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Christian Builders - Adam Lantelme | Sacred Men · Sacred Men

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All right, guys, welcome back to the Sacred Men YouTube channel
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and podcast. This is Pastor Justin D and
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we're doing this new segment where we're kind of interviewing
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builders. You're probably familiar with
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the podcast and familiar with the theme that there's only
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three types of men in the world. There's builders, there's
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consumers, and there's destroyers.
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And we want to be builders. And so today I am interviewing
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my friend Adam Lantel. And Adam, I'm going to let you
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kind of just introduce yourself, introduce yourself to the
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viewers. Cool.
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Like you said, I'm Adam Lantel. I'm a Scorpio, which is, I'm
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just kidding, son of a Navy guy, grew up all over the world and
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been an entrepreneur about 15 years now.
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So my path was probably an untraditional path into
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entrepreneurship. But the thing about it is I
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couldn't ever get a normal job. Like there's no way I could ever
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go back to clocking in or clocking out.
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And so I have to be building something.
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Currently I'm involved with a company that I founded back in
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2022 called Vanish that is a product company that makes
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holsters as well as dry fire training equipment.
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And then I've also got another thing that I'm cooking up
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currently in the new environment that I'm in that I'll have to be
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a little bit tight lipped about on right now until some official
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documents are signed. But I can probably poke around
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the poke around the bear that is this new company that I'm
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building. Cool.
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Yeah, yeah, I feel bad because the the algorithm knows that I
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like your stuff and it just, I'm like, I don't want to watch this
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guy's commercials because I'm just taking money from this guy.
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And so every, every, every social media platform is just
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like. The nice thing is it's it's cost
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per impression. So once you've seen it, it
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doesn't matter if you watch for one second or if you watch the
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entire video, Totally different ball game.
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If you're on Google Shopping or Google Ads or something like
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that where you're like, oh, I'm searching Vanish holster and
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then you click that ad, then it's a cost per click.
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And normally that doesn't cost that much.
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But if you're a lawyer or something like that, it can be
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$30 a click. So totally different.
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When you can consume my videos as much as you want, you don't
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have to worry about costing me more than a fraction of a penny.
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Nice. So what I mean you, you, you
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gave a little bit of your story there.
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You're married. Yep, married two kids. 8:00 and
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4:00 it is awesome. OK, I guess first thing, what
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got you here? What got you in the Quad Cities?
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So I met my wife in Denver. I actually went to the school at
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the University of Utah to be a pro snowboarder.
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So that was my intention at least.
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I quickly discovered that I wasn't resilient enough because
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I had broken enough bones and was just ready to hang up my
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head at 23, and nor was I fearless enough.
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So I ended up being involved in the pro snowboarder scene for
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the entire time that I was there.
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So Salt Lake City, for those who aren't well aware, is a pretty
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godless place to be. And so I had the the history of
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growing up in the church and I pretty much gave up on Christ
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and religion in my mid 20s. And it ended up being the case,
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like that one night crazy party, my friends and I had bought a
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bottle of vodka for his younger brother, who was 17 years old.
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And that night he ended up getting in a car crash and
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killing four people. So anytime you see one of those
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signs at the liquor store, it's like, hey, you're directly
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responsible for anybody who you buy for.
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That kind of freaked me out. Got me back in church.
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And so in Salt Lake, I was like, there's no way I'm actually
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going to find a wife here because they're either Mormon or
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they're the complete opposite. And so I moved to Denver.
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Denver from what, 2012 to 2019? There's where I met my wife.
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We had our first kid there's. A better chance in Denver than
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Salt Lake. Oh yeah, 100%, yeah.
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I mean, maybe less so now because there's so many
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Californians out in Denver. But then it wasn't so bad.
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But we had our first kid, There was some volatility in the
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business, and I was like, what can I do to control my expenses?
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Well, I certainly can't make living here cheaper.
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And we don't have any friends anymore because as soon as
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somebody moved 5 miles away, you never saw them again.
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And so we decided to move to the Quad Cities because my wife was
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from here. Her parents live 4 houses down
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the street from where we're sitting right now.
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And so happens that as we were moving the week before the house
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that I live in, 10 houses or five houses up the street came
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available. They've toured it with their
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iPhones. And I was like, yeah, let's go
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ahead and buy it. So it was more, it was a cost
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benefit analysis. I was like, I'll miss the
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mountains forever. I've been like sitting on this
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because in one sense I feel like Iowa and where we're at is kind
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of like the Shire, and I don't want it to be ran, ran over with
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orcs. It's not going to.
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So yeah, it's not going to because we don't have mountains
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and we don't have beaches. We don't.
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But and it's 10° outside it's. 10° I mean, thank God it keeps
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it because business is pretty good here cost of living is
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pretty great here we're still fairly conservative and fairly
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normal. You can raise a family.
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I mean, it's a pretty great place to live.
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Yeah. You know, and you're 2 1/2 hours
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from crazy town Chicago if you want to go and experience that.
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And you can get on obviously get on a plane and go anywhere.
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So like I haven't pushed this idea of like you should people,
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you know, you should move to Iowa, right?
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Because I almost it's like, do I really want them here?
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I don't want Californians bringing that garbage here, you
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know? Exactly.
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But it is AI mean you're a perfect example.
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It's a good it's a good place to to start a business.
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It's a good place to raise a family.
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It's a good place to find a church.
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Yeah, and the and the truth is like, I wouldn't see myself
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leaving here anytime soon. Like really the thing that
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probably has a seer more than anything is my inlaws just
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because having family around, like I love the idea of my kids
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growing up around their grandparents.
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You know, if they were to pass anytime soon, I don't think I'd
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be leaving. I don't want to uproot them, but
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you know, when they're 20 and I'm empty nester, I might find
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my way down to Florida. I own a house down there and we
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Airbnb and I'm like, yeah, I could live there.
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It's 3 minutes from the beach. And on days like this, I could
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see myself sitting on the beach being like, OK, that was a
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better decision. But you know, that doesn't mean
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that I'm going to abdicate my responsibility to what I need to
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be doing here on earth, which is like we're we're talking about
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building, right? Like I don't want to be the kind
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of person who hits 65 and retires.
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Like I'll never be that person. There's no possible way.
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Yeah, same. I don't, I mean, I, I believe in
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slowing down, but I don't believe in like retiring, you
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know, like, yeah, when I'm 65, I might be working 30 hours a week
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and then golf in 10, something like that, or golf in 10 or 20
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or something. But I, I believe in slowing
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down, but definitely not stopping.
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So what got you from bouncing around, going to school,
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snowboarding, to being a builder entrepreneur?
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How'd you make that transition? Yeah, So the way that it worked
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is when I was in Salt Lake City, I was snowboarding all the time.
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I actually ended up skipping a year of school just to snowboard
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like crazy. And I got a pretty terse letter
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from my grandfather, like, that's the biggest mistake you
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could ever make. Now, I would argue going to
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school without any idea of what you want to do is the bigger
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mistake. But that being said, my dad was
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a subscriber to financial newsletters.
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So people who write based on their past history of investing
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and then telling people, hey, these are good stock picks.
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There was a service that one of these companies offer people
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that was, hey, learn how to write a sales letter like these
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newsletters that you're doing and you can make 6 figures a
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year. So my dad knew that I had a
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sales salesmanship background. You know, I was doing kiosk and
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all that kind of stuff in college just to pay the bills.
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So I learned this thing called copywriting.
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If you're not familiar with that, like you can think of Mad
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Men or you can just think of any ad, not marketing, but an ad
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where it's like, hey, you really want this, go buy it now.
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That's called ad copy. So I pretty much just learned
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how to write those on my own. I've worked with a 200 page book
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and it was like rewrite all these classic letters, 8 to 10 *
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a piece by hand so that you can learn them.
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So I did that and then after a while just kept learning,
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studying all this stuff to become a copywriter.
