#24 - Kevin Tietz: Embrace Failure & Embrace Growth, You're Michelangelo's David

And then, you are officially live in the dining room studio.

And you've been able to see a little bit of behind the scenes, seeing me set up, but how was it?

Interesting?

Yeah, I'd say so.

I mean, I have to admire the entrepreneurship and just being willing to do what it takes.

The drive, it's funny, whenever I first started, we had these two microphones, this board that had all of these little knobs on there, and I didn't know how to use it.

And I spent about two weeks trying to get myself to use it.

And once I figured out how to use it, I figured out that I had the wrong board.

So this whole thing has been this process of doing this piece by piece by piece.

But the more it grows, the more official it looks.

And yesterday I spent some time on another YouTuber's channel and I just copy and pasted all of his graphics along the way.

Line by line.

So I'm spilling, that's what I've been doing.

But someone told me, don't be afraid of copy and paste.

Just make sure you're being yourself.

Yeah.

Well, there's nothing new under the sun.

You know, there's all the ideas we have even, yeah, I mean, the ideas that we have that seem original to us.

Heck, this was in a Ted Lasso episode recently where he comes up with this idea called Total Football.

And it's, you know, he's by himself.

He does it, yeah.

Well, it's, you know, it's like 40, 50 years old.

Even though it was original to him, it's not like actually original.

All that to say, that doesn't just count anything.

Right.

And they said Pep Guardiola, and I did not know that Pep played there, but that makes so much sense with Tiki Taka.

You know, with Spanish soccer, they did Total Football as well.

And those Spanish midfielders on Barcelona with Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, Sergio Busquets, and then Lionel Messi, that was what made me love soccer, was that Spanish midfield.

Hey, that's very cool.

You know a lot more about soccer than I do.

My experience is City League and Ted Lasso, so.

When did you start playing?

Depends on how you define playing.

I would say I played a City League with some friends here in Lawrence back, oh man, this was probably 2014 or 15, and then I've played maybe three indoor leagues since then, and this is an outdoor league.

That's awesome.

I'm a basketball player, so.

You're a hooper?

Yes, that's my game, and so soccer is good for conditioning and footwork.

So when did you first start playing basketball?

Oh, I don't know, 10.

And who was your favorite player?

Man, well, so I'm from the Dallas area, so I was a big Dirk fan.

He was the man, and then we won, what, in 2011, I think it was.

Against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

I'm from Oklahoma.

Shout out to Braxton, a friend of mine, who, we were both in Oklahoma, but he loved Dirk so much.

And watching Dirk single-handedly, because who did he have with him?

He had...

I hate to say it, but I don't know if anybody remembers.

Yeah, he had a couple people with him, but they weren't major stars.

They were role players.

So to see him do that Dirk fade away, time and time again, and nobody can do anything about it, was mind-boggling, but that's a great favorite player.

So are you able to do the Dirk fade away?

No.

Yeah.

But my favorite player is Klay Thompson, and I'm not able to shoot like Klay Thompson, even though he's known for being a great shooter.

So you started playing basketball at the age of 10, and where are you growing up?

You said Dallas?

Yeah, Plano.

Plano, Texas.

And did you have siblings?

Or do you have siblings?

I've got one younger brother.

He's still there, actually.

And my dad is down there, and we just moved my mom up from there to Lawrence.

So.

Do you think they're all gonna migrate over here?

Probably not.

You know, I'm trying to convince my brother.

My dad's like, they're really well-rooted, so I don't expect them to move up here.

But hey, if we get my brother up here, that'd be really cool.

And then your dad will come after your brother.

That's me doing a hot take here, but he is pretty well-rooted.

But now you're in Lawrence.

So how'd you get here?

Came up here to go to school at KU.

I mean, it was the, I was third generation.

My dad and both of his parents went to KU.

It's actually fun.

So my grandmother, she lived in one of the scholarship halls.

The exact name of it is Escaping Me.

I don't want to get it wrong, but it's still there and people still live in it.

And that was, I mean, they, I think she graduated in like 1952 or 53.

So she was smart.

Which I mean, well, it was one of the, yes, she is.

She is, and she's still sharp and she's 90.

We just had her 90th birthday party back in January.

It's really cool.

Shout out to grandma.

Yeah, shout out, grandma.

Yeah, well, so the 52 is also one of the national championships, so that's always been something that's fun to get.

They actually have one of the original papers after that too.

Wow, so was she hyped whenever they just won?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

And now you've stuck around college.

Yeah, exactly.

I never left.

I never left.

Did you go straight from KU to working at KU?

No, so I graduated part of the last semester of my program.

My major was to do an internship.

And so I was doing an internship at a physical therapy clinic in Topeka.

And stayed on there, but was doing a job as a personal trainer.

But that's how, kind of in that time is really when I got involved with Young Life because I was, really shortly after that, I was applying to physical therapy schools, decided not to finish that process.

And ended up really picturing it as I'm doing personal training so that I can continue to lead Young Life.

And did that for like four more years.

What made you decide to quit physical therapy?

Well, it was a week long, really significant calling.

Like it was one of those seasons or one of those periods where I actually look back and I'm like, I heard the voice of God.

And it was really over a week long process, multiple conversations, multiple kicks in the pants and was like, okay, I guess this is no longer the direction.

At the end of it, I remember writing my dad a letter and reading it to him over the phone because I mean, I was at KU, I had had a vision.

I mean, he helped paid for the education and stuff.

And I'm like, hey, I'm no longer pursuing this.

And so I felt like I was gonna let him down.

His response was really wonderful.

Yeah, well, I wonder if I have that letter still.

I actually haven't thought about that in a while, but I said, you know, I was gonna pursue ministry and he was like, I never imagined one of my sons would be a minister.

And I was like, it's not what I want you to do, but I'm behind you.

And that meant a lot.

That meant a lot.

I mean, since I had a number of really good conversations and stuff and yeah, it was that.

I was all, I was ugly crying on the phone and it was good.

Were you bummed to leave?

Was part of you scared?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, part of me was scared for sure.

And then, I mean, what big decision doesn't come with both fear and excitement?

Right?

I've also, I think I might've heard this from Peterson, but this has stuck with me.

You know, I'm in a similar season of life now, but where, you know, God calls Abraham in Genesis 12, and he says like, go leave your country and I'll show you.

And, but he doesn't actually say where he's going.

He just tells him to go.

And that's actually the story of a lot of our life is, you know, we get uprooted or we have to choose to leave, invited to leave even.

And then we have to go without actually knowing where we're gonna land and maybe not even seeing where we're gonna land in our lifetime.

I mean, there's so much that comes before us and so much that comes after us.

And so that's, yeah.

It just builds a lot of confidence.

It means life is, you gotta be filled with courage the whole time.

And go.

Yes.

What do you think about, this is something I've been currently thinking about lately and I'd like to pick your brain on it.

I have heard this idea of green lights, red lights.

For instance.

Matthew McConaughey?

Yeah.

I still need, we have his book in the bookshelf and I need to read it.

But those, like I've heard people say pray about it.

And if you don't get a red light, then go for it.

What do you think about that?

Yeah.

I think I play take a little bit more of a complex approach.

This has been something.

So I've done a college ministry for the last 13 years.

And so helping young people make decisions about their future in the pursuit of God as well is been like a huge part of leading people in my last decade of life.

So the red light, green light idea, I will say most of it, I'm speaking probably to somebody coming from the perspective of God, like I wanna be in God's will.

