S3, Ep. 9: Cultivating Agricultural Leadership & Beyond, feat. Dr. John Reeves of the Agribusiness Leadership Institute

Layci (00:00.984)
Hello listeners and welcome back to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. I'm your host and former terrible leader, Lacey Nelson. Today I have with me the absolute privilege of interviewing none other than Dr. John Reeves. He does not like when I use his doctor title, but he earned that with a lot of hard work. He also has more than earned the reputation in the farming industry

as being someone to turn to for wisdom, for insight, his own story, his own legacy, which we're going to get to hear about today is absolutely incredible. We couldn't be more honored to have him being as part of the team at the Transcend Leadership Collective's Dr. John Reeves Egger Business Leadership Institute, but that really is just a small, small part of his story. And I cannot wait.

for you, John, to share with us today how your journey has brought you where you're at now. You have national recognition, even international recognition for the influence and the amount of passion and really forward thinking that you bring to our industry. Thank you for being here today. I think you're giving me more credit than I deserve. I grew up in Southern Illinois, a

poor area in the United States. It's a, sorry. It is a tomato growing area and many other small, small crops. And one of the things about this is

Every kid goes to work in that area. Doesn't matter who they are, where they are, how old they are, what, I mean, everybody works. And so I had the privilege of working with a black lady to start my career who was just fabulous. She was very patient with me and I learned how to pick tomatoes, to, how to put

Layci (02:27.384)
pieces in the right places and on and on on on. And so I have to give her a lot of credit here for this. The one thing that is different for me than maybe most kids is all the kids work, but I started wanting to do more. And my dad, who was not a farmer, had some land and he gave me five acres.

to do what I wanted with, and that was to grow tomatoes. So I started growing tomatoes when I was

even 10 years old. a baby. And, I, I've walked, you know, got around with a lot of the growers and learned a lot from them and learned a lot from my dad. And the way the type place work back in those days is you, if you were a grower, you could join the co -op and the co -op would have people there that would

Layci (03:37.902)
pack your fruit. And I was the only one that did not like the way they were packing the fruit. And so I told them they couldn't pack my fruit that way. the difference was all the growers in that area, they put the worst stuff at the bottom of the bag, of the...

program that was going to be sent to Chicago. Everything went to Chicago. It was about 400 miles away. I was a 12 year old kid when that started and I was the youngest one in the place and I'm the boss of 30 some people in there and all of them were older than I was. And so how did this little kid tell them they couldn't do this and that? And I told them I would not pay.

if they did any difference than what I wanted. And the reason was my mother. My mother was a very devout Christian, didn't believe in lying. So I didn't believe in lying. Now I never took the Christian part. You took the no lying part. The no lying part was really important to me. So I stuck with that.

My dad would drink beer with the largest grower in that part of the country. And they would have a beer with each other once in a while. I had a, not only had

Sorry. I also.

Layci (05:33.358)
can't say what I want to say, sorry. You're right. You had the packet. So you're packing it. So recap, you were the young kid. You came in. You were this little boy that was growing five acres of tomatoes. you then you were working with the distribution center. Yeah. And you were telling them how to distribute that. No, we got to we don't hide the bad stuff. I'm not going to do that. OK. And I had a broker in Chicago, which was 400 miles away, who never, never, ever met me.

firsthand, but he did send me checks every week. And so my dad's friend asked my dad one day how I was doing, cause he thought it was a joke, but I was out there making, doing tomatoes. And my dad said, well, he's doing pretty good. got $2 and 75 cents of a box last week. And the guy says, no, you mean the dollar 75. My dad said, no, I saw the thing. He got more.

And that was a big lesson for me and probably for him before it was done. The other guy, because he had the same broker I did and I didn't know that and he didn't know that, but he did after my dad said something and, I was making more money per box that all the other guys in that area, cause they all did what I thought was wrong. and the POP, part that

really instructive for me, because it stuck with me for the rest of my career, was sometimes you just think the guy on the other end buying isn't very smart. And the fact is they are because they're buying and they don't waste their money. And Chicago wasn't a place that wasted any money. And so that lesson stuck with me the rest of my career. And I've never been any different. And I also teach

with the people that work for me. Yes. That being, being.

Layci (07:37.974)
You know, not worrying about things that you used to worry about. Think about doing the right thing. And the right thing will make more money for you than trying to skin somebody else. that's something that is pretty common in most agricultural areas, not just Southern Illinois, where lots of people try to the buyer, especially if the buyer is not close by.

