The History and Science of Leadership: Why Leadership Fails & Why It Succeeds | with Don Schmincke

Building a Coaching Culture - #75: The History and Science of Leadership: Why Leadership Fails & Why It Succeeds | with Don Schmincke === Don Schmincke: it's about our mistakes. That make us great, from what we learn from them and we should be teaching how to lose powerfully versus don't be a loser, always be a winner. I think we're ripping each other off. So, my philosophy now is so many more mistakes to make and so little time left. J.R. Flatter: hey, welcome back everybody. I'm JR Flatter and here with our co-host Lucas. And we are here with our distinguished guest, Don Schminke. And he is a, if you look him up on, uh, his website, an amazing keynote speaker, and just remind everybody and Don we're here talking to leaders of complex organizations who are competing and succeeding in this 21st century global virtual, labor market. so with that, Dawn, uh, one of the few times in your life that somebody's gonna ask you, please, please brag about yourself 'cause you have a lot to brag about. So tell us your story if you don't mind. Don Schmincke: thank you. Um, well into all this by accident 'cause I was, uh, I guess when we start, if I start with the college years, I, I got involved with planetary physics and. and then I, uh, left m i t went to Hopkins when I started studying humans and eventually got attached to the executive, um, M B A program. So that was around a lot of, uh, young MBAs that were, um, going into, uh, develop their leadership in their companies. But that's when I, I got involved with, uh, leadership theory failure rates, and so, um, I was asked to see if they could be biological. And at the time, ox Oxford University gave me access to this. Um, I was just really fortunate to get connected with some really brilliant people and institutions and they gave me access to this 700 year old, leadership training program. And so I published it and I was just gonna use it in my classes at Hopkins in the graduate school there, but it took off. Next thing I know I'm on C N N and you know, the Wall Street Journal, and then people started asking me to speak. So, That was back in the nineties, I guess. So since then, we've been, uh, doing more expeditions around the world, more, uh, filming and just interacting with the most brilliant people I can find to further develop, um, what we early discovered in doing the autopsies of dead companies. And so that's what happened. So now I I, I've trained about 30,000 CEOs and, um, I do about 700 a year, 700 to a thousand a year. I've doing this, the hang of it. J.R. Flatter: Sounds like me and my marriage. I've been married 40 years and I'm still, you know, getting the hang of it. you mentioned a couple of my favorite topics, the social science versus physical science. there are some similarities, but they're so, so different. Um, was working with a professor, so my in leadership development in. he was measuring humans to three decimal places and I'm like, Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. I'd really love to hear about this 700 year old style of leadership. 'cause I'm doing the math. tell us a little bit more, talking about Genghis Khan or where'd you get the style of leadership 700 years ago. Don Schmincke: Oh, it. The Japan Foundation in Oxford gave me permission to use. It was a Japanese, uh, manuscript written to train Samurai executives. and I stumbled onto it. It wasn't anything I really planned to do, but I would come back from an expedition in the Himalayas and this lost civilization area, and then I was. I got ahead an argument with my agent 'cause I was trying to do something more tribal. This was, um, of course back in the nineties before tribal was politically correct to say, we were developing a lot of, um, the early stages of, uh, observing how humans, react or instinctively designed for tribal grouping behaviors. Anyway, long story short, I came back and found this manuscript and I, um, I called Oxford and they, and, you know, I told 'em what I was doing. They were very gracious and, uh, republished this thing. And, um, I was, it was fascinating because, they didn't have the neurology around how the brain's designed for genetic survival. So, understanding how they were able to figure out how to unhook the ego to allow honor and bravery was rare and, um, not really taught in our M B A program. So I thought, well, let's teach it. Let's, uh, let's explore this further. And that's what got things started. Lucas Flatter: So I'm putting myself in your shoes. You know, it's 1977, the year Star Wars came out. The year close encounters came out and you know, just eight years after the moon landing and you're going into planetary physics. I'm imagining you're very excited about space travel and, and the physical science. So what was it that attracted you to kind of shift focus and like, because it must have been, you know, something really attractive, you know, or from my perspective, Don Schmincke: I started, studying humans and they became more fascinating to me 'cause it's, uh, such a nonlinear species. And, um, it became my favorite species. I even have a few friends, or a few are humans. And, uh, and so, uh, and that was, uh, what pulled me into the, um, To the executive m b A arena and to, because leaders are trying to lead humans. And so it was a natural, uh, combination to look at the research and, and look at