Why Passion Isn’t Enough: Build a Life Around Meaning, Not Motivation feat. Alan Lazaros

When Alan Lazaros says passion isn’t enough, he means it. In this conversation, Alyssa and Alan dive deep into what it really takes to live a meaningful life, not just a busy or successful one. From near-death experiences to redefining what work should look like, Alan shares how he turned pain into purpose and why the key to fulfillment isn’t chasing what you love... it’s building a life around meaning.

If you’ve ever wondered how to chase big goals without losing yourself, this episode will hit home. Alyssa and Alan get real about what success actually costs and how to make sure it’s worth it.

Listen for:

•  Why “follow your passion” can set you up for failure
•  How to find meaning in your work even when it’s hard
•  The truth about health, wealth, and love—and why balance isn’t the goal

Alan also mentions The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, a book that changed his life and inspired his mission to help others reach their potential.

It's time to say "goodbye" to the Sunday Scaries.

Connect with Alyssa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssanolte/
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Follow the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TakingBackMondayPod
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Transcript

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to taking back Monday. I'm so excited that you decided to say goodbye to the Sunday Scaries and hello to a brand new future of work. My name is Alyssa Nolte And my name is Alan Lazarus. and we are going to get right into it. Alan, what is your origin story? Okay. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm super pumped about this. I am 36 years old. I'm gonna try to condense 36 years into three minutes. So this is the very short version.'cause we all gotta get back to work, right? So three main things that shaped my life. The first one happened when I was very young. It was what I was born into. So I was two and a half years old. I had an older sister who was six, and a mom who was 31. This was in 1991. My birth father John McCorkle died in a car suddenly at 28 years old. Obviously not a great start. Harder for my mom and sister than me, but very devastating in so many ways. I had a stepfather named Steve Lazarus from age three to 14. So the first thing was my birth father. It was Jim, Joe, John Jane, Joan, Jeanette, big Irish Catholic family, born and raised in Massachusetts. My birth father passes away, and then we sort of become the Lazarus. I took my. Stepfather's last name, I think around age seven. And I playfully refer to that part of my life as boats n Bs. And the reason why is 'cause I was born and raised in Massachusetts and the United States economy in the nineties was wild.com, globally. It was wild. But the US really wild. So boats, ski trips, Ducati motorcycle, mom drove A BMW, we had a yacht. It was a whole thing. From the outside looking in, we looked wealthy and abundant. From the inside out, my mom and stepdad did not get along, and that's a very polite way to put it. Eventually, my stepdad leaves 14, was the hardest year of my life. Did not realize this at the time. I've done a lot of therapy in my thirties, rewatching the movie of my own life, so hindsight's 20 20 14, worst year of my life. Stepfather leaves, takes his entire extended family with him. Same year sister moves out with her older boyfriend. Same year, my mom gets in a fight with my Aunt Sandy, her sister, and we get ostracized from her side of the family. So kind of, sort of, by the time I'm 14 years old, I sort of lost three families because we didn't associate much with the McCorkle trying to be the Lazarus. That's my birth father's side, my stepfather. To this day, I've never seen her spoken to a single one of them. And then my mom's side, I've only seen her spoken to two human beings from that side of the family. Again, that's a very long story. Very short Now. The additional part of this is my stepfather worked for a company called Agfa, A GFA. They did hospital computers during the.com era, so he, we did very well. He got the yacht in the apartment building. We got the house and the dog and I went for my hope. I get into college. My dream college was WPI, Worcester Paw Technic Institute. It's like a mini MIT and it was $50,000 a year. This is back then. And I went from, I hope I get in to, even if I do get in, I can't go. Bootstrapped my way through high school, straight A's, all the scholarships and financial aid I can possibly get. Luckily no child left behind in the us. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Financial aid scholarships, the whole nine. I go to WWPI, computer engineering, bachelor's with high distinction, graduate, my master's in business and then it's off to the races. And I was used to being broke in high school and college, so I made a lot very quickly and I had super low expenses 'cause I was used to not having cable and getting free lunch at school and you know, living cheaply. I became a 1% earner in my early twenties. I paid off 84 grand worth of college debt in a single year. I had $150,000 in a Vanguard portfolio of all different tech companies, and I knew what tech companies to start because I went to a tech school and I feel like I've always understood that, and so I did very well. Then I get in my car accident. I'm 26 at the time, this was 10 years ago, and head on collision. My fault, not a fender bender. This was intense. Fortunately, no