Speaker 1: 0:04

All right back. You're looking very svelte tonight. Really, You've been working out.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Yes, I have Awesome, Not today.

Speaker 1: 0:14

Not today.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Just wanted to make me laugh today. Yes, exactly, thank you dear.

Speaker 1: 0:18

Yeah, we're recording this, not in your sweet spot.

Speaker 2: 0:22

It's no, it's almost nine o'clock at night. Yeah, Usually after nine is when I go down, but yes.

Speaker 1: 0:28

And a good tip for marriage is they say never have an important discussion after nine and before I don't know five or whatever. Right, that makes a lot of sense, but definitely after nine o'clock, all right. So today I'm super excited about this podcast. It was we kind of decided to go this direction and it might interrupt our summer health series. But I'm in a process or kind of in this phase of the book writing where we're like we need to. Well, we're gonna share something at the end, but what we want to talk about today is becoming the person who deserves the life you desire.

Speaker 1: 1:06

That concept will be in the book, probably potentially the tagline. So I don't want to give too many secrets away. We're still finishing all that stuff out, but we are all about freedom. I identified several years ago that my core value is freedom, and not just the American style of freedom, but beyond that. But the truth is, bad things happen when we get freedom we're not ready for. If you've ever had a child and you've emancipated them, maybe prematurely, like we've been talking about the concept of emancipating your children, when they have freedom that they're not ready for, they tend to make mistakes, right.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Yes, I think it was in Baby Wise or one of the parenting books we utilized early on, where they talked about just too much freedom for a child that's not age appropriate is actually really damaging for them. They need to see the fence around the playground to know where the boundaries are.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Yeah, and I don't even remember where that's drawn. I think it was actually an old social experiment where they put kids I don't remember the age group, but they put kids in a field or a playground and with no fence, and what they found is the kids tended to congregate towards the middle and then, when they put the fence up, they knew, okay, these are the boundaries, and they started to use the entire playground or field, whatever it was. We'll have to find the details on that, but it's a very interesting experiment. It's a great. It's really how we live. So kind of just talking about the consequence of getting freedom that you're not ready for.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Within two years of retirement, sports illustrated found that 78% of athletes are bankrupt or under financial stress. So I'm gonna share a couple of stories. One of these come from a Bleacher Report article all the way back from 2012. So I can only imagine how many more stories have evolved since then. And actually, if you go all the way back to my episode with Dennis Sarfate, well over a year ago, he was a what? 21 year professional baseball player, nine years in the majors and I think 12 or 11 or 12 in Japan, but he shared some specific stories about people just kind of blowing the seeming fortune that they came into. But reading this article came across this name that rang a bell for me. Rakib, who went by rocket Ismail, signed the richest contract in football history. He thought he was set for life. But he told sports illustrated. Ismail's then unheard of 4.55 million salary disappeared almost as fast as he earned and it's kind of funny thinking that it's now a tiny salary by modern standards, but that was a big salary back in the day.

Speaker 2: 3:55

Was that from 2012 or 12 years?

Speaker 1: 3:56

Well, I don't remember when he played the articles from 2012, but, he played even prior to that. So Rakib said I looked at my bank statement and said and I just went what the blank? So basically at the time, rich's contract in NFL history. And basically he looked at his bank statement and nothing.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Well, how about this one? The most outrageous story of an athlete going broke doesn't come from the NFL. The NBA's Anton Walker earned over a hundred million dollars during his career but was arrested in 2009 for writing bad checks. What happened to this nine figure fortune? He spent it all. Walker also loved expensive watches like bejeweled Cartiers Is that how you say it, Cartier?

Speaker 1: 4:46

Cartier, cartier.

Speaker 2: 4:47

I think neither one of us are into that kind of stuff, neither one of us own a Cartier, watch Cartier and ordered closets full of custom tailored suits, like perhaps the kind your brother promotes.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Yes, which can easily run $10,000 plus.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Wow.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Yeah, per suit.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Okay, walker loved to gamble in more ways than one. His constant trips to Vegas were a constant drain on his bank account. 50,000 doesn't sound like much compared to 110 million, but do the math A $50,000 weekend of VIP living every other weekend for 12 years is 15.6 million, roughly 15% of Walker's net income. Add in the Bentley's and the Cartiers and the mansions and the suits and you can see why Walker is now living on cold cuts and cold cereal in the NBA D-League Ouch.

