Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] all of a sudden I went from 4 associates to 1 associate and the 1 associate that was here had only been here one day. And so that was a low point, but you know, you can do, you can do a couple of things.
You can sit around and cry about it. And I cried a little bit. Or you can do something about it, right? You can make a decision to do something. So you get on Wizehire you start interviewing people, you train up the one of the associates that's here as best you can, you work seven days a week. You provide the service to the a hundred clients that were still here when all of those attorneys left, because I still had bills to pay.
I still had a family to feed. I still had rent. I had four offices I had to pay for. I still had this website that costs. A whole lot of money, but you had to do something. So, yeah, you spend 12 hours, you know, not sleeping. Maybe you cry. I cried. I'm not gonna lie, but I didn't the next day did something about it and just kept moving forward because you only lose if you quit.
And this is an infinite game we're playing and I'm definitely not going to go work for somebody else. I would be a terrible employee. [00:01:00]
Richard James: You only lose if you quit.
MPS: Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered Podcast. Today we have something very special in store. So we actually have the opportunity to interview each of our four EAY finalists for 2023. EAY means a lot in our program and I'm going to turn it over to Rich in a second to introduce what EAY is and why it's important here in our world.
But just know you're in for an exciting episode today as we get to explore EAY. Four different entrepreneurial attorney stories. If you're new around here, make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button depending on where you're listening or watching. And I'm just going to tell you in advance, you're going to get a lot of value.
Make sure to show some love down in the comments below, but Rich, why don't we discuss EAY? What is EAY? Why is it so important here in our program? Yeah, so E. A. Y. [00:02:00] Stands for entrepreneurial attorney of the year. And my gosh, I think it was 2015 2016. We kicked it off. So we're coming up on 10 years. And I remember the very first one I gave away 5000.
You know, we were a small company at that point. We wanted to give away a prize. I think I give away five grand. And I remember the people who won thought that everybody was going to equally split the five grand. And I was like, well, no, the winner gets it. Well, it was interesting. Even the winner thought that it was kind of equally spread out amongst all of them.
From that point forward, we changed it up a little bit. We started asking everybody what they wanted. And so the, each of the finalists, so what happens is, is everybody at the end of the year receives an application that we, customize for the year. And then they decide to apply and they apply for a couple of reasons.
One, because they just really believe me when I tell them it's good for them. If they go through their business and all the things they did in the year to examine what worked and what didn't work, two, because even if they didn't have a great year, they want to figure out what was broken or three, they had a.
They had a really good year, and they thought they had a chance of winning, and they wanted [00:03:00] to apply to win, and it doesn't matter whether what the reason was, we review the application, and then we choose with the panel of our choosing in our office, the four finalists and the four finalists then get an all expense paid trip for them and a guest to come to our August event, wherever it's going to be this year.
It's gonna be in Virginia Beach, brand new Marriott Hotel on the ocean. And we're going to have a full mastermind day with them, with you, Michael MPS, myself, as well as likely Blaine and maybe some other guests so that we're going to be able to share what's going on in their business and spend an entire day together working in and on their businesses.
And so. That's the prize. Of course, they're all going to compete with one another on the Friday morning of the event in May. They each get a 25 minute slot and they're going to be able to present their positioning as to why they should be chosen as the EAY winner. And then the, Get or all of the members will then vote.
They get one vote per firm on the, [00:04:00] finalists, and then we will choose our E A Y winner on Saturday morning and announce it. And that winner gets their name emboldened on the trophy as well as they get a poster that they're forever emboldened on as well. And they are forever the E A Y champion. So, it's a great, it's a lot of fun.
It's a tremendous amount of learning. We hope there's some honor in it. There's a prize in it as well. and, it's been a very successful campaign we've had for nearly the last 10 years.
Welcome Back, Jonathan Breeden: A Journey to EAY Finalist 2023
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MPS: We're going to kick things off with Attorney Jonathan Breeden. He's a friend of the pod. He has been on the pod before. We are excited to have him back. The difference is, this time he is coming onto the pod as an EAY finalist for 2023. So Jonathan, I just wanted to welcome you on. Thanks for coming back and congratulations on being a 2023 EAY finalist.
