Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / Always Train for Something: Faith, Agency, and the Chemistry of Hope

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Always Train for Something: Faith, Agency, and the Chemistry of Hope · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, Faithful, Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
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Speaker 1: my dad, coach Alex van Houten, will help you honor
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Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
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Speaker 1: given you. Today you can expect truth from the Bible,
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Speaker 1: tools from science, and guidance for everyday life. So listen closing,
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Speaker 1: Get ready, Let's get one percent better today.
0:24
Speaker 2: Hey there, Coach Alex. Here, grace and peace to you.
0:28
Speaker 2: Last week I mentioned that I do business with a
0:30
Speaker 2: company called Everyday Spy, and that work has given me
0:33
Speaker 2: some powerful opportunities to brush shoulders with and speak into
0:37
Speaker 2: the secular world and unique ways. Well, you're going to
0:41
Speaker 2: love this. In today's conversation, an EXCIA agent and the
0:46
Speaker 2: CEO of Everyday Spies, Andrew Bustamante, spent some time interviewing
0:51
Speaker 2: me on his show, and this one was special. Not
0:54
Speaker 2: just because Andrew's sharp, challenging, and always willing to take
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Speaker 2: an idea deeper than expected, but because this episode circles
1:02
Speaker 2: around something that I care about deeply. What are you
1:07
Speaker 2: training for not just in the gym, in your marriage,
1:11
Speaker 2: in your faith, in your work, in your suffering, and
1:16
Speaker 2: in the places where life has asked more of you
1:18
Speaker 2: than you thought you had to give. Andrew and I
1:21
Speaker 2: talked about faith in a way that I think matters
1:24
Speaker 2: to all of us. Faith is not just believing something's true.
1:27
Speaker 2: Faith is acting today because you believe God can use
1:31
Speaker 2: it tomorrow. It's showing up before the results are obvious.
1:36
Speaker 2: It's taking the walk before your mind feels clear. It's
1:39
Speaker 2: lifting the weight before you feel strong. It's telling the
1:42
Speaker 2: truth before you know how everything's going to turn out.
1:46
Speaker 2: And that's what I want you listening for in this conversation,
1:49
Speaker 2: because I know this, there's likely somewhere in your life
1:53
Speaker 2: right now that you've been tempted to stop trying. Maybe
1:57
Speaker 2: it's because you tried before and it didn't work. Maybe
2:00
Speaker 2: you started and quit. Maybe you hope for a change
2:02
Speaker 2: but you got tired of being disappointed. But I'm here
2:05
Speaker 2: to tell you are not done and today still matters.
2:10
Speaker 2: So as you listen, I want you to ask yourself
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Speaker 2: what am I training for right now, because if you
2:16
Speaker 2: don't know what you're training for, it gets really easy
2:19
Speaker 2: to drift. Before we jump in, I also want to
2:21
Speaker 2: say thank you. A listener recently left a review that said, hey,
2:25
Speaker 2: really great conversation. Lots to think about. Thank you. That
2:29
Speaker 2: really means a lot to me. Truly, when you leave
2:32
Speaker 2: a review, it helps us show reach more people, but
2:36
Speaker 2: it also shows me that these conversations are landing somewhere real.
2:41
Speaker 2: When we're engaged in what God's called us to, the
2:44
Speaker 2: enemy likes to get in our heads sometimes and tell
2:46
Speaker 2: us what we're up to doesn't really matter. I know
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Speaker 2: he's like that, but I'm not immune to him. So
2:53
Speaker 2: if this podcast has encouraged you in any way, challenged you,
2:57
Speaker 2: or helped you to take a faithful step forward, take
3:00
Speaker 2: a moment and leave a review. Reading your words of encouragement,
3:04
Speaker 2: especially in this season, would strengthen my shield of faith
3:07
Speaker 2: against those slings and arrows as they come. I appreciate it.
3:11
Speaker 2: And finally, this doesn't happen often, but right now I
3:15
Speaker 2: have an opening in my coaching calendar for a new client.
3:18
Speaker 2: So if you're listening to the sound of my voice
3:20
Speaker 2: and you know it's time to make a change, you're
3:23
Speaker 2: tired of drifting, and you're ready to get serious about
3:26
Speaker 2: stewarding your body, your habits, and your health with purpose,
3:30
Speaker 2: then I want you to pause this show and reach
3:32
Speaker 2: out to me directly at coach Alex at Faithfulfitness dot
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Speaker 2: Co and just tell me your story. I'm actively praying
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Speaker 2: right now for God to show me who that next
3:44
Speaker 2: client needs to be, So reach out at coach Alex
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Speaker 2: at Faithfulfitness dot Co. All right, without further ado, let's
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Speaker 2: listen into my conversation with the CEO of Everyday Spy,
3:57
Speaker 2: Andrew Bustamante. I've tried things before and they didn't work.
4:01
Speaker 2: Therefore I'm going to stop trying things.
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Speaker 3: So this is what we would call fatalism or defeatism.
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Speaker 4: In our terminology the agency.
4:09
Speaker 2: We get the most satisfaction not when we achieve something,
4:12
Speaker 2: but when we are pursuing something.
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Speaker 3: So when you talk about training and always having something
4:17
Speaker 3: that you're training for, in many ways, what you're saying
4:19
Speaker 3: is you want people to have faith that the training
4:23
Speaker 3: that they are in now will benefit them in achieving
4:26
Speaker 3: not only the goal that they're training for, but in
4:29
Speaker 3: achieving other benefits as well.
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Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And what I love about health and
4:33
Speaker 2: fitness specifically.
4:34
Speaker 3: Is you have this thing that you teach me, Alex,
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Speaker 3: where I should always be training for something. I should
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Speaker 3: never let myself just be just exercise, always be training
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Speaker 3: for something, Why do you teach me that?
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Speaker 2: So there's this thing in our brains that we get
5:00
Speaker 2: we get the most satisfaction not when we achieve something,
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Speaker 2: but when we are pursuing something. And so when it
5:06
Speaker 2: comes to our training together, one of the things that
5:09
Speaker 2: I really want for you is one for you to
5:11
Speaker 2: enjoy it and nowhere it's headed, but two, so that
5:14
Speaker 2: in your life, when you're doing all these things that
5:16
Speaker 2: you're super interested in, that your training is a compliment
5:21
Speaker 2: to the thing that you're training for. We can keep
5:23
Speaker 2: you in good health, we can keep you in good
5:26
Speaker 2: fitness levels and growing muscle as a man over forty like,
5:30
Speaker 2: we can do those things, but at the end of
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Speaker 2: the day, you don't want to wake up when we
5:33
Speaker 2: want to go like why am I doing this? What's
5:36
Speaker 2: the point? And you can generate some points, but it's
5:38
Speaker 2: really helpful to have something on the calendar that really
5:41
Speaker 2: puts all those things into perspective.
