Using Leadership Skills at Home: Dr. Kristy Smith’s Journey Raising Grandchildren

00:00 Introducing Today's Guest

SPEAKER_00 1:32

You can hold three business degrees, publish two books, and hold a doctorate in organizational leadership. But nothing audits your crisis management skills quite like opening your home to your grandchildren. The truth? Your living room is not just a family space, it's an executive operations center, and our guest, Dr. Christy Smith, is with us today to tell us just how she does it. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. How many times have we sat up at all hours of the day and night, staring at yet another legal document that we don't understand, filling out school intake forms, all the while emotionally managing challenging family dynamics and logistics that make us feel like we're going crazy, running this multi-department enterprise completely in the dark. We often assume that professional expertise belongs exclusively in corporate boardrooms, but the day you step up to raise relative children, you realize the sanctuary of your home requires the exact same high-level strategic alignment. Today's guest brings an unprecedented balance sheet of professional mastery and lived experience to our table. She is an author of two books, holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, an MBA in project management, and SPHR certification, but above all, she's been married 28 years, raised two stepchildren, and is now a grandmother raising two grandchildren while serving nonprofits and colleagues alike. She is here to help us shift from reactive firefighting to proactive executive leadership in our own homes. Welcome to the show, Christy. Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me. Great to have you here, especially with your background and your experience as a grandmother grazing two grandchildren. So when you first stepped in to raise your two grandsons almost 11 years ago, like many of us, I know that we act out of pure love and survival instinct, and we think that we're doing this great favor to the children and to our families. But with all of the other adjustments that you had to deal with, along with that, you had to deal with foster systems in three different states. Correct. So tell us what your experience was. Having been in project management and HR level crisis management, in in hindsight, how did you feel that the system managed your case?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Um, so my experience, I felt like um our case was managed well. Uh particularly having to be in three different states. Two in particular, when our grandkids were first taken into foster care, they were in one state that required the kids to be with licensed foster parents, regardless of whether they were kin or not. And so we were in a different state. So we had to abide by both of those. But I think what we did two things. The first thing my husband and I talked about consistently is when we were asked if we wanted to be licensed foster parents, we didn't even think about it. It just yes. Um not knowing what that meant, right?

04:37 Navigating the foster care process

SPEAKER_02 6:09

And then keeping in contact with the intake state, I'll refer to it as, right? To ensure that we were uh included on every step of the process, what was happening with the boys, where they were at. And gratefully, we were able to be a part of that, even though we weren't licensed. We got phone calls, we got visits, we were kept up to date on the status in the first month. And I will say that after having gone through the system, I think my project you talked about my project management experience got us from point not being certified or classified as foster parents to foster parents within 30 days, which what I've heard is almost unheard of because of all the things you have to do. And that's where my project management experience went into effect immediately with the step-by-step, where do I need to go? What do I need to do? Check off, check off, check off. So that was a lot, but it happened and it happened quick. And then it was about two and a half months before we actually got the boys in our custody due to the difference of states and mental welfare for the boys, not changing schools again in there, you know, that that quickly. So that was the biggest thing is we didn't think, we just acted, and then my organizational project management skills took over to get us to the point where we could be licensed.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

That's wonderful. It's too bad everybody doesn't have that background when managing these types of situations. So looking back on those initial days, at what point did you realize that you weren't just stepping in as a grandmother, but you were taking on a much more complicated problem, which required you to absorb a lot of trauma with little support for yourself. I love your quote in your book, Swiftwater Rescue by Joseph Campbell. We must be willing to let go of the life we've planned so as to have the life that's waiting for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

You just gave me chills. Like I just got chills from because we had, as I as I talk about in the book, we had a plan. We were downsizing our home, we were looking to travel more, our kids were grown and gone. We had been empty nesters for almost five years. And in fact, I had been bragging as as it was happening that I didn't have kids and I had freedom and I could go and I could do. And then the call came and then everything changed. Right.

