Ecclesiastes 7, beginning at verse 21, reading to verse 22. Also, do not take to heart everything people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. For many times also, your own heart has known that even you have cursed others. Oh, yeah. Here we go, right? Do not be curious about what is being said about you.  That's what he's saying in verse 21. Do not take to heart everything people say. We have a tendency, don't we, of if somebody says something negative to us, it takes 10 positive comments later on to help us to get over that one negative. So Solomon is making it very clear that we shouldn't take to heart. We shouldn't be so curious and act upon things that have been said concerning us. It's better, he's saying, to let such things pass and not to meditate upon what you've heard. And so when you read this, there are things he wants us to know, some practical things, a couple things that I'll point out. One is Solomon would want us to know that we should restrict our tongues from speaking evil of others. And sometimes they say, but it's true. Well, it may or may not be true, but when you speak evil of somebody else, it's a destructive thing to do. So we ought to be very careful about what we say in Leviticus 19 verse 16. It says, do not go about spreading slander among your people. In Proverbs 20 verse 19, a gossip betrays a confidence. So avoid a man who talks too much. The fact is, gossip separates people. It destroys relationships and he's saying avoid it. And don't do it. You know, in ministry, I'll be honest with you, excuse me, I've had to learn this myself. Because it's been said that the number one meal that's had after Sunday services in churches is roast. It's roast pastor. You know, people may not agree with what they've heard or how things are being done, etc. And so the number one thing they do is they roast the pastor. And so in the ministry, if you're overly sensitive, if you take to heart everything that's said, then it ultimately can undermine your walk. And in just life in general, it's not that we should ignore true things. It's that we shouldn't be so prone to want to hear these things. There's some people that will have an account, you know, a social media account, and then they'll post something, then they want to read every comment. And sometimes it's kind of dumb to do that.  They say things online that they would never say to your face. And so sometimes people will feel the freedom to say mean or just untrue things about you. And so if you're picking up and reading all the social things and all of that, it's very destructive. Be very careful with that. You know, I have a habit of not reading them. You know, and it's just because there's so many negative things out there that's floating out there. Why would I want, if I want to hear negative things, I'll ask my wife to talk to me for a while and she'll let me know. So be very careful. Be very careful that you don't receive everything that's being said about you, either good or bad. So when gossip is spread about you, don't take it to heart. Again, some people like to know what's being said about them, but too often it isn't something that we needed to hear. I don't know how old some of you are in this room, so it's not that old, but you never know. There used to be a commercial a few years ago called Sonic Ear. Have you ever heard of that? Sonic Ear is a hearing kind of device that you can overhear what people are saying. Who wants that? I mean, one of the commercials, there's these two women who are sitting at the beach and a young woman comes walking by in her bikini or whatever and one of them is saying something like to the other, something like, gosh, what a beautiful body she has. I wish I had a body like that. Yeah, that's what she's saying. You know she's not saying, look at that. You know, so who would want to hear that? Who wants to hear the things that people have to say? And so I think we have to be very, very careful about that. Because again, some people waste their entire lives trying to be liked by other people. And it's a waste of your time. None of us can please everybody all of the time. And the Bible teaches us that words can heal or words can hurt. And when you are gossiped about, it is painful. And so I believe that this is something that we need to be aware of. You see in the Old Testament, murmuring and grumbling, we see murmuring and grumbling from the children of Israel. In Numbers 16 verse 3, it says that they gathered together against Moses and Aaron and said to them, you take too much upon yourselves for all the congregation is holy, every one of them. And the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves about the assembly of the Lord? And so they were speaking poorly of the leadership of Israel. And in Numbers 16, 15, Moses, it says, was very angry and he said to the Lord, do not respect their offering. I haven't taken one donkey from them, nor have I hurt one of them. So he overheard it was brought to him, whatever. And he's saying, this is the way I respond when people are speaking about me. We need to remember that Jesus himself was often spoken poorly of. I remember some of these things. People said he was untrained because he never formally studied. People accused him of being demon possessed. Some said that he was born of fornication. He was accused of self-promotion. John 8.53, are you greater than our father Abraham who's dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do you make yourself out to be?  And the world will do so as a matter of course, but sadly immature Christians do also. And the way people often work against you is through the things that they say about you. So remember words can be used as weapons and they can bring tremendous pain to other people. Proverbs 12.18 says, there is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. And so if you choose to say something, say it with grace, say it honestly, say it with love. And say it with a hope to encourage people to grow in their walks with the Lord. Again, if you worry about what people are saying about you, you'll never do anything. Because in the end, the only thing that matters is what God says about you. So with that in mind, live in such a way that he'll say to you, well done. Live in such a way that he'll call you my good and my faithful servant. He says in verse 21, he says, lest you hear your servant cursing you. This is interesting how he put that together because when he says in verse 21, the first portion, do not take to heart everything people say, he emphasizes it by saying lest you hear your servant cursing you. Then that's an interesting way to put it. Why? Because it hurts when someone who depends on you for their livelihood gossips about you. But if he speaks against you, it may provoke you to punish him. So the point is, don't expect to be praised constantly even by those who depend on you. And that's the truth. Of course, it's in the Bible. And verse 22, he said, for many times also your own heart is known that even you have cursed others. So we've done it, which should make us less sensitive when they speak of us. Verse 23, all this I have proved by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far for me. As for that, which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out? And so everything he's saying, everything he's saying is from experience. He's saying, I have examined this and found this to be true. I said, verse 23, I will be wise. It was far from me at one time. I sought to be wise from every means at my disposal. But I found that wisdom is far beyond human effort. True wisdom is out of my reach. I can't reach it through fleshly efforts. No matter how educated you may become, that doesn't mean you're becoming wise. Because there's a difference between wisdom and education. There's a difference between wisdom and knowledge. And sometimes we don't understand that. So we think that because people are educated, they must also be wise. Because they have a position somewhere, even as an instructor, they must be wise. That's not true. Oftentimes the people who are doing the instruction have no wisdom, but have a lot of book knowledge. And I've met people who are very wise who don't have education. Because life and life and their walk with God and the other things has helped them to see things more plainly and more clearly. And I'm telling you, you know, in my experience in going to school and all of that, I discovered that the professors, some of the professors that I sat under who were supposed to be instructing us, and indeed they knew their subject, but they weren't wise in the way that they lived. I was actually going to school at Cal Poly. I was taking a course on the human family, marriage and the family from a secular source at Cal Poly. And the professor was doing lectures on the subject of marriage and things like that and all. And we were all given an assignment. The assignment was to write on something that pertains to marriage. And so I chose to write on the role of the husband in marriage. I went to the library there at Cal Poly. Now this again was a long time ago, but I went to the library there looking for any books that they might have that were written on a man's role in marriage. This I found very interesting because they didn't have any. And I kept looking. I finally found one. A man's role in marriage, written by a woman. So it was very interesting. And that's a true story. That's true. It was written by a woman to tell me how I'm supposed to be. I found that very interesting. And so when I did, and again I'm talking about Cal Poly Pomona, I just wrote from a biblical perspective, the role of the husband, the Christian husband. And so I wrote some things out of Ephesians chapter 5 and gave a small Bible study as a paper for the professor. And at the end he gave us our papers back and he wrote on top of the heading of my paper. He said, I have never heard this before. Which is true. And so you can be intimidated by somebody's doctorate or masters, or multiple masters and doctorates. You can be intimidated by that. But just because somebody has education doesn't mean that they have wisdom. Wisdom is the proper application of information. And you gain wisdom through experience, but you also gain wisdom by the power of the Holy Spirit. And wisdom is found in the Word of God. And so the power of the Holy Spirit strengthens you to live When you study the Word of God and put into practice the things the Bible says, you gain a wisdom. Real wisdom is beyond your reach. So you have to get it by receiving it from God.  