Hello and welcome to the top floor podcast. I am your host Darren Canthal. This is the Denver edition and episode number six Charles. That's one of my lucky numbers by the way. Lucky number six. Awesome. I love it. When I play literally, that was my number. And I still love it. Very good. Three is my favorite number. So we got a multiple in there. So I think we're in the same page. I love it. I love it. Our guest today is Charles Guilford, CEO of inner city health. Welcome Charles. Nice to see you. No, it is so good to see you again. And so thankful for the opportunity to be able to connect with you. So this is going to be a wonderful time. And I'm looking forward to it. All right. Thank you. Before I get ahead of myself because in my very first podcast, I forgot to allow the guests to introduce themselves and their company. So let me learn from past. What can you tell us about your firm and yourself? No, absolutely. Well, first of all, so excited to be here with you all and just have this conversation. My name is Charles Guilford III. And I have the honor of serving as the CEO, chief executive officer for inner city health. So we are a health care clinic here inside of Denver, Colorado. We have two locations, one in Denver, and then one in Wheat Ridge. And we support over 35,000 patient visits a year, primarily to the underserved community. So those who are insured and those who are uninsured, excuse me, and those who are underinsured. And so every single day, we get to literally save and change lives and help people continue in their journey of health. Sounds tremendously rewarding. And I noticed that you are relatively new to your CEO role. Is that right? That is correct. I have just cut my teeth. I passed my 90 day time frame. So the fact that we're still having this conversation suggests that the board has, you know, some level of confidence in me. So I'm very thankful to have just passed that that three month mark. And I've learned so much in the course of this year, and you have an amazing team, you know, of individuals I get to serve, you know, every serve alongside every single day. And just the work that we get to do every single day is just truly inspiring and remarkable. I noticed your predecessor was with the firm for 30 years. Yes. Yeah, correct, Craig Burleson, outstanding person Denver legend, somebody who's done an incredible amount of work, you know, in this community for community for several decades. So I have some large shoes to fill. But it definitely was a long tenure for sure. Yeah. I'm curious, what are some of the biggest surprises that you faced in these first 90 days? You know, that is such a good question. As a new CEO, for those of you who are watching, you know, who are CEOs, there's only so much research that you can do on a website, there's only so much information that you can glean, you know, through looking and observing and connecting. But there's something about being immersed in the organization. And to your point around some of the bigger surprises, on one hand, I am so amazed with all the incredible work that has gone forth from this organization. The way that it started as a clinic that was out of a basement, literally of a house and the founders who I just had the privilege of interviewing a few weeks ago, shared with us that their highest aspiration was for the clinic to be something where they would have the basement where people could be, you know, viewed and taken care of the living room, which would be kind of a waiting room and maybe one or two bedrooms, you know, for, you know, a patient here and there to come, you know, through because in their view, that was serving community. To see this facility grow into over, you know, 12,000, 15,000 square feet here. And then we have another, you know, 4,000 square feet, you know, in Wheat Ridge and are looking to expand beyond, you know, it's truly incredible. We have an aggressive goal of serving 100,000 patient visits a year in the upcoming, you know, three to five years because of what we're experiencing here in the States for those of you who are watching abroad is what they're calling the Unwind, which is basically for clinics like ours that are more, you know, public facing a shift, you know, in the political space and policy space, which translates to funding. And we're having to navigate around all of these patients and folks who had coverage now no longer receiving coverage. And how do we deal with the delta and the gap of individuals who are used to receiving coverage, who are no longer in that place and position. And we're having to figure out what that looks like as an organization and how we can move forward. But that's some of the bigger surprises is the environment shifting literally immediately when you start the election season that we're navigating right now. And the implications of that, you know, for organizations like ourselves, as well as individuals and team members that surprise you with their strengths and their dreams and their visions. And for those of you who are new to leadership, I would caution you against not connecting with your frontline because there's so many ideas, there's so much wisdom, there's so much insight, there's so much innovation that is nestled in that space that often goes untapped. And so for me, it's been shifting the model of how we engage collaboration. And frankly, you know, dreaming bigger dreams and having bigger visions for what we can do to serve a city and hopefully, you know, the state and eventually a nation. I really