So there are plenty of things we don't see but we have evidence for believing that they exist. If we could develop a good way to... It's not so much that it's loud music, it's just the worst music that they keep playing. You notice that? Can we get some good smash sounds here sometime please? A way of like documenting talking with atheists because what we're using is like a non-confrontational approach to talk about deep beliefs that doesn't turn the conversation into an argument or a debate. I've watched you and you don't debate, you interview very well. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. Yes, very good questions. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. And so the method is called street epistemology and it doesn't necessarily go as long with someone who has a very reasonable base. But when they... I guess I'm done. When they say that hey I believe in aliens or I believe I was visited by UFOs or that God talks to me in my left ear or something like that. It's the right ear. There's a way to have that conversation, get to the foundation and then come back up from the foundation and then the other person is much less confident in that position because they exercise some critical thinking. And all the method is just a chance to give someone a chance to think about what they believe in. Would you mind if I did that with you? That's fine. I imagine you're an atheist already? No, I'm not an atheist. You're not an atheist? No. Okay, what? Since we're in a curve already, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, show me what you got, show me what you got. Alright, so hi, I'm Ty, nice to meet you. Ty, I'm Danny. Danny? Yeah. Danny? Danny, what brought you over here? Well, I'm here to interact and talk with people who are... We're not part of the protest. We came here to talk with people who are. Okay. So we're kind of doing the same thing you're doing. Fantastic. I love this thing. Okay, so then would you say that you are religious or anything like that? I'm a Christian. You mind if we just like skip all the intros and all that stuff and just like talk about the faith? Sure. About my lack of faith? I love that too. That's fine. I want to have the best way of coming to a conclusion as well. So which God are we talking about and how... Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Jesus Christ. Okay. Who is Emmanuel, God with us. Okay, do you have a specific denomination that you represent or that you believe got the most accurate perspective? Well, I guess I'm bad as to my beliefs. I belong to a bad as church. Labels tend to... And denominations tend to divide us many times. I think so as well. We have distinctions, we believe. And the real essential doctrine is I share with many other people, Presbyterians, Methodists and so forth. Okay, okay. There's definitely a lot of overlap, but it's good to know like exactly how do I put it? Because there are groups that believe in slightly different things. Sure. It'd be nice to know where you're coming from. Absolutely. That's good to know. Okay, so I guess then what is the reason that you believe in this God if you don't really ask me? Well, I think the Bible is in God's inspired word. I think he is the one true God. It does have certain elements of faith to that I understand. I do believe it's a reasonable faith. You know, faith is not believing in your heart what your mind finds to be absurd. Okay. But believing in your heart what your mind finds to be reasonable. You know, the writer of Hebrews defined faith as a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. How would you define faith? I think the same way. Substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. It's not complete knowledge, it's enough knowledge that a reasonable person can believe these things. It's not a leap in the dark like some people seem to think that it is. Okay, so you say evidence of things... And all people have faith. Evidence of things unseen, you said? That's from Hebrews, the book of Hebrews. Evidence of things hoped for, a substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. Can I ask you how confident you are in this God existing based on this... What do you call it? Near 100%. Near 100? Not 100%. You're at least open minded. I do believe it. Look, I'm human. I have doubts from time to time. That's right. And that's... Anybody who says they have no doubts are fooling themselves. Clemson fans? Well, maybe less doubtful. You know them with the bridal snakes and you're like, yeah, we like the tigers. The tigers, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We see those little bridal snake things that they got on. All right, I'm clear. So, because you are using... Could you tell me the most reasonable method that you're used to get to that high confidence and is it faith? Well, I think Scripture itself is consistent. I mean, people today are arguing that it's not, but there are difficulties one can see in the Bible, but there are answers and resolutions to those. I think it's a consistent message from the beginning to the end. Okay. The revelation of God to mankind over time that people early on didn't know everything that God wanted to reveal because God chose not to do that. I think it's a consistent message and I find that compelling. Do you think something that's consistent is a reasonable way to get to a conclusion? Yeah, I think consistency has to be there. If you don't have a consistent system or consistent set of beliefs, then that's problematic. Can I throw something out here? Yeah. This might be... I don't want you to critique it as I go. But if I had a coin, it's not a trick coin, it's your supporter. I'd flip it, catch it. It's on the back of my hand. I don't know if it's heads or tails. Do you know if it's heads or tails? No. We both don't know. That might be the best answer for at least right now. Right. But I could keep saying it's heads. I can consistently write down a thousand votes at its heads. I can have this guy, this guy, this guy, everyone say it's heads. Does that make it any more likely to be heads? What is consistency have to do with the actual matter of the truth? I don't mean consistency in the sense that people are agreeing with something. Consistent message throughout. A consistent non-self-contradictory sort of message is what I'm talking about. We can all non-contradictory agree that this is heads is not the same as heads. You're talking about hypothetical though at this point. Are hypotheticals allowed to be questioned? Are hypotheticals a good way to figure out things? Oh, yeah. It can be. So in this aspect, in this aspect as a tool, what's the correlation between the consistency as a tool? Hypothetical based upon no knowledge whatsoever. You have no knowledge of the coin. So knowledge is better than consistency, maybe? They go hand in hand. They're not contradictory to one another. Shouldn't they? What is the real fundamental reason if it's not consistency then? If I could be consistent. I think what you're getting down to is the question of truth. How do you determine that's true? Truth is true whether I recognize it or not, whether I believe it or not. Something isn't true because I believe it like the flip of your coin. Or if it's consistently said. Something is true because it's true. Right. And my attempt is to conform what I believe to truth. Okay. And I think, again, it's may seem foreign to someone from outside, but I do believe the Bible is God's revelation to man. Not a problem there. So consequently that is truth. It's propositional truth. It is truth whether I believe it to be true or you believe it or anybody else believes it is true. So what I'm wondering is there's an element of faith there coming in? Sure. I'm wondering what's a good method to get other people to test that and determine if it's true or not. Testing the Bible? Or testing faith? Testing God? Testing things in the hopes of determining if it's true or not. Like, someone could say it's true. I could say it's true. But what's a good way for me to test to see if that's true? You have to look and see if it's true. I mean, take your hand off so we can see what's ahead of us. Just making sure you said I have to look and make sure to see if it's true. But faith is based on evidence of things unseen? Yeah. Okay. Substance of things, hope for evidence of things not seen. But you see, you can still have evidence of things without seeing those things. Okay. I mean, I've never seen an electron. No one's ever seen an electron, but I think most of us here believe electrons exist. I've never seen the wind. There's plenty of wind today, but I can't see it. I can see the effects of the wind. Okay. And so there are plenty of things we don't see, but we have evidence for believing that they exist. If we could develop a good way to... It's not so much that it's loud music. It's just the worst music that they keep telling us. Do you notice that? Can we get some good Smash Mouth in here sometime, please? I'm from California. Anyway. So I can't see wind, but I can do tests that are pretty reliable for me to determine the presence of wind. And I'm totally fine with those. I can't see an individual electron, but we can make enough of an arc of electrons or you can see them. Absolutely. We can do tests. I have a physics background, so... Nice, nice. Good. Good on you, man. So I'm wondering then what's a good test that we could do to determine, and I'm open to it. Okay. But I'm wondering what's a good test. I think one of the large ones I like to use is the complexity of life, for instance. Okay. I looked at this last night and I should have brought it with me today and I did not, but I have an arrowhead, a couple of them at home. And my mom used to talk about finding arrowheads when they would clow in the spring and I thought that was way cool. I was like archeology and history and all that kind of good stuff. Yeah. So I used to live in South Carolina. I am, man. Some good friends of mine who had some property out in the country that I did frequently found arrowheads in the spring when they clow. So I went out there and I walked for an hour and a half looking in the morning and that afternoon looking, I picked up a rock. It wasn't, I picked up another rock. After about an hour and a half I found one and I was very overjoyed. I finally found one of my own. I could buy them but now I got one I found. Nice. I decided to walk back towards the house with this fellow with me. We walked about 10 feet and I found a second one and the question is how did I know I had an arrowhead when I found it? Okay. Do you want me to answer you? Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. They have a very distinctive look. They've been cut by people and we have other ones that we can compare them to and say, hey, here's an arrowhead that's been made. Here's another arrowhead I found. They share some of the consistency. The type of rock that it was it obviously had been shaped and it formed. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. It had been designed and would pick up that rock and seriously argue, well, they just weathered that way. No. It's a natural process. Are we in agreement that we know that it was designed by comparing the things that are not designed? Like here's an arrowhead that looks like it was designed compared to a rock that's not designed? Yeah. So my point is is many people, everybody can hold that arrowhead. The last thing I want to do is please. People can hold that arrowhead in their hands and marvel at the design and yet the same time they're missing the design in the hand that holds it. Can I tell you a really quick funny story? Yeah. I accidentally left my marker outside without the cap on. So I can't record I can't record anything there. So I would be using that if I could. So instead I'm using pencil and pencil. Bad design. It's under my seat. Oh, thanks. Bad design. Anyway, I'm so sorry and interesting. Anyway, so the point is the hand is an incredibly design thing. The circulatory system, the biochemistry going on. It's just a part of the body. And any every living organism is incredibly complex. 150 years ago people thought that cells were pretty simple. We now understand it's the other way around. The cells are what's really complex and what's going on is unbelievable. And its complexity is infinitely greater than that of a rock. Would you say that complexity? But the point is Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. There is incredible design and living living creatures. And so the need to look at living creatures me, you, the plants the birds flying overhead. I cannot believe It's really awesome, isn't it? that this happened by itself without any design, without any designer, without a creator. So I think creation itself screams out that there is a God. Mind if I just catch up? Mind if I just catch up? Just trying to catch up. So I was asking for like a good way to test if something was true. I guess we're using the God as the basis on this. God of Yahweh, specific God. You said that based on the complexity of things that are like alive or like the world basically how complexity is is proof to you that a God exists. I'm wondering is complexity a good it's a it's complexity a good sign of design. For example, if I had a light bulb that took one step to screw into a hole and make a light in my room or a light bulb that took 40,000 steps to screw into a hole and make the same amount of light. Which light bulb was better designed? The first one, I think would be that simplicity is the hallmark design, not complexity. So then why is why do you look at something that's very complex and say, oh, a brilliant designer must have made that. You're only looking at one feature of the light bulb, the least important really the light bulb itself is highly designed. True, but a more simple one would be better than a highly complex one. Well, a simple one in the sense of if they do the exact same thing. Why would you want to screw the thing 40,000 times to do it? Who cares what I want doesn't make any sense. It's a question of the design of the aspect. That's from really complex things. Well, the problem is complexity is oftentimes and I will admit this and I have to be holding, I don't see any advantage to one that takes forever to screw in. Yeah, it seems like we like simple textiles. We want smaller phones. We want more efficient cars. We tend to run away from complexity and get towards simple things. Well, no, no, the more efficient cars are not simpler. I can make them more complex. I have a 60 year old car at home. Yeah. And I can work in it very easily. That's totally fine. I can make that car way more complex if I work on it. I'm not about to work on that car I drove up here today. Yeah, because it's good as it is. Why did I drive it? Well, it gets like three times the mileage the other car gets. Yeah. And also it has twice the mileage that the other car had before it before it needed major engine work and so on we go. And if I went to your car and I try and it's already good enough. It's good as it is. It's already designed more complex. It's already designed very, very well. Totally fine. I think we've gotten a far foot here. The design and complexity are not the same thing. True. But it seems like they already like it. It seems that complexity is not the homework design. It's simplicity that's the homework design. Not always. No. Okay. There are many systems that are very complex and they have to be that way in order to work. Some designs are better in some places where it can be complex and better. Then it doesn't seem like complexity is the best way to look at that. It's not so much complexity as it is design we're talking about here. Design to do certain things. I'm totally fine with that. I'm totally fine. I'm just saying that in some cases it seems where simplicity is better some cases maybe complexity is better. I would agree. How do you know which one's better? I mean in the case where either of them can be better. Yeah. Looking at something that's really complex saying proof. No, again how does that work in terms of complexity and I keep talking about design are two different. Okay. They're related but not the same thing. Let's go to design then because it seems like complexity doesn't matter as much then. Let's talk about design. I compare things that are designed with things that are not designed. That's how I recognize something that's been designed. I take that arrowhead compared to a rock that's not an arrowhead say this looks like it's been crafted that looks like it's not crafted. What are you comparing against something that's not designed for you to come to the argument that they're both living things as opposed to non-living things? Did God not make living non-living things? They made both, yeah. Okay, so we're doing the design both? Yes. How do you recognize design though? In rocks? Not as easily. It's not an easy way. What's a good way to determine that? That's a tricky question. I think so too. Okay. What would you say then is if maybe we can like move away from that? What's like another way to test the presence of a God? I guess you're trying to build a different design? No, I guess I mean like I feel like we talk about complexity, we talk about design. What's another way that we can test? I want to make one point though. Oh please, please, please. I want to be very clear that the design in the world around us leads us to believe I think a reasonable person to believe that there's a creator that doesn't follow that that creator is the creator, the God I've identified, the God of the Bible. He just tells you there's a creator. We cannot, I don't think by ourselves, we really can't determine the characteristics or the properties or the, of that God. Oh, that's interesting. What got you to the Christian God? Pardon? What got you to the Christian God, though? Scripture. Oh, okay. I believe that Scripture again is the revelation we have. Just asking you a different question. And there's again faith involved in that and I, you know, ask me to prove that Scripture is true. I don't care about that. Scripture doesn't even even try to do that. It's always says like I said, my goal isn't even really to change your mind. It's just, can we work together? Two different ideas, two different backgrounds from the same side of the table. I'm talking to the table. Can we come up with a method that's maybe a little bit better to convince someone who's like me or like things like me. Oh, here's actually a really good method to like show that these points that you're articulating actually have like a reasonable basis behind them. And I think we can work together on that. I'm wondering, it seems like no other than this possible. Okay. Can we talk about faith then for a little bit? Yeah. I think you've defined it already from like the biblical sense. But like, do you have a personal definition that is meaningful to you? I think I gave it to you earlier. I said it's believing in your heart what your mind finds to be reasonable. I need to write that down. That's my own. I'm sorry if I'm taking it. It's not original to me, but I'll. I want to put that up on a wall, like with one of those like woodcut fonts. I was a professor 45 years ago. Can you say that again? Just while I'm listening. Faith is believing in your heart. In your heart. What your mind finds to be reasonable. What your mind finds to be reasonable. Okay. It's a big week. All right. Whoa. The important people are starting to show up. Yeah. I thought we were already here. I must be Kensley Rye with all the tax dollars. It's a fantastic joke about a limousine that got like T-section, but it became an arrow. I don't know the I don't know the basis of the joke. It's a funny joke. It was an empty limousine. Everyone walked out. Everyone was fine. Anyway, sorry, sorry. I