#48 - What is a High Noon Leader (Live Recording)
This episode is a special one as we introduce to you our program, Giving Tuesday2020 Listen as Sammy, Andrew, Carina, and Benjy talk about High Noon leadership style by embodying its virtues: Honesty, Grace, Integrity, Accountability, and Courage.
With High Noon’s continued growth, a new paradigm of leadership is emerging organically. We continue to transform leaders by being our best, authentic selves, living by the organization’s set principles, and empowering others as well to live a life without shadows.
At High Noon, we believe that life and leadership mean creating a better world through redefining oneself and enlightening others to be self-sufficient and grounded to have genuine and lasting peace and joy.
What is Giving Tuesday 2020
High Noon Leadership is:
Letting loose and discovering a version of yourself that is unafraid to make mistakes and get criticism
Having humility and being kind to others and myself
Removing this pedestal idea of perfection and one has figured it all out
Allowing people to be human and work on themselves
How do you handle honesty:
As part of your job
In reaching the level of accountability: Living up your words
As a balance of talking and not talking
Letting your results speak for you
Peace starts within yourself
The essence of leadership through transparency
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love: First of all, welcome to Giving Tuesday. Sammy, can we talk about hashtags or whoever knows about hashtags.
Sammy Uyama: Stay. That's the surprise. So we'll leave that for a little bit.
Andrew Love: Okay. Okay. What we will say, though, is that we've been doing this fundraising drive to raise money, because we are a non-profit. And we run off of like, you know, cars run off of gasoline. High Noon runs off of people's love and generosity. And so we wanted to also kick anybody's butt who needs to be kicked to just donate a little bit in order to help High Noon proliferate and continue to grow leaps and bounds. Sammy, can you, can you just give me a number straight up? Just give it to me straight up, Doc. Oh, how many volunteers do we have? How many volunteers do we have? Because I was shocked to hear that number. Numbers volunteers presently have.
Sammy Uyama: At first, I thought you're just asking for a number. So I was just, I was sweating thinking about what's, what's like a really cool number I can share to, share to Andrew. Now we've got, gosh, over 91. I think that's what we counted in the last test. People volunteering in different capacities. It's mind-boggling just to think that many people not, not involved with High Noon as participants but involved in helping people. That's just crazy that we have somehow managed to enroll that many people and inspire that many people in what High Noon is doing. And so you know, these are people who are leading small groups. These are people who are doing translation work. Who, when we host events like this, are working in the background. So you know, case in point, we're doing this live stream on Facebook, and shout out to Josh Fontaine, who is acting as our chat moderator and gonna be there to do all the ask interesting questions and engage our audience. So thank you, Josh. And so whenever we do events, we've got people working in the backgrounds and different roles. And all of our social media is primarily run by volunteers. So if you like anything that we do on Instagram, or on Facebook. I don't know if you know, but we have our main Facebook page. Our High Noon Facebook page. We have a Portuguese Facebook page. With a Spanish Facebook page, and we are just preparing to launch a Japanese Facebook page. And he's all run by volunteers. So shout out to all you guys say.
Andrew Love: Yes, so we have an army, a heavenly army of volunteers. And that's one way of helping, because whenever we go speak somewhere, people come back to us and say, I want to help. And in the beginning, it was really embarrassing, because we would love their enthusiasm, but we wouldn't know how to help them to help. So it just kind of seems like a bad transaction. But so I'd say hey, maybe donate, right? But now there are actually quite a few people who are volunteering in many different ways. So we would love for you to volunteer if you'd like. But we also, you know, it costs money to do stuff. So that's also why we're raising some funds today. That's why this is, the nonprofit knocking on your door day. We all become canvassers, fundraisers if you will. So yes, we do have a goal. Do, do we want to, are we gonna talk about that number at all? Carina, do you know the number? We haven't heard anything from you.
Carina Cunningham: Yeah. For this year, we're coming at a 1% match, which means.
Sammy Uyama: 100% match.
Carina Cunningham: Well, so much, so much work, which I then knew what that means. But it means that there is, we, anything that you either need, we can receive the double. So if you donate $10, we receive $20, because we have great people who have pledged their donation, and we've had up to $4,200 too, too much. So if we get to $4,200 today, that we're close to the goal, we're gonna double that number. So that's the most important thing about today. I don't know if I explained, right? But I hope it makes sense.
Andrew Love: If we reach our goal, we guarantee that the Kingdom of Heaven on earth will occur within the next century.
Sammy Uyama: Take that to the bank.
Andrew Love: The reason I bring up volunteers and all that is just because in the beginning, we were a very humble organization just with a couple of staff and has grown into, we have, a bunch of full-time staff. And then we have a litany of volunteers and it's, it's really expanding geometrically in all different ways and things are popping up all over the world. We have different groups, different volunteers helping in different capacities. And this is, this, we need people and we need also finances. And we all know that the Wolf and Burgers have been the drivers of this thing. The primary donors. But we would love to lighten the load and share the load because that's, that's always a better way of doing things, right? If many hands make light work, so much money make faster growth, I guess. So guys, Sammy, Benji, Carina. We're going to talk today about High Noon style leadership as well because this is a live podcast. And we wanted to get into some content too. Because what we're seeing with High Noon, for sure is that a new paradigm for leadership is emerging. Not by design just by progress, like organic progress. The more that we embody the virtues that we espouse to believe in, the more that we're just changing our perspective on what leadership is, and how to take care of people. How to lead by example. So we wanted to get into that. And so I'd love to hear from Benji because he's been our silent bearded partner so far. What have you noticed because you've been around, and you've been with a BFM, and then you've been kind of like, been jumping from one foot to the other BFM? I knew BFM. I knew and liked working at High noon. How is it, maybe you could talk about how your leadership style changed? or what have you noticed, in terms of the emergence of a new High Noon style leadership?
