UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids' ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids' ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and I'm joined today by Brother Matthew Critcher. How's it going? Hey,

SPEAKER_02 0:43

I'm doing

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good.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

I'm very glad to be here. Yeah, this is your first time on the show. on the podcast. It is. It is. I've always been nervous because I knew you asked me a while ago, and so I've been kind of looking forward to this day. So,

SPEAKER_03 0:55

very happy to be here. All right. Well, and is this your first time on a podcast, by chance? Yes. Oh, wow. Okay. Right on. Well, we get the honors then. All right. Well, what are we talking about today? We're going to be talking about glory in the grind. Glory in the grind. We had to get that alliteration in there. Jeez, glory in the grind. So, in this day and age, there seems to be a culture of, quote, instant success or overnight success. And I actually think that there's always been that element, but with social media, et cetera, we see it so much easier. We quote, see it from all over the place with the internet and everything. So years ago, I heard an interview with Ann Rule. She's the renowned true crime author. And she was asked in this interview, she was asked if the murder rate was getting worse and worse because they were talking about crime rates and all this. And she actually she said no and she cited the Bible oh wow she said she talked about Cain and Abel she said when Cain murdered Abel there was a 25% murder rate worldwide oh man that's that's pretty bad that's pretty rough 25% so temptation of quick fix has always been there and in Sunday school we can look around at other churches maybe like you know how many people they have or something or we can even just see the lack of what we define And I think we can become discouraged. So today we want to talk about this, quote, secret to get out of the microwave mentality.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

No, absolutely. I think this is a really important conversation. Even before we started, I was talking to you just about how I was really interested in this topic. This is a really good topic because, you know, there's a lot of emphasis on the victories and there's a lot of emphasis on the successes. Successes and winning. Yeah. But there's a lot of emphasis on the victories. There's not a lot of focus on how do you get to that success. And, you know, I'm a drummer for, I'm one of our drummers for our church. And from a musician standpoint, this is a trap that you can fall on pretty easy is you can see these other musicians and- Yeah, they have good chops or something. process, you realize, wow, they spent hours and hours and hours, not just playing it, but breaking it down. And so it's very important to, you know, the process of how to get to that, to your goal and not getting discouraged in the process.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you mentioned that because it is, that's actually right. And we didn't even talk about this, you and I, but that's right up the alley of what I wanted to mention is the process. It is. There's an author I like Seth Godin, but he has a book called The Practice, and that's what it's all about. It's just day in, day out, you know? Yeah. The practice, the process. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I wrote a note. I got a little bit of an outline here, but I wrote a note, define the goal. And so the key is to know what is important for your Sunday school. And this basically should come directly from your pastor. Yes. Your pastor should be defining that. And if I would even say, you know, and I know there's all All kinds of different dynamics with pastoral relationships, and many Sunday schools are ran by women, so that changes the dynamics altogether. But I would say to solicit that advice from your pastor if he hasn't offered it already. Yes, no, absolutely. And so we certainly do that, and I'm blessed to have a pretty close relationship with our pastor.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Yes, because you want to make sure that you're following the vision where the whole vision of the church and the Sunday school is a big part of the vision. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

We're a big part and he's the man of God and he's who God has chosen to lead. And so, yeah, we need to be in line with that. So that's the very first thing right out of the gate.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Absolutely. If I could throw this in here, this is something I was thinking about earlier, and I think it really ties in with this aspect of defining the goal is intentionality. Yes. I think, you know, if you're going to, I mean, that's one of the key elements of even creating goals is you've got to be intentional. Intentional. Intentional, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

It doesn't

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happen

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very much. And then they pulled out and left. And that's all he could really see on the camera. So Adam went over there and looked, and he said there were some bags. He said they weren't like normal garbage bags or something. But anyway, so he was like, maybe they're bags of money. Well,

SPEAKER_00 6:30

man, I better start looking. Boy, maybe the Lord, you know, our new church building, God's just setting bags of money around. There's our million dollars right there. Yeah, we'll get it right there. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 6:42