He does so through the Word of God. He does so through you seeking him. He does so through teaching of the Word of God that you receive and all of those things are applicable. And so he's saying, I wanted to have wisdom, but I found that it was too far out of my reach.  He says in verse 24, he goes as for that, which was far off exceedingly deep, who can find it out? So wisdom's death is more than he could naturally fathom. Wisdom, he's saying, runs deeper than anything you can completely search out in a lifetime. In the book of Job in chapter 28 verses 20 and 21, it reads, from where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air. And so wisdom is something that is hidden that God reveals to us. And Solomon realized that God's wisdom was beyond his reach. The wisdom that God possesses is past finding out through human effort. And that's why James 1.5 says to us, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally without reproach, it will be given to him. And so there is wisdom that you seek in trials. You know, you say, God, give me the wisdom to know how to deal with this. I seek God's wisdom constantly, I'll be honest with you. As a man, as a married man, a father and grandfather and pastor, a friend, whatever, I am constantly asking the Lord, just give me wisdom, Father. Give me wisdom. Because I want to have the proper ability to apply the things that you've taught me. He says in verse 25, I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom. The reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even a foolishness and madness. I applied my heart to know, to search and to seek out wisdom. Wisdom is deep, but I'm seeking it. And I've been seeking it throughout my lifetime. To have wisdom, he is saying is my greatest desire. Now Solomon wrote, not only the book of Ecclesiastes, song of Solomon, but he also wrote Proverbs. And in Proverbs chapter two, let me show you something, Proverbs two verses one through six. This is what he wrote. He said, my son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, apply your heart to understanding.  If you seek her as silver, search for her as for hidden treasure. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. Notice the words receive, treasure, incline, apply, cry out, lift up, seek her, search for her, then. So it's a lifelong pursuit. It's something that you seek. And it's something that requires, by the way, effort. But as you're seeking out the Lord, God has a way of opening up these things that we refer to as wisdom. He opens our eyes to those things and that's why we seek it. In Proverbs four, seven, wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. Listen, in all you're getting, get understanding. You know, if you're in a situation and you may have a thousand dollars in your pocket, but you don't know what to do in that situation, what good is that money going to do you? The money's not going to do you anything unless you take it out to try and bribe somebody. But it's not going to do you any good. Why? Because that's not what you need at that moment. There are a lot of times you're going to discover, I have, you're going to discover that there are things you're going through that money or friendships or anything else would not get you out of. What you need is wisdom. And that's why you make wisdom your lifelong pursuit. If you're young, pursue God and pursue his word and pursue his spirit. If you're old, continue to do so. Seek him every day. Seek him daily. Trust in him. Pursue him and ask him to fill you with wisdom.  You see, he's searching for wisdom. He's looking for reason. The reason speaks of the meaning of life. And in this search, we're going to see it when we get to chapter 12. The final answer is going to be knowing God and fearing God. All of these chapters are going to lead us to chapter 12 verse 13 where he says, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God. Keep his commandments for this is man's all.  If you should have the ability to do that and you're not going to be wanting to regret anything.  And that's why I believe very strongly in making an everyday count as if it's your last day in some ways. Every day. Every day. Because you never know when your last day is. You never know. You know, we wake up and we say we're going to end this day and who knows it may be the end of your life that day. And I don't say that to be morbid. I just say it's because it's true. Because a lot of people died today and a lot of people will die tomorrow. And I came to the point in my life that I realized the longer I live, the better the chances is it's going to be me who dies next. It's just a fact. And if you live as if this is the day the Lord has made and you will rejoice and be glad in it and you will seek him out. Then at the end of the day, should you survive as we all have obviously, then you're going to feel good about the day because I saw the Lord. And I've been doing that for a long time. I encourage you to do the same. To pursue, to investigate, to follow, search out wisdom. To be serious about the things that matter. To have a deeper knowledge of what life consists of, of its purpose. To understand, he says, even wickedness, folly and madness. When he's saying that, he's saying, why does sin drive man to such terrible lengths? That's the worst kind of thinking. He says, I also wanted to know God's purposes. I want to understand man's response to him. And I've made this the most important reason for my entire existence. And so as he's pursuing, he comes to this conclusion verse 2026. I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. You women know he's talking about you. Okay, let's look at that, shall we? Verse 2060 says, notice I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets. Now that's an experiential knowledge. That's a knowledge he gained by life. Remember in 1 Kings chapter 11, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. So if there's anybody who knows something about women, I would say he has a good understanding. I would assume that. Now these wives he had in concubines came from the nations that God had forbidden intermarriage with. They were political marriages, majority of them, if not almost every single one. The king would marry for a political kind of thing, but not necessarily have relations with them at all. But they came from the nations God had forbidden intermarriage with. In Deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 17 it says, the king shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. So God had said that they will turn your heart from him, and in the life of Solomon they did. After searching things out, he's telling us what he has found. He has found that an ungodly woman can be dangerous. Now he writes about that often again in Proverbs chapter 2 verses 18 and 19. He said, for the immoral woman's house leads down to death, her paths to the dead. None who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life. Proverbs 5, 3 and 6, the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, her mouth is smoother than oil. In the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. Proverbs 7, 21 through 23, with her enticing speech she caused him to yield. With her flattering lips she seduced him. Immediately he went after her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stalks till an arrow struck his liver. As a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost his life. Now there's a new cologne that they have now at Macy's. It's called Ox to the Slaughter. It smells very good. So how can a person be safeguarded against sexual temptation? The one who pleases God is safe, he says, but the sinner shall be taken by her. He said in verse 26, he who pleases God shall escape from her. So how do I escape from temptation like this? It is by a spirit-empowered desire to please Jesus. Remember how Jesus said the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak? There's an ongoing battle between our carnal desire and the leading of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 7, 15, Paul said it like this. He said, what I'm doing, I don't understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice.  