April 4, 2005
moderated by Douglas O'Brien
Doug: Watching the video and now just starting to get into the book, how would you best lay out what would be the most resourceful way for us to learn your Modeling until we meet with you in May?
David: Well, the first thing I would want you to do and I hope others who didn't get to see the DVD, get to see it, the first thing is to watch that elicitation. Just to give you a sense of the territory, pictures and sounds in your heads about kind of what it looks and sounds like to be gathering information in that way from somebody, so that's the first thing is to watch that, which you've done. And now, I think the next thing to do, academically speaking [laughter], is to turn to the book and start reading the book and what I suggest is reading chapters 1 through 11.
Joe: I feel like I'm back in college.
David:[laughter] It is kind of weird, I haven't had a book to refer to in this way before. Right, chapters 1 though 11.
Gerald and Joe: One through Eleven? [laughter]
David: One though Eleven and I don't want to hear any whining or complaining, [laughter] you've got plenty of time to complete your assignment. [laughter] And there will be a pop quiz, naturally. [laughter] And what goes on in those chapters, the first few chapters introduces you to actually a lot of the things we talked about in that first fateful day I was with you all. It kind of introduces the framework and the basic underlying frames for doing Modeling. What I really what you to get into, of course, is the Array and the distinctions in the Array. In the chapters, I guess it's four though eleven, go into some detail about those distinctions, so in those chapters are describing the distinctions and giving examples of elicitation, both ones that are taken from other people and examples of elicitation taken from the DVD that you saw. So, that's where I would take the next step in terms of just getting information. Now, what's going to be interesting for us all is that what's covered in those first eleven chapters is what I intended to cover in those first three days I would have been with you all. So, this is going to be an opportunity us to find out how well the book imparts the information and I'll be really interested to find out, maybe I don't need to be doing that and that would be fine.
Joe: I would rather have you than the book.
David: [laughter] Oh, there's an apple for the teacher. [laughter]
Joe: I don't need to read the chapters, you can just give me an "A" on my pop quiz. [laughter]
David: You know, obviously, there are things that we are going to be able to do together that you're not going to get from a book but it will be interesting to find out how much you can get from the book. But in any case, that is where we are and that is what I want you to do, to read those chapters.
Gerald: I'm curious, how many of these courses have you taught; like you're doing a piece and then you're leaving and then doing stuff in between?
David: Most of the Modeling courses have been that way. Oh yeah, almost all of them have been done that way, there's only been a couple of exceptions. Um, this is, I think, the way to do it because what it does is that it allows time for people to actually use what we've done when we are together in the real world and integrate what we've learned and then come back with what you've discovered and any questions that you have. But, we've never had a book before to use and a DVD, that's different.
Adam: David, my comment before was that the beauty of the difference in the time period is, that's the importance of having the study group and the teleconferences because it means that in that time we can work on the stuff you teach us and then we can come up with wonderful questions to ask you.
David: Yeah, and the one thing, that this particular seminar that we all are involved in has several features that have never been true before. One is, the study group, that has not been something that has happened before and it's a marvelous opportunity for people to learn because the fact is that you are only going to learn Modeling by doing it and so the more opportunities you get to do it the more you're going to learn and the faster you're going to learn. The other thing that has not happened before is what we are doing right now, that is it's not happened before that we created a venue for us to get together in between to answer questions and talk about whatever is on your mind about Modeling. So, I think, I'm hoping that between those things and the book and the DVD, you all are going to get far more out of this experience than anyone has before. I think that's inevitable.
Adam: Sounds good to us. David: So, what other questions?
Doug: The question as far as with the book and the study group is should we, as we get together, should we go though, say like chapter four and start doing that process, that particular chunk of material and practice that and then continue to the next chapter or should we just try to go through part of the whole Array as a whole?
David: Ok, my suggestion is to, for everybody who can get together, to do your best to read those chapters, up to chapter 11 before the study group and here's the reason, the rationale, what's presented in each of those chapters are the various distinctions in the Array and when you go to do elicitation, it's not the case that the person you are eliciting from, your exemplar, will be presenting you or offering you the information about their experience from just one of those distinctions. That is, they're going to be describing their experience in "T.O.T.E." (note sure if TOTE is correct) and if you have some familiarity with the distinctions, with all of the distinctions, then it's going to be easier for you to make sense out of the information they're offering, that is, when they give you an answer because you know about, for instance, Sustaining Emotions you'll be able to recognize that's rather than trying to shove it into the wrong box, does that make sense what I just said.