Speaker 1: 5:34

And that's at the time of this article, which was 11 years ago.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Oh humbling.

Speaker 1: 5:37

And then, of course, we've all heard the stories about lottery winners. 70% of lottery winners end up broke or worse off than when they started. Business Insider has an article of the top 20 lottery winners who lost it all, and here's just a few examples. So before Laura and Roger Griffiths of England won their $2.76 million lottery jackpot in 2005, reportedly they never argued, or maybe they just kept it to a minimum. Then they won and bought a million dollar barn, converted house and a Porsche, not to mention luxurious trips to Dubai, monaco and New York City. It's funny, you know 2.7. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn't, especially when you start traveling. Media stories say that their fortune ended in 2010. So just five years later, when a freak fire gutted their house, which was underinsured, forcing them to shell out for repairs in seven months of temporary accommodations. That's a huge mistake, being underinsured. Shortly after, there were claims that Roger drove away in the Porsche after Laura confronted him over emails suggesting that he was interested in another woman. That ended their 14 year blissful marriage.

Speaker 2: 6:51

Then this story about William quote Bud Post, who won 16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988, but he was $1 million in debt within a year. I wish it never happened. Post said it was a total. It was totally a nightmare. A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a third of his winnings and his brother was arrested for allegedly allegedly hiring a hitman to kill him in the hopes he'd inherit a share of the winnings. After sinking money into family businesses, post sank into debt and spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector. I was much happier when I was broke, he said. According to the Washington Post, bud lived quietly on a $450 a month in food stamps until his death in 2006. Wow, sad, so uncommon freedom. It is not about getting a windfall as fast as humanly possible. When you get rich quick, you go broke even faster. It's about making stewardship a habit and letting the compound effect do its thing.

Speaker 1: 7:48

You know, beck, one of the phrases that we've heard and I think these stories just drive that point home is that money. You know, the Bible is frequently misquoted, even in a great Pink Floyd song. You know, do tell, I'm trying to remember the exact quote right now, but the bottom line is money is not the root of all evil.

Speaker 2: 8:12

The love of money is the root of all evil and money in itself is a moral.

Speaker 1: 8:16

It could be used for great things good and it could be used for absolutely horrible things, and what we've learned is that money makes people more of who they already are. If they're big spenders who spend outside of their budget or what they can afford, they're going to do that. They're basically going to be broke at a higher level and actually the consequences of being broke as a millionaire or multimillionaire are much worse than being broke as someone who's living in poverty. You get out of being broke as someone who's living in poverty much quicker than you can the multimillionaire, and if you're a generous person, you're going to be more of a generous person.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Like people do not change just because of money. You know. Think of people who are just and I've been there not wanting a family member to die, but just thinking man. It would be great to get an inheritance Just to ease some of the financial challenges and constraints that we had early on and, in many ways, grateful that that didn't happen. I mean, we got a few small gifts from family and grandparents have passed away and those were a huge plus.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Really helpful, yeah, but we're also talking I think the largest was maybe $5,000, maybe closer to two, but uncommon freedom, as we're talking about is about becoming the person who deserves the life you desire.

Speaker 2: 9:37

Was it only five? Yeah, and my grandfather passed. I thought that we paid off our land. We're on podcast and we're kind of, you know, riffing here, but just to be clear, it wasn't a lot. Okay, yeah, it definitely was a little bit more than that, because we paid off our land, which was a really big deal for us, that we had maybe a little more, but definitely not a lot. Okay, if anyone who knows grandpa's listening we may have misquoted there, we'll just say we don't know for sure, asterix there we go, carry on.

Speaker 1: 10:03

So I love this concept of you know I've been thinking about this a lot, like with our kids. Our kids are benefiting from the uncommon freedom that we have worked towards.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Yes.

Speaker 1: 10:21

They have not earned it yet.

Speaker 1: 10:25

So they need to become, as they become adults. They need to become the type of people that deserve the life that they're accustomed to, and it's why we try to, you know, microdose adversity for them and teach them like, just as an example, our oldest son. We have space for him to park in the garage, and it's hot, it's Arizona. I do not let him park in the garage and it might sound cruel, but the reality is many of the people we know have cars that they drive every single day here in Arizona. Yes, we're on like a 20, 30 day streak of triple digit temperatures. It's hot, and I've gotten into his car to go places with him. It's bloody hot.

