EXPERIENCE 203 | Intrepreneurship in Action - A Conversation with Cole Shrehlow, CEO of The Flyover and Chief Musician at The Crossing Church

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I became acquainted with Cole Strelow circa 2012 when my wife and I first began attending the Crossing Church in Fort Collins, where Cole still serves as chief musician, he was a gifted writer with a theology degree from a small university in northern Wisconsin.

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And was trying to string an income together through church music, freelance writing, and crappy jobs.

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Few years later, he was the first employee of a startup called Wintermind Group.

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Featured in episode 24, which later merged to become Pop Acta, with Cole as the right hand to the CEO.

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At Pop Acta, he headed a Skunk Works project in 2022, which sprouted wings and took off as the Flyover.

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Pop Acta.

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A wholly owned subsidiary with Kohl at the helm.

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Condensed daily email news, minimal bias, and growing quickly into state by state versions.

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Kohl's is a journey of consistent growth in responsibility and impact, built on do the right thing.

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Enjoy.

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Let's have some fun.

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Welcome to the Low Code Experience Podcast.

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On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around northern Colorado and beyond.

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Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy.

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And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained.

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These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits.

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So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest.

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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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I'm here today with Cole Stralow and Cole is, uh, the chief musician at the Crossing Church, uh, where I work.

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sometimes attend.

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Um, he's also the CEO of the flyover, uh, which is a media company based here in Fort Collins.

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And he is a proud husband and father as well.

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Uh, thanks for joining us in studio Cole.

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Thank you for having me.

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Yeah.

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Um, let's start with the thing that nobody probably, unless they're a subscriber knows much about, which is the flyover.

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Uh, what is it?

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The flyover is an email news publication.

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Okay.

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And we have eight editions of it, but the short synopsis would be, it is a daily email that comes out with a general overview of the news.

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And it's designed to be a one stop shop so that if you want to, you can just read this email in five minutes and have a good sense of what's going on.

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In the United States and also the world.

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I remember from like some years ago when the partisan divide was trying to be avoided, there was like some specific email newsletters that we like, we give you both sides or, you know, kind of thing.

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You can find some that are really intentional about that, where they will literally tell you like, Hey, this is what the left says about it.

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This is what the right says about it.

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That's kind of neat.

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We don't do that.

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We just tell you what we think is true.

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Fair.

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Okay.

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So you've got your own kind of, I listened to the.

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Um, daily wire, uh, podcast pretty much every morning and every afternoon.

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Um, cause I don't read much anymore.

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I'm old and have bad, I got glasses in the other room, but, but they touch on four to seven topics briefly.

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In the morning, you know, that comes out like maybe 6 a.

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m.

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or something.

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And then again at 4 p.

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m.

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And so that's like one of the ways I, you know, other than scrolling through X or whatever, so I can see the value of, uh, you know, and so why do people, it's a subscription email.

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It is.

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So they just want a quick summary of.

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The news, the important stuff.

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Is it economics focused?

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Business focused?

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Is it politics focused?

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It does not have a particular content focus.

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Okay, it's really broad.

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Okay.

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So the top three stories would just be whatever we think are the most important stories of the day and actually it's more like The top two are the most important.

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Sometimes the third one is a fun one like a list or just something interesting that's happening.

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Okay So it's pretty broad.

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You know, we do sports, politics, whatever, science and tech, uh, celebrity news.

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If, uh, we actually don't do, okay.

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That's good.

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A lot of that.

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That gives you more credibility in my book.

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What was that roast, uh, uh, that came from one of the award shows the other day or toward it?

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It was like, um, Hey, Hollywood, you know, One of the things you learned in 2024 is that Americans don't care about who you want to vote for or something like that.

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Yeah.

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And if one of, if a celebrity does something really dumb and it's funny, we'd probably run it, but we probably wouldn't have them talk to us about things.

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And you're, what do you think?

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Do you have a consistent, like, do you, are you the editor of this publication then effectively or not anymore?

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Um, not anymore.

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I've gone through all the stages.

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So in the beginning I was writing it and editing and editing it and sending it.

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Then graduated to editing and then passed off most of the, actually to still do it sometimes, but then passed off the editing to our editor in chief, David Klein, who does most of that these days.

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And you, do you create content still?

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Yeah, I do because we are, we're, What's that?

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What was the celebrity guest content?

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No, no, no, no.

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Um, well, one of the important things about the flyover is that it's no longer just one email.

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Like we started it with this national edition, but then we quickly thought, Hey, what if we expanded this to States and did the same thing, but on a smaller scale?

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So we, we started the flyover in January of 23 and then about a year later we started the Texas flyover, which is just the same thing, but only for Texas and then last year we rolled out.

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six more.

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So we have seven state editions and one national edition.

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You know, as I think about that, as you know, newspapers have faded so much.

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And, and even, you know, the, the, the color or the Colorado or the Fort Collins, the Colorado and yeah.

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Right.

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Like, yeah, it's got a couple of local stories and a handful of local reporters and stuff, but it's mostly national kind of.

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Associated Press kind of stuff.

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Yes.

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So it's hard to pick up any kind of, even a state biased news.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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There's surprisingly not a lot of news products out there that are geared at this, toward the state level.

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Yeah.

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And what I like about that is that there's, you know, there's 50 states, you know, uh, their nation states effectively, you know, governed by a federal, um, thing.

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So just even by having it state based, It kind of gives that 14th Amendment vibe.

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Yeah.

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I mean, there are some States in America feel like a country.

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unto themselves.

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California comes to mind.

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Lots of them.

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I mean, there's just massive, massive markets and their massive markets with incredible amounts of loyalty and distinctiveness so that, you know, somebody in Texas is really excited about West Virginia is West Virginia.

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Yeah.

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You know?

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Yeah.

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You can talk to someone about California, about West Virginia, and they probably think of something, right?

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Right.

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Understand the distinctiveness of the region.

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And you have a separate North Dakota, South Dakota edition.

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Not yet.

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What would you do a Dakota edition?

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Cause it was just, I don't think so.

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I don't think so, but we haven't got that far yet.

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Actually.

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We have talked about splitting California in half, right?

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Cause we haven't got there yet.

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And it's just so big and so diverse, right?

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It's culture that people care about are so much different in death Valley or Truckee than they are in LA or San Diego.

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And it's hard.

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There are some businesses that would be interested in advertising.

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All over California, but the more you slice it up, probably the more useful it is.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Interesting.

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And so your customers sign up for, uh, the news, uh, your subscribers, and then based on how many subscribers are reading your daily emails, or at least subscribe to it, then businesses like have a sidebar.

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ads and things like that as your revenue model?

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Yes.

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We are entirely advertising supported.

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Okay.

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Yep.

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So there are several ads throughout the newsletter.

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There's two like larger sized ad blocks and those go along with the primary sponsorship.

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And then there's smaller ones that we call section sponsors that are just little, like one paragraph hits.

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Okay.

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And more of a kind of FYI information on this thing.

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Yeah, just less copy.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Fair enough.

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Um, And so what's the scale of the, is there multiple people, content creators, like does each of these states basically have a content creator?

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Each, each state has its own writer.

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Okay.

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And then we have one, two, three, four editors at this point.

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Oh, wow.

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So how do you, I mean, I assume this is your first, uh, I've known you for a while, so it's your first like CEO of a media company, but how do you like keep the The flavor of, of the flyover consistent while having all this, uh, state by state content and whatever, I guess, uh, how does that fit fly over time?

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It is that fly over time.

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It is a big challenge when you're growing as quickly as we are to hand down the flavor of the distinctiveness.

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Yeah.

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Um, I think it just comes down to people.

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That's kind of my whole philosophy about business that I've acquired so far is that, uh, people and systems are both really important people.

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Solve this problem.

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Like if you have a few key people that really understand what you're trying to do and what you're not trying to do, then conversations just happen that sort those things out over time.

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Um, we decided that we were okay with hiring writers remotely for the States because we felt like it was valuable to have somebody on the ground.

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Yeah.

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Like somebody writing about North Carolina to be someone that's hopefully from there actually lives there and would just catch things that I wouldn't catch.

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Like I could talk about North Carolina, but I wouldn't understand it.

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Um, and that's, that's a lot of just kind of?

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Input, um, you know, we talk about our editors.

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We keep here because we think that the osmosis of just having people in a room is super valuable.

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And that's how we pass down the, well, we, we kind of jokingly refer to it as an oral tradition of what we do and what we don't do.

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I actually, um, This is maybe embarrassing, but for the first time today, started writing down an actual style guide, which is kind of nuts because we're two years in and we have eight additions, but that's just how it's gone.

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Like we're growing so fast, so much going on that it's mainly just conversations and everyone kind of gets it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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But we're, we're trying to grow up.

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Um, is there like, like obviously kind of like a, if you could have a voice, Separated and together for each of those kind of 50 states demographics.

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That's its own goal.

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But what is the, like, is there something else that the flyover is trying to do?

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Is it, is it intentionally, is it programming us in some fashion?

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Is it propaganda of some sort?

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All art is propaganda, right?

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Um, We, Bye bye.

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It's going to sound like a cliche, but we honestly just want to tell the truth.

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That's how we approach it.

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Yeah.

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And, uh, news has gotten so wacky that the new rebellion is just kind of doing the simple thing in our opinion.

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Like just telling people what happened is revolutionary these days, right?

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With no slant on it.

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It's hard to find.

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It really is.

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And to be clear.

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Like we don't know how many people couldn't believe it that that Kyle Rittenhouse guy shot white dudes, right?

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Like they couldn't believe it.

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They were sure he was gone out on black people with an assault rifle.

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Sure.

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You know?

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Yeah.

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I think in, you know, both sides of the aisle are guilty of this.

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If you go to any of the mainstream media outlets, um, that cater to one side of the audience, typically.

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Like you you'll read an article about something that's happened, especially if it's about the president's or about any sensitive type media outlets.

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Products, excuse me, any political stuff, the people that read those things, um, many of them are waiting and looking for the attack.

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Like they're ready for the slant and that's kind of waiting, waiting for that thing.

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Yeah.

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So in a sense you can understand why like an MSNBC does what they do because they're trying to make money.

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Sure.

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And that's maybe a misconception that I think some people have about media companies as they think of them as this just totally, I don't know, neutral entity that sits around and only talks about journalistic integrity.

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They talk about making money because they're a business and that's why they exist.

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Like they have a mission too, of course.

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Um, but I think there's a little bit of naivete about the approach of media companies to the world and why they exist.

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Um, they're, they're going to deliver what their customers want because if you don't, then you don't have a business, right?

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So there's this interesting.

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Give and take there.

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Which, uh, not to shift you out of this, but big news from Facebook today and Instagram.

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Did you see that?

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I actually didn't.

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I've been so busy.

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Oh yeah.

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Mark Zuckerberg said they're basically adopting a community notes model and stopping third party censorship.

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Yeah, that is interesting.

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I think that's worked so well for X now that maybe it was inevitable.

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Maybe.

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Yeah.

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Hard to say.

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Um, but well, and Zuckerberg kind of went back to his roots.

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He just cut.

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Kind of scared a little bit.

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I think so.

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Cause the market moved away from him a little bit.

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Right.

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That too.

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That too.

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Well, and even, you know, when he shared that, you know, there was a fair bit of government pressure for us to do this or do that on Rogan's podcast, that was like, you know, a whole bunch of people went, We knew it.

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I knew my posts were getting shadow banned.

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It turns out they were.

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No, but so back to the flyover.

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We, like all media companies need to make money.

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What we have noticed is that there's a lot, like a huge chunk of Americans that just want to be told what happens.

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And maybe that's, I think that's obviously been there for a long time to a certain point, but I think there's a lot of fatigue.

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Like people are tired of the level of bias in media and they're ready for more of a Walter Cronkite style Just tell me what happened.

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I want to feel that way again, and I can make my own decisions about what I feel about it Yeah, instead of being told how to feel about something or yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah obvious slant put on things I think clearly there's a large market of people that are just interested in knowing what's going on and Not only do they only want to know what's happening.

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They want it to come to them without the flood of You Euphemisms, slanted language, editorialization, just nonsense that should flunk you out of journalism school.

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Yeah, yeah.

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That gets you a job now.

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So, so that oral tradition that you're talking about and that, that future style guide that will be coming out in a Q1 or whatever is, um, in some regards, that's part of it.

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That's, you know, that it has to be kind of true.

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It has to not have a slant and an apparent intentional slant on this.

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Yeah.

00:14:38.107 --> 00:14:41.898
I was writing down examples today of, to try to help writers know like what to avoid.

00:14:41.898 --> 00:14:54.908
And one of them would be, I remember seeing articles about Hamas and ISIS, I think being referred to as freedom fighters and, you know, we call them terrorists, because that's what they are.

00:14:55.077 --> 00:14:55.587
Right.

00:14:56.378 --> 00:14:56.628
Yeah.

00:14:57.048 --> 00:15:06.158
And there's lots of really sensitive hot button cultural issues that are, in my opinion, typically hidden with euphemisms in order to disguise the true nature of what's happening.

00:15:07.168 --> 00:15:09.038
And that's all over the place.

00:15:09.138 --> 00:15:09.658
For sure.

00:15:09.668 --> 00:15:13.658
We, we try to just not do that, like just describe it.

00:15:14.008 --> 00:15:20.107
But again, like just describing something, honestly, not easy to get, make some people angry, but I mean, totally.

00:15:20.378 --> 00:15:25.327
Well, I was thinking about Israel, like even like before this October 9th, I think, yeah.

00:15:25.837 --> 00:15:27.288
Was it October 7th?

00:15:27.317 --> 00:15:28.548
Maybe it was that attack.

00:15:28.587 --> 00:15:39.347
I don't remember the exact day, but it was before that, you know, Netanyahu was in real trouble was in a lot of, you know, corruption mud and having a hard time with their Supreme court.

00:15:39.788 --> 00:15:48.057
You know, and you know, this war has taken a lot of, uh, Some of the troubles off of his plate in a way, right?

00:15:48.077 --> 00:15:51.748
And and not to totally dissimilar from Zelensky in some way.

00:15:51.758 --> 00:15:58.817
It's sure, you know, as long as he's the freedom fighter War has a way of galvanizing people and making troubles go away for a while.

00:15:58.947 --> 00:16:04.998
Yeah, they always come back you consume content Like how do you how do your writers get their news?

00:16:05.067 --> 00:16:09.528
And how do you get like news about the world that you can kind of help to determine?

00:16:09.528 --> 00:16:13.628
What are those most important stories or is that just based on your advertisers?

00:16:13.628 --> 00:16:14.363
You Just kidding.

00:16:16.673 --> 00:16:18.513
Well, you know, we write about what we're allowed to write about.

00:16:21.283 --> 00:16:22.623
To be clear, we say whatever we want.

00:16:22.633 --> 00:16:26.793
I've never had any input from anyone, nor will we take it about what we're allowed to talk about.

00:16:27.293 --> 00:16:32.393
Um, our writers and editors just do a big scour of the internet.

00:16:32.472 --> 00:16:39.363
You know, they kind of start with the news wires, AP and Reuters, which used to be neutral and really aren't anymore, but they're still useful to see what's happening.

00:16:39.883 --> 00:16:41.942
Google news is a great resource to see what's happening.

00:16:42.322 --> 00:16:43.423
Just kind of those things.

00:16:43.727 --> 00:16:51.538
make the rounds across lots of different places, including some that we wouldn't actually publish articles from just to see what's happening.

00:16:52.288 --> 00:17:00.077
And part of the battle is finding, you know, we want our people to read multiple sources about a story to get a well rounded picture of what's happening.

00:17:00.158 --> 00:17:00.368
Yeah.

00:17:00.368 --> 00:17:00.618
Yeah.

00:17:00.668 --> 00:17:07.482
And then to pick a source that we think communicates the clearest and the most truly about what's happening.

00:17:08.593 --> 00:17:30.173
There was, I found a post on my ex from a few months ago and I, I shared a article from like, I, I, when I see something as Al Jazeera, um, on the Google news kind of site or whatever, I'm like, well, you know, I know the angle that they're coming from, but I know there might be some things that are more true in this article than some I might read.

00:17:30.597 --> 00:17:36.798
Yeah, you definitely get a bigger picture by reading both sides of it, especially with a extremely controversial issue like that.

00:17:36.798 --> 00:17:43.178
Yeah, but then there was like a, a new Al Jazeera because Al Jazeera stopped being shared by Google for a while at least.

00:17:43.228 --> 00:17:43.657
Oh, did it?

00:17:43.748 --> 00:17:46.938
Yeah, like shortly after that October 7th thing.

00:17:46.948 --> 00:17:48.607
And I think they're back on there again now.

00:17:48.617 --> 00:18:01.518
So I don't know if they had to kiss and make up to Google or something, but they had chosen like some kind of an other Arab oriented news site to be their, uh, Google news allocation for that.

00:18:01.518 --> 00:18:01.958
That's interesting.

00:18:01.958 --> 00:18:05.107
And that's actually part of the story of the flyover.

00:18:05.107 --> 00:18:08.528
I think is that the internet is not just about first party publishers anymore.

00:18:08.528 --> 00:18:11.548
It's really about the people that curate stuff and put it in front of the aggregators.

00:18:11.577 --> 00:18:11.847
Yeah.

00:18:11.897 --> 00:18:12.077
Yeah.

00:18:12.077 --> 00:18:12.718
The aggregators.

00:18:12.728 --> 00:18:12.978
Yeah.

00:18:12.978 --> 00:18:13.417
Yeah.

00:18:13.478 --> 00:18:16.718
Um, I think the internet is moving more and more toward aggregation.

00:18:17.667 --> 00:18:19.587
Are you old enough to remember fark.

00:18:19.587 --> 00:18:19.988
com?

00:18:21.188 --> 00:18:21.887
With a K?

00:18:22.067 --> 00:18:22.357
Yeah.

00:18:22.387 --> 00:18:23.268
F A R K.

00:18:23.597 --> 00:18:24.448
No, I don't.

00:18:24.538 --> 00:18:41.212
Oh, that was, it was an aggregator of stupid Stories, and they would each have a little label, uh, I think it was FARC, and, uh, like, there was one label that was Florida, like, they would just share, you know, Stories about Florida, man.

00:18:41.482 --> 00:18:41.702
Yeah.

00:18:43.182 --> 00:18:44.343
Historically been Florida, man.

00:18:44.343 --> 00:18:47.462
Florida has raised, changed its reputation in the last 10 years.

00:18:47.462 --> 00:18:49.982
We have an addition in Florida and we have all kinds of Florida stories.

00:18:50.262 --> 00:18:50.643
Right.

00:18:50.643 --> 00:19:03.163
Like the dude that like hooks onto a shark and rides his unicorn pony floaty out at two miles into the ocean, hoping for the best, some states are easier to write about than others.

00:19:04.282 --> 00:19:08.643
Um, but anyway, that was an aggregator way back, probably circa.

00:19:09.712 --> 00:19:11.502
OUTTA 2003.

00:19:11.843 --> 00:19:13.448
Mm-hmm 2005.

00:19:13.448 --> 00:19:14.137
Like you were what?

00:19:14.137 --> 00:19:14.768
Behind the ears?

00:19:14.768 --> 00:19:15.008
Still?

00:19:15.008 --> 00:19:16.327
Probably at the time.

00:19:16.327 --> 00:19:20.587
But that was an aggregation site that I would go to just to see this one.

00:19:21.157 --> 00:19:22.538
Probably very interesting.

00:19:22.538 --> 00:19:23.288
Weird dudes.

00:19:23.498 --> 00:19:31.137
Mm-hmm Uh, impression of what were the dumb and silly stories, and sometimes nudes were the things that a person should have.

00:19:31.137 --> 00:19:31.198
Um.

00:19:33.347 --> 00:19:37.038
Yeah, I think we, that's part of our model is aggregating.

00:19:38.317 --> 00:19:40.788
It's not just that we also do original writing.

00:19:40.798 --> 00:19:43.768
Like everything we put in there is our own perspective on it.

00:19:44.678 --> 00:19:57.367
But a key part of our value proposition is just scouring the internet to find what we think is what matters the most, because there's such a glut of content on the internet now that it's actually value and just spending the time looking through stuff.

00:19:57.567 --> 00:19:58.877
Don't make me screw around so much.

00:19:58.897 --> 00:19:59.268
Yes.

00:19:59.377 --> 00:19:59.567
Yeah.

00:19:59.567 --> 00:19:59.728
Yeah.

00:20:00.458 --> 00:20:07.978
Um, So let's talk about, um, where did the flyover come from?

00:20:07.998 --> 00:20:10.478
Maybe let's, can we talk about the inception story?

00:20:10.798 --> 00:20:28.667
Um, I guess just for guests, uh, the, I want to say local think or local experience podcast, episode 18 or something, uh, Jacob lease, um, was my guest and at that time he was probably in about middle of year two of the winter mind group.

00:20:28.748 --> 00:20:32.548
Uh, so you were, you were number one employee of the winter mind group.

00:20:32.883 --> 00:20:36.853
I was, it was me and Jacob in the basement in conjunction with Brian Oaks.

00:20:37.032 --> 00:20:37.573
Yeah.

00:20:37.772 --> 00:20:38.202
Okay.

00:20:38.633 --> 00:20:39.702
And what were you doing?

00:20:40.163 --> 00:20:41.823
Uh, can we go way back to there?

00:20:41.823 --> 00:20:42.393
Yeah, of course.

00:20:42.403 --> 00:20:44.643
This inception of, and then I want to go back.

00:20:44.702 --> 00:20:47.423
Well, we'll come back to once we jump in the time machine, we'll come back.

00:20:47.432 --> 00:20:48.813
We can go as far back as you want.

00:20:48.813 --> 00:20:50.573
There's a funny story about the moment I was born.

00:20:50.573 --> 00:20:53.363
If you want to hear it, I do, but winter mind.

00:20:55.178 --> 00:20:57.097
So I was doing the stage for us.

00:20:57.107 --> 00:21:02.417
Yeah, I was, uh, I've before winter mine for a long time.

00:21:02.417 --> 00:21:08.428
I was doing a lot of jobs that I did not enjoy, nor was I well suited toward them to them, but they put money in my bank account.

00:21:08.428 --> 00:21:09.167
And so I did them.

00:21:09.317 --> 00:21:09.617
Yes.

00:21:09.667 --> 00:21:16.448
Um, and then the great Jacob Lease called me great, powerful, great and powerful.

00:21:16.448 --> 00:21:24.288
Jacob Lease called me and said that he was, he had mentioned to me like six months before that he had started this business and thought it was going well.

00:21:24.288 --> 00:21:26.548
And Thought maybe there'd be an opportunity.

00:21:26.548 --> 00:21:28.157
And I was just so jaded at that point.

00:21:28.157 --> 00:21:29.288
I was like, yeah, okay, Jacob.

00:21:29.288 --> 00:21:29.528
Sure.

00:21:29.528 --> 00:21:30.508
Like, right.

00:21:30.518 --> 00:21:31.688
Like the world's actually going to work out.

00:21:31.708 --> 00:21:32.008
Yeah.

00:21:32.018 --> 00:21:36.998
Like at some point you kind of, it's hard to believe anything when you're having, when you're on a rough path.

00:21:37.508 --> 00:21:53.008
But then right when I was considering leaving Fort Collins to go take a job with a different company in Kansas city, actually, where I'm from, when my, where my parents live, Jacob called me and said, he wanted to talk about this position at winter mind and they were doing.

00:21:53.498 --> 00:21:55.698
Fundraising for nonprofits via email.

00:21:55.958 --> 00:21:56.307
Okay.

00:21:56.498 --> 00:21:57.718
And so I jumped on it.

00:21:57.857 --> 00:22:00.248
I jumped right out of a concrete truck and into Jacob's basement.

00:22:00.528 --> 00:22:00.857
Okay.

00:22:01.478 --> 00:22:03.567
What was the, what was it was you were driving a concrete truck?

00:22:03.567 --> 00:22:03.847
Yeah.

00:22:04.048 --> 00:22:04.928
It was the previous.

00:22:05.048 --> 00:22:05.448
Yes.

00:22:05.607 --> 00:22:22.327
Which like entailed like driving around with full Tanks of those guys with the thing, like it in the right place and cleaning it all up at the end of the day and all that, all the stuff that you would imagine you look like a pretty strong back guy, not as strong as you wish for concrete, not as strong as it used to be.

