All right, super happy to be here with Tommy Z. Got an interesting background and career and I thought that we could really just jam on some ideas of, you know, authentic business, of course, what I like to talk about. And like Tommy, what you call a liveliness, the art of a liveliness, which is cool. To give the audience some background, I'll just say a little bit about me and then, you know, love to have you share as well. So I have basically been in this authentic business, authentic marketing thing since 2009. I started out because I was helping my friends and colleagues with social media stuff back in the early days. And they're like, oh, you're really good at this. Maybe you should teach, teach the social media stuff online. I'm like, really? People teach online? Back then I like, it didn't know anything. You know, it's early days. People teach classes online, you know? And individuals, not like University of Phoenix, but just, and so that's how I kind of got going. I started teaching classes online and then, you know, my clients, students wanted me to teach about this and about that. And I just kind of added to my repertoire over the years and now here we are. And in 2014, I kind of tore everything down in my business, restarted it because I didn't, I wasn't doing it authentically. I felt like 2009, 2014, it was very much following the mainstream sales funnel type stuff, very salesy webinars. And anyway, I did all that, learned all that. And then I'm like, oh, I wanna do it in a way that's really more with the people, like really with my heart. So I started experimenting with content, with showing up authentically, whatever that means. And it's been awesome. And I feel like I'm a different person than I was when I started my business. Like my internal landscape, the way I think about business, the way I think about people, it's all so different now. So yeah, and I like how things are turning out and where things are going. But just that's a bit about me. Tommy, share with us, share with me, share with whoever's listening to this. Anything you want about your background. Sure, man. First of all, I'm happy we got to connect. I think the best things in life happen because of people. It's always relationships. It's really the lens by which we realize who we are. It's, I mean, I'm not sure that a life is possible. Life in a true sense of that word. Without bouncing yourself off of other people. So I'm glad we got to connect because I feel like we're on the same frequency and I really resonate with your message. And a bit about me, I was born in Poland a while ago. Different people have different guesses about my age. I don't think it's relevant, to be honest. I think it's age is really a matter of your spirit. And I know young people that seem old and I know old people who seem young. Yeah, I'm gonna guess you're somewhere between 20 and 120. Yeah, you're in the ballpark. Okay, ballpark. But yeah, I was born in Poland. I don't want to get into my life story, but I left Poland when I was 12, went to Canada with my mom, settled in Toronto. Then just kind of went on to the life path that we all go on, like you try to survive high school, school, go to university. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I ended up doing polyps in university, political science. And then like most people who don't know what to do with a political science degree, I ended up working at TD Head Office in Toronto on Bay Street, TD Bank Financial Group. And I thought that life on the 37th floor of a skyscraper would be like the life of Michael Douglas in greed. You know, marble, sushi, cash, happiness. But for some reason, it seemed to me that life isn't like that at all in the corporate world, in the banking world. I mean, I'm sure some people enjoy it, but I felt like this is not for me. And I started to sense that there's a call in me to respond to. And it's calling me to something other than spreadsheets. It's calling me to use my ability to create, to communicate, to help others be moved, to help others feel something. It's rare that you feel something with spreadsheet cells. Although again, there are people who love spreadsheets and it's an art form for them and I commend them, but everyone is different and it wasn't for me. And so I went on this journey of trying to extract myself from the corporate world and make creativity into my career. And that was a very interesting journey, a very good journey. I'm happy to talk about that also. But I essentially ended up as a music producer who is commissioned to be responsible for sound and music for some of the world's biggest brands and their campaigns. Now, music was always running in parallel to my regular life. I just never really believed or thought that I could make it into a career. And so it wasn't until I realized that there are very different ways of making living with music. It's not just the traditional ways that we know, like selling records or touring, that I realized, hey, I could do this actually. So I ended up being a music producer, making music for big brands. I did that in Toronto for a bit. Then I ended up meeting my now wife, who I have a family with on a short trip to Europe, ended up leaving everything behind for her to start a family. And then I started again in the same business, but now in Amsterdam on the other side of the ocean. And then after a few years of working with that company, I felt a call again. I believe in calls, you know? I believe we are all made with a built-in life detector.  And you might feel it pinging you at a moment in your life when things are not exactly going according to plan, according to the life detector. Like you're not living fully. Hello? This chapter is too long now. It's time to write a new chapter. And so I felt that again, after a few years of working for someone, and then in 2016, I decided to go out on my own. I started my own boutique production company that stayed in the same business, working with big brands to think about their music and sound. And then a few years later, I realized, hey, I've been in this business for a while. And now I feel called to express the creativity in a way that will be beyond the studio, beyond the music. And so I started to get into teaching others about my craft. I opened an academy online for musicians who wanna learn how to make a living at a time when it's not very easy to do so. And these days, I get my aliveness from communicating what I believe makes us all alive to other human beings. And the interesting thing about that is there's no formula. True aliveness comes from a unique response to a unique call within every individual.  There are principles that you can use that are timeless, but the path to aliveness is really only for each of us to take, to explore and to figure out. There is no way, there is no way to find a path from the outside in. It's always from the inside out. Maybe I've been talking too long, George. No, this is, yeah, it's very resonant because when I rebuilt my business in 2014, I started using the term true livelihood.  And, you know, create a way of, eking out a living, but doing it from a place of genuine passion and service, you know, to the higher call. And I remember an inventor who said to me years ago, he said, calling is interesting because you can only really know your calling by looking backwards and connecting the dots, like seeing the opportunities that came your way, the connections that you chanced upon and nurtured, the skills that you happened to develop, or maybe you were born with some inclination.   I was surrounded by it, and I do believe, like you say, that I think music, everyone can do music, but some people are clearly, clearly born on a different dimension. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and nurtured.  Like, that's, you were lucky to have done so. I mean, I actually was, I was forced into learning music when I was young, but I'm super grateful for it now because, you know, early on I had to learn piano, I had to learn violin, and then I picked up the guitar because I wanted to jam with whatever was on the radio, and then I practiced singing because my mom was singing.   