0:00  
Um, yeah, I would love to hear just you know how it started from from your position and your founding kind of your journey. I can assume that you are an avid cyclist?

0:14  
Really? That's the surprising part about it. No. Oh, yeah, that'll likely. No. Yang. Yeah, I'm getting to like it.

0:23  
Okay, okay, getting started. It's not always. Yeah. So I mean, I'll get I'll give you the floor and you can kind of take it away.

0:32  
Yeah, which this light wasn't so blown out. If I turn them off, it's going to be pitch black in here. And it makes it look like I have a knot in my head. So, triangle microwork started, when my den wife and I were, I was education chair for the NAACP in Chapel Hill. And we walk out of a meeting, and the Tour de France was going on. And there the idea was that, what if we took some youth on a bike tour from Maine to Florida? And I thought it was a time of crazy ideas. Like, how would you do that? And so what we came up with was a test ride pilot of asking any kid that wanted to go, we train them to ride a 60 mile bike ride on the East Coast, North Carolina. From the mountains to coast, right, they did that they did a coaster ride. And

1:34  
how many miles is that? Just do you have that right off the top of your head? No.

1:37  
What was a 60 mile was planned 60. Okay, exactly. Okay. We had. So other people were doing hundreds, right. So one group, say, my wife took two young ladies on a 35 mile bike ride. And I took the other teens on a 60 mile bike ride, we ended up riding 63 Because it was my first you know, organized bike ride and missed a turn or two and, and coming back and the bikes, we were on mountain bikes, because we had to get any bikes we could get. We came back we're beat. And by the time we settled back at home, we asked them, if they'd like to do something else, you know, something more monumental, because we knew that they can tackle 60 miles? And they say yes, so we presented some routes in front of them. And they chose the Underground Railroad. That was about an 18, just under 70 100 mile bike ride. And we knew we could accomplish it in 3030 days. So we set the plan for doing that we recruited a history teacher at the high school, that one of my son's teachers. And we embarked on that journey. And we drove down, made stops in Alabama, and finished up to stay the night in Louisiana, and then we made our way back to mobile, drove back and started that tour and made it all the way to Niagara Falls. Ever since then we haven't looked back.

3:12  
Wow. So that was a 30 like 30 day trip.

3:17  
30 days we did 330 day tours. 2011 2012 2011 was underground railroad 2012 was we call the detour of discovery, which was taking Lewis and Clark and the Buffalo Soldiers a kind of cross Buffalo Soldiers came west to east Lewis and Clark went east to west. And we did that from Council Bluffs, Iowa to California. And then we followed that up with the 2013 was the blues and jazz tour from New Orleans to St. Louis. Oh, wow. So we always do until history. And now we have included environmental justice and bike safety. So we have three pathways, which is biking, untold history, and environmental awareness.

4:14  
Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. And I see like, you know, your programs obviously been created in kind of with youth have is it varying ages, is it I mean, is it through kind of middle school to high school? Is it just high school students?

4:30  
This was expanded, it has moved, we moved back to middle school. So we added two programs, which is the spring excursions program that adds spring experiences and fall excursions which add a component for middle schoolers, and we only do about 150 miles, North Carolina. So we do the same thing as a larger tour, find some historical references, we talk about the environment and we work on it The kids self awareness and self efficacy along with it. So we still have a three pathways. It's just in a smaller, a smaller timeframe. And that's digestible for parent of a middle schooler. Three days is fine. Two weeks of my kid gone is depressed.

5:18  
Yeah. And probably for them, too. It's kind of leads them up into the larger programming initiatives or longer rides probably. Right. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, can you tell me just a little bit about I mean, you you work particularly with in serving primarily black, Latino, Asian, indigenous people of color? Can you kind of expand a little bit about kind of that programming initiative?

5:45  
Well, I'm black.

5:47  
So yeah, exactly.