00:22:22.738 --> 00:22:23.117
Right.

00:22:23.147 --> 00:22:23.488
Yeah.

00:22:24.137 --> 00:22:27.387
Um, so yeah, so you're happy to check this thing out.

00:22:27.417 --> 00:22:29.627
And what were you doing at winter mind?

00:22:29.667 --> 00:22:30.188
Yeah.

00:22:30.298 --> 00:22:36.708
Uh, I was getting emails from people that we worked for and then doing some light coding to them.

00:22:37.557 --> 00:22:45.423
And then just making sure everything was like doing a QC of the actual, and an email, if you don't know, is a piece of HTML.

00:22:45.423 --> 00:22:48.678
So just doing some light coding on it to make sure everything was correct.

00:22:48.678 --> 00:22:50.208
All the tracking links were correct.

00:22:50.288 --> 00:22:50.728
Okay.

00:22:50.768 --> 00:22:57.488
Um, and then using our system that Jake built to actually send the emails at an enterprise or large level.

00:22:57.488 --> 00:22:58.008
Okay.

00:22:58.008 --> 00:23:01.488
And so I, it was actually kind of, so you're spammers.

00:23:01.712 --> 00:23:05.597
No, of course not with good information.

00:23:05.627 --> 00:23:07.347
We know we're definitely not spam.

00:23:07.347 --> 00:23:07.688
Okay.

00:23:07.998 --> 00:23:13.528
So you're, but you're fundraising for different nonprofit organizations and curated email outreach.

00:23:13.548 --> 00:23:19.208
There are a list of people that are interested in that kind of thing that have expressed interest in a particular cause or whatever it is.

00:23:19.528 --> 00:23:19.698
Yeah.

00:23:19.817 --> 00:23:21.498
So you try to kind of match.

00:23:22.032 --> 00:23:29.202
Philanthropists of varying types with causes that they might be more interested in and through some intentional outreach, something like that.

00:23:29.323 --> 00:23:29.623
Okay.

00:23:29.742 --> 00:23:30.173
All right.

00:23:30.732 --> 00:23:45.212
Um, and so like that obviously grew and so the circuit me, what, this is what that was right at the beginning of the local, this was like, right before COVID hit, okay, yep, January, 2020.

00:23:46.222 --> 00:23:46.643
Okay.

00:23:46.823 --> 00:23:47.113
Yep.

00:23:47.573 --> 00:23:48.553
That's when you joined.

00:23:48.932 --> 00:23:49.373
He has started.

00:23:49.383 --> 00:23:49.702
It is.

00:23:49.702 --> 00:23:49.942
Yeah.

00:23:49.942 --> 00:23:53.813
I remember sitting in the basement with Jacob looking at the news about COVID and we were just.

00:23:54.317 --> 00:23:58.087
Kind of casually saying like, I wonder if, I wonder if anyone here will ever get this.

00:23:58.157 --> 00:23:59.097
I mean, it was that stage.

00:23:59.107 --> 00:23:59.347
Right.

00:23:59.347 --> 00:23:59.548
Right.

00:23:59.557 --> 00:24:00.008
Brand new.

00:24:00.057 --> 00:24:00.387
Yeah.

00:24:00.458 --> 00:24:01.728
I don't have to worry about it really here.

00:24:01.728 --> 00:24:02.048
You know?

00:24:02.728 --> 00:24:02.928
Yeah.

00:24:02.928 --> 00:24:03.337
Yeah.

00:24:03.528 --> 00:24:04.928
I remember those days as well.

00:24:05.458 --> 00:24:09.778
So then what does that look like going into that?

00:24:10.458 --> 00:24:12.178
Like, were you in an essential business?

00:24:14.438 --> 00:24:16.738
You were working remotely, so it was fine, probably.

00:24:16.778 --> 00:24:17.178
Yeah.

00:24:17.178 --> 00:24:20.928
I mean, what was like from a, like you jumped into this startup.

00:24:21.417 --> 00:24:24.498
And then I just kept going to Jacob's basement every day.

00:24:24.567 --> 00:24:25.028
Yeah.

00:24:25.057 --> 00:24:26.488
I didn't really do whatever he told you to do.

00:24:28.048 --> 00:24:29.458
I mean, we, so we did that for a while.

00:24:29.468 --> 00:24:32.377
Did you know how to do this HTML stuff and whatever?

00:24:32.377 --> 00:24:35.728
How did you, he just, he taught you how to do things he didn't want to do anymore.

00:24:36.248 --> 00:24:38.758
Or you had to go learn it, watch YouTube videos and stuff.

00:24:39.347 --> 00:24:41.057
Um, he taught me a lot of it.

00:24:41.147 --> 00:24:41.397
Yeah.

00:24:41.407 --> 00:24:43.738
I mean, well, I guess I had done some HTML.

00:24:44.403 --> 00:24:46.103
It was like reasonably talented at tech stuff.

00:24:46.103 --> 00:24:47.502
I just hadn't done it for a job before.

00:24:47.613 --> 00:24:47.923
Okay.

00:24:47.923 --> 00:24:48.262
Gotcha.

00:24:48.383 --> 00:24:49.343
Not actual tech.

00:24:49.343 --> 00:24:50.782
Not like you were kind of a digital native.

00:24:50.782 --> 00:24:54.673
So it wasn't scary to you, but figure it out a little at a time kind of thing.

00:24:54.742 --> 00:24:54.952
Yeah.

00:24:54.952 --> 00:24:56.522
So I just jumped in and started figuring it out.

00:24:56.522 --> 00:24:58.502
Jacob taught me a lot and.

00:24:59.147 --> 00:25:05.647
kept doing that, and then we moved to desk chair in Loveland, in downtown Loveland, which is a Okay, yeah.

00:25:05.647 --> 00:25:06.488
Shared workspace.

00:25:06.548 --> 00:25:06.698
Yeah.

00:25:06.698 --> 00:25:08.198
We got an event coming up there in a few weeks.

00:25:08.377 --> 00:25:09.008
It's a nice spot.

00:25:09.188 --> 00:25:09.817
Yeah, it is.

00:25:09.817 --> 00:25:12.867
Mm-hmm They're, they're community partners.

00:25:12.867 --> 00:25:12.942
You know Jim down there?

00:25:13.292 --> 00:25:14.127
I do, yeah.

00:25:14.248 --> 00:25:14.488
Yeah.

00:25:14.667 --> 00:25:15.478
And the whole team.

00:25:15.478 --> 00:25:15.748
Really?

00:25:15.837 --> 00:25:20.827
Mm-hmm We did that for a long time before we moved back to good old Fort Collins.

00:25:20.857 --> 00:25:21.157
Yeah.

00:25:21.337 --> 00:25:21.667
Yeah.

00:25:22.178 --> 00:25:25.667
And then like it was Winter Mind Group for a while.

00:25:25.698 --> 00:25:29.288
Mm-hmm And that's originally at least Jacob and Brian.

00:25:29.347 --> 00:25:29.678
Yes.

00:25:30.163 --> 00:25:41.143
And then we merged with another company that was doing very similar things, um, with two other guys that own that company that were a long time associates and friends with Jacob and Brian.

00:25:41.272 --> 00:25:41.843
Oh, I see.

00:25:41.873 --> 00:25:42.222
Okay.

00:25:42.522 --> 00:25:42.772
Yep.

00:25:42.883 --> 00:25:47.583
And then, but Jacob continued to be the CEO of this, what became Pop Acta?

00:25:47.732 --> 00:25:51.292
Yes, it became Pop Acta and Jacob was the, became the CEO of that company.

00:25:51.423 --> 00:25:57.962
And then, like, to, like, the flyover origin story is Is that you?

00:25:58.173 --> 00:25:58.762
I got this idea.

00:25:58.762 --> 00:25:59.113
It's not me.

00:25:59.133 --> 00:26:01.323
Or it's Jacob saying It's not Jacob.

00:26:01.353 --> 00:26:02.373
I got this idea.

00:26:02.383 --> 00:26:02.843
Brian?

00:26:02.853 --> 00:26:03.202
Nobody?

00:26:03.202 --> 00:26:03.643
It's not Brian.

00:26:04.647 --> 00:26:05.877
It's a guy named Guy Short.

00:26:06.057 --> 00:26:06.438
Okay.

00:26:06.478 --> 00:26:07.268
Yep, one of the owners.

00:26:07.278 --> 00:26:07.748
Sup, Guy.

00:26:08.238 --> 00:26:10.188
Um, Guy.

00:26:10.198 --> 00:26:10.728
He's got this idea.

00:26:10.728 --> 00:26:14.028
He's like, we need to generate our, our own center of truth.

00:26:14.758 --> 00:26:16.188
Uh, center of truth.

00:26:16.387 --> 00:26:18.928
Well, I think he just enjoyed like, go ahead.

00:26:18.988 --> 00:26:21.407
Like the intro to Tucker Carlson podcast.

00:26:21.768 --> 00:26:26.988
He's like, we're not, uh, agenda driven or propagandist.

00:26:27.028 --> 00:26:28.137
We're honest brokers.

00:26:28.347 --> 00:26:28.607
Right.

00:26:28.798 --> 00:26:31.438
Uh, that's kind of the theme I'm sensing maybe from Guy.

00:26:32.038 --> 00:26:32.587
Yeah, for sure.

00:26:32.738 --> 00:26:33.028
From your team.

00:26:33.262 --> 00:26:39.212
He enjoyed, um, some other popular morning newsletters, like 1440 morning brew.

00:26:39.752 --> 00:26:43.742
I think the skim, like it's a, yeah, I've been a subscriber of the skim before, actually.

00:26:43.923 --> 00:26:44.272
Okay.

00:26:44.702 --> 00:26:44.962
Yes.

00:26:44.972 --> 00:26:48.222
We were not the first people to write a morning email.

00:26:48.343 --> 00:26:48.663
Okay.

00:26:48.702 --> 00:26:51.083
Um, that industry is, Thriving at the moment.

00:26:51.153 --> 00:26:54.923
It's kind of like podcasts and that anything you're interested in, right.

00:26:54.952 --> 00:26:56.722
You can find a newsletter for you.

00:26:56.883 --> 00:26:58.603
It's probably an ish thing.

00:26:58.623 --> 00:26:59.482
Yeah, that's fair.

00:26:59.512 --> 00:27:01.423
So I think he just enjoyed them and realized that.

00:27:01.833 --> 00:27:05.542
So most newsletters, they start with the content.

00:27:06.012 --> 00:27:15.113
Like you are interested in tennis or woodworking or the news or whatever it is, if you have a subject matter interest, or you have expertise or whatever it is, you want to write about this thing.

00:27:15.462 --> 00:27:16.752
And so you want to start a newsletter.

00:27:16.752 --> 00:27:19.873
And so you move from content to the email world.

00:27:20.278 --> 00:27:20.617
Okay.

00:27:20.887 --> 00:27:22.357
We were already in the email world.

00:27:22.758 --> 00:27:28.998
So we did it in the reverse order where we had an idea for content, but that was after we were already in the world.

00:27:28.998 --> 00:27:34.218
Huge number of database that was sorted and dialed and yeah, like just knew the email world.

00:27:34.218 --> 00:27:46.988
Well, that was a competitive advantage for us that we realized we could start a product and use what we knew about the world of high volume email to get off to a fast start.

00:27:47.048 --> 00:27:47.417
Yeah.

00:27:47.827 --> 00:27:50.188
Which also kind of other rapid.

00:27:50.958 --> 00:27:54.807
Like, was there already a state by state edition thing idea at the very beginning?

00:27:54.837 --> 00:27:57.178
Or was it like, Oh, wait, we need this too.

00:27:57.278 --> 00:27:58.258
I solved another problem.

00:27:58.268 --> 00:27:59.847
No, that, no, that came later.

00:27:59.877 --> 00:28:00.117
Yeah.

00:28:00.117 --> 00:28:09.417
With the single edition, it seems so simple when I think on those days when we just had one edition compared to what we're doing now.

00:28:09.428 --> 00:28:11.377
But yeah, so that was guy's idea.

00:28:11.377 --> 00:28:12.468
It was a great idea.

00:28:12.468 --> 00:28:16.238
And then we, at the time I was running one of the teams at pop back to.

00:28:16.623 --> 00:28:24.932
And I started to do to write the flyover as I was managing the other team that went on for a while is just it's a small business.

00:28:24.932 --> 00:28:26.482
You're absolutely stretched too small.

00:28:26.492 --> 00:28:26.712
Yeah.

00:28:26.712 --> 00:28:28.133
Like you do what you have to for a while.

00:28:28.163 --> 00:28:28.593
Right, right.

00:28:28.732 --> 00:28:34.762
Um, and then we As soon as this flyover revenue could meet one third of your salary, then you could kind of focus on growing that.

00:28:34.762 --> 00:28:35.022
Something like that.

00:28:35.022 --> 00:28:35.303
Yeah.

00:28:35.722 --> 00:28:39.603
We You know, you have an idea, but you don't know how people will receive it.

00:28:40.232 --> 00:28:44.923
And it became apparent pretty quickly that people were into it, which was great.

00:28:45.423 --> 00:28:48.843
And that allowed us to start staffing up and making plans from there.

00:28:49.022 --> 00:29:00.643
Is there like a, a face of the flyover or is it like when you think about the daily wire, it's Ben Shapiro or whatever, or, you know, Tucker Carlson network or whatever, but it's not in that sense.

00:29:00.643 --> 00:29:04.742
No, but there's, I'm the closest thing to the, like, I'm probably the only name that goes in there.

00:29:04.742 --> 00:29:05.952
I'll sign things sometimes.

00:29:06.127 --> 00:29:12.807
Like the Babylon Bee has its own kind of persona now, even though kind of the creator of the Babylon Bee mostly doesn't do much with it anymore.

00:29:12.817 --> 00:29:13.087
Right.

00:29:13.097 --> 00:29:14.748
Now we try to make the brain the star of the show.

00:29:14.948 --> 00:29:15.317
Yeah.

00:29:15.357 --> 00:29:16.887
Which is contrary to some advice.

00:29:16.948 --> 00:29:19.817
Like, a lot of people will tell you people follow people, not brains.

00:29:20.567 --> 00:29:26.107
And that's, I think, true in a lot of contexts, but in this one we felt like it was important not to attach it to a single person.

00:29:26.327 --> 00:29:26.347
Yeah.

00:29:26.347 --> 00:29:36.153
And just to make, The brand, the thing that people come back to, like if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, the flyover would, would keep on going and they could come hire you or someone else wouldn't hire me.

00:29:36.522 --> 00:29:38.883
I don't have enough of the skills, although I'm curious.

00:29:38.883 --> 00:29:44.282
I enjoy, uh, digesting large amounts of news, telling the truth about it.

00:29:44.972 --> 00:29:45.992
Just do it in a podcast.

00:29:46.633 --> 00:29:53.873
Um, so I guess like, what does pop back to do that's different?

00:29:55.022 --> 00:30:10.042
like that niche, because they're just email, but for other people's causes, whether it be nonprofit organizations, political campaigns, um, other, yeah, it's just a link in the chain to help causes get in front of people that care about it.

00:30:10.113 --> 00:30:10.532
Yeah.

00:30:10.583 --> 00:30:10.982
Okay.

00:30:12.163 --> 00:30:16.063
So will the flyover point people back to pop act in a fashion?

00:30:16.073 --> 00:30:17.053
No, it does not.

00:30:17.093 --> 00:30:21.333
It's its own kind of medically sealed in terms of, and that's why you're like separate.

00:30:21.333 --> 00:30:24.553
Now you have mostly no idea what's really going on at pop act anymore.

00:30:25.357 --> 00:30:29.928
I wouldn't say that Jacob talks and whatever else, I wouldn't say that we share an office space.

00:30:29.928 --> 00:30:30.728
Yeah, fair enough.

00:30:30.768 --> 00:30:33.788
Yeah, but I work exclusively on the fly over these.

00:30:33.798 --> 00:30:34.307
Yeah.

00:30:34.508 --> 00:30:37.397
Is that, uh, well, Jacob will listen to this.

00:30:37.407 --> 00:30:37.718
Probably.

00:30:37.928 --> 00:30:39.347
Has that been a good decision for you?

00:30:39.357 --> 00:30:46.137
Has that been like, cause it's probably comes with a lot more like there's nobody to tell me what to do.

00:30:46.907 --> 00:30:51.143
Oh, I have people to tell me what to do.

00:30:51.143 --> 00:30:51.643
I'm sure.

00:30:52.942 --> 00:30:53.722
I know what you mean.

00:30:53.722 --> 00:30:54.613
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:54.613 --> 00:30:56.913
Uh, yes, I think it was a good decision.

00:30:56.913 --> 00:30:59.732
I think I was, I was just interested in trying something new.

00:31:00.093 --> 00:31:03.053
And, uh, Writing has kind of always been my thing.

00:31:03.063 --> 00:31:04.123
Like I enjoy that.

00:31:04.482 --> 00:31:07.752
And that really had nothing to do with what I was doing at pop act.

00:31:07.752 --> 00:31:13.633
And then this opportunity came up to use, we're going to get bored and go leave and do something else.

00:31:13.633 --> 00:31:15.853
Perhaps if he didn't find you something, Oh, I don't know.

00:31:16.792 --> 00:31:17.303
Probably not.

00:31:17.313 --> 00:31:17.772
He's still done.

00:31:17.772 --> 00:31:18.603
I'd probably still be there.

00:31:18.603 --> 00:31:19.833
Took you out of the concrete truck.

00:31:20.502 --> 00:31:23.593
Yeah, I'd probably was not in a hurry to run anywhere else, but.

00:31:24.103 --> 00:31:27.423
Was excited about the possibility to do something that scratched that itch for me.

00:31:29.603 --> 00:31:36.742
Um, I guess what else do you want to talk about as far as like, what were, what would be some of the main things you've learned about business?

00:31:36.772 --> 00:31:49.532
Let's say, um, like, in growing from like a, like, cause you're, when you're there, you know, working in Jacob's basement and it's, you know, three of you doing stuff and kind of spinning up a new.

00:31:50.393 --> 00:32:03.242
Revenue model, even a new concept of sorts, uh, winter mind was like to go from there and to, you know, scaling teams, hiring remote writers in other States, trying to keep that content tight.

00:32:05.143 --> 00:32:05.413
Yeah.

00:32:05.623 --> 00:32:07.762
I, I think I've learned a lot.

00:32:07.762 --> 00:32:13.932
I, I have the benefit of being around a lot of smart guys and girls that know quite a bit.

00:32:14.353 --> 00:32:19.353
So I've had, We have the benefit of having people in leadership that just think differently.

00:32:19.772 --> 00:32:25.022
And that means you see different sides of issues constantly, which is helpful.

00:32:25.393 --> 00:32:40.528
So I think it's helped me develop emphases are not one sided, like hopefully you're kind of well rounded because I've just learned a lot from people that are really smart guys like Jacob and guy and Brian and Dan that are super excited about.

00:32:41.298 --> 00:32:43.048
What they've learned and we'll pass that on.

00:32:43.048 --> 00:32:48.907
And then you kind of take that and strap it on and try to be well rounded.

00:32:49.258 --> 00:32:56.577
I think I've learned that people and systems are both extremely important.

00:32:57.258 --> 00:33:00.807
And that if you leave one side out of that equation, you're going to be in trouble.

00:33:02.248 --> 00:33:09.347
And I would put people at the top of the hierarchy of what's important in business, obviously nothing original.

00:33:09.347 --> 00:33:13.587
Smart, focused people can make it work even without a system, but.

00:33:14.333 --> 00:33:15.913
A system makes it a whole lot better.

00:33:15.962 --> 00:33:16.873
Yeah, it sure does.

00:33:16.992 --> 00:33:17.413
It does.

00:33:17.442 --> 00:33:26.492
And so I've experienced that, like, what is it, what is it like to do something yourself and then to add a lot of other people into the mix and we've been able to build a really great team.

00:33:26.512 --> 00:33:30.073
Like I'm thankful every day that I walk in for the folks that work for us.

00:33:30.073 --> 00:33:30.732
Do you like them?

00:33:30.732 --> 00:33:40.553
And yeah, we get to come to work every day with people that I actually enjoy and that are smart, good at their job, proactive, and that just goes a million miles toward what you're trying to accomplish.

00:33:40.553 --> 00:33:40.843
Yeah.

00:33:41.113 --> 00:33:43.413
I think smart people with good attitudes are.

00:33:44.488 --> 00:33:45.508
The most important thing.

00:33:45.607 --> 00:33:56.768
Are they coming to your cause or do they're coming because they want to work in media or they're coming because they want to get out of what has become such a propagandized media thing.

00:33:56.768 --> 00:34:01.998
And to have somebody attempting to give me the facts is refreshing.

00:34:02.107 --> 00:34:03.597
I think it just sounds like a fun job.

00:34:03.788 --> 00:34:04.178
Okay.

00:34:04.738 --> 00:34:09.438
I think that we have people from lots of different backgrounds, some of which are what you're describing.

00:34:09.887 --> 00:34:12.777
Um, some have less of a professional writing or editing background.

00:34:13.072 --> 00:34:16.233
but they're all good at it and they all were interested in what we're up to.

00:34:16.373 --> 00:34:16.693
Okay.

00:34:17.103 --> 00:34:18.393
So we don't try to market to one.

00:34:18.632 --> 00:34:24.233
We don't try to draw people from a particular background, although we like it if they have some sort of journalistic experience.

00:34:24.233 --> 00:34:25.932
Layoffs at MSNBC lately.

00:34:26.143 --> 00:34:26.572
Yeah.

00:34:29.182 --> 00:34:30.063
Well, sorry.

00:34:30.063 --> 00:34:30.583
Too soon.

00:34:30.583 --> 00:34:49.748
You know, I'm kind of like, I'm a little bit Elon Musk can't just be one person because nobody can tweet 40 times a day and run four companies and whatever.

00:34:50.248 --> 00:34:51.027
But I don't know.

00:34:51.027 --> 00:34:51.628
He's something else.

00:34:51.827 --> 00:35:47.759
He really is just like, anyway, um, let's talk about your other job.

00:35:48.239 --> 00:35:48.548
Okay.

00:35:48.679 --> 00:35:56.688
Um, were you, You weren't first stage, or were you there at the Crossing Church from its first days?

00:35:56.849 --> 00:36:00.369
They mentioned the other day that we're 15 years of church here this month or later this month.

00:36:00.378 --> 00:36:04.318
I rolled into town in 2012 and they got started in 2010.

00:36:04.824 --> 00:36:05.233
Okay.

00:36:05.364 --> 00:36:05.713
Okay.

00:36:06.094 --> 00:36:07.954
And how did you connect?

00:36:07.983 --> 00:36:13.153
Were you, I remember Gary McQuinn was part of the church in the earliest days and he was from Kansas city.

00:36:13.673 --> 00:36:13.943
Yeah.

00:36:14.153 --> 00:36:18.463
Gary went to the church that I grew up in and I had known him since he was, I think in seventh grade or so.

00:36:18.523 --> 00:36:18.753
Yeah.

00:36:18.844 --> 00:36:19.353
Interesting.

00:36:19.454 --> 00:36:21.534
Um, so he was kind of a mentor for me growing up.

00:36:22.063 --> 00:36:28.103
He was the cool guy that was like four years older than me that I emulated in a lot of ways, even if I wouldn't have admitted it.

00:36:28.873 --> 00:36:29.244
Interesting.

00:36:29.454 --> 00:36:30.253
So Gary was great.

00:36:30.364 --> 00:36:33.123
Was he early in the ministry track kind of stuff?

00:36:33.153 --> 00:36:33.403
Yeah.

00:36:33.483 --> 00:36:34.083
Or, okay.

00:36:34.273 --> 00:36:34.634
Yeah, yeah.

00:36:34.653 --> 00:36:42.949
His parents were, um, in the same small group as my wife's, uh, aunt and uncle in Kansas city area.

00:36:43.278 --> 00:36:43.588
Really?

00:36:43.648 --> 00:36:43.929
Yeah.

00:36:43.929 --> 00:36:46.898
So they, they knew Gary from before he moved out here.

00:36:46.949 --> 00:36:47.329
Okay.

00:36:47.478 --> 00:36:47.858
Yeah.

00:36:48.338 --> 00:36:48.608
So.

00:36:49.228 --> 00:36:55.708
Yeah, I was sitting in a house on Matt street in Olathe, Kansas, where I lived with four of my friends.

