33: The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant by Terry Felber

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1. 00:00:00 Oh hi Mike hello.
2. 00:00:02 Do you hear me playing?
3. 00:00:05 Uh sort of except my audio is all messed up so it was really quiet.
4. 00:00:11 Good.
5. 00:00:12 I was trying to get some inputs outputs nailed down so I was over here one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve.
6. 00:00:23 No no I missed that.
7. 00:00:25 Unfortunately that would have been entertaining.
8. 00:00:29 But you got me doing the repeat so there you go.
9. 00:00:31 How's Mike today?
10. 00:00:33 Pretty good.
11. 00:00:36 How's Joe today?
12. 00:00:38 Good I just launched the guild.
13. 00:00:40 So I'm happy.
14. 00:00:41 Nice.
15. 00:00:42 Yeah we'll see how it goes.
16. 00:00:45 It's one of those launch day.
17. 00:00:47 Assume nobody will show up moments.
18. 00:00:49 And hope that one person shows up.
19. 00:00:54 So the way it goes.
20. 00:00:56 I know I know I hate launch days.
21. 00:00:58 But at the same time I love launch days so it's way goes.
22. 00:01:02 In other news we have all kinds of follow up to go through Mike.
23. 00:01:07 Yeah I'm curious about your your marketing strategies.
24. 00:01:13 Obviously you went through this because you have implemented some of said marketing strategies.
25. 00:01:18 I ultimately I think I just landed on I need to be okay sharing things.
26. 00:01:25 In a heavy way.
27. 00:01:29 And although I don't think I'm super good at that.
28. 00:01:33 I know that it's something I can continually get better at.
29. 00:01:37 And I think you know part of the whole discourse expert thing that we've talked about in the past.
30. 00:01:44 Is that it's it's simply a mindset and saying it's out loud.
31. 00:01:49 It's similar to writers who say I am a writer.
32. 00:01:52 Like being able to admit that something is true about yourself.
33. 00:01:57 Changes the way that you view the thing itself and how you actually implement it.
34. 00:02:02 And in this particular case I've got a couple things that I'm launching both today and tomorrow.
35. 00:02:11 Based on one round of code that I've written and I need to be okay saying that it's really good code.
36. 00:02:19 And if I admit that.
37. 00:02:21 It allows me to market it in a very positive and genuine way.
38. 00:02:26 I think that's what I've landed on.
39. 00:02:27 I don't know if that makes any sense whatsoever.
40. 00:02:29 I'm not really sure what that means tactically.
41. 00:02:31 But it's helped me from a strategy standpoint somewhat.
42. 00:02:36 That makes any sense whatsoever.
43. 00:02:38 So if I'm hearing you correctly you've come to peace with the fact that you are a marketer.
44. 00:02:44 Is that correct?
45. 00:02:47 I think that's true.
46. 00:02:48 I think that's that's a good way to say it is that I'm okay saying.
47. 00:02:51 That's that I've made a thing that's amazing.
48. 00:02:56 And being willing to say that and know that that's true helps me promote it.
49. 00:03:01 True, but I think that's a little bit different than the way I phrased it.
50. 00:03:07 Because you could say, well my thing is amazing, but I'm still not a marketer.
51. 00:03:11 So don't let me in with all those other guys.
52. 00:03:13 That's true.
53. 00:03:15 Well, I didn't mean to sidestep that one.
54. 00:03:20 I think that you are correct in saying that I know that this is a thing that
55. 00:03:25 I have struggled with in the past.
56. 00:03:29 And I think you're kind of in the same, but we've talked about this before.
57. 00:03:33 We're promoting ourselves and saying that we've made a great thing
58. 00:03:37 is something that we don't necessarily see as second nature to us.
59. 00:03:42 It's something we definitely have to work on.
60. 00:03:44 And I'm coming to grips with that and saying that this is something that I know I can do
61. 00:03:52 and I should do and I want to be good at.
62. 00:03:55 And I'm learning that I am fairly good at it if I will simply do it.
63. 00:04:00 So I'm admitting that yes, I'm a marketer and I'm going to do it.
64. 00:04:05 Nice.
65. 00:04:07 There you go.