one was killed.'cause if anyone was killed, it would've been my fault. We were very rattled, but no physical permanent damage. I was driving a 2004 Volkswagen Passat. I used to call it the tank, both airbags deployed. It was a lift kitted pickup truck that I hit head on dark winter night in 2015. But that was the second chance my dad never got. He died in a car when he was 28. When I was 26, I almost died in a car. And this was my second chance, quarter life crisis existential moment. And that was 10 years ago. And that's when I found my calling. So some people have a job, some people have a career, some people have a calling. I didn't find my calling till 26, and that's when I completely reinvented my myself and what work means to me. To me, which is exactly what we're gonna talk about today. I mean, look. At everything that's on your, you know, your list there in that origin story. And thank you for taking us through that because by all standards you overcame incredible odds to basically lose all the family you'd ever known at the age of 14. And like we are unstable at the age of 14 in the most stable households and environment. So I can't imagine what it would be like to be 14 in that situation. So yes, I'm sure. 14 probably was the worst year of your life and actually the worst year. Not the, you know, the dramatic teenage version, but you made it right by all standards. You made it, you graduated, you went to the college that you wanted to go to, you graduated station, you got your master's, you were making money, you know, you were driving a car. That was, that's really nice by all those standards. And then you get into a car accident, why wouldn't you just say, you know, this is a wake up call for me to do more than I'm already doing. Why did that specifically change your perspective? Well, so it, it did shift me into doing more, but in a different way. Uh, I found a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by a woman named Brony Ware. I actually have these tattered flashcards if you're on YouTube, that I've carried in my pocket ever since. And she worked in hospice. I've actually interviewed her. I was quite the fanboy on that episode, but. She wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. It's a very famous book in Australia and actually globally, she has a TED Talk as well, but she worked in hospice for eight years with the terminally ill. And she noticed these same regrets. I wish, I wish, I wish. And she wrote a book about them. And the number one regret of the dying is I wish I had lived the life true to myself and not what others expected of me. And so I realized that I was living. I think when my stepdad left at 14, I looked into the future, and again, this wasn't conscious, this was just my childhood version, but I looked in the future, no dad, no generational wealth, no trust fund. How do we keep the house in the family? If it's gonna be, it's up to me. So I became this sort of super achiever, prove myself, guy with some semi abandonment issues, and semi is probably playful. It's definitely abandonment issues. And so I became this sort of social coward chameleon who could fit in anywhere. Don't lose any more friends and family. But then behind the scenes it was aim, hire, work harder, get smarter, prove myself, aim higher, work harder, get smarter. What I've come to realize now, and again, this is only after coaching, training, and podcasting with 11,262 times over the last 10 years with people all over the world. I've come to realize how weird this is. I had no idea that I was so weird until I started coaching and I realized that the majority of people would've shut down instead of be, and and this is one thing that I will share with everybody, just side tangent, is if you are not ignited by failure. Do not be an entrepreneur because I have a business partner named Kevin who is shut down by failure, and I have had to talk him off the ledge metaphorically and literally so many times. And ultimately, business is staying power. It's how long can you stick around? But I digress. So I actually aimed higher just in a different way, and I decided. To build a personal development company. And now I think we've shifted into a success company that I think we used to be a company that talks about personal development and also talks about success principles. Now we're a success company that also talks about personal development, which is, uh, far more sought after. And I realized that. But ultimately I went all in on fitness, personal development, and business. And I went into my calling, which is what you'll never learn in school, but desperately need to know. That was my original company 10 years ago. That was the tagline, what you'll never learn in school, but desperately need to know.'cause I was an academic and I didn't understand why. We learned nothing about fitness and nothing about nutrition and nothing about finance. I didn't take my first finance course until my master's in business. We used money every single day, all of us. We didn't take finance in high school. Like what is that about? Right? So. Ultimately, I'm here to reach my own unique potential and help others do the same, and I found that calling at 26. I love that you made a comment about the importance of your reaction to failure. I actually. Um, host events for the local entrepreneurial community in my town that I call failure fireside chats. And we bring in the entrepreneurs who have made it, the ones who everybody tries to monopolize their time at networking events, and they give like a fireside