00:36:56.458 --> 00:37:01.878
And let's just say I was in the mood to get out of town and do something else.

00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:07.748
And, um, Gary called me and asked if I was interested in moving to Fort Collins.

00:37:07.748 --> 00:37:09.768
And I honestly had never even heard of it.

00:37:09.909 --> 00:37:10.278
Sure.

00:37:10.338 --> 00:37:10.998
I didn't even know.

00:37:11.469 --> 00:37:15.809
anything about Fort Collins, but I said, sure, let's do it.

00:37:16.039 --> 00:37:17.048
We've got this church.

00:37:17.398 --> 00:37:18.588
They really need a worship leader.

00:37:18.588 --> 00:37:20.708
We could pay you 600 a month.

00:37:21.539 --> 00:37:23.699
Nothing at first, but yeah, they, they did help me out.

00:37:24.179 --> 00:37:32.688
Um, so Gary called me, I was in the mood to get out of Dodge because my girlfriend had broken up with me and I was just like, let me get out of here.

00:37:32.688 --> 00:37:34.059
If you've ever been there in life.

00:37:34.539 --> 00:37:41.548
And so I threw everything I owned in my Crappy Honda Civic hit the road, headed out West.

00:37:41.619 --> 00:37:42.128
Interesting.

00:37:42.559 --> 00:37:43.978
So that's really what drew you here.

00:37:44.239 --> 00:37:44.449
Yeah.

00:37:44.449 --> 00:37:48.579
Um, let's, let's actually, while we're in the time machine, let's just keep going back.

00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:52.918
Like, let's go to five years old, five years old.

00:37:52.969 --> 00:37:53.469
Yeah.

00:37:53.648 --> 00:37:53.949
Okay.

00:37:53.978 --> 00:37:55.429
Like give me the family dynamic.

00:37:55.518 --> 00:37:59.065
Uh, give me, uh, siblings, all that.

00:37:59.065 --> 00:38:01.079
I am the oldest of eight children.

00:38:01.338 --> 00:38:02.389
Oldest of eight.

00:38:02.478 --> 00:38:02.809
Yeah.

00:38:02.918 --> 00:38:03.239
Dang.

00:38:03.259 --> 00:38:03.699
Okay.

00:38:04.018 --> 00:38:04.798
So I grew up.

00:38:06.143 --> 00:38:11.884
I would say it felt like I was half parent, half child sometimes because there were so many kids.

00:38:12.434 --> 00:38:13.914
And what was the span of those?

00:38:14.873 --> 00:38:15.923
Uh, 18 years.

00:38:16.409 --> 00:38:16.949
Okay.

00:38:17.369 --> 00:38:17.518
Yeah.

00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:19.648
I'm the oldest of four in a 10 year span.

00:38:19.789 --> 00:38:20.119
Okay.

00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:23.119
So I've got half kind of the experience that you did.

00:38:23.119 --> 00:38:24.748
I learned how to cook when I was 11.

00:38:24.768 --> 00:38:25.179
There you go.

00:38:25.349 --> 00:38:28.659
You know, feed my siblings, but, uh, I'm sure it was different for you.

00:38:28.768 --> 00:38:35.813
I remember going to basketball practice my senior year of high school and, you know, Well, first I went to the hospital because my brother had been born.

00:38:36.983 --> 00:38:39.034
I ran off to basketball practice my senior year.

00:38:39.123 --> 00:38:40.864
I'm like, Hey guys, I just have got a new brother.

00:38:43.344 --> 00:38:43.954
Yeah, big thing.

00:38:43.954 --> 00:38:45.173
I mean, it's no big deal.

00:38:46.443 --> 00:38:48.224
It happens every year or other year.

00:38:49.373 --> 00:38:49.704
Yep.

00:38:50.864 --> 00:38:51.673
It was a good thing though.

00:38:52.014 --> 00:38:59.969
Like where your parents, um, like it's like Catholics or, um, some of the other, not Catholic, just love kids.

00:39:00.228 --> 00:39:00.509
Yeah.

00:39:00.668 --> 00:39:00.898
Yep.

00:39:00.958 --> 00:39:01.309
Awesome.

00:39:01.329 --> 00:39:01.668
Okay.

00:39:01.929 --> 00:39:06.548
And were they with a, like, how can you afford so many kids that were they in the Kansas city area already?

00:39:06.869 --> 00:39:07.239
Yeah.

00:39:07.458 --> 00:39:07.719
Okay.

00:39:07.728 --> 00:39:10.539
We were in Kansas city, which was pretty reasonable market.

00:39:10.628 --> 00:39:11.088
Yeah.

00:39:11.289 --> 00:39:12.088
My dad is a doctor.

00:39:12.268 --> 00:39:12.528
Okay.

00:39:12.528 --> 00:39:13.059
So that helped.

00:39:13.719 --> 00:39:14.478
And yeah.

00:39:15.724 --> 00:39:17.244
And your mom was stay at home then?

00:39:17.253 --> 00:39:17.623
She was.

00:39:17.733 --> 00:39:18.184
Not, yeah.

00:39:18.184 --> 00:39:19.333
She was a nurse for a long time.

00:39:19.353 --> 00:39:20.653
Seems like plenty, uh.

00:39:20.664 --> 00:39:23.804
Yeah, I think she worked harder than probably I do as a full time person.

00:39:24.173 --> 00:39:24.594
Yeah, yeah.

00:39:25.014 --> 00:39:27.724
Um, so you had, you were, you were back up.

00:39:27.724 --> 00:39:31.463
You and a couple of the other older siblings were back up to mom on this herd of kids.

00:39:31.884 --> 00:39:34.804
Uh, and what were you like, like when you went to kindergarten?

00:39:35.583 --> 00:39:37.313
Were you already like responsible?

00:39:38.074 --> 00:39:38.594
Uh.

00:39:38.603 --> 00:39:40.974
No, I didn't even go to kindergarten.

00:39:40.974 --> 00:39:41.603
I was homeschooled.

00:39:41.684 --> 00:39:42.324
Oh, you were homeschooled?

00:39:42.423 --> 00:39:42.543
Yeah.

00:39:42.563 --> 00:39:43.134
All of you guys?

00:39:43.844 --> 00:39:44.643
Uh, no.

00:39:44.643 --> 00:39:44.728
No.

00:39:45.188 --> 00:39:46.918
There was a big mix of things that we did.

00:39:47.438 --> 00:39:48.659
I kind of did a little bit of everything.

00:39:48.659 --> 00:39:52.309
Like I was homeschooled for a while, then tried public school, then Christian school, then homeschool.

00:39:52.659 --> 00:39:53.688
Just did a little bit of whatever.

00:39:53.688 --> 00:39:54.119
Okay.

00:39:54.268 --> 00:39:56.458
And everybody kind of got to self direct in that way.

00:39:57.268 --> 00:39:59.759
Um, I don't know if it was self directed, but.

00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:08.869
It changed as the generations, not the generations, but the years went by, I think my siblings spent more time in public school, but I did a little bit of everything.

00:40:08.949 --> 00:40:09.289
Okay.

00:40:09.438 --> 00:40:09.608
Yeah.

00:40:09.869 --> 00:40:13.108
And like, did the music come early?

00:40:15.809 --> 00:40:23.333
No, I, I mean, I did piano a little bit when I was younger, but I think it was my freshman year in high school.

00:40:24.123 --> 00:40:26.994
like most 15 year old boys, I just wanted to impress girls.

00:40:27.103 --> 00:40:30.853
So I sure started to, I figured learning the guitar will do it.

00:40:31.974 --> 00:40:33.804
Well, guitar goggles is a real thing.

00:40:34.474 --> 00:40:36.003
So I picked that up and okay.

00:40:36.974 --> 00:40:39.614
And what was your, like, were you a good student?

00:40:39.664 --> 00:40:40.864
Were you an athlete?

00:40:41.114 --> 00:40:42.253
Uh, not interested.

00:40:42.264 --> 00:40:43.103
Not a good student.

00:40:43.293 --> 00:40:44.204
I was an athlete.

00:40:44.204 --> 00:40:54.054
I loved basketball, did track and cross country, had, had dreams that my physical ability could not Fulfill in the basketball world, but I did play at a small school.

00:40:54.164 --> 00:40:54.554
Okay.

00:40:54.664 --> 00:40:54.804
Yeah.

00:40:54.804 --> 00:40:55.123
All right.

00:40:55.713 --> 00:40:58.704
Um, and then like, just picked up music.

00:40:58.713 --> 00:41:01.233
Were you, were you raised in a Christian family as well?

00:41:01.244 --> 00:41:03.094
So that was there with you from the start.

00:41:03.673 --> 00:41:07.344
Um, then you went, what was your secondary education?

00:41:08.324 --> 00:41:09.594
Um, where'd you go to college?

00:41:10.094 --> 00:41:11.014
I was like, secondary education.

00:41:11.023 --> 00:41:11.853
I don't even know what that means.

00:41:12.264 --> 00:41:12.903
Did I do that?

00:41:12.963 --> 00:41:13.684
I think it's a thing.

00:41:13.713 --> 00:41:14.173
Okay.

00:41:14.253 --> 00:41:14.603
I don't know.

00:41:14.603 --> 00:41:14.974
Did you?

00:41:15.494 --> 00:41:16.184
Yeah, I did.

00:41:16.184 --> 00:41:18.554
I went to a Bible college actually in Wisconsin.

00:41:18.563 --> 00:41:20.003
So you go to Green Bay.

00:41:20.373 --> 00:41:20.623
Yep.

00:41:21.293 --> 00:41:22.063
Keep driving north.

00:41:22.364 --> 00:41:23.704
Okay, go into the woods.

00:41:23.744 --> 00:41:30.818
Yep Go past the rows of trees and all the cabins and whatever in the snow and just keep going.

00:41:31.429 --> 00:41:35.909
And then you get to pin bind Wisconsin, like up on the Southern shore of superior or something.

00:41:35.918 --> 00:41:38.719
It's about 45 minutes away from iron mountain, Michigan and the up.

00:41:39.298 --> 00:41:39.798
Okay.

00:41:40.039 --> 00:41:40.298
Yeah.

00:41:40.298 --> 00:41:41.048
So the way up there.

00:41:41.128 --> 00:41:41.289
Yeah.

00:41:41.289 --> 00:41:41.579
Yeah.

00:41:41.628 --> 00:41:43.679
My uncle was the president of the college at the time.

00:41:43.679 --> 00:41:44.938
And a lot of my friends have gone there.

00:41:46.188 --> 00:41:51.989
I decided kind of last minute that I wanted to go up there cause I thought it would be good for me for a year just to spend some time.

00:41:51.989 --> 00:41:52.998
That's a lot of girls up there though.

00:41:53.648 --> 00:41:55.268
Probably like 400 of them.

00:41:55.599 --> 00:41:56.489
Okay, all right.

00:41:57.429 --> 00:41:58.518
No, not that many.

00:41:59.088 --> 00:42:02.103
Um, and I didn't, Ever date anyone in college, so no, not that many.

00:42:02.103 --> 00:42:06.733
That's why you picked up the guitar originally, but that proved out not to be like the Nope.

00:42:07.463 --> 00:42:10.204
The Lord had other plans for the guitar and it had nothing to do with girls.

00:42:10.284 --> 00:42:10.804
Fair enough.

00:42:10.903 --> 00:42:11.173
Yeah.

00:42:12.873 --> 00:42:14.083
Were you a songwriter right away?

00:42:15.103 --> 00:42:17.204
Uh, I messed around a little bit.

00:42:17.523 --> 00:42:17.844
Yeah.

00:42:17.914 --> 00:42:18.233
Yeah.

00:42:18.534 --> 00:42:28.833
I mean, cause, cause like, to be honest with you, like when I first came to know you, like after our first coffee meeting, probably years before you went to work for Wintermine.

00:42:29.074 --> 00:42:29.313
Yeah.

00:42:29.344 --> 00:42:40.233
I remember thinking writer was one of the defining, what writer and kind of philosopher cause you would share more of your, you probably shared more of your original music earlier in the Crossing thing.

00:42:40.233 --> 00:42:41.244
Although maybe you still do.

00:42:41.253 --> 00:42:42.804
I think so because I had more time back then.

00:42:43.463 --> 00:42:43.704
Right.

00:42:44.483 --> 00:42:45.514
There were no kids involved.

00:42:45.514 --> 00:42:45.534
Yeah.

00:42:45.534 --> 00:42:47.134
A chance to write a song was, yeah.

00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:48.759
Yeah, that's before I got married.

00:42:49.048 --> 00:42:49.309
Yep.

00:42:49.818 --> 00:42:50.418
Fair enough.

00:42:51.048 --> 00:42:56.889
So, um, so that was all kind of more later as you kind of evolved as a, as a person.

00:42:57.849 --> 00:42:58.268
Yeah.

00:42:59.298 --> 00:43:01.708
I don't think of myself as a good musician.

00:43:02.239 --> 00:43:04.898
I think, no, I mean, I'm not that great at the guitar.

00:43:04.898 --> 00:43:07.833
Like I know what I'm, I can, I can play the guitar, but I'm not like.

00:43:08.614 --> 00:43:11.483
I always compare myself to people above me and I'm very small.

00:43:11.483 --> 00:43:12.393
You know Jimi Hendrix?

00:43:12.423 --> 00:43:13.264
I know Jimi Hendrix.

00:43:13.983 --> 00:43:14.864
I can play enough.

00:43:14.864 --> 00:43:16.434
I can sing enough to like, it works.

00:43:16.474 --> 00:43:17.963
I don't think I'm a recording artist.

00:43:17.963 --> 00:43:20.173
Like a man's got to know his limitations.

00:43:20.173 --> 00:43:20.293
Yeah.

00:43:20.293 --> 00:43:20.503
Yeah.

00:43:20.594 --> 00:43:23.853
And I know mine and I think they, they work well in what I'm doing.

00:43:24.293 --> 00:43:30.954
Um, I do enjoy writing songs when I have the time to have a little bit of a gift for that.

00:43:30.954 --> 00:43:31.833
And sometimes they work.

00:43:32.384 --> 00:43:34.824
Um, for whatever reason, they always end up being Christmas songs.

00:43:35.914 --> 00:43:36.554
A lot of them do.

00:43:36.554 --> 00:43:41.213
I wrote a song for when my wife walked down the aisle at our wedding, though.

00:43:41.304 --> 00:43:41.804
Oh, cool.

00:43:41.853 --> 00:43:42.143
Yeah.

00:43:42.193 --> 00:43:42.869
Do you want to sing it?

00:43:43.103 --> 00:43:43.364
No.

00:43:44.793 --> 00:43:52.094
I have a confession to make that, uh, like in the, over the last maybe two, three years, I'm 50 now.

00:43:52.094 --> 00:43:54.954
So my, my voice just doesn't have the range that it does.

00:43:55.543 --> 00:43:57.583
I no longer can, can, can.

00:43:58.454 --> 00:44:02.614
outperform you on the vocals parts of the crossing worship.

00:44:02.873 --> 00:44:09.994
There was a season where, where I could get a little higher highs and a little nicer shifts, but no, probably I don't have your impressive range by any means.

00:44:10.023 --> 00:44:13.514
No, I mean, well me neither, but mine kind of overlaps with yours.

00:44:13.514 --> 00:44:16.824
It used to, now I've lost some of the places that you can go.

00:44:16.824 --> 00:44:17.753
I can no longer go.

00:44:18.324 --> 00:44:21.543
Uh, so anyway, it's hard to make it work for everyone.

00:44:21.954 --> 00:44:22.693
It really is.

00:44:23.094 --> 00:44:33.003
Um, how are you the, like when it's chief musician, does that mean you have Like what songs everybody's playing even if you're not there that week and stuff.

00:44:33.043 --> 00:44:35.768
No, what's that job really look like now?

00:44:36.603 --> 00:44:52.914
It just means that I pick out the songs that we're doing if I'm on okay that Sunday I don't if somebody else is doing it and then it means that I practice with the team and then I'm there Sunday morning And you're there two to three times and you get at least one week off a month kind of thing more like two Okay.

00:44:52.974 --> 00:44:53.373
Okay.

00:44:54.164 --> 00:44:56.983
Um, so not as much lift as it used to be.

00:44:56.983 --> 00:44:57.543
Probably.

00:44:58.423 --> 00:45:01.994
I did it four days, four weekends a month for years.

00:45:02.293 --> 00:45:02.784
Right.

00:45:03.094 --> 00:45:05.204
And it's kind of crazy when I think about it.

00:45:05.914 --> 00:45:09.349
Um, I could never do that now, but it worked when I was, A young man.

00:45:09.469 --> 00:45:09.748
Yeah.

00:45:09.898 --> 00:45:10.148
You know?

00:45:10.409 --> 00:45:13.278
Well, and you were like freelance writing without a real job.

00:45:13.278 --> 00:45:15.739
And then broken a coffee shop.

00:45:15.798 --> 00:45:18.128
Like, yeah, you want me to do this four times.

00:45:18.128 --> 00:45:18.318
Yeah.

00:45:18.318 --> 00:45:18.469
Okay.

00:45:18.648 --> 00:45:19.338
I'll do it four times.

00:45:19.918 --> 00:45:20.588
Sounds great.

00:45:21.748 --> 00:45:22.759
At least it fills my time.

00:45:23.688 --> 00:45:26.699
Um, so is that something you want to continue to do?

00:45:27.809 --> 00:45:29.639
Like you're, you're a CEO now.

00:45:29.639 --> 00:45:32.469
Like you can be like, Hey, you know, I'm a little too busy with my jobby job.

00:45:32.478 --> 00:45:35.748
But that's a good question.

00:45:36.449 --> 00:45:41.668
I don't think I'll do it forever, but I think I will do it forever in the sense that I'll be available forever.

00:45:41.668 --> 00:45:44.889
Like if somebody needs me to fill in, I don't know how long I'll do it.

00:45:45.628 --> 00:45:49.998
You could shift down to once a month here soon, even potentially, I think eventually something like that'll happen.

00:45:50.018 --> 00:45:51.159
Honestly, I think it'd be better.

00:45:51.773 --> 00:45:54.893
Someone else took over that had more time than I have available.

00:45:54.903 --> 00:45:55.164
Yeah.

00:45:55.164 --> 00:45:55.483
Yeah.

00:45:55.994 --> 00:45:59.074
Cause people will always ask, like, you know, they want to have the stuff ready early.

00:45:59.074 --> 00:46:00.503
They want to have like special stuff.

00:46:00.503 --> 00:46:12.123
And I'm like, I, what I can do right now is show up and I know all the songs a bunch of times, but I kind of need everybody else to kind of practice on their own.

00:46:12.134 --> 00:46:12.344
Yeah.

00:46:12.344 --> 00:46:13.324
I think it'd be better if.

00:46:13.599 --> 00:46:16.438
There was someone that had time to really focus on it, honestly.

00:46:16.518 --> 00:46:16.949
Yeah.

00:46:17.018 --> 00:46:17.239
Yeah.

00:46:17.469 --> 00:46:19.798
Is there somebody on the worship team that could rise up in that?

00:46:19.809 --> 00:46:20.009
Yeah.

00:46:20.009 --> 00:46:20.688
There's another guy.

00:46:20.829 --> 00:46:23.208
Um, well, he's no less busy than I am though.

00:46:23.679 --> 00:46:24.588
Jack Crenshaw has his own.

00:46:25.179 --> 00:46:25.659
He's great.

00:46:25.668 --> 00:46:25.858
Yeah.

00:46:25.858 --> 00:46:26.469
He's super.

00:46:26.548 --> 00:46:26.798
Yep.

00:46:26.869 --> 00:46:28.528
Um, he doesn't have more time.

00:46:28.528 --> 00:46:29.898
His range is a little higher than mine.

00:46:29.898 --> 00:46:31.798
So I have a harder time singing along with him.

00:46:31.809 --> 00:46:32.489
You might too.

00:46:32.748 --> 00:46:37.358
We talk about that, but I'm sure he's nice for a lot of guys, uh, and gals.

00:46:37.768 --> 00:46:48.764
Um, anything that you would want, like, you know, just the random listener that maybe goes to church and participates in the worship, but just to a peek behind the curtain of, um, sure.

00:46:48.764 --> 00:46:50.744
I mean, I worship teams.

00:46:50.813 --> 00:46:56.873
I really believe in a simple model doesn't mean everybody has to do it that way.

00:46:57.193 --> 00:46:58.514
So I grew up in a Baptist church.

00:46:58.603 --> 00:46:58.864
Okay.

00:46:58.903 --> 00:47:01.474
We sang hymns with a handle old school.

00:47:01.483 --> 00:47:01.793
Yeah.

00:47:02.213 --> 00:47:04.983
Old school, which I think was great for my development.

00:47:05.454 --> 00:47:08.963
I was just like looking at notes and singing and doing that every week.

00:47:09.043 --> 00:47:09.273
Yep.

00:47:09.474 --> 00:47:19.653
Um, But I am a big believer in simple church in, and especially in like the singing portion of the service, just doing it in a way that's really accessible for everyone.

00:47:19.733 --> 00:47:20.023
Yeah.

00:47:20.123 --> 00:47:26.313
I think there are lots of places that have shifted to more of a performance style thing where you engage in it by listening to it and kind of singing along.

00:47:26.384 --> 00:47:26.684
Yeah.

00:47:27.034 --> 00:47:29.974
Um, It's just not how I prefer to do things.

00:47:30.003 --> 00:47:34.923
I like to try to pick songs and pick keys that allow everybody to get involved.

00:47:35.463 --> 00:47:38.623
Um, I love to get, drop it down to acapella at least once a service.

00:47:38.813 --> 00:47:39.184
Totally.

00:47:39.563 --> 00:47:41.173
I was just going to, I was just thinking about that.

00:47:41.193 --> 00:47:41.494
Yeah.

00:47:41.963 --> 00:47:42.773
Cause that's what it's about.

00:47:42.903 --> 00:47:46.293
Like, it's not about me and that's a big problem.

00:47:46.293 --> 00:47:54.554
I think in that space with people making it about them and I, I would, luckily I was trained by a great teacher.

00:47:54.813 --> 00:48:05.293
friend named JD Summers, who was just really good at it and also had a great perspective on it, taught me well, like, Hey, this is not like your time to shine.

00:48:05.503 --> 00:48:07.414
Like, Oh, this is not about you.

00:48:07.583 --> 00:48:09.454
Like get up there and help them sing.

00:48:09.503 --> 00:48:09.873
Yeah.

00:48:09.873 --> 00:48:10.693
That's what you're doing.

00:48:11.353 --> 00:48:14.054
Um, and I, I don't like doing it any other way than that.

00:48:14.083 --> 00:48:16.208
And that means that I would pick songs that are.

00:48:16.969 --> 00:48:22.768
Some of them, I mean, I love hymns because of the richness of the, of the language and the, the meaning behind it.

00:48:22.768 --> 00:48:24.958
So the job is almost like to draw out worship.

00:48:25.389 --> 00:48:25.728
Yeah.

00:48:26.398 --> 00:48:27.498
I'm trying to lead worship.

00:48:27.528 --> 00:48:28.039
That's what I'm doing.

00:48:28.068 --> 00:48:28.548
Yeah.

00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:29.528
Not put on a concert.

00:48:29.829 --> 00:48:30.199
Yeah.

00:48:30.268 --> 00:48:31.918
It'd be a lame concert if you're coming to hear me.

00:48:32.679 --> 00:48:35.548
But my, my goal is just to help other people engage in it.

00:48:35.579 --> 00:48:40.099
And that means you do things a certain way that allows people to participate in it.

00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:40.639
Yeah.

00:48:40.719 --> 00:48:42.239
Um, you want people to participate.

00:48:42.239 --> 00:48:44.168
You want to look around and see other people singing.

00:48:44.733 --> 00:48:51.583
And for the church body to do this, like the liturgy, the work of the people is every Sunday we come together and we do it together.

00:48:51.614 --> 00:48:59.713
And if you can like, look out into the crowd and see somebody or more than one person, like singing their heart out with tears.

00:49:02.954 --> 00:49:16.673
Yeah, I mean, that's not always like, that's not how you measure your success, but it kind of is honestly, like when I'm looking out there, like, I want to see people singing because if they're not, then I feel like I'm failing because if, if everyone just shows up to listen to me, we failed.

