GA 477 | Building a Diverse Continuous Improvement Community with Sam Morgan and Andres Alamillo

Everybody in the organization, top down, we want them to think and act scientifically because when they do, we can do anything here. If we limit who we think can do that, then what kind of opportunities, what kind of openings, what kind of chances are we going to give them to engage in this process and then their ideas and things?

Today I'm excited to welcome Sam Morgan and Andres Alamillo to the show. Now as timing works out, do believe today, if it's not today, it's pretty close today that it's Sam's birthday. So happy birthday Sam, if you're listening. So, yeah, we had a great conversation. So Sam and Andres are both passionate continuous improvement thinkers and they're also really, really passionate about Toyota Kata and the whole scientific thinking community. And so today we, we had a really interesting conversation. We talked about how to talk, spread this, this movement of continuous improvement of Toyota Kata, of scientific thinking, whatever you want to call it, how we spread it really across the world to everybody and every company. No matter who you are, what you do, you know, this stuff applies, you know, it's one of the age old issues that, that I've seen throughout my whole continuous improvement career and that, you know, we're different, you know, or this doesn't apply to us. And, and so this conversation definitely really debunks that. And then Sam and Andres add kinds of other really, really powerful thoughts for us to consider. So really appreciate those guys for coming on show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com look for episode 477. Also scroll down on your app as you're listening to this. Whether it's Apple podcast or Spotify, wherever you're at. And the links to connect with Sam and Andres are going to be on there. So hit those guys up on their, on their LinkedIn and social media. And also while you're down there, look for the, the reviews for Gimba Acade. If you like the show, please do leave us a review. We really do appreciate that it helps the algorithms as they, as they say, to reach more people and that's really what we're all about. Spreading this good news that is continues every bit. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Sam and Andres, welcome to the show. How are you guys doing?

Well, thank you, Ron. Appreciate you having us on.

Yeah, good to be here. Good to be here. Yep.

Sam, you were just on not, not that long ago. When were you on?

Let me see. Oh, gosh, man. Probably like three, four months ago. Feels like yesterday, Ron.

Yeah, no, right. Time flies. What's funny is, you know, I don't know. The guests probably figure this out by now, but I rec. When we record these, they probably don't come out for like three or four weeks or whatever, you know, because we're always ahead a little bit. So somebody said, oh, I love your podcast today. I'm like, which one was that? You know, because it was like a month ago when I did it, so. Anyh, I appreciate you guys for taking time to come back on. So, you know, right out of the gate, we like to start with a quote. So I think both of you might have one. So who wants to go first?

Sam? Go for it.

Okay. All right. Well, I'm really excited to be here with. With my friend Andres and talking about some of these things that are really near and dear to our heart. One of those things for me is all about continuing and taking action forward. And I just finished this book called the Practice by Seth Godin. And it's really. May not sound like a kata book, but it very much to me is. And he says in this book, when we're talking about being brave and creating and doing new things, he says, you've already spoken up at least once, contributed something that mattered. You have said something funny to a friend or perhaps even sold out Carnegie hall, and now we need you to do it again. But more so the real question is, do I care enough to do it again?

What's that mean to you, Sam?

Just being brave. Being brave. Because too often we think we got to do some big grandiose thing, but really it's just about showing up and doing what matters to us. Being brave. That's what it means to me.

Well, yeah, Even just thinking in kata terms, you know, taking that next step. Right. Embracing that threshold of knowledge. Right. And shining the light.

Right.

Going forward. Yeah. Can be scary. Good stuff, Andres.

And it should be scary, right? A little bit scary, right? Yeah. To expand our knowledge. Well, thank you for asking for the quote, Ron. I appreciate that. The kind of reflection. For me, something that really resonated and has been resonating throughout maybe months and years is this quote by James Keller. And he says, a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. And it really kind of. For me, it really illustrates the ability for us as human beings to be there for someone, even if we're not saying anything, even if we're, like Sam says, showing up and practicing the. The art of. Of active listening. Right. Sometimes that could even spark ideas, the quietness. So I love that. And it really resonates as A parent. It really resonates as a leader in the organization as well.

