Blaze Your Own Trail - A Lifelong Learner's Journey with Allan Jones

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

About Allan: Mr. Jones is President of Emaginos, a company dedicated to transforming K-12 Education for every child in America. He previously co-founded a company called Intelligent Education that provided virtual, online high-school courses to students across the country with faculty members from Florida to Hawaii.  He taught high school mathematics for seven years and computer courses for three.  He also ran the Computer Center for the Oxford, Massachusetts school district. Mr. Jones worked ten years in corporate research at Digital Equipment Corporation. He then worked as a senior researcher and planning consultant for the Center for Educational Leadership and Technology (CELT), where he assisted schools, districts and states with technology planning. He also spent three years as Director of Information Systems at The Westminster Schools (an outstanding independent day school in Atlanta, GA). A career educator with a history for leadership and innovation, Allan has designed and implemented education programs that received national recognition and validation by the U.S. Department of Education. One of those programs, Project COFFEE, founded in the late 1970s, became a national model for getting high-school dropouts back into school and on a path to success.  The original program and several of its offspring are still in operation today.  His education partnering with industry resulted in a letter of recognition from President Reagan. While at Digital Equipment Corporation he advised institutions such as MIT and the National Science Foundation on developing and implementing industry/university research relationships.  He was responsible for coordinating research programs and relationships between Digital and leading universities all over the world.  His education experience ranges from the high school classroom to elementary school computer vacation camps, and includes roles in administration as director of a school district computer center, classroom math teacher, and school board member. In the episode we discuss: Allan's upbringing in Maine His time in the Navy Deciding between Military & Raising a Family His love for Education The creation of Project COFFEE Being recognized as an industry leader Why Emaginos? And More! Connect with Allan: Website: https://emaginos.com/ Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠ Clapper: ⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠ Website: ⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready to find out how to blaze your own trail? Welcome to the Blaze Her Own Trail podcast with your host, Jordan Mendoza. In this podcast, Jordan interviews people from around the world to find out about their journey to success. If you're looking for valuable content with actionable advice, you've come to the right place. And now your host, Jordan Mendoza. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. and I've got a very special guest today.

His name is Alan Jones, and I'm going to have him tell you who he is and what he does today. Thank you, George. If I had to describe myself really briefly, I'm a lifelong educator. I find that education is something that I enjoy, is both a victim and perpetrator, if you will. I get up in the morning and I have two goals,

one is to learn something and the other is to make the world a better place. And I find education help. I grew up in Maine, typical, I guess, waspy environment. You know, it's a pretty lily way to state up there in the 1940s. Through high school, we went off to the Naval Academy, went into the Navy, cut out of the Navy, and in 1971 I had a choice of going infantry Vietnam or going home and spending time with my dog. So I went from there to, I had a chance of going into industry or going in education.

Went into industry for a couple of years and decided that education was more interesting. So I walked away from the money and started doing something that I've been doing pretty much ever since. In some form or other. That's great. That's great. So let's take a rewind for a second,

because you dropped a lot there on us in just a handful of minutes. So let's rewind. So where actually did you grow up in the United States? What part of the country did you grow up in? And I'd love some context. What kind of a kid were you into sports? Were there any hobbies that you got into in your childhood from the adolescence, you know, elementary up through high school years?

I was a typical young active boy. I ran high school track. I finished. I ran a 429 high school while, which was pretty much good enough to give me third state. I was active in my church, very active. I became the president of the youth, what I called the ecumenical encounter for youth, which is an annual conference. We had all religions there, and I went there as a delegate first from the state of Maine,

and then gradually I ended up being the president of. It was an interesting and an awkward time for me because I had gone from being a very strong Christian to still believing in the Christian values, but struggling with the faith side of the problem with the whole idea that faith is more than something trying to convince myself that I wanted to believe in a fine line between faith and self-delusion. And I was having some. But my family, my mom, her religion and Christianity was fundamental to her. It was valuable to her. And I watched friends of mine who religion is a really important part of their life. At the same time, I see where religion is causing wars and people being killed over it. It's kind of a two-edged sword.