00:49:16.893 --> 00:49:17.173
Yeah.

00:49:17.244 --> 00:49:26.077
Um, I want people to show up and to And what do I need to know to be able to engage in worshipping, um, along with us, doing it together?

00:49:26.079 --> 00:49:28.489
And it's about us doing it, not me.

00:49:29.509 --> 00:49:47.713
I've had that, uh, those moments before, you know, even though I was baptized, I guess, gosh, back in 2002 or one or something like back then I was kind of a Semi christian growing up kind of in comparison, probably.

00:49:48.364 --> 00:49:48.773
Semi christian.

00:49:49.023 --> 00:49:55.173
It was like, I went to church and stuff a little bit, but well, I didn't know what the good news was even after being confirmed.

00:49:55.173 --> 00:50:01.264
So I couldn't give you some of the evidence of my, like, I don't know if it was my fault, but I was pretty curious about everything else in the world.

00:50:01.264 --> 00:50:03.224
So I think they just kind of avoided that.

00:50:03.884 --> 00:50:04.514
It was more like.

00:50:05.369 --> 00:50:06.949
If you go to this church, then you're good.

00:50:07.478 --> 00:50:08.559
Don't sweat the small stuff.

00:50:09.509 --> 00:50:10.849
Here, memorize the books of the Bible.

00:50:10.858 --> 00:50:11.998
A lot of people have that story.

00:50:12.088 --> 00:50:12.889
Yeah, I think so.

00:50:13.028 --> 00:50:14.688
I don't think it's uncommon, necessarily.

00:50:14.719 --> 00:50:16.088
It's kind of my story, sort of.

00:50:16.088 --> 00:50:18.259
Yeah, even as a Baptist, it's kind of background.

00:50:18.639 --> 00:50:25.539
Not the same thing as you, but I mean, there's always that element where, like, if you grow up in it, like, I made a confession of faith when I was five years old.

00:50:25.628 --> 00:50:25.929
Right.

00:50:26.414 --> 00:50:35.773
And maybe that was real, but when you're like 16, you're thinking about like, I don't know about this, you know, it's not as clean as we would like it to be, but yeah, yeah.

00:50:35.773 --> 00:50:39.373
Well, and it would be nicer for all of us if it was just cleaner.

00:50:39.963 --> 00:50:42.494
Anyway, you get baptized and you're just clean from there.

00:50:42.503 --> 00:50:45.313
Clean thoughts, easy, easy living.

00:50:45.994 --> 00:50:46.934
Got the floaties on.

00:50:47.423 --> 00:50:49.244
Alas, it's not easy.

00:50:50.344 --> 00:50:53.454
Um, we'll end up delving into faith, family politics.

00:50:53.753 --> 00:51:06.469
What else should we do in this first chapter of Any business y things, any music y things you want to touch on or should we just take a little break and kind of come back into some of the more, uh, topically oriented conversations?

00:51:06.469 --> 00:51:11.548
I mean, I don't know if we're going to come back to any business stuff.

00:51:11.568 --> 00:51:15.938
I mean, I could talk about my, my journey to, uh, How I got here.

00:51:15.943 --> 00:51:16.958
I mean, yeah, let's do it.

00:51:17.048 --> 00:51:19.398
I, so I knew that.

00:51:19.489 --> 00:51:19.969
Oh, so yeah.

00:51:19.969 --> 00:51:20.989
So you get here.

00:51:21.438 --> 00:51:21.619
Yeah.

00:51:21.619 --> 00:51:21.918
Keep going.

00:51:22.039 --> 00:51:22.309
Yeah.

00:51:22.338 --> 00:51:22.458
Do it.

00:51:22.458 --> 00:51:22.668
Well, yeah.

00:51:22.668 --> 00:51:23.719
I got in the car, got in the Civic.

00:51:23.838 --> 00:51:25.219
Got outta here, Yeah.

00:51:25.278 --> 00:51:29.659
Um, let's do, and man, did I have some terrible jobs?

00:51:30.188 --> 00:51:32.018
just the worst I was.

00:51:32.259 --> 00:51:32.559
Yeah.

00:51:32.878 --> 00:51:35.818
So you like living in Gary's basement or something like that?

00:51:35.878 --> 00:51:35.938
Yeah.

00:51:35.938 --> 00:51:38.208
Or like Yeah, I have a thing.

00:51:38.268 --> 00:51:38.509
Yeah.

00:51:38.509 --> 00:51:39.498
I lived in some basements.

00:51:39.588 --> 00:51:39.889
Yeah.

00:51:40.239 --> 00:51:41.739
I lived in Jacob's basement actually.

00:51:41.798 --> 00:51:42.159
Okay.

00:51:42.309 --> 00:51:43.088
We'll get to that part.

00:51:44.179 --> 00:51:45.123
So yeah, I came out here and.

00:51:46.199 --> 00:51:47.608
So I graduated from Bible college.

00:51:48.599 --> 00:51:49.469
Good luck with that.

00:51:49.469 --> 00:51:50.668
Did you want to be a pastor?

00:51:51.318 --> 00:51:53.039
I wanted to be a missionary actually.

00:51:53.139 --> 00:51:53.478
Okay.

00:51:53.528 --> 00:51:58.248
I thought that's what I would do is cause I, so I spent two summers in North Africa and Morocco.

00:51:58.358 --> 00:51:58.849
Okay.

00:51:58.969 --> 00:52:00.768
And I was pretty passionate about that.

00:52:00.909 --> 00:52:07.679
I enjoyed it, but then I came back and I think reality kind of set in about just who I am.

00:52:07.929 --> 00:52:08.289
Yeah.

00:52:08.518 --> 00:52:12.548
Like I spent college, I would say learning a lot about who God is.

00:52:12.639 --> 00:52:17.659
And then time after college was along with that also just learning a lot about who I am.

00:52:18.023 --> 00:52:18.043
Yeah.

00:52:18.054 --> 00:52:19.023
And being realistic.

00:52:19.434 --> 00:52:19.693
Okay.

00:52:19.724 --> 00:52:22.134
Like, or maybe even more specifically, like learning who I'm not.

00:52:22.393 --> 00:52:22.664
Yeah.

00:52:22.664 --> 00:52:22.934
Yeah.

00:52:22.934 --> 00:52:28.143
And thinking about like charging off and starting a church in North Africa was like, you know what?

00:52:28.184 --> 00:52:30.224
I don't think I'm going to be very good at that.

00:52:30.293 --> 00:52:30.713
Yeah.

00:52:30.744 --> 00:52:35.753
Like, it's just not really, there are parts of that that I'm wired for and parts of it that I'm just not.

00:52:35.753 --> 00:52:35.882
Yeah.

00:52:35.884 --> 00:52:36.264
Yeah.

00:52:36.313 --> 00:52:37.213
And it's just not, I don't know.

00:52:38.264 --> 00:52:39.543
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

00:52:39.773 --> 00:52:41.543
So that's what I wanted to do.

00:52:41.693 --> 00:52:45.353
But I came out here and just started helping out at church.

00:52:45.373 --> 00:53:03.173
And then my first job was working at a flood restoration company with Rich Gardner, who, you know, Rich and I, if we just look each other in the eye for another company or for, cause he went independent for a while too, uh, for a company, for a company.

00:53:03.304 --> 00:53:07.054
So both of you are working together for this crappy flood restoration company.

00:53:07.304 --> 00:53:07.994
And we can.

00:53:09.079 --> 00:53:13.568
If we just look at each other, we know, like, we got some stories, like Rich and I have been through it.

00:53:13.829 --> 00:53:23.074
That industry has You know, it's almost there with bankers and attorneys in terms of, you can trust me, I'm a flood restoration expert.

00:53:23.164 --> 00:53:23.923
Oh, gotcha.

00:53:24.313 --> 00:53:26.574
Well, I wasn't, uh, swindling anybody.

00:53:26.574 --> 00:53:28.943
I was just swimming in their basement.

00:53:29.434 --> 00:53:30.123
Oh, gross.

00:53:30.454 --> 00:53:31.483
You know, that kind of thing.

00:53:31.483 --> 00:53:32.653
So it was, it was not a fun job.

00:53:32.664 --> 00:53:36.173
You just got the job was just to deal with sewage and different things.

00:53:36.193 --> 00:53:36.534
Yeah.

00:53:36.534 --> 00:53:38.304
I saw you get, you have your local moment thing.

00:53:38.304 --> 00:53:39.003
It'll come from that.

00:53:39.063 --> 00:53:39.463
Okay.

00:53:39.503 --> 00:53:39.864
All right.

00:53:39.893 --> 00:53:42.074
Um, but I did that for a long time.

00:53:42.603 --> 00:53:43.864
Felt like a long time anyway.

00:53:44.393 --> 00:53:45.873
And then just bounced around.

00:53:45.884 --> 00:53:49.643
Like I, I did work for a government contractor here in town making maps.

00:53:50.253 --> 00:53:50.824
Oh yeah.

00:53:50.954 --> 00:53:52.193
Kaki CACI.

00:53:52.244 --> 00:53:54.123
I've seen that company before.

00:53:54.123 --> 00:53:54.443
Yeah.

00:53:55.153 --> 00:53:59.934
It's like G G O whatever, like GIS kind of properly.

00:54:00.253 --> 00:54:02.153
It was things that I think AI would do now.

00:54:02.503 --> 00:54:02.963
Probably.

00:54:02.963 --> 00:54:03.244
Yeah.

00:54:03.244 --> 00:54:05.373
Um, It was kind of fun, actually.

00:54:05.373 --> 00:54:08.574
It wasn't bad, except after a while, you just, your brain started to melt.

00:54:08.574 --> 00:54:10.273
And what is that word?

00:54:10.373 --> 00:54:13.233
That's like the art of map making cartography.

00:54:13.273 --> 00:54:13.914
Yes.

00:54:13.983 --> 00:54:14.213
Yeah.

00:54:14.233 --> 00:54:14.503
Thank you.

00:54:14.543 --> 00:54:14.923
Good job.

00:54:14.923 --> 00:54:15.233
Sort of.

00:54:15.253 --> 00:54:17.293
I was a sort of cartographer for a while.

00:54:17.344 --> 00:54:18.893
Are you excellent at Scrabble?

00:54:19.914 --> 00:54:21.824
Um, my wife usually beats me.

00:54:22.173 --> 00:54:24.804
So no, I'm just curious.

00:54:24.804 --> 00:54:25.963
You know, a lot of words.

00:54:25.963 --> 00:54:27.523
You're just not that, uh, I don't know.

00:54:27.594 --> 00:54:28.903
I'm just not that great at Scrabble.

00:54:29.623 --> 00:54:30.434
She just wants to win more.

00:54:30.574 --> 00:54:31.054
Probably.

00:54:32.014 --> 00:54:32.733
She is competitive.

00:54:33.284 --> 00:54:34.034
So I did that.

00:54:35.233 --> 00:54:40.434
And where is, where does Alex come along, by the way, like this journey from church?

00:54:40.744 --> 00:54:41.684
So she was there.

00:54:41.704 --> 00:54:43.094
Well, that, that's kind of a funny story though.

00:54:43.094 --> 00:54:48.264
She, so I saw her pretty early on, like that first year that I was there.

00:54:48.898 --> 00:54:51.778
And when I saw her, I had this flash of recognition, but I couldn't place it.

00:54:53.298 --> 00:54:54.268
I knew she looked familiar.

00:54:54.889 --> 00:54:56.068
Like, who's that pretty girl over there?

00:54:56.068 --> 00:55:00.429
I don't, I feel like I've seen her before, but it'd be awkward if I went and talked to her because I have no idea.

00:55:00.748 --> 00:55:01.079
Right.

00:55:01.239 --> 00:55:02.329
Probably not actually.

00:55:02.748 --> 00:55:05.958
So now I'm just the dorky guy going to ask this girl.

00:55:07.159 --> 00:55:09.278
But it turns out she was from Kansas too.

00:55:09.329 --> 00:55:13.568
She was from Emporia, which is about an hour and a half Southwest of where I'm from.

00:55:13.659 --> 00:55:14.028
Okay.

00:55:14.369 --> 00:55:26.159
And we started to find out things about each other, such as we had a lot of, or we had some mutual friends Which was good because she remembered being in the same room as me and not liking me.

00:55:26.318 --> 00:55:26.579
Oh.

00:55:26.929 --> 00:55:27.958
I didn't remember her at all.

00:55:27.978 --> 00:55:31.108
So you'd have these mutual friends kind of stand up for you and say that.

00:55:31.498 --> 00:55:34.898
Yeah, kind of like I, I recognized her, but I remember.

00:55:36.313 --> 00:55:40.764
Or she remembered, like, noticing something that I did that she did not like.

00:55:40.804 --> 00:55:45.623
Oh, I don't know if I was just in a bad, I'm pretty good at making bad first impressions and I definitely did it with her.

00:55:46.164 --> 00:55:48.574
So then she saw me and was like, Oh yeah, I know you.

00:55:48.574 --> 00:55:50.634
I don't like that guy.

00:55:51.284 --> 00:55:55.554
Um, but then mutual friend was like, no, no, like give him a chance, whatever you should.

00:55:55.554 --> 00:55:58.423
And then, then we found out that we were born on the same day.

00:55:58.878 --> 00:55:59.608
Oh, which is?

00:55:59.978 --> 00:56:01.619
November 11th, 1987.

00:56:01.759 --> 00:56:03.759
November 11th, which is Veterans Day.

00:56:03.918 --> 00:56:04.509
It is.

00:56:04.548 --> 00:56:05.108
Or always.

00:56:05.159 --> 00:56:05.509
Always.

00:56:05.608 --> 00:56:05.938
Yeah.

00:56:06.309 --> 00:56:06.458
Yeah.

00:56:06.458 --> 00:56:06.938
Interesting.

00:56:07.628 --> 00:56:10.489
So we were born about an hour and a half apart on the same day.

00:56:10.509 --> 00:56:10.759
Wow.

00:56:10.798 --> 00:56:12.068
Like, six hours apart.

00:56:12.219 --> 00:56:12.559
Interesting.

00:56:12.588 --> 00:56:14.259
Which is just one of those things that gets you talking.

00:56:14.349 --> 00:56:14.869
Yeah, yeah.

00:56:14.938 --> 00:56:15.619
You realize that.

00:56:16.829 --> 00:56:21.137
Was she there at the crossing from the McQuinn connection from Kansas or how did she land there?

00:56:21.139 --> 00:56:23.478
No, she found it in a directory of churches.

00:56:23.539 --> 00:56:23.918
Okay.

00:56:23.989 --> 00:56:24.239
Yeah.

00:56:24.278 --> 00:56:25.148
Just was checking it out.

00:56:25.148 --> 00:56:26.079
Gospel Coalition, I think.

00:56:26.298 --> 00:56:26.679
Okay.

00:56:26.809 --> 00:56:27.289
Interesting.

00:56:27.989 --> 00:56:38.449
Um, so what was it that, like, I assume was, was Gary also from the same kind of Baptist church background that you were from?

00:56:38.449 --> 00:56:40.039
Same church I went to and the same college.

00:56:40.039 --> 00:56:41.639
Same Bible college is everything.

00:56:41.639 --> 00:56:53.268
And then, um, The crossing would probably be contrasted as maybe a little bit more less dogmatic, uh, of sorts, maybe?

00:56:53.869 --> 00:56:58.739
Actually, not in important things, just as dogmatic in the really things that actually matter, in my opinion.

00:56:58.768 --> 00:56:58.969
Yeah.

00:56:58.969 --> 00:56:59.568
How, yeah.

00:56:59.568 --> 00:57:06.998
So how did you resonate with the crossing from a, from a theological standpoint when you arrived, how was it different from what you, it jived with?

00:57:06.998 --> 00:57:09.599
A little bit less strict about some of the things around the edges.

00:57:09.768 --> 00:57:10.108
Okay.

00:57:10.458 --> 00:57:10.759
Fair enough.

00:57:10.798 --> 00:57:11.268
All right.

00:57:11.349 --> 00:57:11.509
Yeah.

00:57:11.889 --> 00:57:22.599
Um, Do you had, like, even in high school, other times in your, like, faith background, had you been, like, wondering?

00:57:23.418 --> 00:57:25.469
Or Yeah, I think so.

00:57:25.679 --> 00:57:26.018
Yeah.

00:57:26.068 --> 00:57:28.498
Things really changed for me my freshman year in college.

00:57:29.929 --> 00:57:31.809
It kind of felt like the matrix.

00:57:32.208 --> 00:57:35.978
You start seeing the zeros and the ones, like you understand life for the first time.

00:57:35.989 --> 00:57:36.119
Yeah.

00:57:37.514 --> 00:57:41.463
So I did, yeah, uh, college was, it was really big for me.

00:57:41.623 --> 00:57:41.983
Okay.

00:57:42.014 --> 00:57:42.213
Yeah.

00:57:42.614 --> 00:57:46.003
And like, in what ways would you care to expand maybe a little bit more?

00:57:46.043 --> 00:57:52.653
Well, I was spending all day around a bunch of friends that were a lot more mature than I was a lot more like spiritually mature.

00:57:52.653 --> 00:57:59.014
Um, and just a good environment, like an environment that was admittedly like really rigid in some ways that was unhelpful.

00:57:59.074 --> 00:57:59.353
Yeah.

00:57:59.594 --> 00:58:03.844
But within it, there's this group of awesome people that I spent all my time with.

00:58:03.844 --> 00:58:04.072
Yeah.

00:58:04.074 --> 00:58:04.344
Yeah.

00:58:04.403 --> 00:58:04.943
And.

00:58:05.273 --> 00:58:06.523
That had a big impact on me.

00:58:06.523 --> 00:58:17.643
I think, um, I'm not sure if you're a sports guy at all, but, uh, last night, the, the NDSU Bison won their 10th national championship in the last 15 years or something like that.

00:58:18.164 --> 00:58:25.704
And like some of their players and stuff that have had interviews, like it's just kind of that kind of team where everybody's so.

00:58:26.514 --> 00:58:29.423
like invested in the team, that Michigan team that J.

00:58:29.423 --> 00:58:29.554
J.

00:58:29.554 --> 00:58:33.583
McCarthy came from kind of had that same kind of tone last couple of years ago or whatever it was.

00:58:34.103 --> 00:58:38.083
And just that notion of we're a brotherhood here.

00:58:38.143 --> 00:58:38.853
It's beyond that.

00:58:38.884 --> 00:58:40.693
And that sounds like kind of the environment you're describing.

00:58:40.693 --> 00:58:45.824
It was a brotherhood, which goes a long way for a 19 year old dude.

00:58:46.014 --> 00:58:47.423
Yeah, for sure.

00:58:47.434 --> 00:58:47.664
You need that.

00:58:48.003 --> 00:58:48.333
Yeah.

00:58:48.864 --> 00:59:00.494
So when we departed, you had started to change, uh, minds of, uh, Alex and Uh, or at least your friends that helped to get you, uh, at least a, a first date.

00:59:01.184 --> 00:59:05.514
Gary threw Gary and his wife through a birthday party for us without telling me about it.

00:59:06.134 --> 00:59:07.855
Yeah, but this is like before anything.

00:59:07.855 --> 00:59:09.882
And then we sat next to each other.

00:59:09.882 --> 00:59:14.574
They knew that Alex didn't particularly like me, but they're like, you're gonna like, we like him.

00:59:14.594 --> 00:59:16.054
So you're going to sit next to her.

00:59:16.054 --> 00:59:16.983
You just need to learn more.

00:59:17.074 --> 00:59:17.384
Yeah.

00:59:17.434 --> 00:59:17.634
Yeah.

00:59:17.634 --> 00:59:17.954
Yeah.

00:59:18.773 --> 00:59:19.773
Somehow that worked.

00:59:21.483 --> 00:59:22.643
But a big, but a boom.

00:59:22.713 --> 00:59:23.043
Yep.

00:59:23.123 --> 00:59:28.498
And was it a, uh, high speed Romance engagement and just shortly by modern standards.

00:59:28.498 --> 00:59:29.809
It was super high speed.

00:59:29.809 --> 00:59:34.139
I think, I mean, I think we dated for like a year and then we're engaged for four months or so.

00:59:34.139 --> 00:59:34.648
So, okay.

00:59:34.838 --> 00:59:35.088
Yeah.

00:59:35.539 --> 00:59:35.789
Yeah.

00:59:36.179 --> 00:59:40.829
Jill and I were, we did it for a year and then got engaged and then we waited another whole year.

00:59:40.838 --> 00:59:43.568
Cause yeah, she was still in college and her dad was paying for it.

00:59:43.568 --> 00:59:44.079
I was scared.

00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:45.248
He was going to make me pay for it.

00:59:45.248 --> 00:59:50.028
If I married her first, so we got married right after she graduated.

00:59:50.028 --> 00:59:50.268
Yeah.

00:59:50.278 --> 00:59:52.659
I distinctly remember my father in law.

00:59:52.679 --> 00:59:53.079
Like when I.

00:59:53.688 --> 00:59:55.148
Asked him if I could marry his daughter.

00:59:55.248 --> 00:59:57.398
Yeah, which I did because I'm old school.

00:59:57.478 --> 01:00:07.599
Yeah, same and he Like he was he was positive but the one question he had was like and he's trying to be nice She was like, how are you gonna make money?

01:00:11.393 --> 01:00:14.423
How do I say I don't know in a way that gives you confidence?

01:00:14.833 --> 01:00:15.844
Some hope at least.

01:00:16.184 --> 01:00:16.523
Yeah.

01:00:16.793 --> 01:00:19.653
What was your, your status in life at that moment?

01:00:19.713 --> 01:00:20.864
I was, I was doing the map thing.

01:00:20.864 --> 01:00:21.414
I was a cartographer.

01:00:21.483 --> 01:00:21.853
Okay.

01:00:21.934 --> 01:00:25.664
Well, yeah, you know, that was, uh, It wasn't terrible.

01:00:25.673 --> 01:00:27.273
Just slightly above poverty level.

01:00:27.284 --> 01:00:28.744
Yeah, it was like 14 an hour.

01:00:28.744 --> 01:00:31.454
Okay, so it was pretty poverty level.

01:00:31.494 --> 01:00:31.764
Yeah.

01:00:31.813 --> 01:00:32.994
But at least it was consistent.

01:00:33.193 --> 01:00:34.143
At least I had a job.

01:00:34.583 --> 01:00:35.713
He didn't know how much money I had.

01:00:35.724 --> 01:00:36.534
He didn't need to know that.

01:00:36.534 --> 01:00:38.454
He just didn't need to know that I had a J.

01:00:38.454 --> 01:00:38.503
O.

01:00:38.503 --> 01:00:38.523
P.

01:00:38.523 --> 01:00:41.143
As far as he knew, you might have made 18, 20 bucks an hour.

01:00:41.173 --> 01:00:41.864
Right, exactly.

01:00:42.614 --> 01:00:43.074
Who knows?

01:00:44.153 --> 01:00:45.994
Um, so yeah, I did that.

01:00:46.443 --> 01:00:49.903
And Then I went to work for this terrible marketing firm.

01:00:51.134 --> 01:00:53.304
Like someone started an app marketing company.

01:00:53.373 --> 01:00:53.804
Okay.

01:00:53.844 --> 01:00:55.353
And it was just not great.

01:00:56.244 --> 01:00:57.563
It was just some random job.

01:00:57.583 --> 01:00:57.914
Yeah.

01:00:58.594 --> 01:00:59.684
It was just two people.

01:01:00.094 --> 01:01:01.693
They needed someone to write content for them.

01:01:01.744 --> 01:01:02.483
Are they still around?

01:01:02.614 --> 01:01:03.844
No, it's long, long gone.

01:01:03.994 --> 01:01:04.974
You don't talk about them anymore.

01:01:05.074 --> 01:01:05.293
I'm just kidding.

01:01:05.293 --> 01:01:05.833
Yeah, not really.

01:01:06.684 --> 01:01:07.454
That didn't go well.

01:01:07.543 --> 01:01:08.653
They didn't go to jail or nothing though.

01:01:08.713 --> 01:01:09.614
No, they didn't go to jail.

01:01:09.614 --> 01:01:11.893
It's just like poorly run and bad experience.

01:01:12.574 --> 01:01:16.333
Um, And then from there, I did Uber for a while.

01:01:16.364 --> 01:01:16.833
Okay.

01:01:16.934 --> 01:01:17.364
Okay.

