BBC Featuring Dr. Alex Jahangir

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01:09Welcome to Nashville restaurant radio, the tastiest hour of talk in music city. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello music city and welcome to Nashville restaurant radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon food service and today is a fun episode where we are doing Brandon's book club. What is Brandon's book club? It is a monthly book club where we are reading books on leadership or reading all kinds of just books that I'm reading and I read with my leadership team. And then I'm sharing it with the rest of you.

02:09So anybody out there who wants to read a book with us at the end of the month, we bring in either the author or a panel of people who read the book and we just talk about it. So it's a good way for you to be held accountable if you want to read more books to jump in and read with us. This month was an amazing, amazing month. This is one of those things that I feel so super honored to do this and I feel crazy that I get to have this conversation today. Today we're talking with Dr. Alex Jahangir. Dr. Alex Jahangir is an orthopedic surgeon at Vanderbilt medical center. And he was the chief of the, he was the lead on the COVID task force throughout COVID-19. So he wrote a book and is called hotspot, a doctor's diary through the pandemic. And these are his notes every single day for an entire year from March 7th, I think to March 8th, 2020 to 2021. And he chronicles the entire experience that he did leading our city through this pandemic. And I've often said on this podcast, we found the true leaders throughout 2020, 2021 the people who made it, who thought outside the box, there's not a book that was written on how to lead during a pandemic.

03:24And he kind of wrote one. I mean, this was just his experience throughout it, but the level of leadership that this guy has was out of control. And the fact that he said he would come in studio and talk to us about his book was absolutely amazing. And it's kind of surreal for me to sit with this amazing guy, Dr. Alex Jahangir. And so I'm excited to bring this episode to you. Steven Smithing who owns both of the restaurants work at Green Hills Grill and Marable joined us for this interview because he was interested in this too. And Hey, the more the merrier we put these out. If you go to Facebook, you can join our group, Brandon's book club. And there I post the next book. There's a live stream. When we do it live, you can join the podcast. We'd love for you to join and put in your two cents as well. Anybody is welcome. It is free to join. And if you need help buying the book, I usually will buy the book for you. So there it is. There's no excuse for you not to join. It's something that's super fun. And you're not, I'm not going to call you and make sure that you read the book, but if you want to join us, you're welcome to. So there's not a whole lot of accountability to it, but if you want to start reading more books, here is your chance.

04:27So that brings us up to next month. Let me tell you about it. This book is called the 15 commitments of conscious leadership, a new paradigm for sustainable success. This book is an amazing book. I already started reading it and there's 15 conscious commitments, 15 conscious commitments of conscious leadership. And it talks about leading above the line and below the line and how you can take ownership and leadership and some of the things you can do to be more engaged with your staff. And it's, it's fantastic. And I'm super excited to bring this book to you. The special side here, the thing that we're going to be doing with this book is we have enlisted a woman named Deborah Sunderland. She's the CEO and founder of Sunderland coaching. And she's going to come in and help us through this book to help us learn some of the details of the book. And this is going to be a two parter. So we're going to bring her in and we're going to talk about the first side of the book, which is leading above the line and below the line. And then we're going to have another session where we talk about the other 13 commitments of conscious leadership. So this is going to be a two parter.

05:31Then we actually have a coach coming in to help us with this one. This one's going to be a lot of fun. I would love if you're a leader in this industry, if you're a server, anybody who wants to be in leadership, this is something that's going to help you going forward. And I'm really excited to facilitate this for all of you. So please go to Facebook, join the Brandon's book club, and you'll see the information when we're going to do live stream, keep it locked in to national restaurant radio, as we are going to continue to give you in more information about this. I'm just really excited to bring this book to you. Hopefully it'll help you. Hopefully it'll help me and something we can all learn together. So with that being said, let's jump in right now with Dr. Alex Jahangir and Brandon's book club. All right. Well, we are live with Brandon's book club and we are super excited. Since we're on a time frame, you have, you have a hard out at 10, right? Yeah. Okay. So we have one hour and I have six hours worth of stuff to cover. So we're going to jump right in. Man, thank you for being here.

06:34I want to give some context as to how we made this happen. You were dining at the greenhouse grow with your three lovely children and your wife. And I didn't quite recognize you. And it's funny because after reading the book, I realized this has happened to you before and it turned out really badly where we were having a conversation just talking about life and your kids were playing battleship at the table. And I just got that same battleship game for my kids. And there was just such a wholesome family dinner that was happening. And then I think one of your daughters needed more ketchup. So I went to the bathroom or ketchup and I came back and I went, are you look familiar? Like, are you the doctor that was on TV like every day? And you said yes. And your wife kind of like looked down and she was like, please like don't do anything to our food. Yeah. And I was like, that's the last thing in the world that I would do. And we don't do that. No. I welcome also Steven Smithing's here with us to our Brandon's book club.

07:35Every, every month Steven joins us. Thank you. You're welcome. But I I've always had such an amazing reverence for you for being a leader because when we went through this whole COVID thing, as we all did every single person in this world went through it together, we were operating a business. And one of the things that I said was this guy is up every, if you want to know who a true leader is, nobody's led through a pandemic. Nobody knows what to do. But this guy, this doctor is an orthopedic surgeon and he's leading our city through COVID every single day. Like, man, that is leadership. That is that is absolute leadership doing the best thing when half the world is telling you, you suck. And half the world is, is right behind you. Like how do you every day do it? I said, Alex Patrick Lindsay only hasn't written a book called how to lead through a pandemic. And you said, well, I did. I wrote a book about it. And I would have got a book club. I'd love to do that.

08:36So that's the setup for why we're here today for Brandon's book club, hotspot, a diary, a doctor's diary, the pandemic. So thanks for doing this. Well, thank you. And I very much knew you guys never did that because I had the opportunity to dine many of times during the pandemic and greenhouse grill. But no, thank you. This was, this is really neat. And I think the organic nature of how it came about was really exciting for me as well. That is so much fun. And I want to jump right into the book because I don't even know where to start. I think that the place I want to start is kind of how you got in this position. I have a couple of audio clips that I've pulled, and this is one from the very beginning. With the mayor's office, the mayor's office called to offer me the position of director of the coronavirus response. The days after the March 8th press conference were a whirlwind. I was running on two things, instinct and adrenaline. There was no template. On March 12th, in the surest sign yet that America's core was shaken by the implications of COVID's arrival, the SEC canceled its NCAA March Madness tournament games in Nashville.

