So it was hard for me to kind of grapple with, like, why am I getting in trouble for helping people? And I had to have my manager at HR help me out. I got picked multiple times. I was picked as a performance improvement plan. That's what HR and the manager are like, if you don't shape up, maybe this job isn't gonna work out for you, right?

Ralph, Ralph, we get it, but we can't change who we are. The sooner you accept that, the better off your game and your life will be. Like, he's super tight at heart. And so it took him a long time to kind of realize who he was and how the program that he was in didn't really let him express that. And that might sound silly, but I hadn't had that experience before in my life where I could, I don't know, go into a place that wasn't school or work or home and have people like, oh, hey, dad, how's it going, man?

And they're like, oh, I hate pulling on my neck. This is cool. And so I could stop fighting the way that the system wanted me to work and just actually make the system work for me. Welcome to Yes And Land, where we say yes to the reality of yesterday and today. And we say and to the possibility, growth, and imagination of tomorrow.

Welcome to another episode of Yes And Land. So to get us kind of kicked off for this episode, gonna have a little brief intro here. For 30 years, Wreck-It Ralph was programmed to be the bad guy. Everyone told him who he was and that he couldn't change it. My guest today knows that feeling.

Dan Langford is a senior software engineer by day and co-owner of Hearthside Games by night. He's been told more than once that he didn't fit the system and he's watched his own kids get told the same thing. Today we're breaking what we are pre-programmed for that holds us back and breaking through to our real potential. So Dan, welcome to Yes And Land. Thanks for having me.

Happy to be here. Very excited to talk to you today about Wreck-It Ralph. Talk a little bit about your journey into some really kind of fun things that you're doing. Not just with being a software engineer, but even more specifically with Hearthside Games, which you come out and brings a lot to the community and very excited to kind of talk about that journey. But to get us kicked off, let's take it way back.

Like take it way back to little Dan and what was little Dan like? What was life like for you growing up? Oh man, so long ago, I remember realizing recently just how old I'm getting. So I'm four out of five kids and grew up in Layton up in Davis County. And life was great, man.

Life was full and fun growing up in the 90s. Had a loving family. School was hard, I think that was smart, but I think it was hard. I think school was difficult for me, but I knew the stuff. But had a lot of great friends and parents gave me a lot of cool opportunities.

We were hiking all the time and skiing and going on road trips. And a lot of the things that we did, like we didn't go out of the country and on big cruises and stuff like that. It was mostly like hiking for five days in the canyon lands or something like that. But it was really fun, yeah. Yeah, you don't have to go travel to a bunch of wild destinations to have a good time.

When I was growing up, we, I would have to go down to Southern California and stay with some family in Vista. And so the only out of country experience that I ever had is we would then take a little train down to the border and we'd walk across the border to Tijuana and go buy stuff at the little shops there and barter with people. So that was the only time for the first 30 years of my life that I ever went out of the country was just Tijuana. Not exactly like the most luxurious destination. Was interesting to see because you see, and honestly, a lot of poverty, people in really tough situations.

I always did feel a little bit strange for me trying to barter with somebody who you're like, yeah, they probably could use the extra money. And I'm trying to like barter them down. I was never good at it. I was always like, oh yeah, it's 20 bucks. Okay, well, how about 19?

Okay, perfect. My brother was always very skilled with it. He would be able to know in the right time to like walk away where then they like try to get you to come back. I'll give it to you for 10 bucks. Then you get the good deals.

Right. But yeah, I mean, part of the grownup experience is just like being with the people you love, right? And it's feeling like you belong with those people. And then you mentioned in school that you were plenty smart, which obviously you've proven that throughout your career, but it was a little bit hard. Tell me more about that.

Yeah, I just didn't like the hand in my assignments. Man, that sounds exactly like my 15 year old right now. Like literally sounds exactly like him. Yeah, and I think it started in a very specific year. I thought he was like fifth grade.

And then all of a sudden I was like, eh, I'm not doing this. And it wasn't because like I didn't know all the stuff. I think at the time I didn't really know what was going on and looking back at it now, like I was easily distracted and so I would just, out of sight, out of mind, I'd forget about it. And then I would just not handle it. And then at some point it's like, it's not worth doing anymore.

So just not like at this point I'm gonna fail. So might as well just not do it anymore. And then my parents, they were very, they were very adamant that like I do work, even if I'm not gonna get grades. So I remember one time, my dad going to parent teacher conference, I think it was like eighth grade or something. And my math teacher was like, he hasn't handed work for like for weeks and weeks and weeks.

And you know, there's no way he's gonna. Anyways, my dad was like, he's gonna do all these times. He's gonna come in early and he's gonna do all this time. She's like, he's not getting credit for him. And he's like, that's not the point.

He needs to do the work. And so I went in every morning, my dad dropped me off early at school so I could go and make up all my miss work. And it's things like that that taught me like, yeah, it is sometimes more about like just checking things off. And it's about like doing what you've been asked to do and what you were told to do and going through. I don't know, I think it's just like being honorable and trustworthy and being a man of your word and actually doing the work that you need to do.

But it was hard. And I think it was kind of at that time that I started to realize that like, I think my brain's wired differently. It's easy for me to forget and to get distracted. But then when I need to focus in on something, I'm able to like hyper focus and really get it done and get it out of the park. And hopefully it's just not too late by then, right?

Yeah, yeah. Is that like the ADHD or ED that you and the religion you had? Yeah, yeah. And then I was later diagnosed with narcolepsy as well. And so just a handful of things going on that was, it was hard to, made it hard to, I don't know, function or focus in the way that society might expect you to, right?

And we're talking like, I'm sorry, and that it was a different time than it is now. And it was harder to like maybe recognize it and diagnose it and pan it. And at the time, the medicine for it was, and the ways that it was treated was kind of concerning to some caretas as well, right? A little concerned about furniture, you know, medicine and him losing his entire personality. And so those are some things that my parents are hard facing, like, they're like, he's a great kid, he's fine, he's happy.

And maybe we don't need to like turn him up, right? And so that's, but over the years, yeah, I've tried to get some help, like medicine or therapy. And you know what, a lot of it for me has been is just like an understanding. Yeah. That's been a really big help for me, now that I understand like, oh, this is a thing, this is a way that my brain might be wired a little differently.