appreciate that sentiment about the front lines. There's a saying that I've heard for years, which is what I heard it as he or she. And in today's world, I know it's more broad than that. But yeah, the person closest to the job knows best. 100% absolutely knows best. And if they don't like what you're trying to, you know, encourage them to do they won't do it. You know, but but but knows it best and greater still sees things that you can't see, you know, and and you know, Rudyard Kipling put it, you know, this way, which in his poem, if you know, to to walk the Kingsner, lose the common touch, you know, and that is the tension of executive leadership is how do you make sure that you're still staying, you know, at a level and in a space where you can see, you know, into the future, past vision, and and frankly anticipate some of those changes that are coming and still hold tension, you know, with the communities and the individuals that you're serving. And that's one of the things that is a key priority for me as a as a leader is, you know, I actually tell my staff that I don't particularly like the title chief executive officer, because there's an inadvertently sometimes a pretension that can that can come with that. I prefer to serve, you know, as chief servant. And that my job is to help them realize their greatest purpose, their greatest dreams, and to challenge them, you know, we're appropriate to realize that and to move forward with that kind of perspective. And so it's actually kind of shifted some dynamics internally, internally in terms of, you know, how people engage actually just had one of my frontline staff come in and share some feedback, you know, around some processes that we're implementing. And now I can tweak things in a way that's actually going to make us more fruitful and more impactful. Love it. There's a fuzzy word these days of quote unquote, psychological safety. Yes, and it relates to the workforce and the safety that employees at any level of the organization are safe enough to speak up. And I'm curious, as you're nodding, I'm guessing this resonates with you. But as does as the chief servant, how are you specifically creating that safety for these frontline and everybody else that matter to speak speak up? That is such a profound question. And when one posts this, you know, conversation, I'm actually going to going to deeply reflect on it. It just resonated, you know, when you ask. But, you know, my approach, you know, has been your response, you know, to your staff in terms of the ideas that they have, will either imbue a sense of safety security, you know, or will imbue a sense of condescension and, you know, insecurity. And so for me, you know, there's that classic adage, you know, there is such there is no such thing as a dumb idea or a bad idea. And frankly, you know, I think what that has shown up for me as on an individual level, you know, it's frankly a level of humility. I've had to really sit down and rather than immediately say, no, that idea, you know, doesn't make any sense, you know, really pause and ask more questions, you know, I call it double clicking, you know, to literally double click on, okay, when you said this, you know, this is this is what I heard. Maybe this is what you meant. But you know, what was the intention underneath your statement? What are you saying? And I was, I've been fascinated by the things that I misheard that they didn't misspeak on. And that was such a tremendous and continues to be a wonderful, you know, experience for me. The other thing that I would say, you know, honestly, is, is rewarding the courage to try, rather than punishing, you know, the, you know, failure that an individual may have perceived or real, you know, in terms of failure. And so a part of what we're doing is creating a culture, you know, that moves at what I call the pace of grace, which is, you know, we really want to move in a way, we call it our B3 culture, which is better before bigger culture. And when we think about it, you know, our organization, for example, and suspects and other organizations, it's amazing when this organization spent around for 40 years. But a good portion and the concentration of the growth that we've had has been over the past six. So, you know, there's entrepreneurs who are watching there are people who have just been grinding and grinding for all of these years. And you're wondering, what the heck am I doing this for? You would be amazed to see what happens just as you continue to persevere, as you continue to push forward, that, that breakthrough that literally exponentially grows your business, your, your, your base, et cetera, is just around the corner, if you can persevere. And on the other side of growth comes an identity crisis, comes a sense of who am I now in lieu of this kind of change? There's actually a phenomenon when people strike the lottery. And Darren, you know, maybe you've experienced this, I have yet to hit the lottery. So maybe you can, you know, deal with, you know, you can translate for us with this experience. But, you know, statistically, you know, they call it sudden wealth syndrome, which is individuals who suddenly come into wealth actually lose it extraordinarily fast because they did not build the discipline, the discipline, the practices, et cetera, along the way to steward that wealth. And so when you come into something suddenly, you know, a former athlete. So before I could bench press 225, you know, comfortably 225 pounds, I don't know how many kilograms it is for our international audience. I apologize. So, yeah, Google is a friend and we can, we can translate how many kilos it is. But it's a significant amount of weight. If you would have tried to put me underneath that as a freshman in high school, God help us. We wouldn't be on this podcast. I would, I would have perished. There would have been, you know, a few moments later, you know, kind of thing. And there'd be, there'd be, you know, a funeral ceremony that that weight would have crushed me. But starting with a bar, then starting with 10 pounds, then 25, and you just continue to progress in there. But what we've had to navigate is the identity crisis of who we are, you know, we've served community faithfully. But now what does it mean to have greater capacity? 