I was like, okay, first of all, there is no God. I mean, I'm smoking, I'm drinking. Fifth grade, I'm arrested. The folks living next to me, Charles and Willie, are like, oh, you can come do community service at our church.
So I end up hanging out with them and they're sharing the gospel. Charles is telling me, hey man, like, you're going to do great things for the Lord someday. Then God ends up just continuing to just send people after me. He's wooing you. Yeah, yeah.
It's an honor to have you here in Orlando and on our show. I'm honored. I think a lot of people might know you, but tell our listeners what you do and watchers. I do YouTube. I make YouTube videos, I have a podcast.
I did music professionally from 2015 to 2020. And then, yeah, during the pandemic, I pivoted to YouTube. And that's kind of the main thing that I do now: a combination of podcasting and like cultural commentary with different guests that I have on, a live stream that we do a couple of times a week. And that's been the bread and butter.
So we're engaging with. Whatever's happening in the news, whatever's happening in culture, and just trying to reorient it in a way that anchors it in the biblical worldview. Yeah, I mean, I've watched it because everybody's talking about it. But to see it in the view of a biblical view, that changes things. And it's good to have that perspective and really need it, don't you think?
Oh, yeah. And that's how I'm sure I'm like millions of others found you that way. You know, you see a clip come up. You're just talking about Michael Jackson. And I'm like, I saw the clip.
And, you know, again, I know it's not clickbait, but I read the title. I'm like, Michael Jackson, kidding Christ. You're kidding me. You know, I'm a Jackson guy. I was in seminary when Thriller came out, and we weren't allowed to tell anybody we were listening to it.
Wow. Because, you know, it was awesome. We were in California at the time, and it was just one of the I was teaching aerobics at one of these big clubs. Aerobics was big. That's when it really boomed.
Every single song was from that album. It was so good. I mean, the guy was so talented. But, but as we read through Godly Ambition, which is coming out right as the time this podcast is released, here's my first thought on that. As I read through your book, as your stories weave through the whole thing, talk about how much of your drivenness and your desire to be ambitious and accomplish and be successful is connected to the losses you had as a kid.
Oh, that's such a great question. I think that. Obviously our experiences shape us and Being an immigrant and not just immigrant, but a refugee, the perspective that I think I've shared from coming from the former Soviet Union, coming in a totally different upbringing with regards to both God, faith, and Opportunity to sustaining yourself. I think that absolutely impacts how I see the world. And then I think having grown up without my dad in my life and my mom, you know, struggling with alcohol and all those sorts of things, I think absolutely creates.
A drive and a hunger, you know, and again, just perspective. Like, I think people grow up. Here And forget how good we really have it. And when you're able to have context and you're able to see other parts of the world and you're able to experience what it's like living somewhere else, you're able to go, wait a minute, not only do I have opportunity to provide for my family and, Take care of myself, but I also have an opportunity to be a blessing to others. I have an opportunity to be generous, to contribute something big.
So I would say a big chunk of it. I mean, even, you know, living in San Diego, like our cost of living is high.
So you can't. Can't be Average and just coast. You know, you got to have a little grit to you if you're hoping to. Again, 1 Timothy 5, right? Provide for the needs of your family, specifically your immediate family.
It says those who don't are worse than non-believers and have denied the faith, which is a really harsh passage from the Apostle Paul.
Well, I think you have to go back because listeners are like, wait, what? You're a refugee? Like, what you just said in a few sentences. Is that's pretty big stuff.
So take us back to your childhood. Like, how did all that happen? Yeah, so I'm ethnically Armenian. Armenians are, we have a country there. We're the oldest.
Uh Christian nation in the world founded around the year 300. Uh, there's there's an uh a quarter of the old city, Jerusalem, is a quarter of it is Armenian, been there. Um And so Armenians have always historically been Culturally Christian. We didn't have a written language until we created one to translate the Bible because we wanted to translate the Bible into Armenian.
So ethnically, I'm Armenian. My mother was adopted by an Armenian family. She's Russian or Ukrainian, we're not sure. And my dad's Armenian as well. And so in that part of the world, you have Turkey, which had the atrocious genocide against Armenian in 1915.
You have Armenia splat in the middle and then you have Azerbaijan, which Geographically, it used to be Armenia, but now you have this mix-up of. Arzis and Armenians living together in the city of Baku, which is right off the Caspian Sea, beautiful city. It's like a massive vacation destination now in the Middle East. And so, long story short, when the Soviet Union kind of helped establish that, whenever a superpower is involved, the theory goes they'll intentionally create. borders and boundaries around areas to Almost create instability because if these people are fighting and arguing, they have to be dependent on the superpower to care for them, right?
To make sure that they squabble and they squash the issues.
So they created these weird zones where you have Armenia, but then in the middle of Azerbaijan, you have this autonomous Armenian zone called Naboro-Kadabak region, right? That's what the Arzis called it. And long story short, Armenians are historically there, it's in Azerbaijan, and there's always been conflict between Turks and Armenians and Arzis. And what happened was there was allegedly a bunch of Arzis that got displaced from parts that were predominantly Armenian. And then that led to the pogroms of Baku, where hundreds of thousands of Armenians were ethnically cleansed from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, and you know, tons of people were killed and beaten.
And so, because we were the, we appear Russian, we appear more, more fair-skinned, me and my mom were the last ones to stay. My dad, everyone got out in the 80s, we stayed to kind of settle all the affairs and then applied for refugees. Status, my dad took care of that. And so we applied for Australia, Israel, and America. America was the last place we applied, first place that took us in as refugees.
And yeah, and then we came to the United States.
So, how old were you? I was six. You're six.
So I have enough to remember. Yeah. Yeah, you do remember. Yeah, I don't, I don't, uh, not with my mom and dad. My dad remarried after coming to America.
And I have a half-brother and two half-sisters that I didn't really grow up with, but we're much closer now as adults. And so, yeah, so I came here three months before the fall of communism.
So communism fell in 91, and I came right in 91. And what had gone on? Like, you said your dad was gone. Mm-hmm.
So, were they divorced at that time? Yeah, so because the tensions were swelling, my dad went to work in Moscow, which is. Far from Baku, and most Armenians were kind of getting the hints, and they were already starting to leave before it really hit the fan.
So he had to travel back and forth for work in the 80s, in the late 80s. And so that created a bunch of tension on the marriage. They both had other relationships and adultery and all sorts of stuff. And so by the time they came to America, they were like, hey, this is going to be a fresh start. And then my.
Mom. I found these little letters with lipstick kissy marks on them, and I thought they were for my dad. I thought my mom was like writing my dad loving them. I'm six.
So I bring them to my dad. Yeah, I found them when I was six.
So I bring them to my dad. It's like, oh, look what mom did for you. And he opens them. And he had never seen them. He had never seen him.
And there's a letter written to her boyfriend back in Baku. And that was like the straw that broke the camel's back. And so then he left after that. Yeah. Wow, I mean, even that for kid, did you feel guilty?
Did you know what happened after he opened it? I, he, I, because I confronted my dad as an adult, and we're in a great place now. I was like, why did you leave? Like, what happened? You know, like, you just, you kind of just bounced, and I'd see you on my birthdays.
And so he was like, Do you, do you remember that? And he said it and like the memories came back. And I was like, oh. And so I think I. Carried a degree of guilt and shame because I felt like I destroyed their marriage.
And so he shared that with me. And then he kind of explained, like, hey, like, you know, your mom had some other boyfriends that were pretty wild. My dad tries to like never speak ill of my mom, but he's like, that's another boy. And I remembered, you know, she would just date these guys that weren't, weren't the best. And from her perspective, she's a single mom, she's in another country, she's depressed, her parents aren't with her, and she just starts to spiral.