5:49  
That was it. That was the main impetus of it is in our town. When I became when we moved here from Atlanta, my kids were in gifted programming, and I, you know, whatever the politics are in gifted programming, it's an accelerated program for youth, students to get the services they need the education that they need. And when we moved here in 2006, but by this time of winter 2007, our kids sat down with the older kids who are middle school said, All the teachers think the black kids here are dumb. So we then said, It's heartbreaking for parents to think that you take taking your children into a hostile environment. They didn't want to go back on they, they knew they weren't dumb. So they said, well, we'll stick it out. But that led to my wife and I asking what happened to the youth who aren't advocating for themselves standing up. So we started advocating for students in the district. So that's why we were going to the most vulnerable students. That's why as bipoc youth, and when we weren't getting the traction we wanted. We started working directly with the youth. Right? So it's almost like I'll take my marbles and go somewhere else, and you can look at it that way. But in our eyes, every year, there are youth graduating unprepared for the world. And they have since kind of changed things. But again, some of the things have stayed the same, right? There's talk about social emotional learning as a result of COVID. And the kids having to be working from home and, and isolated from other peers. So that works on their community building and in tears and down that way. But the focus on social emotional learning has always been there. They call it something else in the past, but it's always been a focus on the whole student. Just now it's, it's a buzzword, and people are running with it. Because, you know, COVID really brought it to the surface, the emotional welfare of the children at school. So we were doing that in a, in a more holistic way, by doing experiential learning out in the field, showing them things that they oftentimes will not discover in school, until history. And then you know, the environment, you know, there's only so much time in the day that a teacher nowadays has to bring out what's actually going on in the world. It's kind of like, all the world fit into a six hour window. When you have 45 minute blocks. And it's almost it's an impossible feat. And kids that come out, only educated is a miracle as almost like a miracle of childbirth. And you still have this thirst for learning. So what we do is we take them out into environments and they discover their confidence, they discover their efficacy, how effective they are at doing things, setting goals and achieving those goals. And knowing that the thing that they just accomplished, you know, whether it's 300 miles, which is incredible in itself, if it's 100 miles or

9:27  
anyway. A kid

9:31  
Yeah, anything over 25 miles, you know, you can say I did that. There are youth who have did the whole 777 miles or because we we do tours and 700 plus miles. And this past summer. We for the first time we recorded the you several youth that have gone 100 miles in one day. And they were proud of that and they shouldn't be Out of that, so that that builds their confidence. It lets them know that if they put their mind to something, they can accomplish it. And that's contrary to sometimes what they experienced in school. Not all school was bad, right? It's just that for youth of color, the deck is sometimes stacked against them. And the stats show that disciplinary records show that, you know, more the youth of color are sent experienced disciplinary action over all white and Asian students. There's no hiding it is just,

10:39  
it's there. Yeah, and I think I mean, you you also shed some light on like it's so intriguing or the fact that I mean, rather than sitting stationary in a classroom and learning about history, like to actually be writing it in learning in touching and feeling the whole like, that is something that I'm sure each student and each each chalk kid can take away. And like really be able to associate like the smell, maybe have a fresh rain and then learning about like New Orleans jazz and being hot and muggy. But like,

11:21  
I think that McGee is always there. Yeah. tell you two stories that stand out. One is the first tour in 2011. The the National Park location is Bryce's crossroad, Mr. Bryce on the farmland and that at the time of the Civil War, general Bedford force, which is, you know, one of the most notorious generals on the in the Confederate side was cresting a hill. He was he was on his way to pretty much destroyed the Union army. At the time, the Negro soldiers were booton. They didn't have guns, they didn't have any rank. They were just there to serve the Union army. They were given the guns to defend the Union Army as they retreated. And it was about 8000 feet I remember correctly 8000 Union soldiers trying to get over with their arterial artillery materials across an eight foot wide bridge. And so the Negro soldiers took positions underneath some some berms and fire back and kept those soldiers at bay as long as they could. Until as many as the Union soldiers could retreat. And when the national park a call it agent but national park service person told the story she was a elated that she could finally tell the story as accurately as possible, because at the, from what she said, you know, majority of her patrons were white and maybe she just felt hesitant to tell the story as his Roarke as that was, but she was happy to tell the youth that were there. That story and I can see the change in them because, you know, Bryce's crossroad is just one skirmish one battle, but to hear the bravery of people like them, they took that to heart and and they were walking little bit lighter after that. That's something that they will normally not getting to school.

