In this episode of Love What You Do, Doug Shapiro sits down with Christian Giordano, CEO of Mancini Duffy, to explore leadership, culture, and the evolving role of AI in design. Christian shares his “word of the year”, replacement, covering both the opportunities AI creates and the deeper concerns around human purpose and early career pathways. The conversation dives into how strong cultures are built through instinct, humility, and a shared commitment to client service. Christian also reflects on the power of lofty goals, organized thinking, and creating space for others to step up as a company grows.
Welcome to The Love What You Do podcast. I'm your host, Doug Shapiro. These are the conversations that open doors to what's possible when you love what you do. Christian Giordano, CEO for Mancini, Duffy podcaster too. Is this true? It's an honor to have you here. Thanks so much for having me back or on this new show. I appreciate it. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while. There's a lot that's changed in the world since we last talked. Yeah, for sure. And uh, specifically around, uh, just the outlook of the future, the impact of ai, um, and you're such a future forward person. Like this is one of the reasons I was really excited to connect with you. But before we go into the future. I asked you for something, I wanted Christian's word of the year. That's right. And I, I told you what it was, right? I wrote it down. You wrote it down. And I put replacement. So it's funny as you, I think that kind of ties into the future of with AI too. And if I had a little bit of worry about. I'm excited about AI and everything that it does, and before you and I were talking a little bit about stuff that we're doing here, so I think there is some real design and creative and even technical things that AI is gonna bring, but I do worry in the long term about. The replacement of the human right. And we can get into that a little bit. I can give you some examples of some clients there's like surface level replacement and there's like deeper replacement, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. And I worry about my kids, right? And then what if this is happening so fast? What happens? To them in terms of their starting jobs. And, you know, my daughter wants to be in finance and she doesn't really know what that means. I don't even really know what that means. But, you know, that could be replaced by, you know, the starting, the starting salary, the starting job could be replaced by ai. How do you sort of move into those fields? Right? If you, if there's no place to start. Yeah. So that kind of worries me. And do you replace a lot of things, um, that the human experience with AI and then what happens to people? So we, we can get into all that, but, but also on the replacement side, I've been thinking about more of. How do we replace me at some point at this firm? And don't get me wrong, I'm not leaving anytime soon. Uh, I got another 20 years in me here for sure. But I do think about the, the people at this firm. We have such a. An amazing leadership group and sort of who at the end of the day is really stepping up at this firm. And there's been so many examples of that and how the firm has grown beyond way more than what I thought it could be even five years ago. And so how I'm starting to see. A lot of my job actually being replaced by others, right? I'm no longer the sole business development guy. Right. And I wasn't always, it wasn't just me, but I was definitely the main one. Now, there's so many others in our leadership group that are bringing in. More work starting new ventures, you know, getting into new sectors, starting new offices. So, wow. You know, I am starting to be replaced and that's actually in my mind, really awesome. 'cause now I can sort of focus on new, newer things. Do you think that, if any of that makes sense, it makes total sense. Do you think the success, you know, the, the, the, the replacement that you're describing here, do you think it's. Because of the success required it to happen or do you think that drove the success? It's an interesting question. Um, no, I think, I think it had to happen. I think that everybody knew that everyone has a certain amount of bandwidth, right. That even I who work, you know, people think I work 24 7. I don't quite work 24 7, but it's as close as I can get it. Yeah. Uh, I think that they knew that that. The aspirations of what we set in terms of goals for the company, um, you know, 10 years ago and then five years ago and now where we wanna be by 2030. They knew inherently that there's no way that Christian or my other partner Bill could do it all by themselves. Right? Yep. And that everybody in that group has stepped up. And even people not even in that group, sort of juniors have stepped up. They understand the culture of, you know. Being of service to clients, really making sure