the, uh, failure rates of, leadership theory and why was it failing? And I wanna understand, you know, scientifically, you know, we have 30,000 books published every year on leadership and business. but a lot of the bestselling books are hard to implement, you know? I mean, they're great ideas, they're great, they're great tools, they're great, insights. But when I started doing autopsy research, a lot of bankrupt companies had really great leadership books and leadership training. And so I thought, well, if we're gonna grow companies faster, And keep them from dying. What is it that, that we're not doing? And that's, and it just, it just became a really, uh, ongoing research project. And, I ran into some, some great people that, were pioneering a lot of this in various areas. So it was, uh, I love to learn and teach. So for me it just was just a kick learning all this stuff and, and trying to share it, you know, with the world. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, you mentioned a phrase I really found intriguing, unhook the ego. Could you dig into that a little bit for me? Don Schmincke: Yeah. Um, when we were looking at, uh, growing companies faster, we started working with, and we've been working with a hundred industries. They all seemed to have similar patterns and something delaying their execution speed. So, Developing strategy is one thing, but there are a lot of failure rates in that, and we found out why that we try to do it differently, but the execution of strategy becomes the next challenge. And we noticed organizations were wasting half their human capital. They were not adapting fast enough. And it turned out it was really more around, the fact that the ego was generating dysfunctional behavior inside an organization. So speed as it was being reduced and it was actually a bottom line impact on a company. and we all know this, it was very obvious because, you know, we have like tell comedy shows like, you know, the Office, uh, which I don't think is a comedy, I think it's a documentary. Lucas Flatter: That would make JR Michael Scott. J.R. Flatter: This, not carry this analogy too far. Don Schmincke: And, uh, and so I, I knew this had be something that was inherent in our species, and this is where I began to see what would be the neurological connection between how the Samurai trained honor and bravery and bravery, and how our brain, has been designed for ego. and then we started applying it and we started seeing companies increase their speed and their sales. It was really weird. I mean, 'cause I, at that time, I didn't really know much about business. I was just trying to understand how to get humans, to perform at higher levels. But, you know, and, and two or three years they were doubling their sales, tripling their sales, and, That's when I got pulled in even more to the c e O community. but what I found was that, you know, the ego is there for a good reason and it's to create selfishness. I. But now why would selfishness be a good reason? Because in genetic warfare, um, selfish animals stay alive longer than unselfish animals. And if you're alive, you get to replicate your data, which is how you commit war. It's really, um, a. Information copying war, you know, and so the species that can copy their cellular data better win and those that don't go extinct. so this is all helpful until you try to run a company. You have all these selfish mammals showing up and so the samurai ha had a way of executing faster. because they could unhook it. Now, the unhooking came from remembering constantly the fact that you must die. And that was like their opening statement in the first chapter of their training. And I'm like, wow, this is, this is not gonna go well. but as I got into it, I realized it wasn't really the ritual suicides that the samurai famous for. It was really suicide of the ego. So we began teaching executive teams how to die properly and at the time I training maybe 700 CEOs a year in these c e O groups. So I. It was a great support mechanism and, and several said, Hey, come into my team. I mean, I'm tired of all the politics. I'm tired of like it being like another episode of the office. And so as we began applying these techniques, speed went up, execution went up. Decisiveness was faster, cultures improved and it really had to do. With this death thing and then teaching, that the memory that you have to die, I think and haven't have not been able to fund this, but I would like to, uh, find a philanthropist who would let me go to Hopkins with a check to see if the brain scans of, people that are terminally ill, but they've accepted their death and they're at peace with it, versus healthy humans that are meditating on the Samurai philosophy to see if their brain patterns are the same in other words. The part that would've changed would've been the ego part, because if the body realizes I'm no longer needed, Then the selfishness goes away. And this is why a lot of, um, philosophies throughout history capture this. I mean, especially military, uh, you know, the, the death before battle concept, you know, to die before battle. I mean, all this starts making sense when we look at it from a leadership point of view. We look at it neurologically and then we have all this ancient evidence. and so by applying that in, a management team produced amazing, amazing results. J.R. Flatter: I love the ease with which you talk about such complex things. You just relaxed