chat, but they are only allowed to talk about all the stupid shit they did. In building that company, they're not allowed to talk about anything that made them successful or some deal that they won. It is literally meant to be a stripped down conversation because so many people start a business, get into something, try to achieve anything. They think if it doesn't go smoothly, if it doesn't work out well, it wasn't meant to be. And like as you and I have learned as trying to build businesses, trying to talk to entrepreneurs, everything will go wrong. Everything will go wrong. Things you could never imagine going wrong are gonna go Murphy's how you react to Yeah. Yep, a hundred percent. Murphy's Loss says all the things that can go wrong will go wrong. I looked this up. Alyssa. Ty Cobb was the most successful batting average in Major League baseball history, and he had a 334, which means he struck out two thirds of the time. And, uh, not struck out. Got out. Sorry, I'm not, I never played baseball. He got out two thirds of the time, meaning he only got on base one third at the time, and he's in the hall of Fame Yeah. best in the world. I think that's a great metaphor for entrepreneurship. You're seeing the third that went well, not the two thirds that wildly flocked. And, and it's probably more than two thirds for the average, normal human being. And it's only exacerbated by social'cause if I scroll my LinkedIn, everyone's about the amazing things that they have achieved and nobody wants to be like, and I had to do X, Y, and z and whatever to, in order to do that. I wanna pivot to your, your thought process now. Right? So when we look at all of the success, we look at that third that actually happens. How can we make sure that we are achieving without selling our soul to this thing that we're doing without sacrificing our, our health and wellness, or the things that we care about or our callings. Yeah, I think the, the answer that I used to give would be different, but we do health, wealth, and love in that order. And I'll, I'll break each down. So I always, so I had a bunch, I had dozens of mentors and coaches in corporate and otherwise, and, uh, one of them was the CEO of several actually billion dollar tech companies. And when you meet all these millionaires and one billionaire actually, you, you start to realize that you actually don't wanna be like them. And, and they're great in their own right and, and, and achievement's important, but you know, a lot of them are divorced. Uh, a lot of them are not healthy and they, they sacrifice usually their marriage and or their health in order to achieve. And that was something that I personally didn't want, but I understand why. Because we only, if you are healthy, wealthy, and in love, and you are top 1%, which means top one out of a hundred in all three, that means one in a million, one over a hundred times, one over a hundred times one over a hundred is one in a million. So if you wanna be top 1% in health, wealth, and love, which I do. That's one in a million shots statistically. So you better be ready to work. And people are like, well, I wanna start a business so I have more free time. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So I always tell people I quit my nine to five so I could have a 24 7, um, because there's no extra free time in my business. I have a full weekend plan catching up on a project that I'm behind on. So, I love how honest you are. I appreciate that. That is so true. The four hour work week is horse shit. Whoever wrote that book, I, I don't remember who did it, Tim Ferriss. he, he is on my shit list. Yeah, I, it's just an irresponsible title. I respect a lot of what he does. It's like, Tim, you have never worked a four hour week in your life. This dude was grinding 60 hours a week to write that book. But anyways, so to answer your original question though, how do you not sell your soul? Number one, you make sure your work is oriented around meaning. So people say, well, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. First of all, I think that's also scary. You. I work okay. Now, you don't have to do what I do. I've been attacked so much for this. I haven't taken a full day off in 10 years. Sometimes it's one hour a day. Sometimes it's 20 hours in a day. Usually it's around 10. But the point I'm making is that I work seven days a week and I build the self, build the family, and build the business. Every single day. I move the needle a little bit every single god damn day, and that's what's required for my goals. Now, the point that I'm making though is how do you do that and stay healthy? How do you do that and stay in love? My beautiful girlfriend and future wife, we have three businesses. Between the two of us, I've seen the divorce rates and I've seen the business success rates. So we're combining a percentage of a percentage. So I said, sweetheart, we gotta do this right? And I'm scared because we need to go into this with humility. And I, I said, I don't wanna be at the top of this mountain, not in love. So. It's really easy to be nice when you don't have any goals. It's very hard to have goals and, and be kind one or the other is easy, but it's hard to do both. Health is physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. It has to be first. Wealth is how you make your money. In other words, is it meaningful work for you? How much do you make? Is it increasing or decreasing with the economy? Depending on what's necessary in the economy based on where the future's going. And then where do you invest it? I say