Jonathan Breeden: Thank you. Thank you, hopefully I will win this time. I was a 2021 finalist and I did not win. And so I am [00:05:00] coming back strong. I do not want to become Susan Lucci. So, I'm gonna try to win this thing.
The Power of Decision Making in Achieving Success
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Jonathan Breeden: I'm doing a video presentation because, as much as I talk, I would not get half of the stuff in a limited period of time.
If I didn't make a video that I had very strict time limits on of me talking about all the different things that we did in 2023 for the success. And I want to get as much in it as possible to give as much back to this group as people have given to me. I feel like I've been trying to make this video and we'll see how it turns out.
A lot of good stuff in it. And it'll be all stuff that y'all teach and it's all stuff y'all told me to do. And I get it, and I think that's the thing. If you take nothing else from this, you have to make a decision and you have to do stuff. Even if you make a mistake, you have to do stuff.
There's no such thing as staying still. You're either going forward or you're going backwards. And so the only way to move is to [00:06:00] actually make a decision. That's the title of the presentation. And that's what I'm trying to get through to everybody listening.
Richard James: Jonathan, thank you for that. Thank you for being transparent and taking off the mask for a second. And
Unmasking the Attorney's Journey: Challenges and Triumphs
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Richard James: As most everybody listening probably knows, I'm not an attorney. So I don't exactly know what you went through to become an attorney. I've been working in this industry for, well, since 2008 now. So for a minute, as I have come to understand it, attorneys are typically have been one of the smartest people in their class.
One of the smartest people in their family. They've been trained by their mentors, by school, by the association to always have the right answer or to always find an answer that's right. Maybe that's better and they don't want to be wrong. And the problem is, In business, most of the things that you're going to do at some point are going to be wrong.
And you win by moving that 30% or 20% that you're right about. That's what moves the needle, but you have to be willing to be wrong 7 times out of 10. And so, that's hard for [00:07:00] some attorneys to face. And so if you're new to our world, know that in business, it's okay to be wrong and fall forward. And so thank you for sharing that, Jonathan. That was an insight I don't think a lot of attorneys get to hear. So MPS, where do you want to go from here?
MPS: Well, look, I know some of our members know Jonathan and his awesome personality, but not everybody knows you, Jonathan. And I know you've done this a time before, but what's maybe something that not everybody knows about you?
Jonathan Breeden: I would say that
Jonathan's Unique Path: From Politics to Law
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Jonathan Breeden: I don't remember what I said when I was on the first episode of the podcast, but the most interesting thing is, that I ran for the North Carolina House of Representatives as a 21 year old college senior at NC State in 19 96. I ran in a extremely gerrymandered district. It was 85% Democrat, I ran as a Republican. I really didn't have much of a prayer but it was a ton of fun. I met a lot of great people and did way better than I thought. And I think I've [00:08:00] told y'all this before, but the early returns on the early voting had me winning. And I had a moment where I was like, I can't actually win this because I got to go to law school. Because of my win, I can't go to law school. I did end up losing. I got about 42% of the vote. It was all right, it was a lot of fun. and, something that I'll, keep with me forever. And it was a wild ride and I still love politics to this day.
Richard James: And that means that you had one heck of a Yeah. basketball season this year.
Right,
Jonathan Breeden: right. .
Richard James: Right, right,
Jonathan Breeden: right.
Yes and I did just get back for the final four where, NC State finally, since 1983 made the final four. I was so happy, I didn't even care that they lost, just be able to say that NC State played in a football stadium in front of 74,000 people. Where you used to live in Glendale, Arizona. I know, MPS, you grew up right there and thinking, golly, there's 74,000 people here watching this basketball game, it was absolutely amazing. The people of Phoenix and Glendale were [00:09:00] great, I really, really enjoyed it.
Richard James: That's great. Good.
MPS: Yeah, I was really going for state, Jonathan and I was with a bunch of friends watching the game. They all said something very similar. You know what? If they lost, it's all good. They made it to the final four. And so that's good to hear. I'm glad you got a good outlook and they were close, but heck of a season for sure.
