Ep. 20: David Brown - MA in Religion Turned Software Development Manager

Jesse Butts: 0:25

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining me for another episode. I'm your host, Jesse Butts. Today, I'm chatting with David Brown, an MA in religion turned software development manager. Dave is now a technical architect and manager. Dave, welcome. Delighted to have you on the show.

David Brown: 0:41

Hi, Jesse. Great. Thank you for having me.

Jesse Butts: 0:43

Absolutely. So I think this will be a very interesting conversation. We haven't had anyone yet who has gone from a religion to, or a master's in religion, excuse me, to software development or software development management. But before we dive into that, can we just start with a bit about your day to day? What are you doing as a software development manager? What does that entail exactly?

David Brown: 1:08

So I lead a team of developers and my job isn't so much being in the code day-to-day anymore. It used to be. I don't want so much to do that anymore. I'm more responsible for overseeing projects, deciding how some complex problems are going to be tackled and built, how the solution is going to be architected. So that involves a lot more interfacing with clients and, you know, helping developers decide how they're going to approach a problem or a solution. And being a little more hands-off. I do a lot of reviewing other developers code, making sure that best practices are followed and those sorts of things. So that's, that's a lot of what my day-to-day looks like.

Jesse Butts: 1:59

So is a lot of that also deciding, or excuse me, deciding which developer will work on which aspect of whatever you happen to be developing at that time?

David Brown: 2:09

Sure. That's some of it. Yeah. And also if there are multiple approaches to something, part of my responsibility is having that high level view of being able to see because of these other things that are going on over here that maybe this developer doesn't know about, this solution is better than that solution as far as a way to tackle this problem. And so we should, we should lean this way instead of that way. So a lot of my job is being able to have a holistic view of the entire project rather than being in the minutia of all of the details from day-to-day.

Jesse Butts: 2:46

So now that we have a pretty good understanding of what you're doing now, I'm wondering if we could step back in time a little bit. I am curious what, what prompted you to enroll in grad school originally? Why did you want to continue your studies after undergrad?

David Brown: 3:03

So it's funny. So I, I am a case study in the person who could never decide what they wanted to be when they grew up. If I go back even further than that and look at my undergrad, I started my undergrad as a music major. And then I went from music to being an education major. And then I actually dropped out altogether for a semester and tried to figure out life. And then I went back as a communications major. And then I declared theater as a second major. And when the dust has settled and everything was done, I came out with a communications major and a psychology minor of all things. So, I was always in this sort of state of flux. I was interested in all these things and I loved being creative and studying all these things. And then I came out of my undergrad and actually went into a career as a counselor, believe it or not. And that was how, that was how I made my living for several years. And then, I think I, I just wanted a change. I wanted a bit of a break from that. My decision to study religion or theology at a graduate level was very much just, I wanted to explore my faith at an academic level, and dive into that and really understand it better.

Jesse Butts: 4:25

Just to clarify, so you were a counselor before you started graduate school? Okay. That's, that's interesting. I, I, at least I'm not aware of and I'm not certain about my listeners, but what type of counselor positions are available to people who don't have an advanced degree?

David Brown: 4:42

Yeah, counselor is a broad term. I'm using counselor in a very broad term there. So I did things like case management. I did crisis interventions. I did those sorts of things. I wasn't, you know, the therapist that was meeting with clients one-on-one in the office during that time. I was definitely a level under that. Because all of those positions, the licensure for all those positions require graduate degrees, which I didn't have at the time. I'm using counselor and a broad term there because I was definitely a level under what you would generally think of as counselor.

Jesse Butts: 5:15

Got it. So when you started grad school, were you working during grad school, as you were exploring the academic side of your faith? Were you a full-time grad student? What was that like?

David Brown: 5:27

It was crazy. I was a full-time student. I did work also. I did some work in the same fields, in mental health on, sort of on the side. I also worked in some ministry settings on the side, in some pastoral positions. And, and that was great because it really allowed me to explore that and decide what am I doing with these graduate studies? Is this something that I want to do vocationally? Is it just sort of scratching my own itch, learning, learning these things that I wanted to learn? What is that? And there, there were definitely things that I loved about it, about working in ministry professionally. And there were definitely some things that I didn't. And so I was sort of doing all of that ,and it was good because it, it informed my study. Any time you... I think any discipline, when you study it ... it's really hard to study it in the abstract without knowing how it's put into practice, right? I think it was a good thing in the sense that it informed my study. I did lots of, of work while being a student full time, which probably was not healthy in the long-term. The was way too much caffeine involved in that. And too many late nights. But that's what I did.

