153 - Understanding Customers: The Key to Success in the Sexual Wellness Market with Promescent's Jeff Abraham

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Jeff Abraham, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the president of Promescent, found at promescent.com. You guys make these incredible products for sexual wellness, especially for men. So thanks for joining me today.

My pleasure.

You have a really interesting background. I interviewed you on Authority Magazine, and you really got your start in tech and were in tech for a long time. And then, and then you ended up in, in working with this company. Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Yeah, it's really interesting because I go, there's no one's taken a more circuitous route to being in sexual wellness than Jeff Abraham, you know. Being the CEO of a semiconductor engineering business and, you know, increasing intimacy for couples are not exactly two parallel industries. But I was very fortunate. I was born and raised in a little small coal mining town south of Pittsburgh and definitely lower middle class, but wonderful family. And I moved to California when I was 24, and I had worked one job out of college for 2 years, done well. But I remember thinking to myself, there's gotta be more to life than this. Cuz I was born in Pittsburgh. I went to school at Edinburgh, which is 2 hours north of Pittsburgh, and then worked in Williamsport for, uh, 2 years, which is, uh, 3 hours east of Pittsburgh. So my entire scope of the world was like this 200-square-mile Bermuda Triangle. So I literally gave 30 days notice to my job, worked it, then went and spent a couple weeks with my family and then hopped on a plane with a one-way ticket. And moved to California, 2 suitcases and $500, slept on the floor, took the city bus to go to interviews, started from scratch and got into the semiconductor industry, did really well, worked for Applied Materials, which a lot of people are aware of. It's a big semiconductor equipment manufacturing company and parlayed a lot of my contacts and a lot of my knowledge into starting my own semiconductor engineering business and I had that for 22 years and literally made a fortune and then sold off the company and retired. And my next door neighbor, friend, and doctor all rolled into one was Dr. Ronald Gilbert. And about 3, 4 months after retiring, I wanted to see him for my yearly physical PSA, you know, the whole thing. And he's like, you know, I really respect your business acumen. I know what you've started with and how you've done well and I have this little startup company and can you help me out? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, sure, what is it? And he says, well, I developed this treatment for PE. And being 53 at the time, which was 13 years ago, I go, you developed a treatment for physical education? You know, cuz PE was phys ed, you know? Right. He goes, no, no, no. Just like erectile dysfunction's ED, this is PE. I go, really? And he goes, yeah. So one thing led to another and I said, you know, does it work? And he goes, yeah. And I go, how big's the market? And he told me it was bigger than the ED market. And of course, by that point, Viagra, Cialis, Levitra were killing it. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah. He goes, as a matter of fact, about 15% of ED patients are misdiagnosed PE. Because if a guy has chronic PE and it never gets better, he will develop stage fright. His mind will say getting an erection leads to an unsatisfactory conclusion. And so even a lot of ED is misdiagnosed PE. So I said, do you need a prescription? He goes, no, it's over the counter. I said, do you have some? Give me a sample. I wanna see what it's like. He said, gave me a sample and I tried it and I was like, oh my God, this stuff does work. And so I invested in the company and, you know, he goes, you're bored. Can you help us out? Write us a business plan. The guy that I have running the company just isn't really doing that good of a job. It was a childhood friend. I wrote him a business plan. And they were like, oh my God, it's pure genius, because the company started taking off. I go, it's called common sense, business sense, you know. If you guys out of the medical world, if you had a clue about how business works, you'd realize this isn't, you know, revolutionary, you know. And there's a tragic part of the story. He was murdered in a case of mistaken identity. 6 months later, and it was some guy who had a prostate surgery and decided he's gonna kill the doctor. Surgery was a VA surgery. So he went to the VA, said, let me see my records. They said, well, we don't have them here. They're on microfiche at the VA headquarters in Long Beach. So he goes there and got the name. And it was very close to Ron's name. He went home, he thought he had the doctor that did it, made an appointment to see Ron. Ron walked in the office thinking he was going to see the last patient of the morning on January 27, 2013. The guy was waiting in a shooting position and murdered him. And, you know, I had only committed to doing this for 1 or 2 years. It was like, I'm, you know, I want to go back to retirement, but At that point, it became an obsession with me because Ron was not your typical doctor. He had no ego. He was just a wonderful human being. And he was a great father, a great friend, a great husband, a great doctor. And I wanted to give him a legacy and provide for his family because his family still owns 20% of the company. So we've grown substantively and I've been able to give them many multiple of dividend checks year in and year out. And every time I do a podcast, I talk about what a wonderful gentleman Ron was and how this is a testament to his brilliance. I'm just a businessman, you know, I'm kind of the steward, you know, taking the ship and, you know, moving it forward. But he built the ship and it's his brilliance and his compassion that developed this particular product. You know, I've been able to bring some business sense and business savvy into the operation. And make it a sound business. But, you know, there's a lot of people that could have done what I did, a lot of good business people. There's very few people that would have had the insight and the technical knowledge to develop a product like this.