09:43The NBA and NHL canceled the remainder of their seasons as well. So that was the moment, that was like the day I started this podcast, March 14th was the day. And this, this book is a, is a diary from March 7th or March 8th, which is my birthday, March 8th, March 7th, March 8th through March 7th, 2021. It's like the whole year of 2020. But you'd, you'd been in, you were, you, what position were you holding in the Metro health department at that time? Yeah. So I, um, and so I had joined the Metro, the Metropolitan board of health, who again, who the hell knew we even have a board of health. Let's just be honest. Like myself included when I got the call from, um, the mayor's office in 2017 to just be a member of the board of health, it's a six person board. Um, you meet once a month and you talk about things like animal control and you get a lot of reports and things like that. It actually, historically, Metro health and Metro board of health was the first joint Metro city and county, um, things. So that's how Metro government came together was at health. So I was going to be, as you said, I'm an orthopedic surgeon. So let's just put the elf in the room.

10:51Like what the heck's an orthopedic surgeon doing on anything, public health. So I, I recognize that going in. And so I was just going to be the quiet guy in the corner, you know, the government table, the U shaped table. I was the lowest guy on totem pole, but life happens. And in October of 2019, um, we needed to go through our was going to be our third director search in two years. And, um, the board felt like, you know what, let's put a new chair in place. Somebody who's led executive searches, which I had, and that's how I became chair with the plan of one year, hiring a new director and maybe changing some Metro bylaws around health because they hadn't been updated in 60 years. And we were successful. We hired a director to start on March 9th, 2020. And it just happened at the very first person in national test deposit is March 7th, 2020 on a Saturday night. And the mayor's office wanted to throw a press conference on that Sunday and mayor Cooper at the time I had never met. I didn't know anyone really in his office. Um, and so, but I was the, I guess, by, by the org chart, the most senior person in a public health role in the city at that time is a voluntary role.

12:00And they called me to come up to this press conference on March 8th. And that is really my, how I got into this thinking that press conference is going to be the end of it. And obviously it wasn't, that's just the beginning. You know, you're going to wait. I'll wait clearly. You know, when you came into the board of health, obviously not knowing really what happened. And then as your role grew exponentially, very quickly, what were some things like, tell us a couple of things that 60 years of not being updated actually, actually were, were there any really super significant things that you're like, Oh, that needs to change today. Um, yeah. So in, in short, um, you know, public health, not to bore this, the listenership of the public health history, but public health, um, the thinking of public health has evolved over actually past 60, 70 years. Um, when the public health department started in Nashville in, in, um, 1963, or, um, or whenever, yeah, 63, it was more of a health delivery place.

13:00It's like a safety net, right? So you had your clinics, um, you needed to get, it was just different, right? We didn't Medicare hadn't even really even been started. Like it was very different. Um, public health today really involves community health workers, involves mental health professionals. We oversee the, um, the animal control. So we need to have people who have expertise in animal control on the board. We needed to be able to think about that. Um, not, not a pandemic. Sure. But what about our pandemic or, or epidemic with drug overdoses, mental health, public health today involves such a larger, um, entity than what it was in the 60s. So things like that, um, we recognize need to be changed and you need to change those structurally. And that's really what I was hoping to do besides hire a new director. And then director we hired actually, um, had experience in those larger things. And that was one of the appeals to have hired him initially. You're really excited about hiring him. Without a doubt. You're like, Hey, this guy's going to be great. Harvard educated, had all kinds of history. Ran a health department for 20 years as about 70% the size of this place.

14:01Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's crazy. So I thought your line later in the book when, you know, Harvard being from Harvard was a negative. Yeah. You're like a place that only visited. You're like, well I didn't actually go to school there, but I, you know, I, it's a fine place to be. At the very end of the book, he does an epilogue where he kind of goes through it and says, this is what's happened since the actual, my book ended. And he talks about going to eat at a bar downtown. You went to a bar downtown to have a beer and the bar owner kind of came up to you and said, Hey, aren't you that doctor? Which is when I said, I've realized you've heard that before. When I said that at the table, I was coming from a place of love and respect. And I think this guy was not definitely was not. Uh, and I loved my, my favorite line, I think in the whole book was where he said, you're from Harvard. He said that that guy had been lawsuits and he was a child in his business, which he inherited. I love the, which he inherited. It was just a little, the little poke. I was like, Oh, there it is. There's the line. It was pretty fun. Fair enough.

15:02Almost as bad as being a legacy in Harvard. I mean, it happens, right? That's how life is. Yeah. Nonetheless. So let's go back to my next clip here. Why you to do this. And this is where we get some of the leadership. Other important players I could think of. I shared the plan with the mayor's office the next day, Thursday, as I was leaving Kate's piano recital, I received a call from one of the mayor's senior staff members. She told me mayor Cooper wanted to form a coronavirus task force and wanted me to share it. In the months to come, people unhappy with the decisions of the task force would question mayor Cooper's decision to appoint me an orthopedic surgeon as its leader. But in a moment of unprecedented crisis, his request was a practical and expedient one. I was the chair of the public health department board and had been serving on that body long enough to have a detailed knowledge of the workings of the department that would be responsible for addressing all aspects of the pandemic. I also thoroughly understood the board's responsibilities relative to both the mayor's office and the Metro council. My unique value as the task force leader, which the mayor's office and the health department understood was that I was already up to speed on the machinations of Metro government relative to the department most crucial to managing a pandemic.

16:13And as a Nashvilleian of long standing, I had developed a strong network among leaders from across the city and could bring them together quickly. Still, I will admit that I was overwhelmed by the request. So there it is. There, there's a, this is kind of why I felt uniquely qualified. And some of it was political. Like I understood the workings of this. I can get things done, but in those first moments, you put together a plan without being asked, like just this is what we need to do. What, where did that come from? Well, you know, I think we all, to several places, I think we all, when there's, there's moments of pressure, tension in all of our lives, we handle things in certain ways. And for me, it's always, you know, the planner, right? Sometimes we ask in a marriage, that's usually not a good idea, by the way, in case we're not talking about mayoral advice, but you shouldn't always try to solve the problem right away. You know, that's never, it will go as well as the listening is what you get. That's right. But in this scenario, in all sincerity, that's how way I cope with them. Like, you know, there's this, there's this crisis. It's not like we didn't see this happening. We saw, we saw it happening in Italy, China, Iran, where I'm from, had some early COVID stuff. And so I literally sat down, I sat down in Alvo, which I had not been to since that day until just two days ago, by the way.

