178: Mel Burt-Gracik - On How to Overcome Perfectionism

Hey everybody and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. Episode 178 on overcoming perfectionism. We're gonna get you, perfectionism. We're coming for ya. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney, together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world, and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful, that's not a small task. I love your giggle.

Wow.

Oh my gosh, waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey everybody, and welcome back to another week here on This Moved Me. You can hear my squeaky chair. I'm not in my typical recording studio right now because we are moving. Oh my gosh, I think that might be the first time I've said— no, it's not the first time I've said it out loud. It's definitely the first time I've talked about it on the show. We're staying in St. Paul, Minnesota, because if you've listened to the show, you know I'm a Minnesota girl through and through. And we're staying even in the neighborhood. Our kids don't want to change schools and they're great schools, so we see no need to do that. But here's the deal, we sold our house and now we're looking for one. We don't have a place to go yet. So, right, I have not— I took the whole podcast studio down to sell the house because our realtor was like, what is all this? I'm like, Uh, it's a microphone. And it was kind of a funny conversation. Anyway, I haven't had a chance to set it all back up again, and I may not. So here I am on my phone. So if it sounds a little different, that's why. But this is a pretty good backup plan. If there's anybody out there who does podcasting, this is an amazing on-the-go recording studio in and of itself. I mean, the trick for me is honestly, it's now summer. And my children could walk in the door at any moment. I sent them outside to go biking, but if they walk in the door and it turns into madness, this is why, because they are around all the time now. Isn't that great? It is so great. Okay, so today's episode is a conversation with this brilliant, insightful, courageous woman named Mel Burt Grasek, and Mel and I were connected through Jason Freeman. If you remember Jason from, gosh, maybe 6 months ago, 8 months ago, I had him on the show. And Jason is one of those unforgettable interviews for me because he has a pretty strong speech impediment, um, and a disability that's really affected his speech a lot. And he's a professional speaker and a passionate empowering, inspiring one. And just as a human being, he totally inspires me. And so when he suggested that Mel and I connect, and then Mel reached out to me and we talked, just hearing her view on life, she's one of those people where, where I thought, I want to bring her insight on the show. And Mel herself is a speaker, so she is a coach, an executive coach, and And so she's really helping people step into themselves in new and powerful ways and does a lot of speaking herself. And so we talked about her dream of getting on the TED stage, and we talked about really getting through the stuff that is in our way that is keeping us from really owning our place on the stage. And if you've listened to the show before, you know that is a personal passion of mine, and that we as unspeakers— and that has— being an unspeaker has nothing to do with whether or not you are a professional speaker or not. It has to do with your goal to connect and to get over our need for perfectionism and to really be present in the moment and connect with our audiences and be our full human messy selves up there, and that, that is the thing that really moves people. And so Mel brought her own stories and her own insight to this conversation, and I'm really excited for you to dive in with her. Here she is, Mel Burt-Gracie. So you were talking about not being a life coach per se. That's not, not the phrase.

Yeah, I have a handful of clients. Typically they come to me for career transition coaching.

Yeah.

And that's the closest I would get to life coaching.

Okay.

But I can— when I think of life coaching, I think pseudo-therapy, like you want to work on yourself. Yeah. And on that point, I, I am absolutely a life coach. No matter if I'm working with a C-suite leader or, or a manager or just an individual person who's come to me, always, always, I guarantee we are working through shame. We are working through, um, where do you place your value and worth as a human being and learning to love and accept themselves as they are. So yeah, I, I think that's their whole lives when I'm coaching them.

