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Finance BROs Network (FBN)
Economic Empowerment & Self Development Strategies For All
Finance BROs Network (FBN)
S2 E9 “The Road To FBN” - Bonus Episode
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Embark on a voyage with us as we, your neighborhood Finance BROs, shed light on the simplicity of business often shrouded by society's complexities. We, Anton and Michel, get personal, divulging the twists and turns of our entrepreneurial quests, underpinned by a shared belief that anyone, including you, can step into this realm with the appropriate mindset. Experience the surge of excitement as we pack March's five Saturdays with potency and purpose, bringing you more of our candid conversations, insights, and the energizing force of passion that not only drives business but forges spiritual connections within it.
Feel the pulse of our heartfelt discussions while we navigate Tony Robbins' six human needs, zeroing in on love and connection, and share tales that celebrate the thrill of lifelong learning. Michel’s journey from a youthful start in a finance office to various business endeavors embodies a ceaseless appetite for growth, and we invite you to glean wisdom from our shared anecdotes. It's not merely about transactions and trade; it's about kindling that entrepreneurial spark through every corporate transition, keeping the flame of curiosity and innovation alight.
As we look back on a decade in finance, the inspiration behind this very podcast and our upcoming HHN TV Release becomes ever more palpable. We're not just talking numbers and charts; we're delving into the transformative power of financial education, especially in underserved communities, and the profound impact of consistent action, mental fortitude, and the art of manifestation. Our gratitude extends to you, our community of listeners, Our Wealthians, and we eagerly invite you to engage with us across all our platforms, where we promise to deliver empowering dialogues that aim to enlighten and inspire.
Learn more about the FBN initiative and get access to all social media platforms at https://linktr.ee/fbnlinks
Road to Finance Bros Network
Speaker 1First and foremost, we want to be clear that what we are sharing with you are strategies and concepts that can be implemented by individuals who understand the logistics of how to approach such platforms as far as the literal, the mental and spiritual format needed to be successful with your aspirations what's up world?
Speaker 2you tuned in to fbn and, yes, this is another episode of Finance Bros Network. I am the one half of Finance Bros, anton Lefwich, and this is Michael.
Speaker 1DePoe the other half. Yes, sir, and again, as usual, we are coming to you live with finance for everybody, everyday people. We are honored to be here and be able to serve diverse communities, but today we're doing something a little special, right, anton?
Speaker 2Yeah, we're giving them a little extra.
Speaker 1We always talk about doing more than you have to. Yeah, and definitely you know. It so happens to be this is the month of March and it happens to have five Saturdays in the month of March.
Speaker 2That's true.
Speaker 1So we're thinking give me a little something extra, so we're not missing out, or you're not missing out.
Speaker 2Exactly, instead of taking the weekend off. Yeah.
Speaker 1We say oh yeah, not giving them anything, let's give them a little something. Yeah, so we decided to do a little. You know road to FBN. So what does that mean? That means just kind of talking about how we got here, right right, and what path we took to get here. And you know what inspired us to be here, absolutely so. That's a big thing. You know just the inspiration to make things happen and you know just just loving what we do.
Speaker 2Yeah, this is definitely a passion, I mean. So it's definitely been a pleasure to do it with you, brother absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1You know, and uh, just just a little bit about me and and uh, what made me wanting to do something like this with the FBN and talking about wealthy ends. You know, I started young in business, started young. I even mentioned when I started working. I started working when I was around 12, 12 years old or something like that. 13 years old, worked in a tax office, in a finance office. Yeah, imagine that. Yeah, I know Of all places, so I worked in a tax finance office and then, you know, I was like man, I like doing this, I like working, working and. But you know my road to working for companies, working for different businesses, working for, uh, just working in general, I always felt there's something missing, right, there's something that, um, that I could be doing more, I could be learning more, and I never had that, never had that entrepreneurial, uh, mentoring, so to speak. Right, and even back then, unfortunately, I'm like I ain't gonna let people know my age like that but, that that word entrepreneur wasn't even in people vocabulary.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah it was. It was a word, obviously it's a thing now right, right. And when you heard word entrepreneur, you always thought about big things, people building big things, and so on and so forth. But now everybody's adapting the the entrepreneur and anybody could really become an entrepreneur. And and in my mindset and what I've done a lot of things that I've done I always had something in my heart to say that I'm going to become an entrepreneur one day and this is what I want to do.
