GA 283 | Leveraging the Spirit of Learning with Ryan McCall

I think that really hits home with people that, hey, this is my problem. I want to solve it. You don't need to come out here and do this, you know, for me. And I think the phrase that comes to mind is, you know, when we do these things, we do them with you, not for you or at you.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Ryan McCall to the show. Now, Ryan, as you'll hear, connected with me on LinkedIn a few weeks ago and said he really enjoyed the podcast, was really moved by some of the most. Some of our recent episodes. And I got to chatting with him a little bit and come to find out that he's relatively new to the. To the Lean movement. And I said, william, why don't you come onto the show and share your story? And Ryan was kind enough to carve out some time to do that. And so what we talked about today was just really how Ryan and his company have gotten started with Lean and just kind of what they've been successful with, what they've been struggling with. And then towards the end of the podcast, about halfway through, Ryan turns the tables on me and just. Just starts asking me some questions. And so it was. It was fun to flip the mic around and be able to share, you know, just some thoughts and ideas that I had in my head. So I think you're going to enjoy the show. Ryan is a great guy and had a lot of fun chatting with him. So show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 283. Again, gembapodcast.com, look for episode 283. We also talk a lot about things like job instruction and value stream mapping and all that. And so if you want to learn more about that, be sure to go over to our main website, gembacademy.com and check out all we've got to offer there. You can think about it. Lean, Six Sigma related. We more than likely covered it. So again, that's gembaacademy.com okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Welcome to the show, Ryan. How's it going?

It's good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm a huge fan of the show and it's an honor to be invited on.

Oh, no. Well, thank you for coming on. Yeah, I was actually speaking to my business partner, Kevin Meyer. He's actually in town today, and he's like, oh, you know, how's the podcast? This and that? I'm like, it's good. And he's like, how do you find your guests all the time? Like, people contact me on LinkedIn. I was like, why don't you come onto the show?

Yeah, I was so surprised. I just contacted you on LinkedIn, trying to, you know, just get involved in the movement and everything. And all of a sudden it's, hey, come on the show.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I love about the show is like, we try to get people, we got all flavors, you know, we get the, the expert, writing the books and, and you know, Mike Rother speech was on last week and, and you know, then, then practitioners who are out in the field doing, doing the work, you know. You know, we like to have a, have it all, have a nice balance.

So that's great. Yeah, just I was taking a little off guard. So I think I just started listening to the podcast and, you know, you got this expert and I think it was right after you did the Katakan stuff.

Yeah.

And so I was just kind of taken aback, like, oh, me? I don't know much, you know.

No, man, it's all good. We all have a story, so. All right, well, hey, so before we get into that story, Ryan, you know, since you listen to the show, we like to begin with our guest sharing a quote. So do you have one?

I do, I do. It's not, I don't know if it's directly Lean related, but considering where I'm at and where our company's at in our journey, I think it fits really well. So it's by Jim Rohn and it's don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills. And don't wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom. I think that just kind of really encapsulates at least where I'm at so far in this journey.

Nice. I like it. I like it. All right, well, let's jump right in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who Ryan is, tell us about your background and then tell us how you got introduced to all this Lean stuff.

So my background is mechanical engineering design. I work for a company. We make kind of heavy off road equipment, so we do all the manufacturing in house. So I've always kind of been in touch with the manufacturing side, just not directly. I was in the design side. Been doing that for about eight or nine years now. So right out of college, went into that recently, the company has, you know, we're growing up so we've had to make a shift and start doing some continuous improvement. That operational excellence became, you know, a buzzword around. And to be honest, it's my. My boss and mentor, he said, you know, if you're really into this or you're curious about it, go ahead and grab this book called the Goal. So I know it's been a common theme with a lot of your guests, especially recently. So read that, and I was just hooked from then, and I've been gobbling up every book I can get my hands on since.

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, you know, that, that. That goal, man. You know, I remember my wife was working. We were both working at Nokia cell phone provider, you know, Mrs. Many, many, many years ago. And. And we were all up into the, you know, continuous improvement and all that. And. And I read the Goal. I was like, you need to read this, honey. And she's like. I said, it's like a novel. You might like it. And she did. She liked it. You know, it's like al. Trials and tribulations, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

But it's a great book.

