#49 - High Noon 2021 Launch
A very exciting episode as Sammy and Andrew introduces the newest future of this organization, High Noon Connect.
In this world where certain topics are just everywhere and we are not certain where to voice out, there is much need for a safe and authentic place to be transparent and put your heart into.
One should have space where they can share their best and worst selves. And that is what High Noon connect is for, a desirable home and online community for growth and happiness.
If you want to be a part of an intimate weekly gathering where you can make a difference and be heard, learn more about High Noon Connect in this episode.
What is High Noon Connect
How did High Noon Connect originated
How High Noon progresses
If they're winning, it means that they're helping you win
A place for people to go, encourage, and inspire one another
With the right heart is how we grow
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode here at Love, Life, and Legacy with myself, Andrew Robert Love and this guy...
Sammy Uyama: Mr. Uyama. Yes, this is the most exciting podcast on the internet. It's such a pleasure to have you with us today.
Andrew Love: Online and offline. All the time. High Noon everywhere, we're there.
Sammy Uyama: Keeping you safe. We are always watching.
Andrew Love: We don't have enough taglines. High Noon, just listen to us. High Noon, take us with you. That's a good one. Take us with you wherever you go. Something like that. Anyway, today we're going to talk about the future of High Noon. The not too distant future. The new future is the newest new future that's happening. And it's about High Noon Connect. Right, Sammy?
Sammy Uyama: I suppose that's what I've been told.
Andrew Love: We need to, we need you to understand what's happening. Because this is, to me, we are starting to scratch the itch that all of humanity has. And I know that there's other people that are kind of finding their own way. But I know that we are going to answer it in such a unique and powerful way. I don't want to get into competition of will be the best. I don't care about all. But our way high noon, what High Noon way of scratching, this itch that exists in the world today. It's going to be so incredibly, cosmically powerful. And it's going to transform how we communicate. Okay? But it's going to take a little bit of tinkering. And so we wanted to get into the premise of what is High Noon Connect. Because we've sent emails out about it. Didn't get a big response. We've talked to people about it. Kind of didn't get a good response. But now that we're getting into explaining it, one to one to people, they're actually excited about it, and they get it. And it makes so much sense. And they're like, "Wait, why didn't you say this before?" And we say, "We did. We just sent you an email, and you probably didn't read it." So we want to take the time to make it make sense to you. And that is what is High Noon Connect. And why are we investing so much into it because there's a lot of human hours going into this thing. We got developer hours, IT hours, all this stuff. And it's essentially what High Noon is going to transform into. So you, I think you named it. I don't know. But I'd love for you to kind of explain the origin story of High Noon Connect. From when did High Noon Connect origin, right?
Sammy Uyama: I, naming things, the origins of names. One, it's always tricky business. So it's always hard to pinpoint exactly where something came from. I don't want to take claim to that. But what, the rest of your question, there's actually an important part of your question about why High Noon Connect. The idea of it. And it's like you said, it's supposed to scratch an itch or fill a need that we recognized exists for people. And so just for High Noon what we've done, the evolution of High Noon, so to speak, it started out informational. We had this really important message that needs to get out. And then, and then after that it was a problem solving or solution providing specifically regarding pornography. So step one, people understand pornography is something important to pay attention to. Check. Okay, there's people, a lot of who are actually struggling with pornography. Finding a way to actually help them. Check. And then.
Andrew Love: Weekly groups.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, and so you know, we made a whole recovery program. And that's part of it. But then the, and then, yeah, the groups that people were able to participate in, it was like magic. People were able to connect and such incredible level, and these small, intimate, weekly online gatherings. And the interesting thing about groups is that, you know, our only idea for groups initially was poured recovery. That was the whole intention of them. And then, of course, you know, the message that we had just, you know, High Noon being what it is, and it's very refreshing for a lot of people this approach to talk about things transparently and talk about difficult topics, and in a really centered and clear way. And a lot of people wanted to participate in that conversation, although they weren't necessarily struggling with porn or masturbation. And so it kind of spontaneously, these groups started to form on their own. And, you know, they would keep us but it wasn't like, we weren't directing at all. It was more they were informing us like, "Hey, yeah, we've been meeting as a group of moms for the past few months and just talking about." You know. "We've been, even, even, yeah, we've been going through the recovery program together and it's just incredible too." And they just, they were just for their individualized something is completely irrelevant at a porn recovery. But they were just so hungry for something to connect over and it, so that filled that for them. And so, that started getting us looking at what is really going to help people, right? It's like information helps to a certain level and then changing habits helps to a certain level. But, you know, and we always try to go deeper and deeper and deeper. And why is it that really helps people in their lives and actually makes a difference for them in the area, especially connected to sex. And so, that's the context for why behind some, you know, something like High Noon Connect came about. It's that we knew that people needed a place to have a real transparent and an authentic place to put their heart into. Because that doesn't exist online, so often. Especially the places that people mostly spend their time online.
