are we lucky?

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things with Sean and Andrew. Today's topic is our timing was the luckiest. I'm very excited about this. There's another one of those that you had everything to do with it and I had nothing and I let's see where it goes. So let me tell you how we work over here. Yeah. We have a wonderful team who is very patient with us and pretty much what we'll do is we'll have brainstorming sessions for short form video for YouTube videos for podcast and we'll throw some ideas at the wall and then it'll sit there as a list and we'll kind of just sort through which ones come most naturally and are easiest to produce as they say. So then once we have those ideas producing them looks like making a little outline, talking through like the intro, what's the flow of the show going to be, how can we make it a compelling storyline, give it a story arc, make sure that it makes sense, the flow of the whole thing. And this one has been on our ideal list for two years. I think this is an idea you had. Why do you feel so compelled to talk about luck? Because I think it goes against everything you believe. This is why I'm excited. This is why I'm excited to unpack all of that. But essentially what I have, cause this is a daunting subject to just think about, man, I do feel like we've had the luckiest timing ever. So what are specific examples of that and why do I feel that way? And then how do I make this logical? So no promises, but we have put some effort into scripting why I feel fortunate in life. And let me tell you now why I think that's an important podcast episode because we talk about faith and we talk about, um, talk about gratitude. We talk about having curiosity, kind of staying in the game, immersing yourself, engaging in life. And I think part of that is like this general excitement and optimism in how you wake up every day. Okay. And when an event happens, when a reality happens, there's a lot of different ways that you can digest that or perceive that. Okay. And so my whole premise with this episode and with what I want to achieve in our marriage and with our kids is to just say, Hey, let's choose the most optimistic, most hopeful iteration of perceiving this reality because God is faithful and that's what I believe. And this goes actually back to when we interviewed Ben and Corley and she said, I don't know what next year is going to look like, but it's going to be the best year yet. The way that struck me is like, dude, that's just having faith and it doesn't matter what happens. It's just this underlying choice that you make to say it's going to be good. But this brings me to my question, Andrew of the title of this episode, which you chose. Yeah. Our timing was the luckiest. Do you believe in luck? No luck is not the word I feel. Why? I would say if I was going to put the most accurate title to this, I think it's God has been so faithful to us. But some people don't feel that way and then they just call it luck. So I think as we digest and go through some of these, hopefully people will be able to self reflect and say, dang, yeah, no, I thought that was a hard thing at the time. But then five years later, I realized that that was a good thing because that's what a lot of these are that I've put on here. I hope this all makes sense, but this is a revelation that marriage has given me to where we talk about the beneficial adversary concept. And I used to get so caught up on being frustrated that Shawn wasn't, she wasn't seeing things the way I was seeing them. And I was like, why don't you, you're not being realistic or you're not seeing this right. And then I realized, no, there's actually just multiple ways to see things, which then increased my appreciation for faith and just a high level thing of why I think faith creates luck or at least a feeling of luck, which I think whatever, like you don't have to use these exact words, but you see what I'm saying, that I think faith anchors you to something that's permanent and unshakable. It's this idea that this is not the end of the story and that this may be hard, but I believe that there's purpose in the pain and there's purpose through this. I think that having this type of faith gives suffering meaning. We did the whole episode on grief and how, man, there's really actually beautiful aspects to grief and the idea that you lose people. You know, it's like, it makes you appreciate the time that you have with the people that are around you right now. And look, the Bible says that it doesn't, it doesn't minimize the reality of grief or hardship, but it reframes it. Like in Romans five, it says, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character and character produces hope. I think that that outcome of suffering producing hope is a choice. So do you view it like that? I think faith grounds, optimism and reality. It's not like this delusional, Hey, I'm being ignorant to what's actually going on. It's actually just, I'm choosing to see things a certain way in our marriage. I choose to see you as the generous, wonderful disciplined person that you are. And I don't choose to see you as, you know, the, the, the moments that we're at our weakest. Are you scrolling through this nervous? I'm trying to track. Yeah. Okay. I'm, I'm curious. This episode I hope will counter cynicism with optimism. Okay. And in some ways it's, that's like a courageous choice, but what are you curious about? No, I'm just curious how you've kind of flipped it immediately. We're going to go through some specific cases and I'm excited to also go through high level reasons why I think we're lucky or reasons that God has been faithful. Okay. Yeah. But first we have a featured comment. Go to scroll the top. You got this. Okay. Featured comment is from truth. Truth. 