It was a surprisingly good read, and it's full of all kinds of information. And I know people say this all the time. It's like, are they. Are you sure he wasn't at our factory last week?

Exactly.

It really describes the things that go on on the shop floor, down to a T. So it really hit home for me, and I just decided I got to know all there is to know about this stuff and kind of got into Lean from there.

There's a Lean series that's similar to it. One of them's got the Gold Mine. Have you. Have you heard of those?

I have not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. And it was a father and son and ballet fellows, and they. They. They wrote those books, and they're also, like, novel, so. So if you like that style, you probably like those, too, so. Cool. All right, well, I want to know a little bit more about your. Your. Your lean journey. I mean, you know, obviously you're newer to the. To the movement, which is really cool, and I would love to just get your. Your impressions about, you know, kind of how you guys. How you're getting started and, you know, how you got started, but then what you're doing right now, and just. Let's talk a little bit about that because maybe some folks listening are newer as well, and they might benefit from hearing your story.

Okay, so kind of how we got started is, you know, our company, we were growing like crazy, and, you know, we're a small manufacturer, kind of 100, 150, but you know, increasing that rapidly employees. And we actually recently got purchased by an equity group. And so once that kind of happens, your goals and priorities shift a little bit. So we had to start, start meeting some hard targets. And you know, this company that, that we kind of are working with, the equity partners, they're really big into manufacturing, so they kind of know what they're doing. And they were coming able to give us a guiding light to go for. And that's where that operational excellence started to come in to the culture. And from there we just started developing a team for continuous improvement. I actually was involved in a Kaizen event for one of our weld bays. And I just kind of from there I was in as the mechanical engineer at that point. From there, really took a liking to all this stuff and just kind of dove in head first. And now I'm on the team for the continuous improvement and kind of doing more of the leading training. And, you know, we're really getting the ball rolling with it.

Talk about that event. I'm curious, what was that event, that welding event? What was the problem? What you guys, what were you trying to do?

So a lot of it's just really basic stuff, so kind of setting up the 5s, getting thing organized in a way that makes sense, trying to get some sort of more of a flow structure in there, really hammering down inventory and really working on that, getting the parts when you need them at the point of use. So kind of some really basic stuff. Like I said, we really hadn't focused on this at all. So kind of the things we're doing are kind of the basics right now, but I think they're making a huge impact.

Well, yeah, don't ever downplay the basics, man, because we all keep doing the basics. And if you ever stop doing the basics, you're probably in trouble, you know. Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. So talk a little bit about your, you know, you found Gemba Academy's podcast. That's great. Thank you for listening and all that. Like, what else are you doing as far as, like, how are you. You guys reading books, going to conferen, you know, what's your plan there?

So so far I've just been diving into books and not with any real method to the madness. Just listening to your podcast, hearing what other guests have said about the books they like, and then just going out and trying to get through those. Not as quick as possible, but kind of get as much information as I can in, you know, from there, my mentor had a few books, so he got the Learning to see.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And that. That series of books. So we're kind of reading those as we. As they apply to what we're doing on the floor.

Yeah.

I actually recently read Two Second Lean.

Yep.

It's a short read, but it's awesome. I think some of the stuff he's got, as far as culture is concerned is. Is just, you know, it's really interesting and it makes common sense. That one was a really good read. I enjoyed that.

Let me give you a little tip on 2 second lean. That's why that's Paul Akers, you know, good buddy of mine. So here's what you should do. You should reach out to him and he'll want to look at you, so he'll get you on Skype or FaceTime or whatever it is and chat with you. And then he's going to start telling you to start making videos and all the rest of it. So careful what you do if you do reach out to him, because it's going to open up a whole new can of productivity and continuous improvement. So you got to be careful what you ask for with Paul. But, man, if you want motivation and you want someone to cheer you on and support you, there's no one better. So. Yeah. So Paul, I'm sure, would love to hear from you.

Oh, he's so inspirational. And actually, it's funny you mentioned that. I just reached out to him on LinkedIn a couple days ago and he got back to me really quick. I was surprised. I'm sure that man's extremely busy, but he's just such an inspirational person.

Yeah, he sure is.

His ideas and philosophies about Lean and keeping it simple and really moving, the culture being the number one important thing I think is a real insight fix.

What bugs you, Right?

Yeah, I love it. It's so simple.

Yeah, exactly. So what's been your favorite part of the journey so far?

