Hey there, everybody.

Welcome back to lead of the team.

What do elite squash and fiber broadband have in common?

Well, speed, strategy and precision to win the game.

And today's guest, Gaurav Junasia, brings that championship mindset to the telecom battlefield, is chief operating officer over at Consolidated Communications and Fidium Fiber, one of the top 10 fiber providers in the nation.

With a career spanning Dish Metronet, which was recently acquired by T Mobile and now leading a major infrastructure rollout across the Northeast, Midwest, Texas and California, Garv's playbook is all about scaling fast, staying agile and outpacing the competition.

Garb actually played squash at Trinity College where his team was a four time Division one national champion.

Hello, Garb.

Welcome to lead the team, sir.

Thank you, Ben.

Pleasure to be here.

So talk to us about your leadership journey to get here.

What was it like and what have the ups and downs been?

Sure.

Well, the leadership journey was not linear.

It was, it was full of struggle, failure, challenges.

And the thought process was for me was fail fast, learn quickly, always be learning, have a learner's mindset because the faster you can learn or in terms of your rate of growth or your rate of learning, Sorry, if your rate of learning is high and you're learning fast through quick failures, your rate of growth will be higher.

That's what, that's the way I always thought about it.

And candidly, when I was younger, I didn't know that consciously, but I just made a lot of mistakes.

And every single time I made those mistakes, I failed.

And when I failed, I learned from that failure.

And I made a deliberate effort to learn from that failure.

Not just to fix that issue, but to actually not have it reoccur in the future.

So all of that to say struggle, challenge and failure were my friend.

And I truly do believe that the great, the steep, the steeper the view.

I'm sorry, the steeper the climb, the greater the view.

So the, the sooner you can tackle the hardest challenges, the faster you're going to grow.

Wow.

So talk to me about maybe one of those earlier ones.

One of those earlier, because he, you know, thinking about failure early on is something that we try to hide from, sweep under the carpet.

Even if we're like, okay, let's just forget we even did that and then just press on.

But it takes like a real growth mindset to consider that, okay, I failed.

What can I learn from it?

Yeah.

And you know, it is very hard to, it is very hard to fail early.

And it is also very hard to admit failure when you're early in your career.

And the reason being is when you're early in your career, you're looking at your career from a resume view, which is, what have I accomplished?

What is my next growth step?

What is my next role?

From an optic standpoint, how am I going to be perceived if I fail?

So failure is very difficult when, when it's when you're early in your career.

I unfortunately failed early in my career or thought I failed early in my career because I candidly was not focused enough to know what I was doing or what I wanted to do.

And so as an example, like, were.

You already on the job or were you in college or when.

Yeah, so I was in college.

I was in college.

And as you mentioned, I was a, you know, you know, I came here, went to Trinity College by way of a scholarship, a squash scholarship, played on the squash team for four years, was a four time Division one national champion, got presented with an opportunity to go coach squash at Harvard University and did that, did that for two years.

You realized, wait, you coached squash at Harvard?

I did.

What in the world, what was that like?

It was a, it was a great experience.

It was a great experience from the perspective of coaching people and really making sure that people can maximize their talents on the squash court.

And B, is the life lessons that you can learn being a professional athlete.

In terms of discipline, you talked about precision.

In terms of, you know, people talk about work life balance or work life harmony.

As an athlete, you're always trying to harmonize your academic life with your, with your professional athletic life.

So you talk about work life harmony.

You learn that as an athlete in college and then you also want to be social.

So being able to balance your life in general, it was, was awesome.

So all of that to say, when I graduated from college, I got a role at Harvard University, did that for two years and then realized that while I enjoyed coaching people, I didn't quite see a career out of coaching squash at the time, and then pivoted and moved over to telecom.

And when I came into telecom, which is specifically in mobility or wireless, I did that for eight years, traveled across the country and launched different businesses.

Secondly, that was not my failure, my fate.