And it's a product that didn't need FDA approval.

Exactly. He did it under an FDA monograph, which is all the ingredients used in the product have had, you know, a couple decades of sound safety use that you can verify. So being covered under that monograph was really a very key part because, you know, going through FDA clinical trials, you know, for safety and stuff would be a $20 million endeavor at a minimum.

Right. But would it be possible? So where is the company? Are you guys remote or you— are you— do you have a physical location?

How do you set up a physical location unless someone is traveling 80, 90% of the time? You know, I know a lot of companies are really into, you know, letting everyone work remote. I'm old school. Okay. I just know working remote leads to bad habits to a certain degree. And well, I'll get to that later in the middle of the day. I'm gonna go take a yoga class, you know, and for us to be successful, we all have to be, you know, in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. There's a lot of cross-pollination and a lot of meetings and, and Every morning we sit down for an hour together, the whole marketing team, and we assess where we're at in our current initiatives. We look at the results from SEO and, and CRO, uh, conversion rate optimization for the prior day. We plan out new projects. Now, certainly in between Christmas and New Year's, I allow everyone to work remote because their focus is gonna be here anyhow, you know? But for the most part, you know, we're here. We have a 10,000-square-foot corporate headquarters right here in Las Vegas. It's— I live in Summerlin, but the corporate headquarters is right near the airport. In fact, there are planes that fly over all day, every day, right over top of the building. And it's, it's a good synergy to have everyone there working together and bouncing ideas off one another. When you're a small company, you know, we don't have— when, when Pfizer, you know, did Viagra and when GlaxoSmithKline did Levitra, they had $200 million advertising budgets. You know what I mean? We don't have that. We're more a small company. We're more, I think, a little more nimble. That's what, which has allowed us to succeed. You know, we have to be light on our feet and we have to be able to change directions and seize opportunities without writing, you know, $10, $20 million checks at a time for big ad campaigns.

Right, right. And you've, you've managed to get into some of the big boxes too, haven't you?

Yeah, we are in all, uh, Target stores. Just this past year, we got approved to go in all Walmart stores. We started off with 900 Walmart stores and sold very, very well, and then got notified in August that we were being rolled out into all 4,000.

Ooh.

So we're doing really, really well. Really well. As a matter of fact, we have brand new packaging that is just— it's being manufactured right now, the first products with this new packaging. So it'll be on shelves in mid-January to late January. And from what we've seen, we commissioned a company that specializes in this. We put it up on our Amazon site for 2 days, and it shows a purchase intent that's 21% higher. So that translates into retail. Will be in everywhere by the end of this year. Well, it's Walmart is kind of, to be quite frank with you, it's kind of the symbol of authenticity. When you get in all 4,000 Walmart stores distribution, there's no one else that won't go, let me take a look at that. If they're doing that, they've got to be doing something right.

Right, right. So, so you have this career in semiconductor engineering for many years, make a lot of money at that. You go into retirement. Now you're doing this. What gets you up in the morning at 65 years old to get you excited to go to work?