So it's really fascinating that you were able to make a career out of it, like a super rare, and that you've been helping other musicians make a career out of it. I wanna ask you this question, like you saying you're making music for brands. The first thought that comes to mind is, oh, you mean like commercials or like events, they have music, but like tell us more what you mean by that. Sure, so it's largely commercials, although now we're talking about commercials, campaigns, content, and we're also talking about a very interesting area of the industry, which is sound branding, meaning like, you know, brands spend millions of dollars to define their visual identity. What are our colors? What are our symbols? What are our fonts? What are our, you know, what is our photographic style, filmographic style?  I mean, as impressive as Star Wars is visually, if you think about the unique sounds that have deeply embedded themselves in our culture that anyone can recite from Luke, I am your father, to the breathing to the sound of R2D2. I mean, what is it about sound that such an invisible thing can enter us and then live within us? And then as soon as you hear it, a whole world returns. You know, if you hear a bleep of R2D2 or something similar, it's not just Star Wars that returns, but everything associated with it, your childhood years, the 80s, the 70s, whatever. And so brands have realized this and now you see a lot of brands using sound in an intentional way, meaning they will spend as much time thinking consciously and intentionally about their sounds as they do about their colors and their shapes. And so I've had a humble part to play in some of the sound branding projects for big brands where we actually help to dissect the brand and figure out, okay, who are you talking to? You know, there are three S's that I always talk about. Every brand has a style like George likes blue. He's always wearing blue. Not always, but let's say you are. Okay, well that brings associations of sound immediately. You could say calming, you could say peaceful, you could say luminous, you could say a lot of things. But anyway, this is the process that you go through style. Every brand has a substance. So this is the values and the brand promise in a way. Like what do you get when you get George, right? It's not just his blue sweatshirt, but it's also the words he says, the things he stands for. And then the third thing is the story. Every brand has a story. So George has a story. 2014, he was all into sales funnels. Then he felt yucky and he was like, hey, is there a different way to try to serve people without pressuring them? So now you take all those things, the blue sweater, the words that George stands for, and he promises when you deal with him, and then the story. And then you start looking for, okay, how do you express blue? How do you express authenticity through sound? How do you express the transformation that took place when George was no longer feeling alive in a way that he was dealing with business? And you try to translate that into sound. That when someone else hears it, they're like, ah, this is, I associate this, you know, with the things that you stand for, right? The style, the substance and the story. And so that's essentially my involvement. Like I've done close to a thousand big brand campaigns where I've been basically asked, okay, let's figure out the music for this.  Is it gonna be some indie pop? Is it gonna be a beautiful song? What is it gonna be? I've done those. I've helped brands to come up with sound logos, with sound strategies, with ways of using sound to basically communicate their essence in a way that will move people. And that's been my work as a music producer. That's amazing. And now I think about our musicians how to do this. Right, yeah. And it's just, I mean, I think there's been, I mean, I think it's increasingly important because well, the age of video, the age of short form video, where you don't have much time to communicate the style, substance and story. And it's not just graphic design anymore. Sound design I think is increasingly important. So that's a really, really interesting field that's I think gonna become more and more important. Okay, I wanna talk, so you've been helping musicians do this. And so let's talk about a liveliness, right? Cause I mean, you recently did a presentation about this and I thought the metaphors you were using were quite interesting. Yeah, kind of go into, give us an overview of the art of a liveliness. Sure, sure. Well, you know, the thing that I'm always trying to do is get to the bottom of things. Have you ever heard this saying that somebody said, I don't even know who, but they said, I'm not trying to stay on top of things, I'm trying to get to the bottom of things. I like that, yeah. And I feel like an age now where there are a multitude of things assaulting us from all sides on every level through the feeds, through the screens. Anyone who's trying to stay on top of things risks burning out and we see this happening all across the board. I mean, an average person cannot help but to feel like they can't keep up with this all. There's just too much.  You can't compete with servers when it comes to efficiency and mass production. So it's completely unreasonable to try to keep up with it all. So then the next question for me is, where do we fit in into all of this? Like, where do humans fit into all of this? And to me, that's getting to the bottom of things. You know, I had a period in my life where I just wanted to be a rock star. I just wanted to be cool. And I wanted to have girls who adore me because of the music, you know? And that was a stage in my life. Then I managed to make a living with music to turn it into my career. But at some point I said, okay, these are not the important questions anymore for me. I've already been there, done that. So now the question for me is, what happens in the age where humans are finding it more and more difficult to find their place in this world? And I've spent hours thinking about this, hours. I've spent years thinking about this, okay? And I think that the more virtual and the more artificial things get, they will get better and better at mimicking and copying best practices, watching what is most successful, headline, thumbnail, whatever, because it's tracking numbers at a rate which humans couldn't possibly do. So the machine learning is fast. So technology is gonna do that. So now what is the human supposed to do? And I see a lot of creators chasing the best practices. If Gary Vaynerchuk does this, I should do this. If Alex Hormozzi does this, I should do this. If George Kao does this, I should do this. And the problem with this is, is that you're basically living your life from the outside in, in other words, you're looking out there for the idea of success. You're looking out there for idea of how to achieve it, of what are some of the effective ways to do it. When the entire key, the entire key to unlocking the treasure that is your unique path, and a feeling that you not only belong on this earth, but you are placed here to do something very particular, can only be unlocked from inside out. You have to turn back in to find this source of aliveness. I don't believe, and I've sat with millionaires in their Beverly Hills mansions, I've sat with homeless folks trying to hear their story while I give them some spare change. I always want to know, hey, what's happening? How are you doing? And the one thing I realized is sometimes, the homeless person is smiling a lot more than the millionaire in the Beverly Hills mansion. It's a very strange phenomenon. And I started wondering, how can this be? The Beverly Hills millionaire, not only went out there, looked for signs of success outside, but managed to create some effective strategies to get there. They're