The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Influences and Influencers: How Our Relationships Affect and Shape Us by Peter Christian

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

Influences and Influencers: How Our Relationships Affect and Shape Us by Peter Christian None of us are born with preconceived ideas as to who we are and what we will become. It is the influences and influencers in our lives that help mold us and establish how we think, decide, and act. We have all had great influencers in our lives. These people have helped us with our education, career, and life in general. They show us that we are not expected to know everything about everything. Rather, we can rely on others for help when needed. The trick is choosing the individuals right for you to rely on.This book is about how Peter Christian, a veteran business consultant, and mentor, became who he is through the influence of others. This book is a reflection on what great mentorship is, what happens when it’s absent, and how leadership shapes our lives.Wherever you are in your life and career, the wisdom shared in this easy-to-read book will help you go further. Peter Christian says:I have worked for and with over 300 companies and many individuals throughout my 40-year career. I have helped them to earn or save millions of dollars and create and retain thousands of jobs. While doing so, I learned many things, both positive and negative that helped to form my professional approach and philosophy.In my book, "Influences and Influencers" I share with you what has had an impact on my professional career and my approach to life in general. By reading and learning from my experiences you can be what and where you want to be and whom you can depend on to help get you there.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss oh wait i'm the host i think it was chris voss oh my god welcome to the chris voss show the chris voss show.com thanks for tuning in guys we certainly appreciate you i don't know why i like that part where it says no here's your host and i'm like wait is that me or is that the other gentleman who's on the show with me?

But I always get called out as the host. I don't know. I don't know. For some reason, that coin always flips my way. I don't know what's going on there. But we'll check with the lawyers. And, anyways, thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss.

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And fun is fun. Thanks for being here once with us again. We have a prolific author on the show with us. His name is Peter Christian. He's the author of two books. The first book we'll be talking about is called Influences and Influencers, How Our Relationships Affect and Shape Us. This came out November 25th, 2020. I think he's going to plug his other book, What About the Vermin Problem? A Guide to Avoiding Damaging Business Practices. So that'll be quite interesting as well.

He's going to be on the show talking to us about everything he's done and how he's done it. He was a founder, a founding partner and president at Enterprise Systems Partners Incorporated, a prominent business consulting company in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley or Ley Valley? I'm not sure. I've clearly never been to Pennsylvania. At that time, he worked with more than 300 clients throughout the United States and Europe, and he helped clients succeed in many key areas of business development. He is now welcome on the show and welcome to correct me on how to pronunciate Pennsylvania's Valley proper. Welcome to the show, Peter. How are you?

I am well, and it's Lehigh Valley. Lehigh? Wow. Okay. There you go. I mean, technically, it's Lehigh. Duh. Here in Utah, where we're at, we have Lehigh as well, and it's pronounced L-E-H-I. But clearly, I know where Joseph Smith got his origin origin story from he must have not about pennsylvania so there you go not that he wrote a work of fiction but he did but welcome the show we certainly appreciate you coming on i've always wondered where he got lehi from and nephi and all that stuff and now i know so give us your plugs your dot coms or people can find you on the interwebs okay well i have a website that talks about my books. I also blog on there and it

talks about me in general and that's Pete, P-E-T-E Christian books.com. Okay. And that's all one word Pete Christian books.com. You can also catch me on LinkedIn. If you look up Peter Christian and look for author and professor and all that good stuff, you should be able to find me. And last but not least, if you want to get in touch with me, you can always email me at my initials, P.H. Christian and the number 53 at gmail.com. So any one of those three will get you to me. Yeah. And Christian's a beautiful name, too. It's actually my surname, my birth name, surname, birth name, whatever, but we go with Chris. So I don't know, but Christian's always