You know, it's two things. I told you the memory of Ron and trying to create a legacy for him and try to provide for his family and my shareholders. That's one thing. Another thing is we have these testimonials that come in unsolicited emails and, you know, messages through our customer service portal.. And I don't know if there's anything more powerful than this, that literally people say, you changed my life. I literally had decided I wasn't gonna be in it anymore. I just didn't wanna be disappointed. You know, even though we're in 2023 and people like to say, oh, we're progressive and we're this and that bullshit. There's certain topics are still taboo that people become very, very uncomfortable. Sex being one of them. And I've never understood it. I've always been very open and I don't believe in, you know, tiptoeing around anything. And I have to laugh because everyone spends money on personal trainers, becoming as fit as possible, having every kind of hobby to keep yourself in shape, spending money on clothes, spending money on getting your hair done, spending money on, you know, for God's sakes, plastic surgery, everything you can imagine. But then when it comes to, well, let's maximize your, you know, your bedroom time, everyone's like, oh, I don't need that. I'm the best there ever was. You know what I mean? And I'm like, wait a second. Okay, why is it okay to spend thousands of dollars a month to attract someone of the opposite sex? But why is it forbidden to have a discussion that maybe you could keep that person you attract? You know what I mean? By having satisfactory intimacy. And, you know, we have a lot of our competition that kinda make me laugh because they're into this, you know, Neanderthal, you know, knuckle dragging. Oh, pound your partner. You know, we're all about couples. You know what I mean? And we're all about everyone maximizing intimacy and having communication and, and our, our packaging, our messaging. I've tried to bring an elegance into the space which didn't exist. I wish I was kidding when I tell you this, but some of the competitors we deal with are, Do Me Long and Hard, Stud 100, you know what I mean? It's like, good Lord, I mean, come on. And but you still have that stigma. And we run into this all the time. And I tell people the story and it's laughable because it's just one example. I went to a very nice block party when I first moved to the neighborhood where I live and this couple comes up to me, they go, where do you live? I go, 82 Sunglow. They go, oh my God, it's a beautiful home. I go, yeah, it's my dream home. I Just built it, you know, and the guy goes, what do you do? I said, well, I'm the CEO of a small medical company, you know. He goes, what's the name? I said, well, the actual name of the company is Absorption Pharmaceuticals, but the trade name of our products is called Promescent. He goes, I don't think I'm familiar. What type of products are they? I go, well, they're sexual wellness products. Our primary product, our hero product, our first product was a product for premature ejaculation. You could hear a pin drop. There's like 10 seconds of dead silence. And the guy looks at me, I swear to God, and he goes like this. He puffs his chest out. He's like, that's the last thing we need in this relationship. I'm like, excuse me. Oh yeah, no problem. So they had a food truck and, you know, they were, you know, carving up roast beef and tri-tip and turkey and stuff. He goes, I'm gonna go get some food. His wife leans over, goes, do you have a couple samples of that? We could use some of that in this relationship. I said, I'll drop some in your mailbox. Don't worry about it. You know, I knew where they lived and I can't tell you how often that happens. Or we'll be in a situation, a bunch of guys, and they'll go, what are you doing? I'll tell them, everyone go, what is that really an issue? I didn't— never heard of that, you know. And then later, one of them will call me, go, hey, send me a sample of that. One of the other ones will send me a text message, hey, you know what I mean, a friend of mine wants to try that, send it to me. And I'm like, yeah, right, you know. And it just— it makes me laugh because there's one thing that people don't realize, and this is what drew me to this company. Now let's step out of the realm of premature ejaculation. Just talk about men, healthy men and women in general. The average healthy man lasts 5 minutes and 42 seconds during intercourse, during penetration and thrusting. The average female takes 18 minutes of penetration and thrusting to achieve climax. So there's actual— there's a name for it in, in medicine. It's called the arousal gap. People are very familiar with it. And so I was like, wait a second, how bad is there a need for this product when even people who don't have the affliction could benefit from this? And so that's, you know, when any time when someone says to me, what gets you, you know, motivated about doing another startup or doing another company? I said, number one, you have to love what you do. Number two, I always tell people that one of the biggest mistakes is people make is they're passionate about something, but the market's not that big. And then you have to try to create a market or convince people that there's a need for something. If you're going to take the risk and have a startup and put your time and your assets at risk, you better make sure there's a payoff at the end. You better make sure it's a big market. There's a, you know, so if you're successful, there's something there. Right. And Certainly premature ejaculation is the biggest unmet market in sexual wellness, but sexual wellness is the largest growth space in retail.

Hmm.

When I first started 10 years ago, you would go into Target, you would go into Walmart, they had one little shelf with some lubes on it, and that was it, and some condoms. You go in Target or Walmart now, there's 100 vibrators, you know, I swear to God, every male masturbation devices and butt plugs and like like, whoa, you know what I mean? Like, it's not a back alley thing anymore. It's not one of these things that you have to go to the worst part of town into a sex shop. You go into, like I said, Walmart and Target and CVS, and they have everything imaginable. And so the venues are there to go purchase the stuff. The last hurdle we need to break down is to have people comfortably talk about it. And it's funny because it's an important part of life. It's just as important. You know, I always tell people, no one who has cancer is ever shy about taking chemo. No one who's a diabetic is ever shy about taking insulin. Why, if a guy wants to last a little bit longer, is it forbidden? He has to have it hidden in secret if he wants, you know what I mean? Especially when, you know, the statistics tell you that men last about a third of the time that women take. You know, it's like, it's crazy, but there's still that stigma, right?

