Jack Stahlmann

Maybe things are BETTER than it seems. We explore the Positivity Chronicles with an entertaining, "Glass-is-Hal- Full-Guy," Jack Stahlmann. Impactful Keynote Speaker Social Media Recluse, Ex-Huffpost-er and Generally an Expert at Making Meetings Less Boring. 

Transcript

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welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota nice that it desperately needs. We are KG less tonight. They, The Minnesota Wild are playing the Edmonton Oilers, and KG is on camera right now. He's on assignment. He's on assignment. And, uh, so you're stuck with just me and Steve. Hi, Steve. Hi. You've been traveling a little bit? I've been traveling a little bit. I've seen parts of our, our great, uh, America that I've ever seen. I've been to Portland, Oregon last week. Okay. And Washington, D. C. the week before. What did you think of D. C.? Um, it was... You've never been to D. C. before? Never. My kids have been there on two, you know, for school. Yeah. And my wife went there for work and, uh... I, I really thought it was cool. I got, I got to walk around. I was actually very impressed and very, uh, it was really clean and, and it was smaller than I thought. I've got a great Washington D. C. story for you. Let's hear that story. So, the D. C. story is as follows. In, our school district, the eighth graders are given an opportunity to take a field trip to Washington, D. C. Yeah. one of the fun things that we do with our kids is we, we have them learn all of the president's names in order. You told us this before. That's right. Have I told you this story? Yeah. Well, for those of, for the listener who has, uh, who's... I don't know the story, but I knew that was the thing with your family. So they know all the presidents. Yeah. And... The deal was that, uh, they were going to have a special guest and the special guest was, uh, at the time it was Senator Al Franken. They went around and whoever was the last person to bring up the name of a President, if no one was able to come up with another name after that person, that person got to ask Al Franken a question. Do you remember the question? No, but I remember the story. So Jack, I think he finished with, uh, I don't know, Millard Fillmore or... James Buchanan, some, obscure president. And, um, so he got to ask the question. And the question that he asked, which I thought was quite clever, he said Senator Franken, as I understand it, you were a writer on Saturday Night Live. How does that qualify you, or how did that prepare you for being a U. S. Senator? And his response was, you know, that's a really good question. You should ask your parents. They voted for me. And my son says, I'm not sure my parents did, but that's a whole nother story. And Al Franken thought that that was absolutely the greatest comeback. High fived him. I mean, it was very, very cool. We have a special guest. We do. We can hear him chuckling in the background. That's a great story. I can't help myself. I can't help myself. So we'll talk about DC later. Yeah, yeah. No, that is a great story and I do remember you saying that. Even if you told it on the... On the podcast. It doesn't matter. It's a great story and it was about DC. So it's good. Yes. Um, okay. Let me tell you about our chuckling friend in the background there. Um, his name is Jack Stallman. I've known him, uh, for several years, I don't know, maybe five years or something, uh, through target. So we both worked at target. And, um, Were you fast, fun, and friendly? Yes. Okay, because that was when I worked for Target, that was the, the slogan. Oh yeah, it's always. Let me ask you this, did you have khaki pants and a red shirt? I think you're required to have that, even if you don't wear it every day to... And even if you're not in the store? Right, but you don't want to wear it in the store. Well, here's what's funny. I like to wear khaki pants and a red shirt when I go to the, I told you I'm recycling material. Sorry. Hi, it's Jack Stallman. Okay, go ahead. I didn't introduce you yet, Jack. Um, Jack's, uh, uh, LinkedIn description is he's an impactful keynote speaker. So my A social media recluse, an ex Huffington Post contributor, generally an expert at making meetings much less boring. He's an actor, a writer, a producer, a director, a keynote speaker, a waiter, and I put, I'm calling him also a humorous thinker. He's a don't flinch guy. His name is Jack Stallman. Welcome Jack Stallman to the Kindness Chronicles.. It's great to be here. Fun to, fun to hear a little bit of that, that Target background. Uh, you know, if I can just click onto that for a second. Yeah. Target has that big national meeting. Yeah. Where everybody wears red and khaki. It's still downtown Minneapolis, but people are in red and khaki. Why wouldn't you? And they bring in some, right, why not? And, and they bring in some pretty big acts to, to play at this meeting. They do. It's a business meeting, but they have. You know, uh, some musical