5:43
Speaker 3: Cia knows very well exactly what you're talking about. The
5:46
Speaker 3: whole idea that the pursuit of a goal is chemically
5:51
Speaker 3: more rewarding than achieving the goal. Right, So if you
5:54
Speaker 3: think about it in very basic terms, when you achieve
5:57
Speaker 3: a goal, you have that feeling of success. You get
5:59
Speaker 3: a dopamine and you get it once. But when you
6:03
Speaker 3: are pursuing a goal, you have all these checks, these
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Speaker 3: status checks internally and externally along the way. And every
6:10
Speaker 3: time you do something good you get a dopamine hit,
6:14
Speaker 3: but every time you do something wrong you get a
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Speaker 3: cortisol hit. So that's exponentially more chemical dynamics in your
6:23
Speaker 3: body than simply achieving the goal. This is very much
6:27
Speaker 3: the thing that happens in manipulative relationships. It's what happens
6:30
Speaker 3: in abusive relationships. It's what happens when a boss is
6:35
Speaker 3: absent mindedly ignoring or marginalizing an employee. Right, all that
6:39
Speaker 3: stress that you feel in a job or in pursuit
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Speaker 3: of some aspiration, every time you get you don't get closer,
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Speaker 3: you have a chemical response. Every time you do get closer,
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Speaker 3: you get a good review, you get a paycheck, bonus,
6:51
Speaker 3: you get something, you get a raise, you get an
6:53
Speaker 3: ada boy, all of those you get a chemical response.
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Speaker 3: So there's constantly this cycle of chemical feedback that varies
7:00
Speaker 3: your baseline. And as a human biological creature, we like
7:06
Speaker 3: that feeling. It adds a dynamic element to what we
7:09
Speaker 3: are experiencing. So that makes it very easy to manipulate people,
7:14
Speaker 3: particularly people who are prone to large chemical changes in
7:18
Speaker 3: their cortisol yes, or in their dopamine. What is it
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Speaker 3: that you have seen when it comes to people who
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Speaker 3: attempt and don't achieve.
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Speaker 2: It's well, so it becomes this self fulfilling belief that
7:34
Speaker 2: I can't. Right. So imagine you start an exercise programmer,
7:38
Speaker 2: maybe you start dieting. Dieting, you try to make some
7:42
Speaker 2: changes to your nutrition, and so you stay with that
7:46
Speaker 2: for a period of time, but not long enough to
7:49
Speaker 2: see the positive come out of it, right, not long
7:52
Speaker 2: enough if you don't have something on the calendar to
7:54
Speaker 2: train for. For instance, why am I eating eggs every day?
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Speaker 2: You know, like if if you can say I'm training
8:01
Speaker 2: for a half iron man, I've got to get all
8:02
Speaker 2: the nutrients I need in my body right now so
8:04
Speaker 2: that I can keep my muscle mass, i can keep
8:07
Speaker 2: all the kaline go into my brain that my body's
8:09
Speaker 2: building your transmitters out of I've got all that on lock.
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Speaker 2: I'm gonna eat eggs every day. But if you don't
8:14
Speaker 2: have that, then it's very easy to be like, why
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Speaker 2: am I even doing this? And so when you stop,
8:18
Speaker 2: what's crazy is now you have this belief and it's twofold,
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Speaker 2: it's fair and nefarious. The first belief is I can't
8:28
Speaker 2: you could say I'm a quitter. You can start to
8:30
Speaker 2: identify that I'm a quitter. It's not a good thing,
8:33
Speaker 2: especially with regard to your personal health and fitness, which
8:35
Speaker 2: you're stuck with for the rest of your life. By
8:37
Speaker 2: the way, you don't get to quit it that. The second,
8:40
Speaker 2: but even more deep and nefarious idea is that I've
8:44
Speaker 2: tried things before and they didn't work. Therefore I'm going
8:47
Speaker 2: to stop trying things because they didn't work. And so
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Speaker 2: it becomes this very vicious cycle for people that the
8:56
Speaker 2: further they go down that hole of trying things that
9:00
Speaker 2: don't work for them either not sticking with it or
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Speaker 2: otherwise that they lose hope.
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Speaker 3: So this is what we would call fatalism or defeatism
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Speaker 3: in our terminology at the agency, right, and it's exactly
9:13
Speaker 3: what you're laying out there. When somebody attempts and perpetually fails,
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Speaker 3: the only chemical reward they get is cortisol It only
9:21
Speaker 3: gets stressed. So everybody who hates their job, which is
9:23
Speaker 3: eighty percent of the population, everybody who might hate exercise,
9:27
Speaker 3: everybody who's out there struggling with something. When they never
9:30
Speaker 3: get the dopamine hit of success and they only get
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Speaker 3: the cortisol hit of stress, it leads them down a
9:36
Speaker 3: path where psychologically they no longer want to do the
9:40
Speaker 3: activity that only causes them stress. It's a survival mechanisms, yes,
9:44
Speaker 3: and then it has this effect of when you are choosing,
9:49
Speaker 3: which is prefrontal cortex, when you choose not to even try,
9:54
Speaker 3: then you trigger a whole separate set of thoughts, and
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Speaker 3: that's what leads that fatalism and that defeatism. Two days ago,
10:00
Speaker 3: I was at an event in Tampa and I was
10:02
Speaker 3: speaking to a group of ultra high net worth men.
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Speaker 3: There are about forty men in the room. Minimum net
10:07
Speaker 3: worth for any single man was ten million dollars, right,
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Speaker 3: So it's a room of high net worth, high performing,
10:14
Speaker 3: high achieving men. After the presentation, one of the men
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Speaker 3: pulled me aside and he was like, hey, I am
10:21
Speaker 3: optimistically scared of the current administration. And I was like, oh,
10:28
Speaker 3: that's interesting. And he's talking about the twenty twenty four
10:31
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four election where Donald Trump was elected
10:33
Speaker 3: for a second time. But I loved his phrase, I
10:36
Speaker 3: am optimistically scared. And I was like, how is that
10:42
Speaker 3: different from what if the other guy would have won?
10:44
Speaker 3: And he was like, oh, I was just scared the
10:47
Speaker 3: other guy one. So I laughed. I chuckled, and I
10:51
Speaker 3: was like, Oh, that's interesting. You got the optimistically scared
10:53
Speaker 3: shitless versus the just scared shitless. But that optimistic that
10:58
Speaker 3: that little tag means the world. Yes, because now he
11:03
Speaker 3: is trusting in something that he can't define, he can't describe,
11:10
Speaker 3: and he wants to see what will happen. In many ways,
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Speaker 3: I feel like this aligns with the way you define faith.
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Speaker 3: Can you talk about how you define faith, how you
11:19
Speaker 3: see faith?
11:20
Speaker 4: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: So faith Paul said in his letters in the New Testamony,
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Speaker 2: he said faith is the substance of things hoped for
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Speaker 2: and the evidence of things not seen. As a substance,
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Speaker 2: a substance of things hoped for, are things hoped for
11:35
Speaker 2: and the evidence of things not seen? In other words,
11:37
Speaker 2: I don't know where this is going, but whatever that is,
11:43
Speaker 2: it's faith that thing, and I describe it in exercise
11:47
Speaker 2: terms a lot because that definition of faith for me
11:50
Speaker 2: is really hard. It's hard for me to sink my
11:52
Speaker 2: teeth into it. Sounds like good poetry, but like, outside
11:55
Speaker 2: of that, I'm not really sure what that means for
11:56
Speaker 2: me practically. But let's say, let's say I believe that
12:02
Speaker 2: if I lift weights today, good things are going to
12:06
Speaker 2: happen for me. And I don't mean that esoterically. I
12:09
Speaker 2: mean my joints are going to be in a better place.
12:11
Speaker 2: Metabolically speaking, I'm going to be better off. Hopefully I'll
12:13
Speaker 2: get some muscle tone, maybe I'll get stronger, right, maybe
12:16
Speaker 2: I'll feel good at the end of my workout, even
12:18
Speaker 2: if I started it feeling like garbage. Right, So I
12:20
Speaker 2: go do that thing. That's faith. Faith is the is
12:25
Speaker 2: the belief this could go really well, but not just
12:28
Speaker 2: sitting around because of it. It's that I can take steps.