8,400 square feet added on to what we had before? What does that mean in terms of shifts? What does that mean in terms of operations? What does that mean in terms of efficiency? What does that mean in terms of policy? And growth has an interesting way of causing a level of identity crisis that sometimes we're not prepared for. But on the other side of it, we have to embrace and we cannot go back to what we were to manage who we become. A lot of richness in their Charles, I like that. I appreciate that the sentiment about the discipline, building it, thinking about benching 225, which I've never done, I was really happy when I could bench 135 10 or 140 145 10 times. That's still good weight. So one of the things I did want to talk to you about in, yeah, for those listening, Charles and I talked about this before, and along the lines of the discipline and the perseverance you said, is you've had some hardships. Quite frankly, a bit different than mine. I'll leave it to you to give as much detail as you'd like before I ask the question. Yeah. But any context about some of the hardships you face, because I do want to ask you how you've persevered through them. No, you know, I'm happy to share. And, you know, it's interesting as you ask the question, you know, first and foremost, you know, we've had differences, you know, in terms of our sufferings. But I think our society could benefit from acknowledging the fact that just because a person sufferings are different doesn't mean that they're any better, any worse, and that there's so much that we get to learn from each other. I was deeply touched and blessed by our conversation as I learned about your journey and your experiences. But what I will say is, you know, kind of the archetype, you know, if you will, that I hope I can, you know, shed some insights on, you know, I was, I was the kid, you know, at school, that was the homecoming prince, homecoming king, you know, three sport athlete, you know, varsity athlete, Decca, you know, all the other kind of things. And on the surface was performing work really well was in honors, you know, classes, AP, but was enduring a lot of challenge. You know, my parents, you know, separated in a very, very, you know, dysfunctional and unhealthy, you know, relationship. When I was three, their dysfunctions and tensions continued all the way, not only through, you know, my high school years, but into college and frankly beyond. Some many people I suspect can relate to the challenges that come with having divorce parents. It's which holiday, you know, which person are you going to see first on that particular holiday and who's going to be offended that they weren't first this year or some of those challenges that come with it. But I was the kid that everybody thought was fine. But in reality, I was dealing with challenges that were beyond, you know, what many people would comprehend. I remember being in elementary school, particularly when I was, you know, under, you know, my mom's care. And she was doing the best that she could. She was managing. But there was what we would call food insecurity, what, you know, really would translate into, you know, frankly, being, you know, in a household where you didn't have access to food consistently. And I remember literally standing by a trash can, and looking for food, you know, as and try to do so in a way that was very subtle. But you know, it's like, Hey, this kid got two slices of pizza one, you know, one day, and he only, you know, he or she only, you know, one or two, and now I'm going to grab this other one. And in class, you know, it was me showing up as tired, perhaps, but the reality was in tired, I was hungry. And even still was getting good marks. When I went to university, I was student body president and homeless. And so it's this interesting dichotomy of the public perception that many people can have for individuals who are quote unquote, high achieving. But sometimes how that is both a calling and an adaptive inequality, which is I have to keep achieving in order to receive a level of success versus level of love, a level of acceptance. And conversely, it's as a person of faith, it's it's what God called me to do. So there's this interesting tension of do not confuse somebody who's thriving in terms of certain aspects that we would, you know, mark a success as an indication that everything's okay. In college, I endured for closure. Less than six months, you know, after enduring that foreclosure after I moved out of my parents, you know, home because we lost it moved in with one of my best friends. He was like my brother and his mom was my mom, you know, as many of you can relate to, you know, when you achieve that level of friendships, you're no longer the kid next