so yeah, definitely you got to be intentional. And then... That goes, I kind of have another bullet point that defined the path. So I thought it was going to be really cool in my bullet points, but then I changed them. So I had to find the goal, define the path. But I work in the world of project management and we talk about something called means and methods. And so means and methods are generally up to a contractor. And so in legal terms and bidding and everything, there's certain ways, like if a building, a high rise or something is drawn a certain way, you know, the architect draws it a certain way. So it's like okay, it has to be built like this. But then there's sometimes arguments or conflicts even on like, how are we going to do that? And the architect is like hands off because they're like, that's means and methods. You have to figure that out. And so then there's, of course, you know, sometimes there's argument. I've been in both places. I've been in the field and in the office, so I know how it can be. Sometimes it's like, well, you can't do that. You can do it on paper, but you can't do it out in the field. No, absolutely. But means and methods is how are you going to get there? How How are you going to do it? Kind of like what you're talking about with the drums even. Yes. You've got to break it down.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Oh, yeah. Work through it. I mean, that's really, this bullet point is really where the grind, in my opinion, comes in is because you follow, you find that path, but then you've got to stay faithful to that path. And oftentimes that path isn't, I mean, we titled this glory in the grind and there is glory in the grind, but in the moment, the path doesn't feel glorious. Yes, exactly. Because it's a lot of hard work

SPEAKER_03 8:15

and a lot of effort to get there. I actually did talk about this recently at youth, but successful people do consistently what others do occasionally. Oh, that's good. So successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally. Yeah. And so if you think about that, like, let's just think about, you know, and success is a whole nother, that's a whole nother podcast, maybe, you know, how to define it. But if you look at, let's just look at a bodybuilder or something like that, well, there are There are people that occasionally go to the gym. Yeah. I've been doing this every day for 20 years. Wow. And he said, you show me somebody that's been working out for 30 minutes a day, every day for 20 years that has a weight problem.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Wow, man, that's some consistency right there.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

That's

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consistency.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Oh man. Yeah. And this, and part of the reason I guess I wanted the alliteration for the glory in the grind,

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but

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part of the reason for I put grind in there is there's this thing that's gone around. It's not new or anything, but like, you know, know, I'm in the grind or just I'm grinding, you know, like the day in, day out or whatever. And so, and I, I think there's, you know, some merit there. One of the examples of what I talked about at youth coming back to that is David. So I like to talk about David and Goliath. So the thing is, is we know from reading scripture that David, there was the daily grind for him. He was a shepherd. He was out there writing Psalms, praying to God. And so he had already developed this relationship way before there was ever any spotlight on him nobody noticed him he just did it day in day out it was his daily grind and then the glory came when it was time for him to fight Goliath that was where the glory from the grind maybe that's what I should have titled it but the glory from the grind came it came out and that it just how do I say like it just merely showed up it wasn't like He was working all his life toward this event. It just showed up. God's favor showed up because of all that grind that

SPEAKER_02 11:25

you put in. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, to onlookers, people that day, they would just thought, man, who is this guy? Where'd he come from? You know? Right. Yeah. But they didn't see the everyday, what you were talking about, his consistency.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

You know, and just being faithful. And, you know, it wasn't his problem. first time using a slingshot. He had practiced with that. He had the lion and the bear. Absolutely. And he trained and he had prepared himself. And I think that's a key is preparing yourself, even if you don't necessarily know exactly the direction God wants you to go at the moment, just being prepared and available for the opportunities that come your way. So David, he probably wasn't expecting to face Goliath. Oh yeah, I'm sure he wasn't. He was going to bring his brothers him lunch. But he was already, he had been preparing. He already had the daily grind going on so that whatever God had in store for him, he was ready to take it on. And so when he gets to the battlefield and he sees Goliath, he was ready to go. He knew he had been training. Yeah. He didn't have to like hurry up and get ready or something. He was

SPEAKER_03 12:36

ready. He was ready to go. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think there's another saying I like a lot is when opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare. Yes. And so he was already prepared. He had been preparing every day, just the daily grind. And so he was prepared. The opportunity came or, or I guess, you know, even the, the threat came and he was prepared to deal with it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and I, the another note I have is not quote do, but be. Yes. And I think here's, here's kind of the crux, like of what I was thinking of, like when you said earlier, you said process. One of the things that I have thought about a lot and I even I wrote an article about this in the WPF magazine is this is who we are and of course I get this directly from our pastor yeah but you know we talk about we don't praise God because of how we feel or we don't you know do things because of how we feel but we do it because this is who we are yes and so I think we don't do the daily grind because just just because I think goals are good we've had a podcasts where we talk about goals. I do think goals are good. And I, even how we kick this off, we talk about defining the goal or the direction at least. But if we focus on instead of like, okay, we're going to do this. And what I mean, I guess is like, maybe I should have said accomplish instead of like, okay, we're going to accomplish this. It's like weight loss. Yeah. Like I'm going to lose 50 pounds. And then how many times people lose weight and then they gain it all back. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, but, and then we hear this, all the time it needs to be your lifestyle you know the eating the exercise or whatever it needs to be your lifestyle and then you'll change how fit you are yeah well I think that applies across the board and so it's not let's bring this to Sunday school it's not just and I think goals are totally good I don't want people to understand I am all about goals but it's not just like okay this year we're going to pray 10 people through to the Holy Ghost. We're going to pray 10 kids through to the Holy Ghost. And then like, yeah, that's our goal. One thing is, is that's not totally in your control. But the other thing is, is that it's more like we want to be the kind of Sunday school that prays kids