There are a lot of reasons for that, and that— and it's not just sex, it's a whole, it's a whole other, um, myth around ma— what, what it means to be masculine.

That's exactly, that's exactly—

this is just one aspect of it. But there— I work, I work in emotions, and I train people how to read emotional data fields and use emotions as a superpower. And people are shocked that when they begin to realize that our culture, it's just like what you're talking about with sex. Our culture abhors emotion.

Yes.

And yet it's the most essential part of who we are as a human being.

Absolutely. I think one of the things for me that was most important in my evolution as a human being and a competent, well-adjusted, happy human being was realizing, because I grew up in Western Pennsylvania in a coal mine town, and men did not show emotion. That was weakness. Men did not cry. Men did not tear up. And it wasn't until my mid-30s, maybe early 40s, that I began to realize it's a powerful thing. It's a positive thing if something moves you to tears because it means that means so much to you. It means that you're a human being with a full range of emotion. Okay? Just because you're 200 pounds and you're chiseled or whatever doesn't mean inside you don't feel a full range of emotion. If you lose something valuable, if something that is, is dear to you, you know, is suffering, it's okay to feel down. It's okay to process that and shed some tears. In fact, like I said, I, I look at it as, in, in fact, I used to think it was something negative and try to fight off. I, I'm very much in tune with it right now, and it almost makes me empowered to go, that's how much I love this person that their loss brings me to tears. That's how much this meant to me that not being able to achieve something makes me emotional. So that switch for me flicked from that's weakness to no, that's a sign that that's how much I care for something. That's a sign how much that means to me.

But it's a sign of strength, not weakness.

Sign of strength, not weakness. Absolutely.

And here's the other thing about all of this is that when you have mastery over emotion, and I, by that I mean you understand emotion, you can read emotions, you can reflect emotions, both your own and somebody else's, your decision-making powers go way up. People, men that can't, are alexithymic, they, an inability to to name their own emotional experiences tend to be very poor decision makers because all decision making is emotional.

It's absolutely— I noticed that when I got in touch with my own emotions and instead of fighting them, went with them and embraced them, that I made so much sounder decisions in my life. Absolutely. Because the decisions, they— it's funny, even though emotion's so much a part of everything, allows you to understand what the emotion is. It allows you to understand what's triggering certain behaviors. And they can be very negative behaviors. And you go, I can't break that cycle. And you can't break that cycle because you're not familiar with that emotion. You know, I always tell people, one of the things that's made me successful, both introspective-wise and reading other people, is I always go beyond the action. I don't care what the action is. I go, what caused the action? What was the trigger? What was the motivation for the action? And when you understand that, you'll be able to monitor your own behavior and make better decisions. More importantly, you'll know what someone who's close to you know what they're going to do before they even do it, because you know exactly what triggers them to do. And I'll have people go, how'd you know that? I almost want to laugh and go, you're so friggin easy to read.

Okay. Exactly.

Yeah, it's, and it's, it's literally people think of it as a superpower. It's not. Take a step back and don't just look at the action, go, what was the motivation behind the action? What prompted that? You know, what brought that action out? Once you understand that about a person, you will know what they're going to do before they even do it.

It gets even better than that. What I've learned as a peacemaker over many years is that the repertoire of human behaviors, especially around conflict, is extremely limited. And once you, once you've seen all the patterns, nothing surprises you anymore. And you can predict exactly what people are going to do because we, we all go through the same patterns over and over again.

Yeah.

Well, this show's called Listening with Leaders. Tell me about the importance of listening in your career.

Listening.

The importance of listening in your career.