And so how do I escape? Well, I have God's word and I have God's spirit. When we're tempted by our flesh, our flesh is really being tempted by the enemy. We should do two things. One, and this is practical. One, when I have this inclination in a sense. One, is it scripturally allowed? Is this something God would allow for me? Now I know I'm stepping on toes somewhere. Maybe not in this room, but somebody will hear this or maybe they're watching now. And so let me step on your toes graciously. You know, there seems to be a laxness in the body of Christ today concerning the sanctity, the holiness of marriage and relationships. There really is. Sadly, the spirit of the age is infiltrated to a degree that many people don't even realize or think about or have a concern over the fact that they are in sin or doing sinful things. In our fellowship I try the best that I can to be as plain scripturally, to speak as honestly as I can and not to mince words so that we all have an understanding of what scripture says. I try to do that. And to some degree I think that I've been successful. I don't know. But I can't tell you how many times over the years I've had people approach me who are in improper relationships and are asking for my blessing. I can't tell you. If you do not have the freedom to marry someone, you don't have the freedom to date them. And sometimes somebody will walk up and say that I'm engaged to this woman here but her divorce isn't final. So if you are not free to marry her then, what makes a person think that they have the freedom to be going out with her? But that's how a lot of people think. The word that has become common in our society is the word fiancé. And the word used to be speaking of someone that you would be true to, engaged to that you were about to marry or in the near future you're going to marry. She's my fiancé. Today that word fiancé when it's used to me is very often a word that simply means we're living together. Because the people think that if we have made a promise to one another that we will get married that it's the same as being married. It's not. The Bible uses a word that is not fiancé. It's called fornication. And that's a sin. And the scripture says in the book of Revelation, last book of the Bible, last chapter it says that fornicators are outside of the kingdom. You don't enter in. It's one of the sins. It's one of the sins that people practice and think they can get away with because they say, well, God is a God of grace. No, God is also just and righteous. And when he gives his word, there's a purpose to it. So what we try to do is skirt around it by using the word grace when in fact God didn't give his grace to me. Jesus didn't die in a cross so that I could fornicate. He didn't die to set me free to fornicate. He set me free so I wouldn't fornicate, you see. And that means that we can follow his word. And I know that's old-fashioned. I mean, it's tribute to me now. I mean, when I first started teaching the Bible, it was 50 years ago. If I say that, everybody in the room would say that's right. I still remember teaching a Bible study at my aunt's house. Marie and I were there. This was good 40 some years ago now at my aunt Barbara's house. And I'm teaching a Bible. And there's only like five or six people. My aunt, two of her daughters, Marie and one other person. And it was just a small group. And I was teaching and I started speaking of fornication and like I am right now. I forgot that my cousin, who's in the Bible study, was living in sin. Oh, my aunt at the end of the Bible study, because they were new Christians at the end of the Bible study. I didn't know this. I told later, told my cousin, you're moving out of his house and you're moving home, you're in sin. See, they didn't know that. They were new believers. But the minute my aunt heard what the word of God says, as we went through scripture, she acted on it. And my cousin moved out of her boyfriend's house, got right with God in the best of ways she could and eventually married the guy she was living with. See, so the truth will set you free and God will honor you for doing that. And yet today, so many times, our flesh is battling the spirit and the spirit is working against our flesh to try and teach us. And so one, we need to be aware of the fact that is this something scripturally allowed? And then two, we should pray. So you consult the word of God and you seek the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 5.17, pray without ceasing. And so in this case, we have clear guidelines concerning relationships. And 2 Corinthians 6.14, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What communion has light with darkness? Unequally yoked. A young woman comes into my office and says to me, Pastor, will you pray for me? There's a young man that I want to have a relationship with. I want to start going out with. And I said, well, let me ask you a question.   I don't do that. You know, I'm not a dating guru. I'm not that. So I said, well, what do you know about this guy? And she says, well, very little. And I said, is he a believer? And she says, no, I said, then why would I pray for you to have a relationship with a guy who doesn't know God? Why would I do that? She says, because I've been reading the Bible and Jesus said, ask what you desire. It will be given to you. And that's true story. I'm not making that up. That's a true story. And she said, and so I said, yeah, and the Bible also says, do not be unequally yoked together with an unbeliever. You know, the scriptures are very clear. So you look for the scripture. What does it say? And you act upon those scriptures. You're not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And that's what he's speaking about, concerning an immoral woman.  We all know the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, how that she had grabbed him, Joseph being in the Old Testament of the tribes of Israel as a young man, had been sold into slavery, was living as a slave in the home of a man named Potiphar. And Potiphar's wife had made advances. We all know the story. She reached for him and said, Joseph, this is what the scripture says. This is as plain as she was. She said, Joseph, come lay with me. And she reached for him and grabbed hold of his garment. And he ran out of the place there. She was still holding his garment. He was the first streaker in the Bible. And he went running out. And she ended up taking that garment, showing it to the husband, and he ended up being imprisoned for something he didn't do for many years. And so the scripture says, flee fornication. And Joseph is a great example. He's a great example of somebody would not allow himself to be taken and used in such a way to stop walking with God. God-fearing parents are intended to raise God-fearing children. And that's intended to produce God-fearing nations, nations that understand and even live in righteousness. Malachi in the Old Testament, chapter 2, verse 15 says that God seeks godly offspring. So marrying unbelievers will undermine the chance of raising a godly child. Somebody said, if you willfully disobey God and marry a non-Christian, do not deceive yourself with the belief that you will be the cause of your husband or wife's conversion. By the grace of God, that may possibly happen. But it usually does not. Mixed marriages usually end in great unhappiness or divorce. And even if that is not the case, you will certainly bring much unnecessary sorrow upon yourself by disobedience. And that's absolutely true. How can you pray together? How can you worship together? How can you raise up your children to have the fear of the Lord if one of you doesn't care about any of that? So in the end, when we fail to avoid sexual immorality, so many people will get hurt. You end up with unfulfilled dreams and nothing but I wish I wouldn't have. And I've seen many fail in this area and many in destruction is devastating. So he says, verse 27, here's what I have found, says the preacher, adding one thing to the other to find out the reason which my soul still seeks, but I cannot find. One man among a thousand I have found. But a woman among all these I have not found. Truly, this only I have found upright, but they have sought out many schemes. Hmm. My soul still seeks and I cannot find. This is my conclusion. I've added these things up one by one. Finding a man who is what he should be truthful and righteous, he's saying, is rare. Finding a truly faithful and righteous man, he says, is very rare. Proverbs 20 verse 6, most men will proclaim each his own goodness, but who can find a faithful man? So to find, he says, a good man is a rare thing. But finding a faithful woman, he says, is even more difficult. It's interesting how he speaks about one in a thousand. One man among a thousand I have found but a woman among all these I have not found. It's interesting how he used the number one thousand number of wives in concubines that he had. So it seemed that he came to see the evil of his own sin by living with pagan wives. So he's saying this, the whole human race is really bound by sin. In verse 29, truly, this only I have found that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. Though God created man, Adam and Eve, human beings, originally without sin, they sin. They sought out evil. And the Bible says in Romans 3 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So there's none righteous, no, not one. All have sinned. And that, again, is why we need the Savior, Jesus Christ. Remember Isaiah 53.6, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So there are no really righteous men. There are men who attempt to do the best. But in Christ we can be made righteous because the righteousness of Christ is given to us, it's imputed to us. The righteousness of God is given to us. The righteousness we didn't have until it was given to us. That comes through faith in Christ. So when you got saved, God imputed, he gave to you something you didn't have. He gave to you his own righteousness. But in our own, we're nothing but sinners in need of a Savior. And that's what he's seen. And that's what he saw. He's saying we need God. I've come to the conclusion I don't have wisdom. I don't see goodness in the human race at the end of the day. We need God. And I guess we'd all agree with that, don't we? We need God.


Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. G.O. here and we're doing another first impressions on two particular Maga series that I'm really interested in and hopefully I can entice you to read them as well. These two series have something in common which I really love and that is the usage of Yo-kai and Urban Legends and monsters and creepy stuff like that. Of course the execution for both series are wildly different, but still it's exciting to have show-and-jump, current show-and-jump material involving Yo-kai. That is something that I'm very passionate about and one of my favorite things to read up on when it comes to Japanese folklore and history and all that stuff. So let's begin with Doron Dororon. So essentially the story involves the character of Dora Sasaki, this young kid who is not necessarily the smartest in town but he has a lot of courage and a lot of heart and wants to do good in the world. This is a alternate reality where Samurai are still rolling around and they're protecting modern-day Japan from Mononoke or Evil Spirits. Yo-kai are more neutral, if you will, to kind of vaguely summarize things for this video and Mononoke are typically classified as Evil Spirits. So the Samurai are tasked with eradicating these Evil Spirits and they are seen in a positive light throughout the city. Our main protagonist wants to keep a promise to his departed mother about becoming a Samurai because he's not necessarily the smartest and he figures he's not going to get into college or doesn't want to continue that line and she is actually supportive of that idea when she was alive and was excited because he would do something awesome like that and use his ferocious strength to protect the people of Japan and stuff like that. So it's a really heartwarming scene between the two even though it's said in the past it does shape the protagonist towards the future. He fails the entrance exam to become a Samurai, so other hijinks ensue where he is able to meet a particular character in the series Mononoke that is not evil and actually wants to protect people as well called Kusanagi. If you know your lore there's a lot of name puns here with swords and all that stuff so you can probably imagine where the story is headed after that. I don't necessarily want to ruin everything because as of this video there's only one chapter for me to talk about but I do think this series has potential. It has a really cool premise and wonderful art. I really enjoyed the art and the usage of heavy inks to depict the Mononoke or evil spirits. At one point you see this monstrous version of a Tengu and he just looks super intimidating and the way the art is depicted to highlight that is a real treat. There's also visual aspects of the swords abilities and stuff like that that remind me of sort of like cel-shaded look to it. Some of that is really visually striking. Now the main character is interesting enough, of course, there's only one chapter so I can't really tell you overall what his arc is going to be. It could go so many ways. I just hope that he becomes a worthy character for people to cheer and root for. One thing about the series that I hope doesn't that it doesn't fall into is the trappings of tournament arcs and exams and training arcs and stuff like that. Maybe they could do things a little bit differently. I hope there's no mandatory training arc with several students and you meet other teammates and I don't need that. Hopefully it's a more simpler story of Samurai-esque cops fighting against monsters. That's all I need. And obviously the partnership that is going to form between the character of Kusunagi and our main lead, Dora, I'm very much looking forward to that. It does have tropes here and there and it's nothing we haven't seen before in many shows and manga and stuff like that, but it's still nice to have a concept like that and you have the different viewpoints of the world, right? Coming together and forming this team to set out and try and change things and bring happiness to people. So I look forward to that cool action, interesting premise. Hopefully it doesn't get canceled. Next up is Ayashimon. Now, this is really different from what I just talked about. In Ayashimon, we follow the character of Maruo as he is looking for a way to use his strength in a positive manner. He is freakishly strong. He's an abomination. Nobody can explain how strong this character is. And eventually he gets turned down from other stuff that he wanted to work at and it doesn't really work his way. He's kind of a knucklehead and isn't really the smartest kid in the block, but he's tough and he's got the will of iron. As the story progresses, we meet the character of Udara and she is being pursued by these evil Yakuza type characters and Maruo soon finds out that they're not exactly what he thinks they are. They're not human and are actually yokai-esque monsters. Now, this takes some liberties. They're not referred to as yokai at first. They are obviously based on the famous spirits and folklore and urban legend, but there's a twist to them. And they even reference that with gegege no kitaro easter eggs, which I really appreciate it. And Maruo saves the character of Udara and proceeds to make a pact with her and protect her as her subordinate in this crazy world. Now, the interesting thing is that yes, this is a mob-esque story with supernatural elements. That's fantastic. The character of Maruo has a deep fascination with manga and he's a huge fan of manga and he's read Dragon Ball and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Fist of the North Star and stuff like that. So he admires characters like Jotaro Goku and he constantly makes reference to the different manga that he's read. And while that seems cool at first, I was a little bit put off by it because everything else about the series is awesome and really serious and cool. And it just, like I said, it just took me out of the experience and I'm like, oh, I get it. You want to be funny towards the audience and make references to other manga from Shonen Jump and the library and then their catalog, I guess. That's fine. But I don't think the story needs that. You could just say he wants to be like his favorite manga heroes and that's it. I don't need the name drop of Goku and him trying to do a Kamehameha wave and stuff like that. It just it makes me realize that, yes, I am reading a Shonen Jump title and he's making weird random references while he's fighting deadly yokai monsters. But regardless, they team up the two characters of Maruo and Uradda and she turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of the previous mob leader of the different clans and all that stuff. Now, supposedly he passed away, but there's a conspiracy that he died and she's trying to prove it and take back something from her dad. As a result, there's sort of a coup and then disarray between the different clans and everything. They all split up into four main factions and they control behind the scenes what happens in Tokyo and all the different cities and all that stuff. And that's where our main character is going into. He's going to protect Uradda while also finding new fights to be a part of because that's what he wants to do. He wants to use his strength for something and he has a code of honor. He has manners when it comes to fighting, which is really interesting and nice to see of a character like that. He's not just this dumb-witted knucklehead character that just wants to brawl and, you know, have the time of his life in a fight. There's more to him. The art is really good. The fights are dynamic and interesting to look at, not hard to follow at all. There are some really cool splash pages and panels of the fights and the fluidity of his attacks have been just punching these monsters. There's also really cool panels where you see the actual look of the monsters and the yokai spirits. Really awesome stuff. Cool protagonist that hopefully gets to evolve as the series progresses in the character of Uradda. She's out for blood. And one of my favorite scenes came in the second chapter where she was just a badass. I'd love that so much. So between the two, Ayashimon has the better premise overall. But there's something interesting about Dororon that I want to see more of. So yeah, overall those are my first impressions. I'm really enjoying the two new series that I'm reading and hopefully they don't get canceled. But what about you guys? Have you read Ayashimon or Doron Dororon? I hope I said those two names right. A little bit of a tongue twister there. Let me know in the comment section down below what you thought. And if you haven't, what are some of your favorite supernatural themed manga? Very interested in checking that out as well. Thank you everybody for liking, commenting, subscribing. If you want to see more content like this, I talk about anime and manga on this channel. Hope you can subscribe and help the channel grow. Thank you everybody for tuning in. God bless. Stay safe out there. I will catch all of you on our next video.