13:34  
No, not at all. Not teachings that are actual and trustworthy and could see themselves in the shoes of those people. Yeah.

13:45  
Another another on that tour. That was until 2011. I met a friend who's now since passed away, but she lived in the home of now as soon as I started saying this I can't remember the name like Oh, Langston Hughes. His great uncle now I can't remember the name. He was a lawyer. He was a he was a person of mixed heritage. He was white and black. He was also free but and his home where we stayed overnight was the some of the planning for the raid on can't remember that two Cs as horrible. John Brown when he rated the artillery artillery place Alpha really crazy because now my memories is dropping. But the John John Brown when he plan his attack on the armory was planned in the in that living room that we were staying in. So they They were standing out and slept in the place where history was made. I know I kind of butchered that. But no. And that's

15:05  
kind of like, I mean to be. Yeah, I mean that that takes away again, the story of like, and like, not reading it out of a history book, not literally listening directly from somebody, a teacher, but actually being there hearing the story physically being in the presence of the planning of it. Right, wild? Yeah, that's, I mean, do you have any? I'm just interested in stories of I mean, I'm sure that you have plenty of stories of just youth and the impact of whether it may be the historical component, whether it may be the the act of the physical ride and achieving the goal, or just, I mean, going through the programs, I mean, is there, I'm sure it's kind of opt in, where it's not like, you know, parents are forcing their children's children to be a part of this program. But I'm sure that you know, there's many youth along the way that have struggled with, you know, I want to give up, I want, you know, I don't want to do this. Do you have any kind of stories offhand that of youth that have just, you know, push through, and kind of the sheer impact of just the by going through the program or rides,

16:27  
I can tell you to one is Jamie, who now is a nurse at Duke Hospital, here in Durham, when she was on our second tour, when we're going out west, and these are 30 day tours. So it's almost like the days upon days, upon days, four weeks of cycling, probably go by bike. She even talks about that, because after five years, I did an interview with the original cyclists, and she talked about, you know, there are days that I just wanted to fall off my bike just so I can get in the van. That kind of that kind of grit, saying that I know, I want to do this, I don't want to write any more, but I'm going to pushing yourself and knowing that she didn't suffer for it. I mean, that was a mental area that she was getting beyond. And lot of people move past the mental barriers that they have for themselves. And that's what extreme sports are. This is almost like when I was researching rites of passage, you know, some of the rites of passages for passage for youth are extreme rituals that in other cultures, they put the youth through and once you pass through that, you become an adult. And that's kind of what we do through the summer programming. Another story is Solomon who is a senior now, in 2018, we met his mother at just a function, we had a table. And she said that her son might be interested in that. And so his the way he tells it, that his mother said he was going to do this. And he showed up with all the intention of saying, I'm going to be here, I'm going to tell her, I didn't like it, and I'll be done with it. But when he showed up, he met me. And it's, he realized that the people who are here with him that his peers, that he liked them, he liked the conversation. He wanted to be part of the conversation. And he stayed, and what he enjoys is the history part of it, you know, discovering the history that he doesn't get in school. But realization was in order to get there and be one alive right now not live like living dead, but, you know, cognizant, not so tired that he couldn't pay attention. He had to become a better cyclists. So he focused on becoming a better cyclist so that when he arrived, he arrived fresh and not, you know, beat so that he was passing out. So he was two things. You know, his goal was to become a better cyclist so that he can be present to absorb the history that he was encountering on tour.

19:31  
Yeah, wow. That's yeah, that's incredible. And also just the openness you know, like, not I'm going to shut my mom down and I'm, she's making me do this. I'm, you know, I'll be open to it. And hey, look, I actually like it. And this is a program that's, you know, fits me for me. That's, that's awesome.

19:52  
But, you know, there Yeah, people grow up, and he promises come back and help other youth, you know, through these experiences.

20:00  
Yeah, I'm sure there's I mean, I was just yeah, you know, learning. You know more about the organization, but I'm sure there's people who, you know, done multiple rides or gone through the program who are coming back returning and part of the the programming. Oh, yeah.

