The Power of Story

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com. Hi. This is Stephen James with Sage Hill. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast. I've got a good friend and guest today, Ben Howard. Ben is the president of Third Coast Content, which is, they make movies here in Nashville, Tennessee. They actually don't make movies in Nashville. They're based in Nashville. They make movies all over like California and Georgia and Florida and Texas, and they travel lots of places to make movies. I think they even talked about making a movie overseas, which would make them like European filmmakers, which would be extra special, I guess, or cool. But we're not I asked Ben to come in, to the Sage Hill studio to talk about story and the power of story in our lives, the power of telling good stories, and how our personal always evolving, becoming more of ourselves or not. And, I think Ben is a really wise guy and really brave has a really brave heart. So I hope you enjoy our conversation. Hi, Ben.

Hey, Stephen. Welcome to the Sage Hill podcast. Thank you very much. Yeah. Can I just start by saying we actually do make movies in Nashville? Oh, okay. We have made one and are planning to make one this fall. What movie have you made in Nashville? It's a movie starring Shonda Pierce, who's a local comedian. I thought that was in Ashland City. Well, I think we would call that Nashville proper. Okay. Metro area. Oh, metro area. Okay. I slept at home. Okay. That's good. Yeah. I don't live in Nashville. So So I just went and and, And what do you make in this fall? This fall, we're telling a great, young adult story, which really means teens. It's targeting teen girls, and it's a fun story and,

I think, a great Is it top secret? Can we break the news here first on the Sage Hill podcast? Let's just say that the ink hasn't, not only that it's not dried, it hadn't really been applied to paper yet. Okay. But we're close. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I've known you since two thousand and five, six? Surely, long '7? Okay. No. Yeah. I don't remember, but Exactly. But yeah. It was between 2005 in 2008. Yeah. I was working at Fellowship Bible Church, and I led a retreat. Okay. And our mutual friend, Andy, brought you on the retreat. Yes. Sandy Peterson brought me on the retreat, and, I had always been wanting to meet the famous Stephen James, and there it was. Yeah. And this was the first men's retreat I ever went to where they actually used some cuss words. It was quite a, adjustment. I think I may have cried myself to sleep the first time. Scary for you to Very scary. Ugh. Not so scary about it. It wasn't really scary. Okay. It was more freeing than anything. I'm not a good cusser. I never have been. I try, but I'm not very convincing, but I I I it helped me kinda work on that.

So we that's that's I'll say 2005 because that's more round numbers. So that's sixteen years, if I do the math right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a long time. Yeah. And so what I wanna do today is talk about the work that you do because you're a story you're a professional storyteller, really story curator and teller promoter. You don't write the scripts. You don't direct the scripts, but you bring people together that do all that. Right? You find the stories and help tell the stories. And I want to talk about your story because you have an interesting story kind of in the background of that as as a person in recovery and a person who's growing and becoming more themselves. I see a lot of overlap between your work and then who you are as a person, so I wanna talk about those things. And then I wanna talk about anything else you wanna talk about that comes up along the way. That's my agenda. So, I did get to go to the Shonda Pierce set one day as part of our Leadership Lab outing. We invited us our cohort up there. Mhmm. And we were all duly impressed with Ben Howard, the filmmaker. And I think we stood around for several hours and watched someone walk out of a out of a courthouse and for, like, 10 times and they would reset the scene. And then we watched them walk and got into a car five or six times, and that was the whole day. So is movie making usually that exciting? It is definitely that tedious.

