Episode 200!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey folks, we're excited to bring you episode 200 of Think Deeper podcast. We're thankful to everyone who has listened, especially to those who have caught all 200 episodes. At this point we've got a pretty free flowing conversation. So what we're doing this week is a little different. I'm going to put the ads right up front and then there will be no stoppages, no ad breaks in between for the duration of the episode. So we're looking forward to hearing your feedback, you know, your YouTube comments, your thoughts. We've got a few comments for the audience in there. Hope you enjoy it, hope you have a great Thanksgiving and we'll talk to you guys in a couple of weeks. Hey guys, Jack here. I'm excited to tell you about my new book, you Are the Christian's Assurance. For too many years I have run into Christians who aren't really sure where they're going to go when they die. They don't feel like they can say that they are righteous. And so I set out to write a book to give you confidence and assurance of your salvation. It's laid out in 13 chapters for churches to study as a Bible class with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. And of course you can just read it on your own either. It's for individuals, it's for classes. However you would like to approach it, you can get it on Amazon, you can get it on Focus Press. We offer discounts for group sales of it in groups of 5 and 10 on Focus Press. So if you're going to study it with your church, be sure to check that out and get that deal. So be sure to check out. You are saved today once again on Amazon and Focus Pressure. Hey folks, Jack here and I wanted to tell you about some Restoration movement resources from our new sponsor. If you're interested in the history of the church, Cobb Publishing has got what you need. From general overviews like FW Maddox's Eternal the History of the Church of Christ to biographies of Restoration movement leaders like Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott Raccoon, John Smith and several others, you will be able to satisfy your church history [email protected] shop. From classics like their bicentennial edition of Alexander Campbell's the Christian Baptist, the two volume complete Alabama Restoration Journal Collection, or brand new books like out of the Women of the Restoration Movement, you will find the perfect gift for the Restoration movement enthusiast on your gift list. Find reliable histories of the [email protected] shop. That's Cobb c o b b publishing dot. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Welcome into episode 200 of the Think Deeper podcast. We are excited to be here. We are trying something new. We thought for. For 200, we were going to do something just fun and relaxed, and we have no agenda. We did write some questions for one another. We decided on personal, business, and spiritual questions. To be quite honest with you. We're shooting the breeze. We're having fun. We got a coffee pot in the back. We're just gonna be filling up as we go and just having a good time. I don't think we set a time limit on this, did we? No. We'll see where it goes. [00:02:49] Speaker A: So if it runs real long, break it up, you know, into a couple listens if you need to, that's fine. [00:02:53] Speaker B: I mean, maybe this is indulgent, but we're having fun with it. [00:02:56] Speaker C: It's also Thanksgiving week and. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:02:58] Speaker C: You know, Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Great time of year. Joe, I had a question for you. Just kind of as we get started on this, you. I think all three of us there for a while were on the train that, you know, Thanksgiving as a holiday is better than Christmas. If I remember right, last year, you started to bend on that a little bit. Where do we stand in the year 2025 on what the best holiday is? [00:03:17] Speaker B: I'm gonna get shot. [00:03:17] Speaker C: This is not one of the questions that I have. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Get shot for this. I like, and I think you guys would agree with this. I like the holiday season of Christmas more. And so with all of the holiday season leading up, it's tough to beat Christmas. Thanksgiving for a family day is fantastic, but if you don't get to play football like you guys do every year, but if we're. If it's small, we don't really get to play football. And some of the things we grew up with, we grew up like 70, 70 people up to. I think we had like 110 one year different now at our Thanksgiving. And so it's just different. And so early when we were young, we had that. I think it was by far my favorite. I think Christmas is my favorite now because of everything going into it. And the kids. I mean, the kids is what changed it for me. Because you wake up on Christmas morning and to see their face light up is like, there are a few things. I couldn't care less about my gifts. You know, there are a few things like that, though, that. That you get throughout the year. [00:04:05] Speaker C: So I'm still a big Thanksgiving guy. I mean, obviously, Christmas. I think part of it might also be that, you know, which I'm sure you guys can kind of echo this as well. I don't get a ton of time off around Christmas, so. Love the season. Love, you know, the. You know, the. Just the vibe of Christmas, of course, but, you know, just Thanksgiving Day and having people over, and you've been. You were at our house, for one thing, the football game outside, and I don't know, there's just a. A vibe to Thanksgiving of, you know, there's a ton of food, there's football on tv. It's really, you know, warm inside the house. Apple cider. [00:04:41] Speaker B: And it kicks off holiday season. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. [00:04:43] Speaker C: That's true. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Especially since I don't do. [00:04:45] Speaker A: As I said. [00:04:46] Speaker C: Do you still do Christmas music after Thanksgiving, or are you before now? [00:04:49] Speaker B: Oh, definitely not before. [00:04:50] Speaker C: Okay, You. [00:04:51] Speaker B: I run out of Christmas music five days, so if I can push, like, the week before, man, there's like, two songs out there. No, I don't do Halloween. And so this idea of, like, holidays, we basically go from. [00:05:01] Speaker C: Well, you didn't know. I didn't know. You're not a big fan of Halloween. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I don't know how, but. No, I was thinking about that, like, because we don't do that. What's the Labor Day before? We don't celebrate that. So was it Fourth of July? We have birthdays in July, but. Or in August, but I don't know. [00:05:18] Speaker A: We need to run a poll on that. All right, so Thanksgiving or Christmas? I want to know where the deep thinkers stand. [00:05:24] Speaker C: I mean, I've. I think my take would be similar to you, Joe. Like, the Christmas season is better than the Thanksgiving season, but the actual day itself, I'll. I'll still take Thanksgiving Day over. Christmas Day is kind of where I'm at for that. [00:05:37] Speaker B: So here's another interesting thing. I'm like, gift giving is a big thing for me. I wonder if that's your top love language. It was for a long time. I'm of the opinion love languages change, you know, as. As. Depending on what. [00:05:52] Speaker C: They're fluid. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they're fluid depending on where you stand. On the other hand, like, I love giving gifts, I love receiving gifts, and that also factors into Christmas. And some people, it's not that big a deal if quality time is your number one, which may shift for me, but, like, Thanksgiving, for sure. So I don't know. What are your thoughts? Where are you standing? [00:06:08] Speaker C: Sorry I interrupted you. You got a question, so come back to it. Is that what you were gonna ask? I. I cut you. Oh, you're Good. [00:06:13] Speaker B: You're good. [00:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're a believer in the love languages from the therapy thing. I know some people are like, nah, that's not real. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I cap it at five there. I've heard other theories where there's like six or seven type of thing. Everybody is. Feels love in a different way, but I just, I'm of the opinion that it's what you were lacking either as a kid or what you lack in adulthood. [00:06:33] Speaker C: Are you not a believer? [00:06:34] Speaker A: No, I think it's fine. I just am asking the therapy. All right, so just gonna throw one randomly in there. Best marriage advice book that's commonly known. Worst. Ooh. Because there's like, you know, the love languages. Love and respect. His needs, her needs. The Gottman book. I know you're a big fan of. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Seven Principles for making marriage work. I usually keep it right next to it. [00:06:55] Speaker C: I could have given Joe's answer for him. [00:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:06:58] Speaker A: One that a lot of Christian, like, that's not on that list. [00:07:00] Speaker C: That's not a Christian book. [00:07:02] Speaker B: No, no, he's. He's Jewish and as is his wife. And so there are things I definitely disagree with, like the Gottmans, they started LGBTQ stuff, couple stuff, probably about a decade ago. So I really don't like that. But as far as it goes with. [00:07:16] Speaker C: Their stuff, you'd still stand behind that? [00:07:17] Speaker B: I'd still stand behind that book. I think it's a really, really good book. There's several ones. Bad ones. [00:07:22] Speaker C: Let me ask about his knees, her needs. I have not read that. I've not heard. [00:07:25] Speaker B: How'd you know? [00:07:27] Speaker C: You guys are. [00:07:27] Speaker A: What? [00:07:27] Speaker C: I've not heard great reviews about that one. [00:07:29] Speaker B: I'm not a huge fan of that one. [00:07:30] Speaker C: Really? [00:07:30] Speaker B: I think it really leans into the stereotypes. Like, well, the guy's just going to be coming in from, you know, a seven day hunt and he's gonna smell terrible and he's really gonna want some. So it's kinda like, okay, that's really stereotypical, you know, and so it leans into what they think the man and woman might want. Yes. Some of it is legit, some of it is very overblown. And to me it almost creates more of like, yeah, I got this one. I know where this is going type of thing. Like, listen and learn about your spouse. That's what I love about Gottman is like their sound relationship. House is built on friendship. You get to know one another. So he's got love maps in that book. Seriously, go get the book. If you haven't. [00:08:03] Speaker C: Have you read His Needs? Would you agree? [00:08:05] Speaker A: I'm trying to remember which one I read. There's one where like every chapter he's. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Like, if you don't do this, you're. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Going to have an affair. Like, you know, that might have been his niece. I don't remember which one it was, but yeah, that I wish I did because that would have been my negative one. But what's the one? [00:08:21] Speaker B: Feldman, I think is her name through his eyes or what is it? And that's where they get the men think about having sex every seven seconds. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Oh goodness. [00:08:30] Speaker B: And it really is like, you gotta fair proof your marriage type of thing. It's like, no, I don't, I don't agree with that. [00:08:36] Speaker C: So one of the best ones that I've read is called Cherish by Gary Thomas. I don't think that's actually his most well known marriage book. He has another one. I don't remember what it's called, but yeah, that one just really opened my eyes to kind of the like the way that you treat your spouse is more than just a chore. It's more than just, yeah, do it. Because you're supposed to like, no, like look for ways to truly cherish your spouse. And I don't know, it brought a lot of character to that idea. For me, the worst one, I'm not going to say because it's a church of Christ. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Oh no, I don't want it to. [00:09:10] Speaker C: Get back to, to the author, I'll tell you guys off camera. But it was, I'll put it this way, it was a book where it was, the main premise was you need to make your marriage centered around God and never got practical. Like that was basically the entire book. It was 150, 180 page book. And it's like I didn't, I didn't. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Learn anything from that. [00:09:28] Speaker C: Oh well, it's like, yes, I know God has to be a part of my marriage. Tell me how that works, what that looks like day to day life. Nothing. [00:09:33] Speaker B: The Francis Chan was a little bit that way. [00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Really? [00:09:35] Speaker C: Was that you and me forever. [00:09:36] Speaker A: You and me forever. [00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I was very high minded, you know, those type of things. It's like, yeah, but in the nitty gritty. And I know that's not what they were writing it for, but sure. So this brings up another question on books. [00:09:46] Speaker A: I was gonna say, you know, I threw that one out there. I don't really have an answer on that. I mean, I've read a few, but to the Listener. This is. How informal this is. Hey, let's talk about these books. Oh, and none of us can remember the names of any of them, so. [00:09:58] Speaker B: I'm sure they're on my shelf over there. [00:09:59] Speaker A: That's kind of what we're doing today. So you. Sorry. [00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I was gonna say, what's the most impactful book for you guys? [00:10:06] Speaker A: That's a really good. [00:10:07] Speaker B: I'm putting you on the spot, and that's a tough one. [00:10:08] Speaker C: You guys read a church recently? [00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:11] Speaker B: That's a good one. Yep. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:16] Speaker B: Homeschooling? [00:10:16] Speaker A: Maximum. Boy, I don't know. Well, I'll turn around to you as I think about it. [00:10:22] Speaker B: Don't do that. [00:10:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Especially read a ton. [00:10:25] Speaker B: No, I. I've read way more than me. [00:10:27] Speaker C: I brought mine up a ton. I like Point Man a lot by Steve Farrar. I don't have enough Faith to be an Atheist was. I think the reason I liked that one so much, it was impactful, is because I. It was like my first exposure to apologetics outside of my dad's content. Of course. I'd read all my dad's stuff and like. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Convicted is really good. But I read I don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. I was like, wow, this is. You know, there's. Outside of the Brad Hara, even, like, apologetics press realm, there's, you know, really good apologetics arguments. So I like those two. [00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a tough one. I asked the question because I don't know that I have my answer. You know, I talk about this on the Jim podcast. Harry Potter, the first Harry Potter, as dumb as that is, that's really what kicked off my love of reading. From an impact standpoint. Yes. Not the text itself. From an impact standpoint. That's what got me reading. But I mean, from a. From the text itself, the Bible. [00:11:17] Speaker C: And. [00:11:17] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, there's been. There's some things that got me thinking outside the box. I remember is a slog. And I don't. I don't really agree with John Piper on a whole lot, but desiring God made me think a little bit more outside the box in some ways. But it was. It was a slog. I'd have to think on that one for a little more. Yeah. Because there's, you know, I always try to read a book every single year. Atomic Habits was a big one for me. [00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I didn't get through Atomic Habits. [00:11:47] Speaker B: Did you not. [00:11:48] Speaker A: That's really ironic. I didn't have the. The Habits. I'm not the kind of person that read. [00:11:53] Speaker B: Jack, just start, just start by reading like three words a day. Yeah. From there, start that atomic habit. [00:11:59] Speaker C: I was going to ask you, Joe, not to zero in on this, but we haven't really devoted a Think Deeper episode to this. I think it's come up a time or two. So the Harry Potter thing, obviously there are Christians that. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, the guy who hates Halloween is the Harry Potter guy. [00:12:10] Speaker B: You know, less so these. [00:12:11] Speaker C: I was going to just kind of ask you like, I'm sure you've had conversations with people. [00:12:15] Speaker A: What is. [00:12:16] Speaker C: Two questions. One, what's kind of like the general disposition of people? Are they Romans 14 on it or are they pretty, like not obviously not demanding you repent, but like pretty critical of you for doing that. Or is it again, kind of Romans 14? The second question I had is like, what's your response generally to them? [00:12:34] Speaker B: Most people are pretty chill about it. I think there's some people that are really upset. You wrote on it, didn't you? [00:12:38] Speaker A: I think it has been a little. [00:12:39] Speaker B: Like you wrote on your response, if you remember that. Most people I think are perfectly fine with it. My response would be there's clear fiction. She herself talks about, you know, making up words like Muggle and things like that. All of the spells. Because I watched something from a. A true, like Wiccan witch or whatever and she's like, they're just, they're. They're Latin words flipped around like there's nothing to this. So they're actual spells, they're actual dark things. She didn't really get into any of those things. [00:13:05] Speaker C: So the fiction argument. [00:13:06] Speaker B: The fiction argument is what I always go to. Like it's very strong fiction. You see magic pop up in Lord of the Rings and Narnia, things like that. It is at a different level. The Horcruxes, things like that get pretty dark. So it's one of those, like I'm. I've cooled on it a little bit. [00:13:20] Speaker C: But you plan to let your kids read it? [00:13:21] Speaker B: But yeah, in good time. You know, I think it's again, dark themes, but you get dark themes in a lot of books. I don't know you, you've been like very against it, but now it seems like you've shifted a little bit where. [00:13:30] Speaker A: You'Re not as hard line against it. The thing for me is like, look at the fruits of it. Harry Potter people are like the worst. [00:13:35] Speaker B: Honestly, that's one of the things that has kind of caused. Caused me to cool on it is like we Went to Universal earlier this year and we went to Harry Potter World. That's cool. You know, it was nice fun riding the rides and doing those things, whatnot. But you look around, it's like this. These are the blue haired freaks, man. These are the people. Like, I don't want my kids really around these people. [00:13:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Let me say dorks or no, it's just a little like they build their whole identity around it and don't grow up and well, you'll see, like, oh, you know, this politician I hate is Voldemort and stuff. Like, okay, just. But so when I say Harry Potter people are the worst people in the world. I say that with Joe the mega fan sitting next to me. So to the listener, like Harry Potter. But there's. You'll see the people around town that have the bumper sticker of the, I want to say the Triforce, but that's Zelda. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:18] Speaker A: As the triangle and the circle and the wand in there or whatever. And those always come with like LGBT. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Bumper stickers and other things. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Like it's, it's always a package deal. Yeah. [00:14:26] Speaker C: And even more fascinating now that J.K. rowling is one of the biggest anti trans advocates. Yeah. [00:14:30] Speaker A: And they've turned against her hard and all that and own the cast, you know, to play the characters of Gone against her and all that. [00:14:36] Speaker B: So there's podcasts you guys gotta listen to. I thought it was fascinating. The witch trials of. [00:14:42] Speaker A: So probably not. [00:14:44] Speaker B: It was the witch trials of J.K. rowling and going into the trans movement and how much they attacked her. And it was trying to take it from either side of trying to understand the, the trans plight, but also understand where she's coming from. And so they got like an interview. The woman went and interviewed J.K. rowling and like her Scottish castle or whatever. And then they got a lot of interviews from people that were very against her former Harry Potter fans. It's like a seven part series. It was really, really interesting just from a sociological perspective, like, you know, how these things unfolded and her. Because obviously I agree, like it's a, you know, poor movement. But then to hear their side and why they had a problem is pretty interesting. [00:15:17] Speaker C: That to me is the biggest difference between like the Star wars fans and the Harry Potter fans is like Star wars fans are just kind of dorky, you know, like there's just kind of a geek culture associated with it. But yeah, man, the J.K. rowling just kind of saga that has taken place with the people attacking her. She was one that when that first Started, I kind of. Not that I know a ton about her, but I half expected her to eventually fold and eventually kind of bend her knee. She has stood as firm as you can imagine, which I think is fascinating. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Well, they have that TERF movement which is trans accepting radical feminists. So, you know, we're feminists except for the, the trans exclusionary, the women that want, the men that want to claim to be a trans exclusionary. And it's like, so you're moving 10 degrees back up the slippery slope. Like you're just gonna end up here anyway. This is what led to this. But still it's a courageous stand. And so that's, you know, when you see that in the world, it's kind of like, all right, just come a little farther this way and we'll help you out here. But like I'm not, I'm not joining in your cause either. [00:16:12] Speaker B: But the interesting thing is some of these feminists, they turn around so much where it's like you're, you're taking away from women, you know, feminism or from, you know, the feminine. And so they come back around to being feminine in a really weird way. Some of those people that are against trans. And I see it with her and some of her tweets is like she starts tweeting feminine things in the feminist basis because obviously she wants to like. And, and so on the one hand there's a feminist element to it and on the other hand there's a feminine element to it. And so it's a very interesting, you know. [00:16:39] Speaker C: Well, I think that just shows how the kind of woke ideology has started to do battle with themselves. Like you can't be ultra feminist. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:46] Speaker C: And also support men becoming women and destroying all the women in sports. Like there's just two incompatible ideas. So we had a question on the Gallium podcast Discord that. So we're doing episode 150 coming up, which is an ask me anything episode. I don't necessarily want to preview it, but it was a fascinating question if I remember the way the question was phrased. Right. And if not, and I'll ask my version of the question something about like, who is the face of feminism today? I don't know if you guys saw that. Yeah, I was really curious. I guess we can preview it if we'll talk about it in the golly and mid podcast episode. You're really curious. Your guys answer. So I would have said Taylor Swift. I don't think it's Taylor Swift anymore, to be honest. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Not now that she's marrying Travis. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Like, I honestly think the Kelsey thing has toned that down a little bit. [00:17:26] Speaker A: My. [00:17:26] Speaker C: I mean, obviously there's a lot of politicians. AOC came to mind for me. Oh, there was somebody else that I'm blanking on now, but any. Any thoughts on that? Like Emma. Emma Watson. [00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:40] Speaker C: I feel like she's not well known enough anymore. She doesn't have as big a. Big enough voice to kind of fill that fit that bill of the biggest voice for feminism right now. So what would you guys say? [00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah, Watson was the first one that came up, you know, because they really pushed her forward and she kind of took that ambassador role on. But as you say, like, that's fading. [00:17:59] Speaker C: I think if you ask your average 16 year old who Emma Watson is, I'd be like, I don't know who that is. You know what I mean? [00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Ideologically, Brie Larson is insufferable because she's just distillation, but it's not like she's putting herself out there as it represents it, so. Well, I don't know. [00:18:16] Speaker B: That's probably a good thing. Actually. [00:18:18] Speaker C: There's not one, you know that. [00:18:20] Speaker B: There's not one main one that you. [00:18:21] Speaker A: Think of well, and you see something like Taylor Swift, she sings one song about wanting to have kids that look like her fiance, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, you're out. You're out of the movement, you know, like. Well, then your movement's not, you know, it's pretty shaky, so. [00:18:34] Speaker B: Well, they do that a lot. Like, these people go back. I saw. I'm sure you saw the Meghan Trainor thing. You know, she just was epic and whatnot. And it's like skinny. And she was all about that bass. And people are like, yeah, people are not happy. Same thing with one of the black rappers, female rappers. [00:18:48] Speaker C: Lizzo. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Was it Lizzo? [00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. Amy Schumer is the next one. [00:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. So they're all slimming down. It's like, you guys, I gotta say. [00:18:56] Speaker C: My take on that is you. I understand why people are frustrated because it's like, you're being hypocritical. You're. You can change your stance on things, I suppose. But, man, she made a lot of money on that song. Talking about Meghan Trainor about, you know, we don't want skinny people. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:09] Speaker C: So, like, you kind of got a. My take is you kind of got to live with some of that flack. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:13] Speaker C: If you have some out as strongly as she did, because all of her music back then just irritated me. I didn't like it. [00:19:18] Speaker A: Yeah, so she's the worst. [00:19:19] Speaker B: She's. [00:19:20] Speaker A: She's got the dog, mom thing. She got, like, a song or commercial about that. She's got the future husband. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Basically, yeah. What you wanted, a servant, leader, husband, you know, deeper classic right there. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Right, Nice. [00:19:32] Speaker A: You know, the body positivity movement. And so. But I think that leads to an interesting conversation. Bring it back to the religion is. You see this a lot, and you see it in politics. You see it in religion. People who get something badly wrong and then just assume everyone's gonna forget and don't apologize, don't offer retraction, they just move forward. Like, well, yeah, of course I'm still the leader of this movement. Like, why? And this consequence. Yeah. J.D. greer, this guy that was the president of the Southern Baptist movement, Southern Baptist Convention, I should say. For a while there, he had stuff about hiring quotas in his churches for dei, kind of things like that. And he said the Bible whispers about homosexuality, so we shouldn't shout about it. You know, those kinds of things. And now he's doing, like, this rehabilitation tour, not addressing any of those things. Right. But just coming out and like, well, now. Now let me tell you why. You know, the third way political thing. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Is self awareness, bro. [00:20:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:26] Speaker A: And so many people are like, why? Why are we listening to him? But they just go ahead and so, you know, to the Meghan trainers, the other, you know, back to J.K. rowling or whatever, like, not dealing with the consequences of their own, you know, cognitive dissonance. [00:20:44] Speaker B: You lose respect that way. [00:20:45] Speaker A: But it's also kind of disappointing that they still have some kind of platform that they don't get left out of the room. [00:20:50] Speaker B: The crazy thing on that is like, okay, back in the 70s, if you said something, you could basically be like, did I really say that type of thing? And people have to go to the newspaper to find out. [00:20:59] Speaker C: Like, now there's videos, Tweets, you're on YouTube right here. [00:21:02] Speaker B: Like, how. How are people not held more accountable in the age of information, in the age of the digital agent? [00:21:11] Speaker A: Spanish. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:12] Speaker C: Move on to the next thing. [00:21:13] Speaker A: And that. Well, we had a. You mentioned the gym discord. Somebody was asking about people who disagree with us. And I said, look, we've got, like, between Jim and thing. Deeper. We've got like, 300 hours of us talking online. If you didn't disagree with something along the way, that's kind of weird. Like, I think that's. That'd be Worse in itself if you're like, I agree with everything they say. And so, like, yeah, you need to be able to disagree with people. And for us, we'll even change our own take. So you come back around and say, yeah, I got that one wrong. Like, I disagree with myself from three years ago. And I just don't know why that's so hard for some people. Like, they just want to hold their platform and just bury their head in the sand and pretend. I don't know. It's very weird. [00:21:51] Speaker C: I think it's a. So I'm going to ask Joe to be a servant leader right now. [00:21:54] Speaker B: And my coffee point, if you don't. [00:21:56] Speaker C: Mind, but just some cream would be great. Thank you, sir. Yeah, Jack, I think to kind of tack onto that. I think there's like an embarrassment element. There's a. I think people do know, like, talking about kind of the big names. Like, man, people move on from stuff so fast. I forget what was the event. So the Cracker Barrel stuff was going around social media and then something happened. I don't remember what it was, but somebody tweeted. I remember they were like, man, the happiest person right now that this happened is the Cracker Barrel CEO. Yeah, I don't remember what it was, but. No, no, no, I'm sorry. It was the. It was Chip and Joanna Gaines. [00:22:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:22:32] Speaker C: They said the happiest people about the Cracker Barrel blow up is Chip and Joanna Gains because nobody was talking about them anymore. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:36] Speaker C: So I do think the short attention span has something to do with it. Thank you, sir. Very servant leader of you. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, no, just like, yeah, no accountability, even for the COVID stuff, which I'm sure is kind of an angle you were talking about. Like, everybody's got to wear masks. Everybody's gotta, you know, get the vaccine. Not to. Hopefully this doesn't get censored or whatever, but it's like, okay, where's the. Where are the raised hands saying, sorry, guys? I was actually wrong on that. Like, the vaccine doesn't really do anything. Masks don't do anything. Like the stuff that we were all saying from the start. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:08] Speaker A: So. Well, there was this. I think it was the Atlantic, some, you know, rag journalism thing, had an article. We need to give pandemic amnesty and forgive each other for the things we said and the ways we acted. Like, I don't have any problem with how I acted. I didn't like, slam the door in anybody's face. I didn't force People to do things they don't want, tell people they go. [00:23:26] Speaker C: To grandma's for Thanksgiving. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And you just see that sleaziness of like, well, rather than accountability, just don't pretend, you know, pretend that I didn't do that. So that's an acknowledgment you did wrong. [00:23:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:38] Speaker A: But you won't face it. [00:23:40] Speaker B: And these are the same people will get you fired from your job because you didn't use the proper pronouns. Like, don't talk to me about grace. [00:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Don't talk to me about trying to forgive or, hey, it was mistake of the past. Like, I'm out on the street because you couldn't get past your. Your stupid pronoun. You don't. Don't lecture me on this. [00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember this guy doing. I'm sure I've talked about this before. Guy getting on the local neighborhood Facebook group doing weekly reports of the grocery stores and how people were observing the arrows in the aisles. You know, I went to. Went to Walmart today, and people were just going the wrong way down the aisles, and Walmart wasn't even enforcing it. Like, all right, you can say, let's give each other grace and amnesty on that thing. I can't unsee that. I live with people who are, you know, wired that way. That's not good. And so again with the church thing, the guys that lectured us on that stuff, the guys that published articles and then want to run back out and be like, all right, I'm going to lead for the next thing. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Why? [00:24:28] Speaker A: Well, I give. [00:24:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:29] Speaker A: I'm not saying anybody has to be perfect. I'm saying you have to own the things you get wrong. [00:24:33] Speaker C: Accountability. [00:24:33] Speaker B: Yeah, some accountability. [00:24:34] Speaker C: You guys remember those videos of, like, the people who would just confront and honestly harass people who weren't wearing masks? Like, how sad and miserable does your life have to be to have nothing else to do but to just go and harass people? Yeah. [00:24:46] Speaker A: And I'm the good person. Like, I'm going to score, you know, online social media points with this one. [00:24:51] Speaker B: It was a Stanford prison experiment. You know, you've seen that one. That's exactly what it was, in my opinion. [00:24:55] Speaker C: Fill the ignorant person in the room in on that. [00:24:57] Speaker B: What is. [00:24:57] Speaker C: Which would be me. What is the Stanford prison experience or experiment? [00:25:01] Speaker B: So in Stanford prison experiment, they had. They took several students, they put them in, like, a jail type situation and basically gave the. I'm going to butcher this, but basically gave some students. They. They were the guards, and they kind of give them free Reign to treat the other students, you know, the way they wanted the prisoners type of thing. And people got, like, really brutal. Like, really, really brutal. Way more punishment. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Just a little bit of authority went to their head. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah, a little authority went right. Right to the top type of thing. And that's exactly what happened with COVID is I got a chance to control somebody else's life, and I got a little bit of authority where I have the moral high ground myself. I gotta feel better about myself. And the lengths people will go to to punish somebody else because they have a little bit of power or to it basically to, you know, increase the differential type of thing is insane. And that's exactly what Covid was, in my opinion. [00:25:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:48] Speaker A: There is one of those things, like, the more in control you are of your own life, the less you need to just insist everybody else do it right, you know, and let you care. Yeah. People are doing well. Even give grace of, like, I see, you know, you see things that people do and be like, I wouldn't do that. They're younger than me, or they're. They're in a different place than me, or they're, you know, they. I could be wrong, but I think they're wrong. But, you know, okay, like, versus the. [00:26:12] Speaker C: People that, like, are obsessed with people doing things the way they do it. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:15] Speaker C: You know what I mean? Like. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Well, you just see, you know, in churches, people that, like, will really go after other Christians within the same church for, like. Nope. You've gotta, you know, handle it like, man, I don't know. [00:26:27] Speaker B: There's. [00:26:28] Speaker A: There's a time and a place to lay down the law. I'm 100 on. On board with that. But, like, no doubt, again, matters of opinion. [00:26:33] Speaker C: Christmas is a good example. People who, you know, just up in arms about anybody who disagrees with them on. On Christmas or other things like that. So. [00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:43] Speaker B: All right, so I got another. [00:26:44] Speaker A: I got a question. [00:26:45] Speaker B: As I'm looking at my. My outline here, I got a personal question for both. I'm actually very interested to get to Jack. I got one for you. You. You used to be the biggest sports nerd on the planet. You knew everything, Jack. [00:26:58] Speaker A: For. [00:26:59] Speaker B: For the listeners, this is the type of guy, if anybody remembers the. The show, Stump the Schwab, we used to talk about Jack going on there, where you go against, like, this guy that knew everything. Espn. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And honestly, I think Jack would actually handle himself fairly well. I mean, you knew stuff about. [00:27:13] Speaker C: Was this teenage Jack or young twenties Jack or both. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:16] Speaker B: And somewhere along the Way that changed. Not that you don't still know things about sports, but you are not the guy, that guy anymore. When did that change and why? [00:27:25] Speaker C: Four kids, maybe. [00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. [00:27:27] Speaker B: I mean, there's just stuff where you gotta. Yeah, I feel like it changed. [00:27:30] Speaker A: I used to like Marvel movies a lot. Now I. I don't have time for that stuff. [00:27:33] Speaker B: But it's also. [00:27:34] Speaker A: It's kind of like you have your own life, you know, I think this is one that, you know, I outgrew as well. You and I collected jerseys growing up. Like hockey team jerseys, football jerseys, you know, the basketball tank top thing. They never worked for me, but, you know, I had some baseball ones, whatever, and all your favorite players and all that. And I remember seeing something, you know, it's been a number of years ago now, but it was a guy saying, why are you wearing another man's name on your back? Like, yeah, that's pretty weird. [00:27:57] Speaker C: You know, you guys strongly do not like Nick Wright. That's a take he has. He said, why did. Why do grown adult men wear jerseys? [00:28:05] Speaker A: I mean, it was really weird when you see a guy, like, in his 60s with that. And like, what about your own life? You know, Like, I'm. That's great that you're excited about Josh Allen or whoever it is, but, like. And, you know, I still enjoy sports. I still root for my team. You know, we're at a time where all three Denver major teams have a chance to win a championship this year. Like, that's pretty fun, you know. Yeah, just. Yeah, the other one has the opposite of that, but, you know, and so it's exciting, but it's also like, okay, that's a fun night. If they win the championship, a fun week. If they win the champion, then it's over, you know, like, that's it. [00:28:37] Speaker C: I think that speaks to something I've kind of learned in my very limited adulthood so far, is that, yes, first of all, your world doesn't revolve around it near as much. You know, I didn't, you know, spend a ton of time with you and your teenager, but imagine somewhat your world revolving around sports, right? And now when you have a wife and kids, you got a job, you got, you know, just responsibilities, your world no longer revolves around it, but you can still really, you still enjoy it. Like, you can still be a part of your life. I know something for me, like, because I enjoy sports as well. Passing that on to my kid, to my son, specifically both my sons, but one of them is seven months old, so not quite there. Yet, but like passing on my love of sports, like, we'll watch a football game together or we'll be throwing football while there's a game on, stuff like that. And so I feel like for me, I know you didn't ask me this, but like, it changes to where, you know, I don't know all the stats anymore. I don't, you know, do all that but still get to enjoy it as like a leisure thing and get to kind of pass it on to my kids, which I think is kind of special. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Well, we have one other. We had a take before the pe. Some people didn't like that much the adults with toys thing and collecting toys and like the nostalgia for your childhood and think Funko Pops. Yeah, that's bad and cringy and all that. And we had our take on like, you got to grow up at some point. It's, you know, you have one little figure and that's not a big deal. But like the collecting and stuff like that, like, okay, grow up. Or the people just dedicate their life to a fandom. Like, that's very weird. [00:29:56] Speaker B: Sports. Yeah. [00:29:57] Speaker A: The Harry Potter or the Star Wars. People like, I like Star wars, but like, man, some people like it's. But sports is almost like an acceptable version of that for guys. It was like the. The first thing that you could geek out about and have your man cave with all the flags and posters and penance on the wall and collect your jerseys and. And you just look back and it's like there is an extended adolescence thing to that of like, again, enjoy it, as you're saying. But dedicating your life to something that really doesn't impact you that much. I mean, you see the guys that like smash their TVs and just get really, really mad when their team loses and it's like, man, when my team loses, that stinks. That was a bummer. You know, like the Avalanche rage posts. [00:30:33] Speaker C: On Facebook, but that's about it. [00:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the Avalanche should have won the Stanley cup last year and they lost in the first round. It was like, well, I wasted my time watching this, you know, and so. [00:30:42] Speaker B: Oh, well, let me ask you this. [00:30:43] Speaker C: I know you had a question for me, but I want to stay on the say on this somewhat topic. I actually didn't have this one written down, but it just came to mind. So I was always told, and I try to live by like, don't. Don't wish your life away. Don't spend all your time thinking about what you're going to do later on. In life. But I'm curious for both of you guys. I guess we'll start with Joe since Jack just answered. What is something that maybe you did a lot in your teenage years or maybe you did a lot before kids or whatever it is that you really enjoy doing that because kids have entered the picture. It's just difficult to do, but that you are really looking forward to maybe spending more time doing when maybe you don't. You're not working as much. Maybe your kids are moved out of the house, your empty nesters, whatever it is. Like, is there anything that comes to mind? Like, for me, I really looking forward to just reading more books, like when I get to. I really enjoy it. Just don't have a ton of time, Stuff like that. Like anything that, you know, kind of on this note of like things you really, really enjoy doing in your teenage years or early twenties, kids have entered the picture. So it's a little bit difficult to do. But you're like, man, when I get the chance, I will be getting books, getting more. Getting back to that when I get. [00:31:45] Speaker B: A little bit older. [00:31:46] Speaker C: And then come to mind for that. [00:31:48] Speaker B: I'd say hockey, but I'm not. When I get older, I'm not going to be playing more of that. That one definitely went down. But then that was also a personal choice. Yes, it was for the family, but just other things. Travel. But we still travel a decent amount for a family, but, you know, traveling the world, things like that. Like, I do want to travel a lot when I get older, but at that point I don't know how much I'm going to want to travel. You start going down the list, like, I'm not going back to London. I'm not, you know, China, Things like that. Yeah, exactly. Things better change in the next 30 years or whatever. I don't know. I had kind of a boring. Other than hockey, like, hockey was my life and then school was basically it for a long time and then life just kind of took off. So I don't know that I had a whole lot. I'm not a huge video game guy. Reading is nice. I still try to read some, but yeah, probably more reading. I don't know. That's a great question. I'm kind of a boring guy. Like, if you really knew me. I don't. [00:32:38] Speaker C: I don't do a whole lot. [00:32:40] Speaker B: No, I mean, I hang out. Seriously. I hang out with my family a lot. So I work a lot. I hang out with my family. [00:32:45] Speaker A: We don't have golf. As a teenager, you can don't get to do that much. [00:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. I might golf. How about you? [00:32:51] Speaker A: You know, something just hit me as you asked this I hadn't thought about. You spend a lot of time outside as a kid and then some as a teenager. And then like, you get to work and you just don't. [00:32:59] Speaker C: Yeah, that's so good for you, being outside. [00:33:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And if it's not playing football in the backyard, which I want to do with my boys, but, you know, growing stuff, chickens, something like that, you know, that gets you outside or even just taking walks, you know, that's. Yeah, it's good for you, but it's also peaceful. You're away from the screen. You're away from people talking to you. You're away from just. Yeah. So what about you? [00:33:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Reading. [00:33:21] Speaker C: Reading and golf. The other thing. I've got to get decent at it before I can justify spending 60 bucks a pop on it. Yeah, those two things for sure. I also like, from a purely entertainment perspective, I like watching a good TV show. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:33] Speaker C: Just really don't really get to do that. But like, you know, the shows that kind of hook you or even just kind of the light, like, I need a laugh at the end of the night sitcom type stuff. I do enjoy doing that. I'll probably do a little movies for me, you know. [00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. I used to like watching movies. I just like going to the movies because it's very exp. Like it's the experience, right? Like, yeah, I think movies. Alyssa and I go back and forth on this, so I'm curious to get your guys's talk or thoughts on this. I know you let your kids watch some of this stuff, like some of the classics. I want to show them Lion King. I want to show them, like, I think we did watch Robin Hood, you know, some of the classics as a kid. And Alyssa's a little out on that. Like, I don't think I want him to see that. What are your guys's thoughts? Is that. [00:34:10] Speaker C: Is that based from the Just cuz of Disney or just. What do you mean? [00:34:13] Speaker B: Like, she thinks some of those might be scary, especially for the younger kids, like Lion King. And I'm thinking, okay, there's the scar part, I guess. The hyena, I don't know. But for the scary purpose. But also she's like, I'm okay, basically, if the kids never, never end up seeing those things. [00:34:27] Speaker C: I think for me, well, so later on in life, I don't love the idea of a 2 and even 4 year old. Watching much TV, like, or movies or anything. I think Jackson's probably watched a total of like three movies. Christmas Eve we're gonna be at home and so we will plan to turn on some kind of Christmas movies he loves. So like very special occasions. But man, later on in life, like seven or eight years old. I'm. I'm fine with it personally. Like watching up or watching Lion King or watching Cars or stuff like that. Like, I don't have a huge problem. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean the Pixar's, you know, up to a point are okay. The older you go with the Disney movies, the. I like them better. Yeah, well, like Bambi is great. Well, yeah, like, so the Pixars. Yeah, but the Bambi, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, you know, things like that. [00:35:13] Speaker B: So. [00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean they're. They were a lot better and then they just get worse progressively as they go on. [00:35:17] Speaker C: That's true. [00:35:18] Speaker B: See, I look them almost as like, as dumb as it is on a young age. Rites of passage. And I really think that about like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. We were just listening, just talking about this. Like, I can't wait until we can get into that phase of life where I can show the boys some of these. [00:35:31] Speaker C: What age do you think? So I've told Jackson because he, you know, dad, I really want Star. I said, buddy, when you're. I think I told him either 8 or 10. I can't remember one of those two. I said, we will watch Star Wars. [00:35:41] Speaker B: What. [00:35:41] Speaker C: What age is it for you? Because Harrison's getting close to 8. [00:35:43] Speaker B: I know he's getting pushing 8. I was thinking we'd start somewhere around 10. And the reason why is I want him to be able to like. Sounds dumb, but cognitively grasp that. Yeah. [00:35:54] Speaker A: Where it is. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Where it's like, oh, cool, you know, Darth Vader type thing. Like. No, you don't understand the twist type of thing. [00:36:00] Speaker A: You know what I mean? [00:36:00] Speaker B: You want him to understand and appreciate some of those things. So by the time, because these kids grow up knowing all of the, you know, everything that we didn't type of thing. And maybe we did. I don't know. Obviously I wasn't born in the 70s. [00:36:12] Speaker C: You'll be like watching it with Harrison and be like, did you hear that? [00:36:15] Speaker B: Yeah, let me rewind that real fast. Make sure you pay attention to this part. So probably 10. Yeah, I think. What are your thoughts? [00:36:22] Speaker A: Yeah, Allison and I have talked about that. You know, like, guy gets his arm cut off 10 minutes into the first movie. You know, like okay. You know, but I don't know, so. But this kind of leads to one of the questions I had. You talk a lot about rest, silence, stuff like that. And so these hobbies, things like that, reading, things like that are part of it. But that's. That's kind of in a quest of yours over time, so not want to put you on the spot, like, how's it going? But, like, you know, what have you learned in that quest? [00:36:50] Speaker C: Sorry, quest for what specifically? [00:36:52] Speaker A: Rest, silence. Yeah, just, you know, break the noise, things like that. [00:36:57] Speaker B: I don't do it near as much as I want to. I have had what I would consider to be as. This is going to sound really weird, so don't kick me out of church. Like transformative experiences type of thing in silence, where I'm just kind of meditating on certain things. And where you come out of it and you physically feel different, which is what you go for. [00:37:17] Speaker A: That's what we talk about folks at home. What do you mean by meditation? That means it's different things to a lot of things. Yes, true. [00:37:21] Speaker B: Because a lot of it's Eastern meditation, you know, focusing on or emptying your mind. I guess what I've heard the difference is, like, Christian meditation is focusing on something, everything your mind wouldn't take for. Shut up. [00:37:31] Speaker A: Shut up. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Maybe that's why it works so well. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Sorry, had to be done. [00:37:37] Speaker B: But I think you can practice. It's the same thing as yoga. You got to be really careful getting into that type of stuff, but for some stretches, okay. You know what I mean? It's fine. So I feel the same about that in meditation of, like, I. I have a meditation that I use when I do it, and so how it's going is not near as well as it should be. But I do a meditation where I kind of picture all of my thoughts as birds. And, like, they're kind of flying overhead, and if one flies down, I'll kind of catch in my hand, but I never hold on to it too tight. It's like, okay, I let it go another thought, and it's a negative thought, like, oh, wow, maybe something bad's gonna happen. And then let it go. And then I got this to do and let it go. And so you get used to never holding on to any one thought for too long, because that's what tanks. That's what kind of craters your creativity. Yeah, creativity. Your flow. Everything else is like you end up and kind of from an almost ADHD type thing of you bounce from thing to thing, and then you end up holding onto it for just long enough and then you let it, like, just get used to letting the thoughts go and understanding they're there. Some people may look at that as very like, Eastern mystic, and in no way is it that. And then a lot of times you can bring in, you know, like, I'll bring in Christian, you know, Bible passages or something like that, or thoughts about God and then meditate on those. And so when I do it, I love it. I just don't often find the time to do it. [00:38:51] Speaker C: So not a lot of moments of silence throughout the day. I think I've said this on a podcast recently, but, like, I realized that recently I'm literally never sitting in silence. Like early morning, I guess, in the shower before everybody's up, you know, obviously don't have anything playing or anything or. But even drive to work, even if it's, you know, five in the morning, I'll turn on a podcast or something. It's like, just need to sit in the quiet. So that's a good question. [00:39:14] Speaker B: I literally went through my day. I was thinking like, okay, leave for the gym. Should be 5:45. It hasn't been as close to 5:45. [00:39:21] Speaker C: No more. [00:39:22] Speaker B: 555 recently, somewhere around there. 5, 6 o' clock night time. Like when it's really dark outside, it is tough to get out of bed in the summer. [00:39:31] Speaker C: And it's cold. [00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's really tough. But by the time we're there, you and I go together. And then after that, Alyssa's usually up. I'm calling her on the way home. We're talking about the day, whatever it may be. Then when I come home, the kids are usually getting up. So 7:30, the kids are up. And then I'll spend time with the kids. We'll eat breakfast together, do our Bible time together. I'll get ready for the day and usually end up having something to do. And then start clients at either 9 or 10am and in those run, usually I'm 8 to 10 sessions a day. And so you run until late. And then we come in, I put the kids down, I talk to Alyssa. We kind of present the day. Maybe we'll watch a TV show. Maybe I'll catch up on some work, prep some podcasts, whatever it is, and go to bed. And that's like. That's why I say I'm a boring guy is in there. Where's my, you know, the time for prayer, the time for meditation time? So that's the difficulty is. Yeah, like, I think I'm going to have to get better at taking, even taking a session off in the middle of the day just for rest, you know, to quiet down, to get some walking in whatever it is, mind. Yeah, exactly. [00:40:27] Speaker C: All right, Joe, you had another. You had more questions? [00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a question for you. Yeah, you're very. It's actually kind of mirror, the opposite of Jack. So Jack started with sports and then kind of gave, didn't give it up, but you know, changed identity wise, changed that you're very passionate about finances, looking to work with Dave Ramsey, all of that. I don't remember you focusing on that a ton growing up. And so I was curious for you, when did you become such, when did that become such a passion point for you and why? [00:40:50] Speaker C: That's a really good question. Yeah, I've said before, like when I was 15 or 16 and you know, taking college courses, I kind of needed to make a decision about my major. This was not on my radar at all. So, yeah, like even 16, 17, I didn't really care about finances. And the weird answer that I would give is January of 2020. I really. So let's see, we were married, my wife and I got married in March of 2019. Yeah. So yeah, so January of 2020, I've got a budgeting app and just really started tracking my family's me and Rachel because of course we didn't have Jackson at that point, how much money we were spending, that kind of thing. And I just loved seeing progress. I loved seeing, you know, how much were we saving, how much we started our Roth IRAs at that point. So maxing those out and then starting to figure out what do I do with my cash flow and oh, I could pay off our car faster. And I don't, I don't. It's kind of hard for me to explain, but I just love the idea of progress. Knowing where my money was going, what could I do with the extra cash flow? Because at that point I was working for Amazon, making a good, good bit of money and didn't have kids. So not a lot of expenditure or not a lot of bills beyond, you know, our rent because we didn't own a house at that point, anything. So yeah, just kind of just kind of snowballed from there. I really started just looking into what do people think about finance. Obviously Dave Ramsey is a big voice in that. But even some of the other guys, you know, Grant Cardone and people like that now that are, that are popular and so, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. Kind of hard to me explain literally just I'd track all our spending every month and then kind of track how we did month to month surplus deficit. Recently started tracking like our family's net worth and stuff like that. And so I don't know, I just get, just get excited about it. So it's kind of a passion. [00:42:27] Speaker B: It works perfectly with your like go getter nature, you know, and constant improvement. We talk about striving for greatness. Think it works. So, single greatest resource for anybody that wants to get into it. Oh, book, a podcast, a service, an. [00:42:40] Speaker C: App, Every dollar app for sure. [00:42:42] Speaker B: Really? [00:42:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it's so nice. Like it's, there's a free version, the paid version, like eight bucks a month or whatever. It imports, imports all your transactions for you. All you gotta do is just pick what category it goes in. But I've used that since January 2020 and it's, it's super handy as far as books, podcasts go. I mean, I don't agree with Dave Ramsey on everything. I still have a credit card, pay it off every month. But I like to travel for free. It's kind of nice as long as you have the discipline to not just rack up interest. Like I've had a credit card since I was 18. I've paid $0 in interest. Like I've never paid any interest. Wow, good for you. But I've gone to flown to Hawaii twice for free, like, so I do think if you're disciplined enough, you don't have to just completely cut off credit cards, stuff like that. But his complete guide to money was very good. It goes into detail about why, because he has his seven rules or seven baby steps. And he goes in detail about why, like why 15% of your income should you put towards retirement, why not more, you know, why should you pay off your house instead of looking at other investments? So I really, really enjoyed that one. I want to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I know it's very different, but I read that one recommend. Don't. [00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's interesting, but. [00:43:51] Speaker C: Isn'T that kind of the idea that like, if you like, you, you like money, if you're going to want to make money, you need to essentially like look for opportunities to make money. [00:44:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of the abundance mindset versus mindset. Yeah, that's right. [00:44:06] Speaker C: But yeah, that's, that's what I would say. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting. [00:44:08] Speaker C: But yeah, if you're looking to figure out a budget that every dollar app is just, it's so helpful. It's so nice. [00:44:13] Speaker B: We started using Monarch. You guys heard Monarch? [00:44:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a pretty interesting app. Alyssa's cousin C.J. works for Monarch. [00:44:21] Speaker C: What is like a finance company I'm getting. [00:44:23] Speaker A: It's a big budgeting, marketing or tracking app. Yeah. [00:44:27] Speaker B: They don't have. [00:44:27] Speaker C: What are some of their features? [00:44:29] Speaker B: They do. So you put in all of your accounts of and this goes to retirement, everything else. And then it shows like it uses AI, I think, but then also shows a breakdown of everything. It kind of guesses for you where it thinks your expenses are. So it does everything for you and then you can go in and adjust it as you go. But it shows okay, you're over budget here and then you end up getting like texts or emails or whatever of you've exceeded your budget here then. So it just kind of helps you in that way. Helps you guys. [00:44:59] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:44:59] Speaker B: Like there's probably like 30 unanswered emails on there. No. Yeah, I mean it's. It can be very helpful when I'm. [00:45:05] Speaker C: Indeed 12 times this month. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Joe, what's going on? Do you need to, you need to budget money for therapy? [00:45:11] Speaker A: No. Has an intervention. [00:45:14] Speaker B: It just shuts off my cards at Dairy Queen. No. So I think it can be very helpful. But. [00:45:19] Speaker C: All right. So I got a question for Jack. [00:45:23] Speaker B: You. [00:45:23] Speaker C: It's gonna be kind of a weird sounding question, but you've obviously been as far as kind of for a career and working like just in the Christianity business in the sense of like podcasts obviously books and just writing and speaking, things like that. [00:45:36] Speaker A: If you. [00:45:37] Speaker C: Maybe I should phrase it, I was going to say if you were not a Christian, like what line of work would you be, could you see yourself being in? But maybe a better question be like if you just didn't work in the Christianity business, no preaching, nothing like that. I'm always curious just because of how you know big your knowledge base is your ability to write things like what could you see yourself doing if it had nothing to do with Christianity? [00:45:58] Speaker A: I. Because I've had to think about that. It's kind of one of those, man. If the economy keeps tanking, being in a donor based business is not good. But you kind of, you got your eyes out and there's so many like jobs that they're not specialized, you know, like working for the state and things like that where you can get in and work your way up or whatever. The one that's appealing and the one that would be very difficult with my nature, but it's one of those if you're making Money you can figure out how to do it is sales because very hard to replace with AI, Very hard to import, you know, foreigners to do it for you. You know, they want somebody who speaks the language and clearly and all that. And you know, so when you look at Amazon, corporations are replacing every job they can with H1BS or AI that's kind of nerve wracking. And so it's, you know, learning sale. But that's hard. You really got to take a beating at first. And very hard to start in your mid-30s, you know, because you start with a zero dollar salary. [00:46:49] Speaker C: I feel like it's one of those things that once you get in the like mode and flow of it, you're. [00:46:52] Speaker B: Pretty good at it. [00:46:53] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:46:53] Speaker A: Well, I've even looked at some of the companies, you know, insurance and things like that. And if you do, I mean like decent in your first year, then you start doing rollovers and you just. That's where you see a guy who's been in a number of years can make really good money because he doesn't have to, he just got to renew them every year. And then you're making the new one. So the next year you're almost doubling what you made, you know, and. Yeah, so probably, you know, again, that's very against my nature. I'm not an outgoing person, but I've been in ministry, you know. [00:47:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:19] Speaker A: Talking to people. You just do it and then you go home and sit in silence. [00:47:22] Speaker B: What would you want to sell? [00:47:23] Speaker A: Huh? [00:47:23] Speaker B: What would you want to sell? [00:47:24] Speaker A: Whatever makes money. [00:47:26] Speaker B: I don't know, a realtor, you know, you could be a sale if that's. [00:47:30] Speaker A: A bad market to be in. Because again, if the economy crashing, always buying houses, you know, I can't sell them. [00:47:35] Speaker C: I know really good realtors make really good money, but it's very dependent on. [00:47:38] Speaker B: I was gonna say, I think that's one of those. I'd love to know the ratio of like 75% of them are broke, you know, and sell like one house every two months. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:46] Speaker B: I have no idea what the ratio or what the percentage is, but I'd love to know because I know the top ones are. Yeah, they're doing all right, but they're almost cushioned from it because they're going to continue to get houses even when nobody else is. Yeah. [00:47:58] Speaker C: Done it for a while. Word of mouth. [00:47:59] Speaker A: Yeah. One, when you're selling high dollar houses, those don't stop in a bad economy as much, you know, so. So I'm going to turn that Around I was. My question for you is you are the one of the three of us that like what I call. Well, it's a secular workplace. Right. And it's chick fil a, so it's kind of like the, the middle space. They hire a lot of Christians or. [00:48:21] Speaker C: Denominational folks, Christianity minded. [00:48:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And when you work with bosses and colleagues, I'm sure that are very religious in some sense, but you're facing the public and stuff like that. What perspective does that give you when you come and do ministry work, when you come back into the church, when you preach or whatever else? That again, I'm pretty insulated. I try and like connect with the outside world. So I'm not just in a bubble. But you're outside of the bubble more than Joe and I are. [00:48:46] Speaker C: That's a really good question. I think several things come to mind for me. The first one is gonna be again, hopefully I don't get canceled for this, but it's one of those things that I always somewhat knew. But man, being in a chick fil a workplace. So three of the leaders that kind of report to me are religious minded, would consider themselves Christian and they're denominational. But I think the one of the things, because a lot of our team members as well are very religious minded is that like denominational people are not evil people. [00:49:19] Speaker A: You know what I mean? [00:49:19] Speaker C: Like, I feel like you grow up in the Church of Christ and you get kind of this like, you know, stay away, you know, there. But like really a lot of really good hearted people, people who want to serve people who are just, just generally kind, like good hearted, very kind people. Like, I'm exposed to a lot of people like that, which is really, really nice. The other thing that I would say is so a lot of what I do, I have to really kind of just keep learning about leadership, business principles, leadership principles. And honestly, a lot what I've learned is a lot of that very much relates to the stuff we talk about, Christianity, leadership in the church. Being a good, good father and like being a good father and husband in a way mirrors being a good leader at your workplace. I know not everybody is a leader at their workplace, but like, I've read several leadership books. We've taken some. I've taken some leadership classes because of the position that I'm in. And I'm able to apply a good bit of it to being a dad, to being a husband, and then just to, you know, some stuff on the podcast. And so I'm really grateful for it because it has, you Know, it gives me a bit of exposure to, you know, the secular world kind of as you're talking about, gives me more examples, analogies to use as the youngest of the three. So I've been on the earth the shortest amount of time and so you guys have built up a little bit more of that. But. So I don't know if that answers your question. I would say those are kind of the two things that come to mind immediately that I feel like have been very, very beneficial. [00:50:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. I had a similar. Well, I was going to dig into the Chick Fil a. Yeah. First off, how do I win free Chick Fil a for life? [00:50:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:48] Speaker B: Is there a way to do that? Have you guys seen. [00:50:50] Speaker C: Have you guys seen it? It has officially been leaked what the Chick Fil a is doing next year. [00:50:54] Speaker A: So what's that? [00:50:55] Speaker C: Chicken and waffles? Yeah. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:57] Speaker C: A chicken and waffle sandwich. I think they're doing it for breakfast, obviously. [00:51:01] Speaker B: I would assume you said they're rolling out in what, San Antonio and some other place. [00:51:05] Speaker C: I don't know where they're testing it. It's supposed to hit all stores in the spring, I want to say. Hope I don't have trouble for that. [00:51:13] Speaker A: It's. [00:51:13] Speaker C: It's leaked across. [00:51:14] Speaker B: No, I saw it online. I saw it online. Sorry. What lessons have you learned working at Chick Fil A that you did not know before? [00:51:20] Speaker A: And the other follow up question is. [00:51:22] Speaker B: Do any of those translate to the church or the home? Very similar thing. What would you say is the biggest? You already in business. I mean, you already worked at the Amazon, Amazon Fulfillment and you know, things like that obviously went down to Decatur. So you worked in the church. So you've been around now you have work experience. But Chick Fil a seems to be a unique work experience, kind of what you're talking about. I know they have you read a book. I know it's like a Leadership management and I also know they're one of the best on the planet for what they do. Like, what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned working there? [00:51:54] Speaker C: The extreme ownership. Just the extreme ownership mindset. And I don't even know if that's. That's technically not a Chick Fil a specific thing, but it's a. It's a book that we as leaders read together. And it's a mindset that we push at our Chick Fil A of just. Man, we. We are going to be at our best if we can really control. We can control. That's also what's different about Chick Fil A is that most other companies outcome matters. It is the outcome that matters. The bottom line to the, you know, the outcome. The outcome, the outcome. Chick Fil A is not like that. Chick Fil A is process oriented. Like it's the process that matters because it's the process that will get you to the outcome. [00:52:30] Speaker A: And so he doesn't need to read Atomic Habits. [00:52:32] Speaker B: Yeah, he's already got. [00:52:35] Speaker C: And so, you know, again, other companies like Bottom Line, Bottom Line particularly obviously we care about the bottom line. You know what we have our basically score system in the sense of like our guest surveys, like what are our scores? What are they saying about our taste, our temperature of our food, our fast service, all that it matters. But what matters more is the process. We had corporate come in, they might spend a little bit of time looking at our scores, but they're going to look at our process like what are we, what are we doing to get there? And so that ties into that extreme ownership because it's like, man, at the end of the day, I can't. If Jack comes through our drive thru, I can't really control what he puts on his survey, right? In different, you know, he could get his food in three minutes. You get your food in three minutes, you might be thrilled with it. And Mark, hey, this was super fast. Jack might be like, man, I wanted to be in and out of here 90 seconds and so it's slow. Same, same outcome, different, but different results on our score. Right? And so what matters is what is the process you're doing to get there. Control. You can control how fast Jack and Joe get their sandwich. You can control. Is it going to be hot? You can control, you can control a lot of things. And so obviously where that applies to, you know, the church and the family is like, man, at the end of the day, just control what you can control with your behavior, with your actions. How closely are you following God? How closely are you, how much are you reading the Bible? A lot of things are going to happen as we all know that are just deflating, you know, Christians that can just kind of burn you. A lot of people watching this have had Christians that have treated them very poorly. It's very tough to deal with. As, again, as we all know, control what you can control. You know, like at the end of the day you extend the hand of forgiveness. You. So again, not sure if I'm answering your question, but that extreme ownership mentality, like that book, it was basically like, you don't get to ever blame anybody. Else ever. You don't get to ever blame anybody else for anything other than what you personally did. Even if you know you as a leader. This is the to apply it to the scriptures. This is the dad who won't take responsibility for the fact that, that his 27 year old son is off the deep end and not faithful. I'm not my fault like it actually is, you know, you don't get to blame him for obviously he's going to give an account to God but like you have to take ownership of that. You were his parent for you know, 18 years. He was in your house or whatever. And so yeah, kind of rambling to say like yeah, just that extreme ownership mentality I really, really appreciate. [00:54:50] Speaker B: Well, it dovetails well with the, you know, your focus on finances of like again the process, controlling what you control, seeing a little progress along the way, things like that. That's what my father in law is in is lean management. [00:55:01] Speaker C: Yeah, we took a lean force at chick fil a actually. [00:55:03] Speaker A: There you go. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Yeah, he's one of the best in the world at what he does actually. He's very, very good. And then so works out in Colorado. [00:55:10] Speaker C: He's just trying to score brownie points. [00:55:11] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I don't think he ever missed in the world. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Christmas is coming up. [00:55:16] Speaker B: Exactly. Did you hear that Randy? Best in the world. No, I don't think he watches, but nor does my wife. Shout out Alyssa. She won't see that shout out. [00:55:24] Speaker A: So somebody's got to feed this back to Randy. [00:55:26] Speaker B: Exactly. I want my Christmas to be pretty pre baller this year. No, but truly he's really, really good at what he does. And so I pick his brain on that and it's all processes of like if he can shave off two seconds it's like man, that's big. A huge type of thing from these processes because over time that really adds up. It's very interesting. I had this thought come to me this question. It's like I wonder just this morning as I was getting, getting prepped and set up for this, it's like would Will rather. Would you rather run the worst. The world's worst chick fil a or the world's best McDonald's? [00:56:01] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:56:02] Speaker C: Oh man. I mean the world's worst chick fil a is like losing money actively, you know, so extreme ownership buddy. And yeah. [00:56:11] Speaker A: A timeline for if you don't, you know, change that. You're right. [00:56:15] Speaker B: But then you got to go to McDonald's and everything is pretty interesting. [00:56:17] Speaker C: I don't think my. So my operator. Shout out. Mr. Murray. He's actually a member of the church and just fantastic to work for. Fantastic tour for. No, there you go. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Christmas coming up. Yeah, that's right. [00:56:27] Speaker C: No, but I think he tunes into some of our gym podcasts, actually. [00:56:29] Speaker B: There you go. [00:56:30] Speaker C: It's all the thing deeper. But his story is actually very fascinating. So he got approved to be an operator. There was a mall store up in Ohio. I'll answer the question in a second. But I'll just to give the background up in Ohio, that was like losing money. Just not a good store. They were gonna close it down. And he basically was like, can I. Can I be the operator for that? Back then it was a little bit less formal. Now there's a whole process. So many operators. But long story short, he was approved to be the operator. And he won the symbol of success award the year after, which basically means you increase your sales by 20% or more. And he did. Again, this was store that's about to close down. Like just a. Didn't get a lot of traffic and he just poured into it, you know, didn't make hardly any money that year, anything like that from a business ownership standpoint. But turned that store around, then obviously went to other. Got to kind of move up to other stores. And now is in Spring Hills. Great location. [00:57:25] Speaker A: But. [00:57:25] Speaker C: So it is possible to, you know, take a very poor performing Chick Fil A and improve it. I. I think my answer would probably be the worst performing Chick Fil a actually. Just because it's a different company. Like McDonald's is just a completely different company from Chick Fil a. Like I've. The Chick Fil a has the reputation it has for a reason in the sense of, you know. But people ask, like, will they ever open on Sundays? I don't think they'll ever open on Sundays as long as the Cathy family owns it. Because that's just. It's so ingrained in them as a vat. It's a. They're a value driven organization. I don't think McDonald's is a value driven organization. Question though. [00:58:01] Speaker A: I'm gonna throw one in about your work. [00:58:02] Speaker B: Sure. [00:58:03] Speaker A: So we're gonna change gears here. You know, you're in the therapy world. You have a lot of critiques of the therapy world. I'm gonna make you pick one thing. If you could change about the therapy world. There's just one, because I know there's a million. But like, if you is like you had one shot to change a way of thinking, change way of talking about something what would it be? [00:58:24] Speaker B: Wow, what a question. I would change. I think I'd have therapists and I don't know how you'd even accomplish this. I think therapists need to take way more of an integrative approach. And what I mean by that is like you need to be able to blend a lot of different treatment modalities. So you have a lot of people that go to therapy and the therapist knows cbt, maybe knows cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe knows like solution focused. [00:58:50] Speaker C: One or two techniques. [00:58:51] Speaker B: One or two. And when those run out, it's all, it's all based on trying to. I kind of picture this, Sorry, as I'm thinking about this, I kind of picture it as a river. And you want the river to flow. Like all the emotions, your thoughts, everything else, you want it to flow. What modern therapy teaches in a lot of situations is how to cut off the river of like, don't think that. Here's how to change your thought pattern so you don't think that anymore. I think that's a terrible way of doing it. But that's what happens when you only know CBT or solution focus. I think the more intriguing question is why does that come up? Why do you think about that? If you blend internal family systems, which means nothing, sorry to most of our listeners, but parts work and you look at it as. That's a specific part, trying to make you think something along those lines. So like ocd, we just need to work on the patterns. Like no, you need to understand that's a control based thing. You have no control in your life. You're trying to control other things. And so the obsessive hand washing or something like that is an element of control. Well, where else are we not seeing control in your life? A lot of times based on trauma, things like that. So I would have them be more trauma informed, more attachment focused and really be able to blend a lot of different things. Because this is where it gets real for people is you go to therapy and you think that they're going to help you with something, your OCD or your depression or whatever. They teach you a few coping techniques, which is a band aid on a major gash. It's like nothing needs surgery, needs to be cleaned up. [01:00:06] Speaker C: Ask you, do you think that's why so many people run through so many therapists? [01:00:09] Speaker B: Correct. That's the problem is you come out of it going, I'm broken, I'm unfixable. I went to therapy and it didn't work. And it's like because your Therapist thinks if, if. And I'm sorry to say that, but like, truly, there's a lot of bad therapists out there that they know one or two things. If it doesn't go well, it's like, so you just kick them down, you know, kicking down the road. I can't help you. And you refer. Like, I, when I was starting out, I started at Griffith. And I think I've told this before. [01:00:33] Speaker C: Keep it going. [01:00:34] Speaker B: I think I told this story before, but we had 212. I think it was like 212 therapists. Four men, four males. Everything else was female. [01:00:44] Speaker C: Wow, that also is a problem. [01:00:45] Speaker B: But referring was like, not a thing. If they wanted a male therapist. Like, dude, everybody, you got three other guys and their caseloads are insanely full. There's nobody to refer to. And so you just get used to like, man, you got to figure out how to help the 15 year old meth addict. You got to figure out how to help the 6 year old who's going through major, you know, who is adopted and going through major behavioral oppositional defiance disorder. Like, you got to be thinking about, how am I going to handle this? Because I can't just refer and kick the can down the road the way everybody else does. And so you think outside the box and then you get better at different modalities and you learn and grow and read and you start kind of applying those things. And that's where the lawyers come in is like, everybody's very afraid of getting sued. So they don't want to try something that they're not certified in. Like, no, but you can really help people. And so I'm not certified in internal family systems, but I know how to do it. And therefore I got better as I kind of, you know, started massaging and working with it. [01:01:38] Speaker C: And I don't know, I think it's so fascinating. Obviously, Joe is very good at what he does as a therapist and believes in therapy. But you are also hypercritical of the therapy industry, which I think is first of all noble. Like, a lot of people are just, you know, blind advocates for whatever field they're in and kind of turn their. Turn a blind eye to the, to the flaws or downfalls of it. But I think you're. It's very interesting that like, you basically said, like, yeah, 80% of the therapy industry is not good. Like, it needs to be. [01:02:06] Speaker B: It's very flawed. [01:02:06] Speaker C: Yeah, very flawed. [01:02:07] Speaker B: Very, very flawed. It's in. Everybody has this idea of like, you might be in therapy for life and one of My big selling points, when I go to, you know, when. When I'm talking with potential clients, I teach you everything. That's not my goal. My goal is, you don't ever have to come back because I teach you how to do these things. So there's a little. This is my little plug for myself, I suppose I don't really advertise. Supposed to be my advertising. And the, you know, the plug that I would say is, like, I teach you how to handle. Like, I look at myself being the guy that's guiding you through your own maze. Once you know your own maze, you're good to go. You don't need to go back to therapy. You know how to do internal family systems. You know how to reparent yourself. You know, cbt, you know, brain spotting. You know why you're going through what you're going through and how to get out of it. And so the clients that I have rarely do. I have clients come back because. And if they do, it's usually for something different. And then we apply the same things. They go, okay, and they get it, and they don't have to come back for very long because you start realizing, I can solve my own problems and everybody can be their own therapist. That's my goal in life, is almost to work myself out of a job. Like, everybody can start being their own therapist, but there's 300,000,000 million people in America, so I don't think I'll be out of work anytime soon, but that's my goal. [01:03:14] Speaker A: That's interesting. [01:03:15] Speaker C: All right, so I've got a question, Joe, I'm going to ask you, actually, because none of us have our phones because they're recording to pull up the David shout out. David North. He had a really good question that I want us to get to, but I don't remember what it was off top of my head. [01:03:26] Speaker A: So on the last Patreon. [01:03:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. He commented. It was number one. [01:03:30] Speaker A: Said, what have you learned about by podcasting? What have you learned? [01:03:36] Speaker C: While he's pulling that up, I was gonna add a different question. I was gonna ask you, Jack, and we can just. So we have it pulled up. We can get to the. Because I did want to get to that because it was a great question circling back around the holidays. So you've been married longer than any of us, and Gloria is older than Harrison. [01:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, just a little bit. Okay. [01:03:52] Speaker C: Not by much, I know, but. So one of the things that Rachel and I are. I wouldn't say struggling with this year in particular, but like, Trying to figure out how to balance is how do we make sure that we spend the appropriate and like the time we want to like time with family for like Christmas and the holidays, while also making sure that as our kids are growing up that we are prioritizing our individual family memories. Right. Because there's families that will. Man. Holidays are all about the grandparents. And it's just like, gotta go here, gotta go there, gotta make sure we do this. And it's like you turn around, it's like, well, Christmas flew by. Didn't really create any memories with my kids that didn't have other people attached. And again, we want to spend time with our, with our grandparents. But like for instance, this year we are spending Christmas Eve night at home, just our family. Like I think I mentioned that earlier. I think we're obviously gonna make hot chocolate, turn on the Polar Express or something like that and just have a family night. We haven't done that in years past. It's been all her family, all my family, like, gotta go here, gotta go there. How do you. And obviously you as well balance that, especially now that y' all aren't close. Like you don't live as close to your in laws and so there might be traveling involved. Like what has worked for your family as far as that goes, specifically as a relates to the kids and making memories. [01:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah. With the travel thing, it kind of actually helped us get started because we lived far away from both of them. So we knew, all right, we've got to travel to be with this family, travel to be with that family. But like Christmas itself is going to be at home, so you're not with one or the other. And so usually we would go to Oklahoma for my in laws before Christmas and then come see my parents here or whatever after. Right after Christmas, usually like the day after or whatever. But so that made it easier for us. We didn't really have to change choose. Now that my parents are here, we've kind of got that we have Christmas Eve at home, we have Christmas morning at home. Then we go over and you know, have a big. [01:05:35] Speaker C: That's cool. It's kind of built in. [01:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And so that's not really a helpful answer because it was just like kind of naturally. [01:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:44] Speaker A: From literally when we started having kids that way. But I mean that's, that's a hard one for families to navigate. You know, you lived closer to mom and dad at first, you know, and so you had to settle that a little bit more as you've kind of. [01:05:55] Speaker C: Moved away and what are your thoughts? Like, maybe that's overblown the whole individual family. Maybe it should just be all. With as much family as you can. But I know, like, we're. [01:06:03] Speaker A: No, it's important. [01:06:04] Speaker B: It is important. [01:06:04] Speaker A: You know, it's a family boundaries thing that's, you know, feelings get hurt. Like, why don't you want to be in my house and I want to be around him and stuff like that. And, you know, I think that's what. [01:06:11] Speaker C: Rachel realized this year, is that she doesn't want Christmas to be stressful. [01:06:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:16] Speaker C: It's just we will. We will visit everybody. We will make sure we show up and visit everybody. But we're also not gonna spend our Christmas being stressed about who's upset. [01:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:25] Speaker C: Not that any of our family gets all that upset, but you know what I mean? Like you said. [01:06:27] Speaker A: But that is a thing, you know, for in laws. Like, look, if. If you're. If they're going to. Getting out of their way to come and see you and spend time with you or whatever, be grateful. Really. [01:06:36] Speaker B: It'll be grateful. [01:06:37] Speaker A: But be like, you know, be the bigger man. You're. Be more mature and say, hey, thanks for that. Not. You've got to do it on my timeline. That's right. Nobody wants it. You wouldn't have wanted that from your parents or in laws, you know, and so, you know, that is one of those. The generational handoff thing is very difficult. You think about. We've talked about before, like, yeah, it used to be, all right, we, you know, grandma will come over for Thanksgiving. Well, now Thanksgiving is at grandma's house. And, you know, those things have changed. And so that. And my parents are great about this. My in laws are great about this, but I know some families deal with that. Why aren't you doing it our way? We always. We've always done it this way, like, well, it's my family and it's blending your families. [01:07:12] Speaker C: Yeah. What are your thoughts on that, Joe? [01:07:13] Speaker B: No, I mean, I. Jack's got a lot of good thoughts on that. We do every other year. Right. So my parents are parents, and we're really trying to get to the point, but the problem is with her parents being in Colorado now we go back for that. And so we don't get the opportunity to have the family. To have the family time in the morning. But when we're here. And this year they're coming here, but I guess they'll be with us on Christmas morning. Like, I like when it is Christmas morning is kids get up Santa's Come, you know, like, that's just our time. We'll end up going to the families later, whatever it is, and that's fine. And we kind of putz around in the morning, and, you know, if we get there at noon or two or whatever it is, that's fine, but we're gonna have that time. We have. The difficulty is traditions. And, you know, we have a lot more tradition surrounding our Christmas than I think they do, than the Johnsons do. And so Christmas Eve, you know, we'd always watch a movie and we'd. We'd open, like, family gifts. That's not how they do it. And so even Christmas morning, they unwrap a gift at a time. Because I got seven kids. And so, you know, everybody unwraps one gift at a time, and you're waiting. [01:08:08] Speaker C: On somebody instead of it just being utter chaos. [01:08:10] Speaker B: Correct. And I get it, but it also takes place. [01:08:12] Speaker C: So how do you. How do you balance that? Of, like, I want my family to have our traditions and maybe keep the ones that carry over ones that you had from your childhood, but also respect your, you know, families, your. Your, I guess, in laws or even your own family. Family's tradition. [01:08:27] Speaker B: That is the real difficulty, because the tradition I would love to keep is Christmas morning is going to be the exact same. My parents live down here now. It's gonna look like I'm always choosing my parents by staying here. Right. And so that's the difficulty. Like, if I don't go back there and I say I'll stay here, but I can't get there in a day. And so, you know, on Christmas Day, so we are, of course, gonna be there, meaning I'm gonna have a really tough time having traditions. So the traditions you end up taking over would be like small potatoes traditions. You know, I'm gonna have Martinelli's at the meal, and I'll make sure to provide the Martinelli's. And so that's a tradition that we're gonna, you know. Yeah. Sparkling grape juice type of stuff. Thanks for clarification. Yeah, good call. Just being careful there, you know, with our podcast. No, but yes, sparkling grape juice, whatever it is, kind of like Welch's. And so that may be a tradition that we have or bake a specific thing. And so the traditions end up being a lot smaller on those years, and I don't like that. But on the other hand, then I risk alienating them and making them think that I've chosen my parents every year, which is not fair. So the two. The two locations your Your in laws are great. You know, in terms of, like, they're very flexible on. On when they do it, and my in laws are too, but it's just. They're gonna be more traditional on. Yes, they want it on the day. [01:09:34] Speaker A: Also. Thing is, my in laws were like, we want our Christmas to ourselves too. So you guys do yours, we'll do ours. [01:09:40] Speaker B: That is interesting. Yeah. [01:09:41] Speaker A: Just solved it right up front. But, you know, everyone's got their own ways to settle it. [01:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not really answering the question. Sorry. [01:09:46] Speaker C: No, no, it's all difficult. Yeah. Just. No, the lack of stress that's key. Is really important to us and like, so the one story I'll tell and we can get to David's or whatever if you want. So this was. I think it was our first year married, me and Rach, obviously no kids, and we had yet to settle on what's the holiday going to be. And what we decided on is actually different from y'. All. So basically, my family gets first dibs on Thanksgiving. Like, we go to their house for the full day of Thanksgiving, and then her family gets whatever we have time for. And it's reversed on Christmas. Her family gets kind of first dibs on Christmas and then whatever we have time for. For my family, well, the first year we tried, which again, Thanksgiving Day, my favorite day of the year, to. We started the day at my parents, then left to go spend a couple, three out two, three hours with her family and then tried to make it back in time for the meal. Got back late, they had already started, and it. It was just disastrous. And I told her, I said, we are not splitting families on the day. Like, we're going to be one place for one day. Just because, again, trying to please everybody, and it's just chaotic. You don't enjoy it as much. And so that was a quick lesson that we learned. We're never doing that again. [01:10:53] Speaker B: That's rough. That is rough. Yeah, that's tough. Here's David's. [01:10:57] Speaker C: Yeah, what you got? [01:10:58] Speaker B: He had a couple. Couple thoughts, top 10 hot takes, controversies and review. That would have been interesting. His question for another time. There you go. And our wives have it on. He said we'll save that for another time. Maybe how podcasting has affected your life. What are the biggest things you have learned from doing it? Has it been a net positive or negative? And if you had to do it over, would you do it again? And if so, would you do anything differently? So let's start with the first one. What are the biggest things you have learned from doing podcasting. [01:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. You really have to a. You've got to be thinking every week, what's something we can talk about? You're watching the news. You're, you know, paying attention to the church, what's in. [01:11:34] Speaker B: Plugged in on X. Yeah. [01:11:36] Speaker A: You know, just like. And so you're not just going consuming news, consuming posts just for the fun of it. You're thinking, what's an idea I can use? What. What are people interested in? And things like that. And so you just go around constantly with that view of the world. But the other is like, you. You figure out how to articulate your ideas out loud, which is really helpful. You know, like that, that you can. You get a lot better when it's funny. [01:11:57] Speaker C: My wife. [01:11:57] Speaker A: Last night, Allison was recording a 30 second video for a family member's anniversary. You know, like, oh, happy anniversary, guys. You know, we love you guys. Like five or six takes. I can't, I can't do this. [01:12:09] Speaker B: Like, it's not that hard. [01:12:10] Speaker A: You know, she was a little in her own head about it, but it's like. Yeah, I mean, you have people used to it. [01:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:14] Speaker A: Like talking into a microphone, talking into a camera. You know, it's. And so you just kind of think how to present your ideas about something that's very useful because then you can do it so much quicker. Yeah. [01:12:23] Speaker C: I think my answer would be, I mean, similar to Jack in the sense of, like, you kind of have to be thinking often about, you know, what are we going to talk about, what's interesting. But I think for me, it's like the ability to develop not just a take, but an interesting take. Yeah, there's a lot of podcasts out there and I think what separates the ones from, you know, the good ones from, you know, the ones that just don't get a lot of listens. Not that ours is super famous or anything, but like, are you interesting? Do you develop interesting takes? Again, I use this example, but the sportscasters I listen to, there's a lot of them just give bland, generic takes. Like, I don't listen to those guys. I listen to the ones that can give me something interesting to