got You certainly are gonna gonna get negatives people just have to accept those negatives If you don't want to accept the negatives and place blame on other things. Well, then you're not accepting the fool You know weight of feminism. So I that's the that's what the books about What is the price that come the community right has to pay for that? The community at large in the world. Yeah, there's a critical price because you got to say, you know You remove both parents from the household. There's gonna be a result that I mean I think the kids gonna the kids are suffering as a result of The gains that are made and then not only that men get disenfranchised just a bit in the workplace those job Listen when you bring in additional workers, there's not additional jobs. You just brought in additional workers, right? So if women feel jobs, that means men lost some jobs now, there's a balance You got to accept the balance and then as a result you're gonna say where we're all the good men Well, a couple of them got disenfranchised or displaced Okay, not only that you look at the family structure as a result of both people leaving the homes Kids suffered a little bit. The grades are down performances are down kids are more obese. They're less productive How do we deal with that? Who's gonna deal with it? We obviously the school is not dealing with it Well, are the parents willing to take on that responsibility or we can just point fingers right now. We're pointing fingers Men aren't strong enough women are too aggressive and we can't meet in the middle until we until we really take responsibility for The cause and effect the good parts of feminism in the negative parts. We're not gonna get anywhere Do you think you're gonna end up with some female followers after this weekend? We could I met a couple on the hallway that said they've been following me for a long time And it was like, you know one of those would have thought yeah, it was kind of like yeah, you know Yeah, sometimes I look at the analytics and I say well, there's females following me You know a good six to ten percent of the audience, but there were women who knew me they knew video titles they said I commented on this video and I'm like It's incredible to think that they're engaging with you along with the men that are engaging with you and They're contributing and they're investing in you. So when you think about that, you know You don't want to really cater the message to them, but they like the message where it is So they're saying we agree with it. Let's continue forward in this. Maybe they want to change I love it. I love it. If people want to find out more information, where can they go first thing to go? YouTube is the biggest platform if they go to my YouTube channel in the description box There's a lot of places where I to send people but if they have some problems They can go to my website Greg Adams one dot com and they'll be able to find everything there They can direct me to direct to the books. They can direct to all the YouTube channels apparel and all of that stuff I know the title coach Greg Adams Originally started with you being a coach literally a sports coach. Yep. Are you a coach now? Do you coach men one-to-one? I do coach men one-to-one. So people do reach out to me I have a place where they can reach out to me They usually do that through my YouTube and what happens is you know I was a basketball coach before that and I coach women all right I coached them for 16 years now. I'm coaching men and I'm directing them using the information that I learned being around women like Almost 24-7 and now I'm saying well, this is how I can help y'all Maybe I can change the direction of your life for providing you one bit of detail that you might not be thinking about It's a beautiful thing man. I like that. What does 2021 have in store for coach Greg Adams? What do you think well? Hopefully we can get back to moving around the country a little bit and maybe we're moving around the world And that is basically the free agent lifestyle. It's not sitting at home. You know, I want to get out move Fortunately, I've been able to make some good connections with people like you Anthony that wasn't available to me early in 2020 and now we have that hopefully we can build on that Maybe I might write a third book who knows all right, but I want to continue building the audience that I am the numbers are Going up daily. So I say they they're here for a reason.  It's amazing. It's crazy. I think what happens is I've learned how to do Scheduling very well. So I use these schedulers and then I spend half of two or three days recording and Then I schedule the post. So there's a lot of things going on and now I'm at the point now I have to hire someone. All right, so I've been doing this for two years and the audience has grown So crazy that I now have to bring someone in to manage just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah Well, this is completely amazing. I'm glad that we met face-to-face Absolutely, man, and I'm happy to call you a friend absolutely sir. Yep. Thanks. Thank you George coach Greg Adams known for the free agent lifestyle At the 21 summit, this is George Bruno


