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The transcription is a conversation between two individuals discussing various topics such as a podcast, a news story about a kid defending his mother, justice systems, O.J. Simpson, immigration, speaking engagements, LinkedIn, Miami, and the idea of humility in leadership. There is no clear main idea or central theme in the conversation. Okay, here we go. Alright, welcome to the first episode of the 3 Star Podcast. Today we have our guest, Andrew Carr. Well, not we, it's just me. But I guess, you know, we'll just see how this goes. This is kind of a test run practice. So yeah, here's author, father, and businessman, Andrew Carr. Thank you. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. From the living room. That's funny. So I think the first thing that I want to do, like with the podcast is start with like some good news. Okay. So I found something on Instagram. And it said, so there was this kid in Chicago, and his he just got released from jail. So it says mother and 14 year old son reunite after murder charges were dropped after son killed man to protect his mother. So basically, this kid went into like, it looks like a five guys and this dude punched his mom in the face after like, altercation, I guess they were dating. And what was the good news? That the kid didn't get put in jail. I thought that was funny. Yeah, so his mom got punched in the five guys looks like they were dating. And the kid got released like two days ago or something like that. Okay. Which I just thought it was pretty interesting. Some of the comments are like this dude went in for a burger and left with some wings. I thought it was pretty funny. But yeah, I mean, I think that's good. I mean, I feel like it was justified. Like I like when that happens when like, like maybe it's not as conventional, like law and order. It's kind of like, like Hammurabi justice, you know, or karmic. Yeah, like like world justice, something like that. There is a nice thing when you're having the moral high ground on somebody. Like if somebody you know, you know, somebody hits your mom, you get a license to knock that person out. That's what I feel like. Yeah. Or like, you know, like, I feel like if OJ got like, you know, just capped by somebody maybe related to Nicole, you know, like, I feel like that would be like good justice and they like didn't throw that guy in jail or something. Like I like that kind of justice because like, we all know he did it. What ever happened to OJ? He's like out there killing it. He's out of jail. He owns like three cars. No, he owns like three cars. He went to prison for a separate thing in Vegas. He like robbed a casino or something like that. I thought he was doing like fake autographs. Yeah, he was doing something like, you know, con artisty, but he owns like three golf clubs in LA. He did go to jail for murder. Yeah. Well, I mean, he actually like got more famous because of that case. Yeah. Which is like, you know, the next miniseries. I mean, it's just like, that's the most like lucky, I guess a person can get. Yeah. Like, it's horrible and he's like an evil human, but like he got super lucky. Like, I kind of respect like, wow, like you really got away with everything you did. He had good lawyers. Yeah, he did. But that was the end of that super team, the Kardashians. Yeah. That was crazy. My OJ memories are a little hazy, but I remember he had good lawyers. Did you ever see the documentary on Netflix? No. It was really well done. Yeah, that's him. I'm out of my depth commenting on OJ's. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of old, but it's still like super interesting. Yeah. Like, I feel like a lot of that, like, kind of like, you know, eye for an eye justice happens in like third world countries still though, or like over like the Middle East. It's like what they call them, the shame and honor society. So it's like, it's all about your honor and essentially that justice is doled out on an eye for an eye. You know, and if I'm disrespected, then I have to go and reclaim my honor. And so kind of like I said, sort of an old school tribal mentality. Yeah. I kind of like that better though, than just like everyone gets a trial and like, you know, the rule of law and it's hard to live in a giant society where tribal justice rules. Yeah, that's true. You gotta live in big cities. You gotta have some kind of rule of law. Well, yeah, I just feel like it's kind of like in North America, I feel like we have like the weakest society of like the world, like maybe not compared to like France, but like, I feel like everyone in America gets a chance. Like you get like 20 chances in America, especially like in Canada too. I mean, it's a good thing if you're like a bad person, but like, at least there's a second chance in America. Yeah. But like, I don't know. I just think it's weird how like everyone gets a fair trial and like, there's no just like, you know, not poetic justice, but shame and honor, I guess. But um, the funniest thing I think about like the US system is like, have you heard about what's happening with the border patrol and like the Mexican people? No. So like, I read about this, basically, the cartel owns like all of the land that like surrounds, you know, that like, Mexico, Texas kind of like borders, like the cartel owns like all of that area. And so if you're like a Mexican person, and you want to get to America, you have to pay the cartel to get you to the border. And then you got to hope that you can get across. And so yeah, they have cajotes. Cajotes? They sneak you across the border to the people that actually run you across. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, most of the time, those guys are right for the cartel, I think. Probably. And it's illegal. But basically, like, if the border patrol catches you, you don't like get prosecuted or like get like documented or something like that. So like, two weeks later, they just ship you off back to Mexico. And then they just run back again. It's the same people trying to come across. If they can like scrape up the money. Yeah. Which is just like, I think that's crazy. Still exploiting a lot of people on both sides. Yeah. It's a pretty sad situation. I mean, you know, I always thought we need a better immigration system that would allow people to come to this country in a legal way. And it's so sort of broken bureaucratic that you can't get people through in a legal way. So they're so desperate to come here. America's always been a magnet for opportunity. Yeah. It's really sad that I just wish we had a better bureaucratic solution where people that want to come here want to work and put in the work and aren't criminals can get come into the country legally. I don't know why nobody proposes that. I don't know. I think that's kind of like the problem with the view, too, is like, when people think about like, oh, this illegal immigrants coming over, they're thinking of like, you know, some dude with like a mullet and like bits of teeth and he's got like drugs and he's trying to smuggle in. But like no one's talking about like the 16 year old kid whose mom has cancer and he's trying to buy like a drug for her in America that's not accessible in Mexico. So he's got to sneak across the border. Like I don't think anybody thinks it's not a good situation for anybody. I don't think that's happening to leave their home country. Yeah. There's either no job or no opportunity or they can't afford, you know, to feed their family. And so, yeah, I mean, again, there's a lot of people probably 99 percent, you know, want to do something good. Yeah. And make a contribution. You think 99 percent? Yeah. It's always more like that. All you hear about is bad actors. Really? I mean, it's got to be like, like 70, 30, 99 is crazy. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, but I also think it might be like, I think it might be like, you know, the cartels run everything. So it's like, you have to do something bad, even if you don't have malicious intent, because like, we're going to take care of you, if that makes sense, because they have all the power. So, so I get across the border. