 Hello, this is Jason Troy. Welcome back to another episode from Executive Breakthroughs. I have a fantastic guest today, Scott Baradel. He is a CEO of IdeaGrove. They are a national PR and marketing firm working with some amazing clients and Scott has got a fantastic story. We're 30 years of experience working as a journalist on the corporate side, also has his MBA, so he has pretty much all the things covered and you know started this agency out from scratch and it was like 12 years ago, so he is going to give you a wealth of knowledge of where he's come, a lot of insights that he has, so get ready for a fantastic show. Well, welcome, Scott. Thank you for having me. Hope I can live up to that end. I'm sure that you can. So I'd love to get a little bit of your backstory to start off with to let people know, you know, where you came from. So you grew up in Virginia? Yeah, I was born in Pensacola, Florida, but moved as a small child to Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I grew up there, went to the University of Virginia. My first term as a job was at a newspaper in Virginia and then I came down to the Dallas Times Herald back when that existed and that's what brought me to Dallas back in 1989. Did you have a big family, small family? One older brother, he's seven years older. Okay. And both your parents lived with them? Yes. Yeah, we were, you know, your basic family lived in suburbs, I think, I think about Virginia Beach and what it was like. That's a, it's kind of a cool place because it's a tourist town, military town, fairly laid back, fairly blue collar, you know. So coming to Dallas, it's a little different. You know, I think that, you know, I grew up in a public school system where kids of every possible economic background were there. It didn't matter. The great majority of people, my friends, none of that mattered to people in terms of who your friends were, who you hung out with and things like that. And so I think it helped me when I got to Dallas to be a little immune to some of the kind of obsession with status that is kind of the stereotype here. But I think any place that you're at, it's all about the people who surround yourself with it. Yeah. So how did you get in, I know your first foray was in a journalism. So how did you get into that? Were you an avid reader growing up? Were you a writer? How did that sort of rear you in your school newspaper? Kind of like, how did that sort of general, what was the genesis of that? I was a small child and I'm kind of reliving this through my daughter who's my now because she's, oh, we have a lot in common in terms of what we were like at that age. She likes to draw a lot. And I was always sketching and drawing. And at a certain point, I, maybe by junior high and middle school age, I just got more interested in writing. Reading, I was always more interested in current events, news. I was an early reader of the newspaper. I wasn't a book reader. Never really got into fiction, but I really got to make history, nonfiction, time magazine. I was one of these, it's a reading time magazine in the mail. And I just enjoyed writing. And so I guess those interests kind of led to going in the direction of journalism. So I was, you know, editor of high school, you know, yearbook and captain of the debate team, you know, those kind of, it evolved to that. It had, you know, came from being interested in what was going on in the world and enjoying writing. But you didn't get a journalism degree, did you? Well, UVA does not have a journalism major. Okay. So the journalism classes are all in the part of the English department. So UVA's major. But I actually got a history major. I was in the honors history program at UVA, which is a very intensive two-year program. I studied, you know, American Southern history, which is probably not many better places to study that. Amazing, then you moved to Dallas. So of course, I think, you know, in the south. Of course, the parents are both from Mississippi. And of course, Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy and all this. I, you know, grew up with all of this joint Confederate battlefields and all that. And so a lot of, honestly, I think what drove me in history was trying to understand all this because my parents had views about race and other things that to be flew in the flight face of what felt right to me. And I think it probably led to me being a more of a questioning person, which is I think what leads people into journalism a lot of times. Questioning the conventionalism about things. And so a lot of me focusing on Southern history was trying to understand what was making these people tick. You know, why were they making decisions that hurt other people? Things like that. That's interesting to think that like how your parents viewpoints shaped what you did and, you know, and how you looked at some things and looked and, you know, look into this major that you ended up having because you could have focused on a lot of different areas. And it's interesting that you chose that. Yeah, I mean, I think we're all in one way or another. We react and respond to, you know, our generation. Of course, I mean, in most cases, people have the same religion as their parents. They have the same politics as their parents. I mean, this is statistically true. Yes, it's passed on. But in other cases, it's the opposite reaction. You reject, you know, there are a lot of people that are very anti-Catholic because they were raised in Catholic schools. And then there are people who are very, very much adherents and their children pass along. But, you know, you can have a reaction to what, in my case, you know, I just, you know, love my parents but saw a lot of contradictions to things that I disagreed with. And I think when I went into journalism, I was just into investigative reporting, finding out the truth about things. But honestly, I mean, I started with my own family. And but you have to come to terms with that, you know, and it also has helped me look at things in a more nuanced way. That, you know, everything is not pure good and evil, black and white. People make bad choices for sometimes complex reasons. And anyway, I think overall, it's led to me being fairly, I certainly have some strong political views about things. But in terms of how I treat people as individuals, to be very accepting, I guess. And I might not necessarily agree with people about things that I don't think are correct. But to... You're open to their viewpoints. To be open to listen. And listen. And so to see what's happened, that's one of the reasons why I went into and enjoyed communications, you know. And I think PR, which is where I went to when I was a corporate, can and should be a very open, honest and transparent way to, to create a dialogue. That's what I try to do. But that's what I enjoy about it. I hate that we've reached a place where, particularly with political sphere, there's so much just thoughtless, you know, as we're not thinking before we talk, just back and forth where people are not respecting... You can conveniently disagree with someone and still not, you know, dehumanize them, you know, which is what happens online today. I think what's so sad, I was doing blogging and all this stuff in 2005. And when not all the people are doing it. And I was part of all this group of people who were like, this is going to change things for the better in all these ways. In other words, these media conglomerates are not the only model we're going to be controlling the message or this or that. And if you look around 12 years later, and I think a lot of the negative things that have happened, that have been at least exacerbated by, by online behavior and social media, we thought of this as we're unanticipated. There are a lot of idealists early on that just thought, you know, if you go back to the early days, people are saying, well, this is going to eliminate the need for, you know, advertising or all these things. And the CEOs, if you can't, don't get a ghostwriter to blog for you, because if you're not blogging yourself and sitting down in front of a blog all day and you have a billy-bomb company, you're not being authentic. I mean, it kind of went from that extreme to where we've seen just this incredibly, incredibly kind of cynical takeover of a lot of what's happening online. And but there's still, it's like with anything, you pick your, pick your places. There's cycles and periods in chapters. And also, there's always enough people out there to choose who you want to work with. As clients, to choose who you want to work with as college, who you want to hang out with. So you've got to create that, you've got to create that environment where you have, where you have choice by having abundance, by working hard and doing all the things to be a leader in what you're doing. Otherwise, you can live in a world of scarcity work, then you don't really either have those choices or