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So that would have been like, yeah, late 22,008 2009 that I
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was doing that and I kept chipping away at that while I
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was in school, while I was working and while I was
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snowboarding. I was hoping that, yeah, maybe
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I'll work like 4 hours a day and then I can be rich enough to go
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heli boarding, 4 hour workweek. I mean, I was content to write
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3-4 hours a day. That's one thing about
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entrepreneurship. There's no such thing as an 8
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hour day. But yeah, I thought I was going
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to be rich and I was just going to be able to heli board all
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that I wanted and, you know, not have to go across a lift line
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because I was going to be out there hitting pow.
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And that never happened because then I discovered, Oh yeah.
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Like making money usually requires hard work, especially
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if you're kind of targeting that thing.
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So I moved to Denver specifically for two reasons. 1,
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to get out of Salt Lake so I can find a wife.
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And then two, there was a guy out there who was, he claimed
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that he was the world's most preferred direct response
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copywriter. And he probably I was at that
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time, so I went out there to make him my, my mentor.
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He had no idea that I was coming or anything like that.
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And when I get there, I wrote him a letter because I was
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working at Fleming Steakhouse, which is like a Ruth's, Chris
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Morton's, Dole Frisco's kind of steakhouse.
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And I wrote him a three page letter and was like, let me tell
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you why me buying you a steak dinner is going to make you
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millions of dollars. And so he was captivated enough
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to agree to let me take him out to dinner.
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And I did, and we'd, like, hit it off immediately.
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He's a conspiracy theorist. I was one of those.
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Now I'm not because I just don't care.
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And then he basically took me under his wing, more or less.
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It wasn't like a very involved mentorship, but I'd meet with
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him once a week for a year or so.
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And then he started farming me work that he couldn't take any
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longer. And so I became a copywriter,
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which basically meant that I was writing emails for people.
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And so if they had a product that they wanted to sell, I
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would write the e-mail. You know, the unfortunate thing
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about like the path was that a lot of direct response
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copywriting is spammy and scammy.
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So for a number of years, you know, a lot of the work that I
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did, I didn't really believe in it.
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And there was a portion of my journey where I did stuff that
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was absolutely unethical. Can't take it back.
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But I did course correct in around 2021 when I was just
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like, I can't do this anymore. Like, I hate it.
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Like, the fact that I'm making money does not justify the means
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by which we're making the money. So that's what has steered me
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into Vanish and the path there was, it was interesting, like I
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basically had two business partners and they were pre, they
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were business partners from a previous job that I was
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freelancing with them with. And so, you know, we had this
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old business model that I actually dissolved all of my
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relationship with earlier in 2025.
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I was continuing to be paid by the business, though I was no
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longer involved in it. And I was just like, I'm out of
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this. But I digress.
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What happened is we were running into trouble trying to advertise
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on Facebook. And so we got a hold of a
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company called Brave Response Holsters.
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And the idea there was like, hey, I'd already had experience
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as an affiliate with them. I was like, yeah, I could sell
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that. And so we started doing stuff
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online with them and we were ready to purchase the company.
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Problem was the guy A, overvalued the company and then
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B didn't let us know that his entire core of manufacturing,
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which is all based in Utah, like went belly up and he had no
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redundancy in his manufacturing. So we had just done a lot of
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work to build the infrastructure to be able to scale this
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business. And so we're like, oh crap, like
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what are we going to do now? So we managed to limp along for
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a little bit and then we pivoted with our holster, which was a
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modification of his holster. He had patents on it that were
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design patents, which are pretty easy to get around.
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And so we just said, and I wasn't trying to get around it,
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just to get around it was like, well, how can I make this
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product better? And so that's when we created
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the Vantage holster in 2022. And since then it's been us just
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trying to make that thing work. You know, one thing about just
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being about building is it's a really good idea to know the
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materials you're building with and what you plan on building.
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And if you're going to be doing it with partners, doing a lot of
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a lot of under the hood work, which I was too scared to ask
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because I was just like, things are fine.
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Like we'll be OK. Like I don't need to worry about
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those things. Like what do you mean?
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So basically, you know, I'll, I'll try and be diplomatic as
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well as I, I don't know the reach like I don't think this
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will go viral, but I have to be careful with what I say.
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The primary equity holder in our business has done some things to
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benefit him over others. And so that includes a lot of it
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wouldn't be nefarious, just like really clever ways to game the
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system, like moving to Puerto Rico for a couple years so he
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could reduce his tax burden and then creating all these
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different entities so that he can move money around and all
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those kinds of things and really keeping people in the dark.
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So you have to know like who who you're partnering with, Like
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you, you need to know through and through.
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Like this is the kind of thing like you're marrying that
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person, You better believe that if they are going to screw you
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over, it's going to hurt really, really bad.
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And that's basically what happened.
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And where in my life right now I'm pivoting.
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And, you know, like the thing about it is I can I can talk
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about Vanish. You know, we have generated over
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$80 million of sales in the past four years.
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I don't have a lot to show for it, which isn't a problem
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because at the end of the day, like it doesn't matter.
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Like I'm not going to be able to take that stuff with me.
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But it's also just, I mean, it's really, and by not a lot to show
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for it, you know, $80 million, you'd expect it.
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Like I'm a multi millionaire. I'm not, but I've done well
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enough and I'm comfortable and I'm able to fund my new venture
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without any major issues. But you just need to know those
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kinds of things. So was your were your partners?
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Were they Christian? No, no, they weren't they.
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There's a Bible verse about that.
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Yeah, yeah. Don't be unequally yoked.
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Yeah, Yeah. No, it's in.
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Those should have been red flags.
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You know, I had one of them going to a church that I was
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going to like kind of dipping in and out and the other would go
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to church. But like, I noticed like they
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would be home on a Sunday or it wasn't a thing that they really
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cared about. They were just passive
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Christians. You know they they said they
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were Christian, but like you certainly wouldn't see it
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represented in their life by any means.
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Yeah, which is? Common.
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And it's scary too, because if you're a business partner and
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you can't, I mean, this guy might not honor his word.
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This guy might have nefarious practices or he might have, you
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know, questionable character or lack of virtues.
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And you're married to that guy, all right.
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And you know, your name is tied and or the even the name of
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vanish, right, is tied to his behavior and his ethics as much
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as it is is to yours. So it can create all kind of
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problems. So what have you learned?
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I mean, So what else have you learned out of that?
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Like 'cause that's AI mean that's still that's 80 million
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in sales. That's spectacular, right?
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Yeah, that's, that's in the past five years.
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And I think like if I were to go through how much I've generated
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in the past 12 or so, it's 150 a $160 million like for other
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companies as well as like some of the other companies we had
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prior to that. And there was a banner year
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where we had a lot of money that was made unethically.
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So it's like anybody can fly to save money.
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And I'll, I'll own that. Like people who know me in the
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business know what we used to do and I justified it.
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So, you know, and that that kind of stuff rubs off on you.
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And then I think the biggest thing that I learned is like,
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you shouldn't be chasing. You shouldn't be chasing
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success. Like for its own sake, you
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shouldn't be chasing money. And you definitely shouldn't try
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and find your identity in anything else other than Jesus
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Christ. And I know that sounds like
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preaching to the choir, but I mean, up until last year, I
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don't think that my faith was, it was never as solid as it is
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now. And now, like, I have such
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better clarity on what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.
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I remember listening to a Kings Hall podcast years ago and
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they're just, I think it was when they first started and
15:50
they're talking about what they're trying to do here.
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And they were talking about building things that endure.
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And what we were doing is just throwing up a prefab home with
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cheap wood and drywall and it maybe it would last 50 years.
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And what you really want to be doing is building an edifice
16:04
that can last for centuries, if not millennia.
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And so that was the mentality that I had before was let's just
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build this thing and we'll be able to make money along the
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way. I was just chasing making money.
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And now what I've learned is like money and what you're able
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to generate and what you're able to keep even doesn't matter
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because why? How could it?
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It's going to burn. It'll all burn when you die.
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The only thing that matters is your security in Jesus Christ.
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And then accepting and living that out and then like pointing
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it outwards so that other people can see that too.
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Yeah. And that's a good point.
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That's so you can be a obviously you can be a builder and a
16:41
consumer at the same time. Like if you build to consume,
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that's kind of what you're talking about.