52 63. Thanks guys. I love this show. You've helped me so much. Find my way to helping my marriage of 24 years. Thank you so much. Wow. I love comments like that. Truth. Truth. Okay. You ready for this? Yeah, I'm all in here, baby. Okay. Okay. Here is why I think that we, and by we, I mean Sean and I, and also you listening are the luckiest. Okay. We're going to go through these and a lot of these may apply to you. So let's start with the macro. What year were you born? 92 1992 I was born in 1991. One thing that I think is cool and lucky or or fortunate, we got to see the turn of the century. Think about that. Yeah. We were born in the 1900s and now it's the 2000s. That's kind of cool. That's cool. So fortunate. I was looking at the ancestry.com family tree goes back to 1600 those people didn't see the turn of the century. Those poor guys lived to the 1600s and then 1700s they never got to see a two. They get to see a turn of a century. Is that right? No. You just said century. Decade. Decade. No. What's the one in between? What's a hundred years? Yeah. Isn't it a decade? No, that's 10 years. Wow. Millennium. No, that's a thousand. So it's century. I guess so. Turn of the century and a millennial. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Millennium. So not millennial. That's us. We're a millennial. We're millennials, but a millennium. Millennium. Are we struggling like this? It is morning and we're rolling into this. But here's some things that come with being born in this era. Yeah. It is the peak of global peace. Some would argue not. Are there wars going on? Yes. Are there tragedies going on? Yes. Is it the fewest tragedies that have ever been going on? I don't know. What are we defining as tragedy? Are less people getting? Where are you finding your data? This is the whole point of the episode is what? There is no data on here proving that we are within. Sean, World War I, World War II, Vietnam. That doesn't encompass the entire historical timeline. There are the fewest wars going on today than there's ever been. But that doesn't mean there's the fewest like tragedies happening. Okay. You're right. There are. Well, what do you mean? Like psychological tragedies? Like the, the depression rates. That is. Yeah. That's a tragedy, I guess. But I'm saying murder or war. Okay. I need to see the data here. I don't believe it. You don't believe what? I don't believe that right now we are living in the most peaceful era. In history. We are living in the most peaceful era in history. What are you defining? I need this. What are you? Okay. Show me your proof. So this, okay, fine. Let's do it. You want me to dig in? Here we go. I want you to dig in. Here we go. Least violent time in history is post 1990 era. Okay, here we go. But this is my point with statistics is that you could say you can make them paint whatever picture you want them to. You can. And so my point with the episode is choose the, choose the optimistic one. Okay. This is a complex and debated point. All right. There are declining violent death rates. Okay. Particularly since the end of world war two, there's a shifting focus on violence and despite overall declines to your point, there are still active conflicts and humanitarian crisis. Yes. Um, but that might be just a natural part of human humanity. Humanity. Okay. Okay. There's a guy Steven Pinker who would say it's not the most peaceful time, but here we go. Violent death per hundred thousand people. Uh, despite high rates of violent death in comparison with population, population size, non-state groups are an average, no more less violent than those living in organized societies. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Trying to get the data here. You know, when you're on the go, your hunger goes from one to 10 and you want something satisfying. Yes. Not sugary, not messy, and definitely not something that's going to leave you crashing an hour later. Yes. That's exactly why I keep chomps, meat sticks with me pretty much every single place I go. When we found out we could work with chomps, we were pumped because we genuinely eat chomps all the time and keep them stocked at our office, our home and our pantry. Everyone loves them. Our kids, our team and us too. Each meat stick is packed with 10 or more grams of high quality protein and zero sugar. Again, zero sugar, which honestly feels like a miracle when something tastes this good. They're made with herbs and spices. You can literally see in every bite. My personal favorite right now is the jalapeno beef. It's delicious. It's got the perfect kick and the flavor is honestly really good. We turned our whole family onto eating chomps and what we love the