And in that there's this perspective that God's will is written out and I need to like make sure I figure out what it is so that I don't mess it up, so that I don't screw up and make the wrong decision.

That's really not the way the Bible teaches is really not the way that it's really, it's not a helpful perspective.

And so the red light, green light idea is helpful in the sense that there's many times that like a student will come to a place and any of us will come to a place in our lives where there's multiple decisions that are before us and we can test each one and they all are potential yeses.

They're all potential options, but they're gonna probably lead in very, very different directions.

So the question is, what the heck do I do?

How do I make this decision?

Well, hence we pray about it.

Well, let's say you pray about it and you've still getting a, I don't know for sure.

And there's still five options ahead of you.

And there's a lot of anticipation and a lot of potential, a lot of fear in that.

And so I think the way that I've developed to encourage students to process through this, and this isn't comprehensive, but at least a good starting guide is, okay, will this decision lead you towards the Lord or away from the Lord?

Maybe a sub question within that is, is there anything in the scripture that would tell you, don't do that?

And then, I mean, God made us and placed us.

He's determined the boundaries of our lives.

And so we can also ask questions like, if it fits the, yeah, there's nothing that's gonna be explicitly leading me away from the Lord in this, then what are the interests that I have?

What is the experience that I have in my life thus far?

That's also been shaped by the Lord.

And then what are the gifts and skills that I have?

And how might those apply in these areas?

And you might still, that might help narrow the field.

That might not help narrow the field, in which case, you can't steer a ship that's docked.

And so you have to steer it, like God can steer a ship that has set sail.

And I think there's the fear piece of that is like, well, what if I make the wrong decision and it goes bad?

And like, then I, you know, messed up.

Like, I mean, you could see it that way, or you could go, there must have been something in that decision process or in that span of life, even if you get redirected, that was necessary to be learned.

Something that that was worth it for.

In which case, and this is the beautiful paradox of walking with Jesus is that it can both be outside of God's will and within God's will all at the same time.

You could make the quote unquote wrong decision and it also not actually be the wrong decision.

Like you don't have to be afraid that it's somehow messed up everything else.

And that's really freeing.

And so I think, that's how I coach students.

And also think, I've learned all that on the back end.

It's not like I went into college with that perspective.

And I would have approached college entirely differently.

Where were you when I was in college?

That's what I was thinking of when you were saying all of that.

Yeah.

Because I had so many moments in grad school where I was like, what do I do?

And one of the deciding factors that helped me make my decision was this woman that I was dating at the time that I really liked, she was gonna be around for another year.

So it's like, okay, I'm going to fashion my decision around that one point.

And what I've seen in my life historically is with tough decisions, it's finding different things that I can fashion those decisions upon and then building upon there.

It's like, okay, I want to work with talking to people.

All right, that being said, I should not be a programmer for Google Translate.

Scratch it off the list and then going from there.

But your comprehensive answer is much better and I may use it as YouTube video.

I have a question about college relationships.

Now, and I don't mean to get like-

When you say relationships, are you being specific about what kind?

I'm talking romantic relationships.

And I don't mean to like get some statistic, but-

I would also say students even define relationships really differently than we did when we were in school.

Like there's this whole process of you like, first you probably DM somebody, so you slide into their DMs because that's the lowest commitment, attempt at like planting a seed that you can and then or otherwise shoot your shot.

Those are all the terms.

And then after that, you might text for a while.

There's this period of where you're talking and that's where you're talking because there's interests, but you don't want to say there's any interests that would commit you beyond talking.

And then you might hang out.

And so that happens.

And then dating is considered really, really like you're in your boyfriend, girlfriend, if you're dating basically.

Yeah.

If you're actively going on dates with one another.

Yeah.

So another coaching point for me with college students is I'm like, hey, what is a date?

Like a date is just a clearly defined, I'm interested to get to know you because I'm interested in more than friends.

That's it.

Like it doesn't have to, you're like, but it is, it feels risky because you kind of got to put yourself out there in order to do it.

And I just ask somebody on a date.

And so I think probably the way our cultures begin to communicate has made us fearful of others' responses and all those things.

But I've also seen some students do it really well.

Yeah.

That's been really fun.

Do you have any good stories?

You don't got a name drop.

Oh man.

If one comes up, I'll tell you.

You'll share it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is risky.

Do you think there needs to be dinner at the date?

No, no, definitely not.

I think a great first date is when you do something together.

Like, you know, you want to be able to talk, but like maybe you go on a walk at a park and then you have snacks and then you walk back to the car.

Like it could be something that you can meet somewhere driving separately.

It kind of depends on how much risk you want to take.

Like, hey, I'm going to, let's drive into Kansas city together.

Well, you got an hour drive from here where you're like stuck in the car together.

And that could be very awkward, especially if the date doesn't go well.

Or it could be the story that you're telling all your friends if the date does go well.

So I'm a big fan of, hey, go do something together.

Especially if you're not super confident just talking to people, is do something.

Yeah.

Why do you think movies became such a big first date idea?

Cause it's a terrible first date.

I know, right?

Well, I love, I love stories.

And I think movies create that.

And you can react to the stories together, laugh together.

And then you have this shared experience where you can reference back to various things.

So I mean, I see the value in it.

I agree that it's not like a great first date, but there's value in like having a shared story or experience to look back on.

Inside jokes.

See, I think movies for everybody who's listening, who's thinking about dating, I think movies should come like fifth, sixth, seventh.

I think that first, second, third, fourth needs to be, like you said, go walk, ask one another a lot of questions and joke, have fun.

That was one of the best tips I ever got whenever I started seriously dating was have fun.

And that means so much, particularly with Christian dating or people who are Christians who date within the same church and all this stuff, it can get really messy and there can be a lot of pressure and guard her heart, guard his heart and don't do this and don't do that.

We can overthink so much and going on dates, you aren't able to have fun at all because you have all of this in your head.

So one of the best things I ever heard was, hey, have fun, go enjoy it, go be yourself.

And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

So what's been your favorite thing about working on a college campus?

It is such a transformative time of life.

And people who are in their college years are often very open to new experiences, new conversation, new friendships.

And that's really exciting because it allowed me the opportunity to see people grow and help them grow.

I had a mentor once that he said that in your 20s, you set a trajectory, in your 30s, you set your habits.

So I'm trying to set some habits right now.

But I loved helping students set trajectories for their life.

That doesn't mean they're stuck in that.

It's just like your initial major trajectory is set in those younger years and people really open and longing for it too.

What does that look like, opening and longing for it?

Well, students come on to like campus KU and there's like, you can probably boil down some of the questions folks are asking to three different things.

Especially early on, they're asking, like, where do I belong?

Like, who do I belong with?

Another question is, who am I, really?

Like, there's a lot of self-discovery.

It's the first time that you're away from your family, especially if you had a well-established family.

It's the first time you're out and gone and having to make a lot of independent choices about your trajectory and who you wanna be or what you want to shape to.

And then I think the third one is probably something along the lines of do I really matter?

Like do I actually have agency and influence in the world?

And how do I wanna do that?

And my experience, I think the first two years, so freshman and sophomore year, most of the students are asking like, where do I belong?

Who do I belong with?

They're trying to find friends.

And that's gonna help give some shape to like who they see themselves as.

And a lot of time, those two things maybe go together.

Like maybe they're a type of person, personality that is like really strong about, this is who I am.

And so I'm looking for friends that help affirm, steer that.

But some of them, they don't really know.

And so they're looking for friends and then they'll be able to adapt.