perceive you have those choices. Exactly. Well, you have to know what you want. A lot of people don't. That's reality. Because they have to ask the question because usually people are asking the how question instead of the why. Right. And a lot of times, you know, people will think they want to get to, they want to get to see and they don't know what the A and B is. If I have this, then I'll be happy. Well, not necessarily. You can go get that thing, but did it work? A lot of times people don't know. What's, I know I want this, which ultimately people want to be so happy, they want fulfillment, they want to feel like their life has meaning, but. But often they're not chasing that. They're actually not, they're not chasing, but they're not actually putting it out there. They're looking at a material trajectory in order to quit it. Just in a relationship. Yes. So how did you pick, how did you pick Dallas out of all the places? Because obviously- Well, they gave me a job, that's why. Okay. I guess they gave me a job. Well, I have a lot of family here. And I'm family in Dallas and Treeport. And you know, my parents passed away some time ago and really almost all my family was in this area. And a very diverse group. We've got some folks who, some family in Treeport that have been really prominent in public service in Louisiana, in politics, and in Dallas family members who are just big, extremely religious families, very conservative. And just kind of just a big mix of people who- A melting pot. Yeah, all of which I love dearly and I like to be around them and stuff like that. So I've always been, I guess, you know, and politically I tend liberal. And, but it's never been a problem for me. And I've actually always preferred to be in the South in places that were more conservative because I just like the interchange. I like to have a healthy dialogue. Yeah. I like to be kept in check, you know. So I like Dallas a lot. I love it here. I wouldn't have stayed if I didn't. How'd you make the jump from journalism to going to corporate? Because that was the next big jump. So what was your mindset like? Did journalism just run out of steam for you? Did you not see a path forward? And then why corporate versus anything else at the time? Well, the truth is I had some real highs in newspaper journalism, some stories I was really proud of. I love coming up with story ideas, which is the main thing I still do today for clients is coming up with a story that someone besides them has been caring about, you know, that could be validated and reading. And then that stuff can be used in your marketing too. That's all about leadership. That's what we do. And I was enjoying that probably from a high school yearbook on, you know, and in journalism, I've loved being that it didn't matter to me if I started and working night tops and listening to police scanner because I was coming up with story ideas that were gonna that were ending up in the front page, you know. I remember one time I was, I wanted to have, I had an idea for doing story on spring break in South Country Island. This is when I first got to Dallas and they were like, we're not gonna pay for you to go to South Country Island. And my friend and I wanted to go anyway. And I said, well, okay, that's fine. But so I'll just take some vacation. I went down there. And I just, I wanted to do a story about it was really kind of a, it was really kind of a mischief is kind of an idea to begin with. I wanted to go to some of these areas of debauchery and to talk to people about religion. Because I went part of my beat was I was covering religion for the times Harold. And I wanted to talk to them about their religious views when they're in this setting, when they're doing beer bongs and wet t-shirt contest and everything else. And when I first got there, I went to, to what t-shirt contest and there was a band there. There's something rude or something. And I remember seeing the band there and saw the interview with people, interviewed the winner of the contest. The whole thing was kind of funny. And so I was doing it all in a comical vein. And then, so the next morning we went to, there's one church Baptist church on South Padre. I believe it's called Island Baptist Church. I'm not remembering this from 30 years ago. I remember that was 25. And I went, so I went, my buddy and I, you see mad, and you're taking me, we're with the South Padre, you're taking me to church. So we went to, to this Island Baptist Church, watch the service. And you know what they do in Baptist churches. I was raised Methodist, so I've been to the Baptist Church, as you know, is at the end of the service, they'll say, don't, don't call people forward if they're ready to, to accept Christ. And so I'm just sitting there and this guy walking by me in his swimsuit. Seriously. It was the drama from the band. The drama from the band, I'd see. So I interviewed him. And you know what we did? I had to go back because my vacation was over. And I found out this guy, I talked to a priest pastor of this church. This guy was going to get baptized. They baptized him in the water, in the ocean or the Gulf. And so I went up there. I went back to, to, I wrote the story of the way back. I got there, the, the, the city editors like, okay, first we'll pay for your trip. So, so they retroactively paid for my vacation. And then they, they paid to sit at a photographer down there to, to do a whole photo essay on the baptism in the water. Front page, Sunday paper, taking up like almost three quarters above the fold. That was those moments were priceless, right? I mean, it felt like such an accomplishment because every aspect about creativity, I feel like you're doing a public service, the feeling that you prove someone wrong, you know, that something is interesting, even though they thought it wasn't. That's what I loved about journalism. And why I left journalism is that there weren't enough of those moments ultimately compared to other things. After the times Harold closed, the truth is, you know, I ended up working for Bilo, which owned the Dallas Morning News. And they're the ones that took, took a record ball to the, to the building of the Dallas Times Herald after, after they bought it. But the Dallas Morning News didn't believe in that kind of journalism. It's the truth. Never has. The Dallas Times Herald took more chances. So what I just described in a million years couldn't have happened at the Dallas Morning News. And so I didn't want to work there. I just thought it was, they had had a editor named Bro Osport, who really accomplished great guy, but he was, you know, he'd come from AAP and was very much, everything needs to be done a certain way. Got it. And even to the, they had a strategy that they wanted all of their columnists to not be these Mike Royco types that are just out there, you know, raising a machine. They wanted, you know, people who were kind of milk toast, you know, kind of, let's have someone who's mildly interesting and amusing, but who's not going to make waves. That was, that was the strategy. It's not an offensive to criticism of the individual journalists and columnists because they were asked to do that job. So I didn't want to work there. I like Dallas. I didn't really want to move somewhere else. At that point, this was 1990, in the beginning of 1992. So I already kind of saw the writing on the wall in terms of where newspapers were going. So I went over to the Dallas Observer and I worked there for a few months. Just didn't like it. I felt like it had been bought by New Times, which also was about Village Boys. They've been the leader in terms of alternative publications, but I just felt like nobody was reading it. And it was kind of, I was working really hard on these stories. And I thought I did some of my best stories for the Dallas Observer. I thought, the only people who are reading this are, you know, people that are looking for a restaurant or something to go to, or they're people that are already have the same political views. So you're preaching the choir, which like I was saying before, that's not of interest to me. That's just not of interest to me. So I tried to freelance for a while and honestly ended up in my first corporate job out of needing to eat. So it wasn't like a conscious transition to meet some higher level goals. It was like, gosh, I'm really struggling to enjoy or making up money being a freelancer. So I had a friend who had left opposition at a financial services firm doing marketing and PR for them. And when he left, he put in a good word for me and that's how I started the corporate side. And obviously you had a lot of skill sets going into that job. And so as you're doing this job for a while, you get towards the end of it and you realize, okay, this isn't the job for me either. And what led you then to say, I need to leave? To leave corporately. Yeah. Well, I was in corporate for a long time though. So it wasn't anything