How to Avoid Rock Bottom, and Recover If You Hit It

I'm going to recreate a new identity for myself that God wasn't calling me to and that God wasn't behind. It was just me trying to solve my problems and answer my questions for myself without including him. Maybe the thing that was most missing all along was that sort of original love for Jesus. Sometimes we hit rock bottom and then we're like, wow, rock bottom has a basement. It is possible to actually go lower than rock bottom in. One of the ways to go lower is just to end your life. You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. What's up everyone? Welcome to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Learning how to follow Jesus in the post-Christian world. My name is Ben Pearce. I'm the host of the show. Those are Chad's knuckles for those who are watching. And it's just the two of us for various reasons that I can explain later. Nefarious reasons. Nefarious. Now, when it's just us, you get raw, you get real, you get controversial. You might get the whole grab bag of potential cancellations. Yep. Look, as I was reflecting on our friendship and the years that we've known each other, I thought, I think there's a conversation that you and I could continue, that we've maybe started in various other places over the last few months, but we haven't had this sort of one on one opportunity. And I think for the sake of those listening, and really for the sake of all of the really powerful lessons that I think can be learned through what you've been through in recent months. But even beyond that, in recent years, I think everyone in the audience will really benefit from it. And so it all kind of stemmed from me reflecting on a conversation that you and I had a few months back. And, you know, I basically think what you were in is a period that many people would describe as rock bottom, the season of like really being at a low, low. And I remember feeling really pretty concerned. There are people listening to this right now who would themselves describe what they're in as rock bottom, who are in a very challenging season for various reasons, whether it's financial or vocational or relational. Maybe they're struggling spiritually, they're doubting, they're deconstructing, they're having they're asking really hard questions or someone in their life is and I just thought, man, we could have this conversation. You could maybe rewind the clock all the way, maybe to the beginning of your story. We could talk about all the different highs and lows that have led to that conversation on the phone that I'm talking about, and then obviously, the very awesome redemptive path that you're on now. And not to say that everything is or will be perfect from this point forward, but it is really redemptive and it is very encouraging. And I think for those listening, I think it'll give them a real sense of like, okay, I might be in the spot he was in, but there's hope for me also. So I want to have that conversation. Um, but maybe let me start with the most basic of the questions I would ask, which is what was your perspective of that moment that we had? Was it what you would consider rock bottom and then rewinding back, what is it that maybe tell your story? And what led to that point in the movie? Yeah, well, I mean, it is funny now to think about that conversation because it's so like drama. You know, like Chad drama. It didn't feel like it then because it was real pain. And truly the lowest I've ever been in my life was, I think, that moment. But it's funny now to look back because of course, God has done so much in my life since then that it's hard not to feel like there should be a little comic relief in the way that I oftentimes am only able to see myself through a dimly lit mirror. You know, like it's just not the right perspective. You know, it's not how God sees me. And so but that conversation was essentially inspired by the season where we were almost done recording a podcast episode, and both you and David at the very end said something like, hey, man, are you okay? Is everything all right? And, you know, I think there was a little bit of jest, but really, it's like my heart and my brain were completely disengaged and I was like, I have a festival to put on. I have jobs to look for. I have work to do. The narcissist in me, only able to think about me and the problems that I'm facing, and the fact that provoke and inspire as a podcast was taking me away from that time. What I recall of, like the specific conversations with you and David, it was essentially, you know, I'm in the worst season of my life and I don't know what to do about it, but I'm just in a ton of pain. Yeah. Is that how you recall it, like the or. Well, I think for me, I didn't perceive the feelings you describe as a frustration. Like, why am I here? Why do I got to do this? I didn't pick up on any of that. That might have annoyed me more than what I felt, which is just a sense of like, man, the lights just not on. Like, he just doesn't seem like the same person. Like he's he's trying to be here. But you know how it is. It's like, yeah, it reminds me of, you know, when my dad was going through this whole cancer process and, you know, we had a studio session booked and I got a call from my dad the morning I arrived, basically the same moment I arrived at the studio, I got the call that what he figured was just a routine scan that was going to reveal nothing as he suspected, as we all suspected, ultimately revealed two very significant tumors that weren't going to be nothing at all. And that feeling of like, you try to be normal all day, but you're not there anymore. Like mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you're