door, you're literally a part of a family. And she was the most important maternal figure, you know, to me, she taught me so much about gentleness, because there was a strain in the relationship, you know, that I had with my mom as much as I love her. And she's an amazing woman. She very much has guided and really inspired my passion of the world and, you know, how I see change and the duty that we have to the world. She's a remarkable person and there were still challenges. And this woman who was my mother began describing pain in November of 2010. And we took her to the hospital, you know, which is kind of this full circle moment of being in health care now. And they looked at her but didn't find anything and they sent her home with some pain medication. They didn't do a thorough analysis, you know, quite frankly. And fast forward six less than six months later, we I get a phone call for my best friend. This is right around finals time, my senior year of university. And just finishing up, you know, some coursework and things that I wanted to do, you know, there. And he says, you know, I need you to come to hospital right now. And my best friend is six five. I'm I'm six foot. I wish I would have gotten just a few more just to technically be six ones. So that way it doesn't seem like a lie. But but I am six foot. But he came out all six five of him of the doorways of the hospital at midnight and collapsed and marms and said, you know, they found cancer and mom and it spread through lymph nodes. And she's she's not going to make it a week. And she she lived another five days. And he and I are still college kids. I mean, we don't know anything about I mean, we we barely know how to make a box of Nestle cookies properly with the instructions, much less, you know, take over rent, take over being, you know, you know, essentially, kids having to raise ourselves because of some of the gaps and challenges with our parents. And so she passed away less than six months after that, my biological mom, you know, through many challenges, again, related to health care, there are some health care costs and things that she was extremely worried about and just a lot of social pressure she was managing attempted, but was unsuccessful and take her own life. And I became the guardian for my younger brothers. So in my early 20s, became a single parent, you know, essentially raise my younger brother. And again, in that space, student body president in that space was leading, you know, a nonprofit organization as a as a president, you know, chapter one of the largest chapters of the urban young professionals in the state of, you know, and watching the country. And all of these other things, you know, got accepted into, you know, leadership programs here in Denver and was, you know, completing these and was, you know, having so many different amazing experiences, but conversely, was at home, you know, figuring out what am I going to do to feed my younger brother today, because we don't have enough food to take care of ourselves. So I'd let him eat, you know, and then figure out, you know, ice water with lemon, which is a trick, you know, for those who've been food and secure, it's, you know, it's those kinds of things that help with the hunger pains. So that's, that's really at a high level, you know, the story, there's so many details, but for somebody watching who can empathize or somebody watching who maybe is managing somebody and you see a gifting on their life and a calling or, you know, an effectiveness or what have you, you know, make sure you're doing your due diligence in terms of not assuming that they're how they're showing up is necessarily how life is showing up for them, that the impacts and the blows and the crushing that comes with life for us all in different seasons is something that you're extremely sensitive to because sometimes I think we misperceive, you know, those who are able to wear a smile as some people who have something to smile about. And there's there's a distinction between joy and happiness and life has a way of, you know, presenting it so circumstances that that rob us of that happiness. And we can still choose joy. We can still choose to keep fighting. We can choose to keep persevering. First want to commend you. And thank you for your vulnerability. I don't want to rush past it without acknowledging it. That was that's brave. Thank you for sharing. For sure. All right, the follow up. You had a chance to choose happiness, joy and a persevere. And I'm curious, what do you attribute that to? Why were you able to persevere in light of all those hardships? You know, that that is that is such a great question. And I will say, even at the genesis, you know, of our conversation, we talked about my parents, you know, getting separated at three. But at the age of five, I remember being I got lost in my bicycle one day. You know, back in the day, for those of you who were, you know, watching, made being of the younger perspective, we played outside. There was this amazing world called outside, you know, where you were able to play on streets. And your parents did not check on you. There was no, there was no air tags. There was what we call the porch light, which was a firm policy, which suggested that by the time that that light was on, you had to be home, if not, then, you know, your life, you know, jumped to parenting was not a concept, you know, or a concept. But all that said, it was getting, you know, darker as I was riding this bike. And I was really scared. I