Speaker 1: 11:10

But we didn't park a car in a garage until we were in our 30s and we had to earn it, and we also lived in Ohio. We had to get into freezing cold cars and shovel, you know, scrape the snow off and start it and things like that. And so my point to him is you haven't earned it yet. You have to earn the right to park your car in the garage, and there's many adults who aren't even there yet. So there's no way in the world I'm going to spoil you as a 16 year old boy and let you do that.

Speaker 2: 11:38

I think it's a balance to know too that, like, what we're saying in parenting is not that we want to, we don't want to give good gifts to our kids, we don't want to be loving. We don't want to bless them, because not everything should be attached to earning something. You know. God doesn't require us to earn his love, it's given freely.

Speaker 2: 11:53

So, our love is given freely, but when it comes to some of the extra blessings, I think that come from a household where you have more resources or even more considerate of it, because we realize the income and the wealth that we've created can destroy our kids Absolutely. It can destroy them now by just creating spoiled brats, and it can destroy them in the future if we pass away and we just hand them an inheritance that they don't know how to manage. There's plenty of stories of those kids and kids that have been ruined as young adults, and so for us, we just keep telling them that. You know, part of our responsibility at a higher level is to just raise you with more standards when it comes to managing money and work ethic, because we could make your life extremely easy.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Yeah. So as we've kind of, when we heard the phrase in Common Freedom, I know for me, I immediately resonated with like that's it. I understood what it meant. Yes, but when we have that conversation with complete strangers or people that don't know us well and they haven't kind of seen our life evolve over the last 25 years, specifically the last 12 or you know maybe 14 to see where we were before things, you know, we all of a sudden took off. But we there's a couple of concepts and I'm excited because I think when the book comes out we're going to really have a great elevator pitch explanation type for what uncommon freedom is. But there's a couple of concepts that we've been kind of massaging for a while. The first is just reaching your potential and maximizing your impact. When you talk about all the different areas of life marriage, finances, health, spirituality, parenting there are so many people that do not reach their potential Number one they settle, they go for good, or they they accept good instead of going for great.

Speaker 1: 13:35

And also is this concept of maximizing your impact, I mean especially for you and I. As Christians, we believe we're put here on earth, and I also love how you know our friend John Bavir, who's an amazing author. In his book X he talks about the fact that God will find people like we're. We have a destiny to do great things and many of us don't do the great things that we're called to do, and what a shame it is when he has to find someone else to do those and they get to reap the blessing. And so just this concept of we're not only here to reach our potential so we can have tons of money, takes awesome vacations, live in a great house, drive nice cars it's about maximizing our impact in the world.

Speaker 2: 14:19

And for Kingdom purposes truly is what we believe.

Speaker 2: 14:21

Yeah, the other thing is to be the dominant force, you know, determining your course in life. And so, you know, I love the examples of thinking about the Israelites. They still had to step in to the Red Sea, you know, they still had to go through the desert, they had to take action steps and God usually is waiting for us to take action, to then show up and match with whatever favor he's going to give us moving forward. And it's we always say things like, you know, pray like it depends on God, but, you know, do the work like it depends on us. And I think it's that action, that forward motion, that God meets us in. He rarely meets us in stagnancy. He's looking for people that are engaged, willing to do the work, you know, prayerfully, considering their next steps, but they have to take action.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Yeah, and the point is there's always going to be some type of force driving your life. And of course, we believe that God is omnipotent and that, ultimately, he can close doors. He can open doors, and so what we're not saying is we become God in our life, but what we're saying is you know, God has pretty much. You know, he put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He said here's paradise, and. But he gave them the free will to screw it up if they wanted to, and that's what they did.