And most of what has worked for me is actually adapting my life or my patterns or habits to work well with the way that I wired up here, as opposed to like trying to change my brain to work in the world, instead change the world around me to work into my, you know, the way that my brain wants to work best. Yeah, yeah, makes sense. So when we take a look at Rick and Ralph, there's obviously some parallels here, right? You know, with Ralph as the movie starts and he's the bad guy, right? He's the bad guy in this fix it Felix game.

And he's kind of, I mean, he's programmed to do what he's supposed to do, right? He's supposed to be the bad guy, he's supposed to wreck stuff. And so he is just not loving life at the beginning of this movie, right? What parallels do you see there between kind of what Ralph was experiencing at the beginning of this movie, kind of some of the things that you experienced when you're starting to realize like, okay, what everyone else is saying and what I'm supposed to do is not really fitting with what actually works for me and what the way that my brain processes things. What parallels do you see?

Yeah, so I like to think that, so like in the movie, a lot of it gets kicked off by them celebrating their 30th anniversary. So they've been in business for 30 years. If I had to think that Ralph early on was like super good at his job and loved it and got a lot of fulfillment from it. And like he did what he was programmed to do and he probably loved it initially, right? Loved wrecking things.

I'm gonna wreck it. And like it was over time that he started to I think more fully understand like who he was and who he wanted to be. What I love about watching that is seeing just how like, how kind he is, right? Especially like when he meets Vanilla Bee, as he's frustrated at her, he's also like scaring off the bullies and helping her make a car and stuff like that, right? Like he's super talented at heart.

And so like it took him a long time to realize like who he was and how the program that he was in didn't really let him express that. And so- That's a great point. One of the quotes I wrote down, I'll get your take on, is early on they're in this kind of, it's almost like it's an AA meeting, but for the bad guys, right? Bad A-naught. That's exactly right.

Bad A-naught is what it is, yeah. And in there, one of the characters, I think his name's Clyde says, when Ralph's gonna complain about this, right? I'm gonna be a bad guy. Ralph, Ralph, we get it, but we can't change who we are. The sooner you accept that, the better off your game and your life will be.

It's just interesting that like people are just telling, I'm like, sorry, can't even think about it. It's gotta accept it the way it is. And what the movie is showing is that like, Ralph was just like, that just isn't gonna work for me. There's gotta be something more for me there. There's gotta be something more that I can do.

Because I think you're right, he actually was really kind at heart. And the movie really proves that. And he's not getting the opportunity to show that at all in the game. Because always there is a do, is to be the bad guy and wreck things, and can't be embraced for the kindness that he has. Which is really kind of a fun way for us to then see how that plays out with the things that he does.

And so when we look at that, where do you kind of see that journey then taking him? How does he end up getting to that point where he can start to realize a little bit more about what he's looking for in life? Obviously, if you look at the movie as a whole, he's gotta leave his game. And go on some adventures of his own. Yeah.

But before even that, if you remember where he went after Beth, before he goes into, is it Heroes? Yes. The Heroes, right? Heroes duty. Heroes, that's right.

How did I forget that? Heroes duty. Ha ha. Oh, that's right. Where was he before that?

He was actually in a bar. He was in the tavern. He was. He was in, and moping, right? He's ranting his sorrows.

And the tavern king was trying to help Wulfram buy the metal and contract the lost and found, right? Yeah. And, but yeah, he's gotta leave. By leaving that environment of his game, where, like he knew what he was gonna be told this day, right? He knew how people were gonna respond, how they were gonna treat him.

He kinda needed to break out of that and find another place to go on his own journey and adventure and kinda learn who he is. And then kinda take his own journey, which he just couldn't accomplish or just. Yeah. And, you know, I think as you're saying that, what it reminds me about is, is I think Felix at the end of every game that they play, he gets a medal. And that's why Ralph wants a medal.

He just really wants a medal. But it's interesting when you think about what does that medal represent? Mostly he doesn't want it because he just wants a coin, right? Yeah, he doesn't want to shine anything. That's not what it is.

It's that recognition that he means something, you know, that he has a purpose and that he belongs somewhere. And I think that's what he was looking for and needed to go outside that game, outside that environment. He needed to change the environment in order to start to realize the value that he actually had. I think it took him a realize, it took him a while to even realize that because initially it was just that shiny thing. He was like, if I go back with the medal, they'll see that I can be a hero, right?

It was all about the medal. So that final scene where he's falling down out of the sky onto the Mentos volcano and he holds in his hand that the medal that Penelope made for him says, you're my hero. And that's where he's really starting to realize that white doesn't need to be the shiny thing. I just want someone to like me for who I am. Not everywhere can be the happiest place on earth.

And at RCG Law Group, my job outside of our podcast, we get that. Life throws curve balls, legal stuff, family stuff, the things you didn't see coming. That's what we're here for. If you're dealing with something and don't know where to turn, give RCG a call. One of the things that we talked about for Dan was we talked a little bit about trains.

Yeah. And your kids. Yeah. And an experience that you guys had with kind of like a, it was like a train club of sorts. Yeah.

What your kids were doing with the trains versus what everybody else there thought. Maybe you could share that with us because I think it parallels really well this story where we're talking about of like, what way is something supposed to be? And everybody thinks it's supposed to be that way, but maybe not. So we inherited some model train stuff from grandpa after he passed and thought we would kind of just see what this model train world was about so that grandpa's trains didn't get thrown away. And ended up joining a local club for all you train nerds out there was N-scale, the pizza box club.

And it was geared towards kids and they would give the kids a platform about the size of like a big pizza box and they would put an N-scale track on it and then they'd teach the kids like about modeling terrain and trains and stuff like that and we wired it up and we'd let them put work on it and then build a big bottle around it and make it yours. And it was great, super fun. And the old train heads that were running it were very, very kind and imparted a lot of wisdom of model train on us. But I had my young girls with me and I wanted them to be able to do it the way they wanted to do it. And we'd actually just watched Brecket Ralph and my one daughter, she wanted to make it, she wanted to model it after that world.

So instead of like where a normal model train would have like a mountain and a lake and trees and really pretty scenery that takes a lot of skill, like we made a three-tier cage and our lake in the middle was green slime. If you remember that scene where Brecket Ralph, he's like covered in McGree goo and then he gets covered in candy and he's this monster coming out of the trees. And we have like Oreos and a Coke bottle and candy canes and we decorated the cake and it just looked like dessert and she's loved it. And we go to the train club and some of the old train heads were kind of a little frustrated that we don't follow their instructions. And they even pointed us outside and said, the mountains, they're not shaped like that, they're more sloped.