was scared of the dark. You know, I was that kid. And I just remember hearing and this impression in the space of knowing, if you will, that said, turn left and I went left down this one street. And then that same, you know, kind of voice and kind of guiding space said turn right. And I was able to find my way home. And what I will say, you know, about that for me was, in terms of what has kept me is my relationship and my faith, in my relationship with God, my faith. And that may show up for many of you in different ways. For me, you know, it shows up as my faith in Jesus and the relationship that I have with the Holy Spirit. And what I will say in a broader sense, you know, when we think about perseverance is oftentimes we relegate perseverance to this, this inner grit and determination and I'm going to fight and I'm going to and the reality is on one hand, that's an element of it. Don't get me wrong that there is very much so this this power of, you know, getting back up and what resilience necessitates. And I will also say in my experience, there's a grace and a kindness that life visits upon us such that there's always something along the way that helps us see that we're not on our own. There's always something along the way that lets us know that we're not enduring this by ourselves. And what I had to choose was to see the signs that were there the whole time, rather than be blinded by my own anger, be blinded by my own bitterness, because I've gone through both seasons where it's, you know, I mean, it's curse, God and die, you know, kind of mode. It's, you know, it's those of you who didn't grow up in the late 90s, early 2000s. There was a group called Creed. They were really fantastic. The guy had an amazing kind of accent, you know, when he would sing, but but there's a line, you know, that that he says, you know, it's this song called, you know, essentially six feet from the edge. And he says in the lyric, you know, I yelled back when I heard thunder. And the raw emotion of where you have to be in life to just screen back at this mighty force. And many of us have been in that space where you're just so overwrought with, how could this happen in my life? How could I lose this person? How could I lose that family member? How could I this job that I've worked so hard for this degree program, the school that I thought I was going to accept to do this promotion that I thought I was going to get, you know, this deal that I knew I was going to close this marriage that I knew that I was that that was going to last this child that I knew that I was going to have. There's so many different challenges and and and hardships that we encounter. And what I had to choose was to believe that in some strange way, all things work together for the good. So if it's not good, there's life is just not done working through it yet. And through the process of being patient, it's amazing what can happen in the course of one day. My best friend and I after we lost mom, you know, his his mom, my mom, we we sat and we do this every year now. We sat around Christmas time. And we looked at where we were in April when we lost mom and where we were now, because my best friend had the choice to continue with his master's degree program, which he was in the middle of, and you know, move forward or to quit. And in honor of mom, he persevered and he finishes master's degree in architecture. Now, he's getting ready to be a partner at a very large architecture firm in his 30s. We're so it's interesting. I became a CEO this year. He became a partner. He's 65 and I'm still growing. But the point is, what we were fascinated with is for us that the faithfulness of God, you know, which is be careful, you know, this is my caution everybody regardless of your faith. Be careful not to close the book of your life because of one bad page, because of one bad chapter, because of one bad experience, because one bad word, because just on the other side of that that page, just on the other side, just one flip over. Everything can change. And that's the thing that has grounded us and anchored us the most. Yeah, I'm so taken by the commonality of the human experience. Yes. A scared five year old approaching dark. Yeah, right. I don't know about you, but I wasn't home when that light went in for us, it was the street light outside, right? Oh, yes. Not happy at all. No, no, that's that's, you know, that's a terrifying experience. Yeah, right? We share it, right? I've lost a parent as have you. Yeah. Just to piggyback on two different things, but it's the human experience that is the same. It's the mourning, it's the sadness, it's the fear, it's the perseverance, it's the happiness, we all share it. And I think all too often, some of us, people I encounter, I'm sure same as you is, we get lost in, I'm alone, no one else experiences this, there's no one for me to turn to. Yeah, and I think that's the exact wrong thing. I think there's always somewhere to go. I think that's profound. No, I agree. And on one hand, you know, I want to, I want to thank you for thanking me for the gift of my vulnerability. What I will say is I offer it because what I have found is through the vulnerability of that offering, you afford people the permission to be vulnerable with what they're going through. And just in you sharing, you afford somebody permission to share what otherwise they may not. And even if it's not the same thing, just knowing that you're going through something, particularly at the level of being a CEO, that there's kind