And so, When he would come over, it would become more and more hard for him to see me. And there was one time when there was like a fist fight between a gentleman that my mom was dating. My mom kind of jumped my dad and pulled off her heel and cut his face. The cops got called. And so she just made it harder and harder for him to see to see me.
And so he, you know, he had started another family. His girlfriend from Moscow came out, got remarried. They had twins.
So he goes from, you know, he's in a new country, still trying to establish himself.
So he, he just kind of felt pushed out, you know, and that then led me to kind of grow up, you know, without a father figure in San Diego, which normal heights, city heights. Area of San Diego in the 90s, early 90s is very different. This is the peak of gang culture, gangster rap music. Like it was a very different time. And that sent me down a pretty, pretty rough, rough path as a kid.
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Okay. We really want you to give. Let's get back to the conversation. We really need you to give. How did all of that shape you?
Because that. That's pretty traumatic. Yeah. All those things that happened. Yeah.
I ended up. Rebelling. I didn't know I was rebelling, but I ended up two things. I got really sucked into the. Music of like the gangster rap, hip-hop type stuff.
And I'm, and like, I think hip-hop as a genre is great. The music itself, but the content, especially as a young kid.
So I ended up going to a, I couldn't have been no older than nine, eight or nine, to a Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg concert at the San Diego Sports Arena. And I'm I'm One of the only White kids there. I'm only one of the white kids there, but I'm only one of the kids in the arena. Yeah, that's it.
And so I remember seeing Dre and Snoop, and this is at the peak of like that era. And that's that had a huge impact on me. Like Snoop Dogg's Doggy style album, Dr. Dre's Chronic Tupac, all this stuff had a real impact. And I was just also in an environment where.
I could get into a lot of trouble. And so we became the kids that were breaking into houses and just doing terrible things. And it all culminated to me getting arrested in fifth grade, like going into sixth grade. I got arrested for in the middle of attempting to break into a home. Um to uh just just just the knucklehead.
And My mom kind of started seeing where I was going. And thankfully, through that process, she was able to relocate us to Vista, which is a bit more suburban, a bit more removed. And that is when kind of the shift happened. I got more into sports and became a better student and all that sort of stuff. And where was Vista?
Faith in the midst of that. You said, It was cultural, you know. Christiana was like a cultural thing. And so, did it permeate any place in your home growing up? not in our home because Man, the Soviet Union did a really good job of removing God from everything.
And so we didn't have a Bible in our home. We didn't talk about God. We would say we're Christians. You know, if somebody would ask, we'd say we're Christians. And then when we came here, That was the first time I ever remember going to church in the Armenian Apostolic Church.
And so the Armenian Apostolic Church is a part of the Oriental Orthodox arm of the church.
So Ethiopian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, their sister churches. And that is, I grew up going there, and I was. Or christened as like an altar boy.
So I helped with that sort of stuff. And so I remember there was a couple of times where, you know, they would talk about Jesus and you see Jesus on the cross and the iconography and all that sort of stuff.
So talked about it, but there was no real. Not a great explanation of the gospel for me. And that also culminated that. They remarried my dad. And technically, according to my mom, they were never technically divorced, so she didn't like that, and so she stops going to church, which also.
Harmed her because that was our only cultural connection, right? It's like people go to, and they still drink and still smoke and still just be suffering refugees, but at least that kept us anchored.
So she. When that happened, she stopped going to church. And then there were just a sequence of events that happened that then pushed me further and further away from church as well.
So, do you spiral out even now as an older? Like teenager? No. Fifth grade. Fifth grade, you're arrested.
Yeah. So, no, oddly, no.
So, what happened was fifth grade, I'm arrested. And at that point, I mean, I'm smoking, I'm drinking, like, I'm gone. Like, I'm fifth grade, yeah. Yeah, which is really. It's really trippy because my son's going into fifth grade this year.
What's that feel like? Oh my God. I mean, he just has such a different life than I did. You know, he just has the music he listens to, the friends he has, the environment he's in, the attention to detail that we have as parents. It's such a different.
Such a different experience. And don't you think, too, because I've got sexual abuse. At the time, I thought, well, this has happened, this is hard. But then when I had one of my kids be that age, I'm like, wait a minute, I was a kid. I was a little kid.
Did you have that feeling? Yeah, yeah. And I, so, so the, the alts, there were some older teenage altar boys. I was like seven or eight. I experienced sexual abuse from the older kids.
That is one of the reasons why I stopped going to church in the Armenian church. And so absolutely, when I'm like, you know, I'm watching him grow up and I'm like, man, the stuff I experienced. And so it's almost, I don't want to say re-traumatizing, but it definitely adds perspective of like, wow, like I had it. Pretty rough and seeing that in my son.
So, what happened was though, by the way, I guess this is the grace of God, it's the mercy of God for sure. Is by the time I move and I'm going into eighth grade, like seventh grade, I'm on probation, I'm having to do community service, I'm going to. community service with this um The entire complex becomes Christian. It's really weird. And so our.
Lady that kind of she wasn't the, I guess she was the landlord, she's like the manager, complex manager. She her name is Cherie, and she still watches my channel, and we're in touch till this day. But Cherie ends up. getting caught trying to move cocaine. Um through an airport.
In the nineties.
So she ends up going to jail. And gets like radically saved, like radically on fire for Jesus.
So she comes out. And she is Telling everybody about Jesus. And I'm like, I don't want to hear it. How old are you? I'm like, this is around the fifth grade, sixth grade.
All right. But I got arrested.
So now I got to do community service hours.
So Cherie then um The folks living next to me, Charles and Willie. Are like, oh, you can come do community service at our church. And so Charles and Willie are from her church.
So I end up hanging out with them. And they kind of were like these father figures to me in a way. And they're sharing the gospel and telling me about Jesus. And I remember Charles was telling me, um, Hey man, like. You're going to do great things for the Lord someday.
And I was like, okay, first of all, there is no God.
So at that point, you're like, no. Yeah, I'm telling people, I'm an atheist. I had to have been the youngest atheist walking, right? I'm 10, 11 years old. I'm telling people that they're so there is no God.
And if there is a God, he definitely doesn't like me. Right. That's how I felt. And so they kept just planting those seeds, planting those seeds. How much of your there is no God at that point you think was connected to the hurt from the church?
Oh, I think most of it. Yeah, I think most of it. Because it's it's I mean, this is the worst thing happened. Sexual abuse at the church. Yeah, and the way they handled it was awful.
So they didn't.
So they knew? They knew, and they didn't deal with it at all. And then the way it was framed, I mean, I'm again, I'm young, I'm seven, eight years old. And the way it was framed was that I was the aggressor and I was the initiator, which was, which was, which was crazy because I, you know, I wasn't. And then.
I remember getting my ear pierced in fourth grade and It I came to church, and this is one of the only one-on-one conversations that the Terchair had with me. At Hari is like our priest, God bless his soul. He sat down with me and he opened up the Leviticus passage and told me how, like, having a piercing was a sin. And I'm sitting here thinking, yeah, like, dude, like, you wait a minute, like, you remarried my dad. My mom's still mad at you about that.
He wasn't divorced. Yeah, he wasn't, according to my mom, you know, this awful thing happened. That's why I'm not an alterable anymore. Yeah. And, like, your concern is that, like, I got my ear pierced.
I have a hole in my ear, and that's the problem. Yeah, it's just unjust scales, right? And so. By the time we move. And I'm going into eighth grade.
So many other things had happened. I had almost got stabbed because some kid brought a gun to school, said it was mine, and then the detectives came and sat me down. And he thought I snitched on him. Like just the craziest sequence of events.
So, by the time I moved to Vista Cal, I'm scared straight. You guys remember that TV show? I didn't need to go to a prison to be scared straight. My life was just chaos. It was complete chaos.
We had broken into a house, and this after I got arrested, broken into a house, and they sent someone to find us. Cause at this point, we had the reputation as the kids in the neighborhood that broke in a house.