20:15  
We have Chris who is on our board. He was on the original cyclists in 2010. Fernando, who came back on our board and ran, he was the chair of the fundraising committee. He came in sign on as AmeriCorps VISTA. Now he's our AmeriCorps VISTA person. It's who was there. She was our first hire. She was from the original 2010 pilot group. The Maris who is now studying to be a technician. And he is he comes back, he came back on two of our tours and led several you I can, I can just start naming them off, but they will come back and they would drive for the group. And Fernando did it for five years, volunteering every summer and driving for our group.

21:08  
Wow. Yeah, that's That's true dedication. And that's I mean, in terms of, I mean, just like the I mean, it sounds like in terms of volunteers, obviously, of your core volunteers who have done the programming, who are mentors to some of the cyclists in the youth. Can you expand a little bit about just your volunteer pool? What volunteers could do outside of just like mentorship? And I mean, because it sounds like it's very volunteer driven people's time and giving their their time and energy?

21:47  
Yes, it is. But we struggle with the volunteers and COVID, we've made it even worse, yes. But I think what we're trying to get a handle on why we struggle with it, we use neon to, to list our volunteer opportunities. But like, we have Sam, he goes on tour with us. He and He loves the program. And Lynn, who's our developer, part time Development Coordinator, she's gone on tour with us, Lisa, who's on our board, she's gone on tour. And almost I can say, people don't get it until they go on tour with us. But there's there's opportunities for people to become involved. On the back end. You know, there's administrative things that that happen, whether it's social media, or doing spreadsheets or things like that. There's lots of opportunities for people to to engage. Matter of fact, today I call the friend in South care annoying in Georgia, because we we had a conversation in an office conversation about what do we do about these volunteers? How can we get more so we can expand? Because it's just pretty much me and it's a program manager, part time executive director. So if I can't make it, she's on around so. So part of that I was given steps just this morning on how we can engage more people in volunteering opportunities. And you know, yeah, so I started reaching out. Isn't that a fact is that was a no brainer. It's like, oh, yeah, reach out to that person. And see how that works out.

23:38  
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure the pandemic I mean, you being a in person, organization, and providing programming in person was hard and rough. And I mean, in terms of the relaying of programming, I mean, how did you keep youth involved throughout the pandemic? I mean, with them being online with school and all of that, like, what was that? Like?

24:09  
Yeah, that's an interesting thing. So when 2020 hit, you know, February, I was thinking about COVID. You know, it's just something that happened across the seat, right. By March, they were setting the schools down. And we knew once the school shut down, matter of fact, I'm in office now and I still work from home. I mean, I'm trying to buy for as part time, but even at IBM, I work from home because IBM has all this to go back into the office. But as soon as the school shut down, I told it, I'm not coming back into the office. And if you remember back in 2020, no one knew what what COVID was. miserable. They knew it was highly transmissible, but they know people are dying from it. So no one wanted to be near him. Almost like file paths every head, you could get COVID. So that's not go outside either.

25:05  
Yeah, exactly.

25:08  
So when we pivoted in almost immediately, I think, before March was out a book, The juvenile young adult new book came out. And it was based on an academic book that I read the book was stamped from the beginning, the history of racism in America from 1600. Something to now that was written by even X kindy. And I had just read that I mean, it was it was so hard to read because I listen to audiobooks, I can't listen to audiobooks I had our ride didn't work, I had to stop listening to it. I just like, Okay, I had to take a break. And then I came back into it, and I finished it. And what I know, I learned that Jason Reynolds was putting out a young adult version of the book. I said, That's, since we're all, you know, not meeting, let's do a book stuff. So we did a book study based on stamped. That went very well. Kids were engaged, answering questions, listening to think it was that we do the audio book, my my wife is an educator. So she wrote down lesson plans for us to actually take apart the book. And we made it through that. We had to cancel our spring excursion. So there was no bike ride in the spring and snow gathering for that. There was no summer camps, we had to cancel the summer camp. Because I mean, I think by the time June was coming about, it was getting really nasty. By time August, it seemed that it was going down. But we also Well, let me step back. Because we weren't doing a summer tour, we pivoted and had a virtual tour. So we brought in the community to learn the lessons from academics, and subject matter experts for the tour that we couldn't do that we will be doing the next year. So the virtual tour was called the delegates cultural heritage corridor or virtual tour. So we brought in people the Gullah Geechee cultural heritage corridor is from Wilmington to Florida, St. Augustine, Florida. The Gullah Geechee people are enslaved people who were freed who inhabited the islands, the coastal islands of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. And because they were coastal islands, until they became you know, prime property, Hilton Head is one of them. Remember, Hilton had its rich man's land. But before it became that before it became a development, prime development property, people of color were left alone on their, you know, left to their own devices. So the language of patois of Gullah Geechee is, is prevalent. It is the languages registered by the United Nations as a as a language. The culture is pretty strong. And we gave the community an opportunity to learn, especially for people in North Carolina, more about this part of North Carolina that they may not have heard about. Yeah, we had a virtual tour on that. And after that, we were pulling the youth and they were suffering from withdrawal of meeting with their peers. And getting out because even again, the cloud of COVID was don't go outside either, right? Because well yeah, we didn't know so what we ended up doing was pivoting to doing one on one rides with the youth.

