Guest Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit Book!

Hello everyone, I have a very interesting man that's in front of me that I'm very excited to talk to. But before I do, I just want to say this is a good hair day, like my hair really looks good. So Mark Hirschberg, who— do you have the nickname Hershey?

I do have the nickname Hershey ever since, uh, first grade.

That is so sweet. So some little kid said, you look like Hershey.

Well, they got, they got from the last name. I was Hershey and my little brother was little Hershey with almonds.

I love that. I love that. So I'm meeting Mark for the first time. I'm very excited. He did author the book, The Career Toolkit. And if you know me and you know I love business and also is a graduate of the Protocol School of Washington, This is like right up my alley to talk to Mark regarding the most important thing. Mark, so with the different things that you have that you talk about in the book, what would you say is the number one taught or talent? Because some people don't need to necessarily be taught of what they need to have in, in being in business and in their career.

I would say the, the most important lesson from all this is understanding that these are skills that are actually readily accessible. Now, different people, some might need to develop their leadership, some their negotiations, some their networking communications. But one of the key things I've learned from having taught this for over 2 decades at MIT and other places is that they're not these opaque skills where you have to say, oh, there are people who've gotten their MBA and they learn to be leaders. These are skills that are just, just out of reach. If you stretch your hand a little, you can get them. So it's about changing your mindset and recognizing the ability to develop. This is all around you. You just need to recognize those opportunities.

Okay. So I love that. And growing up, I always innately knew that communication was very— it was so important. And I was always told that it wasn't. Important. Because the person telling me that was a horrible communicator. So of course, in their mind, because they didn't communicate so well, it was easy to discard it. So how do you really change someone when their, their inner personality is either not likable, they don't listen, or they don't even— they think that they're great with everything, but they're not?

Sure, it's about reframing how you view things. So again, at MIT, we very much focus a lot more on the message rather than the way it's presented. We're engineers. We're about finding the right answer. And there's a great book I read years ago called In Search of Stupidity: 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters. And they ran through all these great technologies, starting with VCR versus Betamax. Or VHS versus Betamax, and showed how the better technology lost. And it wasn't because the technology wasn't good enough. In fact, it was better, but how it was marketed and positioned is what cost them their market share. Now, we don't, we don't talk at a strategic level. I deal with more individual levels. So one example that we talk about is how to talk to people in different audiences. And once you recognize that different people have different styles and different preferences, you start to say, you know what, we're, we're not all the same. We are a little bit different. And it's that moment of awareness where you say, I get it. I might not be good at it yet, but I understand there are different ways to do this. And it's at that moment that you start to now recognize going forward, there are different styles and how can I start to understand it and incorporate that into my communication.

I love that. So, so you know what, it's interesting, Mark, is that so actually when I was young, I think I was in my early 20s when I actually went to a Dale Carnegie class on how to influence people. And I wonder if that actually helped me to like open my eyes and to really understand the difference with people. And I, and I remember if I could share this with you, the The teacher was not that good looking.

Please.

He— as a matter of fact, I remember going home and saying, oh my gosh, the guy is like not pleasant looking at all, Mom and Dad. Like, I don't even know if I could be in the class. The next day when I went to the class, the second class, I fell in love with him. And it was crazy. And then my mom's like, what happened to— like, I thought he wasn't good looking. And I'm like, I never said that. He's like— I did. But he turned out to be so good looking because everything inside of him came out, and it was the first time I really experienced where that initial reaction and then when you had the heart of a person, how important it is. And from that day, I really strive to be a good person and to help other people. But I've always had— unfortunately for me, I've always had siblings that help to kind of want to take that away from me. So, you know, I wrote a book and they, they I grew up with being told a lot nobody liked me, nobody respected me, nobody wanted to work with me. I forgot my brother reminded me of this one because he put this in an email that, uh, oh, I like to make other people feel bad about themselves so I can make myself feel better. And so when you start hearing that, it really can— it really does— it didn't influence me to be— it only made me want to be a better person and make sure that I wasn't what he was saying. But it definitely can rain on you. So how do you also make sure that there are people that are out there that are doubting even that you're able to do a lot of this?