So someone shows up with a bat. This Samoan kid tried to stab me after school, and I had to run from.
So by the time I'm going to eighth grade, I'm like, hey, I'm done. Like, I'm just going to be a good kid. I'm done. I'm done smoking weed. I'm done drinking.
But there's still no God. Still no God. You decided that, though. You decided I'm done. Yeah.
Yeah. Because. Did you tell anybody? I think I told my mom, told a couple of friends, and I was like, I'm going to. I'm going to be a professional basketball player.
That was my plan. You're 6'8, aren't you? Yeah, right. This is Pete Michael Jordan, that docuseries, The Last Dance, that era.
So I'm super inspired. I'm going to be a basketball player. And so I just pour myself into sports. I pour myself into understanding how to play basketball and just everyday practicing weight training. All that sort of stuff.
So. Then God ends up just continuing to just send people after me, you know, send people. The neighbor that I would catch a ride with to school, his mom was a Christian, and come to this lock-in thing. This person at the, in our pool, one night we're hanging out and they're sharing the gospel. There's just so many different people.
He's wooing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I end up getting into music because I discovered that I'm Armenian and I'm five foot eight as a kid. And my mom's boyfriend had to sit me down and explain something called genetics, you know, and like, hey, kid, like, did you play any ball in high school? No, I played ball, but I got cut my sophomore year, you know, and everyone's like, Michael Jordan got cut his sophomore year.
It's like his sophomore year from the varsity team.
Okay. And he was Michael Jordan. Like, I got cut from the junior varsity team. It was, it was just, this was not in the cards for me.
So I thought, okay, well, I'm going to be a rapper. Like, that's the second best thing. Cause again, you're growing up in an environment where like athletes and entertainers, that's all you know. And you were at the Snoop Dogg concert. And I was at the Snoop Dogg concert, which, by the way, if I ever meet Snoop, I got to share that story with him.
Oh, you're going to meet him. Yeah. And so I end up. Starting to get really serious about music, I end up winning this contest. This talent show.
at Bringo Terrace Park in Vista. And the girl, there's a girl there that was like really interested in me. And I, you know, I'm not like walking with Jesus. I just, I just know that like I shouldn't smoke and drink. That's, that's all I know.
Just be a good guy. You become more moral. Yeah, I'm like more moral. No more breaking into houses. No more breaking into houses.
No more smoking and drinking. I knew that. And, but this girl's like, hey, you know, come to church. With me. And so I'm like, okay.
Is she cute? Yeah. Yeah. She gets me going to church. Wait, wait, why'd you ask that?
Because if a girl's cute, a guy would usually, you know, it's always a girl. It is a girl. And so I. I start going to church with her and her family just really as a means to see her on the weekend. And then summer hits, and the only way I could see her over the summer is if I'm going to church with her and her family.
And they end up, you know, picking me up and driving me to a church. And I'm just hearing the gospel. And then that proceeds to about two years of wrestling with Jesus. Like, Is Jesus God? Is he not God?
I had every quote. What about the problem of evil? I needed all the answers to the questions, or just like a reasonable thing. And again, the Lord.
So then me and that girl break up. I start dating a Jehovah's Witness girl.
So now I'm reading the reasoning for the scriptures. I'm, I'm, why don't you guys celebrate birthdays? Why don't you guys, why do you guys go to church on Saturday and not on Sunday? And so I'm reading that. She is.
you know, understands that I go to church. And my Job at the time. I lied on a job application. When I was a sophomore in high school, I said I was 15. I said I was 16 when I was really 15, and I work at the pizza hut.
My pizza hut. Manager and our lead delivery driver that have been there the longest are both Christians. There's no hope for you. Yeah, I'm coming to Jesus. Yeah, you are one way or another.
You are after you. Yeah. And so I'm asking them all these questions. I'm like, hey, you know, these Jehovah's Witnesses are saying that Jesus is a God, but he's not God. He's not God Almighty.
He's not Yahweh. And they're like, no, no, no, look, you got to read this. You got to read. And then so I remember he gave me a copy, a massive copy of The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell, which I know he's also a part of ministries. Yeah, sure.
And I, as a sophomore in high school, End up just devouring it. Like I read it and then I became not a nice guy because now I'm telling my Jehovah's Witness girlfriend, like, you're in a cult. Like, you got to get out. Like, you don't understand. You're in a cult.
You got to get out.
So we break up. And then just another year of just and then I finally, the end of my junior year, like fully surrender my life to Jesus. And okay, I'm going to get, what is, what, what do we got? What do I got? I got to read my Bible every day.
I got to get into a Bible study, a men's group. I'm going to start serving at the church. And I just, I just gave it all.
So there was a, it was, you know, I believe that justification is instantaneous, but my process towards Jesus was years of just wrestling and fighting and kicking and screaming. And then finally, in my junior year, I'm like, all right. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to give it all. And then what happened? I mean, did you radically change?
There were aspects that radically changed. You know what changed? The desires changed. The desires changed. Like, I, I.
All of a sudden, I couldn't lick a porn. I couldn't be set. I couldn't fornicate. I couldn't do the things anymore without feeling massive degrees of conviction and knowing it was wrong. And all of a sudden I started loving things that I hated.
All of a sudden, the weird Christians at the school that walked around with their massive Bible under their. All of a sudden, I wanted to be around them. I thought they were so cringe and so I started liking the worship songs. I hated the worship. That was my worst part about church: the acoustic open the eyes of my heart.
I hated those songs. All of a sudden, I'm singing them and I'm liking them. And so, what changed was the desires instantly changed. It was like a light bulb that went off. Do you think that's the first.
Indication. I think so. I think it is. I think you know you're saved. Yeah, I think you know you're saved.
See some of that. When the heart chain.
Now, the rest of it, like, I'm a kid who's experienced sexual assault. I'm addicted to porn. I'm still wrestling, and the enemy is waging war on my life. And so. The music was really an overflow of all of this.
And so, because I knew I couldn't play basketball, again, I'm doing music. And so, I'm just around the way, different guys that are, you know, were recording on karaoke machines back then and just trying to figure it out. And then I end up getting a computer my sophomore year of high school, and I start creating and recording myself, and start making my own beats and start recording little tapes that were burning at the church. Burning a little, they used to have these little CD burners. We could burn like five CDs at once.
So we're burning these, and I'm selling them at school. And that, that was the, the kind of the, the framing of music was like, okay, well, I've kind of always been into music. I've always done music in certain degrees. I maybe I can do this for the Lord now. And that was the extension of it.
Was there a training in music? A training? I mean, can you play? Oh, no. Did you learn how to play keys and everything?
We couldn't afford piano lessons and instruments. We made beats from sampling other people's music and just re-chopping it, repurposing it. That's the beautiful part about hip-hop is it really is the genre that comes from. Complete poverty and lack. Like you're taking something that you don't have instruments, you don't know how to play anything.
So you're taking something from nothing and piecing together other elements and creating this gumbo of. And you know, samples and and break beats and all this sort of stuff, and then making something creative with it. Have you always been a guy because I'm going way back, like twenty minutes ago, and you said you confronted your confronted your dad? Have you always been a guy who confronts? Do you feel like, like in marriage, you're married, families, there's a lot of families when there's stuff like you went through, they don't ever talk about it.
They hide it all. They don't talk about it. It's sort of buried. It's the story, but nobody's going to like step in and say, hey. Is that something you do, you've grown into?
Yeah, so.
Soviet culture in general is very blunt and harsh and confrontational. We'll just tell you exactly what we're thinking. We'll say it in a real time. Like, if you guys have ever heard people speak Russian and the feedback we always get, like, my friends would hear me, me and my mom speaking Russia, like, why, why are you talking to your mom like that? Like, it sounds like you're mad at her.