a good name. Anyway. So you, you've got, you've written these two books. Let's talk about the first one, Influences and Influencers. Okay. That one actually was the second one I wrote. Oh, I'm sorry. That first, that's okay. And that was, as I started to think back on my life and my career and the people who really had an impact on that, on upbringing, how I think today, how I act, how I react and so forth, it got me thinking about how blessed I really am that I had so many good people in my life that really helped me out and looked out for me. Even when I didn't ask for help, they were there to help me and to do things for me. It started in school. Well, it started with my parents, of course, but it started in school. I had lots of great teachers

who were wonderful instructors to me and continued into my business life with some really wonderful bosses. I read a lot of stuff about how bad bosses are these days, but I had some wonderful ones who were really, really good and encouraging and mentored me and so forth. So what I'm trying to do is point out to people that you all probably have those types of people in your lives too. Sometimes you take it for granted or you just don't think about it. Hopefully you will, both in the business sense and also in life in general because there are a lot of people who are pulling for you and are are there to give you a hand when you really need it so that's what that one is all about

and that was started because i wrote the first book and the person i was working with at the time said well nobody ever writes just one book and i went oh well i didn't think about a second book so she got me thinking about it and that was the genesis for for influences and influencers that's one of the big challenges is you you get your first book done you go through the whole gauntlet and then and then people like okay i'll start work on that second one you're like wait i just went through hell and back yeah let me do this again and we have some pretty prolific off there's on that you know they're they're in 30 35 60 books you know they've got two different channels going of of you know one person detective another person detective

and they literally come on the show like every six to nine months they just they just book it like they'll they'll have they'll have the second book booked uh on the show when they're appearing on the show i'm like you i'm seeing you in six months again and um so it's funny how prolific they are and i really admire them because i mean damn that's good i mean it took me 54 years to write my first book, which means my second book will come out when I'm 108. Well, we're waiting for it. Well, so am I. I'm going to pace myself. So let's delve into a little bit more depth of influence as an influencer.

What does it look like at 30,000 feet? What are some things that stand out that we can tease to people about the book? I think looking at yourself and Myself? Yes. Looking at yourself. Just me? Yes. I know that's sometimes a scary

thing for us. Yeah, if you've seen me lately. And really seeing where we fit in the world. There are a lot of people who are very self-important. Other people don't think they are, but they certainly do. Everyone tells me I'm self-important. Oh, really? Yeah.

Before or after payday? It's my last nine XYs. Okay. Before or after payday. I like that. That's good. I don't get it bad at all. I have the one life. I like that. That's good. I don't get it at all. I have the one life.

You're not a psychiatrist? No. No, I am not a psychiatrist. Far from it. But it really got drummed home to me one day when I was working, when I first started my career, and the founders of the company with their products and chemicals passed away, and the flag was at half staff outside the office building. And one of my colleagues pulled me over and he said, do you see that there? Mr. Poole died today. Leonard Poole was his name.

He said, you want to know something? He said, we will go about doing our business. The company will proceed. We will do everything that we're going to do. It's certainly a loss to us and to the world, but you want to know something, life goes on and never forget that. And I never really did. It really had quite an impact on me, which is as important as we think we are. And sometimes we are to a lot of people. At some point, we're going to pass on one way or the other, either from where we're working or in life in general. And life will go on without us.

There are a lot of great people that led us and a lot of great people that'll follow us. So while we're here and we do the best job that we can, realizing we're stakeholders and we're placeholders. We don't own really what we're doing. We manage it. We do the best we should do the best that we can. And we should pass it on to

the next person or persons and make sure that it's in good shape and then let them take it from there and move it on. So that has certainly been a big influence on my life and one of the major things that I think started me thinking about than all the other people in my life that have really done wonderful things for me. And so you hope people learn from that, that you need to think about what your stewardship is in the world and what you're passing on to the future generations? Yep, really. And that's what I'm trying to do now. I've gotten involved with teaching and with mentoring students in school and providing some lectures and so forth, and even through my writing. So I'm

trying to pass on things that I've learned that I think are important, life lessons, you know, what we take for granted and what we shouldn't, and just basic knowledge that hopefully will help other people. They'll read it and go, wow, you know, that really makes sense to me. I just finished up a project management class, and a number of the folks that I was working with said, I never thought about things the way you're talking about them, and that's changed how I'm going to act and react when I get involved in projects and running projects and so forth.