that, you know, we, we are responsive with clients. Immediately we say yes before we say no. Although we're getting better at saying no in certain circumstances. Not that we take every project or not that we agree to everything a client says, but, but they're the instinct of satisfying the client and making the project great and keeping the client happy, which has always been important to me. Has definitely, I don't know how it's. How it's happened, but it's definitely translated throughout the entire firm, which is pretty cool. I, I like the word instinct. Yeah. Because like, that, that feels like culture. Like you've built something that doesn't need one person to guide it. Now, you know, if you've developed a collective instinct Yeah. We, that's, that's a, that's pretty strong. An example was we had our Netflix client here in, uh, in our office. We were doing one of our big workshops that we do once a month and have for the last two years. And, um, this wonderful designer that's on our team, her name is Grace. Um, she's pretty new outta school. She's probably been with us a couple years now and. She was responsible for, um, what they call the executive outpost buildings, the interiors of them. They, they look like little houses basically. Okay. Um, they'll be used for set pieces, but they'll also be writer's rooms and where sort of executives can go and escape and be in a little quieter environment. And so Grace designed, you know, a lot of the interiors and the main client. You know, who's pretty high up at Netflix. She sort of said to her outta nowhere as she was presenting, well, what do you think? What do you think of this? Which one should I pick? And the way Grace answered that question was so perfect. Huh? She, she gave it as a well. I think both are great. We wouldn't present anything that we didn't think was great, but I think that, and she, you know, gave her reasons why she thought one was better than the other. And then she threw in a little at the end, but it's up to you. You're the client. And I was so proud of her. And, and even the, the client said, wow, that was such a great, I'm so happy with your answer. I'll go with what you recommended. You know? Wow. So I was really proud of that. It was a proud moment for me because I felt like, oh, she, we never even really talked about this. It's not like I sit down with people and go, this is how you need to treat clients and this is what you need to do. Yeah. I think it's just. Become part of what we do, which is pretty cool. Wow, that that is awesome. I mean that you feel like you've got someone that's sort of caught on. I don't know if that happened through mentoring or on purpose or by accident, or maybe she's just really talented, but I'm only, I'm asking that question because you know, if you're a young designer and you're listening and you're on the spot, you know, like what sort of instinct can you build? Yeah, that will. That will help you answer that question and not, you know, freeze up or defer. Yeah. Yeah. And I see it across. All levels here. Right. And especially in our leadership group, right? They, they definitely understand no Christian wants to please the client and not in a, not in a kiss ass way, and not in a way where it's gonna put the firm in jeopardy. It's really because I'm so grateful for clients. It really is a miracle to win a job. I think of every, every job we win is a miracle. Like, wow, they're trusting us with this and it's usually a lot of money. It's millions of dollars and, and in some cases billions of dollars. So that's a lot of responsibility. So I do wanna make sure that we are giving them their, the best product, but we're also treating them the way that I would want to be treated when, if I hired someone to do some service for me as well. Yeah. You know, you, you talked about. How you had these goals for the company. Those goals just really required others to step up. And they have like, people have met the, met the moment. Um, let's talk about lofty goals in general because that's kind of, that's, I don't wanna say that's your thing, but like, as long as I've known you, you know, that's absolutely something that's a part of your DNA set lofty goals. Yeah. Um, let's talk about why, why do you do that? You know, why do you stretch so far? Um, I think it's just because I, I need a roadmap to where I'm going or I, I, I'm a very organized person, right? Mm-hmm. Personally, the way I do everything is very organized. The way I organize my day, the way I, you know, wake up my, my morning routines, the way I work out, the way, everything is very, very organized in my world. And if it's not. I feel very chaotic and I feel like I can't accomplish those things. And even if it's just simple, as I started doing these daily cards where I just write out what I need to do for the day on these cards, and they're more achievable, rather than making a huge laundry list