acts and stuff. And Taylor Swift, Pearl Jam's been there. Uh, yeah. Oprah Winfrey has been there. Oh my, um, lots of people. And anyway, one, one of the acts, I don't remember who was a rock band. They were, they started to play and then they, the lead singer had them stop and he goes, wait a minute, can everybody. Can everybody please just stand up? I feel like I'm the human sacrifice, you know, with everybody wearing the exact same outfit. Oh, yes, yeah. What's going on here? It's a little creepy in a weird way. They call it the sea of red and khaki in downtown Minneapolis. It is hard to look at, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. So, so yes, Jack, I know you from... Target. In fact, I actually, when I was at Target, you came in, uh, from, uh, you, you were doing a United Way presentation. That's how I actually saw you, and then you found your way to Target somehow. I don't know how that worked out, but, um, that's my first, uh, memory of you. Well, I really enjoyed working for United Way, but I also, uh, like... You know, making some money. So I, uh, you know, it's weird. I went from acting to nonprofit. I'm the only actor to ever leave the profession to make less money. I don't, that was a, you need a career counselor for that one. Yeah. So then I, yeah, I did sort of stumble into target and then I started doing my own speaking and, um, and here we are. And now I'm here on the kind of chronicle. This is, this is a thrill and, and, you know, I'm, I'm just going to kind of surprise you here right away, because I know that the guests. The guest usually answers questions, but that's how it works. Yeah, it's going to flip this on his head. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Um, take, Oh, it's a takeover thing. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of, I kind of talk about a subject called the upside is one of my. One of my key, uh, keynotes and I ask these questions, uh, to audiences and I'm going to, I'm going to ask you, because you guys do focus on, you know, positivity and things like that. So I want to, I want to just ask you, uh, three questions. This is pretty, pretty straightforward. Get your paper, John. Give you a second to marinate on it. Alright. Did you say urinate on it? No, marinate. Oh, marinate. Okay. Oh. Sorry. That's weird. More, more than one thing could be true. Yeah. Um, So, uh, okay. So, here's first, question number one is this. In the last 25 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty, do you think that number has, uh, A, almost doubled? Do you think it's B, remain more or less the same? Do you think it's C, almost half, or do you think it's D, decreased by 10%? So, again, 25 years, world population living in extreme poverty. Do you think it's doubled, same, half, or decreased 10%, which is good, not great? What do you think, John? I'm gonna guess it's doubled. I mean, just because I think in the last 25 years population has probably increased. Right? I, I would agree with you. I think it's probably maybe doubled 25 years. That's a long time. I mean, okay. Alright, great. That's question one. I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back to the answer. Okay? Oh, great. Yep. I'm gonna, because if you see where I'm going with this, okay. Answer different, okay. Okay. So, alright. Okay. So since 1968, the US High School graduation rates from the last 55 years. Do you think the U. S. high school graduation rate has increased 6%, which is, which is pretty good? Do you think it's remained more or less the same? Or C, do you think it's decreased 7%, which is not great? Or D, do you think it's decreased 15%? So is it on the rise 6%? Is it on the decline 7%? Is it about the same? Or is it down 15%? So my guess is that it has increased. I have nothing to back that up with, but I feel like I might have answered the first question wrong and I'm trying to make up for it. And I'm going to say, um, that it's Not completely been demolished, but the 7 percent one, the one before that one, the C, C, yeah, yeah, C. Is that how you took your ACT exam? Go with C. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So far so good. Okay. We should do this more often. Yeah, quiz, I like it. The, the, the third final question here, these are really uplifting questions, by the way. Yeah. How did the, uh, numbers, number of deaths per year from natural disasters, again, very uplifting. How did the number of deaths per year from natural disaster change over the last 100 years? Do you think that number has, A, increased about 10%? Do you think it's B, remained more or less the same? Or do you think it's C, decreased 20%, or D, decreased 90%? Okay, so here's my, you know, the challenge that you have is that population has exploded. Yeah. However... Well... Oh, I see what you're, I see where you're going. Okay. However, I think because of technology we are more aware of natural disasters before they become natural natural disasters. So I'm gonna say, you know, like I think about