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, okay, you can, we can get you across the border and help you. But you've got to like, you know, take this coke with you or something like that. So, I mean, yeah. What's that? How are you doing? I'm good. Doing good. Yeah. Been a good, good summer so far. Good year. Yeah. What is commerce? How many jobs do you have right now? Well, I'm in the middle of teaching a class this summer called Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Lipscomb for their Masters of Health Administration class. So that's, that's kind of job number three, I guess. What's the other two? Well, my main job is at 48U. Yeah. So we make obviously custom software development and we do that every day and got a large team there. So I'm still trying to grow that team and doing a good job there. We've got work to 135 people and 80 to 100 clients every month. So there's a lot going on there. And so leading that team is my obviously main job. And then I do some speaking and teaching on the side when I get opportunities to go speak to corporate groups or conferences, things like that. So I teach a couple of different classes, which are kind of more like a side passion project. I would consider it a job. Yeah. Like, do you get paid a bunch though for this or no? Yeah, I get paid. Yeah. Most of my speaking gigs I'll get paid. And usually people ask me to come in and speak to their group or whatever. And sometimes I got to travel and they'll pay for expenses and they'll pay a fee for me to come out. Why would someone want you to come talk to them? Because you own your own business? Well, there's always groups that are looking for content, particularly around the leadership development. So there's large corporations, almost every corporation has what they call high potential leaders. So they'll select people that are on the up and up in their career and they try and develop them. And so generally you have people that are charged with putting together a two day seminar. Right. Yeah. And so they have some topics where they'll bring in internal leaders and internal speakers, but then I'll have somebody that can cover all the topics that you might want to be covered. And so I've got some material that I think is particularly effective around teaching people how to be leaders in a change process, for instance, that has this assessment and you can do that and compare what your change style is. It's just a really good course. And so they'll have me come and facilitate that as a part of that two day program. Right. I also get to speak, I have my own material on the humility imperative, that there's not really a lot of content like that out there. So they may, a lot of these programs, they spend a lot of time building up these young leaders and tell them how great they are. And so they like for me to come at the end and tell them that, well, they still got a lot to work on and they need to be humble. Yeah. I feel like that's true. I mean, let's come back to the humility imperative, but like, how do you get signed up for that? Like, do you advertise it yourself? Like you say like, Hey, I'll come talk to your people for you or like, do they mostly mostly word of mouth? Oh really? So it was like mostly in the national area then, right? Yeah. I've gotten to speak in probably 12 different States now. So mostly in the national area, but what I'll do typically is just when I get the opportunity to speak, I'll ask them to take a picture or two and I'll get that from them again. I'll post it on LinkedIn. I'll kind of tag some different people who ever kind of set me up with it. And again, I've got a pretty good LinkedIn following in the sense of, I've got four or 5,000 people that I'm connected with on LinkedIn. And so those folks will see that I'm out there and speaking, or maybe have a new topic. And again, I mean, it's just a niche market where there's always these groups that need fresh content and new speakers. And so if I can continue to develop new content and my message sort of resonates, people will invite me back or they'll invite me to come do my new material. How does that work on LinkedIn? Cause like I'm not on LinkedIn, but when you say connected, does that mean you should like follow each other? Basically? LinkedIn is pretty similar to most social platforms. A connection is actually like you and I know each other. We did business together. But you don't know 5,000 people. No, but then there's like, I'll use it. So use it for recruiting. So if I'm recruiting software developers, sometimes I'll try and connect with them. And if I post content about 48U that we're hiring, they want to be connected with me. And so they'll see opportunities. So there's a fair amount of people I don't know, but I've generally tried to not just go out and connect with random people. You can now, I had a few years ago where you can just follow people without actually like being connected to them. But I have to accept connection requests. Just like if I want to connect with somebody, they have to accept my request. Right. So generally it's more of a curated network where it's not like Twitter where I can just go follow anybody I want. Okay. I'm sorry. It is now, but to be connected when I say they have the actual connection. Yeah. They've got a like connection. Yeah. You've got to have like a give and take. Yeah. And it's interesting because when I, um, I started 48U seven years ago this month and I was previously with HCA. When I left HCA I had 500 connections. And now you have 5,000. Yeah. And so a year later I have 1,500. And so, you know, you know, working at one company, you tend to know people at the same company. And now my business is because I started speaking and because I've done some different things, I've got different networks of people, but they're all consult less on LinkedIn. Yeah. That's kind of like, um, how bigger isn't always better. Cause like HCA is a huge company and 48U is not, but you know, way more people through, I guess, just your position in each. Yeah. Well, and again, I mean, um, even though it's a big company, it's only one industry is the healthcare industry. So now at 48U we work probably across 12 different industries, or we work in FinTech and we work in insurance and real estate and sports analytics and entertainment. So we can build software for any of those companies versus, you know, HCA is the dominant player in the healthcare industry. That's just one industry vertical. Yeah. And then 48U can do anything. Anything tech related, I guess. Yeah. Anything that needs software, right? So everything from a website to mobile apps, to building really complex enterprise software. Um, you know, we really have a really talented group of engineers that can build almost anything. So it was a technical solution. We got enough diversity in our engineering group to really do all the things. Right. And the funniest part about that is how much do you know about making code? So I took one computer science class in college. And, uh, and so now my job is to do anything. I tell people anything but the code. So, uh, you know, all businesses need, you know, common functions. You need HR, you need, um, you need recruiting, you need sales. And we always say that, um, you know, in any business, uh, nothing happens until somebody sells something. Yeah. And when you're starting a business or just like when you're starting a podcast, you know, the most important thing is to get somebody else to listen to it or get somebody else to write you a check. In my case, you don't have a business until somebody writes you a check. Yeah. So, you know, it's a kind of a magical thing. Once you get that first person to write you a check, you're a professional. Yeah. So, you know, I spoke, you asked me how I got into speaking and I basically did it for five years when I was at HCA for free. So I just taught around HCA and I worked on my material and I got, I taught different classes and some were great and some weren't. And then, um, when I left HCA, I had a couple of people say, Hey, can you still come teach? And I was like, sure, but, um, but you got to pay for me. Yeah. My first trip was, uh, was one of the CIOs within the Miami division and she invited me to come down and she paid for my travel expenses. And I think I charged her $500 to fly all the way to Miami and teach a class for three hours. And I thought that was amazing because now I'm a professional speaker because you're not a pro and that's somebody pays you to do it. Right. Yeah. That's super funny. You want to like, do you like Miami? Um, you know, to me, it really is more like a European