01:01:17.554 --> 01:01:21.264
And then I'm kind of surprised you had a new enough car that you could qualify to do Uber.

01:01:21.284 --> 01:01:21.614
Right.

01:01:21.634 --> 01:01:23.503
Well, Alex had a better job than I did.

01:01:23.503 --> 01:01:24.603
She's a dental hygienist.

01:01:24.603 --> 01:01:25.844
She's like, you can borrow my car.

01:01:25.853 --> 01:01:28.664
She made a lot more than 14 an hour, which was handy.

01:01:28.753 --> 01:01:30.153
That's actually a really great job.

01:01:30.153 --> 01:01:31.043
One of my Yeah.

01:01:31.384 --> 01:01:35.777
Um, one of our close friends, they live in West Vail now, but, um Hmm.

01:01:36.168 --> 01:01:40.398
She, the, the wife went to college for dental hygienics or whatever.

01:01:40.398 --> 01:01:45.898
And I, you know, it had the four year degree, five and a half year degree with economics, and I was a banker and stuff.

01:01:46.438 --> 01:01:51.628
And it was so annoying because she made so much more money within me early in our careers.

01:01:51.668 --> 01:01:53.239
Dental hygiene school is no joke.

01:01:53.849 --> 01:01:55.268
It sounds like it's very difficult.

01:01:56.018 --> 01:01:58.478
Like they have to put in like a miserable two years.

01:01:58.528 --> 01:02:03.278
Yeah, it's not, it's not an easy kind of journey, but for 20 grand, you couldn't make.

01:02:03.333 --> 01:02:07.474
15, 000 a year more than all your friends early in your career.

01:02:07.474 --> 01:02:10.903
And, you know, yeah, she was only working three days a week when I met her.

01:02:10.923 --> 01:02:11.873
And I was like, you do what now?

01:02:12.744 --> 01:02:13.313
Right.

01:02:15.114 --> 01:02:18.393
I work at six and they're miserable and you make twice as much as I do.

01:02:18.744 --> 01:02:25.623
It was not how I drew it up in terms of like, you don't want to be in that position where your wife is way, making way better.

01:02:25.623 --> 01:02:27.643
Did you think that you were looking for a sugar mama?

01:02:29.224 --> 01:02:31.003
Or just that you needed to figure some stuff out.

01:02:31.003 --> 01:02:31.853
I don't think so.

01:02:32.273 --> 01:02:33.864
But she did have some hard conversations.

01:02:33.864 --> 01:02:36.713
Cause I was like pretty determined and like, I gotta feel like I know what I'm good at.

01:02:37.034 --> 01:02:39.673
I gotta find a thing that matches my skills.

01:02:40.273 --> 01:02:41.244
And I couldn't.

01:02:41.333 --> 01:02:43.003
Which was, which was what at the time?

01:02:43.103 --> 01:02:43.543
Writing.

01:02:43.713 --> 01:02:44.244
It was writing.

01:02:44.253 --> 01:02:44.523
Yeah.

01:02:44.554 --> 01:02:44.893
Okay.

01:02:45.233 --> 01:02:48.143
That was like the only thing that I was like, yeah, this is like a multiple skill.

01:02:48.153 --> 01:02:49.923
That's what I remember from when we first connected.

01:02:49.934 --> 01:02:52.114
Um, kind of in those same days, really.

01:02:52.423 --> 01:02:53.434
But then she got pregnant.

01:02:53.724 --> 01:02:54.094
Okay.

01:02:54.824 --> 01:02:55.423
And then.

01:02:55.748 --> 01:02:57.289
That just changes things.

01:02:57.869 --> 01:02:59.978
And so I went and I got my CDL.

01:03:00.608 --> 01:03:00.898
Okay.

01:03:01.239 --> 01:03:02.588
That, uh, I forget what it's called.

01:03:02.588 --> 01:03:03.739
There's a school in town.

01:03:03.878 --> 01:03:04.168
Yup.

01:03:04.289 --> 01:03:04.588
Yup.

01:03:04.588 --> 01:03:06.039
You see the trucks driving around every once in a while.

01:03:06.139 --> 01:03:08.449
Like whatever those guys make 24 an hour.

01:03:09.449 --> 01:03:10.528
It was more than 14.

01:03:11.128 --> 01:03:12.318
Um, so I did that.

01:03:12.588 --> 01:03:15.398
I went and got my CDL and I was just such a fish out of water.

01:03:15.498 --> 01:03:15.949
Right.

01:03:16.009 --> 01:03:19.898
I mean, I adapted to it, but it was like every day I would show up and be like, I'm doing this.

01:03:20.923 --> 01:03:27.324
Because I'm a man, because I have a wife because there's a little kid on the way and I just have to do this.

01:03:27.353 --> 01:03:30.003
What are you like drinking three raw eggs on your way out the door in the morning?

01:03:31.353 --> 01:03:33.043
It was, yeah, it was kind of rough.

01:03:33.414 --> 01:03:34.143
So I did that.

01:03:34.514 --> 01:03:40.284
My first job, like the first CDL job I got was working for a company in town that moves drywall around.

01:03:40.554 --> 01:03:40.884
Okay.

01:03:40.884 --> 01:03:43.014
So if you see those trucks with a big hook on it, sure.

01:03:43.914 --> 01:03:48.864
I had never seen this in action before, but they roll up to the job site, dude gets a remote control out.

01:03:49.648 --> 01:03:53.759
Hooks the, um, big, a big loaf of drywall.

01:03:53.759 --> 01:03:55.168
Loaf of drywall is a good way to put it.

01:03:55.469 --> 01:03:58.688
And then pulls it over to a window and you shovel it in there.

01:03:58.699 --> 01:04:00.108
And that job sucked.

01:04:00.108 --> 01:04:01.778
A little dusty.

01:04:02.168 --> 01:04:04.108
Uh, you're carrying drywall.

01:04:04.108 --> 01:04:05.789
Like that stuff's heavy.

01:04:05.818 --> 01:04:06.349
Oh, right.

01:04:06.389 --> 01:04:08.099
Like it was as strong as I've ever been in my life.

01:04:08.099 --> 01:04:08.628
That's for sure.

01:04:08.639 --> 01:04:09.088
Right.

01:04:09.548 --> 01:04:11.039
Um, but we're not really built for that.

01:04:11.139 --> 01:04:15.628
Like we shouldn't sign up for rugby and we shouldn't do drywall deliveries.

01:04:15.688 --> 01:04:17.418
No, I had more of a, yeah.

01:04:18.239 --> 01:04:18.998
So I did that.

01:04:19.543 --> 01:04:20.333
That wasn't fun.

01:04:20.634 --> 01:04:23.184
And then I went and did, uh, let's see what was next.

01:04:24.454 --> 01:04:26.293
I went to the oil field.

01:04:26.543 --> 01:04:27.603
Oh yeah.

01:04:27.713 --> 01:04:30.974
With your CDL, with my CDL and hauled water.

01:04:31.434 --> 01:04:31.704
Okay.

01:04:31.753 --> 01:04:35.813
Frack water stuff out in Weld County, you know, slinging water.

01:04:36.653 --> 01:04:37.474
That was interesting.

01:04:38.824 --> 01:04:43.974
I don't, I mean, I didn't know anything about the oil industry and.

01:04:44.364 --> 01:04:51.534
Then all of a sudden I was out there riding around, like driving this big truck, which actually I was kind of good at, like, I liked driving big stuff.

01:04:51.543 --> 01:04:55.954
Like it was kind of fun, you know, like, Well, you got the confidence that it's not, you're not going to wreck something.

01:04:55.963 --> 01:04:56.233
Yeah.

01:04:56.233 --> 01:04:56.713
Yeah.

01:04:56.824 --> 01:04:59.503
So I kind of enjoyed driving stuff around, but the hours are terrible.

01:04:59.514 --> 01:05:03.034
Like I was getting up, I had to be in, uh, what's that town East of Greeley.

01:05:03.744 --> 01:05:09.648
Um, Well, Eaton is north and there's, uh, uh, Keer starts with a K.

01:05:09.818 --> 01:05:11.528
Uh, Kuh, Kuh.

01:05:11.728 --> 01:05:12.358
I should really know.

01:05:12.409 --> 01:05:12.748
Kersey.

01:05:12.889 --> 01:05:13.509
Kersey, yes.

01:05:13.509 --> 01:05:13.969
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:13.978 --> 01:05:14.878
So it was in Kersey.

01:05:14.878 --> 01:05:15.909
South and east of Greeley, yep.

01:05:15.958 --> 01:05:17.559
And I had to be there at six.

01:05:17.719 --> 01:05:18.009
Oh, damn.

01:05:18.009 --> 01:05:18.407
So.

01:05:18.409 --> 01:05:20.918
So you were leaving here at like 445 or something.

01:05:20.929 --> 01:05:23.588
Leaving super early and we didn't, it was like a 12 hour shift.

01:05:24.208 --> 01:05:25.579
And my daughter had just been born.

01:05:25.798 --> 01:05:26.009
Wow.

01:05:26.099 --> 01:05:26.489
Adelaide.

01:05:26.498 --> 01:05:28.969
So it was, it was, it was a thing.

01:05:29.528 --> 01:05:35.259
So I was, uh, Doing that for a while, but the interesting thing about the oil field is that that's kind of a brotherhood like you mentioned earlier.

01:05:35.259 --> 01:05:35.748
Sure, yeah.

01:05:36.364 --> 01:05:38.293
You get out there and the thing is there's real danger.

01:05:38.534 --> 01:05:38.884
Yeah.

01:05:38.914 --> 01:06:02.114
I mean, there's super high pressure There's gas like you're walking around with this monitor and if if it starts beeping like run against the wind And so I think that that level of danger kind of galvanizes because I noticed the big difference between construction site life And oil field life similar kinds of dudes, but construction guys are just angry in my experience Like a lot of anger.

01:06:02.213 --> 01:06:04.563
Yeah, and they had to settle for this job.

01:06:04.574 --> 01:06:12.384
Yeah, I think so You And then in the oil field, it's more like there's some of that, but it's more like, we actually do have each other's back because this is dangerous.

01:06:12.393 --> 01:06:27.918
And I'm going to do this for a while, or I'm doing this because I've got a family and I need to kind of make, Mm hmm outsize income compared to the education that I'm bringing to this industry or whatever exactly people are out there for opportunity But they just work themselves to death.

01:06:28.018 --> 01:06:42.543
Yeah funny story about the oil field just to Demonstrate like what the mindset is like I was at a frac pad after they were done and I was just cleaning it up cleaning it up And that's one of those things where after they like moved the stuff all out or whatever.

01:06:42.784 --> 01:06:44.634
The Halliburton guys would be like, Oh, it's just water.

01:06:44.724 --> 01:06:45.994
I'm like, okay, it's just water.

01:06:46.094 --> 01:06:46.873
It's purple, buddy.

01:06:48.733 --> 01:06:49.184
Glows.

01:06:49.184 --> 01:06:51.264
I wonder how much cancer I'm getting today.

01:06:51.784 --> 01:06:58.014
Um, but I, I was by myself in the middle of the day, cleaning up all this, this water with some suction.

01:06:58.543 --> 01:07:00.873
And I knew there were Halliburton guys there.

01:07:01.349 --> 01:07:03.559
They always have the red jumpsuits, jumpsuits on.

01:07:04.128 --> 01:07:07.168
I just think about, uh, I'm thinking about Dick Cheney in a red jumpsuit.

01:07:07.259 --> 01:07:08.449
He should be in an orange jumpsuit.

01:07:08.478 --> 01:07:10.588
Yeah, he probably should, but Red jumpsuit is fine.

01:07:10.639 --> 01:07:15.608
Uh, I knew they were, I knew they were about doing something, but it's a big area and I couldn't see them.

01:07:15.668 --> 01:07:15.989
Okay.

01:07:16.179 --> 01:07:17.449
By myself, totally quiet.

01:07:18.719 --> 01:07:26.648
And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw six people in red jumpsuits sprinting in the same direction.

01:07:26.759 --> 01:07:27.188
Oh.

01:07:27.418 --> 01:07:29.438
And that's like max adrenaline.

01:07:29.489 --> 01:07:29.898
Right.

01:07:30.414 --> 01:07:42.574
You run the same freaking way they are right now, like, I mean, I was about to, I felt like I could run faster than anyone at that moment, like I was just taking off thinking this is it, because they warn you about this stuff.

01:07:42.574 --> 01:07:48.583
They tell you like, if you see someone running, you freaking run the same way you hold your breath, don't breathe like this could be it.

01:07:48.873 --> 01:07:51.264
And so like all that goes through your mind in about half a second.

01:07:51.284 --> 01:07:51.614
Right.

01:07:51.838 --> 01:07:54.798
And then as I turned to run, I see a football fly through the air.

01:07:54.798 --> 01:07:58.528
Like they're over there playing 500 or whatever.

01:07:59.028 --> 01:08:06.438
And I thought I was about to die and I was not thankfully, but that's how on edge it can be in that industry.

01:08:06.498 --> 01:08:07.259
I'm not surprised.

01:08:07.568 --> 01:08:11.978
So, so like what a carbon monoxide cloud can just like come at you and kill you or something?

01:08:11.978 --> 01:08:14.389
No, there's this gas that is in the ground.

01:08:14.579 --> 01:08:15.018
Okay.

01:08:15.059 --> 01:08:22.048
Um, in the Weld County area and I'm sure in other areas, but the guy said it used to be just like south of 14, I think.

01:08:22.048 --> 01:08:23.759
And now it's north of it as well.

01:08:24.328 --> 01:08:26.338
Um, I forget what it is.

01:08:26.338 --> 01:08:27.948
Sulfuric gas or mustard gas, basically.

01:08:27.948 --> 01:08:32.918
I forget the name of it, but it's one of those things where it's like, you know, three parts of a million could kill you or whatever.

01:08:32.988 --> 01:08:33.319
Oh, damn.

01:08:33.319 --> 01:08:34.519
Very small, like you don't.

01:08:34.948 --> 01:08:35.899
You need to not breathe it.

01:08:35.969 --> 01:08:36.698
Yeah, interesting.

01:08:36.698 --> 01:08:43.378
That's why if you go to a frack pad You'll see them walking around with little monitors on yeah, and they're just if it gets one part familiar.

01:08:43.519 --> 01:08:44.788
It's like It freaks out.

01:08:44.809 --> 01:08:45.509
What's up?

01:08:46.118 --> 01:08:47.649
Is it like arsenic based or something?

01:08:48.269 --> 01:08:48.929
I couldn't tell you.

01:08:48.939 --> 01:08:52.498
I would be talking out of my backside trying to guess what it, I don't remember.

01:08:52.609 --> 01:08:56.698
So you work in the oil fields for a while.

01:08:56.708 --> 01:08:59.229
You got this little baby, young wife.

01:09:01.458 --> 01:09:02.019
That was hard.

01:09:02.059 --> 01:09:08.418
Who's no longer making the kind of money she was because now she's all of a sudden, yeah, can't work three days a week anymore.

01:09:08.448 --> 01:09:09.557
Um, what'd you guys do?

01:09:09.819 --> 01:09:10.738
Did you have families?

01:09:10.769 --> 01:09:12.729
We had some great friends named the dollars.

01:09:12.798 --> 01:09:17.429
I don't know if you know, Jill or Mark dollar here in town.

01:09:18.689 --> 01:09:19.538
I don't think I do.

01:09:19.559 --> 01:09:23.078
They graciously took care of Adelaide while, while Alex was working.

01:09:23.198 --> 01:09:23.639
Oh, wow.

01:09:23.679 --> 01:09:23.979
Yeah.

01:09:24.208 --> 01:09:27.588
So it's kind of like a, for them mostly volunteer.

01:09:27.599 --> 01:09:29.538
You guys have to buy some food once in a while and stuff.

01:09:29.548 --> 01:09:30.689
Yeah, that kind of thing.

01:09:30.798 --> 01:09:31.279
Yeah.

01:09:31.319 --> 01:09:32.418
So that was super helpful.

01:09:32.708 --> 01:09:33.019
Wow.

01:09:33.168 --> 01:09:36.618
And then after that I did the concrete thing.

01:09:36.618 --> 01:09:38.359
I worked for two different concrete companies.

01:09:38.889 --> 01:09:42.128
Um, one that was based out of alt.

01:09:42.734 --> 01:09:44.514
And then Martin Marietta here in town.

01:09:44.654 --> 01:09:45.033
Okay.

01:09:45.644 --> 01:09:47.993
Um, I got fired from the one and all.

01:09:49.944 --> 01:09:58.904
Because you didn't know what you were doing or, well, I'm sure if you talk to them, they'd tell you something that I did, but they, I think they just didn't like me and kind of made something up and yeah.

01:09:59.413 --> 01:10:00.524
Uh, well, no, actually.

01:10:00.923 --> 01:10:15.463
So I was working like 12 hour shifts and then forgot that they had what they call a safety meeting and in the, And the construction and like the concrete world safety meeting means like, yeah, we'll talk about the OSHA thing for five minutes and then we'll just yell at you about whatever else is going on.

01:10:15.533 --> 01:10:16.173
Um, yeah.

01:10:16.243 --> 01:10:22.573
And they had one at like five 30 in the morning in alt and I got off work at seven o'clock after like a 14 hour shift and forgot about it.

01:10:23.224 --> 01:10:27.224
And they were super pissed that I forgot about that meeting and then just kind of used it I think to get rid of it.

01:10:27.243 --> 01:10:27.753
They didn't like me.

01:10:27.974 --> 01:10:39.793
Do you know what safety meeting means in, uh, It's uh, at least with some of my friends, it's uh, like when you go smoke a joint before you do a big project.

01:10:40.054 --> 01:10:40.474
Oh, gosh.

01:10:40.474 --> 01:10:43.823
I, uh, I didn't get fired because of that.

01:10:44.753 --> 01:10:46.444
It's been that way for like 25 years.

01:10:47.423 --> 01:10:47.724
Anyway.

01:10:47.974 --> 01:10:49.604
Um, and I, I neglected that.

01:10:49.663 --> 01:10:52.363
We have the, the, the local experience.

01:10:52.623 --> 01:10:53.764
Oh, the true local experience.

01:10:53.764 --> 01:10:54.514
The homegrown experience.

01:10:54.798 --> 01:10:55.708
joints there.

01:10:55.738 --> 01:10:59.288
I forgot to offer you one, but I think I'll pass on the Elon Musk.

01:10:59.338 --> 01:11:01.038
I figured probably my mom will probably watch this.

01:11:03.069 --> 01:11:09.889
Um, anyway, so then I went and successfully talked my way and do another job in the industry here.

01:11:09.889 --> 01:11:11.158
It's a pretty established player.

01:11:11.158 --> 01:11:13.009
Martin Marietta, huge, huge.

01:11:13.434 --> 01:11:14.453
And they're a pretty good company.

01:11:14.963 --> 01:11:16.213
Um, so that was going fine.

01:11:16.344 --> 01:11:16.673
Yeah.

01:11:16.913 --> 01:11:30.774
Um, but you were still going to move back to Kansas city just for, I mean, I did not like support from family and your job sucked really never get to write anything except for like when you were stopped at stoplights and you're like, that literally happened.

01:11:30.774 --> 01:11:34.613
I still have stuff on my phone, like stories from when I was just sitting there waiting for the next load.

01:11:34.743 --> 01:11:37.003
You're just like exploding probably for lack of.

01:11:37.404 --> 01:11:40.274
Opportunities to express yourself kind of felt like that.

01:11:40.274 --> 01:11:40.613
Yeah.

01:11:40.713 --> 01:11:41.104
Yeah.

01:11:41.613 --> 01:11:44.484
But the concrete world is not, it's because you don't know what time you're going to start.

01:11:45.479 --> 01:11:50.798
So every night you call in and they're like, okay, you need to be here at 543 tomorrow.

01:11:50.828 --> 01:11:51.128
Right.

01:11:51.128 --> 01:11:52.029
With a fresh load.

01:11:52.128 --> 01:11:52.559
Yeah.

01:11:52.868 --> 01:11:53.219
Interesting.

01:11:53.229 --> 01:11:54.439
Well, just like at the plant.

01:11:54.439 --> 01:11:55.679
Load up at that time.

01:11:55.738 --> 01:11:56.269
Yeah, yeah.

01:11:56.359 --> 01:11:58.219
But they were so strict about being late.

01:11:58.219 --> 01:12:03.439
Like they, I did get in trouble because I was, they were like, you were 30 seconds late.

01:12:03.798 --> 01:12:05.349
I was like, dude.

01:12:05.998 --> 01:12:06.399
Yeah.

01:12:06.809 --> 01:12:07.899
I was 30 seconds late.

01:12:07.908 --> 01:12:08.279
Cause it's.

01:12:08.878 --> 01:12:10.158
Four 47 in the morning.

01:12:11.198 --> 01:12:15.158
Like I understand, I understand that you need to run a tight ship, but jeez.

01:12:15.498 --> 01:12:18.819
And my baby cried like literally three hours last night.

01:12:19.128 --> 01:12:21.128
So I slept from 10 until midnight.

01:12:21.128 --> 01:12:25.269
And then again, from two until three, there were plenty of mornings like that.

01:12:25.269 --> 01:12:27.479
And then you get called over cause you're a 30 seconds late.

01:12:27.488 --> 01:12:29.359
And I was like, guys, I can't do this anymore.

01:12:29.359 --> 01:12:30.689
Like, this is freaking insane.

01:12:30.729 --> 01:12:30.988
Yeah.

01:12:31.328 --> 01:12:37.988
Um, so that's why I think maybe now my management style, I'm like, I don't care if you're 10 minutes late, like just.

01:12:38.439 --> 01:12:40.658
You know, get here at a reasonable time and stay till a reasonable time.

01:12:40.868 --> 01:12:41.408
Do your job.

01:12:41.569 --> 01:12:43.479
But don't be 10 minutes late for a meeting with me.

01:12:43.519 --> 01:12:43.948
Right.

01:12:44.238 --> 01:12:44.628
Yeah.

01:12:44.738 --> 01:12:46.219
You know, but there's two different things.

01:12:46.229 --> 01:12:50.149
Let's just, let's just be reasonable here because I think when people relax, they tend to perform better.

01:12:50.319 --> 01:12:50.509
Yeah.

01:12:50.868 --> 01:12:51.069
Okay.

01:12:51.578 --> 01:12:51.798
All right.

01:12:51.809 --> 01:12:52.189
I dig it.

01:12:52.208 --> 01:12:52.748
There's the nugget.

01:12:52.819 --> 01:12:55.048
And so then that's kind of where we came from.

01:12:55.828 --> 01:13:01.179
Like when Jacob calls, cause you had like a one or two year old by then.

01:13:01.179 --> 01:13:02.208
Do you guys have a second?

01:13:02.389 --> 01:13:02.779
Yes.

01:13:02.828 --> 01:13:03.899
Kid too, right?

01:13:03.939 --> 01:13:04.229
Okay.

01:13:04.259 --> 01:13:04.408
Yeah.

01:13:04.439 --> 01:13:05.878
He was newly born at that point.

01:13:05.979 --> 01:13:06.429
Okay.

01:13:06.538 --> 01:13:07.559
So I had the son and the daughter.

01:13:07.819 --> 01:13:08.189
Okay.

01:13:08.229 --> 01:13:11.859
But I did get sort of an offer in Casey from cousin connection.

01:13:11.929 --> 01:13:13.439
I was going to go do that.

01:13:13.988 --> 01:13:15.389
Which was going to be what?

01:13:15.559 --> 01:13:17.158
I was going to be writing for a political company.

01:13:17.338 --> 01:13:18.059
Oh, interesting.

01:13:18.198 --> 01:13:18.578
Okay.

01:13:20.208 --> 01:13:22.849
Whether or not it actually would have happened is kind of up for debate.

01:13:23.139 --> 01:13:24.319
It was an interesting situation.

01:13:24.338 --> 01:13:24.719
All right.

01:13:24.798 --> 01:13:26.389
I think I had an offer from them.

01:13:26.609 --> 01:13:27.399
Like I was operating.

01:13:27.658 --> 01:13:28.118
Oh, I did.

01:13:28.118 --> 01:13:30.019
But like, it was like, you answer my calls, man.

01:13:30.179 --> 01:13:31.158
A trust based offer.

01:13:31.168 --> 01:13:32.247
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:32.248 --> 01:13:32.389
Okay.