of this unfortunate narrative, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of, you know, who or who what individuals or thought or pathology is a progenitor of it, which is to suggest that somehow because you're a CEO, you know, and I'm not independently wealthy, you know, incidentally, but even for those who are, you know, of great means are great, you know, stature or great popularity, that that's somehow mystically through through some kind of, you know, alchemy or some kind of, you know, strange cosmic phenomenon, that individuals who move into a certain place of life or position of life that life doesn't hurt them, that somehow they cease to be human, that somehow they have a perspective or have achieved a level of privilege that fundamentally eradicates their humanity. And don't get me wrong, there are individuals who, you know, ask them what the price of milk is, they wouldn't know. And that's okay. And they don't care that, you know, that it impacts somebody else. There is that there is that population of individuals, but I submit that there are far fewer of those individuals than the sum total of humanity that cares. And I think what, you know, I have appreciated being in this position is the gifts of vulnerability that helps people see themselves and help them see how we are all connected as you've articulated. And somebody who may be one or two steps ahead, and I don't presume to be ahead of anybody, but but maybe in terms of age, because, you know, I'm heading towards my 40s and I have a younger staff, you know, and so I'm mindful of the fact that I'm a kind of like big brother moving into uncle phase of mentoring, you know, but but but just even being able to share, you know, hey, I know what that's like, you know, to have to raise, you know, a sibling, because I have, you know, staff who are having to do that. I know what it's like to be going to school and then working full time to go to class and then go to a job, you know, you're not going to a pool party, you're not going to a keg or you're going to work. And what that looks like to have to send money back home and you have holes in your socks. I remember my first internship. I would have to walk one mile up, you know, literally uphill. So this is not that classic. So you know, I walked uphill both ways, you know, in the snow shards a glass. There was a polar bear, it got weird, you know, like, this is not that, you know, this is not hyperbole. There was literally a hill that I would have to walk and superior one mile from the bus stop in a suit, you know, to to my internship and walk back down. And I had holes in the bottom, literally holes in the bottom of my shoes. And I would put duct tape, you know, on the bottom, on the inside, you know, on the outside, you know, to to create, you know, some kind of gap and hole such that my feet wouldn't get wet. You know, I know what that's like. Conversely, you know, I know what it's like, you know, now to have, you know, met and sat with, you know, sitting presidents, you know, of the country, I know what it's like, you know, to have, you know, traveled the world and everything else. And again, just one flip of that page, you know, and I'm not saying that people who are watching this desire, those things, you know, material things are ever so vacuous, because, you know, it's amazing, you know, how much you want this particular model of a car. And then two years later, they come out with a brand new one, and you're like, wait a minute, mine's now old, or, you know, this particular style of houses, all the rave, and then all of a sudden, you know, they they shift away from it. It is amazing how there is no satisfaction to be found, you know, in the things that we can see, but there's so much beauty in that which we can't, which is, you know, the spiritual experience we get to have the connection to each other love, even grief, the mini strokes of, you know, this mosaic that life is in the composite that we become as a result of it. You know, I was going to ask you what role vulnerability plays in leadership, and I think you've just answered that. There's a book that it's called, it's called the leadership challenge. It's a relatively dry read. I listen to books now, and the guy narrating it, you know, has got a very deep voice, and this is what we talk about in the leadership challenge, you know. And so the reason I bring it up is they talk about these five five practices of exemplary leadership, and the very first one is model the way. And the reason I say, in my mind, at least you answered, and if you didn't, you want to expand, please do. But the fact that you're leading with vulnerability, I forgot how you how you said it exactly, but affording people the permission to share their own because they're watching their leader do it. Like, that's super powerful. The other thing to add to that is, yes, somewhere along the way, somehow the execs of the world were taught, told, expected to be all knowing, right, no chink in the armor. Don't let them see you sweat. No business. It's all BS. Exactly. Oh, that's I. Can you make a t-shirt? I would seriously love for you to make a t-shirt up. That is so good. So anyway, I just wanted to share that. So thank you for sharing about the vulnerability because I am positive. Your vulnerability is is lending itself adding to promoting psychological safety in your in your organization. I have no doubt of that. So that's the hope. Thank you. Thank you for that. Something you said earlier, I am curious to come back to