So I think that's important. And like I tell them, you don't have to agree with everything that I say. I hope that you don't, that you'll challenge a lot of things, but you'll take from it the things that really make sense and run with them. And if they don't make sense to you, tuck them away and maybe down the road, you know, it'll pull it back out again. It'll make more sense to you when you run into a difficult time. So that's what I'm trying to do right now is to kind of pass it on to folks before I leave this great globe of ours. Well, that's a definite valid thing. I mean, I think a lot of Stoics and other people talk about that sort of stuff.

And it's an important thing to realize your place in the world and give you value. You know, some people say if you don't have religion, then you don't find your place in this world. But that's not true. I mean, I'm an atheist and I still believe in, you know, doing good to others and the golden rule. And, you know, the fact that, you know, this is a place that you come to and you want to leave the place better than when you came. Although I'm probably going to leave some underwear and socks in the corner. That's usually my life. Okay. I can't do that either in the books, but maybe in book number four I'll get into it.

Maybe that should be a book I should do. Make the world a better place, but still leave your underwear and socks in the corner. Yeah, but you've got 54 years to wait for it. That's true, which means those socks are probably going to really need to get washed. They're really going to need to get washed. They're really going to need to get washed. They're really going to need to get washed, which is probably why I have eight ex-wives or nine ex-wives or however many I said it was.

I've been yelled at before for that too. Have you? Oh, yes. I've been threatened with breakups and stuff for the heinous crime of leaving my socks and underwear on the floor in the morning and then going to work. I don't know. I'm working on being a better man, but it doesn't seem to be.

But you haven't gotten to that part yet. Well, it's easier to leave. Never mind. It's easier just to get divorced than to work on that whole thing. There's some things you have to draw the line on. It's a lot cheaper to get a new pair of socks than a new wife. Well, I mean, then I got to pick them off off the floor but anyway i'm white for the socks both what that means either that was that that didn't come out as funny as i thought it would be but you know i mean she was on the floor going i can't believe you you she dropped the floor

going i can't believe you left your stupid socks i'm leaving i'm crying anyway so anything more we want to touch on on this book influences Influences and Influencers? Well, there's a lot of good things in there. I think another important part is to never forget where you came from. I run across people all the time, and you wonder, you know, what they're – they're different than they were before. They rise in, you know, the ranks in their business or, you know, they get some money or whatever, they get a little funny about things. I have one story I wrote about as I got promoted at Crayola Corporation where I work. I went to visit one of our plants and I was meeting with the plant engine and we got all done.

And he said, thanks a lot, Pete, for talking with me. And I kind of did one of those, huh? And he says, yeah. He said, now that you're a director, he said, you know, I really appreciate that you take the time. And I said, well, Alan, why wouldn't I? And he says, oh, you'd be amazed at how many people get promoted to your level or even above your level and never talk to us again. And I thought to myself, that's nuts. And I said to him, that'll never happen.

We've been friends. We'll continue to be friends. We do business together. We like each other. You know, we socialize. And I would never forget you, you know, and quite honestly, the rank that I'm at, you know, has nothing to do with that. It just means I have some more responsibilities and headaches and all that stuff.

But that really struck me that somebody would thank you for talking to them because they felt that you were at a level now that you weren't going to deal with them anymore. So I want to tell people, don't do that. Don't forget, you know, where you came from and who your friends were, because they're still your friends, at least as long as you want them to be. And again, don't take it for granted, because those are the honest people. Those are the good people. So that's something else.

So there's different pieces in there about that, about, again, like I said, things that really had an impact on me, you know, just kind of like, wow, you know, I just never thought about that before, but I certainly need to and spend more time on it. Yeah. You know what I do? I always mail those people Christmas cards and say, thanks for letting me use you as a stepladder on the way up to the top.