So in this video, I'm going to derive the formula for how we can find the total resistance for resistors that aren't in parallel. So to remind you, this is what it looks like when resistors are in parallel. And just like last time, I'm going to assume that these two resistors together are attached to some arbitrary voltage source. The total resistance will satisfy Ohm's law. The V is equal to the voltage across the whole circuit is going to be equal to the current flowing through the circuit times the total resistance. But with this particular circuit, I'm going to need to be careful because there are two branches. See how at this point here, the circuit branches out to two points. And so some current will go this way and some current will go down this way. So when I write I, I need to be very specific about which current I'm talking about. So for this particular formula, I'm going to write I-Total or I-T, where I-T is the total current in the circuit. And I could say that that's going to be the current flowing through this point here, just to be absolutely clear. What I'll also do is I'll call the current flowing through this point here in the circuit I1, and I'll call the current flowing through this point in the circuit I2. So let's use the node rule and examine this point here that I've highlighted in yellow. So the total current flowing into this particular point in the circuit must be equal to the current flowing out. So that tells me that the total current I-T is equal to I1 plus I2. But to make more progress, I'm also going to have to consider the loop rule. Let's consider this loop here, which I'm going to highlight in green. So I'm considering a loop that starts at the battery, goes all the way along here, then goes down, goes past resistor two, then comes all the way back to the battery again. So for that particular loop, I can see that the voltage must be equal to the voltage drop across this arm here. So it's going to be equal to R2 times the current going through R2. Now let's consider another loop. I'm going to consider the loop here that starts at this point in the circuit, goes up, then comes through the top part of the circuit back down to my original point. So in this loop, I have the total voltage. So for this loop, I have the voltage going across this battery here is going to be equal to the voltage lost across resistor one, which using Ohm's law is equal to R1 times I1. So now I have four equations, which I'm going to number. Now by rearranging equation one, equation three, and equation four, I can solve for the current in each case, and that will give me these different numbers here. Now if I substitute each of these I's into equation two at the top, I get, then if I divide both sides of the equations by V, I get, so we've derived a formula for two resistors that are in parallel. It so happens you can generalize this formula for any number of resistors, it takes the form one over the total resistance is equal to one over R1 plus one over R2 plus one over R3 plus one over R4 and so on. Now note this formula only works for resistors that are in parallel. But we've derived a formula that's going to allow us to make useful calculations in circuits that involve resistors in parallel.


Hey curlfriends! I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today and today I'm finally reviewing some very highly requested curly hair products by Curlsmith. This brand right here you've probably seen all over Instagram giving girls amazing wavy curly and spiral results and their line has such great ingredients. So in today's video I'm going to show you how I applied all of the products in the Curlsmith collection and I'm happy to say that these are now available at Ulta Beauty. I am partnering with Ulta Beauty once again so thank you Ulta Beauty for sponsoring this video and sending me all these amazing Curlsmith products because you guys have been begging me to review these. So in today's video I'm going to show you all the products that I got from Ulta Beauty. I have this co-wash, I have a reactor spray, I have a balm, I have a souffle, I have an oil and cream, I have one more one more intense treatment serum. We got a lot of stuff to go over so let's get started. Now the first thing that I want to say about the Curlsmith line is that all these products are sulfate, paraben and silicone free. They're vegan, certified organic and cruelty free. So since I know how important that is I'm really glad that this brand also respects what us curly people need. Because we have so many products to go over this is actually going to be a two-day routine. So I'm going to show you how I wash my hair on day one, how I style, how I go to sleep and how I refresh in the morning. The first product I want to show you is this big baby right here. This is the Curlsmith Curl quenching conditioning wash for extra thirsty curly wavy or kinky hair. So basically this is a co-wash. Now if you aren't familiar with a co-wash, co-wash is a two-in-one combo combining your shampoo and conditioner into one. Now to be completely honest with you, I have never liked co-washers. Every other co-wash that I've tried I feel like wasn't cleansing enough to be a shampoo but also didn't detangle well enough to be a conditioner. So I've really been kind of anti-co-wash until I tried this one. Finally for the first time ever I love this co-wash. It really cleans your hair and it has amazing slip for detangling. Let me show you.  So I'm going to pump a couple pumps into my hair and really start to massage it into my scalp. This co-wash also smells really good.  So when I use my co-wash I start up on my scalp to make sure it's really nice and clean and then I kind of skip to what would be my conditioner part by splitting my hair into two sections. I'm applying some more of this co-wash and smoothing it down my ends and look at this. Look how fast and easy it detangles. If you have curly hair you know how important it is to find something that is really good with detangling. We need that nice slip so our hand slips through our hair and this co-wash does an amazing job with detangling. If your hair is really really tangled I would recommend applying it all to your hair and letting it sit for like at least three minutes you know start washing your body shape whatever else you got to do in the shower and then come back it'll be even easier to detangle. But as you could see I detangled both sides of my hair with ease. There is no bubbling sensation no foams but no worries because that actually just means there's no harsh chemical sulfates that are stripping the natural oils from our hair. So it's a really gentle lightweight yet hard-working formula that removes buildup dirt and leaving your curls nice and easy to detangle. So hands down this is the best co-wash and only co-wash that I love. So now that we're out the shower it's time to style these curls. Curlsmith has a very