SHORTS 8 | Teresa Funke, Award Winning Author & Blogger

Welcome to the Loco Shorts Podcast from Loco Think Tank. In this podcast series, Loco Business Developer Rory Shah will help unfold bite-sized business learnings through the crazy experiences the business owners face along their small business journey. Listen in and listen up because these short business stories may just have the secret ingredient to taking your business to its next level of success. All right, so this is the next episode of the Loco Shorts Podcast. So I'm Rory Shah with Loco Think Tank and I'm really excited today to talk to Teresa Funk with all of our audience to share her story. So Teresa is an award-winning author. Very cool. I don't usually get to say that about my guests. So very, very honored to have you here. So an award-winning author of seven books. So she is a historical fiction writer, a speaker, blogger, and more than I know. So I'm excited to unpack your experience in your journey here today and then talk a little bit about what it's like being a creative person and then also in business and kind of how that even affects beyond that and into the community. So Teresa, welcome. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and then your business and all that you do? Well, thank you so much, Rory. It's great to be here. I love talking to especially to people in the community because I'm very much a community-minded person and so it's great to have gotten to speak with you a little bit and get to know you before this podcast. Yes, I am an author and I have been a professional writer for 29 years and I've written seven books about World War II. Each book is based on a real person that I've interviewed. So I have two books for adults and then I have five books for children in the Homefront Heroes series. And like I said, every book is based on real at least one person, sometimes more than one person that I interviewed. So it's kind of a unique way to go about writing books where I'm taking somebody's real story and then fictionalizing it a little bit to make it readable. So that was a great way to spend 27 years of my career, you know, reading and writing and researching, speaking about World War II and teaching other writers and coaching other writers. And then in 2019, my eighth book came out, which was Burst of Brilliance for Creative Life. And that book took me in a totally different direction. So now this was an inspirational book. Based on a blog that I started seven years ago by the same name, so Burst of Brilliance for Creative Life. And that blog is a weekly blog that was initially intended to inspire artists and entrepreneurs. And then very quickly found out that people in healthcare and business and education were reading it and thought that was pretty cool that it was crossing over to touch everyone's inner artist. And so that was really exciting for me. So the book is a compilation of some of the best blog posts from the first five years of the blog. And that came out in 2019. So it has its own website, Burst of Brilliance and its own social media that we do some really inspiring work on. So now instead of having one full-time writing job, I had two. So I'm kind of running two companies right now in a way. But it's very fun. It's exciting. So within that, tell me more about Burst of Brilliance, how you said it kind of reached other audiences you maybe didn't initially intend on. So what were some big takeaways that people reading it from any industry, any sector, any walk of life? What were there aha moments when consuming some of those blogs that you put together? Right. So the concept of Burst of Brilliance means that moment when you get that idea that is just so powerful and strong and exciting that you run upstairs and you fling the door open, you go, oh my god, listen to what I just thought of. And you have this incredible amazing idea and you're lit up with energy throughout your entire body, you're excited, you're confident. And that's that Burst of Brilliance that I'm referring to in the title of the of the blog. So what's interesting is then what happens to that Burst of Brilliance afterwards? So does your inner critic immediately step in and shut it down? Do your outer critics step in and shut it down? Like if you went upstairs and you told your husband this great idea in my case and then all of a sudden your husband is like, well, now wait a minute, I don't know if you can afford to do that or that's a lot of you for you to take on right now and it shuts down that Burst of Brilliance. So the concept of the blog was how do we how do we protect that brilliance and how do we trust it and how do we learn to lean into it and follow it and have faith in it? And so that goes across any kind of profession. So my teacher readers and the people who are in business and the people who are in healthcare were responding to that. Like I get great ideas at work all the time and they get shut down in one way or another. Either I shut them down myself or someone else does. And so a lot of the points that I was making in the blog about how our art, our inner artists and everybody has an inner artist can take you beyond that, can take you into your creativity, your faith, your your touching into your higher self, which is never going to lead you astray. And that's what they were responding to was having that support for those brilliant ideas so that they could keep them moving forward. I love that. Did any of your audience share with you any of their Burst of Brilliance or anything that they did after that was kind of that thought was activated for them? Yes, actually, there were people that would write to me and say, you know, and it's interesting because like one of my