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Matt Wagner: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Main Street Business Insights Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Wagner, Chief Innovation Officer at Main Street America. And you know, it's been a little while. We've been on hiatus for a few months as we've taken a break to work on some exciting small business programs, initiatives. and one of them brings us here to Tulsa as part of our national conference. But I want to mention two quick things here for you. Check out our new small business hub. I've got my colleague Maggie who's off screen here. Maggie, where do they go to find that? On our website? What's the deal with that? Go ahead. Main Main Street, just go to Main Street.org and they'll they can go to the small business hub, right? Okay, so Main Street.org, go check out the hub. Okay. So that's one, get all this great education, training, connect with other small business owners. And the second, you're gonna continue to learn more about what we're actually launching here at our conference. And that's called Made Originals. Notice the t-shirt. I'm doing some publicity already for it. And that's really where we get to highlight all the wonderful, amazing small business producers, manufacturers, creators out there within the US in our Main Street network. we've got almost like 20 to 25,000 of them, and so we're launching a whole suite of products. And if you're at the conference, you're gonna see some more of that if you're a Main Street director or coordinator out there, where we're really building out an aggregated retail component to it. So we've got our retail in cap on display. We'll put some pictures of that in the show notes. So if you want to see what it looks like, but hopefully at some point you might see it across the the country. But let's get back to the podcast. But it's it's been a while and so. I might be a little rusty, but it's okay because I have a fabulous guest that's gonna carry most of the show because it's really about her story. And it's Brandi Hinds-Lee from almost forgot the show. Agitsi Agitsi. God, how did I like forget that? Agitsi Stained Glass Okay. So right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And we're gonna talk to her about her story. It's an amazing one, but I at least want to first welcome her to the show. Brandi, welcome to the show. Thank you, Matt. I'm excited to be here. Tulsa is my hometown. Okay. This is where I was born and raised. So I'm so excited that you're here and getting to experience this. Exactly. With me. And so and I shouldn't just like turn because I think we have all this wonderful, you know, product behind us, all this examples of stained glass and the geechee name. But of course, you know, it's been a while. So I'm a little rusty. All right. So forgive me. But in the pre-reading, because I did some research here, Brandi, okay? Not known for great research, but I found that Agichi means my mother in Cherokee. And so that sort of hit me. And knowing that you're a third generation stained glass artist as well, you have this amazing like combination of cultural heritage and just this artistic endeavor. And I wonder if you could like take us back to the beginning. and how you approached getting into the family tradition of stained glass making and kind of deciding to make this your full career in opening up this wonderful studio that we're sitting into today. So I'm gonna hand it over to you and let's talk about your journey. All right, well stained glass is I watched my mother and my grandmother do stained glass together. it was one of the only times that got along really well. So I knew that there was something magical in stained glass and that itself. And as I got older, I continued to work in glass myself. And after my mom had passed away, I it was such a loss and a pain. And our dream was to open a shop together and do stay glass together. So after she had passed away, I was like, well, what am gonna do now? You know? And so it was like you do this in her memory and you do it to continue to to teach and to learn and to keep passing it down. My grandmother had also passed away. So it was kind of up to me. I was the one that kind of kept at it. Yeah. And so and it's it helped me through my loss with her. Wow. And so through that I was like, well I'm just gonna do it. And and then I was a hyper kid. And so my mom was always trying to give me stuff to do to get me to I don't know, be quietly reload. don't know. So she'd always give me a phone book and have me look up stuff. So she's a phone book. Yeah. Okay. So I remember her saying, if you ever open a business, you're gonna want your business to start with an A. So you'll be at the top of the list. And so when I was like, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and do this. I'm gonna open a stained glass studio in memory of my mom. So it needs to start with an A. And I'm Cherkey, and Cherkey is very important to us. That's where we get our resilience. and bravery to do hard things like this and a gichi a gichi is the term my mother that's who i learned from that's who this is the memory of the thread line yeah so that's how and then i was like give a two week notice and i was like i'm gonna be an artist and and here we are so thankfully it it's done well so did you just grow up in in the world of stained glass making that's how you kind of learned your Was it just over time or? It was over time. watching my mom and my grandmother, mainly my mother. I was in the room with her, but she didn't necessarily say, This is how you do this. It was you can be in here as long as you can be quiet and let me do my thing. She had the mental health issues and meant and her working on her glass, she was at peace and she was happy. And of course I didn't want to interrupt that. So I did get to watch. I learned by watching her. And then over the years, you know, just kind of learned it on my own. But I was always able to go to her and ask her for questions and she would help me get through those those challenges. Okay. So you
