When a Legacy Becomes Yours to Carry with Leah Wong Ashburn

0:00It has asked a lot of me. I have been so honored by the kindness and the enthusiasm and love for our beer and our destination. Our experience, our people But it has been hard. The pandemic, COVID, losing my dad, my husband had cancer, my sister's caregiver passed away, and that's all since 2020. And three of those were in 12 months. And this is all wow. The the beer industry, the alcohol industry is soft, and the craft beer industry is maturing. So those challenges would have been enough.

0:48This is what holds conversations with founders and leaders about the work that holds what they're building. I'm Carla Royal, a private coach for founders, and your host. My guest today is Leah Wong Ashburn, president, CEO, and family owner of Highland Brewing Company in Asheville. She has led Highland for more than a decade through a pandemic and through Hurricane Helene. When the storm left Asheville without drinking water for nearly two months, she and her team turned the brewery into a staging ground for relief supplies. President Biden called to thank her and welcomed her to the White House. The beer industry publication Brewbound named her its person of the year. Her father, Oscar Wong, founded Highland in 1994 as the city's first brewery. Leah built a career of her own before joining him in 2011, starting out in sales. Under her leadership, Highland has grown into a company of more than a hundred people and a place where Asheville gathers. Leah, welcome to What Holds. Thank you, Carla. Happy to be here. I'm really excited. I saw you speak at Woman Up, and I was just like, I have to have her on. And not to mention, I love Highland.

2:01Oh, great!

2:01I have been Yeah, I've been to so many of the music things that you do, which are just it's just amazing. And my friends are obsessed with music bingo on Tuesdays. Fantastic. I've yet to make it, but I'm I may go tonight or next Tuesday. So I'm just thrilled to have you here. What's happening at Highland these days that you're excited about? Oh my gosh.

2:23Possibly too much at one time. We are on the verge of opening Oscar's Pizza. So we have avoided food for 32 years, but it became this very obvious gap in the experience at Highland Brewing and finding a way to honor my father's legacy and his spirit because he loved people and beverage and food. And he really wanted to, he just asked. He's I hope we can get some pizza going while I'm still here, basically. So he won't get to see it to fruition in person, but I know his spirit is very much alive. So that would be a change in our business, a big change, going from just serving beverages to serving food. There's just so many service aspects and cleaning, training. And I'm so excited about the pieces that we've tasted so far and how the space is coming together. So it's really gonna be a huge step. But of course, we can't take one step at a time. So we've also opened, we haven't opened, but we've welcomed Black Dome as a local business that sells amazing outdoor apparel. I've already spent money there and I would love for everybody to do that. Debbie and Trent are lovely people and have friends all over the city. So welcoming them to our space has been another wonderful thing. And then by the end of the year, we plan to welcome Cultivate Climbing. We've been working on their space for a long time. And it is just, it's structurally stunning on the inside. The climbing walls are so tall, and they're arranged in such a way where you feel like you're walking through the floor of a canyon a bit. It is just spectacular. So we can't wait to welcome guests to have an even deeper and longer and more meaningful experience at Highland Brewing.

4:30It's amazing because you already have the volleyball, you have the frisbee, the, I don't know what you call it, disc golf.

4:38You will be the coolest among all your friends. Yes, disc golf.

4:41And I love what you say about the experience because it sounds like that's what it's all about. It's not just about drinking beer, it is about bringing people together and a true experience.

4:53It really is. And the I've seen the industry change so much. When I got here in 2011, but the company started in 1994, so I got to watch from the outside, and it has changed radically in that time. So changing, evolving the company while keeping what's most important to us is the magic sauce. And we bang our heads against walls trying to figure that out every single day. And we've had some great answers. Part of that is the activities that you've noted, the volleyball, disc golf, and the climbing that's coming, retail shopping, and then the things like music bingo, the other kind of, you know, activities that you can do seated, live music. It's all around activities and engagement that you can enjoy while you're drinking a beer or before you drink a beer. And that approach has always been so close to my heart. My favorite memories in my 20s and 30s into my 40s were playing volleyball. I got completely addicted to beach volleyball, and I've always loved beer. And those two things just came together so beautifully, and I imagined it here for so long. And now we've just we've done that and we built three courts, then two more, and then built these other experiences. So it means a lot to me to have an active and engaged approach with beer. Because it's not just, it's not about quantity, it's about quality, and that extends to experience.

