This is the Truth Network. Nakita, destroy, crush, demolish all competitions. Yeah, and Mr. Koloff once again made his feelings very, very apparent. It's been a long time, but the wait is over.
That's a bad man. No, that's a bad man. No, that's a bad man. It's time to man up with Satan's nightmare, Nakia Koloff. In studio with me today, the master of education, Dr.
Joel Johnson. Joel, welcome to the Man Up Show. I guess really technically part two. Yeah. Let me ask you, you know, you grew up in California.
There's a lot we covered on that first show. You know, some of the trauma with having a single mom and then later a stepdad coming into the picture who's pretty abusive. He's really abusive. Yeah. And we talk about that.
You know, it breaks my heart to always hear that. You know, when any I feel fortunate raised by a single mom that I was never in an abusive situation.
So I feel very fortunate, even though, you know, I was the youngest of four and all that. But you came out of that. You were able to get set free of that, gain healing from that. Of course, I introduced you, Dr. Joel Johnson.
Tell our listeners, in case they didn't hear. here's show one, like, like what's the Dr. Joel apart? The Dr. Joel, the education part of that?
Yeah, well, ministry school right out of school, got a bachelor's in political science and history minor. And then I went on to law school and got a Juris Doctorate. And then I studied psychology at Harvard and counseling at Liberty. I was in one of my classes. This is...
incredible. I was taking a psychology course on close relationships.
So romantic relationships, family relationships, but really it focused on romantic relationships. And so there's this scientific research that has come out that has said that if you wait till marriage, You to have sex, that you will actually have a better statistical chance of having a lifelong marriage than if you have premarital sex. Right. And the closer you are to that wedding day, the higher chances or after that you have for that. And my professor took about 30 minutes to try to be like, you know, because everyone has their pronouns under, you know, there.
So she took 30 minutes trying to say, debunk the science. And so that's, Harvard has some of the best research and it's scientific. Right. Right. So I love that part of the courses.
But the liberal, the liberal thought that is really doesn't prove out scientifically. I always like to say the science is catching up with the Bible. Come on. That, that. Love it.
That. That there's an opinion, even when science is saying there's something different.
So, that was my Rocky IV experience at Harvard.
So, you know, I would stand up. You know, in the first session, we talked about standing up on the campus and preaching the gospel in high school days. Right. So, you know, I also would like- Put it out there at Harvard. Yeah, yeah, you gotta play devil's advocate as a Christian sometimes.
That's pretty amazing, though.
So, at that point, so you're a Jesus lover, Christ follower at Harvard. Oh, yes. Is that what I understood? Oh, yes. Yeah.
Since 14, I've had an amazing experience with God that radically changed my life, that gave me peace when I was hurting, that gave me confidence when I was uncourageous and cowardly, that began to put the building blocks of what it means to be a man of God, to be a courageous, brave man of God that isn't afraid, to engage what culture says is okay. You know, and to say, hey, have we thought about it this way? But not just to be loudmouthed, but to also intellectually, you know, pull apart the puzzles that they try to put together and be like, you help me out here. Come on. Can you tell, I'm sure you can, that this man is Harvard educated.
I'm just saying, right? And then on top of that, I like to say Liberty educated.
Well, how about a combination? Liberty brought Liberty from Harvard. Whoa, whoa. See what he did there? I'm just saying.
I'm just saying. And then you go down to Texas A ⁇ M and get a Juris doctorate? Yeah. Did I say that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Texas A ⁇ M is the law school is located in Fort Worth.
So I was in Fort Worth and yeah, graduated with, you know, my law degree there.
So that was incredible. That's incredible. I'll tell you, I feel very undereducated right now. He's a very schooled man sitting next to me. Intelligence does not equal degrees.
Intelligence equals what you do with the knowledge that you have. And really, wisdom, wisdom is the application of knowledge. And so you can be a wise man and not have formal education. You can be a very unwise individual and have degrees out the ears. You know, on that note, you know, we mentioned the million-dollar man Ted DiViasi, who has an older brother.
I've never met him, but he has an older brother. He said, he said, he just refuses to accept Christ, right? And he says, my brother, and he's like, I guess, a super intellectual guy.