Cause right, we had the three-tier cake. And I'm sitting there thinking like, she's not seeing the vision, it's like it's supposed to be cake. It's not that we don't know anything about it, it's like it's supposed to be cake. And so some of them were all kind of grumpy and that we were doing it wrong. But at the same time, like the other kids in the train club, what, they made a cake?

I made a mountain, they made a cake, that's cool. And they would like start to ask their mom or dad, damn, did I, there's something. And the old train heads, they're like, no, it's not from a mountain. And my other daughter, that one, we just did a wood floor that we put the train on. But I made the whole thing magnetic.

And then we got a bunch of Toy Story toys and put magnets on them. And I got, you know, barrel monkeys and Lincoln logs. And there's a scene, I want to say it's from Toy Story, 3D opening scene with the orphan trolls on the train and the trains going into the cavern. Those opening montages they did. And we like, suspected that and found out that that train was a Jupiter, actually when we found a Jupiter engine.

Anyways, that one was made to be played on. And again, it wasn't a mountain, it wasn't a lake. And it was something that I wanted my kids to be able to interact with. And so they would actually play as the train was going around. And anyways, to make, there was a lot of really interesting interactions there, but like to kind of bring it home, there was actually a junior train modeling competition.

And my girls got Joel's place and they got their picture taken and they're in the Walters magazine featured for their creative design. And it made all the old train heads super puppy, I think. But I was really proud of them for like, you know, being willing and able to express themselves and make the thing they want to make even though they were being told that they were doing it wrong. Yeah. I wrote down a quote because I think it fits so perfectly within this.

This was from a Ted talk by Sir Ken Robinson. And he said, if you're not prepared to be wronged, you'll never come up with anything original. And so for you, as your girls are experiencing this, what was the life lesson that you felt like that they were kind of learning from this experience with these train heads who were telling them, no, you have to do it this way. And you helping them understand they can do something different. Yeah.

I hope that they learned in their life from that and other experiences that it's okay to say no. It's okay to say, no, I'm gonna try something different. It's okay to find that way to kind of respectfully say, value your opinion, hang your expertise. Can I still want to tap into that? But at the same time, I'm gonna say, no, I'm gonna try something different.

That can be hard to do in life is to, it's so easy to want to conform to what the world is telling you you need to do. Just that sentence would be the path of least resistance. But I love that quote because yeah, it's really create something. You had to be able to break those bolts and get rid of those boundaries or whatever. And I do think it is really hard sometimes.

I'm very much at times a conformist, right? I think growing up definitely was a bit like my 13 year old, maybe even a bit of a people pleaser. And so the idea of doing something different and somebody saying you can't do it that way was like death. Like no way, I gotta do it exactly the way, right? I was always really good, like I'm gonna just follow these instructions, exactly the way they are, right?

If I was ever to make a Lego set, oh man, I've got every page out on final. Like have me put together your IKEA furniture because I will follow that to a T, like every single thing in its place. And really hard for me to like sometimes kind of break out of that. And I think just in life in general, it sometimes is hard for us to put ourselves out there because that's scary. It's scary to say I'm gonna do something different.

It's scary to say, you know what, I understand the value of what you have and I still wanna go try this thing that's a little bit different. That's actually really scary because it comes along with that that risk of failure. Failure is a little bit scary for people. But what a valuable lesson, right? Your girls are learning.

And I love that they ended up winning first place. Like that's like the perfect cap to that story because then they have that originality rewarded. And they were so young, I don't even think they crassed at that time what was going on. Maybe it was more of a lesson for me, trying to be a dad, if I don't figure out how to be a dad. They were so young, like, oh, my picture's in the paper.

Can we play with our trains? I'll bet that carries through. I'll bet that's something that ends up being something they kind of core memory come back to and realize, especially if they get older, what the value of that lesson was that you helped empower them to do. One of the things I was thinking about with this too is something you had shared before in our pre-show about at work, when you were kind of sometimes experiencing the way that the work wanted you to do certain things that wasn't working out very well. And then when you got into a position where you were more in leadership at TeamWeed and then you could change the way that things were done and that kind of breakthrough, maybe you can share that with us a little bit about what you were told to do and had to do and why that didn't work and why things shifted and changed once you had more control over the environment.

Yeah, so in the type of software development I was in, I was on a large team and we had another business group in the organization that was driving the requirements and signing off on the work that we did and they had deadlines that we were committing to. And I got into a bit of a group there quite a few times where I just wasn't living with my workout time, right? And I'm having flashbacks to high school, junior high, elementary school where I'm not handing my assignments but it's not, because I didn't know how to do it. And so I'm having to take a step back and be like, what's going on here? And I had to have my manager at HR help me out.

I got picked multiple times, picked this up Performance and Freedom Plan, that's what HR and the manager is like, if you don't shape up, maybe this job isn't gonna work out for you, right? And so I'm trying to look at my managers to figure out what's going on and I'm being distracted. And at first, that's kind of, oh, you're being distracted too much, right? Let's change your work environment, let's get you some headphones, let's make sure you got tasks to do so you're not distracted this much. And we dig deeper and I'm realizing that I'm actually like, what am I being distracted with though?

It's not like I'm, it's like a social media or video game or anything like that. I was actually getting distracted helping. I was, and so like it never really clicked with me that I was doing anything wrong because I was helping, you know, Dave, Ted and others like get their work done and overcome their roadblocks and things, but it was at the cost of my own work. And that just wasn't driving, like I made communists to get these tasks done on a certain date and I wasn't getting them done. And I was trying to, at first I was like, well, I'm helping people, like I'm progressing, the work is getting done.

Like overall it seems better. I mentioned like, yeah, but you didn't do the thing that you needed to do. And as a result, I'm like doing this with the guys. And so it was hard for me to kind of grapple with like roadblocking in a certain way, but I was really distracted, but I also wanted to help people and I just felt like I was doing good, but at the same time I'm being punished as a rep or manager or course corrected. And that was kind of hard for me to, I would understand if I was actually like slacking off that you're not doing work or doing poorly.

But that's so it's hard for me to kind of grapple with like why am I getting in trouble for helping people? And that actually happened a whole time over my career. And I eventually got into a spot where I was able to be a team lead. And it was like a huge sigh of relief or a wave of relief wash over me as I realized I could actually work the way that I wanna work now. And instead of like being rep or manager for interrupting my own work to help people with their work, I was able to structure the team so that that was my, well, that was my job.