of stuff, I have a, a separate laundry list. Right. Um, that I, I sometimes don't even consult because a lot of it. Happens in the daily stuff. So by keeping myself organized, I feel like I can accomplish a lot more. I don't feel as chaotic in my own head, um, because in my head is very chaotic. There's a lot going on. You know, I'm, I'm thinking about the next thing I need to do and how I'm gonna do it. And, um, so. Being organized is, to me the same thing as setting goals. So, and then setting lofty goals. So if I can make that list of those lofty goals, then I have a roadmap to how to follow them. And so with the firm, you know, we set revenue goals. Um, you know, originally it was 10 million, then it was 20 million, then it was 30 million. You know, now we've got a $50 million revenue goal, and with that are profit lines that are in there and certain amount of people that we wanna hire, certain sectors that we want to go after, and they are ai what we wanna do with AI future, uh, I talk, I have, I have a goal of the Mancini University. Um, which is nice actually. Uh, humans and robots working together. I don't know when this'll happen, but again, it's out there. Right. And, and I feel like if you put it out there and you set those goals and you get the team behind you, they'll rally to, to be part of that. Or they'll have their own goals and they'll come up with better ideas along the way. A lot of the goals that we set when I look back at them, and I, I always do before we do our yearly end of year planning for the following year. I always go back and I collate all the goals and chat GT's. Great. 'cause now I just throw it all in there and it gives me a list. Yeah. Where I used to have to do that manually. And it's funny, we've accomplished a lot of them for sure. Some of 'em, I look back and think, wow, that was really stupid. That was a dumb goal. And then others are, oh, those. They're still, they're still there. They're in the parking lot. Maybe we'll get to them, maybe we won't. Uh, you know, we were hot, we were gonna open up an office in Texas. We were focused, focused, focused on that. And at the end of the day, we ended up, you know, um, acquiring a firm in Tampa. And that's been one of the best things we've ever done. Wow. Yeah. So you never know, but, but I think the idea that we were doing national expansion was on that goal by whatever year we were gonna do it. It didn't really matter that it wasn't exactly where we ended up, but it was important to, to us that we expanded nationally and, and we did, we achieved that. You know, I re I remember you talking about. SpaceX and the goal to colonize Mars and all that and, and how, you know, outlandish that might seem, but the, you put it in a way I'd never heard before, and you said just imagine all the things you'll uncover along the way. Yeah. And I was like, that is, and that's kind of like, just like this Texas description, right? Yeah. It's like, yeah. You, even if you set the lofty goal, you don't get there. Just what are you gonna create just by chasing it and, and the people that have stepped up. Uh, you know, we, we opened up a Phoenix office and we opened up a Seattle office, and those are people that worked at the firm and wanted to do that. So it wasn't, it wasn't as though I said to them, move to Seattle and start an office. It was, Hey, I'm thinking about moving to Seattle. And I'm not sure kind of where that leaves me in my career here at Mancini. And my response and Bill's response was, that's awesome. Go to Seattle and open up an office and let's see what happens. And if it. Doesn't work. You keep working for us and you'll just work out of an office. What's the difference? Yeah. And that's taken off. And same in Phoenix. And Phoenix has taken off. And so that's that entrepreneurial spirit that I love. And without knowing that that's, that you have the ability to do that here at the firm, you, you wouldn't get there. Right. People would just quit. Yeah. Say, oh, I'm moving. I'm outta here. I'll see you later. And we'd never have those opportunities. I mean, I, I love, uh. I, I love your, your take on goals. I love the idea that being organized actually is not different than setting goals. I think that's really interesting too. Just even if you think you struggle with one or the other, if you can do one of those things, you're kind of doing the other, which is pretty cool. Yeah. I don't make resolutions. I don't do, I don't do like new year's resolutions. I make New Year's goals. Yeah. Yeah. And I make the family do it too. I should show you at some point. I, they, the kids make fun of it, but it's awesome to look back. Every year we have it since they were little. And it's broken up into their weekly goals, um, their yearly goals, and then their future goals. And the, the, you know, the weekly ones have, or the, yeah. The weekly ones have started from, uh, you know, make my