think about. And so, yeah, if we're talking about the Cracker Barrel CEO, if we're talking about Chip and joining Gaines, or if we're talking about, you know, Hellfire and Brimstone last week, like, and not that we're like creating, you know, clickbaity things to say, but like, no, just give an interesting take. And that takes the, you know, there's an ability to. That. There's a skill to that. It's like, I'm not just gonna say, because this is just full disclosure. My problem, a lot of church Christ podcasts is I can predict the answer to their question before they even, you know, ask the question. Just because it's. It's the same canned answer. It's very bland. It's like, again, we're not making up different things just to be interesting, but it's like, give it in an interesting way, Take it from an interesting angle, ask an interesting question. And so thinking about the world and again, a big news event like, oh, what's an interesting take I can give? I think is probably the biggest thing that has changed for me or that I've learned is like, the, the skill or the, the ability or just kind of the need to have an interesting take on things. [01:13:51] Speaker A: It really does feel like there's a script sometimes. Like, you just know what's going to be said. And, And I enjoy that, like you're saying of just saying something that's not on the script and saying this, you know, and more than anything, people are not going to agree with us on everything we say. Right. I want them to come. To come away thinking, well, they made me think about. [01:14:07] Speaker C: I hadn't thought of that. Right. [01:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:08] Speaker B: I was gonna say, I think that's the biggest strength of this podcast. We try to make it that way is like, you don't fully know what our take will be on a specific thing. And I, to me, I think that's a. That's a point of pride, is that people don't necessarily. It's not the, okay, standard church Christ answers. Like, no, we, you know, we do try to think. And if it is standard church Christ answer, I want to have some. It's the same thing with instruments. Like, we go back to the same two verses. Like, no, there's other reasons why, and we want to explore those. And so it's, you know, we always try to do that. But the thing that I've learned from doing it, I never thought that we'd actually be able to speak to as many people as we do. And so I think you kind of learn to have thick skin on certain things is there are people that just genuinely don't like us. [01:14:46] Speaker A: And. [01:14:47] Speaker B: Sorry, you know, I. I don't know what to say on that other than, like, I think we can still be brothers in Christ type of thing. [01:14:54] Speaker A: But on the comments on our YouTube, like, every week, disagreeing with like, and these long comments. And he was really grilling me the other day and I just said, you might enjoy finding another podcast. And he came back like, well, no, because, like, I wouldn't listen to something that I hate all the time. But I guess that's where you learned. [01:15:12] Speaker B: That you can't please people. [01:15:13] Speaker C: Rage, listen. [01:15:16] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:15:18] Speaker C: Listen. Not rage. Hate. Listen is the term. [01:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Sometimes you get the Jack Sparrow thing, but you have heard of me type of thing. You know, like people that hate us. That's your engagement. [01:15:26] Speaker C: So what was the second question on there? [01:15:27] Speaker B: Second one. Has it been a net positive or negative? I'd say a net positive. [01:15:30] Speaker A: Oh, big time. [01:15:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I absolutely. [01:15:33] Speaker A: Folks like David in our Focus plus comment, and, you know, we haven't met him, but we get his takes and we meet really interesting people. I get messages literally every week from people like, hey, about this episode, I thought about this. Or, you know, we had that Marco one, Marco Arroyo on. We were talking about, hey, let's get more Christians putting stuff out there. I got like three or four people contacting me like, hey, how do I start a podcast? How do I. That's our blog. Marco said he got some people talking to him, I think. And so, you know, like, that. That's cool that you're. [01:16:00] Speaker C: You're making that impact and we just get to talk. Like, I. That's why I think it's a net positive. Especially again, event happens and it's like, man, I want an outlet to talk about, obviously talk to my wife about it, but it's like, I want to bounce ideas off of. Off of you two and just kind of talk about it. And so, yeah, obviously taking it in kind of behind the curtains in the sense of like, that's what I really. That's why I think positive. It just gives us an outlet for that and it's fun. [01:16:21] Speaker A: I need to apologize for that. I need to do so much better about the responding to comments because especially like getting this book out the door as I'm trying to do right now, which by the time this episode, it. [01:16:31] Speaker C: Should be go buy Jack's book. [01:16:33] Speaker A: Yes, I'd be out. Appreciate that. But, you know, so it's been like wall to wall. I'm working like eight at night, you know, formatting all this stuff. And so I haven't responded to comments in a good long while. And I'm not great about that. But that's one of those, like, I promise I'm reading it. I promise. We do hear you. We do. We love the people comment. We love that people send messages and so if I'm a little slow getting back to you, I apologize. But we, it means a lot when you see a comment like, well, somebody not only listened, they listened long enough to hear what we said and they cared enough to respond, you know, and keep the conversation going. [01:17:06] Speaker B: No, we very much appreciate that's been the biggest positive, is just meeting everybody and having people online and connecting with a lot of brethren around the nation and getting all the messages and things like that. So that's been great. The last question, he says, if you had to do it over, would you do it again? And if so, would you do anything differently? Yes, I would say, I think all of us would agree we would do it again. Would we do anything differently? [01:17:26] Speaker C: You go first, Joe. [01:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, and he may be getting in a specific podcast that we were, I don't know, I don't know. No, I, I, I mean, honestly, if we could do this consistently and be together, yeah, obviously that would be the best. But that's just not feasible with, you know, location and time and everything else. But would I do anything differently? I mean, I'm sure over time there's probably things that I might adjust. But we've talked about it before. By the time that we get to this point, like we've recorded 200 episodes. I don't remember half of what we said, if that, I mean, probably 90% is like, yeah, I agree with the stuff. I'm trying to think of any takes that I'd go, boy, I'd do that differently. I mean, there may be a thing here, there, but by and large, no, I don't know that I do anything differently. What about for you guys? [01:18:13] Speaker C: I don't, I don't think so. Yes, obviously I would do it again. [01:18:17] Speaker B: I sound like prideful, you know, as though I haven't. But I'm trying to think of, okay. [01:18:21] Speaker C: What, I mean, Jack does a really good job of this and we just don't have the capacity necessarily to go full scale, but like pushing more of the video content and the shorts and stuff like that. Like, I think we did start that and maybe starting it earlier. Like, I don't know though, I mean, again, we do that right now and it's, it's good. So I think, but there's probably maybe some low hanging fruit that we missed out on just from an advertising standpoint. But as far as like a podcast formatting. Yeah, I mean, I like the way that we, we do it for the most part, we try to blend, you know, what's happening in the culture versus what's a pertinent church topic versus what's church, Christ, Facebook, talking about. And so, yeah, two things come to. [01:19:00] Speaker B: Mind for me before I get to yours. One, I would do more interviews. I always find those to be interesting. It is difficult. Yeah, it is difficult to balance with us three and then adding a fourth person. So it's. And if you've noticed on some of these, like Jack, you did what's his name? Carrie. Yeah, you did him all alone on that one. We did Marco together. You guys interviewed somebody without me. I think it was me and Dad. [01:19:23] Speaker C: I think, wouldn't it? [01:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:19:25] Speaker B: And so, you know, there's. I think we'd interview more, I think. [01:19:28] Speaker A: Would be a good one. [01:19:29] Speaker B: The other thing is this goes for me and you. You and I, if we were more active on social media. You're not super active. I'm not super active. You're very active. And being more active as personalities, I think would have helped, but I don't know how much we help. [01:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I was saying. Like, this is my job and I have a hard time getting all the comments. So you guys. You guys, your other, you know, your full time. So that makes it hard. [01:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And the gym and the discord and things like. But I think that's probably what's on my mind is realizing how much more we can connect in a situation like discord. If you and I were, you know, posting about things and whatnot. [01:19:56] Speaker C: I think. I think the reason. I don't want to speak for you, I think the reason why it's more. And yes, I agree I need to do it more, but difficult for me is I spend every day, like, around a ton of people talking. Like, people are coming to me with problems to solve. Like, that's part of my job, is I'm just putting out this fire, metaphorically, of course, and, like, solving this problem. And. Yeah. And so, like, I get to break in the day or the end of the day. It's like, man, I do not want to get on social media and interact with people. And it sounds terrible, but I'm sure similar for you. I mean, you're talking to people for 10 hours a day. It's like, yeah, what's the first thing I want to do when I get off? Get on Facebook and talk to people? Like, no, probably not. And so that's obviously a little bit of advantage for Jack is he's got a little more time to do that, but. And probably more mental capacity. [01:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, I Said it's part of the job. You know, is that connection and all that. I don't know, like generationally. I don't think a discord would work for. Think deeper. But like our interest for that. [01:20:45] Speaker B: That'd be great. [01:20:46] Speaker C: But I mean, that's online community. That's not Facebook. Yeah. [01:20:49] Speaker A: Building community because we started a Facebook group and it's just. That's hard. You know, Facebook, the algorithm. It's hard. But yeah, my regret, I would not be as gun shy. After the alcohol episode. I think we let that knock us off our game a little bit. [01:21:01] Speaker C: We went in our shell. [01:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's stuff we haven't talked about that we probably will hear sooner than later because it's like, why, you know, what if we lose all? Like, because then you do start like making financial calculations, though, because we did lose supporters, we lost speaking gigs, we lost invitations to stuff we lost. That's part of the livelihood. It's like, well, God will figure that one out. You know? And you kind of go through a couple of other things that just kind of give you that, okay, who cares? [01:21:27] Speaker C: Well, that's the thing too about. And I wish a generational thing that people don't understand necessarily about podcasts or they need to understand better. Why is Rogan so good? It's because when you listen to Rogan, he doesn't necessarily have an agenda of like, here's what I'm going to teach you. They're just getting on and talking and sharing ideas. I think that's where we, you know, shine the most, is just when we are able to bring up a topic. And sure, there are some things we're going to try to teach people on, but it's also. Just let me throw things out. Let's. What about this question? Let's just kind of talk about stuff and let ideas flow and people think that, you know, well, your Christian podcast, you should be teaching people xyz. So when we have a podcast on alcohol where we share what we think or ask questions and people, you know, like, again, and this applies to other things we've discussed as well. It's like, that's not always what podcasts are for. It's not a sermon. You're not right. I wouldn't put preach a sermon based on our. Our alcohol podcast. I wouldn't teach anybody on that. [01:22:22] Speaker A: People did. [01:22:24] Speaker C: Yeah, but you know what I mean, like, we're here to just kind of share ideas and just talk about stuff just like we would around a kitchen table. That's what pod that's where podcasting is the best, in my opinion. If you want to listen to somebody teach you something, man, go listen to a sermon or whatever it is. That's. I wish people grasped that more because then we could talk about. There's a. There's, you know, marriage, divorce and remarriage is one that we have had on our radar for what, two and a half years at this point. Many requests and we just are a little, little gun shy to touch it. And it's like, man, if we could, if people could just understand, we're just going to talk about it. What about this idea? What about that idea? It would go over a lot better than somebody who listens to it going, well, they're saying X, Y or Z, you know what I mean? So that's kind of my take. [01:23:00] Speaker A: I've said this before, but it's like you wrestle with the questions we just wrestled with. Yeah, you can fly in and give me like your 10 second take, that's fine. But answer all the things we did and see if you can do it without somebody shooting at you. [01:23:11] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:23:11] Speaker A: You know, like it's a hard thing to do. And like I said, of course you're gonna disagree with us at some point. That's okay. You know, that does not bother us. But like, at the very least be willing to enter the arena and handle these things rather than just go, well, I don't like it. Okay, well, what do you stand for? [01:23:25] Speaker B: Well, at some point it's like, I would hope that we've built enough, I don't know, like equity, equity with people to realize if we are wrestling with something and you come in with the pat answer that I've known since I was 6 years old and you go, well, have you thought about this? Yes, we've thought about it. [01:23:40] Speaker A: It's also engaged that anywhere else, you know, like. [01:23:42] Speaker B: That's correct. Exactly. Like, we're going. [01:23:44] Speaker A: I'm not trying to cast aspersions on other people, but it's like some podcasts have the aim, as you say, of just like kind of laying out a sermon outline. And others are more like, hey, let's just sit around and talk about this and get there. So. Yeah, that. Okay, that takes me to one of the questions I had for you. The, the navigating church hurt thing. You know, you've been through some things. You know, I think we've all, we all, all have. [01:24:08] Speaker C: How do you know that? [01:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, but without losing a love of the church, without developing a cynicism toward church people and things like that. [01:24:20] Speaker C: What a great question. [01:24:21] Speaker A: I mean, that's. [01:24:22] Speaker B: What time is it? [01:24:24] Speaker C: We got around, Joe. [01:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll just say we don't teach people on podcasts. Right, right. We're just going to kick this one around. No, that is a. Excuse me. That's one of the harder things I think to, to deal with is. Yes. I mean, full disclosure, people, like, we've been through some church hurt. We've been through hurt from the podcast, from the alcohol podcast, and people very much turning on us and thinking that we are false teachers and, you know, taking out ads against us and just crazy stuff and losing, as you said, just a lot of different stuff. The church hurt is, is. Can be significant. But I think the way you got to look at it is every week we get to interact with people, good hearted brethren, and you realize the. It's the same thing. I'm not equating this fully. So it's the same thing with the LGBTQ where it's like, man, everybody believes this. No, they don't. No, they don't. They're just very vocal. It's smaller. It's the loudest ones that are very vocal. The majority of brethren, I think, are good hearted brethren trying to do the right thing. And we run into so many people. And this is why the podcast, going back to David's question, why this is such a positive is that also builds us up of like, we work, we go and visit people, or we talk to people and we get these messages from people that believe very similar, similarly to us, which is like, yes, these are some problems. We're really trying to make this work and glorify God to the best of our ability, but that's it. There's a ton of those people out there. They just don't necessarily, they don't always come to light. They're not always leading the congregation, so they're not quite as vocal. A lot of good brethren out there, and I have to remind myself of that sometimes. Like there's people are good hearted and it's the same thing in therapy, is there? I work with people that do bad things. That doesn't necessarily make them horrible people. It means they do some bad things for bad reasons and we can get frustrated with that. But at the end of the day, they're humans and I've been shown a significant amount of grace as well. So that's the intellectual and the right answer. But occasionally the emotional part comes out as like, yeah, this hurts. And I think it's okay to be hurt too. And just to kind of process through that. [01:26:15] Speaker C: I think it would be easier if just speaking for me personally, if I was single. Yeah, I've pretty well developed the ability to, like, it sounds kind of bad, but, like, I don't super care what other people think. Especially if I'm, like you said earlier, confident in what I believe. I'm, you know, control of my own life. Like, you can think that about me, whatever. It's not the end of my world. When my family gets brought into it, it becomes very difficult to deal with. [01:26:39] Speaker A: Like, that's something what Paul's talking about, I think 1 Corinthians 7 about, you know, not taking wife because of the present troubles or whatever. There are things when you go into ministry, when you go into church stuff, you have to protect your own, your family. [01:26:52] Speaker C: And yeah, I mean, we talked about, I think before, but like, my wife got uninvited from a girls camp two days before it was supposed to start. She'd already bought stuff for. It was packed and ready to go because of what I said on a podcast 14 days earlier. Like, just, again, you can uninvite me. That's fine. I'll live with it. You know, when my wife gets brought into it or even, you know, like some church stuff, it's like, man, I could deal with this a lot better if I was single again. That's a great point you brought up. But like, I hate when my family gets brought into it and it just kind of is. Is a lot A big of a downer, I guess I would say, harder to handle when there's family involved. That's a. That's a good question. That's a really good question. [01:27:26] Speaker A: This is why I'm so hard on church leadership, is there are squeaky wheels, there are obnoxious people. There are, you know, people that throw their temper tantrums and it's leadership that allows that and does the keep the peace thing and. Okay, well, they're making a lot of noise. We've got a, you know, controversy. Oh, well, just get out of here. There's controversy, right? Come