66. 00:04:07 That's what I got on that one.
67. 00:04:13 All right.
68. 00:04:14 And then I've got a couple of them here.
69. 00:04:16 First on the list, no window hold on a window fold them.
70. 00:04:20 This is basically pertaining to the cognitive biases and when to recognize
71. 00:04:27 that they are impacting my decisions and when to be okay with that.
72. 00:04:33 I feel like I've done a fairly decent job with this.
73. 00:04:36 Of course, that has been helped by the fact that I
74. 00:04:43 haven't had much time to think the whole last couple of weeks.
75. 00:04:47 I just have a bunch of things that I need to get done.
76. 00:04:50 We're in the middle doing a bunch of interviews.
77. 00:04:52 I think I mentioned that to you last time we recorded.
78. 00:04:55 I've got 19 interviews in this week and next week, which is basically all my time.
79. 00:05:04 And stuff doesn't stop because I'm doing the interviews either.
80. 00:05:08 They still hold the dojo stuff.
81. 00:05:10 They're still the podcast stuff.
82. 00:05:12 So you add all that up and I don't have a whole lot of time to waste
83. 00:05:17 on non-important decisions.
84. 00:05:20 So I've kind of resolved myself to the fact that,
85. 00:05:23 yeah, I'm going to have these cognitive biases,
86. 00:05:27 but I'm not going to spend a whole bunch of time trying to overcome them at this particular point.
87. 00:05:31 You know, after next Friday, when my interviews are done,
88. 00:05:34 that probably changes a little bit.
89. 00:05:35 Then I go back to my ways of making things a bigger deal than they really are.
90. 00:05:40 But hopefully not.
91. 00:05:42 Makes sense.
92. 00:05:47 Makes sense.
93. 00:05:47 Anytime you add a little thing that can help you in the future,
94. 00:05:52 but it takes a lot of up front work, it always adds a lot of extra stress
95. 00:05:58 during that time.
96. 00:05:59 It usually turns out way better in the end,
97. 00:06:01 but you kind of have to suffer a little bit to get there.
98. 00:06:03 Yeah.
99. 00:06:06 By the way, one thing I did kind of notice on this whole topic of making decisions
100. 00:06:12 is that with certain people,
101. 00:06:16 like we'll just use the example of like the going out to eat with your significant other.
102. 00:06:25 I think actually maybe even Josh mentioned this at some point too,
103. 00:06:28 where we've all been at that point where like you want to go somewhere,
104. 00:06:33 where do you want to go?
105. 00:06:34 I don't know.
106. 00:06:35 Where do you want to go?
107. 00:06:36 That is incredibly stressful for me that pushes all of my buttons,
108. 00:06:39 and that's a perfect example of this "no one to hold them when to fold them,"
109. 00:06:42 because it doesn't really matter.
110. 00:06:43 Just getting the car go somewhere.
111. 00:06:44 I hate those conversations.
112. 00:06:46 Yeah.
113. 00:06:48 So I'm thinking about this, and this particular situation I use is because I think it's a very
114. 00:06:55 general example.
115. 00:06:56 I haven't applied this framework in this particular position,
116. 00:06:59 but I know it's going to work and I've applied it a couple other places.
117. 00:07:02 Where if you need somebody else's input to make a decision,
118. 00:07:06 kind of forget the cognitive biases and just pick a couple of decent options and be like,
119. 00:07:11 "Which one do you want?"
120. 00:07:12 You'll get to the bottom of it a lot quicker.
121. 00:07:15 And so that's been, like I said, last couple of weeks,
122. 00:07:19 kind of a survival mechanism, but been my approach, I guess.
123. 00:07:24 I have not had to say I'd rather not.
124. 00:07:30 And I guess I just haven't been asked to do something that hasn't been something that I've
125. 00:07:35 wanted to do.
126. 00:07:36 Like I said, I've been very, I hate using this term busy because I think it's way overused
127. 00:07:43 in society, but legitimately I have been busy.
128. 00:07:47 I'm the right things.
129. 00:07:47 I'm making progress on the things that I need to make progress on,
130. 00:07:51 but I haven't had the opportunity to be distracted by the shiny objects, if that makes sense.
