התמלול המלא של The Monster Inside Every Good Leader | Jerry Brazie ft. Bruce Babashan

So, you know, I went into corporate America. And the truth is that I didn't, I didn't I got into the the job that launched me to being, in corporate America because somebody did me a favor. Somebody had seen me in the past. We had worked together on a small project. He had seen the effort. He had seen my approach to things, the way I thought, the way I managed people. And he called me out of the blue one day and I'll I'll tell you Jerry, it's when I needed it. things weren't things weren't They weren't terrible for me. I wasn't losing, but I wasn't winning. And, he this guy called me out of the blue. It's a great story because for me personally, it's like a testimonial for me. It's like one of those moments in your life when you, you you pray for something and you pray so much then you forget about it. Then all of a sudden that prayer is answered. Months and months and months later, in ways you couldn't it couldn't imagine, and you make the connection, it's as a really profound life experience. So I got into the search business. Exceled. This is the retained search business. This is the senior level, high-end, C level, suite and board level, assignments. And I I excelled at it. It fit my temperament, it fit my personality, my ability to relate to people, to communicate. So it was a great opportunity. And along that side, that I was still going into the gym every morning. I would go bang around with the guys, the younger guys in the mornings and go in after work. That was my therapy. That was my exercise. That was my peace. That was my joy. My outlet, my conditioning, my all that stuff that you get from from something you love and something that's physical like that. So those two lives grew, you know, side by side. And as you get older in fighting, you realize, you know, the that you look around one day and all the faces in the gym are young, you know, they're teenagers, they're young people, young boys and girls coming up and they're looking for somebody to help them. And one of the things that happened to me, I I didn't get any help in the gym. Gym the gyms can be hard places, right? Because the coaches are looking for the talent. The coaches are looking for what are they looking for? They're looking for the the the next they want to ho hitch their wagon to some train that's gonna go there's some star that's gonna the skyrocket. So I then got approached by kids. They wanted me to coach them. They said, Hey coach, you know, would you coach me and you know, would you be my coach? I did it that way at first. And it turned out to be something I loved, something I wanted to do, something that was therapeutic. It was cathartic. I was also pretty good at it. My father was a coach. And so I I started doing that and I loved it. And I loved it. So at first, I guess you'd call me a what would you call it? A player coach. And I was in the gym every day working with the kids. And then I would get my suit and tie on and I'd go to work at the office. They used

to call me Bullworth. I'd come in all banged up. Here I am, trying to place a CEO with a black eye. it be it became a a a thing for me. But I found the two things very, very personally, challenging, but I saw a lot of the same things in the people. I saw a lot of the same things in the fighters. And so my careers grew side by side. I became, I grew in the search business. I started out in Washington, D.C. as a vice president and grew into the practice managing director of Los Angeles and the practice president of the gaming and hospitality practice for for the firm. And along with that, the fighters that I was training and developing and and were where they were winning and they were growing and and my reputation in that business grew and it just grew side by side and and that's how I made my bones and how I got to where I was. Jerry Brazie: Did you as a coach, what was it specifically about coaching? I think I hear this all the time in interviews where people say, you know, I I I started coaching and I really found my calling and I was really good at coaching, or I enjoyed coaching, and it was your word exactly cathartic. What was it about your coaching? Was it a style, bruce: I I tell ya. Jerry Brazie: Was it was it the guys that you worked with? What was it specifically about coaching that A made you that made you good at it? and B, what was that style that made you good at it? bruce: So all of the most of the important figures in my life growing up. I you know, I started playing competitive sports at six years old with my father and my coaches. And so I always looked up to them and I always hoped that they were proud of the life that I was building for myself. That was my my you know my thought of of coaches. I mean, they were so profit. So I always wanted to be a coach and I was fortunate. To have good coaches, hard men. But I knew I was loved and I knew I was cared for. And everything that was being done for me was to make me better, but they were hard men. And that, you know, that stayed in me. And I knew at some point, I may not even articulate it to myself, but I knew at some point that I wanted to be a coach and I had a head start because I'd had all this this real life mentoring, teaching how to run a program, how to build a process, how to. get results. I understood all that because I was immersed in that when I was a child. It wasn't just winning and losing games. My coaches taught me how to win, how to build a process and a system that produces results so that's repeatable. So I had that advantage. So I had the passion and I had the I had the advantage because I had good coaching. And my style of coaching That's interesting. I I think it's like an a I think it's an amalgam of a bunch of things. Of a lot of it is just me. And and the older I get, the more me I become. I hope I hope your your your audience can can relate to that. you start off one way I started off with an image of what I wanted to be as a coach and then grew into a a

much more natural representation of who I actually am as a coach. I might have been less open to instruction, less open to help, more open I'm more command oriented when I was young. I'm s I but I'm now I'm I'm a different coach, but I'm I'm highly, highly demanding. I'm very rigid. But there's all kinds of love that is w woven into that and and I make sure that the kids know that, you know, if I'm on you know, it's for a purpose and it's for a reason, but I'm still not gonna let off the hook on something. If I ask you to do something, you need to do that. And if you can't do that and won't do that, then I'm not the coach for you. But I approach that with a loving heart as opposed to a command position that I used to do when I was younger. So it was a natural evolution for me. And in and in and in business, I was growing alongside of that, Jerry. I like I I had a lot of success and I had a lot of I mishandled a lot of it. I look back in retrospect. I you know, I had a I had written a I had written at one time in our firm, we were the fifth largest. search firm in the country and and it was very competitive back then and and I had written this rally I've written this document about some ideas I had that could rally some energy within the firm. I we had sixty offices around the country and I just figured, hey, this is I so I wrote it and it gathered a lot of momentum within the f and I really it put me into a place in the firm that that if I would have handled better, I could have done more things. I mishandled it. And While I was important inside the firm and while I was respected and I highly regarded, I could have done a better job at managing I was just too young and too inexperienced to manage all of the accolades I was getting and all of the responsibilities I was getting. And I look back now, it's not like I st but I look back now and I say, Boy, if I'd have just handled that in a different way, if I'd have been much more open to learning, much more open to criticism, much more less defensive, more inclusive. You know, a whole bunch of things you do when you're a when you're a when you're a knucklehead. If I had been more of that, I think I would have I would have done much bet even