Growth

Emily probably doesn't want to criticize me. Should I step off? [crosstalk] No, I'm going to jump in and say, because what I was going to do was the opposite, is that I feel like I hit the jackpot and I got a master class in engagement from you and master class in strategic planning, real MBA level strategic planning from Nadia. There was so many thing after I went back and listened to the conversation that I was like, "Yup. Yup. Oh boy, we've been trying to do this for the last year." The things that you guys said were so on point. It was just like, I almost can't get over how well the timing worked out. It's been wonderful to have those conversations recorded because there's so much in there. At the time, it was definitely harder because the markets are hectic and we're just so bad at it. We don't do it every week like Charity does. But to have that precious two hours recorded and to have so much in there was amazing. And even, I was taking notes from Charity's conversation about, "Oh yeah, this is something we need to do. This is something we want to do." Its very, very, very valuable for what we're trying to do.

I remember feeling it was just such an opportunity to think so differently about the way we construct those projects. And I remember feeling really uncomfortable and unsettling to us to try just being able to set it up that way. And I think that's one of these complicated things about the STEM piece of it, right? The STEM itself is supposed to be so data-driven and clear. And so then trying to put a bunch of people who have been trained to think in this very, data-driven way into a context that is itself so amorphous, I think the tension's really uncomfortable.

It's always scary. It's like the first performance of anything, I would imagine. You learn a lot. You put yourself out there. You are, in some cases, putting a lot of faith into what you believe will transpire and convincing other people that yes, that's what's going to happen and this is going to be good for these reasons. Then, see it come together and it seems like when it does come together, it's even better than you had described.