Benji Uyama: Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. I consider myself to be a secret informant for both our national headquarters team and with High Noon, which is a, you know, grassroots, if you will, organization that started with a few blessed couples. And yeah, I think, you know, to answer your question, how is my leadership style changed. I realized pretty recently, actually, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, my character and my, my beliefs. And I feel like for a long time, the way that I've conducted myself, you know, on camera, or with a group or public speaking, in general in meetings, has really been kind of like the reserve. More like you get a younger brother, like service, like I don't have, I've always been the youngest, like, in every group, my entire life. I've always been the youngest person in the room, you know. I had, like, my family, my kids, when I was fairly young. I was blessed in marriage when I was pretty young. So my peer group has always been a lot older than me, in general. And I'm hitting an age where I'm actually a lot older than a lot of the people who are preparing for marriage and going through, you know, porn recovery and, and seeking sexual integrity and starting their sexual journeys together, right? So I'm realizing that I have a lot more to give than I give myself credit to, for you know. And I'm not saying this to boast or, I'm saying this because I generally try to kind of push down my opinions about, you know, preparing for marriage or blessing or. But I'm realizing through High Noon, what High Noon leadership to me is like letting, letting loose of a version of myself, that is unafraid to get criticism or unafraid to make mistakes and unafraid to be myself. Because with the intention of being the best leader that I can be, that leads by example, with integrity, with character. And so, so I was thinking about that reason, like, if, if I were just to let go of being, you know, looking a certain way and feeling afraid of failure, essentially being afraid of failure. If I was let go of that, in every aspect of my life, especially in the realm of, you know, helping people prepare for marriage, which has kind of been my, my life's work for the last year, several years. And what, what would I look like, right? Like that. And I think High Noon has really allowed me to be myself a little bit more and really talk more vulnerably about, you know, my experiences in my life. And, and really let, I feel like, let God work through the experiences that I've had in my life. And, you know, I normally would never share this with an audience, like, speak like this. Like, I have a lot to share, and, you know, that's to me, that's a really like, you know, I try to be a little more modest than that. But that's what I knew leadership is, to me. It's like, just being unafraid to be yourself and to do what you feel is right. When the time calls for it, you know.
Andrew Love: Would you say that you've taken your own ego out of the equation a little bit more?
Benji Uyama: Yeah, it's kind of ironic. But yeah. And I see that all the time, you know, in our team. And people aren't afraid to just speak their opinion and speak there, speak their mind, right?
Sammy Uyama: Yeah. Our ego, actually, goes both ways. It's like, it's the ego that deludes us to think that, "Oh, I'm so amazing, and I've got so much awesome stuff to share." It's also ego that says, "I'm worthless, and no one wants to listen to what I have to say. Right?" Sure. Sure. Fair point. Yeah. The self is the center of both those scenarios.
Andrew Love: Yeah, yeah. But when you're just kind of honest, sometimes you need to share about yourself not because you want to talk about yourself, but because people need to hear your experience so that they don't make the same mistakes or whatever, right? That they're still, but just doing it with a different heart and a different focus and a different. There's a different transaction that's made. When you're thinking about yourself, while you're talking about yourself, or when you think about somebody else while talking about yourself. It's totally different, right? Yeah, got it. Cool. What about, Carina? Um, we're talking about leadership styles.
Carina Cunningham: Yeah. So I actually have the opposite experience with Benji, even if I'm, I'm pretty young. I was all in my community, or I guess like I took a leadership position too young will say. So I put myself in that position of like, I'm the wise woman or I have the answers. And I like that, that, that kind of leadership style, that one person needs to share everything and have all the answers on being perfect and show perfect, isn't it? I like to show perfection to the world. So, I always needed to show myself strong, and I have an amazing life. And it was hard for me to share about my struggles, you know. In a way with, like, in an honest way, but at the same time, in a way we don't feel like failing, isn't it? So, or that my words will lose value because of that, isn't it? So then, what I found in kind of leadership, and this is like when we're talking about High Noon leadership, it's not just like, people who you're seeing right now in this camera, but it's about the leadership of like, facilitators, accountability departments, people who are with people, isn't it? In groups and people who are connecting with others. So, it includes everyone. So, yeah, what I, what I have seen the facilitators in, in the final leadership, is that we, we try to teach or to do people not by being perfect, right? But being honest, being sincere, being like the people who we are and, and just trusting other people, isn't it? Trusting that people have their answer. Trusting that the other person is smart enough and has a connection with God and has, has the answer inside and it just needs a little bit of guidance where to find that. But it's not that you have the answers. And, and so that's, that's been like a very different approach style that I have learned through my known.
Andrew Love: Yeah, that's very much true. There's, the old way of doing things is that there's one wise person, and everybody has to plug into them in order to feel okay. And instead, just kind of showing what you do know, but not being afraid to say, "Hey, I don't really know." You know, "Let's figure it out together." That's, that's really powerful because that's a level of humility that a lot of leaders lack. They can't say, I don't know. Either, even when it's clearly obvious that they don't know, right? And I was just watching a compilation of kinds of journalists and politicians recently who have said one thing and who have been caught doing the exact opposite. And if they do apologize, which many of them, don't they, it's very insincere, and they don't really change. It's never really heartfelt. You know, it's just like this leadership style that has existed. That's just so we're done with it. You know, the world is done with fake leadership. We want something real. And so, that means admitting when you are totally clueless, right? You don't have to have all the answers. Nobody has all the answers. Why do we pretend as we do?
