In this episode, we’re joined by Megan Gibson, the creator of Freed To Be You. Megan is a podcaster, writer, personal coach, mother, lifelong learner, and a pretty good cook. Megan discusses her unique approach to addressing the negative self-talk and limiting beliefs that hinder personal growth, introducing the “Freed from BS” quiz to help listeners uncover the lies they tell themselves.
Take the Quiz! and find out more at FreedToBeYou.com
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Transcript
Hi and welcome to the.
You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are talking with Megan Gibson. Megan is the creator of Free To Be You. She's a podcaster, a writer, a personal coach, mother, lifelong learner, and.
A pretty good cook. So let's hear about that. Welcome to the show, Megan.
Hi, thank you, Jill, for having me. As you can see from my accent.
I’m in the future in Australia.
You traveled back in time. Just.
To visit with us today, I'm so excited.
Happy to be here
I love how they.
They said time travel was it possible, but we do it all the time these days.
We do
So how did you get started in this and what?
Exactly do you do?
Other than being a good cook?
Gosh, I feel like I should I.
Should start at.
The beginning.
Which is a long time.
Ago but.
Your mother, your mother brought you home from the hospital and.
You were the model child.
Ohh my gosh, how did I get started? Like the real answer to that question is I actually started out as a hairdresser. That's why everyone tells me I have good hair. But that's why I've been a hairdresser.
For well.
It was 30 years ago now, but.
I found that my coaching and I really believe that my coaching journey started
As a hairdresser because I don't know about you, but when we go to the hairdresser, we either the person in the chair that's sharing everything that's going on in our life or we're overhearing the person next door sharing everything that's going in their life. So as the hairdresser, constantly hearing people stories.
And you know the different things that are going on in their life. It's I started at 15. So I certainly just gave my age away, certainly grew up quickly in that environment because you know I hadn't been through some of the things that people were telling me about. And I know that a lot of if you're a hairdresser and you're watching this, that.
Listening to this that you would agree that we are a bit of a councillor in the end. So I really became fascinated with obviously women, mainly because that was mainly my clientele, but with people and their human behaviour and.
Just how people could get themselves into certain situations, but also how they would get themselves out of it or how they would come out of it. And the one of the things that I found is that a lot of people.
Tend to get in cycle we you know, we have a lot of things that we sort of we go through and we go through and go through until we learn it. And So what I've found is that with my coaching now I started eight years ago.
And I started in the personal brand space and when I say personal brand, that could mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. But basically what I mean by that is I was in.
A organization where we wanted to help people.
Create a brand or put themselves out into the world.
Particularly online, where they were being true to themselves, so we didn't want to brand who.
They think they.
Should be in the marketplace. It was more about. Let's actually create a solid foundation of who you are and then let's put all the pretty colours and logos and websites and which would what people think branding.
is, on top of that, right? So then you can show up as authentic and you're going to enjoy your business and you're going to attract people who like you instead of who you are being. And so that's kind of where my journey started and my role in that organization was or that in that process was to help people do a really deep discovery.
Of what that is for them. And I loved it because it really did. It was a much deeper journey of listening to someone's story, right, which I was where I said I just started.
I enjoyed that process a lot and I enjoyed real. I've heard hundreds of peoples of stories.
Over the years.
And there's everyone's unique, even if they've had a similar experience. What I found, Jill, is that as I was going through getting feedback from people who'd done that work.
Most of the time they got more value or more transformation in their personal lives than they did in their business. Some people didn't even end up doing the business that they were gonna do because they uncovered that, actually, this is not even what I want. And so I got much more passionate
About the self actualization piece of that, the self discovery that went along with that and how that affected in particular people's relationships.
Now I also found around that time that I'd made that transition from working with business owners to working with individuals that my life did a big 180 and it was around the time that I turned 40.
And so I got. I turned 40 and thought that.
That's. I'll just, I mean I just looked up my kids were older, they didn't need me like they did before. I'd been really busy up until that point. A lot of things that were happening had me in a sort of this state of survival, if you will, in terms of how I felt about things. And when I turned 40 and actually looked up from that.
I felt like I should be more successful, more wealthy, more healthy, more in love with my husband at the time, and I was shoulding all over myself.
Should be this and I should.