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were family taught. and but what about the business side? I mean, there we always talk about, you know, people can be passionate about their their hobbies or sort of their the skill they've developed. But then you have this whole other side of launching a business, which is can be like a totally different s world in many respects. How was it diving into your first store? we started small. And so when I first started, it was making custom pieces. And then I was like, Well, this isn't gonna pay my bills. So I better c figure this out. Well, one of that is to teach, and I love to teach. I I taught my kids, so I knew I could do that. And so I I got a studio where I could teach out of and did that for a while and then got that down. And then I was like, well, I gotta replace all this glass up and use them to teach everyone with. Well, then I learned this really important word called wholesale account. And to get a wholesale account saying that's not easy. You have to have a brick and mortar. And where I was teaching out of, that wasn't an option at the time. So it was just neat. I didn't want to stop. I didn't want to quit. That's never been an option for me. And so the next step was I needed to get a brick and mortar. You know, I had to get a storefront so I could get that wholesale count. Well, teaching classes and people need supplies. I needed supplies. That wasn't in my plan originally. So we got a nice startup spot, small building, and that's where we started selling supplies. The only retail experience I had had was working at service merchandise once. And those aren't even around anymore. You know, so crash force. It was definitely a you gotta get in, learn it, and do it. And also when we had moved into our first brick and mortar, I signed my lease and COVID hit. There was a lot of that. Yes. Okay. So Some ways that worked to our advantage, I was able to kind of take my time and learn as much as I could, like simple things like how to make a barcode. You know, how do you make a barcode? These things no one thinks about. And so you know, I just kept learning and if I didn't know, I asked and I tried to network and try to get with other organizations that were helpful and just learn, learn, learn, learn. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, tell me a little bit about your your family. You've got children that are also certified artists, right? And some of your pieces, like the Great Seal of Cherok Cherokee Nation, which I've I've re read about, are obviously rooted in your cultural heritage. And I was wondering how you could talk a little bit about how the Cherokee identity has shaped how you make things or the things that you make or How do teach? Just what does that mean to you? So Cherokee, it's for me, it's about being one with the community, being understanding, being resilient, teaching. And so whenever people come in and they want to learn, I teach them just the same way I teach my own children. Everyone that comes in that door is someone's daughter, mother, brother, uncle. You know, so everyone that comes in our door, they're family to me too. Yeah. They're the Aheechi family. And we have a good we have good relationship with all of our clients, all of our students, youth to adults. And you know, teaching my children, not all of them love stained glass, some of them do, some of them don't, but I want them to have that opportunity to learn and I'm so proud of them. Because we have up to five generations of glass artists now in our family. And so because our grandchildren, believe it or not. And so we don't. And so that's how we have up to five generations. But all these kids that come through that door, we love them all. And we want them all to know that they have a place to come to and to learn. And if they ever have any questions, this is somewhere they can come to. Yeah. I could you talk a little bit about I'm just very curious about What it means to be Cherokee certified. Is that a process? What it what do you have to go through in order to become Cherokee certificate? So to be Cherokee certified, you have to have your Indian card, your CDIB card, and there's a verification where they you go through and you send them your card, you send them your ID, you show them your word, and they say, Yes, you are Cherokee and you're an artist. Congratulations. You're part of it. And so and what that does is that protects that the Cherokee Arts. it's a brand. Yes. And so if I make a piece and I'm like this is Cherokee made, this is a feather made by Cherokee artists, then that is verified that that is actually made by a Cherokee artist. Otherwise it needs to be noted this is Native American influence. Okay, okay. I meant from a consumer perspective too, I meant that's it's gotta be huge to have that identity because you want something that's authentic in many ways. you're also located in the Red Fork district, right on Route 66. Yes. And that also has great meaning to many consumers, tourists alike. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what made this location, was that part of the the sort of thinking this Route 66 or at least having some connection? I know we were talking before about like trying to get walk-in track traffic and those kinds of things. Do you have this connection with the route s Route 66? So being Tulsa Native, born at I was born at Yocrest Hospital. It's right down the street. the park down the street that's on Route 66 is was the drop-off station where my parents would meet, you know, for my weekends with each other. You know, so a lot of my history is here too. This feels like home for me. It's where I'm comfortable. Red Fork is just amazing. It's just a great little gym down here. There's so much history and you know we were very fortunate to be offered this spot here. And it was through doing other programs with other artists. So networking with other artists and finding your people that support you and that want you s to succeed and and you want them to