invest instead of spend.'cause I think everything's an investment. And then love intimate relationship first. Immediate kids, if you have them. Uh, pats if they're in the home, extended family, friends, colleagues, clients, mentors, mentees, the whole nine. But you have to make sure that you major in the majors and that's the hardest thing in the world. Majoring in the majors, majoring in minor things is a good way to destroy your life. And I. The last thing I'll say about this is I think we all have to live in two worlds. I think we all have to live in the social world, which you already mentioned, playfully social media, and then we have to live in the real world. The reason my life sucked before 26, even though most people thought it was great, is because I got the syntax. I prioritized the social world. I had high school friends and college friends and corporate friends, and I brought my high school friends to college, my college friends to corporate, and I was very successful in the social world. Parties and barbecues and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and weddings. But in the real world, I was wildly unfulfilled. The social world is what the economy is built on. That's your reputation in the marketplace. That's your branding, marketing, and sales. Your real life is behind the scenes. So the metaphor I use is the social world is the wedding photos. The real world is the actual marriage, and you have to have the syntax, right? If you care more about the wedding photos than you do the marriage, you are in serious trouble. And that's unfortunately what happens to us in high school is we care more about our reputation than we do about our real life. And if you don't flip that script, you will end up most likely successful and miserable. And I realized that at 26 and I flipped the script, and now my success is a byproduct of who I am and not the other way around. Um, I wanna double click on. A word that you using, and I have a feeling it's a very intentional use of the word, but you still, you keep saying the word meaning, an orient around meaning. And all of the other people that are talking about this kind of stuff are saying, oh, you know, you should do something you're passionate about. And why are you not using the word passionate? Why are you using the word meaning? Is there a reason that that's, that word choice is intentional. Yeah, because people say, I see dabblers all the time, who are like, well, I don't love it anymore. I don't love that. No one loves their work. They all hold on. I love coaching. That doesn't mean I wanna coach every day. I still do, but it's better than fixing cars, which I can't stand, so people get it messed up when you hear the quotes. These fortunate, we call it a bumper sticker, self-improvement. It's like if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. Horse shit. I love my job more than anyone I know, and I still work every day and don't want to do it sometimes. And I think that we get it twisted. We get it messed up. And so, uh, the reason I use meaning is because you don't know you love something or someone.'cause you always want to do it. You know, you love someone or something because you're always glad you did. And I think that meaning is what? Is more fulfilling and more honest, meaning is more honest. We turn passion into purpose, into profit. But people are like, well, I'm passionate about cooking well, are you also passionate about running a business and a restaurant?'cause if not, you're in some serious trouble and or have to hire someone who is. So I think meaning is what we all should be pursuing. Of all the existential questions I've asked myself over the last 36 years, I can't find a better answer to life than orienting around what's meaningful to you. It's really funny that, uh. We've never met before, right? This is our first conversation And one of the things that longtime listeners will know is that I, my, I firmly believe that if you are your own boss and you have a direct, uh, set of direct reports, people who, who rely on you for their income or, um, you. Are someone who works inside of a company and you have a team of people who, who report to you that you have the, the ability, and maybe even the mandate, and I always say to create a meaningful work environment so that your people feel. Connected to what you're trying to do, that they feel valued, that they feel like they are driving meaningful outcomes, and that is your mandate as the leader. So I would love to get your advice on if someone is hearing this and they say, I want to help my team orient around, meaning, what is the first thing that they need to do in order to drive that change? Yeah. The first thing is, and I agree with you a hundred percent, I think it's a responsibility if you want to be a leader. Congratulations. You take all the responsibility. Uh, everyone wants to be a leader, but no one wants to lead by example and take responsibility. So the, the answer to your question is to figure out who your absolutely people are and who your absolutely not people are. And this took me way too long, and again, I'm still young, but like, God, did I get this wrong? So I've been in business for 10 years. We have an 18 person team from all over the world, and it was 24 people. So I've taken some freaking Ls. But I had to learn that I have absolutely people and absolutely not people. So I can already tell you are one of my absolutely people, and I'll explain why my absolutely. People are people who take responsibility. They don't play the victim. They have