You know, and I'm like, no, no, this is just how we talk. It's very like matter of fact. It's like New Yorkers. Yeah, it is. It's very like, just I'm just going to tell you what it is.
And so I've, unfortunately, or fortunately, I've always just been very direct to the point and just, this is what it is. I kind of like that. Oh, yeah. You know what you like? I do like that.
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's not helpful. Like the other day. My four-year-old daughter.
I walk up to her, I give her a kiss, and she goes, Ew, your breath stinks. And my wife looks at me, she's like, Who did she get that from? And I was like, What, me? She's like, You're always telling Levi, my 10-year-old, his breath stinks. And I'm like, Because he'll come up to me and I'll be like, No, go brush your teeth again.
Your breath stinks, you know? And she, so, like, yeah, so sometimes it's not, it's not helpful when you see your kids exhibit the same bluntness. Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking, if my breath stinks and nobody tells me, that's not a loving thing. You want to know? That's what I'm saying.
You don't know, you still want to know, even though you're sort of mad they told you. It's like, okay, at least I know and I can do something about it. But even listening to your story, there's this piece of ambition. It's part of who you are, it sounds like. Yeah.
Like, okay, you're a street kid, but now you make this decision, like.
Okay, I'm going to be a basketball player.
Okay, now I'm going to be into music. I'm going to be a rapper. Like you put all of yourself into it. Have you always been like that? Or is that something that in Christ it's even become more?
I I don't know. That I've If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do something. I see that. I'm going to get after it. But I think.
In Christ, two things happened. Reorientation of the motives in the heart has slowly changed, and that it's not about. building my castle it's ultimately about building god's kingdom So the reason why I'm attempting to do something that's very different because, as a kid coming from poverty, it's about validation. I'm gonna prove them wrong. I'm gonna show everyone.
Yeah. You know, and so you got this like dark passenger that's driving you. And that may get you somewhere. Like, that might get you on base, but it's not a sustainable way to continue. Building anything, right?
It's like the validation, and/or I want to prove them wrong. Who's them? Everyone. You know, everyone that didn't believe it. Like, that was the initial thing.
And so, as a Christian, the motivation changes to it's not about my castle, it's about God's kingdom. And then the anchors. Start being set so that I don't lose my soul in the process. Meaning that Jesus says, you know, what good is it to gain the world and lose your soul? And I think oftentimes we buy into the lie that ambition is everything, ambition is the North Star.
Get after it, the American dream. And there are things worse than not being successful. And that's losing your family for success. It's losing your health for success. It's right.
There's so your mental health for success. And so I think the scriptures and Orienting myself in what are my values as a follower of Jesus, my identity as a follower of Jesus, has really helped keep me anchored. Because that's the question I get often. I get two questions. How are you able to do the YouTube stuff and all this sort of stuff?
But then, how do I know the difference between selfish ambition and godly ambition? How do I know the difference between, is this what I want? Is he my dreams, or is this God's dream? And I think we all struggle with that. Yeah.
They go into each other. They sit. Talking about even like the revenge, like, I'm going to. Be successful to make a point against. I was in the locker room with the Lions.
We were playing Carolina. Decades ago. And this tight end right forward walk on the field is just like I hate them so much. Am I Dude, you hate everybody in the NFL. And I literally, I just turned to why, and he goes, They cut me.
They released me. I am going to show them. And I'm like, Dude, I don't think that's how you want to be in that space today. He had a horrible game. Yeah.
And he came up to me afterwards. He goes, I should have just played.
So just played. I was trying to make a point because I go, everybody gets cut in the league and they get traded. Oh, we use that as part of the game. You got to have somebody in your life.
So talk through the godly versus selfish ambition because your book's godly ambition. Yeah. How is that different than I'm motivated? What's wrong with? Me wanting to be great has nothing to do with God.
Success to succeed. Yeah, so I think foundationally, it's the why. Why am I going after this, right? What is the thing? And so, just the first lie is like ambition is everything, and you need to just make it your North Star and obsess over it.
The second is. Ambition is evil. Ambition is evil. And I remember several years ago, there was a. A pastor that had a clip go viral, and the clip said, All ambition is evil.
That was the title of the video. And he goes on to say, Ambition is demonic. Wow. Oddly enough, he's on a beautifully lit stage. I was just going to say, is he a mega guy?
He's one of the biggest mega guys. He's on a beautifully lit stage with a nice outfit on really nice cameras and a team to catch that part of the clip, to clip it, to make sure it goes on social media, goes viral. And one of the things that's always bugged me is: hey, if you're the guy that's made it, Like, don't tell people that, like, making it is not the thing, or you shouldn't aspire for something. Like, that to me is so disjointed, you know, and weird.
So, he's like, all ambition is evil. And so, he's reading from James, which actually says selfish ambition. It's a different word. Different. Right.
Erythea is the word for selfish ambition, and it's a backbiting, clobbering. I'm going to get it by any means necessary. And he's, all ambition is evil. It's demonic. But the scripture says selfish ambition.
So he's literally fumbling the text. You're reading the text and you're fumbling the text. And I thought it was so ironic that someone who is. One of the biggest, you know, celebrity pastors out there is riffing how all ambition is evil. Ironically enough, being extremely ambitious and getting this clip about ambition being evil to go viral, right?
And so I think that's a big lie. It's like in church, ambition is an evil word. It's a bad word and it's not, it's frowned upon. And so, but the beautiful part is when we look in the scriptures, there's a different word for ambition.
So there's the erythea ambition. But when we look at 1 Thessalonians 4, we see the word is a filiothome. It's a different. Type of ambition. And even the root word of that, Wes Huff just explained with a good friend of mine, he explained the Greek to me.
And he's like, there's actually a connection to like the Philadelphia, like Philly brother, brotherly love. And so, like, even the etymology of the word is really different. And so, Paul is writing the church in Thessalonica, and this word is used three times. In the New Testament, the first time Paul is talking about making his ambition. To preach the gospel in uncharted territory.
I make it my ambition to preach Christ where others haven't, basically. The second time he uses it, he says he makes it his ambition to please God.
So it's about preaching the gospel, and then it's about pleasing God, living a life that blesses God, pleasing God. And then the third time he's writing this church in Thessalonica, and they are going through it. It's persecution central. People are getting killed and they're struggling. But in their struggle, they've kind of punted it.
Like they're not. Useful anymore. They're kind of checked out. They're depending on the other members of the church to take care of them. And in 2 Thessalonians, he tells them: it's where our phrase a man who ought not work, a man who not works ought not eat.
Right? He has to keep reiterating this. But in First Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 11, in the middle of all this, he says. And make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anyone.
And so, if we're looking for a framework, one is about preaching the gospel, second, it's about pleasing God. But then, I think there's so much here for the practical side of what does it mean to pursue godly ambition? It's in the text, right? Lead a quiet life. Don't be a busybody.
Don't do things to draw unnecessary attention to yourself. Don't be a drama person, right? Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. Mind your own business. Work with your own hands.
So there's a degree of skills we need. There's a degree of, hey, I need to do something. I can't just outsource everything. You're working hard. Right.
Working hard. Your daily life wins the respect of outsiders, right? We can be so eloquent with our speech and have all the polemics and apologetics in the world, but if your life looks like the world's, why would the world want to come to your life and come to Jesus, right? And that you will not be dependent on anyone, that there's a degree of like we need to be autonomous people that can sustain ourselves, provide for ourselves.
So when I look at that in contrast to 1 Timothy 5, hey, he who does not provide for the needs of his family, especially his immediate family, is worse than a non-believer and is denied the faith. I think there's a framework in scripture to make sure that we're not drifting towards selfish ambition and that we're anchoring ourselves in godly ambition in the type of ambition that God has. What do you think he means by quiet? Life, because there's a part of me that sits here and goes, Well, we're not living a quiet life. Public people, right?
