Last post, I discussed the problem with the “fake it ’til you make it” approach to business, namely the difficulty it creates for building open, honest, transparent relationships with your clients.  I promised to follow with a post discussing the benefits of transparency in your business, so here goes.

#1 – Transparency Builds Trust

When I read a post by Johnny B. Truant that detailed a financial difficulty he had in the past and how he dealt with it, I felt an instant affinity for him.  I could tell as I was reading the post that this was a guy who really got it, a guy who could relate to the struggles I was going through and, as a result, I trusted him immediately.

Funny how that works, isn’t it.  I mean, I’ve never met Johnny; for all I know, he could be a guy who beats up Boy Scouts and steals money from nuns to support his toad-licking habit.  Whatever he is, though, I trust him because he had the guts to tell the world that his life isn’t always sunshine and roses, and that occasionally he gets kicked in the crotch, too.

When you’re that honest with people, you can’t lose.  Oh sure, some people would refuse to do business with you if they found out you were late on your car payment, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: they’re probably not any fun to do business with anyways.  Let them go, and spend your time and energy getting to know the people who get you.  Which brings us to…

#2 – Transparency Helps Your Choir Find You

I’ve been talking a lot lately about the idea of finding and preaching to your choir; in other words, spending all of your effort and energy marketing to that portion of the population that’s just like you.  Being transparent is the only way for them to find you.  If you’re spending your time “faking it”, hiding behind the illusion you think the world wants to see, they’ll never have a chance to connect with you.

Your choir is looking for a leader who’s not afraid to say the things they’re feeling.  That’s you.  If you step into the light and share your thoughts, your fears, your frustrations, they’ll love you for it.  And because they love you, they’ll buy your stuff, whether it’s an information product, a training program, or a more traditional product or service.  They won’t stop there, though: they’ll also tell their friends to buy from you.  Because you get it and you’re not afraid to say it.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  Which reminds me…

#3 – Transparency Is Fun

Honestly.  I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.  Seriously, once you get over your initial fear of being found out and exposed, telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth is exhilarating.  You’re no longer saddled with the fear of getting caught; you’re free to let it all hang out, and that kind of liberation from the psychological bondage of your past is, well…liberating.

So isn’t it time you let your light shine?

If you need some help figuring out how to do it, I’d love to help.  Post a comment or send me an email, and let’s figure out how to get you over what’s holding you back.  And for those of you who are ready to go “all out”, check out my new Blog Whisperer program, a 90-day course that will guide you through the process of getting your ideas out of your head and onto the screen so that your choir can find you.

Thanks for reading!

pos·tur·ing

1 : to assume a posture; especially : to strike a pose for effect
2 : to assume an artificial or pretended attitude

This post has been stewing in my brain for days, and I think it’s about time I get it out.  If it seems a little disjointed, well, consider the source.

I’m calling out the “fake it ’til you make it crowd”; I think it’s time to put that idea to rest.  While the philosophy seemed like a good one at first blush, I’m beginning to understand that “faking it” is just another way of hiding from the fear of being open, honest and transparent.

The thought is that by pretending you’ve already arrived at the destination, somehow the journey will be less arduous and time-consuming.  If you’ll just act like a successful business person (i.e. “fake it”), so the theory goes, people will assume that you are a successful businessperson and will want to do business with you (i.e. you’ll “make it”).  Sounds good, right?  You can move to the front of the class without doing any homework or passing any tests; who wouldn’t want to do that?  Where do I sign up?

Here’s the problem, though: if you’re not a successful business person, pretending to be one is at least a little dishonest.  What happens if that new client, trusting in the posture you’ve assumed, hands over a project you’re not prepared to deal with and you continue to fake it?  What could your posturing cost you (not to mention your client) in the long run?

For the record, I want to be perfectly clear that “acting as if” and visualizing your success, both on your own and with your team, is one of the best ways to stay optimistic and to keep moving forward.  What I’m concerned about, though, is the growing number of people I meet who are taking these exercises out into the world with them, pretending to know things they don’t know, taking on work that they don’t know how to do and have no intention of learning how to do, and causing harm to others in the process.

