Willingness Found in the Fact That the Message Is Not the Messenger – Jay S.

Help me welcome tonight's speaker, a great friend from Sedona, Arizona, J.S. Good evening, friends. My name is J. Stennett and I'm an alcoholic. And God's doing for me today what I couldn't do for myself because it's running on 730 on a Thursday night and I haven't had anything to drink yet today, which is a very, very odd occurrence for an alcoholic in my variety. I'd like to thank Dan for inviting me down and it's delightful to spend time with him and his wife and I always enjoy being surrounded by people that I had the great fortune to learn about this thing that we call Alcoholics Anonymous, listening to and seeing friends that I haven'T seen in a while. I came to you on the second day of May in 1979, and although I found it necessary on a lot of occasions, I haven't taken the front drink, sniffed any glue, or done any of those other things that I found to be so consoling. So I just want you to know that it is possible to stay here a moment at a time. If that be your story, it's great, and if it's not, no big deal. But this moment is the moment that we share. This is the Moment That We're Sober. So I was living in my Pinto. For the younger folks here, it was a smart car that Ford made in the 70s for alcoholics. It's highly flammable, just like its occupant. And I'd been arrested again. It was the third time in a nine-week period I was arrested for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Now that was not special, I was always intoxicated and I got out of jail and my father was kind enough over a vodka rocks to say to me do you think you have the disease? And I looked at him and that still small voice inside of me said pay really close attention he might pay for the lawyer so I said uh and he said well I got somebody I want you to talk to and so he said you can stay with my mother so I went to my grandmother's house in El Segundo and two days later I met this guy at the Howard Johnson in Culver City and he says he said meet me there at 7.30 in the morning don't have anything to drink and don't smoke any of that crap either how did he know and I sat there and he started talking about himself and talking about myself he had problems in his life met Alcoholics Anonymous and he didn't have any problems anymore and he's talking about himself I just couldn't stand him after about 25 minutes I realized he wasn't closing me and so I figured I'll give him a prompt I said do I need psychiatric treatment do I require religion I said do I need hospitalization and he looked at me and he said listen kid he said a hospital program will cost about three grand if you or your family can get a hold of three thousand dollars my suggestion is that you go out and drink that money up and when you're done call Alcoholics Anonymous they do it for fun and for free. Now this blew my mind and then he got up and he said, if you want AA it's in the white pages of the phone book. Good luck kid. Go after it the way you went after your drugs and your alcohol. And he left. He didn't take me by the hand and walk me into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was just like, if you want it, kid, go find it. And I went home to my grandmother's house and I made myself a drink. It was a water glass full of Davies County old-fashioned Kentucky bourbon with three ice cubes and I knocked that puppy down and I called AlcoholicsAnonymous. And that was the second day of May in 1979. mind. Now, it's interesting to me that that guy didn't take me to a meeting. He didn't bring me out and introduce me to you. He talked to me in a language that I understood, very direct and not very emotionally involved. Later on, I found out that that man had 10 years of sobriety at one point. And at another point, he had 15 years of sobriete. And the day that he and I had breakfast, he was not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then it had not been for a couple years. And he never came back to Alcoholics Anonymous, but that man saved my life. It's the message. It is not the messenger. And I ended up at a noon meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I showed up there fashionably late and everybody in the meeting started talking at me. Now, I couldn't understand why they were talking at me, but when I'm busy, my fingernails are all about out to here. My hair, when it's long, I kind of look like the Sphinx and I had the Zup Zups because I hadn't had enough to drink yet. And the third guy that talked was a guy by the name of Butcher Joe. Joe Hacker. He was a butcher named Hacker, and you can always tell, Butcher Joe. And he talked about when the family left, how he cried the big crocodile tears, and inside he goes, yes! Now we can drink, and there and anybody that's going to get in our way. And I understood that. And then he talked about knowing just how deeply to cut himself at work so they could stop and get him the drink that he needed on the way to the hospital. And I understand that. And he looked right through me and he said, you don't ever have to feel the way that you feel about yourself ever again if you're willing to do the things that I've done. And that's why I'm here from Sedona, just to carry that message that you don't ever have to feel the way that you'd feel about your self ever again. Now, I know that most of the folks here, we got a lot of time and all that great stuff and my experience is is that over the course of my sobriety that there have been times that it has been really