April 8, 2025 • 39 mins
Bio form Mr Thank You:
Long before I became Mr. Thank You, my lessons in sales and influence began in my teens as a semi-professional skateboarder pitching myself to companies for sponsorship. Competition was fierce! So how did I wind up working with some of the biggest brands in the industry when there were so many kids just as good or better than me? I became more “relevant” to the companies’ success than my competition.I stopped talking about my goals, and started asking about the brands’ goals. Instead of just wearing a t-shirt with a logo, I built relationships for my brands and actively fought for them to get shelf space at local skate shops. That wasn’t in my “job description,” but putting them first made me their go-to choice.
As my skating career ended and my business career began, those lessons of human connection and relevance became the cornerstones of my sales success. In a few short years I became the #6 rep out of 10,000 sales associates across the country. When the housing crisis of the 2000’s hit, and many businesses were devastated, relationships I had built and nurtured stayed with me and supported our companies’ success.Looking back on those relationships and the human compassion and connection that carried us through that crisis is what inspired my year of thank you cards, which made national news and catapulted my philosophies into the public eye. After that, I started up Mr. Thank You as a speaking, coaching, and consulting business, and the rest is history.I’ve now been featured on ABC News, Fox News, Good Morning America, and helped global brands like Square, ReMax, and Fairway Mortgage, among many others, and my message is simple:We don’t need to optimize analytics more—we need human connection in our day-to-day business. Since founding Mr. Thank You, I’ve spoken to thousands of audience members, consulted corporations, and coached sales leaders nationwide on the importance and principles of customer experience, sales culture, and leadership.I want to show you how easy it is to create real results by investing in re-humanizing your workplace and marketplace.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-answer-is-yes--2903418/support.
Long before I became Mr. Thank You, my lessons in sales and influence began in my teens as a semi-professional skateboarder pitching myself to companies for sponsorship. Competition was fierce! So how did I wind up working with some of the biggest brands in the industry when there were so many kids just as good or better than me? I became more “relevant” to the companies’ success than my competition.I stopped talking about my goals, and started asking about the brands’ goals. Instead of just wearing a t-shirt with a logo, I built relationships for my brands and actively fought for them to get shelf space at local skate shops. That wasn’t in my “job description,” but putting them first made me their go-to choice.
As my skating career ended and my business career began, those lessons of human connection and relevance became the cornerstones of my sales success. In a few short years I became the #6 rep out of 10,000 sales associates across the country. When the housing crisis of the 2000’s hit, and many businesses were devastated, relationships I had built and nurtured stayed with me and supported our companies’ success.Looking back on those relationships and the human compassion and connection that carried us through that crisis is what inspired my year of thank you cards, which made national news and catapulted my philosophies into the public eye. After that, I started up Mr. Thank You as a speaking, coaching, and consulting business, and the rest is history.I’ve now been featured on ABC News, Fox News, Good Morning America, and helped global brands like Square, ReMax, and Fairway Mortgage, among many others, and my message is simple:We don’t need to optimize analytics more—we need human connection in our day-to-day business. Since founding Mr. Thank You, I’ve spoken to thousands of audience members, consulted corporations, and coached sales leaders nationwide on the importance and principles of customer experience, sales culture, and leadership.I want to show you how easy it is to create real results by investing in re-humanizing your workplace and marketplace.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-answer-is-yes--2903418/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Answers Yes Podcast, where we interview some
of the most interesting people that have said yes to
opportunities in their life. We hope that through these stories
you can learn to create your own destiny by saying yes.
Along the way, join us as we explored the new series,
governing topics such as passion, integrity, and art work. I'm
(00:29):
your host, Jim Riley, and I hope you enjoyed these
interviews as much as I do.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I believe that everyone has an important message work hearing.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hello, and welcome to the Answers Yes Podcast. Thanks for
tuning in. It is springing in the air here in
Montana and lots going on. If you've been paying attention
to the shows in between. Rod Coons and I talk
a lot about the soft skills in business and how
important those things are. You know, most colleges don't really
teach the soft skills, so it's our pleasure to be
bringing that to you. And today I've Johnniser on the phone,
(01:01):
and I think, most importantly, mister thank you, which has
to be a soft skill. So I'm super excited to
have you John. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, absolutely, man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, So I definitely want to dig into you know,
your story and how you've gained the title. Mister, thank you,
But just right up front, I'm really excited to be
on stage with you at Montana Camp coming up May
twenty first, twenty second, twenty third. That's here in Kellispell.
If you've heard me talking about that with Rod. There's
going to be some incredible speakers. It is not only
(01:35):
for entrepreneurs, but realtors are really any small business big business,
and it's a great excuse to come to Montana if
you haven't made plans yet, So Montana Camp dot org
and John'll be there. So John, I'm looking forward to
hearing you speak at the event.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thanks man.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, I'm I have four kids and I'm bringing my
two boys that are eight and ten so that we
can go fly fishing after the conference.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
We are excited to be in Montana.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
What a great opportunity and a good excuse to bring
your kids along on a work trip, right, yeah, Charley,
that I put the right off all those things. So
good for you. Well, why don't you give us some
of your background, some of your story, and we'll dig
into some easy questions from there, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, for sure. So I run a company called Mister
thank You. So Mister thank You is a strategic gifting firm,
and we work with real estate companies, mortgage companies, homebuilders,
kind of a variety of industries and we help them
love on their most important relationships so their clients, their team,
their VIPs with a really nice personalized gift. And we
(02:39):
started that business in two thousand and nine and built
it from the ground up, and by twenty sixteen we
had a really good business. So we had clients all
over the country. I was making more money than I
ever had, had all the things on paper that I
ever said I wanted. I was married, we bought our
first house, we had our first child. But I was
over it. I was overworked, overwhelmed, and so unhappy. I
(03:03):
was ready to walk away from all of it. And
there was this moment where I came home from work
and my wife is sitting on our couch and she's
nursing our infants on in one hand and handwriting thank
you cards on the other hand to some people who
had supported her during her pregnancy. And it was, arguably, Jim,
one of the most beautiful images I'd ever seen, and
(03:25):
I couldn't even appreciate it. Yeah, because I was so
stressed about my job, I honestly couldn't see the good
in anything. And I don't know how else to describe
what happened next except to say that I believe God
spoke to my wife that day and said something I'll
never forget, which is, if you can't appreciate what you
have now, who's to say you'll be any happier when
(03:46):
you finally get what you say you want.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Wow? And that.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Was not what I wanted to hear, but it was true.
It was right.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's never what you want to hear when it comes
from God, right.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And what I realized is I had a problem. I
didn't have a name for this at the time, but
I do now. It's called My problem was I was
suffering from something I call perpetual discontentment. Perpetual discontentment, which
is the never ending feeling that what is what we
have isn't enough. And most every entrepreneur business person that
(04:24):
I shared this idea with that I was experiencing related
to it. And the thing is, it's not always a
bad thing, because if you're not fully satisfied with what
you have, you're going to work on it right, You're
going to make it better, You're going to work on
your systems, your processes, everything for the end benefit of
the consumer. But if we're not careful and this gets
out of hand, perpetual discontentment will also prevent us from
(04:46):
ever truly enjoying the life that we're working so hard
to create. Sure, And so for me, it was a
moment that my two biggest fears in life came up,
which is number one, that I will die alone because
you know who wants to be married to him is
bullgrim who complains all the time.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And two is that I might need to quit my business.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I might need to drop it because it was causing
so much stress in every other area of life that
matter to me. So to summerize what happened next is
I hired a business coach to work with me, and
he was asking me bigger questions and hey, what are
your sales goals?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
What are you trying to hit?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
And setting metrics that I needed to abide by to hit,
you know, to track and all that, because I've had
that most of my business career and it's great and
it works for me. He was asking bigger questions like
what's your vision, what's your why?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And honestly, I.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Didn't have one, and so we came up with one together,
which is that who we are at Mister thank you
was about elevating the level of gratitude on the planet,
and so I decided to kick that off by starting
a social experiment where I committed to handwrite five thank
you cards every day for three hundred and sixty five
days in a row, and that totals up to one
(05:52):
eight hundred and twenty five letters of appreciation, which sounds
kind of crazy, but the rules on the project were
I had to write five cards every day, had to
be handwritten every day resets at zero, so I can't
skip three days and then write twenty cards in the day.