Speaker 1So let me grasp at everything business, learn everything. Business. I mean from construction to, you know, doing the blueprinting and drafting and retail, and I try anything that involved a business I wanted to get involved in and I wanted to learn. And that was sort of my journey in just learning different aspects and how business work Because, to be honest, the fundamental of business is very basic. Right, right, it's very basic. I'll break it down for you how fundamentally basic it is. You have a product, you sell it for a price and somebody buys it.
Speaker 3For real, or you have a service For real.
Speaker 1Or you have a service A service, somebody wants it and you give them the service. It's not complicated, pretty simple. To me Sounds complicated, but people complicate it. People, we complicate it. We complicate stuff Because before there were currency that was traded for the service or the product. It was a border system.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, if you do this for me, I'll do this for you, you do this for me, and that was back then.
Speaker 1That was the business. So where was the entrepreneurial spirit then? You know, yeah, yeah, but obviously we're in a complex society, we're in a complex society, we're in a complex world and there's opportunities day and night for people to leverage and people are willing to pay for, whether it be entertainment, whether it be a service, whether it be a product that you have or that you can get your hands on in order to barter for currency, right, right, and then boom, that's, that's where and that's where that came from. And but I always felt I was disconnected from the real, the real meat and potatoes. On how this goes down and how it happens, because you know my parents are foreigners, that they came from another country and they come to this country, the United States, for an opportunity and yes, I was born in the States.
Speaker 1I was born in the States. I was born in the United States, in Brooklyn, new York, you know, and you know I was raised half understanding what the environment that I'm in, what I need to do, and half what my parents thought I should be doing, you know, and how I should be living, because they were just getting acclimated to the environment. Okay, okay, but all that being said, just, uh, just having this entrepreneurial spirit to always having ideas to do things, and I, you know, I found myself loving to teach. You know, once I gained knowledge, I always wanted to share it. And, um, and I guess that's one of the reasons why I do this, I do the podcast, because I want to share the knowledge.
Speaker 1I want people to understand the fundamentals of finance and come to realize they never really taught us that in school. So, right, you know, it's like man, we didn't get this at school. What's going on, you know? And then I found a way to figure it out and, for the most part, always learning every day. I don't have 100% of the answers, but that's how we met, talking about finance, talking about savings, talking about how we can leverage with the tools out there, and we said, man, we should do this, we should do this podcast, and that's how FBN for me, that was my road to FBN.
Speaker 3What's up?
Speaker 1man. So you know it's been a long journey. It's still a journey, we're still on that road Always, but you know, it's just. My journey was the ambition, the drive to learn and to be better and to express it to show people, Because I do like teaching and I do want people to learn this to really benefit their lives and and to be somewhat privileged and free.
Speaker 3I love that man.
Speaker 1That's a good that's so, so yeah, I like it and, and that's that's what I am, and for me it's more of a literal mental, but I, I think, when we met up, I felt the spiritual and I think that's what you're going to give me. What you got for me, Anton. What was your road to FD?
Passion and Spiritual Connection in Business
Speaker 2Man I mean brother and it was so genuinely progressive in our communications since the time we met to the time that we actually sat down and made a decision, to the time that we actually sat down and made a decision like we're gonna we're actually going to actively pursue right this, this movement, this mission, and and make it, you know, make it something that is that is real right, because we, we, we had so many conversations and we talked about it and so many good things would come out of those conversations, so many powerful things were said, to the point that we started to document them yeah, oh no.
Speaker 1I like the fact that anton said mike, hold on, I'm gonna press record what, what, yeah, yeah, you know how to hit like I was like wait a minute. This is, this is not a legal conversation, brother. No, no, I'm pressing record, because there's some stuff you're saying I don't want to miss. I want to make sure I go back and review and press pause and replay Exactly.
Speaker 2And other times it's like I get real quiet. You're like you all right? Yeah, I'm taking notes, I'm writing stuff down.
Speaker 1If you didn't press record, he's writing it down.
Speaker 2That's correct, and the fact that you've always been that one who's passionate about teaching and I've always been the type to be a sponge absorb knowledge. Right, because I I do and, like yourself, I do enjoy. I do enjoy learning things and then sharing them with other people.