favorite stories is you know, that kind of sparked the whole Burst of Brilliance concept was my friend who's a mechanical engineer who had a great idea. And so I mean, it's not like we think of creativity as being limited to the people we think of as being creative. So artists or people who are like architects or graphic designers or people that we lump into these creative fields and everyone else will tell me, oh, I'm not creative. I'm not creative. My sister's creative. She knits beautiful sweaters, but I'm not. And so part of my goal and purpose is to get out there and tell people every single person's creative. You didn't doubt it when you were three. You know, you 100% knew you were creative then when you were creating with your crayons or a stick in the mud. It got taken from you by some sort of inner critic or outer critic at some point when you were younger who told you that you weren't quote creative because maybe you didn't fit into those categories of being a talented singer, writer, actor, but that doesn't mean you're not creative. So yes, people would kind of they invite to me and they tell me some idea they had it work or maybe it was in their personal life, some great idea they had to improve their personal life or their community. And that was super exciting to see that happen. I love that. I think I mean, all of us, I'll speak for everyone. I'd say let's have those ideas like you just said. And so when you're walking your dog or shampooing your hair and you're like, oh, that would be so cool. And then it's like, doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt. Like all of these like showering thoughts of like, no, I can't do it. And so I guess it's interesting to me. And I don't know if this is the question or just more of like a thought like, you know, to me, it's like a characteristic type or a trait that people have that they they get so sparked or they have time or this place in life where they can think a little bit more into that that idea or like lean into that that burst of brilliance and take the next step to pursue it or research it and then maybe like start an LLC. And I'm sure a lot of our business owners within low code have had that. And then five steps later, they're like, hey, I think that I think this is it and they get the first customer. So I don't know anything to that came out of that that you wanted to talk about. Yeah, absolutely. I think I think one of the things that's interesting to me with business with the business sector is that I know so many people who are in jobs that they are not enjoying. And they have convinced themselves that well, I will seek my pleasure outside of my work. I will I have plenty of things I'm passionate about. I love to ski. I love to watch movies with my kids. I will seek my pleasure there. But you're at your job eight to 10 hours a day. That's a lot of time when we could be embracing our creative energy in different ways. And so for a lot of people, it is finding that courage to start that business. They wanted to start and to take those steps and to have that faith or to look for a different job within the company there in that can even something like that can be scary and yet it can be so invigorating because whenever we embrace something new and we take risk, it raises our energy if we're doing it in the direction that we feel confident and passionate about. If somebody pushes you towards something and you don't feel that confidence in that passion, but you say, oh gosh, I should take this risk. You know, people always tell me to be a risk taker. No, that's not your intuition speaking. That's again, those are outside voices influencing you. But if your intuition is telling you, it's time to take a leap. Whatever that is, it's super invigorating and it raises your energy. So that's what this is all about is following your energy. And if you're working at a job that's draining your energy for eight hours a day, and then you want to come home and try to apply that energy to other things you're passionate about, that's not going to work. Yeah, it's all over. Absolutely. Yeah. So Teresa, tell me more about your your journey with business, and was there a spark for you? I'm sure there was because you're still in it, you're doing it, and you're doing really well at it, having a word-winning books. So what was your journey to finding out your passion and author and speaker? Well, that's kind of funny because I actually have a degree in history. And I'd always wanted to be a writer. And when I was in high school, people were very encouraging about my writing until I got to my senior year, and then they're like, oh yeah, writing's not a job. It's a hobby. And I was like, what? So I went to college and I got a degree in history because I figured if I ever do write, I'd like to write about history. And then after, after college, I had two dead-end jobs that I absolutely hated. And I thought, is this going to be my life? I'm just going to work these jobs I don't like, and I'm going to do my writing on the side. And I thought, wait a minute, why am I letting other people tell me what my job is? What a job could be? Who says that being a writer couldn't be a professional job? So I quit my job much to the consternation of my husband. We'd only been married six months, and he was like, is this how it's going to be? And I started a freelance writing business, not even knowing 100% what that even was. And I started writing for newspapers and magazines, and I wrote some brochures and that sort of thing. And so that's what I did in the beginning was the freelance writing business. And then in 2009, I decided I wanted to do more. I wanted to have more of a company. And in the mission statement of the