Well, and I think that's the point that, as we're coming to why I wanted to have you on the show, because you were talking about sort of your own journey with speaking and, and finding a place where you felt— getting to a place where you felt really confident and comfortable and were like Yes, I got this. And that to me, like as a coach, as a speaking coach, I can't believe how much of my work is practically life coaching, right? We're talking about shame. We're talking about really owning ourselves for who we are and getting over the baloney that's going in and around our head and getting in the way of us really showing up. I mean, it's There's so much alignment there. And it's funny, so many life coaches have come to me for like coaching, speaking coaching, which I'm like, this is such a great fit because that is the realm that I like to live in. Because, you know, aside from the skill development, yes, let's do that. That's— everybody and their mother does that and anybody can learn that. But having the kind of personal connection with somebody to help them push you beyond what you think you can do, like, oh, that's the good stuff.

Yeah, that's what I want to get to right there.

Yeah, right. So let's talk about that for you. Let's do a little bit of grounding, like how you bring all of these ideas into the realm of speaking, because part of what I think is really valuable about hearing your story is that it is you're not, you know, I'm— you're not a professional public speaker. Like, that's not the goal, but it is a way that you are building your business and getting some visibility and also sharing your message, most importantly.

I don't know that I, I do aspire to be a, like, full-on public speaker.

All right, so it is part of your long-term path. You're like, get me out there, I want to do this, I want to get paid for it, I want to be part of my gig.

I have been paid for speaking.

Okay, so I, I receive your newsletters because we got connected, I don't know, maybe 6 months ago, right? Jason Friedman, who's been on the show, who I adore. I just loved the conversation I had with him.

I was like, I love you, Jason.

He's such an amazing person. And I was so glad that he connected us and then we had a great phone conversation. So I've just been clued in a little bit more to your work and you sent out this newsletter a few weeks ago and I was like, I want to get her on the show and talk about this more because you talked about this transformation that you've made in terms of how you approach your speaking. So give me a little bit of a sense. Of your background as a speaker and kind of how you've gotten to this place. And then I want to talk about this new aha that you had recently.

I point back to growing up in the Midwest. Hey. We grew up in the Bible Belt, and anytime our church's doors were open, our family was there. My mom was the pianist for the church. And we were very strong leaders. When I was a youth, they had Youth Sunday, and being a little bit more outgoing, and I've always loved drama, I was in the choir, did all of the plays that we would have at church, I decided I want to be the speaker. I want to give the sermon.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, I did. And I, I remember, I, I know it wasn't good, but good enough. When I told this one story, I think it's like this this fake story, ethical dilemma of the train driver, the conductor is driving the train and there's a child on the railroad tracks and he has to decide, and it's his child or something, stop the train and let it wreck or save the one child. And I told the story and somehow I remember I made a mother cry in the audience. And that felt really powerful to me. I was like, yeah, yeah, there was something. I think I felt that tug at around that age to speak in ways that moved people. Now this took a long side trail for a while because I grew up as a perfectionist. I was taught that I needed to kind of meet certain norms, and if I didn't fit into those buckets, I wasn't good enough. And it has taken me long into my 30s to really work on that problem. And as you might imagine, being in front of people and speaking, creating essentially, and perfectionism, those two things don't play nicely together. So it's really painful to fail when you're a perfectionist. And often that means you avoid risking, you avoid trying.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So I would say I didn't embrace speaking for probably a good 20 years or so after that. And only more recently in starting my consulting business, I recognized that speaking was a way, something I had to do anyway. I'm leading workshops facilitating all the time. So I went to a workshop called Courageous Speaking, where the step 2 of that, which is to get you TED-ready, is where I met Jason and kind of took my speaking game to the next level.

Cool. And, and, uh, so where are you on the TED journey? Are you still looking for a place to do it? Like, tell me, because I know you and I talked about that once. You're like, really? I want to do a TED Talk.

Yeah, I need to apply again. I applied last year to several TEDx, and I want the real Ted. I tried to link in with Chris Anderson, and I tried like 10 to 15 different email addresses that might potentially be his. I don't think any of them went.

I love your determination around it. That's amazing.