29:13  
Oh, wow. Okay. So, as

29:15  
we gather we do run on one rise, we did that for about a month and a half. And as we got more comfortable and in the idea of COVID became more widely known and how it was transmitted, and what what viral load was needed for you to become ill. We knew that US cycling the with the wind and any other any other variances. Variables would not allow enough viral load that we would get sick. So we started writing as a group, but by that time, we did a several fall excursions we had a one day trip and that was successful. So we toured, we toured the city of Durham On which has a number of murals, historical murals that we toured those hung out for the day and went back in, everything was fine. So that that led us to having full a full season of programs with the exception of the summer camp. Lat this 2021 Okay. That's how we take

30:25  
fun, I mean, touring your own local community. I mean, you know, figuring out and learning about all the history just That's right there on on your, on your doorstep. Right.

30:39  
And when you do right through the town, the city of Durham, you can look at the mural and not just see it as the picture on the wall. You actually know the history behind it.

30:49  
Yeah, which I'm sure, you know, a youth in the program can be walking down the street with their friends who aren't in the program, and there's something that they can talk about and spread. And yeah, that's, I mean, that's the point of it. It sounds like

31:03  
that's happened, one of my students have corrected some of his his peers in school.

31:11  
Yeah, that hasn't happened. Uh huh. As it should, that's great. Um, well, I do want to be conscious of your time. I know, it's, it's later there. But a few things, I mean, talking about kind of the virtual landscape, I guess kind of leads us into the the uses of technology, just whether that's communicating with, you know, the kids via text or mobile. But can you talk a little bit about how just technology has played a role just in the management of perhaps your volunteers or any attempts of like fundraising efforts along the way for the organization.

31:54  
I can talk from the perspective of working with the youth because, of course, we have social media, that's way of connecting with donors, newsletters connects with donor and donors. And as I get better and better at using neon, and segmenting and things like that, you know, neon has been instrumental in in my growth and learning more about it, because as I told Tim, to sell the day, it's like, this is a Swiss army knife. And I don't know what tools are available to you, you have to go look it up. And I was saying, well, it would be, you know, a primmer on just walking through neon would be helpful. And you know, but we're talking about my working with youth, right, virtually. We moved to Slack, I it was hard to get the youth to do it, but took about a year. And now they're they're engaging. We also have Microsoft Teams, because we're nonprofit, Microsoft gave us Microsoft Teams, for free. So we gather in that. And we have our weekly meetings, we meet with them every Wednesday at 530. So we hold the meetings there, they're able to chat and communicate with the tool teams. So we're staying engaged with the youth because of that, that's where we use those technologies. And then we have a physical gathering on Sundays when we do our bike riding, and bike safety training.

33:36  
Oh, nice. So that takes place ever send it? That's cool. Um, in terms of like, just out of curiosity, like fundraising initiatives that I mean, do you or have you in the past, like for funding for those rides? Because I'm sure obviously you have to pay for gas you have to pay for meals. Have you done any types of like fundraising campaigns or initiatives for any particular rides?