city. So I do like it. It's a very diverse city. You almost hear other languages spoken than English as much as English. And I mean, who doesn't like the climate and everything down there, but it's, um, you know, I, being a, um, being a, I actually grew up in South Florida, right by Miami and Fort Lauderdale, kind of a sister city for a while. And so it's like slightly familiar, but I left when I was like five years old. So I don't know my way around. I don't really remember any of the places. Yeah. So there's like a little bit of familiarity there. And I do like the, uh, the warm weather of course, but no, it's not, it's not, wouldn't be my first choice for like an easy vacation. No. Yeah. Like I've heard Miami just like always awake. Like it's like New York where everything's happening all the time. Like it never shows up. It's a big party scene and like South beach and you know, there's also just a ton of money down there. I mean, it's, it's, it's, you see, that's one of the, if you like cars and you want to, you want to go look at cars, like Miami is a great city because everybody has their sports cars down there and the weather is hardly ever bad. So they'll, they'll, uh, hesitate to take them out and show them off a little bit. Yeah. And like all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I just think it's really dirty though. Isn't it? Like I've heard the water is like disgusting. I have no idea. I mean, there's, there's, you know, the ocean and you've got inlets and bays and all kinds of people. I think the Miami lifestyle is to have a place that's on the water. You can direct your boat up to it. But I mean, I feel like it's any beach place though. Yeah. But yeah, probably. It's a really unique city. And you know, it's really the gateway to Latin America for, and it's kind of has money and it's from the North. So Cuban immigrants and Latin American immigrants. Yeah. I feel like there's probably some really good food down there then. Like, I bet that like some people just go up from Cuba and then it's like parking, you know, like I don't know. Yeah. Let's talk about the humility imperative. Cause I want to talk about that. Sure. Do you still have money off of the humility imperative? Oh, wait, wait, just for anybody who doesn't know, like, can you tell them what the humility imperative is? Sure. Yeah. That's a book that I put out probably five, six years ago now. So 2017, I think it's when I put it out. So it was kind of based off of, I put together a course that I was actually calling the humility advantage. And I was trying to sort of flip this mindset within leadership circles that, you know, humility kind of equates to weakness and that, you know, that as a leader, we want leaders to be confident and bold and charismatic. And yet there's a lot of evidence that shows that some of the very best leaders from a pure performance perspective are those that are really humble. How do you measure pure performance? Yeah. So the book that I referenced there is one called good to great by this author named Jim Collins. And what he did is he had probably 40 different MBA students that were signed up to help him. What he was really trying to do is a research project. He said, we're going to find companies that have made this jump. And what he looked at was their performance over a 40 year period. So they started a stock market and said, they want to look at companies in different industries that were good, that had steady results. And then all of a sudden made this jump to being great. What did you find this great was three times outperforming their competitors by three times. Yeah. So they had a control group and said, here's a group that's great. And then they had to maintain that for at least 10 years. So it wasn't like they just went, oh yeah, that's got to be a small niche. So it's a very small number of companies. And actually they boiled it down to over like 40 years, there were only 11 companies that really separated themselves in this like exceptional performance layer. Yeah. And so he told the MBA students, like, I want to study these. I want to do a deep dive on all the numbers. I want to really make this a statistical thing that we're going to prove why these companies are better. So this is a financial success. Yeah. So I mean, that's how companies are measured. Yeah. What are their returns and how do they return capital to investors and those kinds of things. So he looked at them, he said, look, don't come back and tell me that they're better than you. I don't want to hear that. I think it's attribution error. And I want you to basically really study them. And so, and so they did, they jumped in and they came back and they started bringing all this data and generating all these data points. And they said, but there is something different about the leaders. And it's like, all right, you know, we can't ignore it. What is it? And he said, it's like weird. They have this real paradoxical, this paradoxical combination of personal humility and professional will. Yeah. So they did have the professional will, they did have the ambition. He actually said they're incredibly ambitious, but what they weren't is that they weren't narcissistic. They weren't ambitious for themselves. They were ambitious for the organization. Yeah. They really cared about the company. That's right. So it's like the opposite. Like when I think of like a great business leader, I think Trump, like right off the bat. Well, that Trump is the, but he's like the opposite of what you're describing. He is the classic and that is what we, and actually, so they grouped these executives, right? So they can have a comparison group and they have the humble executives that were outperforming and kicking everybody's butt. And they said, and I said, describe these people. And group A was the traditional executive, dynamic, persuasive, bold, engaging. Yeah. I tell people, I put it up in my class and I say, who would you elect? Who do you want to lead your company? And everybody always picks group A because group B is modest, thoughtful, reserved, maybe even shy. Yeah. You think of them as like not confident, that's right. But that's not necessarily true. And that was, that was the insight that kind of tipped him out and said, well, wait a minute. So like humility is this really differentiating factor between just merely good leaders. Some of them are good. If you're leading a Fortune 500 company, you're pretty good. Yeah. But how do you really separate and become great? And it was this weird kind of connecting of kind of what he calls the paradox, which is you can be extremely ambitious and for your organization, for your cause, if you're a nonprofit leader, whatever, but it's not about you. It's not a narcissistic thing like it is with Trump. Trump is the classic narcissist, but it's always about him and his ego. Yeah. John Mulaney had this great joke about Trump, like before Trump was even like, you know, running for president or anything. And he's like, when I become a rich man, I'm going to have long locks of golden hair and put big towers with my name up on it everywhere. I thought that was always super funny. Cause it's true. Like, if you thought of like a cartoon businessman, like you would think of Trump. You would just think of like Johnny Bravo in a suit pretty much. Right. And again, he lives up to the stereotype of the charismatic, narcissistic kind of leader. But again, I tell people in class, like, we're the ones who elect these people. We're the ones who promote these people. Cause we're like, yeah, what's screwed up in our heads about this image of leadership. And that's where I got kind of fascinated with this humility thing. So I wrote this, you know, I actually put together a class and then somebody whispered to me one day after I taught it, they said, you know, this is pretty good. Like I haven't heard this before, or you have to write the book because you'll get more opportunities to speak and teach on it. And that was where I kind of got the idea that I don't remember who it was, but I was speaking at one of these corporate events and somebody said, yeah, I need the book to go with this. And I thought, well, I've already done all the research. I had to like take some time and like write it out. And I didn't necessarily feel qualified at the time, but, um, but I started pursuing that and kind of that idea stuck with me. Yeah. It became