For me, personally, I really like the idea of fixing a process and making it better. So even before I got into this, it's funny because you say I didn't get into it recently, but until recently, but I've always kind of been driven to try and find the best way to do things. So even before I kind of knew about continuous improvement, I guess I was kind of doing it. So I just kind of gave it a name a little bit. So I really got into it, you know, before I knew what it was. But that's My favorite part is just going out every day and just making things better and easier for. For the guys on the floor and just kind of helping people out. I really, really enjoy it.

Yeah.

Along with the technical side, I love, you know, the tools are great, they're cool, they're interesting, but the more I read, it's the. And the more I do it, it's really the people side that excites me.

Absolutely, absolutely. So flip side of that. What have you struggled with? What kind of obstacles have. Have you faced? And. And what have you learned from that?

I think when you're. When you're starting from ground zero, it's very difficult to figure out what you tackle first because you want to tackle everything at once. So we've been kind of trying to figure out kind of a roadmap forward and, you know, starting with training, but at some of these Kaizen events, like I said, and I know as we continue to do them, we're just going to get better at them, but kind of that's been a struggle, and then kind of the usual, you know, a little bit of resistance to change. Yeah. So I know some people love change, some people welcome it, some people it, you know, can scare them or intimidate them. And just trying to. I think the biggest thing is trying to educate maybe is the best way forward with that. And so we're making strides there. But those are kind of the two things that stick out is, you know, the resistance you kind of get, because I think the people don't understand and are kind of scared of the change and the, you know, kind of. Where do you start chipping away when you have such a mountain to kind of climb?

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, something, Ryan, that. That is often fun to do on these podcasts with folks who are kind of just getting started with. With. With their lean journey is they might turn the tables on the podcast and. And start asking me questions. So do you have any questions or anything that you've been struggling with that? I mean, I don't claim to have all the answers, but, you know, I've seen a few things over the years. So anything I can do to help you?

Yeah, Ron, I appreciate flipping the tables. I know I could probably list off a dozen questions, but I'll kind of ask the ones that really I've been thinking about the most. So I guess one that I did have was how do you balance kind of the listening and connecting and caring for the workers and really, you know, serving them that idea, you Hear that a lot on your podcast. That comes up a lot in discussions with a lot of these kind of lean leaders that are out there. How do you balance that with kind of enforcing the 5s or the 3s or the kind of the discipline side?

Good question. Yeah, you heard my answer a few weeks ago, didn't you, with Sarah? Told her to serve. Yeah, I feel like her.

And I really felt her pain a little bit, her confusion.

Yeah. Well, first of all, the fact that you're asking about listening is a great sign because it means you are listening. And when we're new into this journey, especially being a smart engineer like you are, it's easy to have all the answers or to think you have all the answers. Right, Right. And so it's. It's super easy to go in there, just kind of. Oh, yeah. What do you think? Well, except for. Let me just. Let me just tell you, you know, and next thing you know, you're off and running. And, And a good friend of mine, Mike Robleski's, a real, real strong, lean thinker, and he, He. He always likes to tell a story of don't. Don't steal someone's monkey, you know, so monkey being, you know, the problem that they have, you know, and, and when you, when you, when you steal someone's monkey or you steal their problem, you. You take that opportunity away from that person who, you know, would have the ability to grow and learn, but because you just gone off and done it for them, they can't learn, they can't grow. In fact, it may even help them, maybe even put them backwards, because they're gonna be like, well, I can't even do it. You know, I need Ryan. You know, Ryan's got to do it for me. And, well, next time I have a problem, I'll just go to Ryan and he'll fix it, you know, so, so that's the first thing is to make sure that you. You don't steal anybody's monkey, you know, and, and now that doesn't mean that you don't help them and you don't give them support and coach them. But, but, yeah, you don't want to do it for them. But on the flip side, you know, we. You've heard, I'm sure the. And read through. Through your, Your. Your education process. So, so that, you know, without standards, there can be no, no Kaizen, you know, no improvement. And so we do need to get my business. Other business partner, John Miller, wrote a blog article a few weeks ago, something to the effect of you know, can there be too much scientific thinking? And, you know, his point wasn't. What wasn't that we shouldn't be thinking scientifically. Of course we should be. But his point was there are certain times to where you don't need to think, you need to do. Right. Like there might be an engineering solution to a problem. And you know, for sure if you do this engineering solution, it's going to be good. Well, at that point, the thinking about what to do may not be needed. We know what to do because you went to how many years of school, right, to be a smart engineer. So don't throw that out with the bathwater. Right. I mean, so. But you can still use more of a scientific thinking process perhaps to implement, you know, that solution. So we can talk about, hey, as our next step, how about we do this, you know, and then maybe you slowly introduce your engineering solution, see what you learn. Because, you know, it may be slightly different than what you learned in class, right? So, so I think there's, there's that, that, that balance between listening, listening, listening, hoping they come up with the answer, even. And it's killing you because, you know, you can help them with your, you know, your knowledge and your experience. So I think it's okay to offer advice, to offer potential countermeasures, but you go into it with the spirit of learning and experimentation. Even if we're going to learn and experiment with some ideas that I have, you know, because often when we're thinking about scientific thinking, the coach and a learner, the two people who are kind of going through it together, neither one of them really knows for sure right now. The coach might have some really good ideas, but the learner might have some really good ideas. But that's why we ask at the end, how soon can we come back together to find out what we have learned? Right? Because we are both learning. Right? So, so I think that's, that's the thing. Don't, don't think you have all the answers. You might have some really good ideas that are worthy of exploration, but do it with that spirit of experimentation and learning instead of telling and, you know, and I think you'll be in, you'll be in good shape. Does that make sense?