And I actually, I will, I'll take that back, that there was some of my failures in there because in those eight years in the projects that I took on, I took on the hardest projects for the company that I worked for.

So every single time they wanted to expand their business into a new territory or a new state, I raised my hand and said I would do it without knowing how to do it.

But I wanted to do that because I wanted to tackle the hardest challenges, learn the most, and then last but not the least, in fact, the most important, I wanted to learn from great leaders.

And you can only learn from great leaders if they take you under their wing.

And they'll only take you under their wing if you tackle the hardest challenges and if you take the initiative to do so.

So all of that to say I took on the hardest challenges, failed in some of them, succeeded in the others.

But I've always believed that you should major in the majors.

And what I mean by that is, again, you take on the hardest challenges, you learn the most, you make it successful, you forget about the smaller things that won't be successful that can come in your way.

So you eliminate the noise.

But going back to the concept of failure, I remember when I was working at Dish Network and you know, Dish Network was a video only business.

And they launched broadband, rural broadband for unserved and underserved communities at the time.

And this was literally within two months of me joining the company in 20, in 2012.

And I took it upon myself.

I raised my hand and said, I want to be able to work on that broadband business versus working full time on the video business, because I saw the handwriting on the wall.

Video was a declining business.

Broadband was a growing business, and that too in rural America.

So took that challenge on, did that really well for two years.

Unfortunately, again, it was a satellite broadband product.

And while it was a great product, it had a limited shelf life.

So then I pivoted.

So I didn't see that as a failure.

I saw that as a great opportunity and a great growth story.

So that was actually a win.

But the reason I present, I'm presenting this as a failure is the following.

I then went and took another job at a different company with the prospect of that company, you know, being suited by a private equity firm and the fact that we could, you know, recapitalize the company's debt and equ and then grow the company.

And unfortunately that didn't pan out.

And that to me was a huge.

I felt like that was a huge failure on my part.

And the reason being is I had had a successful stint or run at Dish Network.

I had launched their satellite broadband product, unfortunately, which was slowing down, but I'd made a good run of that.

I had then strategically chosen another opportunity because I thought which was in the broadband space, because I thought I could really leverage my experience and make that make that a big success.

And the reason I joined them, which is again, to grow their business, is what was not going to happen.

And I was then left, you know, kind of wondering what my, what my options were for in terms of career mobility, in terms of, you know, just job security.

But that failure, in fact, of going to the solid company and those experiences actually led me to the real opportunity at metronet.

Because the same private equity sponsor, the same private equity sponsor that was doing their due diligence on the company where it didn't work out was the private equity sponsor that was then the sponsor for metronet.

And they recruited me, they recruited me in the process because they saw the work that I'd done.

And again, they saw not just the work that I'd done, they saw that I was willing to take on the hardest challenges.

So all of that to say, I think having a learning mindset is very important.

And you talked about it in the context of growth mindset and having a learning mindset.

In order to have a learning mindset, you have to accept failure, you have to be able to learn from it, and you've got to be able to rise up to the occasion.

Yeah, so many interesting things about that.

One of the things I'm taking away in there that's so interesting is that the real success or what I think helped you bridge from failure to success was the fact that you had created positive relationships and demonstrated that you learned from the challenges you face.

And it's like even though the company didn't work out, you create, you learned a lot and you created positive relationships.

So that was really ended up being a success and that bridged you into metronet that eventually got acquired by T Mobile.

Right.

You're bad.

So I mean it.

It's so interesting too, I think about thinking of your career on like a long arc, a long trajectory.

It seems so clear now.

Kind of the Steve Jobs quote about.

It's easy to connect the dots looking back, but I like the fact you kind of mined it for what, what the learning was.

And it might have been Tim Ferriss or somebody along those lines I was listening to.

He's like, yeah, every time I take a risk, I think about how it can work out as a success no matter what.

And so one is the business result or the investment result, but the other is what I'm going to learn and what are those relationships going to be?