You know, you're, you've got, you know, even what we're doing right here is. You think quiet life means you sit in a little cube and have your family and that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there are ways, even as a public person, to lead a quiet life where you're not drawing. Additional unnecessary attention to yourself, and for me, that looks like not being as active as I can be on social media.
That looks like keeping aspects of my life private, right?
So, I don't put my family a lot on Instagram, my kids aren't in my videos. You know, we just had my son in a vlog, and we really wrestled with like, do we want to blur his face out? You know, so I think there's There's degrees on that. I think being anchored in a local church and just serving In private, where no one knows the stuff that you're doing privately, even as a public person, I think it's huge. I have a whole chapter on community and church on why that's so crucial.
So I think there's anchors we can put in place to make sure that we're not drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves, but ultimately pointing to Jesus. Because if we don't, we will drift. It's so easy to get sucked into that world. And I think that's really good, those anchors.
So I think it's about the anchors that we're setting to make sure through the anchors. Yeah. So I, well, one, I think it's. Mindset, like your mindset around one, ambition, two, your identity, right?
So, my identity is. Not subjective to my whims and my feelings. And it's also not, it's not inside out in terms of like, I feel that I feel like I'm a professional athlete. What if you're not a professional athlete, right? I feel like I'm filling the blank, right?
Which is that that is the air of the world right now. Or the opposite of that, which is outside in identity. Which is, you're only as good as what value you generate on an economic level. Or, you know, if you, if you have a great game, then you're valuable in sports. If you don't have a great vent, you're on shining block.
And so, if you anchor your identity inside out, I am what I feel I am, or outside in, I am only what I can do. for other people, you're gonna get crushed. Godly ambition is through godly identity. Jay Warner Wallace, he coined this, he calls it top-down identity.
So, my identity is not in what I feel, and it's not in what others say I am. My identity is actually who Jesus says I am.
So, say someone is trying to get healthy, and you can say, I, you know, James Clear atomic habits: if you change your identity, you'll change your processes. If you change your systems and processes, you'll change your outcomes. True. But what if I'm not an athlete? Right.
If I believe I'm an athlete, I'll create the systems to be an athlete and then I'll get the outcomes of it. What if I'm not an athlete? What if I've never been an athlete? What if I've never been someone that knows nutrition and health and fitness? But what but when I go, The scriptures say that I'm the temple of the living God, that my body is not my own.
Then I begin to change because it's not my subjective whims. It's God says, Hey, your body's not your own, your life is not your own. And so I can change and reorient myself based on top-down identities. How do you do that? And I know you've walked through these kinds of things in your life, even reading through your book, House of Blues.
When it sort of doesn't go the way you think and you're not ready. Or I was just thinking, what if you have this lawsuit possibility of your YouTube channel going down? How do you I mean, it's one thing to have a theory like this is my identity, but then you face things like that and you're like, Is it my identity? Have you ever wrestled with that? Yeah, how do you?
I go back to scripture.
So I have a section in the book where they are statements of scripture that we can declare over ourselves, right? I'm a child of God, I am a saint. I'm a friend of God. I have a purpose, right? And so I have to constantly go back to scripture, meditate on scripture, and speak scripture over myself so that I'm not just.
Subjected to the whims of my own emotions or A bad performance, a YouTube video that flops, a bad month, whatever. I have to constantly go back to scripture and remind myself what Jesus says about me, not what the external art does. And I think, especially, too, like, Uh how old are your kids now? Levi's 10.
Okay. And Zoe is four, but Zoe thinks she's 14. But even as moms, like I stayed home a majority of the time when our kids were little. And I'm a driven person. I like to work hard.
I like to achieve. And man, when I was at home with these kids and I'm wiping bottoms and I'm feeding them and I'm up all night. And I'm out conquering the world. Yeah. And I was like, wait, he's doing what we were doing together.
And now I'm here by myself. And that identity piece as moms, especially when we're in, we're just alone or we're unseen and we feel like, God, do you see me? That anchor of the scriptures is huge and reminders of this is who I am in Christ. Yeah. Yeah.
It's huge. And we all have to be grounded in that. That's for me, that's my biggest anchor. I mean, how does that, in your mind, relate? You have a whole chapter on calling.
I mean, in a sense, I hear Ann saying that, I'm like, that was your calling at that time. You know, discuss that because you decided I'm going to write a whole chapter on this specific thing because we got to understand why and what our purpose is. How do we identify that? Yeah. So unfortunately, In our context, your purpose is going to be connected to what you do for work.
Yeah. Right. So it's like, it's very common you meet someone here, and so what do you do? You can't say, like, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a Christian. I'm a right.
No, what do you know? What I mean, what do you do for work? We're so connected to that. And the issue, you know, when you go to other parts of the world, it's kind of frowned upon to ask people what they do for work. Really?
It's rude. Yeah. Yeah. So I. In the chapter on calling.
I break it down into three different layers. One is your purpose. And I think all, if you're in Christ Jesus, your purpose is to know God and make Him known. You know where that came from. The the Bible?
Yeah, but okay, you got me. That was Bill Brights, the founder and president of Crew, where we're sitting right now. That was like the banner as you came on staff with Crew. It's like, that's my calling to make to know him and make him know. I've said that for 50 years.
That is. God's call for our life. Freshman, telling our kids that.
So that's the big umbrella. That's the big umbrella. Capital P purpose is how I describe it. Know God, make him known. Then I go into assignment.
And I think your purpose and your say, purpose stays steady. You are created to know God and make him known. Your assignment changes based on the season that you're in.
So, my wife also stays home with our kids, but she does their homeschool. She does our bookkeeping for our payroll. She does make sure there's so many things that she does for us. And then she also volunteers at something called Kids King Productions, which is a big production we put on twice a year to help kids memorize scripture through the arts and through the play that we do. And so, her.
Assignment is different when she has a 10 and a four-year-old than it was when we were first married and we didn't have any kids. And her assignment is going to be different as a grandma than it is with little kids, right? I love this part. Like, as I was reading, like, this is good for us to figure out what's my purpose, what's my assignment right now. Yeah, yeah, and the assignment changes based on the season that we're in.
Yeah. And so that's the hard part: we think that like what you're doing now is what you're going to do forever. Yeah. Because the present, the present feels so permanent. It feels like we're like, oh, this is it.
This is what forever my life is going to be this. And that's just not true. Like your assignment is going to change. The seasons are going to change. And so there's a section in there where I really remind people: hey, your assignment is different.
You might be in a season where you just need to put your head down and work, right? You might be in a season where you got little ones and you can't go and conquer the world and chase success. You might need to buckle down for a season, right? And so that changes. And then what I define as calling is the third part.
So our purpose stays the same. Our assignment can change. Calling is, I believe, the overlap. of our vocation like what can we earn money to do Um are are our um Our vocation Our mission, what keeps us up at night? What is that burden that we feel?
and our passion. What are you passionate about?
Now, I'm going to. Say this about passion. Oftentimes, people think passion is just those that euphoric feeling. I was passionate about basketball, right?
Well, could I get paid for basketball? No. Is there a missional component?
Well, kind of, I can kind of share the gospel, I guess, at a pickup game with Jesus, but that wasn't my calling.
So, passion. Passion, though, when you look it up in the dictionary, the Oxford dictionary, it says, like, you know. Being excited and passionate about something. But the very next definition of passion says the suffering of Christ. Wow.
In agony. Cash and weak. Yeah. That's right. That's right.
So. Passion is to me, and I'm not saying we suffer the way Jesus suffered on the cross, but I think passion, if we can look into what are we willing to suffer for. Like, what are you willing to suffer for and go through discomfort for for an extended period of time? I think that's actually our passion. Wow.
Your passion is not. I like video games, so therefore I'm going to be a professional. Like, maybe, but it probably has more to do with what are you willing to just. Is the thing that you can do and learn and master that other people can't because you're willing to go through the hard process of learning something or suffering for something. Oh, I want to know all of yours in that.