6:32I just have to say, you are lit up right now. You are lit up with a big smile and just a bright light. It's cool to see. And just for everybody to know, I love beer, but I gave up alcohol about three and a half years ago. And I still go. I still come and visit your place because of all of the experience and the connection and the community and the just sheer fun. It's just amazingly fun. So you don't have to drink to enjoy having.

6:58Yeah, that's also important to me. I am aware and I respect fully that it doesn't serve everyone. And I want people to be able to enjoy whatever beverage they enjoy while they're here on our vast campus, but at the same time, out in the market, we're really trying to focus. And that is also an interesting dichotomy of how creative can we be on site and how can we serve everyone well that visits us? How can we also have a successful, focused, well-marketed, wisely branded beer portfolio in the four states in which we sell beer? That's a lot.

7:40You said right away that you had maybe too much going on. Those were your words. Maybe I have too much going on. I want to just follow that thread for a month. First of all, I just want to say this. I read in the Asheville newsletter that you were doing this Oscar pizza, and and I'm thrilled for you and for your dad, and what a memory and how important and sacred that is beyond offering Facebook at Highland.

8:09Yes, a legacy. It does mean so much to me. And the point, the moment that I realized how much it means is when I was meeting two of our assistant chefs, and they're new to our team, Sean and PJ, and I meet them for the first time. I shake their hands and they're wearing an Oscar's pizza hat. And it hit me so suddenly how my father's name and legacy are on people's bodies that I don't even know. And how important it's gonna be for me to see his spirit and his energy live through these other folks and how we present these pizzas and the quality and the service and all these things, because it's got to live up to his name.

9:05We're gonna talk a little bit more about that in a bit. Coming back to maybe there's too much going on. Tell me a little bit about that and what you do with that. Because in my work, I am a private coach for founders, and I find this to be the case often, especially for the visionaries, the quick starts. They have so many ideas. And how do you juggle all of that? And how do you know what to pursue, what to park, what to let go?

9:31It it has changed radically in recent years because I've gotten to know myself better and how to be a more successful traveler and leader by not doing everything, by not overextending myself during the days. I'm in the middle of this introvert-extrovert scale. And I love doing a talk and sharing some things that I feel like I've learned that might be helpful for other people to hear. And I love the response to it. I love the engagement before and after, and I'm also going to need some quiet time. It takes a lot for my brain to quiet down sometimes. So I have to be careful about how much energy is constantly going on in my head. And I have been very fortunate beyond words to have an incredible vice president in Nikki Mitchell and also in my husband, Brock Ashburn. She has taken so much from my plate. And Brock has been leading the facilities, and both of them are big idea people. I find myself saying, okay, but how many things can we do at the same time? And how big do we need to think now versus years from now? And what aligns with the spirit of Highland and Asheville that I want to align with over time. So we have great conversations and we're a really strong executive team. And then it goes on from there with Liza in accounting and Russ in production. So I am very well supported.

11:24So you're on that introvert extrovert line. So are you telling me that you need not beat music tonight?

11:30I would love it. I know I would love it. But I also know if I look at my calendar and I've got an evening event three nights in a row, I already know I just feel this doom inside me. I'm going to be depleted. Yeah. How do you store? I went to one of my favorite places, the Arboretum, and my husband and I took a long walk. So I love doing that. I'm trying to zone out sometimes, and that might mean letting myself do nothing, which is very unusual, very hard. I do some yoga. Exercise is a big part. So whether it's the gym or I go there and I just put on my blinders, and I enjoy that so much. I'm a better person when I walk out after having just done some kind of movement.

12:17Nice. I want to go back to the executive team, the three of you. I just had Patrick O'Kane on my podcast. You know him from Gonchan West, and we've met a couple of times, really enjoy him, but he gave a metaphor that I just loved. He talked about how when you're trying to draw something like a circle that's very fine, a very fine detail, that if you try to do it with one hand, it's very hard. And I can't do it. I cannot draw a really good circle with one hand. He said, but if you put take your other hand and press against the other hand and then move your hands together, you're able to do that. And it sounds to me like that's what the three of you do is you give each other enough pressure in the right way to function. They have all these big ideas. You come back and go, guys, what can we do reasonably? And so you push uh against each other in such a way that then the result is you can actually do some of these things. Right.