Is it really? Yeah. It is. I mean, sometimes you have some cool things to watch, but if you hang around, yes, you see it made over and over. I mean, you figure, look, that's, what a hour and a half movie, ninety minute movie, and we shot it for nineteen days. And I'd say each of those days, we probably have a twelve hour day. Cameras are probably rolling. Let's just say it was half of it. So six hours. That's, almost a hundred and twenty hours of footage to tell a Hour and a half story. Uh-huh. And it's not like we're shooting stuff that isn't on the on the page. So making it up. It's not an improv. So yep. So, you know, 90% of what you're watching, you've you're now watching them do it again and again and again. Yeah. What are some movies that and projects that people would recognize, like, that you've been a part of? You know, most recently, we had a movie that just launched that was called Blue Miracle that's on Netflix, and I'm hoping that a lot of people have. Dennis Quaid. Dennis Quaid is in that movie. It's a great feel good family movie. Yeah. True story. So that would be one. I you know, for a good while back in, I Blue Miracle, we made two years ago. Prior to Hold on. You made it two years ago that it just came out? Yeah. Which is not unusual. Okay. The you know, COVID didn't help. That kind of slowed everything down. And the we made it for theaters, and theaters aren't open. So most people ended up end up or a lot of people end up where we ended up, and that's at Netflix. K. Hopefully, theaters will open up, and that that'll change. But yeah. Then and so that kind of distance between the making of a movie and it coming out isn't unusual. It usually takes about a year to finish a movie. Okay. All things being as they are. So Blue Miracle. Go go to Netflix, watch that with your family this weekend. Okay. Other things that I were involved in, a lot of them are a little more faith connected. I worked in the very overt faith film world for a good while. So people might have seen Face of the Giants or Fireproof or, with the Irvin Brothers. I got to be part of I Can Only Imagine and October Baby. And so those tend to be the things that You also were part of VeggieTales, though, which I think is one of my best My my boss was Bob the tomato. That was that was a genius place. And, yes. That's really where I got to work on my first movie, and it was an incredible place to be. Okay. What I always talk about what I do is I help creative people do what they do. You know, I try to help them do it in a way that it creates a business so that they can do it over and over again. It's typically what we say is the goal of every, I would say, every creative project. But certainly when we make a movie, the goal is to live to make another. Yeah. In an ideal world, you pay your investors back and everybody gets paid and get a chance to do another one. And so as you said at the beginning, I'm really not the storyteller and I'm my creative giftings don't have a lot to do with making movies. But it really is on the business side and, seemingly, I have repeatedly, been placed in positions to help creative people do that, whether it was in the music business in the early days or at Big Idea with Veggie Tales and now with filmmakers. So what what has drawn you to the creative world? You know what? I do love stories, and I love I love stories that make you feel good. And so that I'll delve into where I think that comes from, as a child. And and everybody's got their story. And, and so I don't know that mine was any more difficult or unique than anyone else's, but mine was a a father who drank too much and a mother who, oftentimes would withdraw. In in in addition to the many wonderful things about them, but let's just say that was really, impactful on me. Yeah. And I had to find a way to be okay in the midst of of feeling alone, and and one of those things, now that I'm later in life, is I love to tell stories that make people feel good, you know, that make them connect, make them connect to their heart, give them hope. That's what we talk about in my company at Third Coast is we talk about doing things that bring hope and meaning. Mhmm. And so I do. I think that that relates directly to my childhood and and the things that I didn't have that I was looking for ways to help create them. Like to feel good, have hope, have meaning. Yes. Yeah. Sounds lonely. Yeah. It can be. That sounded lonely. Yeah. It definitely. As a Definitely. As a child. Yep. Yes. What

what are other things that you've used along the way to bring you hope and meaning, whether it's been a durable hope and meaning or a momentary hope and meaning? You know, one of the things I was gonna say, because this is my primary tool, is is food. Now I don't know that food brought me as much open meaning as it dulled my senses to the lack thereof. Okay. And so I actually was gonna take part in a 12 step program around overeating, because that truly is a tool that can help me feel better. You know, I probably the thing that creates the that I that I used a lot to try to create connection was just in trying to make people happy. Yeah. You know? And and doing whatever it took to elicit a smile or a laugh or a, you know, and that to me meant that I was approved. It meant I was okay. And so, you know, enter me into anything, whether it's in the work world or relational world. I have this reflexive thing inside me that just needs to make you smile so I can be okay. And so that really was a tool. Hey, that was a tool till late in life, and it can be a tool today. Even today. Yes. Absolutely. I could imagine then that, like that being your go to tool, that it would be hard to say what you need and what you want and or be to be disagreeable at times. Totally. Yeah. I think that there was there's an element that I didn't have a lot of self, that I had a lot of I knew what made other people happy And if I could make them happy, then I felt I felt good. Now, I will say the older I got, the less I was able to muster that up and and make it work for me. Yeah. And so So that's a weird moment. Like, I don't have the energy that I have any that I had