01:13:32.399 --> 01:13:38.908
Uh, and then Jacob came to me with the winter mind thing and yeah, everyone.

01:13:38.908 --> 01:13:39.998
What an interesting thing.

01:13:40.649 --> 01:13:42.969
Like it's kind of a say yes story in some ways.

01:13:43.019 --> 01:13:43.458
It is.

01:13:44.349 --> 01:13:45.168
It is a say a story.

01:13:45.168 --> 01:13:47.298
And I was thinking about like, what could you learn from my journey?

01:13:47.298 --> 01:13:51.668
Like, I think a lot of people.

01:13:52.429 --> 01:13:59.399
Look at a ladder in front of them and they think like their challenge or the process is how do I get onto that next rung?

01:14:00.078 --> 01:14:14.009
But the, honestly, the really hard thing is when there is no rung, like there's no ladder, like when you're working at a concrete company and it's like the opposite of what you should be doing is like, well, there's nothing like, there's, it's just, I hope lightning strikes, you know?

01:14:14.609 --> 01:14:41.764
And so I think what I took away from that though, is that if you're in that situation where you feel like you don't know what's next, The most important thing is just how you handle yourself and your reputation because being a part of a community will Probably eventually get some sort of an opportunity for you if you're thought of well, yeah Yeah, and so I Jacob liked me so that was good lived in his basement apparently some years before or whatever before You guys got married?

01:14:41.764 --> 01:14:45.073
Right before I got married, I, I shagged, I lived in, uh, Jacob and Leslie's.

01:14:45.073 --> 01:14:49.789
You're like, dude, I just spent some money on a ring, I got no money for rent really for the next few months.

01:14:49.789 --> 01:14:50.953
Could I live in your basement?

01:14:51.144 --> 01:14:55.014
I remember quite literally scraping the money together for that ring and just broke.

01:14:55.384 --> 01:14:57.684
But, yeah, so I lived in Jacob's basement, which was fun.

01:14:57.684 --> 01:14:58.384
Got to know them.

01:14:58.583 --> 01:14:58.923
Yeah.

01:14:58.993 --> 01:14:59.493
Um.

01:15:00.394 --> 01:15:03.533
So, Jill lived, um, next door to Leslie.

01:15:03.654 --> 01:15:04.083
Oh, really?

01:15:04.213 --> 01:15:06.423
When I first started dating Jill.

01:15:06.503 --> 01:15:06.694
Hmm.

01:15:07.248 --> 01:15:18.429
And if I remember right, like the, I think the story is that Leslie like ratted or didn't rat on Jill, but she like confronted Jill over the fact that I, my car was there in the morning one day.

01:15:20.118 --> 01:15:27.378
Cause Jill's folks, you know, were part of the Mountain View church, which is also where Leslie and Jacob had attended.

01:15:27.548 --> 01:15:28.377
She was all over it.

01:15:29.698 --> 01:15:32.378
She's a confront the dragon kind of a gal.

01:15:32.479 --> 01:15:32.939
That's great.

01:15:34.009 --> 01:15:35.668
Jacob needs somebody like that in his life.

01:15:37.458 --> 01:15:38.689
Some of my favorite people in the world.

01:15:38.969 --> 01:15:39.439
Same here.

01:15:39.439 --> 01:15:42.378
I wish I was more intentional, spent more time with them.

01:15:43.019 --> 01:15:47.219
Um, so that's quite an interesting, uh, dynamic.

01:15:47.219 --> 01:16:02.774
And actually I really like that last bit of, like, you know, I've, I've, I've You know, I left banking, and like, tried to start a restaurant, ended up with a food trailer, had this, got this local think tank thing going, and now people are like, I remember, do you make any money on the podcast?

01:16:02.774 --> 01:16:05.154
I'm like, no, not really, but I like doing it, you know.

01:16:05.703 --> 01:16:11.413
But, the thing I said in Rotary especially was just, kind of kept my legs pumping, and waited for a crease.

01:16:11.684 --> 01:16:12.003
Yeah.

01:16:12.344 --> 01:16:26.984
And that's a little bit, you know, you were both in a position to say, yes, you'd even with me, like when we first got connected, like that writer philosopher kind of, yeah, thinker, creator stuff.

01:16:27.774 --> 01:16:29.804
Would you like to hear my ideas world?

01:16:30.613 --> 01:16:41.163
A little bit like, like the, the, the truth message resonates with you, whether it's the truth of media or the truth of Christ, frankly, and that was, yeah.

01:16:41.354 --> 01:16:42.033
You know why?

01:16:42.083 --> 01:16:59.423
Partly why I featured own listeners, people that are listening out there now should check out my blog from December of 2024, which gave some kudos to and, uh, some thoughts around the notion of Shalom, which was, I read that.

01:16:59.434 --> 01:16:59.894
That was neat.

01:16:59.984 --> 01:17:05.373
Um, yeah, kind of a tail on and a tribute to your sermon from some weeks before.

01:17:05.673 --> 01:17:06.654
So thanks for that.

01:17:06.684 --> 01:17:10.654
I didn't, uh, do you, how do you sharpen your sharpener?

01:17:11.833 --> 01:17:20.154
Sword, uh, from a faith perspective, like, was that like you were assigned to that week and you had it coming for a while and you just got the preaching thing.

01:17:20.194 --> 01:17:20.413
Yeah.

01:17:20.413 --> 01:17:20.684
Yeah.

01:17:20.713 --> 01:17:27.173
Um, I just panicked every night for about five nights and then it was over when you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute.

01:17:28.423 --> 01:17:29.823
I do my best work under fire.

01:17:30.944 --> 01:17:31.463
Not really.

01:17:31.463 --> 01:17:36.493
It should have been, I always wish I had more time, but, um, I enjoy doing that.

01:17:36.493 --> 01:17:40.203
I don't do it a whole lot, obviously, but it is an all consuming week.

01:17:40.628 --> 01:17:41.298
Yeah, for sure.

01:17:41.509 --> 01:17:47.578
When you have, uh, other stuff going on in your life and you're, when you're trying to do that in the margins of time that you have, it's.

01:17:48.088 --> 01:17:48.519
Quite difficult.

01:17:48.529 --> 01:17:54.578
And do you have church leadership responsibilities beyond the the worship team kind of leadership element?

01:17:54.588 --> 01:17:57.048
No, you don't have to, you're not like a proper pastor.

01:17:57.048 --> 01:18:00.373
You don't show up for Tuesday morning meetings or whatever that kind of stuff.

01:18:00.878 --> 01:18:03.238
Don't care if we're under budget this month and are tithing.

01:18:03.738 --> 01:18:09.569
I mean we care about all that stuff, but it's not my burden in the sense of like I'm the first person that has to know.

01:18:09.729 --> 01:18:09.969
Yeah.

01:18:10.208 --> 01:18:10.429
Yeah.

01:18:10.569 --> 01:18:10.819
Cool.

01:18:11.189 --> 01:18:20.929
Um I feel like we can roll into the, uh, the later segments of the Loco Experience, the faith family politics, uh, things.

01:18:21.429 --> 01:18:24.769
Um, we've talked about faith intermixed here and there.

01:18:25.279 --> 01:18:27.988
Um, I guess, why?

01:18:28.488 --> 01:18:34.298
Why have, why were you raised in the faith and remain connected to it for the most part?

01:18:34.899 --> 01:18:40.764
Um, have you, have you, We talked there a little bit of periods of doubt.

01:18:40.793 --> 01:18:42.654
Why why Christianity not?

01:18:42.814 --> 01:18:46.913
Yeah Hebrew or Jewish, you know Islam.

01:18:46.993 --> 01:18:47.444
Why not something else?

01:18:48.024 --> 01:18:48.934
Why not something else?

01:18:48.963 --> 01:18:49.953
Are there many paths?

01:18:50.564 --> 01:18:50.953
Mm hmm.

01:18:51.083 --> 01:18:57.444
That's one of the questions that people well, I mean I Christians with I It was the faith handed down to me from my parents.

01:18:57.533 --> 01:19:01.844
Okay is I feel like that's the For a long time that answer has been unpopular.

01:19:01.984 --> 01:19:03.423
Right, but it's actually a good thing.

01:19:03.644 --> 01:19:19.514
Yeah Yeah, like where I'm coming from like I'm trying to do that for my kids It's a positive thing like not everybody has to have a story of like wandering in the wilderness for forever and then discovering Right something like it's I think it's it's a good thing It's nice to have a culturally anticipated thing rather than an exceptional thing.

01:19:19.554 --> 01:19:20.094
I think so.

01:19:20.094 --> 01:19:25.319
I mean there are obvious pitfalls associated with the The cultural realities of Christianity.

01:19:25.319 --> 01:19:37.338
Like if you, it's easy to blend in and to be fake, like, yeah, there's all that stuff, but I think that I had a former client when I was a banker say, well, one thing I know is if you say you can trust me, I'm a Christian.

01:19:37.458 --> 01:19:38.618
I cannot trust that person.

01:19:38.698 --> 01:19:38.988
Yeah.

01:19:38.988 --> 01:19:39.698
It's unfortunate.

01:19:39.828 --> 01:19:42.689
You know, statements like that floating.

01:19:43.279 --> 01:19:43.609
Yep.

01:19:43.698 --> 01:19:48.788
I have experienced it and seen my, my dad experienced that in business some too, with other people.

01:19:48.788 --> 01:19:49.328
And it's sad.

01:19:50.048 --> 01:19:53.849
Um, but I think the reason, unfortunately it's because people do it.

01:19:54.279 --> 01:19:55.889
Yeah, you know, like, I don't know.

01:19:56.019 --> 01:20:07.908
Unfortunately, that's, uh, the reality in Christ forecasted it is like there, you know, you'll say, I said that I claimed the name Lord, Lord, but I never knew you.

01:20:08.958 --> 01:20:18.259
Yeah, the dynamic and reality of the church is that there's lots of people inside of it that aren't either aren't actually Christians or just don't act like it.

01:20:19.083 --> 01:20:22.213
We can't sort those things out, but yeah, you just keep going.

01:20:22.804 --> 01:20:34.793
Um, but I think the reason that I am still a Christian is because like, after it was handed down to me as I grew up and started to think on my own, like it, it made the most sense to me.

01:20:34.894 --> 01:20:36.963
And navigate this brotherhood conversation.

01:20:36.974 --> 01:20:43.788
Brotherhood conversation, but also, I mean, I am fascinated by some things that are easy to ignore.

01:20:43.828 --> 01:20:45.689
Like, one of them is just the fact that we exist.

01:20:46.179 --> 01:20:50.828
I mean, if you ever want to trip yourself out, just like, think about the fact that we're here.

01:20:51.259 --> 01:20:51.599
Right.

01:20:52.059 --> 01:20:54.158
Why is there something rather than nothing?

01:20:54.389 --> 01:20:55.109
That's wild.

01:20:55.469 --> 01:20:55.719
Yeah.

01:20:55.788 --> 01:21:03.698
Like, what, because there has to be, like, with every rationality and every, like, rule of how the universe works, you think about the concept of a first mover.

01:21:03.948 --> 01:21:04.229
Sure.

01:21:04.269 --> 01:21:07.399
And, like, how is it possible that Just right here.

01:21:07.408 --> 01:21:08.118
It doesn't matter.

01:21:08.323 --> 01:21:08.613
Right.

01:21:08.644 --> 01:21:29.423
Instead of no matter, how is it possible that the world exists because every single explanation for those things, every single attempt to account for the fact that you and I are here with a natural explanation ultimately fails logically, because there is no rational explanation for existence.

01:21:29.828 --> 01:21:38.069
If you discount supernatural realities, like you either have to say either matter, it has always existed, right?

01:21:38.198 --> 01:21:42.298
Or it came about by natural processes, both of which violate logic.

01:21:43.439 --> 01:21:51.679
One of the things I've talked about on this podcast before, but not for a while is like after the, The wood telescope came out or whatever.

01:21:51.679 --> 01:21:52.529
What's the new thing?

01:21:52.529 --> 01:21:53.358
The what?

01:21:53.359 --> 01:21:54.868
The new telescope, the fancy one.

01:21:55.389 --> 01:21:56.359
Oh, the web web.

01:21:56.389 --> 01:21:56.639
Yeah.

01:21:56.719 --> 01:21:57.269
James Webb.

01:21:57.588 --> 01:21:58.769
I thought it was like the wooden telescope.

01:21:58.809 --> 01:22:03.939
That was like, they were like years ago, you know, they were kind of, they kind of came to this conclusion that the universe is like 13.

01:22:03.979 --> 01:22:06.918
8 billion years old, give or take, right?

01:22:06.998 --> 01:22:10.338
And here's why we think that based on these new fancy pictures.

01:22:11.038 --> 01:22:17.548
And it kind of seems like it was, had to have been intelligently designed before that moment.

01:22:18.448 --> 01:22:21.738
To, like, go off the way it went off.

01:22:22.168 --> 01:22:27.479
Like, you can find quite a few articles along that line since that time that that telescope was released.

01:22:28.429 --> 01:22:39.894
But in contrast, when I was 12 year old trying to figure that kind of stuff out, it was like, Well, there's either the Big Bang, Or God, intelligent design.

01:22:40.533 --> 01:22:44.932
And now it's like, well, no, it looks like there was some kind of intelligent design thing behind it.

01:22:44.934 --> 01:22:45.743
There's a lot of mystery.

01:22:46.024 --> 01:22:48.894
If you believe in the big bang, then there might've been something ahead of that.

01:22:48.944 --> 01:22:51.373
There's obviously lots of mystery in the origin of the universe.

01:22:51.373 --> 01:22:52.974
I don't claim to understand all of it.

01:22:53.264 --> 01:22:56.438
I think we can disagree about those things and still be.

01:22:56.988 --> 01:22:58.088
Brothers and sisters.

01:22:58.689 --> 01:23:07.658
Um, but yeah, so anyway, to me, like there's this seed of just a demand for an explanation of why we're here.

01:23:08.158 --> 01:23:14.529
And then it goes down the road from there for me personally, it's like, okay, now I believe that there has to be some sort of a creator.

01:23:14.814 --> 01:23:19.184
Cause it's the only thing that makes any sense and all other explanations fall short for me.

01:23:19.684 --> 01:23:21.163
And then there's just the life of Jesus.

01:23:21.203 --> 01:23:22.583
Like there's a testimony of Jesus.

01:23:22.613 --> 01:23:32.673
There's, uh, this person who is more personally attested to historically attested to than any other one, any other person in history who was seen by witnesses.

01:23:33.009 --> 01:23:38.689
After he was crucified coming back to life like you have to reckon with those things, right?

01:23:38.868 --> 01:23:41.538
Right got a deal with that like you, you know You like C.

01:23:41.538 --> 01:23:41.679
S.

01:23:41.679 --> 01:23:56.179
Lewis said you have to say that he's a liar a lunatic or Lord Those are really the only options anyone that says they're God Like you either need to like put that person away because they're crazy Don't put them away because they're claiming something that's insane kind of a con man.

01:23:56.198 --> 01:23:58.774
Yeah, they're con man or They're telling the truth.

01:23:59.293 --> 01:24:03.944
And Occam's razor points me toward the fact that it's true.

01:24:04.814 --> 01:24:07.123
That's not the only reason I believe, but that's like part of my journey.

01:24:07.123 --> 01:24:10.423
Is that the older I got, the more I questioned it, the more it stood up.

01:24:10.863 --> 01:24:15.753
Not that there's no mystery and not that there's no things that it kind of ties together with.

01:24:16.554 --> 01:24:19.003
the way that he talked in some ways.

01:24:19.043 --> 01:24:39.644
Kind of that, like he could have been more, look at me, look at me, like you were talking about in your worship performances, but his real destiny was both to be the sacrifice, but also to point to the opportunity to, uh, reestablish a relationship with the creator.

01:24:40.654 --> 01:24:55.354
In a way, how do you, I had, um, some faith conversations with, uh, with a close friend just the other day talking about kind of the, the, the three in one person element, you know, the father, son, Holy Spirit kind of element.

01:24:56.054 --> 01:24:58.024
And like, how do you reconcile that?

01:24:58.043 --> 01:24:58.634
And is it.

01:24:59.654 --> 01:25:04.033
Like, I guess, let me just share what I said about that a little bit.

01:25:04.033 --> 01:25:22.823
And because where I don't probably feel as comfortable as where the Holy Spirit fits in, but kind of from even a little bit like my, from my blog, the chaos and structure and order, I almost imagined God the father as all the pent up energy before the big bang, as well as kind of the creative ability.

01:25:23.734 --> 01:25:43.354
In some ways, but then the word, the, the, the Christ person being kind of some of the structure and order that was applied to all this energy in some ways, and the Holy Spirit is more like the, the mysterious little ghost that can talk to us and get us to be normal instead of meatbags.

01:25:43.894 --> 01:25:44.793
Um, yeah, I think.

01:25:45.354 --> 01:25:48.623
But yeah, talk to me about your impression of that, because I think that's a big.

01:25:49.429 --> 01:25:51.458
Are we monotheists?

01:25:52.029 --> 01:25:53.118
Are we tritheists?

01:25:53.548 --> 01:25:54.099
I would say yes.

01:25:54.128 --> 01:25:56.198
It's one God, three persons, right?

01:25:56.889 --> 01:25:57.158
Yeah.

01:25:57.198 --> 01:26:05.939
Uh, I, first I would just say that I think part of the journey of faith is, um, being okay with mystery.

01:26:06.599 --> 01:26:36.259
I think when you're younger, Maybe you're like, yeah, I want to understand everything and have an opinion about everything and it really matters And I do think a lot of it matters But one not the beginning of wisdom like part of wisdom is being okay with mystery and saying I don't understand everything perfectly Yeah, and that if I were meant to understand this perfectly, it probably would have been communicated a little more clearly Okay, and so yeah That's how I feel about the whole, like the, the mystery of the Trinity.

01:26:36.259 --> 01:26:38.328
Like, I can't explain how that's possible.

01:26:38.769 --> 01:26:39.889
And I would look like a fool.

01:26:39.889 --> 01:26:54.738
I think if I tried to, like, I just, you try to, you, there's that, um, Maxim that was popular for a while of not putting God in a box, which I understand what they're saying, but also it's like, well, what if he builds the box?

01:26:55.378 --> 01:27:00.838
Like, what if he defines the parameters and says, this is what I'm like, and this is what I'm not like.

01:27:00.838 --> 01:27:01.038
Yeah.

01:27:01.038 --> 01:27:01.269
Yeah.

01:27:01.269 --> 01:27:01.337
Yeah.

01:27:01.889 --> 01:27:17.958
And that's all you can do is just look at how he describes himself and take those things into account, um, on their own and then hold them together as well as you can and not try to be able to understand, like, how can three in one be possible?

01:27:17.969 --> 01:27:19.238
Like, well, he's God.

01:27:19.238 --> 01:27:19.618
I don't know.

01:27:19.618 --> 01:27:21.269
Like, how did he speak the world into existence?

01:27:21.359 --> 01:27:22.278
I don't know.

01:27:23.009 --> 01:27:24.708
And a healthy amount of that is good.

01:27:24.958 --> 01:27:28.899
As long as you don't go so far down the road that you're like, everything is fine.

01:27:28.908 --> 01:27:30.639
I don't care what's true or what's not true.

01:27:30.639 --> 01:27:31.668
Like there's a healthy balance.

01:27:31.668 --> 01:27:36.939
I think of like embracing mystery and then also holding on to what God says about himself, like what he's like and what he's not.

01:27:37.158 --> 01:27:47.908
So when you think about, um, like the, the third of the stars are the devil's minions kind of language from that revelation passage that you preached on.

01:27:48.078 --> 01:27:51.809
Um, is that a real physical act?

01:27:51.838 --> 01:27:52.439
Like, is that.

01:27:52.894 --> 01:28:09.413
I mean, obviously, in our understanding of the universe as we see it, we're not going to see these stars cast from the sky, but is there, I guess, in your interpretation of the world, best to understand it, is there demons floating around?

01:28:09.423 --> 01:28:22.788
Is there, you know, are there, What, what are those kind of, like, when you hear a story like that, Revelations 12, like, how do you interpret, like, how that's actually going to be, or is that metaphor?

01:28:23.328 --> 01:28:24.359
I don't think it's metaphor.

01:28:24.359 --> 01:28:28.529
I think it's, it is apocalyptic language describing real things.

01:28:28.609 --> 01:28:28.988
Okay.

01:28:29.109 --> 01:28:29.378
Yeah.

01:28:29.729 --> 01:28:32.918
So anytime you read Revelation or other books of the Bible.

01:28:34.229 --> 01:28:37.759
One of the first things you have to do is think about what the genre of literature is.

01:28:38.189 --> 01:28:41.649
And I heard somebody compare it to a newspaper.

01:28:41.689 --> 01:28:46.248
Like if you're reading a newspaper, you kind of, you don't think about the comic section the same way you think about the editorial section.

01:28:46.269 --> 01:28:51.479
Like you understand that there's genres of literature and that those are communicating different things in different ways.

01:28:51.939 --> 01:28:59.029
So you have to keep that in mind, which means if you want to understand revelation, you have to think about first century apocalyptic literature.

01:28:59.029 --> 01:29:02.078
So now we're really getting into the, which is basically the book of revelation.

01:29:02.229 --> 01:29:02.868
That's what it is.

01:29:02.958 --> 01:29:03.128
Yeah.

01:29:03.128 --> 01:29:07.479
But there's actually other there are other works that are like non canonical.

01:29:07.569 --> 01:29:08.029
Oh, okay.

01:29:08.059 --> 01:29:08.319
Yeah.

01:29:08.319 --> 01:29:11.878
So you can like go back and look at how those, not that I'm not a biblical scholar.

01:29:11.878 --> 01:29:12.128
Sure.

01:29:12.128 --> 01:29:18.929
I did four years of Bible college in the woods.

01:29:18.929 --> 01:29:20.127
That's what I'm working with here.

01:29:20.127 --> 01:29:27.399
Um, but yeah, so I, I, um, I think that those things are, it's using apocalyptic language to tell a story that's true.

01:29:28.198 --> 01:29:54.604
And it doesn't mean that it's physically manifest in exactly the same way as, you know, that's why you get some goofiness with some books or like, Just think people talking about like super literal interpretations of that there's well and Daniel predicts tribulation as being like 1400 days and Paul's is or no John's is only 1350 Or whatever, you know, a different kind of, uh, a period of this and that, whatever.

01:29:56.373 --> 01:29:58.724
Different authors working in different genres.

01:29:59.354 --> 01:30:01.984
And there's a lot of mystery there.

01:30:02.094 --> 01:30:02.344
Yeah.

01:30:02.344 --> 01:30:02.922
Yeah.

01:30:02.923 --> 01:30:03.384
Fair.

01:30:04.264 --> 01:30:06.474
But I do believe in a physical element to all that stuff.

01:30:06.583 --> 01:30:06.854
Yeah.

01:30:06.863 --> 01:30:09.793
And I think going back to what you're talking about, we're talking about the story of Christmas.

01:30:10.173 --> 01:30:11.283
Um, sure.

01:30:11.354 --> 01:30:22.024
That passage that's talking about this dragon waiting in front of the woman, like it's, it's representative of what was actually happening, which is the, the dragon.

01:30:23.373 --> 01:30:25.873
Was this King Herod, right?

01:30:25.944 --> 01:30:28.939
Well, yeah, there's the, there's the shadowy dragon.

01:30:29.189 --> 01:30:33.359
Cause a lot of times there's the actual events and the future events all woven into one.

01:30:33.418 --> 01:30:34.288
Yeah, yeah, they are.

01:30:34.599 --> 01:30:37.969
But I think Herod takes that role in that vision.

01:30:37.979 --> 01:30:40.868
It's like, he's the one that's like waiting to devour the Messiah when he's born.

01:30:40.918 --> 01:30:41.238
Right.

01:30:41.238 --> 01:30:43.139
And so what's done and heaven is done on earth.

01:30:43.168 --> 01:30:45.288
But as directed by the devil, ultimately.

01:30:45.559 --> 01:30:46.059
Yeah.

01:30:46.229 --> 01:30:49.538
He wasn't, that wasn't just a normal thought.

01:30:49.538 --> 01:30:49.868
You know what?

01:30:49.878 --> 01:30:52.469
I'm going to just kill all the baby boys.