succeed too. Yeah. So it's just networking and and getting with those artists. So I was doing a program with an artist where we were both volunteering as mentors. And I was like, Hey, I see that you, you know, he said, I saw you open up at the other spot. How's it going? I'm like, it's going okay. I've kind of outgrown that area. I said I really like your area. I'd like to be around other artists, the artist community. Exactly. And he said, Well, I might have something for you. And so they invited me to come in and to move in here and and that's been great. Having the support of other artists and being part of a community and helping make changes and it's been it's been great. Yeah. I mean having that network as an entrepreneur, especially when we we would call this sort of like a cluster. of artistic businesses because then you're not solely dependent on attracting the the customer. Someone else might be, and then they see your store. And so it's very complimentary, I guess, to one another. I want to I want to dive a little bit more into the business side, the entrepreneurial side of of your your brain. And I'm really curious about businesses that have multiple and think about multiple revenue streams because it's obvious here That folks, yes, they may come in and buy some stained glass, but it seems like you can do a far more. And I wonder if you could talk about all the different elements that you've come up with to think about diversification of how consumers, how you know revenue might be driven by the store. Right. So when we move things to change a little bit, and with those changes, you have to try new stuff. And you know, we started selling supplies to help our students continue learning. we started teaching classes, adding more spaces and giving a good hands-on unique experience into how stained glass is done. We have tried different things. You just have to try it. And if it works, it works. If it don't, then you have to just sit in your car, cry, get over it, and do something else. Move on. Yeah, like to fail is not an option. You didn't do all this for nothing. You want to keep it going. I don't want to let anyone down. You know, I have now I have all these students and they rely on me for their supplies, for their advice, for you know, to keep them going. It's some of their secondary incomes too. And so we we want to keep, so I gotta keep pushing. And when I get frustrated, I'm like, that was a bad month, you know, then you just gotta move on and you're like, okay, well, then that didn't work. You try something else. And you're always learning and you're always trying. And the thing is just don't give up. Just keep swimming. Don't stop like that. And and find those people around you that are gonna support you and that believe in you. And my customers and like my followers on Facebook, they're those are my friends. So community. Yes. And when I'm having a hard time or I'm like doubting myself, they're always there to back you up. You
have people that believe in you, like it's just amazing. It just blows me away of The support and how supportive people are and so nice and they want to see you succeed and they want you to do good. And those are people you need to keep around you. And you gotta keep that in the back of your mind when you're doubting yourself to try new things that hey, it's gonna be okay, but you gotta try it, even if you're not comfortable, you gotta try it and see if it works. So we've done selling supplies, we've done Art drop, Route 66 Art Drop. You know, we've done different things. Yeah. And participate in as much as you can. Be part of your community. Reach out. Be friends with your neighbors. you know, get the kids involved and do different things. Go to your meetings, find out who's around you. You know, Main Street. It's great. You know, I can't wait to get on your podcast and learn more. I've already seen some things where I was like, That's gonna be helpful. I need that. I need that. Yeah. You know, all of us need that. I don't think I'll ever learn everything I need to learn. And I don't even know if I'll get to make every single ass piece I want to make, but I'm sure gonna keep trying and I'm not gonna give up. That's that's really good. And I mean it's so much good advice all in one there. And it's probably why this is like a factoid that I learned. Okay. You were on Good Morning America. Yeah. What the heck? I'm sitting with someone from Good Morning America right here, right? I don't know. She was worried about the podcast. Okay, yeah, you've got to tell the story. What happened? How did this come about? What did you even talk about? So it was they were going over businesses that had succeeded through COVID that had survived through COVID. Okay. So this was a COVID survival story. Yes. You know, that was terrifying because I had just opened my first freaking mortar and hadn't even had my grand opening and COVID hit and everything was getting shut down. And I was like, What am I gonna do? Just sign this lease and they were like, You still gotta pay your rent. So I was like, Well, okay, you know, I I could do this