Crystal King Writing Her Own Story in Tech, Teaching & Trust

Welcome to the Women of HubSpot podcast, the show that celebrates the voices shaping marketing technology and the ever evolving HubSpot ecosystem. Hosted by George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies, each episode brings you the stories, strategies and superpowers of the women driving this industry forward. It's their time. It's their mic. This is Women of HubSpot.

All right, so we're back with another episode conversation Women of HubSpot. Anyway, at the end of the day, if this is your first episode, it all started last Super Bowl. I wonder how long I'll be able to say that until there's another Super Bowl. But last super bowl, and the Eagles were playing and my daughter stopped me and my tracks and she started to talk about how the quarterback of the football team had an all women team and how she thought that was amazing. And I was like digging in to kind of try to understand. As a guy with daughters who sometimes may or may not pay attention to these things, all of a sudden I was intrigued and I got moved to actually create a LinkedIn post because I was like, how come this isn't happening in our industry? How come we're not shedding a light on the women that are being awesome? And all of a sudden it just exploded. Like, all of a sudden there were people being tagged. And it's probably one of my Most engaged with LinkedIn posts to date, at least for this year, without a doubt. And so today I'm super excited to carry on the conversation with the one, the only, the legend, Crystal King. Crystal, how are you doing today?

I am well. Thank you for having me.

Without a doubt. It would be boring, by the way, if you weren't here. So I'm glad that you're here. And we're going to go ahead and dive into this because I just want to ask you some questions. We're just going to see where this goes so far. Just so everybody knows, I have been amazed at these conversations and just the feeling that I get by knowing deeper the human that is in this case, Crystal, you. So let's start at the beginning. If we could go back in time, we had a DeLorean or whatever vehicle of choice to get back there and meet young Crystal King just starting out one. What would we see? And also what would she be most surprised by about where you are now?

Oh, I feel like I have two paths in my life that have gone in parallel and one is related to career and business and marketing and things along that line. And then I also, I'm a writer on the side and I would say that that started early, the writing part of it. When I was very young, I was always writing, always, always scribbling something down. And When I was 10, some teacher had the foresight to send me to a young writers conference. And I got to meet Madeline Lengle, who was one of my heroes when I was a kid. She wrote A Wrinkle in Time. For those of you who aren't familiar, that was just such an inspiration. So I always wrote stories. Then I went off to school and realized that I wanted to be. Actually I wanted to be somebody who promoted music. I was really into radio. I did internships at Virgin Records and not the store, but the record company to in Beverly Hills. I worked for Sony for a little bit and I loved that side of thing. I love music. I still love alternative and indie music. But I realized that back in the early 90s, it was really hard for women to be in that industry. It's still hard, I think, in music, but it was really, really hard then because there weren't that many women that had made it big as musicians and there certainly were very few women on the. On the internal workings of it all. So I ended up going into marketing. Then. It's been tumultuous over the years because couple recessions, a lot of job uncertainty. Marketing is often hit hard when economies are tough. And I've had a slew of bad bosses, a few good ones. And then I landed a HubSpot. And along the way, when I was writing these books I was trying to publish, I was looking for an agent and an agent. I had a nonfiction book idea for creative writing exercises. And they said to me, nobody knows who you are, so you need to publish a book or you need to teach or you need to find somebody to write a book and publish it. And so I thought, okay, I'll teach. And so I started teaching on the side. And I taught at several different universities in the Boston area, at Harvard Extension School, at BU, at UMass Boston, on the grad and undergrad level. So I got my feet wet in the. In the teaching world and I loved it. But it was really hard to do as an adjunct professor, especially in writing, because I was doing a lot of business writing and creativity, and that was tough, grading papers in all my spare time. So then HubSpot rolled along and I was like, okay, I can have my marketing world that I actually really love, and I can teach and I can marry those two things and do it for a really cool company. And I will have been with HubSpot for eight years in August.

Wow. Eight years with HubSpot teaching people around the world, by the way, because multiple certifications that you've put out and lessons along the way. So it's interesting because you kind of got these two joint paths. They converge into one. And you mentioned somebody that was kind of an inspiration, but I want to dig a little bit deeper into that, like, over this journey. Like, who are some of your biggest inspirations or maybe even mentors that you've kind of paid attention to along the way?

