Today, we're diving into the world of mentorship and wisdom with our guest Jen Fort, who’s all about connecting life's dots and building bridges across divides. Jen brings a treasure trove of insights from her collection of over 8,000 nuggets of advice, gathered through her rich experiences in corporate leadership, mentoring, and her love for travel. We’ll chat about how her journey isn’t just about imparting wisdom but also empowering others to tackle life’s challenges with clarity and courage. Together, we'll explore the power of curiosity and connection in becoming better bridge builders in our communities. So, grab your favorite snack, get comfy, and let’s jump into a conversation filled with laughter, learning, and a sprinkle of fun!

Takeaways:

• Building connections across divides is at the heart of transformative leadership, as we discussed in this episode.
• Jen Fort shared her journey of collecting over 8,000 pieces of wisdom, highlighting the importance of lived experiences.
• The 'Safari Strategy' teaches us to approach conversations gently, avoiding direct confrontation to foster understanding.
• Mentorship can take many forms, often rooted in unexpected life lessons from those around us, as Jen illustrated with her father's teachings.
• It's vital to remember that navigating life's challenges requires empathy and curiosity, qualities that make us better bridge-builders.
• Our conversations emphasized that real wisdom often comes from everyday people, not just the formally educated or renowned experts.

Links referenced in this episode:

• jen-fort.com
• wisdomandwarnings

Foreign.

Welcome to Becoming Bridge Builders, the podcast where we explore stories and highlights and experiences that help us connect across divides and build something lasting. Today's guest is someone who lives in an intersection of leadership, curiosity and wisdom.

Gen 4 brings a high a rich background in corporate leadership, a deep passion for mentoring, and a love for adventure travel that fuels her perspectives on life.

Through her Wisdom and Warnings collection and book series, Jen has gathered over 8,000 nuggets of advice, each one a reflection of lived experience, thoughtful observation, and meaningful conversation. Jen's journey is about more than just sharing lessons.

It's about empowering others to navigate life's challenges with clarity, courage, and connection.

Whether she's mentoring a rising leader or take or tracking through unfamiliar terrain, Jen is always seeking and sharing the kind of wisdom that helps us grow.

In this episode, we will dive into our transformational journey, explore the power of perspective, and discover how curiosity and connection can help us all become better Bridge builders. We welcome Jen to the podcast.

Hey, thanks for having me, Keith. I'm really excited about our conversation today.

I am too. Looking forward to it. So I'm going to ask you my favorite question. What's the best piece of advice you ever received?

Oh my gosh. I got a library of 8,000. How? It's hard to pick just one, but I have to say this one.

This one came when I was building the the Marriage Collection for Wisdom and Warnings and it says find out what makes the other person tick. Ticked and tickled. Because once you know these three things, you can overcome almost anything.

I love that. I have to use that later on. Ticked, tickle and tickled.

Ticked and tickled.

That's great. I love it. I'm curious, Jen, as you think about your journey, you've traveled a lot and you've got experienced a lot of things.

Who are some people on your journey served as mentors or inspiration for you?

Well, surprise my father. That's probably one of the common answers you get. But this is so my dad. I never appreciated his mentorship. While I was in the midst of it, I kind of.

I realized what he was doing after he passed away during COVID because he was. He was a lifelong firefighter, hard worker, never graduated high school. But he was smart, resourceful, he had a big heart.

He'd give anyone the shirt off his back except for his family. He would make us weave the cloth, cut the fabric, sew the shirt and make it ourselves. And he, he taught me what's popular. What.

What is popular isn't always right. What's right isn't always popular. And I, I realized after, well, here's a good example of, of him mentoring me. He took me to an auction one day.

He wanted to teach me how to, how to negotiate in an auction scenario. And there I found this beautiful gaming table. I was like 19 years old, first apartment, wanted this table so bad.

And he taught me how to get my number and bid on things. And somebody was bidding against me, like who's bidding against me? Run up the table like four times more than it should have been worth.