And you probably would not never have had that opportunity to build those relationships with those investors if you hadn't had that that first day.

In it, you bet.

You know, Ben, I will say that a lot of it also comes down to the environment around you.

And what I mean by that is, you know, sure, I failed, but I was also given the opportunity or the flexibility to learn from the experience.

In other words, I wanted to.

Psychologically and mentally, I wanted to.

I was fully prepared to take the next step and learn from the failure.

But the organization or the environment you're in has to also enable you to do that.

In other words, if the, if the organizations that I worked for were short term oriented, they would have never allowed us to learn from failure.

In fact, if anything, they would have never allowed us to fail.

You know, in many ways.

And the reason being is they would have either been A, too careful or B, is the moment you failed, they would have exited, exited you out of the door.

But they were the organizations, the organizations were credible and mature enough to say, take the chances, fail, and then learn from those failures and rebuild again.

So what is your mindset when you're in the midst of like, you realize this thing is not going to work out, but you've got to see it through which you were in.

Right.

You're like, hey, this is not going to work out if you have a whole business, but I've got to steward it to some point.

How are you showing up every day knowing, knowing that no matter how much you do this is, this is just not.

It's only going to be meant to be.

Yeah.

Two, two thoughts that come to mind in terms of my mindset.

Number one is, and I learned this in a yoga class, believe it or not, years ago, when I was an athlete, when I was a professional athlete, stay calm in the eye of the storm.

And that has always stuck with me.

So when, you know, when, when we, when we have our toughest times is the times you need to be the most calm.

So that has overstayed me.

So that's candidly an expression that I use with my team all the time.

Even when we know that the end goal is not the most desirable, we use that.

And the number two is, candidly, I think the second one I think is something that truly resonates with me, which is I mentioned how early in your career you look at things from a resume view in my career right now.

And I think the sooner people adopt this mindset, the more successful they're going to be.

It's about a legacy view, which is it's not about what you're accomplishing alone.

It's not about the next positional rank and profile that you're going to achieve.

It's about how you leave something better than it was previously or what it was than it was before.

And it's about really making sure that you enable people around you to achieve great things.

So to answer your question specifically, when the goal or the end goal in sight is not the most desirable, we think we're not going to get there.

Should we give up or should we continue to go, or how do you manage that situation?

The way I manage that situation is think about it from a legacy view.

I may not get to the goal, but am I much better off when I.

When I get to the goal than I was when I first started on this journey?

And I truly believe that success is a journey.

And as long as you can go through the journey, you may not get to this point, the specific goal in that instance, but as long as you learn, as long as you get to.

As long as you go through the journey and you've learned from the journey and you feel like you truly do believe, you know the light bulb has to go on, you truly believe you've learned from it, you truly believe you've grown from it, and you've seen the other people grow and develop in the process around you, I think that is a success.

Really, really appreciate that view.

You know, a lot of times leaders get asked that question.

You're like, you got to dig a little bit deeper, got to motivate your team a little harder.

And don't never quit.

Don't give up on the goal.

But Seth Godin wrote this book called the Dub.

I don't know if you ever read this thing.

It's a very short book, but it's.

It's like when you.

When things aren't going your way in life or in business, you've got to decide if it's just a dip that you're going through to push through, to get to the other side, or if it's what he calls a cul de sac, which is just like, we're gonna push, but we're just gonna be running around and around and around.

And I think it's a hard decision for leaders to know and to make that call.

But like you said, hey, am I improved?

Like, I'm thinking about ways like, even if you know you may not reach the bigger goal, are you improving the business?

Are you setting it up for the next step?

Are you developing the people around you?

Are you saying a good foundation for what's next?

There are a lot of ways to kind of Rethink that the goal and what success could look like than just always pushing through, you know, whenever you get.

Because sometimes the externals are against you.

You bet.

You bet.

You got to figure that out.