the Galveston, Texas, um, hurricane that hit Galveston and like thousands of people died because they didn't have Al Roker telling them to run for cover. However, Al Roker the Today Show. Is he still doing it? My God. Yeah. Oh yeah. Come on. Every morning. He's not really a scientist. He's more of a, he got his stomach stapled. He got his stomach staples. I know. It's kind of heavy again though. Well, hey, I mean, anyway, anyway, I'm gonna say that it's down 90%. Okay. I'm gonna say, uh, right in the middle down 20%. Okay. Okay. Well, you guys actually are, uh, idiots. You know when I asked these, Nope, nope, nope. When I, you did way better. Then then most people do when I ask these questions to audiences almost everybody gets around So the first question last 25 years the world population living in extreme poverty That number has almost halved. Really? Okay. Believe it or not. So, that's wrong. The small technicality here is that extreme poverty is something that isn't even really seen too much even in the U. S. Okay. Extreme poverty. So we're at 66 percent at best, so that's a fail. Okay, so I hate this sport. So John, but you nailed number two. Oh. The high school graduation rate is up. Uh, 6 percent since, since 1968, in the last 55 years. Most people think it's on the decline. Almost everybody does. Yeah, and then finally the death per year. You thought it through brilliantly John. It is decreased 90 percent Natural disasters. Yes. What am I doing on this show? Because we're getting smarter. Yeah. Yeah I think we're getting I think we have access to like we we have Satellites and you can see hurricanes coming in. The warning signals. I watch a lot of YouTube videos So during, during, uh, scary storms, you should be, Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's, what's fascinating is there's a, uh, there's a gentleman named Hans Rosling who wrote a book called Factfulness and he wrote this book about five, six years ago, and what he found was when he asked these questions and similar questions to audiences, to humans and chimpanzees. The chimpanzee is answered more accurately. Oh, so now I'm a chimpanzee. Almost all the humans answer more negative than what's actually happening in the world. And he rattles off all these, and it's just straight facts. He doesn't have a spin on it at all. He just points out, you know, the fact that... Protected land, 14 percent of the world's land is protected now and only 1 percent in 1900. Women's voting rights, 193 countries. There was only one country in 1890 that had it. Adult literacy is up 76 percent in the last 200 years. Child cancer survival rates are way up. And people with protected water, it's just off the charts how much better really things are. Go world! Yeah, this is way more uplifting now. And even things that maybe aren't going well in the very moment, you know, a big thing for people right now is crime and crime is a little bit on the rise. But if you look at the violent crime stats, if you just zoom out on that chart, you know, in the year 2021, there were 402 violent crimes per 100, 000 people. That was what the stat was. But. In 1992, that number was almost twice that. So, it was... 1992, that number was 758 violent crimes per 100, 000 people. So, if you look at the chart, violent crime is really going down over, you know, the last 35 years. So, some of these things we just need to zoom out, but there's a thing called, uh, negativity theory that we all sort of fall into. And our brains, uh, sort of, uh, view the world as more negative than it occurs. And that, that happens for, for a couple of reasons. Um, first of all, we remember past events as happier and rosier than they actually occurred. Yeah. Um, so if you, you know, like a fishing story, there's a reason the fishing story, your fish got bigger. Um, because he just remembered it differently and you see that like alive and well at, at, at old car shows, you know, they, um, you know, people talk about how great those cars, and I like to go to old car shows too, I'm not, I'm not bad from that, but you know, a hundred thousand miles was like a hooray moment for a car, right, and, and, and now it's a midlife crisis, you know, and, and now, you know, It's sure they had steel frames that were indestructible, but now we make the car so when it crashes, the human survives and not the car. So they, they make them, they make them a lot better, you know? This is a really positive. See? Yes! This is Jack. The Positivity Chronicles. Just a sample of what he gives you in a conversation, in a keynote presentation. Um. Yeah, so I just wanted to start kind of with the, with the data and put our minds right. Yeah, I love that. I feel much better about things. You know what? I'm going to go run my, uh, my gas lawnmower and not feel so bad about it anymore. I mean, yeah, definitely the good old days thing, it does play a part of it. Um, because you were innocent, more innocent then, and you saw it differently. And as you get older, you start