Like, oh, this is kind of who I see myself as based on how I interact and feel with the people I'm around.

Pros and cons to both of those.

And then at that entering junior year switch or during junior year, oftentimes students shift from who am I, where do I belong to, what am I supposed to do with my life?

Like, what's the impact that I hope to make?

And that's been a fun dynamic to view.

You know, you see a lot of maturity happen in that.

One of the cool things about what you're doing is that, whenever I was in college, it's a bubble.

And you are talking to people who are your age, 99% of the time, your professors, not your age, the people who cook your food, some of them are college workers, some of them are adult staff.

Those adult staff aren't your age.

And then every now and then you may go to an event involved with the community.

But for the most part, it's always people who are your peers and who are your age.

Now, one of the coolest parts about college ministry is that they will have full-time staff members who aren't college students, yet they're not too far away from being a college student, yet at the same time, they're also adults who have had some time as a full-time professional.

And having that on ramp to being able to live life outside of college, in society, go build your own community, go be a culture creator or a culture changer, and then thrive in whatever occupation you choose to have.

It's imperative to have somebody like that, and I think a lot of people miss out on that.

I know with Greek life, you have people who will be board members and it's alum that'll come back, and there will be adults that kind of help you along the way, but with college ministry, that's one of the, in my mind, the greatest advantages of the effectiveness of a college ministry.

I mean, a lot of students that I've spent time with know that.

They actually, they, especially if they're pursuing something beyond themselves, whether that's spiritual, even just a bigger vision for their life, they kind of get tired of asking questions within peers.

And maybe this would sound offensive to a college student.

I heard it from another kind of older mentor of mine once, but he said, two kids in a mud puddle can't clean each other's eyes.

And that there's just perspectives that anybody in any life stage like will be limited by.

And so having a multi-generational community is actually immensely valuable because you can ask questions of people that have experiences that you would never even have thought of.

Yes.

Yeah, and not limited to college.

Like you were saying, a multi-generational community is imperative.

That's something that I think everyone needs to be thinking about is, do you have someone who's later on in life that you get to learn from?

And do you have someone who is before you in life that you get to share your knowledge or your experiences with?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just like anything else, with podcasting, I need to find, and if you know of anybody who's an experienced podcaster, I need to find local experienced podcasters to learn from because I already have people who are coming to me to learn from me, and that helps me a lot.

I'm growing from that by sharing with them what I'm learning and ways that they could benefit from my experience.

Yet at the same time, I have to have something that's filling me up, you know?

And I find myself thinking about that with generations as well.

It's great for you to be pouring into all of the college students, but you would be remiss if you didn't have people pouring into you, you know?

Yeah, just names two older men that have been influential to me.

What do you think holds people back from pursuing a friendship, mentorship, relationship with somebody who's older or being a mentor to somebody who's younger?

Yeah, I love that you asked that question.

The first thing I would say would be accessibility.

I think oftentimes there is not much accessibility.

Whenever I was in college, people that I could trust who were older than me was rare because I had moved away from my hometown, and then I was two hours away, which isn't the farthest that people commute, but I was two hours away.

I was living there, and I start to meet some people, but for the most part, I'm seeing my classmates.

I'm seeing the people who are at the same events as I am.

But once I started going to church, then that removed me from the college bubble, and that's where I started seeing people, couples who took me under their wing.

So the first thing I would say is accessibility, and then the second thing is it's scary.

I had shared this story before.

I was in grad school, and it was really put on my heart to find mentorship.

I needed leadership.

Like to be the one that's being a mentor?

To be the one that had mentors.

Yeah, I wanted to be the mentee.

I wanted to be the lead, because I had felt like there was a lot of pressure for me to lead, and part of me was thinking, come on, let me get filled up.

So I'm praying about it, and I go to church, and after church, I'm walking around the church, and I'm going to all of the men who are like older than 40, and I'm introducing myself, and I'm saying, hey, my name is Chris.

I'm just introducing myself to all the older guys in the church.

That's just how you talk to people.

Right.

It wasn't until after the fact that I was like, come on, bro.

You need to think of something better.

So I think fear and not knowing how to do it is another thing.

So we got lack of accessibility.

We got fear in not knowing how to do it.

And then the third thing is this mindset that it'll come to me organically.

It's what a lot of people think about in romantic relationships too.

If it is meant to be, then it's going to show up at my doorstep.

And I think about that with leadership as well.

There's been several years in my life where I can look back and I had a lack of leadership in my life.

And it wasn't because of something gone wrong other than the fact that I thought these people were going to walk up to me, look at me and be like, hey, I want to lead you.

And to be honest with you, on average, if somebody walks up to you that you don't know a stranger and they're like, hey, let me tell you what to do, it's not a good situation.

So it's like, you have to do your work, but at the same time, you also have to be open to those opportunities and those moments, but that's holding a lot of people back is there's no accessibility for young people.

And then for older people as well, older people need to pour into younger people, but they're not around young people.

It's hard to get around young people.

And then that lack of accessibility, and then people are thinking like, ah man, it's gonna show up at my doorstep.

You know?

Yeah.

Do you think that at the college you're at, there's a lot of people who could be doing a lot better than they're doing, but they're not because they're scared to talk to people?

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Here, hold on.

This conversation made me think about, you remember when I talked about the decision making process?

Yeah.

There's one other piece of that that I left out that's actually very important.

It is the question, what do the people who know me really well and love the Lord say?

Like, what's their perspective about this, these decisions that I'm facing?

That's huge.

Bless it out.

This is helpful.

So, what were the other points?

Because I want it all in summation together here.

Yeah, yeah.

So, the first, if you're like, you've got multiple potential decisions before you that all seem like valid options.

I'm writing this down.

Yep.

The, you know, the one is, okay, like, does any of this, like, would it lead me away from the Lord?

Like, compare it to what God has already said in this scripture.

So, professional shoplifter, that's not gonna be it.

Yep.

And then, the next one is, then you can go into, like, how God's shaped you to this point, so things like, what are the interests that I have?

What are the experiences that I have thus far?

What are the gifts and skills that I'm good at?

And then, when I talk to people who love me, know me, and want the best for me, what is their perspective on these decisions in me?

There's a rubric for decision making right there.

Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

Are you using it right now?

Are you going through that and thinking that?

Yes, very much so.

Yeah?

Yes.

So what are you good at?

Well, I would say one of my...

I've actually...

And this kind of gets into the gift skill thing.

I've always been the person that...

I didn't ever have a clique in high school or middle school or anything like that.

I could sit at any table in the lunchroom.

And I've just always enjoyed people.

I had the friends that I grew up with.

I was so glad.

I had an incredible childhood with...

There were always six-ish guys on the same block as me that were all within six years of each other, and I was in the middle.

So on the weekends, I'd have my school friends and stuff and everything, but often I'd default to, hey, hey guys, you want to meet at the mailbox?

That was back in the day when sometimes it was knock on the door and, hey, can Ryan come out to play?

And we'd do that.

So you'd gather the troops?

Yeah, I mean, sometimes they'd gather me.

And it was really awesome.

We played every sport imaginable.

So anyway, all that to say, I've noticed that I have this ability to like sit down with like just about anybody and like ask good questions like you do and like discover them, help them like even maybe discover themselves some.

I love that.

And people will kind of people trust me, I guess.

And maybe not everybody maybe takes a little bit of time, but I'd say comparatively like I can kind of build rapport and trust with people in a way that they'll probably tell me things that they wouldn't really tell anybody else.

