The Ambassador Club: Joseph Robertson

Hey, welcome to the Ambassador Club Live. I'm Scott Perry, your guide here in the Ambassador Club. I'm thrilled to be with my friend and fellow Guardian Joseph Robertson, who is, uh, here as a representative of everything TGA, uh, and TGA adjacent, but also someone that has a really fabulous publication of his own here on Substack called Growing Trees. And so we're We're just going to have a jam session about what Joseph has cooking and how it all weaves into the Guardian Academy, Man Bites Dog, and how it all weaves into the Ambassador Club as well. So I'm not going to try to make any kind of really fancy introduction, Joseph. I think you're the best qualified person to tell us who you are and what you do. So why don't we just start with you introducing yourself to everyone that's tuning in?

Uh, well, thank you, Scott. Um, it's funny, sometimes I want to, I want to go the route of Nick and just be like, I do stuff. I write, I write things, I write stuff and things. Um, I actually, it's, it's, it's pretty descriptive of what I do. I've, um, before, before TGA, I got to go back and, and stop me if I, because I will go down tangents. Okay. So stop me if I'm going down too many tangents. Um, but before TGA, I published a magazine all about coffee for about 8 years. Um, and I wrote a lot of that. And the irony of that whole project to me is I never thought of myself as a writer. Um, it was like a means to an end. Uh, but then I got into, um, copywriting. I kind of stemmed off that, focused on copywriting, developed that skill, um, and just kept— always kept coming back to the writing. And that led me into TGA and Man Bites Dog, and here we are. That's the nutshell. I write.

And so for anyone that's tuning in that maybe is not totally familiar with what TGA is and the publication is and what Man Bites Dog is and what that, um, audience, you know, what's what that audience is subscribing for, give us a little sense of, you know, what, what do you see as, um, what TGA is for, what Man Bite Dog is for, and what is it that, that you're bringing into the mix in terms of those publications?

Sure. Yeah. The Guardian Academy is a very interesting, um, publication. It's, it's not, I think it's not the way most people would, would do a publication, but we're very much about, um, like broadly speaking, just Being better at being people, and more specifically, learning how to live a life of where we can live our full potential, live a life of meaning and purpose. To pull, you know, words from Dr. Jeff, but he's our corner man, and there's a reason he's our corner man. And like, I can look back through the the history of everything I've done that's brought me to this point. And there is always that core driver in the background that's like, I just want to live a meaningful life and, and, and, and like live my gifts as much as I can and, and have like a positive impact on the world and the people I love and that sort of thing. And I think that's what at the heart of everything, that's what TJ is about. And a lot of that work is helping people. I want to say, like, we've talked about like fixing broken adults before, but I think just the way the world is, we all kind of grow up and grow into it in a way that we need, we need that guidance and that help to I talk about it as chipping away all that we are not to find the we that we are that's in here, but which is hidden from us. Um, so yeah, that's, that's what TJ is about, which is, um, you know, it's not like here's solving a specific problem. Uh, it's like, unless you, unless you consider the specific problem to be how to live a a really good life that you want to live, which is something that I think all of us desire here. Men Bites Dog is an extension of it because it's built on the principles we talk about in the Guardian Academy, but it's really focused on marketing and business. And we talk about it as it's focused on the really boring marketing that no one wants to do, but which just works. This is stuff we always come back to because it, it just works. But it's not like— most of it's not like flashy or exciting until— honestly, I think it's flashy or exciting because I get into it and I'm like, wow. Um, I, I love stuff that just works. I love inevitability. I love building systems in business where it's like, yeah, if we just do this and set this up and you just keep doing it, you're gonna grow, you're gonna be successful. It might take longer than you want, but it's gonna work. I love that. That's exciting to me. Not like— it's very long-term thinking, not like short-term thinking. But yeah, I think— does that— do you think that's a fair description of Guardian Academy, Man by Star, from your perspective?