Gosh, that's such a good quote. I. I think it was on a podcast or I was having some conversation recently and, and we were talking about the importance of kind of supporting people who are going through some hard times. You know, I've shared with you guys, I've been going through some challenges with medical situation with my parents and all the rest of it. And. And I remember hearing recently somebody said that, you know, sometimes the best thing that you can do when someone's going, it's not try to fix it or not try to even console them. It's just to say, hey, man, I'm with you. You know, I'm. I'm here beside you. And that's it. Just shut up. You don't need to say anything else. You know, just in somebody knowing that somebody else is right beside them, I mean, that could mean all the world or all the difference.

Right? For sure.

So, yeah, good stuff, man.

I love that.

Candle loses nothing lighting another. Fantastic. I never heard that one. Good stuff.

All right.

Hey, tell us a little bit about yourself. Sam, you were just on, but we' let you go first and just give a. A refresher for everybody on who. Who is Sam Morgan?

Yeah, well, man, that such like a big question. I love how you was like, who are you? Let's just tell you, that is like 30 seconds. No problem. 30 seconds. Yeah, well, Luminate coaching consulting is my business, but who I am, man, I'm a husband, a father, a friend, a coach, someone who just loves to like what you're talking about there, Andres, and just being present, giving yourself, being brave and helping other people. Right. One of the things that's really sat for me recently is, like you just said, Ron, seeing people like, I think as coaches, practitioners, lean, whatever we want to call ourselves in terms of titles, we're into problem solving, right? But too often that leads us to see people as being broken when really, if we think about it, it's. People aren't broken. Right? We're all on a journey. And so for me, framing my coaching as standing alongside somebody and walking along with them. And so that's how I reframe and reframing who I am as someone who's just along the journey and helping people, you know, navigate through and be their best self. As. As one person that I heard, his name is Timothy Keller. He did a series on marriage a few years ago that when my wife and I were very, very young in our marriage, early on we heard his sermon on how the best kinds of marriages, Right. Are ones where they see the person's glory self so they see their best self and their goal is basically to pull that out. So that would be who I am, somebody who's trying to pull the glory self out. Oh, I love that.

Fantastic. Beat that, Andres.

Yeah, I'll just preface it with I won't, but.

God, no.

My name is Andres Alamillo and I am continuous improvement leader here at Smith Gardens. So Smith Gardens grows flowers and we wholesale to Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmarts, and that's our bread and butter flowers. Right. But underneath it is, or I would say above, it is really about leadership and coaching and developing leaders so that we can be around for another 120 years. Really. This is a fourth generation organization and my role is to work with executive leadership, senior leaders and teach the principles of lean and continuous improvement. Really outside of that, I'm a husband and a father to a 16 year old and a 9 year old.

Nice.

So yes, it's a full time job. It's a full job and I love it.

Fantastic. Fantastic. And so just to frame the context a little bit of this conversation, I know Sam is a kata geek and Andres, am I right to assume that you're also part of the whole kata community and a big believer in this whole movement of ours?

That is right, Ron. Yes. We've been practicing Kata, we call it pattern for daily improvement here at Smith Gardens. And we've been practicing since 2000, I don't know, 16, 20, 17. And we really love the pattern, how easy it is to teach and to coach. Obviously there's lots of steps that are, that are needing to be learned. But, but people learn, people learn. No matter education level, they are able to understand it if we do a good job as teachers. So yes, we, we, we love the pattern. And you know this. We started practicing early on in 2014. We did a lot of Kaizen events. Those were good. They got us out of some of the hard things that we needed to fix in terms of shipping and distribution. But we had to graduate. We had to move on to more of a step by step continuous improvement type methodology. And KATA is our bread and butter for improvement. Pdca.

Nice. Nice. So, but as we were brainstorming for the episode, I guess I don't know who had the idea. One of you. We're gonna sort of frame the questions in more of a, in a kata framework. So you know, we teach people when we're teaching kata that out of the gate 1C is, is the challenge. Right. When we're typically approaching something. So, so maybe it would just open up with the whole idea or really what we're going to talk about today is building community with, perhaps with a kata with scientific thinking framework. So why should we care about building a diverse community?

Yeah. So for me, Ron and I think Sam shares the same sentiment is that we know that humans are complex beings. We all bring a unique set of skills and experiences and so it's easy to kind of marginalize people based on our biases. But our role as leaders, I believe that our role as leaders in organizations or communities is really to recognize that each individual brings something special. Right. That each individual can bring something unique and that they matter. Right. So. And that's really about bringing new perspectives into, into the communities. And so really for us, it's teaching and coaching, not just because you are at a certain role or a certain level in the organization, but to teach all because we know that we're better together. That's really kind of my, my why it's important to build that diverse community.

