Episode 169 - Inside the ESOP Journey with Kris den Besten
Today, we’re talking about ESOPs, which stands for employee stock ownership plan. For businesses looking to transfer ownership of their business, many are looking to ESOPs as a way to keep the culture they’ve created within their company.
We invited Kris DenBesten, President and CEO of Vermeer Southeast, to share his experience of turning his business into an ESOP. He gave us the full scoop on what he and his company walked through, the questions they asked when making the decision, and the reasons they made the move.
Episode Transcript
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Kris DenBesten: One day I was with her all day long, my wife had gone to do something and we had watched TV all day and I just hung out with her like we did every day in the hospital. But when she came, she my wife came to relieve me. I was going back home to actually go to work and do a few things. And she said, How was today? And Grayson said, it was a great day, Mom. Dad's phone rang 12 times and he didn't answer at once. Wow. Here's my little girl playing life in an intensive care unit, and the thing that made it a great day for her is that I didn't answer my phone when it rang. And what that had told me is that all these years I thought I was a present parent. I thought I was. But the phone was always more important than they were. And she noticed that.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast Rusty William, good morning.
Speaker 3: Good morning. Good morning, sun shining where you are?
Henry Kaestner: Oh, very much so. It's an absolutely beautiful, beautiful California day, which makes me think there's probably shining where you are. But, you know, Burlingame, it could be a little bit dicier.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, yeah. You know, microclimates. But it is shining today. And and I'm I'm excited about shining. We're going to hear about shining.
Henry Kaestner: Oh, that's a good one. Where are you going with that? Yeah. It could have gone to the Jack Nicholson movie. It could have gone to a lot of different places. But I'll tell you one thing before we move off the weather and people aren't going to want to hear about the weather. But before I moved out here and so William lives between us in Atherton and before I moved out here, I was used to having a weather report on a TV station, which is this is the weather. Everybody in the Baltimore metropolitan area. This is going to be your weather. But out here, these microclimates are actually a thing. And so actually, it's not a foregone conclusion that the weather will be the same for me as it is for you guys, even though you're 10 miles away.
Rusty Rueff: I actually have a I have a video that I took in my house when we lived in Hillsboro, where it was raining on one side of the house and dry on the other. Wow. And I could walk back and that was a mild climate. But but it's usually, you know, I find it's about a degree a mile from San Francisco down. It's, you know, give or take. But, you know, yeah, it's it's crazy.
Henry Kaestner: But coldest winter I ever spent was a summer I spent in San Francisco. OK, so more to the point of what we're talking about today, we've got a great guest on. And, you know, we've been writing about this theme and there's this image that we talked about recently and just kind of an observation that no one has ever seen somebody wash a rental car unless you work for the rental car company. Right. What does that mean?
Rusty Rueff: Doesn't happen. What's the difference between owning something and renting something? Right. You know, what's the old lines? The fastest car on the road, a rental car. I mean, you drive it is somebody else's neutral driver.
William Norvell: The great sign of that in Days of Thunder, if anybody wants to go back to nineteen eighty eight with Tom Cruise. Great rental car, Jason.
Henry Kaestner: I don't remember that one.
William Norvell: That's where I stopped real, OK? I mean, this is a big day. This might be the end of my FDE.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, that's very good. That's very good. OK, we've got a special guest with us, Chris Den Besten. Am I close?
Kris DenBesten: That's that's perfect. Well, that's
Henry Kaestner: perfect. Thank you. Thank you. My last name is Kaestner and ninety five percent of people mispronounce German and Dutch last names. And so I feel like I've won something. And the reason why we just talked about the fact that you don't see anybody walking around car, of course, is because it has a lot to do with ownership. And so we're going to be talking about a number of different things with Chris today. And we're going to be talking about ownership through ESOPs. We're going to be talking about his personal story. He's got a book that's coming out called Shine, and we delve into all that. Chris, thanks for being on the program.
Kris DenBesten: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Henry Kaestner: So, Chris, we'd like to get an autobiographical flyover of all of our guests and just understand who you are, where you come from, to what degree faith has impacted your life, of course, on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We sure hope that it's impacted at some level. But tell us about your story growing up and who you are, please.