So, Ted, always say, My brother's so smart, he's stupid. Yeah, he's so smart. Yes, he's stupid, right? All right, now, listen, let's shift. I want to turn a little different direction here for just a moment.
Because on show one, we talked about Casey. On show two, we've already talked about Casey. Where did you meet Casey? Give us a little, just quick backstory on Casey and the family before we go forward, what you guys are doing. You know, at 14, 15, I made a decision that I was going to wait for marriage.
I decided not only, yes, I was going to wait to have sex till after the wedding day.
Okay.
So I not only did that, but I decided, I'm like, I'm going to say, Well, I'm gonna take it one step further.
So I'm gonna not even kiss. Till I'm married. Come on. So, wow. I met Casey.
I she was actually at Teen Mania and acquired a fire.
Okay.
Right. So I met her there. She was 17 running Ron's office, five staff members reporting to her.
So interns. She was an intern as well. She was an intern, but then she was in Ron's office. And I was probably 25 at this time. And Ron, who I was, you know, we were speaking at the events together.
I came in to see him and he's like, Do you know Casey? I'm like, Yeah, I know Casey. He's like, Joel, she's the kind of girl. That I would want my son to marry. Wow.
I said, well, sure, I'll go check her out. We had mutual friends.
So, like, we kind of hung out and friends, and I could kind of see her around her friends. And it was real just, you know, then if I wasn't. You know, if I had red flags or whatever, it wouldn't be a big deal. Right. So then after about Five months, I was like, man, I'd be a fool not to marry this girl.
She might be the one. She might. No, she was incredible. She was smart, intelligent, kind, really great people person, just really, really amazing. Yeah, really sharp, smart, all that stuff.
So beautiful, the whole package.
So the total package.
So I. No, wait, man, that was Slex Luger. I was like, so I, I, what, um, we, we were after an event, we ended up going out to like a Denny's or, you know, some little restaurant. Yeah. And we ended up talking for like four hours.
You know, it's one of those. Yep. And then we went back to the event and. I knew I had to kind of define the relationship. TDR, my children have taught me.
Yeah, the DTR. What's the DTR? I'm like, what are you talking about? Define the relationship, Dad. Yeah, I mean, I didn't want her to have questions.
I wanted to lead the relationship, whether that was just friends or whether that was like, hey, there's something more here. Yeah. So I called her up the next night and I was like, hey, do you want to go get some coffee?
So we went to Barnes and Noble and we got some coffee. We're sitting there and I just began to ask her, I would say, okay, help me. What is your opinion? If people are not. You know, they're not just acquaintances, but they're not like ready to get.
you know, married or even in a romantic relationship, what would be that stage in between? And she looked at me and she said, Well, I think you'd have to be best friends. I think you'd have to, you know, just have that friend to friend relationship. And I looked at her and I said, I'd like to have that kind of relationship with you. Come on.
She said, I'd love to have that kind of relationship with you. Fast forward, how many years later now has that relationship continued to blossom? We are 21 years married. Come on. Yes, my first kiss ever to Casey on the wedding at the altar.
Yeah, she has a different testimony. She's got a little different story. Yeah, but I like that. Can't wait to have her on and hear her side. I like that because she, I mean, she was popular.
She was a cheerleader. She partied. She had a different experience in high school. But then, when she met the Lord as a senior, she decided: hey, I'm just going to focus on God. And I'm gonna, when the time is right, I'm gonna trust God that He'll bring the right man into my life.
That was four years of not, I mean, she was friends with guys, it wasn't anything weird or Amish, anything like that. But no offense to the Amish. But it wasn't that. And when we met, we. Man, it it was like I had met I had met another, the other part of me.
And you just, and there was a mutual agreement there. Yeah, of like, let's be friends.
So we were friends for, we called it friending. Yeah. Then I took her out and I was like, hey, what would it look like where you're not engaged, but you're not friends? And she kind of described that relationship. It'd be a courtship, whatever.
