Susan, welcome to the Get Hired Up Podcast!

Susan Chritton

I'm so happy to be here Maureen. You know, I love working with you. And this will be fun!

Maureen Farmer

It will be fun. And it's been a long time coming. So I would love to start with a few quotes from your book. Susan Chritton is the author of Personal Branding for Dummies. I've got a copy here. And I met Susan, in Madrid in May of 2018. And it was hot off the press at that time. And I remember you talking about writing the book and what an experience that was for you. It's an excellent, excellent book, and we'll make sure that we have a copy of the title or have the title in the show notes. I love this piece, "you can't build a personal brand based on someone else's ideals, if you did, you would be a fake." And that comes directly from your book. And that is really the kind of the cornerstone of all of the work that I do with my clients is helping them. Sometimes I think that they've got to build this thing, and it has to be really sexy, and really, you know, modern and all of that. And there's a tremendous amount of, I would say relief when they find out what it really is about uncovering who you are along with all of your quirks along with your idiosyncrasies along with what makes you you, and so that you can show up in a place everywhere, you can show up everywhere, just being you.

Susan Chritton

Such a relief. I mean, it really is I think that the putting on the persona, and and of course, you and I both know, right that you still you're going to act differently with your family and friends than you would in a work setting. But you should still be you. That shouldn't be that different. Like, if you're funny in one place, you should be funny in another place, you know, again, with a good business behavior and all of those type things.

Maureen Farmer

That's contextual, too. So I think what you're saying is that you be yourself in the context that you find yourself in, in that particular moment in time, right.

Susan Chritton

Right, so how I act with my little granddaughter is certainly...I'm still Susan, but I wouldn't necessarily act exactly like that out in public.

Maureen Farmer

How old is she now?

Susan Chritton

17 months. 

So I do think that that's a really important point that you bring up. And, you know, certainly the piece because I when I first got involved with personal branding, it was actually in the early 2000s. So I was an early adopter of it. And for me, the reason why I got into this is because I'm a trained career professional. I have my master's in career development. I'm a career counselor. I worked a lot in outplacement. So I started that in the late 90s. So working with people in career transition, and I kept saying, Gosh, you know, we we really should be doing work like this with people who are currently employed. Why are we waiting until they're unemployed to do this work? And basically, I was told stay in your lane. Susan, just do what you're supposed to. Yes, yes. It's not really a model I follow? Well, you know, me enough. Absolutely. And so for me when I start learning about personal branding, and through William Ruto, he was my mentor. I went, Oh my gosh, this is the language I've been looking for. That's really doing what I was already doing as a career counselor, working with adults and career transition. So for me, it was really just kind of languaging it differently. Because I've always been a big proponent of how do you be the best person you can be in your workplace because that's when you're going to do well.

Maureen Farmer

So it says here, branding guru, Robin Fisher Roffer believes that personal branding helps you to know who you are, and be valued for it to attract what you want to become more attractive to others to inspire confidence to walk your path with integrity, I love that walk your path with integrity, and to distinguish yourself in whatever field you've chosen.

Susan Chritton

Yes. 

And I do believe that a part of that is, so many people are trying to do what they think is, you know, and again, I should back up, I don't want to say, Oh, do what you love, the money will follow. I'm not. I am a realist in everything I do. But I do believe that we all have talents that show up pretty early in our life, that sometimes people push aside because they don't think it's, you know what other people want or it's what their careers one. But I think what I always am amazed at and at this point in my career I've worked with literally with 1000s of people in their careers, is that even if somebody takes a more standard career, they will find a way to use those gifts somehow in their work. They just almost can't help themselves. And it's the ones who never find that even that outlet, whether it's in their paper work or not, that are just so unhappy in their lives.

Maureen Farmer

And is it do you think it's because they, there's another quote I want to read here, it just kind of came up as you were saying it. The most important ingredient as you embark on the personal branding path is self acceptance, you need to be able to look closely at yourself, to be able to listen to what others think about you, and be willing to grow and change. And there's a lot packed into that those two sentences. But I think going back to what we said at the very beginning, when people understand that they can be who they are, no matter what they're doing, and bring in those natural gifts and abilities and use them with permission and bring that splash of the personality into what they're doing. I don't even think it matters, what they're doing is that they get that I mean, a lot of people say, you know, I'm in this job, I'm miserable. But sometimes it's not the job. It's that lack of self acceptance. And I know because I've been there, I've been through the branding process, the personal branding process, and it's completely different than what most people think it is, I feel, it is a transformation of self acceptance, I really do feel that way.