Navigating foster care challenges

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Um, so I'm not sure that it was something that, like, here I know what I'm doing. It was a gradual of instead of this is just a temporary disruption, right? Because with foster care, the goal is always to get the kids back with their parents, right? There's a plan that's worked, there's steps in the process. And so, you know, thinking in that perspective at the beginning is this is a temporary disruption. We have to kind of change paths real quick, but we have to be ready for what's next if that doesn't work. And again, as a project manager, you have multiple options for when your project derails, right? And so, not to be impersonal about it, but if you think of it as a project, projects don't always go as planned. And it didn't necessarily, well, obviously it didn't go as planned because it ended up through adoption. But I think it was um, we didn't think of it as it's this or that. It was just a gradual, okay, we're moving, we're moving. Oh, um, at nine months, we're talking about um TPS hearings and voluntary plans, reduction of rights and adoption, and what does that do? And where do we go from here? Because we said we would do it, but it's like, oh, okay, here we go. So it it was more gradual than, oh, okay, now we know. Here we go. There's this dramatic aha moment, and there wasn't necessarily an aha moment. It's just our entire life has been about where God takes us. And you may not want to always follow that path, but he's putting you there for a reason. So I think that's a a big um aha moment.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So it's a beautiful point when we realize how much our higher power becomes a part of helping us do this job better. And that's why I say we need to be CEOs because it really does call us to be executives in our families to make decisions sometimes quickly, sometimes it requires us to shift our perspective. And usually I've found it's been for the better.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Well, it's a change management. I'm looking at, so I have textbooks over here, books. I'm a I'm a reader. Um, and one of the books is Change by um John Cotter. And I teach change management, and it truly was about change management. And we moved, right? You talked about three different states. So that meant new rules, new regulations, new ways of doing things, how do you adapt to that? So I think you're right, you have to um have that management mentality with the family background and the love and support that you need as a caregiver for these kiddos.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

It would be great if all of us grandparents had counselors that were um that were aware of that concept because that is an important aspect of being a grandparent raising grandchildren. And usually these children come to us in overnight situations. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you started as a foster parent and then you later adopted them, correct? Correct. Has it been your experience that state agencies were anxious to move these children from foster care into kinship placement? And once they were, did you experience the withholding of federal and state resources and allocations from your household?

SPEAKER_02 12:00

I did not experience the rush to get the kids placed. I experienced step by step, it was almost um, I'm l I'm I'm doing the math in my head. It was about 18 months from the time they were taken into foster care to when the adoption happened. So the timeframe for that state was within two years, there has to be something with the kids. They need to either be back with their parent or placed with a home. And which state were you in at that time? So the state they were taken in was New Mexico. So that was the basis of all of our requirements.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

We lived in Colorado. So in my experience, we lived, so the kids were taken to Mexico. We lived in Colorado and then we moved to Alaska. And I will say that probably Colorado was one of the most strict places for a foster parent. Our home looked like a daycare. We had exit signs, we had fire drills, I mean, there's so much more to Alaska where you didn't have to be licensed if you were family. But because New Mexico required it, we had to do it. So I'm not sure there was pressure. I know that there was still financial assistance after the adoption for the kids, not as much as prior to, but there was still financial that New Mexico gave, knowing that, right, expenses don't stop when adoption happens.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

You still have the expenses. So that probably made the transitional or fluid having come from foster to adoptive. Millions of caregivers have been excluded from Medicaid access and housing rights and basic survival aid due to arbitrary titles: informal versus formal adoption, foster parents versus versus adoptive parents. How do you think, in your situation, I understand that it went more smoothly, but how do you think we can better advocate for a regulatory override where actual caregiving dictates resource access?