most is that chomps doesn't cut any corners. They use 100% grass fed and finished beef and venison and antibiotic free turkey. You can really taste the difference. It's that high quality. They're also shelf stable, which means no fridge, no melting, no stickiness. Just toss one in your bag and go. It's amazing. Get 15% off plus free shipping on your next order of chomps meat sticks at chomps.com with code Sean. Again, that's code Sean for 15% off plus free shipping at chomps.com. There is less violent crime per capita. There's less wars, less deaths by violent means per capita. The data says that since 1800 more than 37 million people worldwide have died while actively fighting in wars. Okay. Uh, fewer people died in recent conflicts in recent decades than in most of the 20th century. And just the idea of conventional wars where you throw dead bodies at dead bodies, that kind of era is over. Now we still have wars, but it's all in drones and boats and bombs, right? World War one, had 7 million people die. World War two, 21 million people died and three quarters of all war deaths since 19 1800. Happened in those two wars, right? Here's a little chart that shows you world of one world war two and then all these little dots are the deaths since then. Okay. And you see all the dots before then since the 1800s. So we are so lucky. Yes. Okay. Then we don't have to live through like this savage wartime. That's lucky. I think that's important. Number two, we've lived through, I think with precipitous timing, the greatest technological leap in history. Agreed. And we didn't, we did not grow up with phones. So we have, we didn't grow up with, we didn't really grow up with internet. No, we had we had dial up. You remember that? But we dial up was even like when we were what, 10 years old. Yeah. Maybe like 12 or 13. Yeah. But we've benefited from all the technology. Like we were kids. We had healthy childhoods that weren't destroyed by technology. We still use paper maps in our cars. Yeah. Yeah. We still learned handwriting in school, but now we're at the age that our kids are young enough to also not be in that first wave of technology. We didn't have to deal with that technology and the unknowns with it, but we've benefited from it. And now our kids don't have to catch the negative ramifications of that either. Meaning if you had kids 10 years ago, like when social media was just coming out and smartphones, no one knew the negative side effects of that. So the fact that drew is now five, we have not yet had to deal with that issue yet. There's all this data coming out that will help us navigate that in a way better, healthier way for her. You know what I'm saying? I think that's fortunate. That's fortunate while all the while still benefiting from the technology, which is just, I just think the timing of that is insane. It's amazing. Again, this is high level. We're going to dial into Sean and I specific story later. Medicine has never been better. Okay. Childhood mortality is at a historic low in 1800 44% of children died before the age of five today. That's under 4% globally and less than half a percent in developed countries. Amazing hygiene, surgeries, wearables, antibiotics, all the stuff. That's fortunate. It is the lifespan. 44% of children used to die before the age of five. I think that's insane. Number four, global poverty is declining rapidly in 1990 right before we were born a year before I was born. Nearly 37% of the world lived in extreme poverty today. That's less than 9%. Amazing. Okay. Are you in on this? Yeah. There's still work to be done. Yes, but it used to be more than one third of the global population was now it's less than one in 10 but still do work, right? We have insane education online. You have access to the best teachers again benefiting from the technology like which I think then trickles over into the poverty issues and into the other things that we'll talk about. Uh, previously knowledge was gate kept, right? Now it's open to everybody. It's democratized. Um, personal freedoms were in the golden age of there's more religious, racial and gender equality now than ever before. I'm not saying it's perfect. There's still work to be done. Um, you can travel freely, speak freely and start your own business in ways you couldn't. Our parents, we can do like American, American. Yeah. There are a lot of people who cannot speak freely. Yeah. Are you saying as Americans, as Americans, we can travel, speak freely and yes, but also as a percentage of the global population, it's less oppressive in that sense. And we're also young enough to see what comes next. Like everyone's talking about AI disruption. We're going to have lived through all that again without, I don't know. Like we're at this pivot point, which I think is cool. Okay. It is really cool. We're this bridge generation I think. So yeah, that's the high level stuff. Do you have anything to add there? I think on the opposite side of that, we have also lived through nine 11 housing crisis, the 2008 economic crash. Yeah. Global pandemic. Yeah. An era of fast change. Yes. Like there has been a lot we've also lived through. Yes. Are we moping around with those or are we, are we, moving forward in optimism or faith? Okay. That's