Andrew Love: And yeah, just to let you guys know we've been trying so many different things. So many different methods to connect to people. We had an accountability partner program, where I contacted a bunch of people that were not struggling with porn, and asked if they could be an accountability partner for a bunch of people who were struggling with porn. And tried to be like a matchmaker. That didn't work out because the supply and the demand were never even. It is always an off-kilter. There's always, either one, more of one than the other. So it became such a nightmare to sustain because that's like a full time gig, right? So we tried that. We tried a bunch of different ways to help people. But it seemed like we were kind of forcing two elements together that didn't necessarily make sense. And so these groups like Sammy said, a lot of times, they just, they started without us even knowing. We found out that there were groups going on in Germany. They started sprouting up around the world, like little mushrooms. And it was really cool to observe. So there was a clear natural need so much that they existed, free and clear of us. And so the next step is what happens, like so many people are having these great experiences for one hour a week, because they get to be face to face with other people who are like them. And they get to share the best of themselves and the worst of themselves. And regardless, they're still loved and supported. It's something that doesn't really exist in any other area of their life. So they were like they were loving it. And that's why these are some of our most, that's pretty much the most powerful part of High Noon. It's, we're just merely facilitating this. But that's only one hour a week. There's a lot of weeks left to feel lost, to feel alone, to feel worthless, to get inside your head and start hurting yourself. And so we wanted to create some type of atmosphere for people to come to that felt like home. And so we even in the past tried Facebook groups, obviously, like everybody else. But as you can tell Facebook is becoming less and less a desirable place for anybody. It's really just a place to vomit and then leave. And that's not what we want. It's a gross garbage heap of, and it's becoming less and less friendly. And so if you can imagine, I want you to close your eyes. And imagine going online, either on your computer, or on your phone. Where does your heart have a place online? That's a problem. Because if you really think about it sincerely, there's no place where our hearts really feel like at home online. Hopefully you have somewhere in this world with somebody that you feel at home with. But online, it really doesn't exist. Social media is not the place for our hearts. We can see that. That's why people put on masks and pretend to be all these other things. But it's really hard to be sincere online because it's easy to get attacked. So we want to create that space. That's, that's, that's really like the driving force behind this of creating a space. But do you remember, Sammy? When Benji, your brother, who's the web developer along with Billy started talking about High Noon Connect. I was very confused about what he was talking about. Were you equally as confused as I was?
Sammy Uyama: In general, as a rule of thumb. I tend to be less confused than you. I don't think so.
Andrew Love: I just walked around saying, "Hey, what was happening? Where am I? Where did my parents go?"
Sammy Uyama: I, you know, the interesting thing is that yeah, I had one idea, but then it started to shift beyond that. My, my original idea was not something so ambitious, and my original understanding. I just thought, let's organize our courses better. So people can, to serve people or like our online ascend course. We're hosting it on a different platform. And I wanted those features that we wanted to provide for people that weren't available through that, because we, you know, we're using like a template. Yeah. So that's all I had in mind at the beginning. And it just is through a lot that gets created just through conversation, brainstorming. And that is how my understanding developed about what we could actually provide for people that made a difference. And because that's always the underlying question that we're looking to answer when we come up with ideas is does this actually help people and what do people need? And this overwhelmingly became it because of everything you just said that yeah, people groups are a great solution. But you know, you can't spend all of your time in a group, right? There's, you need something that you can check into or check-in with and in bite-sized doses, right? And so we're just to, somewhere people put their energy into, right? Because, you know, so many times everyone will do it, right? We're just kind of like, have 15 minutes to kill before next thing. So we go through whatever social media for a little bit, and we never feel better after that, and never actually fulfills anything for us. And so creating a place for people to you know, even just be able to use in that time, but they can actually give to people in their lives.