Sammy Uyama: For me, the High Noon leadership, what it means is pulling and removing this pedestal that exists and this idea, that everyone already shared about this idea, of perfection, or this person has it all figured out. And exactly what you're just talking about Andrew is a realness and that people lead with something real inside of them. And the reason I think that's so confronting for people is that what's real isn't is often not. Oh, it's not really pretty in the beginning. Yeah. And so, you know, the reason a lot of people, I think it's two-folded. Its people say they want more transparency, but are also afraid to see what's really there. And because things have gone, things go unmonitored for so long and just a lot of poop, you know, starts clogging up the pipes. And so it comes, it just comes out inevitably, somehow, for people. And that's why it's never just like the one scandal, right? Or for the politicians or for any, for any kind of leaders, or high, highly visible people. It's always a buildup of things that go unresolved. And so for me, High Noon leadership is allowing people to be human and allowing people the opportunity to also work on themselves. People have legitimate needs for you know, connection, or for intimacy or affinity or whatever, right? But those go unfulfilled, and then they can manifest and be expressed in different ways. And so, you know, when leaders, they start using this misuse of money. Especially sex, like unmet needs. They have a way of getting sexualized in some way. And so, a lot of leadership, they get stuck in these, like really weird kind of sex stuff. And you think like, "Whoa, that's so perverse." But it's uncomfortable for people with any kind of position also. It's because you have this innate desire to be a role model. And you feel like, even if it's never expressed directly, you feel like people are looking up to me, and I'm worried about disappointing people. And so you want to do a good job, right? So there's this pure desire there. And I think just really, the best way to do that is just to be through honesty, grace, integrity, accountability. It takes courage to do all of those things. And to be willing to acknowledge, just to acknowledge that I'm also on my own path. I'm also, my life cycles, goes through seasons, and it goes up and it goes down. And to never have this needs to have this printed pretense that at all times, we've always got to figure it out.
Andrew Love: Yeah, it seems like the false way of leadership is that all roads lead to you. And a much better paradigm is that you're leading people back towards themselves, right? That your ultimate goal is to empower them, rather than to feel empowered yourself. You know, like, I have all the answers. I feel so great, because they come to me, and then they feel good based on my answers, rather than helping them come to their own conclusions, right? And empowering them to be self-sufficient. And so that's what we're seeing too, is that it's nice, Sammy, for you and I. Because in the beginning, High Noon leadership also meant that we had to take care of a bunch of groups and that people would come to us for, you know, recovery. And now we've expanded it to, you know, a lot of times. We don't even have groups. We have other people taking care of groups. And we're really trying to encourage people to start their own groups and to be leaders, right? And that takes the focus off of us and how nice would it be one day when people don't even remember our names associated with High Noon, right? Because that, that's, that means that we're doing a good job that people don't just see our face and be like, "Oh, it's the High Noon people." Right? But instead, they see just a huge parade of warriors, you know, not just us. And so yeah, we're on the right path. Because a lot of people aren't really getting it, a lot of people are shifting that, that paradigm from, "Hey, I have all the answers. Hey, follow me." to, "Hey, let's talk about this and work on this together and empowering people so that they can kind of build themselves back up." Because if somebody is reliant on you for their own recovery, then chances are they're not going to be on the stable ground ever. They have to be self-sufficient. At some point, they have to be able to be big boys and girls who can take care of themselves. Yeah. Because otherwise, they're always just kind of, in a sense, shifting their addiction from a thing to being addicted, you know, needy object, right? So, um, how does honesty play in because we, we know that, that's a huge element of it, right? But honestly, I remember we had some great questions, too, when we did our tour back. When humans could talk to each other in person. And that came up often was okay, so you're saying these five virtues in honesty, accountability, Grace, integrity, and courage. Honesty, does that mean just going around saying, "Hey, guys. I feel gassy or whatever." Is that honesty and like that, the meaning has no filter. And I'd like to get into what is all of your experience with honesty starting with Benji? Like, what does that mean? Because I know you take care of yourself and have groups of young men, and sometimes you're brutally honest with them. But I mean, some people are too fragile, just to be like, you know, to be, sometimes honesty feels like an attack. So like, how do you use this thing called honesty in terms of, like, telling people about yourself or telling people your impressions of them? How do you and you're muted by the way? I want to hear your impressions of honesty.