chasing, they're happening, they're accomplishing, and yet for whatever reason, all of this material possessions, all of this success is not making them happy. Whereas the homeless person is just talking about simple things in life. Like, it rained, but I managed to find shelter yesterday. How beautiful is that? You realize, wow, how is it possible that this person that doesn't have much is able to find joy in very simple things despite their suffering? But anyway, George, I think I'm rambling again. Don't worry. No, this is good. No, I so appreciate what you're saying. I mean, because it's increasingly important. This past year with artificial intelligence, like you said, and this coming year, where not only has it been reproducing text and writing and creative writing way en masse that humans cannot possibly keep up with. I mean, how much of the internet in the coming decade is going to be artificially generated? And then this coming year, it's their tackling music and video, artificial generation. And like you said, they have all the metrics of watch time, you know, engagement that they'll be able to, you know, it's like within as people watch a long YouTube video movie, for example, right? They'll be able to say, well, this segment got more engagement and then all the AI will be able to train on those segments. And all these segments, you know, got people to leave. So let's make sure we don't put those things into our films and YouTube videos. There will come a time, George, when you're watching a film and it's unfolding according to action. Right, yeah. There will come a time when it will sense that you're about to get up and it will radically shift the story. You know, there will come a time when I think there will be a choice to make. Do you extract yourself from the screen and look for the source of life outside of the screen? Or do you remain glued to the screen forever? I don't know, maybe I'm sounding drastic, but I sort of see it in those terms because you're starting to see the world divided into folks who are seeking desperately signs of life and connection in real life.  And my grand hypothesis and these bizarre plans that I have, George, is to create this movement called Human Preservation Project where what we stand for basically is it's almost like Noah's Ark. It's like, okay, you can go this way where you will be hooked up, you will be implanted with Elon Musk's brain chip. Who knows, maybe life will be great, but basically you're betting on that horse in that race or you're saying, you know what, I know this virtual reality stuff is very fancy and impressive, but I don't think I've yet solved the sheer wonder, joy, and astonishment that is real reality. I mean, George, what kind of world do we live in? Seriously, we haven't yet cracked the wonder and the joy that real reality brings and we are already looking to replicate it, to create a version of it called virtual or artificial. Like, when did artificial on a label become preferable to organic? Yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, they're already labeling content. I mean, I recently just published a book on Amazon and it's like one of the check boxes says, please check this box if you use AI in the generation of this content and it's a legit question because so much content is, but no, it's so true. I mean, the plugging in and the Apple Vision Pro just came out with their, I haven't even looked at it because I'm like, I can't imagine. It's just wearing that thing on all the time.  While I'm still able to look outside, I better use it while I can. This is the real vision, bro. It's like, so as people, okay, so I'm curious then. I mean, since you work in this intersection between creativity, people's livelihood and people's aliveness, like where do you see it going for creatives? Yeah, so first of all, I'm no prophet. I have no idea what's gonna happen, but I believe that any creator worth his salt or her salt, any great artist in history, if you study great artists or creators, they lived according to their own rules. Sometimes even at the risk of their sanity because they were not able to reconcile their rules with the world. But, you know, there's this quote that says being sane in an insane world. Hold on, let me get this quote right. I don't wanna screw it up. Maybe you heard this before. Adjusting to an insane world is no- The Krishnamurti, the Krishnamurti quote. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti, yeah. It is no measure of health to be sane in an insane world. Well adjusted. Well adjusted in an insane world, right? That's right, yeah. Oh, I'm so glad. You see George, this is why people should talk to each other. Like how did I know you would know Krishnamurti? We didn't talk about this, but you see there are signs, signs among people who are seeking life and seeking truth and authenticity. You know, you're gonna come across the same signposts, same people who are also seeking. But anyway, you ask me, okay, where do you see this going? I'm not a prophet, but I believe every creator will have to create their ethos. If you don't create your own rules of engagement, your own manifesto, you are going to be likely just plugged into somebody else's. It's as simple as that. I don't know how else to put it. There is no way that we who are susceptible to distractions, to shiny things, to fast moving stimuli can resist the onslaught that the brightest people and the engineers and programmers in the world have unleashed on us through these screens. There is no way, there is no way. We're too weak, we're too frail and then AI is gonna come on top, machine learning is gonna perfect it. It's gonna be so polished and perfect. It will be seamless. It will be like you don't even notice what's going on. And so I think this is a time right now. I heard this expression recently, we're the last of the analogs. Do you realize this? We are the last generation that knows what it's like to not be looking at a screen because we grew up without the internet, right? At least I did. And so I believe there's some measure. So like we fell victims because in this war, we're kind of the frontline. Like we went first, we got the first iPhone, the second, third, fourth, fifth, the best ever iPhone every year coming out. And we were the ones who had to like bear the brunt of this acceleration of technology. And now some of us have just fallen on the field. These are the folks who cannot unstick themselves, unglue themselves from their phone and who are basically a product of their feed. We are what we eat, George. I mean, so if a creator doesn't understand that they have the potential to be an architect of the human conscience, meaning whatever I produce, whatever I say to you now, whatever you say to me now, is going to travel into the human senses of people that are watching this. And in some folks, the seed will bloom and blossom into some idea or influence or inspiration. In others it will not. But the point is everything we say and everything we do has an influence on others. And so I don't find it very valuable when a creator is just a product of their feed. Simply put, like if they're just regurgitating whatever got their attention. Well, they're no different than chat GPT. They're no different than chat GPT and chat GPT. They're not as skillful as chat GPT actually. This is the thing is that unless you tap into your humanity, you cannot ever beat AI and the servers and chat GPT at being better at efficiency, at technique, at all those things. The only thing that we can win at is to be human. I mean, someone watching this might be like, right. So this is your grand idea, like, be human. I'm already human. It's like, are you, right? And this question will become increasingly relevant in the next decades because there are choices to make. Maybe you don't want a real kidney. Maybe you don't want a real heart. Maybe your eyes could have, you know, ability to zoom 40X to five kilometers away. I mean, who wouldn't want those superpowers, right? So