Superstar Ed Frauenheim, Reinventing Masculinity: The Liberating Power of Compassion and Connection

Hi everyone, welcome, welcome. Adrienne Barker Speaks. Adrienne Barker Speaks is the name of this show. Very excited today to have Ed Fraunheim. Did I say it right?

Yep.

Fraunheim. So here's the deal. I don't really know about Ed except for a little bit that I've read, and it's pretty incredible. And so we're going to really jump into this. And I also don't read bios because I have you tell us who you are, but what you teach and, and, and what you put the value on is so incredible to me. So I'm actually going to zip my mouth a little bit here so that you can tell us what you do. And I have your website down here, Reinventing Masculinity, um, which I love. That's packed full with a lot of information. So who is Ed Fraunheim.

Thanks for the question, Adrienne. Nice to be with you here today. I am a writer primarily, and I'm someone who's been interested in the intersection of organizations and masculinity for some time now, and that culminated in writing this book called Reinventing Masculinity. That is where the, you know, so we have a website about it. And basically, I have been on a path to understand whether there's a better way to be a man, to show up in new ways, kind of in my own personal life, but also seeing that really organizations to thrive today need men to show up in different ways. Not the sort of traditional barking boss, not to diminish your name, Adrian Barker, but have more of a listening, and persuasive and collaborative style, not that sort of competitive, stoic, direct, you know, command and control style. That's really what's needed today is a different way of showing up as a man, and that's going to help you have a more fulfilling personal life as well. So that's in a nutshell the topics that I've been driven by, and my basic profile as a, as a professional has been as a writer, a journalist for many years. For the last 7 years, I was at Great Place to Work as a writer and researcher. That's an organization that studies workplace culture, surveys employees. It's behind the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list that comes out every year. So that's been my honor to kind of work with some of the best companies in the world. That's where a lot of these ideas in the book have come from.

So the Great Place to Work I always thought that was a title of a, of like a contest for great places to work, but you're saying it's actually a business.

Correct. And it's both in a way. Great Place to Work does have a funny name, Great Place to Work. And people always say, are you a great place to work? And yes, Great Place to Work is a great place to work according to our own survey. And it is a, it's been around for more than 2 decades as a consulting and research organization. Global, operating in more than 60 countries around the world. And one of the things we've done is have these annual and more than annual lists of best workplaces based on what employees say makes a great workplace. So that is true. It's an excellent organization. And I just left there this, this January after a long, you know, long stint there, which I really appreciated, kind of paving my own way, especially looking into this issue of masculinity and work now.

So let's talk about the masculinity. I, I will share with you that, for instance, I absolutely really like my daughter's boyfriend. She's only 14 and a half, you know, I'm sure she's gonna have a life of many boyfriends. But what I— honestly, what I love about him is that he's not afraid to wear a pink shirt or to wear pink socks or pink speakers. And, um, and, and I was saying to my daughter that there's a part of him that is sensitive. And I don't know, as a female, if we even know how to describe sometimes when we meet a man who, who we immediately connect with because they're so likable, because they don't have any of that, you know, man banner over them, and they're just sweet and sensitive. And, and, you know, I don't really care about anybody's— ever did I care about anyone's sexuality. It's just the fact that, you know, but for my daughter, he speaks to her like a friend. And I, and I tease, I say, oh, he's like your girlfriend-boyfriend because he's got such sweetness in him. It is. And I know that's such like a half-assed way of like trying to make like a description, but it is something that we kind of fall for and that we love as the female when we see that in a young teen or in a grown man. There's just something. So, but I need you to like kind of put that in a ball for me or something so I could throw it a little bit more.

Oh, I love that, Adrienne. And I actually have a daughter who's 15 and has a boyfriend very much like that as well. So we're in the same boat. And I love that about my my daughter's boyfriend Nathan. Um, I think that you're capturing something that is, uh, where we're headed as society, uh, that historically there was that— I love the way you phrase it— the man banner, where you had to be kind of like this tough, uh, you know, aloof guy that, that the girls often have to like try to scrutinize to understand what your feelings were and, and whether you actually cared, uh, But that increasingly, that sweet sensitive parts of ourselves as men are ones we're able to show. I think men inherently have those traits of compassion and caring and connection, but we have been really trained according to sort of the conventional, what we call confined masculinity in our book, to not show it. So nowadays, you know, it's allowed to blossom. And I think you're right that young people, your daughter's boyfriend, my daughter's boyfriend, my son, a lot of younger people are feeling, I want to express these, these traits. There's nothing wrong with them. It's, it's that older school thinking. A lot of us older guys like me and peers of mine and older, where we have been kind of trapped in those by that banner, if you will. And I'm glad to see that. I believe that it's shifting.