think it's a joke, but go ahead. I did it. I did it. I'm not good. Anyway, believing in your heart. What your mind finds to be reasonable. Now I get it. You get it? Yeah. Yeah. So back to the camera. You got a limousine. It gets the intersection. In my head, it's hilarious. I just haven't like figured out the words around it yet. I was thinking of an envelope. I was thinking of a pierce arrow. A what? A pierce arrow. Automobile they've made for about 75 or 80 years. It's a car from back in the 30s. Okay, okay. Anyway, Rub there with the doozy. Would you mind telling me about believing in your heart what your mind finds to be reasonable? And you can change this. Sure. Yeah. How is that a reliable way to come to a true conclusion? About what? About anything. About anything? I guess I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Put that coin. Catch it. Right now we both don't know. Oh, okay. In that particular case. But I could believe in my heart what my mind finds to be reasonable. And at this moment I could reasonably find it at its head. But not having any knowledge whatsoever. I know it could be heads or tails. That's all you know. I know quarters because of the way how the face is on one side and the eagle is on the background. It has a slight proportional chance to be more heads. That's reasonable. But I don't think you're on mind to say that it's one or the other. You can say it's one or the other. But you can't say definitely it's A. Until I have a better way to examine that. Yeah. So could I use faith to get to a conclusion that one has or one tells? Faith in this particular case. But I mean I guess I don't see the application coming in this particular simple case. Sure. But could I use faith to come to the conclusion that it heads? So there are certain things that I can have faith about and certain things that I can't have faith about. Is that more accurate? Well again a priori deciding that it's heads is not a reasonable thing to believe. Even if I had a reasonable even if I believed it with my heart and had a reasonable person on my mind. That's not the point. I mean you're wanting to put faith ahead of your mind in that case. I'm not saying that the mind has to go first or that faith has to go second or first or whatever. The two have to be hand in hand with one enough. You can't say that one then preempts the other. They work together. So even if I had 100% faith on something that I wasn't using my mind. That's not a reliable way to come to a conclusion on something. Say that again? If I use only faith to come to a conclusion that's not good enough. I need to have other aspects. Like again with the way of defined faith or whatever. Cool. If I had faith that was telling me something but my mind was telling me something else what should I rely on more? Well I actually deal with those kind of questions all the time and I sort through them. There's not an easy three-step process. I can't say well do this, this, this, oh I can't do that. I'd love to know about the process. It doesn't have a simple one. There's no simple three-step process. Sorry I forgot to start the timer. Thinking yeah is not easy. Most people think that it is but it isn't. It's a very laborious process. Critical thinking you know. Critical thinking is and I've changed my mind about a lot of things. The last three years I've changed my mind about some big things and I will continue to do so. Can I fill something out? Yeah. And I'm asking. I'm not telling I'm only doing my asking. I hope you're having a good time in this and I'll get it and walk away if I didn't. And I'm laughing too so I'm still happy. Cool. You're asking some great questions by then and I appreciate that. And I appreciate your attitude. Thanks man. I'm wondering what's a good way to come to a true conclusion. That's really what I care about the most. In the event that I don't have in the event that I'm using a method that's not good to determine if something's true or not true. I'm happy to dismiss it if I have a better method of questioning. Uh-huh. But you have something else in your mind telling you the opposite and you have to laboriously think about it and maybe sometimes come to the position that your mind had. Is that not a demonstration that maybe even if you have 100% faith in something that thing may not be worth your worth endeavoring as a true person? People call that a crisis of faith. That happens to a true person. Sure. If I can have faith in things that are true and things that are not true what's the value of faith for determining if something's true or not? Everybody has faith. Not saying that I'm not even tackling that point. Everybody has faith. Not only are you tackling that point but I'm wondering as a method to determine if something's true or not if I can have faith in things that are not true and faith that things are true what does having faith do as a means towards getting to a true conclusion? Well, faith is part I mean, there are people here today who believe science is the way to find all truth. That's a faith statement. They believe that to be true even though they can't prove that to be true. How do you feel about I don't know as an answer when you don't have enough? Oh, the years I taught I use that answer all the time. So what I all the time I would say I don't know about it when I didn't know the answer and when I thought I knew the answer I'd love to give you my system and get some feedback from you. My idea is like with that coin like with anything if I don't have enough evidence to support the conclusion I'm willing to say I don't know until I have better evidence. Sure. Agreed. Because I can have faith in things that are true and not true I don't see it as a useful system to determine if something is true and what I'm looking for is a useful system to determine if something's true and not true. What do you think about that? Well, again, I think hidden the reasoning there is that some people have faith some people don't have faith and I think that's wrong everybody has faith. Let's say I did have faith but I still don't value it as a decision-making process tool to come to a true conclusion. Alright, that's fine. But you have to have if you come up with I'm definitely capable of believing in my heart what my mind finds reasonable but I don't value that as a good way to get to a true conclusion. No, but the thing is if you come up with your method your certifier method of discerning truth you have to have faith that that method works. Do I? I think so. Otherwise, why would you trust your system to do that? My point is everybody has faith at some level they may deny it in fact the more they deny it the more convinced I'm sure that they do have faith. Interesting. It's impossible not to have faith in something in themselves someone else but it's I'm not even really arguing the idea of everybody has faith and my question is is it a good way to reach a true conclusion? It's a part of it it's not the sole way to do it. Okay, so there's other things that needs to be supplemented It gets back again to the intellect again the mind has to be there. Okay, okay. I mean I think many times atheists and others criticize Christians for thinking you're all about faith you know theology was once called the queen of the sciences did you know that? No, I did. Yeah, it was once called the queen of the sciences. Which queen? Elizabeth?  It was considered to be the best of the sciences. Now we've changed the word science a hundred and eighty years ago to mean something else and what it used to mean but the thing is theology and biblical studies is a very rigorous intellectual sort of exercise Okay. And maybe people of faith doing that but they very much use their mind to do this it's not a matter of this false dichotomy between faith and reason. That's a false dichotomy. And I think you know people here are throwing the word reason around some of these organizations and I'm saying well you know we looked down on people like me saying well you're working in faith and I work for reason no, you're working from faith too. You just don't know that you are but you are definitely doing it. I think based on how you define it everybody can have faith I don't have a problem with that my question is just if someone came to me and says hey I use faith to come through. And that's bogus faith I don't understand how you came to that I need a better way to determine that. It might be it might be and there might be a God there might be but I need a better system than faith. But believing its heads doesn't make it heads its heads whether we believe it or not it might be heads whether it is or not. Exactly we're talking about the ultimate reality here so I guess what I'm doing is like can we work together with people who are convinced and maybe with the people who aren't convinced can we have like some sort of system where we can talk to each other or we can come up with like a good method I think so too I think so and I think a lot of times people get so emotionally invested in their conclusions that they are willing to have these kinds of questions Oh I agree with you And I appreciate you know like this openness I think it's nice that people can just come together and just like this is what I think truth is really what do you think okay well I'll modify it I'm not trying to change your mind but like maybe we can like refine it to get to something where it's like okay the next time we come together and like talk about this we'll be on a much closer level with each other and we can be able to tell what's true and what's not true Do you have any questions for me? No it's good I'll let some of the other guys take over tag team yeah let me tell you I've been interviewed by a lot of people we're going the best Thank you so much I appreciate it you're good you're very fair I really appreciate your attitude okay okay no pleasure I have a wonderful challenge you too