on. What did you sign up for? If you are afraid of controversy, then Jesus, John the Baptist, Elijah, Elisha, Moses, they're not in. They're not welcome in your church, they're not welcome in your ministry. No, you don't go seeking controversy. We don't go seeking controversy. But, like, if every time somebody gets upset about a point, you're just gonna, like, just kowtow to them, just cave. Why do we need you? Why. Why are you a Leader anyway. And this managerial thing is just garbage. And it. It just breeds this customer is always right thing that I talk about so much in the church. People think, man, if I throw a fit and get the preacher fired, if I throw a fit and drive this person out of the church, I win. And so they do, and there's no consequences for them. And so, yeah, that is, as you say, we meet so many good Christians. That's why my ire is so turned toward preachers and elders that allow it. Yeah, like, you're not preaching against it. You're not standing against it. And this is, again, extremely broad brush. There are a lot of good leaders that do these things. [01:28:46] Speaker B: Sure. [01:28:46] Speaker A: But where that is, the Church of. [01:28:49] Speaker C: Christ has a church hurt reputation for a reason, because exactly what you're talking. [01:28:52] Speaker A: I know some people deny that. [01:28:54] Speaker B: They do. [01:28:55] Speaker A: Especially here, where this is, like, the stronghold of the Churches of Christ is the Nashville area more than anywhere else on Earth, or the Churches of Christ are strong here. Go talk to people outside the Churches of Christ here. Oh, I've heard aspersions against the Church of Christ. [01:29:08] Speaker B: You've heard. [01:29:08] Speaker A: I'm sure we. Oh, yeah, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, Church of Christ people. Wow. Yeah, man. Those are mean people. [01:29:12] Speaker C: You know, like, I was sitting. I don't remember. I told the story. I was sitting in a coffee shop in Spring Hill working on. I don't know what I was working on, but I didn't have headphones on. I was just working and listening to conversation. There's a young guy, looked like he was doing some kind of school project, interviewing people or something, but it was very clearly a denominational pastor and his wife. And I didn't hear what the question was, but he was talking about interacting with people from different denominations. And this pastor guy goes, now Church of Christ. You know, they can't even get along with each other. And then just kind of kept going on. And I was like, yep, that's the reputation that. That we have. And so just literally, like, I was just listening in. He kind of eavesdropping on this. And this random dude I'll never see again had that impression of the truth. Yeah. [01:29:57] Speaker A: We will run and say, don't say this. Don't. You're. You're publicly when you're saying this, like, yeah, it looks good to the public to say, we know. We're working on it. Everything's good here. They know that. [01:30:07] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [01:30:07] Speaker B: Domino's gonna go out of business. And the biggest thing they did is take ownership of it. Extreme ownership. And Go, yeah, we stink and we're gonna get better at this. And I think when we are making excuses for this and you know, these are just behind closed door type things we don't want to talk about, it's like the world is laughing at us and the world thinks that we are a bunch of jerks in this hypocrite. And we talked about it before, we're not doing this for the world to pay for the world. The world thinks a lot of different things. But on the other hand, we can't ignore the fact that within and without the church, outside the church, within, without, people see us as divisive. That is, well, and it's, you know. [01:30:38] Speaker A: With certain last names, certain credentials. No, everything's good here. Like, well, I'm sure it is for you. Like, you're not going through the same things that, that us lesser people have to deal with. And so I don't know, I get really frustrated with that. This is not. We're not. We've had multiple episodes on things the churches of Christ do well. And so it's not always a slam but an acknowledgement that yeah, we don't have the best reputation. You're not living in reality if you're denying that. [01:31:02] Speaker B: But what's so interesting about that is every single time we do one of those where it's like boosting church Christ zero numbers, like there's some of our least listened to, it's like, and maybe that's just why the news does so much clickbait stuff and so much rage baiting and terrible things. You know, they post several things. That's what gets the clicks and the ratings. But on the other hand, like, everybody goes, well, why don't you be nice to the church? Like, we didn't listen to the ones that we did. [01:31:24] Speaker C: Supposed to be constructive. That's the other thing, right? [01:31:25] Speaker A: And so this is, there's church hurt and it's not running away. It's not saying you're all terrible and I'm, you know, out the door. It's saying, man, I've been through some stuff, you've been through some stuff, They've been through some stuff. Maybe we can stop putting each other through some stuff, right? And that the people, that there's people like, hey, don't say that, man. That is very, very. [01:31:44] Speaker B: And we're not coming from a place on high of we're perfect. [01:31:47] Speaker A: Like, no, we want to be part of a solution. [01:31:49] Speaker B: Correct. We want to be part of the solution. Realizing I'm sure somewhere along the way I've been putting part of the problem, too. And so can we all think about from a. From a solution mindset kind of where that is? Well, I had a question for you that dovetails. [01:31:59] Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead. [01:32:00] Speaker B: One of the spiritual questions that I had. Your dad is not immune to controversy. [01:32:06] Speaker C: He's more of a magnet to it. [01:32:08] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so what I had said is in terms of speakers in the church. Christ. Your dad was one of the first to talk about courtship problems of youth group, homeschooling, things like that. He got that out quite a bit, wrote books on them. [01:32:20] Speaker C: Aged well, I would say. [01:32:22] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So here's a question. Did you ever feel pressure having to be that? Because as we're talking about, you know, how difficult and how harsh people can be from time to time, you're the kid that's coming up under the guy that wrote the book on courtship, under the guy that is, you know, pushing homeschooling, pushing all of these things of the. No youth group or whatever it may be. Did you ever feel the pressure to have to uphold the reputation, so to speak? [01:32:47] Speaker C: There's definitely a little pressure there. I wouldn't say it was a lot in the sense of, like, I lost sleep and it just weighed me down. Not really, but I was very conscious of the fact that, man. And I still am, like, if any of us four kids go astray, like, just the reality that it kind of nullifies a lot of the work that my dad has done over the years about. And I think that's why, again, prayers that all of us will continue to stay faithful. A parenting book written by him is so much more powerful than a parenting book written by somebody who, you know. [01:33:16] Speaker B: Two out of four. [01:33:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Two out of four, you know, or one walked away. [01:33:19] Speaker A: A great post. I remember a few years ago about, like, I'm really tired of people rooting for my kids to fall away. [01:33:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:25] Speaker A: I mean, because it's ridiculous. Oh, just wait. Just wait, you know. Oh, well, you, like, why would you say. Right. [01:33:30] Speaker C: Exactly. And so, yeah, there's. There's a little pressure, and there was also some friction about, like, you know, I was 15, I wanted to do youth group stuff and. And they, you know, they weren't, like, completely anti. I got to do some stuff and. But, like, you know, they were a lot more cautious about that. They were pretty, you know, we weren't allowed to date or anything. I wasn't, you know, certain texting rules and stuff that I couldn't, you know, I couldn't do. And so there Was some friction there in the sense of like, I want to do these things that all my church friends are doing and you know, I'm not allowed to. So there was friction pressure again. There was always that in the back of my head of like, you know, he's put a lot of. Was that like chips in the table of his kids being faithful and to his credit, we all are. And so, you know. But I don't know if I'm answering your question, but yeah, like, there was a little bit of pressure. There's a little bit of like also just to like live up to the reputation of like I better not be a complete, complete idiot when I. When I, you know, have nothing, don't know what I'm gonna do with my life, just, you know, that kind of thing. [01:34:27] Speaker B: But you see this a lot with PK's. That's why PK. [01:34:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:34:29] Speaker A: Thing. Yeah. [01:34:30] Speaker B: Pressure is too much and they end up blowing out at the sides because. Because the cans to pressurized type of thing. And they get into drugs and drinking and things like that. Still rebel. [01:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [01:34:39] Speaker B: Because they are tired of the glass house. They're tired of the. The pressure and such. And so it's always fascinated me like how do you. Is it a good thing that you have the pressure of. We need to uphold the family reputation and you know, if any of us go astray, it's going to majorly affect my dad's work. Like, is that a. A net positive? I think it is. [01:34:57] Speaker C: I think it is. This is. I was going to sound confident. Conceded. I hope it doesn't. But like I. I feel like somebody like me does well under that kind of pressure. A lot of people that don't though, like the pressure causes them to like. I view it as like motivation and almost as like a. I don't know, like it's pushing me along versus some people that will just crumble under them. You see it in sports as well. Like you know, guys that are really good and under pressure, guys that just aren't. [01:35:20] Speaker B: You're a firstborn child though. [01:35:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:35:21] Speaker B: And so, you know, you think about like the middleborn or whatever. Reese is not. You got four. So you don't necessarily have a middleborn, but Reese might fit into that and he's doing great. He preaches good brother. On the other hand, that's what you worry about is you know, four different dynamics and you know, for the kids or however many kids you end up having. [01:35:38] Speaker A: And that's. [01:35:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it worries. And I think about that from my kids perspective is Like, I don't necessarily want them to feel the pressure of dads going to hate them. On the other hand. Yeah, I certainly want them to feel the pressure. Yeah, exactly. [01:35:49] Speaker C: This might be purely anecdotal. I also feel like from my perspective, oldest, maybe second oldest kind of set the tone for the younger kids in the sense of if you can make sure your oldest two are pretty rock solid faithfully, and as long as they have a really good influence on the younger two, there will be that pressure for the young. I think of Luke, who's 17, I'm sure in the back of his mind, I'll speak for him. He knows, like, man, if I ever go straight, I got three older siblings that are just gonna be pounding on my door. Like, what are you thinking, man? Obviously, if I wasn't faithful, if Reese wasn't faithful, that pressure wouldn't be there quite as much. And so I've seen other families where, you know, maybe the second oldest or, you know, the oldest or whatever maybe doesn't. Isn't Superville kind of goes astray. There's just not that pressure on, like, it kind of builds, I guess, is what I'm saying. As you go down again, that's no stats to back that up at all. That's purely anecdotal. But yeah, I think if you can have a strong older sibling or two who can kind of set the tone for the younger siblings of like, hey, this is, this is what we do. You're a part of the culture. And again, this, this is all dependent on a family that is very close knit, siblings that get along well. Because otherwise then it'd be like, well, I don't care what you think. I'm gonna do my own thing. So. Yeah. [01:36:55] Speaker B: What are your thoughts on the pressure? [01:36:56] Speaker A: My question, I was gonna ask something very similar about kind of being in the, the shadow or whatever of, you know, because there is the PK thing, but there's also, like carving out your own work here, you know, like, oh, it's. It's Brad's son. Like, well, yeah, but he's also got a pod, you know, 350 podcast episodes with a lot of people listening, people that care about your takes and, you know, and we didn't, like, it wasn't, oh, well, this is Brad's son. We'll throw him onto our flagship thing. [01:37:21] Speaker B: It's. I hope it wasn't. That comes out now. [01:37:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it was nothing. And then you were the one that was like, let's do thing deeper. And like, all right, cool. So it was like you built it from the ground up with us. You built Jim, you know, the two of you with it from the ground up. And so there is a. It wasn't like a Nepa token. [01:37:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:37:37] Speaker A: You know, like, all right, well, let's find a place for Wilda to do some. And so with that, and that goes a little bit to Joe's question about, like, do you, you know, having the same takes as your dad? Obviously, you agree on a lot. You don't agree on everything. You know, how do I want to ask that in a way that is different than how you. [01:37:53] Speaker C: Well, as you're thinking about it, one of the things that's coming to mind for me is one thing I haven't really felt pressured to do is, like, conform to all of my dad's opinions. Yeah, he posts interest stuff on, like. And again, maybe that's just a think. Having this podcast has probably helped me with that. Like, you know, having my own opinions on stuff. But, like, he'll post stuff on Facebook, like, nah, don't really agree with all that. Again, not very much. I mean, I agree with most of the stuff he puts out there, but, like, I don't feel that pressure. I've said, like, love him. The book Engage is fine. I disagree with a good bit of the stuff that's in Engage, his courtship book. I think the overall principles are very good. Again, dad with the daughter and modern dating is a travesty. Like, I agree with all that, but there's a lot of stuff. Stuff in there. It's like, no, I'm not really. I don't really agree with, you know, how. How it goes about how he goes about talking about that. But, yeah, I don't feel the pressure to just conform to everything that he says. And I think, you know, maybe some other people, again, especially if their dad is very well known or if they're coming on to a show or whatever it is where there's kind of a. This is the opinion you're supposed to have. There's not that freedom to. Well, kind of. Here's what I think and here's why. It's like, what am I supposed to say? [01:38:56] Speaker A: Right. [01:38:57] Speaker C: I've never really, really felt. I mean. I mean, I guess on a few things, again, like, I don't want to get in trouble with, you know, Church of Christ people or whatever. But, like, yeah, so I don't know what your question necessarily was, but that did come to mind of, like, there might be a pressure to just conform to everything my dad or other People have said, and I thankfully had not really felt that. [01:39:14] Speaker A: I mean, there's a sense you're always gonna be Brad son, and you're always known in a sense as Brad's son. But it's kind of cool to have, you know, your own stuff of deeper hope. [01:39:21] Speaker C: Well, I'm thankful for the platform that he has, he has built, that I have been able to jump onto. [01:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. So I have a spiritual question for you which goes back to our last talk about spiritual climates and whatnot. Being in the Bible Belt, how people view us. You've lived in three different states, three different spiritual climates. Texas, Colorado and Tennessee. What are the unique pros and cons of each? What is, what do you think is most. Which is the most challenging? [01:39:47] Speaker A: I don't know. The Colorado one's a little hard. You know, I was right. You were younger. [01:39:51] Speaker C: Haven't been there forever. [01:39:52] Speaker B: Was after 23. When did you move? [01:39:54] Speaker A: 20. How old are you? 23. [01:39:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:58] Speaker A: So, yeah, I don't know. Colorado was very interesting in how the churches were like okay with each other, but there wasn't a lot of fellowship, which is unfortunate in a place like that where you're a little more isolated. [01:40:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:40:09] Speaker A: And here in Texas and Tennessee, it's very interesting that there are so many that you just get to pick and choose what your network is. [01:40:16] Speaker B: Right. [01:40:16] Speaker A: Like I think there were two or three summer youth series in the DFW area. Right. Because like there's a progressive one, there's a conservative one, there's the, you know, these people get together, these people get together. And so you just had your choice of what you were going to be. Well, here in Tennessee, there's something similar to that. There's even more congregations here than just about anywhere else you're going to go. And so I don't know, it's been very interesting to be a part of all of them. As you say, there's just good people everywhere you meet. That's been the blessing of just lifelong friends, Christians, you know, that people who've passed on that I look forward to seeing again someday, you know, everywhere I go. And yeah, it's. In some ways they're, they're different. In some ways they're very similar. You know, you can just. Yeah. [01:41:01] Speaker C: While you've got the mic, I was gonna ask you something vaguely related and that is you've now been out of a full time ministry position for two, three years or so. What do you miss most about it? I don't want to speak for you. I Think you've said, like, you don't regret leaving the ministry in the sense of full time work. Obviously you're still very involved with focus press and whatnot. But as far as preaching, kind of that being a big part of what you do, you used to do. What do you miss most about that? [01:41:27] Speaker A: That's hard. You know, I love preaching and teaching. That part was always fun. [01:41:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:41:32] Speaker A: Every week. Yeah. And, and just kind of. There is a sense people look to you. And I don't mean in a power trip kind of way, but like you, you really feel like man. And that was the pro and the con is that responsibility to people. Right. That you're, you're there for them, you're answering their questions, you're going to visit them, whatever else it may be, have them in your house. That was a great blessing, but that was also a man. I got four little kids that I really need to focus on and I just, I can't do this as much as I need to. And so, you know, but I like that. I like, you know, having that feeling getting a phone call from a brother in the middle of the day, like, hey, I'm studying this. What does this mean? [01:42:07] Speaker B: Like, that's awesome. [01:42:07] Speaker A: You're in the Word. You know, you're building on what we talked about in Bible class. You know, like that is an encouragement of like, in some small way, I helped this guy get closer to God. And you can we still do that through what we do here, through the writing, through things like that. But it's from, it's so much