But we change every decade. So like, for my first husband, he was kind of like a man's man. It was what he was called. And you know, good-looking, very masculine. And then I remember, and very sweet, but you know, the times change. We got married at 20, so we were divorced by in our mid-30s. And I was very close to his wife too. I made sure we had a nice relationship for our children. But we do change as we get older. And so, you know, even for my ex-husband who now has two beautiful, amazing daughters plus from his wife, He's got girls, and I could tell that that softened him. So is that part of it too, is the confidence that you feel as you get older and you can really realize, oh, okay, it's okay for me to be who I am. I don't have to try to hold the world up on my shoulders as a man.

I think that that is true as well, Adrienne, and I think that's one of the things we're hoping to allow for it more and more, that guys that may have grown up with certain manly man rules, as you know, that man's man idea, that we can let go of some of those ideas that really, you know, stunt our lives. Really, they limit us in our ability to have loving relationships, to have loving friendships with other men as well as other women, and more and more, they keep us from succeeding at work. Because that's, you know, not as successful a strategy in the work world that's emerging. So I think you're right. As we get older, we often have that greater wisdom. You know, and it's, I think it's, you find it less of this newer masculinity among people that are older, but it certainly is taking root and hoping to help enable more of that over time.

So I see it on TV at different shows, like, OK, so I am I love This Is Us. I mean, I love, love This Is Us. I've never missed one. I have to watch it live. The whole house has to be quiet, and I have to have my eyes on that. You do not bother me on This Is Us. But part of that is because the characters all have such a beautiful, sensitive side to them. We watch Randall, and he, you know, he'll cry, and he'll share exactly what's on his heart. They've got the brother called the manny. Kevin, which is interesting because he's always trying to figure out where he kind of fits in because he's seen as a manly, but he knows he's good looking. And he'll talk about that, that some people just look at him for his looks. And of course, we have Jack, the most amazing father pictured out there that is also, you know, to me, has played both sides of it because he talks about being raised by his father and then, but yet being a beautiful husband and dad. Are you seeing that on TV too, some of these different shows that really are showing us that a man can be both?

Yes, I, I don't know that show very, uh, very well, that This Is Us show. I think I may have seen one episode, uh, but I, I'm glad to hear what you're saying about it. And I, I've seen it, and we talk about this in our book a little bit, even in, in like more, uh, uh, what could have been— it was one of the man's fantasy shows, Game of Thrones, you know, one of the most popular shows in 20th century, a huge followership. And, you know, there's definitely a lot of, like, sword fighting and, you know, killing each other and fighting dragons. But over time, the characters evolve, and you see that, you know, the different kinds of male characters and female characters really challenge our assumptions about what a man can be and what a woman can be toward— and at the end of the show, and I'll try not to spoil things for those who haven't seen the whole thing, but what the leadership that you ultimately see is not a conventional leadership, you know, and the guy that you might have considered in the past, it might have been, you know, the new king, chooses a different, humbler path, you know, and sacrifices his own, you know, glory and power. So I think to your point, Adrian, the culture is showing this. And I would also say we see it in the sports world. Happy to talk about that a bit too, where the kind of sports icons of today are very different and showing a different kind of masculinity than they did in the past. And that's the new path to success as well in sports.

Oh, can you tell me more? Yes, please share more. I want to hear this.

Sure. Well, if you think about the kind of icons of the past, they were these sort of heroic individual performers, uh, people like Joe Montana or Michael Jordan, uh, the ones that kind of they were the superstars of their teams. And in more recent years, the ones that have been showing up as leading teams to success have been more humble. They've been more about collaboration and about even joy than about anger. And I'm thinking about Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors, who's, you know, he's always shimmying down the court. You know, Michael Jordan did not do a lot of dancing when he was on the court. He was going to scowl at you. Or if you think about Tom Brady, the quarterback of the New England Patriots, very humble is how he's evolved as a leader. And one of the things he says to every new player on his team, you know, has been on the Patriots, now he's on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is, "Hi, my name is Tom Brady." You know, everybody knows him. You know, he's the most famous football player in the entire league. But he comes from a place of, I'm going to not be the, you know, manly man who's going to be towering above anybody else. I'm going to be a genuine human being who's going to try to make a relationship with you. And these are the folks who are leading the teams to championships these days.