that happened in a short period of time. I mean, honestly, the first year and a half at this financial services firm, it was, I was really, I just, you go into journalism, everything that was going on in business, I had never taken a business course. I studied history. I'm looking at this and it all seemed very absurd. I had no idea why people were working in a corporate setting at all. I mean, I was looking at it like a Dilbert kind of thing. I just did not get it at all. And so I had to say, well, do I want to go back to journalism or do I want to find my place here? And so after this financial services firm, I went to a company in BB Tech, a page in that back when there was a page in history, wireless communications and data infrastructure. And that's where I started to fight a place for myself. They sent me to SMU for business school, which really helped round me out and make me feel more comfortable and to understand how all the parts fit together in a business from IT to accounting and finance and being able to speak everyone's language to some degree. I mean, MBA really helped with that. But after that, I went in, went to Bevo and I was VP of Corporate Communications there. I worked there for three years, but I just realized that it was, I had a chronic challenge with all the pieces coming together in these corporate jobs. In other words, as I was telling you before, I just felt like I just had this moment when I was looking at moving from Bevo to another role, all the things that would have to work out, you know, you have to like the industry, you have to like the work you're going to do, you have to have a story to tell in PR and WAC and writing for a company. You have to like your boss, you have to get along with your colleagues. It's really hard to, it's like a jigsaw puzzle, you know, to make all those pieces fit, at least that's what I was finding. And even if they do fit together at one moment, they can change and if one of those pieces changes, it can set everything in a different trajectory and how you view it, which is the challenge of working in a corporate setting. Yeah, or just working for somebody else in general. That's true. And, you know, like at Payton, I was there for six years and they had three very different regimes during that six years with three different CEOs. And, you know, the first CEO, I was enjoying it there. The second CEO, everything changed a lot. I was looking and I'm not taking anything. And then another CEO came in. He's the one who sent me the MBA and it was just totally, but ultimately, yeah, in a sense, you're, a lot of things are in someone else's hands. And I think why a lot of people end up going out of their own, becoming an entrepreneur is they want to have more control over those things. Did you have any mentors through this period of time in your life up to, you know, from growing up to, you know, where you were at, you know, when you decided to leave the corporate setting? Do you have any people, someone that you went to to get advice from or to bounce ideas off of from or were modeling after or something? I don't think so. I mean, I had, I had known some people that were contractors or freelancers, but no one who would, who had started an agency or anything. You know, I knew that my, like my dad was an architect, but he worked for a small architecture firm and he would just come home and just so exasperated about his boss and stuff. And he was always going to be like, I'm going to buy it out. So I saw that, but, but he was never able to do that. And he Did that have any effect on you? In retrospect, yeah, he was like a very shy person and extremely introverted, painfully so, very smart and talented as an architect. But, but, you know, he could never sell or some of the other things you need to do in business. So it probably made, I think I'm, I know I'm, I'm naturally introverted as well. But I, do you have extroverted tendencies than though more? Or do you do that out of? I do it because you have to. I've learned to do it because it helped me to get things that I wanted in life in terms of things that I enjoy doing. You have, if you don't ask, you don't get right. And early on, for example, in corporate jobs, I was, you know, a very good writer. I loved writing, but I realized that would get you some foreign company corporate job. You're setting a low ceiling for yourself. So you have to be able to persuade people. Do you have any advice for people that are introverted that like when it comes to things like that, because a lot of times people are introverted, believe that, you know, asking for things and, you know, taking on some extroverted tendencies at times is really outside their comfort zone and something that they don't want to do, don't know how to do. So what advice would you give to someone who's in a situation like that, who, you know, feels like their voice isn't being heard or they're not able to really express themselves? Well, I think there's a difference between being, you know, introverted and being, you know, painfully shy or awkwardly shy. Because I've been both and I know the difference. Okay. The best definition I've heard of introvert versus extrovert is that an introvert is someone who they go to a party or they go to a network, you go do this, and they can go and do a great job of doing what they're trying to do in that setting. But then when they leave, they're exhausted, you know, completely exhausted. And the extrovert does that and they come out, they're like, what do we do next? Because they were so pumped up, it gave them energy, whereas with an introverted nature. So, and I understand that about myself. So I just need time to recharge. You know, what I do, one thing that I do every day, just about is I go to lunch by myself and just, I've got four kids, nine and under. So I've got family, business, people have needs, talking to people and trying to solve problems with things here. But if I don't have that time to recharge, I'm going to be, you know, useless to everyone. I mean, I'm literally, it was always the kind of person who would spend the whole weekend by myself and have a great time, you know, just go biking, watch a movie. And I was completely fine with that. So to be, have found myself in a situation which I love of having a family and it's business and everything. I just have to remember that I will not be able to do it if I don't. The managing your time. I don't carve out time is important and carve out that time. It's like my wife needs to go out with her friends and I'm like, you do that. I need to just be completely by myself for this period of time, or I will have a meltdown. And then it's communicating with those around you that you need that, right? Not just doing it. It's also telling people that this is a requirement for me in my life in order to be successful and happy is to carve out some time where I have to spend it by myself, not because I don't want to be around you, but that's just who I am. Right. So I would say in terms of being introverted, you can be, I would say about an agency where most of the people are introverts. And you don't think about what PR, but I think a lot of people are really smart and into B2B tagging. And they're, most of our leaders are, I would say introverts, but they're not painfully shy. They learn to do what they need to do in business and communications to be effective. So that's a different challenge. So I would say for someone who's painfully shy, so I had tremendous fear of speaking. Okay. Where, how'd you move beyond that then? First with medication. Seriously? No, seriously. I literally, when I started, I started getting asked to speak back when, well a little bit, when I was at PageNet, just wireless, it'd take off so much, but mostly when I started my blog, I would get asked to speak at these events. And literally, it's one of those things where your heart is coming out of your chest. You've got all these physical symptoms. You can't think about anything else. You cannot think straight because of this. And so my doctor told me about data blockers, which are something these little bills you can take, propranolol, tongue twister. I mean, it's generic, it's about 10 bucks per pharmacy, right? And, and so I would just pop on before I spoke. And it calms all those physical symptoms and allowed me to not do great, but at least be able to think straight so I could go through. And I'd still be reading too much and all these things that bad speakers do, but at least I could get through it. And then from that point, I think it was repetition. To a certain point, I didn't need Facebook. I had done it enough, but I felt comfortable with it. So I think ultimately where I've like the advice I would give people, I've sent people to groups like the Toastmasters, at least kind of groups that will help you. Communispon is a group club, I think it's still around that I've done and had people do training with speaking communications