to see... All of it. You start to see some of the critical aspects of getting older. Can I, can I bring it to a kind of real world topic? Okay. Yeah. That's very germane right now. Yeah. So imagine 1940s, the early 1940s. and the Holocaust. You know, six million Jewish people murdered. And while what happened in Israel couple weekends ago was horrific, in comparison to what happened by the Nazis, it doesn't forget, but the point that I'm trying to make is as awful as that is, and that seems, and the world seems to be you know, teetering on the brink of something awful. It was really awful 75 years ago. Yeah. That's great. Well, and here's, along the same lines, I mean, think about my grandfather, who left in 1941 and didn't come back until 1945. There was no FaceTime. And now assurance you'll see anyone again, right? I mean, you don't know where they're at what they're doing now, you know, at least you have the the you've got the the ability to Call people whenever you want and you know, yeah, I just know it's I I know you I see your point It's horrifying. It's going on right now. We are seeing every minute of it and every every detail of it Well, that's part of it. That's part of the part of it is it's on the news 24 7. Yeah where, you know, you didn't have all the television back in the 40s and anyway. I, I... I'm sure, and, and part of it is, you know, our brain... Are sort of programmed to, um, really detect anecdotal evidence and not data. That's not what our brains do, right? So if we're on our phones going through like a, I, I follow Reddit and if you're on Reddit, I, there's a strand that I like called wtf. Yeah. And it stands for what you think it does stands Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the, the weirdest Wednesday, Thursday, Friday stuff in the world. Yes. The weirdest stuff. And you. You think to yourself because you're consuming that you think that that is the entire world, when really that is the exception to what the world really is. That's why it has its own strand called wtf. Yeah.'cause it's unique and interesting and so when we can, we can really get caught in that. You know, I was a, um. In college, I was a media fellow at DePauw University, so I do take the work. Fancy, I know, a little uh, a little resume draft. You can ding a bell or something, add that in and edit. John, Jack has done, Jack's done a lot. There's a lot going on here. Hold on, give me, give me one of those symbols. Hold on, hold on, Jack. You went to what school again? Where did you go? Uh, I was a media fellow at DePaul University. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. I'm doing the uh, Queen, Queen Elizabeth wave right now. Very nice. Okay, go on, you. Perfect for radio. Perfect for radio. Uh, but the thing was, uh, in studying that, you know, you really start to, um, So understand that, that what the media's job is, now I know this is controversial too because everybody's got a different idea of what media they're intaking, but their job is to report unique and interesting stories. So when you watch the nightly news and it's all negative in a weird sick way, that's a great sign. Because that means that what's rare and unique Is the negative, you know, there's a lot of positive in the world. There's a lot of there's a lot of mess in the world Let's be honest day to day. It's just there's a lot of just it's okay I'm, not saying the world is all sunshine and what's in kumbaya, but but there's less There's less negative than our brains really, uh, take in on a daily basis. And, you know, kind of the flip side of that coin, and I think the reason that, uh, companies like Meta are doing so well, Facebook, is, the antidote to What you see on the news and what you're consuming, the extreme, terrible stuff. You go to Facebook everybody posts about their trophies and their triumphs and their trips and every photograph is, perfect. And that sort of gives you the, the, the happy side of life. Very rarely. On Facebook, do you see people posting things that are super negative? Now Twitter on the other hand, or X or whatever the hell we're calling it, let's not go there, but I do that, you know, I never thought of that. I mean, how unusual is it for... A story about kindness or a story about something heartwarming is on with Lester Holt on the Nightly News. And when they do it, it's like the last story to sort of bring people back to, to level. They do it, but they actually, they're actually trying to manipulate it and make you feel kind of okay, but... Um, sometimes it's forced. Local news does that a lot. They, they have a feel good story all the time. Oh, yeah. Um, like here, check out the squirrel on the, uh, on the water skis. The water skis. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, there's, there's exceptions to the rule on, on all this stuff. But the, the point is that we, uh, so often we just, we just outweigh the negative based on. What we saw on the, put them through the channels then, and that doesn't really, the, the news job, their, their job is not to reflect what the world is. They're, they're, they're there to report rare stuff. And it's, it is, it's wild how that affects, I mean, especially in the last several years we, in this country, it affects everybody. Anxiety levels are higher than normal. I don't know if you've got a statistic for that, but I know that anxiety and depression is Oh, off the charts. a huge growing thing and, um, I, I can imagine the news media, the, the just overall environment of intaking of, I was traveling a lot. Like I said, I was ashamed when I looked at how much screen time I had, cause I was just waiting around. Everywhere I was doing, I was waiting around, like, I could be more productive. I'm waiting, I was looking at my screen. Oh, every Sunday morning I get the, your average screen time was X. And I'm like, there's no way I was on, look at my, what's your X? What's your number? What's your number? Oh, I'm embarrassed to say. I can't say. Well, it's more than half of the day. When I was, when I was traveling, well, I, well, I mean, I listened to podcasts all the time. Oh, okay. So that, that comes up, um, yeah. And you know, I, I think I might fall asleep with the phone on like the YouTube videos I love, you know, I know it's not, it's not a good buzzfeed, you know, the mysteries and yeah, the other side of his, my, my phone will, if I like was at DC, we started walking, we walked a lot, my phone's like, Oh, should I start a workout? Are we working out now? Finally? Can I keep moving? My phone's never done that. It often says, okay, it's time to stand up, you know, at my desk or whatever. So Jack, I'm curious about how you, how you had the courage to become this speaker. I mean, do you consider yourself a motivational speaker? Are you, you know, how would you define that? Well, you know, I struggle with this myself because I, um, You know, motivational speakers, I, you think of people who, uh, you know, maybe Tony Robbins is one or even like if we if we think local here, uh, John Creasel. I don't know. Oh, yeah. Sure. No, but But he's like, you know what? He's like a war hero, you know what I mean? And and so like that to me is motivation. So I I work really in like the soft skills arena So my messages are like fun light funny. And then five minutes later you go, wait a minute. I just learned something. That's, that's sort of my, my hook. Um, so I'm great for like the opening of a conference or, you know, if you're where I really shine is when a company is doing like pretty good, you know, and we just, we will, we're having our annual meeting and need it, need a guy to kind of just. Remind us of a few things and, and make it fun and light. You know, that's kind of my deal. Yes, I would agree with that. Because I've you, I've seen you speak, it's been a long time. But John, you should know that Jack is, he's very comfortable on stage. He's a performer. He was an actor. Um, he's very fun and funny and personable. And he, he doesn't, he's not slick. You know, he's not too slick in that way. Um, Jack, tell John a little bit about some of your acting. Because he would be impressed with some of the stuff you've done. It's pretty interesting. Some of your Hollywood stuff. Well, yeah, I mean, uh, it was, it was almost a lifetime ago, but yeah, I, um, I was out in LA for, for five years and, uh, Had a brief stint on, uh, Days of Our Lives. Oh. Um, which, which I sometimes have in my introduction as a speaker, and it's the most disappointing thing for audiences, I think, when this doughy guy comes on stage. Like, I, that was a few donuts ago. Were you, like Dr. Drake Ramore? No, much, much less significant than that. I was, uh, like a, a mall worker. You know, interacting with like the regular people that was, that was kind of my really, yeah. And then I, uh, yeah, it was, you know, it's, um, I did soap operas were really fun, uh, to, to do, cause for a couple of reasons. One is they, uh, they actually promoted their extras, which never happens, right? Extra work is, is really real actors and just shun it. Right. And I did too, but. From, from soap operas, they actually take those extras and bump them up to what they call under five line role. And so then you get some film and you join the union. And so it was a really nice. And fun experience because everything goes really fast. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a cookie cutter of a plate It's like it's a system, right? It's a machine there. Oh, it's a crazy machine. Yep. It's intense The best actors I ever worked with were in soap opera Yeah, you you have to you know Your favorite Netflix show does five or ten episodes a year right and and soaps do five a week You know, so it's like if your pants didn't fall down, they're taking the take, you move on, you know, whatever you, whatever you got, you got. Let me ask you, um, I was a huge fan of the TV show Cold Case. Were you ever on Cold Case? Yeah, I was on Cold Case. You were one of my favorite guys on Cold Case. You know, you know what's fun about being on Cold Case? Is you get to see what you're going to look like 20 years in the future. I was a flashback character. nice. And so 20 years, 20 years in the future, they said I'd be able to grow a beard. I was promised that. My future character had a beard. Do you think I can grow a beard now? No. No, I got, I got nothing either, man. I, I've tried to grow a beard and like three weeks into the adventure, my wife will look at me and she goes, what are you doing? What are you trying to accomplish here? You look ridiculous. Mine becomes like automatically a goatee. Which to me, the goatee is the new mustache, right? Like, you'd rather have a mustache at this point. Because then at least you're being ironic or hipster. And the goatee look, yeah, COVID, have just kind of let my beard grow. And it's a pretty measly beard. But, um, I get sick of it. So I shave it into a goatee, which my wife does not like. But then I, one day, one day I shaved the bottom part off and just left the mustache handlebar to try to look like, to be ridiculous. And she liked it. And like, and I, and I walked around, my friends are like, I don't like this. You should get rid of that. Like, yeah, I look a little creepy. Yeah. So I don't, I'm, it's not right without the bottom. I feel like a mustache is so. on purpose, it just seems so, planned where, you know, a guy with a beard just kind of lets it go. There's something kind of rugged and cool about it, but if you're floating around with just a mustache and to all of our mustached listeners, I apologize, but it just seems so we feel like they're saying purposeful. Yeah, I think the mustache people, I think what you're trying to say, John is. Uh, you're letting it go, but just in this one area. No, that's not what I'm saying. Just the opposite. It just seems too much. I was going to comment on your facial hair. You've switched it up since the last time I saw you. It looks fantastic. Yeah, a lot of gray coming through. Well, there is that. Yes. It's itchy and I don't like it. Okay, so let's get back to Jack. Back to Jack. So Jack, how can people find you? Like if they would like to hire somebody to come into one of their events and get people in the right state of mind? Oh, I'd love it. I'd love it. I'm, uh, my website is called, uh, Don't Flinch Guy. Com Say, don't flinch guy. Don't, don't flinch, don't flinch. Guy. I've always wanted to ask you that, Jack. What does that mean? What's that referring to? Well, that kind of started, that was the beginning of my speaking when I decided to like make my own brand. Yeah. Because I kind of built it around a statement that an old acting teacher of mine would just always say like. Why aren't you doing better out there? Why, you know, how come you're not booking more parts? Are you flinching? Like, are you, are you flinching? Like that was like his kind of thing to like motivate us. Like you better go do it. So at the conclusion of every message I give, and I have a, I have a couple, you know, three different keynotes that I, that I give, but at the end, I always, I always make that point. I say, um, you know, I wish I could package, you know, success for you, but I can't do that. Nobody can do that for you. But what I can. I promise you is that every success story starts with a don't flinch moment. So if you, if you love your, if you love your job, there's a moment you applied. If you love your wife, there's a, there's a moment you asked her on a first date and if you can tolerate your husband, there's a moment you said, this is fine. You know, there's a moment that you went for it. And that's always what I try to leave audiences with to be able to, you know, kind of a bang the door. Be brave. Yeah. Be brave and take a chance. Yeah. So if I were to, let's, let's do a little experiment. If I were to create a brand for myself, it would be probably like sweats a lot guy or, that's not very motivating John, or eats too much guy. Yeah, you know, it's not what you want. The opposite job. I want the opposite. But hey, how about build incredible tables guy? You know, that's true. You're as a now. Yeah has a tool belt guy. Yeah, um, he's done. No. No, I I do think that you know, maybe I could I could you know monetize this as the You know, Matt Foley the motivational speaker Matt Foley. Yeah, he's got it. Oh, yeah He's got a great t shirt that has a cartoon Of Matt Foley. Yeah, it's, I've seen it in Pictures Jacket. It's a super cool T-shirt. In fact, that's all I wear when I'm a, when I'm a speaker, I wear a Matt, a Matt Foley t-shirt. Are you kidding me? No, no, no. Well, I wear pants too Oh, that's good. Um, but yeah, no, I, I just have different color Matt Foley shirts. Oh my god. Uniform. You know, do they come in mediums? Because I would like to guys on Etsy and all sorts of different places. Yeah. A like a medium, like a sausage casing. You know, you know, not many guys can wear a shirt like that. No, no. Yeah. Well, I figure if you're going