131. 00:07:57 And so that's where I can fall into the trap of saying yes to the things that I don't really
132. 00:08:04 want to do is like, "Well, technically I've got a little bit of time.
133. 00:08:07 I could squeeze this in."
134. 00:08:08 In the last couple of weeks, just been like, "No, don't even ask."
135. 00:08:13 People just don't.
136. 00:08:15 - Yeah, stay away.
137. 00:08:16 Until next Friday.
138. 00:08:18 Go away. There's no way I could do it.
139. 00:08:22 - Yeah, I understand.
140. 00:08:23 - So again, I did well on the next point.
141. 00:08:25 Did you make any decisions stick longer than they should have?
142. 00:08:28 No, because I've had to make them as short as possible in order to keep my head above water.
143. 00:08:33 - You didn't have the luxury of taking your time on them.
144. 00:08:38 - Exactly, exactly.
145. 00:08:39 - How'd you do on the no news except tech news thing?
146. 00:08:43 - Oh, I did great on this.
147. 00:08:45 Even the tech news, like there have been several, okay, so usually throughout my day,
148. 00:08:51 whenever I have a little bit of a break, I will go on Twitter because I don't follow
149. 00:08:55 a ton of people and I'll just see what's going on.
150. 00:08:59 Okay, that's a fairly habitual thing.
151. 00:09:02 It's not like I do it all the time, maybe four or five times throughout the day.
152. 00:09:07 During lunch, that sort of thing, where I just want to take a little bit of a break.
153. 00:09:14 But I have noticed several times in the last couple of weeks that I haven't even looked at
154. 00:09:20 Twitter the entire day. I'll open it when I'm done with work and I'll see this huge number
155. 00:09:28 in my timeline.
156. 00:09:29 It'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I'm not going through all this stuff and then just close it again."
157. 00:09:32 So, again, victory by necessity.
158. 00:09:37 - Yeah, so that's where the whole Twitter completionist thing actually helps you
159. 00:09:42 because you have to go through all of them so you freak out and don't do it at all.
160. 00:09:49 Is that fair? Is that what you're doing?
161. 00:09:51 - That is fair. Yeah, now I will also say though that the way I've used Twitter has changed over
162. 00:09:56 the years and I've really pared it down where I don't follow a bunch of different tech people
163. 00:10:01 because I don't need 10 different versions of the same story.
164. 00:10:05 Let me look, see how many people I am actually following.
165. 00:10:09 Give me just a second.
166. 00:10:12 Because I know there's only like two maybe three people or sites that I follow that
167. 00:10:19 give me Apple or tech news in general and it seems like across those two or three,
168. 00:10:24 I catch pretty much everything it seems without having to follow 15, 20, 100 people
169. 00:10:31 all tweeting about the same thing.
170. 00:10:34 - So, I technically follow 175 people and I say technically because there are a bunch of people
171. 00:10:41 on this list that I know in real life that have not tweeted in years.
172. 00:10:46 It's probably more like 100 tops.
173. 00:10:50 So, yeah, it's more sustainable than it has been in the past.
174. 00:11:00 But yeah, I haven't really followed news.
175. 00:11:03 I did over here a couple things yesterday this morning which were a little bit concerning but
176. 00:11:10 yeah, I'll just leave it there.
177. 00:11:13 - Yeah, dare I ask?
178. 00:11:16 - Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is not a politics podcast,
179. 00:11:21 generally not a religion podcast, although this is going to be an interesting episode,
180. 00:11:27 I think we're a lot of people.
181. 00:11:28 - I got a disclaimer for this one when we get there.
182. 00:11:29 - Yeah.
183. 00:11:29 So, yeah, no news is good news, Joe.
184. 00:11:35 - Okay, good deal.
185. 00:11:38 Good deal. So, we just alluded to it.
186. 00:11:41 So, let's just jump in here.
187. 00:11:42 So, the book for today, The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant by Terry Felber.
188. 00:11:47 And this is the last of the Dave Ramsey books, Mike.
189. 00:11:52 So, listeners, you don't have to have me just throw in another Dave Ramsey book on you, sorry.