I love that. I just saw Macho Camacho's story on Showtime, I think it was, and it was really, it was a great documentary. I loved every second of it. And I don't really, I didn't really remember Macho Camacho. I remember growing up, I didn't understand why a boxer would be wearing all these costumes, and I couldn't get it. My dad was a huge huge fan and my son's a huge fan, um, but I didn't understand it. But watching the documentary, you could see that he had a part of him that was very sensitive but also wanted to showcase that a man could be more. And so he wasn't embarrassed to put on these different costumes and go out into a crowd back in— what would this have been, the '80s and '90s? And be so different from what we would expect a boxer to be.

Interesting. Is it Hector Macho Camacho? Am I reading that name right?

Yes, yes, yes.

What's his first name? Hector? I don't know his story terribly well. I'm going to want to see that. Thanks for putting it on my radar screen. I think that— but it sounds like a great story. And the idea that we've always— it goes back to what we were saying earlier, Adrienne, that every human being has the capacity to be compassionate, to be caring, to be emotionally intelligent. And yet, the role models we've often had as men were like the John Wayne characters, the stoic, you know, cold, rational, stern father. And so those models really kind of pushed us into this box where we couldn't be expressive and loving. And I will tell you that my coauthors, He has a psychology practice, and he's also started a group 30 years ago called Men Mentoring Men. And the men that he's worked with over the years have often had very minimal conversations, like relationships and conversations with their own kids or with their spouses, because they weren't told that you could be vulnerable and share feelings and just express love, even. So I think this is part of what is called for today, and it's really great to see more and more of these stories surface where men are thriving or having a richer life because they're embracing what we would call a liberating masculinity.

I love this. And you know, I will tell you that in my lifetime, I've met plenty of men that are very sensitive. We almost as women, you know, question or wonder maybe what their sexuality is, not in a judgmental way, but just wondering because sometimes when you do see a man that has that sensitivity, you kind of think, okay, well maybe then he's just gay, but it's really not that way. And so, but I always thought to myself, is that tough when a man actually has that beautiful quality of being sensitive, that they may be ridiculed or bullied or maybe just not even like that someone could be perceiving them in that way?

I think that's a great point. And I, you know, two things you're surfacing for me are, one, that is a big reason why men avoid showing up that way, that they're afraid of being pinned as in this category of being gay. And that was something that we've long mocked as a society. I think that's changing in the last even just decade into a wonderful way so that we're less judgmental, less ready to kind of mistreat people, lesbian and gay neighbors. I also think that you're speaking to the important role that women play in this shift in our masculinity views, that if women can be as open-minded as you're describing, Adrienne, and not, you know, mock somebody, a man who's showing feelings, you know, not sort of look down on them and rule them out as a potential partner or friend or human being because they're not living up to that traditional man banner. It's really, you know, men have to do the work of liberating ourselves, but women can be such great allies, just as men need to be allies to women in the workplace and elsewhere.

I like that. All right, so now we might as well, we're going to talk about, I said no politics, but What happened last week has got to be tough because what we saw, everyone saw, were mostly men. And I know for me, seeing the woman was just a little surprising for me. But, you know, I, I, and, you know, I mean, obviously I was crying during the whole thing. I picked up my daughter and she's like, what's wrong with you? And I couldn't even try to explain to her how, how, what that meant to see the the breaking into historical institutions such as the Capitol and what that looked like. And we didn't even see the real pictures at that time. So there's been a lot of crying in this house because it's just so heart-wrenching. But what we all also witnessed are men, which someone could say doing very manly things in a wrong way. I don't know if I'm describing it right 'cause I wanna be careful with my words. On the other hand, everything that you're working and all the hard work you and Ed are working on, kind of all of a sudden now you've got to approach that. And I think you read it. Can you tell us about the article? I read an article, right, last night. I think I read something that you had posted about this. Can you share? And I'll have a link to the article so everyone can read it. But can you share your thoughts on that article that you wrote?

