Lessons from J. Richard Pittman, MD

Ulemu Luhanga (: 00:02

Hello, listeners, welcome to Educational Landscapes, Lessons from Leaders. On today's episode, we are going to learn from Richard Pittman. Welcome to the show, Richard.

Richard Pittman (: 00:14

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 00:16

Most welcome. So to get us going, what is your educational leadership title or titles?

Richard Pittman (: 00:24

Yes. My title is Sub-Internship Director for Internal Medicine. I have small roles as Stanford Clinical Training Program Facilitator at our site, but that's a... Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 00:44

Oh. Can you tell us a bit more about that facilitator role?

Richard Pittman (: 00:48

Well, so in 2018, following some great advice from my boss, he said, "Whenever you transition roles," I previously ran the clerkship, the third year rotation, he said, "Whenever you transition from one role to the next, it's really good, as a part of whatever you might get or package, is to get something to equip you to do the next role."

Richard Pittman (: 01:08

And so, as I moved from one role to the next, I had a chance to go and participate in the Stanford clinical training for clinical teachers... Sorry, faculty development course for clinical teachers. It was a month in Palo Alto and was actually pretty hard work. But what I didn't realize is that it was actually a train the trainer program. And so, I was coming back to be able to start training faculty and residents here, which I've gotten some protected time to do while being here, yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 01:40

That is awesome. That is awesome. So what else do you do in your other role as the sub-intern...?

Richard Pittman (: 01:46

Right. And I'll say it, sometimes saying what I don't do. So as the third year clerkship director, every medical student during their third year would rotate for eight weeks on internal medicine, and I was in charge of their experience while on medicine. Well, so the fourth year rotation for internal medicine, students get a choice. So they can either do medicine, surgery, or pediatrics. We end up getting about 60% of kids, fourth year students, on the rotation, which is a four-week rotation. And I'm in charge of administering it, curricular development and implementation, grading, et cetera.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 02:26

Wonderful. So I can hear bits and pieces in here. Clerkship director, the sub-I director, the facilitator. And I'm curious, what skills do you use in these types of roles?

Richard Pittman (: 02:41

Yeah. Probably the most important ones usually are interpersonal communication and listening, empathizing with learners. That would be probably the main skill. Ongoing cultivation of my own knowledge, just to stay abreast of what's going on, which I probably don't do as good a job as I'd like to. One of the joys of working with the students is that they keep asking questions, so you have to keep learning. So I would say that's sort of ongoing learning from that.

Richard Pittman (: 03:19

And then probably some mentorship, where students come and say, "Hey, well, I'm on this rotation, but..." One of the fun things about the fourth year rotation is that during the year, they are kind of declaring where they're headed. And so, for many students, I sit down with them and listen to their thoughts and help them sort of clarify where their career vision and stuff, so mentorship. Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 03:43

That is awesome. That is awesome. Thank you for sharing. So I would love to hear more, you've told us little bits and pieces, but what was your journey that led to these current roles that you have?

Richard Pittman (: 04:00

Sure. Probably like many people when they start in academics, you fall into a clinical role. And so, I showed up at Grady and had to do 80% clinical work, which was divided between working in the outpatient clinics, and then on the inpatient medical service, we called the wards. And I was doing that for about two years and trying to do a good job, but feeling like I don't really know where my place is, and I was kind of nervous. And so, I kind of, what we tell early faculty folks to do is, "Hey, just get involved. Say yes. Do a good job, show up." And I was trying to do those things. And so, I kind of was in two veins, was teaching when I had the opportunity. And the second was some technology stuff, which I can tell you about if interested.

Richard Pittman (: 04:43

But one day I came out of clinic and I was with Dr. Erica Brownfield, and she asked me to come by her office for a minute, and she was the current clerkship director of the rotation. She said, "Well, I'm going to be heading to the dean's office pretty soon, and I need someone to take over the clerkship." And I said, "Oh, great. Well, I know so-and-so is good, and so-and-so is good, and so-and-so is good." And she goes, "No, wait, what about you?" And I was like, "Oh, wait, I just got here." And so, I really was very surprised that I was being considered for that, to run the third year rotation. But I ultimately ended up doing that and had a great pleasure doing that for seven years. And I worked with Dr. Karen Law, who's gone on to do great things at Emory.