Very much so. I entered the Guardian Academy ecosystem through Laurel. One of the things that was spoken back, reflected to me in working with a client, uh, right before I, I kind of entered the, the Guardian Academy ecosystem is I, I was working, I had been working with a client for a period of time and 2 or 3 months in realized this is someone who I should have realized who I was working with. Um, but I'd never put 2 and 2 together and it was, I had one of those imposter syndrome moments where was like, what the hell is this highly successful person doing working with me? And, and I actually just simply asked on a coaching call, like, why, why, why did you hire me? And their response was, I hired you because I know that if I'm going to become better at my business, I'm going to have to become a better person, and you can help me with that. And I think that's like the, the marriage of the two publications, is that if you want to lead a better— if you want to live a better, bigger life, you're going to have to become a better, bigger person. And if you're going to run a bigger, better business, you're going to have to become a bigger and better person. And so the Guardian Academy helps us with that self-efficacy and that self-trust and that self-respect and, and personal responsibility. That's all required if we're going to run a successful business that has the sustainability and staying power that can only come if you conduct business with that same level of intention and integrity that you're living your life. And, and that's why I I mean, I— that's one of the reasons why the Guardian Academy and working with Laurel resonated so profoundly with me, is because they actually do— everything is based on philosophical principles that date back to antiquity, you know, ancient philosophical and spiritual traditions, which is the key to living a good life is becoming a good person. Like, character is actually the defining characteristic of your true success in life and in whatever work that you do. So I think that's a very fair assessment. What do you think is the— I mean, you have written eloquently and vociferously about a lot of the TGA principles and woven in the things that come from Nick's R3 book and Laurel's, the ecosystem system that Laurel has built through Facebook and YouTube ads and so forth, is if there were just one or two, like, foundational primary principles, first principles that, um, people would— who are new to the ecosystem would— that you would recommend they start their exploration with, one or two ideas, what are the one or two ideas you would encourage them to start with?

That's a, that's a really good question. Um, one that I, I haven't explicitly written about yet, um, but which keeps coming up and you just said it, so I'll say it and it'll show up on there eventually. Um, and this is, no, I think, I think this would be fair to say it's a principle. I think one of the best things that you can learn how to do I don't think there's really a guide to do this. Like I said, I'm still writing about it, so it might— something will come to me about this as I go through it. But, um, I think one of the most impactful things you can do is learn to trust yourself, is learn to trust that, um, and, and maybe this is just my experience, but like, learning to trust that no matter what, you'll be able to figure it out is such a powerful thing to do because in order to move forward and like make change— and anyone I think is on this path is like, is going to experience change or needs to make change or wants to make change, like it's inevitable— um, that means new and different, and, and that inevitably, without avoidance means uncertainty. You can't get away from uncertainty. And so this is why the Virginia Satir quote is, is at the heart of a lot of what we do. People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. Um, so you can search that on TGA if you want to get into it, but, but essentially just as a human condition, the human mindset will prefer something that is certain, even if it's much worse than something that is uncertain, even if it has a chance of being better. Mm-hmm. Um, but you can't move forward without uncertainty. And so one of the best ways to, to accept uncertainty is just be like, you know what? I have no idea what's gonna happen, but I trust that I'll be able to figure it out. So I think that's really, really important. Now, of the things that I have written, I almost always point people to Raise the Floor because that's been at least from— that's been for me one of the most powerful like just frames, tools, perspectives to shift how I approach things. And raising the floor is the concept that as you're doing things, there's always volatility. But most people will approach trying to have higher highs. So to give context, if as a freelance copywriter, as I've been in the past, it's very easy to get into the mindset of like, I'm going to make $10,000 a month. And then it might hit a $10,000 month. And then it's like, okay, I'm going to get $11,000 or I get $12,000 or I'm going to get $15,000 and just keep pushing, pushing, pushing. Um, but the way volatility works is that the higher you raise the thing, the greater the volatility that you experience, um, the more likely you are to essentially experience burnout. That's the short explanation. Uh, and as, as counterintuitively as it might feel at first, the more powerful and sensible approach is instead of trying to beat your best month is to improve your worst one. And when you start off, it doesn't feel like much, but it builds up really fast. Like, so this is— this is— was my first experience with it. I was having like, you know, those up and down months, and I was like, well, instead of trying to get better, I'm just going to take— let's see, let me look at the past 6 months. Uh, my worst one was 2,500. Okay, um, I'm going to make sure for the rest of the year I don't ever go below 3. I got to hovering between 5 and 6 really fast. And that was more than enough for me to do everything I needed to do. I didn't need 10, but I was collapsing myself constantly trying to hit it. And so I just raised the floor. So that's really powerful. And then there's other things in there as well, like really knowing what it is you're trying to do, like understanding your goal in all the contexts. This varies depending on what it is you're talking about. But just to go back to that one right there, looking back in my past as a freelance copywriter, when I was like, I want to hit it, I want to make $10,000 a month. That's what I was trying to go for. But what did I actually need is a much better definition of anchoring my goals around. It's like, what am I actually trying to go for? Well, I mean, I guess you could say I want to buy an island, but that doesn't really serve as where you are in life right now. So I'm like, it's a complicated thing because the goal that you're shooting for is always dependent on all these other like situations where you are, what you're actually going for, the context of the goal itself. Man, I was just writing about this this morning, but I can't remember. It's probably something else that I'm gonna end up writing about is this like, shifting nature of what the goal means. But we, we will always come back to talking about that, because when you're, when you're making a plan, you've got to know exactly where you're going and exactly where you're coming from so that you can draw the path, the purpose of which is to find the next step, not so that you can keep following that path. But you have to, you have to have like a direction that you're going in, or you could easily go really fast in the wrong direction. So that's, that's like the principal, you know, reasoning for, for understanding your goal.