the book, you know, probably two years later. That's cool. But like, um, would you say it's only for business leadership? Like when I think about like, if I was in like the military, like I'm in a platoon, right. And I have like this real humble, like leader. I don't know if I necessarily want that. Like, I think the number one, like quality I want, if I'm like, you know, like a Sergeant and I need like a first Sergeant to tell me what to do, like I want someone who's just super confident. Yeah. And then commanding. Well, and so what I, what I found, I think that's a great question because what I found and there's further research that says outside of the crisis situation, you know, the military being in battle, being in combat is by straight definition a crisis. And so they say outside of the crisis situation, you know, the vast majority of people prefer humble leadership. They prefer leaders that will engage them. They prefer leaders that will ask their opinion that will allow them to be engaged and help formulate the solution. Like build a relationship with the person. But if my boat is sinking and I'm in the Navy, you just want somebody to tell you what to do, and you're going to react quickly and there's no time for debate and consensus. And we all have to have our opinion. Yeah. So, so again, a great point, like in the military. I feel like even with like a football team. Well, but even like, but even as you study, if you study, you know, there's a lot of leaders in the military now, if you look at special operations teams like the seals and, you know, warfare groups, they're basically saying, look, we are small teams. We operate independently from command because we're on the front lines. Command can't tell us what to do. They don't know the situation on the ground. And so we want humble leadership too. And so, um, but you know, uh, the Chris Kyle was the American sniper said I've had a lot of good officers, but all the best ones were humble. And so meaning that they would be able to say, look, I know when to give direction. I know when to be confident, right. But I also know when to step back and say, I'm not on the ground there. I can't make that decision. You guys make the call. Yeah. And that's where I think humble leaders have an advantage is that we live in, you know, in certainly in business, everything is changing so fast and you're not often on the front lines. You don't have the information that your people do that are on the ground. And so you have to be able to put the right values in them and give them the right vision for what your company is going to be and where your, where your mission is. But then you delegate to them the authority to make this decision and you're humble enough to accept that they know more than they, than you do oftentimes. And so, and you know, this idea of being able to change quickly to be able to constrain on learning mode, this is all the stuff we're talking about. We're talking about humble leadership, you know, just because you win, you know, sports you mentioned earlier, you win the championship one year and you think you're great. You go on the circuit, you start telling everybody how to do it. Right. Somebody's going to eat your lunch next year because they're working hard to get to where you already are. Yeah. You like lose that dog. David Goggins talks about it all the time. Like, you know, we have John, obviously, who's a Labrador, but like, John is always hungry. Like that's what David Goggins says, I got a dog at home and he's never full. It's always hungry. That's I guess how you have to be. But talking about like humble leaders, I feel like the best leaders are actually like informal leaders. Like you're the leader of your company. Right. But I feel like to really get your people going, you've got to have like that one employee who's almost kind of annoying about like, Hey guys, like we got to do this. So the bots like won't be on our case or like we need to do great today. Or like, you know, something like that. People, people that like the employees respect on other employees. When you say informal, I don't mean, I don't think of like relax. I think what I think of is that the best teams, you know, the best teams in sports or whatever, the best teams are player led, right? Yeah. So the best teams aren't great because the coach yelled at them. Again, that's what the media might portray it as. This coach is such a hard driving SOB and he got him to do his will. Right. He broke them like wild horses. That's not a team. That's just somebody being scared of the guy who's in charge. Like domesticating. Right. So the best teams are the ones where the player, you know, the coach has the vision and the standard and again, gives good coaching along the way. Right. But it's the players who demand accountability from one another. Right. When you're, you know, and again, this goes to the military or sports or any kind of great team. What we have generally at 48U is we have teams that come together for a project and then break apart. So they don't work together all the time. And so we do catch somebody as a team lead, right? And sort of be that formal communication point. But the very best teams are made up of developers who come together to solve the problem and they hold each other accountable to the quality of the code and the speed of the project. And I don't have to go yell. Again, I don't know how to write code. We already said. Right. I'm not going to go in and show them how to do it. Yeah. Tell them what's wrong with it. I'm going to say, look guys, we have a standard here at Bowdoin. You guys got to figure out how to do it. Right. And hold each other accountable to it. And so, you know, informal meaning not type of position. Right. Because one thing we do with team leads is you might be the team leader of this project and you might not be on the next one. Oh yeah. So it kind of switches around. I know. I get too comfortable. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's not, you know, I mean, being uncomfortable is one of those key parts of continuing to grow. Well, that's right. Everybody tells me when they come to interview at the company, oh, I love to learn. And I say, really? Tell me what you like about it. Because I think they've read the interview book on how to get hired at 48. Yeah. Tell them what it is you like to learn. I say, well, that's interesting because learning usually is really uncomfortable because you're going to feel, you're going to feel out of your depth. You're not going to understand things as well. Yeah. And you're going to have to make yourself go into ambiguous situations where you're not in control. I think people love to learn stuff that interests them, but I don't like, I'm taking like psychology right now for college. And it's like, I don't love to learn psychology. It's just something I have to do. Like, sure. There's interesting stuff in it. Right. But like, I'm not like, Ooh, like learning, like, I mean, to me, I think the cool part about learning is when you, it's like self discovery when you figure something out and you need, when it clicks in your brain, you found it out. Not that somebody just told you. Right. Yeah. Well, that's why I like this, you know, because it's something new that I've never done before. Yeah. And it's interesting to me. Like, I've always wanted to do it. Like I was a podcast where that I probably listen to music now. Sure. Just because like, I don't know, I just like have a really hard time, um, trying to like music. Yeah. Like, it's gotta be really good for me to like, want to listen to it. Like I listen to music very weirdly. Like I like listen to one artist and I like just listen to him until I get burnt out on it. Sure. And then I go to like the next thing. So like, I just kind of stay within the same realm, which probably isn't good, you know, but I don't know. I like podcasts more because it gives me like talking points and stuff like that. Cause I'm like a pretty social guy. Well, this is the thing, go figure out is that this is your first one. It's not going to go perfect. No. Yeah. If you don't look back at this in a year and cringe at how bad we are, then you haven't learned much. Right. But you have to be willing. I mean, a lot of learning, it's just being willing to take a risk and put yourself out there. Be willing to fail, be willing to make mistakes, study it and then come