I can write a max of three cards for any
one person, so I can't write seventy of them to
my mom, which she might have appreciated, but you know,
(06:15):
sure might lose their luster. And then fourth was I
would donate one thousand dollars to charity for every day
that I missed. So that's what was at stake every
day for a year, and I knew I would learn
some things, and I thought it would be interesting and fascinating,
but I had no idea to the extent that this
would change my life, alter my business, and ultimately started
a social movement that is still impacting tens of thousands
(06:36):
of people every single year, even though it's been eight
years since I started it. So that's what the mister
thank You, that's who I am, and the Mister Thank
You project as the world knows it.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I love that. My business coach seven years ago, who's
now a good friend, David Meltzer, he used to throw
out these challenges. He'd say, Hey, if you send me
a DM every day of something you're grateful for v
X y Z at the end of the month. I'm like, Dave,
everybody's got to do that. He's like, Jim, you'd be shocked.
Nobody can do it. Like really goes no. He's like,
(07:08):
after a week or two they just start fading off,
and it doesn't It's like the percentage is so low
that people don't place gratitude higher on their list, right,
And so I'm really impressed with your ability to do
that every day for a year now. I took Dave's
challenge literally, and I succeeded at the thirty days, I said,
all right, pay up, buddy. Uh we paid you know what.
(07:30):
He was offering some coaching, you know, and I said, hey,
let's pay it forward. Let's let's give it to somebody
that really needs it. And you know it's it's a
decent sized chunk of change. So it was very generous
of him. But more importantly to what you've been saying,
is just that gratitude and that habit of getting into
a sense of gratitude or thank you isn't necessarily easy,
(07:51):
but the reward is huge.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah. Well, and I think.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
What's so beautiful about it that became the whole like
knowing that I got to learn is so the definition
of gratitude is the emotion one feels when receiving a
gift or experiencing something as a gift. That makes sense
at surface level, right, if somebody gives you a gift unexpectedly,
that's great. Right that it's not even your birthday, You
(08:20):
got something that joy, that excitement you feel, That in
essence is gratitude. To the part of that, though, is
the experience of something as a gift, which is about
your ability to interpret anything you have in life from
a positive lens And that's easy to say, but then
just go live life, open your social media. It is
(08:42):
not a natural state of being to be grateful. That
gratitude and happiness sort of thinking for a very specific reason.
You don't need to teach a child how to be happy,
but you do need to teach them how.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
To be grateful.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And so the project for me was really just a
year long learning process of understanding what does it actually
mean to live from a place of gratitude every day
to be able to find the gift, to find the
good and every person, every experience, And the crazy part
Jim was was learning how to apply gratitude to painful
(09:16):
life experiences and transform them from something that is a
painful experience that lives with us forever to one that
actually empowers us to live a more productive life.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That was one of the most eye opening experiences.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Sure, I'm curious when you talk about gratitude and you're
encouraging other people to, you know, get into habits of gratitude,
how do you explain that to them? I know, like
for my kids, it's one thing we do every night
before we go to bed, you know, we pray together,
and it's like, hey, what are a couple of things
that you're grateful for? Right? And not that I love
the example, but it was a clear example. You know,
(09:53):
I always tell them, Hey, it could be as simple
as the water that we have. You know, we have
great well water here on our property, right, it is
a little bit better than most. But I said, you know,
there was a time where there was a city in
the Midwest that didn't have any water because the train derailment.
All their water is contaminated. They'd be pretty grateful for
some water right now. So gratitude could be even as
simple as water. But how do you explain it to
(10:14):
others and get them into that mindset of being grateful
for these the littlest or the biggest things.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, so I'll give you a couple of examples, which
is so Number one, there's a great quote. I wish
I came up with it, but I didn't, which is
what you appreciate appreciates. And so as an example, during
the project, we had just moved to a brand new city,
a new town, little neighborhood, and right before Christmas.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I love it. Do you decorate your house for Christmas?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh? Yeah, starting right after Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So I never have except for a few lights on
a tree outside. I don't decorate, but I love it
when people do. And I've always had little kids, so
I've used that as an excuse of.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Not having the time.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So whenever I would walk around with my kids and
we would see people who decorate to their house, my son,
who is like three years old at the time, would
jump out of the stroller and he would just start
yelling out the light colors like blue, green, yellow, and
it literally brought me so much joy, and I just remembered, Man,
I love Christmas. I love it when people decorate and
(11:16):
me really spend the time on it, and I just think,
tell me what you what your answer is to this, Jim,
But what is the primary thought going through your head
when you have to take those Christmas lights down?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, actually, it's a pretty good question.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
At the end of the season, what's that? What's that feeling? Like?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, here's the thing. And we've practiced gratitude pretty great
here run in our house. Right for us, it's like
an opportunity to celebrate a transition in the period of
time right now. My wife left the snowflakes up until
about a month ago, and I think that was more like, Okay,
you know, we're moving seasons. So I do understand the
(11:59):
quest from from the perspective. Sometimes you could be like, oh,
a little bit of a letdown, right, like, hey, Christmas lights,
it's over, et cetera. You know, we sorry, We just
kind of celebrate the transition, right, Hey, Christmas is over this,
We're into the new year. Right.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So yeah, and so the I think for a lot
of people, when it comes to taking down the lights,
getting on the ladder, removing everything, it is it is
not a joyful experience. It's like, I'm going to spend
half of my Saturday doing this and it's super frustrating, right,
And so what I chose to do after this experience
(12:37):
was I wrote a thank you letter to every single
neighborho decorated their house for Christmas. And what I share
with them is I said, hey, I every time when
I walk by our house, my son would get out
of the stroller and he'd yell at the colors and
he was super excited, and it made me excited. And
I just want to say, I know this probably took
(12:58):
you a ton of time, and you might not realize
how much people appreciate it, but I just wanted to
let you know that what you did made a big
difference for our family. And I just imagine, right, I
imagined being that person and it's the end of the
year and you're breaking everything down, and for a lot
of people, it's this experience of.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Do I want to do this again? Was this really
worth it? Did anyone actually care?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Because how many people actually come up to us and
just acknowledge us for the decorations that we did. I
mean typically not maybe if you have some friends over
and they make a comment and so, but I just
imagine them taking their lights down and having that thought
and then remembering.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
The card that we left them.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
And realizing that what they did actually matter to somebody.
And there's evidence that shows that when we acknowledge and
appreciate someone for what they do, they want to do
it again. So there was some research by a university
and what they did was they took students and they
had them write a paper. And when they wrote this paper,
they had two groups. They had one that when they
would they would give it to somebody to ask for feedback.
(14:03):
And when they gave it to them, they were instructed
that when the people give you back the feedback to
Actually one group was asked to thank that the person.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The other group was.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Asked to say nothing.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
So like they give you back the feedback on your
paper and you like got it, received nothing else.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
What what they found out is that when they would
what they would do is they would go back to
those same people and they would ask them, hey, can
you read Can I have a new paper? Can you
give me feedback on it? What they found was those
that were thanked were fifty percent more likely to do
a second bout of edits compared to the group that
(14:46):
wasn't thanked. Right, And there's one And that's a powerful
concept to think about in relation to work. And you
think of people who are working really hard for what
they do and not ever getting acknowledged, and over and
over there's a moment where we just wonder does anyone
even care? And so that's the thing with gratitude is no,
you can't I can't ask you, Jim, I can't say
(15:08):
could you thank me for all.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
The hard work? That it like that wouldn't work.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
That doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And so that's why I think gratitude is such a
powerful tool because it comes from pure choice. I choose
to notice what you're doing, well, I'm acknowledging and appreciating it.
I by choice, am actually acknowledging your choice to show
up and do something that you didn't have to do.
And it's this really beautiful and powerful thing that when
(15:36):
people are acknowledged for that, there's this desire to do
it again and again. And that was so when I
talk to people and share with him this idea about gratitude,
part of it is helping them understand there is always
something good happening around you, no matter what. But the
(16:00):
question is, is that what you're looking for? Because we
have this thing in our brains called the negativity bias,
we're prone to look for what's wrong before we look
for what's right. It's part of our DNA, built into
our psychology from cavemen and cavelemen. Times and social media
knows this. Media companies know this, which is why you
open your phone and you look at it first thing
in the morning, and what it says is, here are
(16:21):
the worst things that happen on planet Earth today. Good
luck at work. Don't bring any of this with you.