Facebook and Twitter and Google have massive power. They have a monopoly on public discourse in the online arena. I will say it's dismaying listening to the questions from our Democratic colleagues because consistently the message from Senate Democrats is for Facebook and Twitter and Google to censor more, to abuse their power more, to silence voices that Senate Democrats disagree with more. That is very dangerous if we want to maintain a free and fair democracy, if we want to maintain free speech. There was a time when Democrats embraced and defended the principles of free speech. There was a time when Democrats embraced and defended the principles of a free press. And yet there's an absolute silence from Democrats speaking up for the press outlets censored by Big Tech. There's an absolute silence for Democrats speaking out for the citizens' silence by Big Tech. Instead there is a demand, use even more power to silence dissent. And that's a totalitarian instinct that I think is very dangerous. At the same time that Big Tech exercises massive power, it also enjoys massive corporate welfare. Through the effect of Section 230, a special immunity from liability that nobody else gets. Congress has given Big Tech in effect a subsidy while they become some of the wealthiest corporations on the face of the planet. Mr. Dorsey, I want to focus primarily on Twitter and ask you initially, is Twitter a publisher? Is Twitter a publisher? Yes. No, we distribute information. So what is a publisher? An entity that is publishing under editorial guidelines and decisions. Well, your answer happens to be contrary to the text of federal statute, particular Section 230, which defines an information content provider as any person or entity that is responsible in whole or in part for the creation or development of information provided through the internet or any other interactive computer service. Let me ask you, was Twitter being a publisher when it censored the New York Post? No, we have very clear policies on the conduct we enable on the platform. And if there's a violation, we take enforcement action and people choose to commit to those policies and into those terms of service. Except your policies are applied in a partisan and selective manner. You claim it was hacked materials and yet you didn't block the distribution of the New York Times story that alleged to talk about President Trump's tax returns, even though a federal statute makes it a crime to distribute someone's tax returns without their consent. You didn't block any of that discussion, did you? Our policy was focused on distribution of the actual hacked materials. Did you block the discussion of the President's tax return material? In the New York Times case, we interpreted as reporting about the hacked materials. Did you block Edward Snowden when he illegally released material? I don't have the answer to that. The answer is no. You haven't used this in a selective manner.  No. We were enforcing our policy in our terms of service. So on October 15th, Jake Sherman, a reporter at Politico, tweeted the following. I tweeted a link to the New York Post story right after it dropped yesterday morning. I immediately reached out to the Biden campaign to see if they had any answer. I wish I'd given the story a closer read before tweeting it. Twitter suspended me. So you actually have a reporter reporting on a story, asking the other side for comment. And Twitter says, hi, Jake Sherman. Your account at Jake Sherman has been locked for violating Twitter rules. Now, what did the Politico reporter do? Immediately tweets after that, my goal was not to spread information. Well, that's a little worrisome just in and of itself. My goal was to raise questions about the story. Oh, my overlords in Silicon Valley. I was attacking the New York Post. You don't understand. I was attacking them as I did in subsequent tweets and see how the Biden campaign was going to respond. They later did respond. And then, not long after, Jake Sherman comes back with, my account is clearly no longer suspended. I deleted the tweet. When Twitter is editing and censoring and silencing the New York Post, the newspaper with the fourth highest circulation in the country, and Politico, one of the leading newspapers in the country, is Twitter behaving as a publisher when it's deciding what stories reporters are allowed to write and publish and what stories they're not? No, and that account is not suspended. It fell a fall of the hacked materials policy. We realized that there was an error in that policy and the enforcement. Hold on, I'm literally looking at the tweet from Twitter that says, your account has been locked. You're telling me that this is not an accurate. That's a lock. That's a lock and can be unlocked when you delete the. I understand that you have the star chamber power. Your answer is always, well, once we silently you, we can choose to allow you to speak, but you are engaged in publishing decisions. Let me shift to a different topic. Mr. Dorsey. Does voter fraud exist? I don't know for certain. Are you an expert in voter fraud? No, I'm not. Well, why then is Twitter right now putting purported warnings on virtually any statement about voter fraud? We're, we're simply linking to a broader conversation so that people have more information. No, no, you're not. You put up a page that says quote voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the United States. That's not linking to a broader conversation. That's taking a disputed policy position.  You're entitled to take a policy position, but you don't get to pretend you're not a publisher and get a special benefit under section 230 as a result. That link is pointing to a broader conversation with tweets from publishers and people all around the country. Mr. Dorsey with the following statement, violate Twitter's policies quote absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud. I imagine that we would label it so that people can have more context and how about this quote quote third party organizations candidates and political activists. Voter fraud is particularly possible where quote third party organizations candidates and political party activists are involved in quote handling absentee ballots. Would you flag that as potentially misleading? I don't know the specifics of how we might enforce that, but I imagine a lot of these would have a label pointing people to a bigger conversation. Well, you're right. You would label them because you've taken the political position right now that voter fraud doesn't exist. I would note both of those quotes come from the Carter Baker Commission on federal election reform that is Democratic president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker and Twitter's position is essentially voter fraud does not exist. Are you aware that just two weeks ago in the state of Texas, a woman was charged with 134 counts of election fraud? Are you aware of that? I'm not aware of that. If I tweeted that statement with a link to the indictment, would you put a warning on it that says, well, the Democratic Party position right now is voter fraud doesn't exist? I don't think it's useful to get in the hypotheticals, but I don't believe so. You don't believe so? Well, we're going to test that because I'm going to tweet that and we'll see what you put on it. All right. Yesterday, Mr. Dorsey, you and I spent a considerable amount of time on the phone and you said that you wanted to embrace transparency. So I want to ask you, I've asked Twitter, I've asked Facebook multiple times, how many times have you blocked Republican candidates for office? Their tweets or their posts in 2016 and 2018 and 2020? How many times have you blocked Democratic candidates for office? How many times have you blocked Republican office holders? How many times have you blocked Democratic office holders? Twitter has repeatedly refused to answer that question with specific hard data and cataloging the examples. In the interest of transparency, which you said you want to embrace, will you commit in this hearing right now to answer those questions in writing? It's exactly what we want to do. I'm sorry, Mr. Dorsey, I didn't hear you. That's exactly what we're pushing for as we think about building upon 230. Is that a yes that you will answer those questions in writing? Transparency, not just of outcomes, but also our process as well. Is that a yes that you will answer those questions in writing? We'll certainly look into it and see what we can do. And actually answer them and not give lawyerly double-speak about why you're not going to give specifics. Answer them.  We're going to work to answering broader transparency around outcomes. All right, that's a no. Mr. Zuckerberg, how about you? Will you commit that Facebook will answer those specific questions, cataloging the number of instances in which Democrats in 2016, 2018 and 2020 have been silenced versus the number of instances in which Republicans have been silenced on Facebook? Senator, I'm not sure if we have the data available, but I will follow up with you or your team. Okay, I'm going to take that as a yes. And I'm going to take Twitter. We'll see if it's a yes or transparency is bogus and we don't intend to provide it.