Embracing Leadership and Personal Growth
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MPS: So. I want to loop back on something you actually started this with, which is you've been in the position of EAY finalists before back in 2021. And so it's a unique position to be able to be back here again. So I'm curious, what led you to want to apply for 2023? Like, There's lots of reasons, right? Between wanting to know your numbers at the end of the year and dive into that really well because we encourage it.
And or because you know, you felt you had a really solid chance. You had a rock star 2023 and wanted to showcase that. What led you to apply again?
Jonathan Breeden: You know, think applying, Going through the application is a [00:10:00] very good thing. Because it makes you look at the numbers and it ask you a lot of questions that you don't think about on a day to day basis.
I actually did not apply for the 2022 contest because, I did not have the best year. I had tons and tons of turnover. Y'all heard my crying about that and were very supportive of me. And so I didn't feel like, I'm not going to do it. But this time, I actually made some changes, implemented some more stuff, stopped the turnover, moved from level 2 to level 3 ownership, which was key, and I thought I had something to share, I thought I had something that would make me possibly get into the finals, and then allow to present to the rest of the people, and maybe we'll win this time.
Richard James: I tell you what, Jonathan, that statement that you mentioned. So I'm going to unpack that a little bit for everybody who's live or who's listening. Maybe one of my team can post it. I think we actually have analysis tool or an assessment that [00:11:00] you can take where they'll help you identify whether you're a level 1, level 2, level 3 or level 4 owner. And As an owner of a law firm, you're either the attorney and like, everything stops with you. You're the manager and you've got from a few staff to you know, couple dozen staff and they all report to you and that's what we call hell. And then you move to the CEO level, which is level 3. And then finally the level 4 level is the ultimate level, which is the investor level, where you actually have CEO executives running your business and your investor in the business.
And as you said, you move from this place of being in hell, to this place of the level 3. Now I have to give you kudos, Jonathan, because, if you remember back to your EAY day that you had when you were a finalist before, I think that was one of the biggest challenges you brought up. And I believe the room lovingly said, Hey, you just need to figure out how to become a better leader.
And that's what you went out and did. You ate the humble [00:12:00] pie and you said, I got it. I'm going to go figure it out. And I'm sure you make mistakes still like the rest of us do, but you've learned how to become a better leader. Is that a fair statement?
Jonathan Breeden: That is a fair statement. And we were sitting there in San Diego and my wife was there, you were very clear that we had to be a better leader. And that meant I had to be a better person. I had to learn to manage people better and deal with my anxiety and my tendency to sort of blow up sometimes at small things. Mistakes are going to happen, this is fair. I do family law for those listening.
These are high stress cases. People are under a tremendous amount of stress. We do have a lot of personality disorders, mental illness, substance abuse disorders. Everybody's doing the best they can, but it is a very stressful job to do family law and you gotta figure out how to deal with it. And so I, almost immediately, that Winner's Day is in August of 2022. We were in San Diego by October of 2022, I'd found a counselor. I'd had a counselor before, that counselor had lost their [00:13:00] license for doing stuff they shouldn't have done. And I went 3 or 4 years without one.
And I went back and the first thing I did was, is I found a counselor to start working with me again, and I did it through Better Health and you see Better Health, with all the commercials nationwide is extremely affordable. You do it on the phone. They place you with somebody who is licensed in your state.
you know, They're not making you talk to somebody in Michigan or any of that kind of stuff. And it's extremely affordable, I think it's like $300 a month. Insurance doesn't really cover it. But it's worth the $75 a session that you pay. And that was the first step towards becoming better, because I had to start to face the fact that I had this anxiety and the way I was, maybe reacting or treating people or supporting people was not going to lead to long term success for me.
If I was going to scale to the level I'm at now and the scale to the level that I dreamed of and the scale of the level that y'all told me I could get to, because I had all [00:14:00] these leads.
That was one of the 1st things we did coming out of that Winner's Day in August of 22.
Richard James: that, you know, Somebody might be listening to this and go, that's what he did? To grow his law firm, he went and got help with his own head? My famous saying is, we all screw up our kids somehow and our parents screwed us up too. I promise you, I screwed up my kids. And counseling is something that helps us deal with all the stuff. And I was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where counseling was beer.