No, I don't do that. No, I do have a rule in life and my rule in life is be nice to the nice people don't hurt them be viciously mean to the mean people so i try and be a good judge and and when i come across evil people that you know that mistake kindness for weakness and they you know they're just bullies that go around screw with people i i show them what a bully is but you know my father taught me that don't be nice to the nice people there. You know, they're, they're the nice people you need.

You have to separate the, the we from the chaff. You have to go, you know, cause some people, someone's mean to them or they get bullied by a person that are just awful to everybody. And, you know, then it's the whole pass me down thing where it's you know paying it forward only instead of being you know crappy to someone honking at them in traffic and screaming at your thing then they go to their day job and yell at somebody and then that person who gets yelled at you know it's there's there's a few different stories or examples of how you know it gets passed down when you when you're ugly to people who are nice.

And so, yeah. And I do talk about that. I talk about not everybody in our life is pulling for us. Not everybody is going to be our friend, and we have to separate that out. And it's not so much being mean or vicious to them. Just try not to deal with them as much as you can. Sometimes you have to if you're working with them or if they're your boss or something like that. But, you know, find a way to work around it, but spend as little time as you have to and spend your time with the good folks.

You'll learn from the bad people, too. You'll learn what you don't want to internships and they'll come to me and say, Pete, you know, I was just dealing with so-and-so and, you know, I can't believe what they're saying or doing. And what I say to them is you're early in your career. When you get to the point where they're at, remember what you didn't like and don't do it to other people. Okay. Don't forget that. Okay. Again, going back to where you came from and how you got treated. If you like how you got treated, pass it on. If you don't like

it, don't pass it on, tuck it away and say, I'm never going to do that. I'm not going to be that kind of person. I try to, again, you know, give the benefit of my wisdom, as small as it may be, to others so that they don't make some of the mistakes and go through some of the things that I might have gone through. Yeah. You know, Marcus Aurelius in Stoics and stuff talked about how, you know, be a little more patient with people because they're struggling, they're going through their things, and sometimes you don't need to intervene on their stuff. And then George Carlin just said, well, people are just fucking stupid sometimes. Yes, they do. So there's both those avenues of thought. And others have some truth to them, too.

They certainly do. It's interesting. So do we kind of have the tease out on influencers? I think so. I mean, we could spend a lot of time talking about it, but then people won't want to... Yeah, we want people to buy the book. You can't tell them everything. It's a great book, and

this is a good teaser. There you go. And so your first book, What About the Vermin Problem? A Guide to Avoid Damaging Business Practices. And those vermin, I think, are chewing on my socks in the corner at this point because I've been there so long, yeah. Okay.

So this should be a good day. Give us an overview of that book, if you would. That one was one that I really did think about from working career. Think about the second one? No, I didn't. Okay. At all. Rena said to me, you've got to write a second book.

Okay. And she didn't give me another choice. She said, you've got to. So I did. So there's a lot of people in my life who tell me what to do and I do it I salute and go yes ma'am this is why you're still married and I have nine wives and my socks are

right around the corner yeah but you haven't learned you keep adding I learned something I only have one I had two choices yeah I had two choices I learned something. I only have one. I had two choices. Yeah, I had two choices.

Get rid of the person complaining or fix the problem. And I fixed one of the problems. Okay. That's our callback joke for this. But I did really think about what about the vermin problem. Because as I was dealing with some really good clients and some not so good clients and some strange things would happen or some very good interesting things would happen, I'd say, you know, someday that needs to be in a book. And I talked to my co-workers and so forth and say that and they go, absolutely. So they weren't going to write a book. But I kept thinking

about it. And then one day I said, well, now's the time. You know, I had hit 54 plus. So I went a little bit beyond 54 to write the first book. And I put down my thoughts and I wrote about it. And I picked 12 things that had really struck me, some that were very good, some that weren't so good, and some that were pretty bad, some damaging practices. And I had the book written, but then I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know where you went next. And that's when I wound up dealing with Rena, who had written books before and kind of coached me through. And she told me everything I did long, like writing the book before I knew what I was going

