Pivotal Learning, Resilience, And Marriage With Howie Zales

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It's literally brutal. And it's only gotten more brutal. And I get to see Spike Lee. We live half the year on the East Coast and half the year in Southern California. So I get to— where I live on the East Coast, I get to see him fairly often. And it's just—

Awesome.

It's brutal. I don't go to the games like he does and scream and yell, and he's got quite a celebrity, but his pain is as great.

Yes, we all share the same pain.

We all share that same pain. So in basketball, there's this idea— or not this idea, this— there's a move called the pivot, right? Basically, on one foot, you can rotate all the way around 360 degrees on one foot and not violate the rules, not be traveling or walking or anything like that, and you could see the whole court. So when I started writing this book and, or actually more like when it was almost finished and trying to describe what the concept of a pivot is from the standpoint of seeing the court, being able to see what your options are before you make that next move, whether it's to pass, shoot, whatever. I want to get to that pivot point earlier on in your career or even in education, wherever it might be. Yeah. So what does that look like now that I've given you plenty of time to think about it?

Yeah, no, my career has been a cluster of pivots. I wanted to play professional baseball in high school and I knew I needed a backup plan. I had one spot for an elective and the course description that I was looking at said it was a TV production class and the description said a trip to NBC Studios with a tour and to watch a TV show being taped. So I was like, how bad can that be? Right? And I ended up falling in love with television production and I already had loved sports and especially baseball. So I knew I had to combine these two 2 passions of mine, and what better way to do that in a career? So I only looked for colleges that had TV sports, but it's a difficult industry to get into. And then I ended up taking a job on Long Island right out of college as a production assistant, but I pivoted right out of that production assistant job to become the lead editor at that company because when I did an internship in college, I learned how to use the same equipment at that internship that this production company had. So when their editor left, It was like a natural progression right into that job, but I hated it. And I took a job eventually shooting TV news and in the field with a reporter. But to anyone that would listen, I would tell them my ultimate goal was to be a sports camera operator. I want to shoot sports. And because of basketball, I would watch the NBA on NBC all throughout college. I knew that I wanted to work for NBC Sports. That was my goal. And one day someone, ESPN called the newsroom because they were doing a basketball game and a camera operator got sick. So they were in desperate need. So because I would tell anyone that would listen what I wanted to do, they said, yeah, we have someone that is dying to do this. So that was my first job in TV sports.

Wow. That's so, you get a random call, or if you believe in random.

Yeah, there's no such thing.

Yeah, you get this call, say, hey, this is the day, you're ready to get behind the camera. So you're about what age at this point?

I'd say 24. And I, and then I continued to do local, that job became another job, so on and so forth. And I met a mentor. And I was getting enough work where I gave up the news job and became a full-time freelance, full-time freelance camera operator. And about 2 years into that, from doing sports and I drive to Boston, do a few days in Boston, Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox, depending on the season, then do a few days in New York. And then one day I got called by an outside company to do a horse race, and the race was airing NBC Sports from Belmont Park. And because it was airing on NBC, they sent their top director at the time, John Gonzalez, and who had done many Super Bowls. He did the NBA on NBC and whatever other events. And I did a Really good job. I hustled and I gave him more than he asked for. And this was in 2000. He said, hey, you know how you did a great job? We're starting this new football league in February called the XFL. He said, would you like to be a part of it? I said, yeah, that sounds awesome. He said, why don't you come to Notre Dame? Because, you know, Notre Dame football airs on NBC Sports. We'll see how your football skills are. If you do a good job, we'd love to have you on the crew. And I ended up shooting Notre Dame football for over 20 years. I did the XFL that season, and then wherever John Gonzalez went, Howie Zales went. And I am so grateful for that.

Yeah. He was a mentor, I'm assuming. That's—

Yeah.