And why are they doing it?  Because they’re living in fear of being “found out”.  They fear if their clients find out that they’re struggling, the clients will go away.  They fear admitting they’re having a tough time because they think it diminishes their value in the marketplace.  They fear having their failures exposed.  And so they “assume an artificial or pretended attitude”; they posture, hoping that no one will see the panic behind their plastic smiles.

It’s time to stop the madness.  It’s time we all stopped posing and started being.  It’s time to be OK with what IS, to accept it, to embrace it, to be grateful for it, to appreciate it, to revel in its perfection.

Struggling to pay your bills?  Welcome to the club…we’re accepting new members daily.  Wondering how you’re going to make payroll this month?  Know that you’re not alone.  Recovering from a failed business, a failed relationship, or a failed everything?  Me too.  And that’s OK.  You know why?

Because life, in its infinite perfection, is teaching us the lessons we need to learn to prepare us for the greatness we were born for.

It’s a fine balance to maintain, and difficult at times, to live in that space where you’re simultaneously visualizing a better future and accepting the “IS”-ness of the present moment; if you’ll be patient with it, though, it will get easier.  Deciding on the policy of transparency is a tough row to hoe, but the rewards outweigh the risks ten-fold.  Stay tuned for a discussion of the benefits in a future post; in the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Great: they asked me to write a bio for a new collaboration project I’m working on. I hate writing bios. No matter how hard I try, they always come out sounding plastic and fake and manufactured. So instead of writing a bio, I just wrote a bunch of stuff about me.  I know that sounds like a bio, but it’s not.  In fact, you could call it my Un-Bio.

And since I’ve been railing on in the last several posts about sharing who you are and what you believe in and why you do what you do, I decided to post my Un-Bio here, too.  Let me know what you think.  Or, better still, share your Un-Bio (or a link to it) in the comments.

1. I’m pretty opinionated. I don’t think that’s a bad thing; in fact, I embrace it. Really. I even include it in my bio sometimes, usually preceded by the word “outrageously”. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my friends what I think of James Cameron’s “movies”, or anyone who’s ever met me what I think of Bob Dylan’s “music” (I don’t know how, but it always seems to come up in conversation…genius my ass).

2. I love ideas. I think ideas are what make life fun. I love having ideas, and I love sharing them even more (see #1). I love hearing other people’s ideas, too, especially the brilliant ones. I love it when my ideas have sex with other people’s ideas (you can blame Matt Ridley for giving me that phrase to play with), and my ideas are pretty promiscuous. They also refuse to practice safe sex, so don’t be surprised if our ideas get together, have loads of idea sex, and spawn lots of tiny new baby ideas.

3. I sing karaoke every chance I get, which actually isn’t all that often. That’s probably a good thing, since I don’t really sing that well. I also play golf every chance I get, which is even less often than karaoke, so what I actually do is less like golf and more like drinking beer and swearing at my clubs.

4. I love pop music. Get over it. I don’t care if you think it’s lame or if you believe the people who make it are sell-outs. Feel free to listen to your indie/emo/techno/screamo/trip-hop/whateverthehell noise in your basement with your friends, and leave the radio airwaves free for more Lady Gaga and Kelly Clarkson and Bob Marley and Muse (even the stuff they did for Twilight) and Metallica. The rest of us like it.

5. If I’m putting it in my mouth, it had better taste good. No “challenging” food flavors for me (seriously…unagi is not food: it’s chum). The same goes for beer. Keep it simple: cold, refreshing, and tasty, NOT warm, thick and bitter. Ever. Thanks.

6. I believe that knowledge is power, and I believe that every human being on the planet has not only the right but the responsibility to improve his or her mind through the acquisition of knowledge. I believe people should read more, and by people I mean you. I don’t care if you like it or not; reading is the BEST way to add to your knowledge. Learn to love it, or clear the way for those who do.

7. I love technology. Let me rephrase that: I’m a nerd. I geek out over cool new gadgets and toys, with one glaring exception: I have no love for Apple. Sorry…I just don’t get it. And I’m not interested in hearing why I should, either; I’m totally OK with my Blackberry. Save your rant for someone else, have another sip of the Kool-Aid, and get back to figuring out how to hold your iPhone so that you can make a call.