01:30:52.469 --> 01:31:01.338
I think it is kind of a normal thought for a psychopath in the first century ruling a part of that region, like, because it's not a unique event in history.

01:31:01.448 --> 01:31:01.719
Yeah.

01:31:01.719 --> 01:31:02.309
That kind of thing.

01:31:02.309 --> 01:31:04.759
Sadly it's not like, I can't believe this happened.

01:31:04.759 --> 01:31:09.639
Like that kind of thing has been a normal, um, terrible, but not unheard of.

01:31:09.908 --> 01:31:22.753
So I believe in shadowy power behind the scenes, just taking Someone like Harrod that was yeah signed up to do a terrible thing easy to manipulate from those shadowy forces if you will.

01:31:22.804 --> 01:31:25.804
Yeah We're really getting into it.

01:31:25.923 --> 01:31:44.993
Yeah, it's a little deeper than I'm going to go If you good you need a potty break or not, no, I don't need a potty break Well, by the way, we were gonna mention that we were both wearing our socks because it snowed here several inches last night So we both came to the office wearing boots and yeah Neither one of us wanted a podcast wearing boots the whole time.

01:32:29.259 --> 01:32:31.128
So, family or politics next?

01:32:31.519 --> 01:32:32.128
Let's do family.

01:32:32.168 --> 01:32:32.529
Okay.

01:32:32.849 --> 01:32:37.609
Um, one of the things we like to do is a one word description of your children.

01:32:38.168 --> 01:32:40.288
Would you like to attempt that feat?

01:32:40.918 --> 01:32:41.238
Fun.

01:32:41.634 --> 01:32:42.998
Well, let's do one.

01:32:43.069 --> 01:32:45.229
Uh, can you do a separate word for each of them?

01:32:45.378 --> 01:32:46.198
Yeah, each of them.

01:32:46.798 --> 01:32:48.969
Yes, and you can expand, talk more about them and stuff.

01:32:50.088 --> 01:32:50.238
Adelaide?

01:32:50.288 --> 01:32:50.759
Adelaide.

01:32:50.889 --> 01:32:51.838
Adelaide is the older girl.

01:32:51.849 --> 01:32:53.878
Six year old, seven year old girl now, just turned seven.

01:32:53.878 --> 01:32:54.609
She's gotten kind of big.

01:32:54.998 --> 01:32:55.569
Yeah, she's tall.

01:32:55.929 --> 01:32:56.309
Yeah.

01:32:57.349 --> 01:32:58.918
Um, I would just say sweet.

01:32:59.269 --> 01:33:00.538
She's That's pretty nice.

01:33:00.934 --> 01:33:07.104
She is Excuse me, that Super easy first child.

01:33:07.144 --> 01:33:13.774
I think some people have like, she's just recognize you didn't have a lot extra for her, uh, but they loved you all the more.

01:33:13.844 --> 01:33:14.283
Yeah.

01:33:14.594 --> 01:33:17.974
Um, just a super easy kid to parent.

01:33:17.984 --> 01:33:21.194
Like really sweet loves whatever we're into.

01:33:21.333 --> 01:33:22.234
There's a lot of fun.

01:33:23.024 --> 01:33:27.654
Um, she's just a great little enthusiastic, conforming and great little kid.

01:33:27.654 --> 01:33:29.224
Like very excited about whatever we're doing.

01:33:29.444 --> 01:33:30.264
It's so easy to parent.

01:33:30.533 --> 01:33:30.913
How fun.

01:33:31.123 --> 01:33:36.279
Um, And then there's my five year old son who is a lot more difficult to parent.

01:33:36.418 --> 01:33:36.708
Okay.

01:33:36.759 --> 01:33:37.908
I would say energy was his.

01:33:38.748 --> 01:33:39.639
Is this one word?

01:33:39.689 --> 01:33:39.918
Yeah.

01:33:39.918 --> 01:33:40.498
Okay.

01:33:40.509 --> 01:33:42.668
I mean, he's a boy, right?

01:33:42.668 --> 01:33:53.109
You know, like our culture just wants boys and girls to be the same and they're not like, they're just not, I mean, like he has challenges associated with him that are never associated with Adelaide.

01:33:53.288 --> 01:33:53.599
Yeah.

01:33:53.658 --> 01:33:56.889
Like his physicality, his running around and breaking stuff.

01:33:56.929 --> 01:33:58.418
Like he can't help himself.

01:33:59.059 --> 01:34:05.859
You know, the seeds of masculinity sprouting, like he's a boy and he, he's a little bit of a bull.

01:34:05.859 --> 01:34:13.753
And she might be able to beat him up for three more years, but she won't because he's a boy and she's a girl and whatever.

01:34:14.359 --> 01:34:19.189
Rafe is just a really smart kid who is very into whatever I'm doing.

01:34:19.708 --> 01:34:25.069
It's fun to have a, have a boy that's like, thinks you're cool, wants to do whatever.

01:34:25.444 --> 01:34:33.264
Whatever you're doing and has stretched us as parents, but you know, obviously we'll love him just as much as Adelaide and are, are figuring it out.

01:34:33.463 --> 01:34:40.814
So, uh, aside from Gary's encouragement, like what was it ultimately that, that drew you and Alex together?

01:34:40.814 --> 01:34:45.859
Is that family was forming or that kinship, if you will.

01:34:46.418 --> 01:34:46.788
Yeah.

01:34:46.849 --> 01:34:51.958
Aside from the, the birthday connection, the Kansas city connection, like, yeah, those are just fun things.

01:34:51.958 --> 01:34:54.269
She must've changed her mind about you at some point.

01:34:54.618 --> 01:34:56.908
Apparently, apparently she did.

01:34:57.439 --> 01:35:02.208
Um, no, I just, I liked her vibe.

01:35:02.498 --> 01:35:02.698
Yeah.

01:35:02.738 --> 01:35:11.484
I liked, like, it was easy to hang out with her, you know, I was attracted to her and We felt like we could be friends easily because we had a lot of common interests.

01:35:13.003 --> 01:35:21.024
Like there was never, I never felt like I didn't have anything to talk about with her or that we were so different that it was hard to find commonality.

01:35:21.024 --> 01:35:23.099
Like, We just have a good time together.

01:35:23.189 --> 01:35:23.368
Yeah.

01:35:23.368 --> 01:35:23.509
Yeah.

01:35:23.509 --> 01:35:24.788
And that's, that's really nice.

01:35:24.958 --> 01:35:28.408
How are you the same and how are you really different from each other?

01:35:28.448 --> 01:35:30.259
Where this marriage has continued?

01:35:30.679 --> 01:35:33.128
We're the same in that we both love to hang out at home.

01:35:33.588 --> 01:35:33.868
Okay.

01:35:33.868 --> 01:35:35.019
And that's just such a blessing.

01:35:37.078 --> 01:35:40.969
I am so thankful that she hates doing stuff as much as I do.

01:35:41.509 --> 01:35:42.878
Like, this is a big night out for you here.

01:35:42.878 --> 01:35:44.099
You're going to be here until 6.

01:35:44.099 --> 01:35:44.868
15 or something.

01:35:44.868 --> 01:35:46.048
How long is this going on?

01:35:46.429 --> 01:35:47.529
Hey, it's fine.

01:35:48.323 --> 01:35:49.953
Uh, no, she's great.

01:35:50.644 --> 01:35:53.404
Um, what do you guys do to spend your time together?

01:35:53.413 --> 01:35:55.804
You just read, hang out on the couch, scrabble.

01:35:56.094 --> 01:35:57.713
Oh, you said she beats you in scrabble.

01:35:57.753 --> 01:35:59.444
Uh, we, I avoid that cause she beats me.

01:35:59.484 --> 01:36:00.684
We do play board games sometimes.

01:36:00.724 --> 01:36:00.953
Yeah.

01:36:01.274 --> 01:36:08.974
Um, but we do a lot of reading as we're on the same couch and a lot of watching shows and dreaming about vacations.

01:36:08.974 --> 01:36:09.418
Yeah.

01:36:09.719 --> 01:36:10.899
Talking about the future.

01:36:11.838 --> 01:36:16.128
Couch time is the thing that like marriage councils, marriage counselors would say you need.

01:36:16.509 --> 01:36:17.609
I feel like we're really good at that.

01:36:17.609 --> 01:36:20.479
And like, there's not like a, Hey, we need to go do something or whatever.

01:36:20.479 --> 01:36:22.788
It's just, let's just cause there's a show on.

01:36:22.798 --> 01:36:25.259
It doesn't mean we can't talk about whatever we want to talk about here.

01:36:25.269 --> 01:36:25.668
Yeah.

01:36:25.878 --> 01:36:26.219
Yeah.

01:36:26.609 --> 01:36:27.139
I dig that.

01:36:27.248 --> 01:36:28.628
So we have a lot in common.

01:36:29.179 --> 01:36:38.838
Um, and then the ways we're different is that she's more of an extrovert still than I am, and I think is more like a lot more time conscious than I am.

01:36:39.314 --> 01:36:40.804
Okay, yeah, I can see that.

01:36:41.793 --> 01:36:45.394
Like, I think time is her love language, if you believe in love languages.

01:36:45.394 --> 01:36:45.724
Yeah, yeah.

01:36:45.724 --> 01:36:46.323
Like, whatever it is.

01:36:46.463 --> 01:36:46.634
Sure.

01:36:46.634 --> 01:36:49.043
Like, she, she wants Like, quality time thing.

01:36:49.043 --> 01:36:49.384
Yeah.

01:36:49.384 --> 01:36:49.384
Whatever.

01:36:49.384 --> 01:36:59.484
Like, once there's been time with me and that was a source of friction in the beginning, I think that I didn't understand her well enough and she didn't understand me well enough and that I need a little more space or did back then.

01:36:59.634 --> 01:37:00.083
Right.

01:37:00.184 --> 01:37:02.293
She does not want space.

01:37:02.814 --> 01:37:04.344
She wants to be close to me all the time.

01:37:04.783 --> 01:37:08.134
And that was like, just kind of a natural friction point when you realize like, Hey, we're different.

01:37:08.234 --> 01:37:08.474
Yeah.

01:37:08.474 --> 01:37:09.543
And you figure that stuff out.

01:37:10.253 --> 01:37:12.024
I need a little space, like get off me.

01:37:12.033 --> 01:37:12.304
Yeah.

01:37:12.304 --> 01:37:13.323
Like that sounds bad.

01:37:13.323 --> 01:37:18.783
Not that I want to be away from her, but like, The creative pursuits we talked about, like, you know, a little bit of space to do that stuff.

01:37:19.363 --> 01:37:20.863
Like Jill and I are that way too.

01:37:20.863 --> 01:37:23.904
Like, I just kind of would rather just be hanging out with her all the time.

01:37:23.904 --> 01:37:31.043
And like, especially when she's working at home, like, and I'm home, you know, like, Hey, what do you think about this?

01:37:32.783 --> 01:37:35.543
I'm working like, I'm like, the TV's on.

01:37:35.543 --> 01:37:36.123
You're not working.

01:37:36.123 --> 01:37:36.673
Well, I've worked.

01:37:36.764 --> 01:37:37.634
Yes, it is.

01:37:37.634 --> 01:37:38.524
I barely hear it.

01:37:38.594 --> 01:37:39.434
Like I'm working.

01:37:39.493 --> 01:37:39.764
Yeah.

01:37:41.173 --> 01:37:41.703
But I think.

01:37:42.663 --> 01:37:44.793
If you're too much the same, it causes problems.

01:37:44.904 --> 01:37:45.524
Oh, for sure.

01:37:45.873 --> 01:37:53.923
Because you just fall into the same ruts and we're different enough that we can help each other, like come out of those ruts.

01:37:54.304 --> 01:38:02.003
I think like, I think she is much better at time management than I am in some ways, like, Hey, it's seven 30 and the kids need to go to bed.

01:38:02.003 --> 01:38:04.173
And I'm like, Oh yeah, I was thinking about that too.

01:38:05.003 --> 01:38:06.173
Actually, I wasn't at all.

01:38:07.234 --> 01:38:11.104
And I think I'm maybe a little bit better at keeping things in perspective and not getting.

01:38:11.349 --> 01:38:15.229
bothered by stuff and like smoothing things out a little bit, like providing some stability.

01:38:15.229 --> 01:38:17.969
And we take those strengths and weaknesses and put them together.

01:38:17.969 --> 01:38:21.509
And 10 years in, we're still, we're still growing along.

01:38:21.859 --> 01:38:23.429
Are you 10 years this last year?

01:38:23.479 --> 01:38:23.849
Yes.

01:38:24.368 --> 01:38:25.238
Congratulations.

01:38:25.559 --> 01:38:25.788
Thanks.

01:38:26.168 --> 01:38:28.269
That's probably, that's way above average these days.

01:38:29.269 --> 01:38:30.439
Yeah, probably so sadly.

01:38:31.038 --> 01:38:37.158
Um, what would you say, is there other family aspects that are significant to you guys?

01:38:37.158 --> 01:38:40.408
Do you guys have a lot of interaction with grandparents?

01:38:40.408 --> 01:38:42.828
And, and we do, my mom's in town.

01:38:42.908 --> 01:38:43.189
Okay.

01:38:43.819 --> 01:38:45.998
If you mean, yeah, like my mom's in town right now.

01:38:46.038 --> 01:38:46.349
Yeah.

01:38:46.418 --> 01:38:49.019
Um, we still, we still see a lot of our parents.

01:38:49.078 --> 01:38:49.399
Yeah.

01:38:49.469 --> 01:38:52.948
Um, Alex's folks are out here for Christmas and then my mom got to come out.

01:38:53.019 --> 01:38:57.599
She's still hanging out near the West branch, but for, but you still get a lot of interaction time.

01:38:57.828 --> 01:38:58.288
Yeah.

01:38:58.368 --> 01:38:58.628
Yeah.

01:38:58.628 --> 01:39:00.179
They both live back in Casey.

01:39:00.179 --> 01:39:02.488
Well, plus they got seven other kids.

01:39:02.488 --> 01:39:02.819
Yeah.

01:39:02.819 --> 01:39:03.158
Yeah.

01:39:03.779 --> 01:39:03.948
Yeah.

01:39:03.948 --> 01:39:06.408
There's a lot of kids, but I think we both really value.

01:39:07.404 --> 01:39:11.774
We both, both for ourselves to be able to spend time with them and also that our kids get a lot of interaction with them.

01:39:11.814 --> 01:39:12.054
Yeah.

01:39:12.194 --> 01:39:17.014
It's been a hard thing for us to try to figure out, like, should we move back to Kansas City because our family's all back there?

01:39:17.083 --> 01:39:17.453
Yeah.

01:39:17.514 --> 01:39:19.014
Um, but the opportunity has been here.

01:39:19.328 --> 01:39:26.798
Yeah, and that's it feels like we talk about that every six months like yeah, and the answer is always No, we shouldn't move back.

01:39:26.828 --> 01:39:28.588
Yeah, but it feels like it will be Sunday.

01:39:28.679 --> 01:39:29.498
Okay, eventually.

01:39:29.538 --> 01:39:29.769
Yeah.

01:39:29.769 --> 01:39:38.774
Yeah, that's an interesting perspective Politics I guess All right.

01:39:38.783 --> 01:39:41.173
That's our last, uh, mandatory segment.

01:39:41.783 --> 01:39:56.774
Um, you, you know, you kind of said you're, you're, you're truth brokers here at the flyover and stuff, but, uh, you know, certainly you've probably bring some political slant to it as well as your editorial staff and whatever.

01:39:56.774 --> 01:39:58.323
But where do you, everybody does.

01:39:58.323 --> 01:39:58.554
Yeah.

01:39:58.554 --> 01:40:01.203
You know, that's one of our beliefs is that no one's neutral.

01:40:01.384 --> 01:40:05.863
How has your politics developed over maybe the last five or 10 years, especially?

01:40:06.694 --> 01:40:10.434
Oh, I think I've become more practical as one does when they get a little older.

01:40:11.073 --> 01:40:16.644
I think I used to be more of a, I used to love Ron Paul and I still have a lot of respect for him.

01:40:19.573 --> 01:40:19.944
I don't know.

01:40:20.003 --> 01:40:29.554
I may be like less, uh, less naive than I used to be about what's possible, but still have pretty similar beliefs about how I think the world should be.

01:40:30.623 --> 01:40:31.224
Right.

01:40:31.323 --> 01:40:31.573
Yeah.

01:40:31.703 --> 01:40:32.003
Yeah.

01:40:32.003 --> 01:40:39.134
I think that's, um, you know, I'm probably a, uh, libertarian first and foremost.

01:40:39.134 --> 01:40:43.314
And, you know, I came up with kind of my own ideas and then learn about Ron Paul?

01:40:43.323 --> 01:40:44.634
I was like, yeah, what, he's saying?

01:40:44.644 --> 01:40:44.934
Yeah.

01:40:44.934 --> 01:40:45.213
Yeah.

01:40:45.243 --> 01:40:49.253
You know, cause I was kind of in that five years ahead of that kind of conversation.

01:40:49.274 --> 01:40:52.923
So me and Jacob probably have that in common that we were kind of coming to those conclusions.

01:40:53.823 --> 01:40:55.833
Then Ron Paul came along and it was like, yeah.

01:40:56.743 --> 01:40:57.833
I had a lot of respect for him.

01:40:57.833 --> 01:41:01.224
I think he's one of the only politicians that I felt like I had personal respect for.

01:41:01.234 --> 01:41:01.694
Interesting.

01:41:01.713 --> 01:41:02.503
Maybe that's naive.

01:41:02.503 --> 01:41:03.554
Maybe he's a bad guy too.

01:41:03.554 --> 01:41:06.274
I don't know, but I liked what he had to say.

01:41:06.323 --> 01:41:06.774
Fair enough.

01:41:07.554 --> 01:41:15.179
And like maybe there's some element of you know, maybe Russia will invade Ukraine if they see a weak U.

01:41:15.179 --> 01:41:15.498
S.

01:41:15.498 --> 01:41:22.779
or, you know, maybe China will take Taiwan if they, if we don't have bases all around the South China Sea and Philippines and elsewhere.

01:41:23.679 --> 01:41:24.248
I don't know.

01:41:25.439 --> 01:41:36.748
Well, I, yeah, I think politically, I, I think it's important that we care about what's good for our neighbor, what's the best for our society.

01:41:37.189 --> 01:41:43.988
And I'm a generally conservative person because I think that The old paths are the best paths.

01:41:44.038 --> 01:41:44.849
Yeah, yeah.

01:41:44.889 --> 01:41:54.969
I think that the old paths are more likely to lead you towards truth, although we can obviously think of historical exceptions to that, like where things were quite obviously bad.

01:41:55.069 --> 01:42:00.939
I had a blog years ago that was, uh, I rephrased the Ten Commandments as the ten principles for your best good.

01:42:01.798 --> 01:42:04.613
You know, try to not be so commandment y.

01:42:05.713 --> 01:42:09.904
But, but like, it's just better if you bother your father or mother.

01:42:09.904 --> 01:42:11.583
Like that's actually just better than if you don't.

01:42:12.243 --> 01:42:12.804
Yeah, exactly.

01:42:13.003 --> 01:42:14.394
It's, it's really simple things.

01:42:14.404 --> 01:42:14.783
Right.

01:42:14.854 --> 01:42:15.073
Yeah.

01:42:15.073 --> 01:42:19.314
I think that the world is in such a rush to find new ideas.

01:42:19.434 --> 01:42:19.844
Hmm.

01:42:20.743 --> 01:42:24.663
Um, and often new and novel things are not good.

01:42:25.814 --> 01:42:28.323
I was, uh, you know, uh, x.

01:42:28.533 --> 01:42:32.514
com conversation recently where, um, I commented that.

01:42:33.014 --> 01:42:36.033
It feels like some people in the modern era would like A.

01:42:36.033 --> 01:42:36.264
I.

01:42:36.283 --> 01:42:39.064
to, like, become A.

01:42:39.064 --> 01:42:39.384
G.

01:42:39.384 --> 01:42:39.804
I.

01:42:39.823 --> 01:42:41.894
and, like, become the boss.

01:42:42.453 --> 01:42:45.923
Because they don't really believe in God, but that could be the God.

01:42:45.934 --> 01:42:48.684
They want somebody to tell them what to do.

01:42:49.444 --> 01:42:49.974
Kinda.

01:42:50.588 --> 01:42:50.868
Yeah.

01:42:50.908 --> 01:42:52.399
What is the right thing?

01:42:52.868 --> 01:42:53.139
Yeah.

01:42:53.368 --> 01:43:07.168
And you know, and other people from a faith background, especially whether it be Jewish or Christian or even, um, Islam or others are like, well, it's kind of written here, you know, it's principles based.

01:43:07.168 --> 01:43:16.319
It's not quite, you know, it's not, and then there's a whole bunch of other people that are like, I just try to do what my therapist Right.

01:43:17.628 --> 01:43:19.623
You have a Deep question.

01:43:19.623 --> 01:43:21.173
They're like, well, I'm just trying to pay rent.

01:43:21.634 --> 01:43:21.753
Yeah.

01:43:21.753 --> 01:43:22.684
I'm just trying to stay alive.

01:43:22.684 --> 01:43:36.073
Well, like, like what percentage of practicing therapists that people can book appointments with today, uh, would you trust to have a balanced conversation with you?

01:43:36.073 --> 01:43:44.274
If you were having a mental health, I don't know, not a great number, 20%, something like that, because ultimately people are people, yeah, they're all broken too.

01:43:44.344 --> 01:43:45.453
Yeah, I think so.

01:43:45.823 --> 01:43:47.814
I think my philosophy in life is that.

01:43:49.753 --> 01:43:57.734
Um, I personally don't have anything to give you that you don't have, I believe Jesus does.

01:43:58.184 --> 01:44:03.814
And I think I can give you something in pointing you toward him as I've helped you find what I found.

01:44:04.033 --> 01:44:04.423
Yeah.

01:44:04.533 --> 01:44:07.373
Um, and so anything that I have to offer people is not my own.

01:44:08.073 --> 01:44:11.434
Like I didn't, I don't have any, I got no fresh ideas really.

01:44:11.484 --> 01:44:12.014
Not really.

01:44:12.014 --> 01:44:14.833
Like there's nothing, nothing new under the sun.

01:44:14.833 --> 01:44:23.588
Like I You're just trying to go back and find, find the wisdom that has been written down for quite a long time and proven for quite a long time.

01:44:23.588 --> 01:44:31.349
And it turns out, like you said, that some of these things that it's easy to scorn or turn your back on are actually like what you should be doing.

01:44:32.859 --> 01:44:33.878
And there was no mystery.

01:44:33.878 --> 01:44:43.488
Like, I think there's this, I say there's no mystery, I talked about mystery earlier, but like there's this inherent need for people or some people think they have to find something esoteric.

01:44:43.488 --> 01:44:45.533
Transcribed Like knowledge is secret.

01:44:46.764 --> 01:44:48.333
Knowledge is the secret club.

01:44:48.333 --> 01:44:54.503
You're supposed to be a part of like, if I just get to like the, and they don't think of it this way, but like the third level, sure.

01:44:54.554 --> 01:44:56.623
Quadruple Mason, whatever it is.

01:44:56.623 --> 01:44:56.894
Yeah.

01:44:56.894 --> 01:44:58.073
Like, like what?

01:44:58.144 --> 01:44:59.923
Let's try to earn rest, try to earn rest.

01:44:59.923 --> 01:45:02.423
If I get smart enough, then I can just chill a little bit.

01:45:03.543 --> 01:45:05.783
You try to find something esoteric or something.

01:45:06.298 --> 01:45:13.328
That everybody else doesn't have because you think there must be something else out there But the truth is like you need to look the other way.

01:45:13.779 --> 01:45:19.889
You need to just think about what is Written in stone over a long time.

01:45:19.889 --> 01:45:21.599
That's just right there.

01:45:22.219 --> 01:45:27.524
Like it's not a magic club There's not some secret code out there that's going to set you free.

01:45:27.703 --> 01:45:28.854
The truth will set you free.

01:45:29.394 --> 01:45:34.163
And I believe you believe like it's just right there for you.

01:45:34.194 --> 01:45:37.884
Like you don't have to ascend a mountain and talk to some old guy in a shack or something.

01:45:37.884 --> 01:45:39.413
Like you just need to open up your Bible.