everyone and welcome to Hawaii together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Keely E. Akina, your host and president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. As you know, Grassroot is always looking out for ways to manage and change our regulation that the government puts upon us so that we have an optimal environment for a good economy and for living life. Well, we often talk about zoning laws. And when we talk about zoning laws, we're usually talking about housing. But zoning laws cover a lot more than just housing. Today we're going to talk about how they affect one kind of enterprise in particular. You might be surprised. Beekeeping. My guest today is going to share with us information about the importance of beekeeping here in Hawaii, the scope and breadth of beekeeping business on the Big Island, and its national and even international significance. And we're also going to talk about how Hawaii County's zoning regulations could be reformed or changed to help beekeepers have even more of an economic impact and social impact than they already do. So would you please welcome to our program today, Harry Hull. Harry is president of the Big Island Beekeeping Association. Harry, welcome to the program. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you for having me. And you're there in Hilo right now. Correct. Well, what a beautiful place to be doing business and to be living and so forth. How long have you lived on the Big Island? Coming on 10 years now. Well, you are the president of the Big Island Beekeeping Association. Can you tell our viewers just a little bit about that group, how it got started and what its mission is? Well, it actually the organization, the association got started in around 1984, which is just a group of beekeepers basically getting together every once in a while, just to talk story. And that's the way it was for quite some time. About 12, 13 years ago, we actually started to get a little bit more organized. We opened up a teaching apiary and where we invited the public in two Saturdays a month. So if you were interested in beekeeping or just a beginning beekeeper and you wanted to get some information, then you had a place to come and actually get hands on. Interesting. Yeah, we're also very big in education. We give talks to anybody who wants to hear about bees. We do talks at libraries and schools. And every year we host the Hawaiian Honey Challenge. And it's a challenge for all beekeepers throughout the entire state where they can kind of compete. We have two sets of judging. We have a formal judging that's not open to the public. And then we have on the first Friday in November in Hilo, which is a black and white night, we have a public tasting. And members of the public can come, taste the honey, pick their favorite. And then the winners are announced. And it's basically bragging rights for the beekeepers. They also get awards. But the big thing for us is to expose the public to locally raw honey. Most people just know the honey that they see at the store, but aren't familiar and they think that honey tastes the same when it definitely does not. Well, Harry, tell me what is the difference between the kind of honey you might pick up when you go into a grocery store, maybe a national chain, a national brand, versus its raw honey that you're talking about that is grown here in Hawaii and on the big island? What are the differences? The difference is really huge because first, the honey that's brought in in the big chains and things are all blended honey. The companies want to make sure that the color is always the same and the taste is always the same. Unfortunately, you don't really know if you're getting real honey and it's not altered. And with locally produced honey, you get the wide variety of flavors. You know, you have mac nut. It's going to taste a little bit different than from citrus or avocado or lychee. And in some cases, the flavors, depending on the combination of flowers, nectar in those flowers, tastes can range from neutral to coffee to we've had one that people have said tasted like cherry cola, maple, bacon, and just a variety. When we do the public tasting, we have them all lined up and we're separated by colors, light, medium, and dark.  And they're absolutely shocked when they start tasting it and none of them taste the same. How about that? Now, Harry, I've just learned something because I'm not a honey connoisseur, well, not yet, but I have to say this is indeed the sweetest program that I've had on air and maybe I'll come over and visit your honey competition. Now, just tell us a little bit about your own background.  Yes, yeah, I'm actually involved in the craft. Well, I got involved in the craft about, I would say, about eight years ago. I was living on a farm and the owner of the property had a hive, somebody else was taking care of it. And they, I'm not sure what happened to if they left the island or I don't really recall, but here's a hive that the owner didn't want to deal with because he was kind of afraid of bees. And I volunteered to do that. So I, you know, reading a lot and, you know, watching a lot of YouTube videos. I also benefited from being with, I mean, going to the public learning apiary from the Big Island Beekeepers Association. So I attended some meetings and I basically joined up and, you know, been working with bees and bee buzz since then. Well, how about that? Now, I understand that Hawaii plays an inordinately large role in supplying queen bees throughout the world. In particular, we supply, as you shared with us earlier, about a quarter of all bee queen bees that are sent to Canada. And about, no, I'm sorry, actually more than that Canada, about three fourths. Yeah. And about actually of the United States. Tell me about it. Yes, actually, actually, those numbers are a little different now. We used to supply about 25% of queens to the mainland. Now it's closer to 335%. Which if you think about what bees pollinate, almonds, all sorts of berries, oranges in Florida, for example, you're looking at a multi billion dollar for agriculture on the mainland. Here in Hawaii, it represents approximately 220 million dollars worth of agriculture. And so they're kind of like our silent heroes. One of the advantages we have here on the Big Island is we have no winter. And so we can produce all year round. And so with the massive die offs on the mainland, which has been around 40%, they can't afford to take the time to grow queens, and then wait for workers and for them to go out, they want to hit the ground running. And that's why they purchase queens from us. Canada is closer to 75% of their queens from us. I don't know what the dollar value impact for Canadian agriculture is. But I've heard it if you just think about the various fruits and vegetables that bees pollinate, and you think a third of that comes is due because of the Big Island. Also, it represents, on the Big Island, it represents a little over 10 million dollars in revenue and employment of a little over 70 people. Well, I didn't know that Hawaii played such a significant role in the worldwide market for queen bees. But let me ask you a little bit more specific question. Sure. Are queen bees the main product that Hawaii Island beekeepers sell, or do they also sell honey? And which do they sell more? We do sell honey. Honey sales, the stats from a few years ago, was a little bit over 3 million dollars. I believe it was like 3.2 or 3.3 million dollars in just honey. We also sell honey, I mean, bee products like wax, propolis, and it's used for whole line of candles in cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals use them. So there's a whole thing behind not just honey. And most people don't know that. As a matter of fact, there's some, for example, there is a wax that's made from honey, mostly that's used for board wax on surfboards. And it just goes on and on. Amazing. Now, we wanted to talk with you because of the potential economic impact of making things easier on our producers of queen bees and the honey growers and so forth here. Yeah, the queen bees are obviously the top and really an important industry. One of the things that you need to keep in mind is that we cannot import bees to Hawaii. The only thing we can bring in to Hawaii is bee semen, and but we cannot bring any bees in. It's strictly controlled for the very simple reason. We don't have Africanized bees here in the state, and we definitely don't want them, because if we ever got Africanized bees, industry would be destroyed. Okay, so that's not the way to go to increase the industry output. But there is a proposal that you have before the legislature now in this session. It's bill 44. And that would help the beekeepers in your industry to... Yes, yes. Tell us a little bit about that, and in particular, about changing the zoning laws a bit to make a real difference in terms of our productivity for beekeepers. Well, to start off with the current law is that in the past, and nowadays no one knows exactly how or why it happened, but that's now irrelevant, and the bakeries got put into, they were lumped in with cows and pigs. And with pickeries, you can't have them 1,000 feet from a major roadway. The problem is, major roadway is not defined in the legislation. There was a queen breeder on the conus side that was forced to move his entire operation because his bees were about 980 feet from the roadway. And at that time, they determined that any road that's an egress to a property can be considered a major roadway. So that was a major, major problem. There's a lot of farms that on ad land that cannot keep bees because of that. You've got a lot of stretches of property that might be many, many acres, but if they're long and narrow and you have a road on one side, a road on the other side, you might not be able to have any bees there. The other problem was, if you look at the animal section, that they classified bees as pets, and there it's 75 feet. So what are they? And just as a side note, honey is actually classified as a specialty crop by the USDA. So that's a problem. People who have backyard beekeepers, for example, technically are not legally allowed to because that's residential. And we've got many, many, I can't tell you how many people have reached out, I mean, reached out to us and told us, you know, I've got this avocado tree or I've got this citrus tree and it's like doesn't produce.  