and things. But ultimately for me, and why, just for me personally, it's much easier to start a business at this stage in my life rather than earlier, is I'm someone who really needs to feel mastery over things before I can speak confidently about not everyone's like that. I'm not saying that's ideal. I don't think you should need that. That's a pretty high bar. I'm also not saying that I know everything because I'm possibly learning, realizing things that I need to learn. But there's I over time, particularly for the things that we do as an agency, I've learned a lot. I know a lot. And because of that, it's been like, you know a lot of this stuff. Why aren't you sharing it? And particularly when you get out of this corporate setting where you're going to make a recommendation to the CEO and you're like, is he going to get mad at me or whatever, I have the freedom since I'm a consultant and I have an agency. It's like you came to me for advice. And if the advice is what you're doing is all wrong. And I think it's a terrible idea what you want to do. And this is what you need to do. And here's why, you know, being in this environment gives me the freedom to do that. And I feel like I'm not doing, I always hated when I was at the corporate side, when I had any agencies, it was just like going to the psychologist, you know, the person in the agency, I'd say, what do you think about this? And they say, what do you think? It's like, what do you think we should do? Well, what do you think we should do? You know, because it was always like, I'm just going to tell you what I think is going to get us our retainer for one more month, as opposed to, you know what, I'm going to tell you what I think is best for you. And if you don't like it, I'm going to tell you where I think you're wrong. If you don't like it, well, okay. But isn't that the glue that builds great relationship? Because that's a trust, right? Because it's trust and authenticity. Because that's what people want the most, right? I mean, that's otherwise, you're not giving really someone. They say they want it, but some clients don't want it. Well, it's true. And if clients don't want it, then I'll do one of two things, you know, we'll just put some junior people on the relationship and have them just do some practical implementation, or we'll cut ties all together. Because what we do, and what we do as a group with the full breadth of everyone we have here, is we've assembled a lot of talent expertise that is being wasted if you're looking for arms and legs. We charge too much to be arms and legs for anybody. So if you're not going to listen to our advice, and by the way, it doesn't come off the cuff we do, we have a methodology to do lots of research with your buyers. A methodology for research within your industry and of your competitors. And it works, you know. But that builds raising, that builds your clients as raving fans, which then is much easier to get more clients over time because they're huge advocates for you. And especially if someone decides to do a client reference, they're getting people that are much more excited about you and telling a story which is way different than someone who's just telling someone else what they want to hear, right? In a much more deep, passionate story about someone. And so that actually then allows you to be way more successful and the people here to be able to find their own purpose and their own passion and determination because they're working for people where that's something that matters. Right, right. And if you don't do it that way and insist on having that higher strategic value, you become a time and material shop, you know, and you're putting a low ceiling on what your value is. Because you don't have boundaries. Yeah. I think about, you know, what my dad could have achieved with all his talents and abilities if he hadn't been hindered so much by his shyness. And why do you think that he didn't, why do you think that he didn't take the steps that you ended up taking, right? Because I think that's important for people because we're trying to share a mastery on here. And it's, you know, your dad obviously was a smart person and he was successful. But where you took shyness and then just took it head on and said, I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do this because I need to. He didn't. And in a sense, that was wasted talent. I don't know. And maybe he just didn't have, I think it was a different hero. I think it's easier now to self-diagnose an issue and to try to tackle it than it was back like in the 70s. You know, you didn't have, I think, the sources of information, you know. And maybe the support system. Yeah, I don't think he did. I think that today, you know, if you, also, I think today, beyond his situation, you know, today, increasingly, you have to have powers of persuasion to be successful. You know, at a level beyond what was the case back then. I'll give you one example, which is one client I worked with early on when I started was a historic photography agency on the York Hill Black Star. They brought interesting digression is that Life Magazine, you know, they recall was famous for its photojournalism from the 1930s and 40s. What a lot of people don't know is this great photojournalism. Yeah, they made these old Life Magazine coffee table books. I mean, there's been nothing like that. It was a golden era of photojournalism. Most of that, or much of that photography was done by German Jews who had fled German. Because the first precursor to Life Magazine was or some photojournalism magazines and publications that were coming up in Germany produced by German Jews. And they fled and they brought that to to the US, but they couldn't go to Life Magazine and ask for a job because they couldn't speak English. And so Mike, I had a client that's been around since 1935 called Black Star and they translated. They literally had some businessmen who were Jewish who could speak German and English and, you know, they were an intermediary and they were the first big photo agency in supplying Life Magazine and all the big news outlets back in the day with just great photography. Well, in any case, that's been family owned for decades and decades and decades. Obviously, a lot has changed. They've gone through different modes and different ways of just kind of re-creating themselves. But back in 2006, I guess one of the execs there was reading my blog and contacted me and wanted me to create a blog for them. And we conceived it as a guest blog where photographers would be solicited to write for it. And all of that brings me back to the original point, which was all of these, there was a time when all of these newspaper photographers who had been in these kind of comfy staff photographer positions in a matter of two or three years, they all lost their jobs. I mean, newspapers and magazines, big, I mean, staff photographers, that became an endangered species in a very short period of time. All of these photographers are like, oh, I just like to take pictures. I don't want to, I'm not a business person. Well, suddenly they're on the street and they're like, how do I make a living? And there was no other job for them. So what this blog ended up being about principally was how to make it. In other words, you had to have these powers of frustration. You had to go become a wedding photographer, how to do that, how to go get business that way, or whatever other paths, it was going to require you to not just wait for someone to say, here's your assignment, go take this picture, because that model had exploded. And I just think in general, if you look at sector by sector by sector economy, whether you're a writer or whatever you are, you just can't expect to go find a job somewhere and blend in, blend into the woodwork. I mean, you have to be an advocate for yourself and often you have to go out and do business. So what would you recommend is like the maybe top couple things and when it comes to being persuasive, that people would need to keep in mind or to try to master or learn? Well, I think there's different ways of going about it. I was watching the founder last night, have you seen that the Ray Kroc story? Yes. And that's one way to go. Ray Kroc, for those who don't know, he was very persuasive, right? He was a very dishonest business person. He screwed out McDonald's. Yeah, Ray Kroc was the person who found the original McDonald's restaurant, which was created by two brothers, Mac and Jim McDonald, and they came up with this kind of conveyor belt system and none of that had existed before. And he came in and took it and as a great salesperson of the time, blew it out. But he ultimately ended up swindling these guys and stealing the McDonald's and even their name out from under them. They couldn't even use their own name in the restaurant after that. So it was a story of kind of a ruthless capitalist, ruthless business person. And he