So you've answered the question really. I was gonna— how important are mentors? I think today maybe more than ever before, because it feels to me, and, and I'm saying this with some, not just personal experience, but just professionally speaking, our own organization works with other organizations. Workwell, our company, works with companies that are looking to make changes within their structure. And often those changes have to do with employee engagement and productivity and things, the usual stuff. But—

Right.

What I see in that space is less and less mentorship. And clearly, the pandemic is the culprit there. I haven't researched that as part of our research. We haven't gone back to see, was mentorship on the decline before the pandemic? Is this just a continuation of a trend, let's say? I don't think that's the case. But I can't— as I'm speaking to you, I can't say one way. But I want to get your thoughts on this. I see that mentorship is for younger people coming into the workforce now, people like when you came in, you met Gonzalez, that that was so important to you, pivotal. Do you see that? Do you see that mentorship is something that's just lacking in the environments that you're around? Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, especially in our field. Because it's a difficult job. You can't really practice— nowhere to practice your skills. So a mentorship or shadowing and having a mentor coach and teach is so important. And I actually started a course and mentor people because it's so difficult to get that in our industry.

Interesting. And again, I don't know what the trend is here, but clearly because people are in many ways working differently and remotely and in hybrid situations, et cetera, the opportunity through Zoom to be mentoring somebody over a virtual platform is possible. But it is a little different—

Yes.

—than when you're right there in proximity. Because a lot of those mentorship moments are not really planned even. I think they can be planned. And often, that is some of the advice that we give and that we can assist in implementing. But the fact of the matter is that often, it's those unexpected conversations, those ones that happen just because you're in proximity to somebody else. You're on the job together, and you're working through something. And then there's a question that comes up. Or there's a, there's an F-up and that moment becomes pivotal point of learning because something has gone sideways. And then the pivot that you have to make in the moment is the one that becomes a great teacher.

And to your point, I mentored this guy Sean and he started out as a utility on TV production shows and I gave him as much advice as possible. And I said, during your lunch hour, pick up the camera, play with the camera, ask all the questions you can possibly imagine, cuz one day Someone's gonna not show up and be sick, and you're gonna be on that show as utility. I'm gonna be able to call the client, said, I have a solution to the problem because Sean's there. He knows how to use the camera. He knows the sport. Perfect fill-in. We're covered. Lo and behold, that happened. Sean got his hockey debut because one of our camera operators got sick. And now Sean is one of the best camera operators in the country working Sunday Night Football. for NBC Sports. So it just goes to your point about having mentorship when called upon or when need be is huge.

Another thing that you and I have in common is that I'm often on stages for corporate events, and those events are mostly filmed— not always, but a lot of times they're filmed for training purposes— but also they're live streamed out to groups of people that didn't make it, couldn't make it, didn't feel comfortable making it. Et cetera. You do that work as well, right? Your company provides that livestream service and everything that surrounds that is—

Yes. I understand our company Veridity Entertainment or VES. We provide hybrid or in-person, hybrid, in-person or virtual livestream and event production. We do it for all different types of events, sporting events, concerts, corporate meetings, conferences. Expos, all sorts of things.

Yeah, there's a lot of things that can go wrong in the production, in a live production like that. Isn't that right?

Yeah, a ton can go wrong. But what we find is that with a data setup slash rehearse, we iron out all the bugs. We tell the client we're going to try to make every mistake possible. So we figure out what can possibly go wrong. So we have a solution for that fire drill. We may look like we have no idea what we're doing right now, but we know what we're doing. And we're doing it on purpose. If this should happen, what is our solution? And that typically the worst rehearsals turn out to be the best shows.

Yeah, I had one just last week for a bank. I'm not going to mention their name, just that I don't know that I have approval to do that. But big bank, and we had our tech check, our rehearsal for this. And it was a virtual event for a couple of thousand people. It was a Small little gathering, very intimate. We didn't want anything to go wrong the day. Of course, never want to have to pivot in the moment, primarily for time reasons. There's always, there are solutions. I had one happen just 2 weeks ago where I was at a, a Four Seasons Hotel, beautiful hotel, love Four Seasons, amazing group of folks. But they had an internet issue there and I couldn't believe it. And I literally had to go back and forth between a hardwire and a virtual, a, what do you call it? A, it was still an internet connection, but it was not hardwired.

