As The Leader Grows with Ken Joslin

3 Spheres of Proximity | Your Circle

• Ken Joslin

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Picture this: you're standing in an Airbnb shower in Atlanta when a wave of gratitude and clarity washes over you, sparking a mission to foster intentional relationships. This episode uncovers how that epiphany led to building transformative connections with influential leaders like Dr. John Maxwell, Gary Brecka, and Les Brown, while also introducing our Proximity Series in Alpharetta, a new initiative designed to nurture a community driven by faith and entrepreneurship. Inspired by the life of Jesus, we dissect the three spheres of proximity—community, circle, and corner—emphasizing the power of surrounding yourself with the right people to propel both personal and professional growth.

Join us as we unearth the profound impact of investing time, talent, and treasure into relationships, recalling pivotal moments and anecdotes that shaped our journey. Discover how aligning with the principle that great leaders give rather than take can lead to remarkable growth in all facets of life. We share how strategic connections, like attending Gary Brecka's talk despite scheduling conflicts, serve as catalysts for progress and opportunity. Tune in for insights on authenticity, the importance of giving credit, and how these lessons have evolved into supportive pathways for faith-fueled entrepreneurs to reach their aspirations.

Welcome to the ATLG podcast I am your host Ken Joslin, former pastor turned coach & host of CREATE, the #1 Faith-based Entrepreneur conference in America. My mission is to help faith-based entrepreneurs become the best version of themselves by growing in our Core 5: Faith, Health, Relationships, Business & Finances. You can get more information as well as join our FREE Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/676347099851525

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of as a Leader Grows. I am your host, ken Jocelyn, super excited to wrap up today's series. We've been talking about proximity. As a matter of fact, last week, we just wrapped up our fifth Create Conference right here in Atlanta. We were joined by over 400 faith-fueled entrepreneurs from all across the country right here in Atlanta Two and a half days of really pressing in to become the best version of ourselves in what we call our core five framework faith, health, relationship, business and finances. And I was joined by some of my favorite people on the planet and some of my closest friends, people like Dr John Maxwell, gary Brecka, les Brown and a ton of other people Henry and Tara Lamar, pastor Dennis and Colleen Rouse absolutely killed it on the relationship component. Josh Porter won our first annual GSD Assassin Award. I'll get to that in just a little bit. And then, saturday, in the business and finance sections, my good friend, best friend, nate May and my chief growth officer here at GrowthStack Drive absolutely blew the entire conference away on his presentation on expansive thinking and how to collaborate not use AI, but collaborate with AI. It was phenomenal.

Speaker 1:

So let me say this really, really quick this upcoming week, after we left Create we said, hey, listen, we're going to launch something we've never done before. Let me share this with you to begin this podcast. We're launching our Proximity Series this Friday, february the 21st, right here in Alpharetta at City Church from 8 am to noon. It's 7.30 am, registration, 8 am we're going to kick off for four hours. We're going to do this once a month. Third Friday of every month we're going to be meeting here in Alpharetta with about 150 to 200 faith-fueled entrepreneurs. Really just to take what we experienced at Create in those two and a half days and give you guys a micro lab version of Create monthly, once a month. It's our heart. We want to help every faith-based and faith-fueled entrepreneur here in the Atlanta area.

Speaker 1:

So the team absolutely crushed it. Nate Cole, taylor came in and led worship. We had a phenomenal time. Cole also taught on EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System. He's one of the top EOS trainers, using Gino Wickman's traction book and rocket fuel book to be able to teach through implementation and strategy and organization in your company. Troy Hoffman, one of my closest friends, absolutely killing it in business, crushed it, talking about how to scale and what it looks like to scale your business. Brian Covey came in, senior Vice President of Revolution Mortgage Absolutely, he's one of the greatest leaders I've ever met. He talked about proximity and presence. Eric Weir, ryan D Lee two of my super close friends on finances, killed it. We had an amazing panel with about four ladies and two men on it CEOs, just entrepreneurs, just really out there grinding and making it happen, being able to share a little bit about proximity and a little bit of their story. It was amazing. So I said all that to say this the theme of Create this Year was proximity, and so my talk that I did Friday afternoon is a talk that really I started to develop about three years ago on three spheres of what I used to call a relationship, and now I've kind of transitioned that into three spheres of proximity, and those three spheres are community, circle and corner.