I, I'd like, if, if you're good with it, I like to go back to your, to your squash days for a second.

You bet.

Now I want, I don't know what it takes to win four squash Division 1 championships.

I bet it's a ridiculous amount of effort and time and practice and I want to talk about that.

But before that, there's this, There's a lot coming out on racket sports in terms of how it's good for your longevity.

People that play racket sport seem to have a healthier lifestyle and whatnot.

And then there's this other piece about Roger Federer, one of the greatest tennis champions to ever live.

He came out with these statistics that like, he only won like 51% of his points overall.

And I'm a, and I'm assuming there's something related in squash, right, where you're failing a lot and that you're all like you people think to, to be a four time Division 1 champion, you're just racking up and just winning easily, but it's probably a very thin margin, right?

Like you're losing as almost as much as you're winning.

You bet.

What did you take from those squash days?

And you know what, what can we all learn from that?

Two, two big things that I learned from my squash days.

Number one is, you know, as an individual, you know, squash is a unique sport in that you're playing an individual game on the court that you're playing in college, you're playing on behalf of your team.

So you've got this combination of being an individual player while you're on the court, but then playing for the team and making sure that the team wins.

So the two big realizations for me were, number one, self awareness.

And the self awareness came with, when you're on the court, you can win the point.

But again, as Roger Federer mentioned, who by the way, was my favorite tennis player of all time, he only won 51 of the points, as you mentioned.

So you could win a point in squash, but I would always, in terms of self awareness, I would always get upset with myself when I didn't play that point well, even if I won the point and all of that, to say so if it was somebody else's mistake and not mine, but you know, I would win the point, but I didn't play that Point well, so I would always go back on the court in the spirit of self awareness.

I would always go back and try and perfect my craft.

So there were times when we were all practicing as a team and there were many times when I was practicing by myself because I wanted to make sure that I perfected my craft.

And so there was a, there was a.

There has to be a level of self awareness when you're playing a team sport or an individual sport to say I've won the game, but I could have done better.

And candidly, the bottom line of the one line answer is that you're competing with yourself to be better.

And then the second piece is beyond the self awareness piece.

It's really about making that which is really the team.

It's really about making each other better.

And that is when you're actually practicing with each other and giving each other transparent and candid feedback about what somebody could have done differently or better.

And you build a level of trust with the team, which we did at Trinity College where I played for four years.

We had a level of trust and camaraderie amongst the team that I have never seen before.

And because we were all athletes that had come then, squash players that had come there for two things.

Number one is academically, we wanted to come there and prove that we can be, you know, there were several international students at the time at Trinity, people from South Africa, England, India, South America, all of that.

To say people came there because they wanted to excel academically and learn something different than they had, you know, previously in their own countries.

But then b, they all came there because they all loved playing squash and we all, you know, that was the, that was candidly the common denominator and there was a lot of passion.

So my point being is like when you have self awareness to consistently improve even when you're winning because you just want to be better.

And then number two is when you actually play with the team and you have a level of trust and camaraderie and you're aligned on a common purpose because you want to go and win together.

I, I truly think those are my two biggest learnings from playing squash over the years.

Wow.

So these racket sports.

And I played, I did not play collegiate level tennis, but I played a lot of tennis.

My daughter, my whole family play centers.

It's interesting to see the team, team tennis dynamics, which might be like squash, where it can be pretty cutthroat.

I mean, and I mean, it's because you got to play challenge matches, right?

They're not going to say car of welcome to Trinity.

You're a number one player.

You have to go out and win, right?

And then, then you have to create and then all these players you were battling against, you have to go out and then become a team and compete against other teams.

How does Trinity foster that without breaking the team apart in terms of people just like, you know what, I don't like that guy.

He did, he made a bad call, he did this and that.

Now he's one I'm too.

And, and, and it's amazing to do it, to be four time champions.

It just doesn't even seem in, in this day and age seems so difficult.

That's a great question, Ben.