important for me to acknowledge that I felt really, really poorly about myself because of other behaviors that were going on at one time or another in my life. And that I was able and graced to find groups of women and men who've had recovery in those areas. And so if you're sitting there and you got something that's kicking your ass and I don't care if it's food or porn or whatever the problem du jour may be, you don't ever have to feel that way about that problem ever again. It was very interesting to me. The only direction I ever got financially from my old man was you take 30% of what you got and you save it in 30% and you spend it on your rent and the other 30% you play with. And of course, he never did that. I mean, money in my home was a source for violence. And yet I found a group called Men and Money that met Brentwood for a year and they talked about stuff like that. Really, really helpful. Really, really helpful. So anyway, I'm at this meeting. This guy nails me. And after the meeting, something remarkable happened, something miraculous in my way of thinking. There were four guys that were going down to the Strand, this was at the club in Manhattan Beach, to play cards and watch girls go by on roller skates. and they invited the new man along for entertainment and they explained to me everything that I needed to know about Alcoholics Anonymous. That this is AA but we don't use no dope here. I was horrified. I didn't know that. And we had a, that afternoon, I learned everything that I need to know about Alcoholic Anonymous in that very first afternoon First afternoon on the beach. And I started going to meetings. And I came in on a Wednesday, all day Wednesday, Thursday, went to the meeting Friday. Friday night at the old Manhattan Beach Club. It's not the old Manhattan Beach Club, it's just a club that was in Manhattan Beach. And they had a dance. I don't know, I remember some of you from the dance at Hollywood and up at the women's club. And anyway, so we had this dance and I walk in there and there are girls and they're like the women that are here tonight. Most of them had showers and they were smiling and they are swinging their hips and I realized that I'm 24 years old and I'm never going to get laid again. And I went back down into the pinto that I'd been living in, and I start driving to the Stickenstein. I'm not going to drink, mind you. I'm just going to find a woman who understands. And on the way, on theway, the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous happened for me. The little voice inside of me said, this is not a good idea. Turn the car around. And I did. And I didn't. And I went back, and I grabbed the guy, and I said, talk program to me, please. And this man stopped what he was doing, got somebody else to take the tickets, and got me a copy of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went home that night and I started reading it. And I didn't understand it, but there were pieces that got my attention. And the main piece that got my attention was at the end of the story in We Agnostics, the end of chapter four. And it's the story of Fitzmayle. He was the number three guy to come in in New York. There's a line in there and it says, who are you to say that there is no God? I understood that. And I understood what he did. He got down on his knees and he said a prayer and he had this incredible experience and he never drank again. So I did that. I got down On My Knees and I said my prayer. And my prayer was, I don't know from Jesus or Buddha. I don' t know the Talmud, the Torah, the Upanishads. Just please get me the top. I'll do whatever these dried up old geeks say to do. Just please help me. And there wasn' t any burning bush, no white light. But I didn' t drink that day. And I believe at that moment I'd finished the first three steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was a perfect prayer. I'm with you tonight. The next day, I'm withdrawing. I'm sweating on a Naga Hyde couch, smoking. And a woman walks through the clubhouse and she says, Oh, young man, you're new, aren't you? How can you tell? She says, I can tell you the secret of Alcoholics Anonymous in four words. What are they? Find God or die. Oh, not that. Please. Oh, please, not that. 35 years later, I can tell you the secret of Alcoholics Anonymous in four words. Find God and live. Live wondrously. Live openly. And when I say God, please, Don't hang on it, what it is that you might think it is that I'm saying. All that I am trying to do is use a short word to describe an experience that I've had in this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. I got a sponsor at that meeting. Why? Because I needed protection from people like that. And we started getting together and when I was 22 days sober, I did my first inventory. Was it a fearless and thorough moral inventory using all four columns? No, it was the greatest hits. What needs to be on that first inventory is the stuff that goes around and around and around and in your mind. If there's something deep and dark there, it will get in contact with you later. You don't have to wait for it. Deal with what's there and present now. And I sat there, and a couple days later, and I did it with my sponsor. We went through it, and when we were done, we burned it and said a couple silly prayers, and I was a fully vested member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, he sent me out to start making amends. The first guy asked me to sponsor him when I was 28 days sober. I called my