#8-3rd Degree_ Armando Lanuti: A Journey in Entertainment from Laser Flash to Lucky Putt

Have you ever contemplated the secret ingredients that concoct the world of captivating entertainment experiences? Armando Lanuti, the president of CreativeWorks, invites us into his world of 'responsible freedom,' a mantra that has paved the road for innovation in immersive entertainment. Throughout our dialogue, Armando unwraps his 18-year odyssey, from his pivotal leap of faith leaving Laser Flash to steering the helm at CreativeWorks, where creations like Lucky Putt Mini Golf and Limitless VR have flourished. His rich narrative offers more than just a glimpse into industry leadership; it's an intricate weave of marketing expertise, product development, and the sheer will to carve out pioneering attractions in a space that's constantly reinventing itself.

As we navigate through Armando's career chronicles, he candidly shares how personal challenges, including a gallbladder health scare, influenced his career trajectory, leading him to join forces with Creative Works. The conversation segues into stories of resilience amidst economic ebbs, such as the 2008 recession and the tumultuous tides of the pandemic. With a focus tightly fixated on the future, he articulates his optimism through Creative Works' expansion, reflecting on the industry's tenacity and the undying quest to provide families with affable and accessible entertainment.

Rounding out our discussion, Armando brings us into his personal sanctum, discussing the delicate art of blending family life with the rigorous demands of being an industry vanguard. He recounts the trials of infertility and the joyous victories of raising a spirited family, all while navigating the corporate seas with an ethos grounded in empathy and accountability. His narrative is a testament to the unyielding pursuit of creating unforgettable moments, whether they're shared with customers or cherished within the tapestry of his own family life. Join us for a heartfelt exploration of what it means to champion innovation, prioritize human connections, and foster a balanced existence amidst the whirlwind of the immersive entertainment universe.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Where stories come alive and leaders take the mic. This is the Third Degree, where we delve deep into the minds of LBX pros Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community, to connect, engage and inspire.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Hold tight and get ready for an exhilarating journey.

Speaker 1: 0:22

All right well, welcome everybody to the Third Degree. Today we are going to interview Armando Lunidi, and he's the president of CreativeWorks and he basically stands out as the entertainment industry, with his 18-year journey marked by expertise in operations, leadership, marketing, product innovation. And under his leadership, creativeworks has become a hub for pioneering immersive entertainment experiences. He manages a diverse team of over 70 professionals, including creatives, artists, project managers, fostering an environment of creativity and innovation. His approach to leadership is rooted in promoting positive intent and empowering his team, a philosophy he terms responsible freedom, and we're going to dig into that a little bit more with him. This approach has been crucial in navigating the company through the dynamic entertainment landscape.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Armando's significant contributions to the industry are exemplified in his leading role in launching several groundbreaking products. These include Lucky Putt Mini Golf, which revolutionized traditional mini golf with an immersive, tech-driven experience. Hyperdeck, an intense multi-sensory interactive experience, and Limitless VR, which offers cutting-edge virtual reality experiences. Each of these initiatives reflects Armando's skill in blending the latest technology with engaging entertainment concepts, meeting the evolving demands of the market. His ability to foresee and adapt to industry trends, combined with his passion for technology and commitment to continuous learning, positioned him not just as a leader in today's entertainment industry, but also as a visionary shaping its future. Alrighty Now, in my mind, Armando is a bit of a mystery. I don't really know him that well, so I'm super excited for him to be on the show and to dive into who this guy really is. Anyway, let's get to it. Let's welcome Armando to the show. Hey, everybody.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Welcome.

Speaker 3: 2:09

Welcome, sir. Excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:11

This is gonna be a lot of fun yeah good to see you and you know, of course we recognize the background. Yeah, we watch. We watch Russ's and Danny's podcast, you know often so I stole the key and broke in.

Speaker 3: 2:22

You know, I appreciate that they're not paying attention.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Right, awesome, all right. Well, look, we want to start off. We're just going to dive right into this thing. I want to start off by just getting to a better understanding of your current role at a creative works and, you know, maybe tell us a little bit as well about what creative works is all about.

Speaker 3: 2:40

So creative works. We're all about creating memories, experiences. We realize that when people go out to an entertainment venue, they're typically going out to escape, to celebrate, to have a good time, and our whole mission is how do we make that happen? How do our attractions affect those that are out there? So we even don't look at ourselves as an attractions company. We don't look at ourselves as a laser tag manufacturer which is which is where we got our start or VR, or anything along those lines.

Speaker 3: 3:08

We look at ourselves as memory makers, right, and memory creationists, and that is the core of who we are and what we do this for. You know, and a lot of that stems with, you know, some of the similar upbringings that Jeff had, that that I had, you know, growing up, and why it's important for us to do those things. Like you know, neither of us came from a lot of money, and one of the things that I've always had this, this mentality of, is that a memory or an experience is something that you can never take away from me, right? No matter if I lost my house tomorrow or if the, you know, the world ended like, that was something that, that that I got to keep, no matter what, that you can never take that memory away from me, and so we put a lot of importance on what we do, creating those memories for everybody else. Um, you know, in the venues that we we work with because of my unique background, you know, with laser flash and how that all was created is. Again, I look at it from the perspective as every individual entrepreneur that opens up an entertainment center, that opens up a business, they're supporting their family, they're creating an ecosystem with their staff that can create lifelong relationships between those team members, and then all of those team members are contributing and creating those memories to all the people that experience their attraction, whatever they may be, and creating those memories to all the people that experience their attraction, whatever they may be.

Speaker 3: 4:30

And that is really. You know the core principles behind. You know who we are at Creative Works and what we do. You know whether it's the laser tag arena, as many golf courses, lucky putt, limitless VR escape rooms or other attractions that'll come out in the future or that we've done in the past. That's kind of that's kind of that principle that has always been there in the background and that we express to our team throughout their contribution to those attractions that we have and from that standpoint, for us, you know, and what I do on a daily basis, like a lot of my, you know, job is innovation.

Speaker 3: 5:03

It's trying to think of what is that next piece, what is that next thing that we want to bring into the fold, whether it be through a partner relationship, whether it be through internal development? How do we look at the attractions that we have already with fresh eyes? Um, I'm, I'm definitely taken over that role of visionary, and then we've got several integrators within our team and whole departments. That that's their job is to create opportunities out of that vision for us, and that's how I look at my role. I think the other piece that anybody who's running a business should look at as they're leading a team, your job is to remove hurdles, you know. So I look at that as being my secondary everyday piece, and part of what I do is like how do I remove barriers, how do I remove obstructions, hurdles that are in the way of my team, of my clients, of our partners, whatever the case may be?