somewhere else. And so you just kind of wonder how much other people can feel it, but you feel it the entire time you feel it. And frankly, I'm not trying to call anyone out, but frankly, people are just in their own heads enough that they don't ever feel it as much as you feel it, but you are just not there. And that's how I was that entire day. And then the days after that is, you know, my whole world was kind of rocked in that moment. And so I just was like, man, I don't. It's hard to pretend like the rest of this is that important or that that it matters. And so I would imagine, consistent with your story, when you're dealing with a significant amount of turmoil in your life, it's hard to just be kind of like, oh, what? What do we think about Justin Bieber's latest comments? You know, it all just kind of feels trivial. Not that you think it is, but it is, and it feels like it is. And it's very hard, in light of that to be engaged. Yeah. No. And that's a that's a really good analogy that you shared because it is it's like you're here but you're not. And I think that that was exactly what I was feeling during that podcast recording was I'm here and I but I'm trying to say as little as possible, and I just want to be done as quickly as possible. But, um, yeah. And it's and part of my struggle is that I've historically worn my heart on my sleeve, so to speak. So I'm not a very good pretender or faker. Um, but yeah. So for those who are still confused, can you kind of give the cliff notes? Because I mean this the story from Tooth and nail to come and live to Steger, to festivals, to Steger. That could be a multi-volume anthology, as we call it, in the business. Or it could just be a lot of crazy Chad hopping around and different things going on in his life. But but yeah, I mean, I think, I think now that I essentially if I track it back to the year twenty twenty, or maybe it was even twenty nineteen when a friend proposed that we bring back Furnace Fest. So what's Furnace Fest to someone who has no clue who Chad is or anything related to him? Yeah. That's good. So Furnace Fest is a small music festival hosted in Birmingham, Alabama at a venue called Sloss Furnaces that started in the year two thousand and ran for four years and then it died and it it was revived in the year twenty twenty. But then there was this C-word thing that happened to society, which caused the, you know, festival to get postponed a year. And then Furnace Fest blew up. And so it went from being a thousand or a couple thousand people to all of a sudden being ten or twelve or thirteen thousand people every day. So there's a couple of things that that were going on. By the time twenty nineteen came around, I had been living Come and live for ten years. And Steiger had adopted Come and Live, but come and live, man. Now we're really going to just keep rewinding this clock. Come and live is the inspiration for the lightning bolt in that ampersand symbol behind Ben. Uh, Come and Live was a music and worship based community that desired nothing more than to create music as a gift of generosity, a generous gift to the world, in hopes that God would use it to transform the lives of others. And it relied completely on the generosity of others. And we toured a couple of really cool countries around the world and had some really beautiful artists that were with us, but essentially come and live imploded because it wasn't sustainable. And it was a small startup nonprofit. None of us had experience based on what we were doing, and we did not have either personal deep pockets or nor were we really connected with anyone who had deep pockets. So thankfully, Steiger adopted Come and Live in twenty fourteen. And so for five years, I had operated within the world of Steiger as sort of a lone ranger who was traveling around the world, speaking at Ywam bases, speaking at different churches, sometimes with artists, sometimes by myself, sometimes with other with Steiger related functions and, um, filming documentaries, doing different things, praying for anybody and everybody that I came across and having a quote unquote great time, which it was mostly great, but it wasn't what I had originally signed up to do, which was to operate this missions organization, come and live in a way that, uh, that inspired the world and brought about revival. So it was me just kind of trying to figure out, like, I don't really know what exactly I'm supposed to do. So I guess I'll just write a book. I guess I'll go out and speak and I'll, I'll go do things with different people that invite me out. It's like it was a weird time in the sense that God was doing some really cool things in my life, but I was also very unsure of what I was meant for or meant to be doing. And and then my dad passed away. During that time, I ended up having an emotional affair in twenty nineteen, which completely derailed my my, uh, ministry pursuits and nearly derailed my family and my faith and ministry and everything. So that was that was kind of the backdrop for the conversation of, hey, what if we brought back this festival that you started way back in the day and and what if we, you know, revived it? And so it just so happened that right when I was going through the C-word thing and trying to figure out whether I should wear a mask or not wear a mask, should I go to the grocery store or not go to the grocery store? Like all that stuff? I was also having conversations with friends about what it would look like to relaunch a festival, and and I had no idea, really, that the festival would connect the way that it did. I just knew that I was not sure at all what to do with my life. I wasn't sure how to move forward from the affair, I wasn't sure