17:35And I told the waitress that I said, you know, last time I sat in your restaurant, they've changed locations. Now I said, last time I sat here, I sketched this thing out and I have, I still have a copy of it. And I have a box of all these cool memorabilia and that handwritten sketches is still there. And I bring that up because like that's, I was like, all right, what, what do we need to do to address this? And I, and I would, you know, I called people I knew, I'm like, like you've had experience, like no one who was currently in government, but people who have historically or know the city really well. And I wrote all this down because again, I felt that chair of the board of health and the new director, the guy had just moved here from New York, like he didn't know all the stuff. So I was, I did all this really initially to help him and the mayor. You know, the other part of it is, you know, people, as I sort of alluded to or stated in that, in that segment, you just played and people said, what the heck's an orthopedic surgeon doing doing this? But what I'd like to highlight is my specialty in orthopedics is trauma. So I'm a trauma surgeon. Like only that's my, my, what I do.

18:38High intensity pressure, high intensity, not knowing what's happening. Being able to make quick decisions with limited information and being comfortable and maybe arrogant enough to move forward with them. But also recognizing that, Hey, sometimes in a decision quickly, um, you're recognizing that what you did isn't going the right way and you've got to change course fast and be comfortable doing that. But also recognizing that you were part of a bigger team. Yes, you may have the title, you may be the surgeon, you may be, um, your name may be on the board or in this case down, maybe at every press conference, but recognizing their subject matter experts who you need to consult immediately to help you with things. So in surgery, I may be operating on a pelvis and also in the bladder is ruptured. I'm not going to fix the bladder. I'm going to immediately recognize the bladder is ruptured, call the urologist to come fix it or a vessel that's bleeding, call the vascular surgeon in a pandemic. I approach every day as such, we had limited information all the time. It was evolving in real time. I'd make decisions to the best of my ability. You usually with a group of people and if things, and if we didn't know something, we'd call an expert in for that timeframe. That's what the task force idea is, is really was that like, who do we need at this moment to talk about it?

19:45You know, when we talked about businesses, we brought in business leaders and we talked about minority health, we brought in experts in that area. And I think me being a trauma surgeon and having, and having the skills that developed over the years with that, I think also really helped me be successful in this role. And while it was collaborative, as you, as you kind of explained, you know, if there's a bladder, you got to get that person. It also, I think gives you the ability though, to know that you can make a decision quickly in what you believe is best for the patient or in this case, what's best for the city. We don't have to spend three days or three months in committee deciding something. Really some individual who has responsibility can decide. Yeah. You know, can I give you an interesting like leadership development skill for me that happened during this pandemic early on? We're going to answer that question right after these words from our sponsors. We are so excited to welcome a new sponsor to Nashville Restaurant Radio, Volunteer Welding Gas and Supply. Volunteer Welding Beverage Carbonation began serving bulk CO2 and beverages systems in 1976.

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21:50Hey guys, we are supported by Sharpier's Bakery and we've been supported by Sharpier's Bakery for the last year. And I tell you, I couldn't be more proud of this partnership. Guys, they are a locally owned and operated bakery right here in Nashville for the last 36 years. Yes, they deliver fresh baked bread daily to your restaurant's back door. And man, is it good. You want to know what kind of bread they make? Go check them out at Sharpier's Bakery.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S Bakery.com. So they have over 200 types of bread. And if you're wondering, well, hey, look, it's a special recipe that I like to use that, you know, we bake it in our house and it's just, it's a kind of a pain, but we, we like to do it. They can take your recipe and make that bread for you without any of the hassle, the mess, the labor. They'll just deliver it right to your door. Every single day it is freshly baked. They love to give you a tour of their facility. Give Erin Mosso a call. Her number is 615-319-6453.

22:52You should do it now. We are supported by Robins Insurance, a local insurance agency providing customized insurance policies, sound guidance, and attentive service. Robins Insurance is the go-to agency for hospitality professionals in Nashville. Listen, Robins knows how hard industry professionals work every single day. They also know how devastating accidents can be. Be it a grease fire that damages the kitchen, a severe storm that cuts off power or a customer slip and fall incident. Both the extensive experience and the savvy to create a policy that protects your business from accidents like those. You can rest easy knowing that the work you've put in will not be for nothing. Visit Robins website at robinsins.com to request a consultation or call Matthew Clements directly. His number is 863-409-9372. Protection you can trust. That's Robins. Yeah. You know, can I give you an interesting like leadership development skill for me that happened during this pandemic early on?

23:57One of the first meetings we had as a group of people, we realized that we needed to set up testing sites pretty quickly because we knew everyone, first of all, who had a sniffle would get anxious, rightfully so. And it rushed to the ER and it would clog our ERs and then prevent people who are having heart attacks and all these other things that happened, you know, besides COVID from going to the ER. So we knew we needed to set up testing sites, which we ended up doing, as you guys know, all over the city, testing 400,000 people for free. But we needed to set up, there was no process to how to do this. And so we brought in experts from all the different hospitals because the hospital systems are starting to think through it. And I ran the very first meeting of that, like I ran in a hospital meeting. And in a hospital meeting, I don't know your industry, but hospital meetings are the worst when it comes to where you're talking about bureaucracy. Everyone, there's a million points of veto. Everyone has to be heard. And nothing ever gets decided forever. It just doesn't. And it sounds awesome in individually owned businesses. That's not the case. Yeah. And that's right.

24:57And that's and I think that was a really and I remember and I didn't know Mary Cooper. He happened to be in the back of that room during that first meeting. And he pulls me aside and he's like, what the hell is that? And I mean, I was I was taken back. I'm like, I mean, I don't what do you mean? I was that was a great meeting. We did what hospital meetings do. And he was like, no, he's like, this is this is a different like he he really and it was actually a really great mentorship moment for me. He was like, this is a you got to make a decision quickly. You got to give people responsibility. You have to trust they're going to do what they're doing. You can follow up with them immediately within the whatever time frame. And if they can't get the job, then you got to find someone else to do that. And that was while it makes sense, we're just in here talking about it at the moment, that was a really aha moment for me. And from that moment on and now subsequently, as I've come back to hospital meetings, I work in a different manner in which, you know, you bring in a group of people who you trust on the bus and using using, you know, Jim Collins. That's right. That's right. Good to great terms, which by the way, all those businesses have gone out of business. I don't know if you've walked back and read it.