back. No. Yeah. I mean, I probably won't even call it the same name. I'm still going with it. That's what we always tell our developers. Like if you're, if you're starting out and you write a line of code today and you have to come back a year later, you're going to go, what the hell was I thinking? Yeah. Like, why did I do it that way? Cause if you're not progressing, you go, oh, you know, I'm busy. You're in the exact same spot. No. Yeah. I think about that all the time with the gym. It's like, I wish I was this big when I was like 15. I feel like I could be like in there. Like if I knew what I know now when I was 15, like I feel like the whole athletic career could have been different. You know, that's a great question for your topic. Yeah. Ask your guests. I mean, yeah, I wish that almost like, you know, with someone like, um, like London, like we're doing, um, I took his weight at the start of the summer. And we're here. I mean, they might London, Pennsylvania, male athlete of the year, Vanderbilt football committed. Well, actually he's there now. So I guess he's not a committed Vanderbilt student athlete. Um, but anyway, shout out London. I took his weight at the beginning of the summer and I think it was like one 89 and maybe see what it is at the end. Just because I think it'll be cool. But I don't think the reason I started this podcast was like to blow up and like, yeah, you know, become super famous. Like, well, that's not what anybody does. They're good at something. I mean, they say that actually one of the books I'm reading today, he talks about the craftsman mindset. You're interested in, you look at like a craft and the goal is to create something and to create something better each time. And so craftsman look at it as like, Hey, a continuous improvement process that they get satisfaction out of versus, you know, external rewards. Right. So it's like an intrinsic reward. If you think of it as a craftsman versus like, well, I'm doing this, I'm going to go to accounting because it pays a lot and you know, they're going to pay me and, you know, I mean, that's, you know, I mean, extrinsic rewards kind of the world runs versus, you know, this idea of finding something that you're both passionate about. And oftentimes you're not good at it at the beginning, but if you, if you stick with it and you kind of, and you plod through and you can show up every day and get better, that's, that's sort of where the success lies. And right. Yeah. That's interesting. I was at Vander, I was speaking to London and the Vanderbilt football team last week and they said, well, what did you take from football? You know, that you can apply in business. Like what was the biggest lesson? I was like, I just said, I think this is super not sexy, but like what, what you, what I learned from football is like, you got to show up every day and give it your best. Like if you, if you want to try and come play football half-assed, you're going to get knocked on your butt. So like, you can't not show up. Like, so you have to show up every day and you got to show up with some intensity because you know, again, I was too small to get out there and just, you know, job around. Like I had to, I had to protect myself almost. So it, but I told them like in almost any business in any industry, if you can show up at your relative best every day, you'll wipe the floor with almost all your competitors because people just aren't consistent. Oh yeah. Like, just like people get lazy. Yeah. They get, they get not hungry. They're not hungry. They get complacent. They think they're better than they are. They just lose motivation because it wasn't their thing to begin with. What did they say? Like complacency, like breeds contentment and contentment breeds like destruction or something like that. I don't know. Yeah. I know. I mean, it's like one of those things where it's like, you know, again, I just always got to take in that mentality of like, whatever you're doing, do it, do it well. Yeah. And again, apply that over time. And you sort of have this magical formula, but it's not magical. It's just consistency. Yeah. That is weird that like, I think a lot of people think that life is like this really complicated game and like how to succeed is like, there's all these secrets and stuff. And like, you have to read all these books, but like the bottom line, I think is just like, you just got to work harder than everybody else. And that's the hardest thing is just like trying to trick yourself into like working harder and just like, you know, if I don't do a job like a hundred percent now, like I don't feel good about myself. And that's like, I'm really grateful for that, actually, because like, like if I'm not the person, so like I work at Costco right now and my job is to pull carts, which is like the lamest job ever. Like nobody wants to do that. But like, so there's six, you know, return spaces for the carts. And if I don't do like four of them, like there's five of us working out there. If I'm not the one who's doing four of those spots, like, I don't feel good. Like, I'm like, nope, I'm not working hard. And like, you know, being the man, like I need to get out there and work harder. Again, I mean, there's something very satisfying about manual labor jobs like that, where you know, you cut the lawn, like you got to do that last strip. You got to, you know, leave a blade of grass uncut. Or you could do something in our brain, you know, if you're doing things right, that says, you know, finish the job or do the best you can. Yeah, it's just satisfying. Yeah. I mean, that's weird. But like, being satisfied is like the only way I feel like, you know, we go to sleep at night. Like, well, that's I mean, to your point, temporary. Yeah. You're set for the day. You know, you can lay your head down and go sleep good. Yeah, I think that like, I think that we're very different, though, in the aspect of like, I think you're very intelligent, like, book smart. Whereas like, the way I've gotten by is more of my common sense. Like, maybe I wasn't using it for a little bit there. But I think that like, it's definitely makes sense to me. That's how I like determine that this is a good thing or not, or if I should like pursue this or not, like, I don't know. That's just like how I view the world is like, does this make sense? Does this not? And I think a lot of people don't have that. To be honest. Yeah, I mean, I think what you're describing to me, I would call like emotional intelligence and that, you know, you have a situation or, you know, people have to sort of resonate with you. And, you know, I think of it as sort of pragmatism, too. Yeah, I like books, and I like topics, but I think you don't get by in the world based off your book smarts and knowledge. It's, you know, it helps you in certain situations, like certain crowds to sound smart. But again, at the end of the day, you got to show up every day. You got to, you know, yeah, a lot of people have sounded really smart. And they're, you know, they're, they're good professors, I don't know that I'll be a professor long term, you know, because I like I like teaching the kids practical stuff. I like teaching them how business really works. And that's sort of business theory, like, like hands on stuff. Yeah, like stuff you wouldn't like seeing a book, maybe. I mean, that's a beautiful thing about, you know, one of the great things about the American economy, and sort of why we can have success is that we stress entrepreneurship, which is, there's not a great formula for entrepreneurship. It's hands on doing it's figuring out how to get people to buy things that are great value how to sell things. Yeah, outworking everybody. Yeah, again, any that's accessible to anybody. And we've set up a system where, you know, if you've got the will and the drive, and you're willing to dive in and figure stuff out and use your common sense. There you go. You know, that's not doesn't apply to all circles. But we certainly got an edge on a lot of the world and being able to compete in that type of economy. Yeah. Do you think that America is going to last? Of course. Well, really? No, I mean, when you look at, you know, I mean, how long are we talking? Another 200 years, another 1000 years, like everything, everything that, you know, faces threats. And, you know, certainly, we have a great foundation. I think we're in a particularly muddy political