though I did great. So I'm not trying to do I did great in the in the environment. But you know, you I look back now it I don't really focus too much in my life on and this is maybe weird, right? This may be weird. I don't know. But I don't really look back on my life and go, Man, I was awesome there and I was great there. I was man, I was spectacular. I look back and I go, Man, I F that up. And I I should have done this. I have so many I wish I had so many do overs with kids that I've coached over the years and football and fighting, you know, and you know, you don't realize a lot of times you you you got this massive response. You don't When you're young and you're coaching, you're trying to get outcomes and you're trying to get wins, but as you grow as a coach, you realize your job is about the people and the kids and making sure that the results that they become at the end of this process something better for having to know have known you. And, you know, a lot of the kids are difficult and a lot of the kids are they don't have structure, so you so there's conflicts and I've mishandled some of those over the years and put kids out of the program or Or been too hard on kids in retrospect. And I've lost a couple kids that I wish I'd have had a do-overs to. But all this is just the process of becoming a better person. You know what I mean? And in that better person, I become a better coach and I become, you know, a better in the business that I'm at. But it also like the business I'm in now, I wouldn't be able to be in that business if I haven't, I didn't have a plethora of screw ups and and I didn't have a plethora of of wish I had doovers, you know, in my life. So all of it it's all served a purpose. I'm 64 years. I'm actually 64 as of yesterday. And you know, I'm it's all served its purpose to get me to where I am today, Jerry Brazie: Hey everybody, quick break. I want to tell you about something I'm doing for the first time. I'm putting together the first Kronos Group Cohort. That's 10 business owners max. And understand this is not a course. It's a peer level work with other operators and direct access to me on a month to month basis. We're to go deep on what actually moves the needle for businesses like systems and sales and leadership and staying sane while you're building something real, fitness, health, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. This group is for you. The people who get in on this first cohort get founder pricing and that's the trade for going first. And it won't be open long and it's not going to stay at this price for sure. If you've been listening to this show or me and thinking you need a room like this, you probably do. 10 spots founder special, check it out. The links in the show notes. I I think I always say, Bruce, that as a young man, I thought that I had everything figured out. And if life is a hundred gig hard drive, then mine was surely seventy-five percent full based on, you know, my childhood and where I found myself at twenty-eight years old. And I tell the young guys now, in particular entrepreneurs, that I'm about to be fifty-eight here on in jump january sixth. And that I am confident that at fifty-eight my hard drive is twenty five percent full and I'm not going to live long enough to learn all of the lessons that I have to learn. And a lot of those re realization comes that as I get older I reflect back on the things that I would have done differently. And then again, you wait and hope for the opportunity to take that wisdom and deploy it again in a different manner than you did the first time. So I don't disagree with that. You're a You're a great person to ask this question. I'm a huge sports fan. I always have been. And I'm a big guy. I'm six

foot four and two hundred and forty pounds. And I've always been super athletic. And and so in my youth, sports was a huge thing. I was a poor kid from the streets. I was homeless. And so it made us feel powerful. Sports. It took us away from the life that we had. for those few minutes. It was kind of that escape. And the problem though. As I've gotten older with sports that I see, and I became an entrepreneur and I was that was really good at it and I had a lot of success. And none of the skills relative to coaching, competitiveness, on the field, behavior, effort, my interpretation of what competition looked like and how that manifested itself from watching Bobby Knight throw chairs across gym floors, things of that nature, George Brett. Kicking and screaming dirt onto the onto the umpire's feet. all of those interactions never manifest or never reflected well in business. I always say that an unemotional business leader is going to make the best decisions, and the guy who can get people to do for him what he wants them to do and let them think it's their idea, that's a true manager. And so this idea of in front, hyper-aggressive, hyper-competitive. I've fired more of those dudes than I've ever kept. And the guys who could street smarts and a little bit of common sense and could communicate had all the value in the world. So I've changed my tune a little bit. I'm still a sports fan, but having grown up that way as a Gen X kid like you are, I'm not sure that we are teaching our kids the proper values relative to what can help them be successful in the long run, because let's face it, n the few of them are going to play high school sports, forget about professional sports. bruce: Yeah, yeah. it's it's so I hear and feel all of that. And I think I touched on it a little bit and I touch on it all the time. Sometimes I'll go and I'll I'll run a clinic or I'm asked to speak at a clinic and I'll talk about things and I said the most important thing that we teach kids there there's too much focus there's a look, there's too much focus on outcomes and there's this juxtaposition because if you're a coach, look, when you're a pro coach in my and my fighting career, that's what they pay me for. They pay me for outcomes. They don't tell they don't they're not interested in anything other than outcomes. In high school football, it's a different story in the developmental aspects of sports. When you get into pros, it's about money, it's a it's a it's a business, it's about dollars and cents, and I understand that. But when you're the vast majority of kids, so I think only two percent will go pro in any sport. The vast majority of kids are going to walk away from sports with memories. And what they should walk away with, and what my opinion is about what coaches should be doing is teaching the process of success. So I was watching I was watching an interview with with some players that played for John Wooden. This is years ago. And, you know, they were talking

about how they you know there were most of them are successful in business. And they were talking about how when they would go travel to watch other teams play, you know, warm up and stuff. That they would laugh to themselves at the lack of process and system that existed within that other team's organization. And what I realized through this conversation was that the most important thing John Wooden did was teach process. There's a process, when you have a process orientation, when you look at things and you break it in down to a process, and then you continually modify and tinker with and improve the process, but it's repeatable. You're teaching how to be successful. Whether you are successful or not, sometimes depends on the athlete, depends on some things. But typically, coaches who are consistently good, Saban, all those, are process-oriented people. They're not outcome-oriented people. The outcomes take care of themselves. There's too much focus on outcome. The outcome is the outgrowth or the result of the process. Most coaches, that's not true. A lot of coaches are simply out. Oriented. And you can hear it when they coach and when they teach. They're talking about we've got to do this to win. We've got to do this. When I coach, I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not comparing myself to any of those coaches. I'm talking about myself. I have some things in in what would you say in common with them? Is that we don't talk about winning. We're just not interested. We're talking about what the