It's absolutely paramount to everything I've ever been successful in. And, you know, people said to me, because we started off with that male delay spray, which was to allow men to last longer, and it was successful. But I literally said to myself, I don't want a one-legged stool. So we came out literally about 5 years ago with a line of lubes, and they immediately took off and they were successful. Then we had a line of female arousal gels which kill, which are successful. Then we have a line of vibrators, you know, and everyone goes, oh my God, you're a genius. And I laughed and I go, what are you laughing at? I go, you know what I do? And they go, what? They go, I listen. I talk to my customers. I'm obsessive compulsive. Whenever I see these repeat customers, I always email them. Let me introduce myself. What do you like about our products? What do you don't like? I'll give my home number. They call me. And because people have said every single product you've ever introduced has been a smashing success. You're an absolute genius. I go, no, I just listen to my customers. You know, I literally say to my customers, what other products are you buying that you think leave a little bit to be desired that you think, oh, that's a great concept, but it would be better if. So they tell me, and I then go and work with our development team and we develop a product and we have a mantra. That we will never release a product that's not as good or better than anything else in that segment. Because when we first started introducing new products, we'd send out an email and it was successful right away. People would buy it and it was go, what gave you this, the confidence to buy vibrators? Because, you know, we're a lotion and gel company. People would say, if it's on this site, we know it's quality. We know you'll stand behind it 100%. And I go, Again, listening to my customers, I go, whoa, we have a trust that we've built. And we have this loyal following that as long as we keep producing quality products at a reasonable price that we stand behind, people will buy. And we've had people tell us, can you develop this? I'm buying everything else at your site, but I gotta go over here to buy this. Okay, great. So we go to work and we develop that. But it's all from listening to our customers. Another thing that's really helped us, people go, some of your SEO, some of your other things are absolute genius. And I go, no, I listen to my customers because I, every time I see someone that's a repeat customer buying significant quantities, how did you find us? And all my staff is trained. We have any customer interaction. The first question I want to know, how did they find us? That way, if it's, well, I looked up you know, delay ejaculation, or I looked up to longer lasting sex or whatever. I go, okay, let's put more resources into those keywords. If they go, Emily Moore, Sex with Emily, I heard their podcast refer to us. Okay, let's make sure we nurture that relationship. So listening to our customers has allowed me to refine where our revenue is spent and to really target certain areas. And all influencers are not equal. There are certain influencers— crazy— that we'll see an influencer do a thing and we'll get a bunch of travel size, trial size. We'll go, let me try it. We'll see another influencer, maybe doesn't have a big of an audience, but the majority of orders that come in from them are regular, standard size, large size. And, and that shows me that all influencers are not equal. Certain people hear something, they go, well, let me try at the lowest possible price, you know, because they're always hawking something, as opposed to someone else who literally focuses on their message, their audience, and maybe has one product that they feature, you know, each time. And then you can tell because those people are like, wow, if they said it, I'm going in right now and buying a larger bottle. So finding out, listening to our customers, on what other products they need, listening to our customers on, you know, how they found us, you know, what they're searching. Another thing I've been very, very focused on in listening is I say to people, what almost made you not buy this? What, what hurdle did you have to overcome? You know, what hesitancy? And the reason I ask that, and people go, why do you ask that? They ended up buying. Because I assume that for everyone who does take that leap of faith and buys it, there might be 8 or 9 others who aren't. So by finding out and listening to what your reservation was, what your sticking point was, what your holdup was on maybe ordering, then I can tailor the messaging to maybe influence some others that are having that same hangup and don't push the order button. I know one of the things that was big, and I got this from listening, is people said, I had been disappointed so many times. I was just so tired. Everyone makes these claims and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's when I said, we're having a money-back guarantee, 60 days without fail, money-back guarantee. That way someone knows, hey, there's no risk. These guys obviously believe in this product. And, you know, I heard other people say, well, I was referred by my doctor because we're really big in the medical network. We're really well respected. We've done clinical studies and everything. So that's why you see, you go to our website. Again, this is from listening. You see testimonials from Dr. Mohit Khera, who's the president of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America. Dr. Wayne Hellstrom, who's the president of the International Society of Sexual Medicine. That carries weight because people go, that guy's one of the premier experts in sexual medicine in the world. He's on there talking about this specific product. Are you kidding me? And, you know, it's funny because you don't realize this, but the average consumer is not that savvy because I've had people say, you know, I went on this other site too and they have doctor testimony. I go, really? And I go, let's get on there together. And so we'll be on a Zoom call and I look at it. It's a Getty stock photo of a guy in a lab coat. Doctors recommend. I'm like, okay, now look at the one on our page. It says Dr. Mohit Kher, the president of Baylor University. The president of the, the sexual medicine in North America, and you create an equivalent to a Getty photo of a guy in a lab coat saying that, you know, if it's truly a doctor, it should have his name, his qualifications, it should have a video, it should, you know what I mean? Like, but the average consumer isn't that savvy. It's until you get into this, because, you know, when I had my semiconductor engineering business, all I dealt with was electrical engineering PhDs all day, you know, and we were making integrated circuits. You know, that's a far cry from this. And you start dealing with Mr. and Mrs. Average American and you're like, my God, no wonder this country's in the shape it's in. Oh my good Lord. You know what I mean? Like, I've had people that I have this interactive chat feature and I'll be on our site talking to them. They'll go, do I need a prescription? I go, no, you know, it says right here, order now. You know, also, I don't need a— no, you don't need a prescription so I can order it now. I go, yeah, you see where it says order? You know what I mean? Like, And there's every once in a while I go, I would really like to see who this is, where he lives. You know what I mean? Like, because you just wonder, I, I'm 66 and a half now and, you know, I've always been fortunate to, you know, have reasonable health and a sound mind and everything. But do you ever do this? Wherever you wonder, you go, my biggest fear is getting Alzheimer's or getting dementia and losing the mental crispness and mental clarity. And sometimes you run into certain things, you're like, oh my God, I would hate to be that naive. You know what I mean? And to be asking questions that are literally flashing right in front of me.