Jesse Butts: 6:44

If somebody is interested in going into the ministry or... do they typically study an MA in religion or is it a master's in divinity? Is the MA in religion intended to be a bit broader?

David Brown: 6:58

It's sort of tiers if that makes sense. So an MA in religion or an MAR, it's referred to in the field master of arts in religion. That's the first level of graduate study, and then a master of divinity is the next level up. It's a longer program. They're typically around 90 hour graduate programs for a master of divinity in my experience, which is really long for a graduate, for a master's program. There's a lot more language study involved at that level, for those classical languages. And then , it goes from there into the, the doctorate level.

Jesse Butts: 7:34

Okay. So as you were in graduate school and, you know, you had tried different things, and I think if I'm remembering correctly, you said during the process, you learned that a minister, ministerial, is that the correct way to pronounce that?

David Brown: 7:47

I think...

Jesse Butts: 7:49

Ministerial?

David Brown: 7:50

We'll go with that. Yeah.

Jesse Butts: 7:51

Okay, so... It's a learning adventure for everybody on this show, folks. So you decided that wasn't the right pursuit for you. As you were... enjoy ing the study, as you were coming to the end of that master's program, did you find any clarity in what you wanted to do or were you unsure of what would be next after you graduated?

David Brown: 8:15

I was very unsure. And I think if I were to encapsulate those next few years after I graduated, it would be this constant search for what's next. What I determined, and there was a, there was a process of self discovery during this. When I worked in a ministerial role, I would be... I found myself exhausted all the time. And I could never really figure out why at the time. I did later, spoiler alert. There was this moment of self discovery that I arrived at later. I found that what I really enjoyed was when I came home at night to work on a paper or to do the study. I really loved the academic part of it, more than anything else. I've always had this, this creative side that I needed to feed. And I, what I really wanted to do, was do doctoral work in how theology and art work together. And that was really what I wanted to do. At the very end of my graduate work, I, I met my, who would be my future wife, and we got married and then life took over. And, while doing the doctoral, the doctorate program, was really what we both sort of wanted to do. We were confronted with the fact that you also have to make a living. And so , after I finished my graduate program, I actually went back into the, the mental health field, because that's what I knew and that's how I could, I could pay the bills, at the time, right? Which, which was sort of the priority.

Jesse Butts: 9:39

So did you mean that you and your wife both independently wanted to pursue doctoral programs?

David Brown: 9:45

Yes., her field is different from mine. But yes, we, we did both want to... and there are all sorts of challenges there, right? Like, is there a school that could, that, that had programs that were interesting to both of us? That would cover both of our courses of study and that we could both get accepted to? There's, there's all sorts of variables there that make it so difficult. As I said, how do you, you know, make a living during that time period?

Jesse Butts: 10:13

So as you returned to the mental health field, counseling, were you doing something different now that you had a master's? Were you able to qualify for certain certifications? Or was it kind of like an exploratory period of being able to earn an income, but focusing on what's next?

David Brown: 10:33

I think I probably could have qualified at the time. And that changed dramatically later, which was sort of a, of a pivoting point. I didn't, but it was more of an exploratory time. It was more of a... it was survival. It was almost treading water in a way. Like this was how, we paid for life as, as a newly married couple. And so that changed a few years later because of some legislation and different things. There, there started to be requirements for really specific types of master's degrees to do what I was doing. I essentially found out that if, if you want to keep doing this, you need to go get one of these degrees in a very specific and focused discipline. And that will allow you to stay where you are. We talked about it a lot. And I said, That doesn't make sense. I already have one master's. Why would I go get a second one when the end result is I come out exactly where I am? Like, it wasn't an upward mobility thing at that point. Like that, that just doesn't make any sense to me at all. And so what was the point? And too, I found that same type of exhaustion from doing that for a living and was starting to realize why that was and decided that that wouldn't be the healthiest thing for me anyway. I had just come to that conclusion. So that was sort of what prompted me to look at, at different career avenues.

Jesse Butts: 12:02

How long did you return... or did you stay in that field that you had done previously before seriously exploring a different career field or taking a different type of role somewhere else?