12:32
Speaker 2: It's an action oriented word, not just a belief word.
12:38
Speaker 3: So faith is in the world that you come from,
12:41
Speaker 3: in the world of exercise. Faith is when somebody does
12:44
Speaker 3: the work today without knowing for sure that the work
12:50
Speaker 3: is going to provide the results they expect tomorrow.
12:53
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, yep.
12:54
Speaker 3: But there is the confidence that it will do something tomorrow.
12:58
Speaker 3: So when you talk about training always having something that
13:00
Speaker 3: you're training for. In many ways, what you're saying is
13:04
Speaker 3: you want people to have faith that the training that
13:07
Speaker 3: they are in now will benefit them in achieving not
13:11
Speaker 3: only the goal that they're training for, but in achieving
13:14
Speaker 3: other benefits as well.
13:15
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and to walk it out. So we
13:18
Speaker 2: started this bit about being hopeless or getting a lot
13:23
Speaker 2: of cortis on your system and that being what was
13:26
Speaker 2: the word you used to fetist or fatalistatist or fatalistic right,
13:29
Speaker 2: So super interesting. Recent science shows that when we exercise,
13:33
Speaker 2: when our muscles contract, we actually have these things called
13:36
Speaker 2: mylekinds that are released from the muscle tissue and talk
13:39
Speaker 2: to the brain. And one of those milekinds is called
13:42
Speaker 2: irisin there won't be a quiz later after this, But
13:45
Speaker 2: the researchers who found this biochemical that the bodies releasing
13:51
Speaker 2: from muscle contraction and talking to the brain, they called
13:55
Speaker 2: it the hope molecule, and the reason for that is
13:58
Speaker 2: because it seemed to elevate mood, like actually made you
14:03
Speaker 2: more hopeful by the end of the workout, which is
14:05
Speaker 2: really interesting. But the researchers who are looking at it
14:07
Speaker 2: were also studying Alzheimer's disease, and Alzheimer's disease is a
14:11
Speaker 2: segment of dimensions. It's just brutal. You get these amyloid
14:13
Speaker 2: plaques in your brain. It recks your ability to remember
14:17
Speaker 2: things like you can recognize loved ones. Right, it's a
14:20
Speaker 2: very hope less disease. Right. But they found that erisin,
14:26
Speaker 2: a mild kind released from muscle tissue when you exercise,
14:31
Speaker 2: erisin actually reduces the neuroinflammation that creates these amyloid plaques.
14:36
Speaker 2: In other words, a hopeful thing, something that actually can
14:41
Speaker 2: combat the disease. That's very hope less. And so for me,
14:46
Speaker 2: these ideas are very very tied together. It's not just
14:48
Speaker 2: the hope that you're doing something on the calendar. It's
14:52
Speaker 2: that when you do something today that it's good for you.
14:55
Speaker 2: It actually does, at a biochemical level, make you feel
14:59
Speaker 2: more hope while executing some very positive things in your body.
15:03
Speaker 3: So it's interesting to me because one of the experiences
15:07
Speaker 3: that I had at CIA is that when you are
15:09
Speaker 3: trying to cultivate a target, and if you're talking in
15:13
Speaker 3: buiness terms, if you're trying to cultivate a sale, if
15:16
Speaker 3: you're trying to cultivate a business partner. If you're trying
15:18
Speaker 3: to cultivate an investor, one of the things that's important
15:21
Speaker 3: is keeping them in a cycle of hope, but never
15:25
Speaker 3: giving them a cycle of completion. And it takes me
15:29
Speaker 3: to the story I had with this musician in the
15:32
Speaker 3: Pacific Northwest that I knew once, and.
15:36
Speaker 4: He was always talking.
15:39
Speaker 3: About how he was going to be a musician, but
15:41
Speaker 3: in reality, all he ever did was, you know, be
15:44
Speaker 3: a barista and be in a restaurant and do these
15:47
Speaker 3: other odd unskilled jobs.
15:49
Speaker 4: But he's always going to be a musician. And when
15:51
Speaker 4: he talks to me, say I'm a musician. I'm a musician.
15:53
Speaker 2: Is what I do?
15:54
Speaker 4: Right?
15:55
Speaker 3: I had him play me a song. He was like,
15:56
Speaker 3: I've got this riff that I know is just going
15:59
Speaker 3: to take off. And I was like, all right, let
16:01
Speaker 3: me hear the rift, dude. And he pulls out the
16:03
Speaker 3: guitar and he plays this awesome riff, right, and he's like.
16:08
Speaker 3: I was like, that's a hell of a good rift, dude,
16:10
Speaker 3: that is a very good riff. When are you gonna
16:13
Speaker 3: finish the song? And he was like, I'm working on it.
16:17
Speaker 4: It'll happen years later. I run into him again. I'm like, hey,
16:21
Speaker 4: how's that song going? Which song? It's like the one
16:24
Speaker 4: with the killer riff?
16:25
Speaker 3: And he's like, yeah, man, every time I talk to somebody,
16:28
Speaker 3: they tell me it's a killer riff, they tell me
16:30
Speaker 3: how great it is.
16:31
Speaker 4: But I just I never seem to finish it.
16:34
Speaker 3: And as soon as I heard it, I was like,
16:35
Speaker 3: I can tell you why, Because you're getting all the reward,
16:40
Speaker 3: all the hope comes every time somebody tells you it's
16:43
Speaker 3: an awesome riff, every time somebody tells you, yeah, you
16:46
Speaker 3: should do that. Yeah, that's a good idea. You are
16:48
Speaker 3: getting the same dopamine hit that you would get if
16:51
Speaker 3: you actually finished it, without doing the work, without doing
16:54
Speaker 3: the work right, without doing the work. And that is
16:57
Speaker 3: something that makes it so that truely skilled manipulators can
17:01
Speaker 3: manipulate long term because they know that they can mix
17:04
Speaker 3: in cortisol with dopamine, they can control the two, and
17:09
Speaker 3: they can keep someone in a perpetual cycle of hope.
17:11
Speaker 3: Any woman who's ever been stuck with a trashy dude
17:15
Speaker 3: who she believes will one day get better, he'll one
17:19
Speaker 3: day make it, he'll one day stop stressing out, like
17:21
Speaker 3: one day whatever, he might stop yelling at me, stop
17:24
Speaker 3: hitting me, stop doing whatever I believe in it.
17:28
Speaker 4: That is a cycle of hope.
17:29
Speaker 3: Any addict who's stuck in a cycle of hope, Any
17:32
Speaker 3: parent or spouse of an addict who's stuck in a
17:35
Speaker 3: cycle of hope. My wife, GIEI who trains with you
17:38
Speaker 3: as well. My wife struggles with anxiety and depression. She
17:42
Speaker 3: has general anxiety disorder clinically diagnosed, and she is also
17:49
Speaker 3: a former CIA officer, so she fully understands the danger
17:54
Speaker 3: of the perpetual cycle of hope. So she lives every
17:58
Speaker 3: day struggling with fighting with this this idea of what
18:02
Speaker 3: actions can I take today that will yield progress, that
18:08
Speaker 3: will yield a final end goal. And that's tricky with
18:12
Speaker 3: what she's dealing with, because you never really are fully
18:14
Speaker 3: past anxiety. But you can one percent get to a
18:17
Speaker 3: place where the new normal is not what the old
18:20
Speaker 3: normal used to be. You have something similar with either ZANDLOS.