was obviously able to persuade. But that doesn't work for me. I mean, I feel like you persuade with knowledge and honesty, transparency. I know there's all kinds of different ways to persuade. So what do you mean by knowledge? Do you mean that you need to master I mean, you need to know what you're talking about. Because people are pretty good about spotting in someone's folder. Not always, as we've learned. But I think that I think that being confident about what you know, honest about what you don't, and just being direct with people, but not in a way that's ever insulting or hopeful or condescending, I don't know, it's just kind of, I didn't have a magic formula for it. It's just something that I kind of learned over time because I started out in a reporting role where you had to get information out of people. But sometimes it was confrontational and sometimes because of the nature of the job and felt a little manipulative. Those are some things I didn't really like about being in this big report. Anyway, over time, I just found a style that worked for me. But I would say that I try, what people have told me, because I end up being, I end up basically being the salesperson for idea growth most of the time. I've had help from folks here from time to time, but it's never a full time person that just does that. And I'm not a naturally good salesperson because kind of all of the math, but they sense a natural enthusiasm. So I think you need enthusiasm too. I think people can usually tell when it's real, as opposed to rehearsed or I'm just showing this enthusiasm because I'm enthusiastic about getting your money. No, I'm enthusiastic about this, it's just what we're doing and how it can help you. Or in our case, since we work in B2B tech, and a lot of these industries are very complex. And even people that work at these companies, a lot of times think they're boring. And a lot of times I'll just start talking with a company and 80% of the conversation will be asking them about them. And I'll find something in there for someone else here on the team. Find something in there that just is fascinating to me. And I just started probing on that. And sometimes it's something they've just never even thought about. And they realize, oh, you're already doing what you're saying you're going to do for us, which is to find those compelling stories and narratives and then go blow them out and tell people. So that's kind of just kind of a combination. Which is key because right, so I think being persuasive for you is having knowledge about it, really understanding it, being able to be honest with people and then create and be enthusiastic about it. And all that underlies is building trust with someone so you can really be direct and have a real conversation. And I think that's what they want in business. And I think the other part which you mentioned is the listening part is so important. That's what people don't do because that builds a lot of likability. And also people don't listen because they're too busy talking. And then you can't really help people because you don't understand them where they're coming from. You can't show empathy. And in a situation like that, you can do both, right? Because you can pull out the nuggets and that came from all of your history of storytelling and putting all these stories together, of being inquisitive. So that's like a natural strength. So if you can get in there and listen, I mean, that's when you shine the most. And you've been training your whole life at that point when you get that level of interaction. Yes, that whole thing that we talk about people who are just, they're not listening they're just waiting for their chance to talk. And we all fall into that. I'm guilty of it sometimes. Everybody is. But it's something I try to help the kids with because kids naturally do that. But it's a funny thing happened last night. And my wife got so mad because my daughter told her a little bit. But we had our, the man who helps us was going through some stuff and car trouble and different things. And so Mary was going through a whole story with, with my daughter about, you know, this and the car and then Julie had was listening to all this, like she's listening. And she says, well, am I going to get to dance practice tomorrow? Like, wait a minute, you just got this whole story about all this stuff that Manny's having to deal with. And your response as well is she could take me to dance practice or not, you know, and I think people are like that, you know, you don't have to be nine to be, to make that mistake. Yes, all the time. And I couldn't dance. What about me? So I want to get back to talking about how you started this agency because it's easy to look at you now having a big agency really successful, but you started this basically out of your basement in your house. I mean, you didn't have any clients to start with. So how did this whole genesis come about? Like, good. And also, it was being an entrepreneur. And how did you like figure out that you wanted to do that? Because it didn't sound like you would, you know, before not really been an entrepreneur. I mean, I guess in some sense, it's being a journalist, you're having to investigate and get into for a new ground, but not is in starting a business. Yeah. Honestly, the truth is, I just kind of fell into it a little bit because so having not ever worked at an agency, I didn't know what it what to expect, what it was like, except for being on the corporate side of having agencies that I work with. I had an agency in Dallas that was my annual report vendor at Bilo and did some other design work for us called Eisenberg Associates. That's still around. Arthur Eisenberg and Rob Huckles, who later came to work with me at Year Grove, Amy Miller, who we just brought on as a digital counter, I started out at Eisenberg. When I left, they were kind of my own, my thread to kind of get started. So I didn't really know how to get started. I just knew that I wanted to try something else. I didn't want to just go in for another corporate job. I decided to not try to look into just other things happen. The tail end at Bilo, my mom got sick and passed away. So I was in Virginia for over a month just being with her. That's one of those situations where you take stock, of course. Your mortality, you look at your own mortality in a new way. What conclusions did you come to that all these things happening at once? Because often it's a confluence moments or hitting a rock bottom that starts us on a new trajectory and a new path. What was going through your head and emotions? Were you feeling that? Well, anyone whose mother's passed away. There's nothing quite like that. We all go through it at some point. I think I guess you are, it just puts you in a more, not everyone reacts the same way to everything, but it puts you in a more open place to not staying in the same patterns that you were in or doing the same things you would do. And I also didn't feel like I wanted, I was ready to. I think when after that, I didn't feel this urgency that I have to get a bunch of clients right away or all that. And financially that wasn't great because I was going through savings, but I just didn't feel mentally or emotionally right. I kind of wanted to not be working at that point. And so it kind of gave me space to think and to do that. And so I kind of took my time with it a little bit. I let things come to me. That's kind of been my story in a lot of ways is letting things come to me. And so Eisenberg, you know, I told them, hey, I'm around. They knew I did all the writing when we weren't together. So they said, would you like to do some, be a contract for us, do some writing. So I wrote, just wrote for a couple clients, one of those clients, bank tech, which is still around and worked with us for many years, was bought recently by a company called Source HIV. They're a PPO company. They contact me about doing PR for them. Because they really liked the, we hadn't worked before at all. I didn't know anybody there, but they really liked the writing I had done on this project for Eisenberg. It led to my first PR retainer, PR and writing creator. I was doing PR. Most of my clients, I would do PR and write their writing. And you led with your strength at that time, too, being copywriting because, right, because it was your strength. So that was actually naturally ideal because you got to show who you were and express yourself with what talent that you had mastered for a long time. And I tied that to something greater, which was substance, because one of the things that drove me crazy about agencies is they didn't ever learn your business well enough to write about it well. I hated that. I hated that. Literally every agency I ever worked with, including some that I really liked, and I have good friends from them, but they never were able, with their business models or whatever, I always took the writing back myself. I just