Speaker 1I feel you bro.
Speaker 2I mean, if I, if I, if it has to hit my heart, it has to inspire me in a way that moves me to the spiritual. You know what I mean. Like we always talk about the literal, the mental and the spiritual and I have to tell people, like when I'm doing, you know when I'm doing a TED talks, or I'm doing you know, you know doing uh, ted talks, or I'm doing, you know, you know things where I'm motivating our team, or or our team, or the team that I've built in financial services. I tell people, I give them a disclaimer, I say listen, just so you know, before we get started, I got a lot of energy, all right, and and it can, it can peak at any time, right, you know what I mean. So just, I just want to tell you so you don't get scared right you know what I mean, but, but I mean my in my energy.
Speaker 2If I had a gift, if I had to say that god gave me a gift or a superpower, right, it would probably be my energy or my genuine love to connect with people. Oh, that's wonderful. Tony Robbins says something. He said there were six human needs, six basic human needs security, variety, recognition, love and contribution, which is actually it's one of the two, yeah yeah, growth Sorry, sorry Love and connection is one of the same.
Speaker 2Growth and contribution. Okay, those are the six basic human needs that people yearn to have in some form or fashion. All right, and maybe, maybe, maybe some, and we all have an essence to want all of them at some point, but usually one or two are most prevalent to a person and usually, when you go down those six things, you hear yours.
Speaker 2You're like death, that's it, that's and mine is definitely love and connection. Oh, all day I get it from my mom. I always say the whole world's love can fit inside my mom's love and that's what she gave me. Oh man, that's beautiful. You know what I mean. That's always how she's been. She's a very intelligent human being. You know what I mean and she's always gave me that my whole life. You know what I mean. So you know, coming through, going through being in business, being a kid and growing up, I was always the type of person to be really excited about things. I was very easily excitable.
Speaker 2I say this in the episodes before, my mom would always tell me son, stop thinking. You got to be entertained all the time. Son, there's not going to be a euphoric epic moment every second of every day. You know what I mean. You gotta learn. You gotta learn how to sit down somewhere. You gotta learn how to chill, yeah, chill, yeah, yeah. So but but I was always, you know, especially if it was something new that really touched my heart you know I would just get, I would just, I would be amplified by it.
Speaker 2You know, however, I did, did notice through going, you know, progressing in my life, that you know I was also very easily bored. You know what I mean. I get excited about something, but then I was easily bored with it Right right, right, you know whatever that thing was.
Speaker 2So I knew that the things that I found in my life that stuck to me were things that I was probably I was, I was probably supposed to hold on to, for it didn't have to make sense right then, but maybe down the road it would make sense. So I just I just, you know I would have these experiences through life. I go through things, do different businesses, and I didn't have, I didn't have the bug early like you did. You know what I mean. I went through, you know, I was doing the corporate thing and I had a job and I did really good making money for other people for a long time and and most of it was in sales and always connecting with people, though right, delivering a message or was a product or service, whatever it was.
Speaker 2But I did notice when I graduated college that I, all of a sudden, I just thought one day to grab, go into the uh, into the copy office and print out all these flyers. I was about to graduate from college, uh, one of my network administration degree, right and I noticed going through all my classes, I was working for a studio at the time and everybody just kept asking me to fix their computer. And I don't know why it came easy, but it came easy. And all of a sudden I just got all these flyers and started putting them on, on, on, on the, on the windows of cars, to all the colleges.
Speaker 2I would go and I would go to the parking lot and I put flyers on a hundred, 200, 300 cars until the fly, until the parking lot attendant kicked me out. Oh, wow, right. So I got my. That was my first take and, sure enough, weeks later not even weeks later, this was actually a couple months later Some of it trickled in, but a couple months later it was just boom, boom, boom, one after the other. Yeah, it was crazy, because in the studio I had nine laptops laid out on the floor one day, oh wow, and everybody was coming to pick one up because I had fixed it. And it just hit me that I was like man, I'm actually doing something for myself. I kind of really don't want to work for anybody anymore.
Speaker 1That was your little taste, that was your first taste.