Susan Chritton

So I'll give you just a personal story on this when I had done the 360 region, I think that's a tool you use, as well as absolutely is is. And I received my feedback. I remember thinking, so what I showed up on that on the words piece and the branding, you know, personas was all enthusiastic, one of a kinder, big personality. And I and I thought Doesn't anyone see that I'm intelligent, and I'm supportive. And I'm, you know, that structure, you know, like, all the things that that I'm supportive to my clients. And they did see that they, they mentioned that in the strengths. And so for me what that said was, and this is that place of self acceptance, as well as is being able to look at yourself, I realized my personality often overshadowed my intelligence, my kindness, my supportive nature, my you know, all the pieces that I've worked hard, too hard to have as far as my support or my structure. And so I had to really work at how do I start to balance those a little bit more, I still want to be me, I'm still enthusiastic, I'm still, right. I'm an extrovert, all those things, but I can't let that overshadow some of the other pieces. So I had to figure out a way to have the other piece of show up and still be the personality that I am. So that was an example just on a personal level of doing that it didn't really change who I was, I just was more thoughtful and intentional about which pieces of it showed up.

Maureen Farmer

I remember you're telling that story before and just for the benefit of the listener, if you're not sure what the reached 360 tool is...well I'll let you explain it, you know more about it than I do. I use it, but you teach the program,

Susan Chritton

So what it what it really is as asking the question in the personal branding process. So in the personal branding process, I'm just going to back up for a minute to get to this is the first part of the process is really looking at who are you? What do you think of you? What's important to you? What are your values? What are your strengths? What are all the pieces and I know you do some other assessments like the disc and maybe the Myers Briggs, all these others data, right about who you are? And you take a hard look at that. Which is all great that because it's the same what do I think of me? What the 360 reach does is say, Well, what do they think of me? So what what is often a problem is you might think of yourself as one way and other people might see you in a different way. And so what this is doing is gathering data from other people. And what I love about it is it doesn't just gather people from work it gathers it from maybe people at your church or people in your I was at my be I'm a beekeeper might be meeting last night, you know, it could be people from all walks of your life, your family, you know, if you want to ask what they think. But what it does, and I love this because it truly is a 360 You can ask anyone you want, what do you think of me? And it asks, you know, what are words that you think of Maureen? What? What are her strengths? What are her weaknesses, what what I and then it also has a projective exercise two of them, where it asks you pick two of the four what kind of car would you be what kind of dog would you be? What kind of household appliance or what kind of cereal? And those sounds sort of silly, but what that does is it catches people off guard and you often get the best responses of all from that. So anyway, bottom line, what it's asking is what do they think of me? And then there's also a place because you do the self survey as well, where it looks at how much do they match up right? And that is where having a good coach is helpful.

Maureen Farmer

Absolutely. And I'm thank you for sharing that story about your own experience, I'll share mine as well. I learned things from the 360 that I didn't know before. But I was not surprised. I don't think anyone should ever be surprised by the 360. Not Not, not significantly, but there was one piece of feedback in the 360, that really did catch me off guard. But when I thought about it, I was, I could see it. So what it had to do with the way I show up sometimes, when I am not in agreement with someone, or I take a different perspective, or, or whatever it might be, there's some conflict there. And the way I'm hearing this information is that it's written all over my face. So I don't I kind of wear my heart on my sleeve, I guess is that that's the way you could say it. And that was a huge gift for me, because that's how I show up with others. And I need to remember that we must honor the relationship first, always honor the relationship. And I don't know whether I was doing that from time to time, it really helped me understand others perspectives of me or others experiences. The other one is kind of a fun one. In my self assessment, I said that I was very adventurous. No one said that, I got no feedback that don't use that word adventurous whatsoever. But that's how I feel sometimes when I'm doing certain things, you know, in business, or stepping out of my comfort zone feels very adventurous to me. So the tool really does help to, and I as I mentioned here a couple of minutes ago, be willing to listen to what others think about you and be willing to change and grow. And that's self awareness.

Susan Chritton

And what I also love about it, where I use it with my clients, too, is that I love gathering the data because it will help us then sometimes write your bio, or think about how to communicate your who you are and what you want to say about that. You can even say I recently did a 360. And some of the comments that came back were blah, blah, blah. So if someone's interviewing, and use that as direct data that you've got.