Speaker 1: 6:03

So I do have a quick follow up-up. We're not going to go deep on this because that's a whole separate conversation. But you mentioned visionary, integrator. Those are terms that not all of our listeners and viewers may know. Maybe you could just give a quick high-level primer on where those terms come from.

Speaker 3: 6:18

Yeah, so it's this idea in business that you typically have two people at the top, you know, working in some sort of tandem together, where one person is that idea that visionary, they're trying to think about what they can create without the restrictions of reality. Right, like like not worrying about can this be done, how's this been done? Or any of those things like, wouldn't it be cool if is what that visionary's role is, is is to constantly think in that mindset, then the integrator's job is to go okay, wouldn't it be cool if now I do have to figure out what is practical, what is real, what is achievable? You know, we get to create some really cool concepts, but we still have to obey the laws of physics, for example, in our business, and what's practical and what's real, and trying to find how do we push things forward though as well. Right, like the visionaries job in any business when they come up with these great, wouldn't it be cool if ideas is they need to then also push back on the integrator who goes I don't know if we can do that. Well, how can we make that happen? Like, what's the way to find a different path that somebody's maybe not done before to make that happen. Or the flip side is, the integrator's job is to push back on the visionary and go. That's a cool idea, it's even achievable, but is it meaningful? Right, and that's even something that we've created within creative works and implemented over the last year and a half and are pushing further on is we've created a decision filter, right, and that decision filter is something that each of our team members should be applying to every decision that they're making.

Speaker 3: 8:05

Right and, first and foremost, that that decision filter is what I talked about is that memories. Like how do we create a memorable experience for the guest? Second part of that same decision filter category is how do we make that experience repeatable, how do we make it so that they want to do it again, they want to share with their friends and those kinds of things, and how do we make that something that works right, just in general, and is a good experience and creates that memories? Then the second part of that decision filter is our clients. How do we make sure that that product is profitable for them? How do we make sure that it's serviceable and repairable, because, no matter what, at the end of the day like let's take golf, for example I've given a seven-year-old or a 21-year-old a baseball bat, and at some point they're going to take a swing right.

Speaker 3: 8:51

So how do we keep it durable? How do we keep it? You know something that can be repaired when something inevitably breaks, regardless of how much effort you put into making it durable. And then that third component is then for us as a team, like are we thinking through as a team? Is it downstream? How are we going to produce it? How's it going to be installed? How's it going to be supported? After the fact and ultimately it still has in on for everybody in the company to kind of act upon and have that own responsible freedom, as you mentioned a little bit earlier, is a big piece that we have. You have responsible freedom within these parameters to execute on your job and the things that you do, because these are what we feel are important to us as a company and are going to be important to our clients and our partners.

Speaker 2: 9:48

So a lot of yeah. That's awesome. I love that you have that in place. There's so many companies that don't. They aren't thoughtful like that and put these systems in place. Many people that do this tie those decision filters into their values, and I'm wondering if that's something that is tied in for you guys as a company.

Speaker 3: 10:04

It is a part of it, right? So we have our epic values, you know excellence, passion, integrity and commitment. That ties into some of the monikers and the things that we do, and all of those components need to be present all throughout that process of that decision filter. And I think the decision filter, you know, like our values really start at the top of it, you know, along with our why of creating memories and why we do this, and then the decision filter is like that next step, that next piece that needs to be considered after upholding our values and understanding what our primary why like I almost look at it as that top part is where we're going and who we are as we're going to get there. That decision filters, then that next layer, where here are the rules of engagement for lack of a better term, right Like here's the things that you need to be keeping in mind, that are important as we achieve those things.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Awesome, great, love it. All right, so tell us a little bit more. How has CreativeWorks evolved since you joined the team and eventually became the president of the organization, and can you also include maybe some of the pivotal decisions that you made along the company's direction in your current role.

Speaker 3: 11:17

I will talk a little bit about laser flash, and a little bit I know that's something that you want to talk about you know, with the history and the people and the team that we have here. But when I was looking for what my next step was from laser flash, I had this real pivotal decision of I needed insurance because at the time I was going through needing to have my gallbladder replaced. Right, it doesn't seem like a big big deal, but healthcare industry is a fickle industry here where you know to get that done out of pocket because I didn't have insurance as a manager, even at a small FEC, was like 3040 grand. That's a lot of money, right, like I couldn't afford to do that. So, literally, when I was, I just gotten married in 2007. So it's 2008. I'm dealing with this. That, so, literally, I had just gotten married in 2007. So it's 2008. I'm dealing with this. I've gotten married. I start to look at what's the next step.

Speaker 3: 12:12

And Creative Works had always had a relationship with Laser Flash. It was built by them back in 2001. So there was always a relationship that was maintained. From that standpoint, I also worked at the ILTA at the time as a second job, which is the International Laser Tag Association for those that don't know, just to add that out there. And from that standpoint I was like, hey, I had this connection with CreativeWorks. And I was like, hey, I'm looking for what's my next step in my journey? One consideration is coming to CreativeWork works and staying in the industry. The other was to go be a regional manager for finish line, right From a, from a retail standpoint. And the other was a, a, a, a semi-regional car wash chain. Like I'm, like I'm, I've got this managerial experience. I'm going down these three paths and I'm like where do I go? And Jeff had this thought of you have so much knowledge, I don't have a job for you right now. I don't know what I would have you do at this stage of creative works, but the experience that you have is too important to let you go and be a manager for a retail chain outside of the industry, et cetera. And so he was like where have you come in? And you're going to be kind of this jack of all trades, you're going to start as project manager.

Speaker 3: 13:32

And at that point we didn't have any project managers. We were a much smaller company in 2008, about 15-ish 12 to 15-ish team members, the vast majority in production, with basically Jeff one other person managing the sales and marketing direction of things. And so I came in as a project manager in 2008 to a very small company and quickly got into sales, into marketing, into product development, got into sales, into marketing, into product development and in creating those things, and the first taste of that visionary side that I had was with Laser Frenzy. And so we developed Laser Frenzy as an attraction. We kind of took the and this has become an ethos at times with CreativeWorks almost that 3M approach. We looked at some of the things that were out there.