Yeah. You know, Andres, I think from what you shared there and you started to share a little bit about that idea of every person feeling valued and seen and heard. Right. At every level. Right. In an organization or in our communities. Right. And how we are so much better when that happens. And it starts too, when we, when we have to, we have to start with that framework. Right. I recall a story from Katakan that I think got us both a little, you know, frustrated and a little upset if we're, if we're being quite honest. Right. Where. And we won't of course, call out any person in particular, but there was, there was a question that was asked of a presenter there about they had been sharing a story of how they practice kata in a certain organization and how someone in the audience had asked about, you know, well, how do you teach kata to. I think it was like custodial staff basically. Or can you. And they. The. One of the, the presenters had shared something to the effect of. To answer that question of like, well, certain people won't get it. And that just didn't. That Andreas and I turned to each other in that moment and we're like. I could feel myself getting, like physically getting warm because if we truly believe as lean practitioners in respect for all people, that does not align with that value at all. Now, I don't know the person's intention or where they were specific, where they're coming from, but I know how it Hit us, hit me personally. And that was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right. And especially when we think of custodial staff, I'll just call it out, right? Because some people are probably thinking it particularly Latino, you know, like that's like typically who you might see in your mind in that role. And so for me, it was like, we can't. That doesn't, that doesn't feel. So what does feel right is like every person can practice this, right? Andres, like what you talked about, like a Smith Gardens, that everybody in the organization, top down, right, is we want them to think and act scientifically because when they do, we can do anything here. If we limit who we think can do that, then what kind of opportunities, what kind of openings, what kind of chances are we going to give them to engage in this process and then their ideas and things? So, yeah, Andres, for me, it's, it's all there. And I know you had, had some thoughts on that whole idea of feeling seen, heard and valued as well.

Yeah, yeah. So. So like I mentioned at the beginning of the, of the conversation, I'm a parent of a 9 and 16 year old, and I remember something very distinct that, that happened in a couple weeks ago. We were getting ready like every parent does, you know, let's get breakfast, let's go brush our teeth, let's go comb our hair, right? And this process of getting ready. And then we drove to the school. I drove my daughter to the school that morning and we were sitting in the parking lot and I remember having this realization of Natalie, my daughter, sitting next to me, and I finally looked at her and said, this is the first time actually seeing you, right? This is the first time I'm actually seeing you. This whole morning I saw you, I saw you in bits and frames and pieces. But this, right now, this moment of sitting in this parking lot, I see you for who you are, for your imperfections or your perfections, right? And I told her, I voice that out. Natalie, I see you for the, for the first time this morning. I apologize for not being so present. Right. And that made me think, as a, as a leader into the organization, how much of our time is spent not seeing people, right? And so, and people want to be seen, Ron. People want to be seen for who they are, for what they're worth. The second piece is hearing people. I remember another distinct point in my leadership here. Imagine a 30 acre farm where we've got flowers everywhere and then all these flowers have to end up on pallets, which are racks actually, that go out to the different stores and this centralized place where we hold our pallets, we call the staging area. I remember going downstairs to warm up my lunch and running into one of the team members that is in charge of putting those plants on those pallets and asking, hey, how are you doing? And as I was passing by, he said, I'm all right. In my stomach, I felt this. Why is he just all right? Why isn't he great? Right? And so I went and spoke with that gentleman afterwards and said, hey, tell me more. What's going on? Are you okay? Is everything okay? And he's like, yeah, I'm fine. You know, we are hired here to. To ship plants, and I'm feeling that, you know, we're not seen, we're not heard sometimes. After Covid, we took away the coffee stations, and we're not able to have coffee now in our break rooms. And I took that conversation even further up with. With the manager for the organ for the site and shared that with. With. With her. And the next day, the coffee maker was there, coffee was brewed, and it's all about, like, hearing that person right now. That person's feeling heard. And then the last piece is feeling valued, right? Seeing heard and valued. And the piece about value is about recognition. It's about acknowledging people for what they bring and appreciating them. So every. Every week, as we meet as a CI safety coach team and we share recognition, and we make it very intentional to start a roundtable with recognition. Who are you giving kudos this week? So. So that we can start building those behaviors and start building that.

That.