It does, it does. And I really like the, I guess the analogy or the, the story about stealing someone's monkey. I think that really hits home with people that, hey, this is my problem, I want to solve it. You don't need to come out here and do this, you know, for me. And I think the phrase that comes to mind is, you know, when we do these things, we do them with you, not for you or at you.

Yeah, yeah.

You talk about doing lean at people. I know you that phrase a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, I try and be mindful of that. I guess for me, it just, you know, there's also kind of the idea that there's some basic principles that you just kind of have to. Yep. Or disciplines, I guess, that you have to kind of adhere to.

Yep.

And so there's. There's that tension there between the two.

Yep. Yeah, exactly. I mean, 5s is what it is. Right, right.

That's what I'm saying. You're on your video. I think you said 5s. If you don't 5s, you can forget the rest.

Yep, yep.

And so it's kind of that, you know, guys, I'm here to help you and serve, and we want to do better, but at the same time, we've got to ask you to do these. These certain basic tidiness and cleanup and protocol standards in order to start heading in that direction.

Well, let me jump in there, because there's one. One thing. I don't know if you've gotten into TWI yet at all. You know, if you've heard Skip Stewart, I'm sure, on the podcast, he's a huge, you know, TWI practitioner. And one of the movements or one of the programs within TWI is job instruction. It's how you instruct people.

Right.

The best way. Have you. Have you tinkered with that at all, or.

I have not gotten into that topic yet.

So. So what we do within job instruction is we identify, you know, something that we want to do. We might call it a. A key, you know, a key step or. Or a. Or a major thing that we want to do. But then we talk about the key points to that. Okay, so here's the big thing, but here's what that is, and we dig in a little bit deeper. But then here's the most important part, in my opinion. We explain the reason for the key point. So when we want. We're talking about 5s, you know, what we can do is we can say, this is what 5s is. Here's what the S's mean, and, you know, here's how we do it. It's pretty intuitive, you know, that kind of thing. But you can't stop there. Then you say, here's why we do it, here's the reason, and here's our reason as a company why we are doing It. And you know that's a trap because sometimes you might read in Paul's book or my video or whatever that hey, we should be doing this 5s. But you got to understand why your why your company's why. And then you got to, you got to communicate that. And if you don't have a good why, then truth be told, you should tap the brakes for a second and figure out maybe 5. Maybe you're a clean room and maybe 5s isn't going to be your top priority at that point. Maybe it's something else. Right.

Okay.

But, but, but make sure you have a reason why and then you communicate that reason why. And you know, because that's what makes things like JI work is because, you know, we know what we want to do. We know kind of the key things we need to do to make it happen, but then we know why we're doing those things. And that, that, that final step of explaining the reasons that to me is, is the true power. So, so make sure that you don't ever forget that.

Okay. Yeah, that's, you know, something that comes up a lot as far as trying to implement these things. And I've really, you know, I've read as much as I can up to this point, but that's what everyone stresses is the why.