Love that.

I need to stop myself because I'm going to keep rambling on tangents.

I know that's fantastic. Well, I actually want to circle back to your initial point because it touches on something that's been a big part of my own journey as a, you know, purpose-driven person and difference maker. And something that I talk quite a bit about in my community, and I always reference my favorite quote on the subject, it comes from Goethe, which is, "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." And that idea of trusting yourself is actually the, the essential component. Because the thing about our desire, our craving for certainty, is that it's a desire for something that actually doesn't exist. There's only one thing that I can think of that's certain, and the people in Silicon Valley are trying their best to eliminate that uncertainty, or that certainty. But, you know, um, the only certainty in life is that it will end. And the only meaning that you're going to extract from whatever time you have between now and then is based on not just what you do, but how you do what you do. And, and that idea of self-efficacy, trusting your ability, as you say, to figure it out, is so vital. And, and once you achieve that, You suddenly become so aware of how limitless your potential and all the op— like, it's— you may be on this one path, but once you see, um, once you trust in your ability to figure things out, suddenly all sorts of things become available, maybe some that are even better than the thing that you're actually heading towards. And the two things that leapt out to me were, if, if you are able to step into this place of trusting yourself to figure things out and putting yourself— embracing the uncertainty, and trusting that you can navigate your way into possibility. One of the things that becomes necessary is the ability to trust your assumptions. That, you know, we, uh, we are so sure of, of things that cannot— that are not absolute. And the, the willingness to say, instead of saying that'll never work, saying my assertion is this not this, this won't work. And so now I'm going to try to see if that assertion is true. Um, but the other thing is that you touched on that I think is also really crucial is, yes, you need to trust yourself, you need to be willing to test your assumptions, but you also need to know what you're optimizing for. And if you're optimizing for $10,000 months, that can become a very dangerous preoccupation. Because if the goal, the goal is money and not what the money is going to get you, you can find yourself on a very slippery slope because there's lots of ways that you could make $10,000 a month. And most, and, you know, not all of them are very aligned with your integrity or your life goals. And so I like that question. I, I, I'm always asking the question, what, what am I optimizing for? You know, people that get into digital marketing are trying to, you know, often will be trying to hit a revenue number and what they— and so they start learning about digital marketing and they start optimizing to become digital marketers. Which is fine if you really get off on digital marketing. But if you were learning digital marketing to become— to, to fill, you know, your coaching programs, because what really fulfills you is, is helping people make a difference in their lives. If you're spending 8 hours a day trying to get clients and only 2 hours a day with clients, you're optimizing for the wrong thing. Um, and so then the You know, there's all sorts of other principles that we could weave into that, but how, how do you, like, I, I would love to, you know, because you're, you're, you're, you're so deeply embedded in the, the TGA and the ManBytesDog ecosystem and writing for them, like, what is, like, what is, what are you optimizing for as you um, create content for those two programs? Because I know you also have this other thing that I very much love, Growing Trees, that is, is also kind of more of a, of a your brand product. Um, how, how was— how are you optimizing all the things that you're doing to actually get you closer to the things that you really want?