Financial support after adoption

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, no, we were blessed in thinking about it, looking at it, talking to people. We truly were blessed that there was still some financial support that we got after adoption. But I think that if you look from a federal perspective, rather than thinking about the legal status of the child, is who's responsible for that day-to-day care? And how can that household continue to be a safe place when the legal status of the kid changes? Right. So I think when you when you think of it as, oh, when they're in foster care, they're wards of the state and the state's responsible. When adoption happens, the state's like, I don't know this for sure. And this is probably a statement that's generalization, but it's like, oh, we're done. We don't need to do it anymore. Where I think that if that ward of the state has ever been a ward of the state and isn't any longer, at least until they become an adult, a legal age adult, resources should follow that child as they get into their new life and learn a new way of being. And that helps the child, but it also helps the caregiver, regardless of what that caregiver status is. Um, grandparent, foster parent, adoptive parent, whatever you want to call that.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

That brings up a point that a child's well-being is also based on the caregiver's stability. So framing the caregiver's mental, physical, and financial health should be a prerequisite, I think, in state-level child welfare plans. Um, they don't really know how that parent's doing with the trauma in your situation. You are more prepared for that than maybe a lot of caregivers are. So I think that is important. Yes. How do you think that we can deploy project management frameworks, operational workflows, and HR trauma-informed practices to stabilize a home in crisis without burning out the primary caregiver?

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Well, you know, I had a different thought when I was looking at this question, and now I have a separate thought that I think is much more practical. In Colorado, when we were going through the process, we had to have 24 three times eight. Yeah. We had to have 24 hours of official training to become a foster parent. I mean, we had other requirements, but that was one. And I I I believe I talk about it in my book. I came home so crushed every night from that training of the rules that were stated. And rules are made because somebody didn't do what the rule was saying. And it was heartbreaking. But what I don't think was part of that that I think would be helpful is a project management training guide list of, you know, a checklist or a step-by-step of uh, you know, I think one of the things, and I'm gonna go on a tangent that's related, is my husband and I used to talk about our daughter not accessing the resources that were available to her as a single mom and all the other stuff she was dealing with. And it's hard because all the resources aren't in one spot. And you have to find them and you have to call and you have to follow up because the foster care system is painfully, woefully understaffed. Um

Support for foster families

SPEAKER_02 17:20

social workers are overworked, their caseloads are huge. They can't be the manager of every single case, right? So I think that when you look at training for potential foster parents, emergency foster parents, family kinship, there should be some sort of a how-to guide, right? Of make sure you've made connections with this and make sure you have the finance related, you know, they'll pay for, like in our case, they paid for daycare, but they also paid for activities to keep the boys active. Um, they provided the medical, they covered the cost of travel. I think, particularly from a family perspective, 99% of the time, that's probably a high percentage because not everybody can say yes, but they're gonna want to say yes. So providing the resources, a checklist is pretty simple. It can be pretty general, right? And it can span states, right? You need to do that. I was gonna say it should be on a federal level and it shouldn't change state to state. Agreed. So I think that was I'm I have organizational skills, I have project management skills, I know how to find resources, but not everybody has that as a caregiver, as a parent, right? So, you know, when you think of a plan that a parent has to work to try to get their kids back, what plan, what checklist did they have? Yes, right.

Organizational tools for federal systems

SPEAKER_02 18:38

I'm a big to-do person, I'm a big checklist person. I have notes and but I think that that's a very simple tool that could be generalized across the system. And it could be specialized as needed depending on the state requirements. But, you know, I think go to this resource and go to that website and go to this website, and you can get lost in it. Yes. Um, if you're not organized in that way. So I think that would be an important way to help with a federal tool that's not prescriptive and not taking over someone's life and telling them what to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And it doesn't require a lot of funds to do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

That's just pretty basic. It seems that because this community is growing and not getting smaller, unfortunately, it requires us to become unified on a federal level about how we're helping people. People shouldn't be worried about housing if they're taking care of children. They shouldn't be worrying about having enough money to eat. 65, 70-year-olds shouldn't have to go back to work to support their families. So it's pretty common sense, I think.