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If you're just building something, I mean, Proverbs
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talks a lot about the guy who knows how to get rich quick,
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right? And it's you can make it quick
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and you can spend it quick, but wealth gained a little by little
16:58
over time that that lasts. And the point is you're building
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something that not doesn't just bring in a revenue or doesn't
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just bring in the income, but it provides a service to society.
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And what we've been talking about on the podcast is
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potentially building something that you could pass off.
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Yeah, to your children. Yeah.
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Legacy products would be huge. Like, I don't know if my son's
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going to work in the business. And I bought him his first gun
17:23
when he was seven. My parents were concerned, or at
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least my mom was. And I was like, absolutely.
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I I want to set the stage now to maybe he has an interest.
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But again, like it should be something that endures.
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And I think about this a lot when I look at other businesses.
17:35
We were just talking about it the other day about like health
17:39
food, the kind of stuff you see at fresh time.
17:41
You're like, there's so many different brands that just pop
17:43
up and disappear. Now that's more to the
17:46
marketplace and like how challenging it is, but that's
17:48
how most people's mentalities are.
17:50
Like, there aren't many companies around right now that
17:52
existed 150 years ago. Like, I can't think of too many
17:56
off the top of my head. So that's the kind of business
17:59
that you should be looking to build.
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And one of the other things that I've learned is like, rarely
18:04
does anything good happen fast. The bad things will happen fast.
18:08
So if you're able to approach building with that mentality,
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like you will be able to weather the storms of when bad things
18:16
happen because you realize that, you know, a single direction,
18:20
step after step is how you get to where you want to be.
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There's this quote that I have on my desk.
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It's like 90% of success. Let's just say business success
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is doing the uncommonly simple thing over and over again
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without ever convincing yourself you're smarter than you are.
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And that's just how you build things.
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Like you just have to put 1 foot in step or one foot in front of
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the other. I wish I had done that.
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Like a long time ago. I, I didn't know, like, I
18:48
thought I was doing the right thing.
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And now, now I know. And so I if five years ago I
18:53
could have told myself, hey, this is the thing that you
18:56
should be doing, I would have absolutely done that then
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because I have that that retrospect retrospective view on
19:04
that hind side of that. Yeah, look in the rearview
19:06
mirror. Yeah.
19:07
I mean, it's the it's the adage that weeds grow fast, right?
19:11
Weeds grow fast and oak trees grow really slow and it's pain,
19:16
you know, it's painful to watch an oak tree grow.
19:21
Right. But once it once it gets to a
19:24
certain size and it's then that thing, you know, is one of the
19:27
strongest trees out there and it can weather the storm that
19:29
you're talking about. But that I mean, what you don't
19:34
see is all of the work God is doing, let's say, for that oak
19:39
tree, you know, every hard winter, every hard summer, every
19:43
time that wind blows and it has to strengthen it.
19:46
All of that difficulty is what makes that tree so, so strong.
19:53
You know, And when you look at your story like that, you know,
19:57
you, you, there's only one way to learn this stuff.
20:01
You can't just sit down and read 10 business books and then go do
20:05
it. You've actually got to start
20:07
building and put 1 foot in front of the other and wear that tool
20:09
belt. And you learn the hard way.
20:12
You learn who to go into business with, who not.
20:14
You learn. You learn by making mistakes
20:16
consistently and then just waking up the next day and
20:18
going, OK, I'm not going to do that today.
20:20
Yeah, I think one of the things that I remember reading well
20:23
before I'd even ventured out on my own was this idea that like
20:27
as you level up, like let's just say you level up to level 2,
20:31
what happens next? Well, there's Level 3 and then
20:34
there's level 4. There is no end to the leveling
20:36
up. Like you're never going to just
20:38
reach a mountaintop and stay there.
20:40
There's always valleys. And that's where the best and
20:43
most formative work is done is in the valleys.
20:45
And that's, you know, what's happened in our business over
20:47
the past 20 months, which is some of the stuff I can't really
20:51
speak to, but I'll, I'll just tell you, like if you were me,
20:53
you'd go like, this is absolute bull crap.
20:55
Like I can't believe I'm having to deal with this.
20:57
Like I'm paying for the sins of another, that kind of thing.
20:59
Like it's just, I could sit here and play the victim, but this is
21:03
just my lot in life. And so we've been sitting there
21:06
allowing for this to transform us into who we want to be as
21:11
individuals as well as a company.
21:13
So current company and even the new one that I'm starting, like
21:16
those are the kinds of things that we're like, yeah, this is
21:18
just how it is to build. It doesn't mean that you should
21:21
avoid it either. Because I wouldn't have, God
21:24
wouldn't have been able to do what he's done in my life in the
21:26
past year without all of the difficulty that I had.
21:29
Bar none, 2025 was the most difficult year of my life as an
21:33
adult without the beyond the shadow of a doubt, it sucked
21:38
like so freaking bad. And you know, my videos get seen
21:42
200 million * a year through all of our paid ads.
21:45
We spend $1,000,000 a month just on paid ads.
21:48
So people probably think, wow, it's just going great for them.
21:51
I mean, if that's The thing is like people are always trying to
21:54
compare what it is to be like the person that they see and
21:56
whether that's influencers or whatever, like they don't
21:59
actually know what's going on behind the scenes.
22:01
And it's not the case that things are just going along
22:04
swimmingly and we're fighting like we literally fight for our
22:08
lives every single day. I took myself off of payroll for
22:12
three months, just put myself back on today for 90% less than
22:17
what I made two years ago. So those are the kinds of things
22:20
that like I'm prepared to do because we're here to build.
22:25
I mean, that's I believe that's why God has brought us to this
22:28
earth is not, it's not the only reason, but we know he is a
22:31
creator and he talks about seeking first the Kingdom.
22:35
Well, the Kingdom has to be built and it's going to be
22:37
through the hands of violent men.
22:40
Not necessarily violence of like physical violence hurting other
22:44
people, but like violence of action.
22:45
You have to move. You have to be pushing forward.
22:48
You can't let what happened yesterday dictate what you're
22:50
going to do tomorrow, but it can inform what you do tomorrow, and
22:53
it should so. Nah, there's a there's a lot
22:58
there. Yeah, there's.
23:00
I read this book a long time ago, the guy who wrote Tribes,
23:07
what's that guy's name? I forget now, but this that's up
23:12
there. Seth Godin.
23:13
I see Seth Godin. But this one was called The Dip
23:16
and it talks, it talks about just like growth in life, growth
23:19
in business. You know, it's so hard to get
23:22
going. It's so hard to get that
23:23
momentum. And then, you know, you get this
23:26
little bit of a return, little bit of climb, and then
23:29
inevitably you get the dip. Absolutely.
23:32
And he talks about how it's like absolutely necessary for any
23:36
business to go to decline to, to get that dip.
23:40
And that gives you breathing room.
23:43
You can reflect on what what's happened, what you need to do.
23:47
And then if you make the course corrections, you make the
23:49
changes, you implement in the new strategies, whatever, you
23:52
know, that business will begin to rise again.
23:54
So it's kind of up down. And then if you make course
23:57
correct and everything, it starts going up.
23:59
And he says that is for the most part, like healthy business
24:03
growth. It's going to be it's going to
24:04
be constantly like this. But he just talks about how
24:09
important that Valley season is. And, you know, assessing, OK,
24:14
what went right? You know, what did we do that
24:17
just was awesome that that. And then, OK, what sucked?
24:20
What did, what did we screw up, right?
24:22
What do we need to learn? What new opportunities are out
24:25
there that we need to take advantage of?
24:26
And if you're doing that consistently, you know, your
24:29
meet market bands, all that kind of stuff, that's what it feels
24:31
like. But most of us, you know, we
24:35
think to be a successful entrepreneur, you come up with
24:38
this brilliant idea and then you execute it.
24:42
And it's just. Yeah, up into the right.
24:45
It's just viral, you know, it just, it just blows up.
24:47
And if that happened, that would literally, I mean, look at the
24:51
people that win the lottery. You know, there's something like
24:54
a 90%. Or broke within like five years.