unique line of products they don't have your average like shampoo conditioner, gel, leave-in you know they have very unique names. For example they have the Curlsmith conditioning oil and cream and they also have the curl defining styling souffle. They might be thinking like what's an oil and cream what's a souffle is it a dessert? No it's actually for your girls. So the curl conditioning oil and cream is for extra thirsty curly or kinky hair and fortunately right on the back of all the bottles it explains exactly how to apply it which I think is so important. So it says how to enjoy this leave-in conditioner. So basically even though it's called an oil and cream it's a leave-in conditioner that you would apply first before your other types of stylers. So this product oh smells so good. So as you can see here I am starting on damp hair and I'm going to start off with a little bit of the curl conditioning oil and cream. You will see it's super thick. Anytime I apply a product like the smooth it down my hair rake it through and scrunch it back up for definition. I do this on both sides and my bangs. After our oil and cream is now in place I'm then going to grab the curl defining styling souffle. This is also for extra thirsty curly or kinky hair. So as you can see here it has a very unique texture. It's not really like a gel it really is a souffle. So it's like this googly consistency. Yes googly is a word. So when you apply this product you want to rub it in your hands kind of letting it melt between your fingers and then once again I'm going to smooth it down my hair rake it through and scrunch it back up for definition. So that's how I apply my product on day one. Now I'm going to let this air dry till it gets to about 85% dry and then I'm going to diffuse. So now I'm back once again when my hair is a little bit more dry and as you could see my curls look very defined. The souffle does leave a little bit of a cast which I prefer because I need a little bit of that light crunch to diffuse so my curls don't get frizzy. So now at this point I'm going to grab my diffuser and I'm going to diffuse upside down to create more volume and also to break the cast. After I was done diffusing you'll see that my curls look fabulous. They're so soft so defined and there's absolutely no crunch anymore. So if you're someone that's worried about your curls being hard stiff or crunchy this souffle does not leave a hard crunch when you're done diffusing or scrunching it out. The next product I have here is the Curlsmith Full Length Density Elixir. It's for hair that looks thicker denser fuller and healthier. So this is actually a blend of different oils including castor oil, cedar oil, witch hazel, pea sprout, lavender oil, amla, soybean, thyme, clover and green tea. But my favorite thing about this oil is that it doesn't have a strong smell. Sometimes those natural essential oils are like like extra strong but this one it doesn't have a scent at all and that's amazing especially because you're supposed to apply this on your hair overnight. So what I do is before I go to bed I get my little dropper like so and then I apply this whole amount to my scalp adding a little drop here a little drop there and then I'm going to massage it into my scalps that I can really wait a minute oh my goodness I've been looking for this eyelash everywhere let's just put that away okay where were we then I'm going to massage it into my scalps that I can really penetrate and do its thing.  So this bottle supposed to last you a good full month so take a good look at my hair now because I do want to continue to use this every single night and then I'll come back in 30 days make sure you follow me on Instagram at Ms. Bianca Renee so you could see what this really did for my hair. So now it is day two I have my hair up in a pineapple I did go to the gym this morning so let's see how my curls look pretty done fabulous I love when my curls could just fall back into place the whole point of doing the pineapple hairstyle and as you could see it really kept the nice definition on my curls even while I slept and went to the gym so that's very important. So my curls don't look too bad right now when you do have a really good day one it makes a really good easy refresh day so for the first time I'm actually gonna try refreshing my curls without using any water I'm gonna grab the curl smith moisture memory reactivator spray so this is for curly wavy or textured or dry hair it's supposed to refresh soften shine revive and also protect your hair from heat and the UV rays in the sky this refresh spray has organic avocado wild aloe vera torn sage basil organic apricot and resurrection flower so as you could see here I have like some little parts that just aren't really that cute so I'm gonna grab my refresher spray spray it all over my hair and really scrunch it back so my curls get more defined and get rid of any frizz that might have been caused while I slept or went to the gym so now that I've got the spray all about my hair I do want to try another product because I'm really curious this is the curl smith hold me softly bomb this is a lightweight styling cream that's supposed to create bouncy definition without weighing down your hair or having any crunch supposed to smooth and scrunch the product on damp hair so that's what I'm doing here I'm finding any curls that might need a little bit extra love in or a little bit more moisture applying the product in my hand and then smoothing and scrunching it all throughout my hair because it's such a lightweight soft product I think this might even work even better if you have wavy or looser curls than I do after that my curls dry for just about 30 minutes and I grab my diffuser once again to make it nice and big and the last curl smith product that I want to show you guys that you don't have to necessarily use every day just kind of like on an as-need basis is the curl smith intense treatment serum as you could see it's really really thick and a little goes a long way so it starts off looking like a pomade