That routine. Maybe not routine in a bad sense, but a routine. And, like, I appreciate people, so that then. Then carries on. Right? So. And I think that's really kind of the power of building a diverse community, whether you're using kata or Kaizen, but it's really about seeing people, valuing people and making them. Making their voice be heard. Right?

So, yeah, that's a powerful story. All right, so that's. That's one. See, that's our challenge. So this whole concept of building a diverse community, valuing everyone around us. So second step, 2C is current condition. So where do you guys see?

Let's.

Maybe we'll just keep the framework within our. Our little niche here, our little CI, Kata, lean community, you know, aside from the world at large, because it might be a different answer. But how do you guys see from a current condition perspective that we're doing as it relates to that challenge?

Yeah, I think that there's opportunity. Right. Like, that's. That was part of the reason why we kind of went down this path is last year we talked about this at the last katacon, you know, like the power of having perspective. And then had some folks engage after that. Andres is one of them. That's how we got connected was he came to a webinar with. With the folks at Lean Frontiers, and he. He was like, oh, I want to hear more about this. And he actually, I think I put a challenge out, like, hey, you know, first person to, like, reach out to me. I'll send him a book, a kid's book that I had based my presentation on. So I sent that, and that's how we connected as I sent him a book. And then we started. He came to one of the meetings where we were following up on that conversation about how are we going to add more perspectives. Right. So. To this CI community. Because when we were at a cotton the year before or last year, you know, we looked at like 90 some odd participants and there were five people of color. Right. So that tells me a story right there. That's. That's a current condition, if you will have it. And in other. As we started doing more work in the different other kata communities, whether it was the kata girl geeks, people aren't familiar with them. That's an all. All women's group that does groups, learning groups to support people who are wanting to learn the kata, practice it and get some real life coaching and learning experience. And it's amazing. Led by a couple really good friends and former coaches and academy guests in the past. Oh, well, yes. Shall we say that as well? Just all around cool people. Right. So, and then the. The cottage school, Cascadia. Right. Like, we did surveys in these spaces. Mary Jones also helped us. So there was a number of folks just getting some understanding of, you know, what's the. What kind of demographics do we have out there in terms of race, folks that identify in the LGBTQ community, neurodiverse, age, location. We wanted to get, as best as we could, some understanding. And that was. That was really helpful for us to just even get a baseline for understanding of what. What's going on out in our Kata communities. So, yeah, that's like, current condition. We can. We can go to. We could go to, like, what's the solution? But we. We know that that's not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

We want to start with just what's the current condition edition.

Yeah, I'll even chime in just from my perspective too. And we work With a lot of people around the world and a lot of different companies. And, and for me, like the biggest opportunity when you're thinking about building and expanding this movement of ours is I go back to your, to your early example of, of that person, whoever it was said, oh no, not everybody's going to get it. Like race. And all the rest of it aside, like just that statement was just nonsense because like anyone, I don't care what you look like or what you do, what your job title is, anyone can and should be exposed and benefit from, from this. So like, for me, like the biggest gap between your challenge and, and what we're talking about trying to understand where, where we really are, it's still the whole idea of we're different, you know, like the company, like, or I'm in sales, you know, like, what are you talking about, Kata? You know, like, I don't, you know, you know, like we're not Toyota. And I'm like, yeah, because making a car every 60 seconds, that's easy, you know? You know what I mean? Like, and so there's still this age old and it's not just Kata, it's just continuous improvement in general people and thinking that they're different, their company's different, their job's different, and this stuff doesn't apply to them. And you know, it's one of my life's missions and our company's mission is to break down those boundaries and say, no, no, no, no, no, this does apply to you. I don't even need to know what you do because I know it does apply to you because you are a human being and there's problems in your life or at your work. Therefore this applies to you right now if you're a AI bot. Okay, maybe it doesn't apply. Well, probably does though, because they'll learn, right? They'll be even smarter. But I don't know, to me that's where the biggest gap is. If we still have this age old mindset of we're different, this doesn't apply here. So I don't know that that's my two cents.

Yeah, I mean we, gosh, there's so, so many things like how are we still in the same space of thinking in that way? Right? I don't, I don't understand why. But I like, as practitioners, right? Like for me it's, it's, I feel like it's a little bit different, right? As like practitioners, like, we're kind of carrying the torch, right?

The candle, right?

Oh, oh, I see what you did there, I see. Yeah.

See why I worked that in.