190. 00:11:59 But this one is one that I, to be honest with you, I put it on the list,
191. 00:12:06 and I think I mentioned this last time, I put it on the list, I didn't even look into it.
192. 00:12:10 I could not have told you what the, what the premise of the book was before I picked it up.
193. 00:12:16 So, this is a case of pure trust in somebody recommending a book.
194. 00:12:22 And I do this on occasion, Mike.
195. 00:12:23 I sometimes have people who recommend a book, and I don't know if I can trust their recommendations
196. 00:12:29 or not, so I will take their first one, read it.
197. 00:12:33 And if I enjoyed it, I tend to trust their opinions on book recommendations and pick them up.
198. 00:12:39 If they recommend another, if I don't like it, I tend to ignore the recommendations.
199. 00:12:43 Just kind of how I work.
200. 00:12:44 So, people, you got one shot with you.
201. 00:12:46 That's it. You just, you got to get the first one to make it good.
202. 00:12:49 So, this is a case of me trusting Dave Ramsey's book recommendations.
203. 00:12:56 And I put the disclaimer here that this is going to be an episode where I think
204. 00:13:02 it's impossible for us to discuss this book without bringing up God and the Bible a significant amount.
205. 00:13:11 Since this is, it's very biblically based.
206. 00:13:15 And since Mike and I both fall in the world of being Christians,
207. 00:13:20 I think it's impossible for us to talk about this without talking about our faith in likely a very
208. 00:13:27 strong way.
209. 00:13:28 So, for the listeners, if all of that sounds like an absolute nightmare to you, feel free to turn
210. 00:13:33 this one off. But I think that's the route we're going to end up going on this one.
211. 00:13:38 Is that fair, Mike? Do you want to add to subtract to from that disclaimer?
212. 00:13:42 That is fair, but I would say that this book has a lot of value, even if you don't consider yourself
213. 00:13:51 Christian, because it shatters a lot of the paradigms regarding the Christian view of success
214. 00:13:57 and in particular wealth.
215. 00:13:59 Yeah, I think that's very fair. And I know that for me, I don't have a problem listening to folks
216. 00:14:08 from a different faith talk about it because I'm always interested in someone else's viewpoint.
217. 00:14:12 And although I may not agree with you, I am at least interested in your opinion on it.
218. 00:14:19 And to me, I know that as we go through this, there's a lot of good things that you can get
219. 00:14:26 from this, even if you don't believe the Bible or in God.
220. 00:14:29 And I would encourage you to listen to it, because I'm sure there's some things that you can glean
221. 00:14:37 from it. And I don't think you have to, as Mike is saying, I don't think you have to have
222. 00:14:42 faith in order to glean a lot of positive things from this.
223. 00:14:47 Yeah, definitely. And it's not the type of book where they do have like scripture reference after
224. 00:14:54 scripture reference to validate what they are saying. It is a story. It is a narrative.
225. 00:14:59 But I think this is a very, very important book because we've all got our preconceived notions
226. 00:15:05 on how the world works. And regarding faith and specifically Christianity, there is
227. 00:15:13 a very commonly held belief that if you are really going to be spiritual, then you must have
228. 00:15:18 nothing. You must be poor because that is the only way that God can speak to you.
229. 00:15:23 And that's the Mike Schmitt's version, but that's really what it boils down to.
230. 00:15:26 And you see in this story, you see some of that in some of the characters, but you also see
231. 00:15:34 the world through other perspectives. And really, the big takeaway from this is that
232. 00:15:42 you don't have to be, if you consider yourself a religious person, you don't have to be
233. 00:15:49 resigned to a life of suffering and poverty, that there are spiritual reasons why you are
234. 00:15:55 supposed to be successful. And I think that applies regardless of your belief system.
235. 00:16:01 I mean, most of the people that I know in the productivity space, whether they be Christian,
236. 00:16:07 whether they have another religious belief system, whether they are completely agnostic and don't
237. 00:16:11 believe in God at all, they believe that they are here for a specific purpose and that they have a
238. 00:16:17 specific role to play. And that is where this book can be a big help because I think that
239. 00:16:26 really what it's speaking to is the fact that you're made to be successful. There are certain
240. 00:16:32 principles which will help you be successful. And then that success, that is a good thing.