Um, that's a great question. I want to, I want to jump back really quick. Um, because I want to be nitpicky on one piece of language. Um, this, this is an important one to me. Uh, I know a lot of people may feel differently, but you said, um, the only thing in life that is certain is that it ends. Life does not end. The time that we have in it does, because the opposite of death is birth, not life. Oh, very good. That has been, um, an important perspective to me. Um, somehow more powerful than, oh, life will end, to me is it's going on, I get a certain amount of participation in it, and that is finite, and then I will leave it and I will keep going. Um, I don't know why that's more powerful to me, but it is. Um, so yeah, there's that. Um, and I wanted to say one more thing about trusting yourself because— and I was, I was going to drop this at the beginning, but then I got into a different line of thought. I lean— and I think this will come up in a moment— I lean heavily into open loops. Um, I like— I will frequently find myself feeling like I need to solve something, to figure something out. And I have— this has taken practice and a long time, and I still have to like be very present with myself to do this, but I like leaning into just letting it be unanswered to allow something to emerge that makes sense. Um, and that I think only becomes more possible the more I'm able to trust myself that I will hear or see the answer when it appears. Um, so yeah, I wanted to throw that in there.

Yeah, well, it's, um, I love that. I mean, if, if we want to go all the way down the woo-woo hole, you know, our time on Earth may end, but the, you know and the energy and, you know, the unity of the, of energy continues. And so in a way, we kind of persist too. So I love that, uh, I love that reflection that the opposite of death is not life, it's birth. And, and it's what you do with the time in between that, that's your opportunity to create fulfillment and meaning and maybe something that endures um, beyond your time walking the planet. But I also— that whole idea of, um, we— I was talking about this with the Creative on Purpose community earlier today, the idea of becoming an emergence, that if you trust yourself and your ability to figure things out and trust in your ability to get where you want to go, there's also that inherent trust in Um, you know, we talk about this with purpose, uh, frequency, intensity, purpose. Like, what is, what is, what is meant to be, or the, the purpose of this thing, or whatever it is, emerges from the actual doing of the thing, as opposed to the clinging to a, a preconceived idea of where it's all supposed to be going, and then grinding your face off trying to get somewhere that actually doesn't end up being fulfilling or, or, you know, giving you any sense of prosperity. So I love that you wove in that because it's— I'm looking at my Arena coin right now and it says, don't just know it, become it.

Become it.

Yeah. So beautiful. Well, tell us a little bit um, about your other project, the, the, uh, Growing Trees, because it's— I love that at least as much as I love everything that you're writing for the Guardian Academy and, and, uh, Man Bites Dog, right?

Well, I'm glad you brought up frequency, intensity, and purpose, because that's, um, like, I keep that in mind, uh, as I, um, go through the stuff that I do. And pardon me a second, I'm actually pulling in front of myself Can I share screen just for a moment?

Yeah, give me a second to just turn on— whoops, turn on the—

I figure I can just share feature.

There you go. You should be—

folks, a little sneak peek of the Engage the Field Handbook. One particular page. Okay. Is my screen showing?

Yep.

All right, so, um, this is from the Engaged Field Handbook. This is engaging the field progression, which is mapped to frequency, intensity, and purpose, as well as, um, reflecting some elements from Dr. Jeff's Lifelines Progression. Um, so you'll see at the bottom here, I'm not going to go through all of this. I'm just going to talk about some of my stuff in, in reference to this. So, um, Your known potential is stuff that you can figure out by doing work. So that's, that's what happens with frequency. So you just do stuff. Um, so for me, that's writing, and I just write a lot, write a lot, write a lot, write a lot. And that's how I can uncover my known potential, what I can figure out. Unknown potential comes from exposure, proximity, and access. So that's stuff that other people Like I need other people to pull that out of me. So that's like Nick asking me to write for TGA and being like, write whatever the heck you feel like writing. Just let the muse speak to you. And I'm like, wow, that was, that was my experience doing it. I was like, what? Okay, sure. Let's see what happens. Um, never had that experience before, but that was an emergent experience. Like where I am now with my writing is, is like emergent of The combination of frequency and intensity is like your unique stamp. So the intensity is like an emergent property of having your unknown potential revealed. And then the full potential is like what happens as those— as another emergent property that happens after that. So I wanted to throw that in there. We can link to Engaging the Field Handbook if y'all don't have it. Um, but this— just before I, I cut off my screen, does that make sense? Yeah, should I say anything more from here?

Okay.