Kris DenBesten: OK. Well, sure. I was born in Pella, Iowa, which is where Vermeer manufacturing plant is in. My dad worked there and when I was three years old in 1967, he was given the opportunity to start a Vermeer dealership in the southeastern United States. So we moved from Iowa and my dad started here in Orlando, Florida, in nineteen sixty seven, our business. So I was born in Iowa, but I'm as close to a Floridian as you can possibly get.
Henry Kaestner: Where did you go to college?
Kris DenBesten: I went to college at the University of Arkansas, which is an interesting place for someone from Florida. I was a pretty good golfer in high school.
Henry Kaestner: Feels like halfway between Iowa and.
Kris DenBesten: Yeah, there you go. Halfway back to my roots. I was a pretty good golfer in high school and got a golf scholarship there. And when I got up there, I found out that there were people that were really good at golf and that I wasn't one of them. So that's what got me to Arkansas. But I did play at Arkansas about the same time as a guy named John Daly who did OK.
Henry Kaestner: Oh, yes. Yes, he did. The great golfer. Not as good on the health food side.
Kris DenBesten: Yeah, I don't think we want to go there, so we'll just go stick with the bull.
Henry Kaestner: One of the great stories of all time. I don't know if some of our younger listeners will remember John Daly, but really did bring in a question as to whether golfers or athletes are not
Kris DenBesten: absolutely what
Henry Kaestner: they are. To be clear, they are.
Kris DenBesten: Oh, yeah. And he was incredible. I mean, to be able to hit it that far and still be a good putter and actually a really nice guy. I know maybe some other things get heard about him. But anyhow, and
Rusty Rueff: apparently a pretty good father I saw him play and that father son thing recently with his son, who's a really good golfer. I mean, it looks like he's on his way.
Kris DenBesten: Yeah, I just heard actually that I actually heard that his son just signed to play golf at the University of Arkansas. So he's following his father's footsteps. Yeah.
Rusty Rueff: Nice school.
Henry Kaestner: OK, so you grew up in a Christian home?
Kris DenBesten: Yeah, yeah. Definitely grew up on a Christian home. I guess would jump in a little bit to the business. You know, my dad started it and when I returned from Arkansas in 1985, I needed a job and he needed employees. So it seemed like a natural fit. But it wasn't really my passion at the time. But I went to work at the company and bounced around. Did a bunch of I say, I've done every job within the company except I'm a mechanic and there's a reason for that. I can't fix anything. So but I grew up after that in the company and it began to thrive a few years after I got there. In fact, it grew from about six million in sales in the early 90s to almost 85 million by the end of the 90s. And that's when I ended up getting the opportunity to buy in and become an owner at that time. So but my dad and his partner were great faith driven entrepreneurs, which is perfect for this show. They were equipped for starting something from scratch and then growing it to a certain point. And what was great is myself and a couple other business partners came in and we were more an organizational builder type group where we could take it and hire people and grow teams and lead them. So we were there during those great growth years and then we were able to take it even farther. And now, just recently, two years ago, we sold the company to our employees through an ESOP, which I know you want to talk about as we go.
Henry Kaestner: Indeed we do. I also want to delve in a little bit just to set the stage and some of the, you know, the personal story with your family and just how that shaped you and the business. And, yes, absolutely. We want to get into, you know, how you made a decision to sell to an ESOP. I think that that's unique. And I don't know. William and Rusty, if we've had another guest on the program this ever delved into that, but before we do that, to the extent you're comfortable with it, share a little bit more about your personal story.