I said, I'd like to have that kind of relationship with you. She said, I'd like to have that kind of relationship with you. Joel, Joel. And then I won't go into the whole. You can get you, if you want to read the story, it's in our book called The Divine Matchmaker.
It's for teens and college-age singles. And it's called The Divine Matchmaker. You can get it on joeljohnson.org. And it is our story of all the romance. but with all the purity yeah and that's amazing 21 years later we have two children two teenagers that was my next question two teenagers we have a 16 year old son named lincoln and a 14 year old daughter named regan and i i i can honestly say this this could sound so trite and christian cliche but she is my best friend i am more in love with her today than ever there is a way god has given us wisdom in his bible and his words and if you'll follow that way you will have no regrets come on i love it joel and uh i really do 21 years and and yeah i mean you guys have written a number of books but i want to get to talking about i mean because you you guys cover a lot of stuff i'm i'm looking at your website here and and everything from i mean film me everything from marriage to yeah well we do we do three main things and we we focus on married couples okay we coach married couples um we do retreats events Conferences for couples.
Then we do business.
So this is for-profit, non-profit, and churches where we come in and we help teams become high-performance teams.
So there's no silos, there's no a lot of the sticking and stuck and friction that can happen interpersonally, but even just in a business, we come in and we give businesses, churches, nonprofits the psychological edge and tools that are out there to make them go farther faster. Then the last thing is resilience.
So marriage, business, resilience is all about mental health, emotional health. That's where the Wholehearted Journey book, Seven Skills to Stay Wholehearted in a Heartbreaking World. We look at seven skills Jesus used to stay wholehearted in his heartbreaking world and how we can do the same with those skills.
So we go through the seven skills and it's also an e-course and it's made for small groups. Ramsey has his you know financial peace university we kind of have an inner peace university or it's called wholehearted university and churches small groups can access this and it's basically like nine sessions of therapy it's so great for pastors and leaders who can't underwrite everyone's therapy but they can do that online they can they can do it online yeah go to whole www.wholehearted.university you can sign up you we actually give you a free coordinator's guide so if you want to be a coordinator of the group you can do it individually or you can do it as a group we give you every minute of every session of what you're supposed to do what video you play and what questions you ask do they go through the course before they become a coordinator absolutely you're gonna be transformed oh yeah you're gonna be transformed yeah you're gonna be transformed by that um but you're gonna find that you love it so much that you're gonna say hey i want other people to experience Nikita Koloff here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff Fans, and like it. and follow today. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success.
And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.coloff.net. and donate today. It's pretty amazing. And so you and Casey work together.
I mean, you're side by side. Yeah, we work together. We do a podcast together. It's called Messy Life Podcast. You can find it on anything.
You don't you guys do, Joel. Yeah, you can find it on, yeah, find it on any of your favorite platforms. And then there's it's called Messy Life. Messy life. Yes, because out of your mess comes your ministry and your message.
So it's called Messy Life. And then there's, I have a podcast where I sit down with a therapist and we talk through the seven skills that are mentioned in the wholehearted journey. It's called wholehearted podcasts.
So you can download that at your Spotify, Apple, whatever. Wholehearted podcast, but you and your wife do the messy life. Messy life. Yes, and you'll love it. You'll love it.
I love it. It's hilarious.
Well, here's why we're so vulnerable. We tell on ourselves, we get in fights and we talk about our fights and then how we work through it and what's the best way, how to regulate your nervous system, how to know how your brain works, how to communicate with your spouse, how to raise healthy and strong children. But it's fresh, it's new, it's vulnerable. It isn't Christian cardboard. It is real life.
It's messy. Real raw stuff. Yeah. Not that marriage is messy or anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Wink, wink. Yeah. Wink, wink, right. Like, no, I love it, man.
The Messy Life podcast. And I'm guessing there's out of that, it's just the two of you sharing insights. Yeah. The first two seasons are just us sitting down. And she's a speaker and an author, too.
So it's, if you've, if you're feeling the energy here today, if the Russian nightmare has become a Russian daydream and you're enjoying the vibes, you're going to love Messy Life. Just because you're educated doesn't mean you have to be stuffy. I'm just saying. God and Havad. You don't have to do those things.