Good. That was beautiful. No, but like, we need to be the one setting the, carrying the torch, the candle, right? And like you said, like Andres, like we're like lighting each other, right? And it doesn't take anything for us to like, say anyone else can do it. I think that there can be a fear there that like, I've got this like special knowledge up here with all this like these cool, lean things and, and if somehow, if someone else can do it, then that makes me not special. Like, hey, let's be honest, right? Like we want to have this special knowledge because somehow we feel like if we don't, then we're not special. Let's just be straight up, right? Like we think that if we've got this black belt, if we've got some certification, if we've got this. No offense, Ron, like love, love the stuff that Gemba does. But like, if I don't have like some certain class or whatever, then somehow I don't have like, I'm not valuable, right? And that's just not what this whole work is about. If it is, take me off the list. I don't want to be a part of it because that is not what, what I signed up to do. I signed up to bring out the best in people, not to be like, set me up here and you're down here. No, that's not what this is about, right? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. All right, well, let's keep going guys. So, so we've talked a little bit about the challenge. We've talked a little bit about where we all think we are. Current condition. Obviously you could spend eight hours talking about the current condition, but we'll, we'll move on for the sake of, of the podcast here and T.C. right, so our, our next step is our target condition. So what do you think about now? It's difficult with typically in a target condition, you know, for the caught up purists out there, you know, there's a short time frame that we're aiming for here so we don't get, get in trouble by the Cotta police here. But, but what do you guys think as far as, you know, this, this topic that we're talking about, what's a, what's a good target condition? Like what could we achieve and by when?

Yeah, so we, we actually for, for, for, for our kind of challenge of building community and we started with, with partnering up with our local improvement consortium and, and the reason being is that they have, the consortium has A ability to bring in people right through, through different means, right through invites and different companies can come together. And so we, we hosted what we call a Kata Practitioner day. And about two weeks ago, we hosted a Kata Practitioner day here at Smith Gardens. And we invited people from different organizations. And the whole part of that, the whole goal is to start building that community in 2019, 2020. We kind of let go of that, right? We kind of let go of that community feeling and bringing people together so we can all learn from each other and kind of hear the cool things that are happening. And, and the second benefit of that was to see and learn even more of like how diverse is our community, right? How is, how are. How many people of color are showing up, how many male to female ratio, what does that look like? And so we ran that experiment and we still saw that there's some opportunities to get more females, get more people of color involved. And really the charting condition is to continue building that community with the help of different consortium. The consortium and just carrying on that conversation with people that we left off from Katacon to understand how, how are you guys building community? What can we learn from each other? I think that that's, that's how we're carrying the target condition to the next step.

What do you think, Sam?

Yeah. And another. So I really have appreciated how Andres is really engaged in that community, right? And getting people together in person. I think that that's powerful too. There's another level there, obviously in our post Covid world of us getting together. There's a different level of connection in terms of building community that happens at that level. And also too, you know, in our conversation at Katakan, we had our step that we left everybody with, as Andres and I shared, was to write down on a post it note, like this idea of how we're going to move forward in building this community happens one conversation at a time, right? We think that like, oh, we got to do this fancy DEI like program and check off all the boxes and our C suite goes through it and like all these things. But no, actually the way you build a diverse community is by stepping out of your comfort zone, being brave and having one conversation with somebody intentionally and doing that over time, bit by bit, bravery, intentionality and time. So we challenge everybody to take post it note, write down the name of one person that when they go back home, whether it's at the organization, in their community, someone that's completely different than them, to write down the name of that person and their intention with that, whether it's like, I want to ask them about their kids soccer game or whatever it is. To start from that one piece, to break it down to the smallest bit, which is one conversation, and put that up on a board. And then alongside that, we put these postcards. This is an idea we got from Tracy Defoe. She said, have them write a postcard to themselves, future them in a couple weeks to say, hey, kudos to you for being brave and having that conversation with that person. You're taking one step towards building community. Right? And so we had 34 people fill out those post it notes and I think 25 + fill out the postcards. Right? And that just got us so excited that we're like, we want to carry this on further. So now what we're doing is we're going to be hosting or having a webinar to open up that conversation even more, right? To like, say, hey, how did that go? How did that conversation go? Did it happen? Did it not? It's not about like, oh, you failed or you passed because you did or you didn't, but how did that go? What were the. What, like, did you learn from that process? Right. If we're putting in kata terms. Right. And yeah, what actually happened? How, what did you learn? And just come together and share stories. Because ideally, our kind of a secret mission is to. To really get those handful of people that want to continue on this journey and really engage with bravery and take the intentionality and take time to do it, to build community. We want to build that out. So our hope, I would say, is out of that, to get a core group of people who are really passionate about this and want to maybe meet on a regular basis intentionally over time to have these kind of challenging and hard conversations about some of these issues around race, the lgbtq, neurodiversity, ageism, whatever, these. And like, how we can continue to have those conversations. What are the challenges? What are the things that are going well? And like, we talked about earlier, walking alongside each other during that whole process.