Speaker 3: 14:27

I had just come out of being an operator right, and I think this is a piece that a lot of manufacturers miss is the perspective of what it's like to deal with something on a Saturday afternoon when you've got a packed house, when you've got birthday parties, party moms, adult events, depending on what your venue is, and how do you deal with that. And my job was to take that perspective that I had, having just been an operator for seven plus years, and apply that to our products and to take that 3M approach and how do we make it better. And so that's where I, you know, I kind of got that when you're in a small company and you've only got 12, 15 people, you do a lot of things, you wear a lot of hats. So I was the project manager, I started to do sales, I was the person that did support, I installed the first 30 laser frenzies that we had right.

Speaker 3: 15:17

And it's funny sometimes looking back on those days and realizing the people and team members that have joined us since then.

Speaker 3: 15:28

They don't always have that knowledge and so it's fun sometimes to ask questions from a position of naivete where you have them tell you what they're experiencing, what they're doing, even if you've got some of that experience. And then you also get opportunities, as simple as something as IAPA set up, where for the type of booth that we put together for anybody that's come and seen us at IAPA, that is a monstrosity to put together in a three day period right leading up to that trade show. And so then they get to see and I get to relive some of those experiences for lack of a better term where I'm shoulder to shoulder, I'm, I'm, I'm walking heavy things off the truck, unpacking crates, assembling, using the tools, and it's funny sometimes for that team member who's maybe not ever seen or known that I have that background and I have that experience too to kind of, all of a sudden, just know, tilt their head a little bit to the sideways, like you know, cause it's not what they expected.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:29

And so that's kind of how I got into it Right Is is a little bit of dumb luck and and if, uh, there's, there's this thought process and I think you, you kick this off with you know what. What was some of the pivotal decisions that happened throughout creative works, and that first one was just to choose to stay in the industry and be a part of creative works in the first place, because it could have been a completely different life, and I'm a big believer that there's typically three or four points that any of us as humans have in our life that can vastly change the direction of our outcome. That was one of them. The other one was joining laser flash. You know all the way back then as well of if that path hadn't happened, I would have never met creative works, I would have never had that exposure to the entertainment industry and and had those pieces you know industry and had those pieces become an opportunity, as they have with creative works.

Speaker 1: 17:34

Yeah, yeah, I love. It's awesome how those things happen and I think, maybe a little bit speaking towards that, we know that the company faced some adversity a few years ago. Maybe you could share that journey with us a little bit and how it impacted the company and how it impacted had an impact on you.

Speaker 3: 17:48

Yeah, I mean, I don't do this to get rich. I don't wake up every day hoping to check my bank account and see another dollar in there. That's as somebody who grew up without. That has never been my driving, my driving piece, my driving motivating factor for what I get up for every day is people. It's why I've created the group within our own team that has followed me through my career at different points. It's what I find most important in life is to take care of others and provide for them opportunities that they may not have otherwise had, and so the biggest thing for me is creative works got to weather right as I joined the team.

Speaker 3: 18:35

The 2008 to 2010 recession, as anybody that knows in our industry, we're not recession proof, but we're recession resistant right, like for every family that's no longer going to go to an out of town or an out of home party and is now going to do their party in their backyard because they can't afford it. During that time, there's another person that, instead of going to Disney or whatnot, is going to now come and do that right, and for every person that would have gone overseas is now going to Disney. There's a trickle-down effect from that standpoint because we, as individuals and human nature, we love experiences right, that's important for us. And you also have kids, where there's a lot of birthday party special events that people have. That, as a parent, right and I have three boys now between seven and 11, I'll forgo getting my new car, I'll forgo, you know, upgrading my phone if it means that Logan, eli or Gavin are going to be able to have a memory and experience right. So our industry has always been recession resistant and we saw that in 2008,.

Speaker 3: 19:42

Right, coming out of that is did things tighten? Did things, you know, tighten up? For portions of it? Yes, but they never stopped. That was the difference with COVID is the world had to stop. And when you're a manufacturer, one of the things that's different is, just because the world opened up again didn't mean that the operators were ready to buy new attractions again. If you think through the timing and the genesis of how that all unfolded, people went to IAAPA in 2019, bought new things to grow their business, then couldn't take delivery or couldn't take payments because the world shut down in March before they received some of those pieces. Then they didn't know what the next steps were going to be.

Speaker 3: 20:29

And for us as a manufacturer and for any of the other manufacturers in the industry, we not only had to wait for the world to open back up again, but we had to wait for our clients to lick their own wounds for lack of a better term right Before they were ready to spend again, because sometimes they also, on top of you know, taking care of their own debt or tightening that they had to do to survive COVID, they also had to still deal with the product that they might have purchased right before shutdown happened, right, and get some of their ROI back on that. So there was a period there that was was very tight, and I don't think it's specific to creative works. I think a lot of the manufacturing you know suppliers out there probably had to deal with it. And that was the hardest for me on a personal level was, you know, we were told, stay at home. And half of our company are tradesmen, right, and tradeswomen. They're sculptors, they're painters, they're carpenters, they're technicians, and they didn't have the option to do their job at home, right?

Speaker 3: 21:36

I was a firm believer that our industry was going to return, and so we did not cut much on the side of designers and engineers Because remember, it's only two weeks, it's only a month. That was the line that kept getting fed. Sorry, I talk with my hands so I smacked the mic there, but it was one of those pieces that you had and I'm an endless optimist. To begin with, I'm always the glass half full person, because I know what it's like when the glass is empty, so I I always want to look for what that positive future is and, from that standpoint, that was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to do was in March of 2020 is to furlough our tradesmen because we they they couldn't do their work at home and we we did furlough at first because we thought that it was going to be short term.

Speaker 3: 22:32

It was just hard and then, once things started to open back up, being able to bring team members back, starting to regrow. You know, we had just, and part of it to take one moment back is we had just experienced a pace of exponential growth. We just went in 2016 where we were at about 25 team members, to 2019 that we closed with 82 team members team members Right and that also scaled with product. That scaled with with things like hollow gate, with our escape rooms, with our e-sports, with our laser tag and our golf, and I had never had to experience what that was like before Right had I had to make those difficult moments where you have to let an individual go for whatever reason. Yes, and that's not a good experience for anybody that's had to do that. Regardless of whether it's justified and whatnot, it's still never a good experience to have to do that to 35, 40 people like that.