Yeah.

And that's really, really fun.

Have you found yourself getting in a situation where you thought, Oh boy.

Oh yeah, for sure.

I don't know so much in like the spontaneous moments because people don't divulge the deepest stuff at those points.

But yeah, I mean, I mean, sometimes we, we like come into good friendships and love people that are in positions where it's really challenging and it's really challenging to be helpful.

It's really challenging to like be there for them.

They're really needy.

And it's certainly in those cases that can't all we can't carry the whole burden for somebody.

But we try to help as much as we can.

Yeah.

So you would identify as a culture creator.

I, you know, I'm not familiar with that term in maybe exactly what you mean by it, but I think it's a compliment.

What do you mean by culture creator?

So in my mind, you're organizing people because you said you weren't really part of clicks.

And I would identify that way as well because I played the sports, but I also played the instrument.

And even if I wasn't actively involved in other things, I was still able to talk to people and get to know friends who maybe they love anime.

I've never really been a fan of anime, but I really appreciate your passion towards it.

You know what I mean?

Like talking to people that way.

And whenever I look back on my life, I find myself in high school, I was organizing volleyball in college.

I was organizing groups of people to play ping pong, groups of people to go play volleyball, groups of people to go play soccer.

In grad school, it's another thing.

Now I'm doing another thing.

But there's always this trend of getting people together so that they can build relationships.

But also I know I'm at my best.

Remember, I'm socially immersed.

And it's hard whenever you're moving around.

People go to school, they get a job, maybe they move again to go to grad school, maybe they get married, maybe they get a promotion.

And all of this mobility, awesome, you're gonna get paid more, you may get a better degree.

But for the most part, since we're social creatures, we're gonna be at our best when we're socially immersed.

And I know there's introverts and extroverts, and it's a sliding scale.

I was wondering what the introverts are thinking if they're listening to us right now.

But it is a necessity to be socially immersed.

So I find myself needing that.

And oftentimes I'm the one who's creating those opportunities for immersion.

But whenever I'm doing it, I'm not just doing it thinking, okay, I'm doing this to create social immersion.

I'm also thinking about what are values or principles that I want to be expressed through this.

So I want it to be a caring place.

I don't want people to come up and cuss you out and hit you on the head.

I want it to be a place where people build relationships, not like a passing, shallow, weak facsimile of friendship.

I want it to be actually people coming in.

That's a high expectation, but I know it's possible, so I think about that.

And all of these different principles and me wanting to gather a whole bunch of people around, that's creating culture.

And I was reading my journal from three years ago, and I wrote this thing in there that was talking about how I would like to speak to culture creators and culture changers, because I also think a culture can be created and you come into that culture and then you can start changing it.

You hear about this in sports a lot.

There may be a coach who really values isolation in basketball, like ISO plays, the highlight plays, and then you get a coach come in like Steve Kerr and he says, always go for that extra pass.

By making that extra pass, you are going to set up an even better opportunity.

So pass up the good opportunity for a great opportunity.

Yet the side effect of that is you're also encouraging people to be selfless.

Trust.

You're encouraging individuals to work less as individuals and more as systems.

So the culture has been changed.

But those are people who are on my heart, are people who are culture creators and people who are culture changers.

And everybody does that to some extent.

You can come home mad and you change the culture of your home.

You can come home really happy and your partner who was mad, now you get to change that culture and make it more happy.

Or your partner may change your culture and now you're mad.

You know what I mean?

So everybody has the capacity.

But I think of this concept of what culture are you creating and what are cultures that you're changing?

And then how are you doing that?

What do those cultures look like?

Well, when you think about it, so say you're just getting people together to play sand volleyball.

You're probably not thinking about all these things, like in just gathering people.

So these are, this is probably things that you've thought about and sort of consolidated those ideas, like after developing just that habit or like recognizing that gift, right?

You're not like setting out.

That's true.

And you're writing in your schedule, okay, here's the principles of what this sand volleyball day is going to be like, and I'm going to announce that.

And then I'm going to tell people that they need to make friends.

In between every hit, make sure you encourage somebody.

Yeah, make sure you shake hands and introduce yourself again and again.

Yeah.

So it's vastly more like you gather people.

And then in the process of seeing this happen over time, you're like, I want to keep doing this for these reasons, because I've seen how it helps.

And that makes me think about how I do things like this in the future.

Yeah.

And we were talking earlier, we were sharing coffee and tea.

And I remember telling you about one person who had been going to something that was organized and everybody was enjoying it.

And they spoke really highly of it.

And they said that it really changed their life.

And that made me feel so good.

And I think why is prior to this, this wouldn't have existed had it not been created.

Yeah.

Initiating.

Initiating.

You're like the term I would use, you use culture creator.

Like I thought initiator and gatherer.

Right.

Yeah.

And as you initiate and as you gather, there's going to be a hopefully, maybe it's a one time event, but there's going to be a vibe there.

And that's some of the things that I'm thinking about is it's like, okay, we could get people here to play basketball, which is cool.

And recreation is awesome.

Exercise is great for your health.

Being able to get sunlight exposure, bingo.

But could we also make it to where I and maybe somebody else has some questions, you know?

So I gather, I don't gather everybody.

That would be a stretch.

But thinking along those lines, there's another thing I've been thinking about and I'm curious about your perspective and your response to it.

Entrepreneurship is not limited to business.

Many people think entrepreneurship, they think of business.

This is a successful entrepreneur.

This is someone who's created a successful business.

But entrepreneurship is in itself building an enterprise and then creating an enterprise that sustains itself after the creation in a way that doesn't beat up other things in a constructive manner.

So people who, I hear people, I watch YouTube videos and they're talking about entrepreneurs are born, they're not made.

And lately I've been thinking about it.

It's like if you build a group of people and you build them together, you gather them, you initiate, you set a schedule, you also set some loose outline of what everybody's gonna be doing.

That's entrepreneurship.

Yeah, I'd say so.

I'd also want to know, you know, for the folks that are like, entrepreneurs are born, not made.

I'm pretty sure the stat is that like entrepreneurs like fail at trying to create a business like 30 different times before they're successful.

I think those two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive because, you know, maybe they had the natural personality to be entrepreneurial even, but the actual success piece in entrepreneurship is probably a skill that has to get developed.

Maybe there's aptitudes for it, but.

And that willingness to try again.

Yep, the never give up.

Yeah, never give up, even though.

Or know when to give up, depending on what it is, when to let something die.

Yeah, and you know, Simon Sinek.

Yeah, I'm familiar.

I've not paid a ton of attention, but I know who that is.

Yeah, he had that big Ted talk about what's your why.

And he did a really cool circle diagram with why in the middle and everything going.

And I think of it kind of like that, but with God, like people be like, what's the priorities in your life, Chris?

And then I'll be like, well, relationships are.

And they're like, you didn't say God first.

And I'm like, well, it's difficult to put God on a list of like organic material with everything else.

So essentially God's at the middle because without him, none of this would be possible.

But Simon Sinek says, what's your why?

And your why is in the middle.

I was listening to him the other day and he said, you need you.

It shouldn't be off the table.

Whenever you're presenting ideas to say, hey, this may fail, but let's try it because people be like, hey, you don't, you can't have a plan B.

It's plan A, either it's going to work or we don't try it.

But not being scared of failure and being like, hey, this may not work.

And even presenting that, it leaves a lot of stress and a lot of pressure.

So when you say you need to know when to give up, that's what I'm thinking of.