Speaker 1: 15:31

And I think that many of us have our own version of an incredible life waiting for us on earth if we're willing to do the work, but we choose not to be the dominant force. We let the government dictate our success, we let circumstances dictate our success. And Darren Hardy talks about the fact that you know we're 100% responsible for everything that happens or doesn't happen in our lives. And then it's like well, what if you get hit by a car? Well, you're responsible for how you respond when you get hit by a car. And it's easy to say from the sidelines, but you hear stories of people who have had. I mean, we just finished watching Unbroken it was Amperini. I mean someone who shows to respond in a positive way to just unbelievable adversity.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Please watch that with your kids who are age appropriate. Like we were watching with our boys and you know so many times they were like I could never get through something like that, I could never do something like that, and it's like, well, we would hope that you're becoming a type of man that could get through something like that.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Yeah, and then so the other concept regarding uncommon freedom is being able to do what you want when you want with whom you want, and, for us, keeping a kingdom perspective on things. So I don't remember where I first heard that, but it also makes a lot of sense when you think about being able to do what you want when you want. So, when you want means are you enough? Are you control of your schedule? Like you know, when I was a police officer number one, we weren't able to do a lot of what we wanted because we didn't have the financial resources to do it. Number two, we rarely got to do it when we wanted because my schedule was so dictated and constrained by the police department, and same thing in the Marine Corps. And then the other thing is being able to do those activities when you want with the people that you enjoy spending time with, and, of course, for us it's keeping that kingdom perspective. I mean we could take more luxuriasifications than we do.

Speaker 1: 17:29

We choose to limit them because we've committed to giving to bigger purposes. But then the other thing is we also love being able to, when we feel called, to, go on a mission trip like we did in Georgia. We talked about that that beginning of the summer. We've also talked about our trip to Kenya. It was the ability to do that trip on our timeline, to not have to fundraise and to go with people that we wanted to go with. It's a game changer. It's an absolute game changer. So ultimately we're gonna figure out how to combine that, all of those different concepts, to give a better definition of uncommon freedom. But hopefully that helps you all start to kind of get a better picture of what we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 18:15

And then we wanted to cover what we think are the seven disciplines, which are really what will be covered in the book and part of what we're working on in our life, which is that we don't want to be completely out of balance in life, so we don't believe that everything in life will be balanced. That's not realistic. There's a lot of counterbalancing, a lot of creating harmony when things are flowing in life, because life is a lot about flow, especially if you have children and other people involved in your life. But the areas that we're looking to thrive in are health, wealth, marriage, family, community, spirituality and lifestyle, and when you can start to work towards thriving in all of these areas, then you can create what we would call uncommon freedom.

Speaker 2: 18:56

See, common behavior is to not thrive in all of these areas. It's to struggle in these areas, or to thrive in one area and then give up many of the other areas. So someone might be very wealthy, but they're overworked and their physical body's out of control, or their relationships are out of control. Or maybe they do something of meaning and purpose that they absolutely love, but it doesn't pay them well enough to support their family, and so there's a lot of stress. So what we're looking for is not a life of perfection, but a life of harmony and a life of counterbalance, but looking at these seven disciplines, knowing that these are what make up really a holistic life.

Speaker 1: 19:30

And when it comes to lifestyle, what we really want people to do is think about designing the lifestyle that they want. Becca and I, we enjoy living in the suburbs. Our favorite type of vacation is to a warm, sunny place.

Speaker 1: 19:50

Yes it is, but we're not big beach people as a general rule, other than the Bahamas. But that's what values to us and we have a lot of friends who are in similar economic status. They take very different vacations than us, and so I think the important thing to understand is some people the lifestyle that they want will thrive on $100,000 a year. Some might even thrive on $50,000 a year. Other people might need multiple millions of dollars a year to have the lifestyle that they want and it's okay regardless. But it's really thinking about what's important to you.

Speaker 1: 20:34

Just as an example, when we decided to move out about seven plus years ago, we always knew that we wanted to have a swimming pool in our backyard, because that was something that we used to go to the community pool with our kids, and anytime we went to a hotel or my parents house, we had a pond. We love swimming as a family, so that was a very intentional like. What is really important to us is having a swimming pool in our backyard, for other people might be having space, farming, gardening, who knows what it is, but there's definitely gonna be some resources in the book that will help people be very intentional about Designing their lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 21:09

What about with? This is not something we plan to talk about. What would you say to people who say, like how much is enough, though, like why always strive for more in your finances? Like the finish line could always move? You know why not just be happy with what you have?