Speaker 1:

The first week in this series I hit community. Community just to kind of give you a 10,000-foot overview if you haven't listened to the other two episodes yet. Community is that group of people that you travel with, that you have the same like-mindedness, same DNA, same passions. You're moving in the same direction. For us it would be right here at GSD and what we did at Create this Week with over 400 people in the room the largest attendance we've ever had for one of our conferences. Hundreds of people there, hundreds and thousands of people over the last four or five years who have said you know what, ken, I love as a faith-fueled entrepreneur being a part of a community of people moving in the same direction, the same passion. God, use me, god, take my business and use that to be able to build the kingdom. So that's the community Circle are the 10 to 12 people you spend the most time with, and in our last episode I talked about how the most known man in the entire world since the beginning of the world his name was Jesus.

Speaker 1:

And what did he do? Regardless of whether or not you're a faith-based entrepreneur or you even believe in Christ, you can't. You can't argue the fact that Jesus took the power of what we call the circle, the 10 to 12 people that you spend the most time with. Jesus changed the entire world and guys listen to this. He spent three years with these men, with 12 men, one of them the entire time fought against and pushed against what Jesus did and actually, at the very end, many of you may know he betrayed him.

Speaker 1:

Today I want to talk about corner and I want to talk about and I got this term 10,000 foot view from my pastor, coach and mentor, probably 15, 16 years ago, named Sean Lovejoy. Sean's been a dear friend, still a dear friend today. His birthday was this week. By the way, this past week Happy birthday, sean Lovejoy. If you hear this, sean kind of coined the phrase to me. He goes Ken, you need someone in your life that has a 10,000-foot view of what's going on in your life. And when I was pastoring, sean at that time was meeting with me once a month. We had just planted a church. This was back in 2008, 2009. Just planted a church and Sean was kind of my pastor, coach and mentor and he has been now continued on for about 16, 17 years.

Speaker 1:

And so your corner guys are the three to five men or women, depending on if you're a man or a woman. If you're a man, all your corner people need to be men. If you're a woman, all your corner people need to be other ladies Three to five people who have a 10,000 foot view of your life that can help you become the best version of yourself in that core five framework and I want to back up and start from the very beginning of how really my corner even began. So in 2022, we did our very first ever Create Conference and my good friends John Maxwell, jesse Itzler, brian Covey was there, anthony Trucks, randy Garn a phenomenal, phenomenal lineup, jen Gottlieb we had a great time. We had about 160 people show up for the very first conference that we ever did. It was an amazing, amazing weekend. God showed up in a huge, huge way, and really it was the beginning of us going ah God, this is what you want us to do for faith-fueled entrepreneurs. And so we did that. Well, sunday morning, we get done. Saturday night, we had our CEO dinner, like we do every year. Now we've turned it into a soiree. It's a black tie, it's a blast. So we get done.

Speaker 1:

Saturday morning, I had rented an Airbnb because I was living in Birmingham at the time for the team, and Airbnb because I was living in Birmingham at the time for the team. And so I was in the shower Sunday morning and I never forget. You know, I'm just. I've got my, my, my forehead planted up against this, this huge walk-in shower, my forehead planted up against the, the tile, and my, my hands are just up in the air and this warm water is just flowing over me and I'm just sitting there and I'm just, I'm so grateful for what I just experienced. God, do that weekend I was just weeping man, I just had tears and I'm like God, you're so good. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for being able to use me. God, thank you for not giving up on me.

Speaker 1:

For some of you guys you're out there today, you're listening to this, you're thinking God's given up on me. Let me say this to you Out of his word are irrevocable. In the King James it says they're without repentance. When God's marked you and he's called you, he's put something on your life. All you need to do, wherever you're at, is get back in alignment with that purpose, god's will and God's word, and I'm telling you that purpose will start to come out of you again. So I'm sitting in the shower, I'm bawling, I'm like God, you're so good. Thank you for what you did. I just I felt the impact on Sunday morning of what had happened in you know about 160 people's lives that weekend. And then, all of a sudden, I feel the. I feel the Holy spirit speak to me and he says intentional, I want 2025 to be a year of intention or 2022, excuse me to be a year of intentionality for you. Then I'm just praying. Now I'm in the hour and I'm just praying. I'm like, okay, god, what does this mean? And he goes. I want you to be intentional in deepening the relationships you have with these four men and at the time and I'm gonna start this was three years ago At the time I was friends with and it was four guys that I reached out to.