more distance, you know, and so when it's people you're seeing two, three times a week, they're in your home, you're, you're visiting them, whatever it may be that, you know that, that you're their guy is, is really neat. [01:42:33] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that's really cool. Okay, I got one more. We're just gonna fill up my question. Sorry, guys. No, you're gonna have three each. And so we got one more left. This is a business question for you. You've written hundreds of thousands of words in the last 15 years. What's your most impactful piece of writing and why? [01:42:50] Speaker C: Wow, that's a tall task. [01:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. [01:42:53] Speaker A: It's also like a. Oh, man, I did a really good job on this book. [01:42:57] Speaker B: No, the thing that maybe you're most proud of or the thing that you got the most feedback for or what you felt moved the needle the most in culture, in the church, would be reset. [01:43:05] Speaker A: Yeah, reset's a big Deal the book did, you know, reached a lot of people, and that's been a blessing. What I really strive for and what has happened a little bit. And again, you're making me really uncomfortable. Like, sound like I'm pumping my own tires. When something really big happens and I get an article out, I know I'll have people message me, hey, you're gonna write on this. They want to know what I had to say. [01:43:26] Speaker C: I'm gonna try. That's really cool. [01:43:28] Speaker A: When the election happens, when things like that, like, what does this guy have to say about it? That's great. That means you've built a cash with people. So there's individual articles that I like to point to of, like, they're not all home runs, man. There's a lot of me writings. Like, I gotta get something out this week, and it's okay. And there's some where I write it in. Like, I'm gonna put a pin in that. I'm gonna come back to that. I'm gonna point people to that. And so there's some of those articles I'm more proud of and that, you know, have, like, stick with people. I like that. But. But just kind of having that. And we have that as a podcast as well. When we did the. The Charlie Kirk reaction video the day of or whatever, Like, I mean, it was thousands of people watching on Facebook and things like that. That's cool that, you know, when. When the world stops for something that somebody turns you and go, what do you think about? Yeah, you know, like, that's cool. It means you've built some kind of cachet with you. [01:44:16] Speaker B: I'm gonna assume everybody has. Everybody listening to this probably is very aware of your writings. Let's say there's somebody that's not. What would be the one thing you'd point them to. To say? This is pretty much me. Like, this is my. You know what. Whatever you want to say. [01:44:29] Speaker A: An article. [01:44:30] Speaker B: An article. Yeah. [01:44:32] Speaker A: I did one summer of 2024 that is coming to mind right now that was called your kids matter more than the Lost. And it was just a kind of that ordo amorous kind of thing. Like, you start with the love and your family and your church and. And just kind of. We've. We've sold ourselves out to people really far away from us to get them to like us rather than, you know, building up our own. And so that, like, my ideology of the world, I think, comes through in that one more than anything. [01:45:00] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good. [01:45:01] Speaker B: I wish we would have done this during COVID Did we start 2021, 22. 2022. [01:45:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:45:07] Speaker B: I wish we would have had this during COVID because you had a lot of really good takes on your writing. Obviously your writing was going strong during that time. But for us to get on and kind of talk about this, and I do think Covid is one of the reasons this happened, is us being able to, you know, solidify our relationship. More talk, more things like that. Exactly. [01:45:22] Speaker A: Right, fine. [01:45:23] Speaker B: It'd been fun to have that during that because you had some banger articles around that time as well, of like one of the only ones saying some of these things. And that's what you're talking about, of why people gravitate toward your writing is you will touch the topics nobody else really wants to touch on or they're going to get out a week later. You're going to get out a day later. Like you're going to be the guy that's going to have it. And it's probably to your point earlier, well thought out, well constructed, maybe a take you hadn't thought of before. It's going to come from a, you know, interesting. And so, yeah, it creates so many of your, and I don't tell you this because my brother, like, legitimately, your writing is really good because it will create opportunities for conversation with people. And that's what I think is what we strive for on this podcast. What, you know, you do so well in your writing is like, we want to be the people that create conversation, you know, and start something that you're around Thanksgiving table and you're, hey, what about this? And you throw this out. Listen to some guys, you don't have to say it's us. You know, you listen to some guys and they had this take. What are your thoughts? That would be great. You know, and that's what your articles do so well and what we push for. [01:46:22] Speaker C: So, yeah, that's good. [01:46:24] Speaker A: I, I take the spotlight off of me, please. [01:46:26] Speaker B: I. [01:46:27] Speaker C: One more question coming to mind. For me, it was for Joe. All of the three of us work really hard. I think Joe works the hardest out of all three. [01:46:33] Speaker B: I don't, I don't agree. [01:46:35] Speaker C: Just man non stop. Because even, even when you take a break, you still work. Like, we'll be, we'll come over for dinner. Obviously not gonna work during dinner, but if we go sit on the couch, you'll have your laptop. Laptop out, like figuring out how to do something. Right. So here's my question for you. And that is, let's say, money for this podcast Right now, time is no object, obviously, but let's say money is, is absolutely, just absolutely no object. Like you're set for life, you're fine, you're gonna plenty of money to travel. Like, money is no issue. How would you spend your days? How would you spend, like what, what would your schedule be? Like, what would you be doing? It's different than the question I asked earlier. Like what would you pursue? What would your mornings, afternoons and nights look like, man? Because right now your morning is work, your afternoon is working, your night is work. [01:47:21] Speaker B: So I'll be honest with you, probably fairly similar. Less clients. I love, I love my work most of the time. There's some, there's some days, 10 hours, you know, the 10 hour days are rough. I wouldn't do 10 hour days, but I'd probably still be doing like six, six sessions a day even. I don't care if I had all the money. [01:47:37] Speaker A: You do it, you know. How much is a 10 hour day? [01:47:39] Speaker B: Well, 10. Yeah, 10 sessions. Yeah, yeah, 10 sessions. [01:47:43] Speaker C: Cut it in almost half. [01:47:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean there are days where I get. But this is where the, you know, you think about the money and like I did like a 13 session day once. Really stupid. Really, really stupid. And I won't do that again. But you know, when you get, when you're trying to squeeze people in or whatever it may be, I would probably keep it around six and that's my goal as I, you know, get further into. If I can start charging a decent amount, I charge good now, you know, but if I could charge what the big wigs charge, the 250 type of thing. Yeah, I'd stick to six sessions a day, but I'd still do the, do the work, but I'd spend a lot more time, I try to spend a lot more time with family. But yes, I think it's easy to fall into workaholism, you know, if I'm not careful, like, because that's. Work is something that I feel like I do fairly well and that, you know, it's, it's, it gives you that dopamine rush of new clients or helping people or whatever. [01:48:34] Speaker C: It's productivity. [01:48:35] Speaker A: Productivity. Yeah, exactly. So that's the hard part about work from home too. I mean, obviously you're in the shed that we're in now, but it's 50ft from your back door of like there's not a leaving it behind. You know, you walk away, shut the computer off and walk out the door, punch the clock, whatever. [01:48:52] Speaker B: You know, that's one of the Hardest things. I will do a session. This might be the last one of the night. You know, I did an 8 o' clock session last night, I finished at 9. It might be the last session of the day where somebody's talking about their abuse as a child and you, you click off, you close the laptop, you walk inside and you, you know, literally 30 seconds later you're holding your dad. Yeah, you're in dad mode. And it's like I was just, you know, and I've worked with 50 year old men that are just sobbing as we're processing trauma and things like that. And they're heavy days or the ones where they're talking about, you know, like I'll have young kids that are talking about relationships with their parents or whatever. And it just kind of hits you and then you walk in, you got young kids, you know, and you're compartmentalizing. That is a tough one because again, it's a 30 second. If I had a 15 minute drive home, decompress, listen to some music, whatever it may be, pray about it. And so I'm trying to get better at giving myself 10 to 15 minutes after I'm done for the day. So I didn't go into like 9, 10 last night, you know, because 10 minutes later I just wanted to kind of decompress for a second. I think I show up better for that, but that is a tough transition. But no, you both work very, very hard. It's just in different ways. I mean, mine is, the thing is I will work a lot Monday through Thursday. Fridays we spend on this, you know, either podcasting and when we don't have podcasts to do, then usually I'll catch up on other work, send some emails back, things like that. But I usually have like a half day on Fridays, if anything. Well, that makes it worth it for me to work long hours Monday through Thursday and basically have a three day weekend. So it all shakes out. You guys work five days of the week. You're almost six days of the week. I was gonna say six days a week for you. And so I think you guys probably work harder than I do or at least similar. It's just parceled out differently. [01:50:26] Speaker C: So the mental, mental thing as well, like, sorry, I think that's partially why, I mean, honestly, why people make more money in the world is because when they go home, they don't just get to. Not us. There are some jobs you still can. But like, I know my job, like when I leave Chick Fil A. Yes, I'm clocking out. Technically, Speaking. But it's. I've still got stuff I'm thinking about if I still gotta take phone calls if something happens, I'm still like, can't ever fully leave it behind. That's why those jobs typically pay a whole lot more than just the person who can just kind of clock in and out. [01:50:56] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's the thing for the. [01:50:58] Speaker C: Mental weight is, I think, the toughest for me. [01:51:00] Speaker B: And that's. Yeah, exactly. Like, I know I charge a lot for therapy, and some people look at it, you know, it's online, so people can find 150 a session. Wow, that's a lot of money. It's like, yes, but it's specialized stuff. But you're also. Yeah, it's the weight. And yes, I also get clients texting me at all times, all hours. I mean, I get client text at 11:30, and if I'm up a lot of times I go back, especially if it's a crisis type of thing. And so you carry the mental weight. And right now it's just dozens and dozens of clients that. That is that one of the most difficult things is, you know, you're carrying. It feels like you're carrying everybody else. And so that's why self care and things like that. Going to meditation. You asked earlier. That stuff is really, really important to kind of keep work at work. Yours is difficult, though. It's a challenge because, I mean, yours is in your house. I have somewhat of a separation, but yours is in your house, kind of down in the basement area type thing. Yeah, grofus, exactly. And so to me, that would be a challenge because you get away from it. I get away from it. Out here, you might have kids wandering. You might be hearing kids. [01:51:58] Speaker A: You know, we try and, you know, limit that, but yeah, I mean, that's part of it. [01:52:01] Speaker C: Do you have, like, office hours? Obviously very flexible, but, like, where you're trying to be in and out this. [01:52:06] Speaker A: Time frame, I mean, like the 9 to 5 standard. But I'm always in it past 5, and I'm usually in it before or 9, you know, and the hard part, like, there's a reason that, like, throughout history, writers are kind of famous for being insane, you know, because you're there with your own thoughts all the time. And, like, there's bursts of progress. And then you literally feel like you're doing nothing when you're doing research or whatever. And. Well, and even like for writing on culture, writing on podcasts, some of it is social media scrolling. [01:52:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:52:34] Speaker A: And you blur that line between how Much of this is work and how much of this is, yeah, waste of time. And if you spend, you know, three hours a day scrolling social media, yeah, okay, that's not work, but you do need to put some time into it. Then you get sucked into that. And then again, the messages, I say, I'm really trying to stay on top of that. That's one of the. More people watch this podcast, the more people read the site, more people read the books, the more messages I get, which is a blessing. But then you're replying to that and you feel like, okay, but I'm not getting things done. I'm just keeping the mail coming in and going out kind of thing. And so it's very. Well. And that's why it's hard to, you know, we try and eat early, like 5 to 5:30, because that gives me a reason to get out of the chair and just go and have a night, you know, because we do our family devo after that and things like that. And then, you know, bedtime's not too far much later for the twins or whatever. But yeah, if, if dinner is running late at 6:30 or 7 by just default, I'm sitting there because there's always something else to do. There's more promo material for. Think deeper. There's more. There's another article I can write. There's another thing I can get scheduled online. [01:53:38] Speaker C: There's always something else to be done. [01:53:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:53:40] Speaker A: So it doesn't stop. And so that's, you know, because when I, when I clock. Not clock out, when I put my stuff away on Friday, there's things that need to be done for Monday, you know, there's like that. And so you just kind of gravitate toward. I'll just go get this done. I'll just go get this done. Next thing you know, on Saturday morning, you just spent all day writing. You're like, oh, yeah, yeah. But you got to be there for your family, you know? And so the writing, I don't know, it's not hard work, but it's like never ending work. [01:54:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:05] Speaker A: It just mentally, you really got to draw a firm line. Be like, I'm writing now. I'm not writing now. I'm putting it away. [01:54:10] Speaker B: Man, that'd be the hardest thing. Hardest thing. Because we do have like, yes, we still carry the mental weight. And think about that. You're still getting a bazillion texts. I get texts, but that's still somewhat different than like, the ideas are coming to you laying in bed, you know, it's like, I gotta get that down type of thing. Like your brain, I don't know how you get your brain to not shuts off. Yeah, it never shuts off, I feel like, because your job is to have your brain on thinking about these things, you know? Do you keep a notepad for. For ideas or, like next to your bed or whatever? Yeah, yeah. [01:54:35] Speaker A: I think you'd have to phone note or whatever. But, man, I don't know. I prefer my mind to yours. I mean, like, you. What you guys do. I'm like, oh, no, man. No thanks. [01:54:43] Speaker B: Vice versa. [01:54:44] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Different talents for everything. [01:54:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Fellas, this has been a blast. [01:54:49] Speaker C: This has been. Appreciate everybody. We might have like 10 total people to listen to the whole thing. Man, this is too long. [01:54:54] Speaker B: I get it. [01:54:55] Speaker A: I totally get it. I think I said this on episode 100 where the, the movie actors, they'll say, one for me, one for them. You know, like, they'll do an artsy one they know nobody's gonna watch, and then they'll go do the blockbuster hit to make their money or whatever. I'm like, all right, 99 for them, 1 for us. [01:55:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [01:55:09] Speaker A: Kind of just us shooting the breeze. 99 more. 100 or 200, we're here. So. [01:55:13] Speaker C: Yeah. And I like this format though. Like, just no agenda other than the questions that we have each other. [01:55:18] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [01:55:19] Speaker B: We wanted to keep it pretty free flowing. You know, we were talking about ahead of time, what are we going to do? And like, chill, man. You know, you guys come along, chill with us. If you don't, if you turn it off, we're not offended. It's not that big a deal. We're, you know, this was fun for us. Like you said, it's, you know, unless. [01:55:31] Speaker A: You'Re still watching Christmas or Thanksgiving, we're gonna, you know, throw that poll up or all the comments just drop. Which one? There's been a couple other talking points that I should have. [01:55:39] Speaker C: Like the Harry Potter thing. I'm curious people's thoughts on. Yeah. Feminism. We talked about a lot of ground, covered a lot. [01:55:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So hit us with your thoughts on. On any of those. Those things. [01:55:50] Speaker C: So, yeah, absolutely. Deep end. If you're a deep thinker, subscribe to Focus plus. Comment on anything. We'll talk about it in the deep end. [01:55:57] Speaker B: Are we doing a deep end for this? [01:55:58] Speaker A: I was going to say that. Well, this is two hours. It's Thanksgiving. [01:56:00] Speaker C: Oh, I didn't think about that. [01:56:02] Speaker A: We might pass on the Monday episode, like the 201 right after Thanksgiving and just make this like, hey, you've got two weeks to listen to the two hours and then catch the deep end on the other side of that so we can respond to this. [01:56:15] Speaker B: That makes sense. Yeah. [01:56:16] Speaker A: That way we don't have to record over Thanksgiving, you know, we can just give it a break. So that works for me. [01:56:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that works. [01:56:21] Speaker C: Sounds good. [01:56:21] Speaker B: Well, thanks, everybody. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Make sure to again, check out the polls. Check out. [01:56:27] Speaker C: Go buy Jack's book as well. [01:56:28] Speaker A: Go. [01:56:28] Speaker B: Yep. Now I think it'll be 201, right. [01:56:35] Speaker C: Amazon. Getting it done. This would be really awkward. [01:56:39] Speaker A: Every now and then they get real weird and just sit on a book for like a month. But usually it, like, it should be. Have been out for, like, over a week at this point when you're seeing this. So fingers. [01:56:48] Speaker B: We got to get. We got to do this more often because it's fun in the same room. But thank you for watching and we'll talk to you again. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Sorry. Happy Thanksgiving. We'll talk to you again next week. [01:56:58] Speaker C: Two weeks. [01:56:59] Speaker A: Two weeks. [01:56:59] Speaker B: Sorry. We'll talk again in two weeks.