But it's hard And the question is, so, why are
we so prone to look for what's wrong before we
look for what's right. And I'll tell you the answer
that it can to, which is that pessimism creates the
illusion of safety. Pessimism creates the illusion of safety. We
(16:44):
think that if we're so prone to always look for
the threats and always look for what's wrong, we're going
to find them, which is true. But Jim, let me
ask you this. If someone is constantly looking for what's wrong,
what's also going to happen to them? If that's all
they're focusing on.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, they're gonna live a whole life of miserableness. Yeah right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Agree, And they're going to come to new relationships with skepticism. Yeah,
they're going to look at people's positive work in their
lives from a lens of well, what are you trying
to get out of me? And it's going to prevent
them from actually enjoying this amazing life that we get
to live because you know, we're not living in caveman
days anymore. We don't have saber to tigers to worry about,
(17:24):
and so the point is that we live in a
really miraculous world, but we still have this caveman mindset
of looking for what's wrong, and unfortunately media companies know
this so they capitalize on it. So for me, what
this was was really a project to retrain my brain
to understand don't be Pollyanna about this, Like there are
(17:44):
people that there have bad intentions, but there's also so
much good that's around you.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah. Absolutely, you know. It's one of those things that
when you think about what makes the world a better place, right,
is gratitude? Dude. I love how you put that into
perspective about the Christmas lights. And I like the fact
that you're talking about writing a thank you, you know,
writing down that gratitude every church go to you know
(18:13):
my thing at church, I go in and grab a
cup of coffee, right, they give you the free coffee,
and I always look that person out in the eye.
I say, hey, thank you for serving, right, because I
realized they're they're giving up their time. But I'm thinking
just now, like how awesome it would be if I
just pre wrote a note, hey, thank you for taking
the time to serve, Like they're going to take that home. Wow,
it really appreciated me. You know what a great concept.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Well, and I love it you said that because you know,
here's a there's some fun things to do with this,
by the way, where you can really start to multiply
the impact and like that. Just that, but that simple
idea of like leaving it for that person is really powerful,
or they show up to deliver coffee that it's already
sitting there for him, or passing it to somebody else.
So here was a fun thing that I learned, because
(18:58):
when you're doing this for a year and you're writing
that many cards, you kind of got get creative with
it or it's going to get boring. So I learned
all these different ways to do it, and one of
them is what I call the triangle of gratitude. So
as an example, let's say that I am at a
restaurant and the server did an amazing job. Now I
could write that server a thank you card and that
would be very meaningful to them, right, they would appreciate that. So,
(19:21):
but what I learned to do was to have a
multiplied effect by actually writing it to the manager of
the restaurant about the server. Because then what happens is
the manager feels good because they also are the leader here,
so it's kind of a good an ode to them.
But also they are now going to show up and
thank that server, and now see with me. They're probably
(19:46):
never going to see me again, right, They're going to
see that manager every day. And so what I did
was I just strengthened the relationship of that server with
the manager from the letter that I wrote to the
manager about the server. And so these are all sorts
of interesting fun things. One here was kind of a
I don't know if I recommend this for people, but
I'm a fan of I was in a.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Group for a while called the Front Row Dads.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It's for entrepreneurial fathers, and we would do these events
where we would mastermind about becoming better dads to our
better dads to our kids and husbands to our wives
while we run our business. And we had an event
and while I was there during the project, I was
asking all these guys, I said, Hey, tell.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Me about your wife. What do you love about your wife?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And then they would tell they would just like some
of these super powerful dudes, we get choked up talking
about this, you know, little woman that has just a
profound impact in their life. And I would make notes
in my phone as I would talk to these guys,
and then after the event was over, I sent every
one of those guys that I personally met, I sent
(20:46):
a thank you card to their wife and what I
said was, Hey, I want to say thank you so
much for creating the space for your husband to come
to this event.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
He was a huge impact.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
And when we were talking, I asked him what he
loves about you, and what he.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Told me was boom, boom boom.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And then I shared with his wife what the husband
said about them when they weren't around, and.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Dude, you would have.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Thought like I was at their wedding, because every one
of these guys reached out and was like, dude, I
don't know why you did that, But man, my wife
is just like she is so pumped for me to
go to these conferences. Now she's excited to meet you
one day. And it's just interesting thing to learn that
when you can help somebody, which is this and this
(21:37):
is the nature of my gifting company, when you can
help somebody build a better relationship, they are endeared to
you because the number one indicator of lifelong happiness is
positive relationships. And so for me, I think that's the
nature of all the work that I do. It is
about helping people build positive relationships all around them, whether
(21:58):
I do it directly or whether I support them doing it,
or whether we teach them how to do it and
they go do it themselves. And honestly, man, I think,
if that's all that I get to do for the
rest of my life is help people build more positive relationships,
I think I'm going to die a happy man.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I think you far exceeded the norm. I mean, what
I'm hearing you talk about is just one of the
things that I wish that we had more of amongst ourselves.
Right in my book, I write about, Hey, if you're
in the line at Starbucks, put your phone away, say
hello to the person in front of you or the
person behind you. Build a relationship with them. You just
never know they might need to hear something. You know,
(22:33):
they might need that positive hello, or it might change
their day. And you're taking that to a much larger scale.
I got to take a little bit of a twisted
turn on a question for you, because it's it's just
sitting in my mind. I think it comes from being
a father. I got two girls, nine and eleven. I'm
fifty seven, so I started later in life anything that
has to do with my kids and my wife is
(22:55):
just you know, I'm crying or emotional. And you said,
you walked in and there your wife is feeding the baby,
writing a thank you note, you know, pivotal moment for you.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:10):
How do we get people to identify those pivotal moments
for them so that they can be leading a better
life in change? Right? And I know I know what
we're talking about in terms of gratitude, but I think
sometimes that gratitude comes from inside, where, like you said,
I don't I don't want to miss out on this, right,
(23:31):
you know, I mean every moment of every day is
intentional to be spend more time in my faith and
with my family. Everything else is you know, on the wayside.
I'll get to it, but you know, faith and family,
and it took me a long time to understand that.
And I'm just curious, is there any advice for people
listening to help them make that shift like you made
when you when you observed your wife and child and
(23:53):
the thank you.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Well, so, yeah, and I appreciate that question. And I
think the question to ask anybody is what's the point?
Why are you doing any of this? Especially I'm assuming
this conversation is directed to like a driver, right, like
(24:15):
a business person, entrepreneur, salesperson, and make it be anybody
in leadership.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
But a lot of my clientele.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Is is someone who's typically paid on commission or they're
paid based on the value they bring to the marketplace,
specifically with the customer. Yeah, and so the thing with
that is you are in a position where you have
the perpetual temptation to sacrifice your personal values for your
professional goals. Yes, that is the plight of every business professional.
(24:42):
And so then if my question to them is, well,
so what's the point why are you working so hard?
Most people are going to say what I would have
said at that moment, which is when I'm working so
hard so they can provide a better life for my family, right, Okay,
so explain that to me. Right, So, as an example,
my dad, he worked really hard to provide a better
life for his family.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Here here was the reality.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know, his dad passed away when he was six
sixteen seventeen, so he started working early. And when he
was my dad, I mean, he was very skilled in
his trade. He wasn't an entrepreneur, but he was very
skilled in technology, and so he was very in demand
all over the world. So he would travel six months
at a time. I mean, he was like a Cimilian
contract in the military. I missed my dad most of
my life, but he created a better life for me
(25:26):
and my siblings than he had. But yeah, he was
gone for all of it. And so the question is, really, well,
what's the point? Because if if at the end of
all that work you have a family that is provided
for but disconnected and not in love with each other,
what was the point?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
And so for me, my vision, like everything in my
business in my life, is about maximum togetherness. Whatever is
going to create more opportunities for me to be with
my family. And so I do get totally disconnected from that,
and I'm like, I'm a driver. I like to find
a new customer. I do speak professionally, so I'm traveling
(26:09):
the country from time to time, and but I always
have to come back to well, what's the point. I'm
doing this so that I can spend more time with
my family. Okay, So the question then becomes, so, then
what's the quality of the current time you have with
your family?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And so I wrote this today because this is very appropriate.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
So while we were talking, you may or may not
have heard my daughter was knocking on the door, because
that just happened, and I told her in advance, I'm like, hey,
I'm gonna be on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
She still that anyways, because that's what kids do.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Of course, I love it here.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
So here's what I get. If you're listening, you can't
see this, but I'm going to show this is what
she was. She was shoving these under my door. They're little,
They're little pictures of smiley faces and.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Flowers and I don't you know, all sorts of stems.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah, And and so I I pick these up.