That's the counsil you went to. You went to the local bar, you grab the Budweiser, and that was your counselor. My buddy used to call it, he was Irish, he said it was the poor man's therapist, right? And I get that and it was kind of a sign of weakness. But I will tell you, after being through counseling now, it has helped me become so much of a better human, I think. hope it's made me a better husband. I hope it's made me a better father. And I hope that it's made me a better leader. Now, the evidence that seems to appear around my [00:15:00] life is that those things are true. So Jonathan, I commend you about listening to the group and the feedback and then saying, okay, if I'm going to fix this, I got to fix me.
Look in the mirror and go, I got to fix me. Let me go figure that out. So congratulations to you. It takes a lot of courage to do that and I know that's not the only thing that did it, but that was maybe the constraint that freed up everything else to happen. So good on you, congratulations.
Jonathan Breeden: And Well, we did some other things on the Mindset as well. I started listening to more Mindset Podcast and one of the ones that has helped me the most, I actually got from Bill Osman and when we used to do the, hot seat groups, when we would meet at the meetings and we would all get together, I forget what y'all called it. We don't do them anymore.
And one of the things was you did there was, you recommended a book or something, and Bill Ossman said, I started listening to the Mindset Mentor Podcast of Rob Dial jr. And I listened to it every day. And I immediately went in my phone, started following it and I don't listen to it every day. But that is the number one Mindset [00:16:00] Podcast in the world. He's out of Austin, Texas and it is absolutely phenomenal. And he just wrote a book, I think it's called, Level Up and if you cannot listen to him and not be better. He is phenomenal.
Richard James: Feeding your brain with good quality fuel. I love it. MPS, where do you want to go from here?
Navigating the Lows: Staff Turnover and Resilience
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MPS: So Jonathan, as you look at your journey from the moment you owned a law firm, what would you say was the low point in that journey? If anything, what was that point for you?
Jonathan Breeden: There's definitely been some low points in the 24 years, I've owned it. I've always tried to look on the bright side. In June of 2020, I joined Partners Club in May of 2020, in June of 2020, my entire staff quit. So think about that, I had 3 employees. It were in COVID and all 3 quit at the same time. I had an attorney take a job in Raleigh. I had a secretary decide she didn't like the man she was living with and moved back to California. And I had a Paralegal who was a single mom and the schools weren't [00:17:00] reopening and the courts were. And needed somebody back here in person to put together exhibits and trial notebooks and all that stuff and she wasn't going to be able to do that.
So that was a low point. Is when all of a sudden you have your entire staff quit at one time, all for their own reasons and you had to completely start over. But we did and we're way better for it. That was one, another low point was, in July of 2022, I had 4 attorneys, the day the 4th attorney start, the other 3 quit.
I had to leave to go work for themselves and compete against me. And I had one take a job in Miami because that's where their fiance was. And so all of a sudden, I went from 4 associates, to 1 associate and the 1 associate that was here had only been here one day. So that was a low point, but you know, you can do a couple of things. You can sit around and cry about it and I cried a little bit. Or you can do something about it, right? You can make a decision to do something. So you get on Wizehire, you [00:18:00] start interviewing people, you train up the one of the associates that's here as best you can, you work seven days a week. You provide the service to the a hundred clients that were still here when all of those attorneys left, because I still had bills to pay.
I still had a family to feed, I still had rent, I had four offices I had to pay for, I still had this website that costs a whole lot of money, but you had to do something. Yeah, you spend 12 hours not sleeping. Maybe you cry, I cried, I'm not gonna lie. But the next day did something about it and just kept moving forward. Because you only lose if you quit. And this is an infinite game we're playing and I'm definitely not going to go work for somebody else. I would be a terrible employee.
Richard James: You only lose if you quit. By the way, for everybody that's listening live, type in the chat, if you wouldn't mind. Just type the word quit in. if you've had like, staff just quit on you without notice, or you show up one day and it feels like everybody just left. All like they decided today was the day they all got together and they were gonna do it to you, and they left all at once.