Yeah.

Can I share an analogy that this just brought into my head that I've found really helpful for myself.

I've shared a lot with students.

I'm definitely in the fight, flight or freeze impulses.

I'm a freeze.

I hate it.

But my natural is to like, boom, stop.

And it's kind of an assessing mode.

And not everybody's like that.

I've noticed maybe this is like an older, like I'm the oldest kid thing.

However you want to chalk it up, I can be kind of perfectionistic, can be really self-critical.

So I guess I've applied this to like my spiritual life, but it actually applies to all areas of life.

And my expectation of myself for a long time was I'm supposed to be like Michelangelo's statue of David.

Like I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to like excel and be successful and be God, you know, spiritual sense, be godly, be like never fall into sin, never give in to temptation, like be the best leader, husband, father, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And that's a lot of pressure, right?

And I would think that, okay, any failure was like taking a hammer and chisel to the statue of David.

And like you're not gonna get that success back, that perfection back.

But the reality is that's not what it is.

That's not even, that's not the direction Jesus gives us.

That's not any of that.

It's actually like in Christ, we have the status of that.

That's the gift of God, but we're actually the marble block.

And so all of the successes and failures are actually a part of the hammer and chisel, chiseling the block to become the statue of David.

Not, I'm not already the statue.

And that's been really freeing because it's like, oh, well, let's keep going with the process.

It's the process mindset.

It's the growth mindset to say, I'm not there yet.

And then with faith in Christ, you can say, but I know where I'm going.

And I don't mean like, woo hoo, heaven, get there.

I'm being shaped into the image of Christ.

I'm being shaped in this.

And so whether success or failure, if it's failure, there's forgiveness, there's repentance, there's letting go of my own pride, all those things.

Those are actually a part of the very process to get in the direction that I wanna go.

So go for it.

Yeah, and in order to be like David, that requires the chisel hitting the stone, which may be failure.

And it might be painful.

And it could be painful.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

That switch right there going from whenever I fail, this beautiful image of David is now becoming blemished to no, it's a stone and every failure and success leads to the end result, which is David.

And I think I mentioned the flight or freeze the beginning because the perspective one where I'm like, oh, I'm supposed to be the statue of David.

So if I am failing, well, it would cause me to freeze.

So when it came to decisions, right, cause I was like, I'm afraid of getting this wrong.

And so I'm like more paralyzed by, say, I guess one of the biggest challenges in my life over the last 10 years has been just the number of responsibilities and kind of having this sense of, man, which one should I be working on?

I get into these grooves sometimes where I would think, or I say I'd be working on something.

Like I'd always have this sense in me that I should be doing something else.

Even if this was really productive, even if I had planned it out, it was like you're not doing the right thing.

And a lot of that had to do with just that fear of I'm getting this wrong.

Like I'm gonna screw this up.

And so having that heart and mind shift to go, ah, this is just part of the process.

Do something rather than nothing and entrust the results to the Lord has been immensely freeing.

Yeah.

And it makes you a lot less brain foggy or a lot less paralyzed with decision making.

Yeah.

So when it comes to talking to people, well, why do you practice anything?

Because you're not as good as you want to be.

And so just do it.

I mean, heck, I'm going with a good friend of mine at lunch today and I'm just helping him talk to people.

Like this is, you know, we're ministers.

I want him to have the ability to talk to people that don't have a background in Christianity about God.

And so we're gonna go into, we've done this every, we've met people and just gotten to know them every lunch on Mondays at the same place, the same time, every week, this semester.

This time it's the part of his training where he like, like I'm his wingman and we're gonna walk up, he's gonna walk up to somebody, I'll be there with him and he'll say something like, hey, this might sound weird, but I'm really trying to train to have spiritual conversations with people that I don't really know.

Could I talk with you about God?

And they could say no, and they could say yes.

And if they say no, we're gonna go to a different table and ask somebody else until somebody says yes.

I've really come to think and experience that the vast majority of people given the right context wanna have deep conversations.

They wanna go below the surface.

They just don't really know how or it's scary to do that.

And so back to the point of like the growth mindset.

So for him, I'm like, he's gonna butcher this.

Even the ask, like the fear of just the anticipation of not how am I gonna give this invitation or ask that they're gonna wanna say yes.

But you just gotta get reps.

He's like, really, you just have to get reps and go for it and know, oh, I'm gonna be way better at this at the end than at the beginning.

Like, I'm actually gonna not be good at this and that's okay.

And a lot of people in sales, they'll say the rejection therapy, get reps, get rejected, do some cold calls.

And then after 100 cold calls, you're like, all right, well, I'm gonna get rejected, but it's not as painful.

And then that's one step.

And then the next step is whenever you actually do land a sale, it's like, oh man, like not only am I not as afraid of the pain, but now there's a potential dopamine hit, boom.

So then people get even more excited.

So it's like with those conversations, whenever you fail, yeah, that sucks.

And he may butcher it and be like, can I sit down?

And they're like, whoa, that's some weird energy.

Yet maybe 12 times later, maybe five, maybe four, for your sake, we'll say three, maybe three times later, he goes, hey, can I sit down?

And they're like, yeah, let's do it.

And then he has a great conversation and that makes it all the worth it.

It's like hitting a birdie in golf.

Come on.

And then you're in for another three years for that one shot you hit three years ago.

And you just bought all your clubs.

That feeling is incredible though of hitting a great, I've never hit a birdie in my life because I never played a full round of golf, but I've gone to the driving range and hit a shot that I was like, oh, that's what it's supposed to feel like.

And you're chasing that dragon from then on.

It's like months later, you're like, in November I hit that shot.

And it's like, yeah, but you haven't done it since, but hey, I'm still here.

One of the things I love about you is that you understand the importance of talking to people, but you're actually pretty good at it.

So.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah, and we were having a conversation and you shared this example of these college students you were working with and you were talking about talking to people.

There were several of them, multiple of them, and they're like, yeah, I really want to do that, but I don't know how.

It actually, the conversation started, I was talking about something or maybe telling them about me and this friend on Mondays.

And one of them asked, oh, actually no, it was this.

I sat down with the three of them, four of them, and just started getting to know them.

And one of them, who I know well, goes, how do you know what questions to ask people?

Like, where do you get all these questions from?

And I kind of thought for a second, and I was like, well, I want to just try to be genuinely interested.

And then once you have a question or you get somebody talking about something they enjoy, they kind of enter, they open up and you just keep asking questions in that direction, you know?

Oh, tell me more about that.

Oh, I heard you say this, like, that was really cool.

Have you thought about this?

And it just spirals, it's really cool.

So I was telling them about what I do on Mondays with this friend for lunch.

They were like, wow, that's really scary.

And also sounds really cool and I was like, yeah, I mean, do you guys want to come do it?

Because I really think it would be such a valuable thing to do for anybody.

Actually, I think I would, I think I would do that.

So I didn't, we haven't had the ability to follow up.

Maybe we will or won't, I'm not sure.

But regardless, the openness to want to do that was really cool.

And that's what I told them.

I was like, well, you just know, I basically be honest, like literally what me and this buddy do is we go, we come up to somebody, you know, sometimes we have to wave them down because they're staring at a screen that got their earbuds in.

How do you wave them down?

Do you wave with your hand in between the phone?

I just like put my hand down.

You know, most people have that sixth sense for like, ah, somebody's approaching my, yep.

And I'll just, we just say, hey, every Monday, we try to sit down with somebody that we don't know and have lunch and get to know them.