And so I could stop like fighting the way that the system wanted me to work and just actually make the system work for me. And it got to the point where I just kind of defined that with my team is my role is at the beginning of the day, I don't know what I'm doing because my job is to hear what you're doing and to help clear those roadblocks and to step in where I need to. And that's why I started Rez. That's what I've been doing for years and years and years and I've been told I was doing wrong. And now it could be basically my job description.

And I felt like that part of my career, I really thrived a lot and I grew a lot and I contributed a lot back to team because I was like, I kind of found my stride. I was in my game and it was a lot of fun. I think it's a great example of this quote that I pulled from James Clear, who he's like the habit and motivation guy, right? Wrote atomic habits. He's definitely an authority on this in today's society.

And here's something he said. He said, environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. We tend to believe our habits are a product of our motivation, talent and effort. Certainly these qualities matter, but the surprising thing is, especially over a long time period, your personal characteristics tend to get overpowered by your environment. And so you have these personal characteristics of like, you want to be a go and help and that the distraction was really like, you trying to help other people, you taking a greater role in facilitating what the overall team could accomplish by doing that.

And once that environment could change and you could step into taking advantage of those characteristics, suddenly it starts to thrive, which I think is just, your story there is just a great example of that. And when we can sometimes say like, okay, if this isn't working, let's change the environment. Let's see how we can maximize what it is. As I've thought a lot about in recent years, like the idea of sometimes people who have ADHD, I mean, my 17 year old does. And so keeping his attention during assignments is really hard, much like the experience, right?

It's just hard because his mind just wanders. But you know what he can do? Boy, if he's gonna play video games, he can keep that attention for hours. And so it's the thing that can keep his attention. And so I just attended parent-teacher conferences yesterday with them.

And I will give his teachers credit because when we're having the conversation about things that he does and the things that are sometimes holding him back, they were very accommodating and patient to understand like, okay, this isn't working for you. Why don't we try this? Jack, how about we try this? Let's try doing this next time. These notes you've got to take in class, you're having a hard time just taking them.

Why don't I provide you the basis and the outline and all you gotta do is highlight it. And then you can turn that in instead of having to try to be distracted by all these other things, highlight and then ask me questions, write a question mark by it if you don't know, we'll talk about it later. And I just really appreciated that their willingness to say, okay, if his attention is easily distracted, let's adjust it, let's change something. Before we jump back in, can I ask you a quick favor? If you're enjoying the journey so far, will you like, rate and subscribe to our show?

It helps us reach more people like you. We can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality. World is much more accommodating these days to people who just work differently, be it ADHD or narcolepsy or autism or anything else. And I think that's a great blessing. Yeah, it could have been a very different experience way back when I started my journey in corporate America, if corporate America was in a different spot where it could be like, oh, hey, you work a little differently, maybe let's change the way that we assign you work and the way that we value your contribution and measure your success.

It wasn't in the spot like it was then. And definitely my schooling wasn't in the 90s like that. So it's really cool to see so many different aspects of our community being much more adaptable and understanding and flexible to kids, people being different and thinking different and working differently. It's awesome. So one of the things I wanna talk to you about too, in relation to finding the things that bring us like joy and bring us the things that we're looking for, tell me about the journey of getting to a place where you open up Hearthside Games, where you open up this game store.

Like, tell me how that came about. Yeah, that's something that I know you shouldn't be doing. Someone who's 40, or I don't know, hold on, yeah, shouldn't be like, yeah, let's open a game store with your friend. I don't know, that's society would tell you. That's a weird path to be taken.

Totally right. You're a software engineer, you're working in corporate America and you go do this. Yeah, society would definitely say, yeah, don't do that. Yeah, yeah. It all started, I think the most significant beginning of it was like 2014, 2015, I was playing Hearthstone.

So that's like a, it's a digital trading card game. So you might play it on your iPad, out of a blizzard, it became a verse. And I played with my friend Andre and having lots of fun and he was geeking out about it. And we were wanting to play with other people and we started running like events and at tournaments. Our very first one was out of like a little restaurant in Daybreak.

They just let us like take over the whole restaurant and bring a bunch of people in and play video games with each other, but it was like in person. And so we started running events like that and we ran at Game Haven and The Break, two little bars in Daybreak, we ran stuff there. And all of a sudden like, I built this community of people who like wanted to play our games. I remember one of the participants, I was talking to him about, the next event we're gonna run and how we might format it differently. I asked him questions about, hey, if we did the brackets like this, in a way, would that be good?

Would that be competitive? Would that be fair? And I'm talking to him and he stopped me. He was like, dude, it doesn't matter. If it's you and Andre running it, like we're gonna show them how, cause these are the best.

That's what kind of hit me like, oh, we're kind of doing something, do something cool with it, right? And that, you know, lived its life and it was fun and we kind of went, went separate ways and Andre and I always kind of stayed in touch and then it actually, I think was, Lorcona, the Disney trading card game, that kind of brought Andre and I back to hanging out much more regularly. Cause I knew that in the past, he'd lost magic and he lost Disney. And so I'm like, dude, have you heard of this? He's like, yeah, I heard of it.

Yeah, man, I can't wait for the release. And so he starts inviting me with his kids to go to all these other game stores and start collecting cards and playing Lorcona as it's released. And then it's like being in those game stores and seeing those communities and seeing the enjoyment and being able to do that with your kids. And it was kind of that, it started us, kind of always joke, man, we should open our own game shop. Man, we should do it for our own.

Like, we could do it a little bit better or why they did it like that. Or think if I was running things, think the couch better. And Andre and I would frequently say, man, if we're back in our hearthdom days, we would do like this. And we'd remember how we did this, remember how we did that. Man, it would be great to do.

But it was always just kind of a joke or kind of a dream maybe. But I don't know, at least for me, that I actually really seriously thought that whatever happened. And then we heard Mythos Games, they're actually like a block from here. We're going out of business and, which is too bad, they're a lovely store. That was a really cool community.

And it was that cool, great community that they had there. But then happy to decide to close their doors. It was then that Andre and I were texting, like, take it easy, like, quiet. We started talking to the owner about it. It didn't quite make sense, but that got us over that hurdle of silly little drink, like, wait, maybe we can actually do it.