Kris DenBesten: OK, sure. So when I started at the company, I actually had a light bulb moment. I wasn't much of an employee and I heard some of the other employees who didn't know I was within earshot talking about how worthless I was and how I'd never amount to anything and that my dad owned the place. And that's the only reason I was working there. And at that moment, I kind of it was taken a little bit back and realized that they were right. So I won't call it the right kind of motivation or the right kind of vision. But at that moment, I looked ahead and for the first time in my life, I had a vision and it was, I'm going to run this business someday better than my dad. And I wanted to prove to those guys that what they were saying about me was wrong. So with that in mind, I really began to apply myself and work really hard. And I did. I learned all I could about the business, worked my way through sales and then management and then eventually owning the company. And one day I closed the biggest deal in the history of our company. And I walked in to tell my dad about it because I knew my day had come. You know, now I have reached that point and told him about the deal. And I shook his hand when he congratulated me and instead of saying thank you, I said, what's the biggest deal you ever close, dad? And. He thought for a minute and he said, you know, I don't know that any deal stands out, but I think what stands out most to me is that this company has provided for so many families for so many years. And I'm just thankful that God's allowed me to play a part in that. So here I am thinking I've finally reached this vision, this pinnacle of I'm going to do better than my dad. And he hits me with that, which, you know, a light bulb moment, you know. And it didn't happen immediately. But over time, I began to realize that the vision I had was all for myself and the vision that I really needed to have if I wanted to be a faithful business owner, would be to seek a kingdom vision, something beyond just myself and over time and studying the Bible and different things, just trying to think, how do you apply work and faith? A Bible verse stood out. Matthew five 16. Let your light shine before men that they'll see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. And thinking that through it didn't mean that I would do good things that others would look at me. To glorify me, it meant that he would do good things through me that could glorify my father in heaven, and that's the vision that we should have for our work, not I want my work to be about me, but I want my work to glorify him. And what does that look like? So over time, he began to reveal to me what that might look like. And it was pretty neat because my wife, when she was trying to help me, I didn't know how to communicate that vision. I mean, I knew how to communicate a vision like we want to be 100 million dollar company. We want to be known as the best in our region. We want to. But how do you convey a vision like that? And she said, what if you could take that word shine and make it clear that way? And over time, the acronym Shine, which became our company's vision we founded. So it's five key principles that we wanted to show others that our work would look like Christ. What might that look like if he came to work at our place? So shine the five principles of shine our first of all, the S's to serve others because we know the son of man came not to serve himself, but to serve others. If he came to work with us, he would definitely be serving others. The next is to honor God, the H the works he did. He came to glorify his father in heaven who sent him. And we if we want to be like trying to do the same, I is improved continually taking those gifts and talents that he's given us and improving them not for ourselves, but for his glory. And then in his navigate by values, he gives us values in his word, scriptures that teach us how to live. And if we'll navigate by godly values, we'll end up where we need to be. And then finally, the reason for it all is to excel in relationships, to take the relationships that he puts in our lives and make an impact in other people's lives. So it's more of a this is what it would look like to let Christ be seen in your work. And it became our company's vision. It's definitely not a look at us. We shine because we can't possibly do it on our own and we fail at it every single day. But it's what keeps us pointed in the right direction. We want others to seek Christ in us, and we do it by following these five principles.
William Norvell: It's amazing. Chris, thank you for sharing that. I just gosh, every time I hear a story like that, I'm just amazed at the way the manifestation of the Holy Spirit within different organizations, within different leaders. We bring so many people on. And I keep waiting to hear the exact same talk about how their culture is identical to someone else's. And it never happens. It's you know, God is as uniquely worked for you and your leadership group and and your formation with him to give you a slightly different vision, but still obviously using the principles of God. And so that's just so much fun to hear. You know, you've got to introduce to us by great friend Mike Shero, a former guest here, C12, an organization we love dearly. And so I'd love to switch to a little bit of the scale of the business. Could you let our listeners know a little bit about the size of the business when you did sell it to your employees and kind of just a little flyover of what you did and what the organization looked like?
Kris DenBesten: Sure. Well, yeah, as you know, I started where my dad and his partner founded it from nothing in nineteen sixty seven this past year, we did one hundred and eighty five million in sales. We have eleven locations, two hundred and ten employees. So over fifty year period it's grown from from two young men from Iowa to that size. And it's, you know, it's all businesses. We have some good years and some bad ones. But when we did put the ESOP together, we've had a great run over these two years, which is a great thing. And ESOP needs a few years of a good run and we're off to a good start as it relates to that.
William Norvell: Oh, that's great. And could you dove into the ESOP, even the acronym? You know, a lot of listeners are probably here and maybe I've heard that somewhere talk about the acronym and maybe even a little bit what you just said to wow, an ESOP needs a couple of years. How did you come to this conclusion? What other opportunities did you look at? Why did you finally choose an ESOP? So what is it and why did you choose it as the right option for your company?