to be a motivational speaker, you better lean into living. That's fantastic. Right. So do you tell us about some of the biggest gigs that you've done? I've obviously target is, you know, locally, I can't imagine that there's much bigger than that for target. He, I saw him at Target working through United Way, just speaking to Oh, target Bill. But he's a Target, uh, producer. He works with meeting in the meeting event world. Oh, cool. Oh, so he's a meeting producer. He's, uh, he's an expert meeting producer. Oh, so you still work for Target as well as being as a contractor, a speaker, right. Jack, for a few weeks. A year? Yeah. Okay. For a few weeks a year. I do, I do claim a, a nine to five, and then the rest of the time I'm out, uh, uh, doing my own thing. Um, I, you know, I don't know what my biggest. I do a lot of association work, you know, so various things I've really started to click with credit unions, for whatever reason, that's that started to happen for me as far as the biggest thing, the biggest thing I ever did in my life. I was when I was, uh, I think in, I must have been in eighth or ninth grade at my confirmation because it was at the cathedral. Oh. And I don't think I've ever played to a bigger audience when I did the reading. There you go. You know, so, so where, where did you grow up? Uh, a North St. Paul Guy. What? Yeah. What year did you graduate from North St. Paul? 98. Oh, so you're just like a child. He's younger than us. Yeah. Oh my god. Well, you know, I've. My disappointment of, uh, of, of, of Gord not being here is that he was the gym teacher for some of my cohorts over at St. Peter's for a while. Yes, he was! Okay, here's what we're gonna do. When we have, so we'll have KG on next week, and we're gonna call you and you guys can reminisce about your time at St. Peter's. Yes, he worked at St. Pete's in North St. Paul. I didn't know that's where Jack's from because I got all kinds of people that I need to ask him about now. Okay, from my class in 98, you know people that young? Well, I work with a guy who grew up in North St. Paul. Oh, let's do that after the show. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Well, you know, the Stallman lineage in North St. Paul goes deep. It's like royalty, really. My father and my grandparents met. at North High, my grandparents. My mother went to North High. That's crazy. Whoa, whoa. And North High is close to Mata Midi, John. I'm well aware. I'm well aware. Do I need to tell the story again about when the Mata Midi Zephyrs beat the North St. Paul Polars louie Varland is the all time winningest wrestler in North St. Paul High School history. Well, I didn't, I didn't know that. I knew he wrestled because my brother wrestled. My brother was an all conference wrestler at North High. And, uh, but, but he was way, he was class of 95, so way ahead of way, way ahead of him. I probably had kids that went to high school. That is fascinating because typically Joe, I was just talking to someone about Joe Mauer. He was like an incredible football player before everything. Yeah. So football basketball, professional athletes. They're, they were known in high school for being great at something other than we know them for. Oh, absolutely. That's a kind of a weird phenomenon. It was like Tom Quinlan. Remember Tom Quinlan? I do remember him. So Tom Quinlan and I went to grade school together. Tom Quinlan was the best hockey player, the best baseball player. He played football for one year and he was probably the best person on the football field. He didn't even play basketball and he would come out and start knocking down three pointers. I mean, don't you hate guys like that? Yeah, what's your problem? You grew up with them? Well, here's the interesting story. Tom Quinlan and I were born on the same day. Oh, there he got the good stuff. Just like twins. Yeah. When the good lord was passing out, like, athletic ability, he looked at me and said, It ain't gonna happen for you, pal. It's already been sold. And that's how it works, kids. Well, I have a state high school basketball record. What? You do? It's a little known fact about me, yeah. I have the best three point field goal percentage of all time. One for one. I shot one, shot one and made one. One for one. Now that is the kind of statistic... I'm a numbers guy. I'm a data guy. You know, I need to, you know, you got to tell the truth out there, you know. Jack brings the sunshine, doesn't he? He really does. He took, he took things that we thought were going to be a certain way and just showed us that they're not. Well, he flipped it on us from the beginning. This has been a very different and yet very productive, uh, kindness Chronicles. Yeah. And I think that the, if you could sum up the message that you're trying to, uh, to, uh, present, what would it be? I think we just did, I want him to do it well. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. I guess, uh, I would say in a world with, so. Up yours! Yes! And on that, off we go!