If you're not picking up on it, I hope you are. And I believe I have a smart audience here. Joel and Casey Johnson, man. They are, as you can tell, full of energy. Casey hadn't been on the show yet, but we're going to get her back and get her in studio and get her on the show.
You've got the lesser of the two parts on the show today. Listen to me. Come on. She's vibrant. She is smart.
Go, Casey. Yeah, if you want to know how the physiology of your life, how not to be triggered, how to work through it, how to do your work. Casey is your woman. She will tell you how your nervous system works, the sympathetic, parasympathetic, how your brain works, how to regulate through that, how to overcome your fear and become courageous. She is a master coach.
Where does she go to school?
So, where did she get educated? Where did she go to school?
Okay, this is what's the most brilliant thing. And you should go to her Instagram, art by Casey J, underscore J. And she is an artist. She graduated from art school. Wow.
But she is a student. Like this woman, she is three podcasts a day, books, mental health, all of this stuff. She just is, you don't like, that's what I say. You don't have to go to an institution of higher education. That's my path and that's where I'm at.
But she, on the other hand, is a student of life. Street smart, so to speak. Don't they call that street sword? Yeah, the old joke for us was that I had to go to law school so that I could at least win one argument with her. She is so sharp, so brilliant.
Her recall is incredible. You're building lots of points with Casey here. She listens to this show. You're building lots of points. Let me ask you: I'm looking at your website, and I see Fox News, CNN, TBN, CBC television.
I'm guessing what you guys do have been featured on all of these networks. Yeah, and we've been at it a long time. We've been married for 20 years, 21 years.
So we've been at this for two decades.
So throughout that time, whether it's Acquire the Fire or being featured on Fox News or CNN, CBC, all of those different things have come along in our two decades together. Wow, that's amazing. And of course, when they go to the website, there's a lot of information on the website, but everything from premarital coaching. Yes. To couples coaching, marriage events you mentioned, and retreats and conferences, marriage-intensive.
Yes, those are our favorite. You fly into Charlotte where we live, you spend two and a half days with Casey and I, and couples take what would take six months through couples therapy, we do in one weekend. Come on. Well, and I asked you this in Israel because, you know, last I knew, you know, I didn't know if you were living in Texas, but you were traveling with the ministry from Texas. Yeah.
And you're like, yeah, I'm living in the Charlotte area. I'm like, where? We're like neighbors. Yeah. You and I.
Kinneapolis, I'm in Concord. Yeah. Our borders touch. Yeah, it's like a mini twin cities in a sense. For those of you who aren't familiar with Minneapolis and St.
Paul, but it's like a mini twin cities, Kinnapolis and Concord. Why Concord? I don't know if I asked you that in Israel, but why Concord? Yeah, well, my journey. kind of went from California as a child to As a young 20 Texas, then we moved to Nashville for five years.
We were there. And a lot of our friends and people on Acquire the Fire and locations just flew out of there. That's a big entertainment city.
So we were there. And then I got a pastor position in. Right out in Charlotte.
So we lived in Concord, which is, you know, of course, a suburb of Charlotte. Yeah, kind of, we might call it a bed, in a way, a bedroom community to Charlotte. But, well, that was a bit like when you said that, like, oh my gosh. And then when you said Kannapolis, I was like, You know, you know, right where that is. Yeah.
Of course, you now, Kali, we're going to run out of time again. We have to, I think, do another show with you.
So, between marriage and business, and then the re let's let's do this. Let's touch on in the last few minutes on the resilience mental health part of things, how you help people there. And then we'll maybe on the last show, the next show we do, we'll cover how you help businesses, churches, and etc.
So, yeah, that's great. The mental health. Yeah, if you can understand your inner life. That is the key to having the abundant life externally.
So we help people find what Jesus did and use his. Uh to Be able to help them.
So, we talked about seven skills to live wholehearted.
So, we talked through what are those seven skills. Let me just give you the first couple. The very first skill of Jesus is he had a beloved child identity and he Knew that his father loved him. He's my son, in whom I am well pleased. Yes, and here's this great research.