Speaker 1:

Number one was Randy Garn, dear friend of mine from Salt Lake City. Sits on the board with Tony Robbins, private equity firm partner. New York Times bestseller, brian Covey, who is now the senior vice president of Revolution Mortgage. My good friend, brent Gove, who's the number one agent with the EXP. I believe Brent was at Create this past week. He has over 40,000 agents under him right now. Him and Kathy are two of my dear friends, salt of the earth, human beings.

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And then the last one was Gary Brecka. I had met Gary about six, eight months, probably about eight months. Nine months before that, I just my health journey. I was about a year into my health journey. Gary actually came and spoke at create. That year. We launched our mastermind everything right there at create.

Speaker 1:

And so what I did was I kind of processed through the conversation I was going to have with these four men. Now, vic Keller came in the next November, so about seven or eight months later I met Vic. I processed through what does this conversation look like? Because, listen, this is keyed off the question I get from most people, probably the number one question I get Ken, how have you built the relationships with the amazing people that you have built? Two things Number one and let me go into these three questions, or these three commitments I made to these men. And then out of those commitments came really my life mantra, which is great leaders want something for people, not from people. Let me say that again. Great leaders want something for people, not from people. Let me say that again. Great leaders want something for people, not from people.

Speaker 1:

And so I approached all four of these men individually and I just said, hey, brent Gove, here's what I would love to do, dude, I want to take our relationship to the next level and I'm willing to invest three things into your life to be able to do that. Number one is going to be my time, number two is my talent and number three is my treasure time, talent and treasure. And so let me, let me break that down. You're like Ken. What does that mean? So, number one time I'm going to calendar time on my calendar, I'm sitting here looking at my screen. Now on my calendar, I'm going to calendar time to go wherever you're at so I can spend time with you and deepen our friendship and our relationship.

Speaker 1:

Talent number two who do I know that you need to know? Or, in other words, how can I help the dream and the vision that God's put on the inside of you come to fruition? Every single one of us, as faith-fueled entrepreneurs, you have a passion and a dream to do something extraordinary. God's put something in your heart and you're like okay, and what I found is and in my new book coming up, it's the theme of this podcast series, it was the theme of create is proximity. My new book is called Proximity is a Cheat Code and, guys, every time in any of those core five areas, I went to the next level. I did that through God. A relationship Every single time, bar none. So my time, I'm going to fly to you All those guys Gary Brekka, I've been to Vegas with Gary. I've flown down to Miami and worked out and spent time and filmed with Gary. Gary's been to our conferences. Gary and Sage were a part of our mastermind for the first two and a half three years until Gary kind of took off on a rocket ship and really became the number one biohacker in the entire world with millions and millions of followers, and he's absolutely doing an unbelievable work in the world right now. So a lot of time. Brian Covey lives in Nashville, tennessee. I've been to Nashville several times to spend time with Brian. Brian's also a part of our mastermind and a part of GSD.

Speaker 1:

Brent Gove. I'll never forget I had a rough season in my life, business-wise, relationship-wise and I picked the phone up and I was talking to Brent and Brent goes Ken, just come down and see Kathy and I Just come, spend three or four days with us and just hang out. And I did. I've been down to Puerto Rico twice just to spend time with Brent and Kathy. No agenda, no business, no anything, just coming down. And Brent and Kathy have been an amazing, amazing blessing to my life, being able to speak light and not even really to do with business. And he's again. 40,000 agents 40,000 agents and about a seven figure revenue stream each month coming in. Nothing to do with business, nothing to do with finances. It was all about relationships and faith, and that really is what God's done in there. And then I think the last one is Randy Garne Gosh. I've been to Salt Lake City probably 10 times in the last three years to spend time with Randy. Randy, also part of our mastermind. Randy, also a part of what we're doing speaks at just about every event that we do.