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through. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Absolutely. It's not about like, okay, we're going to accomplish 10 kids filled with the Holy Ghost. And that would be great. Yeah. But it's we want to be the kind of Sunday Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 15:18

I mean, it's kind of looking at the bigger picture of what Sunday school is about. Like you said, it's not just doing, it's who we are. And when you seek to become something, instead of just seeking to do something, those actions, in my opinion, they're going to follow along with those. They're going to come as a part of trying to be the Sunday school that you need to be. You're going to start to accomplish those goals as well. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

You start feeling better. You're healthier. You're more fit. You look better. Those are all the byproduct of doing that habit.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yes. So I would say when your view changes from, like you said, just from doing things to instead, how can we as Sunday school teachers, how can we, instead of just doing it, how can we be what we're going to be? Those byproducts, those goals that we're trying to do, those people that we want to see get filled with the Holy Ghost. They're going to come because we're seeking to become who God has called us to be. And it starts to prepare those goals in ways. And really, I mean, this really ties in with identity. Yeah, absolutely. Identity is really big. I've done a little bit of some research. I've done some chapel at the school before, our church school, about identity. But I mean, one of the biggest problems our world faces right now is identity. Identity crisis. A lot of people don't know. Yeah, they try to do things, but they They don't know who they are. And that starts from the very beginning. Genesis is God established man to have an identity, to be man. And with identity, there were goals that came with it. But there's also, because identity is so important in understanding your identity, the devil understands that importance. And he will- And he's trying to tear it down. Oh, absolutely. You think about the temptation of Jesus. It was all surrounding- the identity of Jesus. He said, if you are the son of God, you're going to do this. If you're the son of God, you're going to do this. He wasn't necessarily attacking Jesus' mission. He was attacking the identity of Jesus. And I think with Sunday school is the devil doesn't necessarily want to, you know, he does want to attack our goals, but he wants to attack the identity that we have in our

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Sunday school. Yeah, that's good. And I would say one of those things, and there's probably many things that we could look at, like you said. But I would say one of those things is that we're babysitters. Yeah. Oh, man. And so I think, you know, I think so. So I do. I mean, youth as well. I'm a youth leader and I've heard so many times or experienced so many times when and this is not I mean, you're preaching. So I'm not talking about this in a bad way. And we've had we've had preachers come out of our Sunday school. We joke that we take credit for your brother, Brother Brian Critcher and Brother Joey. They were both evangelists and they were both major parts of our Sunday school. But all joking aside, I think that there is some people where they want to be in Sunday school and then maybe even more prevalent in youth as leaders because it's a stepping stone to go and preach. Now, I think that's okay. That is Yeah, it's totally fine. And when we did, you know, I think it was Brother Arter and I, when we did joke about that we take credit for those two evangelists, we were like, you know, they learned how to speak in front of kids. You know, they learned how to speak in front of people. And I think it does help. I think that also, going back to the babysitter thing, where I brought all of that up, is this is not a stepping stone or a side ministry or a Yes. And so, like you talk about Satan attacking our identity, I think that it can be misconstrued and people can not take it super serious. Yep. As far, I mean, I don't mean serious, like we do comedy and stuff, but I mean, they cannot be invested, I guess. Absolutely. You know, fully invested into it because it maybe feels lesser than because it's kids.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yeah. But the thing is, uh, you know, it's, it's once, it's really a matter of how you view it, your perspective. And it's, it's sad when you, when people have that, uh, that perspective because kids, you know, they are, they're in there those years that you can actually reach them

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because, you

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know, they, they haven't really, they haven't lived a lot of life. They haven't developed a lot of baggage, baggage and, and, And certain mindsets that will, you know, bind people later on in life. And so kids are at the, you know, the time where they can be formed and where they can be fast. I mean, the Bible says train up a child in the way that he should go because when he's old, he's not going to depart from it. And so our job is, you know, when we work in the Sunday school, it's not just a side thing. It's not just a stepping stone, but this is a, this is a, you know, investing, like you said, into the kids so that they can later, you know, God can use Yeah, well, and I've