13:15Yeah. I I cannot afford to lose either one of them. I very much pay attention to our health in in all ways, in all meanings of that word. And I think we can all have the ability to run ourselves ragged. We try to be high-performing people and great contributors and leaders. And sometimes that means taking a day and just not making any commitments.

13:38Yep. Nice. I want to go back to when Highland first opened. You were 24. You asked your father for a job and he said no. You've said he wanted you to find your own way. And I want to know what was that like to hear that from him? And what did you find when you went out there to find your own way?

13:57I remember I was disappointed, but dad never made things super easy. He didn't let me win at checkers or shuffleboard or anything. So when I asked for the job, I can't say that I expected it. And I knew even if I got it, that I was gonna have to go through the same process that anyone else would. So I'm glad he said no because I was able to find a job that I stuck with for 13 years, and I learned so much. I ran a s a little business in a bubble. There was a safety net there and I loved it. I learned that I have the utmost respect for teachers. I also learned that I could not be one. But I had the good fortune to work with students and teachers and be in that educational atmosphere, and I loved that. I have the spirit of the teacher deep within me, and I love sharing knowledge. I find it so fulfilling to do that and seeing people understand or pick up something that they can feel seen or apply to something. And it was also lucrative. And I had a bunch of free time. So pretty much a magical combination. And that's why when he offered me that same job years later, I did not take it. And I said, Dad, I love the brewery, but I think I'm gonna enjoy it from the side. I can drink the beer, I will promote the brewery, but I'm having a really good gig over here. I enjoy it, I value it. And it's also really I was making it on my own, and that was just a great feeling. So it took 16 years from my initial ask about that job until I took the job.

15:47I think it was brilliant on your dad's part because I think when we're handed too much up front, we don't really know who we are. And I think it can be in some ways disempowering. And I love how you went out there, proved yourself to you on your own, and how empowering that is. And then 16 late years later, you could come back and say, I am ready. I am ready for this level. I did that.

16:16I was I two two other elements occurred. One, I met my future husband, Brock, and I met we were both living in Charlotte, and he's a beer guy. So we met at a beer dinner. So that was just so appropriate. And it took a while for us to get started, over a year. But once we were solid together and I talked to him about this opportunity, he was, he said, This is the coolest thing ever. You've got to do it. And I was, I said, the income is going to be life-changing. We're gonna have to live differently and probably someday live in Asheville. And he said, We'll figure it out. And I always wanted to live in Asheville anyway. It was simple for him. He always wanted to live here. See it, thought about it, had college friends here, so that selling him on Asheville was a no-brainer. That was so easy. But what a transition it was. The other thing that happened is it had become crystal clear to me that Highland Brewing was more than a brewery. It meant something to the community as a business that added to what the community already prided itself in. That being a place that welcomed people. And although we didn't even have a place to welcome people at the time, but dad was so welcoming. And making the fact that we were making a product that had not been made in Asheville, I don't know, before Prohibition, I don't know when it had last been done. And nobody knew how to permit a brewery. There were so many things, uh, delays that we ran into. But he brought another thing that was being made here. And this this area, this whole region is full of makers and resourceful people. So I think it was a good fit.

18:17It sounds like it. When you did decide to go, your dad said, make this place yours, whatever it takes. When you walk around Highland now, what do you see that's there because of you? And also, Leah, what was that like to hear those words coming from?

18:34Dad is so unusual in the way that he threw me the reins. He joyfully threw me the reins. And I would tell him, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. He was like, Yes, you are. So, no, I'm not. He said, I'm telling the board.

18:47That's how that went.

18:49So he named me president in 2015 and CEO in 2018. And he did. He encouraged me and Brock to make this place our own. And that is so rare and so special. I d I didn't know what to do with that at first. It was really intimidating. It was my daily thoughts were really they were taken over by fill your dad's shoes, fill your dad's shoes, do everything he does. And I have learned over the years that I can't do that. I can do other things that maybe he didn't do, but I'm not gonna write as many beautifully crafted notes as he did so, so well, so memorably. I am not going to serve on as many boards for as long, although I've done several. So I have to become okay with that. But to your point, the way I see myself at Highland is two places. The brand is the big one. So that's what everybody sees. And boy did I hear it when we went from the Scotsman to the Compass in 2018. That was a huge change, and dad let me do it. I told him it would be a small change. It ended up being a radical rebrand, and he said, if you like it, go for it, because I walked him through, but I'm so glad I did it. It pulled together the true kind of roots of the company. It's changing while keeping what's important. It's that spirit of creating and making and driving forward, being the pioneers of beer in Western North Carolina. So we kept that part. And you may have noticed that Scotty has reappeared, the Scotsman, on Gayla Gale. And Gayla Gale is doing great. So now I love that we can honor that history. So full circle, and our VP was the one that taught me into bringing Scotty back. There's a certain amount of time, if you rebrand, you cannot look back. You do not face the other way, you do not answer the comments, you just face forward and you keep going. And then once that all settles, then give it another five years, and then you can call back to that history because it is valuable.