26:03Circuit City. Yeah, anyway, it is what the principles are. The principles are good. But you bring the right people on and then you give them the vision and the task you need and then you empower them to make those decisions within a time frame. If they don't do it, then then you can go on. But anyway, I just tell that to you is to say I evolved very quickly in my way of managing things, because this is a big group and we're doing a crisis rather than three three months strategic planning and all that. So, yeah. Yeah, crisis needs a leader. Well, I in our world, I mean, that day, Stephen was going to Mexico with his family on the like the 13th, 12th or 13th. I think you left. I left it. No, I left the day that they canceled. Well, when I got to Mexico, they had canceled the NBA season. So then I knew it was on that last thing, the tournament. And he was gone for like 10 days. I voted to stay longer. I got out voters. He's like, let's just stay here. Well, I remember that next morning or that they landed and I called them and I go, we need to talk like this just got very serious and we need to have a plan.

27:11And I started putting out that plan immediately. And as they kind of settled in and got to their their place, they were staying. I had both him and his wife on a call and I said, what's going to be our plan? And I kind of went through what I think we should do. And then they pow out and his wife came back with we need to do. We have four things we have to do is four things we've got to do every day. One is we love our community. We've got to take care of the people within our building safety first. We've got to do that. Number two was we're going to follow any protocols that the government tells us we need to do. We want to follow. We want to be. We want to do the right thing is another one of our core values to do the right thing. We want to do the right thing from the professionals and doctors that are telling us to do we need to do that. And then I think number three was maintain any level of sales that we can. Yeah, we want to make if we can sell business, if we can keep any business we possibly can. But those were the three guide points we came up with like that day that led us through the entire pandemic. Every day we were in Mexico, every single morning, every morning.

28:14But it was kind of that similar. Nobody else is going to just step up and do it. You've got to step up and do it. And we created this plan and it worked for, I mean, take care of our people, do what, do what you guys are saying to do. But on your end, having to tell businesses, I mean, in the book, you chronicle going through each day and day out, then there's inevitabilities that happen. And it wasn't political for you. It wasn't motivated by money. It wasn't motivated by business. Your singular motivation was to save lives. Am I right? Yes, that's right. But also, I think the whole point of the task force is to really balance all the issues that evolve. So they the first many weeks, months, yes. But you also start recognizing that saving lives also means how people's livelihood, people's like. So those issues really did start coming to the forefront and not in a short, short, like relatively quick as well, because because I think and I talk about in the book when we met with the hotel, yes, of the hotels, the health department was very much like this is what we need to do for best health practices.

29:27These these hotel CEOs, local hotel CEOs, were being told by corporate and this was in September that if if you don't have a plan for next quarter, we're just shut it down. And and they already had, you know, a lot of people in the hospitality industry, as you all know, were already laid off and hurting. This meant that even more and then that startup would be much more difficult. And so balancing that, you know, if you look at a business standpoint, yeah, but what was very evident to me is those hotel CEOs, irrespective of the size of the hotel, like there is a just like you all fundamentally cared about the people working for them and they knew the implications of shutting down business like that from the corporate level would be devastating and it would be devastating for the city. It would be devastating for people, livelihood, mental health. I mean, there's so much. And so we did as a task force, we really did start thinking about the balance of the entire implication of every decision. But yes, early on, especially as how do we keep people at the very first, I think first week or so we had a report from, I believe, is Emory.

30:36Three thousand actually were projected to die in the first few months. Wow. And I remember sitting in the mayor's conference room and it's a little bigger than this table. And I looked at it and I was like, this is like this is not just hearsay. This is the science that all these other cities are following. And that was really I mean, that was pretty insane to think about. Three thousand actually within a few, few months. And we've lost guys have lost track of the number less than two thousand over the past many years, which still sucks. Two thousand people. But it wasn't three thousand the first few months. So so that's a big testament to what you guys were able to accomplish. Well, part of the decision making process there, you're kind of rolling it back was when when you all were making these decisions, the government yet had not come to say this is the aid we're going to get. That's nobody. Individuals who are laid off didn't know they knew they were going to get unemployment. They didn't know what else they were going to get businesses. I mean, I looked at my bank account and due to the cyclical nature of the restaurant business, I owed my vendors more money than I had in the bank.

31:39I didn't. You know, when you lay off one hundred and forty people, it's somewhat humbling. And then you look at your bank and you don't have enough money to cover the bills. You're like, oh, my, what are we going to do? So we had to all plan on that end. And the government did come around relatively quickly and say this is how we're going to structure some things. But there was a no man's land there for a while that nobody nobody knew. And to lead through that and to live through that on our end, you just have to trust that people are doing the right thing. Yeah. And we're trusting that you are out there making those decisions. How tough was that balance? I mean, all the pressure from all sides. And you talk about being a father of three daughters and not going to school and the school board. I mean, we're not talking about just businesses. We're talking about businesses. We're talking about school. We're talking about the hospital. Do we have room? And then then you throw national politics in the middle of all of this, which shouldn't really have come in to the play at all because we're one nation. But then all of a sudden politics comes in and then you're also a husband and a dad. How did you balance all of that?

32:42You know, I think for for me and for most people are honest about how they lead, you recognize like what is the North Star that you're going to always say. You guys mentioned your four things early on was the four things you that you always every decision is based on that for me before the pandemic and now. I mean, I always balance it's my family, my patients and everything else. So any opportunity or any decisions I ever have to make, I think of it in that order. Just my that's my life. When it came to a pandemic, I will say the family part went to to essentially second and it was it was the city, the pandemic. But within the pandemic response thing, it was are the decisions we're making today, are they are they going to make potentially keep the most people alive and keep the city as successful as it can? And if the answer is yes, then then the decision was to do it.

33:42And irrespective of what happens, you know, three weeks later when the when the information changes, if at the moment what we did was based on that North Star of is this the best thing for the people of Nashville, for their life and and and the stability in general, then then we would do it. And if something shows us that, hey, I mean, you have to have the courage of of your conviction with that North Star, assuming and the other thing, there's three, three fine tuning that there was are we leading with science or being honest with people and are we letting experts guide us? That was the more detailed North Star. And if we do those three things, every decision, I felt comfortable that, you know, I never had problems sleeping at night because I never felt like those three things would happen now. Things evolve and we and we amended things as needed. But again, science, science, experts and being always honest and transparent with the people of Nashville like that was like that was like I hope that there's never anything anyone could ever find that I said that that wasn't that at the time.