Speaker 3: 23:35

That crushed me right, just to be very, very vulnerable and very open like that absolutely crushed me because it's so against my ethos, who I am and what that meant to me. And then there was the period of recovery, like you said, like it took time to have our clients get their revenue back to a point where they're ready to spend again, they're ready to grow again, and that was a journey. Then you throw in the supply chain on top of that. So then you think like okay, things are starting to happen again, operators ready to buy again, and then they go. What do you mean? It's a six month lead time even on a basic video game, right? Not even talking about some of the complex things, the supply chain and then you throw in the, the, the strikes that were happening in the LA ports and you couldn't get product in, and all the stuff. That, like, just was a perfect storm of difficulty that had to be navigated. But at the same time, we had hope and we had this optimism, which is why we then moved into this beautiful new studio. You know it was only a fraction of what it is.

Speaker 3: 24:41

You know, for the first 25 years of Creative Works we were in a small building. Then we added a building, then we added a third building. Well, we're in Indiana. It's not always the greatest weather here, and we were manufacturers that literally were having a forklift product across public roads in the middle of whatever weather was happening in Indiana year round, and that wasn't a difficult thing and as the demand was starting to return, that's where we're like okay, this is the time we had started to look at this before COVID. It's time to get serious. Let's bet on the future, and that's what we did, you know, with getting everything under one roof, moving into a bigger venue, getting new machinery, new technology, new processes in place that just allow us to scale and grow for the next 25 years.

Speaker 2: 25:32

Awesome. That's incredibly tough. Sorry that you have to go through that Like the rest of us. It sucks right. Yeah, and that's what it is it is.

Speaker 3: 25:40

It was a shared experience, a shared hurdle, a shared misery that we all had, but it affected people at different scales and for different time periods. Right, even on the operator side. There were some states that opened back up 8, 10, 12 weeks later. There were some states that were still shut down a year plus later and some countries that stayed open longer but then shut down after the fact right, and you're raising your hand, I mean you had to experience that right. Shut down after the fact right and you're raising your hand, tell, I mean, I mean you had to experience that right.

Speaker 2: 26:08

Right, right, Well, just Canada. Canada operated so differently than the US, right? So yeah, yeah, absolutely Okay. We want to jump into a little bit more about your history, though, so we want to kind of go back in time and talk about you know, it sounds like you started off at LaserFlash then and managing the day-to-day operations, and so what we really want to know is a little bit more about what your experience was like there and how that helped you propel your career forward.

Speaker 3: 26:34

Yeah, I'm going to take you a step further back. So I grew up like I said, I didn't have a lot. I was working at Taco Bell in Fort Wayne, indiana. You know, typical first job, 15 years old, et cetera. My mom was a manager at Taco Bell that was the extent of our income that we ever really had and happened to be within a mile of two laser tag centers LaserX as well as UltraZone and I'm a nerd right. They had an arcade, they had video games, I was into tech, they had laser tag and so I've had a passion for laser tag my whole life, like it has always been a thing. I'm into the video games, I'm still a gamer today, etc. Like I'm not shy about it. And that's where I got that passion. And then I went to college, put myself through college by playing a video game called EverQuest and by gathering these unique items and then selling those items for money. Like that's how I put myself through college, because I didn't have other means to do that. So like that's, that's what I did.

Speaker 1: 27:43

And don't tell my, by the way, don't tell my son that. So I don't know. Hey, you never know.

Speaker 3: 27:50

I was. I was what e-sports was, or the ability to earn money off of video games, before it became a popular, you know, term that everybody liked to throw in there. And through that process I ended up getting introduced to laser flash and Peter Murphy, as he was opening his venue and kind of talking almost about that visionary integrator idea again for a moment. Peter had a great vision for the venue that he was trying to open. Um, he was an engineer, you know, and he'll be the first to admit that the people was probably not his his biggest strong suit, you know, at least at the beginning. Obviously he's, he's grown on that and he's I think he's amazingly personable today but might not have been right after he came out of engineering at RCA at that time. Uh, and so I was. I was his integrator, right, like I've not always been the visionary side, I've also been on the integrator side. Where I was the integrator at laser flash, that was like, okay, I'm going to be the manager, I'm going to help with hiring, I'm going to create processes, and I was literally taking the things that ironically that my mom had from being a manager at Taco Bell of things like opening checklists, closing checklists, the things that you do how to maintain your kitchen, how to maintain your bathrooms, all those kinds of stuff and I was basically reformatting them into how do I do this at my FEC, right, and that is where that that like journey kind of started.

Speaker 3: 29:14

But I, again, I've always been a people person, like I love to connect with people. People are what I value the most and you know, I hired some of the team members in that first group, or hired all the team members in that first group, and then that just continued to grow and that is really what that journey has been. And providing birthday parties and events for guests was always just something that I really thoroughly enjoyed. Like there's nothing more exciting as a business owner who gets it to see somebody coming out of your attraction with a smile on their face, right, sweat pouring down their brow, sometimes a smile on their face, laughing, you know, cajoling with their friends and just having a good time. Like that is what you want to see. That's why you do it and I think that's why all of us do it. Right, there's plenty of ways to make money in this world, but we chose to be in the entertainment industry for a reason, and it's not purely just about the money. It's a nice side effect because obviously there's a cost to it. But that is where I really got that taste for this is a way that it allowed me to create a lot of happy moments for a lot of people that I didn't think I could achieve in another manner, and that is where I really fell in love with this industry. And so, although I talked a little bit earlier that Jeff had to convince me a bit that this was the right path, he had some help on his side from that standpoint, because I really did just have a passion for what we were doing and creating those relationships.

Speaker 3: 30:49

And on the team member side, it always amazes me how many operators and I used to ask this question in educational conferences that I would give I'd say how many of you raise your hand, offer team building activities as a package or an event that you sell to the general public and you do a lot of work to try and convince businesses that it's important to spend that money on that activity. Almost everybody raises their hand right Like, yeah, we go after groups, we go after churches, we go after businesses. All right, keep your hand up If you intentionally do those things for your own staff and you would just see 90, 95% of their their hands go down. And I just like you're all hypocrites, right, because, like you're selling this idea, but then you're not taking that same premise to take care of your own team. But then you're not taking that same premise to take care of your own team.