SPEAKER_03 21:24

said it before, but the return on investment with a kid, with a child is so, I mean, I guess, you know, we hope for the same return, the Holy, you know, somebody getting filled with the Holy Ghost and being baptized in Jesus name, all of these things, but the return on investment, you don't have to wade through all that baggage, the mindset, all of that. Because the kids, this can be unfortunate sometimes, but kids, basically, they accept it at face value. This is why it's so scary. And I don't want to get off track, but the public schools teaching some of this crazy stuff. Oh, man. That's why it's so scary is because the investment can be pretty minor and you get a huge return. And so that's where we can make such an impact.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yes, absolutely. Reaching that next. Because, I mean, those kids are going to be adults. Yeah, exactly. It's just a reality. They're going to be adults. They're going to be making decisions. They're going to be.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Well, to back up, you were in Sunday school when we switched to this style, right? Yes. Yeah. You were for a little bit. You were one of the older kids probably. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think we have video of Brian in one of these old videos going around. Oh, yeah. Brian. He was in Sunday school. Yeah. And man, he looks so different. It's funny.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Oh, man. Yeah. And yeah, you don't see it when they're kids. You know, you may say, oh, it's just a little kid. But man, God sees them as, you know, hey, I'm going to use this person. Yeah. And what do you, or how are you going to treat them? How are you going to, are you going to invest in them? Are you going to, you know? Yeah. We can't be, we can't be lackadaisical or lazy about it. Because if we don't teach them, they're going to learn something. They've, they're going to be invested by something. If we don't invest in them, they're going to be learning and being invested by elements of the world and from different influences of the world. Well,

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it's like pastor says all the time when he talks about preaching, he's like, the world preaches at you.

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Yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

The world is going to preach at you. So what preaching are you going to listen to? Yeah. Oh, man. That's good. Well, so another bullet point that I have on here is start now. Yes. And so, you know, when we're talking about the glory and the grind, if anybody gets anything out of this podcast today and, you know, if they're thinking like, okay, well, maybe I could do better, the best time to start is today. Yes. You know, is right now. And it can be small. I mean, so I'm really bad for this. Okay. I'm really bad for, let's say New Year's resolutions or something. I'm really bad to be the one that says, okay, here we go. I'm going to exercise and be fit. I'm going to eat right. I'm going to pray twice as much as I already do. Bunch of goals. I'm going to practice some kind of music or something, and I'm going to read this many books. And so then what happens is you dilute, you Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Because what can happen too is, I mean, I've done the exact same thing even this year. Man, I make a big old list. I'm going to be better in this and this and this. And what happens is, you might be able to actually hit one of those goals, but because you didn't hit the other goals, you start to get discouraged and it starts to actually impact the one goal you did. You're just like, well, I'm a failure. I can't do this. I can't do it now. And so it makes it hard. But when you start You can start off small because, you know, with time it's going to increase. I mean, the Bible says, despise not the day of small things.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

You

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know, don't think it's, you know, it's just, well, it's a small thing. And so, you know, I'm not going to really value it. But, you know, the small things, just being consistent in it, the daily grind.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Even if you think about a recent Sunday school we did with the talents, right? Yes. It's the same idea is you got that small talent. What are you going to do with it?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah. I have one talent here. I'm just going to hide it. I can't do anything with it. It's not five.

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That went off the rails.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

That was pretty funny. Oh, man. That's one thing I struggle with is, oh, man, when we start getting going and jokes start happening, I have a hard time being serious. Oh, man, I'll lose it. It's great. We have a lot of

SPEAKER_03 25:37

fun. And that was funny because what we did is when we, so we did the story of the town just for some, maybe it's Somebody can get an idea out of this. But we did the story of the servants. The master goes, he leaves and does the talent, you know, gives the servants talents. And so he gives them out and he leaves. And so, of course, the one, he hides it and he's in front of all the kids. He's out there by himself and he's like, what do I do with this? I'm going to hide it somewhere or whatever. And then we had the second one. He comes out with all these Sunday school props and he sells. So was that you? Yeah, it was me. Yeah. So you sell all these items, right? Yes. Kids helped you. And then we we had the guy that had 10 or five, he starts a restaurant. And so we usually have snack in Sunday school. So we did our snack there. We had turned the benches towards each other, like there were booths and had waitresses, whatever. And so he had a restaurant. So then when we did the presentation to the master, when the master comes back, we kind of did it out of order. We did servant two, servant three, servant one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like Servant 2 because it was like, oh, he doubled his and everything. That was you. Yeah. And then I think Brother Keech was Servant 3. And so like, oh, come to my restaurant. And then that's when we did snack. And then Servant 1 comes in. And in practice, we were like, let's do it like you're just super excited.