Speaker 2Yeah, and sure enough, I did go back to Corbett America for a little bit. But then I was in a transition in my life and a good friend of mine, literally out of nowhere, just said, you know what? You should go sell insurance. And I was so open to an opportunity right to do something for myself. I was just like, okay 10 days later I had my first license that's what's up yeah, so I went and did that and and so so, and this led me to the champ legacy of anton talk about champ.
Speaker 1Yeah, this is where it happened, because that's, that's the spiritual, that's what that's the spiritual. Yeah, that's what you bring. I'm always talking about the literal and then you know, I I reinforce it with the mental, but you bring, you definitely bring the spiritual to uh, you know, to finance bros network.
Speaker 2Tell them about the spiritual so, funny enough, the, the, the company that I end up getting with to to do the insurance. It was a multi-level marketing company.
Speaker 3It was an MLM Right.
Speaker 2And I mean long story short about that phase, that season in my life. You know most MLMs, a lot of people don't really make a lot of money, and I was one of those people. I didn't make a lot of money, but what kept me there was the leadership development. They always had all these rah, rah, rah meetings and stuff like that. Okay, and I I'm not. I've never really been moved by the rah, rah, rah ever till to this day, but there were these moments where something would touch me and then I was able to convey that message with energy, passion and conviction.
Speaker 2I I always say EPC, and I noticed that people were starting to kind of gravitate towards me and it didn't really matter what the message was. If it hit me, I could communicate it Right. You know what I mean and I was. It was a spirit, it was, it was all spiritual, it was just, it was in my heart. So I was genuinely able to do it and I meant what I was saying. The only thing was I wasn't making no dang money. That was the only problem. You know what I mean. I was moving people to do whatever they were doing, but I wasn't making any money myself. So after a while it began to eat at me because I felt like I was preaching a message that didn't really ever result in anything for myself. So in my heart I'm saying that this is never going to do anything for them either, right, but anyways.
Speaker 2So, getting to that, I consistently well, I gradually, then consistently were just up in front of people. Up in front of people, whether it was a small group of five or a crowd of a couple hundred or whatever it was, I would just, I was just not scared, bro, and I remember man as a kid not as a kid, not even as a kid. No, this is when I found myself. I found myself in that environment. It was a very inspiring environment. It was a motivational environment, environment. It was a motivational environment. It was an encouraging environment and I thrived in that environment, right? So I, I noticed that watching, watching will clark.
Speaker 2When I was a kid, I was a giants fan hit the baseball. I never looked at him and was like, yeah, I could do that. That would sound cool. I wanted to do that, I tried to do that. I never seen bo jackson run and run a football and be like, yeah, I could, I could do that.
Speaker 2But I noticed when I started, when I started really doing self-development, watching the Eric Thomas's and the Tony Robinson's and all those people, that that really move others. When I would see them on social media I would always say to myself I can do that Like, I really feel, like I can, I connect with that, I relate to that. So it just became a progressive thing. And then all of a sudden I just came up with this concept like champion, because I would just be in the office all day. I would be like I'd call everybody champion, what's up champ, what's up champion, what's up champion? How you doing champion? Yeah, and I don't even know how I started saying it, to be honest with you. But I walk and I'd be like hey, what's up champion, hey, champ, yo, champ, what up champ? Ok, and then, and then when I would walk in the office, it was this thing where I wouldn't just open the door, right, I would fling the door open and I would charge through the front door.
Speaker 2Wow, wow. And then after a a while I was so I would be like champ is here, champ is here, champ is here. And then, after a while, when I fling them doors open, somebody else's voice said it first champ is here, champ is here. I wasn't even saying it, no more, and I claim. I claim that identity with myself because I really believed that just somewhere along the way I gained this belief system that whatever I wanted to do, I could do it, and eventually I had to accept the fact that I just wasn't going to do it there, right right, right, right right, there was just so much bandwidth.
Speaker 1Right right, you know, there's only so much yeah, but I knew that.
Speaker 2I knew that anything was possible I got you and I knew that I could.