Group: Yes.
David: So, I do recommend that you read through those chapters before you start doing the elicitation and that when you do go for elicitation, you go for eliciting the whole Array. You'll find that easier to do than to do it piecemeal. Now, here's the one caveat, or exception to that, if you want to, you could just go for eliciting the Belief Template and just going for that chunk. It is such a, kind of coherent chunk of experience in itself that you can go for eliciting that by itself and you'll probably do all right and it still will be easier for you if you also have the strategy and the emotions and the behavior to elicit at the same time. But, if for some reason, in your study group you decide, "you know what, let's just concentrate on beliefs", that's ok, you can do that, you can just go for the belief template. And, if possible, I recommend just going for the whole Array.
Doug: Any certain chunk size that would be good to start with, as far as abilities, to be more specific, is that better or is it better to just be more general?
David: Actually, I think more specific is better. I think the more specific it is, the better. Particularly, at this size, what happens is as you get to the larger chunk sizes, what you're often dealing with is a whole set of abilities that is being treated as one ability and it would be more usefully broken up into smaller abilities and it becomes, it can become kind of a hornet's nest. Um, but, I'll tell you, so in general I would say, go for a specific ability that you can identify but right now at this level the main thing is to just be doing it. That is, to be exercising those brain muscles around "ok, what did we just get, is that a criterion, is that strategy, is that sustaining emotions" and if you have a specific ability, I think it will be easier for you to do that and to be on target but don't get to much in a swivit about "oh, we got to get to make sure this is really a small chunk". You know, somebody said, "ok, what's an ability you have, Doug and Doug said "Well, I have the ability to bring together the pieces that are needed to make something happen for somebody" I would say fine, let's Model that, that's good". I don't feel the need to break that down to any smaller chunk size.
Tony: I've been thinking about this and Doug and I were talking about this earlier, so then, it's got to be something, as we discussed at class, what we Model has got to be something that can be learned, done by anyone, and can be identified. Is this correct?
David: Yes.
Tony: So, for example, a guy goes to math class and he sees two problems on the board, he gets writes them down thinking they're homework, he goes home and solves one, comes back and tells the professor, "Gee, I couldn't get the other one" and they were example of problems that no one has every been able to solve in the history of Mathematics. I asked, we had a mathematician in our practitioner group and she said, "Oh, a lot of people have done that, they just didn't know that they couldn't solve it". Is that nothing to Model or is it?
David: I would say that's probably not going to go anywhere in Modeling.
Tony: Because it's not repeatable, it's not learned or done by anyone.
David: Right, in other words, it's probably the case. Well, to be honest, I don't know what's going on there but my intuition is that this is not, this is an event, this is an example of an event, it's not an example of an ability. An ability is something that a person can do again and again and again. Whenever they are in a context, an appropriate context, they can manifest that ability. So, for instance, if we are talking about math, if you got somebody who whenever they are given some kind of esoteric math problem, they typically have the ability to identify what's the quickest, easiest way to get to the solution, that's an ability.
Tony: Like over and over and over.
David: Right, if it's an event, you're going to be wasting your time Modeling them. Does that make sense?
Tony: Ok, and so like we had talked, I asked David a question about Ted Williams hitting a baseball, if you were to Model Ted Williams, the man had 20/10 vision so I suppose anything that related to that would not be a fertile ground for this but then there are many, many other things that he did that anybody could have learned
David: That's right.
Tony: Done by anyone, identifiable, repeatable within the context of going to the plate every time, so those would be the things to Model.
David: If we waived a magic wand over Ted Williams and then he had 20/20 vision that do you think that suddenly he would be a bad ball hitter, probably not.
Tony: But he wouldn't be as good as he was.
David: He may well not be as good as he was but there's probably a lot that is true about how he is organizing his experience and behavior when he comes up to the plate or when he's doing batting practice that would be tremendously helpful or useful for somebody else who wanted to become a good hitter.
Tony: In other words, it could be pretty much cut and paste anybody could use it.
David: That anybody could use it, yeah. Yes, indeed.