My TEDx, hopeful TED Talk someday, is called Live Like TED. So there's a book called Talk Like TED. My TED Talk is about not just feeling inspiration from amazing ideas that are worth sharing, but rather weaving them into your life with actual behavior change. And I tell some stories about how I use TED ideas to both in my own journey and also with my clients.

I love that.

I know, isn't it great? It sounds great.

So great. It's gonna happen. I want to hear that talk. I totally want to hear that talk. It'll happen. Yeah, it'll happen. I, you know, the one that happened for me, unbeknownst to me, of course, there was somebody— they didn't know me um, whoever was on the nominating committee, but they— whatever, there was some connection. There was enough of a connection that I wasn't a completely cold person into it, um, and I think that helps. I, I didn't know that. I just sent it in and was like, hopefully that'd be great, right? Um, so it'll happen. I, I believe in you.

I just need to put my— entrepreneurship has taught me a lot. A couple of big key characteristics have been resilience and persistence. Oh, I just need to apply those, those traits to getting back on the— get now on the TED stage.

You know what you should do? Okay, this is just an idea, right? Because I, I have the sense from our few connections that you would maybe go for this. Is to, to just even be more public about it and be like, Chris Anderson, I'm coming for you.

I—

so I've got to do this TED Talk.

Yeah, I like that.

And like create a hashtag around it, like coming for TED or Chris Anderson. Yeah, yeah. And tag Chris Anderson on everything and just be like— but still not creepy, but just Hey, I'm back. Hey, Chris. Okay, let me just tell you about— here's another idea. Or it was like this.

What about that?

You know, and just love him up so that he can't— he can't ignore you.

Yeah, I like that.

Okay, that's an idea.

My Twitter game, but I could do it on LinkedIn. I know how to use LinkedIn.

That's the problem. Yeah, I Twitter, I, I feel like I don't have— I'm not witty enough for Twitter or something. I don't know, the people who like really are into Twitter are sassy pants, and I, I respect that, but it's not my gig.

Yeah, so I have 50 followers right now. I also would probably need to up that.

Yeah, I know, isn't that sad that as entrepreneurs this is how we get a sense of what— if what we're doing works. Not a sense of our value, but a sense of resonance and a sense of connection and impact and effectiveness. And that distinction is really important because your value is not connected to how many followers you have, but it is an indication of something.

Yeah, absolutely. I have ideas worth following, perhaps.

Right.

I used to be really— part of perfectionism— I used to be really afraid of being off-putting or putting someone out or being annoying. Yeah. And now I don't, I don't fear that as much anymore. I'm totally fine for Chris Anderson to be like, who is this creepy woman?

Why won't she leave me alone?

If it will get me to be able to share the message that I think is important, right, and doesn't compromise other values that are more important.

You have a few caveats in there, that's good. Okay, it's taking us a little bit to get there because we're just having fun chit-chatting, but I want to hear from you the story— this is what I'm going to call it— you gave a butt-clenching talk. What? What is that? And how did it happen? So give me a sense of that.

So first, the idea came from my vocal band teacher professor in undergrad, where if our— we were doing really challenging music and she had a great ear. And if we were off, that's what she called it. She called it a butt-clenching performance, which you know you've experienced, right? You're like at the third grade band concert where you're like, ugh, the trumpet, ugh. You can feel it. You can feel your butt kind of going, "Ee!" Yeah, and so for this particular one, I had given this talk one other time, and it's super information-heavy. That was something that I really struggled with at the beginning of being a speaker. One of my StrengthsFinder talents is Input. It's my number 1, which means I love to collect information. I find information fascinating, and for me to really feel like I had valid things things to share, I sort of believed that I needed to be providing really valuable information. And how many, how many people who specialize in speaking have said ever, please include tons of information in your talk?

Overload me, please.