And there's a part of.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Me that could be like a little annoyed that like
my daughter interrupting. And then there's a when there comes
to the question, well, what's the point. The point is
for me to enjoy as much time as I can
with my family and for me, here's what I because
this is actually going to be a Facebook post later today,
so you're getting this real time. Love it before anyone
else hears it. So here's the statement. What if you
have everything you need? I work from home and my
(27:20):
and periodically my five year old will make pictures for
me and put them under the door. Sure we have
big things we on our onet list, a snazzier website,
more social media, following a line of customers waiting at
the door. But why, At the end of the day,
the reason we work is to enjoy the life we live.
There's nothing more joyful than to know somebody loves me
and for them to make efforts that I know it
(27:41):
every day. Unfortunately, as entrepreneurial parents, we can be working
so hard to provide a better life that we miss
the great life we already have. So for me, that's
what it's all about, right, is to apprea is just
a practice of slowing down enough to appreciate what I
have and create micro moments of joy.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
That for me.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Is an important awareness that I grasp from the project
because I think it forced me to have to look
every day at what is already good and acknowledge it.
So it just got me in a practice of noticing
that there's constantly something good always around me, and to
be willing to go slow enough. Because I could also
have gone very fast, and I could have stepped on
(28:27):
these I could have not noticed what they are and
swept them up and just put them in the trash.
But I was able to take a second and do that,
and I think we have a lot of those moments.
And I'm not a marriage counselor, but I've definitely coached
some friends through challenges in their marriages. And the thing
that's heartbreaking is when you know one of the spouse's
(28:48):
is actually working hard to make things work and the
other one just doesn't even notice. Yeah, And so I
think that that's a calling for us. That if what's
the point, and the point is a live a happy life,
well how do you do that? Number one indicator is
positive relationships? So what are you doing to make the
relationships you have as best as seemingly possible.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I want to talk to our listeners for a second,
because you made some really good points. You know, first
of all, if these stories resonate with you, allow them
to be a turning point maybe in your own life,
if that's what you need, right to focus on your
why I always use in the terms of what your
values are, real values, not just you know, superficial values.
(29:27):
The other thing that I want to say to people,
and I know you'll appreciate this, is I would rather
do business with somebody like yourself. That will pause the
conversation for a minute to pick those up off the ground.
Now behind me in my cupboard is a box filled
with those little types of drawings for my nine and
eleven year old the last six years when I'm doing podcasts,
(29:49):
And what I found, even on those little interruptions with
some of my bigger clients, people like they appreciate real
life and your commitment to your family and the project
of being a good you know, in person, dad or
husband and all these things right. And I think that
that resonates more with my clients that they understand I've
(30:11):
got my priorities right. So I love that you took
a minute. I heard your die was like, oh, his
kid's interrupting, just like mine would. And so my my
affection for you has risen because I see where your
priorities are. I see that you take took the moment right.
And finally, I guess you know those notes coming under
the door, if you if you were that guy that
(30:33):
might just step on him or push him away. That's
just like the spouse doing all the trying to make
things good or you know, improve the relationship or have
that connection, and then the other spouse not recognizing, like
even those little pictures that our kids draw for us,
you know, because I want to show you this real quick.
Is them trying to build that relationship with us. So
(30:54):
I think if if your family is doing this with you,
recognize it and realize how important it is. It's more
important than anything really besides your faith, if you're a
person of faith, that just the unit of the family
and these bonding moments. So thanks for sharing that, because
I love that. It's really important.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, absolutely well, And I think that and this is
this is actually really more of a habit for me
that I'm learning. And by the way, I just want
to acknowledge everyone. I know, I sound like really great,
but I also have a lot of moments that I
don't do this right, which are very painful because it's like,
oh yeah, mister, thank you, huh. Grateful there was no
(31:34):
camera following me right there. But you know, I think
that one of the I think the bad And by
the way, I love my dad. He's passed away, but
he did do his best and I get that and
I appreciate everything he did. And one thing that I
noticed that he that he tried to do unfortunately to
a lack of the impact he was hoping, is because
he was gone. So much he tried to grand gestures
(31:56):
of appreciation, and it was unfortunate because I think that,
you know, by the time all that happened, that he
was home.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
So here's what happened, just to kind of give the story.
He was travel out for his job, comes.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Home, and then he's immediately diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He's
in his mid fifties, has to retire from his job early,
gets a huge settlement from the company to retire early
because they knew what the deal was, and he winds
up spending like a majority of his retirement that he
(32:37):
got trying to rekindle relationships with his kids.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
And I was still up.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I was the last kid at the house, so I
got to spend a little bit more time with him
than the other ones did. But I got to see
like as much as they are like, oh that's great,
thank you, but I just saw that it's kind of
like that time was lost, like he wasn't able to
rekindle that relationship that he was hoping for sure, and
so and so for me, while we can, while I
you know, I do run a gifting agency. I do
(33:04):
a lot of events for clients, client appreciation events, things,
like that. Grand gestures are great and they can do
really wonderful things with client relationships and personal relationships, but
at the end of the day, relationships are built on
three things. Time, experience, inconsistency. Those are three variables that
(33:32):
go into building a trusting relationship. Time, experience, and consistency. Yeah,
and as the great Mark Sanborn says, it's better to
be consistently good than occasionally great. And so when I
think about, for you know, my own kids, like, that's
what I'm trying to learn how to be better at.
Is not just like hey, let's go on this cool
trip or let's do this thing. It's like, no, like what,
(33:53):
let's as much as we can every week have does
designated time where they get full attention, because that's what's
going to matter more long term to our relationship than
whatever I did one time every quarter.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
So that's kind of where my brain is. Now.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's encourage me for other people because it's also a
lot easier to maintain as a habit once.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
You build it.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
But if you're waiting until your business is at a
certain level before you start doing that, you're setting yourself
up on a habit that's going to require grand gestures
and ultimately, unfortunately it's not going to be as effective
as I think you'd like.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I love that point. Look, I could probably talk to
you all day. We're writing our sweet spot. If you've
listened to my shows, you know this is my sweet spot.
And John, I appreciate you sharing that. I'm looking at
all the thank you notes behind you. It's amazing how
far they go with some people. Just as a random
I can see my books in the background of my
(34:50):
video here. I was on stage with Robert Green last year.
He wrote the forty eight Laws of Power, and I
always respected the work that he'd done, and I wrote
him a handwritten note. That's what I do. I have
a stack of you know, branded cards, so I'm old school,
so I don't want to extra credit. This is how
we did it. Anyways, I wrote him this handwritten note.
(35:10):
He wrote me a handwritten note back to tell me,
he says, Jim, nobody writes handwritten notes anymore. I can't
tell you how much I appreciated getting this in the
mail as opposed to an email. And he went on
and on and on right and we built this rapport
over a handwritten note because it's there's a little bit
of an lost art there, and I know our conversation
(35:32):
went well beyond that, and I know what you do
is well beyond that, but it does show the impact
for somebody that I'm sure gets a lot of messages
that one handwritten note could stand out with anybody, regardless
of who they are, right, And so anyways, I just
thought i'd show that.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, well, and maybe this is a good point to
wrap with, but there's a if you're at Montana Camp,
you'ple get to hear the real, the full story to this. Well,
I love it, but I'm going to give you the
cliff notes version if you're here listening.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
But so.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
At the end of this project, right or actually in
the middle of it, when I was doing this, the
word just started to spread. People started talking about it,
and then it got picked up on ABC News, Fox News,
Good Morning America, and these all these people reaching out
and and it slowly started to become more of a movement,
right to inspire people to start their own gratitude projects.
And one of the things that and now there's tens
(36:29):
of thousands of people all over the world, millions of
people who've heard about the project, tens of thousands who
have involved in starting their own Gratitude projects. And I
think the lesson that came out of it was, you know,
in business, this is super relevant right now with AI
coming out and the importance of technology and scaleability scales
the word, right, Like, that's what the word.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Everybody wants to scale? How do we grow?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And my thought, and this is really the testament of
why I'm coming to Montana Camp, right, why I'm going
to be out there, and why we're here having this conversation,
is that the unscalable things we do is exactly what
allows us to scale.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And what that means is you can't scale a handwritten card, right.
I mean, I've had people who've reached out to me
that run AI companies that have robots that write cards
for you.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, And I told my disc I can't partner with you.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
There's just no way.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
It goes against everything I believe, because there's something to
be said for someone taking the time, which's the most
valuable asset we own, to do something uncommon, which is
to be thoughtful, to write down our words and our
feelings to find a stamp wherever they sell those anymore
go to the mailbox or leave it in your mailbox
and send this to somebody that takes so much more effort.
(37:45):
And so what it does is it activates reciprocity in
the heart of somebody else who just wants to do
something to support your vision, your goals and your mission.