Doug: One of the questions was about the "Core Dump", and especially when someone is just starting to do the Array and they start to get a "Core Dump" and they have all these distinctions that come out at one time, what would be the way you would recommend for us to start with that?
David: Well, if you look at the book, first of all, you will not find "Core Dump" in there. We've moved on, [laughter],
Joe: Is it possible to define the term?
David: It originally comes from a computer term and it simply means "taking all the information off of the hard drive" and what we use to suggest was that the way to start was to ask you exemplar to tell you how they do what they do and that is to just let them go, let them just talk about how they do what they do and called that the "Core Dump". The reason that we did that was to provide kind of an opportunity to get a sense of what goes into this ability, get an idea of some of the distinctions, just kind of get a lay of the land. I'll tell you the reason that we stopped doing it was folks would get overwhelmed by it, not the exemplar but the person gathering the information. You know, there would be so much information coming out all at once that people often would feel responsible for understanding it and they would just get overwhelmed by it. So, we started experimenting with not doing the "Core Dump" and found it that it seemed to be much better. [laughter] So, I guess the reason you guys are talking about "Core Dump" is because somebody there remembers it from the past.
Doug: Yes, that's correct, from our practicing before the class. That was a distinction that we wanted to know what was different about that so, thank you.
David: So, let me say that I still like it, I do that because it does help me identify where I want to be in their experience, what I want to find out about so on, I just don't think that at this point that this is such a good thing for you folks to be doing, not until you're familiar with the distinctions.
Doug: Ok, excellent.
David: Ok, if you look in the book, on my copy here on page 27 on the chapter on the process, you'll see there is a description of the whole elicitation protocol and that's the protocol to use, that's the sequence to use. It's the same sequence that I follow in the DVD, I don't think I do a "Core Dump" on the DVD, right?
Doug: No, the question was if someone starts, when they are defining or offering all this information up front. That was just a distinction that we were curious about.
David: I suggest that you not make this a part of the process or the rule, that is we used to do that and now I'm suggesting not to do that.
Doug: Thank you, that's very important for us, thank you.
David: I didn't know, I'm sorry if I thought about it I might of realized you might still know about that and be operating off of that.
Doug: The other question is with when we are practicing together in the study group, would it be recommended to have one person do the elicitation and have the group watch or should we break up into groups of two or three and just start working?
David: I think to begin with, [laughter] what I really want is I want to be there with you, [laughter]. Here's what I suggest you do, there is a too many cooks phenomenon that can happen in gathering information, when you have too many people who are trying to gather information at the same time and each person, different people can take the line of questioning off in different directions and that can become a little bit hairy. However, I also think at this stage it's very useful to be working together so that you can help one another work through understanding what you're discovering in terms of the distinctions in experience. So, my suggestion is a couple ways to do this, one way to do it is to have one person doing the elicitation, that is one person who asks the questions, while everybody else is there but when that person finds a piece of information to stop them and talk about that with the rest of the group, did they get the same thing or not. And if they have a different idea about it, then you can talk about "how we should find that out", what questions can we ask in order to sort out what this really is, whether it's the criterion or the definition and then have whoever the person is that's working with the exemplar, that's the person who then will go and ask the question. It's kind of like that exercise that I gave you before where you ask the question and then talk about what you found out.
Doug: Yes, and that was a very good exercise, I'm looking forward to doing that next time we meet.
David: It is a great exercise. Well, you can do that with the whole group. The one thing you want to avoid is having the whole group asking the exemplar the questions. Instead, use the rest of the group as your advisors, they're your advisors, does that make sense?
Doug: Yes, very much so. Irene: Do you mean feedback?
David: Feedback and, for instance, I ask you a question and I say "you know what I just got from Irene is that what's important to her is to understand how to do things, what's the right sequence to do things, and so then I'll say that to the group, "Ok, this is what I just got from Irene" and then the group may go "yeah, I get that but some other people may go "well, wait a minute, that seems to me to be more her Motivating Cause and Effect", let's say, and then we can talk what kind of questions could I ask in order to sort that out, to identify is that Criteria or is that Motivating Cause and Effect. So, you help me with that, the group helps me with that, and then I ask it. This way, by doing this, you really as a group come to grips with what are these distinctions, you get to work together with how to identify them and come up with clever interesting ways to find the information out at the same time because you only have one person interacting with the exemplar, it doesn't go off into all kinds of wild directions. Does that make sense?