8. I don’t want followers. Followers freak me out. I trust you to make your own decisions with or without me. I want friends, peers, cohorts, and partners in creation. I want to be surrounded by people to share ideas with (see #2), people who give as much (or more) than they take. Please don’t just read my stuff; respond to it. If you disagree, say so. If you agree, add to the discussion. And if you don’t tell me about it, tell someone else. The world needs more conversation!

Now, wasn’t that better than a bio?  I’m looking forward to reading yours!

I’ve come up with a new name for the affliction in my brain; from here forward, I will refer to myself (and those like me) as stupidly optimistic.  ”Stupidly optimistic” describes the condition of being excited about the future with no tangible evidence that it will be any better than today.  That’s me: stupidly optimistic, almost to a fault.

I firmly believe that optimism is a key characteristic of those who succeed in life, but I’m beginning to think it may not be enough to be just plain optimistic; I think you may have to be stupidly optimistic, to push on in full expectation of a better tomorrow in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.  The stupidly optimistic are the ones who never surrender; they find a way to keep moving forward when everyone else has given up.  They meet defeat often, but they’re too dumb to give up.  I admire people like that, and I hope to be counted among them at the end of my days.

I’ve managed to surround myself with some pretty amazing people over the past couple of years, particularly during the last six months, and I would describe every one of them as stupidly optimistic.  It seems that I have little patience anymore for people who are ready to throw in the towel and give up on their dreams, and I spend less and less time with them, even the ones I was close to once.  I like spending time with people who dream big and act boldly.  I like risk-takers and fringe-dwellers, and even the occasional ne’er-do-well.  The rebels are my tribe.

At the end of the day, the only thing that’s going to get you out of bed tomorrow is your faith.  If any of us were to stop and consider the reality of our situation, we wouldn’t bother.  And in that way, I guess, everyone who makes the effort to get up tomorrow is an optimist; that’s a great start, and we can build on that foundation.

I’ll defer to the wisdom of Bob Marley: “Don’t you worry about a thing, ‘cuz every little thing is gonna be alright.”  Ultimately, we all know that statement to be true.  No matter what happens in our life situation, we’re going to be alright.  If we didn’t believe that, we’d be doomed to fail.  Most of the “problems” that we face aren’t matters of life or death, even though that’s how we treat them sometimes.  In fact, most of our problems are matters of convenience or luxury.  Those who really know what it means to struggle don’t have the means to read this blog post; if you do, you’re among the fortunate few who have the means to create a better tomorrow.

So when you read this, embrace your good fortune and choose to greet each new day with a clean slate, forgetting the trials of yesterday, seeking out the good that today holds and stretching out to grasp a better tomorrow.

Be stupidly optimistic; it’s the only way to fly.

For over a century, since the invention of selling as a profession, really, salespeople have been looking for the secret formula that would get more customers to buy.  They’ve developed sales processes and interview practices and presentation styles and closing techniques, and still they’re frustrated by the lack of results.  Countless millions of dollars are spent every year on books and training programs in an effort to uncover the secret to sales success.

Well, today is your lucky day: I’m going to tell you the secret to selling more than you ever have before, and I’m not even going to charge you for the information.  Sounds good?  Okay, here we go.

Before we get to it, though, let me warn you right now that you’re not going to believe that it could be so easy and obvious, which may cause you to ignore what I’m about to say.  Don’t ignore it, though.  Do your best to quiet the part of your brain that’s going to resist.  Take some time to evaluate the information, answer the questions presented, and see for yourself whether it makes a difference in your results.  If it doesn’t feel free to come back and call me an idiot…but not before you’ve tried it out.   So now, here we go:

Do something you believe in.

That’s it.  Nothing fancy or complicated.  I should also add that you knowing why you believe in it will make you even more successful.  Knowing why you do what you do, as in actually putting your reasons down in writing, is what will keep you going in spite of setbacks and failures; it’s also what will connect you to the customers who will become your raving fans.  They’ll be the ones who not only love your products and services, but also have an internal alignment with your values and those of your company.