usually high internal self-belief, also known as self-efficacy. They have inward humility. Most people think they're arrogant, but they have inward humility. They're the ones reading the books like you, you. Come off to some people as arrogant, but inwardly, you're the one doing the work. Why would someone arrogant work seven days a week? That's humility. Right. It's arrogant to think, oh, it's all gonna work out. Let me go to the beach. Like, okay. So anyways, obviously I've been bothered by this for a long time. Um, and then number four is work ethic. If you have those four, humility, wanna reach your potential, uh, self-belief and self-efficacy, and you have work ethic, you and I are gonna get along great. Now, those are my absolutely people, and that goes for the team. That goes for our community as well. Now, these are the people that I cannot stand. Number one is spoiled fucking brats, okay? One of my clients was just in Cuba. In Cuba, right now, there's only two hours of electricity. There's blackouts all the time, and they don't have the opportunities that we have. Okay, so I was born into an environment that was atrociously difficult. My stepdad left at 14. My dad died at two. Like I, there was no candy land life for me. So if you have spoiled brat syndrome, AKA, you want huge rewards for minimal effort. You can go somewhere else. Number two, bullies can't stand bullies. People who are sincerely trying to better themselves, and you're gonna be toxic and, and beat them up to feel bigger about bigger and better. Like bullies and spoiled brats are the people that I can't stand now. I get it. All right. Not everyone's for everyone, okay? But that's what you do in culture. Culture is built on core values and goals in common complimentary skill sets, different walks of life, different cultures, different generations, but the core values and the goals are staying the same. And you have to hire and fire based on that. And if you don't, you are in so much trouble because you will basically invite the Trojan horse in the castle, I've done this, and it will almost burn your business to the ground. I also think it's important to, to know like there's, I think there's a difference between real core values and the core values you think you should have because society tells you to that, that these are the ones, so like I think about the ones that people just put on the wall, innovation, centricity, employee wellness, and like they don't mean any of those things. Um, I just had this conversation with someone because. I only have two core values that I have identified for myself, right? Like, and, and I'm sure I have more, but there's two that I know for sure core value, one, That I've uncovered. and that I can articulate, So for me, core value number one is, um, I love the thrill of the solve. I love the problem solving and figuring out like, okay, this is the problem. Here's the solution, let's break it down, let's do the invention piece of all of that. So for me, I find value and I get joy and, and. F and great experiences from people who are open to the idea of doing things differently, right? You might call that innovation, but for me it's thrill of the solve. But the other side of my core value is, um, I have a core value that is, uh, pay it forward, give first, give, often, give more than you get, give with no expectation in return. And every once in a while I will encounter people that really take advantage of that. Then all of a sudden I find myself like giving and giving and giving and because I get joy from the giving. And then I realize later I'm like, oh no, I got got on that. And that was they get joy from the getting. they get joy from the right. But you don't have, like, sometimes I fall for it 'cause of my core values. Um. How do we uncover though?'cause that's taken me a long time to get to those two. How do we actually figure out what our real core values are versus the ones that come from a textbook or are on a wall or chat? GPT says, uh, these are typical core values for entrepreneurs. Your actions. Yeah. So you have your conscious mind, subconscious and unconscious. And Kevin and I have talked recently about, I'm trying to lead and I look at, so the, the, the unconscious, we'll break the brain into three. I'm not gonna go deep on neuroscience, but I'll break it into three sections. My background's in psychology, so even if you wanna deep, I'm, I'm Okay. Okay, beautiful. So I don't wanna bore your listeners too much, but essentially you have your brain stem, which is attached to your central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. Central nervous system is outputs. I'm an engineer, so bear with me. The peripheral nervous system is inputs, see, taste, touch, smell here. So that's your actions, what you take in and what you do with it. But the problem is we have a subconscious and an unconscious. So I think of the central nervous system in the brainstem as sort of the animal self. I think of the next layer up as the child self, the emotional self, the experience driven self. This is where your beliefs are, your conditioning. This is relationships. Relational. It's called the mammalian brain. And then you've got the executive function. This is the prefrontal cortex baby. This is dolphins, primates, and human beings. This is what makes us great. The only reason we can design Streamy yard and cameras and iPhones and computers is because we have a prefrontal cortex. We are the smartest animals on planet Earth. And some people don't like to use their executive functioning, unfortunately. And