Speaker 1: 21:23

Yeah, I think that goes back to reaching your potential and maximizing your impact. I don't think there's a person alive, or who has ever lived, other than Jesus, who could honestly say they have reached their potential In maximizer impact. I mean, if you read the book winning by Tim Grover, who you know was a trainer to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and some other elite athletes, you know these are people who many would say they were it like right there, the greatest of all time. And those people you know Michael Jordan is a great example always push. Now I think there's an unhealthy push on his part and on many people's part because they don't have that balance on those seven disciplines or spheres of life.

Speaker 1: 22:08

But I think for you and I, our push is we have, we've designed the lifestyle that we like and enjoy. And I don't know about you, but I'm at a place where, like, I'm very happy there's not like we can pretty much do what we want when we want. Our desire to continue is To number one, empower more people to experience uncommon freedom. And I said number one but honestly, that's probably number two to us. Number one is giving.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Yes.

Speaker 1: 22:39

We have just moved into a spot by committing a significant portion of our gross To causes that we are passionate about and we see the firsthand results, the positive impact that that's having. Our commitment is to at least maintain and really to grow so that we don't ever have to reduce the amount of giving. And we have other projects that we want to be able to fund in ministries we just want to be able to pour into at a higher level. So I would say that our a real drive for not settling is being able to maximize our impact, because the reality is We've maximized the impact with what we currently have, but if we were able to generate more revenue we can make, we could increase the impact even more.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Yeah, we believe in that stewardship principle, which is that you know, we want to earn more so we can give more and do more with it, and we're trying to show that we can be good stewards. We're not perfect stewards, but we want to be good stewards. So God will entrust us with more and we have big dreams. We have big plans and big ministries that we want to support. We want to change the culture in America to something that is God honoring.

Speaker 2: 23:50

And what I pray for is I pray for my second and third generations. So I want to see our four children go out into the world and make it a better place. We want them to be responsible, contributing humans. We want them to be Christ followers, and we just have a lot of dreams for them. But I realize that dreaming just with those four people it's. It's good, but what's really sweet is to think about our second and third generations that will never meet that 100 years from now, if the Lord doesn't come back, that they're now Reaping the benefits of the decisions we've made, the work ethic We've created, potentially the finances that we've empowered them with, and that they start to do things in the world that's even greater and and further than we could have ever done and that's gonna take diligence and prayer and sowing a lot of seed and also when you talk about you know why do you keep going?

Speaker 1: 24:39

maximize your impact? I think we all have. We have three things time, talents and treasures.

Speaker 2: 24:45

Those are the three main things that we have to steward Personally.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Every pretty much everything else has to do with other people, you know wealth, marriage, family, community but we all have time, talents and treasure, and the one thing that everyone has to steward is Is their talents. What are the gifts that God you know? What are the passions, the callings that you have, what are the skill sets that you really have and to focus on, you know, developing those and strengthening those? And then I think that there's that's kind of where there's a divide and that there's some people whose gift is Time.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Yes and others whose gift is treasure. When I think of Many of the ministries that we support, one of our passion is to make sure that those people are earning a living wage Like that. They're earning enough that they can not only just get by but really thrive. Right, and we Got his blessed us with the ability to earn income that funds what they can do. And some of those people they're just really passionate about being the boots on the ground, so they cannot function without the people who are Passion about stirring on the treasure side. And we can't do it. We can get, we can give money to charities, but if there aren't people with who are doing the boots on the ground, the hands of feet, then our money is useless. So I think those are the three key things and understanding that some of you it might be the timepiece. For you and I it tends to be more of the treasure piece.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Yes, God created us to be very efficient.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 26:23

We're very careful with how we spend our time and our capacity, but we love to fund and provide for people that are putting the time and energy in there. So let's talk about the trinity of uncommon freedom, which our first one is to always row upstream, and that's something I think we've been practicing since we were early married. I don't know, do you feel like you practiced that before you got married and like you were a young adult or a teenager? I don't know if I showed up that way, but something happened when God put the two of us together and you know debt was normal and we said we're not gonna have debt. You know we pay that off quickly.

Speaker 1: 26:55

I mean, I think part of it is I have a rebellious, I like to buck the system. So I think you do rowing upstream kind of it comes a little bit more natural to me for sure, but I don't think it's reasonable to Assume that it's easy for anybody right. Going against the grain is always difficult, just some people. It really makes them uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 27:16

I have a strong will, yes, I just don't know that I would necessarily buck the system. I wouldn't, the same way that you are in the concept of each other out the concept of rowing upstream.