but once you rub it together in your finger it turns into an oil so what you use this for is if you have any little straggler curls or a little bit frizzy or your ends feel really dry or maybe you have some flyaways on the very top of your head that's when you grab a little bit of this treatment and there you go that is how I use all of these curl smith products I am definitely glad that I finally tried these and I'm so happy that I have another line of products that I can recommend to you that are sulfate paraben silicone free vegan cruelty free and organic what curl smith product is your favorite to use on your curls have you already tried these leave a comment down below let us know your curl type and what is your favorite curl smith product if you haven't tried any of these curl smith products which one really caught your attention today that you're probably going to go out and get right now thank you once again to Ulta beauty for sponsoring this video I love shopping at Ulta and getting everything from makeup skincare or hair products on the same spot and they have a huge selection of products including ones with amazing ingredients like curl smith if you enjoy my curly hair product reviews and tutorials there's many more where that came from I post two new videos every week once on Friday and once on Sunday so make sure you give me a thumbs up and subscribe so you don't miss any more videos you also can follow me on instagram at miss beyond grenade that way you can see what products I'll be reviewing next and you also can get a little update on how this full length density elixir is working on the fullness of my hair I'll see you guys in my next video thanks for watching beyond grenade today


Thank you so much for being willing to talk with us today, Dr. McQueen. And you know, we're sharing information with our region about state planning around the new Every Student Succeeds Act. And we wanted to learn a little bit more about Tennessee's experience. So could you share a little background information about Tennessee's as a planning process, what that looks like? Sure. Well, when we began the process of thinking through what would we do under ESSA, we started with our strategic plan, a strategic plan that we had put in place about a year before the new Act was passed. Our plan is called Tennessee Succeeds. And this plan was really built off of stakeholder engagement and a connection back to the data and the analysis that we had done on what should be our priorities in the state. We did build heavy stakeholder engagement at that point. And then in December of 2015, when ESSA was passed, we felt like it was an opportunity to take the strategic plan that we had released and do another round of stakeholder engagement along with that. One, it was to get the word out about what we were doing already in that strategic plan, but also to bring another set of fruits together to really give additional feedback to say, what can we do to make this stronger? How do we focus back in on standards, assessment, accountability? There was an opportunity to look at school improvement, even in a more robust way than where we started. And so we took that plan and said, let's even make some parts of it stronger and have another opportunity to even talk with additional stakeholder groups that we had not engaged with earlier. And ultimately, we ended up with a moment in time where we have said, state plan, first and foremost, state strategic plan, how does ESSA actually help us build on opportunities that we believe we had identified? You mentioned that you used the opportunity to engage with stakeholders that maybe you hadn't previously. Can you talk a little bit about who those constituencies were and how you involved them? Absolutely. We set out our first draft of the ESSA plan. We engaged with around 3,000 stakeholders. We started that with the group of superintendents. We went across the three primary regions in our state, met with the superintendents representing those regions, got initial feedback on some of the pieces of the plan. And then we met with school board members. We talked with advocacy groups across the state. We met with very particular groups that we had not necessarily engaged with before. Groups that were serving special needs students and were advocating for students with disabilities. We met with groups that were specific, librarians association, groups that were with physical education. So we tried to be very concentrated in advocacy groups that we had not necessarily brought into our conversations previously. We had a new equity coalition that was forming at the same time, which took a lot of our advocacy groups that were very focused on equity like the Urban League and a group we had locally called Connection. That group was a very important stakeholder group for us, and we met with them very early on, and they continued to give us feedback throughout the draft. After we had those 3,000 stakeholders really engaged in this first round of feedback as we were preparing the draft, we put together six working groups. And those six working groups were concentrated on very particular pieces of the plan. Standards and assessment, accountability, student support, educator support, school improvement. And so they were also building out pieces of the plan. Very diverse groups of people who represented, everything from teachers to administrators to Chamber of Commerce to parents. And so those groups were also giving additional feedback. After we put the draft plan out towards the end of this past calendar year, we had six regional town hall sessions, and we had over 1,000 people attend those town halls across the state. They were also giving feedback. We had very specific exit tickets on what they heard at the town hall, how they felt about the different components, what opportunities did they feel like we should take the most advantage of, what were pieces of the plan that they would tweak or give more feedback on. And then after that, we were able to also get feedback from the online feedback