about the growth of reaching 100,000, and you don't call them patients. What do you call the people you serve? So, you know, there's a couple ways, you know, in the clinical space to describe it, there's there's patients and then there's patient visits. And we have we count visits. You know, the number of times that people come into, you know, our clinic. And you know, our goal is to have more visits, more people come in because in Colorado, you know, for us uniquely, you know, we're experiencing a shortage of 265,000 Coloradans who are without health care, you know, that previously were with health, were were covered under health care. And it's not unique, you know, to our state, you know, you know, there's a lot of things that have shifted, you know, post pandemic. But for us, it's recognizing how large that group is and what portion, you know, of it that we can change because, you know, again, leaders, you can't solve every issue. Necessarily, you can change the world, which incidentally, a profoundly believed and you change the world by by picking a particular segment or segments, you know, impact, and then rallying around other people who have the same mission and same focus and they take their chunk, you take yours and collectively, you know, the whole is served. Love it. With the goal of reaching those 100,000 visits, right, you Charles can't singularly make that happen. How so you've been there 90 days, right, you're going to be there another 90 days, you know, that reaching the 100,000 visits is a goal of, you know, the relative near term, right 2025, or I don't know if you said exactly what's your idea? What are your thoughts? What's your plan, if you will, in these next 90 days of how do you, you know, rally the troops around this common goal? You know, it is such a such a great question. And what I would say is, you know, my focus over this next 90 days, first 90 has been observed, learned, and just really immersed. Next 90, you know, is really casting vision, you know, and I didn't casting vision and part two for me as a leader is identifying visionaries. You know, there's, you know, for those of you person who people of faith, you know, in terms of Christian, you know, background are familiar with the story. There's this promise land, you know, that that that Moses, you know, essentially, you know, was leading, you know, the people of Israel, you know, to, and there were 12 spies that went to go spy out, you know, there's this land. And what happened was, out of the 12, 10 of them gave a negative report, which they said, Oh, man, you know, these grapes are way too big. There's grasshoppers, there's there's giants. And oh, and two said, yeah, but we can still do this, you know, we have, you know, for that, you know, the way that articulate and frankly, the way that I view my life is we have gotten our side. And so therefore, because there is a grace, you know, to do it, there's a purpose to do it, there's, you know, a vision to do it, we're going to move forward. And what's fascinating is you fastward in the text, only the only two out of the 10 who moved into and were able to lay hold of that promise were the people who believed. And so for me as a leader, as a CEO, and again, if you have a faith background or not, I assure you, faith or confidence or belief is an essential thing that you need to have on your leadership team, you cannot walk with people you're not in agreement with, because that's where literally die to vision to visions are birthed. And so if you're not careful, somebody who sees something differently will create, you know, unnecessary tension, you know, in your organization. And to be clear, this is not permission for you to be, you know, some, you know, dictator or some, you know, type of tyrant. We don't want that. We don't want that regression back to, you know, do as I say, and all the other things that I think we've evolved, you know, you know, in terms of leadership philosophy over the years, but you do need agreement. And over the next, you know, three, you know, months, 90 days is finding people who see, and don't have to see what I see, but just see, and then tap into what they're seeing and see how we can all channel that vision, you know, towards a common purpose, even the even the the anatomical features of the eye, it's not just one particular dot, there are literally, you know, lenses and rods that are all pointed in a similar direction, each one perceiving something uniquely, but perceiving something for the collective that creates vision. And that's the goal of leadership is to find those rods, those lenses, those into those cones, those, those, those entities, that when focusing the same direction, now we can receive information, and then we can have strategy, and then we can have movement, you know, towards that particular thing. And all right, couple comments, that I got a couple more questions for you. The first is, a lot of times when I'm working with executives or leaders through change, one of the things we always come on to is who are the early adopters or the early champions that we can use your common visionaries? Love it. I totally agree. You need those supporters, visionaries to help get the mission or vision going forward. So I just want to comment on that. For sure. Is when you did this like convergence, if we're not on the same page, there's this wonderful saying that I was taught recently, well, not so recently, but a lot of us have heard, there's not what you say, but how you say it. And I love it. There's