I myself grew up with a lot of bullies, and that definitely took a toll on my self-esteem and my confidence, and it took me many, many, many years to overcome that. And it was interesting, it was a number of different approaches including being engaged in certain activities. I think ballroom dancing, which I did competitively for a number of years, was one of the best things for my self-confidence. So it's been a long, long process for me. But I think it— to those who start to kind of doubt their skills, this is something— there's first the imposter syndrome that we've all talked about, which is, I don't belong here. I can't believe I got into this university. They're going to figure out I can't handle it, or I got this job, but I don't know what I'm doing. And I'll let you in on a secret. Most of us have some degree of that. Some of us, a lot of it. And if you Google imposter syndrome, you'll actually find a whole bunch of celebrities and politicians and others have mentioned they, they have felt this way themselves. One of the things that took me a long time to understand when I would go to conferences I would think, okay, I don't have anything to offer because, you know, everything I know is kind of obvious. And then I would go and listen to all these other speakers and listen to them think, this is totally obvious. This talk is a complete waste of my time. How is anyone interested in this? And one of the things I realized, some people do have a lot of value to deliver, some less, but we all have some value to deliver to someone. We all have some knowledge, some experience, some skill that someone else will say, that's interesting, that's helpful. And so all of us have that value to deliver. So no matter how insecure you are, know there are people out there who do find what you're doing useful and helpful and valuable.

That is great advice. I would go to a meet— I would just say to myself, if I could take away one good thing If I can meet one person, if I could just hear one something new, I'm happy. And I say that, you know, before I enter the door, that I'm always— it's always the event, my expectation, I don't set it so high. So I always— so when I walk around, I'm like, great event, great event. People are probably like, what is she talking about? Nothing new was said. But I picked up on that one new thing because that's so important. So So we have to help other people to feel secure and to make sure that they do share the knowledge that they have. That is really important, Mark.

I think it, it helps us develop our own self-confidence, helps other people. It's one of the best things you can do is to understand how you can be helpful to others.

I love that. I see a meme with your name on that and that quote. That's a beautiful thing to say. So I have 4 children. And 3 are older. Alex is 36, maybe 37 at that point. Um, Sammy is 31, and 25-year-old son, 3 boys and a girl. I can't tell if there's a lag, so I apologize. The, uh, it tends to work itself out when you're watching the video, but this app, there was a small lag there. Yeah, a little quirky. So I have, I have my boys when they were growing up, they were boys, so you know, they had a lot of friends and there were really no issues. But my daughter, what I'm seeing right now, what's happening, I feel bad because I cannot say to my daughter, Alana, when school is over, you won't have to deal with any of the personalities, because the reality is these personalities in high school, you now have to work with them. And I don't understand why we're not teaching a course on, at the minimum, how to be likable, and at the maximum, how to network, negotiate, communicate, and lead. So explain that to me, and how can we start to get this in the schools?