24:57
Because you get this windfall and you're not the type of
25:01
person you don't have the virtue to handle that right?
25:06
And that business success is like that you, those valleys
25:09
help you reflect, help you build character, build virtue, learn
25:15
from the mistakes. So now you can actually carry
25:18
that business into more success. Because tell me what what I want
25:23
to say is every time your business grows, it demands that
25:29
you grow along with it. Yeah.
25:31
You know, how have you experienced that?
25:33
Like, oh, you know, I've got to be different.
25:36
I've got to, I've got to take out more weight.
25:38
I've got to. I've got to grow.
25:40
Yeah, I think that. So our growth has actually been
25:44
non existent. We've been consistently bumping
25:47
along at the same revenues for several years, like five years.
25:52
We had a better year this last year despite actually losing
25:55
money, like we netted out losing a pretty substantial sum.
26:00
So I think that our growth is a little bit different than the up
26:03
and to the right with the dips. But what has happened is like
26:07
we've basically been fixing problems the entire time.
26:10
And those problems are endemic to the, to the company itself,
26:14
how it was formed. And then just like how we
26:16
operate. So you heard about how I used to
26:20
want to do business just to make money.
26:22
I mean, I remember in 2018 we did a, we did a little retreat
26:27
for ourselves where we're going to plan the year and we're going
26:29
to kind of vision cast and all this kind of stuff.
26:31
And if you haven't been to Telluride, it's insane.
26:34
It's probably the most beautiful place in the United States and
26:36
it's incredibly expensive. And I'm just sitting here
26:39
looking at all these houses and like all the land, it's like,
26:42
how do I make $100 million? Because that's what I want to
26:44
do. I want to own one of these
26:46
ranches out here so that I can view the San Juan Mountains.
26:50
That's my why. That's a pretty poor why,
26:53
Because honestly, heaven's going to look a lot better than that.
26:56
But I, I mean, that's what motivated me was just making
26:59
money so that I could have this thing that I wanted, which I
27:02
thought would bring me happiness.
27:04
And the thing that has happened, I mean, just to answer the
27:06
question in a different way, is like, I've just had to change
27:10
because my motivation has been wrong the entire time.
27:13
So I think like if you're building something, every single
27:16
one of us wants to build something like, or maybe not
27:18
everybody, but like if you identify as a builder, you have
27:22
to have AY. And I don't think that why is
27:25
unimportant at all. It's the most important thing
27:27
that you could possibly answer. And it has to be something that
27:30
is immaterial and it has to be oriented straight to Jesus
27:34
Christ because it nothing, nothing else matters.
27:38
I mean, you just have to understand that like you're on
27:41
borrowed time. God gave you this life as a
27:42
gift. You're meant to steward your
27:44
time and you're meant to give him glory before anything else
27:49
and to serve him. And so if you're not aligned
27:51
with those principles, anything that you do in work, even if you
27:54
have worldly success, is going to fail you.
27:58
I I know that was tangential to what you said.
28:00
But but that I mean that it's, it's vital though, because I
28:04
mean, Jesus said this, right? Like you're working for
28:08
something that that's not eternal, right?
28:10
And you're putting money in pockets with holes in it, right?
28:14
You can't take any of it with you.
28:16
So I mean, but it sounds like, I mean, you said, you know, your
28:19
growth is leveled off. So you're in that.
28:21
It seems like you're in that dip right where you're where you're,
28:25
you have, you're evaluating practices, you're seeing
28:27
mistakes, you're changing, you're making decisions for the
28:30
future. Yeah.
28:31
Well, I'll, I'll interrupt. So I think it was 2019 we 2019
28:35
to 2020 we 10X. So we went up 1000%.
28:39
So from like $2,000,000 that year to $20 million the next
28:43
year. So it was just up into the right
28:47
almost parabolic. There was a lot of crappy stuff
28:49
that we did to get there. So I'm not going to say, well,
28:51
we were just killing it because we're so smart and God's hand
28:54
was on us, even though his hand was definitely on, on, on us in
28:58
the way that like he has now brought me to this place.
29:00
So, you know, I, and I've never once backed off and said, I'm
29:03
not going to do this because God isn't fair or anything.
29:07
Like, you know, I could shake my fist at the sky and be like, why
29:09
am I? Why are we suffering all the
29:11
time? But yeah, so it's just been
29:13
like, I guess we would have dipped and then we plateaued and
29:16
then we're on our uptrend right now fixing those problems.
29:19
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's like Seth would
29:25
say every business goes through that.
29:26
Some of them can be months, some of them can be years, some of
29:29
them can be decades. You know, if you think of like
29:31
the automotive industry and things like that, right, that
29:35
have went decades of pretty much flat growth.
29:39
But it's and then you can go out of business.
29:40
Yeah, you definitely can. You definitely can.
29:43
You definitely can. You can go out of business.
29:45
But again, usually that's a failure to either adjust your
29:49
practices, adapt to the market, right, something along those
29:53
lines, or failure to get government, government contracts
29:56
that just take we didn't get bailed out.
29:58
What the heck exactly? So what, what is it like?
30:05
What is that experience been like for you?
30:08
So I just preached this past week on Hebrews chapter 12.
30:13
And the Lord has made us his sons.
30:16
And because we're his sons, he disciplines us.
30:20
He takes us through difficult things and and it's a sign of
30:23
his love to take us through his this process of discipline, even
30:27
though just like any child, discipline in the moment seems
30:30
painful, right? But it yields a peaceful fruit
30:34
of righteousness in the end. What's it been like to to go
30:38
through that process the past few years as a business owner,
30:41
as a father, as a Christian? I mean, it's honestly been
30:45
everything. So what would happen for me
30:49
throughout most of this process is every single morning I would
30:53
wake up and the first thing that I would do is check the sales
30:55
report from the day before. Like how much did we make?
30:59
So I was my identity quickly became, what is that number?
31:02
Is it up? Is it down?
31:04
If it was up, then I may have felt better.
31:07
If it was down, I probably felt worse.
31:10
And you know, I was always just trying to keep that number going
31:14
up because we wanted to keep the business alive truly.
31:17
Like we, we saddled ourselves with some serious problems to
31:21
where we can never just get a nice fresh start.
31:23
It was like turning around an aircraft carrier and like, we're
31:26
still turning it around after a decision that was made almost
31:28
five years ago. So I didn't realize that that
31:32
was what was going on, that my identity was so tied to the
31:35
performance of the business until February of last year
31:39
where we had a really rough 3 days.
31:42
And I remember calling my business partners like, Hey,
31:45
I've got to, I've got to pull out right now.
31:47
I was already set to go to Florida for like a kind of a
31:50
vacation. And I was like, I can't be here
31:52
mentally, like I'm miserable and I need to figure out what is
31:56
going on here. Like what is God trying to teach
31:57
me? Because right now this feels
32:00
like he is executing me like slowly.
32:03
And that was, that was a turning point for me because I realized
32:07
I, I kept going back to Psalm 23 and I was just sit.
32:10
I mean, I, I had it memorized at that point.
32:12
I probably could recall it, but I'm sitting there and thinking
32:16
about a Good Shepherd and who he is and knowing that I'm one of
32:20
those sheep and I'm a lost sheep at that.
32:22
And you know, the the thing about it is a lot of the time
32:24
sheep will wander off. You look at that verse for Jesus
32:27
or that parable where Jesus is talking about the shepherd and
32:29
the sheep leaving the sheep pen. It's like they're just sitting
32:32
there wandering off with the shepherd has never changed.
32:34
He has never taken his eyes off of them.
32:35
They're never out of his reach. He still loves them.
32:38
And so I began to really reflect on his love and what that meant.
32:43
And one of the cool things that happened throughout this time
32:46
was I have a favorite podcast I used to listen to it a lot more
32:49
called Blurry Creatures. So even though I'm a lapse
32:53
conspiracy theorist, I do enjoy a good conspiracy about the
32:56
Nephilim or something. Like that, the dabble in the
32:59
spiritual creatures. But a quick aside, like I quit
33:02
chasing conspiracy theories because I found at the end of
33:04
every single rabbit hole is Jesus anyway.
33:06
So like, why do I care? It's like I know the answer.
33:08
Like I don't need to go down this anymore.
33:10
Oh, it's the Illuminati. It's Jesus Christ is the answer.
33:12
Oh, it's aliens. It's Jesus Christ that's the
33:14
answer. I don't have to worry anymore.
33:16
They're all going to about his feet anyways, yeah.
33:18
Yeah, so they had this guy named John Burke on.
33:20
He's a pastor who teaches down in Austin and he wrote a couple
33:25
books on near death experiences. And so all of his stuff is like,
33:28
hey, I'm not saying these are true, but I'm telling you like a
33:32
lot of the near death experiences that are reported.
33:34
And he's interviewed 1500 people, lined up very closely
33:37
with Scripture. So I'm just going to tell these
33:39
stories and then show you like how they line up with Scripture.
33:42
I thought that was cool. But the most important thing out
33:44
of all of that is like the way that people related to Jesus
33:47
Christ and his overwhelming love for them and the way that
33:49
they're like, they're absolutely struck.
33:51
You know, there's so many people in these books who were not
33:54
Christians who had an experience with Jesus.
33:56
And when they come back, I mean, not all of them, but so many of
33:58
them are like, I have to find who that man was.
34:00
I don't know who he was. And they come to him because of
34:02
his overwhelming love. So I read a bunch of those and I
34:05
was just like, this is this is the only thing I care about is
34:08
the love of Jesus Christ. And I can find that every single
34:10
day without having to chase it because it's readily available
34:13
to me through prayer, through scripture.
34:16
And most importantly, the Holy Spirit resides in me.
34:18
So the discipline was like, Hey, this feels really bad.
34:22
Why does it feel really bad? Well, your identity is in your
34:24
performance, but you shouldn't be because the identity that you
34:27
have is in a son bought like paid for in blood by Jesus
34:31
Christ. That's the extent of the love.
34:34
So now I feel prepared in a way to experience success.
34:38
And I know that we're set up for some really cool stuff.
34:41
Like I'm, I'm wearing a product right now that's going to be
34:43
part of the new company. You can't see it.
34:45
And that's a good, that's a good thing that I'm ready to file 2
34:49
patents on and are it's absolutely going to disrupt the
34:52
industry that it's being put in front of.
34:53
So it's like what I've been prepared for that five years
34:57
ago. No, not at all, not even in the
35:00
lease. And now I'm just and I'm sitting
35:02
here like I haven't made any money for months.
35:05
I'm literally taking off investments and just selling and
35:07
then buying things that I'm like, you have No, you have no
35:11
way to even know if like your company that you own and or a
35:14
partner in is ever going to pay you or if this new venture is
35:17
going to pay you. And I'm like, I don't, I don't
35:18
care because if everything fell apart and I had nothing anyways,
35:23
like I have the only thing that matters and that's the love of
35:25
Christ. And so like, I think that part
35:27
in Hebrews is like the discipline is really painful as
35:30
you go through it. But then on the other side, and
35:32
especially as you mature, you're you can sit there and go as a
35:36
dad, I can then understand what it's like to discipline my child
35:40
because I love him so much. But when I was a kid and my dad
35:43
was disciplining me, I was like, you're a jerk.
35:45
Yeah, yeah. I can't stand you.
35:46
Like why are you doing this? Well, man, that's, that's a lot
35:50
of good stuff there. So I'm thinking I've heard this
35:53
phrase that the father who loves his son hates the alcoholic in
35:59
his son. Do you know what I mean?
36:00
Like the alcoholic is this false identity that's like, that's not
36:04
who you who you are. So the father that loves the son
36:07
hates the alcoholic in his son. So he's wanting to discipline
36:10
the alcoholic out of him. Well, every false identity that
36:14
we cling to is like that alcoholic.
36:17
It's like that false version of our self number one that is
36:21
erratic. It's not solid, it can be
36:24
destroyed. It's not eternal.
36:26
So if your, if your identity is based solely on success, you
36:31
literally wake up every morning looking at a sheet or looking at
36:34
a report saying, am I good today?
36:37
And if it's a high number, Oh, I'm great.
36:39
I'm I'm, I'm kicking butt and taking names.
36:41
And if it's a low number, I suck.
36:43
I've got, you know, and it just, it's just, you die 1000 deaths,
36:47
right? Every single day you wake up and
36:49
you're either crucified or you feel like you're resurrected,
36:52
right? Right.
36:53
It's kind of bipolar. Yeah, it's bipolar, but what God
36:56
does as a good father is he puts that false identity to death.
37:01
He leads you through the valley of the shadow of death until
37:04
that false identity is dead and crucified and resurrected.
37:08
And the whole purpose is because your real self, who you are in
37:13
God, right? That eternal self that's going
37:16
to see the face of God and live in glory with God forever, that
37:19
true self has already been crucified with Christ and has
37:22
already been resurrected, and one day it's going to be
37:24
glorified. So that person can't die in that
37:28
sense. Right.
37:29
And I think that's something that like I've been camping out
37:31
on for nine months now through those Near death Experience
37:35
books was what it's going to be like to be in front of God, the
37:41
creator of the universe. And like I tell my friend, so I
37:44
just hired my best friend who I actually helped lead to Christ
37:47
about a year and a half ago, baptized him when I was down in
37:50
Florida. And so he's been like, I've
37:52
never had somebody like this in my life where it's iron sharpens
37:54
iron. Like he is rapidly consumed with
37:58
the pursuit of Jesus Christ. And so we've been on this
37:59
journey together. And I was just telling him,
38:01
like, dude, I can't wait to die. Like I don't want to leave.
38:04
Like I love my kids, I love my wife, I love what I'm doing.
38:06
But dude, let's get up there. Let's get up to heaven.
38:09
Let's get in front of the throne and just worship for millennia
38:13
and, you know, forever because like there, there is nothing
38:16
better. Like there is nothing here on
38:18
earth that is even going to remotely compare to what we
38:22
experience in heaven. And so that's literally what
38:24
drives me now. It's just that the eternal glory
38:27
that I will get to participate in.
38:29
Yeah, I mean, that's what Paul says.
38:30
To live is Christ and to die is gain.
38:33
Oh, yeah, You know, it's he's like, it's better for me if I
38:36
die, but it's better for you if I stay around here.
38:38
Yeah, and Christ, like he was very familiar with suffering.
38:41
So I think that this is something that a lot of people
38:44
believe about building and the success that they're going to
38:46
attain is that it will alleviate suffering.
38:50
Impossible. And in fact, if you're building
38:53
and you're not suffering in it, then you're doing something
38:56
wrong in my opinion. And I only say that because like
38:59
this is this is the kind of thing with people who have
39:01
vanilla testimonies. You know, I was a drug addict
39:04
personally and I escaped addiction and be became saved.
39:08
And so like people are like, Oh, I wish you had a testimony or I
39:10
had a testimony like that. And I'm like, in a way I get it.
39:13
And they're like, I have this kind of vanilla testimony.
39:16
Well, that's because you haven't tried to.
39:18
How do I say this? Like you haven't invited
39:21
hardship into your life to allow God to do something that you
39:24
see, in my life, my suffering has done this cool thing where
39:28
God showed up, not me. And you think that's cool?
39:31
You in your life with your vanilla testimony, just haven't
39:34
done enough to experience God showing up like that.
39:37
And you just have this. I mean, it's good, it's nice,
39:40
but you want something. You want adventure, you want to
39:43
pursue something that is meaningful.
39:45
And so I think that building something, if there is an
39:48
absence of suffering or hardship, then it you're not
39:51
really building something, you're just kind of plodding
39:53
along. So, and that's what I've seen
39:56
with this discipline. It's like, I've tried all these
39:59
different roads to try and make something work and they didn't
40:02
work out. And now I'm on the path, having
40:05
this new discovery of who I am and what I what awaits me.
40:10
And I'm getting to do this thing that's like.
40:12
Again, more challenging than I've ever done and now it's like
40:15
running a company and starting another one.
40:17
Like I'm literally working 2 jobs right now and have not been
40:21
paid. And so it's just like OK, that's
40:24
suffering but I see where it's all pointed.
40:27
I know where I'm going to be when this all when it's all
40:30
over. And that's the thing that I get
40:32
to hope and it's not that I make $100 million company and you
40:36
know get to sell it for 300 million and take whatever.
40:39
I mean those are possibilities, but I don't care.
40:42
I really don't. Yeah.
40:44
So, you know, part of this podcast is I'm wanting to
40:46
inspire guys to take the risk, get out there and and build
40:52
something, right. And so part of it is like, you
40:56
can do it, go after it, get after it.
40:58
But then the other side of it is it's like no one understands how
41:03
risky it is and how difficult it is, right?
41:06
And. And you can't until you do it.
41:08
You can't until you do it. And what's So what, what you're
41:11
what you're saying there until you take that risk and you get
41:13
out there, you don't really see God show up and do miraculous
41:19
things right until you get out there.
41:23
And where we're at with our company, the fact that we're
41:26
even still in business, the current company is a miracle.
41:29
And I've had some really cool things.
41:30
I've actually been documenting them to like where God is just I
41:34
think that Doug Wilson calls it Narnian snow or or people call
41:37
it Godwinks colloquially, colloquially, whatever that word
41:40
is where I'm just like, he is doing these things just as like,
41:43
Hey, I'm I'm in this with you. Like it seems bleak.
41:46
And I mean it literally when we took me off payroll where like
41:49
December 5th, we might just be done.
41:52
It's like it might just end. So we did all these drastic
41:54
things. And so it's one of those things
41:56
where I'm like, I know he's in this, like I see it everyday.
41:59
The fact that we're in business is a testament to his
42:01
faithfulness, not our own ability.
42:04
Honestly, like the thing because that's The thing is when you're
42:07
working in paid advertising, you almost feel like the advertising
42:11
platforms are your enemy because you would think, oh, they should
42:14
just let us spend more money. And in fact, they actually work
42:17
against you all the time. And we've been experiencing
42:20
increases in efficiency every single day for the past 2 1/2
42:24
months. And we've been striving for for
42:25
years. There's no meaningful like
42:28
explanation whatsoever. But I, I don't know where it's
42:31
coming from. I mean, the products are the
42:33
same, the ads are the same. And we do have a Navy SEAL in
42:36
one ad, so that kind of helps. But I've carried the ads
42:38
forever. I've been in the ads for four
42:39
years. I'm just like, that's not us.
42:43
I mean, we have a great team. We have people who are committed
42:46
to the end, but there's God like, there's the only
42:50
explanation. How many employees do you guys
42:52
have? Yeah, probably like 7 employees,
42:57
tons of contractors. Yeah, because we're all virtual.
43:00
Yeah. I mean, it was 11 employees.
43:02
And then quite a few of them are not coming back because those
43:06
are the decisions we had to make.
43:08
I've had to fire four people this year or late.
43:10
I fired 2 and laid off 2. That's the kind of stuff that
43:14
people don't even, it doesn't even register like how difficult
43:17
it is to do that, especially if you're building this business
43:20
where you feel like family, you feel like care about these
43:22
people and they're just not performing or whatever they're
43:25
doing. And it's incredibly difficult to
43:30
to let somebody go, you know, especially if you are a builder
43:33
because I, you know, you might not be like this, but I'm like
43:36
this way. It's probably arrogance, but I
43:39
think when I look back on my story, I'm like, if some dude
43:43
would have just invested more in me, dude, I would have been so
43:47
much better at a young age. Like I would have done anything
43:49
he said. I would have worked my butt off.
43:51
I just need to invest it in. And the most time it was just me
43:54
trying to, I just had to figure it out on my own.
43:56
So I have this idea of like, yeah, everybody's kind of like
43:58
that. And I could anybody that wants
44:00
to be invested in, I could hire them and I can build them and
44:04
they can become whatever I need them to become.
44:06
And it's it's just not true. I was talking to my wife about
44:10
this the other day. I was like, why is it that some
44:12
people just don't try? They're not motivated.
44:15
And she's just like, well, some people, God made some people to
44:18
work in grocery stores. You won't do it, but they will.
44:22
I thought that was kind of interesting.
44:23
And it's not to say that like working in a grocery store is a
44:25
a bad job. It's, you know, I just remember
44:29
where I came from and like when I was working in grocery stores,
44:31
I was my first job. I was just looking to what could
44:34
I be? And but you can build anywhere.
44:37
So I don't want to be dismissive.
44:38
It's just like those kinds of things, especially if you're the
44:41
CEO or the president of a company and you're like, hey,
44:43
yeah, I can build this person. You can't change the nature of a
44:47
person. You can.
44:49
I don't help. I don't I don't like excuses,
44:52
period. If a person works at a grocery
44:56
store, that's totally fine if I worked at a grocery store, which
44:59
I have in the past. But if, if I worked at a grocery
45:02
store and I was going to be there long term, I would be
45:05
looking at a, I'm like, OK, I'm going to be the manager.
45:07
I'm going to own this branch. I'm going to do like, that's
45:10
where I'm going. I don't care if I'm checking
45:11
people out in five years. I'm moving up the chain here,
45:15
right? And what we're talking about is
45:16
just having ambition. And there's selfish ambition and
45:21
there's godly ambition. And the Bible, he said we should
45:24
have godly ambition. We should strive to be a
45:28
producer to do to do better, to add value to wherever we're at
45:32
and to move up of the chain, right and to become the type of
45:35
people that could run the store or run, you know, the whole area
45:39
or whatever. So it's not about what industry
45:43
you're in specifically. It's just it's like, do you have
45:46
that godly ambition that wants to obviously provide for your
45:49
family, wants to provide, you know, leadership to people, make
45:53
the grocery store a better place, whatever it is, make the
45:56
place better wants to build the Kingdom, give back to the
45:58
Kingdom of God, right. Obviously the more money you
46:00
make, the more money you get to bless to the Kingdom of God and
46:03
and plant churches and build schools and all, all the kind of
46:07
and all that kind of thing. But the guy that just is
46:11
checking out? Just exists.
46:12
And he, he's, you know, it's like, I want to light a fire
46:17
under that guy's butt. And I want to be like, man,
46:19
that's not what you were made for.
46:22
You know, you weren't made for that you.
46:24
And again, you can be digging ditches, but dig ditches and
46:28
want to do it faster than the guy next to you, want to do it
46:30
better than the guy next to you, you know, want to move up in the
46:33
organization. So how has it been at home?
46:43
Like you're a builder out here and you're in the dip and it's
46:47
really difficult. How has it been at home with,
46:51
you know, you got to provide for your family and you got a wife
46:53
and you got kids. What's that been like?
46:57
Challenging and really rewarding.
46:59
Yeah. While this has been the hardest
47:01
year of my life professionally, it's probably been one of the
47:04
most rewarding from a personal standpoint.
47:07
Like because what this is done has forced me to become more
47:12
vulnerable with my wife. Like typically I would just hold
47:15
stuff back about business because I'm like, she can't
47:18
possibly understand. She wouldn't even be interested.
47:20
And then my wife is sitting there telling me that I do want
47:22
to know these kinds of things, you know, and part of you is
47:26
like, well, I don't want to just tell you this and scare the crap
47:28
out of you. So, you know, like, you don't
47:31
need to know like how bad it is. But at the same time, like now I
47:34
also have this assurance that I don't have to worry about
47:37
anything anyways because God is sovereign and He's got this.
47:40
And whatever ends up happening is what He wanted in the 1st
47:43
place. So I can level with her and say,
47:46
this is what we're going through.
47:47
This is how I'm feeling. The other things that, so that's
47:50
been great. Like I've, I've seen so many
47:53
changes in my marriage as a result of what has happened in
47:56
my life related to work. So as I have been honestly
48:00
exposed, that's what's happened is I've been exposed in a way
48:03
that is uncomfortable. Like I am not entirely at fault
48:07
for what has happened, but I can own the fact that, like, I was a
48:10
participant in some of what the business did to get to this
48:13
place. You know, granted, I, I should,
48:16
I don't have to say too much, but like, there's a lot that
48:19
we're working against right now that is not my fault at all.
48:21
It was done in a backroom without my knowledge and came to
48:24
light only after the papers were signed.
48:27
So those are the kinds of things I'm like, I can't do anything
48:29
about that. But I don't have to be a victim.
48:31
Like I still own my perspective and I still have choices to make
48:36
like, and I can, you know, I think that I can rescue this
48:38
company, God willing, and I can definitely do something new with
48:41
a new company. So, but those are the kinds of
48:44
things I'm like, OK, so that's happening in business.
48:47
Where in my personal life am I really blowing it?
48:50
Well, your wife is telling you that for years she has felt like
48:53
you're roommates. And this is coming from somebody
48:56
who's been involved in church and MCS, which is our missional
49:00
communities, you know, like in a Fight Club.
49:02
Like I was just dropping the ball still because one, I was so
49:05
consumed with work, very difficult for me at 5 O clock to
49:08
just check out. Like I'm taking my phone down
49:10
with me. I'm distracted.
49:12
So those are the kinds of things that I'm like those times, they
49:16
just don't get work done. Like I'm not getting work done
49:18
in those times. And if something were to fall
49:21
through in the three hours from 5:00 to 8:00 when I'm just,
49:23
like, off my device, that's what's going to happen.
49:26
I'm not going to sacrifice my home life in the relationships
49:30
that matter more than anything for me to save this company
49:33
because, like, if it ends up failing, I'll go figure
49:36
something else out. Yeah.
49:38
So, you know, planting this church, building this church,
49:44
we've done, we've done the same thing, you know, and those
49:47
moments where you're down and you have difficulty and stress
49:50
and you're why are you taking me through this God?
49:53
What's going on? And and you know, pastors can be
49:57
just the same way. Pastors can build their identity
50:00
on the number of people that come on Sunday.
50:02
And if it's a good week, if it's a bad week, they feel like a
50:06
complete loser, right? And when people leave the
50:09
church, you feel like you feel like you failed, you suck, all
50:11
this kind of stuff. And for me, one of the best
50:14
things, I'd go home and, and for the most part, I'm the same way.
50:17
I don't, I don't want to talk about work.
50:19
I want to talk about family and what everybody's doing.
50:21
I don't want to tell you about this difficult conversation I
50:24
had to have today and rehash the whole thing.
50:27
But a few times my wife's asked, let me in, you know, and I've
50:30
shared it with you. And most of her, she's like,
50:32
she's like, all right, I'm sorry, just that's hard.
50:36
You'll figure it out. And it's like, this woman trusts
50:40
me. OK, This woman trusts me.
50:41
That's great. But it's also peeling away that
50:44
false identity that you think may.
50:47
I mean, it's not like you would ever think this, but somewhere
50:50
in your soul, you're like, you know, she's with me because I'm,
50:53
I'm successful. She's with me because you know,
50:55
I I can buy her this or do this. And then you realize like, no,
50:58
she just freaking loves you. And if this whole thing burned
51:01
down, she'd be there. It'd be the only one probably
51:03
that would be there. And this is more important than
51:08
you know what, what, what you're, what you think you're
51:10
building. Yeah, I mean, I don't want my
51:13
kids to not know their dad because I was trying to get a
51:16
Ferrari like that. Seems pretty silly.
51:19
Yeah, well, I mean, many guys do it and it's a trope, but it's
51:24
it's true. It's very true.
51:27
I'm well aware in Inside of Our Business, that exact trope.
51:31
Yeah, it's sad. And that so my kind of motto is
51:37
I want to be loved most by the people who know me the best,
51:42
right? So my wife, my kids, and then
51:46
out from there my family, my missional community, those who
51:49
know the people on the Internet. I really don't freaking care.
51:53
Oh yeah. You know when you you got?
51:55
I can't even imagine the amount of comments.
51:57
Thousands, thousands of like probably 1000 a day.
52:01
I would say about 1000 a day and when I wear my Earthrunner thong
52:05
sandals people get really mad. Rightly so.
52:10
Like why are you looking at men's feet, dude?
52:12
It's kind of weird. Oh man, so a young guy thinking
52:19
about kicking the tires wanted to be an entrepreneur, wanted to
52:23
do it God's way, wanted to put Christ center and then family
52:28
second. Like what would you say?
52:30
Like what? What are what's a?
52:32
What's a piece of advice that you give them right now?
52:34
I mean, the first thing that I would say is like produce
52:36
something of value that solves problems.
52:39
I think that the reason that our business has worked so well for
52:44
as long as it has, which is what almost 3 1/2 years, three years
52:47
is because our products solves a problem that a lot of people
52:50
have. So, you know, like when I first
52:52
got started in this my, the copywriting stuff, I was
52:56
thinking I'm going to help CrossFit owners.
52:59
So that I should say two things like depending on what success
53:02
is to you. Like, if you really want to make
53:03
a lot of money because you are intently about building the
53:07
Kingdom and you have the, the wherewithal to know that like
53:10
your identity is not what you generate.
53:12
Like go to where the money is in the sense of like, hey, I have,
53:15
I can solve a problem in this industry and it'll pay really
53:18
well. Like if you could have invented
53:21
natural Ozempic, that would have been great, right?
53:24
You'd be a billionaire. Like, not that that would exist,
53:27
but you can go to where the money is and then you can solve
53:29
a problem. But I think it starts with
53:31
solving a problem and then understanding that you can
53:33
produce value. And I think that when people
53:35
build things, a lot of the time they're not thinking about the
53:37
value, they're just thinking about the building, right?
53:40
Like if you build the most beautiful church in the entire
53:43
world and then all of your seats are triangles, like nobody's
53:48
going to use that. You could have this edifice that
53:50
is Immaculate and people are like, wow, that's really cool.
53:52
But it has no utility. It's meaningless.
53:55
So that's the one thing that I would say is like, just start
53:58
with value. And then like, if you really do
54:00
want to make money, and this has been my, my thought around this
54:04
is like I, I remember years ago when I was visiting Denver to
54:07
see if I could or, or was going to end up moving there.
54:10
I have thought like, what if I just flip the tithing model
54:13
personally and I instead of doing 10% and 90%, you keep what
54:17
if I could do 9010 like Rick Warren is.
54:19
Yeah, Rick Warren is famous for that off of his book sales.
54:22
So that's something that I've endeavoured to do.
54:25
And I think that I could absolutely achieve that because,
54:27
you know, let's say you make $10 million a year, you would never
54:30
feel the fact that you gave away $9 million, especially if you
54:33
have the right mindset, which is like the only thing that matters
54:36
is Jesus Christ and knowing him and loving him.
54:39
And then like taking care of those around you, like who can't
54:41
live off $1,000,000 a year. And I'm not even like, in that
54:44
case, you could probably afford to give 95% away.
54:46
But those are the two things that I would say you.
54:49
Live in Iowa? Not if you live in Denver.
54:50
Right. Yeah, dude.
54:51
Gosh, that's so crazy. Alex yeah, no, JC Penney did the
54:54
same thing. By the end of in JC Penney's
54:57
career, he was giving away 90%, living on 10% and he was a
55:01
Christian. Yeah, so, and that's just the
55:03
that's the mindset. Like I think that a lot of
55:06
people look at companies or industry and capitalism and
55:09
they're like, oh, it's terrible. Like all it is is about making
55:12
money. I think that people who are
55:14
oriented towards Kingdom building should be the ones that
55:17
are controlling the levers of power as it relates to bringing
55:20
in money and then distributing it.
55:22
Like what would happen if Eli Lilly was a Christian company?
55:25
Or what would happen if Walmart, what if they were actually
55:28
Christians? They make so much money.
55:30
What if they were directing it in ways that were building the
55:32
Kingdom? I mean, honestly, I remember
55:35
thinking this is like if people like if all the companies that
55:38
if everybody lived according to Christ's teachings, granted they
55:41
would continue to sin, but like, let's say most of them got it
55:44
right some of the time. This world will be totally
55:46
different. It'd be completely different.
55:48
Yeah. Well, there's some that say
55:51
capitalism is based on loving your neighbor like yourself.
55:54
So basically what you're doing is he has a need, I will meet
55:59
that need for him, He will pay me.
56:01
Right. Right.
56:01
And doing this in every relationship we've got.
56:04
I'm gonna be a deck builder. I'm gonna be whatever, I'm
56:07
providing a good service, you're gonna pay me for it.
56:09
And it's fascinating, like, have you ever been to Bentonville,
56:12
AR? No, but I know that I need to go
56:14
because Onyx Coffee's there. Yeah, yeah.
56:16
Onyx is amazing. I've been, I've been many times.
56:19
I used to have a subscription to Onyx.
56:21
Love them. So good.
56:22
Did they do it with the scale? Yeah, they do everything.
56:24
Dude, so it's like, doesn't that scale know?
56:26
Like you weigh your bag and it's like, oh, you're almost out and
56:28
they ship you a new bag. That's.
56:30
It's unbelievable. So but I bring it up because
56:34
even though Walmart isn't a Christian company, Bentonville,
56:38
which is the home of Walmart, where Walmart was founded,
56:41
Bentonville is unbelievable. It's in Arkansas and it's, I
56:48
mean, they've so Walmart or Sam Walton, I might, I'm not going
56:54
to tell my head here, but basically his granddaughter was
56:56
into art. So he he put $100 million Art
57:01
Museum in Bentonville, AR, and his grandson was in the mountain
57:06
biking. I heard this so.
57:08
We put $100 million into mountain biking trails.
57:11
It's literally the mountain biking Mecca of the United
57:15
States, $100 million. That's the whole community
57:17
bringing people from all across the nation.
57:20
Insane trails. I mean, they've got, so this is
57:23
bringing people in there. Then they've got Onyx Coffee.
57:26
The whole downtown area, really cool shops.
57:29
The Walmart downtown feels like a hipster.
57:33
You know, Whole Foods or something.
57:34
It's like a neighborhood, the the buildings or the homes, like
57:38
old slab houses they've torn down.
57:40
They're they're building mansions right downtown, Like
57:42
it's the whole area has been renovated.
57:45
And it's what if you did that with Christ at the center?
57:51
You know, you'd have a big old beautiful church down there,
57:54
right? And you're building a Christian
57:55
community around that. I mean, that's the kind of stuff
57:57
that can happen, right? Right.
57:59
Yeah, and I mean, that's why, and it's why we should be trying
58:03
to help people see the importance of Jesus Christ in
58:07
their life. Because honestly, like, the
58:08
crazy thing is, just in my own life, especially this past year,
58:12
I've found myself wanting material things way less.
58:16
And I often wonder, like, how am I ever going to stop wanting
58:20
things? Because as I made more money, I
58:22
was like, oh, cool, I can get more stuff.
58:24
Like, and then you get more stuff.
58:25
I've actually even got to the point like, I don't even want
58:27
more things. I don't have to deal with the
58:28
cardboard boxes and breaking them down.
58:29
Like this is my life now. And so I I've just been freed of
58:34
first. World problems there.
58:35
Yeah, seriously. Of course, your wife will just
58:37
throw them into the garage. I I never get tired of getting
58:39
books, even if even though I got all this cardboard, I never get
58:42
tired of get getting new books. I never get tired of getting a
58:45
utility knife out and cutting down a cardboard box.
58:47
So simple pleasures. But I was just thinking like how
58:50
am I ever going to get rid of wanting things?
58:52
And as I've transformed and just found value in where who's who's
58:58
I am and like not what I achieve.
58:59
Like, I don't even want things. So I forget where we got.
59:02
Oh, yeah. If people just had that at the
59:04
center, they would want less as it relates to consuming things.
59:09
And then they would want to be able to use the income they're
59:11
generating to build things instead.
59:13
And likewise, if other people were like that, they'd be the
59:16
same way. Like if all of us, I mean, it's
59:17
basically what communism hopes to be where you're just like,
59:21
hey, we're going to share everything.
59:23
Of course, like the state gets in there and messes things up.
59:25
But if people were like the early church where they're just
59:27
like, hey, you don't have a coat.
59:28
I do. Here's your coat.
59:30
You just won't even have an attachment to money any longer
59:32
because it wouldn't matter. Like it would not have value the
59:36
way that it does right now. The way that people chase it in
59:39
so many instances when they're building companies.
59:41
And I think if you're going to build anything is that's a
59:45
company like you should be able to keep that perspective in
59:47
mind. Like more is not better when it
59:50
relates to money that you're trying to keep for yourself.
59:53
It's definitely better if more of it's going out.
59:56
It should just be transactional, where it moves through your
59:58
hands and into something that is built for the purpose of
1:00:02
glorifying God. Well, that's a good point
1:00:04
because, you know, in God's Word, he says that we're
1:00:07
stewards, that everything he gives to us as stewards and
1:00:13
we're not just to where it's actually condemned.
1:00:17
When he gives a person, you know, some money and they just
1:00:21
spend it on themself and they don't, they either go bury it
1:00:24
or, you know, they use it on themself and they're not they
1:00:27
don't, they're not asking the question, what does God want me
1:00:30
to do with this business? What does God want me to do with
1:00:33
this income? You know, it doesn't mean just
1:00:36
because you get more money that you upgrade the house, you
1:00:38
upgrade the car, you, you go on a more fancy vacation.
1:00:41
Now, sometimes that's that's great, but sometimes it is.
1:00:45
You know what, actually, I know you're comfortable right now,
1:00:47
but you actually need to start another business or you know
1:00:49
what, you need to invest in the Kingdom of God and pay off
1:00:53
somebody's building or buy a school or like we need, you
1:00:57
know, the Kingdom needs that outpost.
1:01:00
Because I've been thinking it's getting so difficult for
1:01:06
churches to buy buildings anymore because all the old
1:01:10
neighborhoods, you would buy a piece of land and you'd build a
1:01:14
church and then the neighborhood would build up around it.
1:01:17
And now most of the time you don't have a church within 15
1:01:22
minutes of where all the new buildings going on, right?
1:01:25
Nobody's even thinking about that.
1:01:26
So we're all of the growth is happening and the neighborhoods
1:01:30
are expanding. You're 1520 minutes away from
1:01:33
the from the closest. Church.
1:01:35
Yeah, I think the church that moved out of this building is
1:01:37
the only one in our town in that area like other than like old,
1:01:41
old churches and then still like 10 minutes away.
1:01:44
Yeah. And they, you know, were gifted
1:01:46
that land by some entrepreneur, some, and I think it was like
1:01:50
2025 years ago, maybe even more than that, they were gifted that
1:01:53
land. Yeah, when it was worth probably
1:01:55
not a lot of money. Not what it is now.
1:01:58
Not what it is now. Yeah.
1:02:00
So, man. Well, I appreciate you coming on
1:02:05
and sharing your story. Yeah.
1:02:07
And if you guys want to look up Vanish and you can't drop the
1:02:10
name of your new business yet. No, I can't do it.
1:02:12
OK? Can't even tell you what
1:02:14
industry it's in. OK well you can probably guess
1:02:16
cuz my dream of retirement is just doing what I'm doing and
1:02:20
being able to shoot my guns more.
1:02:21
Yeah. Yeah.
1:02:22
Well, we'll have to have you back on Adam.
1:02:25
Appreciate you. Yeah.
1:02:26
Thank you, Justin. For going on guys, drop any
1:02:29
comments down below. You can make fun of his shirt.
1:02:31
You can, you know, ask him a question.
1:02:34
We'll get back. We can answer that question.
1:02:37
We appreciate you guys watching the videos.
1:02:40
Give us a like subscribe. We don't have $1,000,000 a month
1:02:44
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1:02:48
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1:02:51
So thank you guys for that and we will talk to you again next
1:02:54
week. God bless and go act like men.