Speaker 1: 27:25

The bottom line is, you know, culture is going downstream. This is the analogy we use. It's going towards a lack of physical health, a lack of financial abundance, it's called. It's going towards divorce instead of thriving marriages. It's going towards Passivity and parenting instead of being actively involved. It's going towards, you know, chaos, disruption and just all kinds of negative things. Right, and it's also going against having developing your spiritual life in a closer relationship with God. That is downstream. It's easy, and if you imagine being in a boat, most of society is in a boat. They don't. You don't have to do anything to go downstream right.

Speaker 1: 28:01

You. All you have to do is sit in the current of culture and you're going to go downstream. So the concept of everything of you know, in order to reach a potential Maximizer impact, you have to actively work at going upstream. If you've ever canoed or you know rafting or anything like that, it takes work and you have to actively engage in that. And the other thing is is that you need. The more people you have with you, especially in your boat that's where community is so important the easier it is to go against the grain. And we're never saying, you know, hey, screw you. To everyone who's going downstream, it's always an invitation to join us, but we're also not saying, hey, we're going to just decide to go downstream with you.

Speaker 2: 28:48

So the second principle is to get to one.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Tell us about that so the concept of get to one has to do I mean, really it's a it has to do with kind of mathematics and just understanding that when you multiply a negative number, you end up with a negative number and you can never get to a positive number when you have, when you're, multiplying a negative number. When you have a positive number, you'll always end up with a positive number when you do multiplication. Many of us have heard the story of would you rather have a million dollars or a penny that gets doubled every day for 30 days and when you get to the end of that 30 days, that penny is now worth 5 million 368,000, 709 dollars and 12 cents. That is the. That's what happens when you start with a tiny Positive number, just a penny point zero, one of a dollar.

Speaker 1: 29:41

So you know, one of my favorite parables in the Bible comes from Matthew 25.

Speaker 1: 29:46

It's a parable of the talents and in that you Different servants were given different amounts and one was given just one, and the Servant who was given the one did nothing with it. Had he done something with it, had he got a positive return on investment he, liked the other servants, would have been told well done, good and faithful servant, but because he choose to squander it and did not get a return on investment, he was cursed. And so I think this is where it's important in everything right, if your health, if you don't, if you're not thriving in your health, then you're less than one right, you're really dealing with a negative number, you're going downstream, and so the key is how do you get to one? You got to turn that health around. Same thing with your marriage. Financially, if your net worth is negative, you need to change that. And so that's the concept of always getting to one, because once you get to one, you can duplicate that, you can multiply it and you're always going to end up with a positive number.

Speaker 2: 30:50

Okay. And then the third attribute of the trinity of uncommon freedom is to upgrade your circle. So basically, bring people with you or find new ones, but don't stay stuck. And again we're talking about in God's economy, everyone has value, but there are anchors or engines. There are people that will either pull you back and down or will help you rise up and come out of wherever you've been, and so if you're the smartest, richest, healthiest person in the room, you need to find another room.

Speaker 2: 31:16

This is something we've been practicing the last year or two, which is getting into rooms with people that are way further along in life, making a bigger impact, have a bigger net worth, a bigger sphere of influence, have come farther in their health, stronger relationally or leadership-wise than we are, and it is Uncomfortable, but, man, is it so good to get in that room and realize that you have so much new to soak up, and then you become the next level of yourself and you show up differently. So just something to really consider is where is your circle, and are they people that are pulling you downstream, or are they picking up a row, getting into that canoe with you and going upstream, opposite of culture?

Speaker 1: 31:52

Yeah, and you know this, this could be tough because you know, a lot of us have long lasting relationships. You know childhood friends, high school friends, college friends or or family, of course, that we've been around with since we were born and and it can be very difficult to create some separation. And what we're not saying is you immediately cut people off at the knees, but what you're saying is you have to take an assessment. I think it's once again Darren Hardy talks about. You know, some people are like two second people. You know some people are two hour people, some people are two day people and some people are two week people and understanding that there's probably a lot of people in your life you think of the seven disciplines.