circumstance right now. But everybody wants to sit there and say, Oh, we've never been more divided. I've never been more partisan. And it's like, I don't like partisanship. Well, it's like, but I mean, you know, I always say to people like that, well, you weren't around from the Civil War, obviously. Like, I think there's some pretty big differences there. It's not like we're taking up in Pennsylvania, it's not fighting Florida and armed conflict right now. Yeah, like, we might have some pretty vocal disagreements. But there's a lot of holding us together. And I think, you know, really, you know, the shared values and the shared vision of America are still the same thing. People should be created equal, people should have a right to liberty and pursuit of happiness. And like, if we can cling to those things, I think America has a great chance because, you know, you have to be willing to change the day to day context, but you have to stick true to the values. And that's, you know, any company, any family, any country has to have shared values. And like, if those things start to fray, I think we're in trouble. And you could argue that some of those are fraying. But, but I think it's been a pretty sturdy framework up to this point. Yeah. I mean, I just think of like, you know, all the great societies that you hear about, like in textbooks and stuff like the Greeks and the Romans, they always implode on themselves after like 300 years. And America's coming up on like, you're 300, you're pretty quick. So, I mean, you know, again, I mean, there's nothing to say, you're not guaranteed any, you know, yeah, that would really suck though, wouldn't it? If America imploded? No more politics. You know, we just got back from a trip to Europe, you know, and there's, you know, you can see it, you can see a thousand years of history and, you know, a five mile tour of the same area. And it's still there. People are still living their lives. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, time is a funny thing to those of us that are experiencing it. Yeah. It's like, you know, we think our, our day under the sun is the only one that counts, or the only one that's so dramatic. And there's been a lot more drama than things that are much more consequential before and after. I mean, the crazy thing about time is like, it's not even real. Like, we made it up. Like, it took me so long to tell you. Yeah, I just think it's weird. Like, it's just not even like a real, if we all just agreed that time was a real thing, it wouldn't exist. You know, the concept of time would still exist. It's interesting, I read a book not long ago about things that we invented in the modern world. And time was one of them. And, you know, again, they used to say, you know, about sleeping, they say that everybody's obsessed with getting healthy sleep. And they used to, back in the old days, when you just went by the rising call of the sun, or really any clocks, you used to, people used to sleep in two shifts. They called it first sleep and second sleep. Oh, really? People would get up in the middle of the night and do a lot of chores while it was cooler and, you know, hang out, have a meal, and then they go back to sleep for a couple hours. And so that was just, you know, you had long nights, people slept when it was dark. Yeah, they slept in the middle of the night and slept again. And that was how they slept for thousands of years, for hundreds. Yeah. And now they're like, well, you got to get seven and a half hours or your aura rings gonna freak out. Oh, yeah. Well, you know. I don't like this. I don't like things that tell me how I should sleep. I think that like, We're obsessed with data and tracking. That is true. Yeah, I don't even think about that. Like, I think the number one thing I probably track the most is like my calories, like what I've eaten and burned. Just like, you know, I'm trying to like gain some weight right now and then lose it again. But, you know, I just like, it's like weird to me if I like, don't hit like my ratio, where it's like counting macros, you know, like I need 60% protein. Yeah, it's great being goal oriented, but it's also, you know, it's a discipline. Yeah. Discipline applies over time. It's successful. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good math problem. Yeah. Let's talk about, let's talk about the FBI on the topic of America. I want to hear like, what it was like, because you interviewed with the FBI after you got out of college. So you went to Vanderbilt, played football at Vanderbilt, got your master's while you were coaching there for football. And then you moved to DC right after. No, so I got my master's degree and yeah, we just got married. So we did move to DC. I was in, I was in what was called the Presidential Management Fellows Program. Okay. Or actually it was called the Presidential. Yeah, what is that? Interns at the time. So it's a program that the federal government does. I was telling you before about what they call high potential programs. So they want to identify people coming out of graduate school and, you know, and that have an interest in federal service. And they want to put you in a two year rotation program where you can rotate around at least two different government agencies. And then if you do well and you graduate the program, they give you a lot of training while you're in it. So then you can be placed in a management position within the federal. So it's a recruiting program to bring in high potential graduate students. That's sick. Yeah. So it's pretty good. And I, I was very interested in federal service because 9-11 had just happened. And there were all these opportunities that were springing up. Department of Homeland Security had just been created. Transportation Security Administration, the TSA had just been created. All these government agencies were being reorganized. The FBI was trying to take over counterterrorism, shifting from kind of a law enforcement stance to counterterrorism. And so anyway, like you go to this big job fair and you go up there and there's all these federal agencies that have booths and they're like, hey. They just have a booth? They have booths. Yeah, they have booths and they're like, hey, can we talk about our agency? That's so lame. I thought it was like, you know, you walked into like a Waffle House or something and a dude with an earpiece comes in and just like slides an envelope across the table. Well, I did. I mean, I, I did interview with the CIA as well. That first summer I was up there and theirs was a little more clandestine, like essentially this office building in the middle of nowhere. And like, there were no numbers on the doors and stuff. And you go in and check it. Yeah. It's like, they're a little more secretive about what they do. But this was, this was for the PMS thing. It was booths and you could walk around different agencies. And I talked to probably three or four different ones, but the FBI was really recruiting heavily and they had, they had positions in the counterterrorism kind of, cause I didn't know what I would be doing honestly with any of them, but I just knew, obviously, you know, I grew up liking the military and law enforcement. Yeah. I know the FBI name. So I'm a fan of Point Break, you know? Yeah. So you gotta go, oh yeah, I'll go talk to the FBI. And, and yeah, so I had a position there for a while and they offered- You did get the job with the FBI? No, well they offered me- Oh, you had a job with the interns. They offered me one. I was going to go to DC and do that. And then by the time I got there, it had fallen through. And so I was kind of tailed. So again, there's a certain amount of spots in the, there was a certain amount of spots for PMS in all the agencies. And so I just called the program director and said, Hey, my spot fell through. Is there some other ones that I can look at? And that's how I got to what I, what I ended up doing with the president. I ended up going to the office of personnel management called OPM. And so what we did there was- Not as cool as FBI. It's not as cool. It's not as cool as the government's HR agency. Oh, hell no. That would be weird. The only thing we got to do, the lady, the lady who was our director was, her only real power was to declare snow days to the federal government. So she got to declare- That's some power though. That's kind of cool. The entire federal