241. 00:16:38 And it's going to help other people. The more, I probably talk about the Asian
242. 00:16:44 efficiency core values way too much. So we won't belabor this point. Number one, low green,
243. 00:16:48 but they're good. All those up, they are good. I love them. But the point, you know, you get
244. 00:16:55 on an airplane and you have to, they always say, put your own oxygen mask on first before you help
245. 00:16:59 other people. Like you have to make sure that your own stuff is taken care of before you can
246. 00:17:05 help other people get to where you are. You can only take people as far as you've been. So
247. 00:17:10 yeah, I think there's a lot of value in this book for just about anybody. And it's really short too.
248. 00:17:15 It's a very easy read. I think I read this whole thing in one sitting.
249. 00:17:19 Oh, nice. Nice. I love, we've talked about this before. I love it whenever people write books
250. 00:17:26 and they tell a story and then they debrief it. It seems like that's the way some of these books
251. 00:17:31 are going. And this one holds true to that. And it makes it very engaging. The story itself,
252. 00:17:38 I'm with you. I had a hard time putting it down. There's a lot of the study guide thing at the
253. 00:17:42 back that I felt like I was skimming. Just I'll just confess to that. But I do agree that it's
254. 00:17:51 interesting to go through the entire story. I didn't sit down and read it in one setting.
255. 00:17:55 Some of that had to do with my wife and I tend to have a number of conversations about money
256. 00:18:02 at this level. We have a number of folks that we, I don't want to say mentor, but we try to help,
257. 00:18:10 not financially, but from an intellectual standpoint on money. And we try to encourage people with that.
258. 00:18:19 So we have conversations about this quite frequently. And as I was reading it, something would strike
259. 00:18:25 me or it would shed new light on something that we have discussed a number of times in an interesting
260. 00:18:32 way. And I would share it with her. Well, then that led to a 30, 45 minute hour long conversation.
261. 00:18:38 So I didn't finish reading it in one setting. Otherwise, I probably could have. But I tend to
262. 00:18:43 read with her on the other side of the room at night a lot of times. And yes, it leads to fun
263. 00:18:50 conversations whenever you can just share it with her. So it was a good time.
264. 00:18:54 Yeah, I like the fact that you teased out there that you, I forget exactly how you put it, but
265. 00:19:02 basically you mentor other people when it comes to finances and stuff like that. And I think that
266. 00:19:07 that's great. I think that that is missing for a lot of people. I know that my own life, like the
267. 00:19:16 times where I've been able to work with a coach or a mentor and they can share their own experience
268. 00:19:21 and say, Hey, I tried this, it didn't work. I tried this, it does work, that can save you a lot of
269. 00:19:26 pain. And I think that when it comes to faith in Christianity specifically, like that would be
270. 00:19:32 called discipleship, I guess in the world, maybe it'd be called mentorship, but it's really, really
271. 00:19:36 important. It's so important that from a Christian perspective, that like, that's the last thing
272. 00:19:41 that Jesus said is like, go and make disciples, help other people be successful. And when you're
273. 00:19:47 talking about who you're going to let mentor you, you're only going, at least for me, you know,
274. 00:19:54 I'm not going to take advice on how to raise a solid family from somebody who's been divorced
275. 00:19:59 five times. Like you look at, or has no kids, look at the fruit, exactly, exactly, or, you know,
276. 00:20:05 as it pertains to money, you know, I'm not going to take financial advice from somebody who is
277. 00:20:11 living month to month above their means and is stressed out because they don't have enough
278. 00:20:15 money to pay their bills. Like you may know what to do, but you're not actually doing it. So
279. 00:20:20 I can't really believe you when you say, Oh, this is the thing that you have to do because you
280. 00:20:25 haven't lived it out. Like there's the chauffeur knowledge that we talked about last time where
281. 00:20:29 you can spit the stuff back. But do you really believe it? My pastor says that the
282. 00:20:35 the word that you believe is the word that you actually do. And I think that that's a really
283. 00:20:40 important key here and why it's so important that this book becomes, well, I shouldn't say
284. 00:20:46 becomes because it probably is pretty successful already. I mean, Dave Ramsey's giving it to everybody
285. 00:20:52 that works for him and stuff like that. But it's not the type of mindset that I've seen
286. 00:20:57 traditionally in the churches that I've been involved in. Now the church that I'm involved with now,
287. 00:21:00 that this is very much in line with their belief system. But that was really shocking to me when
288. 00:21:07 I started going there. It's like I had never heard this before. I grew up Catholic and I always had
289. 00:21:13 that view of the monks or the priests. They were super spiritual. They were above everybody else
290. 00:21:21 and they had taken this oath of poverty. Whether that's true or not, and I know that that's not true
291. 00:21:25 in a lot of cases. So I have to say that. But that was the perception I had. And right or not,
292. 00:21:31 that perception is fostered by the environment. And I think that the environment needs to change.