I just sort of come down on the side of that. I like the values, but I have a problem with the faith side. side. Yeah, thank you for sharing that context. And so you mentioned that you did track, right? And you ran a 429 mile, which is really, really fast, especially, you know, I don't think I ran a 429, so you did better than I did. So what lessons would you say you learn running track that still apply to your everyday life

today and are there some people that helped you in that sport maybe some coaches that you looked up to yeah i guess the thing you learned i learned from track was that you never know when you're going to use something or how you're going to use it i ran track because i liked the runners high that you've heard that expression and it's true you reach a point when you're running when you feel almost euphoric it's just a great feeling i mean i literally used to dream about running so fast that my beat came off the ground and I just was flying. I mean, it's just, it was fun. I enjoyed running.

Went to the Naval Academy and was no longer one of the fastest people in the crowd, but I still liked it, so I became the manager of the track team. Just because I liked hanging out with the guys and I still worked out with them, and interestingly, that gave me the opportunity to learn all of the events.

So I was no longer just a distance runner. I did the jumping events, the throwing events, relay events, learned the technical pieces behind all of those. Again, just because it was a possibility, I had the opportunity, so I did it. No plans for how I was going to use that long term. Several years later, I was teaching school and became the track coach because all of that learning that I had done,

I was highly qualified more than most teachers to be. a track coach because I had that broad range of most people specialize in an event. But I had the broader sense of it. Not only that, I was just on the management side of it. As a manager, obviously, that's what you do. You schedule it meets, make sure the right people are in the right events,

all of that stuff. And then years later, I was working in Atlanta. When the 96 Olympics came to Atlanta, And I was working on a prestigious private day school cost of the Westminster school. And Eric Coach was a friend of the guy who was contracted to run the track and field events at the Olympics. So I got to be a part of the team that scheduled every aspect in every track and field event at the 96 Olympics.

That's amazing. Never, you know, way back when I started running high school track that I see that leading me being under the stands right here where the indoor track were all of the world's greatest athletes were warming up running by my door. So again, I guess the message there is whatever you do something, just do it well because you never know where it's going to lead you. Yeah, no. I mean, what a great lesson. Yeah. And it's so cool to be able to do something that you enjoyed, right? You talked about the euphoria, the runner's high, so you enjoyed it. But then instead of, you know, saying, you know what, let me just stick to this. Let me just get, let me understand all of

these processes, which prepared you to be able to do it and then do it at the world's highest level. So, I mean, what an amazing experience. So that was my, I guess part of that lesson was when I realized I wasn't fast enough to be one of the competitors, I found another way to be involved. And it'll make it useful and valuable. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, everybody's part of the team, right? You know, the runners, obviously, those are the ones that are getting the, getting the lights and the camera and the action, but there's a lot of people behind the scenes that make everything work,

that have people showing up to the right places and having the right pieces in order. There's another thing about track and field that's really interesting and different from many other competitions, team competitions, and that is that, you become friends with your competitors from other teams. You don't see the point guards from two different teams hanging out together, but you see the shot putters from both teams hanging out together. So it's a very interesting socially different kind of sport

where you learn to make friends and you learn from each other. I mean, these guys, the shot putters are all coaching each other. They're not, they are competing, but they're also, they have a common goal and that's to make everybody better. And that's a dynamic that's a really helpful dynamic. When you get out of school and when you're going to work, that's the way businesses work. You're competitors, but you also learn from each other.

Yeah, 100%. That definitely great lessons to extract there. So let's fast forward a little bit. So you made it out of the military. You joined the workforce. You decide to go. into industry and then you realize that you know education's going to be better so what was what was that first uh that first role that you got uh in the in the education world i was a mass teacher and an

inner city middle school fun story i had what was called the zoo group i had 30 kids 27 boys and three girls and these are the it was a ninth grade class middle school was 7th 8th and 9th grade This was a remedial math course. So these kids had seen this before. I mean, this was seventh graders still struggling with basic math concepts. And they were bored, they were frustrated, they were full of energy. And in an odd situation, ninth graders are basically eighth graders in a bigger body. if you don't make them go to high school.

If they go to high school, they're freshmen. And so they're not the top dog. But if you leave them in the ninth grade as a middle school, now, they're just bigger age graders with the same emotion and there's no incentive for them to grow up, if you will. So I decided I was going to have to do something creative to get their attention.

So I went down to the wrestling, Are you using the restroom loft on seventh period on Friday? He said, no. I said, can I use it? He said, yes. I went to the principal and I said, I'm gonna take my kids and teach them out of wrestling. I said, I need to get their attention.