kind of my point. There are, there have been tough things that have happened, but we're also living in the best time ever and that's, that's going to continue to be the case. So there's always going to be good things happening and always going to be tough things happening. Which one are you going to focus on? You want to talk about some specific stories? Okay. So I think about our timing was lucky of when we met and how old we were. You weren't lucky. Okay. What word do you, what word do you want to use? Same thing. It's faith. There's such a contradiction. I'm viewing luck is thank you God for this timing and I'm shortening it with luck. Okay. But you can adjust, adjust the saying, adjust the word. I think it's literally ordained. Say more. I don't think luck had anything to do with it. I think to stand on a podium and say I was lucky is not being grateful for God's hand in everything. I see it as exactly the opposite. But again, I guess I'm defining luck as God had a hand in this. That is, it's my mental opening of like, yeah, but if you, if you, if you believe in luck, you believe that he didn't have a hand. I'm saying that they're the same thing in my mind. Luck by definition is just a happenstance. Okay. God having a hand in something is truly like an intentional move of a higher power. And like it's, I feel like it's complete opposite. That's fascinating. Do you think that it was like God ordained that you won the Olympics? Are you divinely chosen for that? I'm thinking there used to be Kings who thought they were chosen by God. You know what I'm saying? Which then leads to this. I am God and I am different and I am special. My use of the word luck is to say, man, God has been so good here and I'm not special at all. You know what I'm saying? Like I have a place here. I have stuff to do. I'm here for a purpose, but I'm not like a divine character myself. I'm not when all this stuff we're about to go through with our timing, like it's luck in the sense that, oh my gosh, God is so good and thank you. It's just like a gratitude. I feel so lucky. I feel so lucky as well, but to dissect it on such a like detailed scale, I don't think luck had anything to do with it. Do I think God made me win a gold medal and like chose me paralleling that to like, do you think there are people walking around who think, who feel as though God chose them to be King? Hear me out for a second. I'm going to go bounce back and forth. I do think there are people who walk around and think that God chose them to be King, but I don't think they end up being King. Okay. But I do think the ones who end up being good or bad to a certain extent were meant to be there. Okay. I think I agree with you, but how do they feel? So if I think I was made to be King and I'm not, no, then I'm just bitter. That's a completely different thing to argue and talk through than what you said earlier. There's a difference between feeling lucky and thinking it was luck. You were saying your argument earlier was that you think it was luck. You didn't say I felt lucky. You said it. Did I believe that it was luck that got me a gold medal or God that got me a gold medal? I think it was God because if I were to walk down the context of like everything that happened in my life, I feel lucky for sure. That's what I'm talking about. But I don't believe it. Luck had anything to do with it. I agree with you. I think this is another instance where we're saying the same thing. I am positioning luck as the glasses, the glasses through which to see God's goodness. And when I look back on my life and I'm able to say, ah, I feel grateful or I feel God's presence or I see God's presence there. I guess I shorthand that to, I feel lucky. Not like, Oh, that was just a random crazy like series of events. Yeah, but it almost is. Like actually God used that random crazy series of events for good. I know. But even walking down the laundry list of things, you listed it at the beginning of I, it was lucky that we were born in 91. It was not lucky. That's literally how God planned it. God planned us to be born then. But we are lucky to have been born in 1991. We are lucky to have been chosen to be born in 91 but it was not luck that caused it. I agree with you. So how are we differing here? I think what we're differing is you have to acknowledge you are actually speaking of a feeling rather than like an occurrence, an action. You think you feel lucky that God has had an intentional hand in your life. Let me actually edit the word feeling and say, God forbid you, you talk about a feeling. Well, cause in this instance, in this instance I think feelings are everything or whatever I'm about to describe, which is why I'm not going to use that word. I could never speak about feelings. It's I think choosing to see God's goodness or choosing to feel like God has been in your life. That's not really a feeling though. It's more of a choice is it makes all the difference. It makes all the difference. It does. But there is a lack of acknowledgement and a belittling of faith. If you try to justify where you are in life because of luck, I agree with you. And why is this whole thing about luck? Why do you keep saying, I feel lucky and that the parallel to Kings of like going back