Have a look at the video below.  Yes, I know, it’s a whole eighteen minutes long; trust me, it’s worth every second of the time you’ll invest in watching it.  It will help you understand that why you do what you do is infinitely more important to your success than what you do or your how you do it.  As it turns out, no one really cares what you do.

Watch the video, then spend the next eighteen minutes (or however long it takes you) answering the question: why do I do what I do?  And for all of you who are going to answer the why question with “To make money”, that is a totally valid answer, and I’d also encourage you to dig a little deeper and explore the question of why you choose to make money the way you do instead of one of the 750 billion other ways that you could.  Fair enough?

And leave a comment with your answer to the why question; who knows but it may just get read by one of your ideal clients!

I received an email today from a well-known information marketer (who I have the misfortune to share surnames with) inviting me to join him at a “Herd Building Day” at an upcoming seminar he’s putting on.  I’m sorry, but something about the title of that program just screamed “Come on out…you can learn to be a douchebag like me!” when I read it.

“Herd Building Day”?  Seriously?  I have a question: are they going to teach me how to build a “herd”, or am I going to become part of the “herd” that they’re building?  My guess is the latter.  But wait, there’s more: if I’m one of the first 800 to sign up, I get a super-razzoo discount AND they’ll let me to be part of the “herd” day for free!  Please.  Spare.  Me.

I’ve had my suspicions about this particular marketer before.  The worst was when I received a series of “invitations” to a previous event that became progressively more abusive the closer the event got, eventually culminating in an email that seemed to question my intelligence, pleading with me to pay up and attend the seminar so I could be smart like them.  I wish I would have saved that email, since it was about the closest thing to a perfect example of how to market like a jackass I’ve ever seen.  Instead, I let it get under my skin and deleted it.  Oh well…I’m sure there will be another.

So, back to “Herd Building Day”.  Can you think of a more insulting way to refer to your clients than calling them your “herd”?  I can’t, and I’ve been trying to think of something for the past 20 minutes.  Maybe your “mindless zombie pack”?  No: I think I’d actually rather be a zombie than part of your “herd”.  At least if I was a zombie, I could still come after you to eat your brain.

Let me be perfectly clear: I’m not one of those people who hates sales and marketing.  In fact, I’m a big fan of sales and marketing.  Ask anyone who knows me: sales and marketing is what I do, it’s what I live, eat, sleep and breathe.  I just like to see it done right.  When someone refers to “building a herd” of customers, it turns my stomach.  After all, what do you do with a “herd”?  You milk it for all it’s worth, right?  Does that sound like marketing done right to you?

You know the part of this invitation that bothers me most, though?  The fact that there’s a better than average chance that the seminar is gong to sell out.  Why?  Because there are plenty of people who would love nothing more than to build a herd that they can milk for everything it’s worth.  There are people who are more than happy to fall for the appeal of a shortcut to success.  They’ll line up, cash or credit card in hand, for the opportunity to learn how to make a quick buck off the gullibility of the “herd”.

What they don’t realize, though, is that they are the “herd”.

Do me a huge favor: don’t be like them.  Accept and commit to the fact that lasting success comes to those who follow a course of demonstrating, on a daily basis, that they have the best interest of their customers at heart.  Wouldn’t you rather do that than be part of the “herd”?

OK, first things first.  I played a little hooky on the blog last week and  have gone a whole twelve days without posting.  I won’t bore you with the details; suffice it to say that I took on one too many projects and overwhelmed myself a bit.  Oddly enough, it was nice to have so much going on.

It feels like every possible good thing is happening at once: new products are being created (and sold!) over at Great Little Book Publishing, the Motivation 101 Blog was featured in the Sacramento Bee as their “Blog of the Week” last week, and everywhere I turn, projects I’ve been working on are starting to come together better than I ever dreamed they would.  I have a lot to be grateful for, no doubt, and one of the things I’m most grateful for right now in my life is the fact that people are actually interested in reading what I write.

It’s no secret to anyone here that I struggle with feelings of inadequacy from time to time.  What really comes as a surprise to me, though, is how many people I meet who feel the same way.