I need to motivate them. He said, what about your girls? I said, I already talked to them, to whom are gonna go to home at home cooking and one's going to sewing. So I got to cover. So I told my class, they behaved themselves during the week,

and they demonstrated that they were really crying. On Friday, I show them how to wrestle. Now, I should go back again to the Naval Academy. Naval Academy, you learn how to play 27 different sports. Wrestling, you get 12 lessons of wrestling. Your freshman year, 12th year, and then you get onto hand-to-hand combat in street fighting. I mean, you just learn how to wrestle and what I was trying to do.

So on comes Friday afternoon, and I take him down to the wrestling mob, teach him a move, and then I point out with this kid who's been just a little bit of control during the week. I bring him out to show him how to do the wrestling move. The next thing you know is he's flat on his back. I just flipped him over and smacked him down. And I pick him up, do it again. Pick him up, did it.

That's how you do that. You'd be surprised how much they realized during the week. Some kid would make a little remark, and the other kid would say, he's going to get you on Friday. So they got the message and the whole class settled now and they actually finished the year prepared to do no math. I love it. I love it.

They were hating the math knowing that they were going to get thrown on the mat three times. They probably weren't enjoying that. So they probably decided to pay attention. What a great story and what a creative way to, to let them get their energy out, right? Change the environment, right? Sometimes keeping people in the same environment doesn't do them any good,

so you've got to bring them outside the environment. Also got them so that they would listen to me, and I would tell them life stories about what was going to happen to them if they didn't pay attention. What a difference it could make in their lives because you cannot avoid that. It's part of what you do no matter where you go or what you fry. So I said, you're going to be here anyway.

Let's get the most out of it. But they would listen to me because I had established a relationship with them. John Wooden, are you familiar with the name, John Wooden? Very familiar, yes. Okay. Well, he's got some of the greatest management books up, but he had an expression. Kids don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so that was one of my things with teaching, was I focused on making sure that the kids understood

that I really cared about them and their success. I have kids today who are former students mine who are still keeping touch with on Facebook. That's great. That's awesome. That's awesome. So your first job was a math teacher slash wrestling coach. So where did you end up going after that? How long did you stay in that role with that inner city group?

And then where did you go next? Middle school. high school that was in my home. Two years, about seven years. Then I still had some GI Bill, so I went back, I got a master's in education. And then I went back and I got a certificate for students because that seemed to be the upcoming thing.

So used up most of my GI Bill, got a lot more education. Remember I said, want to learn something. That's why I get up in the morning. So then we had an opportunity, We got a grant from Digital Corpropo Corporation to start a charter school, an alternative school based upon getting to school or high school dropouts to come back to school and learn how to use them. I did everything from office automation, which is just high school drop us to become successful.

It was just amazing program and it became the national model for the US part of education. We got some recognition for that. And then we had this idea, we had some of the schools nearby, school districts wanted to get computers. So we went to digital and we proposed a computer bus program. An old school bus, we had to refurbished, turned it into a rolling computer lab. Digital equipment corporations provide each school district with 10 free mini computers, earliest versions of EC. We had a program we would come into the district. We spent two weeks there to teach them how to.

When we left, before we got there, they created a lab with the computers from digital. And when we left, we left those computers left behind. So they had a viable computer program. Well, that became a national. So then I was the head of HR, I'm tired of going to, and seeing it, it's all white nails. He said, how can I get, how can I get a program going? going, it's more diverse. And corporate contributions said, well,

that we've been working with on a couple of projects, you should go pop to him. So they came out and they talked to us and we created what we call the rainbow computer camera. We worked with the inner city schools. We did urban orientering and all kinds of things. It was a three-year program. They started as a freshman year,

and by the time there was seniors, they were running, it was a little bit of, It was a little village. People had different positions in the village. It just became another good program. Well, I'm doing all of this and I'm being paid as a high school teacher. By the way, I'm now running the high school's computer services, the administrative operational computers providing timeshare services to a couple of other districts. Teaching teaches how to use And I'm still being paid as a classroom. I said, I'm going to find a way to pay me more money.