Sure, are you referring to the USA Today article about sort of the two options of masculinity that were represented in the election? Yeah, I agree with you that it was kind of a tragic— yeah, last week's riot at the Capitol was really awful, and I do think it has something to do with these versions of masculinity that were represented in the last election between the two candidates, main candidates, Trump and Biden, and what we would What I and my co-author noticed was that Donald Trump represented that confined masculinity to an extreme, you might say, where it's— we call it— we don't use the word toxic masculinity, but it can lead to toxic behaviors, this certain kind of expectations and beliefs about being a man. We think they're outdated. They're unhealthy to the individual man. And then they're dangerous, as we saw in the riot. And a key thing that I think is part of that older masculinity is that because you're not supposed to be vulnerable, because you're supposed to be always dominant and aggressive, you can't stand losing. So Donald Trump never admits he's ever wrong or that he lost, and that is what has led to him to be essentially lying about the results of this election ever since, you know, the results became clear in November. And so when that gets taken to an extreme, all these guys who identify with that kind of dominant masculinity are unwilling to acknowledge the truth, and then they are ultimately trying to become a dictatorship, where they're not accepting a democratic decision that the country has made. So I think when you have that masculinity, it quickly is becoming in our country a very dangerous and toxic kind of way of being a man. And so I hope that, thank God that the country overall rejected that masculinity in choosing Joe Biden, who's much more willing to be emotional, empathetic, much more interested in collaborating with partners around the world, and also is someone who's standing up for principle. He can see the truth. He's willing to acknowledge the truth, and sometimes he admits he's wrong. You know, like he made a bad decision on the law that incarcerated a lot of Black folks with the drug laws back in the '90s, and he'll say, I made a mistake and I've been trying to fix it ever since. So that's the kind of masculinity we need today is that more vulnerable, principled, truth-accepting, and compassionate masculinity, not one that can't take a loss and ultimately turns to violence.

It turns to it pretty quickly, and unfortunately, the other thing that President-elect Joe Biden did during— I think when he accepted, or there was an interview where he said that Kamala and him would be co- presidents. They would work together. She will be going in the room. She'll be the first in the room and the last in the room. So we all got to witness that. And I don't want to cry. I feel like she's like my Michelle Obama. When I think of Michelle Obama, I like— I just— because there's so much love. And I feel the same way with Kamala. There's something just so— besides the fact that she's absolutely just put together and incredible, when she opens her mouth, you just, you know, ears peak. I feel like a dog. I'm like, Come on, I was there. I got to listen. But so, you know, but he's also said, as a man and as the president-elect, this is what I'm going to do for my vice president. I don't even know if I'll— I feel like that I heard that he's going to say, get rid of the word vice president, we're co-presidents. But that's what we need more is more male and females working together.

I love that vision. I hadn't heard that particular quote. Adrian, but I like that idea of partnership. You know, I think that is a beautiful concept, and that is something that men who are embracing this newer masculinity, this liberating masculinity as we would call it, they're not afraid to be partners with women. They don't have to be at the top of a pecking order. That's that old-school thinking where you have to dominate others. No, and you know why? We don't have to be anyone better than anybody else. It's such a fundamental change in perspective. Actually, it's a richer experience to be partners, which we can have in our marriages, in our workplaces, and in our leadership of the country. So I love that vision that he's expressing there. And you can contrast that with the way President Trump has treated his vice president, who, when he said, "I'm going to defend the Constitution," Trump is attacking him as being cowardly. There was even a quote in today's newspaper, I think the New York Times, where Trump said, "You're going to be a patriot or another P-word," that is a very vulgar term that I don't want to repeat here. That shows an inability to really recognize and respect another as an equal. And this is, in his case, another man even. So, I think we need this change in the way we view ourselves as men. In the way we view masculinity so that we can be partners with each other, men or female, male or female.

Okay, so what are the steps? Because I love what you're saying. I do think that if, 'cause right away when I was reading, I thought, oh, that's like that old saying, like, don't cry, Joey, you're a boy, you're not allowed to cry, boys don't show their feelings, blah, blah, blah. But how are you going to get into to be able to teach our generations, our next generation coming up, to that this is okay? How do we get this mainstream into the school system or that parents can teach it? What are your steps that you're going to be doing for this?

Great question, Adrienne. Well, we have a model that we've come up with that we call the 5 C's. And this is our practices for moving your masculinity to this better place. I don't have all the kind of programs in place yet. I have a workshop that I'm offering for men at work especially, but, you know, we haven't kind of figured out all the whole school approach yet. But I can walk through those 5 C's, which I think gets at what you're saying about enabling the tears, you know, tears of happiness and tears of sadness. The first C is— should I walk through these for folks?

Yes.