So, you defined your purpose. Say it again. Yeah, to know God and make him known. Yep.
So, then your assignment is what? In this season, I'm a public-facing YouTuber who communicates. Ideas around culture and tries to tie them into scripture. That's kind of what I'm doing right now. But that's shifting into speaking at more churches and speaking at more conferences and even putting on our own summit.
We do a Bless God Summit is our second one coming up.
So that's even shifting in real time. Where, you know, 10 years ago was primarily music.
Now, and before that, I was on staff at a church. Then it was music, then it was YouTube, and now It's kind of all of the above. Like, I'm speaking at churches, I speak at my own church, I'm also communicating on YouTube and podcasting. We're also doing our own events. I wrote a book, so my assignment is shifting, but my purpose remains the same to know God and make Him known.
And I think the calling aspect is the overlap of those things. Yeah. Mission: What am I, what keeps me up at night? My passion, what am I willing to suffer for? I was able to learn technology.
I was able to learn hard skills around cameras and lighting. And so, like, if you, if you guys come into my studio, it's not as nice as this, but I know the ins and outs and the tech aspects of everything in my studio. Most personalities and creators, they don't, right? And so, like, I spent a season mastering that in private when I worked at my church. And then when I got my YouTube off the ground, I couldn't afford to hire people.
I learned the tech aspects and I stay on the cutting edge of tech and cameras and all these sorts of things.
So, I was willing to learn hard skills that then added to my purpose and my calling to communicate at scale. And so, there's always A growing and an evolving that is happening. And so, that calling aspect, I think, is what really, what people really want. What can I get paid to do? What am I passionate about?
And what is my mission, something that the world needs for me? And I think that's our calling. And again, that can ebb and flow, but that sweet spot is, I think, what people are after. Is there a sense that you felt a specific call from God? I think I always knew that I was supposed to use whatever was in my hand.
To contextualize the gospel, to make the gospel make sense for people. It's almost like Moses. Before Pharaoh, remember that? And God, you know, what am I going to do? God says, What's in your hand?
What's in your hand? That's right. And he uses it supernaturally to say, It's like, whatever you got in your hand. I've always said, as a preacher, you know, what are you good at? That's right.
God wants you to do something with that. He gave you a gift and a skill. Like, you've got all kinds of them. Yes. And then you said, What's in your heart?
I know what's in your heart. What keeps you up at night? But I, you know, when Ann yesterday we're driving around, I was reading everything. We're reading some of your stuff, and she started those three theories. And I go, wow, it sounds like, what's in your hand?
What are you good at? Yeah. What's in your heart? What are you passionate about?
And then I added this. Different Based on what I heard. You right. What's in your gut? What do you have to do?
And that's your passion thing. It's like, what am I made to do? I can't live unless I accomplish this. You are a driven dude. You know, which is good because it's not a selfish ambition.
It's all founded under God. I want. My ambition to bless God. That's part of your whole life. And expand this territory to make a difference for the kingdom.
And yet, when I hear this, when I can see somebody be super ambitious, even as a Christian. My always thought is be careful because I'm thinking, are your anchors all dropped? And I love that you start with that foundation of that. Yeah. And then as we go on, there's a chapter on church.
I'm a big, big, big local church guy. I think everybody should be in a church, serving in a church, giving to a church. Talk to that person that's like, why? Yeah. Well, I think foundationally church is the bride of Christ.
It is the body of Christ. It is the only institution that Jesus established while he was here. He didn't start a business. He didn't start a nonprofit. He started a church.
And so I think, one, it's the body of Christ. Two, it's not good for man to be alone. We're all creative creatures. Even the most introverted person who likes to keep himself still needs friends and still needs community. And I think church builds in those natural rhythms of life where you have to be somewhere once a week.
You have to show up. I think church is huge in the development aspects, especially for young people to discover some of this. What am I passionate about? What keeps me up at night? What am I good at?
What do I need to? Grow in? What areas do I need to be consecrated? And if you're a young person, church is a great way through serving in the church to start experimenting and discovering what things that you're good at in a low-pressure environment, right? Because if, say, someone is, hey, I'm interested in media, and then they come work here, and this is an amazing Christian environment, but there's this there's a degree of professionalism here, you know.
You can't, you can't fumble. In a professional environment like this, but if you're volunteering at a church, so much more grace than when you're on an actual TV set with actual professionals, right?
So, I think, like, where else can you handle really expensive equipment, really, really serious stuff, but with a lot of grace and a safety net of sorts to like, hey, it's okay if you fumble here, like, it's not the end of the world, right?
So, I think church allows people that accountability. Like, I think being around people, right? There's a book, I can't remember it, but I referenced it in my book. They said that you are the sum of the five people closest to you. You know, that if you, if, if you, if you want me, um, show me your friends and I'll show you your future.
Yeah. You know, and so it's like those five people closest to you, who are they? And how are they, and how are they speaking into you? And so if you're around a bunch of people that aren't ambitious, that are addicted, that are apathetic. Like, what do you think your future is going to be?
You know, but if you're around people that are like, hey, I love Jesus, I want to make the most of my time, talent, and treasure. I'm going to commit myself to the church. I'm going to commit myself to my faith. Then that will seep into you. That will flow into you.
Right. And so I think that aspect, community, accountability. Is that something you have? Oh, absolutely. I got a group of five guys that I meet with every Saturday.
Most of whom I've known for 20 plus years, you know, one of which used to be my trainer, one of which is my really close friend who's a local city council member. Another one is one of my best friends from college when I first started kind of really getting active in all this stuff. He's been around since then. And so, yeah, I got a group of guys I meet with all the time. I have a great relationship with my pastor, Pastor Jeff Moores at Rhythm Church.
We talk, I'd say, multiple times a week, if not daily. I have a great Christian therapist that I have someone to go to that when I'm feeling overwhelmed or I can process stuff with.
So, yeah, I mean, I have a great community. A lot of it is local to me. We've been so fortunate to have a great local community of believers that support us. And yeah, you know, kids, homeschool stuff, co-op groups. You just, I have so many great people around me from different churches too, that I think it's so crucial to who you are.
And again, it's those anchors, right? Like anchoring yourself in community is very tangible. And so if you're, if you're listening to this and you're like, ah, I don't, I don't want to be a church. Yes, you do. You need to.
You need to be in church. You need to be in church. You may not even know that you want it until you walk through the process of being a part of a healthy church. There's so many parents that are listening that have teenagers that are like, Mom, I'm not going. Like, this is a waste of time.
This is stupid. And as parents, they're in that. They're just Frustrated, not knowing, like, should I push them? Should I let them stay home? How do I talk to my kids about this when they're not as into it?
They're not believers yet, maybe. One of the things I explore is the idea of non-negotiables. And so instead of Talking about motivation and talking about discipline and what do you feel like doing. I think It is advantageous to Anchor our days and weeks in non-negotiables.
So there's daily non-negotiables I have. Scripture is one of those daily non-negotiables. Even when I'm traveling, even when I'm tired, even when I'm, I'm gonna read at least a chapter of the scriptures that is a non-negotiable. If I can't read it, I'll listen to it, right? I'm gonna get some scripture every day.
I'm gonna move. I'm gonna go outside. I'm gonna get some sunshine. I'm gonna move. I'm gonna take care of my body.
I'm gonna spend some time with my family. on a weekly basis. Uh, church is a non-negotiable in my household, and so. I don't care if you feel like it. We're going to church.
If you're part of this household, we're going to church. Or you can pay rent. You know, they're your options. They're your choice.
Now, let me soften it by saying. Perhaps They need to be a part of a different community for the season they're in. Perhaps you need to seek out some other ministries that can perhaps accommodate them a bit better and celebrate them a bit more for the season they're in. And so. I think that's complicated.