34:05  
It goes by program. I think last year was the most interesting time where we use the capabilities of I guess you would call it from raising campaigns right we heavily use campaigns. We also have fundraiser which ties into neon which was interesting because I don't think I was told this but oh fundraiser, you create the campaign and fundraise up. It doesn't create the campaign in neon until your first donation, right. Yeah, I have two donations, or two campaigns and Neons. Like what's what's going on? Right. So now I always make $1 donation, so it was Yep. All right. Well, getting past that. We had a campaign because COVID And I think that's going to be enough. I'm gonna because Obama is going to be because COVID Yeah, well, I chain two weeks or three weeks before we're supposed to go on tour. And we rent, we reserve our vehicles a month ahead a year ahead of time, one year ahead of time, we reserved the vans, they told us that because of supply chain issues, they don't have any vans. And so we're scrambling to eventually find a van. But we use communicates through emails with neon say, Hey, we're in trouble. We don't get make this happen, our tour is not going to happen. And we've been working all year, the US have been working all year for this right or at least six months. So we were able to do that. And following up. We did another campaign for by the van campaign, because now we wanted to purchase that van so that we're not beholden to any relying

35:58  
on other sources.

36:01  
At least we'll have a 12 passenger van. And then we can only be at the behest of rental car companies for one vehicle. And May we'll replace that if the normal channels for rental is not available, we'll find other sources. But we'll at least have 12 seats that we go on tour with, right. So we use the campaign for that. And then of course, our year end campaigning and giving Tuesday. So we rely heavily this year. We did more campaigns this year. And more. We raise more funds from individual donors this year. In that, using the technology.

36:44  
Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And that, yeah, it's kind of the general trend I or what I've seen within just kind of the nonprofit landscape is Yeah, I mean, people are still want to make some type of impact. And during COVID, obviously, in the comfort of their own homes, or wherever they are staying, they're able to, you know, make monetary or financial contributions, whether it's, you know, $5, or $100. But, yeah, and I saw that with, I think Tim had mentioned maybe the workflow automation, which, I mean, we can set that up for another day. But I would be happy to show you a kind of I think setting up automated workflows in neon is something that takes a little bit of training, but it's definitely something that you just like set up, and then you forget about and it like does the work for you, which is I can assume having, you know, a smaller staff and wearing 100 different hats. You don't have time to do you know, to delve into training for 10 hours to take a look at that stuff. So

37:53  
do other training, because now we're into, I mean, in addition to what Tim is putting out Slack channels, oh, I need to look at that. And that leads you off to study something else. We're doing that we're learning major gifts, because that is where we're going to, you know, make a bigger impact. So now we're learning that. Although I've been doing this for 10 years, I've been running a nonprofit for 10 years. Yeah. But that it was up until my first hire was it's a it's been a kitchen table thing was done like a kitchen table budget. Oh, when the program's gonna cost this much. So let's raise this much right, this mini grants. Now in this is gonna be surprising, but you probably already know this. A C, R, C, F R E, right? Certify fundraising executive word that two days ago.

38:53  
So what is that? Yeah.

38:56  
So now I'm down that rabbit hole. Yeah, I'm learning for the first time after 10 years that this is, you know, this can be a full time job. And I'm, I'm doing it part time. So I'm trying to learn fast and, and be effective. You know, and, you know, Neon is of course helping me do that because I even sent out a segment an email today. Like, alright, let's do this. And put get that done. And this is said and done. Schedule it, you know, walk away and do something else.

39:33  
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think you're exactly right. I mean, obviously, it's, you have the passion, you have the vision, you're doing it, which is in itself. Admirable and that's, that's at the that's the core, the crux of the organization. But it's like learning about, and I think, yeah, with the connected fundraising slack, I mean, I think it's a genius idea, because it's kind of like, you know, you have all these players in the game, everybody doing something a little different, but having like a core tightly knit group of people that are, you know, you can find organizations of your same size or organizations with a similar style mission or are serving this the, you know, same types of participants. I think you can really leverage that in a sense. And then yeah, find out new terms and be like, well, I guess I have to go Google that now. Yeah, which is always the fun part. But well, I mean, one last thing before we kind of depart here, I mean, as a takeaway, and doing this over or having the organization Durango Bike Works for over 10 years. I mean, what is your definition, and let's just say if you were going to tell the youth this, your definition of what it means to be a leader, within let's just say within your community,