Be that and then I really had to figure out who am I now
Like it wasn't a nice feeling. I had to eat my own cooking. I had to do that discovery work myself, because who am I to be? I'm not the kind of coach that can tell somebody they should be doing something and not be walking my own talk. And so that is one of the things that got me through that time. So I.
My marriage 28 year relationship that ended. My children grew up around that time. They grew up a lot quicker as they do through that process sadly. And so I had to rediscover myself in a whole new way, who I was without that part of my life.
And this work got me through. So the work that I do and doing it myself in a very, very intentional way, knowing myself at the deep level that I do and did at the time was what helped me through. And so that is a very long answer to your question as to why.
And what I do, and you know why it's something very, very I'm very passionate about.
And it's something that so many women need when they're going through their 40s. It's just that that transition point when you're not Mommy anymore, you'll always be mom. But the neediness of being the center nucleus of this family.
Whether you have one kid.
Or, you know, 5 or 10.
It's a very distinct.
Role that you play and you become that person and you play that role for your husband.
You play that role.
For your friends, your communities, that you're part of, and then then your kids grow up and they may not be moving away, but they're starting to move away from you.
They have their own things that they're doing and it's really a time when you're just.
Like who am I? You.
You forget who you were and.
It's so helpful to have somebody come along and say, hey.
Where who are?
You. Let's take.
A look at that and you.
Answer that.
Question yeah.
You have a quiz that helps people with that, and I did take the quiz.
And I want you to talk to people about how.
You develop the quiz and then I'll tell you.
What I got?
Ohh well, I can't wait.
To hear what you got so.
There's a lot in what you just said. If I can just backtrack just for a second. So yes, there it it's common for people to feel that way. And one of the one of the things that I find is that you either go on that journey of rediscovery or you stay being who you think you are.
And you end up 1020, you know, in your 60s, ten, 20 years down the track.
Just unfulfilled and that is not what I want. So I really want to help people at that transition point to understand that this is not an ending. This is a beginning, and you're not who you were before you had children anymore. You're not that version that you were in your 20s.
You're not even the version you were in your 30s, but let's dust off some of the dreams that you put aside because some of them may still be things that you want.
If they're not, let's forget about them and let's discover what is going to be your life moving forward, because we need somebody sometimes more often than not, to navigate that process because we've been stuck in autopilot for so long and we end up being the passenger in our lives.
Instead of the driver and so I'm all about helping people get out of autopilot, back into the driver's seat, and I get in the passenger seat and we go on that journey together so that you actually end up at a destination that makes you feel lit up and feel and self expressed.
And so, yeah, I think that it is common and a lot of people that I've worked with resonate with that analogy, you know. And so one of the things that holds us back leading to the quiz is when we decide, OK, I'm going to go on that journey, I'm going to do this internal.
Work, which is you have to have the courage to do it first, first of all, because there's probably gonna be some things that come up that we maybe haven't wanted to look at or even know that they're there to look at. So one of the things that tends to come up is.
All the negative self talk the limiting beliefs, the things that get in the way.
Of us having that courage, and so it can be terrifying for some people, and I've heard some, you know, some things that I wish really didn't go on in the world, but they do. And they needed dressing and so.
That little voice, that little inner voice that sits on our shoulder that is there to keep us safe, to keep us small and stop us from doing anything scary.
It's the mean girl.
To keep us in our comfort zone.
Right she can.
Be quite mean. Yeah, most of the time, like, and the closer you get to taking the leap, the closer you get to putting yourself out there. The louder and meaner it is. And it's part of who we are. But it's not.
Who we really are.
It's that, like I said, it's that.
That voice of.
You know, do you really want to do this? Are you really good enough to do?
This what if?
People laugh at you. You know those kind of.
Not helpful thoughts. So what I have found helped me was I was working with a coach and she helped me understand that that voice is not going anywhere and that that voice is not me and it was a little bit of a different approach that she took.
Which I do actually talk about in my upcoming book that I'm writing. I go into this.
In a lot.
Of detail we can talk about that later, but I found that for me.
Giving that voice a name.
And not disassociating from it, because that's not helpful, but just understanding that it's not my authentic self, it's a version of me that is there for that reason only to keep me safe and stop me from ever feeling.
Whatever I felt when that voice was created, which is generally something in our past in our childhood where we made-up some story about ourself based on something that happened.