293. 00:21:38 And if just speaking to the Christian church in America specifically, because that's what I have
294. 00:21:46 experienced with, if more people understood the concepts that are outlined in this book,
295. 00:21:50 there'd be a lot more people who would be running things and owning things and they'd have their
296. 00:21:56 own businesses instead of working for somebody else. Not that that isn't necessarily a bad thing,
297. 00:22:02 but when you are called to do your own thing, that is a bad thing. One of the quotes I teased
298. 00:22:08 out is page 14, your vocation is your calling. It's the thing you were born to do. When you do it,
299. 00:22:12 it's not really work at all. There's a lot of people who are quote unquote forced to work.
300. 00:22:18 They're stuck in that thing that they don't really believe is the right thing. But they've also
301. 00:22:25 got this improper view of like, well, this is my, I'm just called to suffer in this particular job.
302. 00:22:30 Or this is, this is my lot in life. Or even even the one that really drives me crazy is,
303. 00:22:37 well, this is where I am until God opens another door or opens another window. And really,
304. 00:22:42 what this book is saying is that you can open your own doors, you can open your own windows,
305. 00:22:46 you just got to connect to your vocation and you got to do the thing that you were created to do.
306. 00:22:49 You can't just sit around and wait for it to happen someday.
307. 00:22:54 Well, that takes you to the first key because the whole book is centered around 12,
308. 00:23:01 12 keys of successful living. And as the story goes on, the main character here, Antonio,
309. 00:23:11 he writes these principles down. He's being mentored by another merchant. And you're talking
310. 00:23:18 about the first one here's work hard and God will prosper you. And there's a bit of a caveat
311. 00:23:24 that comes with that because you have to work hard in the right way. You just just working hard
312. 00:23:29 doesn't guarantee anything, but you have to work hard for the right reason. And that's where the
313. 00:23:34 second part of that first principle God will prosper you comes in. Now, I do want to back up a
314. 00:23:39 little bit because the whole legend of the the monk and the merchant that's told here,
315. 00:23:45 it really lays out the difference between those who teach the Bible and those who
316. 00:23:52 build businesses or work in the general marketplace. And those two shouldn't,
317. 00:24:00 we tend to confuse them as far as their roles go in our, at least in the American society.
318. 00:24:07 And as we see that in a lot of areas, it seems like there are certain like take a certain
319. 00:24:14 pastor at a church that I'm used to be at. And he would quite often have two or three services
320. 00:24:21 throughout the week, including Sunday morning and would frequently get upset whenever people
321. 00:24:26 wouldn't show up for that because they had to work or they were too tired or I mean, you know,
322. 00:24:31 the litany of excuses that people can give for that. But the trick there is that
323. 00:24:36 just because the doors are open, that would tell me that those who are working in
324. 00:24:43 ministry in that way, that is their role. That's the choice that they've made. That is their
325. 00:24:49 vocation, if you will, to study the word and share it with other people.
326. 00:24:55 On the flip side of that, there's the rest of us who don't do that as our main, but we work in
327. 00:25:03 the marketplace, we earn an income, and then it is our job to finance the vision of the people who
328. 00:25:10 are working in that ministry. So they minister to us, we drive the income that can then
329. 00:25:15 fulfill their vision to which they then minister to us and new believers.
330. 00:25:20 So it's this nice balance that works between the two, but it's very easy to get them confused and to
331. 00:25:26 get upset at the one in the other area because you're not doing the thing that I'm doing that I
332. 00:25:33 feel called to. So they need to work in balance with each other.