process is, what we have to do right here. And that that goes to my To that statement that you read early on, that I just, when you get older, you lose. I say, you can you can think things into existence and things. I know if there's any magic, it's a good way to say this, there's any magic in the world that I know of and that I've seen repeated. It's that moment which is undefinable. You cannot tell when it happens, where desire turns into belief. And desire, through the process of hard suffering and work and sacrifice, when the more you do that, there is a moment after a period of time, there's a spiritual event. It's undefinable in terms of when it happens, but it happens. I've experienced it. is that you stop desiring something and you believe that it's going to happen. And of course, in sports and competition and like that, the the the things we all seek are when you have two believers getting in there at the same time. That's when you got something. when you have two organizations or two athletes that believe you have the irresistible force meaning the immovable object, that's when you really have something. But to me, the most th that moment is the most powerful moment of turning people from the things they want to be into the things they're going to be. And that moment is the only magic that I'm aware of. And it only comes at the end of a long and I I'm a big samurai guy, I like to read about the samurai and stuff. And I think that the discipline, the the the the the denial that goes with the suffering that goes with it is all building towards that moment I'm talking about. And when that happens, you don't it's not like you you're walking down the street and you go, you know, it doesn't happen like that. It happens very subtly. And all of a sudden, you have this belief. And if you can get 30 other dudes or 30 other girls on your team. to believe and have the same experience, then you become an unstoppable organization. Then you become an Indiana, a 10 time national champion. Then you become an Alabama where things the ball bounces your way, the brakes go your way. That is all part of the same dynamic that and the only way that I know of to achieve that, the only way I've ever seen and been part of is through a massive amount of hard work and suffering. And that's, I wish it were different. I wish there was some kind of, Other shortcut, but I don't know if there's a shortcut to that. But when you get to that moment, you are a changed person and the quest that you're on becomes a totally different animal and you become unstoppable. And we've all experienced that in our lives. All of us have experienced. I heard I I heard what's the guy's name? he's the big motivation, the biggest motivational speaker guy. Jerry Brazie: Tony Robbins. bruce: Tony Robbins say one time years ago. Most people spend their lives deciding to decide. I identify with that it's at some point. But once you decide, we don't know, once you've decided and then everything goes, and then you once you believe, that turns you into a completely different type of competitor. That turns Jerry Brazie: I think bruce: you into an animal in your space, and that's when you Jerry Brazie: Yeah. bruce: achieve at the highest level. Jerry Brazie: I I think too, you you you you mentioned Alabama and Nick Saban, and I think that that's that's probably a perfect example because you hit something on the head there, which is the work ethic and the hard work and the structure and the program. But I there's a new s four or six part series coming out on Nick Sabin on ESPN, and I keep seeing ads for it all of the time. And the ads are Nick Sabin. screaming and yelling and grabbing people by the helmets and screaming at the referees and running down the sidelines. That's the a I've now seen this ad 35 times if I've seen it once for his six part episode. And it is I I'm sure in the episode it'll get into that. But we are constantly inundated, Bruce, with this is what success looks like. This is what winning looks like. This is what competition looks like. And to your point at that level It's as much entertainment as it is sport. And so in that tiny little insignificant world, that behavior, I always say these motorcycle guys, they put them shows, right? And the dad and the son work together and they're screaming and yelling at each other and they're throwing wrenches and the camera follows them out the door. these bruce: right, right, right, right.

Right. Jerry Brazie: cooking shows where the coach where the where the head chef is, grabs the food and throws it on the ground and says, eat it, and screams at all of his people. And just like no one would work. For these people. This is not reality. It's not real world. And more and more we see these young people, young men in particular, emulate this behavior in a way that steals their opportunity. There's no guarantee of success. But I think it steals some of that opportunity if they'd spend more time on the hard work and the discipline and the program that Saban has, and less time on screaming and yelling and grabbing helmets. Maybe you would have a lot less th of that in the real world, I suppose. And I know that's wishful thinking, but that's the message I want people to hear. bruce: I think no and I I think it's an interesting point and I and I because I respect you and so I'm gonna push back on you just a little bit and I hope you Jerry Brazie: Please do, yes. bruce: do, when you're given the responsibility of of setting standards for young men and holding young athletes to a standard or young girls, you know, gals team to a standard for for our female coaches, when you're given that obligation. and you're in a highly competitive environment, you have to establish early on with the athlete what is acceptable and what is not. And, you know, you're dealing with young people who who, you know, have their they're forming their their their understanding of themselves and what it is to be accountable and responsible and things like that. And one of the hardest, I think that the best coaches that I'm aware of. Certainly at the developmental level. When you get to pros, it becomes different because in a lot of ways the the the coach's his role is diminished in terms of his they're not interested in forming, the character of athletes. Those are those are full grown, full developed men and women. you have to coach them differently. But when you're in the developmental stage of a young person's life, the coaches that I've been successful with and the coaches I've seen and the coaches, quite frankly, my teachers, I I I had a fourth grade teacher. Let me give this woman her due. Miss Riley. Great teacher. Hardest teacher I ever had. Just prof just there wasn't one ounce of give or break or room. She was just hard, man. I didn't expect this. Anyway, so she was just spectacular, but she made me in fourth grade she she taught me about how I how good I could be, that I was smart and that I was capable, and that she loved me so much. That she wouldn't allow me not to succeed, even if it cost my relationship with her in the short term. And I think of Miss Riley every day. You know, I whatever I do, I hope that she's proud of me. Along with my coaches, but the the people that have demanded the most from me asked the most of me, believed the most in me, and would not take less than what I was capable of. And sometimes that created conflict between the two of