I had some really good teachers that saw potential in me and got me into certain paths. One of them was my high school journalism teacher, Mr. North, who I don't even know if he's alive today. I was editor of my high school paper. I was assistant editor as a sophomore and editor as a junior, which was almost unheard of. Usually, like you, you've gone through the trenches when you're a senior. You get that. So. But he was like, this is something you're kind of born to do is to write and to solve problems and to tell stories. And so that was something that was. That was good. And when I got into college, I had a number of professors. I went to Whitworth College, which is now Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. I had some really good professors there. Doug Sugano and Laura Bloxham and Leonard Oakland, where I was. The three of them in particular were. And Vic Bob were absolutely instrumental in helping me hone my craft, but also to read widely and to read in areas that I wouldn't have. And for me, I was reading at a really early age. And to me, reading is one of those keys that unlocks so many things. It unlocks the doors to understanding other people, to understanding other cultures, and to seeing the world in a way that you just can't on your own. But books help you do that. And so I would say that those individuals were some of my. My early formative teachers and mentors.

I love how you had kind of these, like, positive teachers and mentors along the way. And by the way, if you're watching this or listening to this, and you've never given yourself some type of, like, book challenge per year, I challenge you to do that because I'm totally down with what Crystal's saying of, like, the more you read. And by the way, it might be reading. It might be audio books or it might be audiobook and reading, right? Like. But opening your mind to this, the ability to. Because by the way, the stats just look up the stats of how many books normal humans read in a year. And it's, it's crazy to me the limited amount. So. So Crystal, let's keep diving in here again. You've been on this path, this journey to get where you're at today, which by the way, I'm learning so much already about you as far as like the power of reading and radio and the music industry along your journey. And it might be when you got into marketing or HubSpot or even before. Some of your earlier conversation leads into some of these questions, by the way, which is fascinating that we're already getting there. Have there been any hurdles or maybe even biases that you've had to overcome in your career? And if so, how did you navigate those in those moments in time?

So I've always been in tech since after I graduated from college. I did do a brief stint in the banking world working for Bown and for GE Capital for a little while and I was not into the banking side of things and so. But both banking and technology have historically been male dominated industries. Not so much now, I think, at least in my world in tech that has opened up a great deal. But I work for a company where it's. Which is like 50, I think 51% women, which is unusual in technology. So I've been lucky. But my early part of the career was, was very difficult in that regard because I was often the only woman in the room, the only woman at the table. And if there were other women, and especially women in managerial roles, they were often difficult because they had to be difficult in order to get where they needed to go. And women, I think are often very competitive with each other and in a way that's different. And I had a lot of bosses that were concerned about my early ambition and where I wanted to go and felt sometimes threatened by that. So I had to learn really early on how to kind of navigate some of those waters and how, how to collaborate and not intimidate and how to manage upward and all sorts of really difficult situations. I've had people scream and yell at me in meetings and hurl obscenities and stuff that I just am way too old now to put up with. But back then I didn't know any different or I needed the job or. And I wouldn't have stood up for myself in the right kind of way. And the school of hard knocks helped me realize what I wanted and what I would put up with and also how to work with people better to help them understand how I can be helpful to them and also get what I need out of this situation. So I don't know if that's what you were asking, but I would say it was. The 90s and 2000s were kind of hard for women in business.

I don't disagree. And I love that in there. You're like, how to collaborate instead of intimidate. I think that's a thread that anybody watching or listening to this could pull on and probably learn some life lessons and some business lessons along the way. So. And by the way, the answers you give are your answers. I'm not trying to get poignant or pull anything out. I just want to know the story. And so far, it's shaping up to be a fascinating one. I would have never guessed banking, by the way, but I can see how that would not have been your jam moving forward really young.

It was just not. It was not good.

Yeah. So talk me through this. Take me back in a moment of time where maybe you felt underestimated or overlooked or just like, out of place. Could be in this industry, different industry. How did you handle those moments in time or that moment in time, just so we can kind of gleam some experience from you out of that.