Yep.

You know, you've really got to come forward and clearly define your why. And because that's how you get kind of people on board and you get people excited about it instead of kind of the inverse is, is what happens sometimes. Yeah. Where you get some resistance. So I think that was, that's great advice. So thank you, Ron. Really focus on the why. Yeah.

What else, man? Let's do one more.

I guess in our factory, you know, you hear a lot of people say, well, lean can't apply because of this, or we can't do one piece flow because fill in the blank. And that seems to come up a lot. Or trying to really explain and elaborate. Maybe this comes down to answering the why too is really getting these principles that are maybe counterintuitive to what most people think about manufacturing and kind of really having them make sense to the people on the floor. Like, hey, we don't want you to going back to welding, weld up this part and this part and then this part kind of in a row. We want you to weld the whole thing as a one piece flow. And kind of here's the reason why that doesn't. I don't know if I'm just having problem defining the why. Well, and maybe that would help.

Well, it's a good point. It's a good question. So here's another way of looking at it. Go in there with, with the spirit that you want to learn and you want to, when you want to grow. So you might go into the, to the welder and say, hey, so there's this, there's this technique, they call it one piece flow. Whatever we call it whatever we want. And, and here's how it works. You know, grab yourself some. Have you ever seen our envelope stuffing video?

I have. I actually shared that with the continuous improvement team and kind of said, hey, when we go try and explain this on the floor or how we're trying to do this one piece flow. Yeah, I think this would be an excellent exercise to, you know, kick off that session.

So, so you can do that, but that's not sufficient. That's just enough. They might be like, yeah, that's cool, but we don't stuff envelopes. That's nice.

But I think that's exactly kind of what happens when you go down that road.

Right. So what you got to follow it up with is say, so. Well, we just saw the principles, how they work with envelopes and seem to work out. Okay, but what can we do to see if it works in our business and truly go into it with that spirit. Not like, you know it's going to work because you don't know you've not done it right. So go into it with the spirit of, let's see if it works. So don't argue about whether or not it'll work or not. If you want to debate, debate on how we can experiment to see if it works. Okay, because you could get everybody to agree, you know, would it be good if we could do this 20% faster? Would that be good? And it was easier for you? Everybody get them saying, as you know, Mr. Carnegie would say, get people saying, yes, and so, yes, it would be good. Okay, would you be open to working with us to see if we could figure out how to possibly do that? Yes. Okay, well, let me throw out some ideas for some potential experiments. Would that be okay? Yes. Okay, so here's some ideas. What do you all think? And then brainstorm back and forth, you know, give and take, and then form a just a real basic, you know, and we're talking one piece flow here, but it could be anything. But in one piece flow, you could just say, hey, so today, how do you do that work? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's probably batched of some sort Right. And say, well, what if we tried it this way? You know, would you be open to trying it? I'm not saying it'll be better. I'm curious. Let's see. Let's see what we learn, you know, and then they'll more than likely be like, yeah, well, at least to give it a try and you know, say, hey, let's videotape it, you know, just so we can, we can take all the pressure off and we can just come back and watch a videotape and see what we learn. And, and, and then before you do it and say, what do you think's gonna happen, Mr. Mrs. Welder?

Yeah, you know, yeah.

And, and see what they say. And do you think it'll be faster? No, I think it's gonna be slower. It's weird, man, because one piece flow is weird, right? It's like crossing your arms the wrong way, you know, and, and yeah, let them make a prediction and say, oh, let's try it. When can we try it? Try it this afternoon, Try it that afternoon and see what happens. More than likely, if it's true, one piece flow is going to be better. We know it's science at that point, right? We know it's going to be better. But even if it is better, but you don't need to be able. I told you so, you know, if you just listen to me.

Oh, no, I would never do that.

You know, and just be like, cool. What did we learn? What actually happened? And what did we learn? And, and just, and document this stuff, you know, on piece of paper or, you know, whatever, you're. Whatever. I mean, you're thinking scientifically here. So whether you use all the COTA forms or not doesn't matter at this point. You're. You're experimenting and seeing what you learn, right? But that's how I would go into it. I would go into it with, you know, not saying this is the way that we should do it, and would you just listen, you know, because that's not going to work.