Kind of got to get over that hurdle. And now all of a sudden, once you start talking seriously about it, it's like, whoa, we need to actually do this. So we started looking at other locations. And from there, it just snowballed really quickly into us, like, signing a lease off place and trying to buy a product and designing logos and tearing carpet out. Where we are now used to be a Kintz and Meier dress shop.

There was more glitter than fabric in that carpet that we were pulling out. I'll bet. It's amazing. But it kind of just moved really fast. Once we kind of like accepted, we're like, yeah, we're gonna do this.

It's crazy it is. The momentum just kind of came behind it, but it moved really fast. When you look at it, like, taking that step to do something that's very, like, outside the box, out of the ordinary, what is it that ultimately drew you to doing that? Like, what was it about the community that you guys had started to build that gave you the motivation to do something that was very risky? The community that people can find or build around, like, physical in-person games is, in our experience, really, really wholesome and really accepting.

So I guess we were, as we were playing games and realizing different card shops, you start to see the same people at the different shops you go to. You're trying to get into your game, yeah, your competitive deck you're building, and you show up to this other card shop and you see people that you saw at the first one. And all of a sudden, like, people know your name, right? And that might sound silly, but I hadn't had that experience before in my life, where I could, like, I don't know, go into a place that wasn't school or work or home and have people like, oh, hey, Dan, how's it going, man? And they're like, oh, I keep on knowing my name, this is cool.

And all of a sudden, there's more friends and community. And that was a really cool aspect that we realized we wanted to be able to continue to provide. And maybe there's even ways that we organize or run our store, which we could expound on that a little bit or really lean into that or really amplify the community side of the in-person gaming, just to make an environment which really, how do I say it, inclusive and accepting and give people a third space, if you will, to make friends and to kind of find out a little bit more who they are or to express themselves in a way that maybe they can't do at work or at home. One of the things I thought maybe could be kind of fun and helpful is maybe you could give like a 30,000 foot view of what some of these games are, specifically with Work on it. I visited your shop recently and got to see a little bit of that community feel when I was there.

And I could see people just greeting each other as they came in and just big smiles on their faces and people just so welcoming. I didn't really understand much of it. I had never played Magic the Gathering, I hadn't played some of the other games. My life was more of like board games. I played tons of board games, love video games, but I hadn't done some of these card games.

And so if you were to give a 30,000 foot view of some of these card games, and I brought on my set that I got at your shop, like what is this for somebody who has never done anything with these kinds of games before? I get all these cards here, got things like, I think this is an incredible set, so I got like Mrs. Incredible and Mr. Incredible, and there's all these cards. What is done with these cards for somebody who has never done anything with these games before?

So, yeah, we do a lot of card games at the shop, and I'd say that's the core of the activities that people are doing there. So what, with these games, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Wakana, One Piece, Digimon, there's a huge library of cards, and the cards have different effects or stats and power levels and defense and abilities. And you are organizing them, you have to collect, you put a certain number, there's 60 cards in that deck there, and you're finding a synergy between these cards, and you're building your deck, and then you're bringing it to the store, and you're playing one-v-one against other people. And in Wakana, your goal is to collect 20 more, and then you win the game. And in other games, it's to deal the most damage and to kill all their dudes.

So each day has its objective, and then you've got all these cards, it's a core objective, you play one-v-one, and you take turns playing your cards and doing your abilities and navigating the board state to make sure that you can win. And some of it's offensive, and some of it's defensive. And then in these events, a bunch of people show up to play the game, and so we will pair everybody up, and then the court wins and losses, and then we pair you up with people who have similar records, and so the people who are really good are playing the people who are really good, and if you're like me, not as good, then you are joining people like you, why not be as good? And you're learning the game together. And for some people, it's like, really, really, hey, they have to win, but for a lot of people, it's just really fun gameplay.

Like, I have this idea, I put all these cards in my deck, and it's a silly idea, and maybe most of the time it doesn't work, but when you do get your combo off and it does work, it's really fun. And you're seeing how their decks play, and you're realizing, oh man, everybody keeps beating me in a particular way, maybe I need to get more, so I'm gonna get my deck, or more card draw, or more ink ramp, or something like that. And so there's just so many life lessons in here around continuous improvement, and you're recognizing how you need to improve and adapting to your environments, and just the deck building and play alone. But hinged on top of all that is this community, these people that you're playing with, and you get to know them, and you get to know how they play, and how their decks play, and you're hanging out in between rounds as you're waiting for your mates pairing, and you get to know these people, and the community is so kind. I can't tell you how many times after a match, we would just sit there and talk with my opponent about how the game went, and what worked for them, and what worked for me, and they didn't even suggest, maybe I should have played this instead of that, and then this would have happened, and it would have triggered that, and then you could have done this, and it would have been better, so I'm learning from these people.

And you see that in every single community game in our store now, it's not like that at every store, or in every game. There's some games or stores that have a reputation for not being as friendly. And that's one thing that we've charged our employees with, part of the idea around some of the core beliefs above our stores to make sure we're making an environment where that can happen, that people can be friendly and welcoming, and we will try to stifle, I mean, rude behavior or any attitude or experience where people are making it not a good experience forever. So community is very, very, very short to us. Now, I want to tell people too about one of the things that you were doing when I visited your store, which I thought was super cool, because you had kids that came to play chess.

Oh yeah, you came on chess nights. Yes. Yeah. Because, okay, here was my inexperienced brain thinking. I'm like, okay, this has got to be a business.

I've got to have a way to make money. So I'm just thinking they must charge people to come and play the games, right? And that's be what it is. And I just had that totally wrong. It's like when I'm suddenly seeing kids come in and they're coming in and they're playing chess with each other, I'm thinking, what is going on?

So maybe tell people a little bit about some of the things that you do like that to bring people together. Yeah, so for the listeners out there who think of their game shop that they frequent, maybe, near their home, they probably think there's a lot of board games on shelves and then a couple tables in the back that you should play games. And first thing people do when they step into our shop is it's flip. You've got some shelves with games and cards and stuff, but a lot of tables. A lot.

It's a sea of tables. Yeah, like when I walked in, it was just like a whole bunch of tables. Yeah. I was like, wow, there must be a lot happening here. And that shows that something really important to us is it's about the play.

It's not about the sell. Sales will come, right? So we're all worried about that. We just wanna make a place where people can play and feel comfortable being. And so, yeah, we don't charge people to play.