said, you go pitch because I didn't think it wasn't up to what I thought it needed to be. And and so the first stake in the ground, I think it had in terms of what I wanted to do is I wasn't going to take the client. I wasn't doing their writing. So from Bank Deck from the beginning, I was doing their PR, but I was writing their white papers. I was writing their sales kits. I was doing this for them because I saw how those things fit together, the storytelling and what you take to the media. And and I think that I've never been, it's never my favorite thing to pitch to the media, but I always thought everyone talks and thinks, I just thought PR is about who you take to launch and who you schmooze with. I thought it's about who you go to a story with. You know, I had a lot of relationships in journalism because I was one. But first time you go to a friend of yours and pitch them a crappy story, they're going to feel like you're taking advantage. Yes. So and if you pitch a good story to someone who doesn't know you, they're going to get to know you, right? So that's what, again, I just led with that, what I like doing. And it led from and then about that same time in February 2005, right after I started, I started my blog. And literally within six months, I was getting leads, business leads to the blog. It would be a little bit here and there, early clients, I might be getting two grand a month form plastic surgeon or this or that. But little by little, I got up to a good, just a good living that was I rise making as much or more than my executive job at Vivo. Very happy doing that. I did that for five years. Just working actually was that we had a one and a half story house. And the top half story was my office. And that's I did that for five years like that. And I just at a certain point, decided, you know, gosh, I really have enjoyed this, but I'm kind of maxed out and spending as many hours as a day like him doing this. And because it's just me, I'm having to do it all myself. And so do I want to be doing this in another 10 years? It might get a little boring. And I've kind of topped out I think in terms of what I can charge for this. Unless I wanted to take myself to a place of just being some high level consultant, you know, I like doing the work though, I always like doing the work. So I met my with my friend Rob Huckles from iceberg days. And, you know, we basically partnered up I brought him in to help me take idea growth to the next level where we could open an office and start to hire people and stuff because his his expertise was in operations and new business development management people. And I wanted to focus on the work and the business model, which is a great separation because a lot of times when people partner, they partner for the wrong reasons. They don't partner someone with complementary strengths, right? And you found someone that actually that had the strengths that you didn't have. And then you could focus on yours and he could focus on what he was doing. And then you could end up growing this business successfully. And there was, you know, there's always overlap at some level. But, you know, there's probably seems like very little unaware your core expertise was going a lot, right? It's like, and that's that's those are opportunities that come up that you you have to to identify and grasp. I don't know if I hadn't recognize that because he had he had just gotten out of a job and he was thinking about going out was on I said, you know what, as you said, we've got complementary skills. I also saw, just as I was doing PR and content together and are always done that, I saw the visual and web design integrated with that. And that was his background from Isenberg, they were designed for him. So that's where for that integration. But you also had the relationship to I think the key pieces key pieces that is you've got to start building these relationships today, because you never know where they're going to bear fruit. And it's sort of like I told people it's like Johnny Apple seed, you've got to lay down a lot of seeds because you don't know which one's going to sprout into a big tree. But at some point, it will. Right. And that's what happened, right? If you wouldn't have met him and spent the time with him that opportunity and having him there wouldn't have been because he wouldn't have been around or trusted you enough to take that leap of faith in order to deal with you. Right. Well, that's true. So yeah, so that's that's kind of how we, you know, we got started. Did you ever get any take outside money or just all bootstraps from? No, I never did. In fact, to this day, we've never done any outbound marketing really tight. So we've never spent a lot on advertising or anything. So all the growth has been we talked about eating our own dog food. Every bit of business we've ever gotten has been either through referral or through people finding us online through on search online visibility. It's been either through online marketing slash PR or everyone, you know, and non paid. Well, from what happened just by accident, I'd love to just say it was all planned. But when there was a period of time in 2005 2006, when my blog was pretty popular, it was popular among other PR people and marketers who were blogging at the time mostly. And then just kind of trying out this new thing and trying to feel the potential of it. So I became really good friends with people like Todd Deffrin, who had bought and really blew out shift communications that was recently bought last year, very successful agency. And he had just come up with he came up with this thing that got him on the map who had the social media pressure release and just different things like that. So it was all it was kind of petri dish kind of thing was fun. And but the blog got popular. And as a result, if you started searching for things like Dallas PR firms and things, I did just popped up the top of the list over all the big agencies in town. And I started getting calls. And probably I knew enough to, you know, to slap title tags on my homepage, that's a Dallas PR firm and things like that. But a lot of it just happened naturally from producing content that was getting links, because we were getting links from, you know, Gawker, Huffington Post, you know, time, I mean, literally it was it was early days and the blog was popular. So what do you think about blogging today? Preferably, not only extremely relevant, hyper relevant. We tell all our clients, you know, get as focused as possible on who you're going after, you do not have to go with with, you know, if someone asked you what your target vertical is, do not say all of them, you know, pick one, pick one, pick two, don't pick six, you know, because it's just not going to work unless you're a really big company with a massive marketing budget. So pick your battles, pick where you're going to focus. And then if you can do things like it's really easy to use, there are there are organizations that I'm not talking about survey monkey or something. I'm talking about organizations that you could do panel surveys to to come up with stories that are data based, because there's so much content out there. Yes, biggest problem with blogging is a bunch of useless crap out there, right? There's literally millions of articles. And you don't want to be part of that. Six tips to blah, blah, blah, or the three biggest mistakes and how to avoid them and how many times have people seen all these now, dig into your subject matter in a level of detail where those that small group of people, in many cases, that's the case in the tech that that are interested in that will come back. And in a few just invest a little bit in having some original data and some things to give that content value beyond this is what I think, then then you're gonna you'll get traction. So I think the blogging is very valuable. I would say it's very difficult with a blog to do what you could do 10 years ago just because it's so heavily saturated. So what everyone needs to be doing is looking at the next thing. And what is what what is the next thing right now for people to do, you know, especially in B2B, you know, communications or technology, where is the next forefront that's really opening up that people should start looking in, investing in, trying out? Well, I think it's different for for different businesses. I'll just give you an example or two. But but so for us overall, I'd say the biggest single change is where we integrate visual into everything. So when we design site, whatever we do, our content folks and our creatives, it's like, you know, Lynn and McCartney, it's it's words and music and really has to be collaborative. But you can't just throw a bunch of stock images out there. You have that meaningful imagery, animation video that to connect, because it's falling away from words. Now your words have to be, you have to be very concise in your choice of words and