So to wrap up sort of the routine, you know, we, we, we, we identify obstacles and we experiment against obstacles. And we often talk about, well, like, what's one thing that you're going to do? You know, I think you touched on it a little bit right there, but do you have maybe a little bit more on, like, maybe just. Or maybe you could even turn it around, like just some practical steps that folks can take out there listening right now and, you know, not just what you guys are doing, but, like, what do you Think about that. To sort of finish off the dance routine, so to speak.

Yeah. I think for, for. For me, it's about, like Sam said, just being. Being intentional with. With including people. With. Including people that are different than you so that you can gain that perspective. Right? And, and again, it's not a matter of I've got to go talk to this person of color and to check off a box, but it's because you really understand the, the why, right? And, and it's because when. When we seek people out for who they are and because they matter, right? And, and it's not a transactional but rather transformational step, right? Then, then it's definitely a doable and, and letting go. Some letting. Letting maybe go some of those fears that, that are presented in our own minds of like, well, how is this person going to respond, right? I've never talked to them, right. So it's really about just getting out there, going to the Gemba, right? Going where the work is happening and truly coming from a place of heart and saying, hey, how's it going? Right? It starts. It starts as simple as that sometimes, you know what I mean?

Well, I even comment your story earlier on Andres about driving to school with your daughter. You know, I don't think you have to look far either. Look at your family, right? Like, are you communicating with your significant other? Are you. I mean, really, you know, or are you so busy with, you know, all the things we're doing that you've strangers living in your own home, you know, I mean, I got teenage kids too, man, and sometimes it's like, it's tough, you know, it's like, put your phone down, dude, and let's talk, you know? You know, so it's. You don't have to go look even, even outside of your own home in some cases to do this.

What do you guys think, Andres? I think if you're up for sharing, I think when Ron was sharing this, man, I couldn't help but think of the story you shared about the conversation with. With your brother. You're up for sharing. It just. That just feels like, like totally in. In this right here.

Here.

I don't know.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Yeah. No, so for like, like Sam mentioned, right. The, the step we asked Katacon attendees was to write a name of a person that doesn't show up in their community currently. Right. And so we had to model the behavior for. For the audience ourselves. So my sticky that I wrote was to connect with. With. With a. With my brother, right. And, and I Have. We've been kind of estranged for a bit, right, for, for lack of better words. But it's been difficult, right? And for me it's important to have him show up in the community, in my community, in my space. And so I made an intentional effort to connect with him. It took me about a week to get over my own fear of just picking up the phone. I know it sounds absurd, right? But for your own brother, call your own brother. But there's this fear, this pinned up fear. But when I got to the phone, he was kind of caught off guard, like, why is this guy calling me? Yeah, how can I help you? Right? And, and, and it was not, it was a, it for me. It was like, how are you doing? How's your, your, your, your, your mother in law? I know she's in the hospital. It was a place of, of, of, of care and, and compassion. And there was this like all of a, all of a sudden this guard went down on the other side because it was through FaceTime. And we had this great conversation. He says, shared. You know, I've been meaning to come out to your place and spend some time with your family and, and just get together maybe for a barbecue. And, and that almost brought me to tears, Ron, because that is like, that is this very special moment that nobody can, can remove from you, right? But it took bravery and intentionality and, and this whole thing is going to take time to repair itself.

Right?

So it's really like about, about being brave with this thing, whether it's kata or, or, or just starting a conversation.