Speaker 3: 31:47

And that was something that we always put a lot of emphasis on, whether it was doing staff games after hours, doing trade outs to get gift cards for other venues that we could hand out as rewards, and take care of our team that way sports leagues, recreational leagues, group dinners, group outings, whatever the case may be. That was just something that came naturally to me and it always boggled my mind as I've grown up, so to speak, through this industry for the last 20 years of like, what does that mean and why are other people not doing it? Like whoa, it always seemed like a layup for, of a better term to me that if you hired people and you took care of them and I was also never a person that was afraid to hire friends that had relationships. You know a lot of people are very skittish about that I'm like, if you have something that goes sideways and somebody needs to cover a shift, somebody's sick, somebody needs a little bit of extra help. If you've taken care of them or they have a personal relationship that they've been able to build at your venue or that they had prior to being a team member at your venue, they're willing to go that extra mile to help. They're willing to go that extra mile to help, and that's whether it's something as simple as taking out the trash, keeping this venue clean, covering a shift like or making that experience better. And because of that, we also had this big push that you hire people that have the right energy, that they have a desire to make other people happy.

Speaker 3: 33:25

Half of the reviews, half of the experiences we created were ad hoc and cost us nothing. I can't tell you how many moms I saw swoon over the fact that we had hired a lot of people that were in show choir. They were part of our team and instead of doing just the you know you've been to a venue or maybe you've seen this in your own venue right, not pointing any fingers when the party host is singing happy birthday in the most monotone, boring, non-excited way? Right, versus, we would have our team without direction from us, all of a sudden start going over and singing acapella as like three to five people, and you would just see the way that that small, intentional piece that they took upon themselves, going back to the idea of responsible freedom, they knew what we were trying to create, they knew what we were trying to do.

Speaker 3: 34:22

They took it upon themselves, within those guidelines and with what our ethos was, to go make that moment special, right. Or hey, my pizzas are running late. Our idea is we didn't want them to know that. So our party hosts would be like they'd get a cue, they'd know that the pizza was running late or the cake was running late, whatever the case may be right, and they'd start doing things like playing duck, duck goose or heads up seven up at the table. Just, mom never knew, the party never knew that the last pizza got burnt and they needed to run it through again. It was an illusion of perfection that was taking place right, as you took care of what was in sight as much as possible. There was never an issue.

Speaker 1: 35:06

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. It's again part of that whole making memories concept and um and so, like I actually want to take a moment here. So you, you were at laser frenzy, then you went to creative works or laser, yeah. I'm sorry, the laser frenzy was a product laser flash. You came over to creative works develop laser frenzy was a product, laser flash. You came over to creative works. Develop laser frenzy. You became this creative experience broker. Uh right, you know.

Speaker 3: 35:30

So like that was our fun name for sales, right, you know exactly, yeah, but we wanted to be different.

Speaker 1: 35:36

It's great, um and so then, from there, though, you actually took a big step over to party center software. I did, and you know you took a lot of this operator knowledge about how to run really successful and high-quality parties, and now you're working at a place that's built around booking parties and helping to manage the point of sale and everything else. How did that role there at Party Center, where you're doing and managing and handling over 1.75 million events a year, how did that role ultimately help develop your skills further?

Speaker 3: 36:09

Scott Drummond is an amazing person, right, I know both of you know him well and I hate that he's not super active in the industry at this stage, but he is an amazing person and he had built his company out of necessity and need, right, he started because he owned an inflatable um, you know, soft play venue and realized he didn't like the offerings that were out there for for point of sale and and party management and all those kinds of things and that's where their Genesis kind of grew over the years, long before I got there. But as I joined that team I again brought still having some of that operational background to that team. But I got to also re-engage on the ground level with so many operators, so many managers, et cetera. Again, and it kept my fresh eyes viewpoint, I believe, throughout my career and that's something that I really value as much as I can is trying to make sure that you always approach business, a problem, a scenario, a product, with fresh eyes or with you know first principles, whatever you know terminology you want to use for it, and put yourself in the shoes of the person that's going to be using your product, whether that is a software product, like we had at Party Center Software, where we pushed really hard with the ability to have you know pictures of your options and add-ons versus just text, being able to make sure that you know, as the cell phone revolution continued to grow and become more prominent, like something as simple as having dynamic access so that it worked on a mobile device in a different manner than what it looked like on a computer, because that was a big thing back then, where a lot of people created online options. But those online options only worked if you were sitting at your desktop or a laptop or computer, and they didn't necessarily work with somebody that was, you know, on their phone.

Speaker 3: 38:09

And the flip side is is at that point I was having my second child and, for anybody that's been a parent, you've been up at three o'clock in the morning dealing with a crying baby who's needing to be fed or won't go back to sleep or will only sleep if they're laying on you.

Speaker 3: 38:26

Right, we've all been there, but you can't go to sleep in that moment, right, for all the reasons.

Speaker 3: 38:31

And so you're scrolling, you're on your phone, you're like, let me at least utilize this time to book my next part, my other son's event, or take care of whatever I need to take care of, and it was again realizing that how would I want to use this software, how would I want to use this product, and that is something that they took very seriously is making that better, and and and again. That's principles that we've taken all throughout the process of our products, of knowing what it's like. Even in the creative works world, when we come up with something new, one of the first questions we ask is how do they fix it, how do they deal with it? Because nothing breaks on a Monday afternoon, right, it's going to break on a Saturday, when you're at your busiest point, when you're when you're dealing with your high traffic and you need to make as many things accessible as possible to be able to maintain them and get them back in operational. So they're making you money.

Speaker 2: 39:26

Yeah, great, great, great. Okay, we're going to jump over and talk a little bit about leadership and company culture quickly Now. You have alluded already to this concept in term of responsible freedom, and we'd love for you to dive into that a little bit more and tell us what that actually means for the creative works team. What kind of influenced you to have this concept and then how do you encourage your team to run with the idea of responsible freedom?

Speaker 3: 39:52

Yeah, I am a big proponent of constant learning and improvement that you can have as an individual, and so I consume a ton of audiobooks and from that standpoint, one of the favorites that I have is Simon Sinek.