So what we wanted to do is make sure that beekeepers can be beekeepers, regardless of what the zoning is. So this bill removes apiaries from all zoning. So, so if you have a building in downtown Hilo, when you want to put a roof garden on top, you could have a hive in your garden on your rooftop. Currently, you cannot. And so that's why it's, it's kind of important. It's important that we keep genetics. It's important that we be that we keep our own bees healthy. We lost about 35 to 40% of our bees. And when when they had the Leilani eruption, and we lost about 30, I believe they're like 3,800 acres of vegetation. So it's resources for bees. And we also lost a lot of bees. Your analysis of the zoning regulations that apply to bees and beekeepers is fascinating. Because a lot of zoning regulations are just difficult to understand. But the story you're telling tells us that the zoning regulations may have made sense at one time, but definitely need to be revised. How about counties? How do they regulate this outside of the Big Island and as well across the United States and Canada? Well, I'll give you an example. And one of the, I mean, this whole thing started with one of our members was actually one of the board members at the time that was forced to have his hive removed because a neighbor across the street was complaining. He was just a problem neighbor. He had nothing to do because two houses down from him, that person had two hives and that was fine. And he was forced to move his hives. When we started looking into this, we were quite shocked how that, for example, in San Francisco, that has small lots, densely populated, has no regulations. You could have hives anywhere you want and as many as can be supported by the local vegetation. You can have hives in Manhattan, you can have hives in LA, but you can't have hives in Hilo. That made no sense to me at all into our organization. So we started this whole thing about let's look into this. Some have regulations regarding the size of lots. Others have no regulations as far as sizes of lots or how many you could have. Some states have actual bee inspectors that come out and they're very pro beekeepers and they try to match you with mentors or organizations that can help out. Well, how do you actually transport your products to Canada and the mainland through the mail? Yes, through the mail. For FedEx and tell me what are the regulations locally and internationally even regarding the transport? Well, we have, I mean, they are shipped from here mostly by US mail. I'm not sure if they do FedEx, but they're live. They're in a special container and there's a queen and there are some small bees in there. They're the queen's attendants that go with them. And it's similar to how we ship chickens and other live animals. Now, what about beekeepers who want to sell some of their honeys at farmer's markets or yes stores? Are there any county or state regulations that make it more? There's no, actually, no, there really isn't the there are state regulations in regards to labeling. There's certain things that you're required to put on the label. And that's really it. And as far as a, you know, you only need to have like a certified processing if you're doing more than 500 gallons a year. But the great majority of people don't reach that, especially the smaller producers. A lot of them sell at farmer's markets, roadside stands, and so some sell online.  So one of the goals was if we are able to bring in where we eliminate zoning, then all these people will be in compliance. And all right, that's really important. The other thing to understand that a beehive can be on Agland. The bee can travel anywhere from up to three to five miles from their hide to forage. So it has no idea what zone it's going to go to or from. And so you can have a hide in one place, and it can be foraging in a residential area. So it can forage in a residential area, but the place that forages can't have a bee there, beekeeper there, which again makes no sense. And so that was one of the things that we did. To play some of the rules and stuff, we came down to, we negotiated down to, you can have a hide up to 25 feet from the property line, or 15 feet if you have a flyover barrier. And that's basically it. We were working with a working group to go through this, and it was mostly a bunch of beekeepers from hobbyists to commercial to queen readers. We also had, obviously Ashley Kirkowitz was leading our council member, and we had people from the state health department, we had local ag department planning corporate council. So we brought all these people into potential stakeholders. They kind of really go through this. We didn't want to make the same mistake that was made, you know, decades ago, where they can just throw something out there, or have, okay, you want a residential, then fine, we'll just do one bill for residential and exclude everyone else. So, Harry, I thought that was, I'm sure. You've worked very hard on this, and with respect to bill 144, have you received any pushback? And what are your responses to those who may have? Well, we haven't really received any pushbacks directly.  And it's spelled out in the bill. One of the things also that is important to note, part of the bill is best practice. And it's kind of an industry known. And if you follow the best practices, you know, you're really not going to have an issue. If you communicate with your neighbors, you're not going to have an issue. You know, there's little things in the best practice, have a water supply there, so the bees don't travel to the neighbor's pool or something like that.  A lot of little things like that that are best practice, but also common sense. Harry, what would you say the future of your industry is here in Hawaii, and how easily could people get involved in that? Well, they can easily get involved if they're really, you know, interested in it. The investment is minimal, but excuse me. And you don't have to learn a lot. You know, if you're really interested, you should find a local bee organization club association, or find a local beekeeper and, you know, for potential mentoring. And yes, most people, you know, might be interested in like one or two hives. They're not interested in more hives because, you know, they don't want another job. And that's really understandable. Well, I have to tell you, very proud of you and your colleagues who are standing up to fight for the right to actually make a living and to build an economy here in Hawaii. It's an important thing you do. And as I pointed out earlier, I'm just amazed at the, the role that the Hawaii beekeeping industry plays globally. And this is something that we should actually be very proud of, and something we should actually be expanding. So I wish there's a little bit on bill 144. What do the prospects look like in this legislative session? Well, then they look pretty good. I mean, it went through the first committee. And now it's in the hands of planning. They're going to review it and come back with comments. I can't see them having any real comments since they were part of the working group. So it's going to come back to back to the legislative group. And then there's really no change. It's going to go to the full council. And hopefully, there's going to be one reading on the Hilo side, one reading on the Kona side.  Well, assuming that it will pass it, sign it. I've got a quick question before you leave today. Yes. What are you and the Big Island Beekeeping Association members learned about politics in the adventure of trying to defend your business? What have you learned? Quite a bit. We were never, you know, we'd never have never been involved in anything like this. And so we've learned a lot about, you know, mostly negotiations from different departments. At times it has been frustrating because you're dealing with non beekeepers or people that have no knowledge of bees and don't realize the impact. We've talked about, you know, we have talked about, you know, the global effect from bees here. One thing that's not really mentioned too much is food security within our own islands. And that's why it's another thing to keep in mind. It's really important to have bees. Whether you're just one hive backyard beekeepers is almost just as important as the big commercial guys. Terrific. Well, Harry, thank you so much for all you're doing. And I want to wish you the very best. Thank you for being on the program today. Right. Sure. Thank you very much. And they do appreciate the opportunity to be here. Well, everyone, my guest today has been Harry Hall, president of the Big Island Beekeeping Association. And what a delightful conversation this has been. I hope you've learned something. I certainly have. And it has been indeed a sweet program. I'm Kay Lee Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute. You've been watching Hawaii together on Think Tech Hawaii until next time. Aloha. We want to announce that Think Tech Hawaii is moving into a new phase and will not be producing regular talk shows after April 30. We will retain our website and YouTube channel and will accept new content on an ad hoc basis. We are also developing a legacy archive program to provide continuing public access to our content. If you can help us cover the costs of the transition and the development of our legacy archive program, please make a donation on thinktechaway.com. Thanks so much. Aloha.