You might be going to a church and you're accustomed to going and you love the church, but maybe they don't have the resources for a thriving young adults ministry or a thriving youth ministry, kids' ministry. You might need to consider that. You might need to consider the needs of your children to say, hey, why don't you like going to church? What is it about the church? Because who knows?
Maybe they have valid reasons of like, yeah, the guy's going up there and he just kind of wings it and the music is terrible, you know, and they don't care. And okay, so maybe we need to find something else for you, you know? And so I think there are so many ways now, especially to get connected. I mean, we have creative ministries in our area around media and arts and all that sort of stuff.
So I would say listen to why and be flexible with them. Maybe you need to find something else for them. That's good.
Okay, where are you going? Yeah, oh, I just had a question about calling in terms of husband-dad. You're a husband, you're a dad. How many years married? 17 years.
Yeah. Yeah. Together, 21.
So we're at that weird phase, which I'm sure you guys surpassed a long time ago, where we've been together longer than we're doing. What makes you think we surpassed a long time ago? Do we look old? You guys have been married. 45.
45. Yeah, we've been there. But yeah, I mean, as a Christian man, how do you view your calling as a husband? Yeah. And that's separate.
From a dad, but how do you look at that? Yeah, I think the home is the first ministry of every husband. Preach, I think your home. Is the foundation. And so, again, I think the lie that the world will tell us is that you can have work-life balance.
Which I don't think that's possible. I think, again, we have seasons, right? We have seasons. And so we go through seasons where. You might need to be really, really present, you know, at home because just had a new baby.
Right. And your wife is dealing with hormonal stuff after having the baby, and you might need to be really present for a season. Other times, Hey, we're getting out of debt, honey. We got to put our head down. We're building this thing.
We got to go. Right. And so I think in those rhythms, People think that You know, the spouses are afraid of hard work. I don't think Dave Ramsey said this. I don't think spouses are afraid of hard work.
I think spouses are afraid that the hard work is indefinite. That this is our new, this is our new normal. Dad's going to work his face off 80 hours a week. He's never going to see the kids. He's never going to take a day off.
And that's the scary part.
So I think if there's communication of like, hey, like my wife got all of my speaking travel dates weeks ago, right? And prior to revving up into the book launch, we went to Hawaii for a week. And then we, and then prior to that, I just kind of hung around the house. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do anything.
I didn't travel the month of July because I knew, hey, August and September books coming out. It's going to be intense. I think that's true because Dave would, I remember thinking, okay, this is a season. I can do this. Even because we worked with the Lions players, they know season wives have it in their head, like, okay, it's season time.
I'm going to be on my own a lot and professional athlete with professional athletes. Yeah. But then when the season's over. Yeah. And the schedule hasn't changed, that's when the bitterness and resentment can take place.
Yeah, I mean, I think you mentioned. Professional athletes. We live in Vista Oceanside, which has Camp Pendleton, a massive military base. I was going to say the same thing.
So yeah, think about folks who are in the military. Think about folks who, you know, you got to go to deployment, right?
So we have these luck, we have these silly luxuries of like work-life balance. And it's like, yeah, tell that to the family that's, you know, in the military. Yeah. Like, work-life balance, my butt. Like, that has to go away.
Yeah. Date nights? Yeah. Date nights.
So I think we have to be intentional with, hey, what are our rhythms of life? And then over-communicate. You over communicate.
So I'm giving my wife the dates. She knows ahead of time. I'm over communicating. Hey, hey, do you want to go on this one? I'm going here.
This is pretty nice. Hey, you have family here. You want to go here with me? Hey, by the way, I'm taking Levi for this one because this is a Christian hip-hop festival. It's going to be fun.
I'm going to take him with me. And so I'm over-communicating. She has the dates ahead of time so that we understand that, you know, hey, we're revving up for two months. And then October, I'm not really traveling anywhere out of state. I'm kind of doing a couple of local things in Southern California.
So, so, so, there's, there's an expectation. I think so much of it is just communication. I heard a quote that said, the biggest mistake. about communication is thinking it happened. You know, so that's good.
We got to over communicate. We got to over communicate. And I think that as a husband and as a father, I'm doing my best to over communicate to my, even to my kids, like communicating to my son. Hey, like, dad has a book coming out. Like, it's going to be busy.
I'm going to, I'm going to take you to wherever you're going to be. Yeah, you want to go to Dallas with me? We'll go to Dallas. You're not going to be on a device the whole time, you know?
So you get to count the cost. Do you want to be on, you know, and so just setting those expectations. Yeah. I always joke that when I ask a husband and his wife's right beside him at church or wherever, hey, what are your priorities? Usually he's going to go, oh, God's first.
My marriage and family second, my job. And I always, I don't even look at him. It's just like looking at her. And she's like, I'm like, roll your eyes. She tells me by her posture and her, and sometimes she's like, Yeah, that's my man.
That is exactly how he lives. Often, he's saying it because he wants that to be true, but she's feeling. I think Ann would have said. Because I always said that. She would have said, Yeah, you are addicted to your job, which was ministry.
And so she felt now I'm competing with God. How do I complain? He's working for God.
So she's kept quiet. But I would have said, Oh, my wife knows she's the priority of my life. And I didn't realize she wasn't. It was. He wasn't even.
It was the success of the ministry going mega or whatever.
So if she was here, do you think she's sitting here going, yep. I'd like to think so. Yeah. I'd like to think so. I don't know.
I don't know. But I'd like to think so. I think. the idea of like priorities, I think the way the way I look at it is You know, people say, like, what are your prayers? Like, God, then my marriage, then my family, then my job.
And so I like to view it as. My relationship with God.
Alright. And then God first in my marriage. Yeah. And then God first in my family. God's everywhere.
God first in everything. I like that. Right. And so that it's not, you're not creating this weird hierarchy. No, God has to be number one in everything.
And so, yeah, I would like to think we. We'd have a for YouTube stuff, we do a four-day work week. I work from home. I'm around all the time, right? I take my kids to school.
Again, the anchors in place to make sure that I'm available and I'm physically. In proximity, my kids are always within arm's reach. They barge into the studio and talk to my guys that work with me like they're their friends. You know, they think all of my friends are their friends, you know? And so I'd like to think that.
But I think, again, in a busy season, you can start feeling like, okay, babe, this is four window of time, you know, and then we're going to cruise. And again, we cruised July. We took trips as a family and hung out and hung around the house and beach days and all that sort of stuff. You have to, because you have a busy season coming up. It's like a pro athlete.
You've got to. Season, you gotta win each week. You're talking about gathering ambition. I would have said... Ann can comment.
I would have said my ambition to be a great Husband to love Ann like Christ loves the church. And I preach that. I know that. One night I'm crawling in bed after preaching five times that weekend, being on the sidelines, the Lions game, his football season.
So it's a crazy busy weekend for me. And Ann says to me at 11:30 at night, as I'm crawling in bed, she goes, You know, I sure wish the guy that led our church lived here. Oh. And she just said it like nonchalant.
So I sort of turned to her. I'm like, What do you mean? And she just says. Man, I'm watching you preach this morning. You're on fire.
You're casting vision. That's not the guy that comes home. You don't do that home. Russell, I wish I could tell you. I just said, you know, that was, I need to hear that.
I jumped out of bed and I stood over and said something like, let me tell you, I know the husbands in this church. There's thousands of them. They're losers compared to me. You got the best. You know, I was like, you got the best husband in the whole church and you're complaining.
It didn't end well. I mean, I remember going, she slept over there and I slept over there. We've never spent a night in different rooms. But the next day, I'm sitting in my little bedroom office. And I just sort of I sort of sat down on the floor.
It wasn't even on a couch and I go, God, were you speaking to me last night through Ann? And I felt like he said, Yeah, you bring everything to the ministry, which is important. That's the kind of energy you should bring home. And I felt like for me, it was a moment where I said, okay, I need to step this up. The most important disciples in my life are not thousands of people sitting in a.