Your youth is a time to thrive and actualize your dreams. Life is not always straightforward and you learn many lessons along the way. You can learn the value of gratitude from a time of need and forgiveness from depression. The journey is a long one. You have to brace yourself for what comes ahead. You have to be conscious too so you don't repeat lessons. They often come at a painful price. I am sure you do not want to pay repeatedly. One way to keep track is journaling or deep reflections. When you constantly ask yourself why you ended up with the unpleasant results, you would be less likely to repeat your mistakes. Lessons can help you shape your life. The more lessons you have, the more your growth as a person. There are truly many things that will not make sense until you experience them. In today's video, I am going to share with you 9 lessons you must learn about life before you are 30.  It is easy to strut around with pride and a sense of adventure when you don't know the reality of the world you live in. You may be hot faster than you can imagine if you don't learn the fundamental truth.  You are loved no doubt about it. Just not by everyone. Some people can dislike you simply because you are successful. The problem is not that you are not hard working. It may not even be the way you dress. It can simply be their own perception. Sometimes you represent some people's worst fear.   Do not trust everyone with your plans. Keep important things to yourself. This can keep you safe from the prying ears of people who seek to destroy you. The less they know, the better. 2. You are not immune from failure. No one is truly immune from failure. Also people fail all the time. The only difference is their mindsets towards failure. When you are in your 20s and brace the idea that your plans may not always work out and resolve to follow through just the same. People who brave failure usually come out successful. No one gets it all right on the first try. According to former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. You are young. You have a lot of time on your hands.  We never truly fail until we stop trying. 3. Money is not everything. It is tempting to focus solely on acquiring as much money as you want. History has shown that man is insatiable. You will find no happiness along that path. Money can buy a company but not friends. It can buy a house but not a home. Money can buy you luxury but not peace. There is truly a limit to what money can do. Value your friends and your relationships. Money is a luring and can make one think it holds all the answers but in reality, it doesn't. According to Business Insider, a recent study of over 300,000, 50% of people who have strong social ties have a 50% better chance of survival. Money can't care for your children or teach them the right values. Money can even make you lazy. While you need money to improve the quality of your life, you need care and affection from loved ones, you need your goals and your purpose to have a sense of fulfillment. Learn to live more. 4. The world does not revolve around you. Some people think attention is their bed right. They are wrong. So many people that you will meet will be completely uninterested in you. It will amaze you just how invisible you are in the larger scheme of things. Be humble. Even if you are smart, be respectful to other people. We live in a rather small world. You will have your moments. In your 20s, you are fired up and ready to go. The tendency can be to get overconfident. Don't ever think because you accomplished one thing, you are going to be recognized or become more accepted. People have their lives and their personal problems to deal with. Focus on creating long-term value and do your best each day. In time, the world will come to know you. 5. The most insignificant things of people sometimes hold their answers you seek. When you are young, don't neglect people because of their background or jobs. Someone who is a janitor today can be a business owner tomorrow. People's real character is seen in the way they treat people that feel they are better than. Don't yell at people old enough to be your parents simply because you paid for a service. Be open to learning. You can learn from anyone at all. Having this mindset helps you avoid mistreating people or looking down on them simply because you think they can add no value. 6. Love is not a feeling. One of the major lessons you will learn before you age 30 is that love is very serious. Relationships alone will not sustain your relationship. The feel-good thing in the relationship is bound to be tested by many events. If all you and your partner have is feelings, your relationships may not last. There are times when you will be too busy to hang out or even talk. There are times when your partner will want to be left alone and be given space. If the two of you don't share ideals and similar goals, the relationship will not have much to run on. If you say you love your partner, you should be willing to bear a level of responsibility in seeing the relationship work out. It also means that you are willing to contribute to his or her growth and personal development. Love isn't something to experiment with. You could get hot. If you are interested in someone, first, find out whether they are interested or aligned with yours. If not, they are likely to be a bad fit. 7. Take a break. Work can wait. You have to learn to rest. There is work today. There will be work tomorrow. There will always be work. Don't burn out trying to do all the work. More work will just materialize. And this can cause you depression. Take a deep breath. You are right. First, try decluttering your mind. Don't remember things that are not useful. We have a lot of memories but not all of them are important. Walk very hard but don't joke with your resting period. All emails can wait until the morning. No clients has ever died because emails were not replied at night. You deserve to rest after a long day at work. You deserve an art to yourself for dinner or some time to catch up with your personal development. You too deserve to do the things that matter to you. 8. Everything big started somewhere. The courage to win is something gotten from taking baby steps. You may not always have it all figured out but you should always be willing to start no matter how small. You never really know what might happen. Every big corporation you see today began from somewhere. They were not always that big. Amazon, Apple and Facebook are clear examples of this. Don't be discouraged by how much work you still have to do. Anything good takes time. Work hard, have daily targets and an overall vision. Give it time. You too will excel. 9. He who never stops trying ultimately wins. In your 20s, you need to learn great. You may have to learn that we cannot break true without a level of persistence. Life really is not fair. We will not be given a slice of cake simply because we said please. We have to demand it and insist on it before we get it. When you make up your mind, it helps you wear a dark moment when nothing will seem to work. An idea is not bad simply because one investor does not agree.   You will never know if an idea will work or not until you try out your options. Even when an idea does not work, try again. When you do things repeatedly, you get better at it. You learn something new each time. It is better to fail at trying than to fail to try.


and welcome to another edition of Business in Hawaii. I am Deil and Yanagita, and we are broadcasting live from the ThinkTech studios in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are at www.thinktechhawaii.com, and you can sign up to get on our mailing list there as well. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to bring you stories of local businesses by local people. And our guests share with us their journey to building successful businesses in our sometimes challenging environment. In the ThinkTech studios today is Richie Aki, managing director of Hero Fire Protection. Richie, welcome to the show. Good afternoon, Deilin. I have to tell you that, you know, I shouldn't be here because you are radio personality, you are, so I am just gonna roll right in and ask you, tell us about Richie, where did you start? How did you get here? You own Hero Fire Protection, tell me about that. Well, thank you for having me here. You know, it's been a while since I've been on the radio, so might be a little rusty today. But, you know, Hero actually started because I was actually, I got out of the nightclub business and radio that nightlife, so to say. I got involved in the renewable energy side of things with solar, so nightlife to daylife. And it was really competitive and we were looking for something that would differentiate ourselves when we're at the kitchen table talking to customers. And we were fortunate enough to be introduced to some of the product line that I'm about to tell you about today, which helps families, you know, to protect families in the event of a fire. I actually grew up being the son of a firefighter.  He retired and he would go into homes for inspection, spent 30 years with the fire department and I would hear a lot of horror stories about tragedies and fires and detectors malfunctioning and families, you know, he'd walk into bedrooms and find families untouched, not burnt and they had already passed on and I just couldn't understand why people would just lay there during this fire. But, you know, he would tell me, what if you don't know that a fire is there when you're sleeping? So when this product line was introduced to us when I was, you know, running my solar company, I said, let's take a look at this and let's not just help families save on their electric bill but let's help them, you know, save lives out there. So this product took a life of its own and we started Hero Fire Protection because of it. I know that you also own Akamai Energy. Where did you find your entrepreneurial spirit? I mean, where did that come from? You know, I guess I just always liked the freedom and the challenge of, you know, shooting for the moon so to say but, you know, I've always been an entrepreneur ever since, you know, I was 16 years old working as a bedroom DJ, right? So, but, you know, my life has transformed and I'm still carrying on that entrepreneurial spirit and it's hard for me to get a nine to five, really. It's really hard, you know. It gives me the flexibility to spend time with my family and I don't need a lot of time to my church as well. So it works out. Where'd you go to high school? I have to ask. I went to Kamehameha. Oh, well Kamehameha served you well in bringing that entrepreneurial spirit to the table and getting into so many different things. So please, please tell me about home protection. How this will help us? Okay. Where do we go? Well, for Hero Fire Protection, our main intent is to educate families about fire safety. So when we visit a home, it's not necessarily to go there and sell them something. We walk into the home. We'll actually bring them an emergency preparedness kit which has 167 pieces in it. I have one here on the table displayed. There's things in there like a flashlight, a blanket, a poncho. Let me just grab it right now. Got it. And some cool things that are bandages, ointments. There's even an iPad in there and I always get this look from people like I'm getting from you right now. It's not that kind of iPad. It's the iPad for your eye and eye dressing. But you should see the kids that get really excited. Dad, dad. But anyway, yeah, we give one of these out to all of the homes that we visit. It's a $60 value and it's something that every home should have in case of emergencies. But we also go into the home and we'll do an assessment of the existing fire detection system. And then we'll also bring in some fire safety awareness education. Some brochures.  