Can we have lunch with you?

That's literally what we say every time, some form of that.

And 95, I think we've been turned down twice.

One of them was cause it was two people that were in a conversation.

So I was, and I literally gave them permission.

I was like, hey, can we sit down with you?

Also, if you guys are in the middle of something, like don't worry about it.

And they're like, yeah, actually we'd rather not.

I'm like, cool.

And then another one like saw, I'm like the older guy, you know, sometimes the like Christian, you know, groups wanna sit down and have like a really intense conversation, power to it.

But they were like, no, we don't.

I'm like, yeah, don't hang out with us.

I'm not one of these guys.

I wasn't necessarily, but I was like, cool.

And then we just went to a different table and talked to somebody else.

So anyway, I told these like four gals, hey, just get some reps, just do it.

And commit to it and it's really helpful if you have somebody there with you because then you're not gonna give up together or a lot less likely.

But hey, say you, I mean, think about this.

This is the growth mindset too.

It's like, say you're like, hey, we're gonna go do this.

And it's Monday and we're going up to lunch and you get really scared and you like kind of approach.

I've had a couple of those even this semester.

I've done this a long time where you're like, you kind of approach somebody and then you like turn around, turn real quick.

Psych yourself out.

I'm like, say you did that.

And then you actually didn't talk to somebody and you just had lunch with your friend.

That's okay.

Because guess what?

You showed up with the intention.

You ever done that before?

Oh no?

Oh, guess what?

That's improvement from where you were before.

So just build on that the next week.

Start somewhere and then guess what?

In a semester, a year, you look back and just laugh.

Yeah, I was dealing with that the other, a few weeks ago, I went to a place and I saw somebody who I just rarely see because they are, it seems silly to say, but a local celebrity.

And I thought it would be really cool to connect with this individual, but I left, I was thinking about it, I was thinking about it and I chickened out.

And I was driving home and I had somebody with me.

And I was telling him, that is so weak of me.

I am the Talk to People guy.

Every week I am releasing a new podcast episode that says life is better when you talk to people.

And I had an opportunity to talk with someone and I didn't.

So I pulled my car into the garage and I walked in and I said, we're going back.

And I got back in the car and I drove back and there was two things I was thinking.

One thing was, I sort of wish this person's not there.

Yeah, totally, yep.

Because then I'm like, oh man, at least I tried to go back.

And then the second thing was, I sort of wish this person is there.

And the person was there, we had a great conversation, we connected after that.

How'd you open that conversation?

How'd you initiate it?

I smiled and then I put my hand out to wave and I said something that was like, hey, you did, I gave them essentially a compliment associated with what they were doing, like with their career, because it's quite public.

So I was like, hey, you did well, you know, and then it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's your name?

And da, da, da, talking, then having a couple of questions in mind, I don't encourage people to play conversations in their head because oftentimes they go way different than we expect, but there is some merit to having a couple of questions in mind.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

And I know we were talking about favorite questions to ask and you gave me some and that's such a fun conversation, but I'd left feeling like, hey, I'm doing it.

Yeah, totally.

Integrity, that's what that was.

Yeah, that was integrity.

And I don't wanna be here.

It's just like a pastor on a pulpit or organizational leader when they're speaking to their company at the board meeting or a nonprofit founder and they're talking to volunteers.

You don't wanna be that person who's saying things and whenever opportunities arise, they're not following through.

A question for you, whenever you are thinking about talking to people and whenever you are doing those conversations, sometimes they don't always go deep.

No.

Do you feel pressure of, or give me, because I know, I don't know, but I suspect at one point in your ministry career, you felt pressure to be like, oh, I need to make it about Jesus.

So what's been that evolution like?

Yeah.

Well, I would say, you know, I'm with Young Life and like the heart of Young Life culture is very deeply relational.

Like a phrase is like earn the right to be heard or belong, help someone belong before they believe.

And so like the, and love people regardless of their response.

So Young Life and I definitely air on the side of building bridges and then like maybe not crossing them or crossing them too late.

Cause I think those conversations need to be had.

I think it also for me came to kind of an authenticity piece where, you know, you could go and you could do that.

And this isn't like people can go into this authentically.

I think I struggled with like, okay, say I want to go into the union and talk to 10 people about Jesus.

Like that to me, like in my conscience, it was more about me completing like something that I was doing.

It made the people a project rather than like people.

And so I think like a shift that was really natural and easy for me.

So it wasn't like I, I don't think I ever actually had that goal of like 10 people, but that's a good caricature of like what I felt at times.

Is I'm just going to genuinely be interested in these people because God made them their people.

And everybody's got a story.

Like I'll have these moments sometimes when I'm in a crowd or like a sporting event or something.

And maybe I'm just weird like this, but like I'll just kind of look around and have a moment to myself where I'm just like looking around being like, I wonder what these people's story is.

Me too at the stoplight.

Yeah, cause you talk to anybody long enough and you realize like there have been immensely painful things and successes that have shaped them all.

And you know, the other piece too is like, none of us are our own.

I remember having this moment, this is years ago, maybe like 10 years ago or something like that.

But I remember being able to be in Indiana where my mom grew up and I have a grandmother that's there and I was visiting her and my grandfather passed a long time before that.

But I had the sense I just wanted to go to his gravesite.

And I did and the overwhelming sense that I had was the sense of I'm not my own.

Like as much as we like to think it, like yes, we have a responsibility and agency in our lives, but I am utterly shaped by the boundaries of my life, the time, space, culture, all those things, but also like you just think about genetics or personality or like, it's like my, I've been utterly shaped by my grandfather and his grandfather and all of the things that have the chain reaction that have led to me like being here, which I'm like God's sovereign over all those things, I'm not my own, which also means that like, I'm not my own in the sense that I have responsibility for all of the other people that I'm influenced over or have influence in.

In front of.

Anyway, so to come back to the answer to your question, then I've got a, that really sparked another thought, was that it was just a, and this is what I've trained my friend with on Mondays is just be genuinely interested, care about, like actually go in wondering, praying, hope.

Like we can, we pray that like we arrive in a spiritual place, but we don't aim to get there every time.

It's kind of like, if it naturally moves that direction, that makes sense.

If not, that's fine, because there's a hope and prayer that we'll see them again.

And we want to treat them as valuable, not because we need something from them.

Actually, that's probably the biggest piece.

Like, if I'm going to embody God's unconditional love, an unconditional love doesn't mean like we're good where we're at.

It means that we're loved where we're at, even if God would shape us to be something more.

Is that, like, unconditional love means I don't need anything from you.

Heck, I told that to a student last week and she cried.

Like, hey, I actually don't need anything from you.

Because she had done all the talking, I was doing all the question asking, and at the end of it, she was like, hey, I'm really sorry that, like, I did all the talking and stuff, and I was like, hey, no worries, I don't need anything from you.

Yeah.

And I think that was such a relief.

She probably is one of those people that feels like she has to carry a lot for other people, and that was really leaving.

And so when I don't need somebody to respond to me in a certain way when we show up and meet somebody, if I don't need them to say yes, I don't need them.

Granted, sometimes, like, that's my ideal.

I don't always feel that.

It actually helps me love them because I don't need anything from them.

If I go in with I need to arrive at Jesus, then I need something from them.

Mm, that's awesome.

Yeah.