I think it really came down to, in terms of.

So I'll draw the framework and then I'll, I'll elaborate on the framework.

When I think about my days at Trinity, it really came down to four things.

Number one, we had a shared, not just the players, but the players and the coaches and the president of the university.

We had a shared strategy.

The strategy was to go and win national championships on day one.

That's what they tell you.

That was the strategy.

And that was the strategy.

And the strategy was to go and win championships.

And again, Brent, it came directly from the president of the university, of the college.

The squash coach fully advocated that and went and recruited the right squash players to do so.

We made sure that we played great squash and we also made sure we didn't compromise on our academic life.

And these were the same students who were working 20 and 40 hours a week also while going to school and while playing squash.

All of that to say the president of our university was involved, like no joke.

He had, he had.

The president of the university had gone and recruited squash players along with the squash coach.

So there was a shared strategy.

That's number one.

Number two is there were shared initiatives.

When we recruited these squash players, we really made sure that the squash players, again, as I mentioned, there was a balance between the academic life, their athletic life and obviously, you know, their day to day lives also.

In other words, they were given opportunities to work on campus.

They were given opportunities to do different things such as be an academic mentor.

And the reason being is there was a whole goal around these are the initiatives we want, these are the things we want all our athletes, our squash players to do.

And that again, it was a common framework.

Number three, the third thing was it was all around shared experiences.

And our shared experiences really were.

Again, it got very tense to your question it got very tense when we would play each other individually to decide who played at number one versus who played at number two versus who played at number five on the team.

Because ultimately there were 10 people getting on the squash court individually against our opponents.

But you had to rank the 10 players.

Yeah.

So it got very tense when we had to rank and compete against each other.

But again, I think that shared strategy of winning the championship and those shared initiatives that we all had, where we all knew that we came here to study, play great squash, and at the same time have a great life and build a great life together, and the fact that we had shared experiences where we would travel together, we would travel together for these squash matches, we would go out for weekends together playing these squash tournaments, we would support each other.

So, for example, when someone needed help with, you know, squash lesson, or someone needed help covering them on a shift for work as an example, because they were very busy, the other person would help each other.

So there was a sense of community amongst the team, which really gave us shift shared experiences.

And then the last thing was we had shared incentives, and our incentive was to win the national championship and graduate from college.

So it went back and cascade.

The incentive cascaded back up to the strategy.

So the direct alignment, candidly between the shared strategies, shared initiatives, the shared experiences, and the shared incentives candidly worked for the team.

Love that.

And the word that jumped out at me that you said was alignment.

And it makes a difference when, like, okay, your coach is saying, this is the goal.

But when the president, university is saying, hey, this is the mission.

This is where we're headed.

This is where we want you to go.

We're going to give you all these resources and planning, helping you plan your college experience to help align to that.

It probably gets the perspective off of me and more on the weekend.

You bet.

Yeah, you bet.

And then the one other thing, Ben.

Sorry, the last thing I'll mention over there is, you know, the one other leadership lesson outside of the align in, in addition to alignment is the fact that people.

So the president of the university, the squash coach, they got out of the way.

So in other words, once they assembled the team, once they assemble the team, the president let the squash notes do his job, the squash coach let his players do their job.

And that was very.

And then the players let the squash coach do his job and vice versa.

So the point being is, you know, many times as leaders, and I'm pivoting away from squash specifically, but, you know, staying with this example, many a times, leaders they hire really good and qualified people, but then they don't let that leader alter the plan.

It is so incredibly important as a leader for you to let your.

Whoever you have hired or whoever you have on your team that is leading a project initiative, a team, let them offer their plan, and you as a leader, should help them edit their plan.

But you should not author anybody else's plan.

And going back to Trinity, that's what our president did really well.

He did not author the plan for the coach, the coach did not author the plan for the players.

They let everybody else offer their own plan.

Love that.

There was just some.