and learned how to do The live thing, you know, and sell things online. We designed our studio during that time, which made our studio now a studio that other studios use as an example. the way that we are able to set ours up for your e commerce store. Mm-hmm. Well, for teaching. for our teaching studio is a model studio. Other studios are are doing what we do. Mimicking what you do. Because it works so well. Everyone has their own areas and it was because of COVID. So COVID was it was that. You know, we no one's like, I love COVID. It was not good. It was scary. And as a new business owner that just risked everything. Yeah. I was terrified. But I had to come up with that rent. So we had to come up with different things and figured it out. And we did. And you know, that was we have a you know homeschool. Lots of people were doing homeschool. And those kids weren't able to get out and do anything. So we start teaching kids. I drew a line in the middle of the floor. So this is for masked people, this is non-masked people. You cannot cross the line. You're not friends today. Yeah. You stay over there, you stay over there. I had a a table in the middle with a mask with gloves and hand sanitizer. And I just worked both sides. And I want everyone to feel safe. I want them to feel welcome. And they were all six foot apart. And we all lived happily ever after. Yeah, whatever their decision was, they can make it. It still coexists. It gave them a safe place to go where they could still do art. They could still learn things and get away for a minute. And we had one little girl that was go in recovery. She had was re I forget what you got. She was recovering from cancer. Okay. And so she couldn't be around anyone. Yeah. At all. So she came in, we shut down well the studio was already shut because COVID. But there's one day that we had, it was just strictly for her. and so she that was the only place she could go. But we would sanitize, make sure everything was cleaned for a good, you know, hours before she got there. And then we would be make sure that we were covered to keep her safe and healthy. And that was her cotton. And and that is, you know. She's great. And she's healthy and doing great now. Yeah. And so those are just the things that we wanted to offer as a mom. You know, I felt we need to we need to figure out how to work together, how to make all this work. And when you do good things and you put others, it always comes back. And so thankfully we we made it through all that. And so I guess I don't know. And I got a call one day and I thought it was spam or something. And she was like And then she goes, Well, I'm in New York. And then she texted me and was like, Well, here's my phone number, don't me back. And and I called her back and you could hear like traffic, like what I would imagine New York City would sound like. That's what it sounded like. Okay. She said that's where she was. And I was like, Okay. And so they're like, We'll be here, we'll be down. And so they traveled down to the store. Yes, they were going to different states and they were like, okay, well, we and I think it was like three day notice. I was like, okay, I got I gotta go clean, you know, my studio. And so they showed up and it was it was really cool. Yeah. That's that's yeah, that's it was really like I I just felt like the luckiest, very fortunate, just like having you here. You know, I'm I'm just very thankful. No, it's this is a great experience for us, and and like the whole part of the podcast is to be able to tell your story, your journey. That's what people want to hear. That's the authentic part. And I wanna fast forward, if you don't mind, sort of current day. All right. And you know, we is a national organization that works with communities and lots of small business owners. You know,
we're certainly concerned about changes, whether it's in technology, society, or the autonomy, because that influences and impacts your business. You're constantly ebb and flowing, trying to keep up with changes or You know, what's inflation doing or what's my inventory cost gonna be, or consumers gonna come through the door, what's their spending? I I wonder if you could c comment just on kind of how you're feeling today, what what concerns or challenges, or where you might see opportunity. Like where are you at? Where's your headspace? So right now we are going through where our supplies have gone up. I just did a shipment where my to get glass has to be freighted. And if we was about twice as much as it usually was. the crate of glass has gone up quite a bit, everything has gone up. And so that unfortunately has to be passed on to my customers. Then that concerns me because they're doing this for a living too. And can they afford to keep doing it? Am I gonna be able to stay in business if they can't afford to buy supplies? I don't wanna spend that much for a thing of solder either, but we have to have it to make our pieces. You know, bit like this month has been very, very slow. Last month was very slow, but that's also kind of typical for this time of the year. Your cycle is pretty. So what we do is though we make graduation feathers for the seniors at Indian Education. They give our feathers that we make, and I personally hand beat them all in their school colors, and they're handed out to students. Well, that's what gets us through the slow time. And yes, everything is high right now, but honestly, the this kind of normal for us for this time of year. Yeah. And so we have just had to learn. You have to do something else. You know it's going to be slow during that time. Everyone's busy going to graduations and thinking planning their summer vacations. They're not going to put classes. And you know, you're not our