And when they said sold, it was my dad, he was bidding against me to teach me a lesson on how to auction, how to bid at an auction. And I remember getting so frustrated with him because he would do those things all the time.

He would teach us the hard lessons and he would lecture us till the cows came home. But I realized after he passed away that his lectures and his teaching was his way of loving us.

To make sure that we had knowledge, know how and street smarts to be self sufficient. So I think what I got from him was that mentors and love don't always look the same. I think it's a pretty awesome lesson.

It is a great lesson. I love that too. And it's so, so there's such wisdom in that.

You know, if you think about today, we don't always see very many resilient people because we like to make people's life easier. And it's, it's so tempting because like I don't, I don't want you to suffer the things I did. So let me kind of clear the pathway for you.

You know, let me take the, the tractor. Cause I'm in Iowa. Let me take the tractor and plow that field ahead of you so you have a nice smooth ride. But it's like you, you forget that.

It's that those bumps along the way, it's that struggle along the way that turns you into the resilient, tough minded person that you are. And taking away all those obstacles did not make your life easier. It just makes you not appreciate the.

Journey as much right now you say a tractor, he wouldn't do the tractor. He would give us a spoon and say go dig.

That's right. Well, we love our tractors here.

Yes, you do.

Hopefully John Deere will sponsor me. No, I'm just kidding. Go green. Go green.

That's right.

So tell us a bit about your background. Love. Leadership is one of the things I'm really passionate about. I love to pour into leaders. I love people who do that as well.

But Tell us about your background in corporate leadership. What led you and how to become a passion for you?

Well, I have to give the context. So my whole career, I became a single mom when I had two kids. The youngest was only six months old.

So my corporate life comes through the lens of single parenthood. And when you are supporting a family, a young family, you have to do what you do. You have to work the long hours, climb the corporate ladder.

You need a lot of help.

And what I learned was as I kept climbing and the focus became more on results, results, results, the people aspect started becoming smaller and smaller and smaller. But if you think about it, a company is only as good as its people. And when you're focusing on results and not the people, it's not a good thing.

And I love people and I love to support people. So I think that that helped kind of shape the lens of my corporate life was you need the results, but the results come from the people.

And you need to know who they are and connect with them and support them and see them. They're not just a number. And so that kind of shaped the people aspect of my leadership roles.

But then, you know, being a single parent again, we never took vacations. We never. I always had to save vacations when the babies were sick. So I never did any traveling on my own during those years.

But being in the company, I did get to travel abroad for different sales meetings and customer meetings. So I got that taste of adventure in new countries through work.

But it was, you fly in, you have your meeting, you see this beautiful scenery as you're driving down the road, and then you go home. But that kind of sowed a seed in my heart for travel.

So that when I did get to the point where I had more bandwidth, time, money, you name it, the kids were grown. That's when I said, okay, it's time for me. Let's. Let's go out there and explore the world. And it's just been.

Had some really great experiences because of that. So it's. It's people in travel that I kind of shaped through those years.

That's so cool. So what inspired you to begin taking down life lessons and creating, you know, turn them into words of wisdom, warning series?

Because I've, you know, that's. That's a neat thing. I had somebody else on my show does that too. He started out with just looking at something funny he shared with his.

With his leadership group, and then he turned it into a book. So I'm curious, what led you down that path? Of what you're doing.

So I. I was working with a young lady. We were both in our 20s, and she's single mom. She had two little girls that were like two and four really young ones.

She comes into work one day and she says, I'm getting married. I'm like, I didn't even know you were dating somebody here. She had known the guy for two or three weeks, and they were getting married.

And I thought, like, these alarm bells were going off in my head. I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I started just peppering her with all these questions, like, have you ever seen him angry? No.

Like, is he a spender or a saver? I don't know. What's his relationship with his parents? I don't know. What kind of a worker is he? I don't know.

She knew nothing of those building blocks that you need to know before you marry somebody. So I went to lunch that day, and my head was just going crazy.