us, quite frankly. Those were the most effective people in my life, and I remember those lessons and I and I'm the same way with my athletes. You know, walk into the gym. Jerry at the wrong time. And you might find me, you know, ranting and raving with that with a with a young fighter. I'm not doing that. I think one of the things that happens is that in today's society, everybody's into performative art. You know what I mean? They want to perform for the video camera and for this camera, that guy. I don't give a shit about that stuff. I my in the gym, I'm trying to drive this kid to a result. If I know he's capable and I know he's not putting forth the effort, I demand it. And I will stay on him until he gives it to me. And it's not for me, it's for him. It's to it's it and I'm willing to suffer and sacrifice I'm willing to give up my relationship with him. His like for me, I could care less about. The lesson that I'm trying to teach him is what I care about and the result that he can get from that lesson when he carries that forward. If I've done that. And and at the end, if we've done that during the process, we're not friends. I'm fine with not being his friend. At the end, I want him to walk out as a better human being, more capable, more understanding of what he is capable of. And that I, as his coach, would not let him do anything less. And every time he tried to do less while he was in my presence, it was unacceptable. And sometimes that creates conflict. And sometimes You appear unreasonable, but it's unreasonable people who change things in life. It's unreasonable people who achieve the most amount of success in life. Not the not the reasonable guy or the gal, it's the unreasonable person. So I get where you're coming from because I agree. I see a lot of this performative art. I see a lot of coaches with one eye on the athlete and one eye on the camera. I see it all the time and it makes me sick. But I see guys like Saban who Can clearly coach and produce unbelievable results, but I see the athletes talk about him afterwards. And they they talk about him with the same reverence I just expressed for Mrs. Riley and my coaches. And I think when you have that, that's an incredible responsibility, an incredible opportunity to live with high purpose. And to, you know, to really like I don't know about you, but for me in my life, the I'm I'm feeling my best when I'm doing the most for other people, and and that really, really, really helps me. So I I understand exactly what you're saying for the and because a lot of coaches are really look at me, look at me. You see them all over the place. It's it's incredible. You know, I mean they're they're more interested in the limelight than the coaching, right? But the coaches that hold kids accountable to standards. And who are willing to sacrifice the short-term relationship for the long-term gain that this young person will have. And then that person reflects upon the relationship, years down the road, in the same way I did. That's how we save as athletes do. I think, I think that there's there's a mix in there. So I hear where you're coming from. That's my my positioning on. Jerry Brazie: I love your I love that story. mine is Mrs. Shockley, bruce: Mm. Jerry Brazie: Arlene Shockley. and I have a great had a great history. She died here last year, late last year, and i in her nineties and and and what it was was just the ball breaker to use the term. I mean, just bruce: Yeah. Jerry Brazie: she was the one and everyone hated her, and I never understood why everyone hated her because to me that was the best teacher I ever had. So I love that story. I love your passion about it. And I don't want to beat this Up too much, but I really want to get your take on it. Specifically, I agree with you on the impact coaches have, the Nick Sabins of the world. I understand that, and I agree with the behavior. My what I what I want to try to get out of you is your thoughts, how that translates to the real world in this context. Can you be a Nick Saban yeller and screamer and over actor and kick dirt on the umpire's feet in baseball and you know, the referees in football and the referees in basketball and the the the knights that throw the chairs across the gym floor? Does that work when you are hired as the manj manager at a McDonald's? That's kind of the point that I'm, you know, that I'm really trying to trying to get bruce: No, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jerry Brazie: at for the for the guys to hear that. It doesn't translate and I I'm at least from my perspective and again I've I've I've I've done a lot of things in business and I made most of my money by being the opposite of that, I suppose. So that's what I I'm I'm trying to I want to get an answer from ya on. bruce: There's there's a couple of things and that's a thanks for clarifying it. So so, every forum has you have appropriate behavior, right? So, there's two things. One is something that I'm I'm assessing you right now as we talk, right? I'm trying to figure you out just like you're trying to figure me out. One of the things I think that I've assessed about you is that While your outward appearance is very, very stern and gruff, you're really and you and you're a tough guy. You're a tough guy. But you're internally you've got a you you're and I don't mean this in the in this in the in the in the negative sense, but you're you're you're you have a big heart and you ha you you you're you're emp you have a high degree of empathy, and that empathy is at present in all of your interactions with your subordinates, and that you understand that you feel that your style as a leader is that for you to get the most out of them that you need the guy that you you want to you don't feel that being the the the the the general esque approach to leadership is how you're going to you personally as a leader are going to get the most from and it reflects see this is the important thing. I'm me. You're you

savings him. Right? Each one of us bring our own dispositions, our own temperaments, our own you know, sensitivities, our own capabilities to the to the to the to the game. You lead in the way because you're effective, you found that that way that you need to lead best. You know, I try and do the same. Sabin's obviously done that, but Saban would also agree that you can't walk into your boardroom and treat your board members the same way you do a 19 year old kid who's not being accountable to his teammates, right? So There's an organiz there's a there's a protocol, there's a what do you call that day? there's a s there's a way of operating inside of different organizations and different types of things. And I agree. But I think that you can achieve the same thing in different ways. I think in sports, it's it's it's all competition, it's very, very highly energized, you know, it's very, very f you know, f focused. In business, you know, you're dealing with human beings, you're dealing with lives. In a much more complex, mature environment. I think that you have to approach that in a much more professional way. But at the same time, you must hold people to standards. You know, if you don't hold them to standards, you'll tolerate anything. And once people, you know, they're just people, they will expand to the point in which you let And so, you know, you you have to hold people to standards. You hold people to standards in a way that's success. Good for you. And this is this is something else I learned a long time ago. I learned it and I and I see it all the time now as I travel. There isn't one way to be successful. There isn't one way to be the best coach, right? Each of us brings a certain level of sensitivity and life experiences and what works for them and what works for us. And you articulate things differently than I do, sometimes much better. And and sometimes differently. I I I sometimes I walk around and I listen to other people talk and say, I'm stealing that, I'm stealing that, that's a good idea. You know what I mean? That person said Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Right. Right. bruce: it better than me. that's a better idea than I have. But we all bring that what what is ultimately effective is is having a clear course, holding people to the standards, and then trying our best to hold ourselves to the same standard and to demonstrate to the kids. Or demonstrate to the employees or demonstrate to whoever you're leading that you not only expect that from them, you embody that for yourself. And that's hard. That's hard. And I can tell just by our conversation and and I and I the first time I saw you, I'd do that podcast. I said, I'd like to, I'd really like to meet Jerry. that you have a a way of of you've had a you've had a hard life and a lot of people would have caved under that circumstances, but you've turned that into to an outward expression, your physical expression and your outward expression of emotion or or or in juxtaposition in one another. And I see you as as being a a a tender guy, right? That could a a a sort of a tender