Kris DenBesten: Sure. Well, ESOP is an employee stock ownership plan. That's what the S.O.P stands for. So I just went over, say, Giani. So that's what S.O.P is. But it's basically the employees retirement plan ended up owning the shares of the company. So it's a great. Vehicle for the right circumstance, so yes, we did look at all the different possibilities, we knew, you know, that it was time to begin looking at succession plans and what that might look like. And, you know, we didn't want to sell it and walk away. We didn't want to turn it over to someone else. That might change our culture, might change the concepts that we had had in place. We had a great team of leaders that had been developed and were there and basically were already running the company. So turning it over to our management team was definitely the way to go. But the most important thing being a faith based organization was we wanted to continue our culture. We wanted to continue the ministry that the company had been doing. And what better way to do that than to turn it over to the people that have been with you and running it for many of them over 25 plus years?
William Norvell: That's great. I love the word you used there. I love the word you use circumstance. So I'm going to be slightly provocative. I feel like when I hear the talk about an ESOP, it just sounds amazing. Every time it's like, wow, that's obviously the answer. Man is really an answer for a Christ driven company. I mean, just obviously. Right. But I know there's trade offs. I've studied the model a little bit and it sounds like you have to and I love the phrase you said that was the great option for our circumstance. Could you walk through, you know, why wouldn't someone do this? If an entrepreneur is listening in, they're hooked and they say, of course, I want to sell my company, the employees. What are reasons maybe they shouldn't pursue an ESOP?
Kris DenBesten: Well, there could be a lot of them. You know, they have a sweet spot at a certain size below, maybe five to 10 million in sales as a little small. That could be one thing. But more than anything, it's do you have the management team in place that can take it not only and continue it, but take it to the next level? That's a key element. And a lot of situations like that, when you have those people, they want to buy in and you might have a scenario where especially if they could come up with the resources that it might be best to sell to your key people. And ESOP is the shares go to everyone. In our case, you know, the business had grown so big that none of our key people who grew up with us had the resources to try to buy the shares. And an ESOP basically becomes your funding mechanism to get that done. And so in that case, it works perfectly. Now, if there were one or two people that wanted to own the whole company that were your key people, they might not be real keen on an ESOP. So that's an area where, you know, it may not work in other areas where the owners just want to sell out for the highest possible sales price they can get. You don't get that in an ESOP. You get fair market value. There's a valuation that takes place. And in order to make it work by the tax codes and things like that, it has to be sold for fair market value. So you have to have an ownership group that isn't trying to maximize the dollar they sell for, but is trying to put the fair deal together. And it works in that instance because you want what's fair for your employees and you want what's fair for you as a seller. You also can stick around in an ESOP and run the company or you can choose to move on. In my case, I had a three year CEO contract and I'm in the third year of that. So we'll see what happens come the end of this year. I'm sure I'll stay on at the company. I may not maintain the CEO role, but so yeah, it's not for everyone but those that is right for it's amazing. And I'm like you like you said before, I was like, OK, what's the catch? I got to hear the bad part of this. I know it's coming because this all sounds too good to be true. In our instance, there was no catch. It was exactly what we needed to do and it worked out so far wonderfully well.
Rusty Rueff: You know, it also has the Esaw program underlying. It really has a lot of amazing values and principles that are embedded. Right. First of all, you're transferring ownership, right? You're giving up something which is also a bit of a power transfer. And at the same time, as you just mentioned, that, you know, your role may change and the company will live on. You're also leaving legacy, right? It's legacy. And I I know you have a personal story that shapes your thoughts around sort of next generation and story about your daughter. And if you're willing to open up and tell that story for us, I think it would be really powerful for our listeners. And also to see into Chip a little bit about really who you are in a holistic way.