And I grabbed some napkins and I started writing down all the things that you need to ask each other and things you need to do before you commit to marriage. And what I realized was that when I started sharing that with her, she shut down because she felt very attacked and judged.

I was trying to share wisdom because you don't want to. You don't. You don't want to put yourself or your kids through, you know, another divorce.

And so I realized that there's a lot of wisdom to share, but it's important in how you share it. So I had to think of a less aggressive way of sharing all this wisdom. And I call it the safari strategy. And that comes from our trip to South Africa.

And we went on a horseback safari, my. My husband and I, and we learned that when you're on safari, especially on horseback, you never go at the animal straight on. It's too aggressive.

You're going to freak them out. They're going to run away. What you have to do is you have to come around from the side and make it a little bit.

A little bit more casual and not so direct. So what I did was, for her, I. I just thought, okay, a year of getting to know somebody, what does that look like?

So I built this library of 365 days worth of wisdom and warnings. What you should do, what you shouldn't do for the topic of engagement and marriage.

And it's really sad to say that she did go through with her marriage. And within, I think it was a year and a half or so horrific divorce. It was Just ugly.

And then as I just hit every life milestone, my single parenthood, you know, parenting, babies and pregnancy, all that, I just started collecting, talking to people like, how did you get through single parenthood? How did you get through, you know, having to do grocery shopping with two little babies and no help?

So I learned from myself and I learned from others, like, what their tips and tricks were. And I was like, wow, this is really good stuff.

And that's why when I started, like kind of bundling it in life milestone categories, because every category, every milestone that I hit, I learned on my own. I was scrappy, I figured stuff out. And then I talked to people like, tell me, how did you do this?

And it just blossomed into this beautiful passion project that I've, I think at the last count, I think I've got 28, 29 different categories. And when I got laid off from my job of 20 years, I thought, okay, what am I going to do now?

And I thought, now's the perfect time to figure out the self publishing thing. And that's how I started the book series.

I'm just curious. I'm imagining what it'd be like if I was trying to do that. And my wife already complains that there's too many pieces of paper around the house.

Like, I'm curious is how do you. Where do you collect these so that you know where they are and can access them when you need them?

Because I'd have like 80 different pieces of paper around. Like, oh, yeah, this fits over here, this fits over there. So how do you organize the different little gems you get and nuggets?

Excel is your friend. So I have. So I have a spreadsheet of all the 8,000 plus Nuggets, and then I just have a. I have them gridded out into what category.

So this nugget applies to. It applies to pregnancy, it applies to marriage, it applies to starting over, it applies to single parenthood.

So I may have one nugget that fits in a couple different categories. So I just have a very simple spreadsheet and I just do filters and pivot tables.

I love that. See, now I know. Yeah, that kind of reminds me of my dissertation. I had that. My dissertation.

Then I couldn't always find all the different references, but still. And I had a spreadsheet. But no, that's really neat. How do you decide?

Because you have so many of them to pick from, how you narrow them down to what actually goes into a book?

Well, I like to. The criteria that I like to look at is It's a balance of is it creative, is it useful, is it unique or jaw dropping. So here's a couple examples.

Creative. Right now I'm at the tail end of putting together the wisdom and warnings for the unexpected caregiver.

And I met with someone and her bit of wisdom was, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink, but you can make them thirsty. Like brilliant. I love that. Or a useful bit of advice.

And this comes from the Divorce Mess to Happiness collection about acting on goals, not emotions. And then my favorite one, my most unique or jaw dropping wisdom from the book, the Tips from the Quad, which is the book for the new college student.

And I also have it in the parent of the new college student, the Let Them Fly book. And that is to get a medical power of attorney when your child turns 18.

Because I listened to a story of a mom who sent her child off to college and within the first couple weeks she cut loose, was at a party, she took some substances that she shouldn't have ended up in, in a coma in the hospital. And here's this. Mother has to fly across the country and all she wants to do is love and prey on her little baby.