guy. You're a you're a you're a steel fist wrapped in a velvet club. That's Jerry Brazie: Yeah, that's interesting that you say that. I I I and I appreciate you saying that because only because the world that I grew up in is unimaginable to so many people today and I have bruce: I think it might be unimaginable to me, really. Jerry Brazie: I I have eight brothers and sisters and I have a bunch of people that I grew up with and they all went the same direction, generally speaking, and I went the opposite direction. And so what you see from me, having grown up the way that I did, is I always say that I am the least emotional, most human being that I know. I because a lot of it does not manifest itself in me emotionally when you survive the things that I have survived. But I still I have three kids and they are the apple of my eye. I've been married for twenty-nine years. And so I broke a lot of the stigmas of where I come from generational institutional poverty. And so what you what you see is my effort because inside is a monster that constantly wants out, but he can't get out because when he has gotten out, then that has trouble or that results in trouble. So I have to channel that in a way. And I got, I was lucky, Bruce. I got a couple of extra little IQ points, a little bit of common sense, right? A little bit of strategic thinking that allowed me to go, man, I I I've had two men under my boot and nobody wins a fight. And this was my next question for you, getting punched in the face. I've been in, I don't know, hundreds of fights. In my day we fought, right? It wasn't the world that we have today. And and i i on the streets where I lived as a kid I had my the fight. Nobody really ever wins a fight. You always get scraped up. But in this case, the guy's on the ground. I've been in that position and my boot is high in the air and it's coming down. And a little voice in my head behind me, a little voice, a little female voice, said to me, Two times this happened to me. That's enough. That's enough. That's all it said. That's enough. And it made me in that rage, that nineteen-year-old rage, that 17-year-old rage. I'm gonna bring that boot down because this. They're responsible for everything that has happened to me and all of the inequity I had. And that little voice said twice to me on two different occasions, that's enough. And what that's enough meant you'd be in prison, you'd will have murdered him. You gotta go on the run. You probably get killed yourself. All of the things that come with that bad decision, that little voice told me, don't do it. I don't know where it came from, but I'm sitting here in front of you having this conversation because that voice said that to me. And so it it kind of directed my life. Was to just be a little more introspective about the things that I'm doing so that I can try to maximize my opportunities. bruce: I think I

think if I were to describe you, I listened and I There's one thing that fighting teaches you when you're in the business, right? Is that you do want to understand who you're fighting. And you develop through through hundreds of through you know, 30 years, hundreds in these things, you develop you you learn how to spy people. And one of the things I realized about you and our conversation is that you're civilized, and a civilized person. Is a monster inside who learned how to control it. That is a civilized person. The other things that we call civilized, that's just makeup. That's just that's just performative, right? The civilized man or the civilized woman is a monster inside who's learned how to control it. And that makes you complete. And I think that, you know. unfortunately, many of us don't get civilized, young people. and I think that this goes back to learning accountability somewhere along the line through inference, through fate, through luck, through introspection, because you also appear to me to be a very introspective guy. you looked upon yourself and you were able to have that third eye and to see yourself in the world that you were existing and you didn't like where it was going and you were able to that was all you. That wasn't a f that's all you. That's all you in your head, deciding, I want a better life for myself. If this foot comes down, it's jail, it's off the jail I go and it's, and all this stuff. That's a civilized, those are moments when you became civilized and they stacked upon themselves. And because you're so thoughtful, I'm not trying to By the way, I'm not trying to ingratiate myself. I'm looking at you like an opponent in a fight. And I say, okay, we're fighting Jerry. I'm going to spar Jerry and figure Jerry out. Then I'm going to figure out how to break Jerry down. And this is what you do in fighting. So I see this in you, and I see, and I I it's admirable. But I think you don't give yourself enough credit. I think I've heard you twice now refer to something outside of you. Look, I believe in God, and all that, and I believe I'm I'm nothing without God. I'm not preaching, I'm just saying that's me. So that's outside of me. But what I see in you is a really as a guy who, for whatever reason, civilized himself. And you're still the monster inside, and you still probably have, you know, your rage and you still have things, but you're able to control it now because you see things and you understand because you're so introspective, you're empathetic. you understand it that when you deal with people, they don't respond to the monster. They respond to the to the person. They respond to people that they genuinely know cares about them. And, I think you're lucky that you've been able you were able to pull yourself out of the pit by yourself. You know, you're lucky you're able to do that. For most of us it takes a it takes a somebody reaching in to save us. You know, somebody helping us and you know I've I've had great

people all my life help me. you're so you're in many ways you're rare, Jerry. But I see, I see that, when I look at you and I see this, I say, okay, that's that's how I assess you. And I and and you know you it's funny because I'm not sure you give yourself that credit. But anyway, that's how I see it. Jerry Brazie: Well, you you hit the nail on the head a minute ago when you talked about hard work. for me, if I was to say what direct w why that worked, is I paid taxes as an eleven year old in nineteen eighty and instantly as a kid who was starving to death and stole food to eat as a kid, food and work went together. And so I've never not had a job and I pay taxes as an eleven year old. And so in that context, hard work. was my ticket out of the world because it bruce: Right. Jerry Brazie: meant I got to eat. And to this day I still think about that. But you said something in our back and forth messaging setting up this podcast that made me laugh because I relate to it. I want to give you a t you've spent a couple of minutes, I think, touching on it. And that is at, and I want people to hear this, most of what you know is directly proportional to how much you've effed things up. bruce: Yeah, no question. Yeah, yeah. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, and and I loved that when you said that. So I I want to give you a minute to to talk about that if you will, because I want people to hear that. That's so important. People are so scared of screwing things up and losing and there's just this idea that you can't fail in the world, but it's so important for guys like us. I'm not bruce: Yeah. Jerry Brazie: who I am if I hadn't failed. So please, if you would, give us a couple of minutes on that. bruce: Yeah. Yeah, I I in everything, I I can talk about sports because it's easy to talk about sports because it's numbers and outcomes, but in everything in my in my in my business, in my my business life, in my young business life, in my so called mature business life where I, you know, I I moved to another place and and you know most of the things that I learned of value came as a I say this in the gym all the time, Jerry. There are all kinds of teachers, but pain is the best. And you know, that pain is the Jerry Brazie: Yes. Yep. bruce: best teacher and that, you know. Most of the I most of the things that I've failed at, I've taken the time to look at. And if I could f and it and it hasn't all like I when I was twenty-five, I wasn't in the mood for this discussion, right? I was a Jerry Brazie: Yeah, yeah. bruce: conqueror. Right? I was a conqueror at twenty-five. But now that I look back, you know, the mistakes I made. And when I say mistakes, oftentimes it was just me being me. Me being too gruff, me being too hard, me being too inflexible, me being too know it all, you know what I mean? Not not not in a s individual, just me being me, right? And and I look Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Yeah. bruce: back now and say, what a you know you know, come on man. You know, I could have done this. I could have done this. And and and as I got older, I realized if I hadn't had all those mistakes, I hadn't lived through all that crap, if I hadn't stumbled taking some bloody noses, embarrassed myself. if I hadn't done all of that, I wouldn't have any perspective to give to other people. You know, now that I look at myself and I say, okay, this is who I am today. This is what I have to offer as a result of all those life experiences. This is the result of all that pain and all that embarrassment and all that suffering that's brought me to this point. So I at this stage in my life, I'm grateful for most of the things that I've screwed up on and the the how I went through it and how I learned from the process. And I've I've learned for the most part to forgive myself, to laugh at myself. You know, a lot of the stuff I do, I did, it's just laughable. It's just, it's just, you know, it's like, what are, you know, how could I look at myself like I'm looking at another person? how did I how my God. And I also realize I embarrassed myself in front of other people that were important to me. And all of that stuff, now that I'm able to look at that and not be and just look at it and say, Okay, that is who I am. This is the lessons I take from it. This is the contribution I can make now. I I don't regret I guess I have some regrets. I I do have a few regrets. I wish, some things. But but those things make up in large part who I am and what I have to offer. You know, and so I'm happy about it. I'm I'm happy I'm I'm at that that's not right. I'm at peace with it. I'm at peace with Jerry Brazie: I think people, I think they they look at mistakes as failure. And the value in a mistake, the particularly I I don't know about you, but man, I've got some some big ones. And the value bruce: Yeah, some doozy. Jerry Brazie: in those mistakes is that if you're introspective enough to take the time to learn from that mistake, the ability to learn from a mistake, judge it unemotionally, right? Give yourself credit or take the credit where it's due, give it to who needs it. Find the problem and fix it, that superpower will give you a much better chance of finding success at whatever it is that you're trying to do. The ability to learn from a mistake. You gotta make a mistake to learn from it. Man, bruce: Yeah. Jerry Brazie: if you can learn to look at it rationally and to criticize yourself for what you did wrong too often, one of my one of my superpowers, Bruce, is that. I have agency over myself. So no, yeah, I get asked all the time on podcasts, how'd you get out of and escape the thing that you that that you live through? And I said, because if I give the blame to other people like everyone else does, then I lose my agency. I lived in a world where, if not for I would have, was the siren call of everybody, if not for all of these things that happened to us. Imagine I would have been an astronaut or a billionaire, right? And the reality is. Many of those

lessons and many of those experiences lent themselves to me doing to go on and do the thing that I did. And so I think if you can learn to learn from a mistake, the the the process of doing that, i.e. you gotta make mistakes to learn from them. Once you can learn from mistakes, I don't know, I think that that is that is a tool in the toolbox that not a lot of people have. bruce: Well, I think I was I was listening, a couple of things came to mind and I wanna share. So One of the things that helped me not regret and not stay mired and not stay stuck. And to accept when things don't go my way. I'm a I'm I wanna say that I'm a I'm a a bad loser. You know, I like to win, I just like to win. But I heard Somebody say that you have to learn to have faith that things will turn out the way they're supposed to. The first time I heard it, I didn't get it. I didn't think there was a lot of wisdom in it. It sounded like a throwaway. It was John Wooden that said this. He said, But you have to ha the f one of the keys is that you have to have faith. Because when you start or you're involved in something, we all want to know what the outcome is going to be. We want to know what we're going to be. And is the business going to be successful? Am I going to be, you know, the type of person that I want to be in life? You have to have faith. That things will turn out the way they're supposed to. And you have to, you know, go along the way. And they also have to have faith that nobody knows anything when they start. And you know, s you know, so much of the time we want we want we want we think of life as a treasure map. We're all wandering around looking for the treasure map. And there it is, you know what I mean? And and No disrespect to to to whoever, but if I just go to this seminar, my life's gonna take a a one a ninety degree turn or one hundred and eighty degree turn and my life is gonna be just yeah. Right. Yeah, that's it, right? Get Jerry Brazie: Right. If I just keep going if I just keep going to the seminars, you mean? Right. Sooner or later it's gonna hit. Yeah. bruce: a hit. And it's just it's just it's it's really it's a it's a life f for me and I I listen, I I don't claim to be anything other than I am. And I'm just, I'm And a growing, developing, still energetic guy in in a business that I'm that I'm developing now where I want to help people, but whatever that is, it it's it takes a little bit of the edge off if I say life's gonna turn out the way it's supposed to. If I do everything that I do and everything that I can do, and everything I'm supposed to do, and it doesn't work out, then that's how it's supposed to be. And it doesn't mean it's not in judg's position because nobody wants to win more than me. if you beat me in checkers, Jerry, I will go home and freaking practice checkers and hire a checker coach and come back and play you and I will beat you and I'll stay there until we win. Right. I I that's me. I like to win. but I have I've in my sixty four years of living, I developed a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of insight. And I realize that I don't get everything I'm supposed to get. It doesn't turn out exactly the way I want it to turn out all the time. And and I know that through hard work and suffering and sacrifice, that I'm willing that that the outcomes I can be at peace with the outcome, whatever it is, because that's the way it's supposed to be. And that only comes to you, at least to me, let me speak for myself. That only comes to me, that only came to me. later in my life as I understood, because I'm a hard charger. When I start something, I'm my I bury my head and I go and, torpedoes be damned, whatever they say that is, I'm I'm I'm I'm headed in that direction. And that that to me is like is like a key. I look for peace in my life, not for and peace comes from, I don't want to die just feeling I haven't Feeling that that same angst I had when I was twenty two years old of having to do something to achieve. I wanna die knowing I did my very best and that I can be at peace with that, whatever that is. Jerry Brazie: Okay, before we continue, I'm opening the first Kronos Group Cohort. 