these questions are gonna come, they're inevitable. They might not be immediate, but they're inevitable. And the question for me is like, where on which side do you wanna be? And I still think we have not learned how to be human yet. And we're already trying to compete with robots. Well, there is no competition if we just stay human. So you asked me before about aliveness. My simple path to aliveness is to return again to the self, to the self, to extract yourself from all the stimuli because in order to receive a clear signal from yourself, you have to quiet the interference. You have to clean your antenna. It's virtually impossible to hear the calling of your soul when you're subjected to the noise. And I'm particularly sensitive to this because I've spent my whole life moving humans with sound. So the world is very loud. And I believe the path to aliveness is actually not to rile up and boil up and excite your senses. That's not the aliveness I'm talking about and a distinction must be made. I'm talking about the kind of aliveness that is actually a sustainable joy, a sustainable gratitude, a sustainable steady sort of attunement to the wonder of the fact that we're alive, that we exist, that we can make sense out of things, that we can appreciate beauty, that we can be moved by an encounter with a person or with an event. And that to me, and I've tried both. I mean, I've tried both. I've tried going out there and chasing the world's pleasures. I've sat there an hour and a half unable to unstick myself from TikTok or YouTube. And when your wife comes up to you and says, did you know you've been on this thing for like an hour now? You're kind of like, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's like Lord of the Rings or something. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. It's terrible, but one more, one more. And, you know, you just start realizing, if you're honest with yourself, hey, this is objectively speaking, not giving me more aliveness, objectively speaking. I mean, I'm not, you know, it's entertaining in a superficial sense. It's exciting in senses, but do you ever get up from the couch, two hours of looking at short form content or even Netflix or whatever, and go, ah, the depths of my joy and peace? You know what you just said? The ability, the sensitivity to experience the wonder of a moment, of connection with somebody, with nature, with just whatever is happening here in this moment, like, because of the sugary, you know, effective media, the spiciness that's there, the loudness, like you said, it's like we've become very deaf, right? We've become very dull in our senses to what is enjoyable, and like you said, to be grateful for in the moment. And so, yeah, I love this. And it's interesting because when I create content, I found myself, like, purposefully, it's funny to say, like, I've said this before, like, I don't mind being boring. Like, I don't mind my videos being unedited, my Facebook posts having no images. Like, I just want to communicate plainly as humbly as I possibly can, as truthfully as I possibly can, and I wanna keep doing that, and I want people who are willing and able to get value from that, right? Like, to, yeah. Our conversation today is a testament to your decision, to your conscious decision to do that. Yeah, yeah.  I mean, it even sounds inhuman, the feed. The feeds.  It's time for your feed. But I've had moments when, you know, you're really trying to do the best you can in whatever field of life you're in. So what do you do?  Saying it's simple, guys, three simple steps, you know, too fast and easy, a millionaire life.   It's, you know, it's not fast and easy to make a million dollars. I mean, maybe there might be cases, but generally speaking, the whole thing is like, I don't want to get off on tangents again. No, no, please, please do, keep going. I believe that making a living should not be about money per se, but who will you become in the process? So like I am like the next person, I have obligations. I have two kids, I have a family, and I feel very strongly about my role in providing my family with security, you know, but that can quickly spiral into like, okay, I'm never at home, you know, yeah, the bank account is full, but like my kids' muscles have atrophied. Their ability to be responsible and resilient and reliable in the world on their own, I've just atrophied those muscles because I gave them a bunch of money and said, go. So, you know, so money, yeah, that's a tangent. That's a tangent. It's not about the money. We need the money. It's not evil to make money. It's not evil to save money. I mean, it's just the evil is in losing your perspective and thinking that you can't take the money with you.  Unless you have some noble sort of like game plan to, okay, because I'm good at making money. I will make a lot of it and then I will give it away.  Who's to say you're gonna be able to? Either stockpile enough or to even be there to give away enough or whether you're giving away of that is actually beneficial for the world compared to the way you were making it. It's like, I mean, especially as a father, the way you make the money is an example for your children and not just for your children, but everyone who knows you, it's like we affect each other way more than we realize in the choices of our career, choices of our health, our relationships, et cetera. I mean, they've done studies of this. It's like when someone exercises, right? Like that effect weirdly has an effect on friends of friends who then decide to exercise or whatever. And when someone breaks up in a relationship, that has a weird effect that has that kind of viral effect on second degree connections and third degree. And when someone makes a choice to do career in this way versus that way, oh, that's okay, that's acceptable. That's someone else is doing it. So that must be okay. And yeah, and it's like here we are saying. So too many people, what I wanna come back to is like too many people, when you look at the feed, basically end up chasing money because you see Alex Hormozzi making a bill and then you're like, well, why can't I do that? And that's just, you got her totally reset. You got a totally reset. That's not even the right question. It's not even the right thing. We gotta unplug ourselves to realize that we're chasing, we're asking even the wrong questions and then seeking the, like, we're trying to answer the wrong question to begin with the feeds. So it's a question we shouldn't be asking. But the two things that I wanted to say. Yeah, what do you think are the right questions? Let's get into that for sure. But no, go ahead, you were saying. Well, I wanted to rewind a bit because I said that you deciding consciously to speak in a boring way with boring thumbnails and boring everything. I mean, I found myself after consuming the highly polished, highly effective, highly dynamic content of other people, which sometimes is helpful with some of their tactics or whatever. I always found myself going, let me listen to George. You know, like, just because I felt like your boring voice and your voice is not boring, I mean, I tend not to do well or tolerate boring people very well. I'm sorry. I think as a music producer, you have a certain ear. I know, it sounds terrible. But I'm more like one of those folks that you can see shifting in their seat if like the conversation is like bland and boring. I want to get the heck out of there. But I just found that your frequency, the way you spoke and this very authentic kind of like non-scripted, non-produced, it's just George. It's just George.  I don't want to hear necessarily from a guy who I know has 14 people working on his video. That just doesn't feel the same as George saying, hey, you know, create the kind of content that makes you excited in a moment. I have barely one person working on my video. So, there you go. But I wanted to say that that's a testament. We're speaking today because I resonated with that vibe.  