Oh, by Wi-Fi?

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for that. A Wi-Fi connection and a hardwire. And I literally had to toggle back and forth probably 7 times during an hour-long presentation because once— Nice. When one of those would cut out, the other one was available. Don't ask me how that was the case, but that was the case. And the clue that I would get as I was in the middle of my presentation, which we— in an hour, there's a lot that I wanna cover, and I don't wanna lose time With logistics or with lots of speakers know this. You just don't waste time with filler words and things that just don't add value to an audience. They're paying you a lot of money to be there, and you're just gonna value value the whole way through. So I would get this little tiny circle that that would show me that it was cutting out the circle of death, and I would literally exactly, and I would literally go up and I would switch the connection, and then it would be about a ten-second delay. They realized what was going on, and I would pick up my sentence exactly where I left it off when that little circle appeared. And it was a great demonstration, is what we were told by the organizers of it, of what resilience looks like, at least technically in that moment. And certainly in a, a live event like with this bank the other day, that rehearsal day was a total disaster. Like everything that could go wrong with the systems. Just seemed to go wrong. And inexplicably, when technology— I was an attorney for a lot of years, so I, I believe in logic, but it's so funny that tech just seems to defy logic at times.

Oh, yes.

Without that, the day of it all kind of imploding, we wouldn't have had a flawless day the next day, which is what occurred. Right. Yeah. So talk to me about resiliency in the work that you do, the resiliency in, in— because there isn't a lot of margin for error. In those events. And look, the AV guys are— I am always so sensitive to them because I'll say this, for example, I'll say, I wanna control my mic pack. And it's gonna sound silly, right? But if I need to cough, clear my throat or whatever, I don't wanna cover my mouth in the mic. I wanna be able to mute myself and then unmute. And it's a simple thing, but they don't like to give up control of that mic pack.

Yeah.

So I say to them, I go, listen, I'm gonna be responsible. I, I'll be a good boy. I know exactly what happens if for some reason I turn it off, then don't turn it on or whatever. Everybody's gonna turn around and look at you.

Right.

There's so much pressure on the guys that are sitting behind the black skirting. Yes. You're smiling and laughing, right? But you know what I'm talking about? Everybody's gonna point a finger. It could be that the idiot on stage can't use the freaking clicker, doesn't know how to find the forward button versus the backward button, or turn the freaking thing off. There's a million ways that somebody who's on that stage can mess it up, but they're all gonna look at the guys in the booth as though it's on them. Yes.

So here's a perfect example. Greg Norman, the golfer, and the new golf league, LIV Golf.

Yes,

we did the livestream announcement for that from New York City, from a hotel space. They wouldn't let us into the room to set up the day before until 5 PM. They wouldn't let us come for a site survey to check the internet speed. We get there, get into the room, The internet is lacking, to say the least. We finally get set up in, in a place we're not really happy with, but where it's doable. And we asked to rehearse with Greg Norman 'cause he's the prime speaker and he has PowerPoint slides and he will not rehearse. No way, we're told. And no one will stand in for him. The next morning we get there, he will not rehearse. I go up to him, I give him the clicker for the slides. And will not rehearse it. All of a sudden at the beginning, he keeps pressing a button, keeps pressing a button, advancing the slides. Then his part, his person comes over and says, we're lost. I'm like, we begged you to rehearse. Begged. It was a disaster. It was so embarrassing.

Listen, I won't take our conversation in this direction, but, and for the, we have a good size audience, but it's not like millions and millions of people are going to hear this anyway. I have a very definite opinion about LIV Golf. I'm a golfer. I love it. And I have a very distinct opinion about Greg Norman. So I guess it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy is what I would say.

It was embarrassing for us as the production company. And to your point, where everyone looks at is us, but we really had no control over it.