David Brown: 12:14

I want to say it was about four years. And then, as I said, the decisions started to be made for me. And then as well, it was that sort of culmination of that, that self-discovery. That term self discovery. I feel like that's such a cliche word, but, or cliche phrase to use, but it really..., that self-discovery process that had started way back when I was in grad school, it sort of culminated around then when, I, I really started to dig into the difference between being an introvert and being an extrovert. And the fact that I was coming home so exhausted every day was because I was working with people all day, every day. And I just came to the conclusion that that's, that's not how I'm wired. That's just not how I'm built. And , I think for the first time I realized, You know what? That's okay. There are really great people that are introverts too. And understanding that about myself made so many puzzle pieces fall into place. And so, when it started to become really apparent that, that I was going to have to make a career change, for all the reasons that I just mentioned, like this one wasn't available to me anymore. Or wouldn't be soon. Knowing this, this about myself, what could I do for a living that was more introverted? What skills did I have that would, that would work with that? Or what skills... The answer was not many, but what skills I acquire that would work with that? It was almost sort of this crisis point when you realize can't do what I've done anymore. Like, this career is going to vanish, and what do I do now? And you really have to figure some things out quickly. But that was sort of where we found ourselves, yeah.

Jesse Butts: 13:59

And I was just thinking about what you mentioned as things that you studied in undergrad, even. I mean, you mentioned communications, theater, psychology. And I mean, those all do have introverted points, but they're, they're kind of largely, or maybe I shouldn't say largely, but those are often also associated with extroverts as well. So as you kind of came to this crisis point that you couldn't go further, I mean, what were you looking for, at anything... like what's something where I, as an introvert, can do work that I feel supports me? That I feel is engaging? What was that process like for you?

David Brown: 14:43

It was really difficult. I, I started to examine so, so what skills do I have that are marketable at that point? I was and sort of always had been a writer, which I think is part of the reason I like grad school too, is because you're writing all the time. But I, I didn't have the... I didn't have the connections to do that full-time professionally. I did some freelance work in that, in that realm, and really that was where I got interested in, in the web as well. Because I was blogging back when blogging was first sort of a thing. Back in its, its glory days. And I did a lot of that and I would guest blog and I would do these sorts of like one-off little freelance writing gigs, but you know, that doesn't pay the bills either, unfortunately. And so, so there was this period of really deep self-examination. During that process, where, as I said, I, I would do some blogging and some guest blogging and those sorts of things. That was back in the early enough days of it, that you sort of had to know a little bit of code to do what you were doing. And so I knew just enough to be dangerous. And I would shutter to look at some of the stuff now that I wrote back then, but it was just sort of this little hobby that I had, that I would kind of, you know, hack at stuff. And so I just sort of one day took seriously the idea of, Well, what happens if I take that from just being this random hobby to something I could make a living at. And what, what does that look like? And that's sort of really what kicked off the whole career change was was that moment.

Jesse Butts: 16:26

I know that you did pursue, you earned, I should say, a certificate in web development. Did you land work and then they wanted you to be certified? Or was that your gateway into that type of work?

David Brown: 16:38

That was very much the gateway in. Basically when I made this decision, and I knew that there had to be a career change and I made the decision, Okay, this is what it's going to be. Really I did what I know. I went back to school. That was, that was knew to do.

Jesse Butts: 16:52

Yeah.

David Brown: 16:53

And, uh, and so that was very much the, gateway in. I sort of saw it as a practical certification on top of my communications degree. That's, that's really how I looked at it. It was this really specific set of technical skills that I was layering on top of the academic study that I had done. And it turned out to be exactly the right thing. So that was fun.

Jesse Butts: 17:18

So if we could pause here for a minute, because I think this is something valuable where, you know, you had the impulse to go back to school because you said that, that's what you knew to do. But you also didn't get a master's in computer science or something that would, you know, take another two or three years. Can you talk about what a certificate program is like? Or what people should look like if they see that skill gap, particularly in technical skills, and weighing a certificate versus another full-blown degree.