I mean, seriously, no thumbnail, no script, no fast cuts in the first minute. What are you doing? And yes, this is happening.  I have some things to say from personal experience that will hopefully serve you. Here they are. Come on board whoever wants, whoever doesn't want. Yeah. You should probably go board of the first minute because there was no fast cuts, right? I'm so grateful that you're saying that. I feel like there's a core principle that I follow in my content that I wish that has given me a lot of peace, which is the principle essentially is surrendering. It's like surrendering to, well, my authentic expression, whatever that happens to be today, but also surrendering to whatever the divine wants this to become. And zero views, one view, a thousand views. Okay, okay, however it is. And so I'm always asking that question, but I'm curious, as we kind of wrap up here, this is a good way to wrap up. What questions are you asking yourself in your art of aliveness? What questions do you think is wise for people to ask? As they preserve their humanity.  And that's the key process because the key to aliveness is to live your questions.  I'm already another talking head in the feed. The entire name of the game here is to extract yourself from the feed. Okay, the feed is not meant to nourish you. I'm just gonna speak to you from a common sense perspective. The feed is not here to nourish you. Behind the feed is a series of interests. And their interests are not in your best interests. That's the best way I can put it. I'm not trying to demonize, I like YouTube. That's the only social media, if you can even call it social media. I'm not demonizing technology. I'm sitting here with my beautiful Apple MacBook. I have my iPhone, I'm not demonizing technology. But I just think that many risk becoming its slave rather than becoming its master. But going back to your question, I believe that the key to aliveness is living your question. What is your question? You cannot find out what your question is until you create the conditions for the question to arise within you, right?  Trying to convince you that those are the questions. In 100% of cases, those are not the questions for you. How do I know this? Because Alex Hormozzi did not bring you into existence. If you want to know how to operate this vessel called human being, it's not Gary Vaynerchuk who can tell you it's not Hormozzi. And again, I'm not demonizing them. They have a lot of really valuable things to say, pragmatic, these guys are killers.  But that doesn't mean this is a game for you to play. Their questions are probably not your questions. And so what you wanna do is clean your antenna and create the conditions that make it possible for you to receive the signal. Because the signal is gonna happen, okay? You might not believe in God, you might not believe in some kind of infinite intelligence. That's fine. I'm just asking you to believe in something that we can agree on, which is things feel right, things feel off. When that happens, cool or what is speaking? How is it that a child has a sense of being cheated during a game? Hey, that's not fair. Fair. Why is a child invoking right, wrong, a sense of justice, a sense of order, so there's something you can call a conscience even within us. I call it a life detector that says, hey, this is bringing me life, this is not. The whole key is to extract yourself from what I call the metropolis, which is the machine. This is the place that automatically places all of its expectations on you. And it basically, the feed is not to nourish you, but the feed is to serve the feed itself, to serve its own interests. And it feeds on what? It feeds on our attention. Our attention, even Gary Vee says this, you know? That he de-traded. Yeah, he says de-trading attention. De-trading attention.  Your attention is your next masterpiece.  I mean, I don't want to go too dramatic here, but isn't that a question of how we direct our attention? Right? And so the entire idea with art of alightliness is in the age where music, where photo, where film is all easily copyable commodity. I believe that the next and the highest art, again, will be life itself, life itself. Like a human being who is living a harmonious, beautiful, creative life and being a channel for others. Like you said before, George, that, you know, when this person walks in the room, you're like, wow, I want to learn new things. Wow, I want to learn from this person. I want to talk to that person, right? And so I believe that that is something that I cannot ever compete with. There is no competition because this is coming from the soul. This is coming from the soul and we're uniquely built to be able to communicate with this thing called soul, with this thing called conscience, if you don't believe in soul. But the first step is extract yourself from the machine and the practical advice I have, you asked me about a question is, here's a question. Can I sit still, alone, in a room or away from noise for 20 minutes a day with my journal in front of me? Why do I say a journal? Because you can't sort what you can't see. A lot of our anxiety, a lot of our confusion comes from the fact that behind these eyes, everything we ate is being stirred and mishmashed there. Everything we ate from the feeds, from the impressions of the day, from our conversations. And it's hard to make sense of something you can't see. So I ask, can you make 20 minutes a day to extract yourself from the noise, sit with your journal and just start spilling things from behind your eyes. Once you see them on a piece of paper, you can start organizing them. And at some point, if you stick with this process, I truly believe because I did it and I think we're built this way. I just think we're built this way. Your question will arise or questions. Yeah, they will arise. That's a beautiful way to end. The questions lead us onward and birth even better questions, right? The questions that are right for the coming age. So thank you. Thank you so much, Tommy. It was great to talk with you. And I hope this inspired something for those who are watching. Comment below if you'd like and share, we could share what your question is, something that came to you or share your practice of how you extract yourself from Rushi and clean your antenna so that you can be more aware of what life is calling you towards. So yeah, thanks, Tommy. Yeah, and George, the last thing I wanna say is I'm not advocating that you leave the world. I'm just advocating that you do not continue to play its games without questioning them. So the whole thing is to walk away, determine what questions will you try to live and then return to the world to try to live as an answer to that question. That's it. Excellent, excellent. George, I appreciate your time. It was amazing. I knew it would.


Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we discussed the following question which says if A is an invertible matrix of order 3 and determinant of A is equal to 5 then find determinant of a joint of A. We have a property according to which we have that if A is a non-singular matrix of order n then we have determinant of a joint of A is equal to determinant of A to the power n minus 1. This is the key idea that we use for this question. Let's proceed the solution now. We are given that this A is an invertible matrix and we know that a square matrix A is invertible if and only if it is a non-singular matrix. So we say since a square matrix A is invertible A is non-singular matrix. So this means that this A is a non-singular matrix and we are given that determinant of A has value 5 that is the order of the matrix A is given to be 3. So n is equal to 3 then we have determinant of a joint of A is equal to determinant of A that is 5 to the power n minus 1 that is 3 minus 1. So this is equal to 5 to the power 2 equal to 25. So determinant of a joint of A is equal to 25. This is our final answer. This completes the session. Hope you have understood the solution of this question.