And because her kid was over 18, she was having to deal with lawyers and paperwork. And because she couldn't make medical decisions. I would have never, ever thought to get a medical power of attorney before sending my kid to college.

That, to me was jaw dropping.

I had this, my talk with my kids too, about that because I realized that that's an important aspect of life. You know, even wills from my 20 something.

So, yeah, it's like you just gotta think about all the possibilities of how life can throw you unexpected twists and turns.

Yeah, it's better to have it and not need it than not have it and need it.

Right, Exactly. Have you noticed any recurring themes from your gatherings of sayings and advice and words of wisdom and warnings?

Absolutely.

I think the theme that stands out the most to me is that some of the smartest people that I know, the most wise people that I know, they've never stepped foot on a college campus. They don't have the MBA, the PhD. Well, there's some super smart people out there.

The best wisdom I get is from the lady next to me in the checkout line, my next door neighbor who just, you know, her, her mom's now living with her because she had a stroke and she's figuring this out by herself.

And so many folks look to the professionals or, you know, the folks that have the degrees and the highly educated folks, but quite honestly, your gut usually doesn't lead you wrong.

There's so much profound wisdom when you just get quiet with yourself and you trust your gut or you talk to somebody who's, who's gone through it, and you just work through those details for how it, how it works for you. Because no people are. No two people are alike. Their situations aren't alike. And it's just, it's so organic when you start having those conversations.

And I just, I love when you're supporting each other and sharing that wisdom. You know, I can, I can share with others, but sometimes it's so hard to see it for yourself. Like, I'm wise for other people.

But some people don't realize how wise they are to take their own advice.

Can you think of the most unique person or place you got some wisdom or warning from?

Oh, the most unique place. That's a great one, I think, you know. Okay, so we, we went to Machu Picchu.

I got married during COVID so I've just been married to my husband for a couple years. And we went to Peru for our honeymoon. We hiked Machu Picchu. We climbed up the side of the mountain to go to Sky Lodge.

And after we hiked Machu Picchu, there's a mountain, a really tall mountain behind Machu Picchu called Hayana Picchu. And we climbed that the next day as well. And there's a part of that mountain called the Stairs of Death that you have to go up.

And they're super steep, they're super narrow mountain on one side and a sheer drop off on the other side. And you know, we're pretty adventurous people. And I was starting to get a bit nervous on the way up.

And there were people coming on the way down and they could tell that I was nervous. And I can't remember, I don't even remember the name of face of the person that told me. I can't tell if it was a man or a woman.

And they just touched my shoulder and said, just keep your eyes focused on what's in front of you. Don't look around. Just focus on what's in front of you and you'll get through it.

So on the side of a mountain in Peru with the Stairs of Death and the sheer drop off, next to me, like 12 inches away is a sheer, sheer cliff. That's where I got my unique bit of information.

Yeah, that would have been the stairs of not gonna happen.

Like, let us add it.

Yeah, I know. I Have a friend who likes to do adventurous things. I'm like, yeah, no, this is a stare of not gonna happen.

Well, you do your. You whatever's on your bucket list that you don't want to do, you give it to us, we'll do it for you. I'll take pictures.

Hey, there you go. That'd be great because I'm not gonna do it. Yeah, that's right. I always joke with one of my friends. It's like, if you see me in.

In the woods camping, it's not because I'm camping, it's because I'm homeless. So that's why. Just so you know.

Okay.

Oh, so think about. I love this because, you know, there's so many, so much of what wisdom we get from people. Which one? I think I would.

I'd ask you would be the most difficult, maybe the most painful words of wisdom or warning you got from the work you've done.

Oh, the most painful. Oh, and how does it go? It was something. Somebody told me this. It was a quote from. I think it was Henry Ford. I think. No. Or no, it was Carter.

President Carter. Something about, you can't help everyone, but you can be something to every.