A lot of people come in, bring their friends, bring their own games. They play for hours, and then they might buy a couple stacks, and then they leave, and we're gonna see them next week. And it's awesome. It's great. We love it.

And so, yeah, kind of leaning into that, it's about the play more than it is about making money on every person who comes through the door has allowed us to think a little bit outside the box as it relates to other games. We might see other games, those do. So we have the five folks from powerchess.com who are bringing chess in there and there, two nights a week, and then they're running a tournament. They're running a tournament, and then they've got another tournament in October where the kids are gonna be dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Fine, that's gonna be fun.

We do speed puzzling, and we've done mahjong. We did some mahjong classes, and we liked the competitive mahjong. That was really cool. And these are things of like, we're not raking in the dough on this, right? But we're creating a fun community, and we're trying to reach out to other parts of the community, or other parts of our community that might not frequent game stores.

And so the speed puzzling crowd and the mahjong crowd are the typical people you would see, that you might see on a Friday night at the game store. But they love being there. So these older ladies will tell us they feel just like Penny from Big Bang Theory as they take her to the comic shop, right? Yeah, a little out of the elbow, but fun to be there. And I'm constantly reminded about all the synergies that there are.

Yeah, maybe the car shop is a place like that, is a place that like, a lot of these speed puzzlers frequent, but like, they know Pokemon as well. They bring their kids, and they'll win speed puzzling and use their winnings to pick up packs of Pokemon. At chess, the boys really wanted a Pokemon card, and his dad's like, well, if you place fourth or better, just look into the card. And so he liked it really good in chess, so he brought his dad a Pokemon card. Love that.

It's physical. And I think, you know, one of the things I really appreciate about your shop and shops, really shops like this just in general, is that it's bringing people together in person. You know, I joke because I play a little bit of Call of Duty. Not a lot, not a lot. But I have for years.

And when I play Call of Duty, I play with my friends, and it's three friends specifically, and we've played it together for about 20 years. And we always get together in person to play. Now they'll sometimes play online, right? And they'll kind of keep up, so they kind of keep their skills sharp. Truth be told, I play once a month, and I only play when they come over.

And we get together, because to me, what I love about it and why I like doing it is because it's our opportunity to get together, and we're doing something together, we're in person, and we're having that interaction, we're catching up. You're like, what's been going on for each other? You know, what's new in our lives, and what's happening? And that's what I love about the feel at your shop when I went, which is it's people coming together in person as we become more and more disconnected, as we are more and more devices, and we can do so many things virtually, and Zoom meetings, and just being involved in our phones. Coming together in person, and having that shared experience together really brings something to the table that I think people are going to more and more need, and are more and more missing.

I think it's really filling a need that we as humans have to have a sense of belonging. We're social creatures, right? We've always been social creatures. Throughout all of human history, we are social creatures. And I love the way that you described your shop, of like, we just welcome people to come, right?

We're like, whoever can come and be a part of this, and we just want them to feel like they belong, and we know each other's names. It reminds me of like the song of Cheers, right? Like where everybody knows your name, right? Like that's the core of what Cheers is, right? Of course that's a bar, but it's still that same idea of coming to a place where people know you, and appreciate you for who you are, and you can just experience fun times with them.

When we were deciding what we wanted to sort of focus on, we actually made a very cautious, out loud decision that we were going to focus on the games that already asked the players to come back every week. So like, we have some board data to put. I actually don't think we have a copy of Ticket to Ride right now, which the joke in the gaming industry is that, all you need is wingspan at Ticket to Ride, and you'll make money. That's probably true. But so all the TCGs kind of ask you to come back each week to get more packs to find the collected cards that you need to make your deck awesome, right?

And then there's RPGs like D&D and Pathfinder that generally ask you, your group to meet back up regularly to continue your adventure. And then there's like tabletop major games like Warhammer, there's StarCraft 8. That again, it's gonna be more of an opportunity to find people to play with in a game shop. And you gotta get your latest models and your painting and stuff like that. So Ticket to Ride doesn't inherently ask you to come back to the shop.

And when I said that, some people like, oh, it sounds like you're just focusing on the games. I require people to spend money every week. Actually, there's a lot of people that come and play those games every weekend, but they don't spend them. It's not about them spending money in the store. It's about them coming to the store to find other people who love the thing that they love.

A lot of times people come to the store and just hang out. They actually won't even get any games in because they're in their model or they're building their deck or they're sorting their cards. So they just kind of wanna just hang out with people and watch other people play and get to know people. And that's something, that's something I realized. Just last night, I was at the store and I decided I wanted to build a cats and dogs magic.

And I could have been home, had that idea, Googled some things, found a list, gone on a website, bought all the cards, had them shipped to my house and been one and done. But I went to the store and I was talking to people about it and someone overheard me. He's like, oh man, I just sold the perfect card like two years ago. You can actually have it in the back of the inventory. I wouldn't found it and I bought it.

And I'm like, this is really cool. It's like a Garfield and Odie special magic gathering card for a deck that has a bunch of cats and dogs in it. And I'm like, oh, this is awesome, man, thanks. He just like eavesdropped on our conversation, overheard it and then like suggested this really cool card to me. And then a few minutes later, he comes back and he hands me a whole deck.

He's like, here you go. These are all the cats and dogs I have. Just have them. I'm like, no, I think like five for me. He's like, no, I just have them, man, that's great.

And like, I'd seen him around the store. I hadn't had the opportunity to get to know him, but I was able to hang out with him last night. And now I'm friends with Jesus. And every time I go there and see him, all he'll say, Adam, thanks for the deck, man. And all of a sudden I now have a connection with this guy.

And as I build my deck and put in new cool cards, I'll be excited to show him and he'll be excited to see it. And he'll pick up his deck and we'll play each other and he'll kick my butt. It'll be awesome. All because like I chose to go to a place with other people to talk about it and let people hear what I'm doing and I'm interested in and let them be involved in my interests and me be involved in their interests. And yeah, it's a really special thing once you start to make those connections in person with these people.

And that's so much richer of an experience, right? To have that connection rather than just being online and researching it up and going and buying it and having it delivered to your house. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. But that just would have been like a deck that I bought was delivered as opposed to a deck that Jesus recommended and gave me most of. Like that's, yeah, now I set the mental value to it.