18:25
Speaker 3: You can make the new normal better than the old normal.
18:29
Speaker 4: You can literally make.
18:30
Speaker 3: Your chronic pain that you live with less every day
18:34
Speaker 3: than what it used to be. Every day, when someone
18:39
Speaker 3: is dealing with an issue like this, whether it's abuse,
18:42
Speaker 3: whether it's consistent to satisfaction at work, whether it's frustration
18:45
Speaker 3: in their entrepreneurial journey, whether it's whether it's anxiety or
18:50
Speaker 3: a chronic illness.
18:52
Speaker 4: How do you encourage them?
18:53
Speaker 2: What do you tell them along the way, that we
18:56
Speaker 2: can actually do something about that today. So there's the
18:59
Speaker 2: nice thing about we.
19:00
Speaker 3: Can do something about that today.
19:03
Speaker 4: That's so powerful to you.
19:05
Speaker 3: But I love you add these little these little words
19:09
Speaker 3: that make a huge difference to your entire statement. So
19:12
Speaker 3: tell us about what you tell them. We can do
19:13
Speaker 3: something about that today.
19:14
Speaker 2: We can do something about that today. That's the That's
19:16
Speaker 2: the thing. If if you're stuck in a cycle, whether
19:19
Speaker 2: it's chronic pain or you have a disease you're wrestling
19:21
Speaker 2: with you you mentioned abuse. If if I have a
19:25
Speaker 2: say in what I feed myself today, there's a level
19:29
Speaker 2: of agency there and and and there's even a level
19:33
Speaker 2: of hope and not the hopium you're talking about that
19:35
Speaker 2: keeps people kind of in that that like cycle of
19:38
Speaker 2: of perpetual hope without you know, any work. It's it's
19:42
Speaker 2: the idea that like I can actually as a human
19:44
Speaker 2: being change what I'm putting in my face today, and
19:49
Speaker 2: that can improve my life. I can actually change whether
19:53
Speaker 2: or not I move my body today in a way
19:54
Speaker 2: that's healthy for me and that can actually improve my life.
19:57
Speaker 2: And so we in the in the psychological circles, we
20:00
Speaker 2: call this agency, right, the idea that instead of being
20:03
Speaker 2: subject my life happens to me, I can be an agent.
20:08
Speaker 2: I make my life happen. And what I love about
20:13
Speaker 2: health and fitness specifically is if I make a practical
20:15
Speaker 2: change today, I am taking agency. And it doesn't have
20:20
Speaker 2: to be a big giant change. It can be a
20:22
Speaker 2: small change. But the point is I have made a
20:25
Speaker 2: change that's positive for me. And the health and fitness
20:28
Speaker 2: industry is really cashed in on taking It drives me bonkers,
20:33
Speaker 2: like that this thing that can be really good in
20:36
Speaker 2: somebody's life doing exactly what you're talking about, Like, oh,
20:39
Speaker 2: you can make a change. Cool, you should buy this supplement.
20:41
Speaker 2: This is the opium you've been looking for, right, And
20:45
Speaker 2: so so you buy the supplement and hopefully it helps you.
20:48
Speaker 2: Maybe it doesn't. Most supplements aren't worth the money you
20:51
Speaker 2: spent on them. I'm very sorry to say. But but
20:55
Speaker 2: if you do that thing, it kind of corrupts the system. Right,
21:00
Speaker 2: So in my world, what I want people to know
21:03
Speaker 2: is that agency comes from making practical, powerful steps on
21:07
Speaker 2: a regular basis that puts that control back in your hands.
21:12
Speaker 4: What is something that you constantly want to improve and
21:18
Speaker 4: constantly fail to accomplish.
21:20
Speaker 2: I would say trying to get out of pain is
21:24
Speaker 2: a bad goal for me. So like for me, pain
21:29
Speaker 2: is just going to be a part of my life
21:30
Speaker 2: with Elers Dwan Loos, It's just going to be a
21:32
Speaker 2: part of my life. However, I can make improvements to
21:38
Speaker 2: that thing at the same time, it's never going to
21:42
Speaker 2: go away. I'll give you an example. I love jumping
21:44
Speaker 2: on the trampoline with my kids. They're nine and six,
21:48
Speaker 2: and these boys are very rambunctious, and so I keep
21:51
Speaker 2: myself in good enough shape to be able to do
21:53
Speaker 2: that with them. However, my cervical spine hates the trampoline.
21:57
Speaker 2: Those ligaments that are supposed to be holding those vertebra together,
22:00
Speaker 2: they're not very strong. So what happens for me is
22:03
Speaker 2: jumping on the trampoline means I'm going to be a
22:05
Speaker 2: neck pain. It just does. And so if my goal
22:09
Speaker 2: is get out of pain, then jumping on the trampoline
22:13
Speaker 2: with my kids is counterintuitive. To that goal, it's not productive.
22:18
Speaker 2: At the same time, I have to make a decision
22:20
Speaker 2: about whether or not that's important enough to set the
22:24
Speaker 2: pain goal aside. Still be intelligent about it. You know,
22:27
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to land on my head here, but
22:30
Speaker 2: I fail regularly at keeping myself out of pain because
22:34
Speaker 2: because I want this meaningful experience with me and my boys,
22:37
Speaker 2: and I'm willing to endure it.
22:39
Speaker 4: And that is something I think is really interesting.
22:41
Speaker 2: Right.
22:42
Speaker 3: You're saying that you are sacrificing the pain intentionally knowing
22:47
Speaker 3: that it's going to happen, but that sacrifice is worth it. Yes,
22:52
Speaker 3: So let me tell you what is always on my mind,
22:55
Speaker 3: right I, just like you.
22:57
Speaker 4: I am accomplished.
22:58
Speaker 3: I've achieved things, I've done things that were hard. I
23:03
Speaker 3: am often given credit far beyond anything that I give myself.
23:07
Speaker 3: Right where I am perpetually failing and always endeavoring to
23:13
Speaker 3: be better is as a husband. I am reminded every
23:19
Speaker 3: day how bad I am at being a husband. I
23:24
Speaker 3: was a pretty good boyfriend. I think I was a
23:26
Speaker 3: really cool fiance, but once rings were exchanged, something changed
23:32
Speaker 3: for me. Where I started expecting more equality in the relationship.
23:39
Speaker 3: I started expecting that I would have to sacrifice less
23:43
Speaker 3: in the relationship. I went from spoiling my fiance to
23:48
Speaker 3: kind of living a life with my wife that I
23:51
Speaker 3: just expected she would naturally understand.
23:55
Speaker 4: We're not engaged anymore. So I'm not.
23:58
Speaker 3: Always going to polish your coffee exactly the way you
24:01
Speaker 3: want it to be collished, with the right sugar and
24:03
Speaker 3: the right cream. And sometimes I'm not gonna be happy
24:07
Speaker 3: when you know, fart under the sheets, right, Sometimes I'm
24:11
Speaker 3: gonna say something about can you change your diet? All
24:13
Speaker 3: things that nobody does when they're dating and when.
24:16
Speaker 2: They're engaged, right right.
24:18
Speaker 3: I feel like it's my responsibility to improve as a husband,
24:22
Speaker 3: Not that I need to try to be what I
24:23
Speaker 3: was as a boyfriend. But I could always be more patient,
24:27
Speaker 3: and could always be more supportive, I could always be
24:30
Speaker 3: more comforting. And with two kids and a business and
24:36
Speaker 3: a network and a demanding schedule and whatever else, I
24:42
Speaker 3: often find myself not investing that time into being a
24:47
Speaker 3: better husband, and it really makes me get down on myself.