21:22Really, what you're talking about is transcending and including. In other words, you're taking what's valuable and you're including it, but you're also transcending a certain way of being at as that company. But you're not throwing out what needs to come along. So that transcending and including, which is so beautiful. And I love too how confident your dad was in you. Just the confidence and partly because you did go out there and prove yourself, and he saw what you did and what you accomplished. So it's both his love of you just because a love of you would is not enough to run a company. So he knew you could do this. And he also was brilliant in that he said, make it your own, instead of fill my shoes, do what I'm doing. That was a brilliant move on his part to give you that freedom. And then, of course, as it makes perfect sense, you struggle with that a little bit. Maybe I do have to fill his shoes. Maybe I should fill his shoes. And all those things that we have, those doubts and those questions that we have. And then you transcended those and you said, okay, I am going to do my thing. Well, I am going to do it.

22:33I also took the input from our staff who really was driving, hey, we could use a brand refresh. And some of our wholesalers and industry friends. So that started circulating and just percolating up. And I thought, okay, because I was still in this fill dad shoes and don't mess it up. So keep Highland the same, just don't mess it up, was very much on my mind in the beginning. So the courage to change it was not born of just me. And that's what I love too. It came from inside the company.

23:12That teamwork, and we're going to talk more about that in just a moment. But had you not broken out of that way of the computer. Very possibly.

23:19Yes. Yes. Because we're we were seeing and feeling signs that the brand was not resonating with a new audience. And because dad started Highland when he was 55, our audience in 1994, let's say was around 55. 20 and 30 years later, we can't survive on that audience. We have got to pull in younger folks. So that was really central to our rebranding effort.

23:49And I certainly see that when I go. We're surrounded by young people and they're very young children and toddlers out in the meadow with the music and all the fun. It's fun to see. So, Leah, then came Helene and the weeks after it. What did those weeks show you about yourself and your team?

24:06It showed me how differently people respond to that kind of trauma. How many of our staff came to Highland as some of them showed up looking like ghosts. And we fortunately had water and then food and then cooked food here because Adam started cooking a two o'clock meal every day for staff. And then we had battery packs. A friend of mine from Charlotte sent us 10 grand worth of supplies the first few days after the storm. One of the first vehicles, probably to get into the city. And they got supplies from us, and we encouraged them to take care of themselves and then their families and then their neighbors and as they could. Then it expanded to providing relief at Highland as other companies moved in and supplies and beloved moved operations here. And we became not a brewery at all, but this this huge hub with eight or organizations running operations on site, and some of our staff completely changing their jobs. High-end hospitality, advanced logistics and strategy folks were directing parking, driving forklifts, organizing a warehouse, implementing safety rules to get children, for goodness sake, a far away from wherever the forklifts were. It was madness at first. And we have talented people who thought, okay, this is what I can contribute right now before anything else happens, God forbid.

26:28That that flexibility, that resilience, that sense of community that you've created there, all of that came together. And as you mentioned earlier, this part of the world is just, it is community-based. And it's wonderful to me in a world of polarization to see people of all kinds of beliefs and ideas and worldviews coming together through that. And for our listeners who don't really know about Helene, for this area in Western North Carolina, they call it a geological event. And what that means is that literally the land has changed and will never be the same again. And the the aftermath, two years later, is still very present. You led through that. And then Leah, right after that.

27:16Yeah, it was the storm was September 27th, of 24, and we lost dad May 25th, of 25. And he had cancer for three years. He lived three years with cancer, and he was only given six to twelve months. So we knew that things were pretty far advanced when the storm came. We knew that he was not going to have surgery. It was just how long are we going to enjoy time with him? So yeah, we had a a really rough ride there for a while. But I'm proud of what we did. Mom was an incredible caregiver. And I spent as much time with both of them as I could with the support of my husband and our VP and our entire team at Highland. I was pretty absent there for about a month. I spent every day with my parents.