sponsor up. I said, what do I do? He said, Jay, if they're sick enough to ask you for help, you can't hurt them. That is my experience. It's no big deal. There's something that happens far greater than us when two of us are together for the purpose of sobriety. We don't have to worry about it. It's all on-the-job training. I mean, one of the great things, if you haven't read Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, just see what they used to do to each other in those days. I don't think any of us were that creative. Anyway, so I launched off into this thing that we call AA. You know, this is rush season in Alcoholics Anonymous. Rush season starts the second Monday of November and it lasts through the Super Bowl. And this is a marvelous, marvelous time of year if you be alcoholic. Because each and every man and woman in here, there is a life whom you are designed to save. And this weekend or next week may be the time that that person comes across your path. If we're here and we're available for it. One of the guys that taught me a lot about Alcoholics Anonymous, Eric Blore just passed away the other day. Eric taught me that if you have the privilege of taking somebody to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, their first meeting, take them to the very best meeting that you can find. So I used to call Norm's wife up and say, where is he talking? And we'd go drive wherever it was that Norm was talking that night. After Norm Alpey passed it, I used really like the way that Jack Kissel talked about the disease of alcoholism. and so we'd drive to wherever Jack, we'd call Gene up and go wherever Jack was talking. And then he said, and then tell your wife or your girlfriend I'm going to be really busy for the next week. And he said for that seven days go to the seven best meetings that you know of Alcoholics Anonymous and take him and introduce him to the people that you admire at those groups. And if you haven't tried that, it's a great way to pump up your holiday season. It's a really fun thing working with others. You know they're new. They don't know. Just try stuff on them. See what happens. Really. Case in point. I've got this really weird group that I was part of down in the South Bay of Los Angeles for years. The 11-step group. It's been going since 1948. they've just got a little experience and you know the deal there was meditate with them from the gate from the very beginning and so we started doing that you know if somebody would come over to my house I'd force them to meditate if they call on the phone set the phone down for three minutes and meditate with me it's remarkable what can happen it really changes the nature of the conversations and I mean this is the fun thing about this as we go and we change and we work with others and we do different things another fun experience I had regarding sponsorship I was about three years sober and these clowns weren't running around doing AA the way that I thought they should be doing it so I thought well maybe there's something wrong with the way I'm carrying the message I tried being their friends and I tried yelling at them and all this different stuff so what I did was I went out and I took four of the men that I admired most, one of whom was my sponsor in those days, Fred Ellis Fred E. from Culver City who used to sit right over there for years and years and years and Jack Prose and Ken O'Brien and I said, and I took these guys to lunch separately and I asked, what did your sponsor do with you? And I took notes, found out what they did. And I learned some things, you know? And so that's the other great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is that we have this incredible body of experience if we will just ask. And I mean, have you ever met anybody in AA that if you offer to buy them food and ask them a question about themselves, they'll sit there and talk for hours? It's really cheap entertainment, you Know? If you buy them breakfast, it costs a little less than dinner. But anyway, you know, it's a great thing. You know, with the body of experience that's here in this meeting, you know the only thing that I can really share honestly from the depth of me is that dream deeply. Really take the cover off and allow whatever is to use you in whatever fashion and see what happens. I mean, it's really, really odd the amount of wonderful things that can... I mean, it can be something as simple as, you know, every New Year's I ask myself, if you could do anything in the world, what would you do? Because the only limitation that exists is in my mind. There's infinite potential available for all of us in a moment, in this moment. and that more and more it's a thing of learning to walk away from three dimensions and stay more and More on the fourth. And it's not hard to do, maybe a little harder in Brentwood. But 24 years ago I turned my television off and I haven't had one since. I stopped listening to good radio about 18 years ago and the newspaper went about 15 years ago and so I'm never plagued with the things of well if I weighed 15 pounds less if I drove this kind of car if my wife looked like this you know I'm not plagued by that I'm plagued by oh I wonder what's available today. I'm fortunate enough to have a job nowadays where I work as a program director at a retreat house, and three times a day what I do is I literally get up, go out, sit down, and ask that any idea I have of what is going on for it to be removed so that the infinite potential can be available to me. and it's