company was that I wanted to grow in conjunction with community service, because I wanted that to be a big part of what I could do with a company that was a little different than what I could do with just my freelance writing business. So I became an LLC in 2009, and then it kind of just sort of learned a lot about business. So that was the interesting thing for me is that no one ever told me in all of those years that I was pursuing my art, that being an artist means you will one day be running your own business. So when I speak to career groups at high schools, I tell these kids that they want to be actors, they want to be singers, they want to, I'm like, just be aware you will be running your own business. Unless you are working with an agent and you have a studio and all of that. So nobody told me that that I was going to be running my own business. And here I am. So I've had to learn how to run a business through trial and error. Yeah. Yeah, we hear that a lot. Like people had come in our world with loco and business owners that we talked to. Like they love what they do. They're good at what they do. They're skill or they're craft or they're service. But there's this big behind the curtain area of like, oh my gosh, like administrative things and finances and leadership, you know, sales marketing. It's like, no, but I want this thing. But you have to have it all come together with a cohesive business structure. So there's a lot. And I think one of the interesting things about that is that taking that even further, I'm a solopreneur. And I have been for 30 years almost. And what's interesting about what's considered in our society to be growth in business is that you're going to gain employees, that you're going to put out tons of products that you're going to have this huge revenue. But if you're a solopreneur and you choose to stay a solopreneur, we have really interesting challenges that other business owners do not have. But and we've chosen to stay as solopreneurs for like for all this time. It's been my choice to stay a solopreneur, which is really an interesting thing that you don't hear discussed very often. So there have definitely been some challenges with that in the pandemic. Hardly any funding, especially in the first few months of the pandemic, for solopreneurs, like there were all these grants and loans and things out there. But many of them would say specifically for companies with two or more employees. And that where does that leave someone like me? So it's been an interesting time for my solopreneur friends to kind of get together and talk to each other and say, what are we going to do about this? So I think there's challenges with every kind of business you run. But I find it really exciting to be a solopreneur, but it's also super hard because as you said, I have my skills, I have my that I am good at, and the things I'm not good at. But as a solopreneur, I have to do all of them. I have to hire someone to do the things for me that I'm not good at, which I learned very quickly was the more effective way to do it. Yeah, I understand that. So let's talk about 2020. It's funny to say last year now, but so how was going through the pandemic with your business? Well, 2020 was really fascinating for artists. So I mean, obviously most people are aware that it was a really difficult time for artists still is. And I think it's more it's more common to think of like musicians who's gigs all dried up or actors who some who suddenly have nowhere to go to act in that theaters are closed. But all artists really experienced a lot of setbacks last year. For me, I have three revenue streams. So I have direct book sales, speaking and then the consulting. And all three of those revenue streams shut down within the first week of the pandemic. So for me, it was like, oh my god, now what, and how am I going to, you know, how am I going to salvage these things? How am I going to reinvent or what am I going to keep and what am I going to let go of? And so for a lot of artists, and I've actually talked to many people over the pandemic. And this was the case. There were some artists who immediately threw themselves into the work and into pivoting. And there were other artists who were so down and concerned and worried that they kind of stopped working for a while. And then it kind of flipped in the summer. It's like the ones who'd been working really hard hit that summer and went, all this hard work I've done, I'm not sure if I'm going in the right direction. I'm not sure if things are rising to support me. And the artists who'd kind of felt into the fear of the pandemic and the worry and the concern, they came back to work in the summer. So it was like a big, big switch. And so I mean, it's been a really fascinating time to watch the creatives kind of go through the roller coaster of last year. At first, I think we were all hoping come fall. Our regular revenues streams would just somehow bounce back. They didn't. So we're all in the creative mode now trying to figure out how to advance our businesses in what is turning out to be a new and different kind of business workplace for us. Oh, I know you had a few creative pivots that worked well for you and you were able to keep relationships with key clients and accounts. Tell us more about that. So for me, as I said, one of the mission statements of my businesses to grow in conjunction with community service, and I think that artists have, and I've been advocating for this for a long time, artists have a unique ability to move between the sectors. So we can work with education, government, faith communities, business, and we can move across these different sectors. And so why not use our ability to do that to bring people