Benji Uyama: I see. Ah, well, I think, you know, this whole conversation really got me thinking about an experience I had and something I wanted to get into a little bit. So maybe it'll tie into honestly, I think. We'll see, I'm kind of, kind of improvising. But, uh, so I think, you know when I think of leaders when I think of good leaders, and, you know, I've been, I think many of us have been leaders at some point of something, of some group. And I always think about my experience, being a pastor before. And if anyone has been a pastor or youth pastor, you know, that is probably one of the most challenging things you could ever do with your life. And the number of things that you experienced the growing pains, and all that is tremendous. And it's like, in a very short period of time, you go from not knowing much about leadership, to really like having a whole, you know, the superpower of information about leadership and lots of different ways to communicate and lead. And I really, what was the hardest part for me, as a pastor, young pastor, was, was really like, having a fight with my wife, on Sunday morning, and then having to stand up in front, in front of everybody and give a speech is the hardest thing in the world. Because you just feel like a hypocrite in everything you said, on stage. You have to go home, and live with the family. The people that are watching you every single day. That's the hardest thing in the world. And I couldn't get away from this feeling of just feeling like, I am not doing enough. I am not living up to my word, you know. And that's, that's really hard for any leader to do. So anytime I feel like someone's in a leadership position, or struggling or makes a mistake, like a sexual mistake. I, of course, it's unfortunate, but I honestly feel a lot of compassion for them. Because I know that it's not easy. It's, it's so much easier to just sit back in the pews and judge someone on stage for not living up to the word. It's so much easier for us to do that. So whoever the leader is, whoever it is, I generally have the mindset of whether I agree with them or not. That their job is hard, as long as their heart is, is true and pure and genuine, their job is hard. And I can, I want to support them, and maybe encourage them or push them. I don't want to just sit back and judge. So, and it takes a lot for me it took so much honesty with myself to look at my life and my relationship with my spouse. And ask me, you know, am I really working on these areas? Because most of what I preach about is about marriage. Husband-wife relationship, you know. Our family or kids. And am I honestly looking at myself in the mirror and saying, am I, am I trying my best every day to do these? To live these principles? Or am I just trying to look good, trying to look like a good public speaker, and trying to inspire people? So they could come up to me and say, "I loved your speech." And you know, all that. So it's really hard, right? And I remember just going home, you know, or talking to my parents afterward. And being like, like having your parents in the, in the audience when you're giving a speech is really, yeah, it's hard. But I think that's the kind of experience that you need, in order to try to live up to your word. So
Andrew Love: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so that's if anybody's watching and you don't have a group that you're taking care of, or you're not an accountability partner, that's another huge incentive to do so. Because taking care of other people is like having a giant mirror cast over your values and all the things that you talk about and your hopes and your dreams. And it's just like a constant way to say, "Do I am, I actually living up to the things that I think and the things that I say?" Because otherwise if you don't have that level of accountability, and people watching you, not judging you, but watching you and, you know, they could be watching you out of admiration, but it's still, it's kind of like fire under your butt to actually live up to your values, right? And that's, again, kind of like a product of the past is that you live a very public life, but you keep your private, life private. And that dichotomy was usually a recipe for disaster. It still is in many cases, right? Sammy and I just did a podcast about Carl lens, who was one of the biggest pastors in the world to just lose his job, everything, because he was leading a double life and having an affair on the side. So then like, but having people to kind of voice your opinions to and to guide is also so much more beneficial for you. Because then when the words are exiting your mouth, you can feel am I living up to this or not? Otherwise, if you're just grabbing all the time, but you don't, you don't, you're not taking care of anybody, then it's easy to feel closely aligned with the words that you say even if your actions don't match up to it, right? So it's kind of like it helps you, in many ways live up to your kind of your side of the year-end of the bargain, which is to do the things that you say you're going to do in the integrity aspect. Carina, what about you? Because you're just talking about growing up and feeling like you have, have to have all the answers. But then now, since you've been working with High Noon, that's been, I'm sure a little bit of a challenge or like a new, new way of doing things. So how does honesty, how his honesty kind of work into that? Because before, like, when you were growing up, you felt like you had to have all the answers. But now, like honesty, change that at all. That you focus is now just being kind of more honest, has that changed how you guide people or maybe guiding people less than just embodying more? Please, please, please join us.
Carina Cunningham: Well, first, I thought it was like being honest means that everyone needs to know everything about my life, and what was going on or what I was feeling. And it is good, just good to be very clear. But at the same time, I realized that not everyone or not, not every person in this world needs to know why 100% what I'm going when I'm going on, isn't it? So being honest, was about being honest with people close to me. But at the same time, no preaching like saying to people, "Hey, I actually know going in the best time of my life right now. Am I going through this difficulty? Sorry. Well, I don't want to share too much about it. But just let you know, that I've been taken care of and I have people supporting me with this." But I don't know. It's just yeah. And from that position I, I kind of when you are in that position, you kind of like just preach by word, isn't it? You need to understand, like, "Hey, you can talk about from your experience, past experience." And but you're gonna like just "Yes, Vinci says." I cannot just say, "Yeah, you have to do this and that and that." As if I have a perfect life and all the answers, isn't it? So I am still trying to find the balance between not talking and talking. Because I know sometimes people need to hear. So let your fruits, let your results speak for you. You don't need to preach. You don't need to say, like clothes and stuff. You just need your results as they speak for you. And wasn't nothing, is nothing better than people see you as a couple, people see you as a person and tell you to like, "You're my role model." Not because of anything you have said or anything new, you, you preach to them, but because of the result they can see in your life, isn't it? And they can see that in, in your life. So that's that, that's what I, I am changing too. I'm trying to move forward, isn't it?
Andrew Love: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I mean, it's very helpful. It's an evolution, right? We're hoping to help evolve what people understand leadership to be and to mean, and how to, how to be a leader where everybody wins, right? Because that's the ultimate goal is that everybody wins. Leadership.
Carina Cunningham: Exactly. And the funny thing is like through that he made me stop. Like we talk about a lot of giving. Giving to people gives, giving, giving to others, and trying to show this perfect life, life, but on the inside, we are struggling. And this kind of like approach made me, "Hey, I kind of have to stop doing this and I have to stop work. I have to start working out on myself." So it mainly, it's a search, like a search for your own happiness. And what it works for you and what it, what it, what do you need, and work on yourself before trying to save the world and help people when you learnable to actually work on what you going through.