And Chicago was a long ways off from where we were. from there on, I always preached that with the groups that I was a part of. To me, it made a lot of sense. And when you think about it, if you look at some of the bigger companies in the country, the big buyers, they know as well. And you're not going to win in a game where you think you can game

very often. Now, maybe it works once or twice. It won't work all the time. And if you get a reputation for that, you're going to be in a lot more problem with the people you're trying to sell product to. That's the way I look at it. And I've done that now for 50 years or more. John, tell us who else you went on to. You didn't stay in Tomatoes. No. You had quite a career trajectory. Tell us a little bit more about

What came next? What was after when you went, you were a little boy and then that little boy grew up. What happened? went to school at Purdue and learned a lot more there about a lot of different things, especially molecular things and stuff like that, which helped when you're trying to figure out what kind of crop to plant, what kind of pesticides you may want to use because there's differences.

especially in different areas. And so I learned a lot from that group for sure. And then I worked for Frito -Lay after that. Frito -Lay was the largest potato, still is the largest potato grower in the world by far. And they had giant breeding programs, just huge breeding programs. And they own virtually the entire potato chip program around the

Layci (10:07.278)
almost 100 % free to lay. So they knew what they were doing and I learned a lot from them. And then there were other big companies that had a big influence on me as well. Anheuser -Busch, another huge set

Layci (10:28.514)
That's the word I want.

Layci (10:34.028)
Sorry. All right. You're doing great. And has a brush offered a lot of lessons, lot of lessons, and especially in breeding. And again, making sure you have the top and best program. And what made Frito Lay was a breeding program that came up with a brand new potato variety that would turn was easier to turn

and get it into the field. And on top of that, you could put it in a cold area and slow the sugar development down. The sugar development was a big problem because it forced the potatoes to turn brown. And Frito -Lay, we have a program that's not doing that. We have white potato chips, which is what everybody wanted. Right. White. And so they went from a small

potato program to the largest in the world and the first one with white chips and that just blew everybody else out of the market. mean blew them out because people wanted white chips, especially when they got to taste them and they didn't have that brown taste in them. Yeah. So that was a big learning piece. John, what did you learn at Frito -Lay? They had to do, they were industry disruptors.

Really industry disruptors when they made that change. What did you learn about what it takes to be a leader, to be able to steer a giant ship like that? That's a huge undertaking. is. And what I liked about Frito -Lay was that they listened to their scientists and they had a lot of them. They listened to people in the field, which I think is huge. And I've practiced that everywhere I went. We'll talk about that a little bit later.

That's how you get more out of the people that you're working with. The other thing I learned from them is, and they were very, very big on training people. mean, they were in fact, all three of the big companies I worked for, they were training people all the time. I had more training there than I did in college. And a lot of it was just as hard or harder than some of the college.

Layci (13:00.972)
They wanted to be the best and they paid their people as such. Did they only train the top level and the scientists or did they train everybody? Okay. Everybody. And the same thing happens with Anheuser -Busch. Same thing. You got trained and trained and trained and And then one of the things that I think I've learned through several different people, not just the company, is how

how to take the training and working with people so they understood why that training was important. And that is as important as the training is to give them the why and give them a spirit that where they can go home and tell their family, look, I did this. They go to the grocery store and there's a big pay.

bag of potato chips there or corn chips or all the stuff that Frito -Lay's made, we were a part of that. And they were a part of it because they were treated like they were a part of it. I I don't know if you ever heard of Frito -Lay having a riot or anything like that. They didn't because everybody, they wanted to work there. And it's because they were treated like people and not, and I think that was one of the things I really learned there.

And then as I moved on into other, know, being a senior manager in different companies, I always remembered that. And the more you can have your people understand why their job is important. And I can give you one here in an elevator system. I had the largest elevator system in the barley program in the world. And we.

We trained those people that why their job was so important because they were handling the malt, not the malt. The barley. The barley. So we teach each person the job, tell them why, and now you got somebody else watching what's going on. And we had thousands of growers.