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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He

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thought

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you accomplished

SPEAKER_03 27:02

something big. And so it was good because it was Brother Aaron. He comes in. Oh, yeah. And he's like, oh, yeah, I can't wait for you to see this. So the master, which is Steve Arter, and he He's like, he's getting excited. He's like, oh, okay. All right, man. Did you double these? You doubled it, right? Yeah, this is good. You must have done something great. And then, of course, he shows up. Oh, yeah. And the whole time, Brother Aaron was doing like the, do you have your cell phones turned off because the government's tracking us

SPEAKER_00 27:31

and all this? Oh, yeah. That was so funny.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Oh, I didn't like, oh, man. That was some

SPEAKER_03 27:35

of the humor that, we have humor sometimes that I don't know if the kids get it at

SPEAKER_02 27:39

all. No, but us staff definitely get it. That's, oh, man. Yeah. I guess our

SPEAKER_03 27:44

justification I hear stuff in Odyssey once in a while where it's like, I know no kid is getting that. Maybe it's for the whole family. I don't know. We need to record some of our stuff so we can- Oh, that would be fun. That would be good. But yeah, so coming back to some of this is, I think that a lot of this, so the premise, like what you said earlier, if we do this every day and we're doing this daily grind and the byproduct, we accomplish some of these goals. Yeah. Reflecting a little bit. And I remember the thought of having a pre-service music practice was daunting. Oh, man. Isn't that crazy? Wow. Because we always do now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I remember way back in the day, we used to have music practice on Monday nights. Now it's Thursdays. But I remember when we started having weekly music practices. Wow. And just that was like, oh, boy, I don't know if we're going to be able to pull this off. Man. Can we get people to come? Can we do it? Can we make it happen? happen. And now it's just such a major part. I mean, we do it, you know, there's people that are here for, well, you're here, what, three hours

SPEAKER_02 29:53

on a Thursday. About three hours.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah. So with all the different groups and everything. So I'm just, I mentioned all of that to say this is that there might be some things that you could look at and not that we have it all together, but there's some things that you could look at and say, I don't know if we could do that. But if you think that it would make a difference, a positive difference in your Sunday school, then maybe take a second look at, you know, could, could this, could this be done to make an impact?

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Yeah. Yeah. No, I, you know, I, for me personally, you know, my desire is that I never lose the desire to grow. Yes. And I think what can happen is, you know, you can either get discouraged and give up on growing. Like you get discouraged in your Sunday school and just say, well, yeah, I don't know how we're going to become better. Or you can get to the other side of the spectrum where you think, man, we just got it all, you know, we got it perfect. Perfect. We got it squared away. We don't need any room for growth. But if you reflect a little bit, God intends for everything to continue growing. And so he wants our Sunday school to become better. He wants our personal lives to become better. And so as long as we have that desire to become better, we will go through the daily grind joyfully knowing, hey, we're going to become better. We have a goal. We have a mission. We're going to be better ourselves and our Sunday school is going to grow and Yep.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Yeah. As a Sunday school leader, this is how I operate. And this can be, a lot of this really could apply to personal life. And if you have a Sunday school staff full of people doing this in their personal life, you know, daily prayer, daily focus on outreach and Sunday school and reading the word, it's going to reflect in your Sunday school. Yeah. You know, 100% it's going to come around to your Sunday school.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Absolutely. Very good. Very true. Very true. All

SPEAKER_03 32:16

right. Well, just to kind of recap here, define the goal. And this, again, should come from your pastor. Know what your pastor's goals are, what your pastor's vision. If you can, have a conversation about it. Yeah. Talk about it. Yeah. Define the path, the means and methods. How are you going to get there? What are the daily practices? Yes. And how can we reach some of those goals? And then- Point A to point B. Yeah. And then not do, but be. Yes. So it's not just about accomplishing a certain goal, but about being a certain way. We are the kind of Sunday school that fill in the blank, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And then start now. Start today. Don't wait. Yeah, don't wait. Don't wait for another day. Yeah, start today. Today's the best day. Yes. All right. Well, I think that's a wrap. All righty.