I apologize. That sucks. Yeah.

Yeah.

I would ask you, I will ask, what's the most difficult situation you ever found yourself in like that, that you also found a miracle, but you found your way out of that. Just looking at it at the moment seemed like it was nothing short of miraculous.

Yeah, we did a live event in Orlando. We shipped our equipment down there and when we opened up the cases, it looked like someone tried to steal 'em or they were just turned inside out, all this equipment. And literally one of the only things that got us on the air was I traveled a whole backup system in my carry-on. Because I always have a backup to the backup. We literally just made air, but it's because we planned for a backup that we were able to make air.

Yeah. So I asked you earlier about resiliency, and I'm guessing that what you just described is somehow connected to your organization's resilience.

Absolutely. And surrounding myself with people that are a lot smarter than I am. If I'm the smartest person in the room, we have a definite problem. If my IT engineer— I hire a core group of people that are all freelance or they work when needed. If he's not available and then my backup person's not available for a job, I'll turn it down because I'm not gonna put our company name on the line without the best people being available to work on it. It's just not worth it.

No, it's so true. There's wisdom in that to turn down business, to turn down money for a business, small, medium, large. It's just not a thing typically done if you don't have to. But like you said, when the team is so important, if you can't work with your team, your A-team, and you maybe, you know, have a second line or third line of A-team players, people that you'd be comfortable putting in the seat. If you can't work with those people, yeah, you really do put your brand, you put your reputation, you put so much on the line when you have to go a different route.

Yeah, we did an event in New York City for Ray-Ban sunglasses and they said they had an IT person there on site, but their version of an IT person and what a real IT person is were 2 different things. Their internet systems was controlled by their parent company who was located in Italy. We were on the phone from New York City with Italy trying to fix their internet. Because they couldn't do it here from New York in the building. And again, it almost didn't make air, but because of our smart people, we were able to come up with a workaround.

Let me ask you, I've got my own opinion, but I wanna, I wanna get yours. What's the most important quality in one of those team players to you?

Someone that's not willing to give up till a solution is found. They remain calm, cool, collected, and professional. I don't need someone screaming and yelling, flipping out. I just need you to remain calm, cool, collected, and professional.

Yeah. That's a good collection of things. I was just thinking you truly have to be the eye of the storm. I appreciate that in every scenario in my life, whether it's in personal matters or it's in purely professional stuff, that, that people that no matter how extreme the weather, the wind is blowing, or the chaos might feel, the uncertainty, whatever it might be, this calm because To me, only good comes from that.

That's the kind of name of my, how I got the name of my company, which is a, a weird name, Viridity. But I went to a mastermind and one of the opening things that they talked about was when things go really well in business or in life and you react really quickly positively, it's called being in the blue zone. And conversely, if things go really bad and quickly you become angry or you can't handle it, that's called being in the red. But if you're even keeled, no matter what the situation is, it's called being in the green zone. So I came home and I told my wife, we need to find some word that means green, but that's not money related because that would be obnoxious. And my wife came up with the name Veridity and it flowed with entertainment services.

Yeah, I like it. Thanks for explaining that too. It's that makes total sense. Yeah, it's verdant.

Yeah.

In Italian, I think it's verde.

Yeah, exactly.

And maybe that's what happened with the people from Ray-Ban. I forget the name of their parent company. We were up for a gig for them some years ago, and I can't remember their parent name, but— Exotica. That's right. That's who it is. They're massive. I think they might be the biggest eyeglass manufacturer in the world, frankly. Yeah. Yeah. I say nice things about Exotica. Yeah. Cool. So just on the personal side, How long are you married?

This is our second marriage, 10 years. We just celebrated our 10th anniversary.

Beautiful. So when it comes to resiliency in, in terms of that relationship, and feel free to not answer if this is too personal, what creates that resilience in this marriage, the second go-around that's 10 years into in process?

Yeah. And plus we work together.