Doug: Yes, we like that very much.
David: Ok, I think that would be a very good exercise. Another kind of variation on that would be if you have two people in the group who have the same ability. Would be to divide up into two groups and do the same things we are talking about but, of course, you are doing it in two independent groups. So, you have a smaller group of advisors, instead of six advisors, you've got two advisors. Same thing but then what you can do later on, is you come back together, and you can compare the Arrays that you got independently from your two different exemplars and talk about what are the differences, how come there are differences and make sense out of those differences and discover where the similarities are, of course too. You will learn a lot from doing that.
Doug: On the nights that we have 8 to 10 people, that would be even better.
David: Yeah, that would be idea and again, you know, what you're Modeling, it can be anything in the realm of experience, it can be, ask the group who's here that is good at accepting criticism. [laughter] All you need is two people in the group that say "yes" or who here is good at letting go of the day's activities and relaxing. By the way, you can also go the other direction, who here in the group is not good at letting go of the day's activities. [laughter] and not relaxing, you can ask for two people that do that because again what's really important here in what you're doing together in the study groups and in the Modeling outside of the class as well, what's important here is having the opportunity to perceive these distinctions in somebody's experience and that you can do no matter what the experience is or what the ability is. That's the exercising that we are doing. Any questions about what to do in the study group?
Doug: Just to follow-up, what would be the best way to interact with you from our discoveries in the study group? To let you know what questions we came up with or is it better to email you some of the Arrays to discuss with you or both?
David: Well, I would love both personally, and what I would like, and Doug I'm not sure if something has been set up for this or not, if there is some way for us, for me to receive questions.
Doug: On the message board, ok.
David: That would be fine, however we do it, I can do it through email, I don't care but what would be great is if you gave me a set of questions, then I can give thoughtful written answers which then you all can respond to again with more questions or complaints or whatever. That would be great, also if I could see the Arrays, what you are finding out, I think I can give you a lot of useful feedback on helping make sense out of the distinctions that you are finding and perhaps pointing out some things that would be useful.
Doug: I do have the message board built, I'll give everybody the password and have that completed soon so that's up and running for everyone.
David: That would be great. I like giving written feedback because I can sit there for a little while and really think about how to say something in a conjunct and hopefully useful way.
Joe: It sounds like to me, again I don't fully understand this whole thing, it sounds like to me that we don't have to go out and find an exemplar on our own, we can just Model an ability in the study group.
David: Well, we've been talking about what to do in the study group, that's right, in addition to that, what I'd like you to do is to select something that you are personally interested to Model, that you would like to have for yourself and then, of course, find an exemplar and Model that person, that's something I would like you to do, again I think I told you Joe, you know, this is not school, we are adults and you can do whatever you want. You know, in terms of getting the most out of what there is to get here, that I think would serve you very well to do that and I'm hoping that everybody will do that. I think as I said in my email that I sent out, I would like to receive, I would like to get contact information from all of you so I could call you personally and just chat about what you might like to Model because I think that may be helpful, at least I hope that's helpful. Yes, I would like you to pick something to Model outside the group and if you don't want to do it, you don't do it.
Joe: For myself, I do want to do it but maybe things will be clearer as.
David: Joe, as I said, I think this is something for you and I to talk about. Send me your phone number and when a good time to call and I'll call you and we'll hash it out and hopefully I can help you figure this out and come up with something you feel you can get your arms around and also worthwhile for you to do. Ok.
David: What about from the DVD, folks? I realize that most of you aren't very familiar with the distinctions yet because you still need to read the book but where there any questions that you have from watching the elicitation itself?
Gerald: I have a comment, here are my assumptions, the woman that you Modeled, she's very experienced in NLP and how I came to those conclusions, her ability to access and make distinctions came very easily. She was a very helpful exemplar, how did you choose her?
David: Well, actually, she's not very experienced in NLP, [laughter] she is a gift from God because I had just met her. Basically, how it happened was in a group of people and I said, I'm looking for somebody who has the ability to be passionate about things, "does anybody here know of anybody like that?" and everybody pointed at Kendall and said "she does". [laughter] That was the first time I met her and so I asked her a few questions and I got convinced right away that was true and she became the exemplar. She does have a little bit of NLP training but not very much. She's just naturally one of those people who is very expressive, she is very self aware and spends a lot of time thinking about her own experience. So it's easy for her to talk about her own experience and that made her, fortuitously, I think, a good demonstration exemplar.