01:45:39.524 --> 01:45:47.274
I'm thinking even about the, like one of the reasons I really liked the, the podcast format is I get to bring other people's wisdom instead of me.

01:45:47.604 --> 01:45:47.833
Hmm.

01:45:48.198 --> 01:45:54.599
Acting the guru, you know, I'm not the best podcast host out there, but I'm interested in talking to people I find interesting and whatever.

01:45:54.599 --> 01:45:56.179
And yeah, seeing what they think.

01:45:56.788 --> 01:45:58.359
Um, and that's kind of the same tone.

01:45:58.359 --> 01:46:01.708
I was just looking over at the seven habits of highly effective people.

01:46:02.828 --> 01:46:09.559
Like it's not really so much this writer saying, do this.

01:46:09.939 --> 01:46:24.788
Cause I've come up with these seven new tips and tricks, da da da da, he's like, no listen, listen, listen, listen, I studied 5, 000 highly effective people, and these seven things are kind of the truth of how people are often effective.

01:46:24.889 --> 01:46:26.198
And it's usually not novel.

01:46:26.418 --> 01:46:37.698
Right, exactly, and the Bible is kind of the same way, and the principles around human politics, and Canada going crazy, two no's out, I guess, you know?

01:46:37.698 --> 01:46:37.764
Right, exactly.

01:46:37.923 --> 01:46:51.884
So to bring it back to business, it's like a, this is a Jacob Lee's doctrine for all of us that pop back to the ideas live in the excess ideas live in the excess of execution, meaning like you can have a million ideas.

01:46:52.333 --> 01:46:56.203
The thing that's probably going to get you from A to B in life is just actually doing one of them.

01:46:56.234 --> 01:46:56.423
Yeah.

01:46:56.423 --> 01:46:56.673
Yeah.

01:46:57.219 --> 01:47:01.679
Like showing up today, doing your work and then going home.

01:47:01.708 --> 01:47:03.618
It's like following the path every day.

01:47:04.609 --> 01:47:08.708
True in business, true in your spiritual life, I think is like, it's just not a mystery.

01:47:08.908 --> 01:47:10.868
It's more about consistency.

01:47:10.878 --> 01:47:15.948
Next right step in front of the last one and knowing where you're going a little bit.

01:47:16.434 --> 01:47:17.738
Yeah.

01:47:17.738 --> 01:47:23.109
Are you optimistic about, um, this country now?

01:47:23.198 --> 01:47:33.479
Um, you know, we got, you know, I don't, I never asked you about your Trump fanaticism or the whole election 2024, which was kind of a crazy.

01:47:34.333 --> 01:47:35.604
It was wild.

01:47:35.953 --> 01:47:36.463
It was fun to watch.

01:47:36.463 --> 01:47:37.554
The scene, you know.

01:47:38.024 --> 01:47:47.033
Uh, what was the, uh, my favorite short description of the year was the, uh, the vegetable made way for the plant without a vote to save democracy.

01:47:50.554 --> 01:47:52.634
It was, it was an interesting time for sure.

01:47:53.064 --> 01:47:55.953
I think I'm fairly optimistic about the future of America.

01:47:56.054 --> 01:47:56.363
Yeah.

01:47:56.394 --> 01:47:57.224
Yeah, I think that.

01:47:58.378 --> 01:48:00.878
I think culture has swung way too hard in one direction.

01:48:01.998 --> 01:48:04.548
And I think you're seeing a backlash to that now.

01:48:04.788 --> 01:48:05.139
Yeah.

01:48:05.229 --> 01:48:11.889
And Alex and I were talking about this last night at how, like, it's also possible to go too far in the other direction.

01:48:12.559 --> 01:48:14.429
Um, culture tends to be a pendulum.

01:48:14.529 --> 01:48:15.038
Yeah.

01:48:15.384 --> 01:48:29.934
And it just goes back and forth and it seems like when it's really far in one direction It's really hard to imagine it coming back the other way But I think we're in one of those points right now, whereas we're really coming back the other way And hopefully it doesn't swing too far crazy.

01:48:29.934 --> 01:48:50.948
Yeah Yeah, yeah, but I think people are just sick of what they perceive as nonsense Yeah in america things that just seem to be silly on their head That are accepted or pushed upon you and people are finally kind of hit a breaking point No matter what you think like you mentioned trump like everybody, I don't think everybody that voted for him really loved him to be honest.

01:48:52.048 --> 01:48:52.679
I would not imagine.

01:48:52.679 --> 01:48:53.179
So, yeah.

01:48:53.548 --> 01:49:08.849
But I think people are so tired of the direction of America that started in the Obama years in some ways and just went really hard that way to where we looked around and people are thinking, wait a minute, like, It's kind of a King has no clothes moment, right?

01:49:09.479 --> 01:49:09.958
How is this?

01:49:09.958 --> 01:49:17.359
Okay, these are the updated title nine rules Yeah, like really, you know, it seems trite but like it's emblematic.

01:49:17.359 --> 01:49:42.264
I think we see a video of like a If you see a 6'9 Biological male playing basketball with a bunch of 5'8 girls Any reasonable person thinks yeah, something has gone wrong here And maybe that's not something that happens all the time or like the thing but that's that's a thing representative, I think of how people view culture.

01:49:42.264 --> 01:49:43.134
Like, wait a minute.

01:49:43.173 --> 01:49:46.413
It's a visual like story that tells you what happened.

01:49:46.434 --> 01:49:47.333
How do we get here?

01:49:47.333 --> 01:49:55.493
Cause it feels like 20 years ago that never would have happened, you know, and you can point to any number of social issues you want, but that's my sense of it.

01:49:55.493 --> 01:49:59.099
It's just that people are, sensing that we've gone way too far in one direction.

01:49:59.099 --> 01:50:02.048
It's time to push back, push things back the other way.

01:50:02.048 --> 01:50:24.118
Well, and I, like, I think about such things as like, like all these girls, especially transing themselves, you know, trying to turn into boys and some boys trying to turn into girls usually later, you know, it seems like usually the 20 something boys that become girls or whatever, but it's so harmful to them usually.

01:50:24.134 --> 01:50:54.788
Yep, it's um It's a destructive pattern in our culture And I'm talking more probably about the because I interact more with the boys that have become girls kind of hmm, you know because they were unsuccessful at becoming a man and so now they wear nails and I'm a I'm a firm believer that Um, you cannot fundamentally change yourself in that sense.

01:50:54.809 --> 01:51:01.668
Like, it's in every single, you know, in your DNA, your gender is written into that.

01:51:01.798 --> 01:51:13.979
And not to discount that there isn't confusion for some people for whatever reason, but, um, it's so silly to think that you can go into an operating room and change your whole identity and like become a man.

01:51:13.979 --> 01:51:17.064
If you're a woman, like that's, ludicrous.

01:51:17.474 --> 01:51:20.503
And we're at this point in culture where you're almost expected to say that.

01:51:20.594 --> 01:51:21.163
You shut up.

01:51:21.163 --> 01:51:22.194
I'm just kidding.

01:51:22.444 --> 01:51:22.713
Yeah.

01:51:22.774 --> 01:51:22.984
Yeah.

01:51:22.984 --> 01:51:25.554
No, I mean, that was just probably the most extreme example.

01:51:25.634 --> 01:51:25.913
Yeah.

01:51:25.913 --> 01:51:33.283
It's a lot of extreme examples, but then they just point to other things that are downstream that like, if this happened, there's a lot of other stuff along the way.

01:51:33.484 --> 01:51:38.003
I say it, I said it in my podcast recently with somebody, or maybe it was just a conversation.

01:51:38.003 --> 01:51:45.929
I was thinking about the, The, the, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs moment in the debate.

01:51:46.429 --> 01:51:53.078
And I was like, well, you know, if you're going to eat the cats and you're going to eat the dogs, you know, you got to go down to the humane society and get them for yourself.

01:51:53.078 --> 01:51:55.719
You can't be stealing people's cats and dogs.

01:51:55.759 --> 01:51:56.498
It's so funny.

01:51:56.599 --> 01:51:57.429
To barbecue them.

01:51:58.338 --> 01:52:00.259
Uh, yeah, maybe that was the battle cry.

01:52:00.259 --> 01:52:02.838
Like whether it's true or not, like they're eating the cats.

01:52:02.838 --> 01:52:05.378
Like, someone's got to say like the emperor has no clothes.

01:52:05.389 --> 01:52:07.828
Like things have gone very wonky around here.

01:52:07.838 --> 01:52:28.738
Well, and some of those stories, like recent news, current events, and sorry to keep you late, but like in the UK where they're like, we, we arrested the 13 year old girl for public and, or for public intoxication because she was found with, uh, seven 30 something Pakistani men and they're.

01:52:28.814 --> 01:52:35.873
And we didn't talk to the Pakistani men because we don't want to confront that problem.

01:52:35.873 --> 01:52:37.003
It's hard to wrap your mind around.

01:52:37.234 --> 01:52:46.394
I think that's, um, people are so desperate to be thought of well by a certain group of people.

01:52:46.543 --> 01:52:46.844
Yeah.

01:52:47.453 --> 01:52:52.033
They will come to find themselves doing something ludicrous.

01:52:52.769 --> 01:52:55.319
Just to be thought of well by the zeitgeist.

01:52:55.418 --> 01:52:55.679
Yeah.

01:52:55.918 --> 01:53:06.838
And if the zeitgeist is crazy, but all you care about is being thought of well by people that ascribe to the zeitgeist, like you're gonna find yourself doing some things like are happening in England that just make no sense.

01:53:07.328 --> 01:53:07.439
Yeah.

01:53:07.448 --> 01:53:09.889
And putting people in jail for Facebook posts.

01:53:09.899 --> 01:53:10.248
Right.

01:53:10.338 --> 01:53:13.238
Um, and ignoring the tragedies that are happening.

01:53:13.279 --> 01:53:16.118
Hey, my neighbors keep getting raped by the Islamists.

01:53:16.613 --> 01:53:19.144
Oh, that's a, that's a arrest.

01:53:19.194 --> 01:53:19.514
Right.

01:53:20.404 --> 01:53:20.904
Okay.

01:53:21.184 --> 01:53:22.104
It's hard to wrap your mind around.

01:53:22.724 --> 01:53:27.724
You know, they do, they are getting raped by the Islamists, I'm sorry to say, but it's true.

01:53:28.144 --> 01:53:28.404
Yeah.

01:53:28.444 --> 01:53:30.804
I'm sorry, that isn't a laughing matter at all, but it's Right.

01:53:30.804 --> 01:53:37.479
And it's, yeah, I mean, I think people are It just shows how swayable people's beliefs are.

01:53:37.979 --> 01:53:58.099
Mental stuff is like that becomes something that's better to just keep the peace and over reactionary Because I think they're obviously there are real problems going the other way in society but like if your reaction to racism is I can't comment on anything someone with a certain skin color does then like That doesn't make any sense.

01:53:58.099 --> 01:54:10.118
Like, why can't we just, why can't we just have common sense and evaluate, uh, people by what they do and evaluate situations as they arise and not try to make broad sweeping judgments.

01:54:10.238 --> 01:54:15.748
How would you evaluate the European situation today compared to 20 years from now?

01:54:17.078 --> 01:54:19.559
Uh, I'm going to get over my skills trying to talk about geopolitics.

01:54:21.038 --> 01:54:25.538
Um, I think in some ways they're behind us in the cycle of where culture is going.

01:54:25.798 --> 01:54:26.469
That's my only comment.

01:54:27.628 --> 01:54:29.118
They will see similar movements.

01:54:29.854 --> 01:54:35.463
They are seeing similar movements actually in like the Netherlands, if you remember the farmers thing, Italy and yeah, a lot of different things.

01:54:35.503 --> 01:54:44.404
Um, I feel like they're They're following along on a similar path culturally as the United States and they're just like 10 years behind us That's my amateur armchair.

01:54:44.434 --> 01:54:51.913
Yeah, that's fair We like just kind of move faster like they took took us there and then kind of they're gonna be slower and coming back Out of it too.

01:54:51.963 --> 01:55:08.519
Yeah, maybe so if you Let's talk about business like you didn't really and I'm not I wouldn't even call you an entrepreneur right like you saw opportunity and you were the right man for the job when it came to Yeah, I'm not a founder.

01:55:08.548 --> 01:55:11.548
I think I was just there to pick up the mantle.

01:55:11.668 --> 01:55:11.998
Yeah.

01:55:12.069 --> 01:55:15.588
Well, and certainly probably you've figured out how do we make money?

01:55:15.729 --> 01:55:17.988
You know, how many resources do we spend on this?

01:55:17.988 --> 01:55:19.719
How many editors can we hire?

01:55:19.729 --> 01:55:22.809
How many States can we launch when there's a lot of those kinds of things.

01:55:23.349 --> 01:55:24.488
It's an ongoing conversation.

01:55:24.559 --> 01:55:26.038
So that, that is there.

01:55:26.498 --> 01:55:30.668
Um, but what would you say like to or about entrepreneurs?

01:55:31.434 --> 01:55:32.224
To entrepreneurs.

01:55:32.243 --> 01:55:33.264
To entrepreneurs, yeah.

01:55:33.264 --> 01:55:34.873
Aspiring entrepreneurs especially.

01:55:34.873 --> 01:55:40.333
People coming out of high school, thinking about going to Bible college, thinking about starting a business.

01:55:40.533 --> 01:55:41.503
Don't know what that would be.

01:55:42.623 --> 01:55:42.953
Hmm.

01:55:44.493 --> 01:55:47.894
Um, I think it goes back to the people comment.

01:55:49.354 --> 01:55:52.734
Like I don't have anything original to offer for business advice.

01:55:52.734 --> 01:55:56.654
Honestly, I think that success comes from working really hard with good people.

01:55:57.234 --> 01:56:01.524
Like ideas are kind of easy to come by sort of, but it's also about timing.

01:56:01.804 --> 01:56:02.113
Sure.

01:56:02.123 --> 01:56:07.644
Like you have to have the right idea at the right time, but I think it's just all about executing with people.

01:56:08.684 --> 01:56:11.604
Um, so build your people skills is the most important thing in some ways.

01:56:11.623 --> 01:56:13.844
Bring good people into your organization.

01:56:13.923 --> 01:56:16.524
Like be very selective or learn from good people.

01:56:18.184 --> 01:56:20.078
A big formative part for you was that.

01:56:20.779 --> 01:56:25.069
You probably learned more from the men that you were around at the Bible college than from the Bible college.

01:56:25.288 --> 01:56:25.838
I did.

01:56:26.378 --> 01:56:34.408
And I've learned a lot more from being around Jacob and guy and other people about, um, regarding business than any book I've read.

01:56:34.469 --> 01:56:41.059
The people you spend time around probably learn more from faith from Gary and Aaron, Daniel and et cetera.

01:56:41.059 --> 01:56:47.488
Then, yeah, you become like who you spend time around and the people that you bring into an organization are going to define it.

01:56:48.519 --> 01:56:54.814
Ultimately, like that you can't have a bunch of people that are moving one direction and have your organization not go that same way.

01:56:54.814 --> 01:56:55.654
Yeah, fair enough.

01:56:55.783 --> 01:57:01.224
Um, and so I guess I would say just be very careful about who you associate with.

01:57:01.384 --> 01:57:01.583
Yeah.

01:57:01.623 --> 01:57:04.743
Not in terms of like trying to keep yourself pure or whatever, but just like, yeah.

01:57:05.173 --> 01:57:09.713
Um, especially on day to day is that people are creating with and for you.

01:57:09.944 --> 01:57:10.264
Yeah.

01:57:10.323 --> 01:57:17.363
Like we would not be where we are right now if we didn't have people that were invested in the idea.

01:57:17.889 --> 01:57:21.609
And wanted to help bring it forward and just get along with each other.

01:57:22.498 --> 01:57:24.048
I have learned a lot about that.

01:57:24.259 --> 01:57:28.859
Um, culture fit is important as any other.

01:57:29.878 --> 01:57:31.759
Um, item on someone's resume.

01:57:31.899 --> 01:57:33.408
You've got the skills, don't have the culture.

01:57:33.488 --> 01:57:33.918
Yeah.

01:57:34.198 --> 01:57:34.448
Yeah.

01:57:34.448 --> 01:57:36.509
Like culture is extremely important.

01:57:36.649 --> 01:57:36.868
Okay.

01:57:37.418 --> 01:57:40.689
Um, final segment, the Loco experience.

01:57:41.069 --> 01:57:41.429
Okay.

01:57:41.668 --> 01:57:44.359
The craziest experience that you want to share with our listeners.

01:57:45.969 --> 01:57:51.149
Well, uh, back when I was working for the flood restoration company, Oh yes.

01:57:51.298 --> 01:57:58.969
There was a, there was an unfortunate incident in a house in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a group of older, older folks were living there.

01:57:59.474 --> 01:58:06.293
And the story went that cats set the house on fire via pushing on the stove or something.

01:58:07.243 --> 01:58:07.863
That's the story.

01:58:07.934 --> 01:58:08.363
I don't know.

01:58:08.644 --> 01:58:08.993
Yeah.

01:58:09.054 --> 01:58:10.394
But there was a fire in their kitchen.

01:58:10.913 --> 01:58:14.113
And so these people in this, uh, in the middle of winter.

01:58:14.604 --> 01:58:17.314
So they moved out the cats did not.

01:58:18.173 --> 01:58:18.634
Okay.

01:58:19.014 --> 01:58:24.783
So there's a house that's had a fire Yeah, that has about ten cats living in it.

01:58:25.554 --> 01:58:28.554
Just yeah, never leaving the house.

01:58:28.554 --> 01:58:45.269
So just think about it And then there is me good friend Rich Gardner In a van headed up to Cheyenne to go inside this house and to try to bring out items that are not destroyed and catalog them.

01:58:45.448 --> 01:58:45.929
Oh God.

01:58:46.319 --> 01:58:50.788
And so we're sitting in there in this freezing cold house because the heat isn't on or anything.

01:58:50.788 --> 01:58:51.548
Cause there's a fire.

01:58:52.189 --> 01:58:54.408
Um, it smells like hell itself.

01:58:56.519 --> 01:58:57.798
I have never.

01:58:58.429 --> 01:59:00.719
Like you walk in and you're like retching immediately.

01:59:00.729 --> 01:59:01.809
Something like that.

01:59:01.809 --> 01:59:04.408
I've never wanted to get out of bed less in my life.

01:59:04.759 --> 01:59:06.809
Like never knew that I could be that miserable.

01:59:07.889 --> 01:59:15.359
So that's one of them is like, well, that's one of the things I think about when I hang out with rich, like we really been through it, like we, right.

01:59:15.389 --> 01:59:17.128
Have, uh, spent a month.

01:59:19.529 --> 01:59:20.390
And we're going to be doing that.

01:59:20.390 --> 01:59:22.814
Cause was Rich on paid staff early in the crossing journey?

01:59:22.814 --> 01:59:22.929
No.

01:59:22.929 --> 01:59:24.873
So he was at first kind of an intern.

01:59:24.884 --> 01:59:25.713
You couldn't be here.

01:59:25.713 --> 01:59:29.203
He was a pastor, but he was, we don't have enough budget for everybody.

01:59:29.203 --> 01:59:29.654
Kind of thing.

01:59:30.644 --> 01:59:31.463
So we did that.

01:59:31.463 --> 01:59:36.033
And then the other equivalent moment I think was when all the floods happened like down towards Boulder.

01:59:36.654 --> 01:59:37.024
Sure.

01:59:37.073 --> 01:59:38.524
And there's been a couple.

01:59:38.524 --> 01:59:38.564
Mhm.

01:59:39.684 --> 01:59:39.734
Yeah.

01:59:39.823 --> 01:59:40.833
I think it was 13.

01:59:40.833 --> 01:59:42.613
I think it was.

01:59:42.613 --> 01:59:42.884
Yeah.

01:59:42.884 --> 01:59:43.444
That sounds right.

01:59:43.444 --> 01:59:45.753
Especially when they had to find the lions and whatnot.

01:59:45.793 --> 01:59:46.224
Yup.

01:59:46.993 --> 01:59:50.394
Down there in someone's basement that had flooded via their sewer system.

01:59:50.444 --> 01:59:53.894
And it's me and Rich and hazmat suits, like doing the same thing.

01:59:53.894 --> 01:59:55.524
And we're like carrying stuff upstairs.

01:59:55.913 --> 02:00:01.554
And this poor woman would see us carrying some fairly, some family heirloom upstairs and just start crying.

02:00:01.554 --> 02:00:01.922
We're like, Oh, sorry.

02:00:01.922 --> 02:00:02.015
Like.

02:00:02.015 --> 02:00:02.198
It's fine.

02:00:02.198 --> 02:00:02.384
It's fine.

02:00:02.783 --> 02:00:04.113
I'm not having a good time either.

02:00:05.033 --> 02:00:05.323
Right.

02:00:05.974 --> 02:00:08.154
The crib that you're sad about.

02:00:08.884 --> 02:00:09.243
Yeah.

02:00:09.543 --> 02:00:12.363
I learned that you should never keep anything valuable in a basement.

02:00:12.884 --> 02:00:13.354
Yes.

02:00:13.444 --> 02:00:13.923
Just don't do it.

02:00:13.934 --> 02:00:14.654
That is true.

02:00:16.029 --> 02:00:25.748
We have our stuff that is in the basement is in tubs, so, um, yeah, they're recording again.

02:00:26.519 --> 02:00:27.878
I don't know if she'll use that feed or not.

02:00:28.259 --> 02:00:35.088
But, um, so it could get, you know, 10 inches deep in the basement without, like, filling the stuff in there.

02:00:35.099 --> 02:00:35.418
That's smart.

02:00:35.418 --> 02:00:35.599
Yeah.

02:00:35.698 --> 02:00:36.029
That would help.

02:00:36.029 --> 02:00:36.798
At least it's that.

02:00:36.878 --> 02:00:37.128
Yep.

02:00:37.158 --> 02:00:37.519
Right.

02:00:37.988 --> 02:00:39.488
Um, but we don't have any other room.

02:00:39.498 --> 02:00:40.418
We need basement stuff.

02:00:40.948 --> 02:00:41.448
Um.

02:00:41.809 --> 02:00:47.969
What is the number of cats that you would, uh, be willing to host in your home?

02:00:48.509 --> 02:00:48.828
Zero.

02:00:52.309 --> 02:00:53.319
That's probably zero.

02:00:53.788 --> 02:00:54.738
Do you guys have a dog?

02:00:55.479 --> 02:00:55.929
We don't.

02:00:55.958 --> 02:00:58.738
I think if we ever moved to a place that has more space, we'd like to get one.

02:00:58.738 --> 02:01:05.878
But it just doesn't make sense in our, we have a tiny little yard and yeah, there's the garden in the back instead of a yard and normal dogs wouldn't like it.

02:01:06.019 --> 02:01:06.238
No.

02:01:06.738 --> 02:01:09.359
Um, if people want to sign up for the flyover.

02:01:10.993 --> 02:01:11.913
Join the flyover.

02:01:11.913 --> 02:01:12.154
com.

02:01:12.264 --> 02:01:13.453
Join the flyover.

02:01:13.484 --> 02:01:13.823
com.

02:01:13.823 --> 02:01:18.884
Just put your little email in there and you'll get spammed like crazy from these, uh, truth brokers.

02:01:21.453 --> 02:01:24.123
You will get our emails and there's also seven state editions.

02:01:24.123 --> 02:01:34.274
So if you live in Texas or Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, um, some other ones, Colorado, yeah, uh, you should Google that as well.

02:01:34.514 --> 02:01:34.854
All right.

02:01:35.033 --> 02:01:35.384
I dig it.

02:01:36.814 --> 02:01:37.083
Great.

02:01:37.333 --> 02:01:37.663
Thank you.

02:01:37.894 --> 02:01:38.301
Thanks for having me.

02:01:38.301 --> 02:01:38.923
Thanks for sharing the time.

02:01:39.003 --> 02:01:39.274
Yep.

02:01:39.434 --> 02:01:42.613
And, uh, look forward to, uh, next worship service.

02:01:42.673 --> 02:01:43.213
Sounds great.

02:01:43.333 --> 02:01:43.673
All right.

02:01:43.684 --> 02:01:44.434
Thanks, Kirk.

02:01:44.434 --> 02:01:44.594
All right.

02:01:44.594 --> 02:01:44.863
Cheers.