another saying, which is, there's what I say, and what I mean, and what you hear, and what you make it mean. Yeah, yeah, something earlier about getting clarification. And you said, I had misheard, they had not misspoke. Yeah, yeah, and that's part and parcel with for sure. There's what I hear what I make it mean. So I just want to comment. I thought that was really cool that you had said that earlier. Wow. No, I 100% agree. And that the challenge practically above philosophy with that in terms of implementation. And this is why feedback loops are so essential. Is creating that mechanism to be able to test, you know, what a person understood what a person was trained, what a person was taught. And that's other, that's another part of what we're doing here as well as implementing. Okay, let's have some controls around, you know, what what I said, what you heard, and the implications of what you heard, because that could translate to a procedure, that could translate to a policy that could translate to how we handle a patient. I can't tell you the number of times, you know, in business, whether it's retail, corporate, or what have you where, you know, a person heard, well, well, we don't open, you know, at a certain time, so we can't, you know, take care of somebody at a particular time. And, you know, I worked for, you know, Apple for, you know, number of years, and just an amazing organization. There was a client who needed particular assistance on a particular day, and they were knocking at the window and they were frenetic. And if you just followed the letter of the policy, then that person has to wait, you know, another two hours, what we did not know was this person was in charge of all of, I think it was the IKEA's opening up in the state of Colorado, and their phone had completely died out on them. And they just needed help resetting it. And through resetting the phone, which was a simple reset that we were able to do, literally thousands of lives, employees, and you know, millions of dollars of revenue in the local economy, at least for one day was impacted. So that's where the spirit of the law versus the intention of the policy, you know, the language of the policy, you know, sometimes, you know, things have to be mindful of. Yeah, human discretion. Yes. Imagine that. Right? Trust your people. Yes. Yes. Hey, for fun, at least for fun for me. Can you paint a picture of what it was like to visit with a sitting president? You know, so what I will say is, it was a very incredible experience. You know, in the course of the interaction that you have with them, first and foremost, there's this, there's this odd sense of awe, you know, in a sense, initially. But then, you know, you quickly realize, you know, the humanity of this person. And you quickly realize that your time with them is extremely valuable. And what you need to say, you need to say and have clarity, you know, around, you know, which is another, you know, encouragement of leaders, whether they're young leaders, you know, or, or, you know, a more, you know, tenured leaders is, you know, the degree to which you are clear on the vision that you have, the need that you have, the ask that you have, the more likely that is to be fulfilled. Because ambiguity to me conveys a lack of conviction around conviction or development or maturity, you know, in the vision that you have, and all they're fine. And it's amazing how life presents you with opportunities. And it is in the life of the opportunity that the opportunity exists. And you just always want to be prepared because you quite literally never know who you're going to run into. But it was a remarkable experience. You keep your distance because Secret Services is within, you know, great proximity. And, you know, in that moment, you know, my desire was, you know, how can I serve you in this moment, which was disorienting, you know, you know, for them. So that was a really, you know, incredible experience and, you know, met some other folks and, you know, one of them wasn't a sitting, you know, president, but would later become a vice president and is now, you know, do for, you know, being potentially, depending on the election shakes out, you know, the president United States. That was a great conversation too. I thank you for sharing. Dana Carvey, the comedian told this funny story that I heard. He used to do it. Yeah, he did a great impression of George Bush senior. Yeah. And I think, I think Dana Carvey said when George Bush senior lost the reelection. Yeah, he George Bush called Dana Carvey and said, Hey, you know, morale is down. We'd love for you to come to the White House and do your bit. And Dana Carvey said he was so taken. His first question back to him was, well, where would I sleep? And that's what he said that George Bush, where would I sleep when he invited him? And he said, George Bush was like, you'd stay here at the White House with us. And it was a really interesting story here. Dana Carvey tell it about for sure. In that moment, right, you say something so silly, right? What he said? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Charles, thank you. This was a wonderful conversation. Appreciate your time. You're an inspiring man. Oh, thank you so much. I can easily see why your unanimous unanimously voted by the board to replace a 30 year 10 year CEO. And I am sure the folks that you work with are proud to follow you. You're an inspiration. Yes, sir. It's an honor. Thank you for the time. Thank you. I appreciate it. Take care.