And if you do that with the right person, the
right people, you have no idea how far they will
go to make sure your mission comes to fruition.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Awesome, John, thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Literally welcome dude.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
If they're not going to Montana Camp again montanacamp dot org,
get your tickets. If they're not going there, how can
they find out more about you or look into what
you do or utilize your services? For sure? And I
genuinely hope that this resonates with some people and they
will actually reach out to you because we need so
much more of this in our everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, everything is easy to find at mister thank you
dot com. That's Mr thank you dot com. And there's
three ways that we can help support people. Number one,
as you can sign up for my blog will automatically sendence.
If you go to the website and put in your email,
you'll get a thirty day challenge, which is a thirty
day PDF of how to do this project, but in
a shorter scale. I don't think people need to do
(38:57):
what I did. It was kind of crazy. Thirty days
to do one card day is totally fine. Yeah, our
gifting business we still do that. That's Informations are on
the website Keynote speaking, I do a lot of conferences
and events. If you feel to message it's appropriate. And
third is now that I've had a chance to receive
the transformation that my coach provided for me, is I
do a lot of coaching consulting with other business owners
(39:18):
who are kind of in that same mode that I
was right their overwork, they're overwhelmed, They're looking for bigger
purpose in their work, and so I love to have
conversations with high level sales professionals and entrepreneurs about how
they can actually do that, how can they can restructure
their business to be a better service to their life
and so if you're interested in that, that's on my
website as well.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Speaking my language, Thanks for being here, Thanks for tuning in.
If you like the show, please share it. I'd love
to see at Montana Camp and you can hear from
both John and I live there, so thanks again.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Awesome
Welcome to the Answers Yes Podcast, where we interview some
of the most interesting people that have said yes to
opportunities in their life. We hope that through these stories
you can learn to create your own destiny by saying yes.
Along the way, join us as we explored the new series,
governing topics such as passion, integrity, and art work. I'm
(00:29):
your host, Jim Riley, and I hope you enjoyed these
interviews as much as I do.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I believe that everyone has an important message work hearing.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hello, and welcome to the Answers Yes Podcast. Thanks for
tuning in. It is springing in the air here in
Montana and lots going on. If you've been paying attention
to the shows in between. Rod Coons and I talk
a lot about the soft skills in business and how
important those things are. You know, most colleges don't really
teach the soft skills, so it's our pleasure to be
bringing that to you. And today I've Johnniser on the phone,
(01:01):
and I think, most importantly, mister thank you, which has
to be a soft skill. So I'm super excited to
have you John. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, absolutely, man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, So I definitely want to dig into you know,
your story and how you've gained the title. Mister, thank you,
But just right up front, I'm really excited to be
on stage with you at Montana Camp coming up May
twenty first, twenty second, twenty third. That's here in Kellispell.
If you've heard me talking about that with Rod. There's
going to be some incredible speakers. It is not only
(01:35):
for entrepreneurs, but realtors are really any small business big business,
and it's a great excuse to come to Montana if
you haven't made plans yet, So Montana Camp dot org
and John'll be there. So John, I'm looking forward to
hearing you speak at the event.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thanks man.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, I'm I have four kids and I'm bringing my
two boys that are eight and ten so that we
can go fly fishing after the conference.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
We are excited to be in Montana.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
What a great opportunity and a good excuse to bring
your kids along on a work trip, right, yeah, Charley,
that I put the right off all those things. So
good for you. Well, why don't you give us some
of your background, some of your story, and we'll dig
into some easy questions from there, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, for sure. So I run a company called Mister
thank You. So Mister thank You is a strategic gifting firm,
and we work with real estate companies, mortgage companies, homebuilders,
kind of a variety of industries and we help them
love on their most important relationships so their clients, their team,
their VIPs with a really nice personalized gift. And we
(02:39):
started that business in two thousand and nine and built
it from the ground up, and by twenty sixteen we
had a really good business. So we had clients all
over the country. I was making more money than I
ever had, had all the things on paper that I
ever said I wanted. I was married, we bought our
first house, we had our first child. But I was
over it. I was overworked, overwhelmed, and so unhappy. I
(03:03):
was ready to walk away from all of it. And
there was this moment where I came home from work
and my wife is sitting on our couch and she's
nursing our infants on in one hand and handwriting thank
you cards on the other hand to some people who
had supported her during her pregnancy. And it was, arguably, Jim,
one of the most beautiful images I'd ever seen, and
(03:25):
I couldn't even appreciate it. Yeah, because I was so
stressed about my job, I honestly couldn't see the good
in anything. And I don't know how else to describe
what happened next except to say that I believe God
spoke to my wife that day and said something I'll
never forget, which is, if you can't appreciate what you
have now, who's to say you'll be any happier when
(03:46):
you finally get what you say you want.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Wow? And that.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Was not what I wanted to hear, but it was true.
It was right.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's never what you want to hear when it comes
from God, right.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And what I realized is I had a problem. I
didn't have a name for this at the time, but
I do now. It's called My problem was I was
suffering from something I call perpetual discontentment. Perpetual discontentment, which
is the never ending feeling that what is what we
have isn't enough. And most every entrepreneur business person that
(04:24):
I shared this idea with that I was experiencing related
to it. And the thing is, it's not always a
bad thing, because if you're not fully satisfied with what
you have, you're going to work on it right, You're
going to make it better, You're going to work on
your systems, your processes, everything for the end benefit of
the consumer. But if we're not careful and this gets
out of hand, perpetual discontentment will also prevent us from
(04:46):
ever truly enjoying the life that we're working so hard
to create. Sure, And so for me, it was a
moment that my two biggest fears in life came up,
which is number one, that I will die alone because
you know who wants to be married to him is
bullgrim who complains all the time.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And two is that I might need to quit my business.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I might need to drop it because it was causing
so much stress in every other area of life that
matter to me. So to summerize what happened next is
I hired a business coach to work with me, and
he was asking me bigger questions and hey, what are
your sales goals?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
What are you trying to hit?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
And setting metrics that I needed to abide by to hit,
you know, to track and all that, because I've had
that most of my business career and it's great and
it works for me. He was asking bigger questions like
what's your vision, what's your why?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And honestly, I.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Didn't have one, and so we came up with one together,
which is that who we are at Mister thank you
was about elevating the level of gratitude on the planet,
and so I decided to kick that off by starting
a social experiment where I committed to handwrite five thank
you cards every day for three hundred and sixty five
days in a row, and that totals up to one
(05:52):
eight hundred and twenty five letters of appreciation, which sounds
kind of crazy, but the rules on the project were
I had to write five cards every day, had to
be handwritten every day resets at zero, so I can't
skip three days and then write twenty cards in the day.
I can write a max of three cards for any
one person, so I can't write seventy of them to
my mom, which she might have appreciated, but you know,
(06:15):
sure might lose their luster. And then fourth was I
would donate one thousand dollars to charity for every day
that I missed. So that's what was at stake every
day for a year, and I knew I would learn
some things, and I thought it would be interesting and fascinating,
but I had no idea to the extent that this
would change my life, alter my business, and ultimately started
a social movement that is still impacting tens of thousands
(06:36):
of people every single year, even though it's been eight
years since I started it. So that's what the mister
thank You, that's who I am, and the Mister Thank
You project as the world knows it.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I love that. My business coach seven years ago, who's
now a good friend, David Meltzer, he used to throw
out these challenges. He'd say, Hey, if you send me
a DM every day of something you're grateful for v
X y Z at the end of the month. I'm like, Dave,
everybody's got to do that. He's like, Jim, you'd be shocked.
Nobody can do it. Like really goes no. He's like,
(07:08):
after a week or two they just start fading off,
and it doesn't It's like the percentage is so low
that people don't place gratitude higher on their list, right,
And so I'm really impressed with your ability to do
that every day for a year now. I took Dave's
challenge literally, and I succeeded at the thirty days, I said,
all right, pay up, buddy. Uh we paid you know what.
(07:30):
He was offering some coaching, you know, and I said, hey,
let's pay it forward. Let's let's give it to somebody
that really needs it. And you know it's it's a
decent sized chunk of change. So it was very generous
of him. But more importantly to what you've been saying,
is just that gratitude and that habit of getting into
a sense of gratitude or thank you isn't necessarily easy,
(07:51):
but the reward is huge.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah. Well, and I think.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
What's so beautiful about it that became the whole like
knowing that I got to learn is so the definition
of gratitude is the emotion one feels when receiving a
gift or experiencing something as a gift. That makes sense
at surface level, right, if somebody gives you a gift unexpectedly,
that's great. Right that it's not even your birthday, You
(08:20):
got something that joy, that excitement you feel, That in
essence is gratitude. To the part of that, though, is
the experience of something as a gift, which is about
your ability to interpret anything you have in life from
a positive lens And that's easy to say, but then
just go live life, open your social media. It is
(08:42):
not a natural state of being to be grateful. That
gratitude and happiness sort of thinking for a very specific reason.