to do with it. So we correct book number two. So you keep never like i said you know women in my life tell me what to do and i just salute and say yes ma'am and i do it i did that i wrote my book without any sort of outline or whatever and i just i just did it as it came together i ran like i run my businesses and yeah somewhere around 50 000 words they said to me oh you're supposed to sit down and write a an outline for it or you know like what it's going to be for and stuff and i'm just like i don't know this thing's already written what do you want me to do now i don't i can't i can't put it back in a can now no you can't so we organized it and we put it into different sections again the good part and the

not so good part and the really bad and again you, you learn from each one. You know, in the really good, I had clients who listened to me and did what I told them to do because they were really committed and, you know, they were paying their money and they wanted to get something out of what they were paying for. And by and large, they did very, very well. And then I had some who didn't listen so well, who wanted to be the know-it-alls and prove to me how smart they were while paying me for it, which was really interesting. And of course, they didn't pay attention and did some things not so good and got in a lot of trouble. So we categorized each and kind of tied them together. And even the title, What About the Vermin Problem, goes back to one of the situations I had. It was a client that I was working with, but we were looking at, they needed

to expand their facility, whether they were going to add on to the building or get a brand new building. And we were doing, myself and another person were doing analysis on it. And we'd ask questions and we'd get answers and then they changed their answers and they'd give us information we did it was kind of getting to be a real mess and finally we said we're putting the stake in the ground and this is as far as we're going to go with it we're going to use the information they had so we put we decided that we were going to expand the building and we reorganized it relayed it out and we sat down to meet with them. And we're having the meeting with the owner and his daughter, who was kind of being bred to take on the company. And we present the thing, and we had moved the manufacturing where the inventory, the storage was, and the storage where the manufacturing was.

And they said to us, well, what about the vermin problem? There was that deftly silence. And I'm looking at my coworker and he's looking at me. And we asked the obvious question, what vermin problem? What vermin problem? And they said, well, we're in an old mill that was converted. And it was converted a number of years ago. And they said, we still have vermin in it, which I took to mean rats and mice and so forth. And right where you want to put the manufacturing

is where they collect. Well, that's where all the material was stored. So you're thinking, okay, so they're getting into your material and you're not having a problem with that. But if they get out on the production floor, you do. Second thought is, did you ever hear of exterminators? Third is we've been to plenty of plants, you know, particularly food processing.

And if you've been there, you'll see that they have little traps for the vermin because it tracks little rodents and they clean and so forth. And they basically just kind of threw everything out that we did because of the vermin problem. And we thought to ourselves, we worked with you for eight months, maybe nine months. And in that whole time, that never came up. And we said, tell us all the important stuff. And that never came up. So that's a part of communication about how if you expect people to do things for you and to do them well, you've got to communicate.

You've got to tell them the information that they need to know so that they can process and give you the best advice that they can. And when you leave stuff out like a vermin, you're going to run into issues and problems. So again, wife lesson about dealing with people. And I'm a big proponent, again, through the project manager course I'm teaching about communication. If you don't communicate well, don't be surprised when things don't work out or turn out to be bad for you because you haven't given people the things that they need to know in order to do their jobs and do them well. A lot of leaders fail in that way, don't they?

Where they think they've communicated the vision or communicated what they want executed, and because they do it poorly or they haven't opened up the aperture enough of what they truly want, you know, like maybe they say they want this, and it turns out they want that, that causes problems, is it? Right, because they don't follow up. They blurt something out. And you know,

as well as I do, that you hear things and you put a spin, your own spin on it. You know, they might have a slightly different spin. And if they don't talk to you and say, okay, now, did you understand what I said? Do you know where I'm coming from? Do you know what it is that I'm expecting? If they don't ask that, if they just blurt it out and leave, well, you're going to follow what you thought was the right thing. And it might not be according to what they wanted. And now you've got to disconnect. The picture I love is where they're doing the transcontinental railway and they're coming to where they're going to join from the east and the west and they're off by nine inches. Okay. Well, I've seen that a lot in my consulting career. I saw a lot of being off by nine inches, maybe even by a foot because of

poor communication. And then you stand there and you go, well, how did that happen? Because you didn't communicate well. You didn't take the time to find out if people really understood what you were talking about. But shame on you. And that's what I try to get across to the students I'm teaching project management to. It's up to you. It's important to you. You're responsible for everything, all the screw-ups and everything else.