And we then believe that moving forward, this all happens subconsciously. It's not necessarily anything we're aware of at the time and we grow up with this limiting.
Self talk in the background. So what? The quiz is designed to do is to take you through a series of questions to uncover what that story is. Because I've found that there's a version, there's about 5 versions of the same thing.
There's probably many, many more versions of it, but if we narrowed it down to give sort of five different results.
And each of those stories has.
A name and she is your, you know, mean girl. So it's called the freed from BS quiz and BS stands for whatever you decide that stands for. I don't know if you want me to say that on your podcast but I know I think we all know what.
That means, but it's just free yourself from.
On that right, so uncover what the lie is that you've been telling yourself for so long about yourself, because we're all amazing. We're all smart. We're all beautiful. We all have something unique to offer the world, and we want to uncover what that is. But we can't do that if we're telling ourselves that we're not. So we are.
So we need to go. OK, what's the lie? And then what I found is a fun little addition is just to go. Let's give her a name. And so when she gets loud, we can say shut up.
You can probably insert your mean girl there now, but you know what I mean. And then we go, OK, it's not really me.
Thank you. Thank you for giving me the warning. Thank you for, you know, keeping me safe. But I've got this. You could just sit there and be quiet.
It's not going anywhere.
So maybe you're.
Never going to be rid of it, right?
Very accurate.
Mine. You want me to reveal? And now for the big reveal. Mine was Bianca and Bianca is you're not enough. And I came across Marissa Pierce. Who?
She said just right, I am enough on all the mirrors in your house.
And I.
Did it and you'd be amazed how effective, just seeing that is at combating Bianca and her little chatter and there is some inner work that you can do to get over that. I know exactly why I've thrown.
This Bianca person in my life and I've done a lot of the work that is required, but just knowing what that lie is.
Is kind of the first step to taking steps to actually make changes and then having somebody like you as a coach who knows the steps to go through to help you peel back what was the root cause of this and how can you reframe that?
And how can you move forward and really decide what your truths and your values?
Are and how?
You want to live your life.
It's so powerful. I mean, it all comes back to for me. It comes back to self-awareness. So the more awareness we have of the self and we have many selves as we just said, so you've got that. You've got Bianca, she's one of your selves and then you've got you know the versions, all the versions that we've that are outdated.
Now you know we.
Update the system. It's like, well, I'm not all of those.
Things, but those things are me. They are things that or versions of me that have made me who I am today. And so they're all valuable and there's value to rescue from those selves.
Right, there's value there that we can rescue, and there's also a lot of things that no longer service that we can let go of. And I call that kind of a bit of a declutter. It's like, well, I don't, this doesn't serve me anymore to believe that about myself.
It doesn't serve me anymore to go after that.
Because it doesn't light me up. It doesn't like this version of me up, and there's gonna be another version and another. You know, we're gonna keep changing, evolving. We're never done. So what I love about what I.
What we're talking about and what I do is people need to understand, then, OK? So if I'm going to continually grow and evolve and then then how do I keep aligning, realigning and that's a big part I think of.
Where I am different maybe from some of the other coaches in my space is that I want people to.
It's like.
That self-awareness and the values and the things that you uncover about yourself become your compass.
So if you.
Have a compass. That's fine, but if you don't.
Know how to.
Use that. Then it's just another tool to sit in the on the desk and collect US schools. No, it's like now that you have that compass now you need to learn how to align. And it's a constant.
Shift you're constantly adjusting based on what's happening based on any chaos as I call it. That comes in to your life that you're not expecting. If you know how to navigate through that.
Then you're gonna be.
And you can rely on your gut and you can rely on your yourself. And I think that there's a lot of.
You know, there's a lot of need for that because we live in this world where people are constantly seeing things that they think they should be. We have so much more being fed to us through social media and the Internet. And now AI and like what's real anymore? Well, we need to know who we are and we need. That's how we can figure out.
What's real for us?
So it's really about.
Looking in and then looking out instead of looking out and deciding what you should be.
You know.
Yeah, I saw a meme this morning. It was kind of goes along with what you're saying. He was. It was.
An Eckhart toll.
Theme it was to the effect of you do all this inner work and you think you finally arrive. But go spend 10 minutes with your family and.