OK, so they start with curiosity. We say curiosity is the first one, courage, compassion, connection, and commitment. So if I just mention a bit about each of these. Curiosity, we think, is a starting point because we have to start posing questions. What is this really the only way to be a man? Is this the best way to live our lives? And curiosity is something that we all have within us as human beings. You know, little boys always are asking, why is the sky blue? How come an airplane can fly? But we get that drilled out of us by the time we're like teenagers because we're afraid of being stupid. We're afraid of being, not showing up as the dominant smartest guy in the room. And that's just not tenable anymore. And we lose part of our humanity when we try to push away that curiosity. So the next thing then is courage. Once we start asking these questions and as we are put in positions where we're looking at ourselves and saying, is this really the way I want to be? Then that does take courage to say, actually, I'm not going to show up under that man banner, as you put it. I'm going to be willing to express my feelings. I'm also going to stand up for the truth. I'm going to be courageous about what's right and wrong. And also, there's an element to this of taking a hard look in the mirror and understanding our privilege as men, often in particular as white men, for me, for example. How have we had advantages that women or people of color have not had? So that takes courage to acknowledge, you know what, maybe I'm not as self-made a man as I thought I was. So that's the second C. The third one then is the compassion one. And then this gets to your point about the crying piece. Like, are we willing to show empathy and feel for others? And it also includes feeling for ourselves, like being willing to give ourselves a break and to feel, you know, feel our own feelings as opposed to shutting them down or suppressing them. And that is connected to the connection one. Are we willing to acknowledge that we're not islands? We're not self-made men, as I mentioned before. We're actually part of a broader human community and interdependent connections that allow us to live our daily lives. And if we do that, then we will work on fostering our relationships, building bonds of love and of trust in our families and in our workplaces. Hold on one second. Sky, can you take that to the other room to minimize noise during this recording? Thank you. I'm telling my— asking my 15-year-old daughter to minimize the breakfast noise here. And so then the last one after the connection piece is commitment. Are we willing to dedicate ourselves to this progress, to moving toward a masculinity that is contemporary, uh, that is, uh, freeing ourselves and others to live fuller, more satisfying lives.

I love that. So in your book, are they stories? So how can I see your book again? Do you have your book there so I could— I think you had it up. Can I take a look at it?

Yes, sure.

That's a big book. So what, what's in the book?

And we do have—

go ahead. Tell me about the book. Is it a workbook? Is it—

we have a lot of stories. Yeah, that's one of the things that I— it is a, uh, bit of both of what you just said. We have a lot of stories about this, uh, shift from a confined masculinity to a liberating masculinity, uh, and we also have, uh, questions that, that kind of help people, uh, advance. And we talk about those 5 C's. But some of the stories, uh, one of the stories that I can share right now has to do with in the workplace. There are leaders of some of the biggest companies in the world that are embracing this kind of masculinity. And I think they're serving as great role models. One of them is the CEO of Cisco, the technology giant, makes all the networking equipment and WebEx software that allows us to do video conferencing during the pandemic. And their CEO, Chuck Robbins, not— several years ago, had a dream. He dreamt that he was visiting a homeless encampment in Silicon Valley in San Jose, California. And the next day he woke up and said, and it will, excuse me, in the dream, he saw the face of his pastor and of his father. And that inspired him to say, you know what, I have to do something about this. And he called the mayor of San Jose the next day and said, I want to help. And I want to get my company involved. That led to Cisco dedicating tens of millions of dollars to solve homelessness problems, which are huge in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area. And then inspiring his people to show what they were doing in terms of giving back to the community and to tend to be tackling homelessness among other issues. So he was willing to sort of lead from his heart, you know, say, I care about this. I'm going to trust my intuition that this is the right thing to do. And then it hasn't come at the expense of business success. He's led the most successful business product launch they've ever done. They've ever done. So it's inspiring people to want to work harder at Cisco. When people, when men leaders try on and listen to their hearts, be more compassionate, more connected, it's really the power of today.

You know, I, this is so interesting. So when I got married, my first husband, but then I saw the movie Terms of Endearment, and it was, I think at the end she said, don't marry the dancer, marry the nerd. But my husband, I love to tease him because he loves like chick films. Like, my God, does he love this Hallmark Channel. And he'll like— one time he watched like 50 movies like 1,050 times. But, but that is what I love about him, this sweet sensitive side. And there was— sorry for my friends that are watching that know this— there was a part of the time where Alan would just like put on his pink, hot pink shorts and pick my daughter up at the, uh, at the bus stop. And he— not necessarily for a laugh, he just loved the shorts. And he He doesn't have that care of what people think. And so I call my husband my girlfriend too, because he does embrace all of that so beautifully. And he's so confident with himself that he doesn't even get himself upset about it. He doesn't get upset with me. But you know what my favorite, favorite— to switch gears— my favorite cartoon growing up? I'm going to sing it to you. George, George, George of the jungle, strong as he could be. Watch out for that tree, because George himself was very sensitive.