One more question for you and I'll let you go. What's one thing about yourself, Jeff, that we wouldn't know about unless you revealed it to us?

I think that it's hard to ever determine this, but I am extremely passionate and very earnest and very hardworking. You know, even though that I started with nothing and I retired early, you're gonna laugh. I felt guilty.

Hmm.

I felt, and I know it's not warranted because I earned every dime. I've never been given everything and I put myself in that position by working hard. But I didn't realize how much of my ego and self-esteem came from being good at something. And for 6 months when I retired with my semiconductor engineering business, my day consisted of getting up, going for a 30-mile bike ride, then going to the gym, then getting a massage, then going to lunch, then going shopping and everything. And I remember some of my friends stopped me, what'd you do today? I was like embarrassed. I almost felt, I never lie. I'm always on. I felt like making something up cuz I felt like this self-indulgent, narcissistic prick that did nothing but, you know, like, take care of himself all day. And if you do it the right way and you earn everything, why would you feel guilty? But I, I could not shake that feeling of like, I don't really have a purpose, you know, like, you know, are you good at getting a massage? You know, are you good at working out? That's, that's not something in my mind that you're good at. That's something you just do, you know what I mean? And I, my mom was still alive at that point. And I just, I, I really loved making my parents proud because they came from nothing, you know what I mean? And to have someone in their family succeed. And I remember I was on 60 Minutes. They did a special on me when I had my semiconductor engineering. And I remember my whole family was just like over the moon, you know? And, and I guess that I just not ego formed enough to feel comfortable and relaxing and taking it easy and not doing anything. I almost feel like I have to be good at something to earn my ability to be on the planet.

Well, there you go. And that, I think, in a nutshell summarizes why you are so successful at 66 and a half years old with this company called Promescent. Good job.

I'm, I'm happy. I, I'm very happy. I'm happy that we're helping people. I can't tell you how much I really care for Ron and how It makes me very, very happy to be able to take care of his family, not only financially, but also to give him a legacy. I know how proud they are. They'll see stuff and tell me, oh, that was so nice of you. I go, it's genuine. It's heartfelt. Life's short. You don't realize it. And people like that don't come along that often. He was a wonderful human being. And, you know, I used to see stuff on CNN and go, there's got to be more in the story than that. That's crazy. That couldn't, you know, then it happens to you. And there was nothing more to the story. He was just a wonderful human being that had the most insane thing ever happen. The guy shot the wrong guy, right, for the wrong reason, and his life was snuffed out. And I struggled with the senselessness of it. And I told people that it wasn't until I let go of the fact that a rational mind can't make sense of irrational behavior. I kept trying to figure it out. Then I finally went, I can't figure it out. It's insane. I'm not insane.

There's a whole conversation we can have around that. We're kind of running out of time here, Jeff. I, I, you know, an amazing conversation. Yes, thank you so much.

It's my pleasure.

Take care.

Yeah, you too.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLee readers. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasE. Doug Noll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.