I did a little bit of research on the history of education, trying to understand why is it we don't teach this. And we take for granted what our modern educational system looks like. Mandatory education wasn't even a thing until about 100 years ago. Throughout most of the 19th century, we didn't even bother doing this. And when it began, the expectation was there were a handful of the elite, of the privileged, who would go on to university, and they would have to learn Greek and Latin, history and all the classics. And then they go to university and learn a skill, and their social status, their parents, their engagement were what taught them a lot of these skills about relationship building and leadership. Even once we moved into the mid-century, and that's when we had the GI Bill and we started to say we're going to send people to college, college became more of a norm. And we started seeing the people going to college going from a small percentage to now 30, 40%. Even then, it was understood that you go and learn a profession And then you just execute in that profession. If you think about the type of jobs we had in the 1950s, you might go into a vocation, work on an assembly line, which was a fantastic middle-class job back then, or you might go and work in an office. But if you were an accountant or in marketing or engineering or whatever your discipline was, you were sitting there at your desk doing work that your manager would tell you. You didn't have to worry about thinking about the customer. You didn't have to focus as much on teamwork. You were told, this is what you do. And when you do it, you go to your boss and you get your next assignment. It was a lot more command and control. And so universities only needed to teach you the skills for your discipline. As things have adjusted, particularly in the '80s and especially accelerating in the '90s and 2000s, with what tech culture has brought not just to Silicon Valley but to many other industries. We now have flatter organizations, we have more dynamic organizations, we have multiple cross-disciplinary teams, and we tend to change jobs, even industries, a lot more often. So these skills have become much more valuable in today's world, whereas they weren't required back then. And unfortunately, our educational system tends to be backwards-facing. They tend to look at what, what was needed yesterday, or maybe today, not tomorrow. The skills I have in the book actually come from research that we've done at MIT and elsewhere, where universities have gone to corporate America and said, what are the skills that you want in your, in your future employees? And that's what led to the 10 skills that I talk about.

Wow. And these skills are really essential. They're not like soft skills, like the word soft always made it sound like it wasn't so needed, but would you call them essential now?

We actually use the term firm skills because you have hard skills, right? Your math and science and STEM and the soft skills. I feel like you, they're a little fuzzy. Everything under the sun that's not a hard skill seems to have become a soft skill. And there's value in some of those soft skills, storytelling, for example, and there's value in that. But these are, I, we call them firm skills because they're a little more concrete than the soft skills. When you think about something like negotiation, there are particular actions you can take and steps you can learn them, you can apply them specifically. And of course they translate across different jobs and industries.

I love this. And is your book a, like, an active book? Are you— do you have like journaling in it? Can I, can I see that? Do you have your book there that I could take a peek at?

Do you have a copy of the book? So here it is, The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You.

Nice.

The primary title is a very common one.

Please tell me about the logo on the front.

There's a few other Excuse me?

Oh, the logo.

So the logo, I had a cover designer come up with this. And they first, we were looking at lots of different designs. This was one of kind of the stick figures doing businessy things. And then what we wound up doing, I said, okay, if we're going to go with this, I want it to relate to the contents. So everything you see here, these are all, each one of these icons relates to a particular skill that you're going to get in the book because I wanted to tie in.

I love that. Can you open the book? Is that a hardcover?

This is— it's hardcover right now. So let me pull up a page as an example. So we've got— I should have had this bookmarked for that question. So for example, on the Working Effectively chapter, you can see there we've got the icon that comes from the front. That shows— this was one of the harder icons to come up with. How do you show working effectively? But each of the icons correlates to the chapter. Now you can also— you asked about, are there, are there specific journaling? One thing I, I do have in the book at the end of each chapter is very concretely a summary and next steps. So what did we cover in this book? What are specific actions you can take if you want to go deeper? And of course, throughout the chapter were If you want to get better at networking or leadership, do X, do Y, do Z. There's also a free companion app to the book. One of the challenges that we get when we read any type of business book, certainly true for mine, for— you mentioned the Carnegie course, Dale Carnegie's famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, any of the many other books I've read and I talk about. You read it and say, that's really interesting. And then you forget it. Right? A month later, it was something about winning friends. I can't remember what. And so what I've done is I've taken a lot of the key tips, I've put them into an app, and you can, you can flip through it if, say, you have an interview and you say, oh, I gotta brush up on my interview skills. But you can also just use it— will passively remind you of what you're reading. So if you're reading chapter 3, set it to just chapter 3 topics, and every day you'll get reminded of what you've been reading to help reinforce the topics. Using techniques that have been proven to help improve your memory.