There were a lot of situations, especially I was in a lot of startups in my early part of my career. My whole first half of my resume looks like I made it up because most of those companies don't exist or they were bought. I think I'd been. I think I've been laid off seven times, so that's not fun. I think that I became really good at trying to understand when I might need to start looking for something else. I think the writing on the side has been a really beneficial thing for me because that is not necessarily a lucrative career. Being an author is difficult. The average author makes like less than $20,000 a year, if they're lucky. And so I knew that if I wanted to write books, I would have to get lucky and. Or be prolific. And I couldn't do that on my own without some sort of money coming in. But on the other hand, I didn't want to settle for any old job. I want to be able to feel like I'm making a difference when I wake up and when I go home. And finding a job that I could like doing and like the people I'm working with has always been really important to me. I don't know if I can nail down a specific scenario. Some of it's because I had some scenarios that were like, I just don't want to think about that anymore. I'm like, my. That part of my life is. Is beyond me and I've learned from it and I'm moving on. But I. But it definitely made me realize, okay, actually, you know what? I think one of the things that occurred was I was at. I'm not going to name the company because you know who's listening, but I was at an organization that did some retail sorts of things. And I was in the marketing department as a manager. I had a couple people underneath me, and I had a really big struggle with two people at this organization. One was a lawyer and one was somebody who was adjacent to me but then became a manager to me later on. And they were both very difficult people. I'm both women, actually. Very difficult. Would not non responsive, wouldn't give me the time of day to get what I need done. Although it would reflect poorly upon them if they didn't get things done, if I didn't get those things done for them. And so finally I just said, this is ridiculous. And I went and I sat down with each of them in different situations and said, this isn't working. We need to figure something else out. I want to work with you. How do I work with you better or. And in one case, it was like, I don't appreciate how you're treating me. And both of those scenarios, the person was just kind of floored and didn't really realize how they were coming off to me. But I also was saying, I want to figure this out. I want to work better. I want to be able to collaborate and get stuff done. And that lawyer never missed a phone call from me afterwards, treated me like I was one of her favorite people at the company because I challenged her in a way that was logically made sense to her. The other person who eventually became my manager, I was one of the few people that could manage being her employee without, like breaking into tears every day because she was generally not a nice person. But she was better to me because I had called her on it. And so for me, I think that was a point. But I was in my career a while before that occurred. But I finally got to the point where I was like, I'm just not standing for that. If somebody's treating me poorly, I'm just not going to stand for that. And there are ways to manage those situations, but some of that comes with time and getting to know people and. And getting to know yourself.

Ooh. That. That. That might have got real deep real quick. The fact of knowing yourself. I love that you used, again, kind of the word collaboration. I love that you even mentioned logically connected with them, calling them out on their thing. But really what hits my brain is just the power of taking time to communicate and when you actually can communicate what you might have on the other side of that. So so many life lessons that. And business lessons that people can pull from that segment that we just had a conversation around. So again, I'm going to keep digging, and I swear I'm not going to dig too much further. And then we're going to pivot into some other styles of questions. But I really want to know if, when I ask this question, if you're, like, transported to a place in time of like, where maybe you had a significant failure or setback, and it was just like that kind of gut punch, oof moment. What did you learn from that and how did it kind of help you move forward?

Oh, yeah. There was something that occurred that was absolutely, like, life changing for me. I was getting my master's and I was in a class where I had to do a group project with people. And I'm in my 30s at this point, so it's not. I wasn't super young, and there was a woman in the group I was in who didn't like me. I don't know why. She just. She just didn't like anything I said or did. And it got to the point where I was like, okay, you know what? You run the show. I'm just going to sit back and I will do what you tell me to do, because I just don't have the emotional and physical and I just don't have the energy for this. But what ended up happening is that I was sitting there, it was the second class of my whole master's, and I had still had two years essentially ahead of me, or almost. And I thought, I'm paying for this out of my own pocket. And I, at the time, I was. I didn't make a lot of money. And I was like, I got to make something out of this. How do I. How do I make this be useful? And so that's when I basically decided, okay, I'm going to take everything I'm learning in this class, regardless of whatever else happens in this group, and I'm going to figure out how I'm going to use it in my life. And it was a problem solving class, so that was perfect. But we were also learning all these brainstorming exercises. So how you brainstorm in business? And we learned. We were reading all these, like, Studies about how different companies came up with names and how they did certain things. And I kept thinking, okay, well, how am I gonna. How am I gonna apply this? And I thought, okay, I'll apply this to my writing. That's when I came up. I came. My whole thesis was on developing exercises for writers in progress. Doing that led me to a creative writing group in Boston that enabled me to get my first teaching job that set me on the path to writing books. And those teaching jobs led me to opportunities in my career that I would never have had. And it led me to HubSpot, where I get to teach every day. I wake up every day and I feel like I'm making a difference. And that moment when I decided, I don't care how you treat me, I'm going to figure out how to make what I'm learning useful, because that is what's important for me in this moment. That was really pivotal for me.

Yeah, I think that's so powerful. Just like it's. It's almost like you made a decision to empower yourself, no matter what the. The means or what you had to go through or what you had to go through. And then the. The other piece I love about this is. It's literally like that domino moment. Like, it's this domino, this mindset, this thing that happened, and then you can trace it back. And I love how we all kind of have those scenarios where it's like, hmm, if I. If I would have done this different, I don't know if this would have been happening. Like, I would have been where I'm at.