But if you go, I try not to do that. I guess I didn't even. I'm so glad that I asked you that question and that you responded the way you did, because I just, I was kind of lost. I was stuck. I don't know how to even approach this subject to these guys because I personally know it works, but how do I kind of prove that to them? And I, like you said, the best thing to do is go in, say, get them saying yes, and come in with that, with that Mindset of experimentation versus, hey, I know this works already.

Yep.

Get them to learn with you. And that way their kind of eyes are opened up through experiments as opposed to kind of drilling theories and philosophy at them.

Exactly, exactly.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, and it's not just one piece flow. It could be anything, man.

Well, yeah, you apply that across thinking.

You know, it's like, hey, this is value stream mapping thing I'm learning about. Learning to see. Might be kind of cool if we could, you know, see what we could learn from. Let's go draw what's really happening. And what do y' all think's gonna happen? Right? Sound familiar? You know, and then what actually happened? Oh, my gosh. I had no idea that our process was this messed up. Okay, well, what did we learn? You know, and, you know, we're actually.

In the middle of doing that right now, and one of our biggest product lines, we were doing that, that whole door to door, just do a value stream map. Let's. Let's go through that whole process and let's just see. Put it up in front of everybody and let's see what we get out of it.

Yep, exactly. Exactly.

I'm glad to hear that that's. We're at least headed in the right direction as far as that's concerned.

Yeah. What's so cool is you don't know because it hasn't come out yet, but last week's podcast, which I know what's coming up in our schedule, it was. Was Mike Rother's Toyota Kata kind of keynote. And, you know, he's the guy that wrote Learning to See, you know, and. And I. And I've mentioned many times that that book, that Learning to See book, man, that's what, that's why I'm here. That's why I'm talking right now, because that book was one of the major. When it first came out, man, I devoured it and, and, and messed a lot of stuff up, made a lot of stuff better, learned all kinds of stuff, and, and boy, that's what got me down this continuous improvement path, though. And then, then shortly thereafter, if you haven't bought all those Lei books, you need to get them. You need to own them all. Learning to see.

Right now I'm getting through the. The red one.

Yeah, red one. That's. Yeah. Rick Harris, he actually came on the podcast, by the way. Gosh, a couple years ago. He's. He's. He's the one of the authors on that one about creating cells and all the rest of it. But then creating a creating level poll, there's. Making Materials Flow, I believe, is the green one. I mean, I got them all, you know, and those, those are really, really, really essential books for folks, especially if you're in a manufacturing environment. I mean, they're very manufacturing centric.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So if you're in that world, man, you definitely need to get. You can buy a whole pack of them. Just tell the Lei guys that Gemba Academy sent you.

All right, I'll do that. Yeah. I'll have to get the whole library. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good stuff. Well, hey, man, this has been fun, Ryan. I always love chatting with folks who are, who are, you know, in the trenches, man, doing the work and trying to learn and, and get better. So keep it up, man. Don't get. There's going to be a lot of discouraging moments. There's going to be a lot of times when, you know, you want to give up, but don't give up. You know, just keep fighting and give me a call anytime and come back on the podcast. We'll, we'll, we'll pump you back up and, and just stay after it because it's so worth it, man. You can change people's lives, you know, including your own, and for the better.

Yeah. Then going back to Paul Akers, just the stuff he's done and just to see him apply it to every aspect of his life.

Yeah.

I mean, he's, he's a huge inspiration. And, you know, I go in every day and I don't get discouraged. You know, I don't get down even when things get tough. And that goes back to that quote, you know, you just gotta, you just gotta buckle down and just get better, be better. Kind of apply the principles to yourself on a daily basis. Yeah. And you know, Ron, I really appreciate your feedback here. I think we had a great conversation. I, I've got a list of stuff that I gotta go check out now, so I'm really excited we got the chance to do this.

Very good, very good. And if you guys are into the conferences and all that, you know, Ame Katakan, all these conferences, those are great opportunities to network with folks and to learn, attend some workshops. So those are always super, super helpful to go to.

I would love to look them up and I'll find the next one I can get to.

Very good. All right, well, keep it up, Ryan, and stay in touch. Maybe we'll have you back on in a year and you can tell us what all the amazing stuff that you've been working on.

That would be awesome. I'll probably have a lot more to talk about then.

All right, Be good. Thanks, Ryan.

All right. Thanks, Ron.

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