David Brown: 17:49

Yeah. You know, and in this field it's difficult because honestly, some of the best programmers I know have no higher education at all. But I think that when you look at it broadly, I think that it's like any other academic program. You have to be really picky about the program that you're looking at, at that moment. The, the program that I chose, that I went to, it was, it was very broad. It taught not just programming theory, but a broader range of, This is how the web works. These are like... this is how this thing is built. And then dove into the, to the specifics of it. To the languages that, I learned initially that would become the foundation for all the languages I would learn in the future, programming languages, I mean. So I, I think you have to be, if I think of that broadly, I think you have to look at the... you have to assess that technical skill gap, right? Like what, what do I need to know to be successful at this thing that I don't know now? And that's sort of your litmus test for looking at certificate or certifications programs and as well... being able to let what you don't know, tell you what you need to know, if that makes sense. Sometimes you know enough that, Here's this specific technical skill that I don't have that I need, but as you're discovering that skill, you need to let it inform you of, Oh, but this presupposes these other three skills over here. And you know what? I don't have those either. So maybe I need to back up a level. Learn that first, right.

Jesse Butts: 19:22

So once you finish that certificate, did they provide some type of career network pipeline to certain companies? Or were you kind of out in the wild looking for what's next?

David Brown: 19:35

They did provide that network. More than that. And I honestly think this is one of the most valuable things I learned is they taught you how to network. And it is its own skill, as you and I both know, now. It really is its own skill. And especially for someone who's really introverted, the idea of going to a conference in a room full of people you don't know and just making connections is terrifying for someone who's an introvert. And we do it. We force ourselves out there and we do it, but we're just not the best at it. Learning those skills was so huge for me. So pivotal.

Jesse Butts: 20:14

I feel like now we're in a golden age of networking for introverts, in the sense that so many people are much more, because of the pandemic, they're so much more willing to just jump on a video call or a phone call versus, Hey, let's meet for coffee or let's, you know, go to this mixer. Maybe I should say there are a lot more opportunities to meet people one-on-one versus going to the large mixers or, or events than I recall even, you know, a year before the pandemic.

David Brown: 20:47

I agree. I , I think for introverts, there's this safety net around the idea of, I can network without leaving my house. I think that's going to cut both ways eventually. I think, there's more to be gained in human contact. I think we're all starting to miss that a bit. But I, I agree it is much easier. I hadn't thought of it as a golden age before, but think that's actually a great term to apply to it. It really is.

Jesse Butts: 21:10

Did your networking then lead to a software development role?

David Brown: 21:15

It did. And really those first couple of years, we're jumping from contract gig to contract gig. I was, I was really back to a freelance type of lifestyle, but I was okay with that at the time. And I did that for a few years quite comfortably. But then I, I learned the, the downside of that is that it leads to a sort of necessary, workaholic-ism. Is that a word? You, you out of necessity are always doing 60 plus hour weeks because you're always marketing yourself, you're always finding the next job that's going to come about. It was amazingly educational though, because I got to do contract work for several really large companies and really see how the field works, if that makes sense. Because I, I hadn't done anything like that before. And so there was a very steep learning curve. In addition to all the skills I'd learned, there was a very steep learning curve of honestly just working in the business world. It's interesting because I think when you, when you work for yourself, in, at least, in this field, I think a year of doing that is worth three years of doing it for an employer, because all of those problems that you run up against as a programmer, you really have to figure out for yourself. You can't, you know, go to the person in the next cube and say, Hey, I'm stuck. Can you give me a second set of eyes on this? You really have to dig in and come up with those answers yourself. It's incredibly educational. It's also incredibly exhausting. There, there came a point after a few years of that, where we found out we were expecting our second child, and I said, Okay, I probably need to be a grownup again and go get a job working for someone else. Then I was offered a position with a really fantastic company. And things just sort of took off from there.

Jesse Butts: 23:05

If you don't mind just taking a slight tangent here, how did you adjust to losing that freedom when you went in house?

David Brown: 23:13

I feel like I didn't lose much. We moved to a different city. I did have a commute again, which I had been working remotely for a few years at that point. So there was a little bit of an adjustment there. But I think it was offset by the fact that I got to work with some really, really awesome people. I got that rare experience of a company that just really cares about the people who work there. And I ended up sort of pioneering, Hey, this is what, a culture of working remotely looks like. And we should incorporate that for some of our people, which actually positioned things well for when the pandemic hit. But, Yeah. So there, there was an adjustment. Ultimately, and I think it's, you know, it's different for every person. There are people that are going to hear this and say, I would never do that because the freedom of working for myself is just way too much of an asset. It's different for every person. Where I was in my life and we were in our lives at that point, there was more positive than negative that came from that. So it's not like there were things that didn't frustrate me a bit about it. I wasn't in love with commuting in Boston traffic, you know, at that point. But there was more good than bad and it turned out to be actually a really good decision.