Speaker 1:

Then, later on that year, I ran into and met Vic Keller, my best friend, nate, who's our chief growth officer here at GrowStack Drive. Vic Keller, my best friend, nate, who's our chief growth officer here at GrowStack Drive. Nate worked for Vic as a chief growth officer in his automated car wash manufacturing business just right outside of Charlotte, north Carolina. Nate was on a phone call one day. Actually, nate and I were on a phone call one day and they're about to have their executive meeting at Alltech. Vic walks in the room and he walks behind him and he looks down down and he sees me on the phone and he goes is that the guy that you wanted me to talk to? And he picks up the phone and Vic goes oh, another good Cause he's bald, just like I am. He goes another good looking bald headed brother who loves Jesus. And I'm like what's up, dude? So Vic and I we scheduled a 15 minute call the next week. Out of that call he goes listen, I'm going to have my assistant get with you. We'll schedule 15 minutes on the on the calendar. So the next week I get 15 minutes with Vic on the calendar.

Speaker 1:

That conversation turned into an hour and 27 minute phone call. And out of that phone call I'll never forget the last six questions. Vic asked me was dude, what can I do for you? I love your vision, I love what you're doing. I want to help. I said, vic, I don't need anything from you, I just want to build a relationship with you. And so the last time he asked me, I said dude, I appreciate it and I love you, but I don't need anything, I just want to build a relationship. A relationship with you is what I'm after. This is what I want, because I know we'll benefit each other. It'll be reciprocal, but you'll help me get to the level I need to be to be able to fulfill what God's put on my heart.

Speaker 1:

Two days later, I'm sitting on a plane. I'm flying to Dallas to record a TV show with my good friend, marie Cosgrove, and then from Dallas I'm going to New York City to speak for Josh York, the CEO of Gym Guys, to his top 100 franchisees. Then I'm coming home, 48-hour trip, small suitcase pack, only a carry-on. I get a text from Vic while I'm on the plane hey, do you want to come to Whitefish Montana and spend three days with me this weekend? Of course I do, and so I had my assistant rearrange my schedule. So instead of New York home, I flew from New York to Whitefish Montana, spent three days with Vic and just building our relationship.

Speaker 1:

So that's time talent. Who do I know that you need to know. Guys Brent, every year has done the Build Conference. Two or three years ago, huge, about 4,000 plus agents in Dallas, texas. His last three keynote speakers the last year he did the big, big conference of over 4,000 in Dallas was Gary Brecka, dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins, and he met all three of those people through me. I made the introduction number one to Randy Garn, who then introduced him to Dean and then introduced him to Tony and then Gary Brecka.

Speaker 1:

Literally my whole role in these men's lives when it comes to talent, is my talent and my giftings are connecting. I'm a connector and that's what I am. As soon as I meet somebody, I'm thinking through oh okay, this is what you do and my computer brain is going 100 miles an hour already. Okay, who do I know that you need to know? Who do I know that you need to know? That's where I'm at. So time, talent, treasure.

Speaker 1:

Let me say this very gracefully for you guys when I say investing my treasure in my relationships, it's this If any of those five men are doing something conference, they're putting something on number one. I never ask for a free ticket, ever. I go straight to their website and I purchase the best ticket they have, whether that be at Grant Cardone's, whether it be a $10,000 diamond seat at Brent's event I think they're about three grand ish for the front row seats Cabo, I think they're a thousand 800 to a thousand bucks I get the best seat I can get because I want to invest my, my treasure, in you as well. If you're doing something as a friend, I should want to support you. And the last thing I'm going to do and guys, listen, I'm not trying to throw shade on people, but this happens so many times. Friends will call and go hey, man, I know you've got your conference coming up. I'd love to meet Les Brown, I'd love to meet Gary Brecker, I'd love to meet Ed Milet or Brenda Bruchard or Erwin McManus or John Maxwell All the friends that I have that come and speak at our conferences. Hey, can I get your X ticket for X or can you give me a pass? I had some friends of mine. They're like oh well, we don't pay to go to conferences. I'm like, okay, well then you won't come to my conference because it costs me money for everybody that's there. And guys, it's a mindset shift and I'll tell you what happened with Gary Brekka. I you what happened with Gary Brekka.

Speaker 1:

I was on a Zoom call. I was introducing Gary to two other doctor friends of mine that he needed to know. All three of them needed to know each other. So I just literally set up a Zoom call. This was gosh two and a half years ago. Set up a Zoom call for those three people to meet on the Zoom.