34:49I thought it was amazing when you went to do the mask mandate and I forget the guy's name. What's the guy's name? Dr. Starts to see called Caldwell, Dr. Caldwell. We need to do a mask mandate. Do you see the spread? It's eminent. This is going on. We need to do a mask mandate because we're going into a holiday and this is a whole whole deal. And he said, no, he said, I'm not going to do that because I'm afraid of the backlash of it. It wasn't a, it won't help. No, he, he agreed, no, this would help, but I'm not going to make that call because I'm afraid of the backlash. And then you went and pulled an emergency meeting, city council, everybody together, and you forced his hand to do that. And then he was like, Oh, well, if you're going to force me to do it, then I'll do it because then I'm not. Copable for it. Then then nobody's going to come back on me because it's you. Is that like, that was like the largest absence of leadership example I think I've ever heard of somebody going, well, I don't want to own that.

35:52I mean, I know that's what we need to do, but I don't want to hear the backlash of it. I, if you make me, I'll do it. What was that experience like for you to lead? I mean, it was, it was flabbergasting. I mean, you know, the thing with Dr. Alwell, he actually was one of the first people I knew to wear a mask, by the way. He wore a mask a lot sooner than I did. I mean, he's a public health expert. I mean, very smart physician, public health leader. It was hard, but again, it goes back to what are the experts telling us? What was the science and are we being honest with people? And to your point earlier, we weren't getting good direction and mixed messages from, from state and federal, you know, and the state, by the way, was a really good partner to us for a lot of pandemic. I think a lot of people try to put state city. I think that that actually, the relationship was pretty good for most of it, but there was no direction right from, from higher up. And so the science and everything was telling us that that mask at that point, it was the only tool we had. And a lot of actually businesses wanted, again, what I've learned through this process, again, I'm a very, I was a biology major who went straight to med school.

36:59Like I'm a, I'm an academic medicine, like dude, right? I don't know anything about businesses and so forth. What I loved and I've learned of this is there are a lot of really great businesses here who put their, their workers and their employees is number one. And a lot of businesses are telling us, look, we want to do this because we want our employees to feel safe. But we feel really, it's really hard for us to, to put a, put a mask on signed in the front of our door, knowing that people may go to another store because it doesn't require it's a part of that mass stuff was also that, right? People are like, give, give us cover to be able to do this. Uh, that was a, so the science was saying, do it. You had the most of the business community saying, please do it. So, so you guys can, we can say we need you to do this. And I think that's very fair. That's a, again, but they weren't, they were doing it because they wanted to protect their employees and their customers. I mean, I respect that so much. Um, but, and that was leadership on their part. They knew that that's, and so that was, so the onus is on us to, to how do we help the people of Nashville succeed in helping also involves businesses.

38:04And, and that was, it was a, which is what you mentioned is, is yes, it was a, um, the buck can't be passed when you're the person who can implement the change. And, and if, if again, you're following that North star, there's hard decisions need to be made irrespective of the fallout and irrespective of the heat you get, um, especially when you know, you had coverage from, from all the experts, but also your bosses, the mayor, the council, um, all the political coverage also was already there. So that, that was kind of surprising to me. So you weren't trying to control people. You weren't trying to mind control all of the sheep out there and make them wear a mask because you had an ulterior motive. No, I mean, I'm just saying, I hear you. Well, I, yeah, I, I said, nobody, nobody, I mean, all of us, I mean, just in all sincerity, like none of us like dealing with this thing, like we all want to be done with it, nobody wants to wear a mask, nobody wants to wear it, but here's the thing you talk about, let's talk about results, right?

39:08I mean, at the end of the day, really successful leaders also follow data and results when you look at pure mortality of, of our response, the city had a 0.7% mortality rate, so of all the people that got it, 0.7% died. This United States had a 1% mortality rate. The state of Tennessee had a 1.3% mortality rate. So if you look at purely at that data point, if you look at our economic recovery, if you look at, um, number of free tests we provided, if you look at the equity when it came around vaccinations, um, so percentage of what we had a lot of successful results, um, that, that I, I think at the end show, what we did, um, was, was the, was as right as one could get at that, um, given everything we knew at the real time. That's a, I, this is, I love this cause this is like straight, there's, you hear all these different people's theories about everything and then my, my whole assumption going through this entire pandemic was I trust that you're making the right decisions and I'm going to follow what you're saying.

40:17That, that was what I went through and I got called names. Well, you're just doing what the government, no, I trust that this guy has my best, they're not trying to do this and it's nice to hear directly from you that now I'm a very educated guy and this is my decision making process. And my goal was to make sure that my city got through this and avoid deaths. And that's what it was. I want to pivot cause you mentioned. And in the end, the data plays it out. And yeah, a hundred percent. Uh, you mentioned the state and how the perception might be this, that you guys worked really well together. I'm going to talk about the worst day of your life. If it's still the worst day of your life, I don't know. Uh, in the book, you said the worst day of your life was January the 31st, 2020. You were the chief of staff at Vanderbilt medical center, December 31st, December 31st, 2020. New Year's Eve, 2020 going 21. Tell me about that day. Yeah. So, you know, it's this, this day of, um, it's kind of an interesting day.

41:20So I, I've, you know, I have young kids and so I've started going out on New Year's Eve usually. Um, and so, um, the chief of staff role at the hospital is the person who is the person on call who, who's administratively the most senior medical person. And, um, hospitals, um, when they want smaller hospitals to transfer patients in, um, they, they call us and then if we try, if we can get them in great, if there's, if it's a little challenge, then the, the, the hierarchy call ends up calling the chief of staff say, Hey, can we make this work somehow? Can we move person A to this bed? And so a lot of just moving stuff around operations on that day, it started out and we, I had just gotten my vaccine, right? So I was in a cloud cloud, but on that day, um, and usually New Year's Eve, just, you expect to get busy, but trauma is and other things, but we started getting calls early from, from a regional, smaller regional hospitals saying, Hey, we don't have beds, we're having this patient. Um, and we were able to navigate that a little bit, but then we started getting calls from other places around the state and other states around us.

42:23And then even a further out, like Virginia and other places that there were no more hospital beds around in a huge region of our country. And at a certain point, and it wasn't just Vanderbilt, right? I mean, I know that tri-star system and the Ascension system, same time system. We're all going through the same thing at the same time. Cause we talk a lot amongst each other because the hospital systems are committed to making sure the people who we serve stay alive, right? But you're typically competitors. We're competitors, but in a lot of aspects, but, but when it comes to like, especially in these moments of like, Hey, this guy's having a heart attack in, in Grundy County. We don't have a bed. Do you have a cardiac bed? Like we will, like at the staff level, they'll call each hospital system, the big three and make it work. Well, we realized we were, we weren't, no matter what, what we had in our things, at a certain point, you just don't have enough beds. You don't have enough staff. Um, and we hit that point and, and it was, it was very evident in our obligation at a certain point is to say, all right, we can't help anymore. Like we can help the people we have here, but I'm sorry.