Speaker 1: 32:33

If they're not, if you wouldn't trade places with them, you probably need to have a conversation and Intentionally shift the amount of time. Now you can try to be an inspiration to them, you can invite them to join you on that upstream journey. But if they're not going to join you, the bottom line is, when you're trying to row upstream, if you link arms with somebody's going downstream, you're gonna be lucky. If you stay the same, most likely you're going to end up going downstream. So upgrading your circle is just being intentional and it's amazing. I mean, if you had asked me you know, kevin, you know who would you like to meet, and I would have said John fear, john Maxwell, and you know what were the chances of meeting either of those people? About one in a million. One in a million, yeah, so you're telling me the chance.

Speaker 1: 33:20

Yes, but one in a million and low and behold, because we have put ourselves in different circles. I mean, you went to a conference just less than a year ago.

Speaker 1: 33:31

Yes, thank you to Brooke Thomas, yeah you happen to run into John Devere in the hallway and had a conversation with him and that led to an invitation to go spend a weekend with him and his wife and you know a handful of other amazing couples at a retreat and has built a relationship, a friendship and kind of a similar story with John Maxwell. It was intentionally putting us ourselves where we were surrounding ourselves with people who were better than us and people who know, people who know people exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2: 34:05

I mean to be honest, part of the reason. You know, we held a fundraiser at a house a couple of years ago and Charlie Kirk came, and a congresswoman cat come back came, and Brandon Tatum came, and all of those came from just a direct, bold ask, where we were just like, hey, this is crazy. You know, you don't know us.

Speaker 2: 34:21

Yeah this is what we're doing. We have a mission. We want to see this Platform moved forward and we need strong, powerful voices to advocate alongside us. Will you come along? And every one of them said yes. So, it's been an interesting and crazy couple of years, as God just continues to give us opportunities in those rooms To be the small fish, to make the big ask and to have a lot of people say yes.

Speaker 1: 34:44

And what we've learned is truly successful people. They want other people to be successful. I think.

Speaker 2: 34:49

Maxwell just said big people make you feel bigger.

Speaker 1: 34:53

Yes, that's how he said it, yes and small people make you feel smaller.

Speaker 1: 34:57

Absolutely, absolutely. So I think you know it certainly can be intimidating, but what I've learned is that you know, obviously they need to have some boundaries and we understand that every yes has to be defended by a thousand no's. But ultimately, successful people want others to be successful. That's why they write books, right I mean, yes, can you make money from a book? Yes, but there's a tremendous investment that goes into it. Ultimately, I believe that most people write a book, especially when it comes to personal developments, because they want other people To harness the power that they found in the tips and tricks and things like that, or the habits and the disciplines, and Understanding that it is a compound effect over time.

Speaker 1: 35:38

So, matt, what a fun topic. I hope you all are inspired. I hope we're stirring this desire Inside of you for uncommon freedom. It's gonna look different for everybody, absolutely different, but I hope you're thinking about man. How can I Maximize my impact and how can I more Effectively reach my potential? Am I doing it yet? I know I'm not in any area of my life. I have room to grow in every single area, but I'm doing my best. So, really excited. We just had a meeting with our team helping me with the book About a month ago and we got to see the final book cover design super excited. We had three options. When we saw the third one, we immediately knew that was it. Bobby did a phenomenal job of capturing shout out to story course.

Speaker 1: 36:32

Yeah, absolutely, jordan loft us in the team amazing. But I am super excited about this book and so we're gonna be revealing this. It might have been revealed by the time that you hear this podcast. If not, it will be getting revealed very soon, and so stand by. You know we're excited for you to take a look at it and support us. You know it's been amazing to be moving through the book publishing process, and getting closer and closer to the launch date is hard to believe really excited.

Speaker 1: 37:04

We're barely three months Until we launch it's. It's a little scary. The book is going to be available in early November. As of right now, november 7th will be the launch, the, the official launch date. So we're really we're gonna appreciate all your support. I think this is gonna offer tremendous value. I've got a handful of people reading the book and giving me feedback, and the feedback has been very positive and I'm giving people full permission to you know, to share their perspectives with me, and I'm I'm not asking for, you know, just a bunch of yes men on this. So if you want to keep up to date with the book launch details, please visit beckon kevcom and sign up for email list. That's the simplest way to stay up with what we're doing. We'll be sending out more info as the launch date gets closer.