And if you don't make sure that it happens correctly, shame on you because you didn't communicate well. And I had that happen to me in one of the last projects I did. I had two experienced guys who were working on something. We were laying out a warehouse and I asked them, I said, do you have everything together? And they said, absolutely. Everything is done. We get into the meeting and the two guys are arguing with each other over the details. Now, usually what I would do is I'd say, do you have everything? Okay, show me and let's just go over it. But I kind of took the easy route and said, ah, that's okay. You guys have 20 plus years experience. I trust you. Mistake. Okay. Trust but verify. So we had a terrible meeting. It was one of the worst meetings I ever had in my career. And it was at the end of my career. And I blamed it on myself because I

didn't take the time. So shame on me. So we had to do some corrections and we looked foolish in front of the client. You know, three people with 20 plus years of experience and we're arguing with each other in front of the client. It was one of the saddest experiences I've ever had and hopefully never will have again. I learned from it. I won't do that anymore. Yeah. You know, I, I, as a leader, I had to do that a lot. I I'd asked myself, how am I communicating effectively? Do they understand the mission? They understand the goal. And a lot of times when I would fail, I would find that there was that disconnect between my communication and theirs and I would fire them anyway, even though it was my fault. But no, I'm just kidding.

But no, I would take responsibility and own it as a good leader and say, okay, I screwed this up. Here's where I could do better. And here's where I need to do better. You know, there are times when you tell, no matter how much you talk to your blue in the face, they're still going to screw it up. And like you say, they put their own spin on it. But trying to break through to that and make sure,

and of course, I guess there's ways to manage that as well, come to think of it, where, you know, you do follow-up, make sure that you're still on the path that you set forth, and that way you can more quickly get on top of deviations of that path. Yeah. Yep. So you learn, you know, we tend to still make mistakes we're all human that's why one of the best bosses i had he said to me back when we still use pencils for those of you don't know that's a writing instrument lead in it and and a little eraser on the end he says

why do they put erasers on pencils he said because we all make mistakes and we've got to fix them. So, and again, that stuck with me. It's okay to make a mistake. Just do something about it. Don't leave it for the next person, you know, to clean up. You clean up your own mistakes, fix them up, get it right and move on. And that's why they also have all delete keys on the computer. Yeah. Right.

For me with the ex-wives, eight ex-wives, that's why I had the divorce courts. I don't know. I just keep calling back that joke. That joke's on callback mode. See, I'm like. You're going to get a call tonight, eight of them probably. Probably eight, then nine, eight. I can't keep track.

I think one's divorcing me now, so it's almost nine. Okay. I can't remember if it's nine going on ten or eight going on nine. But I have had people write me and be like, how many divorces do you really have? Because you said six, then you had, you know, I just call back that joke all day long. But one of these days I will pick up those underwear and those socks in the corner. But they kind of add a nice kind of ambiance. They go well with the plant right there and stuff,

but I don't know what that means. Anything more we want to touch on with your book? Is the vermin problem ever the people themselves? Because I've had some pretty toxic people in my office, including myself. Is it ever like the people instead of the practices? It can be. Again, I've met some business owners. You wonder how they are in business, why they are in business.