to try to control the world with happiness or get the my needs met by making other people happy. And I don't have much of myself, like, that that moment sounds like a really interesting nexus of, like, I'm not not practiced in being me, and I'm getting tired of not being me. Mhmm. That seems like an interesting place or Yeah. You might call it a crisis. You might call it a breakdown. Or breakthrough. Yeah. Breakthrough. Yeah. Absolutely. Because all of a sudden, you know, there's in in that particular dysfunction or behavior, there's a powerlessness that, you know, I can't any longer do what I used to do to make myself happy. And honestly, one of the big pieces that happened is I really resented people. People that I was working so hard to make happy because at the end of the day, there's something in my soul that knew this wasn't it. Mhmm. And so, yes. I had to begin to work to develop a soul and to, not a soul, sorry, a self. I had to begin to work to develop a sense of my own self and what do I like and can I express to people what I need and so yeah? I mean, look that's that's been the the biggest challenge, and reward of my life probably is to be able to find that place and to to have a self. And it's it's still hard. Yeah. When did that start for you? It started I think what started is the old way started falling apart. And it's probably initially in my relationship with my mom as after I got married and there was some tension and that started me on a path. And certainly, look, I brought that into every relationship I had. I brought it into marriage. I brought it into Now you make money out as a movie maker. Yeah. And and, you know, I think now I'm able to do it not as a means of being okay, but as a means of, hey, this is really meaningful and I wanna help make it happen. Yeah. It's a big difference because I don't now I don't need as much from from the work or from the people Yeah. Because I've learned to find that in legitimate ways. Yeah. You're not asking you're not over asking of some things to deliver something they can't. Yeah.

Pizza can only do so much. Right? But but it can do some good things. It can do some really good things. Alright. Back to work for a second. Why do you think story is so important? Like, it's central to what you do, but I mean it's central to what I mean, what I do too. You know, if we just sit here and talk about self image and ego and all, you know, all these concepts that are very true and important, Sometimes they lack color and they lack, it's like we can give an intellectual understanding of them, but it may not penetrate our heart. And I think that's what story does. I think that's what art does. Mhmm. And story being one of those forms of art is that it it's able to penetrate our hearts with these ideals and Mhmm. And inspire us. And and, you know, the pain of a great story, you know, is just as important to me as the inspiration of a great story. Is it works into our heart and it we feel. And and I to me, that's where growth of life happens is in that struggle. And so, I think stories do that in a really unique fashion.

So you said some things along the way, I think are really smart. So you said everyone has a story. I I think that's interesting, because I think we spend a lot of time right now. We our culture is very voyeuristic. We love to look at other people's story. Probably we're also voyeuristic, and we're narcissistic, which I think are both ways of dealing with our own struggles and our own stories. Right? Like, I'll either make myself the center of the world as opposed to a part of the world, or I'll and I'll be an exhibitionist so people can I can get the attention that I really need without having to risk anything? Right? Or I'll be a voyeur and look into other people's lives, out of the people's lives, and, and it's like, you know, social media reality TV, but, like, you know, a fifteen second clip on Netflix is like a whole episode of reality TV. I can make up a whole but I get to break up the story about what's going on with that family that day on the lake, Memorial Day weekend, their kids too being how happy they must be, how resentful I am with my wife or my children or myself or my family of origin or my future. Right? Like, our whole world is into these small sound bite stories now, but I see them as ways of escaping our own story, you know, that we all have a story, you know, that we have to struggle in and become in. So I thought that was interesting. And then you said, movie making is tedious. And I think living a life is tedious. Right? To living our own lives and that the tedium of daily living. And and then but he also said that storytelling is slow. So there's this there's this detail element and the slowness of it that actually makes up a good story. But we want our stories to be highlight reels. It's like this this is you're laying down some awesome stuff. It is very true. I think the tedium