28:12Yeah, and how wonderful that you built such a team and had such support that you were able to do that. It's a gift that we'll keep on giving for you. It's it was a sacred time for you, I'm sure. And you've said that I am my father's daughter. Where do you see him in the way that you lead? And where are you different from him?

28:32It's interesting to hear what other people say when they say, Oh, you're just like your dad, and my internal self says, I wish. But I do have B enjoyment of seeing people how they they react and interact with Highland gives me so much joy. So Highland was dad's happiest career time. He was an engineer for longer. He made gobs more money, he was quote, more successful, but his happiest time was at Highland. And my my proudest times have been here. It's been a big challenge, so I think that's where the difference lies. He was so happy go lucky that Jamaican upbringing just stayed with him, I think. And I am I'm also half my mom. And her sort of she worries more. So I will f I will relish in the enjoyment of what we have, what we do, what we make, who we are, and then I'll go home and stew about it. That's where he would just go home and go right to sleep.

29:53Yeah, you said you have a very active mind. What is something he said that you still hear?

29:59So many things, but ultimately he wanted me to be happy. And I feel his presence, feel his gratitude for this life. The life that brought him started in Jamaica, brought him to Notre Dame, Boston, California, New Jersey, Charlotte, Asheville. Every bit of it he was so grateful for, and he he said that every single day. And I really feel that he gave that to me when he left this world. It helps. It helps a lot. And I'm I'm I'm delighted that he's, you know, his picture's right in front of me, and that my the team here at Highland wanted to honor him. It wasn't me saying, let's call it Oscar's Pizza. We went through a whole exercise of other names, and we thought we wanted to honor him, maybe not with his name. But the way the value that they found in their relationship with him is just a sliver of what I had, and they they still want to do this. So it it just thrills me. I just showed mom a picture of the front of the pizzeria today. The signs are up, there's some vinyl stickies on the windows and a big three-dimensional sign, and I sent her a picture.

31:23When does that officially open?

31:25Well, despite our best intentions of avoiding Cold Mountain, it's opening. We're gonna do slices at Cold Mountain, and we will have a limited menu for ongoing for quite a bit. So Thanksgiving, some special anyway, so for several soft openings. Nice.

31:46You've been the one that everyone at Highland looks to for more than ten years now, and through all of that, what has that asked of you?

31:54Wow. It has asked a lot of me. I have been so honored by the kindness and the enthusiasm and love for our beer and our destination, our experience, our people But it has been hard. We went through, as you said, the pandemic, COVID, losing my dad, my husband had cancer, my sister's caregiver passed away, and oh my that's all since 2020. And three of those were in 12 months. So it's been really hard, and this is all wow. The the beer industry, the alcohol industry is soft, and the craft beer industry is maturing. So those challenges would have been enough. But we've just added so many other layers. Fortunately, I've got this team around me, and I did learn some lessons on a very small scale from my old job of the peaks and valleys of business. They're just part of it. So I have to remind myself that that's what it takes. And if it's not one thing, it will be another. Building in resilience, making smart business moves, making sure that you're prepared for the unforecastable things so that your team gets a smoother ride, so that we can pay people if a pandemic happens, so that we have a place to gather that feels safe and comforting.

33:32It is a lot. And you look so perfectly put together that I'm sure anybody to look at you would not know what you're carrying. I just wrote an essay about this thing where and so many of my founder clients, they always look great. They always have a smile on their face to the public out there on social media, everywhere they put in, they feel like they have to have that. And what I want to say is that just as you just said, it is hard out there. It is really hard. And so when people are congratulating you and saying what a wonderful job you are doing, maybe also say, How are you? How are you really doing? Maybe not in front of the whole world, but the truth is, the truth is it's hard, it's really hard. And you talk about resilience, and that is the thing that we've got to learn. And the world is in a very crazy time right now. And it's not just here in Asheville with Helene, and it's not just COVID, it's all over the place where things are difficult. And the more we can develop that resilience in ourselves, and I think you've nailed it, Leah, community, connection. We are social beings. If we have community and connection, then we really can make it through anything. And certainly Helene has shown us that here in this area, among other things. But we're at a time in our world where we're more disconnected than ever. And it's what I love about what you're up to with Highland is you're not just serving beer, really good beer, by the way. I have had it. It's been three and a half years, but I have had it and enjoyed it. But you are offering an experience and a place for people to come together and connect. And I think that is what we need. Honestly, I really believe this more than anything else. It's just we need connection. And I think it's the thing that's hurting.