Just tonight, I was chatting with a friend of mine who has been gearing up to launch a new coaching program that is sure to explode the business of anyone who’s fortunate enough to grab one of the 12 available spots she’ll open up later this year (and yes, that’s real scarcity because she can only work one-on-one with that many people at once).  This is an extremely talented person who has demonstrated her ability to get results time and again, and yet she admitted to me that one of her most difficult challenges has been and continues to be the feeling that she’s not good enough to pull it off.

I was stunned.  This is one of the most outwardly confident people I’ve ever met, and here she was, telling me that she was as nervous as I am.  She feels the same worries and doubts, the same fear and anxiety.  It was good to know I’m not the only one, and it got me thinking about why so many of us walk around with these feelings of self-doubt.  What I realized is that it all comes down to our innate desire to avoid looking stupid in front of our peers.

What if I launch this product and nobody buys it?  What if people think I’m weird for doing this?  What will my friends say if I fail?  These are the questions that stop a lot of us dead in our tracks.  I’m happy to say that my friend isn’t let the fear stop her; she’s going full speed ahead toward her launch, feeling the fear and doing it anyways.

And me?  I found my strength, too, albeit in a place I didn’t expect to find it.  It’s my new anthem, the Weezer song “Pork and Beans”.  I find the chorus insightful, and I take every chance I can get to sing it at the top of my voice.  Although I’m still confused by the lyric about eating candy with pork and beans (that honestly sounds disgusting), the message of being me no matter what anyone else thinks comes through loud and clear:

“I’ma do the things that I wanna do
I ain’t got a thing to prove to you
I eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if I make a scene
I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like
I’m fine and dandy with the me inside
One look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink
I don’t give a hoot about what you think!”

It’s a great tune from a great band with a great message: just be yourself, and it’ll all work out in the end.  Oh, and you’ll have a lot more fun along the way.  And for those of you who like that sort of thing, here’s the video:

“You teach best what you most need to learn.” – Richard Bach

As I sat down to write today’s post, I found myself having to take a big heaping spoonful of my own medicine.  I didn’t like the way it tasted going down, but I know I’ll feel better for having taken it.  That’s the problem with sharing your ideas in such a public format: you leave yourself open to people calling you on your BS when you’re not applying your own wisdom.  I guess that’s not really a problem, though…probably more of a benefit since it keeps you in alignment with your own philosophy.

The scary (and kind of cool) part, though, is when you start to catch yourself in the act before someone else has to point it out to you.  That’s when you know you’re getting close to living your truth.

I’ve been having that experience more and more often.  Like today when I was driving home from the office.  I suddenly realized that I was in a funk (and had been for a couple of days) because I was trying to control the outcomes in my life (the things I can’t control) instead of focusing on the processes (the things I totally have control over).

I started to inventory the things I was frustrated with: the client who hasn’t paid an invoice that was due on the first of the month (it’s the 20th as I write this), the fact that I didn’t have a full house at an event I put on, the client who has verbally committed to a pretty big new deal but hasn’t put pen to paper and signed their agreement yet, the new client that keeps putting off our first meeting and making it impossible to get started on her project; you get the picture.  Sure enough, all of the things that were frustrating me were things that were out of my direct control; my clients controlled the outcome of each of those situations.

This didn’t mean I was powerless, though, because I also realized something else: that I can influence the outcome.  How?  By managing my own processes: being diligent with my follow up to make sure no deals slip through the cracks, improving the level of service and results I deliver so that my clients pay my invoices as soon as they get them for fear they’ll lose me as a partner,  inviting twice or three times as many people to the next event so that it’s standing room only.  Those are all things I can do, and they’re the very things that get neglected when I get caught up in trying to control the outcome instead of managing the process.

So as I write this post, I’m doing my best to release my attachment to any particular outcome.  When I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m going to focus on the things I have control of, put all my effort into performing those tasks, and leave the rest to sort itself out.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

“That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zandavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.” – Henry David Thoreau in Walden

I know he wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I’m pretty sure Thoreau was talking about the internet when he wrote those words. We have the greatest repository of information the world has ever seen, right at our fingertips. That said, we should be the best-read generation of all time…but we’re not. A study conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004 found that fewer than half of American adults read literature for pleasure. Fewer than half!