unknown 21:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Um it took me a long time to gather the information that I needed for my particular situation. But just telling people to figure it out doesn't help any of us that are already in a stressful situation where we're trying to get Medicaid coverage for these kids, trying to get psychological help. I think a lot of people assume that we're families, so we'll figure it out. Right. That's not the right answer, obviously. I want to let everybody know where they can find your two books, Blended Reality and Swiftwater Rescue.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Sure. Um, so Swiftwater Rescue is available on Amazon. Blended Reality is not yet. Um, I do have a website and I've created an order form. So my website's pretty simple. It's Christy StandardSmith, and Christy is K-R-I-S T-Y standardsmith.com. And when you go to that website, there is a link that says order books. So it has the two books I've authored, as well as some leadership books I've contributed to and the um ability to order those. And then Swiftwater Rescue is now on Amazon, and there's a link there as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

It's a wonderful story, and I really did enjoy reading the book. It's a quick read. I think many of us will relate. I encourage everyone to purchase the book and read more about your experience.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

And there's, you know, it it's truly what it is. It's just sharing experience. It's not telling people how to or what to or not to or any of those. It's just, you know, I I didn't find a book when when I was going through this, and everybody's experience is different, but there's similarities, and I think the benefit of knowing that someone else is going through it is very helpful.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I agree. And that's the purpose of the podcast is to create community for people to connect, to not feel alone, to not be alone with all of this guilt and shame. I thought that it was great that you brought up some of the struggles between you and the other family involved, their other parents involved, uh, because I think many of us experience that you're not alone, and there's a lot of um, there's a lot of emotional struggle over that.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

So yeah, well, I appreciate that too, because I think I appreciate you talking about the guilt and shame because I think a lot of us

Writing as therapy for grandparents raising grandchildren

SPEAKER_02 24:02

believe, particularly as grandparents raising grandkids, that it's going to reflect on us what our children decided to do that made them lose their children. That is not the case. I lost track of the times that I cried, right? Because I couldn't help my daughter any more than what we had done. But it wasn't a guilt and shame on my part. And I think that that's an emotion that I wasn't expecting to experience. And so my writing is my therapy. So writing about it, I think, is helpful for others that are in that situation as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yes, I journal every day. And as you may know, if you've listened to the episodes, I share my raw feelings and emotions, which took me a while to get to that point because I did feel like after a few years, I should be managing it better. And it's a day-to-day process, and we go through that dichotomy of feeling wonderful and terrible, sometimes all in the same day. So, you know, we're not perfect beings, and that's why it's important to share those with others.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

It is. Well, and it's you, you know, it's also the stages of grief. Yes. Right. Um when you talk about your raw emotions, they come out. And and how do you work through those? And where's the support for you as the caregiver with the variety of things that you're dealing with and those stages? So journaling is what I do as well. Um, very raw, very open.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Well, I really respect you as another writer. And journaler, and I think it's wonderful that you're doing that and sharing it with others. More of us need to do that. Thank you. There are three questions that I want to ask you. One is a systematic question, one's a taboo question, and one's a policy question. And those are going into the book that I'm writing now. The systematic question that I have for you is that I believe that child welfare systems often treat kinship care as free labor, which we've already spoken about, rooted in family obligation. How do you think labeling relative placement as prevention without attaching mandatory funding creates a secondary state-sanctioned trauma system inside our homes?

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yeah, that's a I think that's a hard one because um, well, I I think there's multiple levels of this, right? Because you have you might have a grandparent that doesn't have support. Um, it was me and my husband, and we helped support each other. Um, we had a faith. We were based in faith, so we had, we also had family, some, you know, one side of the family that was very supportive and would help out as needed, help to fill in those gaps where there might not have been. One area where I think there wasn't any assistance was counseling for the caregivers. Uh, I'm not saying there wasn't. I never found it. So um, we were able to, you know, sit in on counseling with the kids and and talk through some of that. But I think