Because I've got two daughters and they're going to go to college and I need some money. The superintendent looked at the eye and he said, you just have to accept them and earn more than your high school principal. I had been several of the executives from Digital Group Corporation as a result of all the transcript work contributions and actually brought some of their people out there to visit them because they were so proud of what they were doing. They wanted to show their senior managers.

several of them, very politely had said, we don't want you to leave what you're doing, but when you decide to go, you want to talk to you. Within two days after my high school, superintendent, district superintendent told me that I learned more than my high school. I want to work with digital. Wow. Wow. What a story. And, you know, when I think about everything that you did, you essentially created several startups, you know, from conception to launch. And so, you know, you definitely had it all in you to go and do this thing on your own, you know. And I love how you took that comment, that negativity, and you turned it into motivation to say,

you know what, I'll show you. Let me show you. You know, I'll be making more than that. So, so that's a really cool story. There's a little further irony. Two years later, parents of my former students, because I taught in this town where I work, they came to me and they asked if I would be willing to serve on a school board. And I said, I'm not a politician.

I'm not going to take the time to do that. They said, that's not where we asked. They said, if we get you elected, will you serve? So I said, yeah, that's my nature. I'm a server. So they got me elected. And the superintendent who told me I wouldn't earn more than the high school will now work for me. Oh my goodness, how the tables turned very quickly, might I add, right?

They just flip flop. But it was a great relationship. It was not adversarial. He was not hostile in telling me I would burn more. It was just a statement of fact. Yeah. Yeah, but he also hadn't done all the things that you had done, you know, behind the scenes and building and all the time and the energy and the effort. And, you know, and having these things become national models.

Like, if that doesn't tell you how duplicative. it is, there isn't anything that would tell you that. So you really paved the way, which is phenomenal. Well, I didn't do it by myself. There was a team. I was a part of a team. Don't mean to imply that it was all me. Yep.

And that's part of the success. You really don't do things. If you want to get something, time, you got to pull it. 100%. But I will say, though, because I've got to give you some credit here, Alan, you had to put in the reps, you had to put in the work, you had to show up every day. you know and so that that does take effort so we're going to we are going to pat you on the back at least for that um so so let's share with the audience what happened next so now here you are you know you're

you're on the board right here on the school board which is which is great and you've got all these amazing initiatives that you've helped create and now you're you're you've got some partners that you're doing more things with so how did how did it expand from there well the digital job became maybe one of the most fun jobs I've ever had. I went to corporate research in a program called the external research program. My role was to find out what the company needed to know in terms of new knowledge being developed and then figure out who in the university environment was creating that knowledge and then put in place programs to bring that knowledge into the company.

So I was working with the brightest people in the world, figuring out everything from management to microchips to storage technology to to do database technology and creating programs to bring the brightest people from Fartney Mellon to Fannford to MIT, Georgia Tech, bring that knowledge into the company. That was a dream job. Every one of them have a, you don't get to be the best. in the world itself. It's really enjoyable to work with people who have a passion. That was my job for a few years. Then digital fortune kind of went south, so I started doing consulting with a friend of mine who I had worked with back in Oxford in developing the alternative program. He had also left and he formed a company to do consulting with education, teaching,

school districts how to use technology more effectively. So I started working with him doing some consulting and that led me to the opportunity to be at the westminster school. I went to them and did their technology plant 180 acres, three miles of the governor's way. Wow. So whatever they decided they wanted to do, they could do it. I remember the development officer came in, I was on the call from a woman who lived in Atlanta who wanted to give the school a college or I'm a big number of money. And so at one point, I've done a lot of research. I can't find out of how I decided to make this.

She said, because your unwavering commitment, have no other connections to this, follow what you do, and I think it's something that needs to be supported. Wow. I liked that. That was a great message. You got no,

nothing to gain by supporting it, other than she believed that people who do things right out of the ability. Yeah, that's highly impactful. So that led me to a guy named Jack Taught. Jack was a visionary. He dropped out of high school when he was in New York City, June. I stayed that uproatively. That's how he disliked.

He grew up in the city and his mom got cancer. He was very bright and school wasn't meeting his needs. As a young Jewish boy, you don't get to drop out of school. That's not an option. But because everybody who had a family was more focused on mom, he'd get up every day and go to school, but he didn't go to school. He went to the library, he went to the museum, he went to the park. He was self-taught.