You know, I am such a servant leader that in talking to you in the book, I immediately— if I owned a business or if I was the vice president of sales, I would buy everyone a book in my sales team. And then I actually would have a lunch every Friday. And every Friday I would have— I wouldn't read the book myself to everyone. I would ask the team, I would create something around the book, and then I would have everyone either read it for like a little homework and talk about it, or read it together out loud, something. Because to me, you know, it's what a servant leader does. It's what a good leader does. They care about their employees. They want to give them this training. And I and Mark and I did not talk about this beforehand. As a matter of fact, Mark doesn't want to connect with me on LinkedIn yet. I hope he does after this. But the reality is, Mark, That is what a company should really do. They should take a book like you— I love that you call it a toolkit book because that's important— and we need to— you can't assume that your salespeople know all of this. And even if they do, they may need the refreshers. I'm a person that kind of— I use the word innately, but I'm pretty smart. I know how to do things, but still I want to be refreshed, right? So how would you, how would you offer What would your suggestion be for the VP of sales of a company that's all of a sudden saying, okay, maybe I should do what Adrian's saying and buy a book for everyone. And then how would I work that? You have any suggestions or heard about anyone else using it as a way to help their self-leadership for their employees?

You hit the nail on the head here. And when we actually look at corporate training, a lot of corporate training is done with basic knowledge. So, for example, Learning Excel macros. Okay, very useful class, and your corporate HR might, might teach it, or they might outsource it to another group, and you learn how to do Excel macros. And you'll learn it the week before you need to start doing it on a project, and then you do it. And that's a very easy way to learn. Learn the knowledge, apply the knowledge. And that, that works for knowledge. But for these skills, it's not as simple as, I'm going to teach you how to be a leader, right? No one says, take the leadership class, congratulations, you're a leader. These are things that require two aspects. First, you have to actually practice and engage. And second, there are things that— there's no formula for how to be a leader or how to network or any of this. When business schools teach these skills, they do so in a discussion group. Business schools have learned long ago that it's about discussing case studies, understanding real-world situations, gaining multiple perspectives because someone who comes from a military background versus a sales background versus a teaching background all have different perspectives on how to approach this particular leadership problem. And the students in the class hear multiple perspectives and develop a much more comprehensive understanding. So what you're talking about, this is the right way to teach these skills. The best way to learn is to have some type of reading group or discussion group. Now, you can do this in your organization if you are an executive or HR, you can do this organization-wide. If you're on your own, you can do it with friends. And I actually have resources on the website where you can download, here's how to set it up for your organization. I walk through, yeah, you really just led right into this because this is the key question. I know this is how to learn. So it's a free download and you can learn how do you set up these groups? How do you think about structuring it? Do you want to have people from the same team or organization or department? Or different ones, how do you mix seniority levels? And I even have timelines whether you want to do a comprehensive multi-month, let's go through different topics together, or maybe do a smaller one, say a quick onboarding for new hires and discuss some of the key skills. Or before you do an annual review, how to do a 3-week cycle for people to think about what are the skills they want to develop and then go into that review with a better plan.

Oh my gosh. And I want to just address the naysayer that would say this. Well, I would do that, but I don't want to waste my money because the person may leave and then that was all for nothing. And I know for myself, I want to say anytime we can help someone, whether it's while they're working for you or in their life of their career, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to help someone even if they're not staying? Staying with you, right?

Certainly, I believe— I say this in the book— as managers, it is our responsibility to help develop those under us. And better companies understand investing in our employees breeds loyalty, makes them want to stay. I've even— I've had people where I knew they needed to leave for one reason or another, sometimes completely outside my control, such as a spouse has something But I will still help develop them. I will still help them find new jobs in some cases. And not only does that make them appreciate me and potentially want to work with me again, the rest of the team says, wow, here's someone who really cares about us, even if not directly in his self-interest. But then even on a more practical level, when you send someone to a typical training class, you're talking hundreds of dollars, potentially thousands of dollars for a day or multi-day course. Here we're talking about buying a book that costs less than $30 per person. The investment is so minimal. You spend more than that buying lunch for your team, buying coffee, and it will help the remaining team members. Even if someone does leave week 2 with a book, okay, they walked out with less than $30. That's not really a risk you need to worry about.