It came out in 2025. This research showed that people who perceive that they are deeply loved by God. Hmm. Uh it fights against depression. And anxiety, which is a huge deal because most of the spiritual research that has been done helps depression, but not anxiety.
But Jesus's first skill was that he knew he was deeply loved by God. He had a beloved child identity. And even all the science is catching up with the Bible: that if you have a perception that you are not what others have said about you, you may be an abusive parent or an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend or ex-spouse, what they have said about you does not define you, but you are deeply loved by God. If you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling depressed about your life, that in itself is scientifically researched and proven to be able to say, okay, how do I now fight those things and I can be the identity that I've always meant to be? And that's the very first foundational step Jesus has.
Which is a big struggle right now, especially with young people finding their identity, right? Let me mention this before we. Run out of time. Wholehearted.university. Like, if you want to know more on the resilience part of it, yes, please go there.
Mental health, resilience part. You guys have focused areas of healing, depression, anxiety, betrayal, trauma, secure attachment, addiction, just life transformation. Yes. And the wholehearted journey, one-on-one coaching, wholehearted.university. And then, Joel, if they want to learn more about the marriage, all the marriage work that you guys do, is there a separate website for them?
No, no. Right there, you'll see on the very front page of joeljohnson.org, you'll see marriage, then you'll see business or nonprofit churches, then you'll see resilience. You can find all the information on all of those there. What just dropped this week on joeljohnson.org, though, is our marriage e-course and our new marriage book called Personality-Based Marriage is actually we're giving those away. It's a $200.
$220. It's been $220. We're giving it away for free.
So if you know someone who wants to grow in their communication with their spouse, which is all of us, we use the Myers-Briggs to help couples be able to understand each other and see how God wired them psychologically. And it is blowing marriages away. And we have a whole marriage eat course that takes you with it. That's $200. We're just giving it away for free.
So go to joeljohnson.org. And if you want a session, an assessment with me or a session that's $150, but we're giving that away free. You can actually not meet with somebody on my team. I would love to meet. If you click that and you schedule, there's a little calendar there.
You can schedule your time that works for you. If you schedule that You and I are going to be meeting face to face on Zoom.
So it's. Yeah, this is an incredible deal. Your heart.
So I hear your heart, and you and Casey, and Joel and Casey Johnson. Man, if you've been blessed by the conversation today, by all that Joel and Casey are involved in, I want to encourage you to check out the websites, joeljohnson.org. That'll lead you and link you to all these other. Areas from marriage to resilience, mental health, business, coaching. Coaching people at church.
And I tell you, it's just, I'm so thankful that the Lord reunited us in and it feels so good. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And, you know, we didn't even touch on it, but I never would have guessed you to be a wrestling fan, but I guess because wrestling wasn't all that big out in California that I knew. I don't know what you're talking about. Like, they had, remember when it was WWF?
They had the cartoon. Yeah. They had the wrestling buddies. And this is what my friends and I would do. We would, on our front lawn, we would be swinging around, you know, whether you're Junkyard Dog or Hulk Hogan.
Yes. Superfly Jimmy Suga. Superfly, Jimmy Suka, Hot Rod, Roddy Piper. Snap a Jew, Slim Joe, Weather, Macho Man, Randy Savage. I mean, these were our heroes.
Come on, that's amazing. But God, right? And now here we are, City Today in the Truth Radio Network. I know. But God, you know?
So, well, Joel, thanks for being a part of the show today. It's been great. And I encourage you, go check it out. Go online, get the books, order the books, him and his wife, Casey Johnson, Joel Johnson. Go on the website, joeljohnson.org.
Man, there's a lot there. We've given you a lot in a short period of time, but you will be blessed. And I appreciate each week, just week in and week out. You guys are so faithful to listen and help promote this show now in 109 countries. And so grateful and thankful.
Yeah, just my audience is amazing. And don't forget to go over to the podcast, get the Truth Radio app if you don't have it. Go over to the podcast, QA with Koloff. And you're going to want to check out the interview I have with Joel on QA with Koloff. Until next time, go out and have a God-build and live a God-blessed day.