Andrew Love: Yes, yes. It's the idea of peace, peace starts with me. Doesn't mean going around telling everybody that they should know that peace starts with them. It actually means that we actually have to, have peace when we go and talk to people and offer them that, right? Offer them our hard work of working on ourselves and inviting people into that. Totally different than going out and being like, usually change and without doing the work on ourselves, first. Its people will react in an entirely different way. Sammy?
Sammy Uyama: Yes? Shall I, shall we do that special secret surprise that we had prepared that you wanted to spill the beans on in the beginning?
Andrew Love: Let's spill the beans, buddy.
Sammy Uyama: All right. So hello, everyone tuning in. Oh, we shared some of our thoughts about what High Noon leadership means for us. We want to hear from you. We will do a listener call-in let's say. Give you an opportunity to join in on our podcast, and join in our live stream and we want to hear. So what does High Noon leadership mean for you? Or really cool, if you have some story inspiring experience to share about High Noon leadership. Either yourself or something you've witnessed, and we'd love to hear. So for those tuning in, you can do hashtag join. Hashtag join, and you'll get a message with the link to how to join our live zoom, our live stream right now, and we'll love to hear from you. And so welcome aboard. And also, a reminder today is Giving Tuesday. If you love what High Noon is doing, if it's helped you in any way, please help support us and our work. We can also click the link in the chat for our donation page for Giving Tuesday. And remember that we are getting a 100% match and all donations we've raised, we've got, we've pledged, we've gotten just over $4,000 pledged so far. So that's our goal for this campaign. We're almost there. We're about just about 75%. We just have a little bit to go. So please support. Please share if you're still waiting for if you still have some budget left for your Giving Tuesday contributions. Please consider donating High Noon. Thank you so much.
Andrew Love: So how are we doing this color thing? He was just gonna.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, people, people will come in, right. So they'll just keep going until then Naomi. Naomi's got it, she sent the hashtag. Will expect her soon. But in the meantime, we can just keep going.
Carina Cunningham: Maybe we got here from Andrew, on, since we found a therapist. He's input on this.
Andrew Love: Sure. What am I gonna say? I never have anything to say. I would, I would definitely concur with everything that everybody said. And then also, you know, it's so liberating to know that perfection is not the goal, not in our, not in our twisted viewpoint of what perfection looks like. That, honestly speaking, the Wolf and Burgers are the founders of this thing. But they're also the epitome of High Noon, as far as I know. And I've been watching them very closely since I started with them. And it's been such a joy because even during their tough times, you know, there's a tendency for anybody to want to hide their problems. But the Wolf and Burgers go in the opposite direction. And they always invite all the people or staff, anybody close to them in with any major family issues that are going on. And they always say this is what's happening. This is our feeling right now. This is what we want to do. And they're not unloading their problems on us, but they're just letting us know what's going on in their life, and how they're dealing with it. And it's so beautiful to watch. And to me, that's the essence of leadership is that they have no pretense or ego or hidden agenda. They just simply want to live in the High Noon light, and because of that, people are following them. And that's, that's my viewpoint. And I've been watching very closely this entire time because I do have a tendency to be a little secretive, right? I'm a very, I keep my cards close to me. It's something I learned at a very early age. Be hyper independence, but instead to let people in and now like I've done multiple podcasts about my wife's depression and our sex life and all this stuff. And I'm, I'm an open book, and it's very liberating. And through that place, I can lead in a real way because if people have questions they ask, and if not, you know no words you know. But there's no like, I don't have to put on a show. I just speak and I could never do that my whole life. Even when I did comedy, I could do anything. I can do anything. I'll do any character. I'll fall down a flight of stairs, whatever, but I won't be myself on stage. And then now I can absolutely be myself because I was too afraid. I didn't know what I was. So it's liberating guys. If you, if you, if you haven't tried the High Noon virtues, please do. So please try them out. They're the most liberating way to live. And people you'll be a natural leader when you do. The day that you take this stuff seriously is the day you become a leader. So we have somebody. Yeah, Sammy?
Sammy Uyama: Yes. Naomi, welcome.
Andrew Love: So we're having some technical stuff. But yeah, if you want to post in the chat, too, we'd love to hear from you. Any, any ideas you have about honesty? And if you wouldn't want to join and ask us a question or shared testimony yourself. What we would love to talk about and to hear from is this evolution of what it means to be a leader. And how High Noon, not the people but the High Noon era is helping to redefine leadership. We'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
Sammy Uyama: How about we take a moment to hear from Josh. See if you have anything to say?
Josh: What's going on people? Oh, look at this. Love the, love being here. Love you guys so much. Um, can you repeat the question?
Andrew Love: Josh was busy working behind the scenes. We are talking about High Noon leadership and how that's transformed either how you lead or how you perceive leadership from pre-high Noon to and just like the High Noon era of like honesty, accountability, integrity, Grace, courage. These things.
Josh: Yeah. I, I think it's so valuable. I think the integrity aspect of it is so valuable right now. I mean, just even coworkers I've had, even just recently I've seen, like, so many experiences were and I've, like, just heard them share stories of just so many dishonest experiences they've been through in workplaces and in like, relationships with friends or loved ones or significant others. And it's so heartbreaking to just like, see so much. I don't know so much drama, involved in all of these different relationships in their life. It's like, they're truly trying, like, there are so many leaders who are truly trying to make something better for the world. And offer something like, with all their heart and like all their commitment. And they think they're doing the right path, but there's like something very, very twisted in that mentality as well. And it's so hard to see. And I just want to like, see, like, leaders where it's okay to feel that. Like we've made mistakes, and we're able to own up to those mistakes and just try and in vision, creating, like a society where I can, like, say what I feel is truly right. And, like, go for that. You know, I think that's what's beautiful about what High Noon is doing like. You guys are so like, passionate about, like, trying to create a better world and you're okay to just share your, like, absolute honest heart on that topic. Yeah.