Maureen Farmer

It helps to validate the the narrative and the expression of the brand, and also brings confidence to to the client because they can then go to an interview or have a networking conversation. And they can refer to the 360, I've just had a 360 Done. And people are quite fascinated by a 360. And then this is what came back, and so on and so forth. So it sort of legitimizes that, you know, description, that self description that you might have during an interviewer or you know, that type of thing.

Susan Chritton

And that's why I think it's good to have a coach, because we as coaches can often see the clarity in it, we can offer a neutral perspective, like even when I got mine back, like it's hard to be neutral when it's you. Like, I'm sure you didn't even those of us who are trained in neutrality, it is hard to be neutral when it's you. So this is where I do think you know, kind of the work that that we both do with our clients are really valuable piece.

Maureen Farmer

Absolutely. And it can be an exhilarating process for them. And it's just a wonderful tool, I have to say it's a great, great tool.

Susan Chritton

So I have a question for you this this came up since I know that a lot of the work you do is helping executives onboard and come in successfully into an organization. So I had a situation with a client the other day and I thought, Oh, this would be so interesting to ask your opinion on is she is at the vice president level. She was talking about how in the in her past roles. When she's come on, she's felt like it took her about six months to understand the nuances of this person gets along with that person. Why did that person snub this person, the inner workings and the politics often of the things that are not said and not obvious. So what'd she and she was saying, to help me do my job better and to just kind of understand the workings. She said, But I came into this most recent job two years ago, during COVID. I have been completely virtual. And she said it's taken me two years to learn the things that used to take me six months some of those relationships. So I'm curious, just to throw this back on you for a minute, what you're seeing kind of in this new, more virtual world, bringing in people at the executive level, what are you noticing about assimilation times that people are having as they go into organizations? Because I'm just really curious, because those are my level of clients as well. And I'm just curious what you're seeing.

Maureen Farmer

Well, thank you for asking the question. I'm curious about, you know, some of the things that she's encountering. But what I would say what I'm seeing is a real appetite for face to face interactions. So like, on the practical level, you know, the clients that I'm working with are doing everything they can and making every effort to get in front of the team and be together on a regular basis, what I would say what I feel is lacking. And what I'm seeing is a lack of understanding of the behavioral styles of people on the team. And at the board level, these are critical, Pivotal relationships that need to be based in steeped in trust. And it's difficult for that to happen remotely virtually, I mean, there are ways you can do it over communication, I think is one mechanism. One of the mechanisms that I recommend, and I practice is the disc leadership assessment. There are others there, I'm a big fan of assessments, because it brings a unique lens into our perspective or a system that we can't see otherwise, because sometimes our behavior is not an indicator of intention, or motivation. So, so I think, you know, we have a process called what doesn't matter what it's called, but it's a process where we administer the disc leadership assessment to everyone on the team, I primarily work with the CEO, and, and so forth, but start with the CEO in in that person gets to understand his or her their, their particular behavioral style, and what their what their natural style is, we just talked about that a few minutes ago, where we have a natural style will be one way with our granddaughter, and a different way in a work situation. So the more you have to pivot from your natural style and adapt, the more energy is going to be expended in doing so. So we always want to be as natural as we can be to your point it you know, in that context. So when the leader understands their style, they can then learn from that tool about the bee, even despite a simple observation, the learner, okay, this person is really outgoing, really extroverted, and they're motivated by interactions with others. It's a very simple concept. But once we do the individual leadership assessments with with each person on the team, do a private debrief with each one of those people. And then sometimes what we do is bring people together to do a group debrief to show everybody where everyone is on that graph. It's been transformational, I have to say, people will say, that was the one of the best investments of time, because now we know the shorthand. We know the shorthand to behaviors, we know those shorthand to preferences. So when I know how a person on my team likes to be managed, or how they like to be encouraged, or how they like to be assigned work, we can honor that relationship by providing those preferences to the members of our team. So we know what motivates them. Some people who don't want the recognition, some people love the recognition in different ways.

So when we know that we can honor the relationship in that way. And then we can make trust based and values based decisions faster, or not to ever compromise quality. That's not what we're talking about here. But your client that has taken two years to get where she would get six months ago in a previous role. Imagine if she had a tool or a toolkit that could help her get to that six month mark faster. Everyone I think is wins there.