Speaker 3: 40:12

Another one would be somebody like Gary V and I know that they've gotten a lot more popularity and whatnot over over time that when you take components and ideas, it's not to say that everything Gary Vee says is perfect and everything that Simon says is perfect, or Brene Brown or whomever, but taking the elements that have meaning with you, that have resonance with you, and bringing them together into your own culture to create the in our world, the creative works, culture the creative works. You know the in our in our world, the creative works, culture the creative works. You know why, in what we do, and that's where a lot of those, those individual people have had influence on me and our team and our growth, and that's what this idea of responsible freedom is. Um, I don't want to and I'm trying to make sure I. I sometimes use language I shouldn't use, so I'm trying to make sure I'm keeping things PC and clean.

Speaker 1: 41:09

It's not a PG. It's not a PG thing.

Speaker 3: 41:12

Like. The best analogy that I have is I should expect at some point that you know how to wipe your own ass. I don't need to tell you to take out three pieces of toilet paper, fold it in half, wipe. Like I don't need to get all that detail, like that's the simplest way to say what responsible freedom is is right. I want to give you the backyard to play in and say play in here. I'm not telling you how to play, right. I'm telling you these are the boundaries in which you need to play. However you choose to play and accomplish that play is up to you. That's that idea of responsible freedom. Applying that to an operator, for example, is I'm going to say clean the bathrooms. I shouldn't have to tell you to wipe down the sinks, wipe down the toilets, lift up the seat, make sure you did that. Clean out all the trash cans, refill the liners, refill the soap, like, yes, we're going to create checklists for some of the high level pieces, but there's also a certain amount of personal responsibility that you should take in doing that task. But I'm also not telling you how to do it. I'm telling you these are the things that need to get done, how you do it as long as it's done is a little bit more up to you. That's this idea of responsible freedom is we want to give you the vision of where we're going, and that's another big piece that we've created is in 2021, coming out of COVID, I'd read a book by Cameron Herold called Vivid Vision, and the idea of the vivid vision is you need to be, as a leader, as clear about where you want to go as you possibly can.

Speaker 3: 42:53

What I mean by that and the analogy that he had, is if I went to a interior designer or an architect and I said, hey, I want a house, I want it to be three bedroom, two bath, I with a two car garage simple, obvious things that a lot of people will put in a search or that those think of as the vision of what they have for a house. But there's a lot of different ways you can accomplish those goals If you, as a leader, do not clearly communicate that I don't want a ranch, I want, you know, a two story house. I want to in a midmodern aesthetic, I want a red door. I want, like. You need to provide as much clarity as possible, and that is again the whole idea of the vivid vision and the responsible freedom. I'm going to paint the picture. So what I did is I said, three years from now, this is what I want creative works to look like, this is what I want us to be achieving, this is what I want to do, and I'm going to write that vivid vision as if it's already happened. Then I'm going to provide that vision, with as much detail as I can, to our team. The responsible freedom is I don't need to tell you every step of the way. I don't need to be consumed with the tyranny of how to make it happen. This is where we're going. This is what I want us to be. How can you help us get there? And that's that idea of responsible freedom. And when I look back, we just completed that, right, I said I just did in 2001. So 2001, 2002, 2003,.

Speaker 3: 44:31

That vivid vision had a lot of what this is, a lot of. This building was part of that vivid vision and we created a version that was outward facing, because I'm not a person that's worried about everybody knowing where I'm going. That's okay. That's even a piece that I've gotten from like a person, like a jeff bezos. You know, in his philosophy is that it doesn't matter if everybody knows where you're going. If they're not willing to put in the effort, the, the, the, the, the resources that it takes to get there, then it doesn't matter that they know where you're going, right? If they don't understand why you're doing it and they're just trying to copy what you're doing, they don't understand the why behind it. They're not going to have the same passion, the same attachment to see it through the end when they do have a hurdle, and so that's always been one of those things where it's like we had a version that was external, that everybody in the world can see. We had a version that had a little bit more detail for those that were internally though even as I say that because there's some of those were specific financial numbers, et cetera that those don't necessarily need to be what's out there but we also found that it was important to share what our vision was with our clients, with our partners, with our vendors, right, the people that were trying to determine how they would help us achieve that as well, and that gave them an idea of where we were going, and then they would come to us with ideas that, if they didn't know where we were going. We wouldn't have known to ask right, whether it was different material selection, different opportunities, different techniques, different equipment, whatever the case may be. And we actually just finished our next VivaVision that'll get released to our team or, sorry, was released internally to our team just this last week and it'll get posted on our website here shortly. That'll carry us through to 2026.

Speaker 3: 46:15

And it doesn't mean that it's a failure if we don't hit every one of those pieces. Some of them are continuous things that you're going to do and some of them the world changes in three years, which is why I like the three-year outlook. A lot of people are like I need a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, and I found out not to take this in a in too horrible of a manner, but like when I came back to creative works after party center software. You know, jeff, kim and I sat down and we had a five-year plan of how they would start to step out, how they were going to. You know, you know they've been doing this for 20 plus years. They're ready to, to be able to celebrate and not have to be part of the day-to-day and, just like everybody who creates a five-year plan.

Speaker 3: 46:56

That changed and nine months later, jeff was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and everything that we thought was a five-year plan got thrown out the window, and we had to adapt to those moments, and so, although that could have happened at any point, nine months is obviously shorter than three years, which is what we do for the Vivid Vision. That's one of the reasons that even Cameron Harrell talks about is five years is too long. Too much evolves, too much happens rapidly over a five-year period. Three years is long enough to be on the horizon and to give you time to accomplish those things, but short enough for you to be able to deal with the realities of the changing world right Versus people sometimes just do a one-year plan, and that's just not enough either.

Speaker 1: 47:43

Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well. One of the things we always like to do on the Third Degree is to ask our guests to teach us something that they're passionate about outside of the entertainment industry and just take a couple of minutes, because we still have a lot of we still have a number of other questions we want to dive into, so maybe just take a couple of a couple of minutes just to give us a quick primer on something you're passionate about.

Speaker 3: 48:06

Look, I've talked a bit about people and culture already, and that is probably one of the things I'm most passionate about, and it also stems to just leadership in general. One of the biggest mistakes that I feel that leaders make and managers of people make is, first, they go down too far of a micromanaging path and they don't provide enough responsible freedom. To use that analogy again and to touch on that one more time and part of the reason that's so important is, if you provide that responsible freedom, if you provide the boundaries, but not the every step of the, how you will be amazed at the efficiency in which your team will find a way to accomplish that goal and the nuance of the newness, of the cool opportunities, if they're not so buttoned down into a funnel of. This is the only way you can do X, y or Z, and they're not dealing with the sacred cow that but this is the way that we've always done it, and they're open to be able to do an experience and find new ways to do things. You will be surprised at the amount of innovation that your team is going to bring to your business and your company, whatever your product may be. And, along those same lines, one of the things that I've learned, and that I follow as much as possible, is realizing that most mistakes are not fatal.

