Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I, I felt confident that I could, you know, since this was more supplemental to, like, a, a primary job, whether it was software engineering or something else, that I might as well just handle all of the agent stuff, um, at this point.

So I, yeah, I got connected with a startup, and that was what kind of initially, or one of the reasons that I, I came out to Eugene.

I was doing some software engineering work with them and, um, yeah, Nike and the, and Jerry and Alex, uh, wanted to coach me out here.

So I came out and, uh, honestly, like, had low expectations, um, or tem- tempered my expectations just because I was coming off of an Achilles injury from the spring.

I had aggravated it through the spring track season and, um, literally like the two days before NCAA outdoors, I, I couldn't even walk, I couldn't even run on it 'cause it was, like, so inflamed.

All right.

We've talked about that too, for sure.

We also, yeah, Charlie and I talk about this all the time.

Um, I think what's cool about-- Similar to what we were just talking about, what is cool about the sport now is that it isn't just performance-based in terms of you having longevity in the space, um, and being compensated to, uh, to have a voice and have a platform in the space.

So obviously, like, there are objectives, external objectives that I want to achieve, that I feel like I can achieve if I dedicate myself wholly to the sport, um, and if everything goes near perfectly.

But I know from experience that a lot of things have to align almost perfectly, and to attach my, um, future and worth to that kind of arbitrary, um, pie in the sky is a very dangerous, uh, mentality to have.

'Cause it, more often than not, will leave you, um, disenfranchised and, um, I think fractured from that path and purpose because, you know, you're going for, you're, you're trying to achieve this one thing, and then you hit a speed bump, you get turned around, and then you feel lost.

And so I have-- I mean, that's why I really love just, like, the day in, day out, you know, um, reevaluating every single day, every single moment that I have control over what that looks like.

Uh, so what, what do you think makes the, the Charles Hicks, Cole Sprout connection strong?