Andrew Love: Thank you. And, and also, I mean, you're, you've been a leader. You've been taking care of groups. So how has that been? Because you're not perfect either, right? And so when, when you've made a mistake, do you feel that push and pull between the old way of doing things which are covering up mistakes, and the new way of doing things which is, "Hey, guys. Just let you know I'm not perfect." Is that, have you felt that tug that pushes and pulls?
Josh: Yeah, I've liked, I feel like I've tried to just, I don't know evolve my own leadership style. Because in the beginning, I, when I was leading, I would often like I was very in my head because I would have difficulties of my own. And I do not want to share about these difficulties because I wanted to try and pose like, "No, guys. I'm your leader. I'm doing super great." And it was really ruining my like, I don't know, it was really ruining the heart within the group. And when I kind of come out and just like, share with them like, "Guys, I'm, I'm an absolute like struggling right now. And I'm so sorry for all of you." I don't, I think that was like a big change in my own mentality that helped them. And there was like a big artistic change in just the way we all helped each other as well.
Andrew Love: Yeah.
Josh: So like, now I've because I've been trying to be completely honest with myself as well in the group. And I'm, like, totally cooler than calling me out on anything. I've developed, just, I think my groups will also be okay to agree with me here. I don't like to, for anyone to be really passive in their sharing, and I don't like it when we're kind of like, you know, shuffling around the real problem. You know, we like to target specifically. And we'll, we'll call that out when we see each other shuffling, you know? And we'll really try to target down to like, what is the main issue that's going on? Even if it's really hard to acknowledge or it's a little, like blunt and hurtful in the suns. Like, it's real. You know, that's what it's about. There's no, there's no lying on it.
Andrew Love: That's fantastic. Yeah, I think that hasn't been established in society, in religion, in any area of life. This idea of when you see somebody lacking in integrity, how do you address it in a way that's not offensive, but that deals with the issue and helps everybody to move on. Because when a leader refuses to acknowledge their lack of integrity, they prolong the suffering and amplify it many times over, right? Yeah. Especially the higher the level of their responsibility, the more people suffer. And in, and, and but also to judge them and accuse them usually forces them into a deeper and darker hole, where they hold on to their lives even more. So that obviously doesn't work. So what you're saying is very interesting that to form a camaraderie that's so sincere, that people can call each other out in a healthy way. And I know, I think it's a Christian term. Sam black uses it a lot from covenant eyes. Instead of calling people out, you call them up to the person that they want to be, right? That's, that's accountability. I'm not saying, "Hey, you're wrong." But, "Hey, do you still want to be this person that you said you would? Well, what can we do to help you get there because it seems like you're straying a bit." Is it, is it like a totally different vibe than like, "Hey, you seem to be lying." Right? Because that, that just kind of makes people scared. And you know, they don't want to be themselves. So I think that's really cool. You've been able to achieve that.
Josh: Yeah, I think that's a really big point as well. Just like being able to, you know, instead of, you know, getting really emotional and calling people out. I think that's like the big difference in calling people up as well as you're able to kind of, you know, step back and just see that person as like, you know, that's a person who's going through a lot of stuff in their life. And sometimes, you know, he just needs a lot of help. You know, and they just need somebody to tell them, like, I still love you, and everything's gonna be okay. And like, I'm here for you. I can really help them just, you know, get out of whatever mental state they're in. Absolutely.
Andrew Love: Thanks, bro. Yeah, Josh is Josh, the whole family's really High Noon family because they're not perfect. And because they're allowed to be imperfect and work on themselves together with each other. It's really cool to watch.
Sammy Uyama: We can use this time, I want to give a special shout out to Sansha, you are a gem. Special shout out to Josh. For you just making donations. It's a, you guys are super cool. Props to you guys.
Andrew Love: Thank you, Sammy.
Benji Uyama: So we raised, raised, we've raised a good amount. So we're at 3250 total donations that will be matched 100%. And we're trying to get to 4220. So just under $1,000 short of our goal. And if you love sex, and if you give it meaning to schpeel. I think if you love sex, good sex, absolute sex, heavenly intimacy. If you love integrity, if you love contributing to an organization that is living. The truth is living according to God's ideals for creation, God's ideals for intimacy and relationships, and true parents' provision for absolute sex and love, and true love. Then High Noon is your organization. If you want to donate to your favorites, not non-profit sexual integrity organizations on the planet. High Noon.org is the place to go. If you have some charitable giving donations that you need a tax deduction. We are a non-profit because it's the end of the year now. We're a nonprofit and you can get a tax deduction for that. Of course, that's secondary, but it's an added bonus.
Andrew Love: Wait. And if you um, this is, this is totally unscripted, but I will make you this promise. If you make a donation of $200, $250, or above, because we need four of these really to reach our goal. If you make a donation of $250 or more, within the next few minutes, I will personally design you a T-shirt that says, that has the globe on it, and it says God, sex, world peace. And it will be the coolest T-shirt that you've ever seen in life. And everywhere you go, people will want to hug you or question you. And it will be the best witnessing tool because people will flock to you. There'll be parades of people following you because it'll be the greatest T-shirt ever. So if you make a big donation, I'll make you that shirt. I'll design it, I'll ship it to you or I'll make sure that it happens.