supplies have been kind of slow too. So we reached out to all these Indian education offices and And was like, hey, we make these beautiful feathers. Yeah. And we got orders and that is how I paid my rent last month. Yeah. But you paid it in respects. No, I mean seriously. I mean, that's incredible. We just have to keep trying different things. What are the needs? What is okay, so if business is not going on, what's going on out there that you can participate in? And that's what we did. Yeah. Fantastic. Wow. What about when it comes to technology? One of the things that we're interested in knowing a little bit more about is obviously you can't like see the news or pick up a newspaper, whatever, media, wherever you get it, not see something about AI, right? AI is all over the place. And but I'm always curious, okay, like how's a small business owner using it? I know how like big corporations are using it. Are you using it in any way? Are you thinking about it? There's good and bad with AI. I had this event that I was planning and I I
feel almost guilty because there might be some be like that's use a lot of water somewhere. Okay I'm trying to learn what AI is too. I don't really know. I'm trying to learn too is it good is bad but I needed help on this event and it really I did kind of reach into it and and it was helpful and it probably saved me about five hours of my time. But I need to be working on my pieces. I don't have a master's degree in anything. I have a decree in anything. Master's in AI or something. So that was helpful for me. And I needed that. And it saved me some time and it saved me some money. I'm not a person of big words. so that was it was helpful. Where it's not helpful is when people contact me and they're like, Can you make me this? And I said, That's not real. That was AI. There is no stained glass swing in the world. There's not a stained glass bathtub. that's fascinating. And then there's other things where I'm thankful that AI doesn't know how to do. Yes. And I almost don't want to say it out loud because I don't want it to work on it. Yeah. Let me listen. But you know, so there are some things in stained glass AI doesn't know how to do, and that is making patterns. And so it doesn't know how we engineer those patterns. I said I thought it was gonna hear me. So it's gonna, you know, it doesn't know how those have to be designed. Those have to be designed in a certain way. And it it doesn't know how to do that. So that kind of gives me relief. It's not going to take over my Cherokee either. No, it makes it better. It is not. So you know I think that there's always good and bad to everything, just like COVID, that was horrible, but we learned a lot through it. And I've I've learned I learned a lot through COVID and AI, that's just the new thing. You know, things come up and bits and pieces, you know, like tariff. I didn't know what the heck a tariff was. What's a tariff? You know, I don't know what a tariff is. So we had to go through that. Okay. And so every time there's always gonna be something around the corner. Exactly. Always kind of like the horn in the back that's Phoebe. But that's the thing about being like Live and recording we can just pretend we're in New York. Exactly. We're a New York city. No, we're not. We're in Tel Oklahoma. That that was really helpful. I you never know when you ask that kind of question what you're gonna what you're gonna get. This is kind of like new and on the edge, but it is something that that I think small business owners are are grappling with. whether it's the technology or pricing or Yeah, I just wouldn't let it take over too much. with because like on your flyers that you make when you share in social media, people know you. Yeah. Your customers, they know you. They know that I'm not gonna be using those fancy words. They know I don't know what that word means. Yeah. So if you're gonna try to be all fancy and use AI, you're gonna lose that personal connection that you have with your customers. So I just Me, I just try to use it a little bit here and there where I need it and use it to learn. I want to learn. I don't necessarily want anything to do anything for me. I like to do everything. And so and I want to constantly learn. And so that's where I use. I think that there's good, bad to every new thing, and you just gotta figure out how it's gonna work for you and and so you can take over the world, not anything else. Exactly. I I'm just I'm just glad that you're being your authentic self voice because yeah, I I don't think it can mimic that. I really don't. I like to close out with a little bit of advice and you've you've had some intermingled throughout this conversation. I think a lot of our small business owners will gravitate to, but you know, these kinds of places what I I think there's I think what makes Main Street businesses so unique is they sort of have this value set. To them, this thing that often goes uncalculated or maybe not necessarily recognized. It may be like having the young child here that you did where you close down the place and just create a special time for her. And like no big box is gonna do that. No online experience is gonna be able to do that. And and so I wonder if if there are things that you have learned that you'd like to share that. that you feel make your place unique or as a small business owner differentiate yourself? Well, it is a hands-on experience, you know, when when you're learning, when you come in in person, you can ask me for advice. And I do have to compete against some of the big box stores. They also are selling supplies and they're selling supplies cheaper than I can. You know, they're able to buy bigger quantities and sometimes they're selling them at prices