You don't need to teach a child how to be happy,
but you do need to teach them how.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
To be grateful.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And so the project for me was really just a
year long learning process of understanding what does it actually
mean to live from a place of gratitude every day
to be able to find the gift, to find the
good and every person, every experience, And the crazy part
Jim was was learning how to apply gratitude to painful
(09:16):
life experiences and transform them from something that is a
painful experience that lives with us forever to one that
actually empowers us to live a more productive life.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That was one of the most eye opening experiences.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Sure, I'm curious when you talk about gratitude and you're
encouraging other people to, you know, get into habits of gratitude,
how do you explain that to them? I know, like
for my kids, it's one thing we do every night
before we go to bed, you know, we pray together,
and it's like, hey, what are a couple of things
that you're grateful for? Right? And not that I love
the example, but it was a clear example. You know,
(09:53):
I always tell them, Hey, it could be as simple
as the water that we have. You know, we have
great well water here on our property, right, it is
a little bit better than most. But I said, you know,
there was a time where there was a city in
the Midwest that didn't have any water because the train derailment.
All their water is contaminated. They'd be pretty grateful for
some water right now. So gratitude could be even as
simple as water. But how do you explain it to
(10:14):
others and get them into that mindset of being grateful
for these the littlest or the biggest things.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, so I'll give you a couple of examples, which
is so Number one, there's a great quote. I wish
I came up with it, but I didn't, which is
what you appreciate appreciates. And so as an example, during
the project, we had just moved to a brand new city,
a new town, little neighborhood, and right before Christmas.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I love it. Do you decorate your house for Christmas?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh? Yeah, starting right after Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So I never have except for a few lights on
a tree outside. I don't decorate, but I love it
when people do. And I've always had little kids, so
I've used that as an excuse of.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Not having the time.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So whenever I would walk around with my kids and
we would see people who decorate to their house, my son,
who is like three years old at the time, would
jump out of the stroller and he would just start
yelling out the light colors like blue, green, yellow, and
it literally brought me so much joy, and I just remembered, Man,
I love Christmas. I love it when people decorate and
(11:16):
me really spend the time on it, and I just think,
tell me what you what your answer is to this, Jim,
But what is the primary thought going through your head
when you have to take those Christmas lights down?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, actually, it's a pretty good question.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
At the end of the season, what's that? What's that feeling? Like?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, here's the thing. And we've practiced gratitude pretty great
here run in our house. Right for us, it's like
an opportunity to celebrate a transition in the period of
time right now. My wife left the snowflakes up until
about a month ago, and I think that was more like, Okay,
you know, we're moving seasons. So I do understand the
(11:59):
quest from from the perspective. Sometimes you could be like, oh,
a little bit of a letdown, right, like, hey, Christmas lights,
it's over, et cetera. You know, we sorry, We just
kind of celebrate the transition, right, Hey, Christmas is over this,
We're into the new year. Right.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So yeah, and so the I think for a lot
of people, when it comes to taking down the lights,
getting on the ladder, removing everything, it is it is
not a joyful experience. It's like, I'm going to spend
half of my Saturday doing this and it's super frustrating, right,
And so what I chose to do after this experience
(12:37):
was I wrote a thank you letter to every single
neighborho decorated their house for Christmas. And what I share
with them is I said, hey, I every time when
I walk by our house, my son would get out
of the stroller and he'd yell at the colors and
he was super excited, and it made me excited. And
I just want to say, I know this probably took
(12:58):
you a ton of time, and you might not realize
how much people appreciate it, but I just wanted to
let you know that what you did made a big
difference for our family. And I just imagine, right, I
imagined being that person and it's the end of the
year and you're breaking everything down, and for a lot
of people, it's this experience of.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Do I want to do this again? Was this really
worth it? Did anyone actually care?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Because how many people actually come up to us and
just acknowledge us for the decorations that we did. I
mean typically not maybe if you have some friends over
and they make a comment and so, but I just
imagine them taking their lights down and having that thought
and then remembering.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
The card that we left them.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
And realizing that what they did actually matter to somebody.
And there's evidence that shows that when we acknowledge and
appreciate someone for what they do, they want to do
it again. So there was some research by a university
and what they did was they took students and they
had them write a paper. And when they wrote this paper,
they had two groups. They had one that when they
would they would give it to somebody to ask for feedback.
(14:03):
And when they gave it to them, they were instructed
that when the people give you back the feedback to
Actually one group was asked to thank that the person.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The other group was.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Asked to say nothing.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
So like they give you back the feedback on your
paper and you like got it, received nothing else.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
What what they found out is that when they would
what they would do is they would go back to
those same people and they would ask them, hey, can
you read Can I have a new paper? Can you
give me feedback on it? What they found was those
that were thanked were fifty percent more likely to do
a second bout of edits compared to the group that
(14:46):
wasn't thanked. Right, And there's one And that's a powerful
concept to think about in relation to work. And you
think of people who are working really hard for what
they do and not ever getting acknowledged, and over and
over there's a moment where we just wonder does anyone
even care? And so that's the thing with gratitude is no,
you can't I can't ask you, Jim, I can't say
(15:08):
could you thank me for all.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
The hard work? That it like that wouldn't work.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
That doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And so that's why I think gratitude is such a
powerful tool because it comes from pure choice. I choose
to notice what you're doing, well, I'm acknowledging and appreciating it.
I by choice, am actually acknowledging your choice to show
up and do something that you didn't have to do.
And it's this really beautiful and powerful thing that when
(15:36):
people are acknowledged for that, there's this desire to do
it again and again. And that was so when I
talk to people and share with him this idea about gratitude,
part of it is helping them understand there is always
something good happening around you, no matter what. But the
(16:00):
question is, is that what you're looking for? Because we
have this thing in our brains called the negativity bias,
we're prone to look for what's wrong before we look
for what's right. It's part of our DNA, built into
our psychology from cavemen and cavelemen. Times and social media
knows this. Media companies know this, which is why you
open your phone and you look at it first thing
in the morning, and what it says is, here are
(16:21):
the worst things that happen on planet Earth today. Good
luck at work. Don't bring any of this with you.
But it's hard And the question is, so, why are
we so prone to look for what's wrong before we
look for what's right. And I'll tell you the answer
that it can to, which is that pessimism creates the
illusion of safety. Pessimism creates the illusion of safety. We
(16:44):
think that if we're so prone to always look for
the threats and always look for what's wrong, we're going
to find them, which is true. But Jim, let me
ask you this. If someone is constantly looking for what's wrong,
what's also going to happen to them? If that's all
they're focusing on.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, they're gonna live a whole life of miserableness. Yeah right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Agree, And they're going to come to new relationships with skepticism. Yeah,
they're going to look at people's positive work in their
lives from a lens of well, what are you trying
to get out of me? And it's going to prevent
them from actually enjoying this amazing life that we get
to live because you know, we're not living in caveman
days anymore. We don't have saber to tigers to worry about,
(17:24):
and so the point is that we live in a
really miraculous world, but we still have this caveman mindset
of looking for what's wrong, and unfortunately media companies know
this so they capitalize on it. So for me, what
this was was really a project to retrain my brain
to understand don't be Pollyanna about this, Like there are
(17:44):
people that there have bad intentions, but there's also so
much good that's around you.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah. Absolutely, you know. It's one of those things that
when you think about what makes the world a better place, right,
is gratitude? Dude. I love how you put that into
perspective about the Christmas lights. And I like the fact
that you're talking about writing a thank you, you know,
writing down that gratitude every church go to you know
(18:13):
my thing at church, I go in and grab a
cup of coffee, right, they give you the free coffee,
and I always look that person out in the eye.
I say, hey, thank you for serving, right, because I
realized they're they're giving up their time. But I'm thinking
just now, like how awesome it would be if I
just pre wrote a note, hey, thank you for taking
the time to serve, Like they're going to take that home. Wow,
it really appreciated me. You know what a great concept.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Well, and I love it you said that because you know,
here's a there's some fun things to do with this,
by the way, where you can really start to multiply
the impact and like that. Just that, but that simple
idea of like leaving it for that person is really powerful,
or they show up to deliver coffee that it's already
sitting there for him, or passing it to somebody else.