Sammy Uyama: Can we get instead of a globe, can, how about you put their face really big on the front and.
Andrew Love: With one or the other? You can co-create this shirt. But that came out of Benji's thing is there our tagline is God, sex world peace. That's, that's it, that's what we believe in, in a nutshell. Yeah, and so yeah, guys, please understand that, again, even as an organization, High Noon never pretends to have it all figured out. All we want to do is to allow people to have space, to have the opportunity to be free, to be their true selves. And you cannot do that if you're lying instead of being honest. If you're, you know, saying one thing and doing the other and lack integrity. If you're cowering, instead of being courageous, instead of having those difficult conversations. You walk away when you see your kids, or your spouse, or your friends behaving in ways that are self-destructive, but you're too afraid to talk to them. You'll never experience peace. If you live like this. If you withhold love, or you refuse people's love, then you're not allowing God's love to circulate around this world. And accountability, if you lack if you're not telling people what's going on inside your mind. inside your heart, and you won't let people into your hopes and your dreams or your fears and your doubts, then please, you're missing out on life. You're missing out on the robust life in the High Noon light. And that's all we're trying to teach people. Because when you do, when you start making steps towards that High Noon life, and you live there, then people will follow you. People will ask you how you live with such joy and peace in your life. And that's all we want for you. And we don't have all the answers. But we're, we're walking there. And people are following us. That's all, that's happening is we're trying to figure this thing out. And we welcome anybody's thoughts and opinions. And in so doing, we're becoming default leaders. And we want that for you and your tribes. If you're trying to build a tribe, you cannot do it without honesty, accountability, Grace, integrity, and courage. You cannot. So we can help you embody those things, to make tribe building more natural and organic and enjoyable, and exciting. Instead of labor is and force and all these things.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, just everything we've talked about already. I'm, I'm really inspired by this way of. It's a, it's a new paradigm that's being created for how to relate with people. And as a role model, as a leader, and even me, I'm challenged every day to practice that. And the things I've shared earlier, it's from my own personal experience of being part of High Noon. And, you know, the four most organizations that's talking about honesty and transparency, sexual integrity. And to practice that, myself, and be honest about that, right? It's just, it's, there's, I create this expectation of myself that, "Oh, I should already have these things figured out. And I should be perfect." Especially if in any area, in this area, right? And when the reality is that, you know what I'm, if I'm I also need to stay focused, and I need to stay careful, right? And have my own protective barriers in place for not allowing my mind to wander, my eyes to wander, my, my mouse to wander, right? On the computer. My thumb's to wander, you know what I mean? And, uh, and, you know, that takes a lot of, that's, that very takes intentional effort for me to acknowledge that, and to be comfortable to say that. And, but I really want to, you know, be the first one to practice that, right? And, and then, you know, the, before talking about it that, you know, that's how I live my own life. And, yeah, it's very relieving for me, you know. It's like a cycle that gets repeated where I have this anticipation of like, "Oh, I should, I should already have this figured out and it's embarrassing to admit." And then to actually speak about it, honestly, and the experience of that, or the relief of, "Oh, yeah, it's not so bad, to be honest, actually." Or, and also the quote more at the close, the deeper closeness that allows me to experience with other people. I think what other people experience is that Sammy is a human being, not Sammy as the director of the High Noon organization. And that's a lot funnier. I like that more. I like, you know, relating to people. I'm just a normal, no real level.
Andrew Love: I agree. And just Sammy is just an everyday guy. And if you make a pledge of $250 or more, he will come to your house and kiss a baby. Doesn't have to be your baby. He'll bring his own baby. He has, he has his own baby. He'll kiss his own baby in front of you.
Sammy Uyama: My own, my own I'm unscripted proposal. If you donate $30 more, I will write a song dedicated to you.
Andrew Love: I would love to hear it. Is it going to be reggaeton? What's gonna, what's style?
Sammy Uyama: Well, it depends. I have to know the person and then. and then something will match your personality and who you are. So be custom made just for you.
Andrew Love: Wow, that's amazing. Guys, that, that's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I've never heard Sammy singing in my life.
Sammy Uyama: Oh, Andrew is gonna sing. I'm just gonna write the song.
Benji Uyama: Maybe, saying somebody does $250, they'll get both of your things.
Andrew Love: Sure. Yeah. Like we're just up in it. We're up in the ante, baby, baby.
Carina Cunningham: Yep, I want to add as well that you don't need to give the donation just today because it's GivingTuesday. You can become a high noon contributor and join our monthly donate donors as well like High Noon Connect. That is this new platform. There are so many ways to contribute. You can become a volunteer, because so many roles for volunteers that you can, you can start. Like if you don't feel like starting a group, you can start helping in the marketing and social media, and event staff. And there are many opportunities to contribute today in Giving Tuesdays in it. And so just want to bring that up because it doesn't need to be necessary to the donation, isn't it?
Andrew Love: You're such a sober voice amongst us drunk leaders. So we, yes, that's true. It's very practical. You can always give. But today, we really want you to just because it's a drive. We're trying to rush that momentum. It's good, right? Like, our movement is famous for having these big events. And it's where we rally the troops. And so now we're rallying your financial troops, and we're gonna match them today. And again, if you, if you have it in you $250 is already going to get you a custom made songs and a T-shirt that says God, sex, world peace. I mean, you'll be good to go. Basically, you'll be invincible.