41:01  
how it's a, as they say, at IBM, restless, reentered reinvention, right. Reinvent constant learning, and having that drive to, I guess what they call it, but a drive to learn. There's a term for it, academic term for it. But that desire to learn something new know that you don't know everything, and not be afraid to learn something new. listen to other people know what your principle is, but listen to other people and trust your staff, because that's why you hired them. Yeah, and have the courage to try new things. And fail fast. That's the Agile way, right? Design thinking fast. And you want to fail fast. I mean, I invested some money last year in a program, and I didn't have time to use it. You know, because it's just me. And it's an a part time development manager. And it's like, wow, that's a lesson. Make sure that you can use the tool that you're banned for. Yeah, don't

42:08  
lie it. Yeah. The truth? Yeah. Move on to the next thing. Move on. Take the punches that they wrote about that as they roll out. Yeah. Yeah. And I think yeah, you mentioned kind of be open. And listen, I think that reverts back. I can't remember their participant you said the, maybe his name is Sam, the one that his mom walked up to the booth and was like you should do Solomon. So I also that kind of rings a bell as well act like Solomon in the sense of like, maybe this isn't the right thing, but at least, you know, come at it with an open mind.

42:43  
Right? It does take time to explore. But then you, I guess what they say? Well, I'll say this, I'll finish that statement. You'll know that that's not for you. So if it comes up again, you'll say Well, that's not for me. There's and what they say about scientists, they're they're expected to fail, they want to either fail or succeed. So they're, they're going to take a failure, but not as, oh, I'm no good. That doesn't work. So I'm closer to finding what does work because I've eliminated these possibilities of working. So we can put that to rest. This won't work. Let's try a different method, and rack up failures until you get to that one success. And that changes the world for you.

43:34  
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I always had a friend. And this is just true. Many ages ago. You know, say like, all feelings, no matter the feelings are equal. So everybody, you know, has this idea that like, being happy and content all the time is better than the feelings of, you know, sadness, or loneliness. And like, Yeah, I mean, it does feel better, but it doesn't make the happiness any more validated or better than the feeling of something like sadness. You need, you need both in a sense. So you need the you need the yes, this is gonna work or no, this isn't gonna work.

44:15  
I tell the kids they're, you know, not great that there's no bad feelings. They're just feelings. Yep. Oh, how you see them? Yeah, I do like this feelings. Yeah.

44:28  
Exactly. Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Kevin, for meeting today and chatting. I mean, it was great to talk about the programming and I'm interested in just following the organization. And yeah, I mean, we I can happily set up a meeting between me and you and it's on we can go dive into neon.

44:47  
Oh, that would be great. Yeah, that will be great. Because, I mean, when we first we came in and under a plan that was, you know, we got some type of super discount. And I asked, he said I see on your website that we get five workflows you said in your plan. But then when we change the pricing structure, I have five workflows. I'm like, Okay, what am I going to do with these? Yeah,

45:14  
so we can talk about that. Because there's many ways to use the workflows. I think there's, I can chat with the both of you on figuring out which workflows would of course work best and be the best use of time. Awesome. So

45:27  
I would appreciate that. Yeah, I'm at the point where, because it's often it's just a person to tell me what, you know, I can Google. Yeah. But and I don't mean that bad for any consultant. I just know that if I don't ask the right questions, the consultants gonna give me what I asked for. So you know, looking for and after doing having neon for since 2019. I think I know what I need. So I will be asking the right questions. This is what happened. This was the industry says needs to happen. What if I if I screw it up? If I create the wrong workflow, then someone's gonna get something that they shouldn't get? And that's estrous. Yeah,

46:09  
we don't want to be blasting the same person with all of your emails. Yeah.

46:16  
So that will be helpful.

46:18  
Absolutely. Well, listen, have a great evening, and I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

46:24  
Great. Thanks, Sam. Yeah, thanks. Yeah,

46:27  
yeah, bye

46:28  
bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai