Mental Toughness and Leading with Vision: Dr. Dave Jones Unpacks Vision-Driven Leadership

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So when you're planning to win, right?

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if you don't have a plan, you're planning to lose.

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So it doesn't mean the plan is stuck for the next five years.

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It means that you're thinking about it before it happens.

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So when we plan to win, we are mentally, emotionally, physically,

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spiritually aware, or planning for what we wanna do next.

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When you start writing stuff down and you start thinking about

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things, it just speaks to you.

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What does it take to lead with vision in a world that's driven by distraction?

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Today's guest, Dr. Dave Jones, has gone from professional hockey rinks in

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Europe to the boardrooms of thriving businesses where he now coaches elite

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athletes, executives, and ministry leaders on how to win the mental game.

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He's the founder of M Is Good, a marketing agency powered by Kingdom

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Purpose, and the creator of the R seven Vision Framework, a powerful

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model for leaders who want to align their mission with the eternal impact.

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He's also the author of Vision Wins and the host of the R seven podcast.

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In this episode, we're gonna explore what it means to lead with purpose, why

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vision is more than a buzzword, and how spiritual and mental disciplines are

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essential for high level leadership.

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Dr. Dave Jones, welcome to Seat Go Create.

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Oh man.

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I'm so honored to be here.

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Tim.

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Thank you for having me.

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glad you're here too.

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Let's get like one little thing outta the way.

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We were about to talk about this, but you've got doctor in front of your name,

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but you're wearing an a superman hat.

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For those that are watching us on video, some stuff that said

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Super Dave, which is fascinating.

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I see Doctor, I see Dave and David.

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It's like, man, what, what do you go by man?

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What do people call you?

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Yeah, such a great question.

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I, in high school I grew up as Wonder Dave 'cause I played hockey and I played pretty

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good at it and that kind of fell off.

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And then, you know, I have this really cool name, Dave Jones, which is the second

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most popular name in the world, probably.

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and so everywhere I go it's, you know, Dave Jones, who, you know,

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like, which Dave Jones are you?

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you?

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and then I hit the CrossFit world when I was 40, and I did pretty good at that.

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And so it became Super Dave.

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And then, you know, I've been in rinks and a lot of rinks

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and coaching a lot of different players, you know, hockey players.

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And, you know, I go in the rink and it's super Dave, you know,

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and so my kids call me Super Dave.

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It's kind of fun to Hey, soup, what's up?

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know,

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You know.

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So,

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it just kind of stuck.

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And then I've been chasing this journey for my doctorate in sport and

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performance psychology for 13 years.

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And on December 6th, 2024, I, defended my dissertation and now it became Dr. Dave.

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Dave.

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So a lot of my friends around me are like, there's no way I'm calling you Dr.

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Super Dave.

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Like, that's not gonna happen, you know?

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So it's Super Dave, it's Dave, it's Dr. Dave.

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You know, it's fun man.

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Like we're having a good time with it.

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I think Dr. Super could be kinda like a Marvel type,

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Yeah, for sure.

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like

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Yeah.

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Hopefully not a villain.

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Hopefully a good guy.

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Yeah.

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You know, it's interesting.

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I think you remember back when it was actually, super Dave and Super

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Dave was not like a Marvel hero.

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He was kind of a goofball, like

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Like

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it was the worst production ever and everybody loved it.

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it.

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So that's more about me, you know, having fun and like, you know, messing

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things up, but still goofing on it.

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So, you know, unfortunately there's no Super Dave Apparel out there, so I

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just, I just buy the Superman stuff and

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Super

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call it Super Dave, so.

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so this is like idle banter that somebody's gonna go, Hey, could

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y'all get to the vision stuff?

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But it's kind of funny, when you first came across our desk, this will

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kind of tell you where my mind is.

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Okay.

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Super Dave initially, which I would've gone directly to Super Dave Osborne.

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For those that even don't know what we're talking about, kind of an older reference,

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but actually thought your name said Davey.

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Oh,

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Jones, man.

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Wasn't that the lead singer, the monkeys?

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It's

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that's it.

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how old I am.

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There's

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right.

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what the heck is that guy talking about?

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But it's like, man, I would love that.

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That would be so cool.

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But, uh, anyway, I, you, you are the man and the one I need to be speaking with.

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So I've got Dr. Dave Jones here.

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I think I might go by Dave, unless you correct me as we go along

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That works.

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you say something, I might either lean towards a doctor or super just

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to emphasize what we said there.

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But,

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Yeah.

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hey, first question I like to start with sort of related to that,

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Mm-hmm.

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different.

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And that is, would you prefer to answer the question, what do you do?

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Or who are you?

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Hmm.

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start answering.

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Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with Who are you?

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Because I feel like, yeah.

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So who are you?

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You know, I think that, when we have this common language that we use and,

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you know, you meet somebody for the first time and they say, what do you do?

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do?

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You know, it's kind of a question of, you know, how do you make money?

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And I feel like it's a very misleading question, and this probably drives a

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lot of identity crisis in the world, this common language that we use.

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And so because I've worked with so many athletes and former Christian

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organizational leaders and current, you know, in this transition

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period, identity's a big deal.

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And so when you have performance related questions that really over

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time build up that you actually think you are, you know what you do.

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and the reality is, you know, we, we have problems with, I like to call

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our flap our fear, lust, anger, pride.

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And so when your identity's

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your

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in your fear, lust, anger, pride, it's how many cars do you have?

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I'm president, I'm vice president, I'm a hockey player, I'm not a hockey player.

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a hire.

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Whereas when you identity is in Christ and it's not performance related.

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Who are you becomes a, a funner question because, you know, I am a

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man of God, the best of my ability.

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I'm not perfect.

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So let's, let's be clear about that.

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that.

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know, I'm a business owner, I'm a husband, I'm a dad.

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I'm a coach.

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this goes back to vision.

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who you are is not what you do.

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and so who I am, I unify excellence in the marketplace.

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That's my vision.

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those that have heard me talk in the past, they've heard my vision over the years.

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when you point to vision, it takes away the identity side

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of what you're currently doing.

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We live off of peaks and valleys in our life.

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Nobody's awesome all the time.

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time.

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And so in the valley, I believe is where the Lord wants you to glorify him.

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him.

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And so if our bank account has one comment in it.

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it

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We're feeling bad about ourselves.

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It's really hard, right?

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To glorify the Lord.

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If our bank account has two commas or three commas in it,

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in it,

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you know, we feel really good and we're unstoppable.

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But the reality is your identity is in your pride, not in glorifying the Lord.

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the Lord.

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Now, that was really heavy, really fast.

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about that.

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No, I like it.

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I made two or three notes here that we're gonna kinda keep going

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heavy because this is important.

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See, I think what we're doing is we're just, I always say we're diving

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into the deep end of the pool, but we're going to some core stuff.

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away.

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And we're gonna get to in a little while.

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I've gotten through a good portion of your book, vision Wins, seven Strategies

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for Mental Toughness in Life, in Sports.

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And I wanna tell you, Dave, that I don't hear the word

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mental toughness much anymore.

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And that, so we're gonna talk about that in just a second.

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but, so mental toughness is a topic I wanna talk about how it relates to

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vision and mission and things like that, especially within the R seven framework.

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But you brought up something to me that is at times a word,

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that's what I call christianese.

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it's language that we use in the or followers of Jesus world that

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maybe someone who's not in that world doesn't know what we mean.

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And you mention that you are who you are, your identity is in

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and.

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I believe that I know what that is 'cause I've been living

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that life for a while and I

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Yeah.

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truthfully I went to Bible school for a couple years, I don't think a

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lot of people know what that means.

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Mm-hmm.

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I think one of the first things I'm gonna do, and this is again, more deep question,

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Mm-hmm.

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why don't you explain in your words,

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Let's start with what It's not right?

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It's not your bank account, it's not your cars.

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It's not, forgive me, but how hot your wife is, or how skinny your wife is,

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know,

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how long you've been married.

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You know, like these are kind of the worldly triggers with living in a, living

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a life of Christ to me, but it means that you're, you're a follower of Jesus, that

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you're reading the Bible, that you're praying daily, that you're trying to

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do what's right by the word of God, not what's right by whatever the wind is

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blowing in today's political or, you know, or in sporting environment, you know, and

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so it's, it's doing your best that you can to live a life according to Christ.

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That's what that means.

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So I follow the Bible.

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I'm very open about, I am a right wing Bible toting, gun carrying Christian,

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and I glorify the Lord in everything I do, whether it's, you know, and some

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days are, I would say that some days are

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days are

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better than others, honestly.

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But I'm always going back to what do the scripture say?

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How do I react to this?

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I think, you know, having the fruits of the spirit are important,

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you know, as kind of a checklist.

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So, love, peace, patience, self-control, you know, this is what it means to, for

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according to the way I see the world, which is not always right all the time,

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but, you know, it's following Jesus.

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Yeah.

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Have you always been that way?

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I have not been all this way.

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I, I didn't, I grew up,

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up,

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I grew up playing hockey.

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I won a state championship early on in my high school career.

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I got really drunk.

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my brother who was going to Moody Bible Institute was, came

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home the next day after my,

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my,

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you know,

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know,

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after I was trying to recuperate.

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And I was just,

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just,

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you know,

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know,

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on the bed and just out for the day.

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And my brother came and said, Hey, do you wanna live a life like this?

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And I'm like, no.

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And he's like, do you want to see Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

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I'm like, yes.

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I want something more than this.

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I was 16 when that happened.

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I went on to play juniors in pro in Europe, and it wasn't until probably

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my second or third year in Europe where I was like, you know what?

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I was 22.

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I,

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I,

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I had met a woman that, you know, that

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that.

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we basically, who's my wife now of 25 years, said, you know what?

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Let's do a better job of living a life of Christ and try to

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follow him and read and pray.

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And,

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And,

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that's when it all began.

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So that seed was in there.

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It just took a while to get out.

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and even then, you know, my journey is,

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is,

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25, 26, you know, it was still like, I just didn't like myself at all.

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So I had to turn off the tv.

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I had a mentor come in my life and say, read these books for the next two years.

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And I did.

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Hmm.

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So what's interesting is that it sounds as if.

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It's, you know, you started off, you were talking about the valleys and,

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but it sounds to me like winning a state championship when one is

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probably identifying as a hockey player during that stage of your life.

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I think you identified as a hockey player probably, and you reached the pinnacle

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the next day there was a door that was open that was, we'll call it the seed.

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And there may have been

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Mm-hmm.

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that, but talk about that.

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'cause I know you deal with a lot of athletes and all.

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We might be getting into some of that shortly, but talk about with

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you personally, what it was like to be at, I mean, there was probably

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nothing higher that you could have done at that stage than win that

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championship in that sport, correct?

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Yeah, that's correct.

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I mean, I was 15, 16 years old and a freshman in high school.

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So, you know, winning a state championship in a state that wasn't known for

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winning championships was a big deal.

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It was a town of

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of

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16,000 people.

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And, you know, the whole town came out

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I,

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I was a, you know, a celebrity at that point.

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And we had, we had, climbed the summit.

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We had done it, we were on the peak.

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And, I don't know, I think I was probably too young to

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understand what all that meant.

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It was just celebrate and drink some vodka and orange juice, you know,

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you know,

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looking back on it, it was definitely, you know, God working in my life.

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And so I think there's, you know, looking back on it again, I think

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there's bigger pinnacles, you know, and I've studied 'em all from the Super

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Bowl to the Stanley Cup to, you know,

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know,

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MLS, you know, on a world stage, which is much more difficult to navigate than a

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15-year-old winning a state championship.

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So would you have, looking back now, especially, this

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is a good question to ask.

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Would you have said you were mentally tough that age, and if you

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were, what did that look like then?

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And if you weren't, I guess kind of grade your mental toughness at that point.

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Oh man, I was weak.

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I was fragile.

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I was not tough at all.

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No way.

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I don't even, I mean, it was probably 45 I think, before I really probably knew what

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mental toughness was and how to use it

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it.

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honestly.

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Honestly, but,

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Um,

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well with what we'll call it.

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This is where I'm gonna start maybe

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yeah.

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the barriers between how I define in Christ or in the world.

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Okay.

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this is where I'm going here, is that you were doing things that were leading

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to success in that world system, but yet something was lacking that was drawing you

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into, we'll call that the Kingdom of God

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Yeah.

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So, and that was in the twenties, and a lot of people go through

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it, a lot of people go through it later in a life, whatever.

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And I think it's all a journey that we go through.

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but I mean, you were doing well in that world system, correct?

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I probably, you know, probably just felt like there was, that's it.

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It's gotta be something more.

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It's interesting when you turn to drugs and alcohol, isn't it like to

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release the pressure or the stress?

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You, you feel like that's the way to do it, to let go?

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people do it all the time.

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In fact, I like to say like fans being a fanatic of a sport, you

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know, is an acceptable way of,

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of,

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of deflecting the real issues.

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You know, we socially accept that, hardcore drugs, we

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don't obviously, you know?

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Yeah.

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And we, in my world, one of the things that's acceptable in the

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business world, you're operating in the business world now too,

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Mm-hmm.

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is that it's acceptable to be addicted to what I call more.

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Yeah.

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not a drug or anything, it's just more, I need to make more money.

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Mm-hmm.

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expand my business, I need to make more, whatever I need to work more hours.

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And that addiction is what I've battled.

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That's part of my journey.

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it is rewarding in that world system, but it's not in the

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kingdom, kingdom of God's system.

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And so I That's interesting.

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Now, one of the things, this is one of the reasons I was drawn to you,

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Okay.

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let me go ahead and kinda get maybe a controversial type topic out.

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I love sports.

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I really, really do.

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So I wanna preface this next statement and what it's gonna lead to.

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Questions with, I do love sports.

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However, I do wonder in our culture and society if we are elevating

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sport almost idle status in

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Mm-hmm.

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And it's one of the reasons why I want to talk to someone who,

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obviously sports is your world.

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You work with people in that arena.

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You also work with people that have great ministries in

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Yes.

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And so if I say something like, Hey, I believe that sports and

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especially the way we're doing it now, to be like we're building a lot

Speaker: 00:16:38

of idols, respond to that statement.

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There's so much there to unpack, honestly.

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I'll just take in the direction you tell me if you wanna go a different way.

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I, I think the athletes I work with, they don't ask for that at idle.

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So I think.

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we're all trying to become the best version of ourselves, whether

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we believe in Jesus or not.

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Like we wanna see how far we can go, whether it's your average golfer,

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whether it's your, I'll use hockey 'cause I'm familiar with that.

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Like, whether you're.

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16-year-old triple A or double a player or college or pro, you're just

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trying to see how far you can go.

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And some guys go farther and gals go farther than they ever dreamed of.

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And so people want that.

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they want to know, like I use Tiger Woods as an example.

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Most of us can relate to that.

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Like how did he do that?

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I mean, it's so incredible of how he did that.

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And so we're just attracted to that excellence, that peak performance.

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We want it, we wanna duplicate it.

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And it's probably in that lustful side for sure.

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Imagine if we had that same kind of lust for Jesus, right?

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That same kind of like, I want to emulate what he did, and we know

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the Satan's there to kill, steal, and destroy and provide confusion.

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And so why not deflect us back to sport, to man, it's a failing system.

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I think the athletes that I work with, they're not really

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like asking for the idle side.

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They're just chasing it.

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it.

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and we in some level, we wanna know how to do that and, you know, what

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are the triggers or the bad habits that, I have in my life that I can get

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rid of so I can be a peak performer?

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Yeah.

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think inherently, whether you believe in God or not, there's

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something about the human wanting to be better and wanting to live.

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the,

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I had the real unfortunate opportunity of, you know, a couple

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years ago watching my dad die.

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You know, he had lung cancer and he was 80 years old.

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And.

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He had smoked for 40 years.

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He had stopped for 20 years, but it came back and, you know, he got diagnosed

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in November and then he died in April.

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And it was really interesting to me, like very emotional.

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Lots of grief still going on today, but how when I, when I just watched

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that, 'cause you went all over to hospice and like for those that are

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not familiar with hospice, like it's a place where you go to die, you know,

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they basically turn it off and make it a comfortable transition for you.

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And it just really kind of blew my mind how much the body wants to survive and

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how much the body can survive on nothing.

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And so, like in all animals that God's created it, it has a survival side of it.

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And I think we want to do more than that.

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You know, we want, we wanna push the envelope.

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Yeah.

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And, and I love the word he used excellence.

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my dad passed a few years ago too,

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Hmm.

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cognitive issues and kinda watched it also.

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It's kinda like, and you know, we look at him cognitively, physically, he

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seemed kind of strong and, and it was almost like, you know, we were saying.

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How can he keep going and, but yet my, my wife's mother's that way.

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her body has been rough for going on 30 years now.

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But she's still bad.

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Hanging around.

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Yeah.

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around.

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crazy, right?

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I'm, I can't believe how strong in that will to live,

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Yeah.

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is what we're talking about.

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I wanna circle back to that more thing related to sports and,

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Mm-hmm.

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and I guess it's the.

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The pressure that culture and society is putting on it.

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and I just this morning read, a quick blurb about a five star quarterback

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high school kid that was being recruited by Oregon and University of Georgia.

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I'm originally from Georgia.

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I'm not a Georgia fan.

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I wanna be real clear about that.

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I went to Georgia Tech, but I'm just sitting here thinking about this kid.

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He committed Decommitted and now they've got all the NIL money and

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Mm-hmm.

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you know, they've got big time stuff that's always been around.

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Now it's kind of out in the open just sitting here thinking

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about 17, 18, 19-year-old.

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I hate to call 'em kids.

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That sounds, you know, kind of downplay.

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But what happens with mental toughness

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Yeah.

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all of that, all that kind of stuff's being dangled at you and you've got grown

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men telling you how awesome you are.

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And I was, the reason I kind of was thinking about it, Dave, is that they,

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they, they commented in this article then in the last two days while he

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was making this flipping decision, he went from one to the other, of

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the offensive coordinators and maybe even the head coaches had come to his

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place, sat in his living room, and we're pitching and recruiting this kid.

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Sorry.

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But, I mean, h how are we dealing with all that stuff just from a mental standpoint?

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And I mean, business people are too, and people in ministry and all that,

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but boy, we're throwing a lot of stuff at some of these young athletes.

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For sure.

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and I have a really kind of strong definition of mental toughness.

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I'll just tell you what it is.

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So it's playing or performing.

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So in business world you're performing, obviously in sport, you're playing,

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playing or performing at the upper ranges of your ability consistently

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under pressure in the biggest moments.

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That's mental toughness.

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So what I'd love to also say is sports is a Petri dish of emotions.

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So once pressure happens, that's where we see where you're at.

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at.

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So like when I watch games now, I don't really watch for the X's and O's.

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I watch for the pressure, see it come in and then watch the

Speaker: 00:22:33

players and how they deal with it.

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That's how you know if somebody's strong or not.

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not,

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It's super easy to watch and fun to watch.

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And so then we, and then I call that low ei.

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low E

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So when they're mentally weak, they have low emotional intelligence.

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So when you have low emotional intelligence, it's all about you, you

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know, you complain, you blame others.

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You're in what's called a weak channel.

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all you can think about is the emotion, what this person did to me.

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Your team, mindset goes out the window.

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you're focused on winning, not on the process.

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There's a whole lot of things that happens when you're low

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eye, when you're mentally weak.

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And so, same thing with performance.

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Like when you're talking about organizations and organizational

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leaders, everything's fine when you're in your office by yourself.

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But once you get around employees and now maybe there's not as much money in

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the account or somebody says something to you that you don't like, the pressure

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happens and now we see what's inside.

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It's interesting, you know, I, I just had an example.

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Come to mind, that's sort of recent and I'll, I'll bring it up and let

Speaker: 00:23:40

you either comment on it or I'd love if you've got a recent example

Speaker: 00:23:45

a sport example where that'll kind of put a timestamp on this episode.

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But I don't care.

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I don't watch a lot of sports or anything anymore because I realized

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I could actually get addicted

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Mm-hmm.

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the watching of it, you know what I mean?

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Yep.

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business like yours.

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So, you know, but I did catch the last hour-ish or so of the

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Masters, about a month ago with

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Yep.

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McElroy and I, we had a place not far from Augusta, Georgia for the longest

Speaker: 00:24:17

in a golf mecca and things like that.

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And I believe that may be an example of what you're talking about.

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can you speak to that?

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Yeah, I can.

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And in fact, I've studied him,

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him.

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I've studied Rory.

Speaker: 00:24:29

Rory.

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So this is the difference between process thinking and outcome thinking.

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So when you outcome think it's all about winning.

Speaker: 00:24:40

Like he's had that on his shoulders of winning the masters for a long time.

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And

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winning, winning, winning.

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And so when

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so

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comes down to that 18th whole putt, and it's a three foot putt, you know,

Speaker: 00:24:53

if you're not, and who knows what he is thinking, I'm obviously speculating

Speaker: 00:24:56

here, but he missed the putt.

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So, and made those putts.

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putts

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A lot.

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Uh, it's hard to say how many, but a lot.

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And so when you're always thinking about the outcome, it's a sign of weak thinking.

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You know, you're not into power channel.

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And so when you're process thinking, you're thinking about the mechanics,

Speaker: 00:25:15

you're thinking about the details, you're not thinking about the winning, you're

Speaker: 00:25:18

not thinking about the score, you're thinking about what's in the moment.

Speaker: 00:25:21

And we've seen players like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Mary Lou

Speaker: 00:25:26

Lou

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Mu,

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Mu,

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Crosby, like, you know, all these players play in the moment.

Speaker: 00:25:30

that's what elite performers do.

Speaker: 00:25:32

they, they're able to just have tunnel vision

Speaker: 00:25:35

vision

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they're dealing with right now, you know, so it's playing at the upper

Speaker: 00:25:39

range of ability, consistently under pressure in the biggest moment.

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So they're able to do that, and they train for that.

Speaker: 00:25:44

that.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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I, I want to go a little bit deeper on that, 'cause I had a thought just to.

Speaker: 00:25:52

Bring the audience that may not be that have seen it.

Speaker: 00:25:57

Rory had the opportunity for what's called a career grand slam, where you win the

Speaker: 00:26:01

four top majors in golf, the masters.

Speaker: 00:26:04

I think he had had opportunities for 11 years or something like that ' cause he

Speaker: 00:26:08

Mm-hmm.

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three at a very young age and he still has a lot of age.

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But that stuff starts creeping up on you a little bit.

Speaker: 00:26:15

And he was leading by one stroke, I believe.

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No, he could have on the 18th hole making a short putt.

Speaker: 00:26:22

He would've won it and he missed the putt.

Speaker: 00:26:25

So therefore it was gonna go into a playoff.

Speaker: 00:26:28

what I would love to do, and I know this is speculative, but I would

Speaker: 00:26:31

love to tap into a bit of a sports psychology, mental toughness example

Speaker: 00:26:38

that's real world in recent for me.

Speaker: 00:26:40

I'd love for you to talk to me a little bit about what you think.

Speaker: 00:26:45

Was going through his mind he missed the putt.

Speaker: 00:26:49

It's going to a playoff, there's probably 20 minutes or so that they've gotta go

Speaker: 00:26:56

back to the tee box of 18 and they're going to tee off and play the hole again.

Speaker: 00:27:03

And it's, it's sudden death for those that might be familiar.

Speaker: 00:27:06

You know, it's like whoever gets the lowest score, first

Speaker: 00:27:09

in the playoff holes wins.

Speaker: 00:27:11

And, to finish the story so people aren't on the edge of their seat.

Speaker: 00:27:14

He did, I believe he birdied and the other guy part.

Speaker: 00:27:17

I can't remember the other name though.

Speaker: 00:27:18

But can you, in your mind,

Speaker: 00:27:20

Tim Scott.

Speaker: 00:27:21

know

Speaker: 00:27:21

Scott.

Speaker: 00:27:22

Yeah.

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Yeah.

Speaker: 00:27:22

So you got the facts right?

Speaker: 00:27:23

But I mean, in your mind, what do you think mentally he was doing in that

Speaker: 00:27:30

time between missing the putt and going back to that tee box at the 18th hole?

Speaker: 00:27:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:27:35

So let's go back to the first time he played the 18.

Speaker: 00:27:38

You know, he shanks his shot, right?

Speaker: 00:27:40

And then he, he hits a good tee shot, but his second shot's in the bunker,

Speaker: 00:27:45

and then he is gotta come out of the bunker and he comes out with like

Speaker: 00:27:48

a 10 foot putt and he misses it,

Speaker: 00:27:50

it,

Speaker: 00:27:50

which forces the overtime.

Speaker: 00:27:52

So the 20 minutes where he's like having to go sign his card and go, I

Speaker: 00:27:56

think he's reflecting on everything that happened the first time.

Speaker: 00:28:00

And I think he's probably, if there was a coach there is in

Speaker: 00:28:03

his ear saying, just relax man.

Speaker: 00:28:05

Just go have fun, right?

Speaker: 00:28:08

'cause he was so stressed and you could tell he was stressed and tense in that

Speaker: 00:28:11

second shot when he hit it in the bunker.

Speaker: 00:28:13

He was just thinking about winning, winning, winning.

Speaker: 00:28:16

Whereas now as he comes back and he hit a great tee shot, his second

Speaker: 00:28:19

shot is within like eight feet.

Speaker: 00:28:23

Right?

Speaker: 00:28:23

and like, so it's, it's like he's in his groove and so it was all that

Speaker: 00:28:27

stress that he was able to let go and realize, okay, I can't play this way.

Speaker: 00:28:31

just have fun and, and just play golf.

Speaker: 00:28:34

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:28:35

and I think that, applies to.

Speaker: 00:28:38

Other parts of our lives.

Speaker: 00:28:40

It may not be as narrow of a focus within just a few minutes that

Speaker: 00:28:45

we've seen, but him arriving, there wasn't a few minutes either.

Speaker: 00:28:49

That was a much, much

Speaker: 00:28:50

Oh yeah.

Speaker: 00:28:51

journey, and that gives me a great opening.

Speaker: 00:28:54

That's a good segue here.

Speaker: 00:28:55

We talked about, you know, your hockey career early on and you went over to

Speaker: 00:28:59

Europe and played some, and then you found Christ, around your early to mid twenties.

Speaker: 00:29:05

Bring us up to where we are now, but I'd love for you to give me a couple

Speaker: 00:29:09

of the peaks and valleys between that time and where you are now.

Speaker: 00:29:16

And then we're gonna move into talking about R seven and some of the

Speaker: 00:29:19

things you're doing with M is good.

Speaker: 00:29:20

I want to ask you a couple things about the book, but just give us a

Speaker: 00:29:23

couple of the journey ups and downs along the way before we do that.

Speaker: 00:29:27

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:29:29

such great questions, man.

Speaker: 00:29:30

There's so many ups and downs in there.

Speaker: 00:29:32

I would say, I got a slap shot in the face, broke my nose in three

Speaker: 00:29:37

different directions, cut the nerve and my teeth in my mouth.

Speaker: 00:29:40

Deviated septum.

Speaker: 00:29:41

Oh, you mean literally got a slap shot in your face?

Speaker: 00:29:43

I thought you were talking about old life just brought No, you

Speaker: 00:29:45

literally got a slap shot in your

Speaker: 00:29:47

I got, I got puck in the face in Kalamazoo K Wing stadium.

Speaker: 00:29:52

And so, I had three yards of

Speaker: 00:29:54

of

Speaker: 00:29:54

Each nostril, there were tubes in my nose and I couldn't breathe outta the

Speaker: 00:29:58

tubes 'cause it got all clogged up,

Speaker: 00:30:00

up,

Speaker: 00:30:00

because of mucus.

Speaker: 00:30:01

And so I had to breathe outta my mouth.

Speaker: 00:30:03

You know, the next two weeks my tongue is cracking and bleeding at night.

Speaker: 00:30:07

And, that was a low, that was one of the first times I got on my knees.

Speaker: 00:30:12

I said, Lord, what do you want from me?

Speaker: 00:30:13

Because this is not like, I didn't know how to pray.

Speaker: 00:30:16

I was 21 years old.

Speaker: 00:30:18

I didn't pray.

Speaker: 00:30:18

I wasn't really reading the Bible.

Speaker: 00:30:19

I just knew I needed to go to a source, you know, and the source that

Speaker: 00:30:24

had never really failed me was God.

Speaker: 00:30:26

So I just said, you know what, God, what, what do you want me to do with my life?

Speaker: 00:30:29

This, this sucks.

Speaker: 00:30:30

Like, this is terrible.

Speaker: 00:30:32

And so I ended up going overseas and playing and, you

Speaker: 00:30:36

know, that was a good career.

Speaker: 00:30:37

I ended up, you know, playing there for four years and then, and then coming back.

Speaker: 00:30:42

I started my company when I was 28 and.

Speaker: 00:30:46

Again, I was, I was just, I had taken a sales job with a Fox tv and

Speaker: 00:30:50

and

Speaker: 00:30:51

I really didn't like it.

Speaker: 00:30:52

And so I went back to prayer.

Speaker: 00:30:54

I said, Lord, what do you want me to do?

Speaker: 00:30:55

And,

Speaker: 00:30:56

And, I found myself staring at a list of all the Christian organizations on

Speaker: 00:31:01

the TV station, and I thought, I'll just start an ad and see, what do I call it?

Speaker: 00:31:04

it?

Speaker: 00:31:05

And the Lord gave me marketing ministries.

Speaker: 00:31:07

And I, it wasn't like an audible voice.

Speaker: 00:31:09

I was just like, marketing ministries, that sounds cool.

Speaker: 00:31:11

like,

Speaker: 00:31:12

could that be it?

Speaker: 00:31:13

So I, I didn't know what I was doing.

Speaker: 00:31:14

I got a lawyer and, he said, yeah, marketing ministries available.

Speaker: 00:31:18

And I was like, oh, that's cool that name will work.

Speaker: 00:31:20

I thought it was kind of a dumb name.

Speaker: 00:31:21

And I'm like, all right, Lauren, you're not so dumb after all.

Speaker: 00:31:23

all.

Speaker: 00:31:24

And so I began to start my company and out of that list, I went to that

Speaker: 00:31:29

list after I left and I said, Hey, I'm going to, or before I left, I

Speaker: 00:31:33

said, I'm gonna start an agency.

Speaker: 00:31:34

What?

Speaker: 00:31:34

You know, will you follow me?

Speaker: 00:31:35

And, and out of the 21 on the list, I said, yeah, we'll follow you.

Speaker: 00:31:38

you

Speaker: 00:31:38

We're in.

Speaker: 00:31:39

in.

Speaker: 00:31:40

And so, that was like in a November timeframe.

Speaker: 00:31:43

In January.

Speaker: 00:31:44

I actually went back to him in 18.

Speaker: 00:31:47

Out of the 21 said, we're not with you.

Speaker: 00:31:51

That

Speaker: 00:31:52

That was a low, so the first year, I think we invoiced $15,000 that year.

Speaker: 00:32:00

Um, and I made 15% commission from that 15,000.

Speaker: 00:32:05

So that was, that was bad.

Speaker: 00:32:07

The second year was like 30,000.

Speaker: 00:32:09

That was bad.

Speaker: 00:32:11

Third, third year was like 200,000.

Speaker: 00:32:14

Still not good.

Speaker: 00:32:15

15% of 200,000 is $30,000 a year.

Speaker: 00:32:19

You know, I'm not setting the word on fire.

Speaker: 00:32:21

And so at this point, my faith is being challenged.

Speaker: 00:32:25

Um, you know, but I, I just, I guess I just knew that something

Speaker: 00:32:29

good was gonna keep going.

Speaker: 00:32:30

Like, come something good was gonna come out of, I kept going.

Speaker: 00:32:35

So I just never really looked back.

Speaker: 00:32:37

I just stepped out on faith and just push, push.

Speaker: 00:32:40

Pushed.

Speaker: 00:32:42

The fourth year we billed $800,000

Speaker: 00:32:47

and the fifth year it just never, I just never looked back.

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I'm on my 24th year now.

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year now.

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Yeah.

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during that time though, I'm just curious before we move on, did you,

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and I love when we talk about, you know, just had faith to keep going.

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You know, when you're, when you're getting 15% of what people can't, 15%

Speaker: 00:33:10

of what people can't live off of anyway.

Speaker: 00:33:12

And uh, I'm sure you were probably, you know, if you didn't have family

Speaker: 00:33:16

or anything at that point, even if you're single, that's probably tough.

Speaker: 00:33:21

Any considerations of, did you hear the lord, did I make a mistake?

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Do I need to go do something else?

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Do I need to just go get a job?

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Do I need to do something different?

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Any of that, we'll call it doubt creeping in, but sometimes it's

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just the process of going through the different options and all.

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And I'm not sure that it's always entirely bad, but any of

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that going on during that time,

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Tim, all of that's going on.

Speaker: 00:33:51

The doubt, the fear, the anxiety, the stress.

Speaker: 00:33:54

Are you sure?

Speaker: 00:33:55

Are you not sure?

Speaker: 00:33:58

you talked about common Christian language.

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I call that obligatory religious phraseology.

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You know, it's like we say this stuff and nobody knows what

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that means, and like we go Okay.

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know,

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I had that.

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and neither do we often,

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Exactly, exactly.

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Like I had some of that around me, but I just, I don't know, man.

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I had this intuition.

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I'm just gonna keep going

Speaker: 00:34:19

And

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and I do, I just don't resonate with the idea that God can steer a parked car.

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Like I just don't sign up for that camp.

Speaker: 00:34:29

Could God steer a parked car?

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Well, God could do anything, but can God really steer a parked car?

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Like if you're sitting around and going, okay, God, it's just gonna happen.

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You know, because it's just gonna happen.

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It's gonna be your will.

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I just don't think God works that way.

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Like you gotta go after it.

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You gotta open the door.

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So, Tim, I've always had this kind of

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of

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idea of a hallway, and the hallway has as many doors as you can see in this hallway.

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It's probably.

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50 to a hundred feet long, and You gotta open the doors.

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You gotta physically walk down the hallway and open the door and

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go, that's not the door for me.

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Or this is the door for me.

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I'm gonna see what, let's open, let's go explore.

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know,

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like, you gotta move, you know?

Speaker: 00:35:13

is,

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you know what, I'm not the most talented guy in the room.

Speaker: 00:35:16

I'm probably not the smartest guy in the room, but I will

Speaker: 00:35:19

come early and I will stay late.

Speaker: 00:35:21

I can do that, right?

Speaker: 00:35:23

I can think about it 16 times and get it wrong, and then come back the seventh

Speaker: 00:35:27

and eighth time and get it right.

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Yeah, I like that parked car analogy.

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The thought that came to my mind when you were bringing it up is, yeah, God

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could move a parked car, but why would he create a car and not expect someone

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to start the engine and actually move it?

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That

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Come on.

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at all.

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That's right.

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yeah, he could pick the car up, he could rain down, fire on it

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and disintegrate it, whatever.

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All that's fine.

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Yeah,

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go through the effort of creating that car if you don't expect it to move?

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said earlier, Dave, that you believe that in the valleys is when

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we glorify And you've mentioned a few valleys along the way.

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you, sort of a trick question here.

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Do you believe in looking back, you were glorifying God or were you in

Speaker: 00:36:14

the process of attempting, or what would you say about yourself during

Speaker: 00:36:18

your valleys looking back on them,

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man, these are questions I've never been asked before, so I, I love this.

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This is great.

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I think on a scale one to 10, you know, 10 being the best, I've probably done a six

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on like, glorifying the Lord, you know?

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I've always kept it in front of me.

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me,

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But, there's always that time like, oh my gosh, how do I glorify the Lord here?

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You know, like, this is too tough.

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I remember this is a really cool story.

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I remember back in 2010, the market had

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had

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took a serious dip in 2008.

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We didn't feel it, but we fell in 2010.

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And, you know, at the time we were doing a lot of media buying and, I just

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didn't have a whole lot of cash flow.

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And so, one of the,

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the,

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media companies called and said, you know, you're not on 90 day terms anymore.

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You're on three day terms.

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We need $50,000.

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This is on a Wednesday.

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And I'm driving from Dallas, Texas to San Antonio in a 12

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passenger van because I forgot to

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to

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set up the rental car.

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And the only thing they had was a 12 passenger van.

Speaker: 00:37:24

And I get a call and they say, Hey, we're turning off your terms on Friday.

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It's a Wednesday, we need $50,000.

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I called one of my mentors and I said, Hey man, can I borrow $50,000?

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I'll pay you.

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I promise I'll pay you back.

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And, and Tim, he laughed at me.

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He just laughed at me.

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He said, Davy, this is where you're gonna trust the Lord.

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Everything's gonna turn out all right.

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You know, I'm not giving you $50,000.

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Glorify the Lord.

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And I was like, oh my.

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Come on Jerry, please.

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Just, I just need the 50 K. And it was, that was one of

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the biggest, I was so scared.

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You know how you have like anxiety, but then like the somatic anxiety where

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your heart rate and your sweating and you're like, you just uncontrollable.

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It's like drinking too much caffeine.

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Like, I had this for about a day.

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I'm like, I'm gonna be shut down.

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And so, that was a valley and I learned a hard lesson there and I was like, okay,

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I will go, you know, it all worked out.

Speaker: 00:38:18

I ended up working out terms with them, ended up making payment plans,

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and I figured it out, you know, and,

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But yeah, that was one of the times where I turned to somebody wealthy who

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could help me, and they told me no.

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no.

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and that was probably one of the best things that could have

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Best things.

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Yeah.

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so you got a hockey puck to the face again, proverbial not a actual Yeah.

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anyway, that's, that's interesting.

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The cool thing that just came to mind is like, you gave yourself a

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six, outta 10, and probably a lot of us, we could say, yes, I need to

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glorify the Lord I'm in those valleys.

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Yeah, and if I look back, I would probably be generous to give myself a six.

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You know, I

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Mm.

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I think detrimental, but I was whining a lot more.

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After oh eight was when a lot of our financial issues were too.

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Mm-hmm.

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years after that we were homeless and bankrupt and you know,

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all kind of things went on.

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Looking back, it was a great thing.

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In the midst of it, not so great.

Speaker: 00:39:18

that's where God's grace comes in.

Speaker: 00:39:19

That's why, I mean, that's why there's, there's multiple things going on here.

Speaker: 00:39:24

Yes.

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I think ideally it would be awesome if we are at a 98%

Speaker: 00:39:29

glorifying and on, oh Lord, yes.

Speaker: 00:39:32

You were so awesome.

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But man, I was whining.

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I was

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Yeah.

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and so that's where his grace kicks in and he kind of says, okay, we're good here.

Speaker: 00:39:40

so now catch me up and tell me all that you're working on now.

Speaker: 00:39:44

'cause at some point you started moving into, I'll call it coaching, I

Speaker: 00:39:49

guess now you're technically a sports psychologist, but you're working with,

Speaker: 00:39:53

you know, athletes and people like that.

Speaker: 00:39:55

You're also still, I think, have the marketing company.

Speaker: 00:39:58

We're gonna bring up the book in just a moment, but we, when did

Speaker: 00:40:00

all that start to come into play?

Speaker: 00:40:03

it's honestly been a journey, lifelong journey.

Speaker: 00:40:06

So, you know, m as good is 24 years old.

Speaker: 00:40:09

We've got 38 to 41 clients we manage on a weekly basis.

Speaker: 00:40:13

Our vertical is Christian organizations, so we work on their

Speaker: 00:40:17

on their

Speaker: 00:40:18

messaging and their KPI management.

Speaker: 00:40:21

Uh, I just been, um, I just been pushing hard on.

Speaker: 00:40:26

Psychology.

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You know, I kind of believe that, psychology, study of human

Speaker: 00:40:30

behavior, sports psychology, study of human behavior within sport.

Speaker: 00:40:34

And so I just got attracted to, behavior and, you know, not the idea of psychology.

Speaker: 00:40:40

'cause it comes from a very, you know, dark place.

Speaker: 00:40:43

but just that study and how we read things, how we react to things, it

Speaker: 00:40:47

plays well with them as good because, I'm as good as about messaging to

Speaker: 00:40:52

a certain audience or audiences throughout all the demographics

Speaker: 00:40:55

we have with different clients.

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And

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And so, I just chase that and, you know, just chase, I'm not really like a big

Speaker: 00:41:01

title guy as we've discussed before.

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But,

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I wanted a path to study psychology and I looked at, the academic

Speaker: 00:41:07

world to gimme that path.

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And I chased it all the way to the terminal degree.

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Which happens to be sport and performance psychology.

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And so it's just really been, me chasing that in the marketing side of things.

Speaker: 00:41:17

then

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the coaching, the executive coaching, I, you know, I, I was a chairman of the board

Speaker: 00:41:21

with FCA hockey fellowship, Christian Athletes Hockey for about 10 years.

Speaker: 00:41:25

And so some players had asked me, Hey, can we chat?

Speaker: 00:41:28

And said, sure.

Speaker: 00:41:29

and so, that's just ballooned into something a lot of fun

Speaker: 00:41:33

for me to talk to different,

Speaker: 00:41:35

from the NHL down every week on their performance and their ability.

Speaker: 00:41:39

and how they chase peak performance with the idea of,

Speaker: 00:41:43

you know, Christ as their center.

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So, yeah.

Speaker: 00:41:47

So if, if someone told you, you could kind of only do one of those things, you

Speaker: 00:41:51

had to peel some things away, which one?

Speaker: 00:41:54

This is a, this is one of these trick questions that

Speaker: 00:41:56

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:41:57

Which one is nourishing your soul the most right now, Dave?

Speaker: 00:42:03

Oh, it's such a great question, and I think, I don't really sep, I,

Speaker: 00:42:06

I,

Speaker: 00:42:07

I don't really look at 'em as two, honestly.

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I, and it kind of goes back to how I vet different clients that come into

Speaker: 00:42:14

our organization or come into 'em as good as, as a potential client.

Speaker: 00:42:18

I usually tell 'em, listen, we don't discriminate based upon budget.

Speaker: 00:42:22

know,

Speaker: 00:42:22

ministry's too small, no ministry's too big.

Speaker: 00:42:25

This is about how do we create messaging?

Speaker: 00:42:29

How do we get your identity right so that we can attract more people to the Lord?

Speaker: 00:42:35

That's what it is there.

Speaker: 00:42:35

There's a vision side of you

Speaker: 00:42:37

you

Speaker: 00:42:38

that wants to come out because that's who you're created to be.

Speaker: 00:42:41

be.

Speaker: 00:42:42

And so if I can help you with that, I'm excited to be on that journey with you.

Speaker: 00:42:45

you.

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And so it's not the sport.

Speaker: 00:42:48

Or, you know, the player or the organizational leader, to me, they're one

Speaker: 00:42:52

and the same because they're both created in the image of God to glorify him.

Speaker: 00:42:57

Honestly, I just don't,

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don't,

Speaker: 00:42:58

I don't have a weight one way or the other.

Speaker: 00:43:00

like,

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I prayed Tim, that,

Speaker: 00:43:02

that,

Speaker: 00:43:02

that I would be used by God.

Speaker: 00:43:05

That was my prayer.

Speaker: 00:43:06

And you know what came back?

Speaker: 00:43:08

Are you usable?

Speaker: 00:43:12

I was like, Lord, use me.

Speaker: 00:43:13

And I just, I just felt like, am I usable?

Speaker: 00:43:16

I don't know that I'm usable.

Speaker: 00:43:17

I need to be usable by God if I'm gonna ask that question.

Speaker: 00:43:20

Right?

Speaker: 00:43:21

Like,

Speaker: 00:43:22

please use me, Lord, for your, for to help other people become peak performers

Speaker: 00:43:26

in your economy, not the worlds.

Speaker: 00:43:29

And so, I had a checkup from the neck up when I said, okay, I need to be usable.

Speaker: 00:43:34

Right?

Speaker: 00:43:34

And that's where this flap thing came, came from.

Speaker: 00:43:36

Fear, less anger, pride.

Speaker: 00:43:37

I need to get rid of some of this stuff.

Speaker: 00:43:38

Although we are all dealing with,

Speaker: 00:43:40

with,

Speaker: 00:43:40

you know, two of those at any given moment.

Speaker: 00:43:42

moment.

Speaker: 00:43:43

We just become better.

Speaker: 00:43:44

That's the other thing I feel that I need to say in this podcast that I just

Speaker: 00:43:48

want to come clear, is that, you know, being a Christian is not being perfect.

Speaker: 00:43:54

You know, the difference between a religion and a relationship

Speaker: 00:43:58

is totally different.

Speaker: 00:43:59

Like here, say, oh, you're religious.

Speaker: 00:44:00

I'm not religious at all.

Speaker: 00:44:01

at

Speaker: 00:44:02

I have a relationship with my Heavenly Father.

Speaker: 00:44:05

And that's a relationship that sometimes I'm not very good at chasing him and

Speaker: 00:44:10

listening to the Holy Spirit, you know?

Speaker: 00:44:12

know?

Speaker: 00:44:12

so

Speaker: 00:44:13

so I just wanna be clear that it's just about a relationship and it's

Speaker: 00:44:16

about, doing the best that you can.

Speaker: 00:44:18

that's another cool definition that I have.

Speaker: 00:44:20

excellence.

Speaker: 00:44:21

I.

Speaker: 00:44:21

Excellence is doing the best that you can with the current resources

Speaker: 00:44:25

available to you in this moment.

Speaker: 00:44:29

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:44:30

I like, I like the in this moment and I like the word resources.

Speaker: 00:44:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:44:36

to throw in money or talent or different things like that, but just

Speaker: 00:44:39

resources and I think that allows everyone to sort of relate to it.

Speaker: 00:44:45

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:44:45

thing that you brought up.

Speaker: 00:44:46

The, the US be to be usable.

Speaker: 00:44:51

As you were saying that I was kind of asking, I was

Speaker: 00:44:53

kind of thinking to myself, I

Speaker: 00:44:55

Yeah,

Speaker: 00:44:56

I was with you.

Speaker: 00:44:57

yeah.

Speaker: 00:44:57

to myself, huh, am I usable?

Speaker: 00:44:59

And I realized that over the course of my life.

Speaker: 00:45:03

I am usable, but I attach conditions to it.

Speaker: 00:45:06

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:45:07

attach conditions, especially those of us that are in what we call this

Speaker: 00:45:10

first world, incredibly comfortable.

Speaker: 00:45:13

We're sitting here, I'm in an rv, but still, you know, we're in roof

Speaker: 00:45:17

over our heads, things like that.

Speaker: 00:45:18

I think there is some conditions, but I think it's part of a, a process where

Speaker: 00:45:24

those conditions start to fall away.

Speaker: 00:45:26

Or at least I hope they do.

Speaker: 00:45:28

And you probably have seen that on your journey, I guess too, is that,

Speaker: 00:45:32

you know, we talk about usability at one stage in our life and you know,

Speaker: 00:45:35

you start off early on as a Christian, you go, ah, that probably means I'm

Speaker: 00:45:39

gonna go to Africa, be a missionary.

Speaker: 00:45:41

I'm gonna be living in a hut.

Speaker: 00:45:43

Anyway.

Speaker: 00:45:43

but the usability is for that car that God created that's sitting there for it to be

Speaker: 00:45:50

used in the way that he created to, for that engine to get started and get going.

Speaker: 00:45:53

And, you know, there are Ferraris, there's trucks, there's whatever.

Speaker: 00:45:55

We could go down that analogy, anyway, I I, there's so many

Speaker: 00:46:00

places that we could go here, Dave.

Speaker: 00:46:05

Can I speak to that just for a second?

Speaker: 00:46:06

what you had just brought up, I, I, I, I love the, you know, like you're

Speaker: 00:46:10

in a rv, you know, being usable.

Speaker: 00:46:14

I kind of look at your walk with Christ as almost like a US diplomat.

Speaker: 00:46:19

You know, when you're a diplomat, no matter where your

Speaker: 00:46:22

feet land, you're on US soil.

Speaker: 00:46:26

And so, like, as a Christian, no matter where you're at,

Speaker: 00:46:29

you're an ambassador for Christ.

Speaker: 00:46:32

It doesn't matter what you're doing.

Speaker: 00:46:35

And so, you know, that brings in the integrity, the honesty, the fruits of

Speaker: 00:46:39

the spirit, love, peace, patient self control, no matter where you're at.

Speaker: 00:46:42

You don't have to be in the four walls of a traditional building to be a Christian.

Speaker: 00:46:48

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian.

Speaker: 00:46:52

And so it's where we're at.

Speaker: 00:46:53

It's our involvement every day is how we glorify him.

Speaker: 00:46:57

Right?

Speaker: 00:46:58

Like except for the grace of God, there go I and believing that, that you know, that,

Speaker: 00:47:05

that you're an ambassador for Christ.

Speaker: 00:47:07

You know, there's so much accountability there.

Speaker: 00:47:09

And

Speaker: 00:47:09

And,

Speaker: 00:47:09

when we talk, I love Ephesians six 'cause it's talking about the armor of God.

Speaker: 00:47:13

like, I'm going into battle man, like I'm battle ready.

Speaker: 00:47:17

I'm ready, Lord.

Speaker: 00:47:18

Send it.

Speaker: 00:47:19

and let me see how mentally tough I am as I walk through these

Speaker: 00:47:24

minefields of these peaks and valleys.

Speaker: 00:47:27

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:47:27

Spoken like a true hockey player.

Speaker: 00:47:29

I'm sure you're wanting to suit up and ready, go into battle, and

Speaker: 00:47:32

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:47:33

Hey, hey Dave.

Speaker: 00:47:34

A lot of people, especially people listening in would go, oh man, it would

Speaker: 00:47:37

be so awesome to only work with Christian

Speaker: 00:47:42

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:47:42

businesses within marketing and things like that.

Speaker: 00:47:45

This is the way my mind works.

Speaker: 00:47:47

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:47:47

I know it's not always awesome.

Speaker: 00:47:49

there's some issues with Christian businesses, especially when you start

Speaker: 00:47:53

trying to help them with their messaging

Speaker: 00:47:55

Yes,

Speaker: 00:47:55

getting the word out.

Speaker: 00:47:56

Tell me what some of the cons are some of the issues and challenges with

Speaker: 00:48:01

working with Christian businesses.

Speaker: 00:48:03

Do not throw any of your clients under the bus or

Speaker: 00:48:05

sure.

Speaker: 00:48:06

not gonna do that

Speaker: 00:48:06

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:48:07

what are some things you have to deal with there that may not be so awesome?

Speaker: 00:48:11

Well, first of all, there's never any money

Speaker: 00:48:15

that's a problem.

Speaker: 00:48:17

know.

Speaker: 00:48:18

know, my experience is a lot of Christians want it cheap.

Speaker: 00:48:22

You know, they want it for nothing.

Speaker: 00:48:23

They want free advice.

Speaker: 00:48:24

They want free this, free that.

Speaker: 00:48:26

Like, I've turned away so many clients that's that like, you know,

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know,

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this is one of my favorite words.

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Hey, we wanna partner with you.

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with you.

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And so this partnership has really got me on edge.

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You know, it's like, okay, let me just be clear.

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Are we really partners because partners share and they go back and forth?

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Or is this code for, I want to use your payroll for my vision,

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because

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because that's normally what it is.

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Yeah, I'll give you the idea, but you run with it.

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it.

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And so I've tackled that.

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I can't be more fired up about your vision than you.

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you.

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so I would say, having a budget coming in is usually been rough in my experience.

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I'll also say that there's,

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like

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when we were talking about earlier, you know, this idea that, you know,

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know,

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the guy can stare apart car, you know, there's so many times where like we

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just lean on the Lord and that's it.

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it.

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So the hustle, the come early, the stay late, you know, it's typically not there.

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and so they want things cheap and they want things done, you know, where

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somebody else does the work for them.

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That doesn't work.

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I would also say that breaking the mindset, which I think I've done a

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pretty good job over the years of obligatory religious phraseology.

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it is bad.

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discipleship, hope, grace, these are all words that we really don't understand.

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I'm even sure I understand.

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I just know that the way we're positioning it within the

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Christian community doesn't work.

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We don't know what they are and certainly the audience we're

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trying to attract to doesn't Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So, man, that was also good.

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I'm so glad I asked that question.

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Got me all fired up.

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fired up.

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Yeah.

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No, man.

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Uh, man, that'd be like a whole episode right there.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Um, because it brought me back to a conversation I had in Bible school where,

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uh, I've always been a business guy.

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I was saved in a business setting.

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So I, business is the way my mind is wired.

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I'm not saying that's always good, it's just the way I'm wired.

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And so the whole, I'll call it the religion structure.

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Notice I didn't say the kingdom of God.

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I said the religion structure isn't really my language and my place because of a

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lot of the stuff you just brought up.

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But I remember having a conversation with another business guy at Bible school,

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and there was this great business idea that someone had, and we said, man,

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this would be great for missionaries if they could do it, they could make money.

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They wouldn't have to come back and beg every time they come to the United States.

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And he said, Tim, he goes, I gotta be honest with you, we've talked

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to some missionaries about it.

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And he goes, and they're lazy.

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Yeah.

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They're not willing to work.

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And I went, man.

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I don't like hearing that.

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And that, and that's something that we've had conversations here on the

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show often, and I love the fact that you are functioning and operating in the

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marketplace and you're probably forcing these conversations about mission,

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vision, mental toughness, excellence, all the words that we've been talking

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about somewhere along the way that led to a book, I've got it here, it's on my

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Yeah.

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called Vision Wins.

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Yeah, let's go.

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Seven Strategies for Mental Toughness.

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That's why I said, okay, mental toughness is good in life sports,

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and tell me a little bit about what brought you to, to write this.

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And then I've got some comments and a few questions about the book.

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Just in the, I'm at 30.

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I'm at 40%

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Okay.

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the book

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All right.

Speaker: 00:51:52

I'm in the middle of Elliot and Kelly's story, and this

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Oh, awesome.

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in.

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So, and I've seen the word Zamboni a few times, which for a guy from

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Georgia, I love to be able to say it.

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I'm pretty confident that over 300 plus episodes, it's the first

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time Zamboni has been said on the

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Oh my gosh.

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podcast.

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So tell me about Vision Wins.

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Yeah.

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So years ago, I'm a big fan of John Gordon.

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if you read any of his books, I just love how he writes fables.

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And, I had the opportunity to carry his luggage to a meeting once.

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it was through an FCA event and I was his chaperone, making

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sure he was taken care of.

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I had some time with him and I just asked him, how do you write a book?

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And he told me,

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me,

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and, he told me the process.

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so I sort of said, you know, someday I'm gonna write a book and

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that's exactly how I want to do it.

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So I wanted to be a fable.

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I didn't want to be like the seven strategies for, you know, methyl

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toughness and just seven strategies I wanted tell a story around it.

Speaker: 00:52:46

it.

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So it took me a couple years to build out the characters.

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And I had this, I have this huge mind map of Kelly and Elliot's,

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you know, their genealogy.

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And I just started building out the characters and one of John's, the

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way John writes books is like, he just does his life and he's like,

Speaker: 00:53:03

Ooh, this would be a cool setting.

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And so like he puts that down, this is the setting.

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And so I had been in Edina, Minnesota with my son playing pond

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hockey, and I'm looking around, I'm like, oh my gosh, mini haha.

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Like this would be such a cool street name, you know?