Yeah, no, said no one ever. And so one, I had way too much information that I was trying to cram in. I was not technologically savvy enough at that point. I didn't know about embedding videos in your PowerPoint, so I have these links to videos in my PowerPoint which didn't work so well. Yeah, and I arrived to— I've never spoken at this place before. It's like a group that meets in different places that are hosted by, you know, like a member of the group or what have you. So we had not— that group had never been in this particular building before. We go in and they had just redone all of their tech stuff, so the sound wasn't working. Oh no. I get there early and the whole time I'm trying to navigate this technical problem. Woo is another one of my talents, which stands for winning others over. So I wooed the security guard into tracking down a portable speaker that was massive and heavy and he's lugging that in. In the end we had 2 laptops, we were using, I queued up all of the YouTube videos or what have you, I had in my speech or in my PowerPoint that weren't gonna work, and we toggled between screens. My vibe was totally thrown off. I had too much information in, and I was asking people to go kind of deep. The topic was filling your bucket, go from giving too much to having so much to give. And I was having them explore kind of what drains them of energy and also what fills them with energy. Was asking them to go a little deeper and dig a little bit, but I had not won the audience over with my own vulnerability and story. I just provided a lot of really valuable information in a not so beautiful format with sound that didn't work. And at the end, I had passed out evaluations and most of the room didn't fill them out, so that's a sign.

That's a sign, yeah.

People didn't love that and they didn't want to tell me or take the time to tell me that. And two, there were some evaluations that were like scathing. Now there are often silver linings. I mean, I got a longer-term coaching client out of it, so I did touch at least one person in the room. Yeah, yeah. And it was painful. It was super painful because I'd also worked really hard on it. I had worked hard on it for the very first one that I gave that also didn't land wonderfully, and then tried I had to tweak it and refine it. I'd spent so much time on it. So that was a Tuesday. And I like to say that I mourned deeply. The pain of failing like that was really pain, very painful for me. I could feel it physically. And I mourned on Wednesday and Thursday. And on Friday I went to this networking event and they had changed the venue. It was in this dingy hotel in, in San Diego, and there was like 2 windows in a long room with natural light, and other than that, it was like nasty fluorescent lighting, and the ceiling was kind of low, and they had these round tables that were kind of set up sort of in a round-ish horseshoe shape-ish, and there was a space at the front of the room for the speaker. There was this tiny table that was too small to be like a side table for sitting on a chair and like putting things next to you. You'd have to like bend down to put things on this little table that was just kind of randomly there. It was not an ideal setting. And this woman gets up and knocks my socks off and everyone else. She had us captivated. There was no PowerPoint. It was just her speaking. And I can still tell you what it was about. It was about how do you network effectively and well., and it was full of story. And on that next day, I went to my first Courageous Speaking workshop, and I shared this story. Like, I just bombed on Tuesday, and I heard this talk on Friday, so I know what I'm shooting for. And, um, but it was a 2-day retreat workshop thing. By Sunday, we had extra time, and they were like, okay, just get up on stage and tell say something, talk, just talk. It was terrifying to me. And I got up and I did the intro to the speech I had given on Tuesday, revamped with some of the things that I had learned, and I got a standing ovation. And when the leader of the training came up to kind of debrief with me, okay, how'd that feel? And wow, we had no idea that was in you. I told them the story. I was like, this totally failed on Tuesday.

Yeah.

Now I have some hope. I have some hope that I can learn. I'm capable of learning and growing.

I love that. I love that story. And I love, I love that you're sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of it, right? That because we've all had those experiences where we're trying stuff out and you couldn't have gotten to where you got on Saturday without the terrible experience on Tuesday or whatever it was. It's like, that's— this is how it works. And it's a humbling, sometimes humiliating experience. And it's how we are willing to dig a little deeper. We've got to have those experiences to be like, oh yeah, this can't be easy.