bizarre what happened. I'm inflicting weirdness on all kinds of people when it's just, I mean, well, you know, what do you mean by living in the fourth dimension and all that stuff? Well, best example I can give you recently of my experience. I get invited to talk at a gratitude dinner in Sedona. I like Sedona, I actually grew up in Laguna, I went to high school in Laguna in the 60s and the vibe there is very much the same, there's one road to get through town and all this stuff anyway it's an interesting place so I'm talking at this meeting and as I get down the voice says very clearly to me move here now now the reason I meditate is to distinguish the voice from the voices right and so I sit down next to my wife and I lean over to her and I say I just got told to move here and she looks at me and giggles and says I knew that now I've lived in the South Bay of Los Angeles and been active for 33 years at the time I mean I sponsored Bill C it's bizarre and the level of activity that I've enjoyed being part of this sober community in Southern California. Never even occurred to me that I would leave. But we came home, we thought about it, and went, well, I've had every wonderful experience a sober man can have in L.A. I wonder what's next. And literally, we tossed the keys to a realtor and we headed to Sedona without script or purse. Now, I'd been underemployed here for a long, long time. and we were there three weeks and this opportunity came by about working at a retreat house. Three weeks after that we found a home right at the base of the largest feminine vortex in Sedona and I wonder where I'm supposed to be and it's been an amazing, amazing experience. You know, small town AA I was a little wary but then I remember that it was perfect the day before I moved there very much like at my place of employment if there is a conflict there, I know that everything is perfect there before I bring that conflict to work with me I cannot tell you how much fun I have had in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and also I've had all that, you know, I've had the crash with the first marriage and business problems here and there but the thing is is that we have a gift here that is beyond imagination. I'd like to ask you just for a second to close your eyes and just take a breath and to realize that 80 years ago alcoholism and drug addiction was a death sentence. there was nothing that could be done for it. And then something happened. And we are all walking the earth as love. Thank you. repeat the question absolutely yes thank you for your so I have a question you say that a voice spoke in your head and told you to move to Sedona what do you attribute this voice to is it God honest question Yeah. The question is, you talked about a voice. Was that God? It was inspiration. Now, I use the G word a lot. I'm gifted to be... I'm best described in the book Alcoholics Anonymous as a strange chap with a queer idea of fun. And so I'm a historian of the movement, and I'm very familiar with William James and the varieties of religious experience, although I think James would call it the varietiesof spiritual experience. I've had a number of experiences over the years. And the most important thing about experience as our friend Ward Ewing said a couple weeks ago is that experience trumps explanation. Experience trumps explanation. Now, I had an experience at the 2 Plus 2 meeting in October of 1979 where the entire room left and what came was feelings not words and maybe what I did was so the sudden experiences happen too but we all are heir to having an educational variety of experience It's each day that we don't drink. The heart is more and more useful than the mind. And as you open your heart more and more using the tools that were given here in Alcoholics Anonymous, you can listen to your heart. And so yeah, I said a voice, a voice did it, And that's exactly how I interpret it. But to your question, whether it was God or not, I don't care. The thing is, is that my... I went down a wormhole that's just incredible. I mean, Sedona is a place that was created for people like me to end up in. So thank you very much. Yes? Thanks for your share, but what do you like most about the AA in Sedona? So the question is, what do you like most about the AA in Sedona? You know, it's so much fun because my home group, the Sedona Reflections Group, we meet at 8 a.m. every Saturday morning at the little clubhouse on Stutz Bearcat, is as exciting as any of the home groups that I've had. And the reason is that the mines are open. I think it's that the minds are open, I was there maybe a few weeks and, you know, the meetings are all literature-based because it was a small community. And so each meeting focuses on literature. And there was a woman sharing and she said something about her inner child. Now most of the people in the meeting, I have kind of the team hair color and anyway it goes around the room and there was not one person in that meeting of 50 people many of them have many, many years of sobriety that didn't speak to that woman's share and not one person derided her in Sedona everybody is on a spiritual quest and we're all delighted that everybody is on it and nobody is insisting that it be one way or the other especially in fellowships Yes? How do you find the best way to get present if your mind really starts getting out of control? How do like get back to the present moment? Thank you very much. The question is, how do I find the most comfortable and the best way to meditate? There