Oh, gosh, I can't remember what it was, but it was one of those quotes or sayings about no matter how bad you want to help someone, there's just some people that you can't and all. And all you can do is just be there, send them good thoughts and pray.

Because when you want to do something, you want to help, sometimes you can feel absolutely powerless. And I think just that letting go, like you're not going to be able to help everybody the way you want. You just have to sometimes let go.

And I think that's a little bit of a.

At the time, it was a really tough pill to swallow because, you know, coming from, you know, my dad making us do all the stuff we had to do, you know, I kind of wanted to help others and. But, you know, there's wisdom and there's the wisdom in my dad. You know, he's going to make me do it myself and I can't do for others.

I love that. I want to go back to your kind of what we started this conversation a little bit idea of mentorship.

Because I'm thinking of the lady you were trying to help with the. With who was getting married and just met the person.

How do you mentor people in a way that, you know, is received well versus, you know, I got these words of wisdom for you. You trust Me, listen to me, because I've mentored people too. And some of them were like, yeah, I love that, please do that.

And some like, I didn't ask you to mentor me. So how do you, how do you know how you can mentor someone in a way that's received well, I think.

That all comes back to curious questions as opposed to telling you ask, you know, wow, that's really interesting. How did you come up with that idea? I've never heard it put that way before. How did. That's a really unique perspective.

Can you tell me more about that? And when you do that, it opens up the other person to more two way conversation.

Because it feels like the art of human connection and small talk is so lost these days that when, a lot of times when you start having just a, you just bulldoze into a conversation, people get fairly defensive. But if you come into it with questions, then they're opening the door sometimes.

And I use that also with some of my, with my career coaching folks because after I let, got let go from my job, when I got laid off, I now I'm a career coach as well. And when we talk about like networking and having conversations again, the safari strategy, don't go at somebody like head on.

You're going to freak them out. You have to find ways to come into that conversation from the side you make it about a thing as opposed to about them or what's happening.

Just kind of start off easy, get that. Ask a couple of questions, ask them about their perspective. Maybe you need to stroke an ego. Maybe you need to agree on one thing.

When you enter that conversation and you can agree on one thing, you're totally, maybe you're totally on opposite ends of a certain topic, but you can agree on the fact that we both feel passionately about a topic. And then there's that little bit of a common, common bond and you can kind of build from there.

And then you have to start feeling out how they're responding and when they start getting defensive, then back off and it's a conversation for another day.

So tell us about the books in your series. Give us the names and titles and kind of each a little bit about each one.

So I am at four books at the moment. So the first one is this one is Divorce Mess to Happiness. And it is 360. So all the wisdom and warnings are 365 days of wisdom and warnings.

Some advice and a little bit of insight. So divorce myths to happiness. I will say I did divorce successfully from my first husband and success is defined as we're still friends.

When my daughter just had her baby last Friday, we were all there and we're friendly. We're never going to pick up the phone and go to dinner with each other, but we're friendly. We have the whole family together in one place.

There's no anger, animosity. It took a little whiles to get there, but we did a lot of right things.

So I wanted to share that because I feel like more people, you know, there is a way through and you might have to bite your tongue or you might have to make some concessions, but it is so worth it when you can still be friendly or neutral with each other on the other side. So that was the first one. And then I did tips from the quad. Tips from the quad is 365 days of wisdom and warnings for the new college student.

Because when we sent my son to college, because I never went to college, no one in my family went to college. We made a lot of mistakes. So again, I logged all those mistakes in my spreadsheet. And this is the perfect gift for when a kid's going to college.

You as the parent again, you want to give them all your wisdom and you overwhelm the kid. They roll their eyes and they walk away.

But you buy them this book and you tuck it in their box, you pack it, they open it up when they get to school, or you put it under their pillow and they find it and they just flip open to a page and they read about, you know, take advantage of Note cards are permitted during exams. The best seat in a lecture hall is the one on the aisle. You don't have to ask permission when you go to the bathroom.