Jesse Butts: 24:31

And how did you get into management?

David Brown: 24:35

There were sort of a combination of things. So because of my experience level at the time that I was offered this position initially, I was offered it as a, as a senior developer. And then that team ended up needing a manager or someone left and they needed someone to lead that team. And so they, they asked me to do it. Actually they asked me to do it on a, on a sort of an interim basis. But then at the same time, that company decided to get into a new, a new technology stack that was new to them, but that I had worked in before. And so, because I knew it, they tapped me to lead that as well. And so that turned into actually spinning up an entire new team. And so that was really when I came into a management role. And really then that became sort of the career ... career trajectory that I was on from that point forward.

Jesse Butts: 25:31

Earlier when you were mentioning that when you discovered that you were an introvert, and you couldn't be around people as much... Going to a position where you're managing people, I know to some listeners that might sound like some dissonance. But I think it's an important thing to talk about because, and I've experienced this too, you can have great managers who are not extroverts. But what did you have to learn or adapt to, to managing people? And doing it in a way that didn't have you feeling exhausted like you had in some of those previous roles where you

David Brown: 26:04

Yeah.

Jesse Butts: 26:05

spending a lot of time with people?

David Brown: 26:07

Yeah. You're right. It does feel counterintuitive, right?, I think it was part of that self discovery. So I think a misconception about introverts is that we don't like to be around people at all. And that's not, that's not actually true. Introverts are great when we're one-on-one with people. And when you're managing a team of developers, of software developers, that's a lot of what it is. When you meet with people, it's generally one-on-one. When you meet with the people that you, that you manage. There's a lot of non-face-to-face communication as well. You say a lot more over Slack than you do in meetings generally. I think being an introvert or being an extrovert, it really comes down to how you sort of recharge your batteries. Right? Introverts recharge our batteries by having quiet time, where we can just focus on a task and not interact with people. There's a lot of that when you do software development, because when you're, you're working on a solution, when you're writing code, you just sort of have, have your earbuds in and have tuned out everybody else in the office. And everybody else around you has done the same thing. All you hear are the keyboards. And so there's, there's plenty of time for that recharge. So when you do go into a meeting with several people for that hour or two hours, if they're back-to-back meetings or whatever, you still can be at your best and still can focus and contribute because you have a lot of time to sort of recharge afterward.

Jesse Butts: 27:34

Uh, what other aspects have you found enjoyable about this work that, you know, 15 years ago, wasn't even in the realm of possibilities you?

David Brown: 27:44

I think there's a couple of things. I think it expanded how I define creativity. I think when I was younger, creativity always meant, I was doing something artistic or something. Right. Like, but I've discovered that creativity also means how you problem solve. How, how you come up with solutions to really complex problems. How you think outside of the box to figure out how to make something work. That's a lot of what development. I think that was one part of it. I think another part is I learned something was really satisfying to me, was getting to mentor people who were newer in the field and help them grow in their careers, which is probably the best part of being a manager, is getting to watch people grow and help them grow in their careers and helps them get better at what they do. Which is just a really fantastic thing. There's sort of this difference that I've learned between leadership and management. And they're very sort of different things. But, the leadership part of that is something that I, that I really enjoy that honestly, I find much more fulfilling than any problem that I solve from a technical perspective.

Jesse Butts: 28:52

Do you see any connection to, or relationship to, your master's program and what you're doing now? Were there any skills or ideas that you covered in your studies that you're some way applying today?

David Brown: 29:07

Believe it or not, yes. Part of what you study in a seminary program is, is leadership theory. People that work in ministerial professions are still managers, and you're still leading people. Now, you're leading them in a slightly different way, obviously, but I think that those core principles, honestly, I think I apply those every day. And honestly, I think a lot of the core things that I learned when I studied theater in my undergrad, I applied that every day too, because managing these projects is like managing a production. There's so many moving parts. But I think that leadership piece definitely is something that I lean on every day with the team that I manage.

Jesse Butts: 29:47

I was curious if the theater direction was something about, I'm glad I learned how to act because I have to so much of it, but

David Brown: 29:55

There, are some meetings where that would be the case. Yes.

Jesse Butts: 29:58

Fair enough. Um, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you had to learn about yourself to find work that fit for you?

David Brown: 30:09

I think, Yeah. I think. I think that there's a question of, of how you, you hold your identity. If that makes sense. I think that frequently when you come out of a graduate program, you're identifying with that field that you studied, right? This is what I'm going to do. And so this is who I am. I think that you have to sort of separate those two. You have to figure out who you are. You have to figure out what excites you. What really gets you motivated. The things that you've really love to do and really structure your profession around that. If you can, find something that works around that, that compliments those skills. I think that was really critical when I came to that. It was sort of this epiphany. You know, this light bulb moment when I realized that. And how do you make that work?

Jesse Butts: 31:03

How important is job fit to you? Do you need to love a job from your perspective?

David Brown: 31:09

I don't think so. I think for a few reasons. I think ...in the world that we live in that there's no such thing as job security, right? Like that's, I feel like that's sort of gone. That's a thing of the past. To the point that we said before, I, I think knowing, knowing yourself, knowing, Does, does doing this job work with the things that I know motivate me? Or can I make this job do it, right? I, I don't think that you need to love it because I think there are other, there's so many other things in your life that are so much more important. And it's not that what you do for a living isn't important. I'm not saying that. And I think when you do need to be happy there, because we spend way too much time at work to not be happy. But I think loving your job, that's not so essential to me. Having a job fit you and who you are and what you love to do. I think that's, what's important is having the job fit you, not making yourself fit the job.

Jesse Butts: 32:12

Do you engage with, for lack of a better term, religious studies? Are you , you know, occasionally picking up some of those, you know, weightier theological books? Are you engaged in what you had studied?

David Brown: 32:24

I totally do. I'm that geek who would a theology book on a weekend to... I do sometimes not in any ... I still approach it as, as a hobby. It's, obviously, it's not something I do professionally anymore. But you'll, you would definitely find me reading theology, subreddits, or something like that when I'm just browsing the web on the weekend or something. I totally do.

Jesse Butts: 32:51

What questions should someone in or recently out of grad school ask themselves about finding work outside their fields of study?

David Brown: 33:03

Really.... That's a hard question. I think that it's, it's sort of what I said a moment ago. You know, knowing yourself, knowing what gets you motivated, knowing the, the things or the types of things that you, you really love to do. I think knowing that is going to inform whatever technical skills you need to learn. That's going to inform the, the sorts of positions that you're going to look for when you're right out of school, the types of jobs that you're going to apply for. It's, I think it's really important to, to know yourself, to know, know that part of yourself, because I think if you don't you could get into a position where you're going to be miserable really quickly, and that's no fun for anyone. I think it's important to be adaptable. I think sometimes in graduate programs, you come out with a really narrow focus of, This is my discipline. This is my field. This is what I'm going to do. But there's so much more out there than that. When you think about how you're going to make a living, there's so much more out there. And whatever field it is, I guarantee you it's broader than you could have imagined. And there are so many components to it that you, you had never thought of before. Being able to keep an open mind and stay adaptable and be willing to take a chance on something... that's, that's really important.

Jesse Butts: 34:25

As you were searching for things or trying to figure this out, was there any, any books, any videos, any podcasts or anything that you recommend people check out?

David Brown: 34:35

Yes. The, the name of the book was Quiet. Uh, the subtitle was The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. And that book was, was life altering for me. because it not only helped me understand myself and that I was an introvert, and that was okay, but it also helped me understand all the people that are around me that, that aren't introverts. It helped me under... understand extroverts better. And when I look at books that I've read that have, I guess, contributed to my success in different ways, that ,that book is huge. That book helped and informed so much of my career and so much of my success. Whether you think you're an introvert or not, I highly recommend that everyone should read that book.

Jesse Butts: 35:25

All right. I'll make sure to put a link to that in the show notes. You know, you mentioned earlier, doing some freelance writing and writing on your own. Do you have a website or anything that if people are interested in learning more about your writing, they should check out?

David Brown: 35:36

Sure. DavidBrownPortfolio.com and UnobtrusiveLucidity.com.

Jesse Butts: 35:42

All right. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation, Dave. Thank you for joining me.

David Brown: 35:46

Thank you. I've really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.