to saying, do you think it, I was divinely chosen to win a gold medal. Yeah. I don't know how I got so lucky to be that person, but yeah, I think when he wrote out my life and my life script, that's what he chose for me. You said you're using both words concurrently. I'm doing it. In my mind when, when you, I'm doing it to like be specific as to what you've been talking about. Okay. In my mind, when you are able to acknowledge that like, Hey, I want a gold medal where I played in the NFL, not because I worked harder than everybody else and I'm better than everybody else. And God loves me more than everybody else. Then you allow room for this type of humility of like, dang, I'm just grateful. I'm just grateful that like whatever work I did do, which I don't know, honestly, is it more or less than anybody else that had my genetics? I don't know, but I'm glad that I did the work. What? However much that was. I'm glad that I was in the positions. I'm glad that I kept showing up and man, you know what? The dice rolled in my favor. And when I say that, I mean, God showed up. That's how I'm saying that. I don't think I agree with like how you're trying to position it. It's a humility of like, we've had so many good things happen in our life. One, do we choose to see him? Two, are we taking all the credit for that? You know? No, but it has nothing to do with luck. Okay. In paralleling that to a King who's a bad person who walks around being like, Oh God told me is not a fair representation of paralleling you and I situation either. So I don't think there's anything wrong with saying humbly, yeah, I do think God chose me to have the exact life I've lived. And I'm lucky that God put me in these positions. I'm lucky towards God. No, I, I even think it's such a nuance and it's such a tiny thing, but I am not lucky. I can feel lucky. But to even say I am lucky belittles God's intention for you. I think that's such a serious, like so intense way. Cause okay, let's just transition to our specific stories. One, we've been in Nashville in this really pivotal time, right? In the growth of the city and everything. Nashville is like a really fun place to be. Do you think that's by happen? How would you say that? How would you say that? Rephrase what I just said. I think it's absolutely mind boggling. I think your definition of the word lucky, hear me out. Here's why I feel so defensive of the word luck is I don't want at any point in my life to make God smaller than who he is. I'm all for that. And can I, can I look at my life and be in complete awe of like why me? Yeah. And can I look at every single thing that has happened in my life and see that because I like my whole story is like such a coincidental crazy happenstance of like one thing happened after another, after another. And if it weren't for chow moving to Des Moines, Iowa from Beijing, China, yeah, that was number one on our list of personal stories that maybe I would not have met you. That's yeah. And to, to say or use the word luck in my brain, the way I operate and like I'm connecting dots, to a certain extent to me, if I use that word that makes my faith not strong in my mind, it makes room for faith of like, and I feel the exact opposite. Well, I'm glad we're having this definition of terms to be honest. Uh, I think, I think it's a good practice to apply luck to outcomes and not to the process. Meaning, sorry. No, this is semantics at this point. It is semantics, but applying luck to an outcome belittles hard work in belittles God's hand. What I'm trying to do, luck is a lack of faith. Okay. Are they interchangeable? Do they overlap anywhere? I think I could, I have part of me wants to argue that like, yeah, you could say you feel lucky, but even that I think to a certain extent is not embracing and valuing and feeling blessed for what you have been given and what you've worked for and how God has written your life. I think it's a very close, uh, equivalent to me, but let's, let's keep going through this. So Sean mentioned chow moving from China to randomly Des Moines, Iowa, and then randomly her. You tell that story. You tell a story, a child. How many of you parents out there like us have said something along the lines of like, if you just take two bites of your vegetables, I'll let you have ice cream or whatever you want. I can't even count how many times we have tried to bribe our kids. Yes, I said it to eat their veggies and we are not proud of it because it really never worked, which is exactly why Andrew and I co-founded beam kids. Yeah. Those bribery days are over with beam kids. We're confident our kids are getting all their daily vitamins despite how many bites of veggies they actually take. And the best part is we recently launched our newest flavor, which is cookie flavor. It's delicious. All you do is mix one scoop of beam kids all in one superfood powder with milk or water and boom, you've got a craveable cookie flavored drink that's packed with essential vitamins, minerals, and probiotics. All while your child thinks they're getting a special treat. Yes, sir. Say goodbye to vegetable bribery and hello to beam kids made with no sugar added or artificial junk. You should try this totally kid approved drink for yourself and see