There's some people who are listening who don't identify with religion at all, and it is really good to think about, people aren't projects, and like this, we're framing it, talking about it via college ministry, but with family members or with friends or neighbors, there's a ton of disappointment when you view people as projects, and you view your ability, your self-efficacy, your value, and whether or not you're able to change people to give up this or take up that.

But thankfully, we have opportunities to initiate conversations, and you said something that I really liked.

You said you love to, or one of the things you aim to do is be able to interact with people, so to ask them questions so that they can discover themselves.

And I've always thought about that too, and the idea of personal value.

I want you, or I want your value.

My goal with a whole bunch of different stuff is to increase people's self-perception of their value.

I want them to feel valuable.

I want them to know that they are valuable.

You are loved.

You have so much to contribute.

And there are moments in life where we don't feel that way.

We feel like we're not bringing anything to the table.

We feel like we're a burden.

But that's so sweet to hear is this idea of discovering themselves and then this isn't a project.

Yeah, I need people to help me discover myself.

I mean, this kind of comes back to that we're not our own piece, but I've helped a lot of people dating relationships.

We talked about this.

College is a significant time of life for that.

And there's been lots of times where somebody comes to me with relationship problems and they're like, what do I do?

How do I think about this?

And I asked some questions and maybe I could see, oftentimes now I can see, here's like the way, here's the pathway that would actually help you solve this or be the next right step.

And I can see it from the outside, clearly, but they can't see it from the inside.

Well, guess what?

When I'm in a similar situation, I actually don't see it clearly for myself.

Yeah.

Really, I mean, I remember having that epiphany for the first time, I was like, very humbling, because you're like, wait, I'm supposed to be the one who knows how to do this and I feel very ill-equipped right now.

Oh, I think some of it has to do with just the emotional involvement.

Like, you know, when you're emotionally invested in something, it really clouds our vision and ability to see things clearly.

And so for me, it's like, we need each other.

Like, I need people to, that's why, you know, it's like with the abundance of counselors, plans are established, you know.

It's like, we actually need people that know us, trust us, that we trust, that we can trust to give us insight and steer us.

Yeah, I was meeting with my therapist the other week and he told me the most obvious thing.

I was like, oh yeah.

And it legitimately changed my position on something that I was actively digging my heels in.

And it was this really simple thing and I heard it and I just thought, that makes perfect sense.

But I was wallowing, I wasn't wallowing, I was actively like on the offensive of this thing and so having somebody from a different perspective, being able to weigh in on that, it's crucial.

And you said the abundance of counselors' plans are made.

The wisest people are not those that make a lot of decisions in a vacuum.

Decision making is key.

Like we said, fight, flight, freeze.

You need to be able to make a decision, but you're going to be best longterm if you can build a board of directors, not for your business or your company.

Like you need that for entrepreneurial pursuits as well, but for your life.

So what's been something that's been weighing on you too that you've been doing lately that you believe others, if they adopt it, can improve their quality of life?

Something that cold showers in the morning.

Yeah.

I've just really liked it.

Some of it's the discipline that just do it first thing in the morning.

Some of it is, it genuinely feels really good.

I know there's studies on the physiological effects of it too, so that's helpful.

But if you get 11 minutes in one week, apparently it increases the dark something, the brown fat in your body, which-

Which is the good kind.

Yeah, the great kind.

Cool.

So go for 11 minutes in one week.

Okay, that's good.

Now, let's talk about thought shifts, paradigm shifts.

Oh, man.

Like for instance, that statue of David.

Yeah, that's a huge one.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm glad you asked.

There's, yeah, I feel like I've even, I'm not to think about some of the things I've shared over the last even couple months as I'm closing up my time in Young Life staff, but the, I'd say one that's similar and also really impactful for me is, so one of the things in the scripture, it's like forgive others as God has forgiven you.

There's this time when Jesus' disciples, they come to him and they ask, how many times must I forgive my brother?

Like seven times, and apparently in that culture, it was like three was a good, like a generous number.

That was kind of what was expected.

So Peter, the disciples asking this, is probably thinking he's like, oh man, I'm doing good.

I just asked seven times.

And the famous response from Jesus is 77 times or seven times, seven times.

And 70 times, seven times, translations.

And the point is this, like you keep on forgiving.

It's not like a specific number.

It's hyperbole to say, just keep going.

And it struck me once that who is the person who's gonna sin most against you in your whole life?

Yourself.

Is yourself, which means that the application to forgive yourself over and over and over again.

Wow.

Cause I, you know, that's again, very self critical in times of stress.

And so I was holding myself to a higher standard than to God.

And I think another piece of it too, is like confession or repentance is really powerful.

Regardless of whether you're religious or not, being brutally honest with someone, coming out of something you're hiding is exceptionally freeing.

It's actually, you know, from a religious perspective, from a Christian perspective, it's actually the means by which to remain faithful when we're faithless.

Like we actually, that's why, I think there's a place in the scripture where like David, King David is like recognizes blameless according to the law.

Like you think about the life of David, man was not blameless at all.

In fact, God even says like, you're not gonna be the one to build the temple.

You're one of your son's will, because you have too much blood on your hands.

But it can say that he's blameless according to the law, because the process of the law, I mean, the law of the Old Testament is vastly what to do when you sin, not just how to not be against God.

And so like he fulfilled all of that.

Oh yeah, like it's like taking for granted, messing up, but in response to messing up.

Right, and so same as a Christian, like it's actually the same pattern.

It's just that we have Christ.

We're not making a sacrifice, as Christ's sacrifice was the once for all.

And so now we can bring that confession, and we're still faithful, even though we've been faithless, and that cleanses us.

And that's really healing too.

And I think it was probably six or seven years ago that like really coming clean on some things with a friend, I was like, you know, it was even to the points where like, if this happens again, I want you to punch me.

Literally punch me.

Like I need some kind of consequence here.

And it ended up being something that like the consequences I have to tell my wife.

Which is a great deterrent.

And I have had to do that a few times, and it's been shockingly healing.

And I'm far more free from those things than I ever was before.

And so it's amazing how that works.

But forgiving yourself, being brutally honest.

So I love that.

And I absolutely love how you said, who sins against you the most?

And it is yourself.

We are, more people, there are, the majority of people that I interact with would identify as self-critical.

And it makes me wonder what that breakdown is.

And my hypothesis is that it's way more people who would identify as self-critical than people who would not.

So that message of forgiving yourself is crucial and it's essential.

Now, as you articulate these thoughts, these abstract concepts that can end up having like follow-up application that can change your life, how does one improve at that?

How does one get better at articulating thoughts like that and communicating them so that other people can implement them in their life?

You remember when we talked about having other people to invest in?

That's a huge piece.

Like a lot of this is reflection, but then also trying to give away what I've received.

I think that's a good phrase.

Somebody might, I try to teach young leaders this.

If you don't know where to start, like in leading somebody, you're helping somebody, like just give away what you've received or give away what you're receiving.

I think, yes, prayer is a huge piece of this.

I started with having somebody, but like a lot of these ideas maybe in their phrase have come through some prayer time and some listening for the Lord and some journaling, being brutally honest, kind of coming to terms and trying to put the idea out and consolidating and shifting it and editing it to get to a place where it's like, oh my gosh.

And maybe I've done that in prayer and in journaling or maybe I've done that in conversation, which is kind of that part of, I need people to help me discover myself.

To a degree, some people more than others, we're all external processors.

We're all internal processors too, but actually having somebody to interact with and trying to get things out of our head and into words, whether it's written or verbal, it just helps immensely in clarifying thoughts and ideas and things like this.