No, I mean, they'll remember you for the rest of your life that you invested in them. I, I totally agree with that. That is just something that is in my heart. All right, let's go back to the, the kids. Let's go back to— I don't even know if I'm thinking high school, but I'm not even sure how. Like, let's just say if I said, hey Mark, I want to invest $10,000 in you to write the book for the kids in high school. And then first of all, who do you think would teach the book? Would it— what, what class would it be? What would they call it?

I think it's a multidisciplinary class. It doesn't fit squarely into English or history or science. It's about a professional skills class. And that's really what, what I would call it is professional development, professional skills, or some words along those lines. And of course, many of these are life skills as well. Negotiation doesn't just happen in our office. It happens with our friends, with our families. Communication is key to everyone we talk to. Leadership is something you do in your hobbies and organizations, maybe in your religious community. There's a whole bunch of places you can apply these skills. So don't just think of them as professional. They all do apply to the workplace, but many apply to different degrees outside of the workplace. So I, I think high schools could do this. I think it probably makes a little more sense for some of these skills to be at the college level, just because you have a little more context. And again, it comes from having that broader background, whereas everyone in high school comes from a much more narrow socioeconomic similar, similar, similar background. But it can be done at, at college or in professional organizations, especially with your young hires.

Oh, and by the way, If you're looking for a job in the market, and even though right now the market is, unemployment is high, but we know that there's a lot of work in, you know, retail and the grocery stores and Amazon, that kind of work. But if you're looking to work in the professional market, actually, it's still very competitive. And I would suggest this book for— well, you have career planning. That is really important too. People will pick up on it, and I bet you if you read the book, you're going to get keywords that you can then put in your resume that will help to pick up when people— when the big companies use some of those computer programs that kind of read the resume for you before it goes to a real person. Would you, would you agree that that would be another reason to pick up your book if you're looking at career planning?

Two, two other even more important factors is one, I talk about how you avoid getting in that filter. It's a really horrible filter where, oh, you don't have these 4 keywords that some algorithm is looking for, and you only have 2 or 3, and because you didn't have the right word, you're not even considered. But of course, there are ways to get around that and not even worry about did you have the right words and make sure your resume gets noticed. And I talk about how to do that. But equally important, this is now my third, arguably fourth recession, my third recession as a, as a working professional. So I saw the dot-com crash and the Great Recession. And one thing I've seen from now having taught students for going on 20 years, a lot of students will make some short-term decisions because they feel there are limited opportunities coming out. And certainly you do have to recognize you might have family obligations, school loans, or other things where you say, I just need a job, I need to get income in. But one thing I want to emphasize is to make long-term decisions. So for example, everyone wanted to do tech back in the '90s. This was the hot sector and going into 2000. And then if you look at the students who are graduating 2001, 2002, after the dot-com crash, they said, oh, I don't want to do tech. Bubble burst. This is terrible. And it certainly wasn't a great market. But your career is going to span 40 or more years. There's going to be ups and downs in any industry. If tech is what you want to do, there were a whole bunch of students— more than would just be— it was statistically significant. It wasn't just, well, fewer people this year. People moved away from it because they thought they couldn't find jobs in it. And then if they go to some other industry or other field and we're not doing, say, software development, now they've set their career on a different path. For the next 40 years. So you do need to think about how do I get money today if that's important. But think long term, think where you want to go. And we talk about how to create a plan from where you are today to get to where you want to go, whether it's a job in your field or even changing industries. Wow.

Good advice. I love that. I love that. You know, Marc, after I read a book or during I read a book or even watching a movie or documentary, I like to connect with the person. So like I'll Google them and then I'll find them. And then I'll reach out to them. So is it the same for you? Like, do you have people that are reading the book or finished it and want to tell you that they enjoyed it? And then do you write back? And like, you know, are they able to communicate? And how, how best if a person reads a book and says, oh my gosh, I have to tell Mark, it changed my life?