together and to collaborate and to suggest ways that artists can be hired because we do need to pay our bills and no keep our businesses going, but to benefit the community. And so I've been running several programs like that for years now. My great book giveaway in which I give books away to local nonprofits that work with at risk low income and Latino families at the holidays. We did, we were able to continue that this year with some changes because of the pandemic. My author visit program, which is a partnership business partnership program that I run that allows me to go to the schools for free. We were able to continue that. I did not know if that was going to continue because, especially in the fall, the schools were virtual and what was that going to look like. And logistical problems we'd never had before, like how to get the free books to the students when they're not in the classroom. Sure. So I was able to keep most of my community-based projects running, which is really important to me because I'm a big advocate for literacy and for home libraries, for kids to own their own books, which became as we saw this year. You know, there've been some people who've asked me why have you for 12 years now been advocating so strongly for home libraries. Then the pandemic kits, everybody's home, we're telling these kids read 30 minutes a day, the libraries are closed. And so the kids who didn't have books in their homes were at an extreme disadvantage. So yeah, so for me, what did go well last year with a lot of creative thinking and pivoting was the community service programs that I run. So yeah, that was helpful and also for me very gratifying. That's fantastic. It's nice that you were able to pivot and to, it sounds like have kind of strategic conversations with the people in your world that could adapt with you. And so you weren't doing it alone and you had to rely on these accounts and also see kind of where those like schools where the direction they were heading and try to meet your services to meet their needs and heading in that forward momentum. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big part of it and that's always been a big part of everything I do, which is this isn't about me saying here's here's what I want to do and then going out and you know kind of pushing that on the community. It's the other way around. It's learning about a need or a service that I could provide and then digging a little deeper to say, you know, how can I help you do your job? It's like people are crazy busy and especially the nonprofits, they're working, you know, three jobs within their own, you know, their own sector sometimes. So for me, it's about what do you really need and how can I help you and how can I build this in a way that serves you and how can I help you do your job? And so with, for example, with the teachers this year, it was very much about asking them, do you still want a school visit when I can't come into the school? And if so, what do I need to do to support you with the online learning and how can we figure this out? And so it wasn't about, you know, me stubbornly holding to something I've always done. It was about saying, we know, we need to adapt, we need to pivot and let me hear what you need and then that's what I'll try to provide. That's fantastic. I mean, just asking the right questions. So that's very important. I, there's this question, I'm trying to form, so it might come out blobby, so forgive me, but knowing your, I mean, your personal journey and kind of discovering your skill set and following your passion, and then also your expertise and experience in being a coach, and then also your personal kind of compass with, you know, being true to yourself, with all of that, what advice would you give to business owners in the creative space or not? I think it's kind of the same space in your brain that I'm trying to ask this question around. But what advice would you give to business owners who may be a little bit stuck or thinking about the heaviness of 2020 and they're trying to move beyond that? But maybe they feel a little bit drained. How, how would you encourage them to look forward, find an outlet for creativity and passion and to kind of spark their new light for this year? I think, you know, I think 2020, to me, was so fascinating. Just watching the local businesses, which I do, I, you know, I still follow the local news really closely. And just seeing how a lot of the restaurants, for example, would come up with these really unique ways to serve their customers when they could no longer have them in the buildings, or you were seeing the nonprofits pivot to offer something a little bit different that the community needed. And I think, I think part of that comes from just giving yourself the permission. No one says you have to do it, but just give yourself the permission for afternoon to just let your mind wander these wild spaces. Again, you don't have to even tell anybody what you're thinking. Just carve some time out to just go to these wild spaces and say, in my wildest dreams right now, in the middle of this pandemic, what could I do that would reinvigorate me, be fun, serve my customers, and just, and what would happen if I tried that? Like, could it work? And how would I get people to know? Because some of the most creative things I've seen have come from, you know that there was this moment when somebody had that idea, walking their dog or shampooing their hair, and they went, oh my god, this is crazy, but what if we did this? And then it worked, and people got excited. So I think the first part is just giving yourself permission to go ahead and have some wild and crazy thoughts, and then ask yourself at that