And then I Did Let Them Fly, which is the companion book for the parent of the new college student. How to let your kid go. How to lay the foundation to let them fly on their own and have that adjustment period go a little easier.

And the one bit of wisdom I have to share, the one bit of wisdom that I absolutely love for the child, the college student is. And we might be too late on it this year, but the college. You want your parents to feel great about you leaving.

So the summer before you leave for college, get involved with something with them. Pickleball league, whatever, dart league. Do something with them in a structured environment where there's other people.

Because then when you leave for college, your parent is still in that league where you have without them knowing, you've built them a safety net of people that are going to know the Kids going to college and they're going to be the one saying, how's it going? Or they're going to say, hey, you're going to be here next Wednesday, right?

So the parents not sitting home ruminating so this college student can do this little head nod and build them this safety net. I love that.

I love that one, by the way.

Isn't that great? And then the, my friends, my girlfriends were telling me I had to do the badass woman. So this is all about female empowerment.

And you know, I think as we get a little older, we all know that we've got that streak in us when we're younger, but when we hit our 50s or our 60s, sometimes you kind of lose it. And I think, you know, you just need to remind, remind our girlfriends that you still got it. It may look different, but you still got it.

And then the next two that are on deck is because you care. It is wisdom and warnings for the unexpected caregiver. And that one's been really interesting to, to pull together. I've gotten some great stuff.

And the other one is happily ever after. The combination of engagement, wedding, marriage and relationships. So they're coming out in the next month or so.

All right, you got one for the empty nester, Because I know that's.

Empty nester. Oh my gosh. Okay, let's play roulette. Let's go.

All right.

Ah. All right, let's go to here. Be available, but keep your distance. Oh, let's see. It's so. There's just so much here.

Make non negotiable plans for something fun to do the day after. Drop off. Book something fun for the day or the week after that. It's a no brainer. You can't cancel it. There's so many.

If you have other children at home, don't smother them because you missed the one. Realize you're going to have your own adjustment period. Don't drink yourself silly. I had a woman say, a woman tell me, she said, yeah, my.

I didn't realize how much I was drinking until my son came home for Thanksgiving. He looked in my recycle bin and he said, dang, mom, I thought I drank a lot.

And it was that moment of, oh, I think I've gone a little bit too far and I'm not being a good role model for my child. So yeah. Yeah, there's a couple for you.

Yeah, I love that. Thank you. So I love to ask my guests this question. What do you want your legacy to be?

What do I want My legacy to be. Let me see here. I want people to know that I want them to. Magic happens. I always say plan, but always leave room for magic.

That magic is going to happen when you step outside your comfort zone and truly connect with people, people that you wouldn't normally run across in your daily life. I want to be remembered for asking questions, brave questions, listening without judgment.

I want to be known for learning from other people's stories and passing it along. Because I always say life's too short not to share.

And I also, because there's so many things, I like to say that there's no new messages, only new messengers. So I want to be a new messenger. I also want to remind people that it's a passion when you do something and keep it to yourself.

It's a purpose when you give it away or you share it. And that's what I want my wisdom and warnings to be, a purpose that I share.

That's great. So this season, on season six of the podcast, we have a surprise question. Pick a number between one and three for your surprise question.

I'm gonna say one, and I'm gonna say numero uno.

Okay. If you were stuck in an elevator and were forced to listen to only one song, what song would you pick?

One song. See, I was gonna say Pharrell with the. The happy song, but I think I would probably like. That would put me over the edge pretty quick. Ah, yeah.

You know what? I probably have to say that I love that song. It just makes you so happy.

I love that. That's so cool. You didn't get the hot dog question.

What is the hot dog question?

The question is, is a hot dog a sandwich?

Is the hot dog a sandwich? When it's in a bun, yes. But when it's in your macaroni and cheese, no.

See, there you go.

So.

But that one's for all my Chicago fans.