why so many kids ask their parents for it every single day. Our kids definitely ask for beam kids every day and we always say yes. As a loyal listener to our podcast, you can also be the first to try beam kids newest cookie flavor before it's gone. Head to shopbeam.com slash couple things and use code couple things for 40% off plus two free gifts. Check it out. Honestly, it's delicious. Chow was a world champion gymnast in Beijing, China and he had this American dream to move to the United States and open his own gym and be a coach and, and raise successful athletes. Um, he was at a competition and met the head coach of University of Iowa and was offered a full ride scholarship to the University of Iowa in exchange for coaching their gymnastics team. He moved to Iowa city, Iowa for many years and was a coach there, was looking for a place to open his own gym and found West Des Moines, Iowa. He ended up planting a gym there. And it happened to be five minutes from my house. I at the time was at a different gym and my parents switched me to Chow's when it opened because it saved gas money. Um, and was a more affordable way for me to continue doing gymnastics at a young age that my parents could figure out. And then you just think about the incredible idea that your two chemistry, chemistry together led to this incredible outcome. That is like lightning striking. And by that, I mean, that is like God sending lightning. It is a God ordained incredible thing that I'll, I'll call luck. That's wild. That is a wild story that one of the best random coaches who didn't have a name moved five minutes to your house and then you randomly stumbled upon this sport or your parents did that you were built for. And then you had this coach five minutes away, bro, that's insane. I would say that in my life I think I've felt lucky that things haven't panned out on my timeline. Meaning I signed to play college football in April when it's normal, the sign in January, February, I did not feel lucky at the time. I didn't feel like God was making it happen at the time. But as I look back on it, I see God's faithfulness and how that was so lucky that it was because of the late signing day that I ended up at Vandy. And even though that first semester also did not feel great or didn't feel good, we stuck it out. And it's because of Vandy that we're in Nashville. It's because of Nashville that we met because we met that we have these wonderful kids and the whole path just is blessed with God's faithfulness. I feel lucky. Let me read this. It says in a philosophical and religious context, luck is often viewed as a temporary random and uncontrollable event while God's blessings are seen as a lasting, purposeful and divinely orchestrated favor. Some people believe that relying on luck can detract from trusting in God's plan and providence as luck implies a lack of control and predictability. Notice how it says some people, but that's how I view the future. I view, I view life as like a adventure I'm stumbling through and like, Oh, this is unpredictable. Yeah, it is unpredictable. Is there a plan? Yes. Is it predictable to me? No. So is it like, do I choose to feel like this is a planned out thing that is unpredictable? I, AKA luck, or do I view to, do I choose to view it as chaos and nonsense and purpose? I'm just arguing with this whole premise. We can view it as something that is blessed and fun and has purpose. Uh, another way I feel fortunate is, um, we got married young, but we experienced a lot before we got married. Uh, which I, I feel lucky about like now, now having been nine years into marriage, if we met and got married at 35, I don't know, dude, it would not, I don't know if we would be as good communicators or like we, you know, we've turned into such good communicators. No, we w we're like, just, we've done so much life together and I'm fortunate we met when we did. I feel fortunate. Do you have any, I feel fortunate that we started social media when we did. It became, we started it because we loved it, not because we could make a career out of it. This was 2015 and then it became something that we could do full time and make a career out of it. I feel so fortunate. The thing that we did because we loved it turned into over the course of us doing it, something that we could do, do as a job. Dang, what a time to be alive. I feel extremely fortunate. You and I talk about this all the time. Like how are we so fortunate and I feel so incredibly blessed, but I think the most incredible thing about reading all of this and like saying it out loud is God did all of that. 100% thank you God. I'm going to keep going through it cause now I'm just ripping. I feel fortunate that our kids were born in 2019 and 2021 that is before COVID and after COVID. We both got to be in the hospital. We both got to have our parents in the hospital. That's freaking, thank you God. I feel fortunate that my house burned down in freshman year college and it was a time in my life where me and the four siblings I have, we're kind of out doing our own thing and that event did not feel blessed or ordained, but the side effect was we all came back to Indianapolis and reconnected and in incredible ways. And in my mind I was this collector. I had