Speaker 1:

On the Zoom, I said, hey, gary. I said are you speaking at GrowthCon this year? And this is what Gary said. He goes dude. He just immediately if you know Gary at all. He got fired up. He was like oh my God, yeah, I'm speaking on Friday, grant's giving me 90 minutes, I'm speaking at two o'clock. Blah, blah, blah, blah. He said are you going to be there? I said, dude, I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world. I said what's the date? And I believe the date was April, april 16th. And I went April 16th okay, dude, I'm going to be there. We miss it in the world.

Speaker 1:

We get off the call, I go in and I realize the day before I had just bought front row seats to go see Eric Church in Birmingham. That cost me a thousand bucks a piece. I just bought those tickets. What's the date? It was April the 16th. So I had to do two things. Number one I put my tickets on StubHub and sold them, lost me a little bit of money on that. Second thing I did is I picked the phone up and I texted Jim Morales, who at the time was Grant's CFO, and I said hey, jimmy, I believe I've got a credit in the store, about $10,000. I need a diamond seat for the GrowthCon this year. Jimmy texted me back later that day. Yep, you got it. Here's your diamond seat, boom, diamond seat done. And then what happened was when, on that Friday afternoon, when Gary came out of kind of the shoot, it was like this long runway I'm sitting in like the second or third row and as soon as he saw me, gary beelines over, high fives, hugs my neck, gets on stage, absolutely crushes it.

Speaker 1:

So, guys, how do I build the relationships with the people I do? I invest my time, my talent and my treasure in those relationships. I want them to know that I am serious about helping them accomplish what God has put in their heart. My favorite Zig Ziglar quote is this If you help enough people get what they want, eventually you're going to get what you want. Guys, it's not rocket science and that's where, out of all of that, probably about a year and a half to two years ago, god gave me literally my life mantra Great leaders want something for people, not from people.

Speaker 1:

And, guys, when you walk in a room, it's so funny. It's when you walk into a room of people, and I saw this yesterday on Instagram. I commented on the thing, somebody that came to my conference. They quoted one of the speakers, they quoted Les Brown, they quoted a Les Brown quote, but they didn't give Les Brown credit on the quote. They put it on social media like it was their quote. They may have not done it intentionally. Well, I commented on the quote and I commented on the post. Then I said dude, I love that quote. Les Brown absolutely killed it. I'm so glad he said it.

Speaker 1:

If great leaders want something for people, not from people, if I'm going to take other people's quotes that I hear and pass them off as my own, I'm not the kind of leader that's going to attract the type of people that I need in my life to be able to fulfill what God has for me. Guys. So time, talent, treasure. Now listen. At the very beginning three years ago, I started a text thread and then we added there was four of us or five of us, and then I added Vic on there the next November when he came to speak at our mastermind in Scottsdale, arizona. And for two years, guys, almost every single day we were pinging.

Speaker 1:

I've kind of led that thing and then, as relationships morphed and the seasons in our life change, my corner has changed some. All of those people are still very close friends. All of those people speak at every event that I do. All of those people are very involved in what we do. But my corner shifted and changed a little bit and, just like I talked about in your circle, you need to evaluate the people that are in your corner. So, ken, on Friday afternoon, what did that look like when you talked about community circle corner? Guys, we literally changed everything that we're doing here at GSD and our three pathways now to being able to get connected with us, our community circle corner.

Speaker 1:

When we did create, I told Nate and the team. I said, guys, I want an avenue for any faith fueled entrepreneur, no matter what level their business is at, to be able to take a journey with us for the next year. And so we developed Nate's like well, why don't you just take community circle corner? That's been your talk, your life, your mantra for the last three years and let's make that the avenues or the pathway. So we did so Friday afternoon. We talked about it Saturday afternoon. We gave hundreds of people an opportunity and we've been inundated with people connecting with us.