No, no. So I've tried a couple of things to help me overcome perfectionism, and last year I decided to do improv. Nice. Yeah, because of the Courageous Speaking experience where I had to improvise. Like, they taught us this stuff and then gave us maybe half an hour to formulate a thought, and you're going to be up there talking for 7 minutes. And I was the last person, like, trying to scribble. I have no idea. I don't know what I'm going to say. Um, it was really good for me to have to do that. So with improv, you can't prepare, right? The whole thing is you just have to show up and go with it and accept whatever happens. And that, I would say, was part of my problem— allowing myself to be and then accept whatever showed up. Yeah, perfectionism says to you No, no, no, don't do that because whatever shows up will not be okay.

Right.

It's the opposite of acceptance. So I did that and then I was just, I was thinking through this, this morning and last night my sister and I went out to a bar to debrief her day. She had had kind of a hard day and they had karaoke at the bar and as you can hear right now, I'm I'm trying to overcome a cold and I sounded way worse yesterday. I was like squeaky. There were moments where I was like, I would try to speak and sound would not come out. And I decided I'm gonna sing. I'm gonna sing Carrie. This will be good for me. And she sang, we're a musical family. She got up and sang Patsy Cline, "Crazy." And I've been playing the, Oh gosh, the movie. It's the Tom Cruise Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack constantly, and my kids are really stuck on—

Not Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks.

I don't like him more.

Yeah.

And, uh, so I, I put on Patsy Cline's Stand By Your Man, which is an easy song. Oh, the best of voices. And I totally bombed, and, and Slash did great where my voice worked. And I've decided that I want to put myself in more scenarios where I will fail. I am guaranteed not to do an amazing job because I think learning from failure is like a muscle that you have to exercise. So when I bomb, when I don't meet my own expectations, I've I shared with you already, like, I feel physical pain. It is emotional, but it is physical pain for me, and it lasts a long time. And I think to get better at failure, I need to practice having failure so that I no longer have that big emotional response, that I will feel the disappointment and it will be less severe. I'm going to kind of create my own exposure therapy experience. Experiment.

That's a great idea because I feel like that's— that is the essential component, is the more that we do it, the more we recognize we're gonna be okay, and we just get back up and we try again. And then you learn, which all sounds really nice, but it's hard. It's really hard, especially to walk in and know I'm gonna fail. So I did this thing with my clients where I shifted what I named our rehearsals, because they were coming into our rehearsals prepared and preparing the wrong way and feeling nervous about what they were going to show me. And I was like, no, no, no, no, the whole idea here is that We're going to fail together because that's where we learn. And I'm a really safe person to fail with. And let's do it now and figure it out so that you're not doing it in the moment. Or if you do, then you've done— you've done it before. You know how to get back up. So I started calling them stumble-throughs instead of rehearsals.

Oh, that's great.

Because I was like, no, no, the point of this is to stumble. So you don't feel ready, you don't, you're not excited about this yet, you're freaking out a little bit, your adrenaline is spiking, you can't focus. I was like, great, that's exactly where you should be. Yeah, let's just go through, you know, and it gave them this permission. They're like, oh, okay, so we're gonna stumble. I was like, yeah, that's the whole point, let's do it.

They're like, oh, oh.

Oh, pink, okay.

Yeah.

And it changed their openness to the process. It changed their level of courage and vulnerability. They were willing to do that. So it deepened our connection and they discovered so much more about themselves. It's kind of crazy how just naming it something else changed what it became.

Yep, that's beautiful. Yeah, uh, Jason and I recently collaborated for an organization called Just in Time for Youth. It's a support organization for foster youth who are aging out of the system, so they— financial support, they help them figure out if education's what's next for them, application processes, they provide meals, um, And we— Jason's ethos and brand is about doing your imperfect best. I specialize in StrengthsFinder, and they use StrengthsFinder there, so we did using your strengths to do your imperfect best.

Ah, love that!

So, but we were preparing months in advance and got together 2 times in person to practice it out, and those were painful for me. Yeah, so with your clients, it's just you, right? Like, Jason is totally a safe person for me to stumble over my words with and like not know quite what I'm gonna say, and yet it feels painful, and you feel apprehension going into that moment. You're going to see me, and I might not look amazing.