how to move forward in ministry, and the festival offered me a really beautiful and perfect landing spot that was meant to be. What I told Ben yesterday a one time resurrection and it only lies. Problem. Problem number one is that so? Originally the festival was titled A one Time Resurrection. The festival went so good that my business partners were all like, we got to do this again. We got to keep it going. This is the best thing on the planet. We all made a bunch of money. Everyone's excited. It's it's great. What could possibly go wrong? And so I, I decide after for a for a while I was like, no guys I just want to do it once. I'm like, full time missionary guy with Steiger. The furnace fest thing is, was meant to be a one time like Chad Johnson side hustle. Not a new kind of thing in my life, but I was. I was won over because I. I too was blown away by how much money we made and just how easy it was. You know, it's like, man, all I have to do is talk to bands and agents and put this thing together and then collect money at the end of it, like, wow. Um, but of course, the second year did not go so well because we had told everybody this was a one, a one time resurrection. Cross that out and then be like, just kidding, we're back next year. Come back again. Come back again. And what happened is about half the people, less than half the people came back again because they didn't like being, you know, uh, what's the word deceived? Faux scarcity is I think you basically created a false sense of scarcity. Yeah, a false sense of scarcity that we couldn't deliver on two years in a row. So that year was a huge struggle. The third year was a struggle, although it did go a little better. And then the fourth year was, excuse me, was basically like the quote unquote, the end of an era. And it was like, this is the last one. And so once again, we tried to create false scarcity. Exactly. Once again, false scarcity and last year failed so miserably because not only did we bring back Furnace Fest bigger than ever, we tried to bring back a a. Absolutely. Uh, I'm not gonna say it because it's just self-deprecation, but a huge country music festival and a huge one day hip hop festival. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I don't give two. You know what's about country or hip hop. So the fact that I would think that I should be involved with anything related to either of those categories ought to be like like, you know, the drowning man out in the sea waving his arms. Do it like, no, you're gonna drown, you're gonna drown. And so by the time I was talking to Ben and David and they're asking me how I'm doing on the podcast, I was drowning. I was spiritually drowning. I was dealing with suicidal ideation. Not not necessarily suicidal planning, But. But just like what? Like I wonder what the easiest way to kill myself would be like. Would jumping off a bridge be easier or like that would go fast? But what if it's not high enough? Like, I mean, just thoughts like that really, really dark and hard thoughts to now bring up and think, you know, wow, that's that's crazy. That's where I was. Um, but I basically through, uh, through last year, I it was like God allowed me to move forward in my own best thinking and allowed me to see what happens when I place my own best thinking into the mix, and just how lacking of common sense or purpose or proper, you know, like execution that contained. So yeah, obviously there was some redemptive aspects to it. You're speaking of it in past tense. And so we can get to the the positive side of the story in a second, but you alluded to a part of what I think you may have felt you learned in the process and you talked about, this is what happens when or what God allowed to happen when my thinking entered into the mix. Why did you feel like doubling down on these festivals? Like, what were some of the through lines that you felt like you can look back on now? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think looking back, it was a lack of confidence in where God was going to take me, even though my calling looked questionable and felt questionable at that time. And I was beginning to move away from the thing I told God I would do, and I tattooed to my knuckles, which was to follow him every day of my life and go anywhere that he wanted me to go and do anything he asked me to do. Instead, it was like I began to take ownership or I began to take the reins in my own hands. I started telling God I was fine without him. I didn't do this knowingly at first. It was just I stopped. It happened like slowly and in small ways where I just. I would stop really praying and seeking God on a decision like, should I carry the festival forward? I wasn't like going, God, what would you have me do? And much of it. I've shared this publicly through Furnace Fest and I think probably here as well. But to me, I just see it as the same two things that drive every financial market, which is the psychology of fear and greed. And so the greed was I could make money quickly and easily and more of it than pretty much doing anything else that I knew how to do in life through the festival that was, you know, that's my thinking anyway. And two, the fear was I will never accomplish or fulfill any higher purpose than what I've already done. So I need to figure out how to just be a happy festival promoter and not get caught up with everything else. Because this is I've already kind of lived the best, my best life. And this is everything's kind of downhill from here. So nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. But when you're living, when you're living, um, in your own little cave, mental or emotional spiritual cave, it's, uh. It's hard to