Speaker 1:

But I want to share this with you real quick. Then I'm going to give you a link. You can go check out all the information on your own Number one community. It's $97 a month. So our community is $97 a month or 997 paid in full for the year. We do two Zoom calls the first and third Wednesday of each month at 1 pm. Nate and I hop on and literally because at $97 a month or a 997 a year, those are startup businesses that need startup, they have startup problems and startup issues. So we go on focused on what are the problems that startup businesses face and that's what we tackle two calls a month. Then they get a general admission ticket to create, which are 400 bucks, and then our circle is 497. That used to be called our collective or we used to call it back in the day our GSD community. It's 497 a month or 4997 for the entire year, paid in full, and so that's eight Zoom calls. It's two Zoom calls a week, every Monday morning at 8 am and then every Wednesday night at 8 pm. Wednesday nights I bring in guests Gary Brecka, sharon Lecter, ryan D Lee, randy Garn, Brent Goh, vic Keller, john Maxwell, you name it. I bring those guys in on Wednesday night once or twice a month and we theme out each Wednesday according to our core five faith, health, relationship, business and finances. So that's kind of what the circle looks like.

Speaker 1:

The corner now is what we used to call our GSD Elite Mastermind, and this week we've had about seven or eight people sign up for and want to be a part of the corner. And what Nate and I really did was say who are the 30 businesses that we can really, really really go deep with. And it came out of what happened this past year with my good friend and our first ever GSD Assassin Award winner. What an amazing weekend to be able to do this with Josh. So last year at Create, when we gave people the opportunity to become a part of our GSD Elite Mastermind, which is now known as the Corner, josh was one of the first people to sign up. It's a $50,000 investment. It's a sizable investment. He shared this weekend, the last weekend at Create, about how much of a stretch that was for him.

Speaker 1:

But, guys, since he became a part of our circle or our corner, since he became a part of our mastermind, here's what's happened. He's went from 10 employees to 21 employees, from 100 and I believe it was $170,000 a month in revenue to almost $200,000 a month in revenue to almost $200,000 a month in revenue. His annual revenue went from $1.9 million to $3.7 million. He went from two franchise locations to five. And you're like Ken, that's amazing. Yes, it's amazing. Which is why, when Nate and I got together, nate's like dude, let's give him the. Because Nate's favorite word is assassin, let's give him the GSD assassin award. So we presented him on stage in front of 400 entrepreneurs, this super bad-ass samurai sword, and I could barely read through the framed letter that Nate and I gave him, just because of my gratitude Number one that he, that he believed in what we were doing and that we invested so much into his business and to be able to help him, not just not just on our Zoom calls, not just in our mastermind events that we do in Puerto Rico in the spring, atlanta in the summer or Sundance in the fall, which is a smaller group, about 40 to 70 faith-based, faith-fueled entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1:

All of those guys or businesses are doing well over seven figures. And it's a room. Guys. Let me say this You're like you're listening to this podcast. You're like am I fit for that? If your business is over seven figures and you are one idea or one relationship away from breakthrough and getting to the next level, it's a perfect spot for you and you can go to growstackdrivecom forward slash corner and you'll see the information and there's an application process for this.

Speaker 1:

We don't just sign everybody up If I don't know you and you haven't come to create and I haven't built a relationship. We don't give people that opportunity, that investment. This year we did it for $9.97, which is $5K a month or $50K paid in full. That actually gets you and one more person access to everything that we do inside the corner all of our Create Conference, two CEO tickets, all of our masterminds and then all of our Zoom calls and everything we do Two CEO tickets, all of our masterminds and then all of our Zoom calls and everything we do. Plus, we do some weekend events with some of the people there. We'll bring 12 to 13 guys in and literally just sit down and drill down on people's business.

Speaker 1:

Nate and I do a one-on-one with everyone. We've got one scheduled tomorrow with a new plumbing company that came this past week to create and we're just blown away 69-year-old owner, four people. They've got two plumbing crews. Our goal this next year is to help them get to four and just really hone in their message on who they are, what they're desiring to do, because he knows God's called him as a plumber to be able to make an impact and have influence in the world for the kingdom of God. So, community circle corner. My question to you is who's in your corner? Find the people Prayerfully, think through the people you need in your life to help take you to the next level and then offer to do the same thing I did. Guys Listen, I'm willing to invest my time, my talent and my treasure into your life to deepen and strengthen our friendship and our relationship. Guys, thank you again for joining us on another episode of as the Leader Grows. My name is Ken Johnson, super excited that you joined us. We'll see you next week.