Gerald: Yeah, she could sort through stuff and then choose parts of what she was going to say to you and really lay it out there. There reason I brought this up, one of the things we discussed, we thought "ok, this is too easy, she's just laying it out, what would it be like with someone who is an example but doesn't sort through their experience". One of the things that what it tells me too is that I can look for multiple people and
David: Absolutely, you can. It is the case that there are some exemplars that will be easier to work with than others for the very reasons that we just talked about. An exemplar who is not use to thinking about their own experience and being aware of it and is not articulate about their own experience is going to have more difficulty but I absolutely assure you that is not, not a disqualifier, it is not a barrier in Modeling this person. It does mean, it may mean that you need to do a little more work in terms of helping the person get access to their experience, that's what it really means, helping them get access. One of the nice things that you will discover when you do Modeling is that, and I have found this every time including with Kendall, because one of the things you don't know is, of course, my time with Kendall, I worked with her twice as long as what you saw, I cut out a lot of stuff [laughter] but one of the things you will find with every exemplar you work with is that, very quickly, they become educated as to how to be an exemplar, that is they start learning from you, from the kinds of questions that you ask and how you help them. They start learning how to think about their own experience, how to access what to pay attention to. And you will find, I'm absolutely sure of it, that when you work with an exemplar, that as you go through the elicitation, it gets easier and easier for them and they're start telling you what you need to know before you even ask it sometimes. [laughter] Because the already pick up the patterns and they know where you are going and I'm sure you will find that. So, that is true, she is particularly good but don't think that's a barrier, that you have to find someone like that, you do not. It just means you need to be a little more patient and help your exemplar learn to pay attention to what's going on in their experience. Ok? By the way, I glad you thought it looked smooth because we had been concerned, Kendall's actually was a pretty difficult elicitation, primarily because of her strategies being, you know, kind of complex and divided up into those different parts. I thought she was pretty complicated for an elicitation, thank goodness she was also articulate and knew herself well. Otherwise, it could have been a nightmare. [laughter]
Adam: In watching the DVD, I was curious to know that while you are doing this and obviously you've been doing this for so long, it's second nature for you at this point, do you find that when you are writing things down, as you were on the board, that you may of missed something as she was talking, how do you kind of, I noticed when I was watching you as was paying quite a bit of attention to her, just movements and body gestures and tones in her voice, how do you maintain it all and yet also write it all down?
David: Ok, first of all, I don't write everything down, I only write down that which I, for whatever reason strikes me as significant or possibly significant or meaningful, secondly I'm always watching her, even when I'm looking at the board and writing, I keep, out of the corner of my eye, always watching her because she's always going to be giving me information, even as I'm writing things on the board and she's, for instance I'm writing something on the board and out of the corner of my eye, I see her stop, I can see her going inside thinking and I can see an objection coming up or some other alterative and I'll stop writing. [laughter] Because I know, she has more to say or she's going to contradict what she said and I'll come back to her and wait because something's happening. For instance, another instance, I'll be writing something on the board and she's looking at that and one of the things I'm looking for is, as she sees what I'm writing, is she agreeing with what I'm writing? Do I see her nodding, smiling, you know, all of those little cues that suggest that I've got it, what I'm writing up there resonates with her experience. So, I'm always looking at her, even when I'm writing and I think that's important. The other thing I want to say about that is: I do miss stuff, I do miss stuff, [laughter] and you will too. [laughter] Everybody gets to miss plenty of stuff, the good news about missing stuff is that you never miss it forever, that is when we are Modeling, what we are after are the patterns of this person's behavior and experience. If it's a pattern, then it's something that will always be there or keep coming back again and again. So, if you happen to miss something for whatever reason, you didn't recognize it at the time or you were busy writing something on the board or you were lost in your own thoughts, it doesn't matter. If you miss something, I guarantee you if it is a pattern, a significant pattern, it will come back again and again. You will have other opportunities to catch it. Ok, so yes, do be attentive, you know, use all the things we've learned in NLP about calibration and all the other stuff and be attentive but don't get yourself into a twist about having to catch everything, that's not the case.