Oh, and you work together too. So I work with my wife as well. So that's— go ahead. Tell me.

And no, it's just that we really like each other and we, we've known each other since high school. Our parents, we grew up in the same town, just different high schools, but we have all the same friends from childhood. Our parents went on a trip to Israel when we were seniors in high school, I think it was. They didn't know each other and we really didn't know each other. And our parents became best friends. And all of a sudden I was going out to dinner with my parents and Jenny and her parents would be there for accidental bump-ins. And they tried setting us up for years and neither one of us listened. And when we finally came clean to them about 12 years ago, they were like, finally. We're family.

Wow. That's so cool. That almost feels like it's daytime. It's like a rom-com type.

It's, we actually enjoy each other's company. And

so resiliency there has to do with likability, with compatibility. I just want to get the essence of what your take is on that.

Yeah. And we're different in a lot of ways and we counterbalance each other, which I think makes for a good relationship. What she's good at certain things and I'm good at certain things, and we go to each other for the things that we're not good at. For example, I have a little dyslexia and I'm not a good writer, so I will not send an important email out without her proofreading it. It just won't happen. And I'm the more salesperson, and when it comes time for the business side of the business, like that selling and knowing the technical side of the business, that's my area. But she takes care of The business side, invoicing, the billing, and the math of the business. She's the brains behind that part of the operation. And we run our house together 50%. We share the responsibilities of being married and taking care of the house and our family.

Yeah, I might botch the quote, but somebody once said, and my wife Brandy and I, we used to deliver, do relationship workshops and things like that, which we love to do. We've done them all over the world actually, but I just haven't done it in a bunch of years. There's so much nuance to it and obviously every everything is different based on the parties, right? So it's not like this one rule or one set of things for everybody. But I heard somebody say something around whatever your 50% is, you're doing 100% of your 50%. It's— you're putting 100% effort into the piece that you're responsible for. And in the best relationships, it seems to me that people complement each other, as you just said. We all have weaknesses. We have strengths. Yeah. Weaknesses. There are things we like to do, things we hate to do. It's nice. It's convenient when something that you really don't want to do and don't aren't great at doing somebody else actually wants to do and is great at doing it. It doesn't always align so perfectly across the board, but it's remarkable how often that actually is the case.

Yeah, and I traveled four or five days a week for twenty years, and it was my wife Jenny's who convinced me that our businesses as you make more as an entrepreneur than you make as a camera operator than how we sales make. As a camera operator.

Yeah.

And we sat down and she was like, look, the 2 columns. I'm like, she said, you're working too hard as a camera operator to make this amount of money versus what the businesses make. So that's when I said, okay, I, I need to stop right away.

Yeah. What you just said, I think a lot of people potentially might be having a moment pausing right now to think in terms of how they're operating their lives, because it's so interesting that we could be doing something And just not seeing it. It's like the, the goldfish that's in the bowl and the, it doesn't know, right? It's swimming.

Yeah.

So it's wonderful. How long ago is that, that she pointed that out to you?

About 5 years, 6 years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah. I was always tired. In order to stay home the longest, I'd take, I'd leave on a 6:00 AM flight and then travel home taking a 6:00 AM flight home. But you're delirious when you do that, working long days in between that. Yeah. So the businesses were making far more money, far much more money than I was as a camera operator. I loved what I was doing. I was having fun, but not at the expense of my health and being away and fitting everything in life.

Yeah. That's a clear pivot right there. I remember when I was commuting into Manhattan from where we were living at the time, we lived in New Jersey, in Freehold, New Jersey.

Okay. And that's a long drive.

And my wife, oh my God, it depends. It could be an hour and a half on a good day, on a, a good commute. And 3 hours on a Friday afternoon. It was—

Right.