Challenges of fostering grandchildren

SPEAKER_02 27:01

ultimately it creates another trauma in that I and I alluded to this earlier, you have this adult child who needs help. But because you're helping their children and with foster care roles, you can't always help the adult child. You're really torn, and that creates trauma in your heart and in your mind because you want to help your kid, right? You just want to help them through this process. Yet your focus has to be on these two little ones that don't have the adult capacity. And we assume that our adult children have the capacity to process what they're going through where they really don't. Right. But you have to separate yourself into, I mean, we always, I wanna I'm gonna say as women, as moms, right? It's we have to separate ourselves into multiple roles. Um, but this is so traumatic as a mom, biological, not biological, whatever you want to call yourself. I love my kids regardless of whether they came from my body or not. They're part of my husband, they're part of my life, have been for 30 years now. Um, so it's you create trauma because you start to create separate personalities, and personalities might not be the right term, but you have to you have to silo. I think we all know what you're referring to, yes. Yeah. So you have to silo that which creates additional trauma. And so I think when um when family is used as um a tool because they're there, you know. I think of like in Alaska, you don't have to be licensed. They'll just place you with the with your family. So if you're not licensed, you don't have that access, right? And maybe you are that free labor you refer to or the free space. So I think that we really have to look at not creating, like you said, the unintentional trauma when there's already enough trauma you're having to deal with in protecting these kids from whatever they've come out of.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

I think that's a great answer. And I'm curious, how did your older children handle you taking your two grandsons?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Well, so the oldest one, our daughter, is the mom. And um, we've just started repairing that relationship in the past four years. So, you know, we've had the kids for 11 years almost. So the first seven years were I talk about this, we were the evil ones. We were the villains, we were the ones that took the kids away, we were the ones that were following the rules, and there's a lot more to that. Our other adult child appreciated us stepping in, balances the line between his biological mom and her husband and us, right? That we were at two different places, and so there's two different stories, and somewhere is the truth in the middle of that. Um, but overall, um, our son was very appreciative that we stepped up. Um, you know, I I I tell people all the time if we hadn't stepped up, we'd we may not know our grandsons today.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

And I that that actually makes me want to cry when I say it out loud, not knowing my grandsons because I wouldn't be able to step up.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yes. Um, I think oftentimes we're where we are, doing the best we can. We look forward, and in hindsight, we go, I can't see myself going any other direction. I'm not exactly sure where I am or how everyone's doing, but we're doing the best we can. And that's the journey. That's what this journey is. It is. Thanks for your candidacy about that. Absolutely. The taboo question I have for you is in your book and your journey, you faced the complex reality of stepping in for your grandsons at the risk of minimizing your focus on your two adult birth children. How do you think we break the silence around the unspoken shame and isolation that caregivers feel when they have to legally or emotionally alter ties with their adult child to protect and stabilize their grandchildren?

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Yeah, so this one is um, I think it's hard, right? There's a couple of things of you still have to love your children. You have to protect your grandchildren. I I I've alluded to that. You can feel that guilt, right? Of I have to choose. It's you or it's you or the children. And it doesn't have to be that way, but it requires boundaries. And I think that's where we became the bad guys in the story is we created those boundaries to protect the grandchildren, right? I do understand. And um, but we we had conversations, we've had conversations since with our daughter about why. Why did we do this? And I think the biggest thing that hit our daughter was we always focused on her love for the kids, but her inability to make good decisions, and that these kids have so much love and everybody loves them, everybody wants the best for them, including their mom, who wasn't a part of their life for seven-ish years. And I mean part of their life, like other than required phone calls, that kind of thing. But it's making sure that you balance the protection and know it's all based in love, right? That there's not a lack of love just because I'm doing this. Um, just because there's boundaries doesn't mean I love you. Everybody, everybody needs boundaries, right? Everybody needs a some sort of constraints to make sure that they are healthy. And I think that's the biggest thing is ensuring that your adult children and what we talked with her about was it does make us love you less. It's just they don't have the protection that you have, and we have to focus on them.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I love the way you put that because we don't get handed a rule book about how to do this. And so uh I oftentimes go back, am I doing this out of love or am I doing it out of another reason that's not as healthy? And I think you have to do that all the time because we we don't have a rule book to follow, so we're doing the best we can.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Well, related to that is when I married my husband, it'll be 30 years in November, and