So here was a fun thing that I learned, because
(18:58):
when you're doing this for a year and you're writing
that many cards, you kind of got get creative with
it or it's going to get boring. So I learned
all these different ways to do it, and one of
them is what I call the triangle of gratitude. So
as an example, let's say that I am at a
restaurant and the server did an amazing job. Now I
could write that server a thank you card and that
would be very meaningful to them, right, they would appreciate that. So,
(19:21):
but what I learned to do was to have a
multiplied effect by actually writing it to the manager of
the restaurant about the server. Because then what happens is
the manager feels good because they also are the leader here,
so it's kind of a good an ode to them.
But also they are now going to show up and
thank that server, and now see with me. They're probably
(19:46):
never going to see me again, right, They're going to
see that manager every day. And so what I did
was I just strengthened the relationship of that server with
the manager from the letter that I wrote to the
manager about the server. And so these are all sorts
of interesting fun things. One here was kind of a
I don't know if I recommend this for people, but
I'm a fan of I was in a.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Group for a while called the Front Row Dads.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It's for entrepreneurial fathers, and we would do these events
where we would mastermind about becoming better dads to our
better dads to our kids and husbands to our wives
while we run our business. And we had an event
and while I was there during the project, I was
asking all these guys, I said, Hey, tell.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Me about your wife. What do you love about your wife?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And then they would tell they would just like some
of these super powerful dudes, we get choked up talking
about this, you know, little woman that has just a
profound impact in their life. And I would make notes
in my phone as I would talk to these guys,
and then after the event was over, I sent every
one of those guys that I personally met, I sent
(20:46):
a thank you card to their wife and what I
said was, Hey, I want to say thank you so
much for creating the space for your husband to come
to this event.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
He was a huge impact.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
And when we were talking, I asked him what he
loves about you, and what he.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Told me was boom, boom boom.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And then I shared with his wife what the husband
said about them when they weren't around, and.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Dude, you would have.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Thought like I was at their wedding, because every one
of these guys reached out and was like, dude, I
don't know why you did that, But man, my wife
is just like she is so pumped for me to
go to these conferences. Now she's excited to meet you
one day. And it's just interesting thing to learn that
when you can help somebody, which is this and this
(21:37):
is the nature of my gifting company, when you can
help somebody build a better relationship, they are endeared to
you because the number one indicator of lifelong happiness is
positive relationships. And so for me, I think that's the
nature of all the work that I do. It is
about helping people build positive relationships all around them, whether
(21:58):
I do it directly or whether I support them doing it,
or whether we teach them how to do it and
they go do it themselves. And honestly, man, I think,
if that's all that I get to do for the
rest of my life is help people build more positive relationships,
I think I'm going to die a happy man.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I think you far exceeded the norm. I mean, what
I'm hearing you talk about is just one of the
things that I wish that we had more of amongst ourselves.
Right in my book, I write about, Hey, if you're
in the line at Starbucks, put your phone away, say
hello to the person in front of you or the
person behind you. Build a relationship with them. You just
never know they might need to hear something. You know,
(22:33):
they might need that positive hello, or it might change
their day. And you're taking that to a much larger scale.
I got to take a little bit of a twisted
turn on a question for you, because it's it's just
sitting in my mind. I think it comes from being
a father. I got two girls, nine and eleven. I'm
fifty seven, so I started later in life anything that
has to do with my kids and my wife is
(22:55):
just you know, I'm crying or emotional. And you said,
you walked in and there your wife is feeding the baby,
writing a thank you note, you know, pivotal moment for you.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:10):
How do we get people to identify those pivotal moments
for them so that they can be leading a better
life in change? Right? And I know I know what
we're talking about in terms of gratitude, but I think
sometimes that gratitude comes from inside, where, like you said,
I don't I don't want to miss out on this, right,
(23:31):
you know, I mean every moment of every day is
intentional to be spend more time in my faith and
with my family. Everything else is you know, on the wayside.
I'll get to it, but you know, faith and family,
and it took me a long time to understand that.
And I'm just curious, is there any advice for people
listening to help them make that shift like you made
when you when you observed your wife and child and
(23:53):
the thank you.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Well, so, yeah, and I appreciate that question. And I
think the question to ask anybody is what's the point?
Why are you doing any of this? Especially I'm assuming
this conversation is directed to like a driver, right, like
(24:15):
a business person, entrepreneur, salesperson, and make it be anybody
in leadership.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
But a lot of my clientele.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Is is someone who's typically paid on commission or they're
paid based on the value they bring to the marketplace,
specifically with the customer. Yeah, and so the thing with
that is you are in a position where you have
the perpetual temptation to sacrifice your personal values for your
professional goals. Yes, that is the plight of every business professional.
(24:42):
And so then if my question to them is, well,
so what's the point why are you working so hard?
Most people are going to say what I would have
said at that moment, which is when I'm working so
hard so they can provide a better life for my family, right, Okay,
so explain that to me. Right, So, as an example,
my dad, he worked really hard to provide a better
life for his family.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Here here was the reality.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know, his dad passed away when he was six
sixteen seventeen, so he started working early. And when he
was my dad, I mean, he was very skilled in
his trade. He wasn't an entrepreneur, but he was very
skilled in technology, and so he was very in demand
all over the world. So he would travel six months
at a time. I mean, he was like a Cimilian
contract in the military. I missed my dad most of
my life, but he created a better life for me
(25:26):
and my siblings than he had. But yeah, he was
gone for all of it. And so the question is, really, well,
what's the point? Because if if at the end of
all that work you have a family that is provided
for but disconnected and not in love with each other,
what was the point?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
And so for me, my vision, like everything in my
business in my life, is about maximum togetherness. Whatever is
going to create more opportunities for me to be with
my family. And so I do get totally disconnected from that,
and I'm like, I'm a driver. I like to find
a new customer. I do speak professionally, so I'm traveling
(26:09):
the country from time to time, and but I always
have to come back to well, what's the point. I'm
doing this so that I can spend more time with
my family. Okay, So the question then becomes, so, then
what's the quality of the current time you have with
your family?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And so I wrote this today because this is very appropriate.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
So while we were talking, you may or may not
have heard my daughter was knocking on the door, because
that just happened, and I told her in advance, I'm like, hey,
I'm gonna be on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
She still that anyways, because that's what kids do.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Of course, I love it here.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
So here's what I get. If you're listening, you can't
see this, but I'm going to show this is what
she was. She was shoving these under my door. They're little,
They're little pictures of smiley faces and.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Flowers and I don't you know, all sorts of stems.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah, And and so I I pick these up.
And there's a part of.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Me that could be like a little annoyed that like
my daughter interrupting. And then there's a when there comes
to the question, well, what's the point. The point is
for me to enjoy as much time as I can
with my family and for me, here's what I because
this is actually going to be a Facebook post later today,
so you're getting this real time. Love it before anyone
else hears it. So here's the statement. What if you
have everything you need? I work from home and my
(27:20):
and periodically my five year old will make pictures for
me and put them under the door. Sure we have
big things we on our onet list, a snazzier website,
more social media, following a line of customers waiting at
the door. But why, At the end of the day,
the reason we work is to enjoy the life we live.
There's nothing more joyful than to know somebody loves me
and for them to make efforts that I know it
(27:41):
every day. Unfortunately, as entrepreneurial parents, we can be working
so hard to provide a better life that we miss
the great life we already have. So for me, that's
what it's all about, right, is to apprea is just
a practice of slowing down enough to appreciate what I
have and create micro moments of joy.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
That for me.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Is an important awareness that I grasp from the project
because I think it forced me to have to look
every day at what is already good and acknowledge it.
So it just got me in a practice of noticing
that there's constantly something good always around me, and to
be willing to go slow enough. Because I could also
have gone very fast, and I could have stepped on
(28:27):
these I could have not noticed what they are and
swept them up and just put them in the trash.
But I was able to take a second and do that,
and I think we have a lot of those moments.
And I'm not a marriage counselor, but I've definitely coached
some friends through challenges in their marriages. And the thing
that's heartbreaking is when you know one of the spouse's
(28:48):
is actually working hard to make things work and the
other one just doesn't even notice. Yeah, And so I
think that that's a calling for us. That if what's
the point, and the point is a live a happy life,
well how do you do that? Number one indicator is
positive relationships? So what are you doing to make the
relationships you have as best as seemingly possible.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I want to talk to our listeners for a second,
because you made some really good points. You know, first
of all, if these stories resonate with you, allow them
to be a turning point maybe in your own life,
if that's what you need, right to focus on your
why I always use in the terms of what your
values are, real values, not just you know, superficial values.