if you are in a. Negative state, you didn't get good sleep. You can't use your executive function. So, um, to answer your original question about the core values, you have to see the common denominators between what you say, think, do, feel, and believe in all three sections of the mind. So if you and a, if I were to have a metaphorical camera on you, I would know your core values based on what you do, not what you say, because most people, ah, not most, I don't wanna come off pretentious here. A lot of people are full of shit. In other words, they say one thing and do something completely different because in the social world, it's unacceptable for what they do. Imagine for a second if everyone was completely honest at all times with everything they're doing behind the scenes. There are some people who are really hardworking behind the scenes and then play it down to make other people feel better. Then there's other people that are lazy as shit behind the scenes, and then they play it up to make it seem like they're super hardworking. So we all have these three circles of the ego. I'll go quick with it. The outer circle is what you want others to believe about you. The next layer in is what you wanna believe about you, and then the inner circle is who you really are. The truth. And for me, the car accident collapsed. All the circles. And my sneaking goal in life is to keep all the circles the same. I don't want to be different here than I am in real life. Obviously, the way I communicate nuances, different parts of me. I get it, but at the end of the day, I want it to come from the core. So your core values are uncovered by your actions. What you really value is where you invest your time, effort, and money. You're not gonna hear me say, I wanna build a billion dollar company and then go to the beach. Like I'm go. My actions are going to show. That I'm serious. And so I don't look at people's words anymore. I look at their actions when no one's watching.'cause here's the problem, and I've learned this the hard way. People say words lie, actions don't. No, no. Actions do too in front of you. Some people act hardworking when they're around others, but then behind the scenes they aren't. So it's who you are and what you are when no one's watching. That is your true core values. That is your true level of virtue and conscientiousness and virtue. I said virtue twice. Two guesses which one I care about. Yeah. Thank you. uh, you know, considering all of the incredible people that you know or that you aspire to know, who is leading the charge. Who else should we be listening to? Who is taking back Monday? Whoa. Oh, I've been so wildly disappointed, to be honest with you. I had so many heroes and I've met many of them and, uh, I would say my answer's gonna be different. I would say learn something from everyone, but, but understand there's pros that come with every con We are all warnings and examples. I've been wildly disappointed and I know some of that is 'cause of my pedestal that I put people on as a young man just looking for a male role model. But like Steve Jobs is a warning. In an example, Elon Musk is a warning and an example, hell of a warning. Uh, so I, I would say just I learn from everyone and I try really hard to learn. Where they're great and learn something from it, but I also learn what not to be and what comes with it. And I think that that's, the world becomes your library when you have that mindset. And if someone is hearing this and they're really connecting with you, they are ready to hopefully, mostly learn and not have a warning from you. Uh, where can they find you online? So. You, I always feel so pretentious when I say this. You can Google me. No. So you type in Alan Lazarus to any ch, any I, any ai, any Google, and all of my stuff will come up and hopefully there will be an obvious theme in through line, which is helping you reach your own unique potential in health, wealth, and love. I'm a business coach primarily at this point, so if you want to start grow, scale a business and a personal brand, particularly with podcaster. Like if you're a podcaster, we work with 113 podcasters and business owners right now at my company, paying clients anything anywhere from, so our lowest package is $297. Our highest is $9,000. I always joke and say Per, per month, I always joke and say, we might as well be mowing their lawn. But the the point is, is whatever scope of work you have, we say that we do what we do best so that you can focus on doing what you do best. I just upload the audio video file and it's all done. Everything's done. So that's what we do for people. Um, and then the one-on-one piece, next level universe.com is the website, and next level university is the podcast that is 1% success and personal development in your pocket from anywhere on the planet, completely free. Kevin and I do an episode every single day. We have over 2,180 episodes. We're coming up on 2200, and it's 1% improvement in your day, every single day from anywhere on the planet, completely free. And it, it's basically just success principles and personal development. Just keeping you focused on the right person's, places, things, and ideas every single day, and helping you just get a little better, a little better, a little better. Because when you do that long enough, you see some massive transformation. Thank you so much for coming on, taking back Monday. This was a really insightful and gratifying conversation for me, and I know the audience is gonna love it. Thank you for having me. This was awesome.