Kris DenBesten: Sure. So back in 2008, right after a really nice run up of the business where we had had really grown the business quite a bit, it had really taken off around Christmas time. My then nine year old daughter wasn't feeling too well and she went to the doctor and they said she's got what everybody has just a little virus going around. She'll be fine by Christmas. Don't worry about it, but by Christmas Eve, she wasn't feeling well at all, and we took her back to the doctor and they said, you need to go in an ambulance right now to the hospital. When we got there, we found out that a virus, she indeed had a virus, but it had settled in her heart. And that's a condition called viral myocarditis. And what happens is the virus settles in the heart. The body's immune system attacks the virus and in doing so basically destroys the heart. And people that get this one third can survive with complications. One third need a heart transplant and one third die. So that was our Christmas Eve diagnosis. By Christmas Day, it was clear she wasn't going to be in the good one third of surviving it with complications. And in fact, she was put in a coma and put on full life support. They basically told us there's nothing we can do for your daughter. Her body is going to have to heal itself. And I I'll never forget that moment because. That's when my faith became real, instead of just a I thought to that point, I'm a faithful person, but at that moment I realized how real faith was and what I heard when the doctor said there's nothing we can do. Was God saying only I can do this? And I told my wife, Robyn, that and she goes, that's unbelievable. At the same time, he said that what I heard was she's not in the doctor's hands anymore. She's in God's hands. So together, we got a message of faith that allowed us to get through that moment that no parent would ever want. I mean, you think that's the worst parent moment you could possibly encounter is to hear a doctor say there's nothing we can do for your child. And the Lord just gave us peace. And we began to pray that whatever his will was, that it would be done. Obviously, we wanted him to give her back to us, but we knew if she was in God's hands and she was going to keep her in heaven, that that's where she was supposed to be. A couple of days later, they said there's an experimental process. We can't do it here, but there's a doctor at the University of Florida that's done it. This would be his fourth time. It's a machine that's not approved by the FDA, but they're trying to get their approval of it. Basically, it was implanting this machine that became her heart and it seemed like the thing to do. So we did send her there. She got put on this machine called the Berlin Heart. Basically, it kept her alive. Until she could get a heart transplant and that became a four month wait in an intensive care unit where she survived barely day to day on this machine, and it was the journey of faith. That we just had to ask God every day for enough strength to make it through today. But can I have enough strength to make it till tomorrow? And I'll never forget on April 15. So she had gone to the hospital on Christmas Eve on April 15 is when they said they had a heart that might work for her. And we gathered to pray and I prayed the dad prayer. Dear God, I pray that this heart will be perfect, that everything will work out, you know, wonderfully, be with the doctors, make this be exactly what she needs. You know, God, do what I want you to do. And I think obviously he tells us to make our requests known. I was making my request known. I told him exactly what I wanted as a dad, and it was her turn to pray. She was the last one to pray. And she's nine years old. And she says, Dear God, thank you, that you may have sent me a heart. I pray that it will be the right heart and then it might heal me. But I want you to know if it doesn't work out the way I want it to, I'm still going to trust you. Wow. It wasn't God, do what I want. It was whatever you do, God, I'm going to trust you that the faith of a child and that's that is the kind of faith I know that the Lord uses to move mountains. You know, it's not what we do. We can't move the mountain. But he can move our mountain us. If we'll have a little faith, you can say to that mountain move and it will because he moves our mountains for us. And she did get a new heart and a new opportunity at life. And, you know, that was the year April 15, 2009. She's now 21 years old and actually a couple of months ago got engaged and she'll be married on June five. So really amazing story of faith, of getting through difficult times and, you know. That vision that the Lord gave me, that how can Christ be seen in us at our work? I thought it was all about work, but what I learned is it was really all about life because as we walked through those four months, my wife more than me, she was a light in the pediatric intensive care unit. She was the one everybody knew. It was her daughter on the machine that was temporary, that was experimental, that could die today. But she was singing praise songs. And I called her the kitchen of she'd share her faith every chance she got with his parents in an intensive care unit. They're looking for something. And, you know, our lights most needed, not when we're standing on the mountaintop saying, look at my business, how much is glorifying God. But when we're walking through the darkest, roughest places, that that's when the lights needed the most. And that's when we're really called the shine is in the darkness, more so than on the mountaintop. And, you know, just having that vision to make it through that rough time was what a kingdom vision is all about. You know, like I said earlier. It's easy to have a personal vision or a company vision, but to have a kingdom vision, you know, how can I make it through every day? How can I let others see you and me? It's made all the difference.