Yeah, exactly.
You still need.
To work.
You were talking about the social media.
Yeah. It's like, yeah, yeah, it's constantly, you've got to be adjusting. And your analogy of moving the compass around because we're never walking in a straight line, we're always, you know, meandering along the path. Hopefully we can.
That's so true.
We have a destination in mind based on.
Well, that's also important, yeah.
How we want to envision our lives going and that's, you know, that's a big part of getting anywhere is knowing.
Where you want to go.
But you don't just arrive there. There's a journey that you have to take, and it's helpful if you have somebody who has the tools.
To help you.
Navigate that.
Yeah, which is.
Absolutely. And the vision Part 2, Jill, so that's also really important because what I find and I mean I've been guilty of this in the.
Past as I've been throughout my own transformation, is that we.
We get shiny object syndrome.
Ohh that looks good. Now I want that well that looks good over there. Now I want that and so we're just constantly we never actually arrive anywhere because we never actually know what we want.
And so if you don't know who you are and you don't have.
A way of.
Navigating that.
We're always gonna see new things, and well, I mean, I don't know about you. Well, I do cause we told me we know. We know how old we are. But when we grew up, we didn't have as much in our space to ship, to push us off course we didn't see.
As much as we can see now, and we did, and I still did it then. So even more so now we need to be really, really clear on where it is we're going, because otherwise we're gonna constantly be presented with things, marketed things, you know, be seeing people, other people achieve things and wanting to.
Go after something that may or may not be in alignment with what it is that we actually want. And So what I intend to help people do is really focus on how they want to feel.
Because if you and again it comes back to that alignment, it's like, well, what does success feel like to you? What is a successful relationship feel like to you because you could say it looks like this and then you can go after that. And then when you get there, it doesn't feel good. It's like well, if you know what you want to feel.
You're gonna know when you get there because your body is gonna tell you before your mind is aware of it, and you're gonna be able to actually keep. And that's another part of using that compass, right? So it's, it's about trusting yourself and listening to your body and listening to your to your heart and.
Really making sure that what you're going after, you know what it's going to feel like when you get there so that you know when you've.
Arrived. You really know when you've.
Arrived because it may not look exactly how you expect because all these other things are gonna happen along the way to make it look a little bit.
Different. Does that make sense?
It makes total sense and.
Joe Dispenza talks about that a little bit in his meditation process and that's feeling what you're going to feel like when you have arrived. Practice that feeling and it's all about feeling and it's not knowing, it's feeling in your body versus knowing in your head and.
Than you do know when you've arrived, and you can, you'll always be developing another thing that's in the future, because that's just part of who we are as human beings, but the feelings.
You'll start to inculcate those feelings.
Into your body, your body will just recognize that as normal as you're, you're envisioning it, and then it'll keep changing and you keep growing. But it's how we can progress.
And know we're progressing.
And we're actually doing something to make that happen, but it's not hard work. It's a matter of using our imaginations and, you know, for so long.
We've been told to tell, don't Daydream.
Day training is.
Where it all begins sitting in meditation and.
Pretend for a minute that you have arrived. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste?
What's happening around you and the more real you can get in in your, in your head, in your imagination, and the more you can put yourself in that spot, so you're actually like smelling the smells and hearing the sounds, the more likely you are to actually.
Get there.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's a lot of science behind that.
Yeah, definitely. And that's where I see a lot of the other things that we have access to, like he's amazing, where I see a lot of those things gotta tap on to what I'm what I'm saying. And so you may have done some of this work already with other coaches or other in other spaces or read a book or listen to podcasts or whatever it is.
It all goes together. It all fits together like this beautiful puzzle. The one important piece that I think people miss.
When I'm going through their self development journey or personal development is.
Going in.
It's you've gotta start there. You've gotta know how you connect to those things. How like those are the things that connect on to what I'm talking about because.
Otherwise, again, you're just going to be reaching for this. I'll try this. I'll try this. I'll try this. I'll try this. OK, but when we need to align it, all of those things, all of those amazing modalities, all those amazing ways of.
Of coming into your own with what's true and so.
I think feel like that's where I kind of really want people to have the courage to go there. Like it's not easy. It's intense. It's, you know, there's a an unpacking that occurs. But there's a repacking that, that that is the result of, OK, these are the things I'm going to take with me forward and then I'm going to go and approach.