I'm not going to get the quote exactly right about Stephen Covey, but like, helping others, like, you're, as a leader, you're sharing the why and the what, and then you're discussing the how.

You know, you're letting them come up with the plan for the how, letting them drive the how.

And that's way more engaging, way more fun.

And they've got to have a lot more skin in the game, no pun intended, for squash here, but to.

To really drive it.

Yeah.

So, so good.

Now, I can't let you get off this interview without talking a little bit about fiber and the.

And the future of this, because we have got a real challenge ahead of us as a world, as a country with data and information and how we're going to be using it.

And I think we're just scratching the surface in terms of what we're going to be using AI for and how it's going to be everywhere.

How are you guys thinking about the future?

And then maybe translate it for some things that leaders in all companies, like what are the questions they need to be asking and need to be thinking about for getting their companies ready.

Yeah.

So the way we're thinking about the future, the way we're thinking about fiber optics, if I can tackle that first, is that about 51%, maybe a tad bit higher, of the country here in the US Is covered with fiber.

And we truly believe that with all the government, so sponsorship and all the private sponsorships, in terms of, you know, private equity sponsorships combined with infrastructure funds and so on, so forth, we truly believe we can, you know, cover about 75% of the country with fiber over the next, perhaps over the next five to 10 years, it's hard to guesstimate.

But somewhere in that range, all of that, to say, you know, the way we specifically so.

So at a macro level, I truly believe that fiber optics, although again, it's only at 51% covered across the country will be in the 70 to 75% range over the next, you know, call it five to 10 years.

Which is great for people in urban cities, of course, but then also suburban and rural parts of the country where we can't, where fiber optics candidly is, is very much desired.

But hard to take it.

You know, it's just, it's not as cost effective to take it, or more so I would say cost prohibitive to take your fiber into unserved, specifically unserved parts of the country versus underserved parts of the country.

But the government has done a great job.

The states and the government has done a great job giving us some sponsorships to be, and subsidies to go there, all of that.

To say the way we think about it at Fidium Fiber and Consolidated is that we are primarily, and we are primarily a provider for, for, you know, deeply suburban slash rural communities.

And we truly believe, and I know this sounds cliche or maybe even may, you know, to some it may sound a little hokey, but I truly believe that our fiber optics infrastructure enables the American dream.

And the reason I say that is because with our consumer business, our consumer fiber business, we are taking consolidated amphibian fiber.

We are taking our fiber to truly underserved parts of the, of the country where nobody else wants to build fiber for the most part.

And not only are we focusing on consumers that allow, and our fiber optics allows consumers to connect to the outside world through fiber optics technology, be it to gain sharp stream, self, learn, work from home, do anything they want.

But not only are we, are we, are we catering to consumers, we have a really robust business, you know, for commercial businesses, for small businesses and for government education and medical.

So when you go into rural parts of the country, specifically in the Northeast where we operate, we actually go and have fiber optic services or fiber optics infrastructure for government offices and for hospitals and for schools.

And I think that dramatically opens up the economy for rural communities.

And people or businesses in rural communities don't feel that they have to come or don't feel compelled that they have to go to bigger cities to get a better education or to get better access to health care or to get better access to anything that they desire.

They can get that from where they are in communities where they, where they love to live so.

And where they love to operate.

So we believe, we truly believe we're enabling their American dream.

So that's number one or enabling the dream.

And, and that's how we see it.

And I, I truly do believe the other thing that's also happening in the industry, in our industry now is not only is fiber going to be in, you know, going to cover about 70 to 75% of the country over time, but we also have convergence that's happening which is you've got, you know, wireline, which is fiber optics.

You take, you know, wired connection to the customer's home tv.

Now linear TV is becoming less prevalent because people are now streaming.

But as people stream, as people stream, they need a good fiber connection in their home in order to stream better.

So all of that to say fiber is going to be, you know, very much desired and very much needed and then the last thing I'll say is in the future, the third thing that's going to happen beyond your wireline connection, that's important, you know, fiber being the preferred one.