Doug: For the new people that have no NLP training and don't have that concept of rapport, how important is that for them to either learn about that or what would be the best way to help them communicate and interact better with the exemplar?
David: Alright, you guys ready, I'm going to give you my rapport spiel now, and here it comes: [laughter] The single most important aspect of rapport is being sincerely interested and curious about somebody else. If you are sincerely interested and curious about who somebody else is, I guarantee you will be in rapport with that person, that will happen. You don't have to worry about anything else, matching predicates and all that other stuff, you don't need to worry about it. The only thing that you really need to be is genuinely interested in who this other person is. If one of those experiences that we rarely get to have, that is have somebody be as interested in us as, for instance when somebody is being Modeled, and what you'll find is that when you Model somebody, if you approach it as we are approaching it, that is from an orientation of being really interested in and curious about who this person is and how they do what they do, within seconds or minutes you will be in rapport with that person. Now, I do think there is a period of time where being free to be interested and curious develops, that is right now for a lot of us, we're going to be worried about, you know having our attention on asking the right elicitation questions and getting the right distinctions and so on, so there's this learning period where our attention is so much on the nuts and bolts that it might be a little less attention paid to the person, the exemplar herself. But, as you become more familiar with the distinctions and the elicitation process, you'll find that you will be free, much freer if not totally free to really to put your attention on the person and they will feel that, they will feel that and you will be in rapport with them. This is one of the reasons why your study groups are so wonderful because it gives you the opportunity with one another before you go out into the real world with the unsuspecting exemplar, to work with other people in the same stage you are, that is the stage of coming to grips with the distinctions and the elicitation questions and so on. But, I think you'll find that once you start to come familiar with that, you will be freer to really attend to this other person and once you do that, you'll be in rapport. So, I don't think there's any need to go into and teach these people about rapport. I think it's something that's going to be a natural consequence of what we are doing and going about doing. Ok?
Doug: Ok, excellent. Thank you. Another question that came up was about the difference when eliciting a Model that's going to be presented to teach a group as opposed to doing a Model that you just want to take on an ability yourself. Are there any distinctions that are different between doing one or the other? One the Model is written or is it all the same and it's just the way it's acquired that's different?
David: Oh no, it's a whole different kettle of fish when you are talking about presenting a Model to others. This is a little bit of a big topic and I think a little early for us to be talking about it. Let me see if I can say something simple about that. Think about it this way, when we are Modeling, we're Modeling with an understanding of the distinctions that we are using; criteria, strategies and so on. So, we have a foundation or basis for making sense out of the patterns that we are discovering as we do our Modeling, when you go to a group of people and you Model, let's say the ability to get the attention of a classroom full of kids, let's say that, if you want to teach teachers that ability, you can't go up to, you know they're not going to know about the Array, they're not going to know about all these distinctions, they don't mean anything to them. What you want to do with the group instead is to take the patterns that you discovered that are essential for the ability and think about "how can I make these patterns accessible and understandable to these people who have no background in Modeling, have no idea of these distinctions" and I'm not going to teach them the distinctions, we don't want to do that. So, that's a different way of, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Doug: Thank you for explaining that briefly.
David: Yeah, we will talk about that but, right now, let's just put our attention on the Array, understanding the distinctions and learning how to get out the patterns, identify the patterns and then later on we can talk about, alright, now how do we make this experientially accessible to other people.
Gerald: When we do get to the point, design of experiences, one thing I've gotten very good because of consulting in my job, I get paid to find out what other people think and do well. A vision strategy, that type thing and what you said, the ability of how to have people experience, how you chunk it, is something that we have to do, at least in my business in terms of how I sell products and services and I'll be glad to share my thinking and strategies.
David: Absolutely, you better. [laughter] You don't want to get a bad mark. [laughter] No, that's wonderful, I'm glad to hear that, I think that's wonderful, we'll pick your brain.
Gerald: Good.
Doug: Any other questions from anyone?
David: Well, I suspect that when you get into the actual distinctions, you know, sustaining emotions and criteria and motivating cause effects, then I suspect we'll have a lot of questions about what those things are and how they operate. So, maybe that will be what we get into in our next conversation.
Doug: Ok, Thank you so much David, it was very beneficial tonight. We really learned a lot, thank you.
Gerald: Thanks for making this happen.
David: Oh, thank you, you all make it happen. We all made it happen. [laughter]