All those other things with this in mind, and from this with this filter, yeah, with no filter, more importantly.
And if you can present it to.
People in a.
Way that it's more step-by-step, like when I talk about these things.
I'm like all.
Over the place, there's all these modalities and there's all these ways that you can get to the.
To the destination that you're going to, but unless you have somebody that says.
First, we're going.
To do this.
And walks you systematically through the process of uncovering who you are. It just makes the journey so much.
Quicker and the results you get the results really fast. I mean you can spend 10 or 15 years wandering around listening to all these different people out there and there are a lot of amazing.
People out there.
There. But why?
You know, you could be there so much faster if you just, you know, found somebody like Megan who already knows the directions.
Well, I've been there, right? I've been on the on the journey and I've seen it work for many other hundreds of people. Like I said, within the organisations I've worked in and.
There's a I think we can have too much information and that's kind of where I was going before. It's like there's all these amazing books and they're all amazing. And there's all these amazing people. There's all this amazing free information that we have access to, and it's amazing. It's like ohf, I could have had some.
Of that when I was.
You know, younger. If I knew what I knew now, if I had access to what I I'm excited for the next generation because they already have it. They're coming like my children are my oldest. One's turning 21 in October and.
Most of our kids are. We've got 7 between us. They're all over. Most of them are over 15 and I'm excited that that they have access to this stuff. But I'm also aware of the fact that it's there's so much that they could end up doing, getting nowhere because you don't know. Do you know what I'm saying? So I feel.
It's really, really important for us to just strip it back and go, OK, let's.
Just focus on.
Main things.
Yeah. Because then if you know who you are and you know what's important, and then you go out and take all that information in, you're going to be able to navigate that information and take on what is applicable to you and implement it in a.
Way that's actually going to.
Get you results because otherwise it's just more information.
Knowledge isn't power. Action is, you know, it's what you do with that knowledge. And if you don't know what to do with it, you probably.
Won't do.
Anything the word learn to learn actually means to cause change, and if you learn something and you're not changing, then you really haven't learned.
You have been programmed indoctrinated.
Propagandized. But you haven't learned.
Unless you're changing.
And no one has to do it alone. There's all these amazing coaches out there and whether it's me that you resonate or somebody else that you've heard that's had a you've had a, you know, heard a similar.
Conversation around it's about finding that person that's right for you to take you is it's a very personal journey and it's so worth it. It's so worth it. So I can.
Kind of give.
You the end of my story or the now of my story, like I have completely done A1.
80 I'm now with the most amazing man who?
Has met me and fallen in love with me, who I actually am. There's no I don't have to pretend to be anything else because he loves every little quirk and you know everything about me.
Which we all.
Have those things, and he's the same with me because what happens when you show?
Up like that.
Is you give the people in front of you permission to do the same. So when we met, there was no there was like no holes. Bars like this is.
Who I am.
I've been told I'm too much many times I'm totally OK with being too much, and you're either gonna like that and fall in love with that or we're not gonna do this. And he was exactly the same with me. And he's done a lot of his own work in, in.
Various ways, and so that's exciting. That's a very.
Exciting part of my life.
Now and uh, my children are older and they're all moving through life and doing what they want to do. And so and his kids, you know, coming up as well. And I think that now it's super important to be the example to them.
Of what it looks like to live a life where you're lit up and you're excited and you're achieving things that are actually making you happier instead of doing like doing a crappy job that you have to do just to survive. I mean, we have an abundance of everything. Yeah, we have an abundance of everything we need.
Doing stuff that matters and that's.
You just have to be able to be brave.
Enough to go after.
And so that's really great. And you know my health is better than it's been because I understand what my body needs and you know, you could just like go list could go on, but it feeds.
Into every other area of your.
Life. And so that's why I think it's super important that people.
Step up to the plate. Be brave to go on that journey.
And don't have to do it by yourself.
We were someone that's been there and done it and, you know, is a I'm not finished. I'll never be finished, but I'm certainly a ahead of the people that I wanna work with and I can help and I can still empathise with them because it's not too long ago. It's only five years ago or over the last few years so.
It's exciting, it's exciting time. I'm excited for the people that get to hear this episode and hear your other shows that you've done. I think it's important to put coaches on.