333. 00:25:38 Yeah, you just called out at the very beginning of the book, the one thing I had issue with.
334. 00:25:42 So a little bit of perspective, I mean, what you just described, the people who are at all
335. 00:25:50 those services, that is us. We are there Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.
336. 00:25:56 We've got men's ministry, the coordinator for Involved to Worship team, so practice on Thursday
337. 00:26:02 nights as well. But I think that there is an important distinction here between people who
338. 00:26:09 are just going to blanket say, well, my role is in the marketplace. So you should be happy with
339. 00:26:15 whatever time I could squeeze in here. And people who are in the marketplace, who are completely
340. 00:26:21 sold out for, I mean, there's really no way of beating around this one. Like, if you really
341. 00:26:28 confess that God is the most important thing to you, like that has to be reflected in all of
342. 00:26:32 your decisions. And what I see is that a lot of people justify, well, I'm not going to be at the
343. 00:26:35 house of God, I'm not going to be part of what God is doing because I have to work. And I think
344. 00:26:40 that's a convenient excuse. And I think that in this particular book, it's kind of takes place.
345. 00:26:46 It sounds like it's more old school analog where the times have changed quite a bit.
346. 00:26:56 And what I see as people get more and more busy is more and more excuses not to be a part of that
347. 00:27:02 work. And that doesn't mean that you have to be at every single service. But it does mean that
348. 00:27:06 you have to be involved because, I mean, I've got a Bible college degree. Now, I have not gone to
349. 00:27:12 seminary. So I can't say that like, I know all of this stuff. But this is my understanding of like
350. 00:27:19 Ephesians 413 talks about their apostles, their prophets, there are people who are set aside as
351. 00:27:24 the fivefold ministry. But it says that their work is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
352. 00:27:30 So the issue I have with this book is this view that, well, the monks are going to take care of
353. 00:27:36 the church and they're going to do all the spiritual stuff. And then the merchants are just going to
354. 00:27:39 come and they're going to give the money to fund the work. Like, I don't think that that you can say
355. 00:27:44 that 100%. I think that there's a lot of gray area there and it's going to be different for
356. 00:27:49 every single person what that looks like, how it plays out in your particular sphere of influence
357. 00:27:55 in your particular situation. But I think it is very important if you consider yourself a merchant,
358. 00:28:02 if you consider yourself a Christian, that you make sure that those priorities are always correct.
359. 00:28:06 And that's going to dictate what you're going to do. You're not going to just put in the minimum,
360. 00:28:12 I guess, is a better way to say this. If you really do believe that God is first, does that make sense?
361. 00:28:18 It does. And the thing I want to call out here is that giving and helping fulfill the mission or
362. 00:28:25 the vision of, say, the ministers does not have to be financial. And in a lot of cases, shouldn't
363. 00:28:33 be financial. I just had a conversation yesterday as we're recording this with a guy who is a
364. 00:28:41 financial advisor. And he talks about how certain millionaires that he helps, they often try to
365. 00:28:52 give to organizations that need it. But if the organization is one that receives a lot of donations
366. 00:28:59 and they seem to be on a good path, he doesn't necessarily see that that's a place to give because
367. 00:29:04 they already have the finances. And in those cases, if he wants to help them, he uses the fact that
368. 00:29:11 he is wealthy to set time aside to go volunteer and help them. And I think that's very similar to
369. 00:29:19 what like you and I do. We don't necessarily give large sums of money to the church in such a way
370. 00:29:25 that we can fulfill a huge vision, like add on to the building or start a whole new program. Like,
371. 00:29:32 we're probably not going to be able to do this unless you've got an inheritance. You're not
372. 00:29:36 telling me about Mike. But there's not really that. I for sure am not going to be one that can do
373. 00:29:44 that, at least at this point in life. And when I stop and think about how I give to the church and
374. 00:29:50 how I help fulfill that vision, it's one where I know my best path forward to help them is specifically
375. 00:29:59 from a tech standpoint. And I can do things with technology that a lot of people are confused by
376. 00:30:05 and think are magic. So I can take advantage of those skills and give back to the church. And those
377. 00:30:11 skills are things I've learned in the marketplace and that I've built in the marketplace. Yes, I can
378. 00:30:17 develop finances and work on driving a large income so that I can give back to those in the
379. 00:30:24 monk or the ministry world. But at the same time, I'm building other things other than wealth at
380. 00:30:30 the same point that can then be given back. Do you make a connection there? I definitely do.