column that was associated with the posting. And so we have had a great bit of feedback, and when we actually ultimately put out our plan in April in a final version, we will be able to share, what did we hear from stakeholders? And what did we change based on what we heard from stakeholders? What did we improve upon? And how did we make sure that the stakeholder engagement was a key part of the final plan? And so we're looking forward to hearing just a couple weeks sharing what our stakeholders ultimately did to actually change the plan for the better. Great. Do you have some highlights you might be able to share with us about stakeholder feedback and how it influenced and changed your plan? Absolutely. I can think of several very concrete examples. One, we had lots of engagement, first with an assessment task force that we convened almost a year ago, and we continued stakeholder engagement around our assessment program, the assessments that really run from 3 through grade 12. And we were getting feedback that was concentrated in grades 3 and 4 and grades 11 as grade levels that we needed to think differently around the time that students were spending on the test. And so we went back to the drawing board and looked at what should we do in grade 3-4 that would create some time reduction, but would keep what we heard from educators that we want feedback on how our students are doing in all of the four main content areas, math, English language arts, science, and social studies. So there wasn't an appetite to cut the test. There wasn't an appetite to think about reductions and possibilities of how we could think through the information that they were receiving. So we did make some reductions in both the third and fourth grade science and social studies test. Those reductions will allow us to add slightly more of a robust piece of the test to our reading or in English language arts test. So we're focusing in on an area in third and fourth grade that really matches to the priorities we set as a state, which says that reading is one of our highest priorities throughout our strategic plan, how we've spent resources and how we've aligned the work that we're doing in the department. So if that is going to be such a strategic focus, let's add more to that assessment that gives us more robust information and at the same time make some reductions in the third and fourth grade science and social studies that give us similar information to what we got in the past, gives us information around the progress, still focuses on science and social studies, but offers an opportunity for reduction. That was completely based on stakeholder feedback and it was an excellent suggestion that we were able to build that into the final plan. Another quick item was around school improvement and we got feedback as a state that we truly needed to give more clarity around how our school improvement plan would play out in certain communities that had some of our highest needs schools. And so we've continued in multiple iterations clarifying what our strategies are around school improvement, how stakeholders are engaged in that process throughout the school improvement continuum, and then ultimately what do we do with schools who are not performing and have been historically, you know, for a decade underperforming. We don't, we don't want to start over and we want to take what we know has worked in the state and continue to have a really solid practices around that. So we've made that entire continuum and clarification much more robust and that was based on stakeholder engagement and what folks shared with us they needed to be able to do this work. Those are great examples and I think what's remarkable is how substantive they are. I mean, these are, you know, carefully considered kinds of feedback based on people's real experiences with the system. You know, what are some of the major provisions of SF that you believe will have a positive effect on your state? You're excited about the opportunity to think about our school accountability model again. And so for context, Tennessee has not had a specific school accountability model. We have had a district accountability model and then we had a school report card, but we did not have indicators on the school report card that were associated with accountability. And so ultimately what we were able to do was to say what has worked under district accountability that we would want to put into a school accountability model and then using these opportunities for new metrics that were not necessarily test-focused metrics, what would we do with those? How would we frame them and what outcomes did we want? I would say that opportunity to keep high expectations, to be more specific at the school level, think about the transparency that communities need to know how their schools are doing and to know what to do next was one we took very seriously. So as we developed the school accountability model, we said, okay, as a state, what is one of our primary overarching goals? And we talk a lot in Tennessee that we have a new normal. And the new normal is the high school graduation is the floor and the new normal is that our students are moving into post-secondary. We have one of the highest graduation rates in the country, and we know that we are doing a good job with rigorous graduation requirements of moving our students to graduate. But we are not necessarily moving our students to post-secondary credentialing that we know will help them move into the workplace seamlessly. And so with that, we developed a ready graduate metric to really point out what we know in our own data around the experiences that students should have in high school that get them ready for post-secondary. So our ready graduate metric has four checks, and those checks are pretty clear. We know that students who score 21 or above on the ACT or the equivalent on the SAT have a more seamless experience and are more successful when they go directly into college or any post-secondary program. Number two, we know that students