Susan Chritton

Yeah, I think that there's so many ways to do that. I mean, I use the StrengthsFinder quite a bit in the work I do with people. That's an excellent tool. But I have also used, you know, many, many others. Yeah, right. Right. Now in the work I do that, that's one I use quite a bit.

Maureen Farmer

It's a great tool I like just because it's very simple. It's a very simple concept. And you know, it's only four letters. And they're the you know, it's it's just an easy tool, but they're all very, very good tools.

So I'm curious about this particular person, what do you think would have What did she say she feels would have helped her get there faster did she say or...?

Susan Chritton

Um, I think some of it was there was not as the clarity in the interview process some of the things that were told to her turned out to be done for rent. And so she's been trying to understand why some of that, and the dynamics of some of the people and the promises that were made. So I think there was a lot of subversive communication.

Maureen Farmer

I would love to address that, if I could.

So, this is an experience that many, many, many of my clients have had, I've had this experience before as well. So in the interview process, and in the selection process before the candidate gets an offer, and even after they get an offer, I encourage them to go through a job offer due diligence process. This is how it shows up. I'll give you an example. Case studies are always easier to to to work with. So I worked with Andrew Andrew was a CFO and a national organization. And he was being he was traveling 80% of the time, and he was getting sick, loved his job. And the company wanted him to move to a new location, he wouldn't go because he had a young family. But he was getting sick. So he decided to apply or to look for a job as a CFO locally, where he wouldn't have to travel. So he was being he was being recruited into a different industry, CFO, very little travel was like a four month process to go through all of the diligence around interviewing and so forth. And the CEO of the company invited him to come in to go for a group dinner. So they went to a group dinner with the team, his would be team and the CEO. And he noticed throughout the evening, that the CEO was on his phone, a lot texting, and being really distracted. And that concerned him. So he reported back to me the next day. And he said, Look, they're going to make me an offer. And I'm not sure what to do. And I said, So what what, what is the issue? He said, Well, I was a little bit uneasy about the CEOs behavior. And since I'm changing industries, I need to have access to the CEO, because there's going to be a huge learning curve. And they want it because they wanted an industry outsider for a very specific reason. And but he would need access to his boss. And so I said, Well, let's let's test it a little bit and see, see what happens. I said, let's ask for a meeting with the CEO and have a sit down with the CEO, and find out what his accessibility will be like how often you'll get to communicate, and so forth. And so he asked for the meeting, it was set up, he went to the meeting, and the CEO was a no show. The Chief Human Resources Officer was sent instead.

So after some very long conversations, he decided he was not going to accept the offer. And he didn't. So he went back to his former role. And his his current boss knew what he was doing and was supportive. He redesigned his job, stay there for another three and a half years came back and worked with me again. And using this process, there was a number of things that went into this process is really testing the offer before you sign it. And I've had an opposite experience where one of my clients tested the offer. So what was really important to him was decision making, he needed to know how he was going to be accountable for decisions, because of a big, big capital project that he was going to be in charge of. And this comes with, you know, experience, of course, but looking at the job description, really testing it in that interview process. So the client went back and said, You know, I would like or the candidate I guess, and my client, but the candidate went back and said, I would like to meet with my boss. And then he tested again, I would like to meet with my skip level, I would like to be able to meet with my colleagues, I'd like to have a walkthrough. This is over a period of two or three weeks, and they granted him everything that he asked for. Okay. And he's been in the job now for four and a half years. Well, and this is after he had had a very, very bad experience. The previous role was not at all what they had presented to him. They told him he would be reporting to the CEO and being reported the CEO was very important to him for for a negotiation for from a negotiation point of view. Because he would have to be able to negotiate some pretty big contracts and would need access to the decision maker fairly immediately. Didn't happen. There was a whole bunch of things that didn't happen. 

So when he went through this process, he didn't want to have to miss like eight, eight or nine months of his of his life wasted in this role, that he'll never get back. Right, you know, so what he got came from what came from that, for him was just a huge learning, a huge learning experience that he had knowing what what he had gone through before. So So now Oh, you know, no job is ever perfect. And it's never 100% as its, its presented, but he was able to test it and test sort of the culture.