Richard Pittman (: 05:24

And then in 2018, I transitioned from running the third year rotation, taking over for Dr. Michael Lubin, the fourth year rotation. And enjoy that, you didn't ask me this, but one of the fun things about it's while I enjoy working with all the students, and I really delighted in that I knew every medical student, I really love that it's a smaller group of learners at one time. I find once you go over 12 to 15 in a classroom, it's sort of hard to really not be doing a lot of crowd control, even though they're mature learners and not seventh graders, but...

Ulemu Luhanga (: 05:57

Understood. Understood. And yes, you mentioned technology. Can you tell us a bit more about your technology stuff?

Richard Pittman (: 06:04

I've always been a tech nerd. There's always an obligatory moment at any family gathering where someone's asking me to fix their device or help them. But what that looked like in the hospital was, at Grady, when I came in 2009, was really on the verge of getting an electronic medical record. And nobody in our department was really that into working on that.

Richard Pittman (: 06:26

And so, I stepped in and became an Epic, this is a funny title, Epic Physician Champion for Epic. And it ended up being like the champion like in the arena fighting the lions, because implementing a new electronic medical record was a lot of turmoil for the physicians. It really changed their workflows and everything like that. And so, I was in between the physicians and the tech people, and so it was interesting, but it was a lot of headaches. So I did that for a while. But anyway, I got those two roles at the same time, and so I walked into a lot of protected time to be doing those things, kind of out of the blue two years into my career.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 07:08

Oh. So I'm guessing, as you said, with technology, is it mainly technology within the medical, clinical... Or are you also, do you dabble in technology as it's used in education?

Richard Pittman (: 07:25

Well, that's a funny thing. Yes, I'm always looking for a place to use technology. I've probably chilled out a little bit as I've matured and things are not as intuitive to use. But sure, yeah, so definitely the electronic medical record. But I started teaching about how to use technology in healthcare and sort of really... Talks on apps and how to use clinical tools at the bedside, with iPads and phones. And then I guess I would say I probably pivoted into technology in specifically education about thinking about tools to flip classrooms, about video recording, making videos, for instance in a Khan Academy style, things like that. So yeah, I'm always looking for ways to use good technology. Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 08:11

Awesome. Awesome. It's always nice to hear people who are into their ed tech side too.

Richard Pittman (: 08:16

Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 08:18

As you think about the journey that you've had so far, what do you wish you knew before stepping into various leadership roles?

Richard Pittman (: 08:29

I think I would answer that in two ways. One would be how to be a good leader. And then the truth is that so many clinicians that become educators, many of us don't have any sort of formal training as an educator. And we kind of show up as a willing teacher and have some enthusiasm and then are told, "Okay. Well, here you go. I guess you can do it."

Richard Pittman (: 08:54

So the education side, I think I wish I would've really had more dedicated time to learn to be an educator, whether it be the Stanford course that I took pretty far, nine years into it, or courses like that. I know some people get a master's degree in health education, something like that. I think I would've thought, had I known I was going on this journey, I wish I had that early.

Richard Pittman (: 09:19

And then obviously leadership. Some of it is just maturing, becoming a better leader. But I feel like I have sort of self-educated on leadership stuff, a big fan of reading Brene Brown and other leadership type things, and I feel like I've grown a lot as I learned those two things.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 09:37

Wonderful. Thank you. So building on the continued learning, what continuing professional development do you do in order to keep up with the needs of your various roles?

Richard Pittman (: 09:53

Well, it turns out, the Stanford training that I did has really been the gift that keeps on giving. If you've ever been to a conference, you hear the material one time, and you're lucky if you take away many of the principles or whatever. But because I teach it on an ongoing basis, I'm always re-experiencing that material. Honestly, if I'm honest, that is probably the most important thing that continues to help me keep fresh, is that I keep learning these sort of fundamentals of how do I promote understanding and retention? And then going through those kind of basics and applying those.