24:53
Speaker 4: Sometimes.
24:54
Speaker 3: It especially makes me get down on myself when I
24:56
Speaker 3: do put in the effort and I do try something,
25:00
Speaker 3: there's no reaction. Yeah, do you find anything like that
25:03
Speaker 3: with yourself in your marriage, you know, and if you're
25:07
Speaker 3: gonna say that you're the perfect husband's gonna cut this
25:09
Speaker 3: whole thing. I mean because I'm done or I need
25:12
Speaker 3: I need to take different coach and.
25:13
Speaker 2: Hear my wife on the on the on my shoulder,
25:15
Speaker 2: like be honest, Alex no, so she uh, marriage is
25:21
Speaker 2: it is such an interesting I'm glad you brought up
25:24
Speaker 2: marriage because it's one of those really interesting things that
25:26
Speaker 2: like if if you do it right, or at least
25:34
Speaker 2: if you do it the way I believe is right,
25:36
Speaker 2: you will fail at it all the time because it's
25:40
Speaker 2: such a it's such a big thing, like you literally
25:45
Speaker 2: say to somebody, I am shackled to you and come
25:49
Speaker 2: hell or high water no matter what, like we're gonna
25:53
Speaker 2: be together through this thing. Like is there not a
25:55
Speaker 2: crazier thing in this world than doing that? And then
25:58
Speaker 2: and then furthermore, from a Christian person, it's it's the
26:01
Speaker 2: it is an ultimate sacrifice. Paul said that that husbands
26:05
Speaker 2: love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave
26:08
Speaker 2: himself for her. So the idea being like it's going
26:11
Speaker 2: to cost you everything that the idea you you do
26:16
Speaker 2: all of the things, and it's not enough because it's
26:19
Speaker 2: not all of you yet, right, and and so that
26:22
Speaker 2: that's the weird thing about marriage. It says that the
26:25
Speaker 2: wife is your easier connegnove, which that's the Hebrew for
26:28
Speaker 2: for help me. It means like helpful adversary. I'm going
26:31
Speaker 2: to wrestle with you, and you're gonna make me better.
26:33
Speaker 2: And that's not just the fun kind of wrestling, like y, yeah,
26:35
Speaker 2: I'm gonna wrestle with you and you're gonna make me better.
26:37
Speaker 2: So so yeah, I would I would say in my
26:40
Speaker 2: marriage is soon. It's as soon as I think I've
26:44
Speaker 2: got it all together, I learned something else that teaches
26:48
Speaker 2: me that I don't, and so well, it's it's definitely
26:52
Speaker 2: a continual, a continual process of improvement because I'm not perfect.
26:58
Speaker 2: I would like to be, but I'm not, and so
27:02
Speaker 2: it's self awareness and failing that drives the marriage to
27:07
Speaker 2: be better. I would say that I love being married.
27:10
Speaker 2: It's so much fun, and I hope my wife says
27:12
Speaker 2: the same. But at the same time, as a husband
27:16
Speaker 2: meeting her needs and also caring for her and giving
27:19
Speaker 2: myself for her, that is definitely a daily choice and
27:22
Speaker 2: a daily sacrifice.
27:24
Speaker 3: I know there's lots of husbands out there that don't
27:27
Speaker 3: verbally acknowledge, ever, how much they struggle with being a
27:33
Speaker 3: good husband. And I know there are many men out
27:35
Speaker 3: there who struggle every day with being a good husband,
27:38
Speaker 3: and they're inundated with information that makes them feel like
27:41
Speaker 3: they're justified for their feelings of anger or frustration, anything
27:48
Speaker 3: except for the feelings of sadness and discouragement, right, And
27:52
Speaker 3: that's what leads to anything from divorces to porn addictions
27:55
Speaker 3: to all sorts of other things. It's also what leads
27:57
Speaker 3: to just marriages that dry. Even if you stay with
28:02
Speaker 3: the same ring on the same finger, but the love
28:04
Speaker 3: is gone, and the passion has gone, and the curiosity's gone,
28:07
Speaker 3: and the interest is gone. That's just that's just something
28:09
Speaker 3: that many people deal with when they are constantly flooded
28:14
Speaker 3: with the cortisol that comes from not achieving the goal,
28:18
Speaker 3: just like with an exercise, just like with a workout,
28:20
Speaker 3: just like with anything else. And I have this just
28:25
Speaker 3: a very short story. My wife and I about two
28:28
Speaker 3: years ago, had a real heart to heart about her
28:32
Speaker 3: anxiety and her depression because with a couple of kids
28:35
Speaker 3: and then as we get closer and closer to premenopause.
28:39
Speaker 3: For her, her hormones are changing, like having children transforms
28:44
Speaker 3: a woman's body and hurt a woman's hormones, and then
28:47
Speaker 3: aging transforms a woman's hormones. And then when a woman
28:50
Speaker 3: is constantly exercising like my wife is, her body is
28:53
Speaker 3: always adapting and changing to different levels of you name
28:56
Speaker 3: it right, whether it's what she eats, whether it's what
28:58
Speaker 3: she her body naturally produced, yes, or if she's taking
29:02
Speaker 3: an external medication or whatever comes into the system. So
29:05
Speaker 3: she's always changing. So we have this heart to heart
29:08
Speaker 3: and I ask her, do you think you'll ever be
29:13
Speaker 3: past your anxiety and your depression? And she said, I
29:16
Speaker 3: used to think I could. I used to think I could.
29:20
Speaker 3: So the woman I married was a woman who used
29:24
Speaker 3: to think she could get past her depression and her anxiety.
29:27
Speaker 3: So when I propose marriage, I proposed to that woman
29:30
Speaker 3: who had the.
29:31
Speaker 4: Belief that she would get past it.
29:34
Speaker 3: Fourteen years later, I'm now having a conversation with a
29:37
Speaker 3: woman who is accepted she will never get past it,
29:40
Speaker 3: but she's not going to stop fighting it, which put
29:46
Speaker 3: the onus on me to say, what am I going
29:48
Speaker 3: to do? How am I going to change my goal?
29:51
Speaker 3: How am I going to change my faith? Am I
29:54
Speaker 3: going to have faith that she's wrong right now and
29:57
Speaker 3: she'll change her mind in the future and she'll try
29:59
Speaker 3: to get past or do I need to change my
30:02
Speaker 3: faith to say? This is something we will both always
30:05
Speaker 3: have to deal with, and I will put my hope
30:12
Speaker 3: in the unseen. I will put my faith in the
30:17
Speaker 3: fact that she will keep fighting it and I can't
30:20
Speaker 3: do anything about that.
30:21
Speaker 4: I don't have the control to.
30:24
Speaker 3: Fight it harder. All I can do is support her
30:26
Speaker 3: to whatever level she is choosing to fight the anxiety
30:29
Speaker 3: and depression. And that was a very hard conversation for me.
30:33
Speaker 3: It's still two years later, so impactful that I'm chewing
30:35
Speaker 3: on it every day because some days my wife is
30:38
Speaker 3: smiles and laughter, great ideas and creativity and adventure and spontaneity,
30:43
Speaker 3: And sometimes my wife is a puddle on the floor
30:48
Speaker 3: and she really doesn't have the energy to do anything
30:53
Speaker 3: except barely hold the little puddle in the puddle shape.