Layci (15:23.274)
and lot of them cheated, unfortunately. So we try to teach our guys, you know, we got to catch that. And the why was if we don't do that, then the then we can't make legitimate malt that turns into beer. There's no way. Can't be done. So when you say cheated for our listeners that maybe aren't farmers, what does that mean when you're cheating the barley? One example, and this is we did not want

product coming into the plant that had pesticide on it, especially fungicides. Got it. Because those fungicides would kill the hop and the breeding part inside the plant. Got it. In the production. so we told him, we had a little bitty guy and he was the lowest paid guy in the company. And they were all told that, look, if you see something like that, then

shut it down. Well, here's a guy, he's about four foot four, got all these big growers all around him and shut it down. Good for him. He had to be brave. He was. And what we found was all along the axle of his truck, big truck, was a whole gob, bad word, gob.

a fungicide. man. Which would have wiped out, it would have literally wiped out that whole crop season. And so the employer, the employee saw it and the grower brought the truck in and that four foot four employee said stop, stop. Yeah. And, you know, later on I got to go into a free to late or a

Layci (17:17.571)
Toyota plant. Same thing happening there. Now that was a different timing, but Toyota had huge plants and I was lucky enough to be picked to go in from Anheuser -Busch because Anheuser -Busch was trying to adopt a lot of the same things that Toyota had. We can talk that later, probably over beer or something. But they were sold, any one of them, anybody on the line could reach

and pull down a lever and stop the plant. Completely stop it until whatever was wrong was fixed. And Toyota wound up with the best quality for a long time, the best quality of cars. And that was at a time just before, I mean, it was a time where, you know, US cars were getting hammered for a lot of reasons, but that was one of them. Bad quality because they didn't shut things down and didn't take care of it. A guy named

Layci (18:18.549)
I'll skip that part right now. I was going to talk about Demi. I'll go back to him now. got his name. Finally came. But Demi was the one, a guy named Demi was the one that started the massive increase in Japanese products. He had a statistical program, which I think was brilliant.

and the US industries.

They said, no, thank you. Right. And he's American. Yeah. And they sit there and they did that. And so he went to Japan and next thing you know, U .S. cars are trying to compete with Toyota and couldn't do it. So. That's kind of what I saw at the big level thing. So when we got into two different, different types of programs in agriculture, that same

technology that same can be used and is being used in many places. And that came from from Deming. And the other guy that was really, really important to that was a guy that I got to be tutored a little bit with was Covey, Covey. Yeah. Steven Covey. Steven Covey. And I got to be in one of his classes. So he covered the I'll call it

little bit less softer type work, whereas Dump Gamming did the hardcore stuff and it was hardcore and the two together were almost impossible to beat anywhere and so they were being

Layci (20:08.888)
big big cities, big steel companies on and on and on and on. They all were switching over to the Deming. They were recognizing the power of Deming's statistical ability to make systems more efficient. But then they were coupling it with Stephen Covey's ability to help people feel safe at work and speed of trust stuff. And the speed of trust.

trust turns out to be a big deal. And he gained a lot with speed of trust. And he and his son actually went to work and did a huge, powerful bunch of research. And it actually will gain you their data. You can go get the book yourself as chief, about 24 % more profit.

with the soft side right. And now you had Deming's math and statistics together. all once you got something that's very, very powerful and it's, you can do this in any crop, any kind of, can anywhere you want, it can be done. And so that's, but there's one other piece yet now we've got that going. But now you also kind of get your people on board with all this. Because people,

are the ones that actually do all the work. People are at the center of any change. Exactly. so again, it's up to the companies now to figure out how to train them. And now there's some companies like the one we're talking with today, who actually go out and teach that. And it makes a big difference. And it makes a long -term big difference because people, again, they feel fantastic that they're a part of something like

I got one guy that was a native from India, super smart guy. He'd been working at Anheuser -Busch for quite a long time and had never been promoted. He was very, very smart, but he hadn't been enthused by anything. He just kind of showed up, did his job. Showed up, did his job. That was enough. That was enough.

Layci (22:34.402)
But in the end, we weren't getting near enough out of him. So we had built a system called, well, I'm not gonna tell you how it's, what we did was we trained our people to understand what was important in this and that it was for their benefit to learn that way. And then we would teach them the whys again. Got it. The whys are always very important. And he,

I brought him in one day and I said, you have got to do more than just be 50%. We're paying you for a big lab. We're paying this. We're paying that. And we aren't getting enough out of you. So you need and we'll help you, but you've got to learn how to put more into this. So he came to work when this started about eight 30 in the morning.