government had lost if she said so. The federal government gets snow days? That's insane. Yeah. So, you know, it's just like a- Oh, the president's not in. There's so much ice on the road. It's not a snow day, right? Until Iraq's awake. Yeah. So all the federal agencies that worked for the president, she was kind of in charge of like declaring. And so, but yeah, the neat spot that I did get to work was we actually ended up doing, we were the group that did all the background investigations for all the federal agencies. So NASA, State Department, basically anybody but the FBI and CIA because they did their own. So I got up in this part where I was training people on how to use this new software program and I got to go teach all the agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. And so I got to do some interesting things when I was up there and got exposure to a lot of that world. What's like the interview process they have you do with the FBI? Do they like sit you down in like a dark room and like put a light in your head? No, no. So they, well, they took me to, when I got to DC, we went to what's called the Hoover building up there. And it's a very ugly government looking building. And they took you in. Is the name of the president? No, J Edgar Hoover, who was the FBI director for a long time. And so they put you in this building and I remember having a panel interview where there's like three of them on the other side of the table and you're kind of sitting there. There's no like white light is shining on you. Yeah. They're just interviewing you. And I remember, I remember I was pretty nervous. Go to the interview. And I would be like shaking. I forget exactly the question they asked me, but they're like, what's a, what's an international incident that's going on right now? That's not in the headlines, but that you're concerned about. That's not in the head, like a secret kind of like, not a secret, but like they wanted to know, they wanted to see how aware you were of like international affairs and what was going on in the world. And I had a good, I had like read the paper that morning and I was like, well, I'm really concerned about the drawdown of NATO forces in Eastern Europe. And they were like, Oh wow. That's interesting. Wait, wait, wait. Say it again. Well, what's the drawdown of NATO forces in Eastern Europe? I was very concerned. I don't even know. Yeah. I thought you were like, Oh, that's interesting. It was like, Oh yeah, that's what I read about. So I felt like I'd done good with the interview. That's super funny. Yeah. But then I interviewed with the CIA, I interviewed with the state department. I wanted to go to the foreign service. I went through a couple of rounds of those interviews and decided that, I don't know, they wanted to with the state department to like, this is, this would have been like, if I got into foreign service, you could go live in embassies overseas and you would work in the state department. Yeah. That's what Megan. Yeah. Oh no. No. I didn't know that. So now, and it, yeah, it was a neat job, but you have to, you know, you have to, you basically, when you enter the state department, you have to be willing to go live anywhere in the world. And that means anywhere. And so they will send you to, I'm not willing to live anywhere. So they'll send you anywhere. I ain't going. I kind of went through the first couple of rounds. I'm going to New Mexico. Why don't you come back next year, if you're really interested in applying again, I said, maybe, maybe I will. They're going to send you to Bangladesh. India. I would never be, but, but I loved working for the federal government. I thought it was really cool. Got to see a lot of stuff. Worked in the department of Homeland Security, traveled all over the country. Got to go to four of the NASA space centers. Got to go to a nuclear facility in Los Alamos in New Mexico. Like nuclear, they make plutonium. Like Homer Simpson. Yeah. Well, this was interesting. I mean, it had a, it had a, a, a net over the entire facility so that helicopters couldn't come in and steal anything. They give you a badge when you went in that had a radioactive thing on it that they could tell. And they weighed you on the way in and on the way out to make sure you didn't steal anything. It's just way too much more on the way out. What are they now, once you steal it, like nuclear? Nuclear, yeah. They got like uranium in there or something. Plutonium, yeah. Plutonium. So it was pretty interesting. That's insane. I got to go to the CIA headquarters and the thing I remember about that was that they had a food court with a Dunkin Donuts and I was like, I wonder who the Dunkin Donuts worker is. Just the guy who works at the Dunkin at the CIA. I thought that was like a pretty wild experience. Yeah. Some kid who's in college and like goes to his girlfriend's parents and like, what's your job? I think I remember that actually. This was the Pentagon that I went to then, the Dunkin Donuts. Still? Yeah, it was still funny. I mean, I actually think that's more impressive that it's the Pentagon. The Pentagon has like a food court in the middle. Is it really? Isn't the Pentagon like super high security? Oh yeah, that's where the military headquarters is. Yeah, it's like... They have people who have to eat. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, you'd think they have their own cafeteria. Well, they do. They got different options and certainly I'm sure most secretive people don't eat there, but... Yeah, probably not. The Pentagon is like the largest office building in the world, is what they say. It's got like a million people in it. I guess it always kind of shocks people when like government or like high up officials like eat at fast food places. Like when Trump did that like McDonald's thing. That was super funny. I thought, well like, that's not that weird. Yeah. Speaking of D.C., this is funny I didn't tell you about this. I got a text yesterday from my friend John McConnell, who was the White House speechwriter. He sent me that picture yesterday. Oh, he wrote speeches for the White House? Yeah, he was President Cheney. Huge, yeah. He was a speechwriter and then he was George Bush's speechwriter for 9-11 and like all the last... So he wrote the speech for 9-11? He wrote it as a contributing author to it, yeah. And you guys can't see this, but it's him holding me when I was like... I don't know, two? Yeah, you were very little. Yeah. We got to be invited. As soon as we were working at the White House, we got invited to the White House Christmas party. How did you meet him? How did you get to the White House? I had an internship. Yeah. With the Opie people? No, this was the summer before when I was still working at Vanderbilt and I had an internship in D.C. And he came and spoke to our little internship group. We had a little office right by the White House. And he was just a really good speaker. I kind of left it to him afterwards. And I really enjoyed it. I'd love to take you to lunch one day or something before I leave town. I don't know if that's a possibility. And he gave me his business card. It had his name on it. It said John McConnell. It said White House speechwriter. And it didn't have any... Like, no memory of him? Yeah, I don't know. I think it did have his phone number. But anyway, we got in touch. I guess we emailed or something. And I said, yeah, sure, where do you want to go to lunch? I was super excited that the speaker was going to go out to lunch with me because I was an intern. And he said, well, why don't you come over for lunch? And I was like, well, where to? And he was like, well, the White House. And I was like, OK. I got the old man going, yeah. You got to go to the White House to eat? Yeah, I got to go to the White House for lunch. So you just pulled up to the White House and you're like, I'm here for lunch. Well, you can't pull in. They have a building called the old executive office. And you have to go and check in and go through security and all that. You have to be on a list. And he put my name on the list. And they gave me a tour of the executive office building. And when we were living in DC, he was still- Just because you liked his speech and you said hi? Yeah, we became friends. He actually handed me over to the White House probably five times, six times. That's insane. I feel like the White House is way too accessible. Because