Speaker 3: 49:34

Too often in business and life or as managers, when something goes wrong, we're immediately got to blame. I got to fix somebody's, got to have punishment for whatever happened that wasn't supposed to happen. It's not to say that you should allow things to not be corrected they should obviously be corrected. But there's two pieces that need to be considered. One was this mistake fatal? And very, very few mistakes in life or business are fatal Doesn't mean they don't hurt. Doesn't mean that you don't have hurdles that you need to overcome now because you've made that mistake. But it's the infinite game from Simon Sinek Are you out of business? No, put your pants back on and move forward with it the next day, right, or the next moment, whatever the case may be. And that is just such a huge and crucial piece of looking at how to accomplish those things, and that is just something that I live by and I wish more people did, because it's too often they want to create that blame and it doesn't solve anything and what it often does is create resentment. It creates frustration and you start to focus on the person and not the process, and that's where that second component of that mindset needs to come in.

Speaker 3: 51:01

I'm a big fan of Jocko. For anybody that doesn't know Jocko, he's got a couple books out there the Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership. They're phenomenal books and the concept of this is that you also need to step back as a leader and have some personal reflection. Was that mistake something that you could have had a hand in preventing? So that item that you're ready to get angry about, that you're ready to punish? Whatever the case may be, is there something you could have done as a leader to have improved that process, changed your training, changed the expectation, changed the information that you communicated, to have prevented that yourself? Where are you taking ownership of your part in whatever that outcome was?

Speaker 3: 51:55

And it's hard right, because we don't want to say that we did something wrong. It's a human nature thing. We don't want to take that blame, but making sure that you take a beat, that you take a moment to recognize that, I think, is hugely important and it's part of, again, what permeates throughout our culture. It's part of the reason that I've got team members with us now that were an employee of mine when they were 15 years old, right, and they've gone off to the real world. They've worked at other companies and somehow they've they found their way back into my orbit, and there's plenty of those people that are at CreativeWorks. There's several of them that are in our industry but not at CreativeWorks, but have found other niches within the industry. There are several of them that they've got nothing to do with our industry, but I still keep in touch.

Speaker 3: 52:44

20 years later. I'm still at their weddings. They've still participated in things back and forth, as we've had kids and family, and life has changed because they were treated like humans, with empathy and compassion, and not just immediately lambasted because they did something wrong. And that is just a big piece of who I am, and I think that I I feel that we would be in a much better place in this world if everything wasn't a polarized. Somebody has got to be a blame and fault, with no accountability to your own part in it.

Speaker 2: 53:18

Amazing. That is so inspirational. You certainly bring a high level of conscious leadership to the table and I know if I had to have a boss, I would definitely be choosing you.

Speaker 3: 53:29

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2: 53:31

You must have a great team. Now, quickly, we haven't talked about your home life, your family life, like you've alluded to having three kids. We know you're happily married. You know tell us a little bit about how this role as being a father and a husband is demanding and demands of your time between creative works and family. And you know what kind of activities you do with your kids to inspire them and give them these special moments.

Speaker 3: 53:52

You know what kind of activities you do with your kids to inspire them and give them these special moments. Yeah, um, I'm very fortunate. I've been married for for 17 years now. Um, to my wife, amy. We met in the business uh, so many people do and we've got three amazing boys. Uh, eli is now 11,. Uh, logan is nine and Gavin is seven. Uh, right now, this time of year, it sounds kind of normal-ish, like at about a, a two-year gap, but the oldest two were not that way. It's just the time of the year. They're only about 17 months apart, 18 months apart Again.

Speaker 3: 54:28

It's really easy for a lot of people to just look at the success or the outcome and say things like they got lucky or not understand all the things that happen. Right, I'm a human being, just like everybody else, which is why I love this question and you put in it right. So, like we had to go through infertility, you know, for years before we had our first, and when we finally had them right Afterwards, like, oh, do you guys need to be on X, y, z, o to make sure you don't have another baby? And the person didn't know that we had gone through IVF and a lot of infertility. I haven't like, ah no. And then the moment Amy stopped breastfeeding she was pregnant again, right, like it was like what jump started the engine, so to speak, for lack of a better term. And then we we had, and then we were more intentional between number two and number three. So there's parts of the time of the year where you know it's like, oh, you've got a nine, 10 and a seven year old. They're all boys, right. So they also, just by that nature, keep us at on our toes. They're very competitive with them being closer in age, lots of physicality sometimes between them in that competitive nature.

Speaker 3: 55:31

We're big on sports. We want them to learn team dynamics, how to work with others, how to communicate with others, uh. So, like, right now is actually one of the slower times of the year because only one of them is is in sports, with basketball. But we kick off in april where, um, all three of them start. Uh, two of the three are in football, so they'll do what's called aerial football, like a flag football, during the spring, and then they do tackle football in the fall, and then the other one is doing gymnastics, and so we are one of those families that we have sports practice Basically every night of the week. We have games on Saturdays and Sundays. Friday is the only day that there's typically not a sports related activity that's in play, just because normally at this age they're not doing things on Fridays because that's reserved for high schools, you know, so to speak, with with those kind of things. So that's a big component of it. Our oldest is finally at that age where they're going in, they're starting to do band, so he's choosing which, which instruments he's going to get to play. So it's going to become even louder at our house here shortly, uh, from that standpoint.

Speaker 3: 56:36

But, uh, we are big on creating experiences and memories, even for our kids, right, because it's not lip service because of who we, we are as a company. It's again it goes back to my upbringing, the things that I wasn't able to do that I want to be able to provide for them. And so we love going to Disney, we love going on trips, we love just going to travel whenever we can with our boys. We just got our passports this year so we can start. Think, in business and in life, that people like to ask for is they're always like how do you do this work-life balance? You're doing all these things and how do you do that? I don't like the term work-life balance, and I say that in that balance implies that they're equal in the amount of time or the amount of effort, and that's not the right way to look at it. I look at it as synergy and if you are intentional, you can create synergy so that I can still be at home every night to make sure that I'm at all of my kids' practices and helping coach.