And then somebody who's been in a teaching role and a mentorship role, well then I turn around and I give that to somebody else.

And then that kind of, sometimes I give it away better than others too.

So just continue to try to sharpen it.

So in your current role and in the past, essentially, in your life right now, the way that you get better at it and the way you're doing it most is via conversation.

Yeah, probably most, most often.

And what would you say to somebody who isn't in a mentorship role like you, maybe they are a grocery store, shelf, stalker, but they wanna get better at what we're talking about currently, but they're not in these mentorship conversations all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, one question that came to my mind when you were talking earlier, we were talking about having a multi-generational community is like, I know that in the church, but I'm trying to think, where else can people get a multi-generational community?

Like, do you know of any?

It's tough, this public swimming pool.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Maybe like a business, like a job, there's probably multi-generational and stuff like that.

And maybe that's something you, maybe that would be the first place to start.

So if somebody wanted to build some of those relationships is to go, what are the spaces I'm already at in my life?

And like, which ones of those am I in like a leadership role or like, am I maybe the young person or less experienced?

You know, what's multi-generational?

And so just starting where I'm at and then see if that draws in any ideas.

And if you're like, oh my gosh, I actually don't have any, go look for one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's still be valuable.

Maybe that's the poll.

Maybe if you're asking the question, listening to something like this and going, yeah, I really need that.

I don't have it.

Well, like it's actually worth going to look for and screwing up.

If it's, here's another little motto I heard from somebody else that I thought was good.

If it's, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly to start.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly.

Yeah.

And that lines up with this.

You can't steer a ship that's docked.

Yeah.

And, and I think my experience too, and like trying to live up to the values or the aims, I think you said this in your conversation about like like you've leaving a person or, you know, not talking to somebody and like getting back to your driveway and literally driving back.

It's like I have like, no, I gotta go back.

Very admirable is on the back end of that, like I don't know how you felt when I do stuff like that.

I feel a lot more whole and complete.

Totally.

Whole and complete, a lot more full.

And I've come to love that feeling.

In the experience I've had, I've come to love and know that feeling well enough that it's really motivating to go, man, like the short-term feeling that may be like bailing on something or like giving into a temptation would give is not as appealing as the feeling of being, man, like whole and complete on getting through that.

You know, facing your fears, like whatever else, that's really great for me.

When did you make that realization?

Oh man, I don't know, it probably took years.

Yeah, I mean, it definitely in the last 10 years.

Yeah, because for me, the realization of if I don't bail was sometime in grad school for me because I started, I had a community group that was an intergenerational community group.

So I had someone there who was running a really successful business and I got to watch them sell out to a bigger business.

And I was listening to this market, marketing, stock market podcast.

And the guy said, one of the best things for a smaller business is for a big business to get the hots for your company and buy it out because they see opportunity, they see potential and they're going to offer you a value.

That's going to probably be much higher than if you actually look at all the numbers and multiply revenue by the multipliers and all that stuff.

And that's what happened to him.

And he sold his business.

And it was really cool to see that.

So as a grad student, I'd show up and I'd see the successful business person.

I didn't know anything about business, but I was right there.

I was in his house.

I got to ask him questions.

Yet still before that, I'd think, I don't know if I wanna go, you know?

I don't know.

I don't know if I wanna go.

I think I just wanna chill.

And I had a professor at KU that we spoke about briefly who studies this and he's like, most of the stuff that's worth doing is hard, right?

And you have to force yourself to do that.

And that applies to that as well.

Just because we recognize it's incredibly impactful in our life, doesn't mean there's not gonna be some moments where we don't wanna do it.

And that's great to know with talking, you know?

Like talk to people, oh man, but Chris, it's hard.

I don't wanna do that.

And I do have grace for that.

I don't wanna be the person who's like, this is always the way.

Because honestly, talking to people is so overrated.

And some of the worst things to do at sometimes is to run your mouth.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to listen.

So sometimes I think of renaming this podcast of like.

Listen to people.

Yeah, listen to people.

Sometimes talk, like focus on the relationship.

Don't run your mouth.

But it's talk to people and we're gonna run with that for a little while.

All right, I got a concluding question for you.

Okay, so what's something that you are incredibly interested in and you really enjoy, but you don't talk about often?

Very funny.

This is the question that I told Chris is one of my back rocket questions.

Right, let's see how good you are at answering it.

I know, well, I feel like an answer I've given, because people, most people turn that question around on me.

Uno reverse.

Yeah.

Yeah, you gotta give two answers then.

Oh, yeah, I'd say maybe a simple answer would be something like fishing.

Like I really enjoy fishing.

I don't get to do it very much, but I enjoy it a lot.

I really enjoy history.

Some of the reading I've done over the years is on like cycles, patterns in history, generations.

You know, history never repeats itself, but it always rhymes.

Yeah.

And I think this quote is falsely attributed to Churchill, maybe positive, I don't know.

I don't know who it comes from, but it's the farther you look into the past, the farther you can see into the future.

And I think it's really valuable.

So I really enjoy history that way.

Again, I don't read a ton of it, but when I do, I really enjoy it.

And just the way things-

Any book in particular that has been really good for you?

Well, one that really was my first experience, so it was called The Fourth Turning by a guy named Neil Howe and William Strauss.

Howe is still working alive.

Working alive, and if I remember right, well, one of them was a historian, one of them was an economist.

And that was really influential.

And then I've kind of started to pick up on patterns like this in a lot of things.

And so, yeah, oh man, patterns, patterns in life, everything's a fractal.

We could have a whole nother conversation on stuff like that.

So, final parting message.

I feel like we could roll for a while, but I want to honor your time.

Yeah, well, I got my friend and I, we've got that noon lunch that we do on Monday.

Okay, final parting message.

What you got?

Oh my gosh, I feel like that, well, okay, final parting message, building off of what we were just talking about and the patterns like, that means that everything that we do matters from the very mundane of things to like the things that we think are really extravagant and awesome that look great on a resume or on like Instagram or whatever else that we want to present to the people.

Even the things that are behind closed doors, they matter too because they shape us.

And another one of the huge beauties of Jesus.

Like I actually believe that the God who created all things became a human.

It defies all logic.

That means that in God's eyes, the one who created it all, it is so utterly valuable as to become a part of it, to redeem, to reconcile it back to himself, to what it's meant to be.

And so like we all have mundane parts of our lives, and those are no less worthy of love than the ones that we wish we had.

Well said.

Whenever I'm thinking about this, when I'm thinking about building this podcast, a collection of conversations, some podcasts, what they do is they ask how or what.

They ask, what did they ask?

They ask what or how?

They ask, how did you do what?

How did you fix the airplane as good as you did?

And people know you for fixing the airplane.

But some people, I wanna ask why and how do you think?

Okay?

So one of the biggest, one of the things that excited me most about having you here was whenever I was interacting with you, I could tell you had certain things, certain thoughts, certain beliefs that translated into how you behaved.

And I could tell that you valued conversation and you value talking to people.

So then the goal here was, okay, rather than talking about the actual methodology, like sure, that's important, but I'm interested in what are the mental layers of thoughts that somehow packaged up into the outcome of it's important to talk to people and it's important to live life in conversation.

So thanks for being here.

Yeah, thanks, Chris.

It's been really, really good.

I appreciate you.

Well, I mean, we got there at the end, probably throughout, like tip the hat to your conversational skills as well.

Appreciate you, man.

It's really encouraging.

It takes two to tango.

Well, folks, we will see you next time.