I've been in it twice. And I'm like a twice. So I feel like you've got that already. Well, everything they feed me to eat is called the White House mess. And it is underneath the Oval Office. And so I was telling you before the Pentagon, that's like the cafeteria. Well, the staffers don't get to eat there. Only the president's staffers are like really high staff get to eat there. And so it's run by the Navy. And it's underneath the West Wing there. And they'll take you over. And you don't get to pay for anything. They have custom menus every day. The food's all free. Wow. And they would say, here, keep the menu. So I got to take- I took my brother. I took my little boss there. So John was like, if there's anything I can help you with your career, I'll be glad to have lunch for you and have some friends over. That's crazy. He was super nice to me. Yeah, he was super nice. He was a great dude. And he worked. He was there. I think he was the only speechwriter who was there all eight years through all of President Bush's terms. And just really great guy. I still stay in touch with him. How many people work in the White House on a daily basis? Oh, I don't know. I mean, the actual, like I said, the residence is pretty small. The Eisenhower Executive Office building probably holds a couple hundred people. But I don't know. You just look it up. I mean, there's hundreds, if not thousands. Yeah. Would you ever move back to D.C.? Yeah, I would. I mean, I like it up there. I have this sort of career ambition that I kind of started my career in the government that I've kind of had this reverse resolution to entrepreneur and that maybe I'll go back and serve at the end of my career too. That'd be cool. A little circle kind of thing. Are you sure? If it doesn't happen, I don't know. I might be too old. If you keep running too old, that's not a problem in the government anymore. You can't be old enough. Yeah, that's right. Probably working the Epstein. I don't like Trump, but Biden is just, dude, that dude is like, he's got dementia or something. Well, I mean, I think it would be a good thing in the next election if we had some people under 75 running. Yeah. What do you think about that Rob Kennedy? I've heard a lot of good things about him. I have not done much research. I think it's pretty early in the, what do you think? I haven't done the primary season yet, but I mean, I don't know. The Kennedy name obviously carries a lot of weight, so he'll get a lot of people, but I don't know that I have an opinion at this point on it. Yeah. I don't know. Do more research. Yeah. He's kind of an independent candidate though, which is what I've heard a lot of people say we need. Well, we do. It's just harder with the two party system. I mean, it's too, it's pretty dependent on him. You ever heard about like any ideas of Bernie Sanders? He's actually got some really interesting ideas. Have I heard of any of his ideas? Yeah. Like Bernie basically said that like, if you're the president, you have to have a vice president of the opposite party. Oh, well that's something that's come back to the old way that the original constitution was set up, right? Was it really? I didn't know that. It was originally set up that whoever got the, you know, the most votes was elected president. Whoever came in second was the vice president. So what you had over, you didn't run as a ticket, you know, then you have your chief rival who hates you as the vice president. Yeah. It wouldn't work real well until they, pretty quickly, no, pretty quickly did it. Wait a minute, I don't want to say, I'm going to get it wrong. So there's some constitutional scholar that can tell me, but I think they changed it pretty quickly to where like, you know, you still want your vice president undermining everything you're trying to do. Yeah, that's true. But it is like, I feel like it's kind of essential to have someone with the opposite viewpoint or perspective to like have pull in that, like, you know, decision making. It's a very tough job, the presidency, I think. Oh yeah. The thing, the chief of staff is supposed to be, the chief of staff is the president, serves as the pleasure of the president. Yeah. And they're supposed, one of their main jobs is that they're supposed to bring in alternative viewpoints and present the president with a balanced view of the information. But doesn't the president hire the chief of staff? Of course they do. And the majority is going to be very loyal to their party. And it's a very prominent position because they own the president's calendar. Yeah. So access to the president and being able to get even five minutes with him is very tough to get. Right. So, but it is the chief of staff's job to, you know, theoretically make sure the president is informed with a good understanding. Right. Like speaking about like how hard the presidency is, like, have you ever seen those pictures of like Obama before office or Obama after? Just from like the amount of stress that they go under, it's like a tool that I don't think anybody can imagine. I know, again, I mean, it's not only a very prestigious job, but it is a all consuming lifestyle and there's no escaping the tension and you're going to piss off as many people as you're going to please. Yeah. Yeah. I think that a lot of them are drugged up. Like Trump admitted to like he had like a huge Adderall problem when he was president, which like doesn't surprise me. Oh, like how could you fall down? How do you have the energy? Right. Like you can only drink so many Red Bulls. It's like being a rock star. I mean, you know, how do you do that show every night and show up for everybody and you know. Yeah. I'll talk about that. There is like I watched this Justin Bieber documentary and they said that like his schedule is like a 15 year old with like an NFL quarterback playing the Super Bowl every night for like seven days a week and he's like 15. So like by the time he was super famous, his brain composition was like just messed up because he never got to sleep and he would go out to these parties and everybody loves him and like. I just really like his story because like by the time he turned 20, he had already had like the fame that like anyone could ever need. And he just like basically went into hiding and just like so he could like grow as a human being. Yeah. Yeah. Like he wasn't he was a second God to some of these people and like that's way too much power for any kid to have. Yeah. He was just like on lean and all sorts of like bad drugs and stuff like that just because he had so much anxiety. It's like, OK, this takes anxiety away. But oh, guess what? It's going to like ruin my brain composition to make me more anxious later. Yeah. Which is like. It's not something I'm celebrity is something again that they make seem like to look good and it's probably a certain kind of hell to live in. Yeah. No. I mean, you hear about all those people with like selling their souls, you know, to be famous. Like I definitely believe in part of that, but like there's some crazy conspiracies out there. Definitely. Like, yeah, but I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories. Like, yeah, they're just kind of like real problems in the world. Yeah. They're just kind of like garbage all the time. That's why I can't get on Reddit, though. You know what Reddit is? Yeah, no, no, I don't get on it. No. Yeah. It's like just a bunch of like basically chat rooms of conspiracy. The internet trolls all gonna live there. Yeah. Going back to OJ, there was like one Reddit chat room where like there was a huge conspiracy that like OJ's son did it. And like it just blew up on Reddit. And it was crazy. It was a few months ago, but I thought it was. Never proved we're out of the troll circle back then. Yeah, it always comes back to OJ. Yeah. Well, we're right in an hour. We did pretty good. I thought. It was fun. Yeah, it was fun. We had a lot of topics. We did. Wide ranging discussion. Wide ranging discussion for sure. Well, I hope it was helpful. We have to edit it down. Yeah. I got a lot of uh and uh and stuff. Yeah. Just talking about um. Yeah. I mean, I hope it sounds good. Yeah. We'll see. We'll give it a shot. Yeah, it was fun. At least we'll have it for later. Yeah. There you go. Thanks, Wallace. Yeah. Appreciate you coming on. All right, absolutely. Yeah. All right. Thank you. This is the three star podcast. Thanks for listening.