Speaker 2I could carry that message and I could give that message to the world. So when I sat down and I started brainstorming about this champion thing, it brought an acronym to my heart, and the acronym for champion is courage, honor, ambition, mentality or mental toughness, persistence, integrity, ownership and nobility, nice. So those are the components of a champion, and you see the mural on my wall when you walk in the office. You already know what it is right, right. And then, when I came with the champ legacy, I thought of legacy and I thought of champ, and champ to me, since I'm a connector, since love and connection is my, is my language, I, I, I abbreviated champ to say connecting humanity and manifesting prosperity.
Speaker 1That's that's beautiful and I remember the first time you told me that I was like. Oh, wow that, that's cool.
Speaker 2And you helped me expand on it even further, past what I had even came up with. We had those conversations till one, two o'clock in the morning however late we was on the phone just expanding on the, the whole identity of chant and champion and champ legacy and what it means and what it could do for and what it what it would mean to the world you know I mean right literally those are, and it is that right there yeah you know what I mean help it.
Speaker 2I mean, rather, it's just helping somebody, uh uh, uncover a gift that they might have, or helping people realize their potential after the fact that they do recognize what their gift is. That's what champ legacy is, brother, and and part of coming together with you and the conversations we had and being able to actually pull, pull, pull life out of that and bring it to a even even greater height.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2Well, it was just, it was just. I mean, it was, it was, it was divine, it was a divine appointment yeah.
Personal Growth and Finance Podcast
Speaker 1Divine intervention Divine intervention yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2So, and then you know, moving into into what, what that I've been in all this time now, for a decade. You know finance. You know finance. You know insurance and financial services. Right, you know it, just it. Just it just felt. Right, man, you know what I mean, and you being the teacher that you are, and me being the passion that I am, you know you, I mean me being the the, the or aspiration and you, you know, you, knowing how to break everything down to the simplest form, yeah simple to its simplest form.
Speaker 2It just became it.
Speaker 1Just, it just became finance bros, you know real talk and listen, and that that was our past and right now we're giving it to you. We, we have a podcast. We announced our our soon-to-be network, well TV network.
Speaker 2Yeah, hhn TV, hhn.
Speaker 1TV network premiere. That's coming soon, but we still got more to come Like. We want to grow every aspect of our literal, mental and spiritual, and we spoke about this. We spoke about, you know, each thing having its own, its own growth. The literal part how we can help society Um, we literally go out there and touch people, literally to help them with their finance.
Speaker 1Mental, what can we provide, what service we can provide to help them stay focused mentally, cause that's what I think are underprivileged income people out here. They're not getting that, they're not getting somebody who's going to hold them by the hand, because that should have happened when they were five years old, when they started public school and started talking to them about finance, which is still not happening to this day. Still not happening to this day. No, still not happening, right. And then the spiritual part is just being able to have champ legacy, um, just just be evolved, even to a school we spoke about that and that could be happening in the future where we we have people come into a school, that and it could be a nonprofit that we have people donate to help people train and let them see and understanding, giving them understanding the kind of spiritual guidance that they would need to grow within themselves, to help grow their finance Absolutely, man Realize potential.
Speaker 2You know what I mean when you, when you, when we, we put the concepts of the, of the finance bros and put them into some, like you obviously, like I said, break it down to the simple where people can actually follow a format and then we go and champ legacy it with the encouragement to help people take those steps consistently. Right, I mean I, I, I mean I just love the combination, man.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And getting together every week and bringing new information to people and just being excited about it. Actually going through my week looking forward to Saturday yeah, you know.
Speaker 1Yeah, we get to put it all together.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, most of the time it's on Saturday, yeah yeah, sometimes during the week it just depends on what we got, what's going on, but most of the time is saturdays that we try to.
Speaker 1We try to put our podcast together and make sure you know we're getting that message out there, so yeah so it's. It's definitely been a road you know, uh to uh, something to look at and something to look forward to you know absolutely, brother, because that road is never ending. Oh, it's a journey, man, it's not. It's not a destination thing it's a journey type thing.
Speaker 2You know I mean always, forever, evolving, forever, you know, able to continue to expand our, our, our, our bandwidth, as you put earlier, and do more things, do bigger things, do it with more people. I mean it's to expand our capacity constantly. So, and you know we've been working on the finance bros lately.
Speaker 3Right right.
Speaker 2And people. I don't think people know that the bros mean something. It's an acronym for something. We ain't going to give it to them yet, but it's coming. But it's coming Right.