Andrew Love: Well, at that point, Benji started to nerd out. Like, I really feel God was working through your bro. Because, yeah, he was, he started to get so inspired by this thing. And personally, I was hearing him talk about High Noon Connect, and I could kind of see it. It started out, like Sammy said, as just a house for all of our online courses, where you could maybe make leave some comments or whatever. But then it turned into this, this application that we were using, turns out that you could have a forum function where people could have a discussion. And then it really started leaning in that direction, where what would that look like? And how do we, how do we have, like, who's excited about a chat forum? You know, it's kind of like a dry idea that's served its purpose. And we've moved on from forums, to social media threads. And, but do we want to go backwards? And would it be going backward? All these questions started to come up. But then we just started trying it out, right? We just kind of created it, and invited people into it. And it still wasn't. Like we've had people in there for over a month now. And a lot of people don't participate, because they don't really see the value. We haven't expressed it. But that's why we wanted to make this podcast episode is to say that we our, ourselves, just understanding the power of having an online community where you can be heard. Because imagine every time you pick up your phone, and like this is why so many people end up going to porn, they feel lonely, they feel disconnected from themselves, from their heart, from their hopes, from their dreams, from other people, from God. And what if you could click on an app and end up in a place where you have the support of other people. Where you could process an idea and say, "Hey, guys. I'm struggling with this, or I'm thinking about this." And you can have other people who care about you and want you to win at life could to give you feedback. You know where their job is, if they're winning, it means that they're helping you win. If that's the culture that prevails, then you have yourself a thriving community. And that's what we're striving to build is an extremely supportive community that understands. Because we've seen this to be clear, when somebody's struggling with porn, the more that they work on themselves, the more bandwidth they have to work on other people. And the more that they work on helping other people, the faster they recover. It's like this self-fulfilling, healthy loop that they're creating of just growth and happiness and joy. And you just start to love people more and serve them more. And that's what we want is that kind of community. That's what everybody wants. And most people don't have that in real life, let alone online. Forget about it online. So we want to create that space online. So that every time you pick up your phone, your thumb is vacillating between, do I go to Facebook and waste my time, end up feeling worse, or do I go to High Noon Connect and go where my heart wants to go? Go where my brain wants to go because it's addicted or go where my heart wants to go because it feels welcome. That's what we want to experience.
Sammy Uyama: Yes. And especially in the area of sex, right? It's like, where else can you go online? And these questions that we're really wondering and really sincere questions that people want to understand deeply like, like, really, why is it wrong to masturbate? And what a great thing to be able to go somewhere where you can feel safe to answer that quite kind of question? To people who would actually, who won't just either justify why it's fine or condemn you for even questioning, why it's not? Sure. And yeah, you know, that's just one example. But you know, and some place where you can, a place where you can go and want to, you know, this banner that we're waving of living a High Noon kind of life. Right just having the place for people to go for that. And to encourage one another to inspire one another.
Andrew Love: Absolutely. Not everybody has to agree on everything all the time. That's not really sincere, even if you're questioning stuff. If you have the right heart, and you're sincerely questioning it, because you want an answer. Not because you just don't like it. "Oh, this is stupid. Why do we do this kind of thing? or this is wrong?" More like, "Hey, guys. This is where I'm at with this topic. What do you guys think?" To have that kind of conversation is also very informative to hear opposing views. With the right heart is how we grow. And the fact is that our society is very stunted in its growth because there's no way that we can have differing viewpoints. If you have an opposing viewpoint from somebody, you're evil, in many cases. And so just people throwing shade at each other instead of helping each other. And so, yeah, we would love to create that space, even when you have doubts. Having doubts with your faith, because so many people that have some sort of sexual issue. Some sort of problem in their life. It's a cancer to your faith. And so it starts to impact all areas of your life. And then all of a sudden, you're throwing everything into the blender. But again, if you tell somebody who's very religious, then they'll just say, "Oh, just stop doing the bad stuff and start believing more or whatever." It's not very comforting to your heart, to the soul. So instead, we love to have all sorts of conversations about the heart. And yes, if it's centered around sexual integrity, intimacy, love, romance, these kinds of things, then it's going to be a very exciting place. There's no other place like it. I cannot think of and we're the best people because of our community, worldwide community. We're already so close. In many ways, we already have so much, even when you just meet somebody, for the first time. Like if you go to Korea for a big event, you're automatically friends with people, even if you just met them for one second. You're like family, you know. And so imagine taking that and amplifying it. Just throwing kerosene on it and creating this huge fire of love online. That's our goal
Sammy Uyama: Anything else to say? Or we can just leave people with that.
Andrew Love: Sign up? Where can they go to sign up?
Sammy Uyama: Where can you go to sign up for High Noon Connect. We'll make it as easy as possible for you to sign up, to join in the description. We'll have a link for you highnoon.org/connect. All you have to do is click make an account join, then you're all set up. And that is where the conversation is happening. So once again, highnoon.org/connect, and we look forward to seeing you there.
Andrew Love: We want everybody to try it out. Got to give it an honest run one. Pro-tip is in my Google account calendar every day at 11am. It says go to High Noon Connect and I've been making it a habit because it's a new thing. New things you have to habituate, you have to practice. And so I really say give it a shot, give it an earn a shot. Try it for a couple weeks, try for a month and see if you can because this is not a fully formed thing. It needs your participation. We require your participation for it to work. It's a feedback loop. So the more you give, the more you'll get. So let's do this together. And we'll see you on the inside.
Sammy Uyama: Adios.
Andrew Love: Adios y'all.