Yeah.

And I don't— to me, it's the muscle of vulnerability and the bravery around doing it in small moments like that, doing it with you, me doing it with Jason, so that when you get on the stage, you're ready for the big ask of yourself of being brave and vulnerable.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I had this one client I worked with, and I just adored her so much, but every time we'd show up, together, she was like, she would say to me, I hate, I hate you right now. I hate this. I really don't want to do this right now. I was like, I'm so glad that you're verbalizing this. Everybody just thinks it and you're saying it. That's awesome. Let's do it. She's just like, no. And then afterwards she's so grateful, but it's just that first bit where you're showing up and you're like, I don't wanna, this is not fun and scary, and turns us into— that just brings out all the insecurities. That's why it's so awesome and so awful at the same time. Yeah, cool. Well, I was— I love that you, you yourself have felt that shift and that transformation Because once you're doing that, right, to have the experience where you're like, I have found that sweet spot of where I know I'm bringing something of value, but I'm most importantly just bringing me, right? Here I am. This is what I'm about. This is what I'm doing. This is my story. And sharing that is how people are going to connect with you. And that aside from the fact that it will help you grow your business and it will help you have a greater impact and share your message, it's just so good for the soul.

It really is. I feel like just like what I was talking about earlier with kind of doing my own exposure therapy with failure, and so that my muscle gets stronger there. Failure is easier to handle. The more I practice vulnerability, the easier it gets for me, and I feel like I'm getting to be a bit of a pro at it. I'm able to recognize going even into a situation, ah, it feels uncomfortable for me. I don't know that I want to disclose this about myself, for the struggle I'm facing, but asking myself to do it anyway. I just say, I'm going to exercise my leadership value of vulnerability. I'm going to do it.

Yeah. I don't remember who I was talking with about this, but it's— this idea has been a great orienting force for me. Like, okay, The idea that if I'm on the verge of thinking, "I don't know if I should share this. This feels risky," that is the one to share, right? Because there are ones maybe that really you're not ready to share yet, but the one where you're like, "Uh," that's where you go. That orients your direction. You move there. Like, follow that because that that's going to be the piece that pulls something out of you that other people need to hear and that connects you and that will help change you and the people you're talking to.

I agree.

And you've done that. Good job. All right. Well, it is time for a This Moved Me moment, something that has moved you recently. That you are excited about. I know you've got— I love that you've got— you're prepared. So I'm gonna let you go first.

It was the Oscar performance of This Is Me, Keelah Settle. I needed notes because I didn't know her name before I looked it up. This is me, and I feel like I didn't even realize it as I was answering this question to prepare that The song really is what I wanted to share in my story with you today, which is allowing yourself to be fully who you are and bravely risking and putting yourself out there and kind of putting your foot down on the ground and saying, "Fuck you, world. If you don't love me, that's too bad for you because I do, and I'm not going to I'm not going to let the haters or the critics stop me from expressing myself, and I'm going to choose to love me. And here I am, take it or leave it. And I felt like I cried, like I had tears as I watched her performance in particular. That song didn't win, but it felt like to me like it won in terms of the performance that night.

Yeah, she's amazing. She's such a powerhouse and Um, I love that movie too so much.

Have you seen the movie? Yeah, no, it's so good.

It's so good. You're gonna love it.

You're gonna love it.

It's, it's fantastic. Um, my kids, we, we took our kids and my kids fell in love with the movie. And so my daughter is postponing her birthday party for 3 weeks so that we can watch the movie at her birthday party.

Oh, so cute.

Because it doesn't come out on digital until whatever, March 20th or something. So, oh my gosh, I know. So it is a beautiful song and I love— you're right, that's it. We have to get that point and I'm getting better at it. I'm still not great about it. I'm too— I care too much about people liking me, and it's getting in the way.

Yeah, yep. I choose to love me.