Right. And I just am so proud to have been on this journey with Andres. It's been so meaningful to see. He's challenged me in so many ways by demonstrating something like that, like stepping out with a brother that he hasn't talked to and he was brave enough to like take that intention and set that example. So when we talk about like the people that are listening, right, like thinking about those things in your life, just having that conversation, right? I know for me, Andres, you had challenged me. Like we had this conversation even I think it was as we were preparing for the presentation and I was sharing, Ron, to your point, about my kids and how they were, you know, they're on their phones quite often and for myself, that's definitely a thing for me where I can find myself wondering being in that space. And we had had an intention of having a family dinner, right. Like that. That's something I grew up with like all throughout my, my growing up years. Very warm memories of we'd go through. Go around the table. We'd each share, like, go through our days. You're like, three things. The highs and lows of the days. And it just meant so much. And I was like, I want to do that when I have a family. And we just hadn't done it, and I felt, like, some pangs of regret around that. And so I was. I was kind of sharing something around that, and I'm just like, you know, I think you had shared that.

You.

You do that, right? You guys, like, we put our phones away, and we have intentional time with our. Our family at dinner. And I was like, damn, you know, I really would love to do. And he's like, well, why don't you? And at first, I have to be honest, like, I was, like, really defensive. I was like, well, why are you asking?

Like, don't tell me what to do with my family.

Right, Right. Exactly. That's exactly what came up for me. Right? Like, And. But then when Ron. When I came back and I sat with that, I was like. Because he. I forget exactly what you said, but it was like, in. In Andres, as. She wasn't. Like, he was very gentle, but he was also very, like, clear. Like, direct or clear. And I was like, yeah, why can't I. Why can't I, like, ask? And it took all of me to come to my. My oldest daughter, who's 18, and say, hey, what would you think if we had, like, two nights a week where we had family dinner and, like, we put away our phones and we just talked? She's like, okay. And I was like, wait, what? Like, that easy. And it took everything in me right here. I'm a guy who is out here. Like, I literally put in a resignation to resign from my job for, like, nine years. And this was harder than that. Like, the fear that came up in me was like, oh, my gosh. And then asking my wife and asking my other daughter, and then we just started that. And can I tell you, like, the first dinner we had was more joy that we've had as a family than it was just amazing. But all because I stepped past that moment, like Andres did with his brother, and like, I did in this. And something beautiful came out of that. Now, Ken, we promise that when you do that in your organization with that person, that something beautiful, like, no, of course. Course not. But it's the start, right? It's the start. It's taking that step. It's like actually practicing what we preach and taking that next step to move towards that place this vision that we have of this beautiful community that we want to create starts right here, right now with you taking that one step and not giving up. When it doesn't go the way that you think it go was going to go, like you set an expectation, what actually happens. It's not going to happen the way you expect it to. I promise you that. But it's like sitting back, doing what Andres did, doing what I did, doing what Ron, I'm sure you've done millions of times is reflecting and going, okay, what did I learn from that? And where am I going to go from here? Because this is the work that we all want to do and we're doing it for more than just a paycheck. This isn't a glamorous, lean life. Right. We're doing it because it means something to us and we want to build it to you. Everybody feels seen, hurt, valued.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we live in a broken world, guys, you know, and it's, you know, I suppose it's probably always been divisive, you know, and we always. Oh, it's so divisive. But probably was a hundred years ago, I mean, as well. But yeah, I'm a big believer that this whole movement of ours can, you know, it's not going to get everybody to agree with each other, but it could make us not be so ugly to one another, you know what I mean? And. And we all want the world to be better. I think everybody can agree to that. And so this is the great uniting force which is called continuous improvement. That's why I'm so passionate about it. So. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff, man. Guys, this has been awesome. If folks. Not if folks definitely want to connect with you guys, so what is the best way for them to. To reach out to. To both of you?

Yeah, you can find Andres Salamillo on LinkedIn for sure.

And.

Or Facebook as well. And we're on. I'm on those platforms. Or.

And yeah, or what about your company, Andres? A little shout out, like as far as a website or Walmart's listening when I increase their orders or something. I don't know.

That's good. No, Ron. Yeah.

All right.

Our website is www.smithgardens.com and yeah, you'll see beautiful flowers and beautiful people on there.

Nice, nice. Sam, what about you, man?

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm always up in those streets. And then illuminatecoach.com is my website. I'm always on LinkedIn. And I always love having conversations like, this is my jam. So if you want to chat, you want to move forward, you want to be your best, like have your glory self shine. That's I love having those conversations. Let's do it.

Love it, love it. And everybody just scroll down on your app there. We're going to have everything linked up to reach out to these guys. Let's go connect. And yeah, man, we'll keep making trying to make the world a better place. That's all we can do, right? So good stuff. All right. Well, I appreciate you guys. You take care.

Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Sam.

Thanks, Ron.

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