And he started getting involved in stamp collecting, decided that was interesting. Interesting. Cratch became one of the most profitable, spent-collective businesses in the country. He owned the Scotts catalog. He owned a company, a store in New York City across from Tiffany. And he owned the whole building.

Wow. He had a contract with a postal service that if you went in a type of parapherpaniad, it was stamp collecting. That was his display. display. He had an exclusive contract with 35,000 post offices around the country who sell his product. Made a lot of money. He took some of that money and started a company called The Source, which was the precursor to social media, bulletboard kind of one of the very earliest ways of using computers and he sold that off to read his digest and made another fortune.

At this point, he reached the point where he was no longer needed to earn money he wanted to make a difference. So he had met this guy, Dr. Keith, Tracy California, and he said, let's fix public education. So Keith took three teachers, an elementary and middle and a high school teacher, and said, you have your primary job for this year is to design the school based upon proven best practice. You have a clean slate to whatever it takes to integrate them. Because there are all kinds of education reforms. But what typically happens, I use a metaphor of a ship.

It starts out as a ship, but then they start filing stuff on the deck, throwing stuff behind it. It's like all these programs get added on, but they're not integrated in. So they, some of them conflict, some of them are redundant. So he said, let's start from trash. Let's look at proven best practice. I'm not looking for you to create any new practices. I want you to take, put together, never been put together before.

So one of the things they did, for example, is they made a longer school day and a longer school year. They require kids to do 200 hours of community school. Kids start taking college college college. classes while they're still in high school, not AP courses, real college classes. They go to college. Every kid gets experience. They do no textbook.

They have on, they use online resources. They have team multidisciplinary projects. They work on little things like kindergarten and first grade are in the same class, second and third are in the same class, five and six. of the same class. Kindergarteners are being taught by the first year. The first year, first year, you're exposed to it the second year, you master it while you teach it. Yeah, the research is clear. You learn something best when you teach it to something. Think about the times you've had to explain something to somebody. You come away from it, knowing it better than you did before you

started teaching, explaining it. Well, we, that's that's common knowledge. So we're, he built a company to transform public education. He started working on that, building that. I was working with him, and it's sort of physical because he was the source, paying for the effort. So I got called from his son a couple of years ago saying, I want to pick it up and make it work. So that's what we've been doing for the past couple of years.

And most recently, what we realized is it's so complex. that we customize the education for every child. And that's physically impossible to do in a classroom for 30 kids. You can't keep track. You need analytics. So we develop an analytics platform that not only manages the curriculum and the individual learning experience, but it also manages the entire district.

So we're going to gather and aggregates the data from everything that you're doing. Food service, transportation, facilities, payroll, HR, APAs, the account, payroll, all of those. There's a huge amount of data. And there's a wonderful saying from Donald Rumsfeld.

You may have heard it. But the knowns and the unknowns, are you familiar with it? I've heard a quote about that, but I'm not sure if it's the rest of the same one. I'd love to hear it. It's a fun story. And there are unknown unknowns.

Those are the things that you know that you don't know. Are the unknown, unknown. Those are the things you don't know. And I add, and those are the things that can either bite you in the button and give you the opportunity. Well, analytics can help you find those unknown, unknown, and either be ready for them before they urge you or take advantage of them and makes it respect. So we've built on our building, an analytic platform, and we filed a patent application with that. Aristotle, who's quoted as saying that the whole of great.

than some of the parts. And usually that's for the area where the case is stopped. If you look it up, he said, it's greater than the sum of the parts as long as the parts, as long as that is not just a heap of parts. In other words, you can't just expect to throw a whole bunch of things into a pile, and the pile be more than just the pile. You have to physically,

an organizationally do something with it. That's what analytics done. It takes those parts, it organizes, them in ways that haven't been done before, it creates something that is more than the soul. That's what I've been working on lately, and we're now at the point where there's an opportunity there

to do well while doing good. There's a chance to make a lot of money and make a big difference. That's great. We can transform public education. And at the same time, make money doing it, that's the best of all for us. Yeah, I would agree with that.