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And so like, and, and you know, the Edina, you know, we're playing, what

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they call it, the ODR Outdoor Rink there.

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And it was like on this pond in the middle.

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It was awesome.

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Like this is my setting.

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So it's, it's an Edina in Minnesota and Kelly and Elliot, you know, they

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go through this venture together of, You know how they're trying to be the

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best version of themselves, you know?

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and so they have a mentor named jj, and JJ walks him through the, the seven, R seven.

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And he happens to be the Zamboni driver.

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Actually, he reminds me a lot like you, Tim, like, corporate guy, kind of

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doing something different, totally out of the blue of, what you would expect.

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so JJ goes to be a Zamboni driver, like no one expect him to do that 'cause he

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is a high paid consultant executive, but he's got this R seven inside of him.

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And so he basically, pulls Colleen Elliot aside and kind of gives them

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parts of the R seven throughout their experience at the hockey rink.

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Yeah, it's, the part that I've gotten to is good storytelling

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I love the, fable parable.

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Yeah.

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I call it fiction with a mission type storytelling.

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That's what I did with the novel that I wrote a few years ago.

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I had some characters in my novel that people would ask me questions.

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They said Is, is Cooper you or is asa you?

Speaker: 00:54:37

And all of that.

Speaker: 00:54:38

And, and not gonna give the answer, but I'm gonna ask you the question.

Speaker: 00:54:44

You've got young male hockey player, you've got Kelly, who's female and

Speaker: 00:54:50

things there, and then you've got jj I'm sitting here as I'm reading it,

Speaker: 00:54:55

trying to guess this person I'm about to interview Dave Wonder which one

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Yeah.

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him.

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So I'll ask you that.

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Which one, which one is more you?

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Yeah.

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So I think,

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you there.

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yeah, so like you and I have the same mind, man.

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Like I definitely wanted each one of those characters in the book to reflect

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somebody or a conglomerate of somebody.

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So I am JJ in the book.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I figured that.

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And so,

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Yeah.

Speaker: 00:55:20

so there, they're moving down a path.

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As I'm reading, it's gonna reveal this.

Speaker: 00:55:25

R seven.

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I am just getting to the beginning, but starts with vision and mission.

Speaker: 00:55:30

We only have a couple minutes here, but give as, as much of an overview as you

Speaker: 00:55:35

can about R seven, in just a, you know, a minute or a few seconds here so that

Speaker: 00:55:41

people can get a glimpse of what they will learn when they get a copy of the book.

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Yeah.

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So, R seven.

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I'll shorten as much as I can.

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I got hit with a prophecy in Germany in 2008, and the prophecy was R

Speaker: 00:55:54

seven and for the next three to five years, Tim, you'll love this.

Speaker: 00:55:58

these mentors showed up in my life and just

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It

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really just mentored me on vision, strategy, brand communication,

Speaker: 00:56:06

praying, and step seven, take action.

Speaker: 00:56:10

and so that's R seven.

Speaker: 00:56:12

Now it's very much fine tuned now over, a 15 year period.

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I've walked hundreds and hundreds of executives and professional

Speaker: 00:56:21

athletes through R seven.

Speaker: 00:56:23

it is, to me it is the foundation of creating a brand.

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I've created brands without messaging.

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It doesn't work.

Speaker: 00:56:30

I've created messaging, you know, just basically building the bridge as you, you

Speaker: 00:56:35

know, walking across the bridge as you're building it, putting the bricks down as

Speaker: 00:56:37

you're walking, you know, kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:56:38

thing.

Speaker: 00:56:39

So this is a high level strategic process to build a brand.

Speaker: 00:56:44

Yeah, that's good.

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Just, but

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Yeah.

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where, I'm sure I know the book's on Amazon, 'cause I actually got

Speaker: 00:56:50

it on Kindle Unlimited, which was

Speaker: 00:56:52

Awesome.

Speaker: 00:56:53

tell people where they could find all your stuff.

Speaker: 00:56:55

We'll include it down in the notes, but, m is good and anything else

Speaker: 00:57:00

that you wanna share, then I've got one more question that's kind of my

Speaker: 00:57:03

exclamation point question for you.

Speaker: 00:57:05

Sure you can find me@sgood.com.

Speaker: 00:57:08

All my R seven blogs.

Speaker: 00:57:10

I've done a probably in the last 15 years, I don't write many blogs, probably

Speaker: 00:57:15

like four a year, so I make sure that they're pretty rigorous and detailed.

Speaker: 00:57:19

So I'm doing a pretty good job with the R seven podcast and writing a

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blog first and putting the podcast up.

Speaker: 00:57:24

So if you wanna consume more, it's, it's at m as good.com.

Speaker: 00:57:29

Very good.

Speaker: 00:57:30

All right, so I, the subtitle of the book is Seven Strategies for Mental Toughness.

Speaker: 00:57:37

So.

Speaker: 00:57:39

Dr. Super Dave, someone's listening in and they're questioning whether or not they've

Speaker: 00:57:49

got the mental toughness that they need.

Speaker: 00:57:53

I'm gonna give you, let the Holy Spirit lead.

Speaker: 00:57:55

Yes.

Speaker: 00:57:56

30 seconds to speak directly to that person that really questioning

Speaker: 00:58:01

their mental toughness and they want to increase it, Encourage them.

Speaker: 00:58:05

Yeah.

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So first of all, I just wanna encourage you for asking yourself this question.

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I think there's a level of mindfulness that maybe you're not

Speaker: 00:58:13

mentally tough, and so now you're thinking about it, which is huge.

Speaker: 00:58:17

know,

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I think in a fixed mindset, you can go, yeah, I'm good.

Speaker: 00:58:21

I don't need to do any of that.

Speaker: 00:58:22

That's where, you know, excellence does not happen.

Speaker: 00:58:25

So just by asking the question, it's powerful to

Speaker: 00:58:28

say, okay, am I mentally tough?

Speaker: 00:58:30

So you're mindful that you're not, which is great.

Speaker: 00:58:33

The next step is, being mentally tough is not about how you were born.

Speaker: 00:58:38

It's not about your genealogy, it is about how you're thinking about the world.

Speaker: 00:58:43

And so the easiest, simplest thing I can say is, and it's the slogan of mental

Speaker: 00:58:49

toughness training, which is plan to win.

Speaker: 00:58:52

So when you're planning to win, right?

Speaker: 00:58:55

if you don't have a plan, you're planning to lose.

Speaker: 00:58:58

So it doesn't mean the plan is stuck for the next five years.

Speaker: 00:59:01

It means that you're thinking about it before it happens.

Speaker: 00:59:04

So when we plan to win, we are mentally, emotionally, physically,

Speaker: 00:59:09

spiritually aware, or planning for what we wanna do next.

Speaker: 00:59:13

When you start writing stuff down and you start thinking about

Speaker: 00:59:16

things, it just speaks to you.

Speaker: 00:59:18

you.

Speaker: 00:59:20

And so that's what I would say.

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Excellent.

Speaker: 00:59:23

So good.

Speaker: 00:59:23

Dave Jones, author of Vision Wins Seven Strategies for Mental

Speaker: 00:59:27

Toughness in Life and Sports.

Speaker: 00:59:30

Get a copy of the book.

Speaker: 00:59:30

Like I said, I'm about 35% through and it's great storytelling.

Speaker: 00:59:34

I'm real curious now what's gonna happen with Kelly and Elliot as they go along

Speaker: 00:59:39

I'll get to hear more Zamboni, Zamboni.

Speaker: 00:59:42

Zamboni.

Speaker: 00:59:42

That's really cool.

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I love to use that word.

Speaker: 00:59:45

thanks Dave.

Speaker: 00:59:46

We appreciate you joining us here.

Speaker: 00:59:47

We're seat go create.

Speaker: 00:59:48

We've got new episodes here every Monday.

Speaker: 00:59:51

stuff just like this, just like this every week that we're bringing

Speaker: 00:59:56

people in are just helping us be the people that we were created to be.

Speaker: 01:00:02

That's what we're all about here.

Speaker: 01:00:04

And so thanks for joining us and we will see everyone next week on Seek Go Create.