30:57
Speaker 3: It's so wild to see how you have to change
31:02
Speaker 3: throughout a marriage.
31:04
Speaker 4: Put a CIA layer on top.
31:06
Speaker 3: Of that, because CIA always teaches us to put yourself
31:09
Speaker 3: in the target's shoes. So then when I put myself
31:13
Speaker 3: into my wife's shoes, she's got to deal with the
31:17
Speaker 3: changes in me. She's got to deal with the transformations
31:20
Speaker 3: in me. Not just the transformations that I'm having in
31:22
Speaker 3: business and everything else, but the transformations that I'm having
31:26
Speaker 3: from my relationship with her. What is the most challenging
31:30
Speaker 3: thing for your wife in being married to you?
31:36
Speaker 2: I would say that.
31:39
Speaker 3: I feel like you should ask her, but this is
31:42
Speaker 3: the exercise, my friend.
31:43
Speaker 2: But I would say that the most challenging thing about
31:48
Speaker 2: being my wife is that I have so many things
31:52
Speaker 2: that I'm up to all of the time, and so
31:55
Speaker 2: my brain goes in a million different directions. When we
31:59
Speaker 2: were first married, she'd wake up and she would She's
32:03
Speaker 2: like a seven am waker. I'm a five am waker,
32:05
Speaker 2: So I've already had two hours to do to do
32:08
Speaker 2: the research of the day, to get get my work
32:11
Speaker 2: out done. I'm already and so she'd walk out and
32:15
Speaker 2: I'd be like, hey, and tell it. Here's what I learned,
32:18
Speaker 2: and here's here's all the research, and blah blah. And
32:21
Speaker 2: we were married for about four months before she was like,
32:23
Speaker 2: can you just not talk to me in the morning, right,
32:28
Speaker 2: But that is who I am. That's the way my
32:32
Speaker 2: mind works. I'm always interested in something new, and I'm
32:34
Speaker 2: always interested in both understanding it but also articulating that
32:39
Speaker 2: and helping other people to understand as well. So for
32:43
Speaker 2: my wife, the challenge there is one grace and patience,
32:46
Speaker 2: because this is just Alex. He's never gonna shut up
32:49
Speaker 2: about what he's interested in. She loved it when I
32:52
Speaker 2: started my first podcast. She's like, oh great, everybody else.
32:55
Speaker 4: Can listen in your closet. Yeah, I'd be talked out.
32:58
Speaker 4: I would be talked out in my.
33:01
Speaker 2: But second though, that means that it is a conscious
33:07
Speaker 2: effort for me to stop downing exactly what you're talking about.
33:12
Speaker 2: Because my wife, although we've been married for ten years,
33:15
Speaker 2: she is still changing and new and interesting every day.
33:19
Speaker 2: And so that's a conscious effort on my part to
33:22
Speaker 2: become a student of my wife in the same way
33:24
Speaker 2: that I'm interested in all the things that I become
33:26
Speaker 2: a student of Elsewise, and I would say that my
33:29
Speaker 2: wife is very graceful and that way, she's probably more
33:33
Speaker 2: emotionally stable than I am. Neuroticism is a metric of personality,
33:37
Speaker 2: so she would accept that sooner than I would until
33:42
Speaker 2: it became a problem. When it becomes a problem for her,
33:45
Speaker 2: it was probably a problem like three months ago. So
33:48
Speaker 2: I'd say that's likely the most challenging thing about being
33:51
Speaker 2: my wife. But I'd be very interested to see what
33:53
Speaker 2: she had have to say.
33:54
Speaker 3: So what's fascinating is all you have to do is
33:55
Speaker 3: ask her, and arguably you're going to find out that truth. Yeah,
34:00
Speaker 3: the truth is a very awkward and difficult thing, and
34:02
Speaker 3: that's why we all avoid it. When I was a kid,
34:07
Speaker 3: my dad wanted me to read more. My stepdad wanted
34:10
Speaker 3: me to read more. So I was eleven years old maybe,
34:13
Speaker 3: and he told me I had to start reading mobi Dick,
34:17
Speaker 3: And it was my stepdad. It was a much less
34:19
Speaker 3: polite conversation than the way I'm sharing it with you
34:21
Speaker 3: right now.
34:23
Speaker 4: I tried. I failed. How old were you eleven? I
34:26
Speaker 4: think I was eleven years old?
34:27
Speaker 2: Ishmael Wow, okay.
34:28
Speaker 3: And I mean I even went to the library to
34:30
Speaker 3: get the book. And when I saw the book, I
34:33
Speaker 3: was like, I was like, this is never going to happen.
34:35
Speaker 3: And I open it and I read like the first
34:37
Speaker 3: two sentences, four sentences, and I'm like, I don't understand
34:41
Speaker 3: this book at all. I recently started reading Mobi Dick
34:44
Speaker 3: for the first time. It is an incredible book. Yes,
34:48
Speaker 3: it is an incredible book. I have a passage here
34:52
Speaker 3: from Mobi Dick that I want to share with you.
34:55
Speaker 3: It's a little bit out of context, so I'm going
34:57
Speaker 3: to give you some context. Then I'm going to read
34:58
Speaker 3: the passage to you. And this was really a striking
35:01
Speaker 3: passage for me, which is why I'm sharing it. So
35:03
Speaker 3: you have to imagine Ishmael, the first person, the hero
35:08
Speaker 3: of the book, at least as far as I've gotten
35:10
Speaker 3: so far, is trying to get on a whaling ship.
35:13
Speaker 3: That's his goal is to get on a whaling ship
35:15
Speaker 3: and go out to sea and become a whaler. And
35:17
Speaker 3: he goes to the east coast. He goes to the
35:19
Speaker 3: Nantucket and he tries to find a whaling vessel that
35:22
Speaker 3: will let him on. And in his search up and
35:24
Speaker 3: down the docks where all the whaling ships are, he
35:27
Speaker 3: comes across a church. And the church is themed after
35:30
Speaker 3: a ship. It's got hooks and sales and harpoons, and
35:33
Speaker 3: you go in. He describes how he goes into this
35:37
Speaker 3: church in the middle of a storm in the morning
35:41
Speaker 3: and as he walks into the church. The inside of
35:43
Speaker 3: the church and the pulpit itself is even shaped like
35:46
Speaker 3: the bow of a ship.
35:47
Speaker 2: So it's this all this.
35:48
Speaker 3: Very fimed naval whaling ship kind of church, and this
35:54
Speaker 3: crusty old sailor come. Preacher gets up on the bow
36:00
Speaker 3: and starts to give this sermon. And the preacher is
36:03
Speaker 3: giving a sermon about the story of job the man
36:07
Speaker 3: who is eaten by a whale, Jonah, Jonah, Jonah, the
36:12
Speaker 3: man Who's eaten by a whale. And as he's giving
36:15
Speaker 3: this sermon, there's a storm outside, and there's all these
36:18
Speaker 3: people crowded inside, and it's a freezing cold like January morning,
36:22
Speaker 3: and that's what's happening. We're halfway through the sermon, and
36:27
Speaker 3: that's where we come into this passage, and we're quoting
36:30
Speaker 3: the preacher. That's the voice you're hearing. And now behold
36:34
Speaker 3: Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea.
36:38
Speaker 3: This is the point in the story when the sailors
36:41
Speaker 3: throw Jonah into the sea during a storm and they
36:44
Speaker 3: don't know what else to do. There's a storm raging
36:46
Speaker 3: and they don't know what else to do, so they
36:48
Speaker 3: throw Jonah into the sea, when instantly an oily calmness
36:52
Speaker 3: floats out from.