oftentimes comes with the fact that being who we want to be actually requires practice. Oh. And that we don't get it right. I was gonna say initially, we often don't get it right. It's just like professional football players still practice five days a week, you know, even though they're the best in the world. Two and a half. But yeah. Come on. Let it be what the rest of us think. Yeah. And so I do believe that, like, what's changed in my life didn't happen just because I had a realization. The realization certainly was a piece of it, but then it's just the you know, you say work. That almost makes it I don't know. That sounds glamorous, but it's just oh, yeah. I'm gonna when when x happens, I'm gonna try to do y. And then x happens, and and I do z. Yeah. But after doing z, I say, oh, I was gonna do y. Yeah. And then the next time it happens and halfway through z, I think of it. And I stop and I try y. And then eventually, x happens and I'm able to do y. And then with practice, yeah, and I so believe that that's just a process. And and like I said, we glamorize it and say I'm doing the work. But it it's really that's it. It's like I just wanna be different, and now I understand this, and I have the ability to make a different choice. Chip Dodd talks about the best we ever get is clumsy as humans. That's like the best living we get. I think the people that live closest to me who were initially part of my, you know, for lack of a better term, people pleasing ways that we often use. You know, when I then tried to not call it enabling and codependency. Okay? I like that. I like that better. Yeah. When I initially tried not to do that, it felt clumsy. It felt clunky and probably hurtful to people around me because I just didn't I was more first doing it by, oh, instead of turning left, I'm going to turn right. You know, that really as opposed to my heart being able to just direct me to the right and it feel natural Yeah. And caring. Yeah. It didn't feel natural and caring. It felt, why does he he used to do that, now he's doing this. Yeah. You know? But, you know, that's I think that's where the practice comes in. I hope that now I can just do things differently and do it kindly and generously. The doctors practice. They don't ever become perfect. Yeah. Which, you know, you really won't don't want your doctor's practice. Lawyer's practice. That's what they call it, though. I know. There's too many variables.

An element of good stories or surprises. Right? Like, this this moment of unpredictability. Even when I it's a formulaic story, there's still a moment where I get surprised by it, because there's a part of me that thinks it might not turn out the way I want. So it's relief, you know. What have been some of the surprises as you've been growing as a person, recovering yourself, living in your powerlessness over food and codependency enabling, and all the stuff that helped you get here? What have been some of the surprises you've experienced along the way? I think that the first one that happens is, you know, because we're ultimately I've been trying to control how people respond to me and what they believe about me. So when I stopped trying to control it, my initial expectation is, well, now now they're just not gonna think anything good of me. So I think that's the initial initial surprise is that, hey, actually, I was I was afraid people would not accept me for who I am. Thus, I worked very hard to put up a certain front veneer. And now, I'm starting to let people see me. And you know what? They actually love me. Yeah. I would say that for me has been the ultimate surprise and the ultimate meaning of, hey. I can be lovable just like I am. Mhmm. That was really at the root of my trying to make you happy is that, I don't know, it it was deeper than conscious, you know, that you're not gonna be happy with me. Yeah. And so I really gotta work hard to make you happy. So, yeah, I would say that was my first and and most important surprise is that people really can like me, love me, care for me just because I'm

me. When you say that, it makes me think this. I think as kids, we are so good, like exceptionally skilled at absorbing the environment around us, and shaping ourselves to fit that environment, like deeper than consciousness. Right? And so, like, our meaning we start talking about, like, you grew up with unhappy parents that you felt responsibility to to make happy. I grew up with disconnected parents that I felt the responsibility to, like, bring together, like, to hold the family together. No one ever told me that. No one ever no one actually ever appreciated that in my family. Like, the big relief in my family seemed to come when we fell apart as a family. That seemed to be more honest than true for who we were. But I absorbed this idea of, like, like, bringing it together so much. And, as as you're talking, I'm realizing that the false selves that we build are so innate to who we are, we think they're us. Right? They're they're more practiced in being who we're not than we than being who we are. And as we hit these moments of crisis or these nexus of change or moments of powerlessness, it really isn't a waking up to this persona or this character I'm playing might not really be me. Right? And that risk you said of, like, if I'm really me, might people might not really belong and matter? Might might that be a lot easier or a lot less it's still it's probably more painful, but it's a lot less effort to be yourself. But then it's not because you said, I had to, like, practice being myself because I was so practiced in not being myself. Mhmm. One of the metaphors I use when I I'm in counseling is, like, how would I say it, is that you've been writing with your left hand your whole life, and you're just now finding out you're right handed. That's good. And there's a so it feels clumsy and awkward and, you know, but but there's there's actually something more innate to it or different in it. And you can always go back to picking up the pen with your other hand. Mhmm. You know? Yeah. But there's an intentionality and the discipline of learning to live a different way. And, that's what I think what recovery is. It's not it's like, I mean, a lot of people in, like, AA recovery will say, I mean, if I could drink, I would. I just can't. It'll kill me. Alright? So I've gotta practice not drinking, and I gotta practice other things. And,