And that's both ways. When we decided to open an office, a satellite law office in the town that I— we were living in New Jersey, for me to just do Mondays and Fridays so that I could have these longer weekends with the family and stuff like that, that seemed to be revelatory at the time. And my wife was integral in that as well as many, many other common sense decisions that I was Incapable of coming to just for being in it. We're often just so in it. And that's why, you know, vacation time is important to take time to—

Absolutely.

Time to meditate. I hadn't been a meditator until just recently, which is remarkable. In fact, gave a TED Talk some years ago where I declare that really a crappy meditator, only because I really didn't try very hard and didn't stick to it long enough to actually explore whether there was something in that. For me. But I think for people that might be at an inflection point right now, maybe at a pivot point, yeah, please take the old Pivot book off the shelf. It'll help. It's helped me, oddly enough, which I won't get into now. But meditation is another one of those things where, or any stillness practice where you could just get quiet, whether it's even just walking in the woods or surfing for me now where we live, or walking out on a, in the rain or going out to look at the stars at night. Just quiet time. And meditation in particular for me now, really important to be able to come to some of those obvious in hindsight,

right?

That the change was a good one or it was needed. But in the moment, people are just deathly afraid. I don't know how to say it. Yeah. It was a lifeguard at Jones Beach. I don't know if you, you knew that from my book. Yeah. I worked at Field Ford, Jones Beach. So really busy beach because all the buses went there. It's where the boardwalk is and all that kind of stuff. And it was like, People in the water, when they realize they're over their head, even for a second, because the tide has pulled them out, like a rip current, they might be in a little mild suck or what. But as soon as they realize they can't stand and that they're going away from the shore, it's literally panic that you see.

Panic, I'm sure.

Yeah. It's like you see it. And change is very much like that. The idea, oh my God, I'm so far into my career. I've been 20 years as a camera operator. How on earth will I give this up? Or what will happen if I do? And every— so to be able to make those pivots really requires clarity and a stillness that gives you confidence. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, no doubt. And to your point, I hired a business coach to help me develop systems and processes for the business. So when I hired people to our core team, it wouldn't be a 3-month-long training process. This is how we do things. This is how we do this. This is how we do that. And it really helped me get myself organized on what I need to do on a daily basis instead of becoming so reactionary. I try to be more prepared. So for when, like when a fire develops, I have time to put it out.

Yes, exactly. More resiliency. We prepare to be, and this is maybe the last thing I'll say and then we'll wrap things up, but we have to develop our resilience before we need it. I think people don't really get that. It's a proactive system. You got to be resilient when the shit hits the fan. But the time to develop resilience is before the shit hits the fan. That's the time when you build it.

To that point, we're going to hire someone for the HJZ Productions, our first business, in the next week or so. So I can scale Verity Entertainment and build it and make it more resilient. Because too much of my time was being taken away from it working in the other business. So it's just

Not so random question here, but any thoughts on the market? Like where we are right now based on what you're hearing and seeing from your corporate clients?

Yeah. I think things are in, in a good place. Cor— our people are willing to spend money and it's, we just had a phone call with our financial advisor and things seem to be in a good place. Hopefully it continues on that path.

Good. It's always nice to hear that people are still spending, meaning that, yeah, companies are still spending because, yeah, when they're willing to invest, That's a sign that things are better than they might even seem. And I think it's always important for us to have that when there are a bit of green, few green lights ahead develop, helps us to understand that we also have to continue to invest. And I think businesses of all sizes need those signs in order to, because nobody's, nobody big or small has a crystal ball. That's the fact.

Totally. Totally. And what helps our business requires a lot of equipment. So we're constantly investing and reinvesting in new and updated equipment to make sure that we can handle what our clients need. And there's companies like ours across the country that are constantly doing that. And that's just one little field.

Exactly. Howie, I've so enjoyed the conversation and to—

Same here.

Get together with a fellow New Yorker.

Absolutely.

I don't live in New York anymore. My mother and brother still live there. I won't ever get that outta my blood. And if somehow there was an exorcism or something possible to just Just pull the New York Knicks fan out of me. I think I just— that would be okay.

Actually, they're having a good season.