Richard Pittman (: 10:28

I think secondly would be just, I feel like one of, to me, the most important thing about being a teacher is to really be an enthusiastic learner. And so, I feel like I'm always learning with people. And while I may know more of the content than they do, I think watching them experience it and how they make it their own is something that I've really take a lot of joy in. And so I feel like that, for instance, in the sub-I, there are 10 topics that the students teach on, they teach each other every time. And so, I would've heard the chest pain talk a hundred times, but hearing each learner's, their take on that, and I feel like I experience it newly in those times. And then obviously my own reading and such.

Richard Pittman (: 11:11

I enjoy going to professional meetings, probably most specifically the clerkship directors of internal medicine. I would say the pandemic has thrown me off my game a little bit about getting to all those meetings, but that's another place where I really enjoy doing, yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 11:26

Oh. Can you tell us a bit [more], any other recommendations for meetings for folks to consider?

Richard Pittman (: 11:34

Well, I think if finding, for instance, I'm an internist, and so finding what's present inside of your own practice, for instance, Society of Hospital Medicine does great meetings. I haven't been to the bigger meetings, like the ACP meeting and things like that, but I hear those are really great ones.

Richard Pittman (: 11:56

But I think probably saying, "Hey, where in my domain," if I'm a surgeon, finding those educational groups and honestly finding is there a group that organizes around the role that I'm in? For instance, I got so lucky, clerkship directors of internal medicine, that's a very nicely focused. And I was surprised how big it was. And so, it allows you to participate in a meeting and present. We present and share work there, and that's really been a delight. So I'd probably say rather than one size fits all, is really that would be that process of trying to find things like that, so yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 12:29

Thank you. And what additional advice would you give someone interested in doing the same type of educational leadership roles that you've had?

Richard Pittman (: 12:42

Yeah, I guess I would say two things. One would be when you start doing it, you're definitely going to feel like you don't know enough or you're not ready to start teaching. And I think that if you're waiting to when you do to start, you're probably not going to be a good educator if you think, "I don't educate until I know it all." But really seeing yourself as a co-journey or a co-traveler. And I know enough or I know a little bit more than them and I give it a go, and then I'm willing to learn from my own mistakes as a teacher. I feel like that's been a really important thing that I'd want people to know. And so, therefore, just show up and just to ask, even if...

Richard Pittman (: 13:20

I'd say a hard thing about academic, actual teaching, is that protected time for doing it. So the roles like I have, they're not that many. And so, I think that it's difficult, but it's what everyone has to do, is for a period of time you volunteer and you do stuff for your CV, so that when that role is available, that you have a chance to step into it. Yeah, I'd say those would be... I think I had one more piece, but it slipped out of my ear. Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 13:51

I know. I was going to say, I thought you had two pieces of advice...

Richard Pittman (: 13:54

Well, I'm going to call those two, but there was a second one I couldn't come up with. Sorry.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 13:58

Okay. Well, if it comes back, feel free to add it.

Richard Pittman (: 14:01

Yeah, I'll let you know.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 14:03

So talking a bit more, because you talked about how the Stanford course was really one that kind of really helped in terms of preparing you for the next role, I'd love to hear a bit more about your views around succession planning.

Richard Pittman (: 14:19

Sure. Well, someone wisely said, and sorry, I don't know the attribution, is that you can't go into your next job until you find someone to take your place. And not that I want to leave my current job, but my kind of attitude has always been, I'm always looking for people that are interested. Because the same thing, is like when you don't have the protected role like I do, well, you'd like to. Maybe, I'm sure there's 10 people that might want to take my job.

Richard Pittman (: 14:45

And so, my policy has always been, hey, if you come to me and say, "Hey, I want to participate," I try to show you a way that you can. And then if you kind of show up and do a good job, then you become the front-runner. And for instance, I won't name his name, but there's a person right now who did the very thing and said, "Hey, I'm kind of interested in education." And I said, "Well, hey, look, here's what we have going on here on the sub-I." And he just started coming to meetings. And I said, "Well, right now, nobody else. Someday, when they fire me or I move on to something else, this could be yours." And so, I think it's really important to always have a view of that.