Absolutely, yeah, I love that. So as we bring it back to Wreck-It Ralph, you alluded to it at the very beginning and I wanna take us back to that quote because I think it just, it wraps up so nicely this hero's journey that Ralph has, right? Where he's talking at the end, he's back on the, I think he might be on the pile of bricks or wherever he's at. It's at the very end after the game is played out and David gets his medal and he's sitting here reflecting on it. And he says, turns out I don't need a medal to tell me I'm a good guy.

Because if that little kid likes me, how bad can I be? Talking of course about Vanell. And I mean, I guess let me get your take on that and then maybe I'll add something to it. Yeah, he had quite the journey through that movie, which is one of the reasons why I love it so much. He saw it, he knew he needed something different and he thought it was one thing, it was a medal.

And it took him breaking out of his shell and trying to achieve that thing. Even if that wasn't the right thing, at least he was trying to achieve something. He was trying to grow and through his journey, he was willing to accept it. What he initially thought was the goal for him, was it? But he still learned it, grew with it and, he still loved it.

And yeah, I love kind of where he brought that back. He just kind of wanted some acceptance and love and he found that in an unlikely friend that he met in an unlikely place. And at first they weren't friends and they became friends. And one thing I really love about all that, especially at the end of the movie there is, he left his home and work environment and did something different. He made some friends and learning grew.

And that made his home and work environment life better, because of his growth and his progression and stuff like that. And so like these different aspects of our life, they all affect each other. And as you learn and grow along, it improves your life and the other. And I love how there's the reframe that he has as a result of that, which is, he's a bad guy technically, right? But that's just the title of what his job is.

Because as they say at the very beginning, all the way back when they foreshadow it, bad and on. You are bad guy, but this did not mean you are bad guy. Okay, but he's not actually a bad guy because he actually is a good guy. He is a kind individual. And once he's gone outside of himself and found that connection and different space, now suddenly he sees himself different.

And when he does, then when he's in his work environment, doing his job, to be the bad guy, it's a totally different experience for him, which I do really love. And I think for us getting outside of ourselves and finding that connection, somewhere just outside of work, just work and home life all the time. We could find that connection somewhere else. It can really help us in the different facets of our life. And I really believe that, I think that's really important for us.

So let me take us to a quick couple of fun segments. Let's go. Okay, we're gonna do a this or that. Okay, so you ready for this? You better buckle up.

Okay. And you better buckle up. Okay, Ralph or Felix? Oh, Ralph. I know, that was probably a softball.

We started with an easy one, all right? Even that's hard, he's actually a super nice guy. He is a super nice guy. Trying to do the right thing, right? Trying to do that.

Has some growth himself throughout the movie. He's got a lot of pressure out of him as well. Totally. He's the titular character in the game, right? Everybody looks up to him.

He's got a lot of pressure as well. I feel for him as well. Yeah, he does. But Ralph's the best. Hero's duty or Sugar Rush?

Sugar Rush is fun. Yeah. Hero's duty's gritty. Feels like a game of the high school cap. That's not me.

I'm more of a fun guy. Okay, you're more Sugar Rush. I like it. Vanellope or Calhoun from Hero's Duty? Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Vanellope. Maybe for some reason. That was a good character. Calhoun was a very good character. She was awesome.

Vanellope though, is much more endearing. Okay, so in general, not necessarily a game, do you prefer to wreck it or fix it? Actually, very much a fixer, I think. Okay. Yeah, and a builder of things.

And maybe much the ching-ring of my wife or my family always trying to fix things. But I wonder if other people would agree. Maybe my wife would say, I wreck things. I don't know. On my journey to fix things.

Yeah, it's a little bit to get there. The last helm that we had, my wife and I, we bought a fixer-upper. And the thing had to be gutted. Like it was not in good shape. It was built in the 70s and man, it was rough.

And you watch these fixer-upper type shows and everybody loves Demo Day. I'll be honest, I didn't love Demo Day. Man, it was really hard. Like, actually that demo was pretty tough. I prefer kind of putting stuff back together, to be honest.

One of my favorite scenes in Reggae Ralph is when Felix is trying to break out of jail and he hits the bars and the bars get bigger because he fixes things, right? He's all frustrated. He's trying to break it, but it won't. That's not what his little hammer does, right? Candy or cake?

Oh, candy's such a broad category. So I don't know. I think you can just, cake though. Cake, yeah, rhubarb cake. Rhubarb?

Yeah. Wow, you took me for a loop right there. Yeah, man. Man, you're going way outside the norm. You're a little sour in there.

Okay, I like it. It's hard. Pac-Man or Mario? I think I'm more of a Mario guy. More of a world to explore.

Yeah, yeah, definitely that way with Mario. Board games or video games? Board games. I like board games a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. What's your favorite board game? Whoa. I know that's tough. There's a tough one.

For a guy that owns a game store, I know, but let's just get one and see what it is. Anyway, what's the, maybe you don't have a favorite. Pandemic. What is it? Pandemic.

Pandemic, okay. It's a co-op game. It's one of the, there's lots of co-op games, but it was kind of one of the early ones that kind of defined, if you ever ask anybody about co-op games, they're always bringing out pandemic. It's kind of like the granddaddy in the genre. And it's a really good, you got lots of distinct roles that you all playing to try to, it was all pre-COVID, but now that COVID's happened, it all kind of hits home a little bit more.

You're traveling across the world, trying to clean up the virus. You all have different roles, gotta work together to survive. You don't a lot of times, and it's a good game. Yeah, very interesting. Model trains or Legos?

Legos. Legos, model trains are a little too permanent for us. Yeah, so when you play Legos, it's not like the Lego will be where he glues them all together. It's like the opposite. It's like the kid that breaks them all and creates what he wants, right?

Yeah, you can be Ralph and you can write it and you can build it. That's exactly right. Magic or Lorcanah? Yeah, no, Lorcanah holds a very special place in my heart. I don't have a huge history with magic, although I'm learning to appreciate it more as I'm thrown more and more into the magic community.

But yeah, Lorcanah's got a special place in my heart. I like it. Early bird or night owl? Night owl. Yeah, I have narcolepsy.

Waking up is hard. Ah, yeah. Yeah, so I'm not an early bird. Yeah, well you talk much about narcolepsy. So I stay up because I know once I go to sleep, man, it's going to be hard to wake up.