Speaker 3: 57:52

So this spring, when I say it's about to get hectic, I'm actually the assistant coach on all three baseball teams. I'm going to be the head coach for both of the flag football teams and the falls. I'm a head coach on the football teams and my wife is an assistant coach on on on some of those items as well. Like, we want to intentionally be involved, not the parent that's like hey, I get to avoid you for the next two hours and just drop you off and go do something else. We want to try and be involved again because of what I didn't have. Like, I wanted to be that and that's important to us. But you can do it if you're doing it with intentionality. Does it mean you're working the exact hours every day? No, you have to. You know, uh, mark, who's our VP of operations, and Russ, um, obviously, who's who's in the industry.

Speaker 3: 58:39

On the that, a lot of people know from the business development side, like the three of us as well as like five other team members, we're all doing 75 hard right now. And then that adds in a whole nother layer of having to plan and be intentional Right. But you can choose to say I don't have time to do that, or you can choose to be intentional about making that time right. So to make something like that happen, it means, yes, I am getting up at 530 every morning to make sure that I can get in that time from a workout standpoint, and I would do that even before we started 75 hard, because that was my personal time, like was my regen time, because our kids wake up at 6 30 so we can get them to school and then we get into school and then I'm at work, starting by 7 45, and then I'm doing that until, you know I I get home to take them to practices at six and then that is the, the family time, from 6 to 8 30 ish, and then I get some time where I again I'm still a nerd and a gamer.

Speaker 3: 59:31

So if my wife and I aren't watching a show or a movie together, I'm playing Destiny, I'm playing Diablo, that is my outlet. But you can choose to say you have the time to do it or not, right? And that is the difference between this ideal of I don't have work-life balance or whatnot. No, that's not how you need to look at it, there's just a different mindset. So that's some of our, our personal, our background, and what a day in the life of Armando is, uh, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 1:00:01

That's awesome. That's awesome. I love the word synergy. I often use the word harmony, but you know synergy. Synergy is great, like it's you know but I almost like synergy because they they interplay together and work, work, you know like. But I almost like Synergy because they interplay together and work, you know like. Everything just molds and flows together and they support each other as well.

Speaker 3: 1:00:18

So, yeah, that's awesome, I love that and, even looking at it, where we've got the three boys that are in the primary demographic of a lot of the attractions that we do. Obviously we have some that skew older and some that skew younger, but they get to experience things that you wouldn't normally get to do as a 7 to 11-year-old. Right, they get to go to these places because one of the a great example of that one of our favorite vacation spots is going down to Marco Island for and we constantly stay at the JW and it sounds super bougie when you say it like that, but what that resort did is they added an entertainment center about six years ago. Right, they added mini golf, they added VR, they added arcade, they added mini bowling and they made a conscious effort to create that type of venue at that resort, and so I got to take them down there that very first time after we got done building it, to go experience it, right For the grand opening and stuff like that. And I'm like, of course I'm going to bring my kids for that, right for the grand opening and stuff like that, and I'm like, of course I'm going to bring my kids for that, but that's now become a family destination once a year that we want to go down because it became a core memory to them.

Speaker 3: 1:01:19

But now extrapolate that to you know, getting to go to see some of our clients, whether they're you know, we're installing a laser tag, we're installing a mini golf, we're doing some of those things. It's like, hey, one of you can come with me when I go to that event. Or we're going to go to family and we're going to visit the city and while we're visiting the city, this, the here comes your synergy. I'm now going to take you to some of the things that we get to do. Or, my boys, you know, come down here. It's going to sound silly. They come down here with their mom to help fill the vending machine for our team, right, to go and hand out candy to our team, or flowers, or whatever the case may be, depending on the time of the year, the holiday and whatever's going on, like we've integrated them into that so they don't look at it as you know, daddy's just at work, or or, or, whatever the case may be, they get to come and do that. You should have seen their eyes when they got to take, um, you know, a picture in front of both our Lego Batman and our King Koopa that we have in our lobby just because we made them for giggles, right, that's awesome.

Speaker 3: 1:02:20

My son, who's a big football fan and loves the game of football my oldest, you know we got to do a thing for Pat McAfee and we did a big for the brand football that you can still see you know, he has it on a set every day if you ever watch that show. But like, I've got pictures of my son acting like he was kicking the football off the tee while it was still an all raw phone because he loved it and he got to come do that and see that. Like that's what that is right, like it's just awesome that I get to share those experiences in those moments. And it's about being intentional to do it yeah, that's awesome. So ever sorry about being intentional to do it. Yeah, that's awesome. So, on occasion, so they still get grounded.

Speaker 1: 1:02:59

They don't always like that. Well, you know that that's. That's a part of being a good parent as well. Right Discipline is always a part of that. Well, look, we always like to wrap the show you know the show with one specific question, and it's basically you know, imagine that an attraction was based on your career journey in your life. What would the theme and the highlight of that track, that attraction, be?

Speaker 3: 1:03:20

Ooh, uh, I would, I would say never ending exploration, right, I am a curious person by nature, um, and I would probably somehow have you know, medieval armor and uh, swords and magic somehow built into it, right, like I, like I said, I, I I've always loved video games. I've always been a fan of, you know, everquest, uh, diablo, uh, playing in in first person shooters and all that kind of stuff. Like it would be some sort of RPG. It'd be some sort of role-playing game where you got to learn cool new uh tricks and powers and magic that you got to somehow interweave and gain extra armor, and it would be something along those lines. If, if I could create an attraction from start to finish and, um, you know, that was based on my life or my desires and my passions, for sure, yeah, yeah, that's awesome, some big open world, yeah, oh, yeah, like and I want it to be.

Speaker 3: 1:04:31

The stupid minute detail needs to be there where, like I, can pick up the cup. That doesn't matter, it's not part of the game, it has nothing to do with it, but I thought of it because somebody else might have been able to pick it up like it's. It's those kind of pieces that I I want to have in in in something along those lines. Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:04:51

well, armando, this has been absolutely amazing. You've provided so so much information, not just on your background, but on your leadership style and and vision and abilities, and it's just been absolutely amazing. So, thank you so much for coming on the third degree and to all of our LBXers who've listened to this, as you know, stay tuned and keep kicking ass.

Speaker 3: 1:05:14

All right, thank you guys so much. Have a great day.