bed, you know, things like that. Yeah. And now they've evolved to, you know, getting my driver's license and, you know, they've just, they've matured along the way. The lofty ones. Uh, my younger water. My younger daughter had, um, she wanted to slide down a rainbow, you know, awesome. Live in a bowl of candy, you know, dumb things like that, that we wrote down that now are just so great to look at. This is so awesome. Live in a bowl of candy. And, and to her credit, she's like, no, I still wanna, you know, go down a, a, a rainbow. Definitely. Heck yeah. Boy. How would that feel? Uh, that is wild. I love it. Um, all right, let's, let's go future forward. Okay. We will talk about, um, maybe some predictions. What, um, what are you excited about? And then maybe what are you, uh, nervous about? Because, you know, I, I remember us imagining the future together. AI really wasn't mainstream at that point. No, I mean. My whole outlook on things have shifted significantly over the last two years. So I'd love to hear kind of like what's changed for you. Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's so rapidly changing, right? If you, I don't know if you know who Ray Ray Kurtzweil is. Yeah. But you know, he's sort of the father of ai and I heard a podcast recently with him where he believes that the, uh, singularity, which is basically the alignment. Of AI and human intelligence will, will marry one another essentially in by 2029, right? So that's only a few years away. So meaning that you will not be able to tell the difference between human, um, human brain, and AI brain. And so that's, that's both really cool. And as me as someone who's, you know, loves technology and loves those things, and it's also definitely a little scary. Yeah. You know, as I said earlier, I don't know what the future is. I worry more about the next generation of like my kids and how this all kind of comes into play. Maybe it just becomes another tool, right? I mean, maybe it's like the internet, you know, the internet, the. Retail was gonna go away and no one was gonna go out shopping. And you know, I go to Target with my kids and it's packed and the shelves are empty. Right? So clearly it's had an effect, but it hasn't had that big of effect. Yes, it hurt mom and pop stores, things like that. Yeah. But it just changed the way that we do things. And maybe AI will just change the way that we do things and work, but I think it's a little bit more significant than that. I do really think that it's. Going to significantly change the way we work. And I worry for the architecture profession in particular, that we're gonna lose a bit of sense of design. And we've had this, we've had this debate in the office because we've had it happen a couple times where a client has come to us with an AI generated image and said. You know, build this. And so now you look at them, and again, I want to be client facing, client servicing, and, and you say. Okay. What is that? You know, it's a pretty picture now. Is it any different than someone cutting something out of a magazine and saying, I want this? Probably not, but there's something a little bit more custom about it, right? Yeah. And they, they feel like, well, I just did this in the AI program, whatever it is, and therefore you should be able to replicate that as the architect and the designer. And now it becomes our job to. Well either just replicate it and move on or tell them, you know, well that's a nice starting point. Let's, you know, extract what's important from, for you for that design. Let's think about conceptually what might make this better, how it might flow, whatever the design might be. Yeah. And now we're kind of back into the, the design process that we normally have. And then, you know. I think the clicking of a button and the technical drawings are gonna be done is still a ways away. There's so much that goes into the physical representation of how we draw something on a page and how a contractor has to, you know, ingest that price It. Get the materials and then build it. That I think we're a ways away of sort of hitting the, the virtual print button, right. And downloading into a robot and a robot just building it. Right. There's a lot of steps in there. Yeah. I think of modular. Um, modular is an amazing way to build, but it's really never taken off. So many people have tried for probably 50 years at this point. You know, Sears Roebuck had cataloged houses that you could order and it was gonna be modular and hold up and be delivered to site. That never really took off. No, that was a long time ago. And then. We, there's some great modular builders. I've had some on my podcast and they're super convincing. Like that is the way to build, but it's still cheaper to get a bunch of guys that can knock up a sheet rock wall in two minutes and be done with it, right? So there's always gonna be that. Um, so I do worry, I do worry a little bit about the architecture role as a designer. Yep. That it's gonna continuously be devalued. It's been devalued over the years already. Yep. And I think it's just gonna get a worse and worse, and it's gonna be our job to step up and explain what an architect does and why, and why those details are important, and why the experience is important, why the story is important. It's more than just a prompt that gives you a pretty picture at the end of the day. So we've gotta, we have a lot of work cut out for us, uh, as the architect. Yeah. So I, oh no, sorry. Oh, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, but then on the other end. It's a really efficient tool. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of cool stuff out there that saves us a ton of time. There's a program called Test Fit that we've invested in that can lay out a parking lot in a matter of seconds. And if you've ever drawn parking, parking is the worst thing to draw because you get something off by the slightest little bit. You gotta basically start over again and relay everything out. Yeah. This thing just, you drag these, you know, lines all over the, all over the site and the parking's done in two minutes. It does garages, uh, it does more than that. It'll do residential buildings. It'll, you can just drag and move things around. Wow. And it gives you an amazing starting point. And that could save a week's worth of time. Yeah. And now we could really focus on designing that thing. We don't have to sit there and and worry about, you know, did we get this right? Did we get that right? We've got a decent picture as a starting point. Let's now build off of that and start really designing. If we can deliver a project faster to a developer. The developer ultimately is gonna be happier with us. Our fee is gonna be better because, or we're gonna actually save money on our end and make more money as a result, which at the end of the day, this is a business we, we do try to make money and the developer will have their building sooner and occupied sooner, and make more money as well. So I think there's that speed to market that AI can provide for us, and that streamlining of certain tasks is gonna be absolutely invaluable as we go forward. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a window of time where, you know, the, the early adopters like yourself will find an advantage in that. Mm-hmm. You know, um, I don't know how big that window is. Yeah. But I think that is something to be optimistic about. Um, and, and, uh, that was the question I was actually heading towards, uh, earlier was well, uh, you did address the concern head on, and I think everybody shares that. And you know, I feel like there's a lot of AI fatigue. Yeah. You know, like people are tired of the conversation or they're, you know, another conversation about ai, but at the same time we have to talk about this. Yeah. I think we have to talk about it often. 'cause there's never been anything this. Potentially impactful or potentially, I don't wanna use the word harmful. Yeah. But like we, it's, we're gonna all have to deal with it. Yeah. And listen, people work for, I don't know where I learned this, but people work for pay, they work for purpose and they work for the comradery of others. Right. Yeah. And that's basically the three main reasons why people come to work, or at least they did before COVID when you came to work all the time. Right? Yeah. So, uh. To me, you know, and, and, and I definitely work for pay, you know? Yeah. I'm not, you know, I, I, nobody gave me anything. So I, I, you know, I, I need a paycheck every, every month, uh, or every, sorry, every, every two weeks. And then. I, I work for purpose. I really do. And for the people. But, but purpose is really important to me. I love coming to work to do all the things that we talked about, to build the culture, to find the clients, to make sure the clients are satisfied, to make sure that people here are mentored and, you know, expand the business, grow the business, talk about ai, talk about technology, all those things. I, that's all, to me, a purpose. It's a reason why I get up and come to work. It's also, you know. I think it's important for my kids to see, you know, their dad get up and put on his big boy pants and go to work every day and Yeah. And those are, and and same with, with their mom. My, my wife works and that's important. And you work because you enjoy working and you know, I know not everybody enjoys working, but there is a purpose to to to those things. Yeah. And I do worry if AI starts taking away a lot of those jobs, you know, and oh, people are. Right, and this is the purpose. They're gonna be missing that. Yeah. They're gonna be missing that. Right. If there's universal basic income and you don't need to work, then what do you do all day? I, I don't know. It just. For some that might sound great. You don't have to do anything, but I don't know, for me that would be, that'd be tough. What do they say? Something like, uh, you know, a creative mind and, uh, nothing to do is a dangerous Yeah. Is a dangerous thing. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Uh, so we, yeah. We need to keep stretching our minds and, um, that's how we feel alive, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. I asked you. To, to give me a couple questions that, uh, you love being asked, and I thought this was a really good one. What part of your work do you love that people rarely see? And by the way, I love this question because it's such a love what you do. Kind of, kind of question. I'm, and I'm gonna steal that one for future guests. Okay, good. I like that. Um, yeah, so I guess the part that I love that. People don't see, which is, this is gonna sound so odd, is the insecurity and stress that I feel on a regular basis. Oh, wow. Like you, you have to understand that I, I, I've talked about this on a couple other podcasts. I was learning disabled, you know, when I was, you know, in second grade, I got left back in second grade. These things had such a like effect on me growing up that I always feel like I have to do so much more to succeed. And I have a lot of self-doubt in everything that I do. Um, and so, but what I do. I'm good at hiding that in a sense. Yeah. And I use that as a source of strength when I am in a leadership position, when I stand up in front of the entire firm, when I'm in front of clients. Right. I, I make sure I put that somehow in the back of my head, and I use that as, no, I actually can do this. Right. And so I don't go into any situation. Arrogant thinking like I know what I'm doing. I actually go in every situation thinking, oh man, I have no idea what I'm doing. Even before this podcast. I sit down, I go, I don't know. Doug's really good at this. I don't know if I can do this again. So I think that's I, I. I hide that a lot. I do talk about it every now and then, but I do hide it because I think it's important for me to show that I am a leader and that I am confident when things come out of my mouth and that, um, you know, how do you get everyone to kind of, you know, help along the journey. It's, it's by being confident, but there's something inside of me that always has doubt, like, can I do this? You know, I, if I don't have an opportunity. Every day or maybe every couple of days for a new project, I am convinced that the firm is going outta business. Oh my gosh. And I start internally panicking. What, when is the first time you said that out loud? Oh, I don't know. I said it a few years ago. Because like that, that is, you know, that's a tough thing to understand about yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I think I told you I'm in this thing called YPO and we'll do a lot of, um, they'll have facilitators and stuff come, and I think the facilitator kind of sucked that out me, that, you know, oh, you're, uh, you know, you've got all this doubt. I was like, yeah, I do. I just never talk about it. You know, I, uh. In, in many ways I feel the same, and it's really interesting to sit across from you and hear this because you do do a great job of hiding it, you know, on the surface. Um, you do seem so collected and, uh, organized in control. I organized, organized, you know, I, I've thought about my own self-doubt and my own kind of nervousness in a moment. And I began to reframe it to myself. Um, and I, you know what? I, I did it, I reframed it for my kids too, who, you know, feel the same way about, you know, like the seconds before a race is gonna start. Mm-hmm. You know, or, or the days before a race is gonna start, if they're thinking about it, or maybe it's something at school, a test. And I just basically told him, if you're nervous, it's just because you care. Yeah, sure. And then I started telling myself like. When I doubt myself the most, it's usually because I care the most. And it's like, all I'm doing is I'm signaling to myself that like, I really wanna do the best I can. Yeah. And like, that's okay to wanna do your best. You know, like that's a good thing to wanna do your best. I agree. And that's, that's what I think, you know, in terms of setting goals. And if I didn't have that roadmap then, you know, maybe I would have too much doubt and never get to that, that place I wanted to go. Right. So it kind of all for me. Whether it's, I understand kind of why or how it all ties together. And then it's funny you say that about your kids. So my older daughter I think is a lot like me. She, she's extremely smart, which is not me. So she, she's really brilliant, but she definitely will, thinks she's not gonna pass that test or, you know, I'm, I'm gonna fail this test, I'm gonna fail this test. And she usually gets as on tests, you know, or, or even over a hundred somehow, right? With extra credits and stuff. Um. And