10 business owners, that's it. There's a founder special for the people who get in front on this very first round. Who's it for? If you're running a real operation and you want to work through it with other owners alongside me, the link is in the show notes. I think I agree. I think, they say peace comes from understanding. And I think particularly as we get older, I don't know that that if somebody was to if if the people who knew me and know me was to say what's Jerry's number one trait, they would say that he is the most competitive human being we've ever met on the planet. I would say, bruce: It's not plate chuckers. Jerry Brazie: I would yeah, that's right. I would say though, Bruce, that I'm a pool player. I love playing pool. And I'm bruce: Mm. Jerry Brazie: a pretty good pool player. But anything, there are pool players how the higher up the ladder you go, the better they get. And so, but I'm a good pool player. And that means that a pool player that's not as good as me, I can beat as many times in a row as I want. When I was younger, I would never let you win because if you beat me, you gotta earn it. I had all this mentality. Well, then I can't find people to play me as an example. And as I got older, I appreciate that I don't have to be that intense all of the time. There's no value in it for me to beat someone at pool 10 games straight. There's just no value in it anymore. And so I can bruce: Yeah. Yeah. Jerry Brazie: have more fun at playing pool, relax a little bit playing pool, and I found that set that in myself. When I need to, I can turn it on. And guess what? If I can't turn it on anymore because I lost that edge at 58, gonna be 58 years old, well, I'm happier for it. So I've found a medium there that that allows me to lose. if I'm playing somebody better than me,

they got all my attention. Or as good as me, they got all my attention. 100%. And I'll beat them 10 times in a row if I can. But I just mean generally, I don't need to stand there and jump up on the table and flex like maybe I would have when I was younger. bruce: Yeah. Winning and losing remains important important. It's important. But what what is more important to me anyway is is is teaching and giving back, helping other people, Jerry Brazie: Yes. bruce: you know, sharing relationships. and if if everybody I worked with or the athletes I work with or my my business clients, if they were to win and I were to lose, I don't know how I'd I don't know how I'd feel about all of that. But I know that as a person, the best I ever feel is when I make somebody else feel better or make somebody else do better or make somebody else have success. And and I'm less concerned about me winning than the good I feel from helping somebody else be successful. You know what I Jerry Brazie: That's it. bruce: that's a s you know, that's that's that's how I feel. And so, Jerry Brazie: Yes. bruce: you know, I like the win, but I would I'd substitute the winning for help for for how I feel helping somebody else win. That's that's kind of that's kinda it for me. Jerry Brazie: Yeah. I love I love on a pool table as an example, coaching somebody on a pool table and something I taught them then they used to beat me. I love it. That's fantastic. bruce: Yeah. if if you ever want to get if you ever want to sit there and just be satisfied with something, is to teach a kid something or to teach a client something and then see use it, see have success with it, even if even if nobody else knows, right? even if nobody else and he knows or she knows, right? As long as they know and and that you did that for them. And you're not seeking out, you're not running out, look at me, look at me, and it happens. I don't know if there's a better feeling that I can get that, than that. By the way, I just want to tell you a a a pool story. When I was a little boy at the Silver Spring Boys Club, Willie Marscone came in and did a exhibition when he was in town. And Jerry Brazie: Yes. bruce: he's if you don't know who he is, he's one of considered one of the great, maybe the greatest, I don't know, but one of the greatest pool players of all time. And he gave us an exhibition and I never forgot it. I never forgot. It was unbelievable, Jerry. It was unbelievable. He was doing things, I don't know, I don't know geometry and physics, but that certainly was unbelievable. You know what I mean? And then Jerry Brazie: Yes. bruce: and as I look back now, I say, and I tell I I say this to to my kids. I could practice pool for the rest of my life, and I doubt that I'd ever be as good as him. Primarily because what's what's important for people is to find what they do well as much as what they're passionate about. Sometimes those things get confused, right? And and the goal, of course, the dream is to be passionate about something you do well. Right. But we're some pe people are passionate that aren't very good at what they're passionate about. And some people do well at things they don't like to do, but the goals but there's a guy I never lost the there's a guy that was passionate. about something that he should have been doing and it produced, you know, a guy, you know, I mean that was fifty s fifty five years ago, I'm sixty four, probably, yeah, fifty five, sixty years ago when that guy Jerry Brazie: Yeah. bruce: came out and I just said I was able to see, hey, that guy is extraordinary. Jerry Brazie: And you and you still remember it all these years later. And anybody that doesn't know bruce: Yeah, well yeah. Jerry Brazie: Willie Moscone is to pool what Babe Ruth is to baseball. We would not be here without him. There are probably better players now that have come, but if not for someone like that, the world we live in relative to those sports wouldn't exist. Before we go, I want to get to the last couple of minutes we got learning to lead. My man bruce: Mm. Jerry Brazie: it wrote a book, Five Unforgettable Stories That Will Transform How You Lead. Live and serve others. Now, Bruce, I have been trying to write a book for the better part of 10, 12, 15 years. And I do well, and then it falls flat on its face. And so I have so much respect for anybody who can get a book written. so kudos to you for even doing that. and as I was doing my research on you, I thought, okay, this is interesting. And this conversation is kind of covered. Along the lines of what your book is about, but tell us about learning to lead. bruce: Well, I so I I s I had I had I had the same struggle, Jerry. You know what I mean? Like I I wanted I knew there was a bunch of books in me that I wanted to share and I like to share and I'd love the I love the idea of somebody reading something and getting so and getting something from that, you know. And you know, but it was hard to write a book. I don't I don't have the temperament typically to sit down and Jerry Brazie: Yes. bruce: and to write and I don't have you know, I I have a a a a fertile mind. I'm always going different places and doing things. I have a busy schedule. I'm I'm working with a client on leadership and over here and I I gotta fight that weekend. it's just hard to find time. And I and and so I I started a book that is on the subject of what I what I do in business called Meet the Moment, helping leadership. But to write I first I gotta write a book. I gotta get it done. And I gotta write a book that is easier for me to write. And so what I did was I took I had all these stories that I have that I share with my my athletes and with people. And I took these five that that that had profound effects on me. Right? Profound effects on me. I I alluded to one of them early on when I said I was in in the business world and I did, you know, I I was a bull in the China shop. That's that story is in there. But what these