He'd have a break, a long break. He'd have a long lunch. He'd have a, and he'd leave early and come back. So, but now he's got something that he can see and he can see how valuable it is. And so we, I said, went to the, to the, CEO and I said, look, he's really doing a lot of good work now. His, his, his number that we've been tracking now is way up.

He's never been promoted. would like him. would like you during our, our once a year meeting where we brought everybody in from around the world. as a, everybody gets, you know, all riled up and all that sort of stuff. And my CEO said, fine, I will, blah, blah, blah. And it was, it was like lightning.

The guy goes back to work. So he got promoted in front of everybody. front of everybody. Big annual meeting. Big annual meeting. And everybody, he just went, I mean, just went bonkers. He started coming to work at six. He'd take a long or a short break. He'd take no lunch. He'd take, you know, no quit in the afternoon. And he'd be the next day at six a He would go home at seven or eight a

Layci (24:58.188)
or PM, I'm sorry, PM. And it was amazing how fast he was and his ratio doubled. You got two employees. the work. And really that was another lesson that I've learned that if you give people the right incentives, they will perform. Yeah. And the company and they and everybody else, the community are way better off if you do that.

So the question becomes, and how do we take people like that and turn them into that? And it's really not that hard. It's about doing the right things with them. It's about acknowledging their benefits. It's about not ripping them pieces if they make a mistake. Because everybody's going to make mistakes. You can't be innovative without mistakes. can't. once that gets instilled into your workforce, you'll see a giant change again.

Yeah. So bottom line, I could go on and on and on about this stuff. got lots of lots of because I'm old, I got lots of ideas or not ideas, but lots of pieces like this. But for sure, it works. If you treat people like people, not like slaves, you're going to get a lot more and a lot more than you think you're going to get. Right. If you haven't done this, you will make a lot more money.

And that's what it's about and not only that you'll have the best quality coming up because that's the other part you got to put into this is the Stephen co Stephen Covey and Deming's idea of quality quality is everything under under Cubby there is no

He will not allow people to people to grade. It should be best from the start. If it's best from the start, you'll make more money and you'll have less mistakes, but you got to train people to do that. Companies like Frida Lay, Ford Motor, Toyota, all

Layci (27:26.882)
companies jumped all over that and that's when America's industrial people really took off. It was with that guy and the guy is don't put a bunch of people out there and say this is bad and this is bad. It should be perfect the first time. If it's perfect the first time, you'll make more money because you don't have to redo it. If you're redoing it, that's a lot of wasted money and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so that is now worldwide. mean, it's all over the place. It's not just here. How do we do that? How do we have employees that understand they can still make mistakes, but at the same time have the standard of what we want it perfect the first time? Because they make that work. way that works is you don't kill them. Right. a mistake. You give them a chance to change it and they will learn to change it. Especially if you put it up on the board somewhere and say so and so good, this, this, this, this, this. That always helps because they're getting

rewarded even without money, they're getting rewarded for recognition. And that's a big, big deal. You're not, you're not pointing out, this is an example of a terrible employee. You're pointing out, look at this growth. Look how amazing this is. And it's part of you. Right? You're now part of this. You are part of the company. You're not just a wage earner. Right. You, you have, you are, you are important in the success. You're not a cog in

in the machine. Even for me, when I'd go, I headed up a big product development program and when I'd go to a big grocery store, I'd look in and I'd see, that's our new product. That's our new product. It made me feel great. And I didn't do much of that work. My guys did the work. But when I'd walk into Kroger or Walmart and see what we were doing, it just made you feel good and you want to do more. And so you have

more help, more because people want to be part of it. And they're jumping into it and it just keeps going and going and going. I just, for me, it's about treating people right. Always treat people right. Let them know the why, because that's very important. If you don't give them a why, it's hard for them to understand what to do. You gotta give them that. I mean, I've got other...

Layci (29:50.79)
Jobs where we where we took people into the why and all once they just take off even in even in a Lap say if they understand more about what you're trying to do We had lots of new products and stuff that were coming out. We worked all around the world with this and But once people understood why he got more productivity and the other thing is That I really believe in a lot and abused a lot is

People need to understand that their ideas matter. And I learned a lot of this from different people myself, and one of them was the CEO, and I won't give you his name. But he forced me to get up at six o 'clock and walk with him. And if you know what company it is, you might figure who it is. But I don't want to do that because he's retired.

and I am too. What he would do was he would force me to think different when we were walking. And it wasn't to be mean or anything else. He wanted to instill the fact that you can do more if you're willing to sit and think and talk to other people. And that's what he wanted to see in his company. And it worked because they

the largest in the world for what they did. I was lucky enough to work for the three largest companies in each of their areas. All three of them were number one in the areas they were in. And part of that was productivity, which is maybe one of the last things I should bring up here. But I believe productivity is a big, big deal. Well, it's your bottom line. mean, it's linked directly to your bottom line. Yeah.