So I want to give the impression, though, that. That all the people I've dealt with in my life are difficult, because that's totally not true. It's not even remotely true. It's. It's. It's been certain people in positions of power that have been difficult, but generally, like, I have been really blessed to have all sorts of wonderful people that I've been able to connect with over time.

So I love that. Yeah, it's. Trust me. By the way, though, your story isn't different than most that we've had these conversations with, because. And again, I think it's kind of the questions that we're asking because we're trying to dig into, like, what did you learn from these, like, more difficult times, which maybe leads to dealing with difficult people, but now we get to turn the corner. Crystal, because I'm. I'm super curious. What is the word empowerment mean to Crystal King? And how do you pass that on to others in your field. This idea of what you call empowerment.

I think it's choosing to trust and to believe in someone and to give them the benefit of the doubt. One of the things that when I came to HubSpot, I was so struck by, because I was really jaded by the time I got there. And HubSpot was just a whole different world. And we've gotten bigger and our culture has shifted a bit, but it's still. Some of the basic tenets are still really the same. One of the things that happened really early on is they asked me to do some of the social media for Academy because that was my background with social media. I was doing. I was director of social media before I came on board. And so I put together a whole list of, like, you know, basically guidelines for Academy people to follow and, you know, what the workings of it were. But basically the guidelines are a list of rules to follow or not follow. And I brought it back to my manager, and he said, I can't share this with anyone. I said, what do you mean? He goes, we don't have rules here. I'm like, what do you mean? And he says, there's only two rules. And it was. Well, there's only one rule. It was one rule. I think there was two, but I don't remember what the other one was because it wasn't as important as this rule. The. The rule is use good judgment. Oh, no, there. There's two. Two rules. Use good judgment and that you assume good intent. Those are the two rules. I was blown away by this. The idea that a company would assume good intent and that would trust their employees to use good judgment. And granted, that gets harder and harder the bigger you get. It just does. But that, to me, was like, the most empowering thing that I had ever had happen in my career. And I chucked those rules, and I had to shift my focus and start to. To really assume good intent and to believe that they believed in me enough that I could. Could make those judgments. And that's not to say that I wouldn't have people that I report to that might make decisions that usurp mine. But I have always felt empowered to share my thoughts and to. And to put forth my ideas. And so I think that, to answer your question is to really. It's trust and belief. That's really what it boils down to.

I love that. Trust and belief, two things that we need to have in our life. Without a doubt. You may have just given me the answer to this next question. But I feel led to still ask it because I think it might be more along the lines of you in the next possible piece that we end up going here. And I just want you to share a moment in your career and obviously it's like you felt trusted and you believed in yourself, but a moment in your career where you felt especially empowered and or proud of something that you, Crystal King, had achieved.

Well, I had. I'm publishing my fourth book this fall, so our Christmas, December 2nd. So if I was any one thing, that is probably the thing I'm. I'm most happy about because that, and so my book world, that's my, my author life. That is like pretty cool that. But I'm working on my seventh book. I have a couple that are like in process. But that is cool because if you had asked me 15 years ago if I would have ever thought that that would happen, I would, I would probably laughed at you because that seems. The book seemed big to write. But I'm also really, really happy about all of the, the, the learning that I get to do every day. And, and you mentioned, you know, how thousands of people watch HubSpot Academies learning and I get to teach in thousands of universities across the world. That's something I could never have done on my own. And. But I have been given the gift of being able to reach into people all around the world and that's. That is pretty cool. I'm grateful for that every day.

Yeah. Education and helpfulness at scale is crazy when it starts to just populate out to these places, it's so amazing. So let's talk about the tech side of this for a second because I'm super curious, like if you could wave a magic wand or just simply change one thing about how women are supported in kind of the tech or marketing industry that we kind of live in, what would that one thing be?

In general, I would say we need more women in leadership and we need more women on the board of big companies. I think that's the big thing HubSpot's doing that we have women in our leadership, which is like wonderful, in several positions in our leadership. And we have women on the board and that was always really important to our founders. So I feel really lucky because I don't think about that anymore. And so for the fact that you had to ask me that, I had actually had to think a little bit because if I wasn't here, I'm pretty sure that's what I would be saying. But I have that. We have that. And I think that, you know, our organization is better off for that. And. And the way that we work with our customers is better off with that and the way that we work with our partners and people like you. So, yeah, I would say that more women in leadership and more women on the board.