43:26You had a resource, right? When you had, was it music city center that was ready to go? Was there another area that was ready to go? Well, fortunate, you know, this music city center is still such a wild moment. We initially started building out music city center. So remember I actually went to an event there recently and I was with the fire chief, um, and I was like, do you remember when we were touring this place and like, we were going to put cots here. And now you and I are eating like, I don't know, creme brulee here. Um, but the music center, thank goodness, ended up really quickly. They, they had, they were welding and they stopped, um, my hairy medical, I'm sorry, a national general had a two, two floors that they had ended up building out the federal government did, um, we ended up not like, it was amazing. I went on the tour. They had like the beds, had toothbrushes, had everything teed up to go. Um, and we ended up never using, using that. Um, but it was, it was hard because you knew when, when I said, I can't help this person with, um, you know, their bowels had died or it wasn't all COVID, right? It was everything else that happens that, that, that probably means that that person wasn't going to get help at these other places either.

44:34And then if they were going to get help, it was going to take a long time to get them to that hospital because it's going to be further away and that sucks. I mean, I'm making decisions on people's lives that you have, you can't make really not really a decision you're making, but you're having to tell people, I'm sorry, I can't help. That's, that's right. Because you want to help the people who you're serving at your facility, who'd gotten there from. Yeah. So yeah, that's all right. It was really hard. It sucked. It still sucks. And then two days later, you have our governor go make a big press conference saying, well, look how great we're doing. We don't even need these extra beds. I don't know if it was two days later, but it was, I mean, I think and this is a point where I think it's, it's because I, again, I have great relationships with a lot of the, the, the governor staff and so on. I mean, I think it was a perception of, you know, from their perspective, it was hard to get staffing to staff these facilities. And so I don't know, we can get into semantics, but the fact was at the end of the day, there were, I think a hundred beds out in Nashville and several hundred in Memphis that were never used.

45:44And, and, you know, that, that's, I mean, that's, that's sucked for some people. Maybe it was good at training all your perspective, but anyway, but they never opened the facts or they were never open and whether they weren't open for whatever reasons is, is, you know, I think that's an area of debate we could have, but they weren't open and they were ready and they were set, but, but what it did, and this is where, again, around the topic of this, of leadership is the three hospital systems, so Ascension, St. Thomas, HCA, TriStar, and Vanderbilt, the three big systems in our region said, we can't, we can't ever have this again. And to your point earlier is, is nobody's coming here to help us. We got to figure this out on our own. So they, they, and, and, and I helped facilitate this, but their leaders came together and the huge competitors said, we need to come up with a process. The next time there is this much of a bed crunch that we will make sure nobody in our region, and we defined region literally by, by longitude and latitude.

46:47Like, like seriously, like that's how we defined a region. People who are in these hospitals that weren't affiliated with one of the big systems, if they called, they could get their patients transferred in and we would coordinate. So we knew we had a really good system. And if we overloaded, every system would get overloaded equally. And it took some, it took some real courage on the leaders of these parts, cause there was, there was, there's some anxiety around legal implications. We were able to deal with the governor, support the governor, gave us some political cover and some legal cover through his emergency order. And we set up what was called the regional transfer center coordinate transfer center, which we didn't have to implement until the Delta wave in the summer and over 700 people in middle Tennessee in three months were able to be transferred and kept here in middle Tennessee, who otherwise may have not had a bed, may have been transferred hundreds of miles away and in the physicians and nurses taking care of those people in these smaller hospitals only had to make two calls versus 15 calls to find a place, which then gives them the freedom to go take care of the people in their small hospital.

47:51So really a big deal. And no one else in the country did it. That's amazing. That's again, the leadership behind this is incredible. Steven, what do you got? Well, in the planning, I think to actually know that that's what you need to do and how are we going to get this done in the future or in the present? Yeah. Did you have any questions reading the book? What were your thoughts on? Not at, not at the moment. No, I can, it's funny because I had one, but I'll think about it here in a sec. Well, I think that there's, there's a lot of it was political. I mean, the way the book reads is, um, you're doing everything you possibly can. The federal government was not, they're almost going against what you're saying. Is that, am I, am I paraphrasing? I don't, I don't want to get into a big political discussion. The facts are facts on what you experienced. Well, I think, I think, um, one of the greatest failures of this response, um, was at the federal level. And that's, I, that's not just my belief. I think a lot of people believe I think that's shown, been demonstrated.

48:53Um, I think, um, in moments of crises, um, people rely on their leaders and, and leaders by society are usually political leaders, the president, I see some, I remember September 11th, all of us here, spectrum of, of politics, what president Bush was saying, what he was doing really impacted all of us. And, and I think that that's an example of, of leadership and, and other challenge or explosion, which, you know, is younger for better member or, you know, there's, there's moments in history where there's rely on history. And, and, and the beauty of America, the reason my family moved here from Iran is there's faith in our system here that, that in moments of, of crises, the, the federal government will, will have our backs in this scenario, um, that didn't, that didn't happen and it didn't happen, you know, and it's, some would argue it still hasn't happened. Right. Um, and that's, I don't want to get into politics again. I don't, while I do talk about the walls, cause I explained about my experience, this, um, I don't want to be, it's not for me as this isn't political.

49:56It's just a fax of my experience. Um, when the president of the United States say it's not a big deal or you can inject bleach or you can, or he get himself gets sick and he's about to be on a ventilator, like, like now studies reports have come out, like, dude, was it in trouble? You don't fly a guy two miles down the street. Like that should tell you something. Right. I knew that the moment that I saw like, I'm like, wait, they put this guy on a helicopter from the white house to Walter Reed. Like, I don't know if you guys have familiar with DC. I went to college here. Walter Reed and the white house are not that far, especially if you have a motorcade, you can just zip right up the street, right? Won't take long. No. And the fact that they had to do that. And then the fact that, um, it just, it would have been something if he had just come out after that said, you know, crap, that was hard. Maybe I was wrong about this. This is bad. I don't want anyone to experience what I experienced. Guess what? I got this amazing drug, by the way, the monoclonal antibodies, which he got, which had not fully come out yet at the time. There's hope. We're doing some great things. Um, rather it just, it's just leadership and it's, and it's like, how can you trust, trust what brother said?