then my younger one is so free spirited. I'm always so jealous of her. She just doesn't care, you know? Yeah. And, but she's got this extraordinary ability to, at the moment, it's time to, for her, as she's performs and sings, the moment she needs to step on stage, she brings it. That's awesome. And she can turn it on within a second. I mean, she can be a total mess beforehand and unprepared and you name it, yelling and screaming, you know, I don't wanna do this, I don't wanna do this. You push her out on stage and it's like so collected and it's unbelievable. It's the greatest skill ever. I don't know how to transformation. Yeah, that is wild. I love it. Um, that, that was a really fun question to explore with you. Hmm. Uh, I think it brought out something probably most people will relate to. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Um, alright, let's do, let's, let's drift into anti architect because that is the, you know, the anti architect is the name of your podcast. It's also a mindset. Yeah. And that's what I'd, I'd love to explore, like when you say the anti architect, what are you getting at? So I'm getting at, I think that the profession itself, uh, at least a lot of the architects that I've worked with have, they do have that pompous attitude of, no, I am the architect. I am the smartest one in the room. You need to listen to me. I, I, an example I have is that. I, I might have told this before, but we had a designer that worked here and we had a big client meeting and they were talking about a cornice on a building that we were designing. And the, the, the designer said, I will not let you have that change my design on my building. And the owner leaned across the table and said, it's my building. Oh wow. And I remember thinking, yeah, it's your building. Like, dude, get your shit together. Yeah. You know, sorry. Um, you know, get, get yourself together. And it's, it's not your building. You are, you are in service of the client. And yes, we need to absolutely have an opinion and we need to steer the client in the way we think is correct. And whether that, whether we know it's a good business decision or not, if it's a strong design concept, it will, it will stand the test of time and you will get your design decisions across. But I think most architects there, there's an arrogance to them that they, they don't wanna listen, that they think that they know better. Uh, they may know better. They may, they may have an amazing ability to design that's better than everybody else, but that doesn't help our profession. And you get a lot of negativity. You know, you could speak to a lot of clients, a lot of developers, that they have a, a negative. Connotation of an architect thinking, oh, the architect just wants to push their ideas and, you know, gets in my way and I, I need someone to just kind of get this project done for me. Yeah. And do a nice design. They appreciate design, so I think it's some of that. I also think the profession and when it comes to the work culture, you know, I wanna be the anti architecture firm when it comes to that. I want a good culture. And not that, not that all architecture firms have bad culture. Yeah. But there's a lot of them. Yeah. It's, there's some bad out there. And listen, it's not as though we don't work late nights here, or there's not a lot of stress because there's always more you can do. There's always another drawing you can do. There's always, you know, another finish you can find and pick. And light fixtures you can think about and it, it's endless, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we do, we, we, you know, we're pretty aggressive here in terms of how, you know, people stay late, they work hard, they really do. But I try to make it known that we really appreciate. That they're doing that. Yeah. And that if someone does stay super late, you know, the next day, like, please take off, or, or you know, we've paid for people's, you know, vacations. You know, like you've worked so hard, like take a couple days of vacation on us kind of thing. Or just the fun things we do around the office or being normal. I try to be approachable. I try to just talk to everybody and I sit out and have lunch with everybody. Um, some of the smaller offices that we have in New Jersey, I think the people know me even better there because it's a small office. Yeah. We sit right in the open and we're kind of all order and eat lunch together and hang out, and I just want to be a normal person. I don't want to be looked at as the boss. My partner Bill, our other partners, they don't feel like they're the boss. Right. And I think that's important in terms of the anti architecture culture that we're just. Normal people trying to figure this all out. Yeah. We all have families, we've all been young, we've all getting older. We're all figuring it out and, and just wanna be normal. And that's not the case