see the light of day. Yeah. One of the thoughts that came to mind is, you know, what you described is the sort of the erosion of the intimacy that you had with Jesus, or at least your desire to seek him in the decisions that you were making. And, you know, I think whenever you hear these stories, a lot of it is about circumstances, right? Like the business was going well and then it failed or the relationship was good and now it's bad, or it's these circumstances that will define the assessment of your season, even spiritually. And I guess my question in all of this is that in terms of a chicken and egg understanding of this, how much of this is that you maybe lost just that simple love of Jesus, regardless of circumstances, in other words. And then that compounds and makes the circumstances even worse because life is hard, right? And it's not just what we're not saying to those listening is, well, if you're in a hard space, don't worry. It might be bad now, but but it'll turn out and the festival will eventually work, and the relationship will eventually be perfect, as opposed to maybe the thing that led and compounded the negative circumstances, or the thing that was most missing all along, was that sort of original love for Jesus, right? That that intimacy completely detached from a world in which sometimes things go well and other times things are falling apart. And that's just part of the experience of being alive. Yeah, absolutely. I think I was already looking for and longing for distraction and the drug of distraction that would take me away from the pain of ministry not working, the pain of come and live, not unfolding the way that I had thought, and the pain of just like, what does it mean to once have been called by God to accomplish something mighty in his kingdom, and then to have fallen away from that, or to be really confused about that? Um, the festival just provided me with the most perfect quasi connection point for. Here's something I've been a part of in the past, and everyone's celebrating me over, and everyone loves me for. And this is going to go great. Until it doesn't. When you lack vision, it's going to be really easy to fall back into a distracted kind of living. And, um, and so I think I had lost all vision of who God had called me to be and what purpose he had called me to be. And so then it was just like, well, then the the high watermark of my life is Chad the promoter, because I went from Chad the nail to Chad is living to now. I guess I'm Chad, the promoter, so it's just like, okay, I'm gonna it's like I'm going to recreate a new identity for myself that God wasn't calling me to and that God wasn't behind. It was just me trying to solve my problems and answer my questions for myself without. Without including him. Oh, man. But dude, I think the way you that sort of the parallelism of the way you described your identity, I think is the crux of all this, which is. Is Chad enough? Yeah. Alone. Right. Not you don't need to be the next thing. It's not. And it almost feels like it was a vacuum that was looking for the next thing to define you. And if in your mind, the best of the days of Chad, the Ministry guy were behind you, then. Then what was going to be the next thing? It feels like this is a it was, at the core of it, an identity thing. Yeah. As you say it and as I say it, it's so easy to recognize the prideful, arrogant, narcissistic self which is which is putting my name first, you know? Instead of looking at the concept of I must decrease and he must increase. It's like, it's like I'm now like, yeah, I'm carrying identities that others have labeled myself that are not necessarily from God or his kingdom or his point of view. But maybe part of it is when when you have had a desire to change the world and you wake up one day and it seems like, man, I don't think the world is actually changing through me. I think at some point it is that love relationship with Jesus continues to dwindle to the point where I can understand the concept of depart from me. I never knew you because there was no intimacy. It was just action. It was just ability. It was just gifting. Right? Right. And yet, I think one of the most profoundly liberating aspects of our relationship with Jesus is that we are emancipated from that meritocratic vision of life, right? That we are not the athlete that's staring at the end of their career going, what the heck am I now? I'm not the Mark Hamill of yesteryear standing on his Hollywood star while not even the guy. Yeah, that was so funny. Darth Vader outfit recognizes who he is. The beautiful thing about our relationship with Jesus, and the reason why I can speak to the person right now, listening with any degree of confidence that there is hope is because the joy and satisfaction and and meaning that they're longing for is not tethered to the story working out. Well, you know, because that's the part that always frustrates me about our the stories in our world today. The business always succeeds. The relationship is always restored. The the the team always ultimately triumphs and wins. And the reality is, yeah, the world kind of sucks sometimes. And it's again, I'm not being negative or pessimistic, but the fact is we have to be able to draw upon resources that are not tethered to circumstances if there is to be hope in a broken world, because otherwise an argument could be made that maybe you did have your most fruitful days and that's it. I don't know, I don't think that's true. And I want to be optimistic, but you know what I mean? I feel like we even in our relationship with Jesus, we read into it this idea that, well, if you got off track and you weren't the center of the story anymore, you'll get there