51:02And again, this is not a reflection of the party, right? I mean, I think it's reflection of the person, right? There, I'm sure there are democratic leaders that are equally as horrible when it comes to this, these types of statements. Um, but just some level of empathy and sympathy and recognition that this is a hard thing and then policy implications of that. So, um, whether it's to free up funding, free up, um, drug, I will say operation warp speed, which made them vaccine. So you want an example of good leadership. Um, we saw what could happen if you put all the might of, of, of the research community, clear up the bureaucratic red tape that the federal government was able to clear up and he put all this money behind something and you have processes move forward fast and we got a vaccine in a year that is, that is really impressive. Um, the Trump administration should get credit for that. Um, but that's an example of what they did well, but there are a lot of things in which they did not do well. Well, and economically they did take care of people. I mean, all the people that work for us got, I mean, got money to be able to live and pay their rent and things.

52:03And certainly as a business, we were able to continue forward and are still open and available in most restaurants. I think did Lee and hotels live through the pandemic, largely due to the federal response economically to them. But, and that's kind of the confusing part is, well, when you get, you know, A and B and we execute these things correctly, where was the denial on the, the actual existence of what was going on? It's like, well, we responded positively here and positively here and causing and getting that, you know, getting the vaccine was amazing. I had COVID before and after, and it was so much worse before I had it the same month that president Trump did, and it was not a good time. I mean, I, I was, I couldn't get out of bed for four and a half days and we're a pretty able bodied person, but then I had it last summer and you know, it's like having a cold, you know, but I've also had all my vaccinations. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's right. Now there's, I don't know. It's, it's, I, I do, but I think that's an example of, um, I think it's leadership and messaging, right?

53:03Um, you just, you know, I don't have a good answer for you other than, uh, again, my North star was always, always be transparent, let the science and experts lead and it's, it's easy for me maybe to do that, like it's easy. So I recognized the fact that I could probably do that because I had a job, like I was a volunteer in this role. I had a job in a, in place that supported me and, and, and it allowed me to be, have a little more freedom. Um, and, um, mayor Cooper was, was very supportive as well, but maybe perhaps if I had to run a reelection or I had some naysayers, I don't know. I can't, I don't know why one wouldn't want to do that, but yeah. Well, I guess when you throw in the election results, that probably is part of, because the book, you know, your book kind of ended after one year, but you know, obviously COVID went on for us as business people, the hardest time was, uh, you know, new years, 2022 when we were closed for four days, we couldn't get it. We didn't have anybody to staff the restaurant because they all had COVID when Omicron, you know, hit the restaurant. I mean, it was an economic catastrophe.

54:05I remember looking with Brandon at the end of January results. And I'm like, that's the biggest negative number I've ever seen in my life. Oh, I'm waiting tables. You know what I mean? I'm there was a day when I was managing and three of the managers were waiting tables and I'm like, I don't think this is the way it's supposed to go. One last time, a quick word from our sponsors. When you hear that sound, it's probably too late. You need a guy. I want to be your guy. I'm Kevin with Corson fire and security, and I'm a restaurant territory account manager. Do you know who's doing your inspections at your restaurant? Please reach out to me at 6 1 5 9 7 4 2 9 3 2. And I'll be glad to come out and take a quick look and look at all your fire safety inspection needs. If you're building a new restaurant, we can help with that too. As far as kitchen suppression, fire extinguishers, emergency lights, we do it all one stop, one shop call Kevin at 6 1 5 9 7 4 2 9 3 2. Let me be your guy.

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57:11Where are we at now? What can you give us like a, what are you doing now? What is life like now? Well, you know, post everything. Yeah. So I'll answer that question in two ways. First of all, just with the boring medical stuff. I mean, I think as a COVID, as you pointed out, we're in a good place. Right. I think people know how to take care of themselves. There's medicines. We've all lived the worst in here in a small room. It's great. I just went on a big trip where I'm at right now is I probably like everyone. I'm not the same person as, as I was when, when this all started. Um, I've, I've grown personally, uh, uh, amazing. My relationship has always been, thank goodness, really great with my wife and my kids, but it definitely got stronger during this. I mean, Helen went through a lot. I was able to do what I did again. I told you, my priorities have always been family, patients, everything else. It really became the city family and, and, and patients and everything else. And, and for a while, and it really left an impact, you know, and I didn't fully realize how much it left an impact.

58:13So I recently had a conversation with the kids over dinner about, um, something and they had a visceral reaction. There was, there was an opportunity that presented and they had a visceral reaction of what they wanted me to do or not to do. And I was like, wow, that came from all that. And it's really because they were young, right? I had a kindergarten or first grader or third grader when the pandemic started. Um, the kindergartner and the first grader, by the way, never remembered school without a mask and which I always thought was fascinating when we finally got rid of mask, right. Um, but, but more so what I've really seen is I've grown such an admiration for the city. I've seen, met so many amazing people. Like my bubble of just being in the hospital burst and I look at, I'm sitting here with you two today or, um, or I've, I've met people in the music industry or I've met people in education, um, business owners, man, there's so many great people in the city. Everyone, most of, I think everyone running for mayor, like I know, right. And it's, that's really cool to see. Like it's been, so for me, it's been really neat to meet some amazing people.

59:15It gives me a lot of hope for where the city is going. Uh, me personally, I mean, I'm operating. I've, I've the skills I've learned, um, won't, won't go away. And I, you know, I've had leadership opportunities within, within where I work. And, um, but it just makes me grateful for every day, even more than it was before. I mean, as a trauma surgeon, I really, every day saw some bad stuff. So I was just grateful for every day, um, just based on like, I see people get hurt all the time, but even more so every day. And it's, it's, it's great. I mean, I'm really fortunate and love every day. Steven, do you have anything, did everybody, I mean, do you know, I mean, one of the things, you know, we would ask people sometimes is, did you know anybody personally who died of COVID? I mean, my father and aunt both died in the early months of COVID, but neither of them died of COVID, you know, and certainly we have known other people who did, but did, I mean, any personal story there? Cause from the medical, from being in the hospital, obviously, where you might see a lot of people die, the personal side is, is more real. So yes, on both sides, right? I had patients who came in with the trauma. I wrote about one of them in the book.