Susan Chritton

I'm thinking of a client I work with during COVID. He had been, I think, either the president or CEO of a division of a bigger company. And they did a huge I think that the company was bought anyway, I don't remember why he was why I was working with him. But he wasn't sure he was probably late 50s, maybe, maybe 60. If he was like, I'm not even sure I really want to go back, I want to think about it, he had a place a really lovely place down on the beach. And he had four college age kids. And he said, I really want to think about it. And so he said, but I'm liking working with you. So I want to keep working with you. Because I want to just think about things. So one of the assignments I gave him, which he actually took very seriously, is I said, Okay, why don't you work on your leadership philosophy? You've we've looked at all the pieces of who you are, we know all the right? We know all the right assessments, they submit, how do you how have you been in the cell as a leader? How have you changed as a leader? And who do you want to be next? How do you want to incorporate that all into who you are next. And he actually took it very seriously wrote up, spent a lot of time thinking about who he is as a leader. So a few months go by, he gets called by a private equity firm to come in and take over a company in so part of it was his his place was down in Mexico, his wife was from Mexico. They had family in Texas, but he was from the Midwest. And he got an offer for a company in Texas. He said, I speak Spanish fluently. He said, and I really thought about it, I went in and I talked a lot about my leadership philosophy. To your point, in addition to asking for all these things from a company, doing the pre work, and he said to me afterwards, he said, you know, that made so much difference to me, because I knew what mattered to me. I knew what I wanted. And I I asked the kind of questions to see Could I get to be who I want to be next. And he ended up and he wrote me after he got there. And he said, it's really interesting, I'm really taking this as a whole different workplace and I've ever worked before, was a manufacturing site in Texas. And he said, I really pushing my leadership style all the way down to the line worker. And it's really important to me that I do that. And anyway, it was it was interesting, because it wasn't just the self assessment, or the What do others think of me, and we did all of that. But it was really also him taking a hard look at who he wanted to be, what was important to him, and how would he treat people. And so when he went in for the interview, he asked all those kinds of questions that really could dig deeper.

Maureen Farmer

So what you're doing in that scenario with the client, what your client is doing is really demonstrating his leadership style in the interview, it becomes a it becomes a predictor, it becomes a proxy for how he would be in the role. And as a decision maker making that decision. They would feel comfortable and confident that this is how he would perform at work. This is how he would be at work. So I think those questions are really, really important. That's an excellent exercise to do, because it really demonstrates the thoughtfulness that went into that process that you gave him in that assignment.

Susan Chritton

You know why I love working with senior level people is I don't really care what level somebody's at. But often a person who's gotten to that place has excellent communication skills. They are I'm you know, at least the ones that come to me that I work with, they are salt, they're going to be self reflective, whether they want to that's a piece that we do, right? There's a lot of self reflection, and part of it back to the personal branding pieces that that self reflection helps you not be a fake anymore, not be living someone else's life, not be living something else that is not you. So in the work that I do with somebody, I'm really asking them to stand up and be honest about who they are.

Maureen Farmer

So that they can be congruent with their values and their brilliance in the way that they deliver their leadership and their vision, I suppose...to that marketplace.

Susan Chritton

Well, it also just it's that they know who they are and who they're not. I mean, remember many years ago, this was not at the senior level. I said to them, you shouldn't bring me in if you want to keep things the same. I'll make you crazy. I noticed what needs to be fixed. I'll do it. Yeah. And I said, I'm gonna come up with a lot of ideas. If you're looking to just have it just be the same. Don't hire me. I seriously will make you crazy. And they're like, no, no, we love that about you while they didn't really. But I still found my little niche to create some programs. But that was interesting. I knew myself well enough to know that and to say that.

Maureen Farmer

Yeah, it's so interesting. I was talking to someone. Not that long ago, I was way in New York and this guy, he's senior level and like, you talked about the private equity world. And he was talking about you know, all this psychobabble is how he calls it. He said, You know, I really get it now. I really get how important psychobabble is. And I thought, wow, you know, the notion of bringing in sort of this transformational change, and this, you know, mechanism for performance improvement and optimization, really, for many people is is about the about the numbers and about the performance and the KPIs. when really it's about the relationships and optimizing the those relationships, you know, and, and I know he was saying those things in jest because now of course, he's very much focused on leadership optimization of the senior management team and sees the value in that whereas earlier in his career, he didn't.