I've had that, right? If you've had people quit on you like that, go ahead and type it. [00:19:00] Yeah, absolutely. You can see it, everybody's going. Yeah, that's happened to me. That is the life of an entrepreneur, it's sad. Like, you know, my MPS is my son, most of you know that, for those guests or anybody that's listening, may not know that MPS is my son. And I remember he was young man when he decided he was going to be an entrepreneur, like 12, 13 years old. And he said, this is what I'm going to do. And I looked at him. I said, that's great, man. I go, but get ready. Because this is one of the hardest professions on the planet, being a small business owner. Now, being a lawyer and owning a law firm for all the reasons that based on practice area to practice area are also a very difficult profession. So now you put small business ownership and law firm ownership together.
And that stuff is just hard, just really hard. Cause when everybody quits as Jonathan just said, guess what? The cases are still there, hopefully. And that means that we got to work those cases. And that means that, yeah, it's seven days a week. And so look, I feel for you, I've been there, I've got the t shirt.
The good news is, I don't know about you, Jonathan. For many years and I had to go through counseling to get through [00:20:00] this, but for every ever many years, I waited for the next shoe to drop for that next batch of employees to quit again, because I wasn't sure if I got it right this time.
And so, it was when I was a bad leader. And I let out of fear and I let up intimidation and I let out of sarcasm and yelling and screaming and micromanagement, not in a good way. And now I try to lead out of humility and transparency and openness and in many cases, love, until I made that leap to becoming a better leader and be confident in me. I was waiting for that other shoe to drop. Do you feel that way a little bit too? Or are you past that now?
Jonathan Breeden: I did for a long time. You know what I mean? When associates just come to my door and to ask me a question, I still have sometimes. My heart dropping going, are they going to give me their two weeks? You know what I'm saying? We're not there now, we've got a much better team now. We have a, team that I think wants to be here, that [00:21:00] enjoys working here. I think we've made it a place where people want to be. I don't want to insult PTSD, because that's a real thing, but you do have that fear. Like. Are they getting ready to quit on me? But I'll tell you one thing that Bert Diener always said, at some point you will get big enough that the loss of any one individual is not paralyzing.
Richard James: Correct.
Jonathan Breeden: Or any two individuals is not paralyzing and I'm now there. And we had to let somebody go last week and that's not fun. And I had to call Scott Brown, who's in this group and make sure that I absolutely had to do this and I did. And we let him go and it's okay. We've re established the cases, we interviewed two new attorneys yesterday, another attorney tomorrow.
So you know, we're going to be fine. So I'm finally there, but for a long time when you're not there, it's bad. And what happens is, you live in fear of them and they know it. And so then they take advantage and they manipulate. I had an attorney come in here one time once he'd been here about [00:22:00] three months and he realized it was him and I, and I had all this work and I was working seven days a week and he told me what his new work hours were going to be. And he knew there was nothing I could do about it. And it was like,
Richard James: The tail is officially wagging the dog.
Jonathan Breeden: Correct.
Richard James: All right. MPS, I know we're probably down to about the last minute and 20. I have a feeling, feeling we're going to go over to 20 mark. We're probably going to go closer to the 25 mark. I think there's a couple more questions you want to ask. Let me let you go there.
MPS: Yeah, look, I think you made pretty clear a couple of big moments there. Like, Your breakthrough from 2021 to 2023 was leadership and bettering yourself. Is that accurate?
Jonathan Breeden: Yes, I think so.
The Leap to Leadership: Hiring and Culture Building
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Jonathan Breeden: And hiring an executive assistant who could come in here and create the culture that I probably myself with my personality could not create. And that was a huge get for me and hiring. I see Amy Sosa to come in here. She was born in the middle of Republic, she grew up in New York, she's like, the nicest person you'll ever meet and she came in here and she helped me [00:23:00] build a culture of love and caring and a family that I was unsuccessful in doing on my own. you know, I read the book, Who Not How last year, right? Y'all mailed that to me, I read it. It's that's basically, who could help create this culture for you? And that's how we did it.
MPS: That's amazing. So what I'm curious about is look, this Partners Club agnostic, right? The actual leap of making the decision in the mental leap of making the decision to join a coaching program, walk me through what led you to that decision?
Choosing the Right Coaching Program: A Turning Point
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MPS: Like, what made you take that leap? Yes, you're in Partners Club but generally speaking, when you were looking for that program, what made you take that leap?