Talking about blended families

SPEAKER_02 32:56

I came with two kids, eight and five, he would always say, if you focus on the kids and what's best for them, it doesn't matter what else is happening. And that carried through in my blended reality book about raising stepchildren, um, which we don't refer to them as stepchildren until we have to explain why there's multiple moms and dads and but it carried into this situation, right? If you're keeping the kids best, and in this case, the minor kids, right? If you're doing it out of love and keeping their best interest of what's best for them, the rest will fall into place.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

And I think that applies to all the other relationships. You're fortunate in that you and your husband are very close in faith and in the direction that you're heading with these children, but not all of us have that. Not all of us have spouses that are there to support us that feel that we're taking time away from them. And I think that we all have to do that, check in with all of those relationships and say, if I'm doing this out of love and making the best choice possible, and that's the best we can do. Absolutely. So the policy question I have: if you were drafting federal child welfare legislation tomorrow, what specific regulatory language would you override so that the act of day-to-day caregiving, rather than legal status or agency cost cutting, mandates automatic financial housing and therapeutic resources for the household?

SPEAKER_02 34:22

So go back to my original. I think at the very beginning of our discussion is that resources that are available

Supporting foster children's needs

SPEAKER_02 34:29

should follow a child and not a title, not a distinction of who is caring for them at the time or the label that's attached to them. That it should really be about how can we provide the best for this child medically, um, psychologically, educationally, developmentally, and what do we need to ensure that that happens in the system and when they leave the system. I think that fostered children go through so much more than children do. And I I don't know that I don't have the data to show that, right? But they've been through a lot. They've been through multiple homes usually. So when they find a stable home, I think that the resources that will help them continue to be healthy in all of those areas should follow the child and not the designator.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Well, I think that's a great way to end this episode, Christy.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Do you have anything else you want to share with the listeners? I just think that, you know, um, that we as a society need to keep our children safe and that we should invest in policies that help keep our children safe. You know, in this space that we're in today, we're talking about our foster care system, whether that's uh family or not family. And I just think we should be investing and creating policies that help keep all the people associated with that safe, healthy mentally, financially, all of those things. Um, and that, you know, I I didn't never have a heart to be a foster provider or in foster care. I know much more about it than I ever wanted to know. Um, but I will say that I am thankful and um excited about the opportunity to share my story as much as I can and as much as people want to hear about it. And I will also end on this that I talk about being a lifelong learner. Um, I'm in education, I write, I share my story, a lifelong learner. Um, there's a conference that I attend every year, and it's in August, and I just finished it. And one of the key takeaways, this was after you and I talked about me maybe being on this podcast. But one of the key takeaways was that when God has called you to be what he wants you to be, then share your story. And I will say thank you for letting me share my story because I didn't know God was calling me here, but it seems like he did.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

There you have it, everyone. Share your story. Others need to hear. Thank you, Christy, so much for today. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And thank you for the cause. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Latif Ghanam spent over 15 years helping high-powered business leaders stay steady under pressure. Today she uses that expertise as a trauma-informed coach to help caregivers realize that the same stress and quick-to-react patterns we see in professional settings often show up in our living rooms too. We're leading a vital mission to protect the children in our care, but we can't lead effectively if we're constantly exhausted and reacting to every spark. Next week on episode 133, Lati will help us look at what triggers our stress so we can lead our families with a steady hand and a calm heart rather than just feeling like we're constantly putting out fires. We are 2.7 million strong, still nurturing and still here. Having a lifelong learner's mindset means realizing that your lived experience paired with strategic leadership creates an unshakable foundation for our grandchildren. Keep nurturing, keep leading, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.