Sammy Uyama: Are you, Daniel, shoutout to Daniel has taken us up on our offer. Props for you. You can expect a T-shirt. You can expect a song or poem, your preference. If you like poems, I can write a poem for you.
Andrew Love: I'll write a song, he can write a poem. I'll make the song. I'll do, I'll figure out this attitude stuff. Don't worry. It's gonna be banging, banging. So.
Sammy Uyama: It'll be fine. All right. Look forward to talking with you more Daniel
Andrew Love: So what's up? Where are we, where are we? Are we wrapping this up? And it's exactly on the hour. We're gonna, we're gonna wrap it up. So what do we do, have am I in charge? Are we still alive? What, what's happening?
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, we, I think, yeah. This is an important topic, High Noon leadership. It's just really what we want to champion and be role models for. And appreciate all of you for joining in being a part of it. And, and joining us, and this is fun. We try to do fun, exciting things. So for those that participated, hope you guys enjoyed it. And it was just something fun to try for Giving Tuesday.
Andrew Love: Yeah, and thank you to all of those of you who donated. We are giving you three more minutes. If somebody is on the cusp if you're on the edge. If you just feel like you know, when you're trying to think of that word. And it's there, but it's, it's not there. It's there. If it's, if that's your donation, then we're going to give you a couple more minutes to consider. What would your life be like if you had a T-shirt that said God, sex, world peace, and a song custom made that is only for you in the entire cosmos, written by Sammy and myself. What would you like to be like? Would you be the king or queen of the world? Probably. Would you be the happiest person in the cosmos? Most definitely. At least for a period of time. So we're giving you a couple more minutes to really consider. Just envision, close your eyes, and envision yourself in a T-shirt that says God, sex, world peace with a giant globe on it or your face. It's up to you. We're giving you that freedom. And also a song. It sounds like I'm singing and Sam, Sam is writing it. So I have this, I have to sing whatever he writes. So he could do something very incriminating. So it's gonna be, it's gonna be a banging song. And you can even do the style of song, how about that? We'll up the ante. Whatever. It could be classical music. It could be reggaeton. It could be drum and bass. It could be hip hop. Reggae. Anything rap.
Sammy Uyama: Or if you want us to choose, we'll work together on it.
Benji Uyama: Can I give an option, alternative option to become a High Noon Connect contributor? If you want to choose to donate $20 a month for a year, which is about $250? Can that also be an option?
Andrew Love: Fine. Yes, you have. But you have, you have two minutes to decide. It's, yeah, three minutes past the hour. According to me, if you have two minutes to decide if you want to donate 20 bucks a month, for the next year or so. There you go, you will get a song and a T-shirt that will utterly transform the trajectory of your entire existence. I mean, you can't walk around with a T-shirt that says God, sex, world peace, and not make more friends than you could ever possibly need.
Sammy Uyama: To be invited to all the birthday parties. You just want to do it yourself.
Andrew Love: And a song that will just brighten your heart more than the sun.
Sammy Uyama: You can play it as you walk in the door to those birthday parties. It can be your theme song, whenever you're walking.
Andrew Love: We got one and a half minutes for you to jump over that precipice. And we'll call it a day. But thank you for tuning in. Creating a better world requires us to recreate ourselves because we cannot create a new world as our old selves. So we have constantly had to redefine ourselves and our beliefs and adapt and evolve. And that's what we are constantly pushing ourselves to do at High Noon. And anybody who comes near us, we're pushing them as well. So we hope that we can do that for you. And if you ever have any questions or doubts or concerns or whatever, please voice them. The feedback loop is very important to us in the work that we do. But also, you can have your questions answered. Or you can ask, "Hey, can you guys make this or work on this." And we'd be happy to collaborate on stuff with you. So we're here for you. Like we nonprofits exist for the sake of the people that they're trying to serve. So if you ever need anything, feel free to reach out and we're very reachable. Okay. And we have about oh, it just turned five minutes. So we're gonna close it off here. We want to say thank you so much for joining us. And how about everybody? Say a little something and then say goodbye. So starting with Sammy.
Sammy Uyama: I'm pumped up for this song. It's coming, Daniel. We'll be in touch. That's all. That's all. That's all I got to say.
Andrew Love: Carina?
Carina Cunningham: Just thank you. This was funnier than I expected it would be. I want to hear that song as well. And don't worry, I will check the sign under the sign before he sends it to you. So yeah, you don't need to worry I can, I can make so much money if needed. But yeah, no. Just thank you so much for trusting in us. And I hope we can, we can do our best this coming year. And of course, it's like this is Giving Tuesday. It's just an excuse. Life's going on. And there's always an opportunity, the need to contribute and be part of this family. So you're always welcome. And we would love to have you on the team. So just, just that and the kind of leadership doesn't mean that we are the kind of leadership. Everyone involved in leaving a High Noon style is having a High Noon leadership business. So yeah, just, just to say.
Andrew Love: Awesome. Thank you. Benji?
Benji Uyama: Thank you, Carina. You really bring bonds to our world. Thank you to Carina, for your donation that just came in. Thank you so much. And yes, thank you to Naomi. I really appreciate your willingness to come on. And so we couldn't have, have you but you're here in spirit and we feel your sincerity. Yeah, I just want to say that, you know, this is our world. This is our life and, and I'm really excited about the growing amount of team members and funds available to hire and is able to do over the coming years. And yeah, that's it.
Andrew Love: Awesome. Thank you all. We are gonna leave you now and we love you. Take care.