In this video, we are going to cover the very important topic of when to exit your trade. Let's assume you followed all the rules so far, so you've used the scanners properly, you've identified which stocks to trade, you've used the MTFT and you've taken a trade and it's going in your direction. Now, when do you exit? This is where the custom RSI indicator comes in. You can stay in a winning trade longer. Very often what we all do, it's human nature, is we tend to cut our winners short and hold on to our losers. This is general human tendency, there's nothing to be ashamed of. This is how we all behave. However, when you have visual indicators that tell you when to get in, when to get out, it makes the decision a no-brainer decision. And so let's take a look at custom RSI. I'll give you a brief explanation here. The normal RSI tells you overbought and oversold conditions. However, this particular RSI has been customized and it is customized to show persistence, so which means you want to stay in a winning trade as long as possible. The custom RSI works perfectly with both the MTFT as well as the SPX sticks. Now, we haven't looked at the SPX sticks, we'll do that in the next video, but it works very well. It confirms a great trade entry point, it confirms a great trade exit point. So now let's go into the platform and look at custom RSI and how it works for all three of our environments, which is day trading, the short-term swing trading, and then the long-term investing plan. Let's look at these three examples and see how custom RSI would have told you when to come out of the trade. First, we are going to look at the SPX example from yesterday. We saw this example earlier, we saw that in the first half of the day, we had a nice bullish trade going and then in the second half of the day, we had a much much better bearish trade going. The indicator custom RSI is right below the MTFT. So let's zoom in on the first half of the day first, which is all of this part right here and let's see what custom RSI would have shown us. So assuming you would have gotten into this trade somewhere here at this level, you can see that the custom RSI is in the bullish zone. The normal RSI would have told you that this is an overbought condition. However, this indicator has been customized. Now it's been customized to show persistence. So once the custom RSI goes into the bullish zone and it's moving higher, it's telling you to stay in the trade. It's telling you to stay in the trade. If you had to come out here, you could have, you can see that there is one red dot but that's not enough. So between the MTFT and the custom RSI, you have to make a decision there. You're only seeing one red dot on the MTFT. It's not time to come out and the custom RSI falls into the neutral zone. It's not bearish. It's fallen into the neutral zone but very soon within three or four minutes, it goes back into the bullish zone and you're still all the way in this trade. Perhaps this is where it briefly enters the bearish zone and that's good enough. You can take the trade off. If you got into the trade here, 45-15 and you would have been in this trade till about 45-25 or somewhere here which would be about 10 points on the SPX. And once again, if you want to take these smaller trades, you can. This is also a trade for about 10-15 minutes or so. This one goes on for about I would say 20 minutes or so. So if you got in on this bar right here, you would still be in this trade all the way till this point when it enters the bearish zone. So the custom RSI is customized to tell you that you are in a bullish zone or a bearish zone and you want to stay there until the custom RSI changes.  So that would be somewhere from here onwards, you would go and you would stay in this trade all the way till about here. You're almost picking the top exactly. You're not picking it exactly because you would have come out when the custom RSI went into the bearish zone which is over here. So you got it all the way till about five minutes after the trend change, you would have been out of this trade. Now let's take a look at the second half of the day and here is where also it is extremely helpful indicator because if you got into the trade somewhere here when you see all five are aligned and from there you can see the custom RSI briefly goes out over there and even if you exit it, that's fine. You can always get back in and once you saw this again, the trend is starting to develop and it's going deeper and deeper and that's telling you that you want to stay in this trade. The MTFT is telling you there's only one dot that is not aligned. That's fine and you want to go all the way till about here. Here the custom RSI goes into the bullish. So maybe that's the time you exit. So once again we saw this. This was about a 50 point move on the SPX and custom RSI allows you to stay in this position for as long as possible. So this is how it would work in a day trading environment. Now let's take a look at the other environments as well. Here we are looking at our short-term swing trading. So which was a trade of about two weeks, three weeks, something like that. So you can see that last year around September we entered a bearish mode and of course there were some bull runs over here but if you were let's say you were in this trade for about a week or two weeks you can see the custom RSI also is persistent over there. So let me move it back and we can zoom in and check this out. So here this trade would have lasted you about eight to nine days. This trade would have lasted I would say about 13 to 14 days because it doesn't include weekends. So this is once again your custom RSI is showing persistence and until you see this change there is no need to come out of the trade. So there's two ways you can look at it. If the MTFT shows a clear change in trend which is two or more rows going the other way you want to exit the trade or if the custom RSI goes from bearish to bullish you want to exit the trade. So between the two they work together very very well and you can see that whenever you see the MTFT and the custom RSI is aligned that's obviously even more higher probability for your trade. So let's continue over here you can see that little choppiness all over this place. So most importantly these indicators also tell you when not to take a trade because if you're seeing a bunch of reds and greens you don't want to take a trade you want to see either all greens you want to see all reds whatever the case might be but you want to see a trend and that's what these indicators help you to do. So once again here there's a little bit of choppiness and you can see the price action it's all quite choppy over here here you have a little bit of a run that's that's about it and then you have another bear run here and if you look at this is a nice little run on the on the SPX right starting from here you could have gone till about here when you see two or more dots and of course sure enough custom RSI also dips into the bearish right after that. So and then there's a little bit of choppiness here you can see two or more rows that are not aligned so you don't want to take the trade. Now this is a nice trade right here custom RSI also enters into the bullish zone and you see a green over here maybe and or over here whichever the case might be but this would have taken you from an SPX level of 42.11 all the way till about I would say till this one which is about 44 so that's the that's the one we saw earlier also this is a 200 point move on the SMP. So this is how you would use the custom RSI for a swing trading environment now let's quickly look at the long term as well which is going to be quite similar except the timeframes are longer so you have more conviction in your trade you cannot you don't want to be thrown out of your trade quickly so let's go back to the SPX and you can see some nice trends here you know from here onwards up until here when you see two dots you come out and then there was another nice run from here which is a level of about 4178 all the way till 4200 we saw that earlier let's take a look at another stock let's take another look at Tesla so Tesla off late has been sort of bearish or rather it's a there's no signal there so you don't want to get into Tesla at this point you know it needs to show a clear trend but before this you saw that Tesla was very bullish from here all the way and if you saw the two dots over here but the custom RSI really doesn't tell you that you should be getting out of the trade so even though you see two dots if you want to be safe you come out of the trade no worries but if you were hanging there you would have gotten a little bit more reward let's take a look at another stock right here Apple Apple has been bullish except for the last couple of you know week or so it's been bearish but otherwise you had some fantastic runs on Apple also all the way going back to last year really I mean you had some fantastic runs look at this one from about here which is 151 it goes all the way and the custom RSI is in the bullish zone all the way till about here and if you wanted to get out of the trade here when the custom RSI dips that's fine but on the MTFT it is still only one dot so you could have remained in this trade till about till about here when you see two dots that's the time to come out there's no point in taking the risk on the trade the indicators have given you the best possible information which is when to get in and when to get out and if you're capturing 80 percent of the move 85 percent of the move that's a fantastic trade sometimes these indicators might change very quickly depending on the price action but the good thing is the indicators will tell you that that the trend is changing so you might have gotten into a trade and two days later things have changed so that's okay you're gonna have a couple of losing trades but when you can maximize the number of winning trades and then on those winning trades if you can maximize the profit that's what it's all about it's a numbers game and these indicators help you stay in a winning trade as long as possible so you've seen all of these indicators you've seen how to identify the trading candidates how to get the proper trade entry and then now you're seeing how to get the exit as well there's another indicator which is very specific to the SPX it's called the SPX sticks we'll take a look at that indicator also in the next video but that only applies for day trading the SPY or the SPX options it's a day trading indicator but it gives you some very powerful information about what's going on in the market on that particular day so we'll be taking a look at that as well thanks