Richard Pittman (: 15:19

And my mindset about succession planning is, and again, I got this advice from Dr. del Rio who's leading figure at Emory, but it's like that most jobs have a cycle time of somewhere between seven and 10 years. And that at the end of that period, it's probably a good idea for another person to be able to take it forward. And so, I really do kind of believe that while I pour my whole self into whatever role I'm doing, that often... It might be like writing a paper, if you've revised it a whole bunch, that you get to a point where you can't anymore and you need someone else to look at it, and I think that that'd be the way I think about a program. And so, I very proactively am always thinking about that, even though I'm really happy in the role that I have.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 16:08

Thank you. I think that's a very insightful perspective because sometimes you hear when people talk about succession planning, it's this fear of, "Oh, but somebody will take over my position." But it's like, yes, their fresh eyes are a very useful thing.

Richard Pittman (: 16:28

Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 16:30

All right. So continuing on, what would you say has contributed to your biggest successes thus far?

Richard Pittman (: 16:40

Well, and I think, honestly, this sort of follows what what I was just talking about is that finding the next people to take it over. And so, the medicine clerkship for third years, I took over in great condition from Dr. Brownfield. I better say that, right? She's now one of the deans. No, I really got it in great condition and I made it my own.

Richard Pittman (: 17:02

But one of the best things I think I did is I found the associate director to work with me, who then took it over and Meredith Lora and her successor, and they really took it to the next level. And the example would be, whereas I think I did a really good job of teaching students about being really systematic in the components of how they present a patient. And so, really gave them a framework I think of, "Hey, this is actually how you formulate," especially some of the more nebulous parts of give the history of the patient. Well, how do you actually do that? And so, I think I was really structured and gave them guidance on how to do that.

Richard Pittman (: 17:38

But I think what Meredith and Varun have done is they've taken it to the next level, where it's not just the structure of it, but it's also the way you're thinking about it and the content and what they would call the clinical reasoning of it. And I just feel so happy whenever I hear about something they're doing, like, "Wow, I'm so glad that they're the ones running that." So anyway, my success is finding the right people.

Richard Pittman (: 18:00

And I think for me, a way that to think about what is success is really interesting. There's a guy named Jeff Wiese from Tulane who kind of did everything at their program for a while, was the program director, was one of the deans or whatnot, but he's kind of a guru in the internal medicine areas of talking about medical education. And he always talked about, and he's written this in a book, about the four levels of being a teacher. And I think I can find it real quick if you'll bear with me.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 18:32

Yep.

Richard Pittman (: 18:39

And I'll just give them to you very briefly. But there's four kind of phases. Phase one is, "Hey, I'm trying to master the topic." And so, much of phase one is, "I know my stuff and I'm here to show that I know my stuff." So it's kind of about me and the stuff I know.

Richard Pittman (: 18:55

Phase two is when people start to recognize that you know your stuff and you're starting to get all this feedback. And it can be really tempting in phase two, it's like, "I'm getting really popular, and so I abandoned the actual teaching because I'm so enjoying the praise."

Richard Pittman (: 19:08

And phase three is where actually I know my stuff, I'm getting such positive feedback that I'm actually getting awards. And so, I'm really driven by the awards that I get.

Richard Pittman (: 19:18

And then my favorite one, which is what I delight in, and I hope that I see it this way, is that phase four is about you're beyond that other stuff, but is that it's driven by a vision of turning a corner someday in the hospital where you see one of your former students doing the right thing for a patient because it's something you taught them. And I just find that, for me, when I had to do this kind of talk to medical students who are graduating and they're like, "What is your big success?" And my big success, I feel like, is just that I believe that there's a group of students that they'll look back and they'll go, "Dr. Pittman taught me this." And those little things like that I feel like is what my joy comes from. Anyway, but that'd be being a phase four teacher is that mindset of that's what winning looks like. It's very small and often not seen.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 20:08

Oh, I love that. And I love, as you talk about that, how it really feeds in very much with your views on succession planning.

Richard Pittman (: 20:19

Interesting. I'm glad you could see that. I didn't see it, yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 20:25

Sometimes you just got to have other eyes, right? So recognizing, as we said earlier, you had talked about how as an educator we're always constantly learning. So what would you say are your biggest growth opportunities right now?