I like the idea that recovery is the recovery of your true self. Yeah. It's not the creation of something new. Yeah. I think I think that's true. Our neediness, our vulnerability, the courage to speak truth and still be loved, the courage to ask questions and still be loved, the the courage to the right ideas and, you know, still be loved. To not have to do anything and still be loved, like, those those are your worth is not based on performance anymore, I think, is the is the core of it. A big part of your story I mean, you've made faith based films, and a big part of your reclaiming yourself and recovering yourself is kind of relabeling your faith experience. Are you open to talking about that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think I did to God what I did to people. I I assumed that I had to make him happy in order to be loved by him. And again, that wasn't my Which

to assume that God's already unhappy with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that wasn't. I would never say that that was, I wouldn't have articulated it if somebody said, what's your theology? But practically speaking, that was my that was my belief about all of life. Yeah. And so if you wanna say, what was your belief? That life is fundamentally unhappy with you. Yeah. That was a core belief. Yeah. Man, it still is. Like, I wake up in the morning or if I find myself let's say that I've done something wrong, you know, something that I know somebody else isn't gonna like or I don't even know if they're gonna like it or not, but I immediately feel like I'm on the run. Yeah. I've gotta defend. I've gotta, you know, it's a it's a icky feeling. And so, yeah, I think that I believe that about God, and it was really a process of coming to understand that he's not unhappy with me. And I would say that what came side by side with that is the idea that, you know, most of this, we don't know that much about. And can I be okay with not knowing? When I look at the world around me, and see the beauty of creation and I would say the beauty of relationship and what it how powerful it is to feel loved by somebody else, to be connected to somebody else. I personally believe that could be nothing but intentional on somebody's part. And so that, you know, I could never not believe in a loving creator and author of all that we do. Mhmm. Beyond that, I think it's hard to know what is. Mhmm. And and I think that's okay. I like I don't know. I just I have a hard time believing personally that God's gonna see how our theology matches up to figure out if if we're okay to Him or not. If we thought about God right, then we Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure puts a lot on people. I feel like if he had, then he would have made it clearer. And and I certainly know one of the responses to that is, well, we have the Bible. And you're right. We do. But, man, people would interpret it so differently. And Yeah. And And they will again. Yeah. Like it has been and it will be again. And so men interpret it and and I get it. I, you know, I believe God has a presence on earth and and, you know, the Holy Spirit. But clearly, the Holy Spirit is not telling everybody, the same thing. And so

so so I'm I'm being a little bit Oh, just the ones that disagree with me aren't really listening. So I just don't know that, you know, I I don't know that God intends for us all to believe the same thing because it doesn't seem like he did a very good job of making it clear to us. And I believe in a God that's bigger than that. Oh. And so I have honestly found great freedom in that. And it's made me in this place that I just wanna be kind to people. I wanna be generous in spirit, you know. And that's where I find so much meaning. And I and both in terms of what I get from others and what I'm able to give to others. Mhmm.

And does it open up what you can receive from others? I think it totally does. And, like, part of that, I do believe that we have to be willing to receive it or we have to make ourselves available or whatever words you wanna use. That it doesn't just come natural. I think our defenses and our our struggles with self often keep us from being able to partake of what others are offering us. Yeah. So yeah. I think to be generous in spirit to go along with that would be to be able to receive generosity in spirit. I think that's worked that way for me. Okay. So it sounds like as we're talking, that it's just all rosy and upside and good and, like, you've had this progressive coming of age enlightenment experience over the last thirty years and, you know, and you're just happy all the time, like, you found the answer to life.

Yeah. So I'm, 56.5 years old, actually, a little bit older. I'm about to turn 57. And I would say that the biggest thing that I find about life that I didn't expect is that it's harder than I thought it would be. And I would say right now, I thought I'd be coasting. Yeah. And I think in a lot of ways, life is harder than it's ever been. Yeah. It's just it's So everybody that's, like, 25 to 30 just turn off the podcast. They're like Well, and so to go with harder, I would also say more meaningful. Yeah. You know, it's like I don't just don't that didn't just be easy. You know, it'd be slipping and sliding down the yellow path of life and it just isn't. And it's hard. It's a struggle and relationships are hard and, But it's more meaningful. It is. And and so I wish those things didn't work together like that. Yeah. But I think at some level that maybe they do. Mhmm. And it's not that good things don't happen. In the midst of all that, great things happen. Mhmm. But it certainly doesn't feel like I'm going down the yellow brick road and the closer I get to Oz, the better it gets. Mhmm. You know? And so, yeah. That's that's the best way I know to explain it. And that, I'm deeply thankful. And there are hard things and things that I wake up every day that I'm afraid of and things that I don't know how they're gonna work out. And people, that I wish, you know, would do different. And it just it's just how it I just think that I'm not unique. I think we all wanna think our problems are unique, and I think I'm figuring out that my problems aren't unique. And the people that I wanna be different, they won't mean to be different.