01:00:16Um, like again, a bad car wreck, they come and we tested everyone and they're positive and then the trauma didn't kill them weeks later, um, they died from COVID, uh, and I know people were like, well, what, what do we, was it COVID? And you know, like all the numbers game? No, the guy died from COVID. Like he didn't die from his car wreck. It was very evident. And then I had, um, in the early days, especially I had like close friends whose parents got really, really sick, like near death. I had, um, some people I worked with whose family members died. Um, like people I know who died. Those laws, those were not lost upon me by any mean. And it, I mean, and I, you know, I mean, then there was people we knew, like John Prine, like we knew as a, as a society, like I didn't know John Prine, um, who died, council members who died. Um, but yeah, I, I, I knew first people personally died and I knew their stories and I knew some of them, um, some of them never got the vaccine and, and, and they could have, and I don't, I still, and I know their kids, like there's one person I'm thinking of right now, like smart healthcare filled kids.

01:01:18And the, the mom is like, I'm not doing that. I even had a, a, a physician friend of mine who literally has got, had got so far out here that he refused to get the vaccine and lost his job and like his livelihood as a really successful surgeon. And I can't reconcile that either. Right. So it doesn't make sense. Um, so, but yeah, I knew people in real time and subsequently who, who died and were really sick. Wow. I mean, that's a, that's a real, I mean, what an amazing past three years. I mean, how much we've learned, how much, I think as a society we've come back, people ask me this in your restaurants or how are people, I go, I think people are still grateful to be able to go out and eat. I think people are still grateful to see their grandparents. I think people are still grateful for these moments that we all lost for a long time. It was like the great reset. So, I mean, as much as there was so many negatives and so many things, I think if you pull out as a society, some of the things that we learned or some of the perspective we were able to gain, uh, I think it was, I think it was incredible.

01:02:29I got two things left. One is we do a Gordon food service final thought, and today we're going to have two final thoughts. You're going to get to do your final thought where you kind of take us out. And then I have a final thought, uh, with one more little, uh, a clip I want to play, but I'm going to turn the mic over to you, whatever you want to say, kind of some eyes, whatever you want to do. But this is your, and Steven, if you don't mind. So that's your final, I just liked that. This is to isolate it for a final thought. It's all you. Well, my final thought is, is this, um, I think true leadership means sometimes making the hard decisions, being willing to, um, go with those decisions. They're based on solid, um, North star of why you did it, but also having the humility to recognize sometimes the decisions could be wrong and need to amend. And I think that is, that is how it is a great way to, to lead.

01:03:30And then my personal final thought, honestly, is, and I know you said two, but this is one fall apart one as long as you want to say is, um, I'm really grateful for the comedian, which we live. I saw a lot of good, um, in this community and a lot of people that will put their own personal interests ahead of, or will put their own personal interests second to the, for the sake of, of the people who they support and who they live with. And that gives you a lot of hope for the future of the city. I love it. Thank you so much. I'm going to play this last clip here. So I thought it was interesting. I was bullied in elementary and middle school. I was the kid with a weird name from an evil country. Worse. I didn't even have a pair of Air Jordans and father and mama had neither the money nor the inclination to buy them from my brother, Eamon and me. Those. No, you can't hear it on there. Um, what you basically said was, look, I was bullied when I was a kid and I just said comment about Air Jordans that, you know, we, everybody else had Air Jordans. We couldn't get Air Jordans and I heard that.

01:04:32And I was like, wait a minute. Do you have Air Jordans now? No, I don't know. You don't have any, or do you have some on Brandon? I'm actually wearing Air Jordans right now. I have something to strive for. Lucky kid. Nice childhood. Well, I wanted to say, um, I wanted to say thank you for everything that you have done for our city and everything that you've done. I heard that. And I went, you know what this guy needs? Are you kidding me? This guy needs his own pair of Air Jordans. Are you kidding me? Those are for you. Those are Air Jordan one. Look at this. Pretty sweet. Oh my God. Verified. This is truly the most amazing thing I've gotten out of this whole pandemic experience. This is amazing. Those are your very own Air Jordans. My first pair ever. I've never owned a pair. Thank you. I sent you a text, I sent him a text message like a week ago or two weeks ago. And I said, Hey, random question.

01:05:32Totally had no context. What size shoe do you wear? And you said a 13. And I go, Oh, and you said, why do you ask? I go, well, you're settling a bet between my friends and what size shoes doctors wear. And you're like, that's weird, but okay. That's why I wanted, I wanted to get you a pair of Jordans to say thank you. And that's amazing. That's really kind of you. Thank you. Yeah, man. That's really cool. Thanks for doing this and thank you for your service to our city. Thank you for everything that you do. And, um, that, that, that's it. Brandon's book club. There we go. Another episode in the books. Thank you so much for both of you. You got it. All right. Big thank you to Dr. Alex Jahangir for joining us for Brandon's book club, for providing the book and for all of his service. I hope that you enjoyed that conversation as much as we did. That last part there, uh, was so much fun. I remember listening to that in the book that I never had air Jordans. And I thought, I really, I know the guy's a surgeon.

01:06:34He can afford to buy Jordans, but there's something about it. I just felt like he was humble. He's not going to do that. And the look in his eyes, when he opened, I actually went and bought him a pair of air Jordan ones. And it was, it was a really special moment. You can go to our Instagram and you can watch the video of that right now at Nashville restaurant radio. Uh, really, really cool moment. What we did not do was a Gordon food service final thought. And I wanted to give a final thought right now. I'm going to do it for you. And my final thought is around Steven smithing. So Steven, I don't know if you hear him on the show from time to time, but Steven is the owner of the restaurants and this guy, I want to say for a second what he means to me because he's the most supportive person I can even imagine. He is, um, he's always had my back. And even when I do these book clubs and maybe nobody shows up or maybe nobody reads the book or just a few people or whatever it is, he is right there reading the book, talking about it with me.

01:07:44He supports what I do for this podcast. He is just a, he's an amazing guy. And I want to say thank you. And if you don't work for somebody that you feel that way about, look in the mirror, go find somebody to work that way. Because, uh, I work with some very, very special people and, uh, he's our leader and I'm just, I'm honored to work with him and to have him as a friend. And I wanted to say that on the show. Cause you hear him from time to time and that's really him just being awesome, jumping in there and helping out where he can. And it's an honor to have him on the show and it's hard to work with them and to call him a friend. So that's my final thought today. I wanted to give a shout out to Steven for being amazing. And, uh, he's a very special person in my life. So there it is. Uh, thank you for joining us. Stay tuned for next month's book club. We're really excited. The 15 commitments of conscious leadership. Uh, I will be posting at Brandon's book club on Facebook. So look forward to joining you there. Hope you guys are being safe out there.

01:08:44Love you guys. Bye bye.