I love that. Love it, love it. Okay, so this is the women of HubSpot. So I want to lean on the HubSpot side for a second. Are there any. I kind of maybe think I know where you go with this, but I'm not sure 100% sure where you'll go with this. But are there any particular tools, strategies or trends in HubSpot that excite you right now?

Oh, well, we're all about AI, right, so. And I am the. I lead the charge for academy content when it comes to AI now. So my, my focus has shifted a little bit from social media. I'll still have a foot in that world, but more on AI. You'll see a lot more AI content out of me. And also I'm working with other people to make sure that certain types of AI is being developed to serve our customers. I equally fascinated. Also terrified by AI in general. In general, not at HubSpot, but I like our approach to it and that we're empowered to use it and we get to use a bunch of different tools and figure out how to help our customers do things better. And certainly we are using it all the time to make our lives easier. I can put together scripts and project plans in a fraction of the time that I used to, which enables me to do a bit more and, and to focus on things like that I'm excited about. So, yeah, so I would say AI.

I love that you leaned in there to enable me to do more and focus on what you love or what you're excited about. That's instead of a shortcut that for the answer of that is so refreshing to be honest with you. Okay, so let's keep on going down this journey. We're almost to the place where we're going to land the plane. Almost. This one. I'm super interested. Just how important is networking to you? And it could be in general networking or networking with other females. And are there any, like, networking strategies or tips that you use to build connections as you're kind of building this brand? Going from somebody who needs to write books or teach to like people know you to like where you're at now?

It really is so important. And I'm an extrovert, so to me this kind of comes naturally. And I Realize that's not true of all people. I feel like one of my callings is to try to connect people and to try to find ways to help other people make some connections and to. And by helping other people. This is the way I always look at it. When you help other people, they're going to be more willing to help you when you need a favor in the future. And so a lot of my building up my network is slightly selfish because you never know if I might need to, you know, tap into their network or. The book world is a perfect example for me. One of the things that one of my debut book came out in 2017, Feast of Sorrow. I was in a group of other debut authors and those authors all along the way. For the last, since 2017, we have been championing each other's books. We had this like connection and the network. We were trying to figure it all out together because publishing is a weird industry. If you ever want to feel like you know that, that things are, that whatever you're doing is, is, is feel is good, then just go like dig into how weird the publishing world is. But we just banded together and, and we've always been helpful for each other since then and so finding pockets of those people is really good. One of the, one of the best things I did in my marketing career is ages ago I joined the social media club and I got, I went to a couple conferences that they did. That they did. And there, there's a couple different social media groups that I was part of and I got to meet people all over the place. And in fact, just today I submitted a resume for somebody that I met like 15 years ago from the Social Media Club and at HubSpot, because this is somebody that I've known all along the way. So, you know, I think networking is important. Finding a way to keep those connections, whether it's staying up on LinkedIn with people or joining groups that you stay connected to people in, figure out who that that group is that that you have an affinity with. And that doesn't have to just be one, it could be, could be a few. And you don't always have to be like me and super involved. But you know, dip your toe into the water here and there, it can go miles for you in the future.

I love this idea of keeping the connections one, because that's something that doesn't get stated a lot to really when I hear you talking about that. It could look different ways to different people, but at the end of the day you were adding value for Each other. You were championing each other. It's. It's this idea of, you know what, ladies and gentlemen, you don't.

Inbound.

Yeah, it's inbound. You don't have to do it alone. Right. And so I love that so much. Okay, so you mentioned earlier the fourth book, but I still want to ask this question because it might be that or you might lean into the marketing or HubSpot side of this, because I'm super curious. Crystal, if you had to, like, list one thing, what would the most rewarding aspect of your career be?

Oh, that's really hard. Can I give you two answers?

You can give me two as. As the guy that usually cheats and gives two or three answers. When somebody says I can do one, you can give me two.

I will say one. The first one is that I have had the ability to be really creative in my career, whether that's right in writing. And I've always been writing too. That's why I pursued marketing. I was actually in PR in the first place. I have written more press releases than you can shake a stick out. Right. So I. Writing and being creative and working in marketing allows me to be creative. Even, you know, a lot of the things I'm doing at HubSpot, I'm super creative creative, and I get to design a lot of what I'm doing. I have a lot of autonomy in the creation of my courses and lessons. And then I would say the second thing is the people that I've met all along the way, the people that I've stayed connected with, the people that I've got, been able to reach, certainly like all of my readers of my books and all of the viewers of my learning, all the people that I've taught in person, I love being with people and connecting to people. So I would say those two things.