It's Ann and CJ and Austin and Cody. And it's like, okay, I got to step this up.
So I didn't realize till that moment my ambition for God was great. It wasn't as great as my ambition to be a great husband and dad. And I realized I need to reshift that. That's what I think you're saying. Here's how I would say it.
I think sometimes. We do things for God and we stop doing things with God.
So you can do the thing for God and then not be. Actually, moving with God in the other areas of your life, you know? And I think, you know. The tension of, hey, I'm going to give my family my leftovers, right? That's not exclusive to just ministry and highly driven people.
That's absolutely a construction worker that works his face off, you know, 10 hours a day and he's, he's cooked. He just comes home and relax. I think that the fact that we're even having these conversations today, I think it highlights to me that there is a Biblical Shift. in the culture meaning that we're not we're not you know because I mean My dad and my granddad, like they didn't come home and play ball. They were they worked.
They worked hard. And there were no expectations that they would engage with us in a much of anything. Yeah. So I think there's so one side of it is. I think the fact that we're talking about this, the fact that this podcast exists, I think shows that the value of family and the value of marriage is.
permeating culture. Yeah. that I think is a good thing. Dare I say, perhaps a revival happening. You know?
So I think that's great because it 'cause it's it's the downstream effects of it. The the the the the flip side to all of this is And I'm going to poke a little bit. is that We also have Expectations. That we've never had before. Oh, you're so right.
Like, like what? Like, you're going to have this perfect work-life balance. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's just.
You know, that like that, like if we wouldn't expect that from the Marine and we wouldn't expect that from the athlete and we wouldn't expect that from the construction worker, but we expect that from the past. I get it because your ministry, you should be an example and you should be above approach.
So I think there's also this like lie that sometimes is so that we're going to have this perfect balance and everything. And it's like, man, sometimes it's just not like that. Do you remember Jim Collins?
Sounded the name sounds like that. Got to be 20, 25, 30 years ago. Good to great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he studied the good companies compared to the great ones.
And he was asked on a panel once when that book came out. Hey, can you have a great marriage and a great business? Can you divide your time? Do you have great? You know what his answer was?
Nope. He goes, You're going to choose one or the other. And he goes, You need to choose what are you going to cheat. You got to cheat one or the other. And he said, I would cheat.
The business. Yeah, that's good. You know, that's good. You can still have a successful business, but if you want to have a great family, you're going to give every heart and soul to this business, and they're going to be left in the dust.
So he goes, You've got to decide what is more important. Yeah. I love that because I don't think. We can have it all. I think at some point, something will have to suffer.
You know, there's a lot of stuff right now. In real time, I'm having to say no to stuff, real to big opportunities with. Professional athletes asking me to come do this thing, and they want to help me promote the book. And I'm just having to go, man, I can't do it. I'm gone too much.
But you said yes to last today. Here you are. You said yes to Ladies. This is a little later in the week. But yeah, I'm having to say no to this stuff all the time, say no to money and say no to opportunities.
And it's because I'm like, oh, I can't, like, I can't go again. Like, I just was, I'm going to come back, come home for a day. No, like, I got to be home for and you will never regret those. Hey, before we wrap up today, I just want to say thanks for listening, watching, and sharing Family Life Today. And an extra big thanks to those of you who support us financially.
Your support helps bring hope to families worldwide, and we honestly couldn't do it without you. If you want to team up with us to help support this ministry, we'd be honored to have you in our corner. Just visit familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL Today to give.
Okay, let's wrap up this conversation. What is gonna keep you? From us and the rest of the world reading about you falling. Because you've got a platform. God has blessed you.
You're an influencer. People follow you in the Christian world space. And, you know, we're reading left and right. I'm a ch pastor of Omega Church and You know, a lot of my biological pages of people who yeah, you know, of course, you know. It's like, what do you have in your life that says, and again, it could happen to anyone on the internet, but what are you doing to make sure that I'm not going to be a guy we read about a year or two years from now who's lost his faith, lost his family?
That's such a great question.
Well, one, a lot of prayer because. I think the moment you start thinking that can't happen to me, like that's that ego.
So, one prayer I just was with my friend Jonathan Pacluda, and that was. He loved that was actually his prayer. Yeah. He said, Lord, Um He said, I'm going to pray for something that I think we'll understand when we get to heaven. And he prayed over me and a handful of other people, there's like maybe ten of us in the room, and he said, God, would you help all of us finish well?
That we would not, you know, that would, that wouldn't, and we'll, we'll know the ripple effect of that prayer when we're in heaven.
So, so, one, this is stuff that we talk about and we pray about. And he's been a great mentor. Uh, he did a forward on the book, actually. Yeah, he's great. He's amazing.
He was our very first interview. No, just the two of us. And we didn't have the former co-host. Yeah. Good man.
So I would say, one prayer. Yeah. I'd say. Two I I I really love my wife. Like, I, I, we've been together, you know, I was 19, she was 17 when we started dating.
And, and it's one of those things that, like, it gets better. It does get better. You know, so I really love my wife. I, I love the, the friend that she is. I, I love the this.
People will ask her questions like, How do you get your husband more motivated and driven? And she's like, the wrong question. Like, I'm not, I can't. Yeah, I'm not a husband whisperer. Like, my husband just goes, you know?
So she allows space for me to just be me. That's good.
And I enjoy it so much.
So, one, like, that is a, that is a priority. And I love. being married to her. I would say, I, and this might be controversial. Um I am a staunch proponent of the Billy Graham rule.
Yeah. Which isn't very popular today. I know. I know. And I And the Billy Graham rule is: never be alone with another woman without someone else being present.
Yeah, we've always had that. Yeah, and I'm. I am petrified of even the appearance. Because nowadays, I mean, especially post-Jonathan Majors, post-Johnny Depp, and those are real, real radical examples, but like even the allegation that something happened can destroy someone's reputation. I was heard of that.
So I, I, man, I stay clear. of just the appearance of that. And so that way it's not one of those You know, oh, no, no, no, like I'm, I'm, I don't, I'm not near the stove, like, I am running away from the stove.
So, I would say that, um, I have a great therapist, so I'm not developing, what is it called? Pastors can develop unhealthy coping mechanisms when there's other issues that they're not dealing with.
So, by the grace of God, I've been dealing with my issues. I've been going to, you know, I started going to therapy. I got diagnosed with onset PTSD from my childhood trauma.
So it's like, oh, I got, I got words for the things, the weird things about my personality that I can't make sense of. I have language. Porn thing. You said you had an addiction to porn. Yeah.
Yeah. So you've had to do some work with that. Yeah. I had to confess boundaries, eating, sleeping, like it's, it's a, it's a holistic thing. And so, um, by the grace of God, I, I am, I am doing everything I can to tip the scales in my favor so that I finish well.
Because to your point, I don't think we need any more people that, you know, unfortunately add a, add a black eye to the gospel.
So if the, if the biggest critique about me is Russon's too driven, or man, he really is out here selling books and prayer journals and doing conferences, like if the critique is, hey, you're, you're driven, like, okay, I can live with that as a, as an asterisk next to my name, you know? Um, That's fine. I'll take that. I'll take that L. I'll take that on the chin.
And you've got your anchors in place. Yeah. No big deal. I'm doing my best. Hey, this has been awesome.
You guys are awesome. Thank you for coming. Thanks for coming. Absolutely. Anytime you come back.
All righty. Hey, thanks for watching and if you like this episode you better like it just hit that like button and we'd like you to subscribe so all you gotta do is go down and hit the subscribe I can't say the words subscribe Hit the subscribe button. I don't think I can say this word. Like and subscribe. Look at that, you say it so easy.
Subscribe. There it goes. Mm-hmm.