They're not nice people. And you find that out. When you see how they treat their own people, then you know that they're not going to treat you any better than that. Because if you're not treating the people who work for you well, you're certainly not going to treat anybody else well. They think that they know it all, okay? And yet they've got you in there because they've got a They think that they know it all. Okay. And yet

they've got you in there because they've got a problem, but then they don't want to listen. And I've walked away from a couple of engagements where I just couldn't take it anymore. I had enough and I said, that's it. It's not worth it. And you know, good luck to you. Okay. I hope you do well, but you're not doing it with me anymore. I'm not going to be your punching bag or to try to, you know, cuddle up to you and tell you how wonderful you are and, and so forth. I don't do that. I tell you the truth because that's what you're paying me for. That's where I earn my money and you'll succeed if you do what I'm telling you to do. But if you keep doing what you're doing, that's back to insanity, doing the same thing over and expecting a different result and i don't want to play that game so it's okay if the to to kill off

the people that are vermin to put arsenic in their coffee or no or set up like traps you know like bear traps and stuff no they have laws against that you would like to self you can think about it yeah you know you can like jimmy carter you can sin in your heart, but just don't take it out. Put it in practice. Damn, I always got that the wrong way, the opposite way. Note to self, take down the bear trap and aisle line. All right. So there you go.

Anything more you want to touch and tease on about your books and your experience? No, I think they're both great reads. Hopefully your listeners will be curious enough to want to see what other pearls of wisdom are in. And they're great reads. They're easy reads. And they've got a lot of good stories in there. And you'll relate to them. People that have read them that I've talked to have told me, I have somebody in my life like that, good or bad, or whatever the case may be.

Or like in my class, you know, I was talking about one thing with incentive systems. And I said, if you have a project team, you need to make sure that they all share in the incentives, any bonuses that you get. And the one lady said, wow, you know, I've always gotten bonuses, but the people on the team haven't. I'm going to change my practice and I'm not going to share that with everybody. So again, it hit her all of a sudden with like, you know, he's right. It's a team and you should all share in the benefits of what you're doing because it wasn't just you that it was a group of folks and you really need to, to, to recognize that, share it with them.

So you do have that impact. Again, people will find things that hit them, that strike them, and that's what you want to do. And the things that don't, then fine, just ignore them and move on. But again, I think they'd be great reads, and you would really enjoy them. There you go.

Well, it's been wonderful to have you on. We've certainly learned a lot today. And Peter, give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs and get to know you better. Okay. Again, it's PeteChristianBooks.com. Okay. And you can find a lot of information out about me, about my speaking and my writing and my books and so forth.

Or go on LinkedIn. I don't have a.com for that. But if you go on LinkedIn and put in Peter Christian, and you'll probably find a whole bunch because there are quite a few Peter Christians, but not too many that are authors and adjunct professors and so forth. You can find me there and you'll you'll learn a lot more about me. And I've written a lot of articles that are also posted there that you can read besides the books. So just this thing, as I'm out walking the dog, he and I have a talk, and he gives me some really good ideas about things to write about.

So I just write about life in general and how it can help you. There you go. It can help you. There you go. Well, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me. It was enjoyable.

There you go. Good luck with wife number 10 or 11 or whatever number yeah well it depends on how we work out the whole socks and underwear situation so there's that it sounds like you'll be on 10 or 11 doesn't sound like that's going away anytime i mean you got to get a two days around off number i always feel like you got to end up with even numbers right you've got a i don't like, so I might as well go for 10. It's a good round number. It's easy to remember.

But yet I had an argument with a VP. I was in facility planning, and we had two plans, and he said we should have an odd number. And he says it should either be 1 or 3 or 5 or something. Why is that? And he says, I don't know, but it should just be an odd number. So we would agree to disagree about that, but I couldn't figure that out. He was probably left-brained or something.

I have no idea. So are you one even? He wants odd. Can you give him the numbers of my ex-wives? No, he can't. They can all work out. He passed away, so we're not arguing. I think that's what my ex-wives? No, he passed away, so we're not arguing anymore. I think that's what my ex-wives are hoping I'll do.

Anyway, thanks for coming on, Peter. Thanks to our audience for tuning in and putting up with our callback jokes. Go to Goodreads.com for us at the bell notification button. Go to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, all those crazy places those kids are playing these days.

The big LinkedIn newsletter, the 132,000 LinkedIn group as well. Join that. And I think I covered all of it. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.