are two that have been very helpful to me over the years. One's a thing of having a word that I come back to every time the mind runs. One of the things that I think is most important is that meditation, three minutes is a perfect meditation because you can always go back to it. For many years I'd do stuff long and then when I'd fall off the bike I wouldn't get back on because I couldn't. Three minutes. One ofthe things I did a number of years ago was when I said if I could do anything what would it be? It would be to help people learn to meditate And so with one of my mentors, we sat down and we did a website. It's the number 3minutesofsilence.org. And there's a dozen different ways to meditate. I always suggest you pray and meditate the way you drank and used. Just try stuff. See where you end up, you know? And that the only wrong way to do it is not to do It. so there's that another fun thing for just like if we were sitting here is to use the old thing that the cowboys and Indians did about tracking sound and starting with the sound closest to you and then going to the sound as far away as you can carry it that'll get you stretched out but the one that I enjoy most is called the awareness exercise and that's the thing where you start with your feet like your right foot and put all your attention on it and then move it to say your left elbow what happened to your right foot? And whatever it is that's asking that question, that is the thing that we learn to find And if you do that enough, and it's actually on that website is the awareness exercise. There's a little... Dulcy Smith does a great little directed meditation on there. And it's a way to be able to meditate while people are yelling at you. You learn to use this faculty that we all have but that we've never learned to use. Yes, sir? Can you talk a little bit about some of the things that the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous and the founders did as their program before the book was published like praying for guidance some of their literature that they used to pass around and read some of those habits that they created early on That's a long question but one so what were some of the things the early folks did a great meditative practice is called how to seek guidance it's actually on that same 3minutesofsilence.org and what they would do is is that they would specifically sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper it's a great thing for folks that say oh my mind's too busy really? well I'm not good at it do you think Bill and Bob were? I mean those guys were toasted I mean the stuff they drank and the pills Bob had at his disposal? Give me a break. These guys' mind was as torched as any tweaker you're ever going to sponsor. And one of the things that the Oxford group did is they would ask specifically for direction. So you put a piece of paper down, whatever the problem is, and you ask specifically for help with it. And then you sit there and you just open your mind. And the instruction is that you write down everything that comes across your mind, good thoughts, bad thoughts, holy thoughts, unholy thoughts, all of it. You write it all down because in that record there's going to be stuff that specifically, if you do it today, will show you that there is a thread that's running through your life. Now, again, all this stuff that I'm talking about, I'm not saying that this is the truth, but I'm saying it's a really fun thing to try different stuff. I mean, what the heck? We're sober. What are we going to do, right? But you try doing that for about 30 days. Now, they called it how to listen to God, and that makes people nervous. So if you change it to guidance and then you follow it. Now, you know, and the Oxford group used to say, Now, you need to check it. So you check it with another member. You know, the guidance that you got. I'm supposed to take the girl from the recovery house that's coming to the morning meeting to Las Vegas. That kind of stuff. And so you either run it by another member or you say what it is, you know, how does it square with spiritual literature that you know? And how does it square with your duties to your family, your friends, and your community? Yes. Can you talk about your experience with the amends? The experience withtheamends. Thank you. And thank you to the first woman that asked a question. Thank God. Something direct. My favorite amends story is my grandmother Alice. Now, Alice taught me how to tend bar. I just stole a little money from her. And so when I was about three months sober, I went and visited her and I brought her some money and I said, Grandmother, here's some money and I owe you this much and God and Alcoholics Anonymous are helping me to stay sober. And she took the money and she said, What did you say? And I said well God helped me to stay sober and she got up and she bought her purse and she started leaving. I was prepared for a long talk. I said where are you going? She said I don't know. she said about four or five years ago you said that you didn't believe in God anymore and she said I went down and I put you on a list at the church and me and the girls have been praying for you and she says I need to go down and report to them that my grandson has been restored spiritual terrorism it's highly effective Now, we're in the postmodern era, right? You know, a lot of folks aren't churched. No big deal. Spiritual terrorism 102. Because everybody in here knows somebody that's got a problem. And when you walk into the room and