36:53
Speaker 4: The east and the sea is still.
36:56
Speaker 3: As Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth
37:00
Speaker 3: water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of
37:03
Speaker 3: such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment
37:07
Speaker 3: when he drops, seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him,
37:11
Speaker 3: and the whale shoots to all his ivory teeth like
37:15
Speaker 3: so many white bolts upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed
37:19
Speaker 3: on to the Lord out of the fish's belly, but
37:22
Speaker 3: observe his prayer and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful
37:25
Speaker 3: as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for
37:29
Speaker 3: direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just.
37:33
Speaker 3: He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with
37:37
Speaker 3: this that spite of all his pains and pangs, he
37:40
Speaker 3: will still look towards his holy temple, and here shipmates
37:44
Speaker 3: is true and faithful repentance, not clamorous for pardon, but
37:49
Speaker 3: grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this
37:53
Speaker 3: conduct in Jonah is shown in the eventual deliverance of
37:56
Speaker 3: him from the sea and the whale shipmates. I I
38:00
Speaker 3: do not place Jonah before you to be copied for
38:02
Speaker 3: his sin, but I do place him before you as
38:05
Speaker 3: a model for repentance. Sin not, but if you do,
38:10
Speaker 3: take heed to repent of it like Jonah. While he
38:14
Speaker 3: was speaking these words, While the preacher was speaking these words,
38:18
Speaker 3: the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm outside seemed to
38:21
Speaker 3: add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's
38:25
Speaker 3: sea storm, seemed tossed by the storm himself.
38:28
Speaker 4: His deep chest heaved as with a ground swell.
38:31
Speaker 3: His tossed arm seemed the warring elements at work, and
38:34
Speaker 3: the thunders that rolled away from his swarthy brow, and
38:37
Speaker 3: the light leaping from his eye made all his simple
38:40
Speaker 3: hearers look on him with a quick fear that was
38:44
Speaker 3: strange to them. There now came a lull in his look,
38:49
Speaker 3: as he silently turned over the leaves of the book
38:52
Speaker 3: once more, and at last, standing motionless with closed eyes
38:56
Speaker 3: for the moment, seemed communing with God and him. But
39:01
Speaker 3: again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his
39:05
Speaker 3: head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility,
39:09
Speaker 3: he spake these words shipmates. God has laid but one
39:14
Speaker 3: hand upon you. Both his hands press upon me. I
39:20
Speaker 3: have read ye, by what murky light may be mine
39:22
Speaker 3: the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners, and therefore
39:26
Speaker 3: to ye, and still more to me, For I am
39:30
Speaker 3: a greater sinner than ye. And now, how gladly would
39:35
Speaker 3: I come down from this masthead and sit on the
39:38
Speaker 3: hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen,
39:41
Speaker 3: while some one of you reads me that other and
39:44
Speaker 3: more awful lesson which Jonah teaches me as a pilot
39:48
Speaker 3: of the living God. How being an anointed pilot, prophet,
39:52
Speaker 3: or speaker of true things, and bidden by the Lord
39:55
Speaker 3: to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a
39:58
Speaker 3: wicked nineve appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled
40:03
Speaker 3: from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and
40:07
Speaker 3: his God by taking the ship at Joppa. But God
40:10
Speaker 3: is everywhere Tarsish. He never reached. As we have seen,
40:15
Speaker 3: God came upon him in the whale and swallowed him
40:18
Speaker 3: down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings
40:22
Speaker 3: tore him along into the midst of the seas, where
40:25
Speaker 3: the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down. The
40:29
Speaker 3: weeds were wrapped around his head, and all the watery
40:33
Speaker 3: world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then, beyond
40:38
Speaker 3: the reach of any plummet out of the belly of hell.
40:45
Speaker 3: You're a man of faith. You're a man who lives
40:49
Speaker 3: in pain.
40:50
Speaker 4: You're a man.
40:51
Speaker 3: Who constantly strives for the difficult thing. When you hear
40:57
Speaker 3: this passage, what comes to.
40:59
Speaker 2: Your Jesus used Jonah's story as an image and the
41:05
Speaker 2: sign for the generation of people who asked of him
41:09
Speaker 2: heal us, show us a sign. And these were the
41:13
Speaker 2: Pharisees specifically, they wanted Jesus to demonstrate his power on
41:19
Speaker 2: earth so that they could believe. But he said, you,
41:23
Speaker 2: wicked and unfaithful generation, no sign will be given to
41:28
Speaker 2: you except the sign of Jonah. It could mean a
41:33
Speaker 2: lot of things, but one of the things that that
41:35
Speaker 2: means to me is that Jesus was going to live
41:40
Speaker 2: and demonstrate through the way he lived, the power of faith.
41:46
Speaker 2: That's what he was saying. I don't need to show
41:47
Speaker 2: you a sign. Watch how I live. But the sign
41:52
Speaker 2: will be when I die. All the difficulty, all the pain,
41:56
Speaker 2: all the suffering, I'm going to take that on myself,
42:00
Speaker 2: and three days later, just like Jonah, three days in
42:02
Speaker 2: the whale, I'll come back. That'll be your sign. And
42:07
Speaker 2: so for me, when I hear this passage, this passage,
42:11
Speaker 2: and I meditate on Jonah's story and Jesus's story, my
42:14
Speaker 2: answer is very similar for me too. When I wrestle
42:18
Speaker 2: with my own pain, when I wrestle with my own
42:21
Speaker 2: suffering and own difficulty, my only recourse, or the only
42:26
Speaker 2: recourse that makes sense to me, is to walk through
42:29
Speaker 2: this with courage, to walk through this with forthrightness, maybe
42:36
Speaker 2: with some grace and patience. If I can manage it,
42:38
Speaker 2: And by doing so, that will be the sign to
42:42
Speaker 2: everybody who wants the magic pill or or wants to
42:45
Speaker 2: find some way out of it, like no, this is
42:48
Speaker 2: the way, and if you want it, you can walk
42:51
Speaker 2: in it too.
42:52
Speaker 3: I appreciate your faith, and I appreciate your theological take,
42:58
Speaker 3: but I want to express something very different that I see.
43:02
Speaker 3: This is a story written by a man named Herman Melville.
43:05
Speaker 3: Moby Dick is a story written by a man, and
43:09
Speaker 3: inside the story, Herman Melville creates a character, and that
43:14
Speaker 3: character is this crusty old preacher, and in this preacher
43:20
Speaker 3: he tells a story that is biblical. The line that
43:24
Speaker 3: gets me over and over again is when the preacher
43:26
Speaker 3: says to his congregation, shipmates, God has laid but one
43:30
Speaker 3: hand upon.
43:31
Speaker 2: You, two on me.
43:33
Speaker 3: Both of his hands are upon me. And he goes
43:37
Speaker 3: on to say, I would gladly come down from this
43:39
Speaker 3: masthead and sit where you sit and listen as you
43:43
Speaker 3: listen yep, Because what he's saying is I want one
43:45
Speaker 3: of you people to have two hands of God upon you,
43:49
Speaker 3: so that I can only have to deal with one.
43:52
Speaker 3: And what's fascinating to me is that, just like the
43:56
Speaker 3: story of Jonah, what the preacher is talking about isn't religious.
44:01
Speaker 3: I don't think what this entire passage is about has
44:04
Speaker 3: anything to do with God.