Um, I might come back to this, but I wanna, I wanna just get into talking about your questions. So, um, we've got the Guardian Academy, which is the publication on Substack. We've got Man Bites Dog, which is publication on Substack. Before, um, like, what was it, February, March April, I think, Nick said, okay, you are the, you're the CMO of TGA and Man Bites Dog now. You're doing all the work anyway, so that's just who you are. And I was like, okay, great. And it's funny because I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a true reflection of where I was putting all of my effort. And what I really wanted to be doing was this work. And so prior to that, I had been, um, I had spent the previous 4, yeah, 4 years-ish, 4 or 5 years, um, really deeply engaged in copywriting and being like freelance email copywriter, um, like doing the whole client thing, etc. Um, and I had been for the past 3 years or so trying to figure out, like, knowing I'm here being a freelance copywriter, knowing the kind of life that I wanted to be living over here, and having this gap between it and seeing like, oh, this is not— like, my life here doesn't have me doing this, like, freelance copywriting work. Not to get into the details, but it's like, it's messy. It's a roller coaster. It's like, I can't— obviously in retrospect, no one was pulling out my unknown potential in that work. It was not the right place for me to be. Like, there was potential for that to happen, but what I could see looking back is that I would always try to like dive really deep into into someone's business and like pull out the stuff that could be emerged from doing like really great things. And that's very hard to do in a client relationship. Like, you got to have a really solid partnership for that to— for that to work out. So in retrospect, it's like easy for me to see, but at the time I was just like, here I am, here's where I want to be, I can't get there this way. So I started, um, just Started engaging the field without knowing I was engaging the field, just trying to figure out where the next best step could be that would take me where I want to go. And eventually I stepped into TGA and the pieces started to fall together. Now, right before the beginning of this year, I had been thinking, oh well, I have been helping these copywriters over here through another project. I've got this email list. Let me have an email list where I talk to copywriters about copywriting and sell things and then I can lead those people into TGA and this will be all like a nice synergy, right? But the more I worked in TGA and Man Bites Dog and we unrolled the arena and like I'm working through that and I'm getting into these like deeper concepts, the more I didn't do all those other things. And it was 2 or 3 months ago, I kind of stopped myself as I was like, I constantly go through this check of like, here I am, here's where I want to be, here's what I'm doing, kind of like assess and figure out what's the next best step. And I had this thing over here that I kept saying I was going to do. And all of a sudden I realized I'm not actually doing any of that. I could, I could, I could, like, I know how to build an email list and market to it and sell things. I've done that with people before, but I wasn't doing it for myself. Um, because I didn't want to. Like, I wanted to be here doing these things and talking about these things. So it's a much deeper, deeper, like, longer conversation to go in on that, um, which I started writing about. But growing trees is something I actually started right around when I started officially writing for the Guardian Academy, and that was back in August. Because that concept, that idea that Growing Trees is built around resonated with me so strongly. And that's the, um, just to paraphrase the story, you got two neighbors. One of them is like, I'm gonna grow the tallest tree in the neighborhood. And the other guy's like, cool, man, I'm gonna grow trees too. And the guy is growing and trying to grow the tallest tree in the neighborhood. He's like, ah, I'm gonna put all the effort into making this tree the best tree and yada yada. And he's like really focused on that. And the other neighbor's like, cool, man. I'm also growing trees. And that's how it goes for 10 years. And eventually, 10 years later, the, the man who's like trying to grow the tallest tree, the neighbor, like, finally he's there, he's got it. And his other neighbor who's also growing trees, he's got some tall trees that are not quite the tallest. He's like, aha, now I have the tallest tree. And the neighbor's like, cool, man, I also got trees. And then the, the neighbor who's growing the tallest tree is like Shit, I just, I just spent 10 years for what? The entire time not having what he desired, not like, like pushing himself, like sacrificing everything to get what? I mean, some versions of the story, I think he doesn't even have the tallest tree. Like it doesn't matter. Like it's irrelevant. It's like when you spend, when you like spend your life aiming for a goal of something that you don't have, you're spending your life not having the life that you want. And to me, that's. Bonkers, but we all do it. I certainly did it for a long time. I spent nearly 10 years of my life, probably more, definitely more if I want to go back and analyze even further, just being like, this is the life I want to live. That's over there. I want to be over there living the life I want to live. When all the time I could maybe rather find happiness in the process of growing myself better. Maybe towards that life, but if I can enjoy the life I have now in the process of doing it, then I, then I'm like, have the life that I want. So that, that's the, that's loving the process of growing trees rather than having the tallest tree, is, is being like in the now with the life that you actually want and recognizing that what you have in front of you is, is pretty awesome. Um, So that's where that came, that's where that started. I was like, this is deeply significant. I'm just gonna start this and let it percolate. And then it just kind of sat there. I added to it a couple of times, but then I had this realization that, and it's still like, Like I said, I like open loops. So I have kept this from being completely resolved for a long time, and I'm still keeping it from being completely resolved because I find, for me, I find it much more valuable and effective to allow it to be unresolved and to take action in that space. So that's what I'm doing. But I had that realization of all this other stuff that I thought I was going to do and should do and would be the most valuable thing to do, I wasn't doing. Whereas over here, this stuff was growing. It's the stuff I really wanted to be doing. It has— like, if I'm objective about it, it has just as much of the potential to be as valuable to me in the future as anything else I could be doing. Why am I not doing this thing that I rather want to be doing? So I cut all that other stuff out and I started allowing myself to enjoy the process. Of the process over here with growing trees. And some interesting stuff has been emerging from that for me. So where that sits right now is— so I'm the CMO of TGA and Man Bites Dog. I write all of the Friday articles for the Guardian Academy, sometimes the Monday stuff. Sometimes Nick writes the Monday stuff, other people write the Monday stuff. Monday's like free, Friday's like paid. The way we have it right now. Man Bites Dog, we publish Tuesday, and that's a mix of a lot of different things, business and marketing related. There's a lot of Laurel stuff on there that's really good. And over on Growing Trees, I'm speaking as a writer, as someone who makes a living as a writer, as a father, and I'm just stepping into it. I'm not making it anything more than that.. But I can talk about the work that I do on TGA and Man Bites Dog, and I can talk about understanding with respect to the roles and experiences that I have around that. And so that's what I'm doing on Growing Trees, and I'm looking to see what, what grows from that gardening, if you will.