I love it because kind of what you're talking about is it's. It's impact. It's. For me, I call it the ripples. Like, I just want to see the ripples at the end of the day. And so this impact that you're making through the books, through your career, I love it so much. Speaking of ripples, people are watching this. They're listening this because of the title, Women of HubSpot, I imagine it's going to be a quite large percentage of women who are probably watching or listening this. But I hope that's not the case. I hope I'm wrong. I hope men use this as the ability to, like, learn some things that dang on it we could probably learn along the way. But, Crystal, what advice would you give other women who might want to choose this career path or a career path like yours?

Oh, you mean like teaching or at HubSpot?

Or either. Or pick your journey and roll with it.

Oh, that's hard. There's different aspects to it. I feel like Academy is kind of a special thing inside HubSpot. What we do is really very different than other people at HubSpot. One of the biggest things that I've learned being at HubSpot, I am Gen X through and through. I am so cynical. I've talked about how jaded I've been and how many people that I've had to struggle with. There's a struggle that Gen X, our forgotten generation, has had. But coming to HubSpot, one of the things that I have appreciated the most and that I think was one of the bigger lessons for me was that the whole assuming good intent, one of the side effects of that is when you are around people like that, things are much more positive and you become more positive. And one of the things I've noticed when I am in scenarios at HubSpot where I feel like maybe there's a challenge or I'm not excited about something that's happening when I lean in and I flip that into something where. And not. I'm not talking about toxic positivity, because that's another thing. Right. But when I try to look at things in a. In a more when I try to reframe things into some way that I can say, okay, this makes sense. This is where the other people are coming from. This is how I can make a difference. And if I don't like what's happening, how do I reframe it into something that I can be. Make it be useful for me. And when I've done that, it has. It is like completely changed. Not just how I am, but then how everyone around is reacting to me. So I think that that's something that I coming to Hub swa I really needed. Because when you're in scenarios where you're really jaded and you feel like your work is beating you down, it's hard to sometimes have that perspective. And so I feel like that that's something I've been lucky before. So look for that way you can reframe those sort of those tough situations. And if you can't reframe it into a. Into something good, then maybe that's not where you should be.

I love that advice, by the way. That's probably the rewind point. Just rewind. Listen to that. Think about the things in your life, viewers, listeners, humans, that if I reframe this, what does it do to myself and to those around me? Crystal, we've got one. What might be a harder question? We'll see. And then we've got two that we're going to land the plane with. So we're almost there for this one. That sometimes it's difficult and some people are like, oh, got it. What are your long term goals?

I want to retire and write books.

There you go.

That's really, I really just want to write books. But if I can't afford to write books then I love working on spot. So I feel like right now I've got the best of both worlds. So for me that's, that's easy. Oh, and probably do that in Italy. That would be ideal too. So I'm working on my citizenship and it's a place that my husband and I have come to love. So finding a way to do that would be awesome.

Ooh, I like those goals. Okay, so be in Italy with some good pasta and write good books while also potentially working at HubSpot. Like that doesn't sound bad when they.

Open that Italy office. Like, you know. Yeah, I need to get on that. Yeah, watching. Get on the Italy thing, please.

Come on, let's do it. Okay. What is a surprising or little known fact about you that people might not expect?

I think one, I mean, I think my, my colleagues know now, but one thing that people don't usually expect out of me is that I am a total gamer. I love video games. That if I, if I'm not reading a book, that's probably what I'm doing. And I love really big story rich games, which makes sense. Right. So I like to live in the story. So yeah, I think that's something that surprises people about me is that I'm a huge gamer and I have been. I, my dad brought back a huge big monstrous computer when I was back in the 80s and I was playing Zork on it. So like I, I have, I have the history of the gaming.

Wow, that's a throwback right there. And by the way, I, I would have not expected that. Like, I don't put like bookworm and gamer usually in the same. I love that. I love that. Of course for me, people don't usually put football player and chess club together, but that was, but that was my thing when I was growing up. Okay, last question. And again, I thank you for taking time to do this. I can't wait for people to be able to just listen in on this conversation. But Crystal King, bang on it. Finish this sentence. For me, success to me means blank.

Success to me means being a creator of my own circumstance and being happy about that. I've found a way to manage what I'm doing in a way that I can be proud of. But I have control and I have choices, and how do I make those choices? So, yeah, I think that would be what I would answer there.