who are completing successfully four early post-secondary courses, like AP, dual credit, dual enrollment, IB courses, they are more successful when they get into college. And we actually saw that in our data that completing four gave you the equivalent to making a 21 on the ACT. You have that similar experience as you transition into post-secondary. The other piece that we thought was important, which was number three, is that students who are on these career and technical education pathways, that needs to be honored, and we need to promote that more students need to be accessing and completing early industry credentials that match them to a career. And so we have a check of students need to earn two early post-secondary opportunities or an industry credential if they're... not or, and an industry credential if they're on this pathway in career and technical education. And then the fourth check is military readiness for our students who have an intent to move into the military. And so we're asking for those students to complete two early post-secondary opportunities. Again, preparing them for post-secondary world. You know, many of our military personnel go on into college at some point. And then at the same time, they need to have at least a 31 on the military entrance exam or the ADFAB because that is what one of the military would require as a student is moving into the military. So those checks are pointing out that to be a ready graduate, the expectation is that you graduate. But we really need to have more happening at the high school level to show that a student is truly post-secondary ready and is ready for the credentialing that we know they need in our state to access the job that exists. That was an extraordinary opportunity for us. We've now said we've said it's important. It's a vision. We've walked very hard on getting these early post-secondary opportunities in our schools. But now you're going to be held accountable for moving more students in all student groups. All student groups, that's important. Into these early post-secondary opportunities so we can see that success. So I point that out because that's one of the most important ways that we have attempted to connect that vision to the actual work under ESSA. How about the flip side? What are some of the challenges related to ESSA from Tennessee's experience? Great question. I feel like the challenges are challenges that we would expect. You can't consistently get everyone to agree on the same thing. Even in a highly engaged stakeholder community where you brought people together around multiple working groups, you've had people come together that represent multiple stakeholder groups, and you've had multiple iterations of a draft with ESSA, you will still never have 100% agreement around what the ultimate outcome is. That's always going to be a challenge. And we certainly saw that in our experience like other states have. What we have attempted to do is to say in areas where stakeholders really felt very compelled on a particular item, that we're going to still work on what they were compelled by. It might not be something we would include as an accountability metric. It might not be an area where we feel like under ESSA it makes sense to include this, but it's important. A stakeholder group has said, this is a high priority area for us. So we've had to step back and say, is this an area that we want to continue to study? Have additional research. Look at additional data points. Step back and have additional engagement with them from a training or implementation perspective, that didn't really feel like it was an appropriate new accountability metric or the model of school improvement that we wanted to move into. But it was one that we wanted to continue to look at and work with them on. So we've done a lot of that and just say we value that work. We value what feedback you've given. We value the perspective that you have. But at this point, we don't have data that supports that that's the right next move. Or we don't have the research that's robust enough to say, this is what we would do in our accountability system. And so what we have done is say, we're going to continue to study some of these items. And that's actually pointed out in our final plan. I can think of two specific areas that in the draft plan and then again in the final plan, we said we don't have enough data. We don't have enough information to pursue this. But we want to continue to pursue it. And that has brought value to what the stakeholders have brought to the table. They said, thank you. This is a challenge. We know that you can't do this yet. But we appreciate that you're going to continue to look at it and keep it written in a plan that people will keep at the forefront of their attention. I mean, I think it's really notable from your description that Tennessee took stakeholder engagement really seriously. And of course, democracy is hard. So, you know, you're right. There are all these stakeholders coming together and they may feel very passionately and with different perspectives on these issues. So I think it's worth highlighting that one of the ways that you dealt with that is to say, we're going to kind of put this in the parking lot and we're going to continue revisiting it as more information or data are accumulated. Absolutely. And you know, I think if someone said this to me one time and it resonates in many ways as we've gone through the process. And this person who said it was an advocate herself. She said it's a lot easier to advocate than it is to implement. And I've thought about that a lot. I mean, folks are advocating for issues that are important. And I appreciate the advocacy because it helps us think about what could we do to implement it. But the implementation can be a challenge. It can be difficult, particularly if you don't have enough information around isn't the right next step. And so we're valuing the advocacy. We're valuing the feedback and we're trying to figure out if it's the right place to go with implementation. And