We even have a coloring book or the cakey. So we have something for everyone because fire is something that most people don't think about, you know? It's not something you think about every day. And people don't realize that there's actually two primary types of fires. There's your hot fire, which most people are used to hearing about. But there's also cold fires.  But I was warned by, you know, the person in charge or that no, we don't want the sprinklers going off. Just to show you what we'll normally do in a home. And I always check with the homeowner first, but I'll actually light a piece of paper towel. As you can see, it was already lit before, but I'll light a piece of paper towel just to show the flame like a flame you'd see on a birthday candle. You know, it's a hot flame. That's what we call a hot fire. Not as much smoke, more flame. But as soon as I put out the flame, you'll see more smoke. And then I'll cover the jar and cut off the oxygen from, you know, fueling the fire. But so we're talking about hot flaming fires and also cold, slow smoldering fires, fires that you can actually touch. So two types of fires. So when you're looking for a detection system, you want to be able to detect both hot fires and cold fires. And it's a battle for oxygen, which is why when my dad would find families and we just had some tragedies recently in high-rise condominiums where they found the victims untouched. And really, people often say it's because of smoke inhalation. But really, it starts off as asphyxiation, which is the lack of oxygen. During that fire, that fire is going to fight and it's hungry for oxygen.  So it's going to put you into a deep state of sleep. And during that time, when you're unaware of what's going on, you breathe in the smoke and that's what happens. That's why tragedy strikes. Which, you know, when we go into the home, we talk about four misconceptions about fires. So the first misconception is that it won't happen to me. Everyone always talks about it. It's not going to happen to me.  Now, we're going to assume we're not going to get into our car accident. But most of us should have car insurance to protect us from a car accident should it happen. Well, fire is very real. If it wasn't real, we wouldn't have the fire department.  But fires can happen to anyone. You've heard of absent-minded moments. You know, kids, elderly have left things on the stove. People forget about things in the toaster oven. You know, things can happen.  There's millions of recalls every year on products out there. Why? Because of fire hazards. So it can just happen to about anybody. And places like the attic, there's a lot of electrical wiring up there. Places like the laundry room. You know, lint can cause fire. Places like the garage, electrical in there as well. But yet, there's no real detection system for those areas until now, which I'll tell you about in a little bit. But everyone in a home has a junk drawer in their house. So when we go into a home, we like to immediately call their attention to this junk drawer because in there, they have scissors, papercliffs. Looks like you have one as well. Let me tell you about my junk drawer. You have coins in there, staples, steel wool batteries. And what people don't realize is something like this, like this nine volt battery can be so dangerous, you know.  You know, I have a frying pan here. And sometimes you have like a steel wool in that junk drawer and this represents any type of metal. But see, if this were to touch this, it'll start to spark. And what happens is it can heat any type of metal to 150 degrees. And fortunately, my battery seems a little low, but you can see right here. Just by touching it, metal will ignite and it can heat any metal to 150 degrees. So something this small electricity in the containers, what we call it, imagine your home. You have electricity running throughout the entire home, through the walls, attic, you can't see it. Some homes have been there for, you know, 40 plus years, you've never changed the wiring. So fires can happen to anyone. So we always want homeowners to be ready, in case of a fire. The other misconception is number two. People think they'll have enough time to escape. And today's homes, you can have two minutes or less to escape a home. Old homes were built with much better materials, more quality made. You know, as time went on, you've got a lot of synthetics in furniture, a lot cheaper as far as manufacturing, more profit margins, right? So synthetics burn a lot quicker. So what the studies have shown is that you could have as little as two minutes or less to escape a deadly fire. Now, we've just seen fires on the news recently. The whole home has burned down in 15 minutes.  There's story after story about families just not having enough time to escape. Even, you know, really, really tragic ones where you've got fathers that only had enough time to save their daughters and not their sons. And I'm not trying to scare anyone out there, but really, if you lose a loved one in a fire or just in anything, really, that pain never goes away. So when we're out there educating families, we just wanna bring them awareness to the dangers of fires. We want them ready. The time to think about a fire is not when it's happening, when you got seconds left. The time to think about fires really is way before it happens. Way before it happens. So, you know, when we're out there, we're out educating people, it's absolutely free. I encourage them to visit our website, herofireprotection.com. We also have a Facebook page, Hero Fire Protection. We have a quiz up there. It takes 90 seconds. You can take that quiz and see how prepared you are in the event of a fire. And if you have any questions from there, you can always give us a call and we'd be glad to come and visit the home. You know, I think all of us remember while we were in school, elementary school, middle school, somewhere around there, that we would always receive education from the local fire department. We see them at home shows, right? Where they're educating about the fire, the actual fire. Right. Stop, drop, and roll. Right, right. That's if you're on fire, right? But hearing now what you have to say, it's never top of mind that what I have to be most concerned about is smoke. Right. And that's really, really interesting to me. I would love to hear more about some of those things that we think we know. Clearing up some of those misconceptions for us when we come back from a break. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m., aloha. Hi, Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch, for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, Mabuhay, and aloha. Welcome back to Business in Hawaii. My guest today needs no introduction, but we have Richie Aki, managing director of Hero Fire Protection. Hi Richie, how long has Hero Fire Protection been around? Because I feel like these are things that we should know. You know, we've actually only been around for about a year, and it's surprising. You would think more people would know about these misconceptions, but even from what I'm about to share with you soon, you'd be pretty surprised at the information that we provide for homeowners. I'm already surprised, so I wanna hear about misconception number three. So as far as misconception number three, it's that we are prepared, and the reason why we feel that we are prepared is because, you know, we often have fire drills at school and at work, and I've got my smoke detector, so no problem, you know, in case of fire strikes, I'll be ready, but what we don't realize is that when we have fire drills in schools or at work, you know, everyone is awake. There's either a security guard walking around or, you know, janitors, other teachers, and really, everyone's alert, awake, and they can escape and walk single file and get across the street safely, but when it comes to a home fire, no one is really prepared, and in fact, when we go into homes, we'll often give them a fire safety quiz, and it's a simple quiz asking them things like, you know, how often do you change your batteries and your smoke detector?  Things like that, and one of the most important questions we ask is where is your meeting spot? And sometimes I get this, you know, you're in the headlights look, and really, I had that same look before because I never had a meeting spot, but really, the importance of a meeting spot is to have somewhere either across the street at a neighbor's house or even at the street corner near the stop sign because if there was ever a deadly fire and say, mom is home all alone, dad is at work, she makes two calls if there's a fire. One, she'll call the fire department and two, she'll call her husband. And if he's racing home 20 minutes away, by the time he gets there, you've got fire department, ambulance, media, onlookers, and it's so crowded. You see it in TV all the time in movies, you know, dad knocking over the firemen trying to get into the house to find his family, when really they could be safe and sound across the street somewhere else and he's actually putting his life at risk. We've even seen this where families are trying to escape fires and two are going out through the upstairs window, others are going through the front door and they don't know where every family member is at. So it gives you a good way to account for everyone in the house if you all have one central meeting spot. That way there's no one searching for anybody leading to unlikely accidents in case of a fire. The other thing is we ask homeowners, do you have an escape plan? And again, more often than not, they don't have any escape plan. So we always encourage them to have an escape plan because again, the time to think about it is now when you can have some fun with it. We even encourage them to blindfold themselves. Why?  