And then you've got streaming on the video side of the house, but then you've also got mobility which is your, your mobile phone.

Yeah.

And that's, that's candidly coming into play.

Now in the US So speaking to the leaders out there who are questioning, you know, do I have the right infrastructure to support, support my employees, my vision for my company and the needs of the future, what do they like, what's the couple like point checklists that they need to be asking?

Yeah, I firmly believe that all ships rise with the tide.

And what I mean by that is if you look at the investments that the larger companies have made, I E AT and T Verizon, T Mobile, you look at some of these larger companies, the larger telecom companies in general, they've made sign, including other companies like Meta as an example.

Like companies have made significant investments in data centers, in fiber, believe it or not, in fiber because you, you need metal mile fiber for backhaul and connectivity, you know, even for your towers as an example, your, your cellular towers.

So all of that to say I think these larger companies have invested significantly and again with the expression that all ships rise with the tide.

The other mid sized companies have also done that now.

So what's happening is we're seeing a lot of the midsize operators upgrade their technology from old copper, like our company as an example, from copper over to fiber.

And we're seeing a lot of other companies do that.

And then the second big thing is outside of the immediate technology benefit from going over to fiber optics.

I think the second big benefit that we're seeing or big investment that we're seeing is companies in general are investing.

I, I believe in three things.

People, people, process and technology.

And what I mean by that is they're investing in people who are, you know, very smart.

They're, you know, through, through culture, you know, through culture activation or culture reactivation revitalization in their respective companies.

They're enabling people to achieve more and do more or at least, you know, do more smartly.

Number two is they're investing in processes and processes.

That's where AI truly can come in.

Because through AI you can make processes faster, easier and smoother.

And then there's a lot of automation that happens in order to, you know, improve processes also.

And then the third place where people are investing is technology.

And you know, technology is a broad term, but you know, specifically I'm referencing, you know, your, your, your, your IT stack in the back in the, in the background.

So people are simplifying the IT stack.

People are really focusing on data architecture to make sure that the data that you're, that the data that's flowing is, you know, there's a lot of integrity in the data and the data can flow faster.

And then number three is, you know, as you've got better data pipelines and as you upgrade your IT stack in general, you want to make sure you've got an eye out for the future on AI.

So how does AI then interact with your IT stack and with the data?

So I think the investments being made in, again A, number one is just simple fiber optics technology, but then B, is the investments being made in people.

Process technology will put us in a really good position.

Yeah, really, really good.

And good for leaders to think about.

So it's not like the fiber, the fiber is on the way.

If you don't have it, it sounds like it's coming and that's going to enable a lot of things.

And leaders got to be thinking about people, process and technology that they have.

You guys are thinking through that for the future, but to really have a robust conversation with their team in those three areas.

And it's cool.

I like the idea of fiber enabling the American dream because when you don't have it and you're streaming, you get a lot of bottlenecks.

So, yeah, and you know, Ben, I, so I, I came to the, again, I came to this country when I was 17 years old and this is home for me.

And I, again, for me, the American dream was come and work hard, Come to this country, work hard.

You know, you pay your dues by doing that and, or you earn your stripes.

Earn your, work hard, earn your stripes, make, you know, make a good living, do great work and make a good living.

And I, I so that was my American dream.

But there are people again in these, in several rural parts of the country who are customers.

Their dream is to interact with the outside world and do everything that people in these urban cities could do in rural towns.

And we enable that.

And, and there are other people as an example whose dream is to be able to, you know, teach people in school as an example with the latest and greatest technology.

And our technology, our fiber optics, again, enables that.

So I truly believe whatever your dream is, whatever your American dream is, we.

Can enable that great place to land the plan here.

Gara, thanks for coming on.

Lead the team.

And they got a tennis player.

I think it's time to pick up squash.

Give it a shot.

You bet.

Thanks.