again. Like it'll all work out again. And I feel like whether the book ever sells or the book never sells, or whether it's all ends up perfect or not, we have access to a beauty and an intimacy and a joy that kind of can throw all those things up and say whatever, whatever comes, I can be satisfied no matter what. Yeah, absolutely. And once you can get to that place, then it's no longer about you, and it's no longer about whether or not things are going your way or working out the way that you want them to. It's just about the fact that you're loved by the King of the universe. And and you have you have a a eerie, almost irresponsible sense of confidence and peace that the story will somehow play out in a way that that works. And it may not work the way you wanted it to, or in the timing you wanted it to. But somehow it's going to play out, and God's going to help you through this. Totally, dude. So speak to the person who's listening, who feels like they're currently in that position that you were in during that phone call. What do you say to them? The first thing I would say is that I know what it feels like to to hit rock bottom. And as I've heard, people in my recovery group say that, uh, they found out that addiction had a basement. You know, like, I think that there are sometimes we hit rock bottom and then we're like, wow, rock bottom has a basement. It is possible to actually go lower than rock bottom in. One of the ways to go lower is just to end your life, or is just to completely remove yourself, isolate yourself completely, not talk to anybody, not open up to anybody, and try to live life free and clear of anyone whatsoever knowing what you're actually carrying. And so I would just encourage you to find someone or some ones that you can reach out to and to share how you really are. And I think that that you'll be shocked by the fact that there are people in your life that maybe they are a little stunned by how bad things are, but they're not so stunned that they aren't going to start praying for you. They're not that they're not going to make themselves available to you. And the only way I know to move forward is to actually say, God, I'm not maybe capable of seeing the light that's up ahead, but I invite you to show me that and to be that for me. You started something in my life. Please finish it. I mean, I would also argue that there's a high degree of salvations and resuscitation. Spiritually speaking, with people who have hit rock bottom and maybe the basement, because it's like in that place you recognize I don't have any control. I can't fix this. I don't know what I'm doing. It's actually quite a bit easier to surrender under those circumstances than to surrender when everything is working out exactly the way you'd want it. So I would encourage you to surrender and surrender to God and admit to him that he needs you and just look like for me, one thing that was really encouraging was to look around at others and to find hope in others that I trusted, like Josh Porter from showbread. It's like his books were really encouraging to me when I was going through that time, because I know that he's been through some stuff, and I also know that he's come out on the other side faithful, and he's documented a lot of that. And there's a guy named Jamie Thomas who's a pro skater that's in Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and you know, anyone who's ever skated would know who Jamie Thomas is. But that guy's like a wild, born again believer. I just started either finding or thinking about people that I was kind of surprised, like, oh wow, I can't believe that Christian Hosoi, another skater, is a Christian. Now, maybe the prayer would be that God would show you all of the people that are now believers because they went through a really difficult time and that God did not leave them nor forsake them, and he actually brought them through it. Yeah. Well, dude, and I think perhaps one of the most bizarre, ubiquitous mass delusions is the idea that we're all okay. It's weird when even our Bible is replete with examples of chaos and dysfunction, and these are the heroes that will sort of in, you know, dissonance, will quote them and then kind of forget that that part was there on purpose, on purpose in the sense that they were real human beings and as a result, had human beings stuff, some pretty dramatic stuff. And, you know, you've always led with vulnerability. I think that's been one of the strongest things that you've brought to this podcast. And you know, what I think is so powerful about vulnerability is the reciprocity that it produces. You know, I know that it's it's a very strange thing how, you know, you won't really know something is so prominent. Like, I know I remember when my wife and I went through a miscarriage and, you know, you never think about it. You never talk about it. It never comes up. You have a miscarriage. And then it's amazing how it connects you with all of these other people. Like, oh, yeah, we did too, actually. Yeah. We actually had multiple miscarriages. Yeah. We actually dealt with that for, for years and years. I even with my dad in this prostate cancer stuff, you never hear about it. You never talk about it. Your spirit becomes sensitive to it. And all of a sudden you all of the stories come out of the woodworks of people who have likewise dealt with similar things. You know, I think about the Henry David Thoreau quote, the very famous quote, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. And I think the real sad part is that we are so much messier than we're willing to admit. And most of us, and I think a lot of men especially carry this quietly, desperately alone. And so I think the fact