Susan Chritton

You've been giving quotes. I have a quote for you around that. So don't over my many years in this work done a lot of work on change and transition, I would say really, that's what I am really good at with people is helping them through the transition. So William Bridges is kind of the grandfather of transitions. He's someone that I feel grateful for I studied with early in my career, he was a in the Bay Area in San Francisco Bay area. So he had this quote and it says, it isn't the changes that do you and it's the transitions changes situational, the new site, the new boss, the new role. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation changes external transition is internal. So to your point with your client with the psychobabble, if you ever want to create change it you have to address the transitions that someone goes on through on the inside in order to make change happen on the outside. It is a both and and so it's not psychobabble, it's not anything but it is a internal process of people going through those changes to kind of basically reboot. You know, if you think of us as computers, right, we're just upgrading our programs that that's a process.

Maureen Farmer

That is excellent. So, say that again Susan. 

Susan Chritton

So transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. Change is external and transition is internal.

Maureen Farmer

I love that.

So look, I just want to ask one more question, because this has come up a few times. And I've been asking many people this, and it is a little bit discouraging to hear but I feel it's a matter of perspective and perception. So I I've heard a lot of people who don't believe in personal branding. Have you heard anything? Have you heard any? What did what are you hearing? Because I've heard this from? You know, a few people over the past little while? What's your perspective on that?

Susan Chritton

I think it's really misunderstood. They look at it as social, social marketing, looking at all the right being on all the sites. And to me, and I think this is the differentiator in working with someone like me and you, Maureen, because you and I have a similar philosophy is that, to me, personal branding is for is guiding someone through the process to take a hard look at themselves to say, who am I? What do I want to take out in the world? How do I use it?

Maureen Farmer

It's internal. It's internal first.

Susan Chritton

And then it's that Okay, now that I know all this about me, how will I communicate that? What does that look like on the outside? And I think the people who are talking about it, which I actually agree with them in a lot of ways is all of this who flaunt Social Branding and all these pieces, which is important, but it has to be done authentically and well. And I think for the people who look at that they go, that's just all a bunch of talking and marketing and hype and, and so they they equate that with personal branding. I think that's the problem.

Maureen Farmer

We had our friend and colleague on earlier this year, Jackie Connolly-Peros and she said the same thing as well as it relates to a lot of influencer marketing and things like that, but I want to assure the listener listening here today that it is an internal inside out process and the people who do go through it, you know, my clients say it's been transformational for them. And they, they really appreciate having gone through the process.

So we're coming close to the end of our time here today. And so I have a question for you. I would love to ask you what has surprised you most in your career so far?

Susan Chritton

Oh, my gosh, my career has been long sets. I've been surprised all the time. You know, I? That's that's a question. I almost feel like I need to ponder a bit. I would say that a big piece, too, is sometimes how people don't learn lessons, you know, like that. There are some times I just want to go. Don't you see that? You know, this is why like cause and effect or also, I mean, I could go on for many things. But sometimes that people that don't learn their lessons, and so then they end up in exactly the same situation, to try and have to learn that lesson all over again. And there are times I really try and help people see what they how to take something that was maybe negative and say, What did you learn from it? Let's not repeat that what what might look different. And I think the other piece is and to end on a more positive note on that. Is that I would say another thing that surprises me is people often don't realize how wonderful they are. All right. I agree with that. I think that people often really undervalue who they are and what they have to offer. And again, like I want to shake them when when they've not learned a lesson. I want to do the same when they can't see how wonderful they are, what they have to offer.

Maureen Farmer

And I say I want to help my clients be congruent with their brilliance and you know who they are from an authentic point of view. So I concur with that.

The other question, it's a fun question. And Maddie, the Podcast Producer and I are putting together a list of restaurants. We're both huge foodies. And so we would love to ask you what one or two restaurants do you like to go to? We will make sure it gets on the list.

Susan Chritton

Oh, there's so many good ones. I live in the Bay Area. So here's what's interesting about that a lot of restaurants have moved out. I'm in the suburbs. So my little town in Lafayette, California. We actually have a taste of Lafayette, where they walk are all around town with all the restaurants. So just our favorite pizza place is called Pizza Antica. But we have some great restaurants in Walnut Creek and Lafayette, California. We're really lucky, I almost can't narrow it because there are so many good ones. And we appreciate them. Yeah, a lot of San Francisco restaurant tours have moved out to our area, which is great.

Maureen Farmer

That is great! And it'll get on to our Christmas time list. We distribute that and that gives people an excellent resource for when they're traveling for business.

So Susan, thank you so much for your time today!

Susan Chritton

Great. Thank you, Maureen. Always a pleasure and I wish you the very best happy summer.

Maureen Farmer

Happy summer to you too!