On an on a platform like this so that people can find their person right, it's like finding your person in life. You've gotta find your person. That's gonna be the one that gets you to the.
Other side of this.
I I've met so many interesting coaches out there and I really believe that they're making a difference.
In how the world actually.
Operates and it just it that lights me up. Just being able to showcase you guys and what you're doing because it really is making a big difference and there's 9 billion people. If you help a handful, the next person helps a handful. The next person helps a handful.
The world does change because you know that couple of people that you are, you're helping.
Their family gets changed because of the dynamics of that central person changing, like your kids are never going to be the same because you've done.
All this work for yourself.
It's just how it's going to be and their families will grow up stronger and better, and they'll contribute meaningfully to the world instead of just pushing paper around. Like was the paradigm for the last probably 100 years.
Yeah, it's definitely.
Before that, there was.
A different paradigm.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's really moving. So what's not something go ahead.
Sorry, no, I was gonna say and that's a really important thing. What you just said there because it doesn't act it. I can't serve everybody and neither can the next person. But I can serve the people that resonate with, with me and understand where I'm coming from and it does and whatever they go on to do whatever contribution they decide to make to the world.
Doesn't have to be anything.
Other than making their own family.
Better different change like breaking the pattern that that is in their family that needs to be broken. If there's one at all. And so you know that. Yeah, the ripple effect of that is very, very exciting.
I have 100% agree with that.
Yeah, it's just like.
That that just lights me up in, in.
Some ways why I do what I do, yeah.
What's the one?
Thing you'd like to leave the audience with today.
The one thing there's so many if I was to sum it up with one thing is.
Be brave enough to get out of your own way.
And I think the first time that I heard that was from the amazing late Wayne Dyer, who I was a big fan of his work when I was.
In my 30s.
We, we do, we have that little whisper in our ear that says you know we want more or something's not quite there or you know we find ourselves in this space and this transition where.
We need to figure out what that is and I just, yeah, I just want people to realise that the only person in the way of them doing that is themselves, and it doesn't have to be scary, but it is going to be a journey and just want people to be brave enough.
So just take that one first step.
And that could just be that to just to reach out to, you know, someone that has inspired them in any you know, something that's resonated with you just yeah. Be just be brave enough to just take the first step.
Go take the quiz.
Yeah. Take the cooked fries.
You made this.
And it's actually.
Quite fun. It's kind of fun so.
It is and it's not really.
Long it was. I was.
It amazing.
Surprisingly short to me and.
Accurate I was.
Ohh. Busy right? They're all busy people so and there's lots of things we could be applying our time to. So let's get to the point straight away is kind of was why I kept it short.
And the answers the page.
That you go to when you.
Fill it out, it's.
Like actually it gives you helpful information and allows you to take the next step and you know, one of it may be.
Calling you or working with you but it.
It doesn't have to be. It's like there's a lot of information there. If you do nothing else with it.
So I really appreciate that.
And if they do feel called like at the end there that you can jump on a call like this, we don't have to record it and put it out into the world. But we can certainly have a conversation and just, you know, get to know each other and just see if I am.
Your person that is your navigator through this, this journey, that rediscovering yourself.
Yeah. And we'll put those links in the show notes and be sure to check out Megan's Podcast free to be you.
It's on all the things I'm sure.
It is, Yep, freed with the D freed to be you.
Read with the D yes, sorry I didn't put the D on.
My nose? No.
The D's important the D's important because.
It is.
You don't go to the right website.
Well, that too. But I mean the deed people have told me that's grammatically incorrect. But the thing with the D is the reason it's freed is because it is on the other side of taking that step where we find that freedom to be ourselves. So yes, we are free to do it, but we are freed.
From the past, freed from the versions of us that are no longer.
Plus, once we do, and so and once we step onto that journey of rediscovery, it's quite addictive. You don't really want to go.
Back to where you were before. So that's where.
No, no.
The D comes into it. So yeah, just to be.
I like it and I I'm actually really glad that you gave us that explanation because it makes total sense in terms of why you would have it in there.
Yeah. So thank you for joining me. Megan, this has been great.
Thank you for having me, Jill. It's been awesome. And yeah, keep doing what you're doing. I think it's amazing and it's really, really important.
Thank you.