like, oh yeah, interplanetary physics, and yeah. Don Schmincke: well I've this a long time. Lucas Flatter: so speaking of kind of like genetics propagating over time, You can think about, you know, ideas doing the same thing and how we talk about memes nowadays. would you say that, did the Boto kind of get lost 700 years ago where it didn't propagate? Is there some sort of focus on kind of keeping those ideas alive from one organization to the next kind of, uh, Don Schmincke: That was interesting. I, because when I, when I started researching this, I realized the Samurai are still all around us. You know, you, you look at, Star Trek and War, I mean, he had the Samurai thing. You look at Transformers, you look at. star Wars. You look at a lot of our movies, there's some entity that represents Samurai and, and they may not call them that, but it's clear in their mannerisms and, even how they are costumed, you know, to represent that character. So, in a sense, I, I think what they discovered didn't die. It actually became part of our media. You. and there's some great movies actually to do. I mean, the Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. Um, and even more that, that go back 10, 20, 50 years. so I think it still is because I think part of us as leaders want to be that, and we're struggling because we haven't, there's really no MBA program on it. This, you know, this semester we're gonna learn bravery and honor and how to suffer and sacrifice to the greater cause. It's like what? I mean, it's like what it's like, so we don't teach the one thing that we should be teaching. That's why we're trying to, spread this out and uh, hopefully some professors will pick it up. Because it, it does work. I mean, we've, like I said, we've applied it in hundreds of industries. We've grown companies. Many companies is faster using these techniques that they never thought of before, but they're ancient. It's not like something I discovered new. I was just listening to our ancestors and, validating with modern medical science. J.R. Flatter: So I've heard you mention a couple of times the transcendental nature of the human mind and our will to survive. We talk a lot about, and even in our introductions, 20th century versus the 21st century, what do you see changing? What do you see staying the same Don Schmincke: I see a lot of, shifts or, fears of, different generational aspects, but I find that I. We are still responding to, instinctive, impulses, just as we always have been. I mean, you know, like tribal grouping coming back to that point, you know, the great leaders today, as in the ancient world, knew that if you con construct your symbols and your rituals and your magic, Well enough, you can organize groups and lead them into battle or into greater companies. And, and a lot of that's even happening today when you look at social media, you know, talk about symbols emerging or, rituals emerging. So I think as humans, we're still operating on a 2 million year-old structure. I think the, coming back, to what Lucas said earlier around, memes, I mean, yeah, our, our, our memes sort of change Those things that we share in our minds, that appear in our language, in our concepts, will always, evolve, hopefully for the better. but the element driving it I think is the same thing that has driven memes for thousands of years. Lucas Flatter: I think, um, when I imagine, you know, those symbols and, and rituals and things like that, I think about, you know, a military organization that's very, you know, authoritarian and they can say like, this is the bottom line. This is what we're gonna do from the top down. and so, If you're kind of trying to do that in a more organic way, I feel like there can be pushback sometimes. Like, oh, I don't want to play this game. You know, I don't want to use this metaphor. It feels silly. is there kind of a way to transition into using these sorts of symbols and things like that? Don Schmincke: Oh yeah. I mean, they're happening naturally. It's, uh, it, it doesn't take, take much. And even in organic structures and when we restructure a company organically, a lot of it's about symbol changing. because, uh, I mean, the military yes, does use symbols and rituals really well and, and aligning their patterns. But they've also changed. I mean, when we worked with Black Hawk down, with Matt Evertman, it was one of the most epic, disastrous in modern military history. And so, um, we learned a lot about the military. Plus I was, I. Earlier I had worked with the top admirals at the Pentagon and on re, um, taking what I'm teaching now, uh, with businesses, but applying it to, um, help improve fleet warfare readiness. And, and that was tested in the Gulf War. So it, it, it worked. But the elements, uh, the military is changing in, in that. and a lot of this came out of the errors that were made is, allowing people to think in the field and adapt and learn. And so it's interesting because the top down thing works to an extent, but at some point you have a team in the field, you have to lead and you have to adapt. And so therefore it's more around teaming, you know? I mean, you look at some of the extreme trainings like Navy SEAL training, et cetera. I mean, they're going in, they're figuring stuff out, you know, it's not like everything. I think what I learned from Matt Everman and Black Hawk Down, it's like, you, you need to plan, but it won't work. ' cause the enemy has a vote, you