stories I tell a story sometime and at the end of the story I have a synopsis about hey look this is where I th this is what this story meant to me. This is where I was I I learned from this. This is where I made a mistake. This is where I fell down. This is where I could have done better. And I give lessons at the end that that that are for me. And some of them were one of the one of the some of the stories are 70 pages and some up are 25. And I wrote the book because I wanted somebody to be able to sit down on the train. or on a plane or in a car, who doesn't like to sit and read 200 pages at a time, can just read a story, be totally engrossed in a story, and come out of that with a with first enjoying the story, and secondly with some really good lessons that they can relate to about life and leadership. And so that's what I did. And so the book is it's I think it's 220 pages long, whatever it is, but I wrote it in sections and I wrote it in stories. And it allowed me to get some I'm trying to help you say you tr allowed me not to have this idea that I had to sit down and write chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. it that that becomes tedious for me, although I'm in the middle of it right now. But that was just a said, this is a book of worthwhile stories that I tell to my athletes, or I tell when I'm speaking on stage or whatever it is to different people that had profound effect on the way that I lead people. You know, profound one of the stories is about one of the stories is about a a a a guy named he was I used to be a strength conditioning coach at the University of Maryland, in in the football program and the men's track team, girls track team and and gymnastics. And I was I tell people, You ever heard of the low man on the totem pole? And they go, Yeah, so I worked for him. That's how low I was on the in in the organization. I was the sweeper and all that kind of stuff. And you have time for a quick story? I'll tell you Jerry Brazie: Please. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. bruce: So so I was the lone man on the totem pole and worked in the weight room and essentially when I was lifting and then my job was to clean up after work. And so one day it was summertime and I was in there pushing the broom and we used to have the the the gym was looked out over onto the practice fields and we had the double doors open because they turned the air conditioning off at late at night so that you know they didn't spend the money. So I was in there just sweating and pushing the broom. And the football field was two practice fields side by side. And I looked out the window. I mean, out the door, as I pushed the broom, I'd look out the door, and there was the coach, and the coach's name was Bobby Ross. And Bobby Ross was the head coach of the University of Maryland. This is when I was at Maryland. He went later went on to be the head coach of Georgia Tech, where he won the national championship, and then he went on coach Army and then the NFL. A tremendous coach, high profile guy. I'm there all by myself pushing the broom and I'm I'm walking by this door and I see I see the coach walking along the fence line and say I stop at the doorway one time and I'm wiping off the sweat and I look up and coach looks over and he I think he catches my eye. And I freeze up because I've never really had an interaction with him and he looks at me and he stops and he starts walking right towards me across two football fields. my God. You know what I mean? So I just grab the broom and I start working. I'm thinking, my god, get fired? I can't and I I don't have you can't get fired for sweeping. So I'm my mind's working a mile a minute. Every time I walk by the door, he's getting closer and closer. The lump in my throat's getting bigger and bigger, the beads of sweat are coming off my head. So I decide, look, he's coming this way. He may just be walking in to get to the to to the coach's office on the side. So I went into the corner and I just made myself as, as inconspicuous as possible. And he comes walking in the door, and I'm over on the in the corner on the left. He walks in the door, his head turns, and he looks over where I'm at, and he sees me, and he starts walking over to me. And now, Jerry, I'm about to pass out. I go, This is the coach, this is the guy, this is the man. This is he's coming over to me. He's, you know, and and so there I am with the broom, and I've got the broom and I got the little d dustpan. And he walks over to me, and I've never had an interaction with him at all. He walks over and he puts his hand out. And I look. He goes, Bruce, right? I go, Yeah, Bruce. He goes, I want to thank you for what you do for our program. Makes a big difference. And we shook hands and then he grabbed the dustpan and he walked around with me while he I dusted the thing into the thing and he put it into the trash can with me. And we took the liners and we walked them out to the dumpster. Threw them in the dumpster. And he said, I'll see you at practice tomorrow. Walked off. That was the only interaction I ever had with him. Because he was so far away from me. That was that was I was in my early twenties. So that was 45, whatever years ago. I would have you know j run into a fire for that guy. Right. And I realized first that's how you lead. Because I was the the the lowest guy in the organization. He knew my name. He came over. He made me feel important. valued. He made me feel that the job I was doing mattered, that I was part of his program and that I was appreciated. Right. Took him five minutes, maybe, right? He n I'm sure he never told a soul. I mean I you know, why would he? But I've told ten thousand souls, you know, about that about that story. And it and the the in the impression that it left upon me. I'm I've I've gotten emotional today. I'm sorry for all that. It is what it is. But but but The impression that left on me and the I to make me a better leader. So when I'm I realized that he

was the first one, not the first one, but he drilled home for me that inside of your organization, everybody's important. Everybody matters. And if you build a culture like that, you know, you can produce tremendous success. And while he was at Maryland during that time, we were preseason ranked number one, boomer side instead of just left. We were Maryland was on the map. He He had a problem with the Board of Regents and eventually went to Georgia Tech, where he ended up winning the national championship. But that experience changed me and made me understand that, that leadership isn't about standing on the pedestal, barking out orders, being up in the tower, directing things. It's about recognizing that every single person in under your care and in your charge matters. That if you take two seconds just to know their name, I was so shocked, but he knew my name. Just to know my name. And then to do that, it changed me for the rest of my life about how I think about leadership. And that's just a story in the book. And there's four other good ones. So don't, don't think you didn't get the whole book there. But there's four other good ones. But that's that's that lesson changed me forever about how to be a people. Jerry Brazie: I love, I love stories like that, and it cost him nothing. As as bruce: Nothing. Jerry Brazie: you guys, as you guys can tell, my man here, Bruce Babashan, Learning to Lead, five unforgettable stories that will transform how you lead, live, and serve others is the name of his book. He clearly has the experience. Bruce, how do people get a hold of you if they want to reach out? bruce: So if you want to reach out, you can go to www.brucebabashan.com. And then there's that's that's my my website, and I'm there to tell you all about what I'm doing in business and things like that, how I'm helping leaders. Or you can just go to LinkedIn, right? You can go to LinkedIn, type in my name, Bruce Babashan, B-R-U-C-E-B-A-B-A-S-H-A-N. It'll come up on there, send me a message, I'll reach out. or you can write to me at info at Bruce Babashan dot com and I somebody will respond and every time somebody sends me an email I make it my my my give it a good effort to answer it personally for sure. Jerry Brazie: This has been a fantastic conversation, Bruce. I really appreciate you coming on. I think there's a lot for the folks to hear. and I say this a lot because I have a lot of guys like you on. That is guys with experience that have been around the block. And I think that more of these podcasts should be made where guys with experience can sit here openly and honestly talk about it, not from a bragging perspective and look at all the things that I have done. Really, what I'm most important what I feel is most important is what I failed at so that I can help the people behind me maybe avoid some of those landmines. I think you helped me in that endeavor and I appreciate it, my friend. Thank you for coming on. bruce: man, it's a pleasure. I enjoyed the conversation. The time went fast. The time went fast. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, it goes it does. A a good conversation always does. I appreciate it. Thanks, Bruce. bruce: All right, brother. I'll see you next time.