44:05
Speaker 4: I think it has to do with the word truth.
44:09
Speaker 3: Truth. Jonah was fleeing from the truth. The preacher is
44:14
Speaker 3: speaking the truth. Jonah was trying to avoid the burden
44:17
Speaker 3: of truth. The preacher is feeling the burden of truth,
44:21
Speaker 3: and he's trying to communicate to the congregation the truth sucks.
44:27
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to hear it, nobody wants to act on it,
44:31
Speaker 3: and nobody wants to say it. And when I think
44:36
Speaker 3: about how much truth has to go into being a husband,
44:40
Speaker 3: and how much truth has to go into being a dad,
44:42
Speaker 3: and how much truth has to go into running an
44:44
Speaker 3: honest business, and how much truth has to go into
44:46
Speaker 3: getting yourself into a position where you exercise your body,
44:50
Speaker 3: change your diet, adapt your sleep habits for some sort
44:54
Speaker 3: of faith in what will happen.
44:57
Speaker 2: In the future.
44:58
Speaker 3: You start to realize why so many people give up,
45:04
Speaker 3: because they're all like the preacher, and they would do
45:08
Speaker 3: anything to sit in the congregation and reduce the pressure
45:12
Speaker 3: that's on them. But what happens when the truth catches
45:16
Speaker 3: up to Jonah? The storm ends. What happens when he
45:21
Speaker 3: accepts deliverance and repentance inside the whale, he is released
45:26
Speaker 3: from what this passage describes as a prison. There's so
45:30
Speaker 3: much power I find in literature and art because art
45:34
Speaker 3: is informed by human experience. And here we have an
45:37
Speaker 3: author creating a character, basic creating a press, a speech,
45:45
Speaker 3: a sermon that the character would deliver that another character
45:48
Speaker 3: is watching. Like think about the complexities and that creative
45:51
Speaker 3: and that creative process. Also that we can take from
45:54
Speaker 3: it whatever we choose to take from it. The story
45:57
Speaker 3: of Jonah in your case, the idea of.
45:58
Speaker 4: Truth in my case.
45:59
Speaker 3: And everybody hearing this conversation, everybody watching us on YouTube,
46:02
Speaker 3: everybody listening to us on anyone on any platform, is
46:06
Speaker 3: taking their own message from that. I even believe that
46:09
Speaker 3: people who heard us start this passage and then turned
46:12
Speaker 3: us off because they lost us somewhere in the passage,
46:15
Speaker 3: even they came to their own conclusion right. And I
46:20
Speaker 3: find it so empowering to be able to reflect on
46:23
Speaker 3: what art means to each of us. And I owe
46:27
Speaker 3: that to my wife because prior to meeting her, I
46:31
Speaker 3: had given up on art, and I just assumed that
46:33
Speaker 3: art was make believe sculptures were make believe paintings. The
46:38
Speaker 3: fact that there was any kind of emotional element to
46:40
Speaker 3: any of it was fake to me. But my wife
46:43
Speaker 3: taught me to see it through a different lens. I
46:47
Speaker 3: appreciate the fact that you teach people to see things
46:49
Speaker 3: through a different lens. And I very much appreciate how
46:51
Speaker 3: you're constantly eneavoring, endeavoring to show me fitness, health, faith
47:00
Speaker 3: through a different lens. Anything you want to say in
47:03
Speaker 3: passing in reaction to what I said or otherwise.
47:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, two things the next part of Jonah's story, which
47:11
Speaker 2: I don't know if the preacher gets to in Melville's
47:14
Speaker 2: tale or not. When he does find repentance, he ends
47:18
Speaker 2: up in Nineveh, and he doesn't want to be there.
47:21
Speaker 4: By the way.
47:21
Speaker 2: He doesn't like these people. That's the interesting thing about Jonah.
47:24
Speaker 2: He thinks they deserve to be judged and punished. But
47:26
Speaker 2: he delivers the truth, and it delivers the whole city.
47:29
Speaker 2: They're like, you know that, that makes a lot of sense.
47:31
Speaker 2: We've been messing this thing up. And so they repent,
47:33
Speaker 2: which is very strange to Jonah, but whatever. Anyway, So
47:37
Speaker 2: the truth is a mechanism that sets people free. Just
47:40
Speaker 2: like your wife showed you that there is beauty and
47:42
Speaker 2: art and you're like, you know what, I think I
47:44
Speaker 2: can read in that. And what's really cool is that's
47:47
Speaker 2: very powerful for eleven year old Andy too, like you
47:51
Speaker 2: looked at the book was like no way, And now
47:53
Speaker 2: you're an adult like, oh right, I was too young
47:55
Speaker 2: for that, but now I got this. But I think
47:58
Speaker 2: the second thing is that when when we execute truth,
48:06
Speaker 2: what makes it true is that it actually works. What
48:10
Speaker 2: makes it it's not just my own truth. It's like
48:12
Speaker 2: I put it into practice today. It's not something I believe,
48:15
Speaker 2: it's something I act out and if it's true, then
48:20
Speaker 2: the consequences thereafter follow, which is why the health and
48:24
Speaker 2: fitness thing I love it because you can Is it
48:27
Speaker 2: true or not? I don't know. Let's test it out
48:29
Speaker 2: and if it's not true, it does not work, and
48:33
Speaker 2: nobody has to be else Like, what's the word? Nobody
48:38
Speaker 2: has to be fooled by.
48:39
Speaker 3: That, Alex ben Houghten, you are my good friend. You
48:44
Speaker 3: train me, You help me improve my body, my mindset
48:47
Speaker 3: all the time. Thank you so much for making time
48:49
Speaker 3: to be here. If folks are meeting you for the
48:51
Speaker 3: first time, where can they find out more about you?
48:52
Speaker 3: They can find me at everyday spy.
48:54
Speaker 2: Dot com slash Alex.
48:56
Speaker 3: And everything that you're doing is going to be listed there.
48:58
Speaker 3: They can follow you and all your adventures, all your podcasting,
49:00
Speaker 3: all of your writing, all of your research.
49:02
Speaker 2: Alex.
49:03
Speaker 4: It's been awesome to have you here, folks.
49:04
Speaker 3: If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you take a
49:06
Speaker 3: moment to like comments, subscribe, share this episode with a friend.
49:11
Speaker 3: If there was anybody in your family and your friend
49:13
Speaker 3: network and your sphere of influence that would have benefited
49:15
Speaker 3: from something that we talked about today. It is very
49:18
Speaker 3: much our mission to help you break barriers. If you
49:20
Speaker 3: want to learn more about Alex, you'll find his link
49:22
Speaker 3: in the description below, And if you want to learn
49:24
Speaker 3: more about how I think, or any of our other
49:26
Speaker 3: spy partners and brothers think, make sure that you take
49:28
Speaker 3: a moment to click on my link in the description
49:30
Speaker 3: below so that you can see what kind of spy
49:32
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49:33
Speaker 2: We'll see you on the other side. What's up?
49:36
Speaker 5: Faithful this episode? Help you share it with someone who
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49:44
Speaker 5: Some more people can find Faithful Fitness. My dad's devotional
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Speaker 5: Faithful Fitness is available now and you can join our
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Speaker 5: Faithful Fitness community by clicking the links and the show notes.
49:58
Speaker 5: We all have a cross to carry, put each lighter.
50:01
Speaker 5: We we do it together. See how later Alligator, But
50:05
Speaker 5: until then, shrain hard and pray even harder.