know? And the enemy vote may vote no on, no on your plan. So adaptation becomes the secret weapon for execution. So we saw a lot of that. But in companies, same thing. Companies, the, you know, If you can't adapt quick enough, and that requires the speed we talked about earlier, then there's a problem. but it's interesting. When we went into companies to alter cultures, it was usually from things that were legacy, like symbols or rituals. So they were already instituted. You know, we had a bank that, um, They had lost a quarter million dollars on these thought leader experts on culture change. And they were trying to change a hundred, this a hundred year old paternalistic, top-down culture to a customer driven, branch driven culture, total failure. And this guy heard me speak. It was continuing at a banking conference, and he came and as I tell you what, give me two months and if it doesn't work, I'll, I'll give you money back. And we used an ancient Roman technique. because the Romans knew things about culture change because they had a, they had a rapid marriage or an acquisition campaign going on, and we had to find was there a symbol lingering. And there was, and, and it ended up being the assigned parking place. So by destroying the parking place, as we altered the culture of the bank, and we see this a lot sometimes, uh, like CEOs are like, well, what speech should I give? Or what poster should I hang up? But I'm like, forget any of that. What symbol can you destroy? You know, that's gonna make more of an impact than any speech or poster. You hang up and it's funny, like, I'll do these workshops and companies for a day. I'll go and take the whole executive team. Sometimes the top two or three levels of management. I'll run them through this stuff and part of it is this tribal issue and this one time I had a call come in from the VP of HR the next day and says, Don, you gotta talk Frank down. He's got a crowbar and he's ripping shit off the walls. It's the CEO's like he's, I'm like, put him on the phone. I'm like, Frank, what happened? He's like, oh Don, I loved you. You Came up with that workshop, which was out on the table. We now have action plans and all that. But I woke up this morning thinking, here I am at an advertising agency. Why are they resisting? TikTok? Instagram I keep, I keep pushing and pushing and pushing and then I realized in my main hallway, hanging up on the walls are all the awards we won for our Yellow Pages advertising. So I can imagine, right? He pulls up in the lot that morning, pulls the crowbar out, of his trunk Than any speech you're gonna give. So that's what I'm thinking we humans are still operating like we have. I think we should teach it, use it productively, and the results we see are much more, impactful and quicker. Lucas Flatter: I. am afraid of the people driving away from your keynote, you know, smash down the. Don Schmincke: I, I usually end. I usually end saying, do you have enough to wreak havoc on your innocent humans? And. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, I find what you, what you're saying, very resonant. I'm working with some very senior leaders in our government with brand new organizations and you probably connect a couple dots. I. and so they have no culture. They have no artifacts to tear off the wall. How do I start from zero and build this ego free Samurai culture? Don Schmincke: You know, I start with strategy. I had a lot of companies, um, like, like I have this, uh, seven step strategic process. But the first thing is, do you have the strategy to win? And I find a lot of companies don't. They have tactics. I. And we go into why that's the problem and where it came from. And that was part of the problem I was teaching analytics at at Hopkins. But, the reason there are companies that start up in an industry and I was always wondering all the management consultants and the thought leaders and the experts say they're not gonna make it. You know, because the small startup, uh, they're not gonna make it. But when the startup rises up and dominates the world, All the consultants shut up and I'm wondering what just happened. Like how do you dominate the world by, violating best practices? Now that would be an interesting book, right? So, um, we went to look at it and what they were doing is their strategic development was more around intuition, not, not analytics. So the whole point is once you get real strategy down, and you now can define what does winning mean? How do we do it? Then you can craft something we stole from the Vikings. I stole all my stuff from this. You stole from the Vikings. It's a compelling saga. And, and really that is, can you craft that winning formula into a story, of, of a challenge ahead where we need each other to achieve it and we're willing to suffer and sacrifice to make it happen. And the companies that can craft that powerful story, now they have a place to die for the cause. You know, now they can go into, okay, what are the behaviors that are been getting in our way? And what are the new ones we need and what are the beliefs that must die that's driving those all behaviors and what are the new ones we need to create? And in creating those new ones, then it's easier to have them participate in, Hey, what are the symbols we should have for this? You know, 'cause it all should support the compelling saga. and the Vikings did a good job in market share penetration. I mean, they. Lucas Flatter: It propagated. Yeah, certainly. So going to the individual level, I think about, you know, a person that their company is going under a lot of changes and, and their individual anxiety, fear, discomfort of the unknown, all of that. Is that something that you've also observed historically? Like what do the individuals think about these radical changes? Don Schmincke: You know, when, when I go through history, it's amazing. There, there were were changes that had, you know, monumental impact. Like, you know, something as simple as inventing the stirrup for a horse now allowed you to rise up and be more accurate with your spear or your arrows. And that was like an atomic weapon, you know? So the accuracy increased and it changed the element of warfare. Rapidly, but then you go forward and look at like, uh, electricity. I mean, you hear people talk about electricity when, and of course most of them may not horn around anymore, but they were afraid. You know? See, you see a, I, I remember talking to my great aunt, she goes, yeah, I saw a car for the first time coming down the road, and I ran back into the store to hit in the corner. I dunno what this thing was. So, we've been impacted by change. we're doing a lot more now that have maybe, um, more global impact. but I think leadership is all about change. You see, I think Haha said it best. Um, when I was, uh, up at Harvard, he said, um, management is about creating and maintaining order. But leadership is about destroying the order that managers created. It's about change, right? I mean, so, um, if there is no change, there's no need to lead, you know, you're already there. Just manage what you've got. So I think in the, in the element of change, then I, that it comes back to, I think does everyone know what winning means and how they're going to win and how they're going to, uh, support each other and adapt. It's all about a adaptation and winning that strategy and making it happen. and I think that happens in every age, and it is here today. I mean, right now we're, you know, where everybody's panicking about ai. and so what is that going to change? You know, and how do we adapt to that? And the companies that will adapt faster will probably win than those that hang on to legacy strategies. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, you keep reminding me of, uh, innovator's dilemma, how hard it is to change an existing culture. Because the people who are there rose up through the existing culture and they refuse to let it die. as you look 30 years into the future, uh, I read a book by Kevin Kelly, the Inevitable, 30 things that Are Inevitable in the next 30 years. What do you see 30 years from today? Don Schmincke: We could become much more efficient. The AI thing, me and my frat brothers, we, you know, were on these threads and, and these zoom calls and they were, I was one of the early adopters in, in Chachi, bt and, uh, late last year, I thought, you know, everybody's arguing about humanizing AI and the dangers and all that. I said, why has, hasn't anyone asked AI how they would upgrade us? I did, you know, and it started talking to me. And, um, I started, um, so it ended up being maybe 30 minutes. There was a book written, right? And, and then the human was the slowest part me, because then I had to figure, you know, get it laid out, get it covered. So I throw it up as, as sort of, just as an experiment and, and a humorous joke. it's called Unleash Your Potential. It came up with that title, whatever had. The subtitle I had was, uh, how Artificial Intelligence Wants to Upgrade You. and it was a fun book to write and to see. Now I've gotta, people say, you need to write another one because you just said it when it was an infant. Now it's graduating college. The past three months, like yeah. Yeah. Okay. but the point is that is, as in doing it, what I learned was it saved me so much time. For instance, I could have went down the block to the Johns Hopkins library and done some really fun research for two or three weeks on this particular topic. or I could have hired a graduate student to go down and do it for me and then come back and debrief me for a. So I, I, three weeks now becomes one day or I can ask Chacha b t and have it done in about 25 minutes. so it was almost like this accelerate acceleration of using it as my grad student on, on Hyperdrive. And in that way I think we have, um, a very useful way to work. Because, um, if we just need knowledge, we can get it now faster. But I know that some of the fears I hear were the same fears I heard. and look, you're probably not old enough, but there was a time when if you brought a calculator into a classroom, everybody freaked out. It was like, right, jr. I mean, it was like, you can't bring that in here. You're gonna be stupid. You gotta learn math. And, and, and it, it was weird because we were just like, it's gonna make us stupid because now we get this thing telling us how to add and subtract and do basic. So anyway, what happens Fast forward. Now if somebody's doing a math problem longhand you, you say, why don't you use a calculator? It's like, it's taking too long. You, and we still are learning math. We still are teaching it. We still are. You know what I mean? It's it, it hasn't stopped. So I think AI may emerge like that once we get past the fear, like, yeah, how come you're not using ai? Why are you. Wasting your time doing all these Google searches when you can just ask and it'll come back. Now you gotta check it out. It's not like many times I find that sources weren't correct or this, that, or the other thing, but at least it condensed it down for me. So I think it's a toll. I don't know if I would turn over military operations to it. You know, we've seen those movies, but I think it's a tool and I think we do have to, and people smarter than me, figuring out how to keep it from going rogue. but in the meantime, geez, let's, uh, let's look at our work and say, what could I get done faster? You know, how can I help other people or serve the customer faster? if I had this kind of tool used productively? So, J.R. Flatter: Absolutely does. Thank you. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, and it's, it's the ego thing too, because it's like, you know, I feel. Satisfied when I do longhand division. You know, so just, you know, you're not actually going to be more effective just because you feel good about doing the work. so I don't know if it's already been revealed, but I'm a huge pop culture nerd. And so you mentioned, you know, samurai and, and their kind of proliferation. And I'm thinking about, you know, that Samurai movie became Star Wars with the awa, like inspiring George Lucas. you see these kind of memes and ideas about culture and like, Mythologies and fiction, you know, more so than you would if you read like a leadership book. would you agree that, like, or I guess is there some particular fiction that you see effectively kind of spreading these ideas in the modern day? Don Schmincke: That's interesting question. I think it's all fiction. J.R. Flatter: It's a meta narrative, right? Don Schmincke: I mean, I, uh, in fact, I did a blog post. You, you, you pull it up. I hope you hope you enjoy it as I was doing some research, I thought, what happened at 4th of July? And then I found out that was just fiction. It never really happened. And I started digging into this and I told everybody, look, I'm publishing this after 4th of July, so doesn't ruin. J.R. Flatter: Just that an hour ago. Don Schmincke: Thank you for reading it. Yeah. And uh, and you can see how I did it. I, I was just like, Hey, I'm wondering like, why is, why don't we put all these leaders, our, our revolutionary leaders in a room? Were still British, were surrounded by spies. The king just captures everybody revolutions over. And then as I dug into it, there were brilliant people ahead of me that actually answered this question. And there weren't a lot of people in the room. There were two people that signed it and it was signed. it was voted on July 2nd, not July 4th. and so some, it's like Shankman and, you know, some really great researchers have gone into this and I was fascinated with what they found out. And so, so what happens at the end of this whole thing is like, okay, it didn't really happen. It took, you know, Many, many years to get all the signatures. a lot of us didn't wanna secede from England I mean, it was just a mess. And so at the end of the day, we have this thing and, and we created 4th of July. Because they got the date wrong. and so the, the, the problem is, and that wasn't even one of the founding fathers wrote a, a note to his, his wife that said, Hey, July 2nd will be the most epic day to be celebrated and wrote on July 3rd. And when another researcher found the mistake, he changed the date to be July 5th, so it would read July 4th. I mean, we literally altered the fiction of the. whole thing And the whole point is like, so what? You know what I mean? All cultures create these myths to, capture their energy, focus their spirit, and that's what it does for us. So fine, let's, this is our thing. Let's just participate in the July 4th and have some beer and hot dogs and light some fireworks and celebrating being an American, so, so. Lucas Flatter: No, totally. I love this answer. J.R. Flatter: So, um, I'm gonna violate our protocol. Luke usually gets the last question, but, um, it's obvious to anybody who's listening or watching that you're a well read, well educated. How does one be embark on a journey with you, become a renaissance educated person such as yourself? Don Schmincke: well, thank you for that compliment. I try to live up to it and don't follow me home because my kids will gimme a different, different feedback on that. I think, as I've gotten older, I've, I've learned that, uh, It's only through our, in fact, it's coming outta my book Winners and Losers in a couple months. It is. Great question. 'cause I noticed all these entrepreneurs were writing about what they did. Right. But when I started analyzing them, it was what they did wrong that mattered. They all had a series of mistakes and errors and missteps, and it was from how they learned to lose powerfully that made them great entrepreneurs. So, I'm gonna publishing this, but with, but to, to get to your point, I'm thinking it's about our mistakes. That make us great, you know, from what we learn from them and we should be teaching how to lose powerfully versus don't be a loser, always be a winner. I think we're ripping each other off. So, and, and I'm, my, my philosophy now is so many more mistakes to make and so little time left. But J.R. Flatter: Mm-hmm. Don Schmincke: that's, I think how you become a Renaissance thinker. Just keep learning. J.R. Flatter: away at it. Don Schmincke: Yes, yes, yes. J.R. Flatter: Well, thank you very much for your time. it's been fascinating.