35:32You're absolutely right. It's the folks that struggle the most are often the ones who are the most isolated. And when you're in trouble, when you're hurting, when you've been through trauma and difficult times, it's really easy to retreat. I don't place any blame, but I I agree with you that community is the answer to so many things. You've got to have personal relationships. The trick is for us as a brewery, our brewery is very busy. We have so much going on. We send the vast majority of our beer out to the market, and we only make beer. So we are every day trying to figure out how do we get our thirst for good mantra, brand badge, call to action, how do we translate that to a six-pack on a shelf in Merle Beach across our four states, Atlanta and Raleigh and Charlotte and Knoxville. Those are tough questions. And we're we're trying like hell. So I just ask people to purchase thoughtfully. I think people do, which is a good thing for us. They do it more and more as some larger companies have disappointed us here and there. Not in beer, I'm saying specifically, but overall. And the the trust in institutions is at record lows. And that's not good, but it does make it easier for us to say, well, here's here's something you can believe in, and a place and the people you can come and see exactly how this is done and who's doing it and how we go about it.

37:18I love that you're asking the question about your beer. And how many people don't? They say, I want to get my beer out there, I wanted to get it sold, and I want to make all the money. You're asking a question that is in line with your values, and it comes through the fact that you're wrestling with your team with that question, I think speaks to your integrity.

37:39Thank you. I I wish that it were only integrity and values, and it is partly that. Also, the market's really tough. And we we have a big beer system here. We we make a lot and we need to sell a lot. In a maturing market, we need to sell beer. And we can't do it all on site. It's a surprisingly small piece, even though it's a wonderful piece. If we could just fire on all cylinders, but then I have to go back to my own advice, which is if it's not one thing, it's another.

38:11And the sooner we learn that, it's like it always surprises me when someone says, I can't believe this happened. I'm like, how can you not believe this happened when this happens all the time? The interruptions and all these things happen and building that capacity. You've touched on this, Leah. I just want to ask you really clearly what holds and sustains you through all this now.

38:31You asked earlier about how I keep it together. Maybe you didn't use those words, but I will. And the fact that my mom and sister are here and I am closer to them now that we don't have dad, I'm so grateful that we're all in Asheville. And I see them every week. And my husband, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, they're all here in Asheville. So that's a great comfort. My vice president is one of my best friends, and we do fun stuff personally, and we do a heck of a lot of work, and she carries a huge burden. So sustaining me is also sustaining the people around me that I work for, care for, love the most. That's a job that I take joyfully and and it is fulfilling, and that's what really matters. That's part of what dad says to me, too. It's like he didn't say, you know, mom is now your job. But I I know that he wants her to be in a good place, and I am grateful to be closer to her than ever. So new doors and new opportunities have opened up, and I'm glad for those.

39:47And your husband's doing well now. Is that correct?

39:50He is great. He has he is in the clear, he gets getting checked every two months or so.

39:55I'm so happy to hear that, especially with everything you've gone through. Years ago, you said that the one thing you couldn't live without was time with yourself. How do you do that with all of this? Uh, still true.

40:08You know, in these in these days, it's it's easy to work remotely. And I I work with a single mom. I work with another mother, and we all need time to do other things. So when I see the demands on their schedules as mothers and a single mom, my life is easy. So I can clear some time to do the things that I need. And I try to be very supportive of the things that they need.

40:37Very important, especially for people with your level of responsibility. I find with my clients that they don't take the time that they need because they feel like the company can't survive without them. And I hear you saying loudly and clearly, yeah, actually, we can because I've got such a great team around me. And I think that speaks so highly of your dad, Oscar, and of your leadership as well. So it's really fun for me to hear all of this. I've certainly heard things I didn't know, and I hope that our listeners will hear some things and come visit you. Where can people find you and Highland?

41:13People can find us online at Highlandbrewing.com.

41:16They can come visit us in Asheville where we make all of our beer. Thank you, Leah. I'm delighted to be here with you. It's been fun and easy. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks. If this conversation brought someone to mind, send it to them. That's how this show reaches the people it's for. I'm Carla Royal, a private coach for founders. They often have good advisors for the business. They don't always have someone for themselves. That's where my work comes in. You can find me at Carlaroyal.com. This is what holds. I'll see you back here next time.