Yeah, good. Oh, Mel, this is good. Uh, so my This Moved Me moment is not, uh, well, I, I'll say this, it's, it's another obsession that I have recently, um, and that is the Netflix show Comedian in cars getting coffee.

Yeah.

Have you watched it?

Yeah, I like it.

I love it. I love it. I don't know what the deal is. It's one of the few shows that my husband and I both watch and both enjoy. And sometimes they, you know, it's like, eh, but there have been a handful of conversations that I found really moving. One of them was between Jerry Seinfeld And, um, oh gosh, I can't remember his name, but he played his buddy in Seinfeld, right? The really tall guy with Kramer.

Kramer.

Right?

Kramer.

So Kramer had some drama a few years ago. I didn't really know what it was. Maybe you know the story, but he, he basically kind of freaked out on stage and was not kind to somebody in the audience. And I hope I'm getting this right, I don't know the details of it, but they talk about it in this episode. And there was this vulnerability and sweetness and real friendship to their conversation because Kramer says to Jerry, "Thank you, thank you for sticking by me because I was struggling a lot and it came out and it was a horrible moment for me. And Jerry says, of course, of course, I love you, basically, like, you know, and it just had this so much heart to it and it was totally unexpected. And those conversations are often about really superficial stuff happening But every once in a while they get to a great little nugget about who they are as human beings. And so that moment stood out to me. But I also love their talk about the craft of comedy, which is not— I don't, you know, I'm not an expert in comedy by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that there's a lot that we can learn as speakers about the craft of comedy. So I, um, yeah, just really enjoy it. It's great, super fun. All right, okay, Mel, I gotta run because in 5 minutes I'm going live on Facebook.

Do it!

Hey movers, thanks so much for joining me for another show here on This Moved Me. Thanks, Mel, for your time. It's so great to be connected with you, and I hope that you, my um speakers, got something out of that and you are now even more ready to get your butt out there. And do the work that matters as imperfect as we are because perfection kills connection. And so let's, let's focus on the connection and let's do it. All right. So an update for you, my unspeakers. My website, it's coming. It's coming along and I so cannot wait to show you. There's a little bit of a holdup, But that is to be expected in the world of website creation and production because life happens. And I want to give a shout out to the people who are creating my website. It's called Simple and Soulful Websites, Simple and Soulful Creative, and they do such incredibly beautiful work and I can't wait. Oh my gosh, I'm really, really excited. I think it's going to be worth the wait. It's gonna be worth the wait, but I'm sorry you have to keep waiting. In the meantime, I'd love for you to, if you have not yet, uh, to head over to my website, that how it is currently, okay, because I really would love for you to see the before and the after. But there's some good stuff over there, uh, that is going to be rearranged. I'm creating this new kind of downloadable resource library, and there's going to be this this really cool presentation prep packet that you can download that will walk you through the step-by-step blueprint that I use with my speakers to get them from the idea all the way to the stage. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be a, it's gonna, it's a whole new world, people. And most importantly, if you didn't know, I'm putting some courses out into the world, courses that you can take wherever you are at in your presentation journey. So, uh, those are gonna go live with my website. Now I've got 8 million ideas, and I can promise you that there will be at least one course up there on my course site, which is going to be called Movers U, like, you know, Movers University, because you're movers and they're going to university to learn how to be even like more committed on Speakers and Movers. So super jazzed about that. Lots of big updates coming from me. I would love to see you over on the site. Reach out to me if you have any questions. I'd like to do a Q&A coming up in the next few weeks. So if you have a question for me, send me an email info@thismovedme.com or you can hop on my website and send me a little note and I I read all of them and I would love to hear your questions. What are you struggling with right now? What's going on? Have I said something that you like, "Oh, dig into that more. What do you mean by that?" I'd love to hear them. Send them my way and I will answer them on the air. Thanks, all. This moved me. What is moving you? Let's do this.