And, you know, I love the world. way that you've explained this system because it sounds to me. So I spent, you know, the last 15 years in multifamily housing before venturing out of my own to do consulting and podcasting full time. And I used a lot of learning management systems. I use, you know, HRIS systems. And this sounds like you've kind of taken the best of all of them and combined them into one place for for the education system, which we've never seen anything like. that that I can think of in the past. And like you said, that data, those analytics are so key because it'll stick out like a sore thumb, right? If there's an area that you need to focus on,

but it'll also stick out if there's an area that you need to stop focusing on. You know, and that's that's to your point why analytics are such a great thing. And the other thing I want to mention is, you know, sorry for your lost, you know, your former business partner. That's, it's, it's sad to hear that that happened, but I'm so proud to hear that his son wanted to keep that going and that you're a part of this journey. I believe in the vision. I mean, I worked for him for nothing in a position that I, now, we now, in order to make it work, love is not enough.

We have a race, fun. And it's going to be, it has several potential revenue streams. For example, we have our own curriculum that is a part of learning five, platform, analytics platform. If you're a publisher and you want to sell your learning application to a small district, your cost to sale is prohibitive. You can't afford to sell it in a small district. If you're the district and you want to use some of these resources, because you've got some special kids that need to have those kinds of resources, one again, it's a cost prohibitive because you can't pay you may not even be aware of it because the publishers aren't

reaching out to you or even if you are aware of it it's cost prohibitive you've got to buy a site license if you get one of the three students and again the licensing system in order to be profitable makes it prohibitive so the analytics allows us to meter usage so we can put their application in our curriculum if the district uses it They just pay a nominal usage fee. They don't have to buy a license. They don't even have to decide ahead of time if they want to use it. They simply click on it and the resources available to them.

And they have a certain number of those that are included in their subscription. And if they go beyond that, we start to tell them they're approaching their limit. And if they know that if they want to continue to reach out on additional resources, They need to put some more money in the curriculum bank. That gives us the role of making sure that no matter where you are, you have access to the learning research that you need. The other thing we can do is, let's say you've got some remote part of Montana, and you got another kid in Wyoming and another one in Utah,

another one in Colorado, all who are interested in some very esoteric thing like Artificial scan, research on artificial skin, just out of the globe. I mean, high school kids get into these things. We can create a world where if we can find somebody else's interest in it and pair you up and create that turning environment. It's a virtual team. Nobody else can do that. We can do it once we start getting enough schools involved, enough districts involved.

that, oh, and by the way, if you're guaranteed as a teacher of it, it would love to be a partner. Sure. Yeah, no, I think, I think it's going to be something that hopefully a lot of people can look at it, you know,

without that mask on, you know, because I think, like you said, you know, when you think about traditional education, it's always been one way, it's always been this way, but why can it be a different way? If we look at what happened in 2020, you know, a lot of organizations prior to the pandemic arriving said,

no, we're not going to let people work remotely. Were they're only going to be able to come in the office? Well, we saw what happened in just a matter of a few weeks, right? And so, you know, what I would say to everyone that's going to listen to this episode is, you know, let's think outside the box a little bit. You know, is there a different way that we can have more people be interested in wanting to learn, right? and to learn from other people, from other walks of life. Like you said, you can have kids in all different parts of the country that are learning together, right?

It's taking what I knew from like with pen pals where you had to write a letter to somebody. Well, now we can literally jump on camera at any moment and be in the same place and learn from each other and grow and teach each other. I love what you said earlier about, you know, when when you teach, you're learning it again. you know, Japan, they say teaching is learning twice. And to your point, that's what that's what you were talking about is every time we teach it, we get a little better. And so I love what you guys are up to. I know that this is going to be something that I think a lot of people are going to be

interested in. And so as we close out here, you know, just thinking about your journey, I can easily see why you're doing what you're doing today because, you know, you pave the way along your journey to have the experience that brings. brought you to this point. So, Alan, you are definitely a trailblazer. That's why you were on the show. So I appreciate you, uh, you know, sharing your story and your journey and imparting some wisdom on us. And, um, what's the one place, um, that you want everyone to go that listens to this to come and find out about everything you're up to? Imagine us.com is our website. E-M-A-G-I-N-O-S dot com.

And that explains all of what we're doing. I would like to just quickly summarize. Most education is about the 4Ws, who, what, when, and where. We don't care about those. That's where the real learning takes place. What when and where are tools for learning how and why. Focus on the how and why.

That's great. That's great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day.