If you've ever built anything from the ground up, then you know the importance of a strong foundation It doesn't matter if it's a house of cards if it's a tower of Legos or if it's an actual house that you're building If you don't have a strong foundation That thing is just going to topple over in time and the same thing is true with our study of communication So it's important that we start with a look even just a brief look at the communication Basics laying that firm foundation for further study in a in a different area or more specific area of communication But we got to start at the beginning. So let's just Jump into the very basics of communications who we're starting on the same page when that firm foundation So first of all just to define communication very quickly communication is very simply the process of understanding and sharing Meaning that's what we mean when we say communication. It's it's one person or a group of people trying to Communicate something and share a sense of meaning with another person or group of people And so communication is simply the process of understanding and sharing meaning as you may know from previous studies There's a particular process that takes place in communication We have a whole other video on this that you can check it out If you want the details or want to hear about this in detail and understand this graphic a little more detail But basically these are the elements of the communication process Communicator a has a message that they want to send a communicator be they communicate that message through a particular channel That's the method through which it's communicated communicator bees also Communicating in return. They have that feedback creating that constant not even a loop, but just a constant Expression between the two and the message and the feedback going back and forth at all times There is noise that interferes with the sending and receiving this message and that can that noise could be anything whether it's physical physiological psychological Again, these are things you get into in in other videos more detail But and then all of this happens in a particular context right within the realm of this Whatever context that it's in and that plays an important part So you put these seven elements together and you have the process of communication now There are a lot of variables at work and in all of these almost a countless number of variables For every particular element here. So there's it's it's it can be quite complex But it really boils down to these seven things. That's the process of communication again if you haven't Watch that video or don't have an understanding of the transactional model like communication I encourage you to to check that out We'll put the link down below, but that'll give you a fuller explanation But here we just want to remind you that communication is a process and it relates to these seven elements in particular There are different levels of communication again There are other videos we have that'll go into this in more detail But just to briefly review and recap these you have intrapersonal communication, which is just communication that happens within Oneself right so when you're talking to yourself when you're having thoughts when you're playing an argument on your head That's all intrapersonal communication You also have interpersonal communication, which is communication between two people within the context of a relationship Whether that's a romantic relationship friendship family relationship even work relationship that you have with a co-worker That's interpersonal communication that takes place between two people within the context of a relationship There are different rules than the kind of guidelines that exist for group communication That's another level when you have three or more people working toward a common purpose or goal That's what we would define as a group and there are certain elements of communication that are different for that type of Environment and that type of context so there's group communication. Well, so everybody's favorite public communication You know clearly defined by public speaking one person sharing a message with a group of people And so that that has different rules and different expectations with it as well Finally, we have mass communication This is communication where a person or a group of people is trying to communicate with as broad an audience as they possibly can And there's always some form of technology that's used as a medium or a channel between those two people So they're again different elements and different rules and that's not Same elements same seven elements, but different ways that we apply them in different rules that apply to those same seven elements But the the transactional model of communication is at work in every one of these levels or forms of Communication so those seven elements again become very very important to us a Few principles of communication. I just want to share with you again briefly here We'll move them fairly quickly, but this is just an overview. This is just a recap Hopefully to refresh your memory if you need more detail on this, please You know consult one of our other videos or one of the other resources available to you for that But just real quickly here's some principles of communication some things to keep in mind Communication can be intentional or unintentional all of us have moments where we say something and then immediately think oh I didn't mean to say that or I hope they didn't hear that or I you know It didn't mean for that to be overheard or we're seen or whatever Sometimes we are very intentional about the way we communicate and sometimes we communicate unintentionally or people interpret things With a meaning that we did not intend so communication can be intentional, but it can also be unintentional Communication is irreversible though whether it's intentional unintentional the one thing we can't do is take it back There are no takes backs in communication once you say something even if you say well scrub that forget I said that Check that then the other person says okay. No problem. They're not really gonna forget it I mean they may try move on, but it's still gonna be there once it's out there. It's out there. It's irreversible Communication is unrepeatable right? There's an old old proverb that says no man ever steps in the same river twice It's not the same river and he's not the same man And so what that means is you know you step in a river and you got that water there And then you step out even if you step back in immediately It's different water that water is moved downstream. You're also a different person. You know what it's like to step in that river You know what to expect so that it's a different experience Communication is the same way. It's unrepeatable doesn't matter if we're saying the exact same thing to the exact same person It's going to be different each time not necessarily better or worse just different think about the phrase I love you think about you know a couple that's been together for a long long time, right? An older couple has been together for a long time How many times have they said I love you to one another and yet each time? It's a little different because they're a little different right they've grown they've first of all you it's never the same It's not the same the second time you hear it is the first time right? There's something special about that first time But then over time if they've had kids they've had a life together They've had joy and they've had pain and so forth and I love you takes on a different meaning again not necessarily Better or worse or more meaningful or less meaningful just different because that communication is Unrepeatable in that exact context in that exact sense that you said it before Communication has content and relational dimensions. This is really important I tend to think of it sometimes like if you were at work right and yet you had this person at work And you wanted to ask something wanted to do something whether it doesn't have to be a day It could just be if they wanted to go hang out or something right so but you asked so you asked this person at work You've kind of gotten to know them a little bit You asked them if they want to do something this Saturday and they say sorry. I'm busy this Saturday Those are the words they use okay, but there are a variety of ways they can say that and some things We can communicate saying the same things right maybe they say with an expression of oh man I'm sorry. I'm busy this Saturday But they give you you know through their facial expressions and the way they say it and things that they give you that Impression that off this for another Saturday. I would love to but I've got this thing going on and I can't get out of it Okay, that's one way they could say it, but another way would be I'm sorry. I'm busy this Saturday and give you that facial expression that says not only am I busy this Saturday But I'm busy every Saturday for the rest of eternity So they they give you those two things right so which one you know depending on how we say it That has a major influence on how somebody interprets it and how we how we express it So there's there's first the content dimension There's what is said and the content dimension in this example did not change either time right the content dimension was I'm busy this Saturday. So they were telling you that they're not available this Saturday, right? But they said it in those two different ways right in the different ways they said it or what we call the relational dimension How they express something communicate something about how they feel about that message about how they feel about that person And and you know some subtexts that they may be trying to communicate there as well So every message every Every form of communication every every bit of communication has both that content dimension What is being said and then the relational dimension