you see an empty chair, just walk up and tap the chair and say that person's name. Get three or four of your friends to do it. In 1985, my then-wife Jacqueline got sober. It was one of the most wonderful things that ever happened in my life. And when she got sober, at the moment of meditation at the end of the meeting, we thought of three people. Her best childhood friend, our buddy Jeannie who worked for Hefner's Enterprises and was a cocktail waitress, and a lot of you guys know. and my sister Regina, who was missing in action with her self-employed Colombian boyfriend. Within a year, all three of them got sober. And the two that got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous are consecutively sober today. Get some friends and do it. Just make an experiment. But don't give up. We'll see what happens. What did you learn from Norm Alpe? I'm a door slider. Norm Alope was one of the great speakers in Alcoholics Anonymous, And what he taught me was that laughter. He had a line that said, he talked about the hay shakers, the guys from Bell Gardens, the guys that were working out in the fields and that they were sitting down in the front of the room and they were identifying and they Were crying. And he said, we laugh out our pain and we cry through our joy. And this is the miracle that we call Alcoholics Anonymous. That would be my favorite. Yes, sir? I'm relatively new. Welcome. You started writing down the wormholes and the voice of God and all this little hate for you. Yes? Are you simplistic, tangible things? Am I talking to a margin of my spiritual issue? Simple, tangible things. How many days are you without a drink? A few days, 22 months. Okay, 22 weeks. The wormhole... Did we get the question? Oh, I'm sorry. You talked about wormholes, you talked about the voice of God, you talked abut all this spiritual crap. Can you give me something to do practically to enlarge my spiritual life? Okay. That was the question. The miracle has already happened. Now whether the word miracle means anything or not is pointless. The truth is, is that any woman or man that's in here that hasn't had a drink for 13 days, 18 days, 20 days, something beyond belief has happened. The impossible became possible. You're not loaded. I'm not loaded, every person in here hopefully is not loaded or is somewhere along the continuum of not being loaded. that is the simple thing now given the point of emotional pain that I am in at any given day especially at 22 months because what's happened is is that I used to be able to come to these meetings and I'd feel better when I left and now I don't why is that? well Alcoholics Anonymous gives to us but then we have to become the giver. The most practical thing that I can tell you especially at this time of year is to make sure that you come to the meeting a little early and you look outside the meeting for a guy that looks like you feel or more importantly looks like you used to feel before you got 22 months and you walk up to him and you say hey, how are you doing? do you come here regularly this is one of my regular meetings I haven't had the privilege of meeting you not are you new but hey I haven's had the priviledge of meeting it it fills up in here do you got a seat you don't have to know anything the most important thing that first couple weeks was wasn't the spiritual things it wasn't that I got to listen to Chuck Chamberlain or find out about wormholes or any of that stuff. The most important thing that happened is I was the recipient of kindness and compassion. And that is the miracle of alcoholics and animals. The most spiritual thing that any person can do is to stick their hand out and say welcome. Yes? Thank you. I'm curious about this no TV, no radio book. Yes. First, why did you decide to do that? And why did your wife decide to stay with it? Why would anybody? The question is, why would anybody turn off their television? And then why did you stick with it ? Well, what happened is my first marriage dissolved. And when I left my family, my wife and I had a five-year-old daughter. And I knew that I would not be the custodial parent. I would be with her frequently and I was fortunate enough to have her every weekend for eight years after that. And I know that if there was a television in the house that it would be something that we could go to. that we wouldn't be engaged. And I wanted to make sure that I was available to be engaged with them. But in that, what happened is that after a time, because I do this weird meditation practice, which again, just try the stuff. You don't have to believe anything. Just try stuff. And whatever intellectually works for you, cool. Doesn't matter. Sins of commission, not omission. but what I found is that I got happier and happier and I realized it was because I wasn't listening to people tell me what it was I was supposed to be thinking and feeling and I started to pay more and more attention to what is in front of me who is in the front of you this is what my day is to be the person at the grocery store is what's supposed to there now they've even got screens telling me what to buy or what, you know, things I need to be inoculated against. You know, instead of being engaged with my fellow people. So my purpose is is to open myself further and further to being engaged with folks. And it's great. It's great, I go home to the woman that I want to go home with more than any in the world. My life is an absolute dream because I'm being focused on what is and not what I'm getting told. Thank you.