point, you know, is this really wild and crazy? Could I make this work? And how? Because many of the things I'm doing now, I will tell you right now, numerous people told me, you can't do that, can't be done. It's never been done in our industry, nobody does it that way, nobody's ever thought of that. And I'm doing them. And so, you know, a big part of it is, it doesn't matter if anyone's ever thought of it before, as long as it fits for you and you're excited about it, and you think you've got the skills and the people to help you make it happen, it could work for you. Absolutely. I think that's encouraging, and it's a good reminder, I've heard it in a lot of different practices, you know, like self-care and meditation, like you have to be quiet to find the answer, but also just to turn off your brain to honestly access your brain, or to access a deeper part of your brain, and it's, I think it's hard because we want to be so productive and like that busy culture, and it's hard to like sit down and just not do anything. That's super hard, especially for busy people, like, you know, for me, there was a point there where my, I had an assistant helping me at the time, and she was like, do you realize you have 18 projects going on right now? And I was like, no, I don't, I didn't even realize I had 18 different things that I was putting my attention towards. That's how busy we can become, and yet excited about the work we're doing, but I do remember in that period of time in my business, I was not spending a lot of time being reflective, being contemplative, and I'm doing a lot more of that now, partly because the pandemic slowed us all down, but yes, making that time to meditate, or to journal, or to, you know, carve out some space to just go for a walk in the middle of the day, that's critical to allowing our creativity to re rejuvenate, you know, it can't come from nowhere, and if we don't have the energy to give to it, we're asking a lot from our creativity to just just keep poking us when we don't give it a chance to come through. Absolutely. Well, imagine, I mean, as your profession, you write, so if you aren't aligned in a holistic way, I imagine, and if it's physical, or if your brain's gunky for some reason, or maybe, maybe you drink too much during the holidays, like the rest of us, but then that becomes like, you need to stay sharp to produce your work, so how do you do that personally? Well, I talk about this a lot in the book, first of all, is to you, I talk a lot about discovering the way you work and what works for you, and giving yourself, cutting yourself some slack now, and then I'm not very good at that, I've gotten better at it, but things are hard right now. Last week was a hard week, and normally my blog posts, they take me about an hour to write and to edit, and then last week, it took me probably four or five hours. I just couldn't get my thoughts to come together. I wasn't sure what to say, I mean, it was such a challenging week with everything that happened in the country, and just to say to myself, okay, well, the other things that you were going to get done today are not going to get done, because this is harder today than it usually is, and that's okay. So I mean, I think that's a big part of it too, is just allowing ourselves some space once in a while to say, I'm not feeling it today. There's this ridiculous notion when you become a writer, and you hear a real writer writes every day, including Christmas, like every day I get up and I write for three hours, and that's a lot of pressure. What other job requires that from you? Like, you don't see a dentist working seven days a week most of the time, right? But we expect that of creatives, we expect them to tap into that every single day. It's like, no, if you're not feeling it, you're not feeling it. It's like, trust your inner instincts and what they're telling you, and if they're telling you you need a break today, then take it. Yeah, absolutely. So where do you go to fill your cup? Oh gosh, that's hard. Because it's where I go to fill my cup, really, is being out in the world. It's being around other people. It's driving down a street I haven't driven down before. It's noticing something on my walk. And I will tell you, it's been really hard during the pandemic because that, you know, we're isolated right now. So I'm not getting the energy from meeting new people and talking to new people. And so I'm struggling to find other ways to tap into that energy. So for me, I'm reading a lot more right now, and that's helping. And, you know, I'm spending a lot of time with my family, and that helps too. But the contemplative reflective part was something that was, I was like, you know, I've been meaning to do this for a long time, spend more time reflecting on what has worked and hasn't worked in the last 30 years, what I want and what I don't want. And it took me a while to slow down and lean into that. It was not easy. But I'm now really grateful that I've had more time for that reflection and the contemplation. Because normally I'm out there seeking the energy of other people and new ideas and new experiences. And I haven't been able to do that. So I don't think this has been a bad thing. A lot of my introvert friends are loving it. But I do think you have to know yourself really well. And then say, what do I need? What do I need right now? So how... The question I want to ask is, what's next for you? Are you going to write another book knowing that this has been a moment of kind of weird times, of course? Do you have the battery charge to look forward and to write something new, create something new? What is this? What's next? Well, I'm not writing anymore world for two books because all of the