Speaker 1Yeah, we're constantly making accurate and it's just a simple way to to remember stuff, so absolutely so that's why we give it to you like that, but but as usual, we're gonna give them the breakdown for this episode, just keeping it consistent, right, keeping it consistent so let's look at the literal.
Speaker 1the literal says stay, uh, stay, stay, putting your time and effort in something you want and eventually it's going to happen. And that's what we did. You know that was we stayed on the road, we stayed putting time and effort into it, and we're making it happen Consistently, so consistently.
Speaker 2Doing everything we talking about Right, taking our own advice. There you go.
Speaker 1And the mental. No matter what, no matter how hard it gets, don't stop. You can't stop. I love it, man, because mentally it will get hard. It'd be like too much overwhelming, a lot of barriers. Don't stop.
Speaker 2It's easy to quit when things get hard all day.
Speaker 1It's easy all day.
Speaker 2I don't feel like doing it anymore. I mean, I know I'm supposed, I know I'm doing this for my kids Quit when things get hard, hard all day, it's easy All day.
Speaker 3I don't feel like doing it anymore Tired.
Speaker 2You know what I mean. I know I'm doing this for my kids, but I can't do this right now because I got to go take care of my kids. Letting your why become your? Why not? There you go.
Speaker 3Again, hard pill to swallow, but it's the truth. We did speak about that.
Speaker 2We spoke about the spiritual, yeah, the champ legacy. There you go, give it to them. So this is good. Manifestation should be a part of what you are inspiring for on a daily basis to make your dreams come true. There you go, man. I love that man. And look, manif manifesting things like putting things out there in in verbal, like whether, whether it's whether you want to call your, you're saying your affirmations in a mirror. Some people like to say them out loud. I see them sometimes when I go on my walks outside.
Speaker 2You know, I mean the reaffirming those things and put them out there in the world like manifesting things that can happen in so many different ways right rather you, rather you obsess over it all day, by thinking about it and then finally putting something to paper because if it's a thought it could become an action. And the things that come out, the things that the things that we let into our, our, our eyes, our ears, you think things and put in the food we put in our mouth right eventually becomes part of us and comes out of our heart. You know what I mean. So I mean it's, it's all a part of that being state for us.
Speaker 1Yeah, right, so watch what you take in and watch what you put out hey, and, and we, even, we even decided to make a t-shirt for this one and I'll go ahead and let you guys know, because we gotta keep it consistent for our audience out there and the t-shirt would say
Speaker 1this one gonna hit a little bit the t-shirt would say you can't grow and be comfortable at the same time so that's what we had to do for on this road. We had to get uncomfortable. Had to get uncomfortable, brother, we had to get uncomfortable. Had to get uncomfortable, brother, we had to get uncomfortable.
Speaker 2And it's okay and that's why we're growing.
Speaker 1Exactly that's why we're growing. So the t-shirt says you can't grow and be uncomfortable at the same time, and we're definitely making sure that we're following that philosophy, right there, absolutely, brother.
Speaker 2Hey, man, we're doing this with nobody else, brother, yeah me too, man and mike. Look man you are. You are definitely consistent, brother. Oh, if the world don't know, I'm saying I'm letting them know right now.
Speaker 1You can depend on that.
Speaker 2That's the truth and I appreciate the accountability too, because every every, every day, every time we say we're gonna do it, you show up and we do it and we make it happen. And when it's done you sure feel a whole lot better, no matter how uncomfortable it is. This been a long day right here, yeah, by itself, by itself, but I feel, I feel great that we got it done. We got it all done amen until next time.
Exploring Podcast and Social Media Platforms
Speaker 2All right, all right. So, oh, we gotta uh let them know about, uh, the. Oh, yeah, let's just tell them how we do. So I'm like thinking about the, about the HHF, but anyway, you guys can check us out on all your social media podcast platforms, obviously Apple podcast, iheartradio, spotify, google podcast. You might be up down, left, right, wherever, whatever Depends on which social media platform you might be up down, left right, wherever, whatever depends on which social media platform you might be watching this on. And also, remember, don't forget to come check us out at our home now on HHN TV. And as usual, mike, I appreciate you, you know it, and we'll see you at the bank. Peace y'all, take care world.
Speaker 3Thank you, thank you.