purposeful in a way that I didn't think had to be before, in the same way. And so I think just this kind of embracing all of it to tell your story is been a huge trend. But but I was going to say that in the same way that you could say, you know, the blogging is is saturated. You could say obviously the same thing about email marketing. So to use that example, email open rates are not what they used to be. They're not today, on average, what they were a year ago, and a year ago, they weren't what they were two years ago. So you have to look at that. That doesn't mean you stop doing email marketing. You just have to realize that as an arrow in your quipper, it's not as powerful as it was. More and more people are are using messaging to communicate rather than email. So whether that's, I mean, take your pick in terms of all the different messaging from from snapchat to tools for that are being used in business. It's the percentage the amount of communications that's happening in that way versus through email, that's the shift. So I think right now, there's huge opportunity for marketers to figure out how to get in there. Because if you can get in there early, before everyone's figured it out, you're going to have that first mover or early mover advantage. And so I just think every new thing that comes out, there's so many that right, that's the challenge. And you can you can you can make a bad choice. That's why everyone wants to stick to Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, right. But and a lot of companies invested big in Google Plus. And now the thing why did I invest a lot of Google Plus, for example, right? Well, that's just part of the deal. I made lots of bad investments. I didn't have a ton of money to invest. But when I was trying to figure out, like, I'll just give you one example. I was very late to Twitter, either using myself or using I say very late, I got on in 2008. But for me, I think that's what it was. All my all the the geeks that were in blogging with me in 2005, I know that most of them were on Twitter a year before I was, I just resisted. Like, I don't need another thing. I also didn't really like Facebook, because Facebook started, you know, behind the wall, it's like, well, it's not even searchable. Why don't care about Facebook? And then of course, as soon as, you know, they open it up to search engines and open up to everybody. You're like, wow, that was that's it was instantly the most massive thing. And so there are things like that that, you know, I guess, compared to most agencies in Dallas, we were early on, but I felt late on because the people that I was kind of in contact with were doing all these things. But then they also did, I had people invested a ton of time in things like Second Life. At the time, Second Life is kind of a virtual reality kind of social network. And there were people, a lot of people, big influencer, like, this is going to be the biggest thing. You know, so like Donald Trump will be sending his messages through Second Life. Well, and it didn't happen. That never happened. So there have been a lot of those. I was a big fan of dig, which of course went away. And now it's Reddit. And at the same time, there was another site that was hugely popular at the time. And friends with Drew Curtis, who's the founder of it, called FARC. It was this community that was mail oriented. But this new sharing community, Drew actually ran for governor of Kentucky. I don't know, he didn't do that well, but he was out here, the serious candidate. But he was this was this kind of fun site that had a ton of, hadn't heard of FARC? Had huge traffic in like the, it was like a blog before there was a blog, but it was this, it was like a different kind of format for a dig like community. And as opposed to how dig or a Reddit was formed, it actually looked a little bit like Reddit. It's still out there. It's still, he hasn't changed it much. It's just in terms of relative to what's out there. He used to be an 800 pound gorilla in that, in that space. So I decided, you know what? And this is about the same time Twitter was coming out, you know, I'm going to create a FARC like community for PR people and creatives and be sharing news of interest through this vehicle and start a community. And I thought if I build this community, that would have 10 times the impact that just writing a blog was going to have. Because I saw that more and more people were coming into blogging and I saw like each blog I'm writing, the relative, the relative impact was less. So I wanted to do that next thing. So I invested, well for me it was a lot, I probably invested $20,000 in to get this whole thing off the ground. I called it spend ticket at the time. And it was just being kind of this quirky community, but I was really trying to build some scale with it. And I had some, some pretty influential folks who participated here and there, but I realized gosh, it's so hard to get to a scale with this. So I really, I tried to create my own social community and invested a lot of time and effort in it. Abandoned basically in a lot of ways the blog to do that. And it failed. You know, it failed. I never, I had fun with that, but I never built a scale with it. And you've got to be willing to try that. I didn't like, you know, get down and out about it. I thought crap, I wasted my money, but I learned from it. So you just can't always know. So I guess that the answer to your question is you have to try this trial. Like I got very involved in Google pause. And then when I saw not best use of my time, not best use of my client's money, I've gone back and forth on things like Quora. So Quora is one that came on gangbusters as a, you know, it's, it's not a natural thought leadership platform in social. Um, and at first, you know, it was all gangbusters and then it's all LinkedIn answers, but then LinkedIn answers went away. And now, you know, Quora has been able to, you know, get, you know, very high profile interviews with, you know, doing, doing, doing Quora. It's, it's emerged as it's in the top, I believe it's in the top 100 sites in the country now in terms of visits. So it's something that's always evolving. I think you need to be fluid in figuring out, particularly since I have to be a steward of our clients. So part of it is really understanding not only what to do, but when to kill it. Right. And I was listening and I've been listening to some entrepreneurs and they say it's more important, um, you know, angel investors and VCs to be able to figure out when to kill something, when to then to actually move forward with it, because the opportunity cost is actually higher. So I think that it's like holding onto a stock. I've done that, you know, man, a stock that I kept thinking I bought it at a point and then I let it, it went all the way to zero. I just thought it went all the way to zero. So I want to switch gears a second and ask you kind of last question on leadership. Yeah. You know, you work with a lot of successful, you know, CEOs and other influencers and have been around a lot of people, you know, what do you think constitutes, you know, a great leader versus a good leader? Like what do they do that really separates them out from the rest? Cause I think a lot of people are here figuring out, okay, how can I take, you know, one aspect is taking my leadership ability to the highest levels? Like what things do I need to be thinking about and embodying when I'm doing that? And I think you have a pretty unique insight because you're working with all of these people across a lot of industries for a long period of time that have been in influential situations and you've seen, you know, you know, good, bad and best, and how would you sort of characterize that? What advice would you give or things that you see that really stick out from people that are, you know? Yeah. I mean, I guess I would say you, the best leaders, well, there's, there's leaders and managers, right? And there's leadership in terms of being a visionary of being able to make things happen, understand how to build a successful business. But leadership in terms of the people side comes down to inspiring people to want to be part of what you're doing. And that comes down to having a story that you're telling too. They want to be part of that narrative of what you're trying to do and why, where you came from, where you're trying to go and why something. I mean, how do you get someone to be a part of that narrative? There's persuasion of, you know, I'm Barack Obama and I am the best speaker on the planet and I can, you know, move people to tears with my words and make them feel I want to be part of that. And then there's the level of persuasion that I think George W. Bush was known to have, where he wasn't a very good speaker, but he was known for being really good with people one-on-one, really projecting the sincerity and not putting on a nurse and just being a guy. Yes. Even