that you have had this God given reflex, this discipline, even I would call it to be vulnerable, has been really powerful. And I think it served you really well in this dark moment, because you had built up a muscle to say, it's okay for me to bring this up, to talk about it, to be honest about it. And I think that would be a great thing for the church and for me and for those listening, if we wouldn't create a culture of weakness, but we would create a culture of honesty, which just so happens to be pretty weak. And that's okay. And God can work in the midst of that, as he has proven in your life. So it's pretty awesome, dude. Well, and yeah, thanks. I mean, it's also highly like you said, it's highly relatable. Part of it too, is that it's constantly and consistently reinforced every time I go to a group recovery meeting. I am reminded by others leading with weakness how powerful of a gift weakness is. There's something about the transparency of Jesus and how he interacts with people that is inspiring. All of us make mistakes, every single one of us all throughout life. And unfortunately, I wish I could say that my mistakes get less the older I get, but unfortunately they've, at least in this last season, feel like they've been even more pronounced. But that doesn't mean that everyone else doesn't also make mistakes. They hopefully aren't as significant. Or, you know, the substance isn't the same. Uh, volume or viscosity or however you want to spell it. But, um, yeah, yeah, I looked it up really quick as ChatGPT and but the, uh, the cool thing is that the Lord's with us when we just admit that we're weak and we need him. And I think he loves that. And he's like, okay, cool. That's exactly what I was looking for. And that's when you get an email from Aaron Pierce, Ben's brother, who's like, hey, what if you came and joined Steiger as our chief development officer and helped us run our development program so that we can reach a million people by twenty thirty and be in five hundred cities and do all these different things and have all this different, you know, fruit to show for it. So yeah, it's awesome. Chad, your story's awesome. And but what I will say, and I think it's worth mentioning, is that while you've been vulnerable, you've also, from my vantage point, been repentant. And I think that matters. Like it's not just vulnerability with sort of a flippancy and a you seem to genuinely want to change the things in your life like we all should, because, I mean, we all got stuff, right. So I think it is worth mentioning that. And I'm not asking you to say this about yourself, so let me say it. I have sensed in you not just a desire to be vulnerable, but also a desire to want to grow and to want to change. And it doesn't feel just like sharing for sharing sake. But there's a genuine sense of man I have. Like there's been times, you know, as my dad is wont to do, uh, to say a strong word or, you know, he's called us all out. You know me my whole life. You maybe less time. Um, but you've always been someone who I think is not only modeled vulnerability, but a humility to receive correction when it's come. And I think that's the the beautiful. That's the source. Right? It's that combination of being real, but then also wanting to change. And then I think God can take a heart like that and produce extraordinary results. Absolutely. And there is something really beautiful about being able to just, uh, acknowledge and admit that you don't have it all down and that you're open to receiving from people you trust and allowing them to speak into your life and to challenge you and to correct you if necessary. And it's not fun. I don't like it. I like I'd like to think that I could start my career, restart my career at Steiger and for the first time in my life, be a chief development officer and not have any, you know, like weaknesses whatsoever related to that. Instead, it's like I've been rebuked on a on a variety of occasions for mostly little things that I've kind of little habits that I've developed over the years of being a festival promoter who didn't care how he talked or what he said, or the way in which he carried himself. And it's like, oh, this. But now we're helping call you up to a higher level. And, um, it's it's actually, I think, what's needed for anyone who wants to step into leadership, to be called into a higher level, as is to be held accountable. And that's, you know, our whole conversation over the Shawn Bolz thing was basically accountability. I do not want accountability, nor do will I receive it. It's like, okay. Surprise, surprise. You start making stuff up. Yeah, but nah dude, you're right man. Well, I'm glad you're back. I gotta go get my kids. Yep. But it's two sides of the of the of the coin, man. It's like. It's like if you have vulnerability without honesty, it's like trying to put on one pant leg, but not the other. You know, good luck with that. You know, you're gonna stumble around like a goon and maybe you'll start a new fashion trend. Or perhaps you'll just trip over and eat dust. Who knows? Chad. Appreciate it bro. Love you man. Glad you're here too. Thanks, everybody. Yeah. Thank you guys for listening. And, uh, if you didn't like any of this story, look at dawg. Uh, you could send your just unfiltered review of this episode to him. His thoughts? What was that word you used? Viscosity. Yeah, I think so. I don't even I hate to admit it, but I don't even know if that is a word now that I. Now that I used it. All right, on that note, I think it's like the thickness. But anyway. All right. See ya. That makes me uncomfortable. All right, we gotta go. Peace. Get down with the

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