Richard Pittman (: 20:46

I can say it simply as I'm not a good researcher or really much one of at all. I believe in value scholarship. I'm kind of a cynic, so sometimes I feel like people are doing scholarship for their CVs and not for the conversation, the scholarly conversation. But one thing that I learned when I went to Stanford is that that group out there, they really tried to deploy research and scholarship to answer clinical education questions in a way that people would do, whether it be like does a drug work or not? And I really was impressed by that. But that's an area I think that where I either need to grow a skill set or I just need to find the right partners, but that's an area. So if you're out there and you hear this and you really have great scholarly skills and you need a partner, come talk to me, yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 21:33

There you go. Richard's your man.

Richard Pittman (: 21:35

Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 21:37

So as you reflect on your experiences to date, what do you love most about your work and what you do?

Richard Pittman (: 21:49

Words like most are a little bit daunting to me, but I'll just say that something that I really enjoy is that there is this cycle where each batch of learners, they're fresh and new, whether it be on the rotation with me or whether I'm with a team in the hospital. And so, I get all these opportunities to sort of reinvent myself and to do it a little bit differently, to listen to what their experience was. The greatest gift to me is when students give me constructive feedback, which they do. And so, to really be able to try it, to do it just a little bit differently the next time to make it better for them.

Richard Pittman (: 22:28

So I guess I would say starting, basically that idea of group identity formation, where you start as a disparate group of learners. So, again, this would just be the sub-I example. So there's 10 kids that show up on orientation day at 8:30, and they bring in all their previous experiences of working with other people and like, "What's it going to be on medicine?"

Richard Pittman (: 22:50

And I do this orientation and I tell them, "Look, my hope for you is that by the end of this, this will feel like a really safe learning community and you'll feel really like we can talk about hard things, we're learning from each other and together." And I feel like when I say that on the first day, they're like, "Yeah, sure, sure. I heard that one before." And then on the last day I'm like, "Y'all, it's already been four weeks. Here we are in week four. And is that true?" And I feel like a lot of times we get there, and so that's something that I really take a lot of pleasure in.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 23:18

I love that. I love that. And I feel like it's going to feed into the answer for my next question for you, which is what are your current passions around education or what would you say your current education philosophy is?

Richard Pittman (: 23:35

Well, and I'm going to kind of bite on the second part of the question about educational philosophy. I had to do this visiting professor, though I wasn't a professor. I was like, "Wait, I'm not sure I can do this," at another institution. And I had to give this talk about... And so, I kind of had to wrestle with that and what is my educational philosophy?

Richard Pittman (: 23:57

And my first take was I love metaphors, so forgive me, was like, "Hey, the teacher is the chef." Okay? My job is to have this educational recipe and deploy it so that I make this educational meal that's very savory and tasty that the students want to devour. And it's like, "That works pretty good." Yeah, I'll give an interesting talk and lecture, and so that seemed to work.

Richard Pittman (: 24:19

But then I was like, "Wait a second." But we know that lectures don't really work that well, there's low retention. And so, another metaphor from a hobby of mine, which is gardening, kind of took over, which is like, "Hey, my job as a teacher is to set the right environment, to make sure there's the right educational nutrients, conditions, rain, sunlight, water. And that the student's job is to take up and make their own meaning out of it." I guess you'd call that constructivist.

Richard Pittman (: 24:46

And so, I've really enjoyed thinking about what does that look like with learners in the classroom and how do I... Again, sometimes, because it's so tempting to do what others call the transmission mode. I can transmit knowledge from me to them, but it's like we know that doesn't work, but it's so dang tempting to keep trying it. And especially because more active, engaged learning and constructivist learning is slower, you cannot pack in as much. And anyway, but I would just say that's been something that's really fun, to think about how that works.

Richard Pittman (: 25:21

And I don't don't know if you want to hear this now, but I would say there's a new educational leader, Joe Le Doux, who's joining the Emory School of Medicine team to help lead the educational transformation. And I just had a meeting with him and just to kind of pick his brain and see what he was up to. And I just think he's going to be such a great force for nudging all of us from a more passive learning style to way more, even beyond active and to constructivist or even interactive. And I think that's such a great move that the school has done, and I'm really excited about him being here.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 25:59

Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you for sharing with us your wonderful metaphors for your philosophy.

