Question

So I would say to stay connected with people and be intentional about it.

One thing that you just said in there that really resonated with me was just even asking people some of those questions of like, what's exciting you right now? Or what's...

frustrating you or tell me a little bit about your family.

Tell me a little bit about when your birthday is.

These things that I think would naturally happen if we were working in the same office and we would just go get tea or whatever.

If we don't have that, but still being able to ask those certain questions, I think can build some of that community across the distance.

I love your idea of once a week of just sending a message to someone to say, the Lord brought you to mind.

I didn't physically see you walk across the office.

What's the big deal? What four comics that cost $1596 now cost $1996? That's a 25% increase in the price of the same four-book stack.

Now, the issue in question is Generation X-23, which is going to be released on November 11th.

And when that book is gone, Marvel will have lost its last $3.99 holdout.

So the issue isn't whether committed fans can absorb an extra dollar, it's whether readers will keep taking chances on books they haven't yet tried.

And also from the retailer perspective, the third assumption is that retailers need to judge whether the high cover price changes what customers commit to buy.

So it's definitely going to play a factor into their ordering cycle.

The question is how much.

Now, to be fair to Marvel, there is such a thing as price increases and inflation.

This week we're going into even trickier territory with relationships and property.

I'm Susan Edmunds, RNZ's money correspondent, and probably already regretting this decision, I'm joined by Justin Gregory, who has your questions.

Yeah, that was me giggling in the background.

Hello.

Remember to keep sending us your questions to, whether they're awkward or otherwise, to questions at rnz.co.nz. Now, before the end of the year, just a reminder, we'll be doing a special episode on the economy with Shamabil Jacob.

So send through any questions you have for him, too.

Let's get into

it.

How could you do that? Oh, yeah.

Did you get all the judgy questions? Oh, not only did I get the judgy questions, I also got it most recently from my 17 year old daughter.

So she was in trouble.

And so she was not in her finest moment.

So what I've really recently started doing and realizing is that yes, in a perfect world, if we had nothing else going on, we would go, you know, onto the top of a mountain and sit there and meditate and come up with what our big vision is for our life and our business.

But that is not how the real world works for most of us.

So instead, it really has to start with you aligning your time and leading your time so that you can create the mental white space in your life for you to even ask yourself those big questions.

And so that's what I'm really focused in on right now is how to create the space that which starts with a strategy of how do you lead your time instead of letting your time and your energy be led by everybody else, your inbox, your text messages, your social media, your client list, the kid who busts in the door and wants a ride to the pool.

All right, on with the podcast.

Are you 100% sure that you're going to heaven? That's a question a teenager recently asked me, and it's a question I could so personally relate to.

The teenager asked, Pastor Mike, how do I know? How can I be 100% sure that I'm going to be with God when I die? I was raised in the Christian church by a Christian mom.

I knew about the forgiveness of Jesus, but starting in my middle school and high school years, I struggled deeply and desperately with an addiction to pornography.

And that messed with me in a whole lot of ways, but the deepest way it messed with me was making me question my salvation.

After I would sin, and I'd say I'm sorry, and then I would sin again, and I would say I'm sorry, and a hundred times I'd sin and relapse and run back to God and say that I was sorry, eventually I started to think, if I was actually sorry, if I really had faith, if I genuinely was following Jesus, why would I go back to these same old sins? I started to wonder, am I actually going to be saved? I don't know if you've wrestled with that question.

Maybe you're an anxious person who just instinctively thinks of what might go wrong.

Maybe you're kind of a perfectionist who always focuses on the 2% you got wrong on the test instead of the 98% that you got right.

And two, to make sure that they did all of the homework that they were supposed to do.

So as people start to think about who do I want to work with as my estate planning attorney, one of the questions I would ask is, what is your follow-up process? How often do you meet with me? How does that work? And how will we make sure that everything stays up to date?

Yeah.

And that's another, you just highlighted an important piece like the homework side.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's we've also found that those conversations don't go nearly as bad as everybody thinks they're going to go.

You know, people have questions, but at the end of the day, they're like, OK, I get it.

I see it may not be perfect, but I understand, you know, why why we're ending up this way.

Do you think those SOFR levels you quoted were being traded? Are people taking advantage of those or? seeing those as something to take advantage of now? Is it just levels and they didn't get done?

It's a good question.

I think it was levels.

I didn't see a ton of volume print through there, which is probably why it's wide.

And Mark, you have something ahead of you coming up.

So we'll let you bid your adieus.

And then I have a couple more questions for Jim and Tan Brooks.

Enjoy yourselves.