of how it's being said and what else that communicates then? So communication has content and relational dimensions Also people give communication its meaning. This is important to remember You know, we think of words is these excuse me sort of magical things, right? That that you know are sent down from on high, but the truth is The words have no meaning in and of themselves words are just you know created things We we put them together It's a random collection of of random symbols that we made up and we put together in a certain order And then we just agree on what they mean so words themselves have no meaning It's people and their connection that they're connected meaning And and they're hopefully unified meaning of what that word means and represents that is important Sometimes you think like this too the only difference between these two notes Is your belief that one has more value than the other? So the difference between a legal us tender united states hundred dollar bill and and a monopoly hundred dollar bill They're both made of paper. They're both use special ink They both have different colors, right? And they both represent different things, but we know that one Has actual value in the real world and one only has value in monopoly. Why? Because we share that meaning that's that's the only thing that gives that that other You know one more meaning than the other is that we agree We all have collectively agreed that this is the legal Us tender dollar and you can't give me your monopoly hundred dollar bill and expect to buy something with it outside of that game Communication is the exact same way The what gives words or other symbols their meaning is our shared understanding of what those things represent and what they mean So at this point sometimes we're thinking, you know, well, what does all this mean? How do I know if I'm doing this right? What is the importance here? And how do we measure effective communication? Well, we measure effective communication through what we call communication competence and very simply communication competence Is engaging in communication with others that is both effective and appropriate within a given context So we're measuring it along two different axes right as this effective Meaning am I achieving my goal with this communication and is this appropriate? Am I communicating in the most appropriate way? And then that last part is important too within that given context So understanding that what is appropriate here may not be appropriate somewhere else And and what's appropriate in one situation may not be as appropriate or effective in another So communication competence is communicating in a way that is both effective and appropriate for that given context So some specific things that we look for in communication competence The elements that make up competence are first of all having a large repertoire of skills I think of this as having a lot of tools in your tool belt A lot of communication tools in your tool belt if you're going to build a house You need more than just a hammer. You need some other tools to go along with that, right? To be an effective communicator, we need to be more than just a one-trick pony We need to have a lot of different communication skills that we can pull out of our communication tool belt So we need to develop a large repertoire of skills to have communication competence Then we also have to be adaptable again. This has to work within a given context So we have to be able to know when to use a hammer and when to use a screwdriver and when to use You know, whatever I also saw so we need to be adaptable and be able to pull out the right skill At the right time. So we need to have that ability We also need to be able to perform that skill skillfully perform those things skillfully, right? We need to not only select the right tool, but know how to use it Right, how do we have to first pick the right tool for the job? Then we have to be able to use that tool effectively We also need to develop empathy I know keep in mind empathy is just being able to relate to and understand somebody else's perspective It's not a matter of you don't necessarily have to agree with that person or endorse what they're saying But it is important for us to be able to understand what somebody's saying and relate to that Maybe understand where they're coming from and why that might be important to them So we don't have to necessarily agree, but we do need to be able to empathize and develop those skills We also need to develop cognitive complexity Meaning that we can see things from those different perspectives. We can have a contradicting idea in our head Mull it over turn it around look at it from different perspectives really seek to understand it Maybe without even rejecting it out of hand That's important too in cognitive complexity It doesn't mean again, we have to endorse it or eventually agree with it But we ought to be able to hold these Contradicting ideas in our head and evaluate them and look at them from different perspectives And finally we need to develop self-awareness and self-monitoring We ought to be able to look at ourselves and our skills and all those things that we're doing as communicators And first of all be aware whether or not something is working whether or not it's effective be able to judge that in that moment And at that time hopefully and then also be a You know Consciousness of what our what our skills are and whether they're being effective And then being able to change them right and and monitoring ourselves and saying okay that didn't work in the situation So what else can I do here? What else might I have tried? What can I do next time and and just being aware of our communication skills? And and continually trying to grow those and and help them be more adaptable So now that we're at the end of this you may be thinking What's the point of all this isn't isn't just all this just common sense Is this really something that I needed to to learn about in its communication? We're just born with it right or not born with it Well, you know people say well, it's just common sense and I always remind them of what Voltaire said Common sense is not so common. So even if it is common sense that doesn't mean we always display those Things right we have lots of miscommunication Even if it's common sense So it's it behooves us to to learn about these things and to to develop these skills and understand that it is a skill That requires our practice and requires our awareness of those things It's not just something that's going to naturally happen We have to work at these things over time And I promise you no matter what your profession and no matter what your personal circumstances These things will pay dividends becoming a more effective communicator Will pay off in the long run. So be sure that you're paying attention to these even basic level things and building that strong foundation If you have questions about this or anything else related to communication Please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there And in the meantime, I hope that you have a better understanding of the basics of communication and have started to build that strong foundation


Gweithdeith am oeddo'r ysgol, iawn sy'n gofio'n gofio o ffrind o'r rhan. Rwyf wedi bod i wedi gael y bar ar Germany ac mae'r ddweud fawr cyllid a dweud ar gyflawni ac rwyf wedi bod chi'n gafodd arddangos ymddorol iawn i gael'u hyfforddi ac efallai'r gaf ymddor o'r byw. Rydw i arnynt gafodd nifer o ymdir i'n gael ar gyfer gwneud ar wyf yn gwneud ar hyfforddi. ac I am gael. Aeson gen i gael mwy ffordd, mae gwaith y pethau o'r gweithio'n gwrth Llywodraeth, a'r ysgolwyr maen nhw'n mynd i adael y Llywodraeth. Rwyf wedi bod yn ystod yn y Llywodraeth cerddurau a'r 90. Rwyf wedi'n ynchydig y gysylltu'r argyffredig. Rydw i'n storio, rydw i wedi bod yn hyn yn siaradau yr ysgolwyr y Llywodraeth Cymdeithasol I have been secretary of our community empowerment networks for those of you who know what they mean and will still survive. I have been a community representative on the local strategic partnership. I have been a trustee on a national community development charity. I was a co-founder of the North West Community Activist Network. I am a co-founder and administrator for the National Community Activist Network. My time has been principally involved in community activism. I am not intellectual. I tend not to theorise, I am not capable of theorising, of working out why things happen. But when I am convinced that something needs to be done, my capacity is to be able to get it done. I don't get lost in a labyrinth of hypothesis. I try to make things happen. Which is why I am here today. No then, round about 2007 when the financial crisis started to develop, a guy whose intelligence I really respect, though he is a sort of wonderful English and centric, rather like the professor in Back to the Future, one of those sort of people, you know. He said to me, Joe, who do we owe this money to?  I am the product of the grammar school education. I have got my A level in economics. But in that moment I realised I couldn't explain simply what money is. And if you can't explain things simply, you don't understand them. So having slept on it a few days, I thought I am going to find out. I am going to find out. It is something I need to know this. So I started asking people whose intelligence I do respect. And one of them recommended, I read a book called Web of debt by Alan Brown. So partially me and Ben have got a parallel story though. And once I read that book, everything slotted into place. All these years I have been trying to solve problems. Now I realise where the problem came from. But try to tell that to somebody else. It is like trying to describe Shaw Pan to somebody who has never seen a piano. So as I started talking to my friends about money and where it comes from, and where the power of the financial sector comes from, it was difficult. And then a couple of years later, on Twitter I found out about positive money. And I thought, haha! Here somebody who knows what is going on, that is where the pennies dropped to you. So from that moment on I have been a real supporter. And I am an avid supporter of positive money. It is why I am here today. I am here to support positive money in any way possible. Thank you.