So you need to feel your way out. Again, when it happens and you got 60 seconds to escape, you're gonna panic, most people will panic. So why not prepare ahead of time so that when it does happen, if it does happen, hopefully it doesn't, but when it does, you are prepared. And I would encourage parents to have some fun with it with their kids and time it because you wanna get out as quickly as possible. The other thing is we always ask homeowners, where's your fire extinguisher? And they'll tell us, well, I don't have one or it's in the garage, it's in the kitchen. These are great places to have a fire extinguisher, but we encourage them to also have one in the bedroom. Why?  So we wanna make sure that you have one also, you know, in the bedroom. We talked about fire drills. The most important thing that I wanna get across today is misconception number four.   And that happens with every home. When you're cooking bacon, you're frying fish, there's a lot of smoke. It'll set off the smoke detector. What people don't realize is that the type of smoke detector found in 90% of homes is an ionization detector. And the way it goes off is through the disruption of ions. So it's really a disruption of ion detector. It's not necessarily a smoke detector. So what happens is in this detector, you'll have ions going up and down.  Sort of like a burglar walking into a house and he goes across that beam to set off the burglar alarm. Same thing with an ionization detector, which is why, you know, no one ever reads the manuals, but in here, it'll say things like, you know, don't put it in the garage or don't put it in the attic. Don't put it in the laundry room. Don't put it in human areas. Don't put it in the kitchen. I mean, there's a lot of don'ts in here. It even says in here that it'll save only half the amount of people, but no one reads the fine print, but, you know, I got it off. My eyes are still pretty decent. And I was able to go through the fine print and again, warnings in here about why ionization detectors will not go off. The other thing about these detectors is they all have an expiration date. So just like milk, milk can still be cold in the fridge, but it could be spoiled. Just because you changed the battery in the detector, all it's doing is making the speaker work. The ions could have already expired. Okay, when it comes to a deadly fire, you've got thick black smoke. The particles in that type of smoke are larger and less frequent. When you got cooking smoke, the particles are frequent and they're very fine. So they build that layer just enough to set off the detector. When it comes to black smoke, when you've got a lot of space in between particles, those ions can still flow, which is why you see stories. Just look it up on the internet. Story after story about failed smoke detectors. You've got tragic stories. In fact, on our site, herofireprotection.com is a seven minute video. You've got fire marshals talking about it, fire chiefs talking about it. You've got moms who have lost children and they changed their batteries and they changed their smoke detectors. But why is it happening? And it's because these detection devices cannot pick up that black smoke.  And the 45% that does work may take up to 30 minutes to sound. No, think about it, 30 minutes to sound. We just seen a fire on the news the other day that the whole house went down in 15 minutes. We're talking about two minutes as the amount of time at most to escape. And yet some of these detectors can take up to 30 minutes to sound. But we've all gotten used to paying for a $10 alarm at your local store, putting it up, changing the batteries. And we feel safe because of this.  On the night of the fire, either you get out or you don't. So what we have is something that will go off with black smoke. It works with optics. So I know on TV you can't really see it, but you can see those two optic lenses. So it's basically searching every day 24 seven for 2% smoke every four seconds. So the only way you could duplicate this, you'd have to hire someone to basically patrol your house every night to make sure your family's safe. This does it for you. It scans for 2% smoke every four seconds. We have this screen in here that's also, you can also clean it on your own, but it prevents the insects from getting in. We don't want insects in there. That's why the alarms you have at home go off in areas with a lot of dust, the garage, the attic. Why? Because insects can get in there. So this does it for you. 2% smoke every four seconds. The other thing it has is a heat sensor. We talked about two types of fires. We talked about slow smoldering fire, which is your smoke, not as much flame. We also talked about fast moving flaming fires. Now that flaming fire is the same type of fire that can melt some of these detectors right off the wall. This is what my dad would find in homes. Go to the bedroom, family never knew there was a fire. The fire is moving so fast, it just melts these right off the wall. Well, this has a detection system for heat, which picks up a 20 degree rate of rise.   We recommend these alarms throughout the entire home, not just one in the hallway, which the old code talked about having just one in the hallway, but a fire can start in the attic, it can start in the garage, can start in the bedroom. One detector in the hallway is just not gonna do it for you. Now, we addressed the problem of heat detection. There are some areas like the kitchen, the attic, the laundry room, the garage, where a smoke detector can malfunction because of smoke, because of insects, because of dust. Well, we've addressed it with the heat detector. So what the heat detector does is it goes into these hotspot locations that are known for the fast flaming fire. So it'll detect fire in those locations and not malfunction. So now you can have protection throughout the entire home when fire is beginning to threaten your family, not after you have no way to escape. So, you know, I'm very passionate about this product. You know, I've been an entrepreneur since I was just out of high school, but out of all the products that I've sold, I'm most passionate about this product line. Why? Because every home I go into, they have no idea what they have that's gonna protect them in case of a fire. And here we have a solution. When I first heard about this, I called my dad immediately and I said, remember those stories you told me about? I have the answer. So I shared it with him and he spent 30 years in the fire department. He said, you know, you better get on that right away because seems like a really good product.  It should pick up heat because fire is both hot and also has a lot of smoke. So just to show you how sensitive this is to heat, you don't have to wait for the fire to actually get there. I brought my hairdryer. I know we're live here, so I hope this works. But I'm gonna make sure it's nice and warm. And I promise you, Dalen, the hot air is coming from this, not from me, okay? I'm gonna count it after. 1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, 1,005. Okay, so between 1,004 and 1,005, so four to five seconds. And because we're live on TV, you get to see how our Bluetooth works.  The attic, the kids room, the garage, the kitchen, the living room, throughout the entire home. All you have to do is press the button on either the alarm closest you or on this bedside controller, like a snooze button here.  So it's amazing. If I did this same test to this, the protection system you have, I'd be calling forever. So the end of time, this will never go off. Why? Because it won't pick up a fast flaming fire. To wrap it up, one of the best features we have with our alarm system is our phone app. It'll alert up to eight people. The monthly service, there's no charge for this.  So you could be at work on a trip. If you're not aware of it, somebody else on your app, up to eight people, your mom, neighbor, sister, they can let you know what's going on with your system and your home to keep your family safe. Wow, you know, I think for a person like myself, when we talk about prevention, but when a situation happens, so if there is a fire or there's smoke, the panic that sets in, and this is just human reaction, the panic that sets in, we forget all those things that we practice, what you're supposed to do. But with this smoke detection system, it helps it to be preventative. So it's detecting it so quickly that I have time to address it, to rectify the situation before I feel panic. Right, and you hit it right there. Time is what saves lives in fires. Right now, everyone out there has time to call us so we can prep you for a fire. And on the night of the fire, time is what saves lives. You wanna give yourself as much time to escape. So that's why, you know, our slogan is when fire strikes, you need a hero because really, that's what you need. You need time. Speaking of time, we are out of time. Is there anything you wanna leave us with? Just to remind us what is important. I just wanna encourage everyone out there to either call us at 942-HERO, that's 942-4376, or go to our website, herofireprotection.com. Also our Facebook page, Hero Fire Protection. Give us a call.  And it's absolutely free because we wanna get out there and help as many families in Hawaii as possible. Richie, thanks so much for keeping us safe. And the education, I think that's really, that's the most valuable part, right? Is we need that information and we need the education to make great decisions. So unfortunately, we are out of time. I wanna thank Richie for joining us today and a very big thank you to the amazing production staff here in the ThinkTech studios. If you would like to be a guest on our show, please feel free to email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com. Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at 2 p.m. and we look forward to seeing you here next week.