books that I wrote were based on real people. And they've all passed away. And that generation is not really accessible to me anymore. So rather than do something different, I decided to just close out that series. I'm still writing my weekly blog and I still love writing it. And I do think that that inspirational writing, the encouraging writing will continue. What I thought was super interesting was looking back now, seeing a huge shift in both the writing style and the voice and the content of the blog once the pandemic started. And I think looking back, it'll be great for historians to have an artist's perspective on what it was like to go through this pandemic. And somebody who was also speaking vulnerable, vulnerable as a human being. So I'm looking back now on what I produced during the pandemic. And of course, we're still in it. And I'm wondering what's going to come from that in terms of a book or something collection of writings or contributing to other collections of writings. That's kind of what I'm thinking about right now. And also, I'm doing a lot of work with I'm on the advisory committee for diverse for Collins. And last year, it was perfect timing for that because last year it gave me a lot more time to learn a lot more about racial justice issues and get a lot more involved in that in our community. So that's another goal of mine is to continue my learning and do more with racial justice. So the pandemic gave me the opportunity to get dig deeper into that. And I'm grateful for that. That's fantastic. I love it. So Teresa, I typically like to ask before we let let any of our guests go, but are there any big key lessons that you've learned not necessarily in the past year, but in your business career that are worth sharing. So other people may green some lessons from your experience. Oh gosh. I mean, that's such a great question. And I could go on and on and on. But here's I don't know why, but this just sprung into my mind. So I'm trusting it. There's an entry in the book where I talk about this where I was working with someone a younger person. And he was telling me, you know, I'm not going to college. And I said, well, what makes you think you're not going to college? And he says, well, my dad says, I'm not smart enough. And I said, do you believe it? And he looked at me and he goes, no. And I said, then it's not true. It's only true if you believe it. And he went, huh, you turned and walked away. I think that that's true with our businesses too. It's like, you're going to have a lot of people tell you, maybe that's not a good idea. It's not a good time to take a risk. It's not a good time to invest in your business. It's not this or that. And you ask yourself, do you believe it? Do you believe what they're saying? And if you do, then it's probably your gut instinct telling you that they're right. If you don't believe it, it might not be true. So I think right now, especially in the climate and the environment, big changes are coming our way in this country on all levels. It's time to ask ourselves, do we believe it? Is it true? And trust to those instincts with our businesses? I think that's fantastic. And a good thing to lean back on if you're doubting something or wondering if you should pursue something a little bit more, I think that's a good question to ask. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we know, when somebody will tell us you know, you can feel it if they're right or wrong. We know it when people say it. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our audience before we let you go? No, I just hope that this is a good year for everyone. I know it's been a really tough time and that for a lot of businesses, this year is going to be spent bouncing back and recouping. And just do whatever you can do to keep your energy up because we need you. Like we need, we need our community and we need our businesses and it's been hard, but I think we're going to be okay in the end. I think we're going to come through this. So just keep, do what you need to do to keep your energy up. Trust yourself and honor yourself and you know, let's keep moving forward. I love that. That's perfect. I think that's a optimistic uplifting charge as well. Before you go, also, will you tell us and how we can get a hold of you? Sure. So my main website is teresafunk.com and it's t-e-r-e-s-a-f-u-n-k-e.com. And you'll find lots of really fun information about there, about my historical novels, my writing advice. And then bursts of brilliance, bursts with an S, is where you can find the blog and where you can find the book and some products to kind of help you get inspired. And social media, we're on all the social media channels and we do a lot with that. So love to connect there as well. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I know that there's a lot of stuff we didn't get unpacked, but these high-level key moments are really helpful for me and our audience. So thank you for sharing it with us, Theresa. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of the LOCO Think Tank, and host of the LOCO Experience. And I'm here with Rory Shar, LOCO Business Developer, and host of the LOCO Shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us where you listen to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about LOCO? You can learn more about us at LOCOthinktank.com, where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources, and events for business owners and key leaders. If you're looking for perspective, accountability, and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the INDATS LOCO Experience Podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Rory, for Bite Size Business Lessons in the LOCO Shorts. Bye!