Sure. The best way to reach me is on the book's website, thecareertoolkitbook.com. So just all one word, thecareertoolkitbook.com. There, there's a contact form. I love to hear if this was helpful, how it was helpful, what you related to. If you didn't like something or disagreed with something, please share that too, or something you think where I'm wrong or forgot, because I do continually teach this at many universities and other engagements. And so I'm constantly taking feedback. This book comes from 20 years of feedback and input. On what's helpful. So write or I love to hear it. I certainly try to respond to everyone who writes. It's been growing a lot the last couple of weeks, but I will try to get back to everyone. And I love to hear from folks.

And I just want to make one more point, too, because what I needed to prove to myself that I actually am a good communicator or that something inside me, I'm not, I'm not broken or there's nothing wrong with me. Like I was kind of pushed to thinking in a weird way. I, um, I joined a lot of boards and a lot of committees, and I think your book is going to be essential for even if you're older. If you're older, you're not even working, but you're a volunteer or you're a board member and you're on a committee, grab the book. Because I really believe that that is the time too where we have to communicate, and everyone's a volunteer, and you want to communicate in the correct way and and talk to everyone and negotiate if you want the board to make a motion or approve. So whether you're a city commissioner, which I want to run in 2 years, just FYI. But other than that, like, I would really say that this book is not just for the student, not for the employee. Also, and if you're a board president or I'm a chairwoman of the board, so I have to look at getting books for everyone. I think it makes a lot of sense because in order to have a good round-the-table conversation, you have to have everyone on the same page.

That's one of the, I think, best things that you can get out of a book like this when you do it as a group is suddenly everyone has a common language. And when you do have an issue, a conflict, or even misunderstanding, you can go back and use this language and this framework to say, well, I'm approaching it this way. So, oh, okay, I was approaching it that way. Now that we understand our difference, let's talk about why we see it each way. And then we can, we can really talk about that fundamental disagreement and try and resolve it there. So I think that's a great way to view it is anyone where you're engaged with other folks, this is going to give you that language and framework to have a much more effective discussion.

I love it. Thank you. So underneath the scrolling, I have the website. I love talking to you. The big question I have is, are you going to accept my LinkedIn? Are we going to be friends?

So what I mentioned, I talk about this in the book, far too many people look at LinkedIn and just say, oh, I'm just going to add anyone I can. And it's funny, right now as I'm sending the book out to media outlets, I'm going to my friends and saying, oh, I see you know this reporter. "I wanna send this reporter a book. Can you pass along an email for me?" And this person will say, my friend will say, "Oh, I don't know that person." Like, you're connected to the person because people will just blindly add connections. But your network is not simply who is added to you on a social network. It's who will actually read your email or pick up the phone when you call. And so as I get to know someone, that's when I add them in. And now we're starting to get to know each other a little more. Everyone on my network, which is now getting close to 2,000 people, is someone I personally know, and I can say something positive about this person, and I believe this person will actually at least read my email. I can't guarantee they'll respond, but that's what makes your network valuable, not just because you've added someone. So this is, this is why the other day when we first connected, I said I don't yet connect to everyone on LinkedIn, but now we're starting to get to know each other.

I don't know if I believe it. Like, honestly, not sure. If I walked in a door, you may hand me your business card and I may actually may want to use it later. But I'm not, I'm not like 100% agreeing with what you say, but I don't think it really makes that big of a difference. I've worked from when LinkedIn started, I really worked on it. I don't accept everyone and I will look and there is criteria and I do hide my LinkedIn contacts just because I don't necessarily want to put them at risk. But I will tell you, I also have the attitude, and I got this from my mama, is, uh, you know, I'm willing and open. If you want to sell to me, I'm really okay with that. You know, Julian Kelly, I had a— I talked to him about 2 weeks ago. He wrote to me and said, hey, Adrienne, will you listen to my podcast? And I did, and I loved him, and we had a great conversation, and we're friends. So I always have the— and I go, it's my mom— that, you know, I don't care if you come in the door, if you try, because sometimes the people that have sold me are still my, like, best friends. So I don't want to ever close a door on something. So to me, that feels like I could be missing out on an opportunity to really enjoy someone's sales techniques or how they're doing it. And plus, I don't— I want to be able to have people be open when I reach out to them. So I feel like In order for that, I have to do the same. But again, that's not for everyone. But that's why I, I'm very quick to, um, to be okay if you want to sell me. I, I really am. And I'm saying that out loud. If you want to call me at 386-631-4577, I'll answer and I'll listen. And maybe I'll buy and maybe I won't, but maybe I'll share, whatever. So I'm open.