Yeah, that totally makes sense. OK, let's hit our rapid fire. You ready for these? Favorite Disney movie? I really like director Ralph a lot.

Toy Story. I have a whole franchise, especially Toy Story. And Monster's Inc. Can I have all three of them? Let's do it.

Everything you said so far, I love. Toy Story, Amazing, Monster's Inc. Honestly, Monster's Inc. is so good. And then we can't call those Disney now.

Yeah, because Disney owns Pixar. So we'll definitely loop those in. My youngest daughter, who's six now, she just loves the Monster's Inc. ride at California Adventure. Because when we go there, we absolutely have to go on that ride multiple times.

And so part of it is just the joy that she has that just makes me love it even more. So good. Favorite Disney song? You've Got a Friend of Mine. Yes.

Oh, man. That is such a great one, too. As soon as you hear it, it just, to me, first, of course, Thinking Toy Story also just makes me feel good. Yeah. Right?

It has that feeling of friendship and belonging. Like, that's what we're talking about. That song is, oh, it's my favorite Disney princess. Merida was adopted into the princess. Oh, Merida is, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, in fact, yeah. And Ralph breaks the internet, right? They bring her in, but she's kind of like the different one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe that's why she's my favorite. Probably right, right? She's a little unorthodox. She's a great princess. She's terrific.

Favorite ride at Disneyland or any of the Disney parks? I don't know if it's like my favorite. I've got memories of Splash Band. First time I went to Disneyland, I was in elementary school, and Splash Band was closed. And we couldn't ride it.

And I remember walking away like, I was so sad. I'm sure it was a great trip, but it might have been this memory of Bob and Joy. Anyways, finally got back, and it's now Tiana's Bayou or something or other. Yeah, Tiana's Bayou. It's actually not a very good ride.

I mean, come on, let's be real. But for some reason, like, I mean, it's kind of got like a little hot take, bro. I don't like it. I don't. I think it was a miss.

I think they could have taken the actual story from the movie and made an incredible ride. For some reason, they didn't. They're much smarter than I am. There must have been something they figured out or they researched that people wanted something different. But I'm riding it, and I'm just thinking, god, if you just had followed the movie, this would have been incredible.

I think as an example, like, sometimes your dream or your ideas or thoughts or something is kind of better than it is right now. For some reason, that's the way, when I was a kid growing up, I remember wanting to do it. It sounded like I couldn't. It had. So I don't know.

It's kind of got a funny little spot in my memory. Yeah. I really just miss Splash Mountain now. I wish they hadn't changed it. But I can't do anything about it now.

Favorite Lorcan, let's say, card. I was going to say, inch color. But I'm just going to change it on the fly. Favorite Lorcan card. Do you have a favorite card you've got of all your Lorcan cards?

How about we kind of go in between there? OK. There's one of my favorite decks is a Amicus Purple and Steel deck. And there's a genie card in there that says the other characters can't ready their cards at the beginning of their turn. And it's just, and Audrey's son actually helped design that deck for me.

And it's super silly. And it's not very good. But when you get the combo off and you get Elsa and Anna and Elsa's palace as a location, and then you get the genie out there, they all work together to make it so the other guy just can't, the other person just can't play the game. You just win. And it's kind of just this funny little combo.

So I think the card is genie main attraction is kind of a big one. But there's a lot of Anna, Elsa, because the idea is like you're freezing them. So they can't play their turn. So that's kind of a lot of Elsa. The Elsa tie-in comes in.

Makes sense. What is the question or questions I should have asked you? And the answer might be none. I always like to tee it up. Just in case like.

You did a really good job. OK, good. I just want to make sure I missed anything. Sometimes I've missed asking people something they had in mind about the movie. And so I always want to give the opportunity in case I miss something.

Yeah, I can't think of it. OK, fabulous. So the way, Dan, that we like to end every episode is we like to give people what we call three actionable takeaways. Jack. Something that they could put into effect in their life today or this week.

So on this topic that we have, what are three actionable takeaways you could give to our audience? One, figure out in your life what is your third place. What is a place that's not work and not home? Where you feel like you can like meet people and express yourself and make friends. So first one, you just reflect.

Figure out what that is for you. And if your answer is. Squawking Instagram. That's not it. This might be an opportunity to think a little deeper.

It don't have to be a game show. It's a coffee shop. Maybe it's the barber shop or the hair salon or maybe it's in line of cognitive. That's where you make friends. I don't know.

But just take a moment to define to yourself. Where is that place that I'm making a connection? And maybe for some of you, you don't have a good answer. And that might be a signal that there's a great opportunity for you to enrich your life by finding that other place where you can be meeting people and learning new things and stuff. So that'd be my first ask.

Love it. Number two. But play an old game that you loved from growing up. Actually, let me retract that. It doesn't have to be one that you loved.

But play an old game that you remember from going. Okay. If you didn't love it, maybe it was Monopoly and you have that. But play an old game. And I actually think what I'm really saying is like have a little nostalgia.

Have a little take a walk down memory lane. My daughter's been playing life recently. I think it's just like a iPad version. She plays it on the Fire TV or something. So we got it on the wall.

And she was like, should I go to school or not? And then she's out. So yeah, play an old game. Take a walk down memory lane. Maybe it's Stratego.

Oh, that was a great game. Yes, I remember Stratego. Stratego. Maybe it's dusting off a classic like Brisk. And as you do that, you might realize that some of those games are still around and there's new variants of them.

Those legacy versions of those games that add another element to game play stuff. Yeah, play an old game. Maybe it's chess. And number three. It's play a new game.

But really what that is, is it's actually about learning and growing. Like learn something new. Find an opportunity to maybe it's learning something new. Maybe it's meeting somebody new. Maybe you don't know what new game to try.

So you start asking your friends or your kids or your spouse. And they can show you a new game that they've enjoyed. But it's less about learning a new game and more about learning something new just in expanding your horizon and learning something about the people around you and what they enjoy and spending time with them. Yeah, I love that. It's fabulous.

Well, Dan, thank you so much for your time with us today. Thanks for having me. Love talking about Wreck-It Ralph, third spaces, talk about your journey and things that you've experienced that you've overcome and talking about games and how much that can bring to We find those spaces and those places to connect with community that will be really appreciate your time. Yes, but the pleasure. Thank you very much.

As you lead this conversation, remember that yes, the past can hurt and you can either run from it or you can learn from it. So here's to learning and finding joy in the journey. See you real soon.