That’s a stunner, particularly considering the overwhelming evidence that being an avid reader is the one thing that most successful people have in common. Self-education by reading great books is a key to your personal development, which has to come before you can hope to make improvements in other areas of your life.

Understand this: if you want to improve your lot in life, you’re going to have to get in the habit of reading. A lot. Every day. Sorry: the fact that you don’t enjoy reading is entirely irrelevant. You’ll get used to it, and you’ll probably even start to like it after awhile. It may (and probably will) become one of your favorite activities. You’ll begin to wonder what you did all those years before you realized how delightful a good book can be.

And before you start to panic, I’m not one of those wackos advocating that you throw your TV away. I think it’s possible to do both…just not at the same time. Especially for those of you who aren’t accustomed to regular reading, you’re not going to want to start off with Moby Dick or Les Miserables to break yourself in. Try easing into the habit by reading something you know you’ll enjoy, a little at a time. If you’ll just commit to 15 minutes a day before you go to sleep, you’ll make a habit of it before you know it (and probably have more interesting dreams, too).

Once you’ve developed the habit, though, try picking up books that are a little more challenging, something that’s going to push the edges of your mind out just a little bit. Remember, the goal here is growth, so the more a book expands your intellect and forces you to think in new ways, the better. Thoreau nails it when he says that there is no difference “between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects.” In other words, if what you’re reading doesn’t challenge your mind, you might as well go watch another episode of “Jersey Shore” (Thoreau predicted that, too).

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people neglect (or worse, refuse) to read. We have at our disposal the entire collection of human knowledge to this point in time; Thoreau would have given up his shack in the woods for the privilege to be here. He predicted that this time would come, and he said it would bring us one step closer to heaven.

Of course, that will only be true if we take advantage of our great privilege and develop a passion for reading. So what are you waiting for? What book is first on your list? Leave your current or future reading list in the comments section so we can compare notes.

It seems like I’m finding more and more occasions to quote Edward Norton’s character at the end of the movie “Fight Club”: after realizing he’s been suffering from a split personality, brawling with the other personality, and, ultimately, shooting himself in the mouth to get rid of his other personality (oh, and did I mention blowing up San Francisco’s financial district?), he turns to his girlfriend and says “You met me at a very strange time in my life.”

That’s what I keep wanting to tell the people around me: you met me at a very strange time in my life.  Changing careers, starting new ventures and partnerships, reconsidering long-standing relationships, trying to keep my head above water and reprogramming my unconscious mind has made for a very interesting couple of years, to say the least.  Here’s the thing, though: I know I’m not alone.

If there’s one good thing that’s come out of the economic upheaval of the past year or so, it’s the fact that so many of us are stopping to re-examine what’s truly important in our lives.  Sure, the answers have been pretty startling to some of us, but it’s been a cleansing that’s been a long time coming.  We’ve been so caught up in the material and mundane for the last decade that a lot of us forgot who we really are and what truly matters to us.

I’m not saying that we need to start shaving our heads and pummeling each other in basements and parking lots in the middle of the night.  What we do need, though, is a good healthy dose of temporary insanity, a chance to step back from the routine of life and have a look at the ruts we’re wearing into our souls.

It’s time to start questioning everything: our beliefs, our attitudes, our actions…everything.  Start greeting every day with fresh eyes and ask yourself whether or not you’re going to live it on purpose or on auto-pilot.  And when you come to something that makes you stop and think “Why am I doing this?”, for God’s sake stop doing it!

We’ve all been given a chance to hit the reset button, some more so than others.  The question is, what are you going to do with the new life that will be different from the old one?  How will it be better this time around?  Are you going to keep going to that job you hate, or are you going to figure out a way to do what you love?

Thoreau nailed it all the way back in 1854: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  Maybe it’s time that changed.  Maybe we all need to live a little more deliberately and spend some more of our time and effort sucking the marrow out of life.  Otherwise, when we come to die, we just might discover that we never lived.

**Note: Special thanks to Jim Pelley for suggesting I write a post about this after I told him yesterday, “Jim, you met me at a very strange time in my life.”  Thanks Jim!