Yeah. What, this December? But okay. That's spoken like a true New York Knicks fan. You're right. They are having a good season so far. That's cool. All right, brother, thank you so much for your time today. And I'll do a recap for folks. They know to expect it. But look at the show notes. You can find out more about the work that Howie's doing in his companies and all that good stuff, as well as any of the references. that were spoken of today. And of course, if you know somebody that's in, in a pivot or transition period, I'd say that's one of the through lines that came through today. Feel free, please share this episode with a colleague, a friend, family member, somebody that might just benefit from hearing some of these words. And that's always helpful to us as well. So we appreciate it. And again, Howie, thanks so much.

Thank you. My pleasure.

That conversation with Howie Zales was fun. I so enjoyed that. I hope that you did as well. We covered some ground I wasn't anticipating. Howie certainly has learned a lot in his business about resiliency and about pivoting. And his life, in fact, I think has been one series of pivots after another. I know that only too well since that's been the case for me, and maybe that's been the case for you. I think we all are serial pivoters at a certain point in time. Not all of us have made that many career pivots, although there's more and more that I hear that is more the norm, I'd say, than it is the exception these days. Certainly when I was growing up, people tended to stay at their jobs for 20 and 30 years in that just same job and in the same industry and that kind of thing. And that has become less and less prevalent. We have so many options available to us. And we truly can do just about anything that we decide we're going to commit to, commit our time and our energy, our love and our resources to within reason. I would love to be a professional basketball player, but that's not going to happen. It was never going to happen. So when it comes to my own professional pivots. They really are guided by where it is that I myself, where I can feel that I'm able to add the greatest value. I think that going back and speaking to my younger self, as it were, what I would say is just not so much follow your heart. I mean, that's good advice. I've given that advice. I would say look at where you can create the greatest value and follow the path forward or toward that place where you'd be optimizing value, adding more and more value as your career goes on. And, and if you're at a place where you don't feel as though you are able to add more value, and maybe you're not even fulfilled or satisfied by the value that you're currently contributing in the arena that you're, you are, are presently engaged in, there's no shame in that. There's no harm in that. But you have to take stock. You have to be aware, self-aware enough to recognize that perhaps that's not a long-term solution to what you want out of life, which I think we all want very much the same things. We want to feel fulfilled. We want to feel about what we've done. We want to be rewarded and acknowledged, and that includes money, but it's not exclusively about money. And so I think these are important questions. They were inspired by my conversation today with Howie Zales. I hope that the things that Howie shared and then our conversation, in fact, inspired you in some way. And if it did, that's fantastic. If there are others in your life that would be inspired in some way by this conversation, feel free to share this episode. That's always super helpful to us, and we appreciate it. Again, as we frequently ask for that, and we appreciate your help in doing that. And if you love the episode, we'd love for you, whatever platform that you consume this media on, feel free to Rate it. Provide a 5-star rating if that makes sense to you, if that feels good, if that's in alignment and true. Otherwise, whatever rating also makes sense, that's perfect because feedback is very helpful to us and very much appreciated that you would take the time to provide any feedback, whether that's the best feedback or, or it's something less than that. So thank you again, and I mean that sincerely from my heart. Also, we would love for you to take the moment if now is a good moment. And you can go to rankmyresilience.com. You can get your own resilience score in 3 minutes or less. Find out just how resilient you are feeling in this moment, how resilient you are, in fact, in these 4 very important areas: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual resiliency. And there are resources that are entirely complimentary as a result of your taking the time to do that. So that is our offering, and hopefully a place where we're adding value to many, many people. All over the globe. We hear that pretty frequently. So we have some reason to believe that people are benefiting greatly from this conversation and from their taking stock in how resilient they are and, and where it is that they can improve that resiliency for their personal happiness, for their productivity professionally and other areas of their lives, and simply in just being at their best. So again, thank you so much for being a part of our community. We so appreciate you, and thank you for tuning into today's Thanks

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