I, I do distinguish between having someone officially in your network through social media or other, other ways versus helping someone. I will try to help everyone I can. I liken it to letting folks into your house, right? Once someone's in your home, there's in some sense more risk if you don't know them well. And likewise, once someone's in your network, they can start to ask for favors. So, yeah, I'll introduce you to this other person. Now, if that first person just doesn't treat that other— the relationship with respect, there's some risk for damage. Now it's all relatively minor, but so I will always help someone even if I won't initially put them into my network. But as you point out, many people, including actually my cousin, uh, take a very different approach, which is I'll connect to anyone, everyone. And everyone should figure out what works best for you. This is my approach. But everyone is different, and find what works for you.

And either way, be respectful. And that is what I'm trying to teach my 14-year-old, is to find the beauty in everything and in everyone, because no matter what, you really can. And, and remind yourself, and, and at the end of the day, just be respectful and kind. There's no pleasure in hurting someone by ever saying anything. So I love what you do. I love your— I haven't read your book. I'm honest. I glance at your, you know, the interviews are happening fast. But you know what, Mark, if I met you and we said you agreed to have a cup of coffee with me, I'm not going to go home and like read your book to have coffee with you. So this is exactly what this conversation is. And I love it. And because, you know, we— but now I want to read the books. Now I'm excited. I really— I'm a believer that what you have to say We must get in the hands of your employees. So as servant leaders, this is how we do it. This is how we do it. This is how we do it now. Read the book. Okay. Sorry, I'm not a singer. All right, Mark, thank you so much. Can you show the book one more time?

The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes Noble, Books-A-Million, your local bookstores. Lots of places to get.

Are you happy? It's really a clean-looking Bible, if I could say that. Work Bible, but it's very clean-looking. I love the— I love the white background. You did a nice job.

I, you know, it's funny, I, I went through— when you do cover design, you first look at lots of different styles, and we looked at a bunch. This was not my first choice, but I had created a panel. I know my limitations, and design is not one of my strengths, but I went to my network, I went to people who were in the target audience, and this design was by far the clear winner. And now that we've revised it and come up with this, I'm actually super happy with the COVID So thank you. I think the COVID designer did a great job. And then the, the website designer who took a lot of the style and put it into the website also did an amazing job. So I'm very happy with the design.

All right, awesome. One more question. I'm sorry, you have an app, and I'm not sure when you say an app, are you talking about like a A phone app or a website?

A phone app. So it's a free app. If you go to the website and just click the app link, you can then find links to get on Android and on iPhones, and you can just download and install it. And it's just a very passive app. I don't record any information. I don't even know your location. I know nothing about you because I don't need that to help you. It's about providing content to be helpful to you, and it requires Basically no effort on your part. You'll get a pop-up each day just reminding you of some of the key skills that you've been reading in the book.

Oh my gosh, that is so— oh, I love— okay, I gotta go because I have to get on your website and download the app right now. I'm very excited. Mark, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. This was wonderful, and I'll be reaching out to you with, uh, with some of the things. I, I just so excited to talk to you, so thank you so much.

Thank you very much for having me on the show. I hope this has been helpful to the audience.

Oh, I know it's been helpful to the audience, right? Everyone comment below how helpful. Thank you. I'm going to end it right now. You're perfect. What a great guest. Wow.