Richard Pittman (: 26:04

Right, right.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 26:06

So as a fellow gardener, I am very curious, what type of gardening do you do? Veggie? Trees? What are you into?

Richard Pittman (: 26:18

Well, I guess I'd say I'm into all of it. I have a philosophy, if everybody ever says, "Would you like a plant?" I say, "Yes." I'll find a place for it. I love to propagate cuttings of things, whether, I don't know if that's not always allowed, but I do it. I love to make cuttings and whatnot. And I would say something I'm really proud of, that one of the process self reflections I've done is like, "Hey, how do I bring myself to work?" So part of that is like, "Hey, how can I bring my love of gardening and share that work?" And so, we actually help to restore and do a planting in a garden right behind our faculty office building. And now it's like a wellness garden space that has plants and stuff. So anyway, that's been a really a fun thing and people are out there enjoying that.

Richard Pittman (: 27:06

So I guess I would say I like to grow everything. I'm probably, if I had to choose one, veggies over flowers, I'm a flower person. So I really enjoy seeing either perennial flowers like hydrangeas or seasonal things like the tulips and peonies that come up at different times of the year. That's what I'm into.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 27:27

Awesome, awesome. Thank you.

Richard Pittman (: 27:29

What do you grow? What do you like to grow?

Ulemu Luhanga (: 27:31

Veggies. I am very much into veggies. My tomatoes, eggplants, peppers. That's my happy place.

Richard Pittman (: 27:41

Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 27:41

Yeah.

Richard Pittman (: 27:42

What I found was that, and I've sort of nudged myself to only plant stuff that I actually want to eat. Because I found that I was growing all this stuff. I love watching okra grow, which I grow that, but no one actually eats it. My wife said she hates it, she grew up eating boiled okra all the time, and so never wants to taste that. Yeah, slimy. Yeah. But I still, growing berries is fun, like blackberries and blueberries and whatnot.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 28:08

I'm with you. When I was learning to garden, I was growing all of these herbs, herbs, which I don't cook with. But it was to prove to myself that I could grow them.

Richard Pittman (: 28:20

Right?

Ulemu Luhanga (: 28:20

So I get it.

Richard Pittman (: 28:23

Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 28:25

Well, so I know I asked a lot of questions that had to do with your career, job, but I know you are more than what you do. So what are some other things you do outside of work to help you maintain joy in life and practice?

Richard Pittman (: 28:43

Yeah, sure. Gardening is definitely one of those. And just, I sometimes either send myself or get sent out to work in the yard so I will not bother other people. So that's a great pleasure of just, I call it piddling in the backyard like my granddad used to do.

Richard Pittman (: 29:00

I have four kids, so a lot of my time is spent these days driving to and from soccer things, which I'm a big soccer, otherwise known as football, fan. And so, if I'm not having to go somewhere, I'm watching either Premier League or other international soccer games on TV. So that's a lot of my time spent.

Richard Pittman (: 29:22

I like to exercise. I did play soccer a lot until I hurt my knee a little bit, but I still run and I get to bike to work. So things like that, so I try to be really, I like to be active.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 29:34

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, those were my core questions for you, Richard. But before I let you go, any last words of wisdom for aspiring educators or education leaders?

Richard Pittman (: 29:49

I don't know about words of wisdom. I think that many people go into academics because they want to be teachers. And in truth, sometimes the game of academics is really more about research and your external funding and things like that. And I would just say that there's never been as good of a time to be an actual person who loves to teach or an educator in academics, because there are tracks at certain places, there's ways to do this. And so, I would just say that it can be done.

Richard Pittman (: 30:18

Sometimes it's hard to find that little niche where you get some protected time. But I would say, I often identify, when I have people say, "What do you do?" And I try never to answer that question, but I usually say, "I'm a teaching doctor," because I really identify probably more as a teacher than a doctor. And if I got fired today, I'd go teach high school somewhere or college, and I think that's what I identify with. So if the listener identifies with that and say, "Hey, this is..." You go after it, and there are ways to really do that these days, and I'm really happy about that.

Ulemu Luhanga (: 30:51

Thank you so much for your time and those wise words to end off on.

Richard Pittman (: 30:55

Yeah. Nice talking with you.