You know, a friend of mine and I are working on how do we make that into a bigger deal. Yeah. And we had a little conversation about it today. so for me, if you can get productivity, which means you need to do product development, need to be beyond product development, you need to do

Layci (32:11.978)
I'm sorry people, but I struggle with my dementia, but you can use product development or product improvement to get you into that start. Yes. Yes. But how many people are doing that? Right. know, I around here in a lot of the agricultural areas in here, not just here, but other places where I've worked. That's the last thing they look at.

which doesn't make any sense to me at all. mean, there's lots of ways you can train your workforce to be, and we can do that for you by the way. Yes we can. Because once you do that, it returns and returns and returns and returns. Yeah. And that's, that's how you'll make more money.

How much more time do I Oh, have as much time as we want, that's actually not true. Probably what? 15 minutes at the most. I want to know what, before we get to you sharing your vulnerable story with us about one of the biggest mistakes you made. Yep. And I got a big one. I would love to know, you, this year, at the very beginning of this year, you decided that you were willing

to not only willing, but you wanted to move your initiative that you were doing under another umbrella, working with farms, helping with productivity, all of your passion, your wisdom, the skill you have. I started as a subcontractor with you, helping to farms to learn how to communicate more effectively and leadership development through the collective. You decided I'm gonna move it up over under the umbrella of the collective. Absolutely, best thing I ever did.

And I do believe that. think what we've done together now, where we can get together and the people that we've hired because they see it and they want to be a part of it. And that's a big deal. And I think, you know, I'm proud that we're doing this kind of stuff and people are looking up at it now. mean, when we first started, there was a lot of nos. The nos are less now, a lot less.

Layci (34:29.71)
We haven't even started on all the juicy stuff yet. We're getting there. So I think that's important. What is your hope, John? What do you want to be able to proudly proclaim that the impact that the Edgar Business Leadership Institute, if we were to say 10 years from now, looking back, what do you want? What are your hopes for this valley and beyond that we can help be a part of in

beautiful agricultural valley that we live in. Well, there's no doubt in my mind that if we can get enough training into enough farms and we can provide them with a way to do this without breaking their bank. In fact, it should do just the opposite. It should help the bank. I'd like to see this area grow even more.

and grow across this state and then many, many other places because, know, what can make America great is doing this kind of stuff. This is real stuff. It's not a bunch of words. This is things that are real, can do things, and it's not brand new. The big companies that I work for all did it, you know, and they're still doing it. And more new companies are coming in and they're going to do it and so forth. And I

I'd like to see that. I'd like to see more and more companies jumping on board to this because it will make a difference to the economies of our states. Absolutely. Absolutely. John and I showed the commitment listeners that one of the things we immediately, we were super fast friends and immediately saw this shared value set when we met. I mean, it was almost instant. my goodness.

It really was and I talked to people about how easy this was. We got two different companies to start with, different people, and they immediately went together. It was like, how did this happen? How could it have not? Yes. It was awesome. It was really awesome. I'm proud to be a part of it. and I'm proud to be working with you and all the wisdom you bring to the table.

Layci (36:51.35)
I know we both really share this heart for people and this desire to create pathways for the farms to raise up their new leaders from within. We want them to be promoting from within as much as possible all the way to the top. And many of them are now because of our teaching. We're creating those pathways, like the clear on -ramp to leadership. then how do

we get the joy of building out leadership academies and institutes within organizations. And that is super fun. That's really fun. Doing the strategic, helping with strategic planning at the farm level. And if you want to adopt a new piece of a new methodology or technology, be more innovative, creating the communication foundations where that can come into the farm and not tip everybody upside down. And I don't think we're that far from

Yeah, I think we got some work to do yet. We probably always will, hopefully. Yep. But I'd like to see that. I think that would be, and where maybe we wind up with a, I think we can wind up teaching more than just what we're teaching right now. We can become part of the academic piece. And I really believe that can happen because, you know, there's a lot we can help the academics, academies with as well. Cause a lot of the same

kinds of things that we're talking about would help them at the same time. Now, I'm not trying to push them down because they do a lot of great stuff. came out of the university that does enormous good stuff. But I think we could take what we're doing and it could become part of the academic fabric. Fabric, exactly. Love it. I love it. my gosh. John, thank you so much.