that is my wholesale price. And that's very discouraging. And it's like, how am I going to stay open? How am I going to do this? I can't compete with them. You know, I'm just a little, you know, I'm just a little person. But really, you're not, you know. And so the thing that I just say is they can my customers now, they can come to me and they can ask me questions. Hey, I'm having this issue. I'm trying to make this piece. And I know what it's like not to have After my mom passed away, when I would come across challenges trying to make windows, and I was like, I can't figure out how to get past this problem with this window. I can't make this work. I don't want to do. It was just another reminder that my mom was gone and I didn't have any support and I didn't have anyone to go to to ask for. And I didn't ever want anyone else to ever feel like that because there were times where I wanted to throw in the towel and be like, never mind, maybe I'm not very good at this. Maybe I need to go back to my job. where I have my weekends off and my insurance and all that good stuff, you know? And then I would doubt myself and I was like, wait, no, no, you're not. You didn't do all this for nothing. You're gonna keep going and you're gonna offer
support so that other people don't feel that way. And you're gonna encourage other people to do what they their dreams and to do hard things and to be resilient and to not give up and keep trying. Like so People can come in here and even if they don't take a class, if they ask me a question, I'm not gonna be like, Well, if you take a call, we're gonna help you with that. Find this paper right here. Right. Yeah. No. I want I want everyone to succeed. And that is for me, like seeing my students out there having foods, selling their pieces and making money. Like, yes, I'm their biggest cheerleader. That's what it's I want them to succeed. Their success is my Love that love that. Yeah, they're they're gonna get some personal experience. And I hope that everyone, anyone that comes in here knows that we're here for them and I'll be their friend. They don't need to drag a friend to come and take a class. I hear that all the time. I want to take a class, why don't someone come with me? No, you don't. Yeah. You're gonna ignore them because you're gonna be concentrating on what I'm teaching you to do. And now you know me, I'm a friend. Yeah. So you're not gonna be alone. Yeah, you'll be fine. You can do this. I got you. Get in here. So I love it. Yeah, Agitsi is about making people feel included, welcome, safe, you know, and they can ask questions. And we're here to support them. We want them to succeed. They're not my competition. They're my students. They're my friends. Love it. Love it. All right, Brandi. Thank you so very much for being on the show. And thanks for having us at Agee. It's been a wonderful time. It's so nice meeting you. And I think you probably made some new friends. Hopefully they contact you. Come into the store. We're in Tulsa. Everyone. All right. Thanks for joining. Brandi. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Matt. And welcome to Tulsa. I hope you enjoy your stay. Definitely. Thanks. Thank you.
Matt Wagner - Outro: Well that's gonna do it for the show with Brandi Hines Lee at Agee Stained Glass, which was recorded during our conference in Tulsa earlier in 2026. But before I let you go, I think I owe you an explanation. It's if you've been a longtime listener, you probably noticed that the May Street Business Insights podcast, we went quiet for a little while, about six months actually. Now that wasn't accidental, and it wasn't because I ran out of things to say. It's because I've actually been writing a lot from the podcast and putting it into a book. It's called Investing in Main Street Businesses, Why Rootedness Matters More Than We Measure. And I'll just call it rooted here in our our segment. it makes really the case I've been building over the years and talking to so many Main Street businesses across the country, whether it's been on the podcast in various interviews from projects at Main Street America. Focus groups, you name it. Mainstream businesses, as we all know, create economic and community value that frankly are our conventional metrics and economic development systems just don't capture it all. Every conversation you've heard on the podcast, every business owner who shared their story, that's really the the raw material for the book and the narratives that are shared throughout. And Brandy's story, of course, is part of that, as so many. that have been on the show. I'm really proud to say that Rub Rutledge Publishing is going to be putting the book out. We're hoping for sometime in late 2027. And getting to this point meant writing a full proposal and sample chapters, which is a pretty big lift, maybe a little bit more bigger lift than I anticipated or expected. And that's where the hiatus went a little bit longer. So here's where things stand. The podcast is back. starting with this show. And I've got a sort of a backlog that I've created over the the summer of additional conversations to be bringing with you, all that will sort of both enhance, I think, the the book as I'm writing it and and hopefully we'll build in some layers of learnings into those stories and into the podcast and sort of this interconnected tissue between the the book and the podcast. And so I'll keep sharing more about where I'm at as well. And and I hope you'll join me on the the the journey as the book comes together. Really appreciate everyone sticking with us and the podcast. I hope you'll like and subscribe, whatever you're listening or watching the podcast on. But we're back at it and we'll see you the next time. Thanks so much.