Interesting. Was he kind of a Tarzan guy? Was it a human being?

You know, this kind of character, they had it in a cartoon. Oh, don't worry about your daughter, this is a candid conversation. Tell her though, the next time she makes a noise, she has to meet me. Tell her to come over. If she's going to make noise, she has to come on the camera. I want to say hi to her. I get in trouble all the time, my dog, my daughter. But George of the Jungle, kind of that was the whole thing. When you watch the show, yeah, George was tough and he was swinging, but then he also had all this sensitive side. And he would, you know, he was klutzy and he would hit the tree and he was silly. And so as a young girl growing up, to me, George, the cartoon George of the Jungle, represented that kind of feeling.

Yeah, we've had these models in front of us like George of the Jungle. It's just we have— the culture hasn't fully embraced them, you know, and there might have been actually like some retrograde years where we were— and maybe some of the porn images that have been dominant for a lot of young men portray a very simplistic and kind of callous masculinity often. But to your point, you know, that was a great, great model growing up. There's other interesting kind of cartoons today as well. Like, I think there's one called like Johnny Universe or something where he— there's a, you know, a male figure who's quite androgynous or kind of has gender fluid. I think more and more of those kind of images are showing up in the culture. And encouraging younger people to kind of really, you know, rethink how they want to show up as men and how they want to treat men if they're, if they're, if they're women. So I think the culture is— you're tapped into the popular culture, Adrienne, and I, you know, that's a key part of how we're going to move forward.

I'd like to see that. I love talking to you. I really appreciate your time. This is such an interesting topic, so I'm going to promote the book. I'm going to buy the book. I want to get the book myself because it's really the whole, the whole idea, because who wouldn't want to work in a place where you could feel comfortable and you're not hit by that. Well, because most people like that male chauvinist, right? That's, you know, that just men are so much better. That really can, that really can hurt a woman's psyche too. So very, very good. I enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Now wait, so now you have the class, you're working on the workshop, You've got your website that I put on the, this Reinventing Masculinity. What are some of the upcoming things that you're working on?

Yep. The main thing is this workshop on basically reinventing masculinity at work. It's called Men at Work: Straight Talk and New Practices for Success and Inclusion. And you can search for it on Eventbrite or even just a Google search on my name and Men at Work, and you'll see, you should see this event come up. It's happening later this month in early February. And yeah, I would encourage folks to come to this website. We have giveaway a free chapter of our book and just really happy to keep working with organizations and individuals to try to, you know, reinvent our masculinity for really for a better world.

I love that. The other thing too is for teachers because, you know, there's not enough male teachers, I don't think, for our— and not just for our sons, but for our daughters. I, I obviously, when my son had a male teacher, it was— they always just were able to connect a little bit more. But I think for, uh, our girls too. So, you know, opening this up so that the school— so that, you know, I, I just love this because it's not only like changing who you are, but it's being who you can be without having to worry about it. So I think you're on a lovely path. And I'd love to see 10 years from now when I go to talk to you that a lot of this is in the past and we don't see that picture of what happened at the Capitol next week. And hopefully we don't see a lot of the aggression that's going on. So I really thank you so much. This is a great conversation. Have a great rest of the day. Enjoy your daughter. Is she homeschooled?

Thank you.

Is she homeschooled, your daughter?

She's, uh, doing remote learning here. She's not homeschooled, but she— that's what it, it amounts to because she's on virtual learning classes at her high school here in San Francisco. But I will pass on your good wishes, and, uh, really nice to be in conversation with you.

I just want to say I'm sorry. I know that California is hit really hard with COVID and so I, I felt bad. I'm in Florida, so our kids are in school and, you know, we're kind of back to work with— but it, um, and we're in a bad way too, but we're just open. But I know things are tougher in California, so our hearts are on the— so you're West Coast, I'm East Coast, so together we, we form a heart. Look at— all right, have a great rest of the day. Thank you so much.

There you go.

I love it. Thank you.

Thanks.

Take care. Uh, thank you. That was great.