all my trophies and jerseys and stuff and it got burnt to the ground. My gosh, that was a pivotal point in my life where I wanted to store up treasures where moth and rust do not destroy. That's when I went dreadlocks and Mexican ponchos and one t-shirt in my closet. I'm still a minimalist. I'm fortunate that you went to the 2008 Olympics and didn't make the 2012 Olympic fame. Why? He has instead of competing at the 2012 Olympics, I was covering it and I was assigned to cover a cycling event where I was introduced to Guy East and he set me up with his younger brother. Yes. I feel fortunate that my football career ended in 2019 in August, 2019 when do we have our first kid? 2019 October 2019 I got to be around every day as much as I needed to or wanted to. If I was playing football, we'd be bouncing around every weekend. Maybe you'd be in Nashville or Des Moines and I would see you randomly and I got to be with our newborns. You know what else I'm grateful for? What? The way my map has been woven together. If it weren't for my very first agent, I would not have gone to the cycling event in 2012. So my agent back in the day, Cheryl shade repped a few athletes in the 2008 games. I was by myself in the village and she was always, she gave each other us each other's names and she said, if you guys see each other in the village, just know you have like friends. And it was Taylor Finney who became a really good friend of mine and he was competing at the cycling event in 2012 and it was Taylor who set, set me up in the sense of, um, not as like romantic, but he set up me and Guy East to be like co part. So a guy could explain cycling for me and I would not have been there if it weren't for Taylor and I wouldn't have known Taylor if it weren't for Cheryl. It's amazing. I'm fortunate that when I showed up at Vandy, which is a historically terrible college football team, the time I was there, we were the winningest team in the school's history. I feel glad that our wedding was planned randomly on April 16th and not the 17th because it was the day before OTAs. We didn't have to miss any football. Didn't put me in a weird place. I feel fortunate that, uh, our growth over everything financially on social media and, and all the ways mostly came slowly because I don't think we would be mature enough to handle like an onslaught massive wave of success. I feel, I just feel fortunate. Um, even like long snapping when I was coming up, wasn't popular that opened the door for me to get a college scholarship, to be at Vandy, open the door for the pros to happen. I feel fortunate that we didn't have to online date. Yeah. We would miss that window. I'm reading this book called fluke. I'll close out. We'll close out reading this book called fluke. It tells a story of a couple who goes on a honeymoon to Japan. They go to the city, Kyoto. We're going to Kyoto. They loved it so much that this guy thought it was one of the treasures of the world. Fast forward a couple of years, world war two is happening and he is the decision maker for where they're going to drop nuclear bombs. And Kyoto is top of the list and it's this massive city, millions of people. And he, because he went on his honeymoon, as the decision maker said, we're going to not bomb Kyoto. You think about all the lives that were saved because of this random act. That's a powerful story. It is God's faithfulness. And it is this incredible, unpredictable luck or mind boggling way it unfolds that does have a purpose. And I am grateful for the randomness that has occurred in my life that while I'm in the moment, might not feel, might not feel blessed. But you fast forward a little bit. You give God's timing. If you give God's faithfulness time to unfold, it's amazing how you can look back one year, five year, 10 years later and say, weren't we so lucky? I didn't get that job. Wasn't God so good that we moved to this city as hard as that was. And that's my point here. That's a fricking choice and I don't know what you're going through, but I do know that there are some blessings that might be right under your nose right around the corner that you're not seeing and you might be missing out on some luck. You might be missing out on seeing God. That's all I have. I appreciate it. This was a good conversation. I feel like I learned about you. I think I learned about you too. Thanks for listening. Excited to get your opinion on this one. We did one that was, what was it? Marriage is not to make you happy. Oh gosh. People were like, you guys are saying some people love this. Some people loved it and some people were like 58 minutes of almost getting to the point and not getting there. Maybe it's another one, but we are exploring this live. We tried to put thought into it, so it's organized, but hope you liked it. Thanks for listening. I feel like we need Darren to come sit down and tell us what we're saying. Yeah, it's probably fair. We'll bring in a pastor. If you made it this far, please subscribe, hit the like button, leave a comment on, no, how about this? Leave a comment on where you've seen God's faithfulness show up that might not have felt like faithfulness in the moment. That's all we have. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. Until next time.