A lot of snow flurries outside today may put you in the mood for the holidays and already the Bemidji JC's are getting the city ready for Christmas. JC members were busy last night unpacking over 175,000 lights that will be used to illuminate trees in Paul Bunyan Park, Library Park and downtown Bemidji. Trees at the Lake Bemidji South Shore will also be lit for the holidays and as part of Hockey Day Minnesota. But more big announcements are yet to come. For JC's it's our official start to the holiday season. This year we're bringing a lot more color to the light display which is exciting and stay tuned we'll have a big announcement coming soon for the first city of lights. All of the lights will be illuminated on November 23rd during the Night We Light Celebration. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Hi guys, it's Monica. Thank you so much for joining me. And first of all, I am really sorry this is late. We had all sorts of issues yesterday and then this morning we're going out on an appointment. So I'm not gonna get to edit this until later today, but this is going to be a vlog on our vacation where we went to Palmyra, Maine, Bar Harbor, Maine, and then we ended up going to Camp Avella in May, in Canada, my gosh. And then back to Maine to visit the lighthouse in Louvac and then back to Bar Harbor. It was like an amazing, amazing 12 days up in Bar Harbor, Maine, actually almost two weeks away. So it was a wonderful trip. I hope you joined me. I hope you enjoyed the vlog. Please leave me a comment below, like the video, share this if you can. You know what, at the time of this filming, I'm one subscriber shy of hitting 20,000. Holy Moly, I never thought I'd hit 20,000 because I haven't hit it yet. But if you are watching this and you've not subscribed, man, that would mean the world to me if you did and help me get over that hump to hit 20,000 would be awesome. So stay tuned and I hope you enjoy and I'll see you in my next video. Bye guys. We always spend two days at up in Palmyra, Maine at a resort called Fogbrook. It used to be called Palmyra RV Resort, but it's a camping resort that's on a golf course.  Couldn't wait to get there. But of course we needed to stop for an ice cream. And so we found this hidden gem that the locals go to and the ice cream was awesome. And now Bar Harbor, here we come. This is our favorite campsite. I think we've been coming here 23 years. Right on the edge of the water, it's low tide. So when the tide, the water comes in. Sorry for the jerky camera movement. But when the water comes in, it fills right up to the edge of our property line. And the very next day, we went out to dinner with Justin and Tamara and we had a great time enjoying fire and just awesome time. Burn, baby, burn. Burn, baby, burn. I'm getting ready to teach a class remotely. So my background, when I stop my virtual class is going to have a different background, but take a look at what's outside my window. Of course, I won't show my husband sitting on the couch, but great place to teach, huh? Not really sure what this person with the pointy hat, white gloves standing on the rocks is doing. Bar Harbor is just so, so pretty. We just love it there. Never did find out what that wizard person was doing. We did a couple of little sightseeing, took a couple of pictures, drove around. Gosh, we never tire of Bar Harbor. It's so beautiful. So we are off and running. So yesterday we saw a wizard, the park that was so weird, wasn't it, honey? Yeah, I don't know what he was up to, but. I have no idea either, it was like really weird. And then we went over to Seawall. It was really, really pretty, took a couple of pictures. Now we're going out in the rain. These boats kind of rocking just mesmerized us or me. And then we went through the park, even though it was raining. I love the covered bridges inside of Acadia and Sand Beach was just about empty. No one was down there and it was so, so pretty. Drove through the carriage trails and all into the park and just stopped and took pictures and enjoyed. So Jane, I was saying that it's actually, actually you were saying it. It's actually nicer in the park, in the rain. Why? Hot Laney people. Hot Laney people, except for us. Another gorgeous spot. Really awesome place. Oh my gosh, look at that. So we're off another day. Huh? M&J Adventures. M&J Adventures. So in this, you know, I forgot to really talk about the beginning of our Bar Harbor vacation. It was very different this year because we were super excited because Justin, who was Jay's son, my stepson who lives in Atlanta and his wife Tamara were coming up. They were going to join us for a few days in Bar Harbor and that was like, that was like awesome because that's never really happened before, you know, on any kind of a trip out. I mean, we've had like my son come up but and friends and stuff like that, but they flew all the way from Atlanta and they loved it. So the first few days, I'm gonna insert some photos as I'm talking, but the first few days, you know, we did a little bit of sightseeing. We went over to a chop of Cadillac and took a couple of pictures and then Jay went golfing with them just a very, very minor sightseeing. Most of the time we vetched out at our campsite. We had some beautiful sunsets and we ended up having a lobster fest one night where we buy lobsters very reasonably off of a local person on the other end of the island and we also buy steamers off of a local person. We don't go to any of the big lobster traps or steamer traps or whatever you wanna call them. For those that don't know what steamers are, they're clams. They're clams. So we bought them and we got, I don't know, I think we got, for our family anyways, there was, we got like four big, big lobsters. I think they're about two pounders each, maybe a little more, I'm not sure. About two pounds. About two pounds and I don't know what they were per pound, do you have any idea what the pound price was? I don't know, I just know what we paid in total. But anyways, the lobsters, oh my gosh, they were so delicious. We went over our friend's bills campsite and he's got it all set up for lobster cooking and all that and we had purged the steamers, the clams, so that they were purging in salt water, sea water for two days. I mean, when we bought those steamers, they had just been dug, they were an hour old. That's how fresh they were. And they were absolutely fantastic. It all of a sudden had a torrential downpour, so we had some umbrellas out there. But then it ended up clearing up in time for us to be able to sit outside and eat the lobsters and the steamers. And we had a couple of campfires and stuff like that. So the first few days were very, very kickback and relax and enjoy Justin and Tamara. It was really sad to see them go. They, I don't think, wanted to leave either. So that was the first few days and then we had some rain, you know? So you saw the little sort of mini adventures that I included in here already on a few of our days. And today we're off to go pick up some supplies that we ran out of because somebody didn't pack as much as she should have. So we're gonna pick up some supplies and then maybe we'll go to Skoda, can you think? Yeah, I don't see why not. We'll see what we'll do. It's sort of, right now it's overcast here, but over at the campsite, it was actually sunny. You know, sun was coming out. So, you know, when you're on the island, when you're in Baharpen, Maine, it's off the main land and you come onto the mainland like we are now heading into Ellsworth. I mean, the weather looks completely different than it was on the island. So you never know what you're gonna get, right? But we'll share some of it with you. Steward at point. And of course we had to pose for a little selfie. Sitting on the rocks and it's breathtaking views. See the views over there? Really, really beautiful here. It's a little cloudy. It is a little cloudy. Overcast. Of course there's still all my sunglasses on and my visor, you know, protecting right. Okay. But it is beautiful here. And anything new? It's just really awesome. It's good, commensal. Known as the quiet side of Acadia. Not too many people here. So I climb down a little bit more. So the clothes I have hanging on that clothesline over there, that's the clothes that I wear it during the fire pit. My smoky clothes, my neck is so wrinkled. Now I'm just got my finger off. I think he's gonna try to get wet over there. Tide's going out. Not that cold, is it, honey bunny? We missed you guys. So we're off on a M&J adventure. Where are we going, Bates? Canada. We're going to Canada. Isn't Canada a long way away? Nah, it's only a couple hours. So yeah, couple hours going on an adventure to Canada. And before we got to Canada, I had wanted to find Jasper Beach. I had read about Jasper Beach, but we had never been. And it did not disappoint. What a gorgeous, gorgeous spot along the main coast. And then we got our passports out and continued to venture pass through customs in Canada without any issues. Welcome to Campabella Island, home of Roosevelt, the president of the United States.  We toured the grounds. We went through his summer cottage. It was just really nice. Not a lot of people, so it's perfect time to visit. And after we explored around the compound, we decided we were going to go try to find lunch. And we went to this little restaurant called Pierre. And we sat outside on the pier. The views were phenomenal. People said they could see whales jumping right outside there. We didn't see any on this day, but it was beautiful. We had clam chowder and some fried clams. And I had a Caesar salad. And then we went off to the lighthouse, which is the highlight of the trip. Tide was in, so we couldn't cross over to actually walk over, but take a look at the views. So we are up, is this West Quattie or East Quattie? I never know. I think it's East Quattie. We're in Canada, Campabella Island. I don't know if you can see the lighthouse over in the corner. And at low tide, you can walk out there, but the tide's coming in. So there's no way we were walking out there. But we took a little walk in the woods. So, so pretty here. We probably make this trip every three years. From our campsite, it's about a two and a half to a three hour ride, depending on how often we stop to enter into Canada. There are two lighthouses in this area, East Quattie and West Quattie. West Quattie is in the US in Maine and East Quattie is in Canada. After we visited the lighthouse, we went down to Head Harbor, which never gone there before. And it was a working harbor, so it was kind of cool to see all the boats and just walk around and stretch our legs and enjoy the warm, warm temperature. It was such a beautiful, beautiful day. When we left here, we made our way back through customs into the USA. Of course, sometimes it's harder to get back into the USA than it is to have gone into Canada.  And we were going to head to the West Quattie lighthouse. And here I am posing in front of the bell or behind the bell. And this lighthouse is absolutely beautiful. It's on the Bay of Funday. High tides, it's a big park. You can picnic, you can do all sorts of wonderful stuff. Really nice, nice spot. And then we went back to our campsite, enjoyed more sunsets. And we knew that our trip was gonna be winding down at this point in time. So the last couple of days, there was sunsets, it was more lobsters and steamers visiting with friends. And then one afternoon we rode our bikes around. And then one afternoon I went downtown and walked all around downtown Bar Harbor, went shopping, enjoyed the views. It was sort of a drizzly day that day downtown Bar Harbor. So there was not a lot of people around. It was absolutely perfect. And that kind of wraps up our 2023 Bar Harbor, annual Bar Harbor vacation. Hope you enjoyed the videos and thank you so much for watching. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Republic.