though he came from a, you know, a very wealthy family, very powerful family, he was that when he was one-on-one. So forget the politics, different politicians, but both of those skills are incredibly important. You know, I, the newspaper in Virginia was the Lynchburg paper. So I got to know Jerry Falwell a little bit. Jerry Falwell, fundamentalist Christian leader, he started the whole religious rite during Reagan era. Hugely. You know what? I did stories. Sometimes I'm very critical stories about his university, Liberty University, which a lot of kids from Texas who are religious or conservative Baptist will go to. And he was always so nice to me. It didn't matter what I wrote. And not only that, but everyone I ever talked to were students at his school. And he had, at the time, over between 10 and 20,000 students. I don't know how many he was, I don't know how much exactly he was. He remembered all their names. He was one of those people who meets you, and then he remembers your name. That, that builds. That's, that's a leader. Not everyone just has the capability of doing that. But if you can balance being able to inspire and connect with people across a group, and then you take that to that one, one level that carries it through. I've seen so many leaders that will say, say words, but then when they're with you, it's different or they don't seem to care or take an interest. Right. They sit in their office and they don't walk around and get to know the people. So they're just, you know, sitting with their door closed or walking past you and not knowing who the people in the building are really. That's so meaningful. I mean, it's just, and I'm terrible. I'm like, I'm someone who's the opposite of Jerry Fall. I'm terrible with names, and I just, I just forget those things. But I like, when I'm face to face with someone, you know, I honestly want to know how they're doing. So I want to know that people are happy here. And so when I think of great leaders that I've worked with, you know, I was really, really like the founder and chairman of PageNet. That ended up being a billion dollar company before they were bought and the Paging Industry went away, of course. That was all in the 90s. His name was George Perrin. He got a lot of, he didn't want media coverage. We mainly got coverage for the executives and for the company products, but he mostly got unwanted coverage for building the biggest house in Dallas. He was in D-Mag and all these places, and he didn't like any of that, but so very wealthy. But he would never know if we're talking to him. And the kinds of things that he would do that I will always remember is, here's the chairman of a billion dollar company, and he'll just walk in the break room while you're there, just ask what you're doing, what you're working on, and actually listen and care. And then things that I did, like I made mistakes like when I was trying to, like I got him a speaking gig one time, that involved him. He had to go to Boston, something like that, speaking at this industry event, and he hadn't done it before as a company hadn't. And when he came back, I bumped him in the halls and asked him how it went. He was saying all kinds of nice things, and then he just kind of mentioned what I found out. There was only about 12 people showed up. In other words, I had booked him at a crappy event. It was not the best use of his time. But when he talked to me about it, he didn't say a word about it. He said, he focused on the fact that what I was doing and why and what the intent behind it and that he got that. So I don't know, that stuff goes a long way. You don't forget that stuff. When someone tries to micromanage you or it's overly critical, I just don't think those things have ever had a great impact. But I think especially today, you just can't treat people like that. They won't take it. They'll go somewhere else. They'll go do something else. And before I started to idea growth, I was there for six years. So how do you give people critical feedback that they need and not be a jerk? What would you do if you saw someone here that was doing something that needed to be corrected or improved upon or whatever? How would you give that feedback to that person? Well, I think you're going to be honest about being hurtful. And I think it really comes down to preparation, mental preparation about how you're going to deliver the message in such a way that shows that you're trying to be protective of their feelings, that you're not trying to be overly abrupt or that you're, I think a lot of times it's the empathy of realizing how would you want to be, how would you want to handle this? I've been fired before. I've been in situations where I've gotten in trouble before or I've, you know, things were not going well at work. And I've really spent a lot of time thinking about those things. I don't always do it the right way. And I believe me since I hadn't managed people in this way before, I've made lots of mistakes. And so learning from them has helped me too. But the bottom line is, you know, I just, I think people should, in the best manners I've had, have people that, I've been people that, I guess, started with the assumption that I had good intent and that what you're doing by way of criticism is a way of helping. And then if you could take it as that, then it's a positive for everybody. Even when we've had to terminate people, what I tell people, which I really believe, is you, just because it's not working out here, does not mean you can't knock it out of the park somewhere else. We've articulated, these are the reasons why this just doesn't seem to be working. These are the things you seem to be really good at. These are things you want to do. In terms of where we're going, there's, there's not an alignment. You know, we've talked about in the past, this is the path to get to this place. But it's not what you want to do. Or it's not, it doesn't play your strengths. And so it's probably best to part ways. Or it's, or you know what, I know you want promotion, but you're not ready for it. And it's not doing you any favors, promoting you to a level that you're not ready for. Here's the things that you need to do. So I think empathy, being specific, and actually caring about, you know, the person and, and, and being protective of their feelings. I mean, I don't think that's a, that's a pansy thing. I think that's just being human. And it's what people want today in a way that, it didn't used to be that way. But I think, I don't think that's millennials get a bad, a lot of bad breaks. I don't think millennials want anything that anyone doesn't want today. I just think that's just the, how the workplace has evolved overall. And there's nothing wrong. It's like people talking about being politically correct, politically correct. You know, obviously we take everything too far, but really, you're just talking about being sensitive to other people's feelings. You know, that's it. You know, it's not a big thing. Just other people don't see things the way you see. So maybe be inclusive in how you talk about things. It's just say happy holidays because not everyone's celebrating the same holiday. I mean, this is not a big, shouldn't be a big wedge political issue because we're just talking about caring about other people. Yes. And caring what they think too. It doesn't mean what you think it doesn't matter. It just means what they think matters too. And caring is a big element of trust. So it's also, you know, when you show that you care, you're building a deeper trust with someone else because you show that you're invested inside of them. So that's fantastic. Well, I want to thank you for being on the show. We've shared a lot of great insights, a lot of wonderful information that people can take action on and learn from. So how can people connect with you, find more about what you're doing? So I want to send them there and check out all your great work. Well, unfortunately, I have a personal site that I haven't updated in a while, so I'm not even going to mention that one. But I would say if you go to ideagrove.com, that's our website. That's where we're updating kind of what we're doing as an agency. I don't have a personal platform that I'm using right now. I only have my friends on Facebook. That's where Facebook, Instagram, places like that. But the website, you can always connect with me on LinkedIn. I do, I am active on LinkedIn, mostly reading rather than posting. We'll have all those links in the show now, so everyone will have that. I maintain a lot of relationships through LinkedIn, and so that's a good way to connect. Wonderful. Well, thanks a lot for being on the show with us today and joining in this great conversation. You can learn more on more podcasts with the executive breakthroughs, and you can go to my website, jasontroy.com, that's jasontreu.com, forward slash podcast, and you can see more episodes. So thanks for joining us today.