I want to shift gears a little bit in our remaining time and I want to welcome you into what we call the confessional to share your story of one of the biggest mistakes that you made in your journey and how it impacted you and changed you in the way you lead. always try to tell myself to remember this too because

Layci (39:12.992)
And it's part of human. It was part of my human humanity, which was wrong. Okay. Cause I was hard going, hurry up, get things done, blah, blah. Pace setter to the extreme. would say. And, one of the guys that worked for me who I dearly loved, I shoot him out in front of all his peers in a terrible way. And, and I knew it was wrong as soon as I did

And I apologize and that's the one thing if you do get caught in something like that the quicker you apologize the better okay because it will be less stinging but here it is many years later and this last week I was visiting that farm and his daughter's working there I knew her and I walked up to her and I said you know I owe your dad a

Apology. And she looked at me and I said, yeah, I apologize. But it still doesn't feel right for me. I did the wrong thing. And I haven't completed what I should have completed. And I can tell you it touched her. I'm sure, I hope anyway, that he understands how much I really did love him. And he was a great.

guy that worked, he doesn't work there now, he's retired, but it's still not too late. Right. And so I felt really good about that, that I got that done. But if you make that kind of mistake, and most people do one time or another, immediately apologize, it will sting a lot less with that person. And in the end, that person is your cousin, your brother,

whatever you want to call it when you're working with them. They're part of you and you'll feel better about it and it'll make you a better leader because everybody else is going to see that too. yeah, absolutely. You can't just yell and scream. It won't get much done. It might in the short term, it's not going to, and especially now it works even less than it used to work. Absolutely. So it is not the way to go.

Layci (41:36.33)
Well, thank you for sharing that. I know, I know I've heard that story before in your just in conversation with you about this stuff saying, man, I hate that I did that. I knew that it immediately was just wrong. I don't think I've done it again. I got to be on guard. Yeah. You know, you're you're you're self aware and you know, you have that that a tendency to want to move fast and when people can't keep up, it can get

Frustrating and you got to check yourself. So they to model that self -awareness John good job And the other part of that I think is you can go another step farther with them By teaching them some other stuff right at the same time. Mm They will love that too. Yeah Yeah. my goodness. So John and I are

I'm learning so much from him. I consider John a friend and absolutely a mentor. Well, it's a two way street. Just such a such an absolute joy that I get to learn from you and soak up your knowledge and your wisdom and your experience and and the thing that I love about you the most your heart your heart for people your belief that everybody truly matters and that they they deserve to go to work every day and feel motivated engaged and inspired.

and our shared insistence that leaders need to know how and deserve to know how if they're in a position of leadership, how to be worthy of being followed. And I got to say that the group that we've put together here is really, really good. Our team's amazing. It is amazing team. They're very, very positive. It's fun to be around them. And, you know, the other part of this is we are we're trying to expand out away from this with vertical farms that's going

you know, that's going. My wife has a wonderful one right now. And there's a lot of good things about that. And we're going to keep doing that where we see opportunities to mix what we're doing with training with other things that can maybe put a little more money in people's pockets. It's a big deal too. So, we're working with that too. And it's fun to watch. It's fun to watch and be a part of as well.

Layci (43:55.214)
All of that said, John, if people want to find you to get in touch with you, we will have Mary link your email in the show notes so people can reach out to you and you guys can go find us on our website. We will link the exact page for the Agribusiness Leadership Institute. You can go straight to that and check out more about what we do. We would love to just chat with you. If you do reach out and connect with

It's not a hard sell phone call all of sudden where we're asking for credit card numbers. So I just want to assure it is just a conversation where we're learning more about you and you, we encourage you, you know, learn more about us, ask all the hard questions. If anything we shared today ignited some curiosity, we, John and I would absolutely love to sit down and connect with you. That's true too. Yeah. Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to talk. Even though I mess up a lot.

I didn't used to do that, but I can't help it now. So you have to be patient with me. It's worth every second of waiting. it really isn't probably feels longer to you than it actually is. So thank you for being willing to do this today. Thank you. Thank you. All right, listeners, until next time, go manage like a leader.