Yeah, I love that. It, what it speaks to the, the top level of what you were showing this in the, um, Engage in the Field manual. Space. Like, space emergence can't happen if there's not— if you haven't created spaciousness in your life, in your work, if you're not open to a miracle, if you're not— like, if you don't create the possibility and hold space for a miracle, those things can't come. And so by pruning away the things that are unnecessary, that aren't bringing you closer to what you want, that are mucking up your system, you can create this spaciousness where what may emerge is a better way, a better way forward. And I love, you know, you wove in the whole idea of trusting the process and enjoying the process. And the, you know, we talk about the process being the shortcut in TGA. But again, in ancient philosophical and spiritual tradition, what they speak to is the process is actually the reward. You are entitled to your labor, not the fruits of your labor. It says in the Bhagavad Gita, which means you are entitled to your process. And if you can find joy and fulfillment in that, that's what you get.

You—

that doesn't mean that you get any of— you're not entitled to any of the things that people are normally chasing in terms of reputation or revenue or what have you. And the growing trees metaphor is a beautiful— like, if you— if growing trees gives you fulfillment and joy, by all means grow trees. But if you grow trees to grow the tallest tree, you can win a game or win a race that you actually don't wanna be in, which is not winning at all.

Well, and then of course you spend your entire life not winning until you've won, if you win, which may not happen.

Well, and, and if you win a race that you actually never wanted to participate in, well, yes, then there's that, you know, so it's, uh, it's, it's been a, a really, uh, enlightening conversation. I love getting a little insight into your process and also a sneak peek at some of the things that you're thinking about and writing about. Um, for anyone that wants to learn more about what Joseph is up to, Growing Trees is a fabulous publication, definitely worth subscribing to. Of course, we both endorse everything that's being shared by, uh, the Guardian Academy publication and the Man Bites Dog publication. And, uh, I hope that this, uh, conversation has shared some insights that inspire you to take some intentional action, whether it's in your own subsect publication or just in your business and life in general, um, then this will be time well spent. And, uh, for, for both Joseph and I— Joseph, thank you so much for lending us, um, some of your time and, uh, giving us the gift of your insight and wisdom today.

Thank you, Scott. Yeah, um, if I can just leave with a couple of words, uh, absolutely trust yourself and learn to love the journey that you're on. And I think everything will be okay.

Beautiful. Thanks, Joseph.