in, in architecture or even architecture school. I, I think about. You know, the, the, the school curriculum, we don't hire from the Ivy League schools. Whether they don't think that we're good enough for them, that might be the case, but they probably also don't fit in here. It's just not our culture. We don't, I. We don't think of ourselves as better than anybody. Um, you know, we have a lot of people from NJIT, phenomenal school. Um, you know, everyone that that comes from there works hard, really is great design work, great technical skills. So again, we're not trying to think we're something else, we're just trying to be normal, regular people and have fun while we do it. Yeah, it's a stressful, stressful, uh, you know, profession. I feel like you, you've brought your own sort of humble. Mindset, you know, into the culture, which I, I love, I love. And the, uh, just the fact that you're aware that, you know, there is a, I dunno if that's a history of, of, uh, or there is a difficult side to the, the, the culture of an architecture firm. Yeah. Um, the fact that you're just aware of that. Um. Is is huge and we're not perfect. Trust me, we're not perfect. You know, I've, I heard a couple months ago that some people did all-nighters and I was like, all-nighters. Who does an all-nighter? Why are we doing that? What's wrong with us? I mean, the stakes are high. Yeah. You know, it's, it's tough. The stakes are high. Like you said, it's, there's a lot of money changing hands. Yep. There's a lot of trust. Yep. It's. It's difficult and people care. I, I will say that the, our staff here, they, they care. Like they really, they care about the client. They care about the design, they care about their projects, they care about their coworkers. You know, people will lend a hand, that kind of thing. Um, we've got some designers here that'll kind of tell me after the fact, like, Hey, just so you know, this has gone on. Yeah. You know, you might wanna step in and see if we can correct this team. You know, they're overworked. Or, you know, they're stressed out. And so that I appreciate, and that's the kind of thing where if someone can come and talk to me and say, Hey, by the way, you know, there's something at this firm you need to know, that's great. Like, I, I need to know that stuff. I don't know everything that's going on. Um, I love it. I love the, the, the anti architect. Uh, take, you know, there's probably other things that could use an ante, but the point is it's like, it's more than anything, it's just anti ego. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Um, and I, I think that's fantastic. Christian. It's, this is a great conversation. I took away so much. Um, you know, I, I kind of, kind of thinking about the title of this and, um. The word instinct just keeps coming up. It came up in the very beginning and it was just something you said casually, but I think what you're building here is unique. Thank you. And I think you're, you're building sort of an instinct that others can grab onto and use as part of their, their own work. Success. Yeah. Listen, I, I, I agree. We're, we're certainly trying. It is by no means a a done deal. We're still, remember we could always go outta business tomorrow. That's what I always tell myself. That doubt, that crippling doubt. But, uh, no, we just keep working hard and we gotta, we have, you have to keep working at the culture. And as we've grown too, it's funny, we, you know, we, I think when you and I first met, we were probably. 50 people at the most, you know, now we're over 150 people. Wow. With multiple offices. So now that's my new struggle of how to make sure that the offices have their own individual culture, but still have some semblance of the culture of the entire firm. Yep. And that's something that over the. Last year we've experimented with, you know, it's not a one blanket kind of fits all thing. So, you know, that's, that's kind of the, the challenge now, which is, you know, fun and, and interesting and little nerve wracking. 'cause I don't wanna screw that up. So, yeah. But we're, you know, we're, again, we're gonna figure it out as we go. And the beauty of, of what we do, and I, I, you know, in terms of instinct for sure, is that we, we're, we're okay pivoting if we have to. We, we admit when we make a mistake and we say, oh, you know, that was really a, that was, that wasn't smart. Let, let's do it differently. You know, and that's okay. We, none of us dig in and go, no, no, no. We, this is how we're gonna be, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Uh, Christian, thank you for joining me. Uh, it was, this was, this was great and I knew it would be, uh, keep going. Thanks, man. Like you're crushing it, so I appreciate it. Just keep going. Well, thanks for having me as always, and it's always great, uh, being on your shows. Awesome. Thanks for joining me here. I love what you do.