But I've got a question for. For you. Because you've got decades of leadership and. And supporting folks. So what's one bit of wisdom that you like to share with people?

Like, what is. What's your driving wisdom? If there's. Go ahead.

So there. There's two. It depends on your situation if you're about to make a bad decision. Okay, I tell. I tell leaders.

Don't set the house on fire while you're still in it.

Okay. Oh, that's a good one.

Because, you know, sometimes we. We don't think about the fact after living this in this mess I'm about to create. So don't do that. And then when I.

When I've tried to help someone and they just don't want to listen, kind of goes back to what you talked about earlier. Like, you can't stop stupid. And trying to fix stupid hurts.

So I tell myself I've done all I could do, and if I go much farther, I'm just going to end up injuring myself. Myself.

That's so funny. There's a bit in the because you care book, the the for the unexpected caregiver. It says you can't fix stupid, but you can medicate it.

Yeah. And what I just heard, I. I added to it, too. You probably heard this one before, you know, about the circus leaving town.

You know, but just because the circus doesn't mean the clowns also left too. So the circus may be gone, but the clowns may still be there. So.

And that's where the not my circus, not my monkeys comes into play.

That's right.

Yeah. No. Oh, my. Good stuff.

Those are my. My three favorite go to's.

Well, I. I think, if you don't mind, I think I'm gonna take that. And when I get to the wisdom and warnings for leadership, I think that you might find that in that collection.

There you go. I appreciate it.

I love the don't set the house on fire when you're still in it. That's definitely making it into the about.

Well, I met so many leaders who, like, I had one particular leader who was going to have a very contentious.

Well, he was in the middle of a controversy and he was going to go to his congregation and was very divided and asked the question, do you support me or not? I'm like, well, what happens if you get a 51, 49 vote? Does that. That doesn't give you. So don't. Don't do that. That's a bad idea.

Let's ask a better question. Let's. Yeah.

Yes. And let's not put it to a vote.

Yeah. No vote. And that's one. That's something in the parenting book is don't ask the question if you know the answer you don't want to get.

Right.

Like, ask it a different way.

Right. Exactly.

Oh, Keith, we could go on forever.

We could definitely. And we'd have another book on our hands. But I'd love to ask you this as we kind of wrap up.

What key takeaways do you want our audience to leave from our conversation today?

I think the keys are don't be afraid to talk to people and always go at the conversations in a Kind way. And if someone use the safari strategy, don't run at someone head on and freak them out. Like, be gentle with the conversation.

And I, I would love to also leave folks with I, I someone gave me this quote that I've had on my wall ever since I was 18 and I'm 58 now, so it's been a long time. And it's from a basketball coach. His name's John Wooden. Wooden Wooten.

Oh, yeah.

And it says what? Okay. I never knew he was a basketball coach. I just thought he was a smart guy.

And it says things turn out best for the people who make the best best of the way things turn out. And that has been my motto. I've lived by that for ever since I was 18 years old. And I think that's just absolutely brilliant.

What's hilarious about you quoting John Wooden is I just had a coach I interviewed a couple weeks ago and he went to go learn from John Wooden, who's a young coach about coaching and read John Wooden's book. So the fact that you quoted John Wood even though you're not a sports person, I thought was hilarious.

So I had to look him up once. I'm like, who is this guy?

Yeah, he was an amazing coach.

Yeah.

So where can my listeners find you and find your books and connect with you on social media?

So, so the books are on Amazon. Absolutely. They can connect with me.

My, my Author website is jen-fort.com but on social media, on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, it is slash wisdom and warnings all spelled out.

And hey, if you're listening to this and you've got some great wisdom tips, tricks, things that you figured out and you want to share, I got 28 categories. Lay it on me and maybe you'll make the book.

There you go. Well, Jen, thanks so much for coming on and giving us some warnings and some wisdom. I like wisdom.

Warnings are also good because we can stop doing stupid things with warnings.

Great conversation. Thanks for having me on. This has been fun.

Thank you.