What I plan to do is really to say a couple of things about my association with with iBalk with bank unions including the Bank Employees Association and Befi and with With a couple of things and I am going to take along which I've learned in the process of this association Well, really nearly because that's my profession at a certain point of time. I started life Working in industrial economics and soon you begin to look at the problems of financing Capital intensive industrialization and then I began to look at finance and I got quite Interested and began teaching courses on finance and and so on and at that point of time that was also an interesting period because starting from the 1991 but in fact earlier starting from that after the 1981 IMF loan which India took because we took one loan well before the 1991 loan When things were not so bad other than for the fact that there was an oil crisis prior to that that at that point of time There was this this fundamental transformation which was beginning to occur in in the financial realm in All sorts of underdeveloped countries of course it had started in the southern countries in Latin America much earlier But one could see it happening and you know, this was not Just financial liberalization in the sense that you were removing removing controls for the entry of foreign direct investment Foreign portfolio investment the entry of foreign banks foreign insurance companies, etc Which was happening in in other countries not in India at that point of time, but that That was actually transforming the financial structure so that structures of the kind which were used by the development countries during the period when they were trying to industrialize and grow were being undermined in these countries and It was exactly the same wherever you went you went to Nepal and looked at a poverty reduction strategy paper And they recommended the same thing as they would recommend to India or Brazil or Thailand or Chile So there was something happening and I would go to some NGO meets you know one gets called because Every now and then NGOs need a little bit of an input from an academic You know and so you get called and I would keep telling them that listen It the problem is not only the IMF in the World Bank It is true the IMF in the World Bank are problems But the world is changing the IMF in the World Bank is going to become far less important It's actually the transformation of financial structures, which is going to determine what's going to happen to the kind of capitalism you have And in fact, that's turned out to be true. Of course. We everybody knew it was going to be true I mean the bank really doesn't matter the IMF comes in only when there's a balance of payments crisis The real problem is that international finance in the sense of private international financial capital Networked of course with other kinds of capital has come to dominate these countries So there was this effort to try and get the NGO community to go beyond You know making appeals to the IMF to the World Bank having people's What do you call not parliament what do you call the people's courts to To look at the kind of policies they were imposing on third world countries and so on to try and get them to then move on at least some of them whom I was associated with to move on to looking at Financial problems of the transformation of financial structures and the implications of that Well, I wasn't successful and then but then suddenly at one point of time One found that the real people opposing financial liberalization and this transformation of financial structures where those within the bank within the financial system itself Of course, this was not true only of India. I mean, you know, it was true in many other parts of the world But in India, this was particularly strong because of the strong public banking tradition that got built up after 1969 and therefore Actually the effort to try and get some support of people who actually matter as opposed to a bunch of academics sitting in academic institutions Really seemed to bear fruit when one began to associate with you know employees and and and and offices in in the bank in the banking sector And of course the insurance sector as well because in the insurance sector also we have a movement which has actually stood up quite significantly against liberalization in various forms So as a result of that association, one of the things which happened was I think it was 2006 Some of us were approached by Ibok the then Ibok. I didn't know Franco really the never I think I've run into him as part of the people signs network, but not really as part of the of the of the of the of the confederation and And I We were approached. In fact, they approached some Shukla Saab and they wanted to bring in Pravapatna, Ekomi Obakchi I was not all that young then but definitely much younger than I was today and You know, they needed somebody to do the work. So they said, yeah, of course They said, well, we contacted Chandrasekhar also then they said, oh, then we'll be part of it And this committee was formed and we actually produced this report At that time the experience with Ibok was very different because it was true Ibok has a strand of radicalism, but it is a complex organization one felt at that point of time And you know, it was a very different thing because we also went from city to city Trying to actually get evidence as part of trying to prepare this report And the way it would be organized and the the kind of people they want us to meet, etc Very depend given this this complex structure Well, that was done and then much later a few years down the line This relationship continued. One has gone and addressed Ibok, Befi, AIBA In different locations in different places, etc. And suddenly we get this gentleman taking over Ibok And then it it all seemed very different.  I need to come and meet you. I'll be landing in the airport Will you be in the office or will you be at home, etc, etc. And willy-nilly he not only got us to do, which came much later Us to do another report or another study for on which was an extension Or an update on the kind of study which we had done in 2006 But he would constantly get one to look at issues that maybe one would have got to look at But maybe a little later, maybe one would have missed it But he would say that, oh, there's this thing coming up, there's this bill, that change in policy This is what the RBI circular says, etc, etc. And you know, one ended up then looking at it and because you looked at it, you wrote about it And in some sense, I think I learned a lot because of the fact that we were pushed in And subsequently also by Xiaomi, we were pushed into looking at things Which maybe some of it we would have looked at, but maybe a lot of it we wouldn't have looked at Because you know, you're doing many things, you know, this is not the only area of research, etc So it was a learning experience, not only for what we did for iBalk in the form of these reports But it was also because of the fact that iBalk pushed us To conclude, you know, what if one, I was just thinking If one was to think of one kind of sort of, let's say, perspective Which has come out of this interaction as opposed to maybe one's own efforts To try and understand these complex changes in the world of finance I really think, you know, when this interaction began, you know, I could, personally I could sense a difference, you know, because if you're coming at it as an academic