how would we know what research questions or data points that we have to have to say, yes, that's the next right step. And so that's the work that we're dealing right now as we phase into the implementation component. That quite frankly never stops. But how do we continue the R&D, you know, the research and development piece within the department that keeps this at the forefront of our conversation? Mm-hmm. What are some of the unanswered questions about as a, either in terms of policy or implementation at this time that is influencing your work? I think probably the biggest unanswered question is funding. We do not know exactly where the funding will play out in the budget. And so that's just a question mark, probably every state superintendent or commissioner has. We have plans for our Title II funding. We have plans for Title IV that we're very excited about. But we ultimately don't know what will happen with Title II, and we don't know in Title IV exactly how much money will be there, and we're certainly hopeful that that will continue to go forward. So the funding questions are there. What we've attempted to do in both of those areas is to go forward with the work that is in those buckets. I mean, we're already implementing that. We're already thinking about the use of those funds, and we've got backup plans. You know, if something was not to be funded, what would we do differently? What are other options that we would pursue that would get to the same goals that we had? In Title II, we have a new focus area on principal and future residencies. We're very excited about that work. We're one of a handful of states that said, we're going to use that money to make these robust MSP programs that are transformational for our candidates. And so that work we've got to think through if we don't have the funding, how would we continue it and do it in a way that could ensure quality. The other pieces in Title IV, we are using some of those funds or projected to use those funds to support these early post-secondary opportunities for our students. We want to ensure that students can pay for AP. They can pay for, you know, the actual sitting for the exam. And so part of this funding was to also help them with those. We've got some backup plans if that doesn't pan out. But that's an unanswered question that we all need as we're attempting to move into our implementation phase. And that's a big one. Absolutely. I have one last question for you. Is there anything else about Tennessee's asset preparation that we haven't asked about that you think might be important for other states, other educators, other stakeholders to know? What's important as you were creating an implementation that was based on a plan that you were mindful of what happens after you submit the plan? I think sometimes we get to the phase of, you know, it's over. We've submitted the plan and we don't have to continue the stakeholder engagement. I feel like we have stepped back and said, what happens after submission? We're going to do webinars with very particular groups that the asset plan will impact. Directors of special education, our educators and administrators who work directly with students that are English-English learners. The work that we have with our priority schools and multiple districts who will be doing these school turnaround. So we're bringing those folks together and webinars and meetings to say this is what it means for you and we want to make sure that you're continuing that one to work with us on the implementation that quite frankly you need to be leading that. And so owning that vision, this is Tennessee's vision, you were part of the planning of it and now we want the implementation to be seen looking successful. We'll do the same thing as we go into the fall semester of the school year by bringing together different groups that need to know what does this now mean for you? The school board members, our administrators across our schools and our directors of schools, those folks as the school year begins need to hear this message again. What does it mean? How are we implementing it? And at the same time, we are putting out communications around, this is what stakeholder said, this is what we heard, this was ultimately what was in the plan to ensure people feel value through the process. But the actual submission of the plan is really the beginning of continuing the stakeholder engagement with the people who are ultimately going to be implementing it and communicating the strong work quite frankly around equity that we think is built in, the strong work that we have around school improvement and ensuring all students are successful and the strong pieces that are in our accountability model. People have to own it and have to be their vision and so it's going to be about communications, communications, communications after this is ultimately delivered. So I appreciate the question and it is an area that I hope we all do a very robust job of as state leaders. No, I think that's a fantastic point. The plan is not even really the beginning. It's the pre-beginning and then the real work comes with implementation. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Dr. McQueen. We really appreciate you taking some time to help us understand some of the details of the work that you and your team and all the stakeholders involved are undertaking. Well, thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the work that you've done to support our work in Tennessee. Our pleasure.


I'd always kind of written stories in comic books, but when I discovered the combo, the interaction of music and words and how powerful they could make me feel, it was like, I want to do that. So usually if the chords make me feel something, something will come of that. There's a lot of phrases I've written down that I'll look at them two, three days later and think, love is I think. And sometimes they'll make me feel a certain way, and I won't even make sense with what I'm saying, but it'll be this tune. Eventually it turns into a song.