Rusty Rueff: Thank you for sharing that. You know, as we record this, you know, we're in the beginning of twenty, twenty one and we're in a time of extraordinary loss of loved ones. People are losing people unnaturally at this point because of the pandemic. And I think your words, you know, and your faith journey there just so encouraging. And the testimony of your daughter, I mean, don't we all wish we could have that, you know, that level of faith? Just amazing. Just amazing. I'm going to bring it back to your leadership and your shine principles, and that will let William close us off. But, you know, post that moment in 2009. You know how that changed, Chris, as a leader?
Kris DenBesten: Oh, man. Oh, well, if you'll also recall, that was a big downturn, so we had lost 60 percent of our revenues and I had just experienced a miraculous healing of my daughter, yet come to a business that was basically failing and needed to make some very, very tough decisions. One evening I remember then just weighing on me and I was sitting with my head in my hands and my wife walked through and she goes, it can't be that bad. And I'm like, it is. You wouldn't believe how bad it is. Some of the things we're going to have to do, we're going to have to shut stores. We're going to have to let people go. We're going to have to do this to survive. And she said, remember when the doctor said there was nothing they could do for Grayson, what did we do? We placed our daughter in her creator's hands, don't you think he'd like you to do the same thing with your business? Here I am, I had just witnessed that, yet I'm sitting there thinking, what can I do? What do I have to do? I'm the CEO, I have to save this now. I had to do the same thing that I did with my daughter. So we placed the business again in God's hands and just said, Lord, take it where you want it. And every decision we made was based on prayer and trying to do things in a way that would honor and glorify him. And, you know, we were as compassionate as we could be with the people we had to let go, but we did what we needed to do and we trusted that he'd bring us out on the other side. And he did. So it changed my life completely. As a leader, but more so and more importantly as a father and as a husband. One real quick story, one day I was with her all day long, my wife had gone to do something and we had watched TV all day and I just hung out with her like we did every day in the hospital. But when she came, she asked my wife came to relieve me. I was going back home to actually go to work and do a few things. And she said, How was today? And Grayson said, It was a great day, Mom. Dad's phone rang 12 times and he didn't answer it once. Wow. Here's my little girl playing life in an intensive care unit, and the thing that made it a great day for her is that I didn't answer my phone when it rang. You know, what that had told me is that all these years I thought I was a present parent. I thought I was. But the phone was always more important than they were. And she noticed that. So, yeah, it. It's those rough times when you grow the most, it's those times when you have to rely on the Lord, where you grow the most, and he shows you how to live and how to, you know, not only how to run a business, but how to be a present father, how to be a present husband. So it was the biggest crucible of my life, but also the biggest growing moment of faith.
Rusty Rueff: So, hey, I just want to encourage you. Thank you for shining. Thank you for shining.
William Norvell: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing with our audience and then with us just kind of where God's taken you and how he's continued to walk with you and teach you and show you new parts of his faithfulness. So thank you for walking through that with us. And as we come to a close on our podcast and invite you to share maybe a little more, and what we love to do at the end is, is ask where God's word may be coming alive to you. And, you know, it could be today, could be in the season, but just kind of share what part of God's word and his scripture, you know, you might be meditating on today and share that with our listeners.
Kris DenBesten: While sure. As you know, Matthew 516 is my life. First, let your light shine me for others if they'll see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. It's what carried me through my business time, carried me through that time with my daughter, and it will continue to carry me through. But as as we've spoken today, I've been two years now of where I, I basically gave up my business. It was what defined me for all these years. And when you turn it over to your employees, you know, I had a time there where I was like, now what? You know, I did the best I could to bring the team along and train my replacement and all that. And when we got there, I was like, they don't need me anymore. Now, why it should have been yay, they don't need me anymore, I've done what I was supposed to do, but now it was a little bit of I don't know what now, but over the last couple of years, the Lord's been showing me that, you know, to just continue to use my experiences and the gifts he's given me and and the talents and use them for his glory. And he's provided some opportunities to use that through ministry and and help others to do workplace ministry, help others to understand that their business is indeed their platform to do ministry. So I wanted to continue to shine in whatever the Lord has in front of me. We're not just defined by the business we ran. We're defined by the life he gives us to live. And we're only given one life. So if we can shine at work, we can shine at home, we can shine in the community. That's what we're called to are called to shine where he plants us. So that would be the journey now is wherever that may lead. I want to be led by his life.