(29:27):
The other thing that I want to say to people,
and I know you'll appreciate this, is I would rather
do business with somebody like yourself. That will pause the
conversation for a minute to pick those up off the ground.
Now behind me in my cupboard is a box filled
with those little types of drawings for my nine and
eleven year old the last six years when I'm doing podcasts,
(29:49):
And what I found, even on those little interruptions with
some of my bigger clients, people like they appreciate real
life and your commitment to your family and the project
of being a good you know, in person, dad or
husband and all these things right. And I think that
that resonates more with my clients that they understand I've
(30:11):
got my priorities right. So I love that you took
a minute. I heard your die was like, oh, his
kid's interrupting, just like mine would. And so my my
affection for you has risen because I see where your
priorities are. I see that you take took the moment right.
And finally, I guess you know those notes coming under
the door, if you if you were that guy that
(30:33):
might just step on him or push him away. That's
just like the spouse doing all the trying to make
things good or you know, improve the relationship or have
that connection, and then the other spouse not recognizing, like
even those little pictures that our kids draw for us,
you know, because I want to show you this real quick.
Is them trying to build that relationship with us. So
(30:54):
I think if if your family is doing this with you,
recognize it and realize how important it is. It's more
important than anything really besides your faith, if you're a
person of faith, that just the unit of the family
and these bonding moments. So thanks for sharing that, because
I love that. It's really important.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, absolutely well, And I think that and this is
this is actually really more of a habit for me
that I'm learning. And by the way, I just want
to acknowledge everyone. I know, I sound like really great,
but I also have a lot of moments that I
don't do this right, which are very painful because it's like,
oh yeah, mister, thank you, huh. Grateful there was no
(31:34):
camera following me right there. But you know, I think
that one of the I think the bad And by
the way, I love my dad. He's passed away, but
he did do his best and I get that and
I appreciate everything he did. And one thing that I
noticed that he that he tried to do unfortunately to
a lack of the impact he was hoping, is because
he was gone. So much he tried to grand gestures
(31:56):
of appreciation, and it was unfortunate because I think that,
you know, by the time all that happened, that he
was home.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
So here's what happened, just to kind of give the story.
He was travel out for his job, comes.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Home, and then he's immediately diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He's
in his mid fifties, has to retire from his job early,
gets a huge settlement from the company to retire early
because they knew what the deal was, and he winds
up spending like a majority of his retirement that he
(32:37):
got trying to rekindle relationships with his kids.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
And I was still up.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I was the last kid at the house, so I
got to spend a little bit more time with him
than the other ones did. But I got to see
like as much as they are like, oh that's great,
thank you, but I just saw that it's kind of
like that time was lost, like he wasn't able to
rekindle that relationship that he was hoping for sure, and
so and so for me, while we can, while I
you know, I do run a gifting agency. I do
(33:04):
a lot of events for clients, client appreciation events, things,
like that. Grand gestures are great and they can do
really wonderful things with client relationships and personal relationships, but
at the end of the day, relationships are built on
three things. Time, experience, inconsistency. Those are three variables that
(33:32):
go into building a trusting relationship. Time, experience, and consistency. Yeah,
and as the great Mark Sanborn says, it's better to
be consistently good than occasionally great. And so when I
think about, for you know, my own kids, like, that's
what I'm trying to learn how to be better at.
Is not just like hey, let's go on this cool
trip or let's do this thing. It's like, no, like what,
(33:53):
let's as much as we can every week have does
designated time where they get full attention, because that's what's
going to matter more long term to our relationship than
whatever I did one time every quarter.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
So that's kind of where my brain is. Now.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's encourage me for other people because it's also a
lot easier to maintain as a habit once.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
You build it.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
But if you're waiting until your business is at a
certain level before you start doing that, you're setting yourself
up on a habit that's going to require grand gestures
and ultimately, unfortunately it's not going to be as effective
as I think you'd like.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I love that point. Look, I could probably talk to
you all day. We're writing our sweet spot. If you've
listened to my shows, you know this is my sweet spot.
And John, I appreciate you sharing that. I'm looking at
all the thank you notes behind you. It's amazing how
far they go with some people. Just as a random
I can see my books in the background of my
(34:50):
video here. I was on stage with Robert Green last year.
He wrote the forty eight Laws of Power, and I
always respected the work that he'd done, and I wrote
him a handwritten note. That's what I do. I have
a stack of you know, branded cards, so I'm old school,
so I don't want to extra credit. This is how
we did it. Anyways, I wrote him this handwritten note.
(35:10):
He wrote me a handwritten note back to tell me,
he says, Jim, nobody writes handwritten notes anymore. I can't
tell you how much I appreciated getting this in the
mail as opposed to an email. And he went on
and on and on right and we built this rapport
over a handwritten note because it's there's a little bit
of an lost art there, and I know our conversation
(35:32):
went well beyond that, and I know what you do
is well beyond that, but it does show the impact
for somebody that I'm sure gets a lot of messages
that one handwritten note could stand out with anybody, regardless
of who they are, right, And so anyways, I just
thought i'd show that.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, well, and maybe this is a good point to
wrap with, but there's a if you're at Montana Camp,
you'ple get to hear the real, the full story to this. Well,
I love it, but I'm going to give you the
cliff notes version if you're here listening.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
But so.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
At the end of this project, right or actually in
the middle of it, when I was doing this, the
word just started to spread. People started talking about it,
and then it got picked up on ABC News, Fox News,
Good Morning America, and these all these people reaching out
and and it slowly started to become more of a movement,
right to inspire people to start their own gratitude projects.
And one of the things that and now there's tens
(36:29):
of thousands of people all over the world, millions of
people who've heard about the project, tens of thousands who
have involved in starting their own Gratitude projects. And I
think the lesson that came out of it was, you know,
in business, this is super relevant right now with AI
coming out and the importance of technology and scaleability scales
the word, right, Like, that's what the word.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Everybody wants to scale? How do we grow?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And my thought, and this is really the testament of
why I'm coming to Montana Camp, right, why I'm going
to be out there, and why we're here having this conversation,
is that the unscalable things we do is exactly what
allows us to scale.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And what that means is you can't scale a handwritten card, right.
I mean, I've had people who've reached out to me
that run AI companies that have robots that write cards
for you.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, And I told my disc I can't partner with you.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
There's just no way.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
It goes against everything I believe, because there's something to
be said for someone taking the time, which's the most
valuable asset we own, to do something uncommon, which is
to be thoughtful, to write down our words and our
feelings to find a stamp wherever they sell those anymore
go to the mailbox or leave it in your mailbox
and send this to somebody that takes so much more effort.
(37:45):
And so what it does is it activates reciprocity in
the heart of somebody else who just wants to do
something to support your vision, your goals and your mission.
And if you do that with the right person, the
right people, you have no idea how far they will
go to make sure your mission comes to fruition.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Awesome, John, thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Literally welcome dude.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
If they're not going to Montana Camp again montanacamp dot org,
get your tickets. If they're not going there, how can
they find out more about you or look into what
you do or utilize your services? For sure? And I
genuinely hope that this resonates with some people and they
will actually reach out to you because we need so
much more of this in our everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, everything is easy to find at mister thank you
dot com. That's Mr thank you dot com. And there's
three ways that we can help support people. Number one,
as you can sign up for my blog will automatically sendence.
If you go to the website and put in your email,
you'll get a thirty day challenge, which is a thirty
day PDF of how to do this project, but in
a shorter scale. I don't think people need to do
(38:57):
what I did. It was kind of crazy. Thirty days
to do one card day is totally fine. Yeah, our
gifting business we still do that. That's Informations are on
the website Keynote speaking, I do a lot of conferences
and events. If you feel to message it's appropriate. And
third is now that I've had a chance to receive
the transformation that my coach provided for me, is I
do a lot of coaching consulting with other business owners
(39:18):
who are kind of in that same mode that I
was right their overwork, they're overwhelmed, They're looking for bigger
purpose in their work, and so I love to have
conversations with high level sales professionals and entrepreneurs about how
they can actually do that, how can they can restructure
their business to be a better service to their life
and so if you're interested in that, that's on my
website as well.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Speaking my language, Thanks for being here, Thanks for tuning in.
If you like the show, please share it. I'd love
to see at Montana Camp and you can hear from
both John and I live there, so thanks again.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Awesome
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