You know? If they were just different, my life would be better. Yeah. Yeah. If everyone else would change, I'd be okay. That's so easy. I wouldn't have to live in that place. So how do you how at almost 58 No. Almost 57. Almost 57. Sorry. 56.5. Closing in on 60. Ah. What what encouragement would you get if you were to teleport back in time and be able to, run into yourself thirty years ago at almost 30. Right? What would you say that would be encouraging to a younger Ben Howard? I think that what I would say to, and do say to people, is it's gonna be okay and I don't know what okay means. You know? Yeah. It's like It's gonna be. Everything's gonna turn out okay. But what I find is so much of the struggle that we do in life, doesn't help the outcome. And and so that's what I find now if I can not it's almost like trying to swim upstream of a river. So younger Ben Howard would say, I know it's gonna be okay because I'm working my damn ass off to make it okay. Just gonna get on top. Man, I'm gonna get on top. Just this new day timer planner system I've got, it's gonna work. Or this new computer. It's just like, I'm gonna be able to get on top of all this. And I would want somebody to know that at some level you're never gonna get on top of it and it's okay. And that's the freedom. It really is. And I I think back of earlier in life and that lack of a self. And I nobody could have told me, hey, you gotta find yourself. Like, I don't know what the path of that was other than I had to come to the end of myself. Yeah. And I don't know that we can I don't know how to help other people? I don't know that we ever come to the end of ourselves. Well, we come to the point of ourselves okay. So that's fair. So by end of myself, what I'm trying to the way I'm trying to work life is not working so significantly that I must try something else. Yeah. Yeah. That I come to the end of that strategy.

Man, but the there's always the next diet, the next book, the next day timer program, the next, online coach you can pay to watch their videos, the next, fashion, the next thing The next politician. The next politician. Oh, gosh. The next politician. And Yeah. Only if we can get that person unelected, then everything will be okay. Mhmm. Right? Like, Dane Anthony, calls that living with contingencies. Then my life will like, once all these contingencies are met, then my life will be. Right? And and once these things don't happen, like, our whole life becomes around circumstances instead of living, I think, ultimately, what that means. So I always wonder if Ben if 30 year old or 27 year old Ben Howard would've could've heard you. I don't think he could've. Uh-uh. Because I think it's out there. He said, I know. I'm doing great. Mhmm. Like, I'm I'm great.

Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I would say is and this is what I encourage people, and it's kind of, flavor of the day, but, man, it's so meaningful to me, is to be curious. Mhmm. And, you know, the opposite of being curious is gonna be to judge and just be curious. I I've come to believe, the greatest question I can ask is tell me more. And when somebody tells me something about themselves, tell me more about that. If I don't say tell me more, then I'm probably gonna tell them what I think about it. Yeah. You know, I don't wanna miss an opportunity to understand more about them. Yeah. Yeah. So I have found curiosity to bring a great tool and I do think that's something that people can start to practice and it can literally have an impact on them. Tell me more. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Excellent.

You're getting it. Yeah. Thanks. So I just another movie thing. You didn't say this, but I thought it. So I'll take credit for it. Is it like a good movie, life will break your heart and put it back together again? That's really good. Yeah. I think that happens. It's the it's a story. A story it's gotta have risk. It's gotta have trial, you know? Failure. Yeah. And and then that's what makes it all the more powerful when it resolves. And so I do believe that about life. I think that life without risk is boring. And yet, how much energy do we spend to get rid of all the risk in our life? You know? Yeah. And so, thankfully, we can't really do it or I think we just have boring lives. Yeah. That's good. Thanks, Ben. Yeah. Yes. It's fun. Thank you for, thank you for wanting me to tell you more.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com.