If you're going to write about it, if you're going to lecture about it If you go to classrooms and tell students about it, etc You're always looking for a clear logic You're always looking for a mechanism You're always looking at being nuanced And you don't want to say that, listen, I think there's a conspiracy out here, you know But the fact of the matter is capitalism is the biggest con game in town There is a deep conspiracy which goes on for all of these things And in some sense, the questions, the way the question would be posed If the push would come, would make one think And I was just thinking, and I'll conclude with that Supposing we just look at what has happened just over the last three years Maybe four years since the sort of end of term of Raghuram Rajan You know, okay, everybody talks about NPAs One is talking about resolution, one is talking about bankruptcy code One is talking about FRDA, I build, etc But this kind of panic about it really was a phenomenon Which began when Raghuram Rajan decided That listen, let's stop all this thing which was going on for a long period of time Starting with creating the CDC, the corporate debt restructuring cell That is, you were actually saying that these are huge loans we've given to these corporates We can't declare them as being defaulted debt We can't provide for them because we'll go insolvent That was the game, it was very clear, you can't afford to do it So what you needed to do is to find ways to postpone it And you know, CEDC 5x25, you kept, you know, you kept discovering mechanisms By which you can keep this debt going even though it was not a debt Which actually is going to be so easily resolved Finally, you had to take taxpayers' money as the United States And England and Europe had to do at the end of the 2007-2008 crisis And clear the books, you just had to clear the books with taxpayers' money If not today's taxpayers' money, taxpayers' money over the coming 5-10 years But then suddenly this Raghuram Rajan says that, listen, you can't hide all this You have to put it on the books because, you know, what kind of a game is this And, you know, he makes these statements which, you know, all of us are surprised by You know, that there are these people who think that they can take bank money and, you know Et cetera, et cetera, don't use to make these statements No, listen, Raghuram Rajan, I mean, he's smart but he's also a sharp cookie He wasn't doing it because he believed that, you know, capitalism is a game In which we should be fair, transparent and so on It isn't a game like that So, obviously, there was some reason why he was doing it And I think the reason was the fact that the public banking system In the years of liberalization, starting from the 90s But particularly during the early 2000s, was used as a mechanism To actually finance a strategy in which you are facilitating the expansion of private capital It was part, it was used as an instrument in what was one of the most intense efforts To redistribute income in favor of the top 1% or top 2% or top 3% And the banking system, the public banking system was used as an instrument in this And if it was being used as an instrument, obviously, you're going to accumulate all of this And what was the implicit understanding was that every now and then The state would come in and in doses, it would recapitalize these banks Which essentially meant that at some point, you wrote off this debt It was a technical write-off And then if you look at what happens up post-technical write-off, nothing really happens You don't get much, very much money back So we might say that, listen, we're getting, you know, 60% and 20% from Bush and Steele and Bush and Steele and Paar and so on and so forth But if you look at those numbers, we were getting peanuts We were getting, you know, I mean, the public banking system Was getting maybe 5%, 3%, 7%, in some cases 0 You just wrote off the whole thing So that was the understanding that there would be a continuous process Of recapitalization to finance this process of the redistribution Of the engineered redistribution of income in favor of the top few percent Now, obviously, once you unleashed this game, things had gone so far That if you were simultaneously saying that, listen, I've got a fiscal deficit Which I'm not going to let go more than 3% And you're sitting with all of these, you know, corporates Having had this ball game for so many years There's a fundamental contradiction, you can't keep capitalizing So you begin to think of what you want to do But at that point of time, I do think the reason why the guidelines On discovering NPAs was changed was because big finance Not just the Ambalis, but international finance as well Saw in this an opportunity to in some sense capture the public banking system Because what is, you know, what would you say People say, listen, why are you getting 60% or 70% they claim for Bush and Paar Why is JHW willing to pay whatever it's going to pay, 19,000 crores or something like that Because of the fact says today's paper Because they think that, you know, setting up green field projects Just doesn't work in the steel industry So the much better thing to do is to try and buy steel capacity cheap In which case you can expand and get away with it If you try and set up green field capacities, you're not going to make profits So that's the reason you do it The same is true of banking When you have a banking sector which because of nationalization has spread itself And established a presence so deep and widespread in this country To try and come and actually create a new green field bank And compete with the public banking system is a no no It's a game that just won't work So the only thing you can do is to capture a pre-existing system To take over, I don't know why they call it that You make a brown field investment You basically take over something which already exists And I think the push to actually come clean on NPAs Such that you will be in a position where you'll have a very short period of resolution Which you cannot do on the basis of taxpayers' money Is what set this off And after that the game just goes on Every day there's either when we're constantly having these Some Indra, Dhanush, then what's that? Sashat You just find all these words and it's all the same thing you try And we had ARCs before We tried to set, there was been talk of bad banks We're now basically saying that we had IBC Now we won't take everything to IBC We'll only take some to IBC, some will resolve directly But that's what we were trying to do earlier So essentially you're not able to complete this game You're not able to complete this game of keeping on recapitalizing But on the other hand, since still we have IBOC We have Franco, we have Soumya, we have all of you We have the insurance workers, we have Befi, we have AIBEA And of course some fellow travellers and side hangers on Like all of us sitting here There's a fight back And when there's a fight back And you have something as important as the public banking system It's not so easy to allow private capture Of this huge public empire which has been built over a period of time They're being a little more successful I think in insurance But even they're not in life And this whole thing therefore is I'm convinced now one big conspiracy Maybe five years back I wouldn't have been willing to consider it But having been converted into a comrade by Franco I'm willing to consider that this is one big conspiracy Thank you