Jonathan Breeden: got this website from PostAli.com at the out of Columbus, Ohio in 2016. And by the end of 2018, I had one of the top family law websites in North Carolina and I started getting all these leads and I was sending stuff out. Because I could not do them and I didn't know what I was doing. [00:24:00] So by near the end of 2019, I was able to hire an associate from Raleigh, who was a very good lawyer and her and I almost doubled the business overnight, because it was that many more consults. I stopped sending the work out back to Raleigh, I'm in the suburbs. I was able to keep that work. She was a very good lawyer and we really were working, but we had all these other problems, Paralegals and billing was behind.
And I was trying to figure out Clio and all of that. And I was like, I need scripts. I need this phone answered better than the way we're answering it and all of that. And so I and my wife started looking for coaches in January, February of 2020 and of course, March of 2020, the world comes to an end and COVID happens.
That allowed us to interview more coaches, allowed me to be on this very call in April of 2020 with the Graftons. And the Graftons are one of the reasons I joined because I was like, they're not any bigger than me and they got the same problems I have. They go on to win EAY that year. And that's when I [00:25:00] realized I did several of these types of calls with different coaches. Some I thought were too small. I was going to go to a conference in New Orleans with one. I realized I was already bigger than his program, but this program fit where I was because the people that were on this call, the winner's call in April of 2020 were the same size as me at that time. I was, 7 or 800,000 and that's where everybody was.
I thought, clearly he can speak to me because the people that he's saying are the best in his program are at that level. And so I ended up going with Richard James and that was a great decision because, I didn't know anything about client care representatives, about masterminding the client experience. I'd never heard of a CRM or offshoring employees or any of the stuff that I've done now, this led to this success.
You
MPS: Thank you for being willing to share that. At the end of the day, like everything, you took action, and that's the most important part. Props to you on taking action and building what you've built. Look, we're super excited for your EAY presentation live [00:26:00] at the event in two weeks. But, outside of that, what's got you fired up and excited?
Looking Ahead: Growth, Goals, and EAY 2024 Ambitions
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MPS: Could be business, could be personal, could be both.
Jonathan Breeden: I'm excited about the growth that I'm already having this year. If I don't win this time, I'm the only finalist in 2024. I'm telling y'all, this is unbelievable. Like, we're on pace to possibly double it this year. We had a hundred hires in three months. I had 250 hires all of last year. I am excited because of how much success we're having the five star reviews we continue to get. The people bringing us cookies and telling us how we've changed their lives and we've saved their children and all the things that we do this because we want to help kids.
I'm helping more children now. Then I've ever helped before and every week I get to help more children. And that's why I do family law and but you got to be profitable. You got to be successful. You got to have systems to be able to help these kids. And that's what we're doing. So I'm excited just [00:27:00] about the sheer growth we're having right now and everybody needs to vote for me this time. Because if I don't get it fixed this time, next time, this is a solo call in 2024. Because it's over for all of y'all, I'm winning it.
MPS: Oh, that's great. That's great. Jonathan, thank you for all that you do. Congratulations again, on being an EAY finalist, excited to see you here in a couple of weeks in Charlotte. and Thanks for investing some time and pouring back into the community and sharing your story. And what led you to where you are now. We appreciate you.
Jonathan Breeden: All right. Thanks a lot, it's been fun.
Richard James: Yeah, Jonathan. I second that. And for anybody that's listening and whether you're live on right now, or you're listening to this recorded later, I mean, if you don't walk out of this pumped up and fired up that you could have, you know, whatever can happen to you, you could overcome it and you can flip the script and all of a sudden, you could be on your way up all of a sudden. I'm sure, Jonathan would tell you, like he said, he found himself crying at one [00:28:00] point, right?
I'm a man enough to say that I've cried myself. I cry at commercials anymore as I go older. But anyway, he's found himself crying at one point and now he's so excited about the future, not only because his business is liable to double yet again this year, but because of the number of children he's helping in his practice, because that's his mission.
And so that juxtaposition that just happened, even though all of his staff quit just a few years ago. And so. Congratulations to you, Jonathan and for those of you that are listening, I hope that you were able to get one or two solid writer downers and I hope that you got a win out of that. Thanks for being here.
Jonathan Breeden: Thank you.