381. 00:30:37 The thing, I'm not trying to disagree. So I want to make sure I say this the right way.
382. 00:30:43 No, you're fine. I think what you just said, the way that you can contribute is through a tech
383. 00:30:48 angle. That's really valuable. But I think that you also have to be careful that what you are
384. 00:30:53 contributing is actually what is needed. Yes. You could be really good at juggling kittens and
385. 00:30:59 maybe that's not going to help the drop past there, accomplish the vision of the church.
386. 00:31:05 Also, I think that if you did have large sums of money, you could be giving a ton of money.
387. 00:31:13 That's great. I mean, there are definitely people who have done that sort of thing.
388. 00:31:18 But that doesn't necessarily mean the fact that you have given large chunks of money that you're
389. 00:31:22 fulfilling your mission either. I mean, there's a lot of philanthropists who give incredible amounts of
390. 00:31:27 money. But they're not, I would argue, fulfilling the spiritual duty that they have. And that's not
391. 00:31:33 necessarily their fault. Maybe they don't have the revelation of, or they don't have that belief
392. 00:31:38 system. But I would say that that can be the trap is like, well, I've given a whole bunch of money,
393. 00:31:46 and therefore I'm good. But I mean, Matthew 633 talks about where your treasure is,
394. 00:31:52 their heart will be also. And so I think that that word treasure, that's the key. And it's not just
395. 00:31:57 financial. But it is also your time, your attention and your energy, your focus, like what is your
396. 00:32:02 dominant thought? Locate yourself. If you just show up once a week and you give a bunch of money,
397. 00:32:07 like that's great. But that doesn't necessarily mean that your heart is in the right place.
398. 00:32:11 Yes. Yes. But it's also very difficult to know where someone's heart is at the same time.
399. 00:32:18 Exactly. I can't make that judgment. No pastor, priest, monk can make that judgment. You have
400. 00:32:25 to locate yourself. And that was kind of his point, I think, when he was talking about the,
401. 00:32:31 he goes into the church and he sees the monk giving him the hard stare because he's not in church
402. 00:32:37 enough or whatever. And he's just smiling. He's like, well, I'm giving a bunch of money. I had a
403. 00:32:42 little bit of an issue with that particular part of the part of the book because I do think that
404. 00:32:47 not that particular situation, maybe, in the story, that just kind of seemed like there was
405. 00:32:55 bitterness or resentment harbored towards the guy because he wasn't doing what the monk in this
406. 00:33:01 particular case thought he should be doing. But I do think that if you are going to attend a
407. 00:33:06 specific church, for example, you're going to call somebody pastor, then they do, recognizing that
408. 00:33:12 they do have a special gift and a special anointing for that role. You do have to, you do have to
409. 00:33:22 accept and like seriously evaluate what they tell you to do. You can't just make the blanket
410. 00:33:28 statement like, well, I know what's best because I personally believe that if you are, if you're
411. 00:33:33 called to a specific church, for example, you're called a specific person who is pastor over,
412. 00:33:39 you're they are anointed for you, they know things about you. God shows them things about your life
413. 00:33:43 that you need. And that's what makes the whole relationship work. That's what brings power to
414. 00:33:49 the church. If you don't have that, then I don't know, like, I kind of view like where you end up
415. 00:33:59 being very, very important because I think that it can't be something that you decide
416. 00:34:04 out of your own natural emotion. The church that and I know that that's colored and tainted by my,
417. 00:34:12 I shouldn't say tainted, but it is definitely influenced by my own personal story where the
418. 00:34:16 church that we go to at this point, probably not a story for this podcast. But at one point,
419. 00:34:21 I said, I will never set foot in that church. And funny enough, that's where we go to church now.
420. 00:34:28 There you go, God, sense of humor. So I hope that makes sense, though. Like, I really do believe
421. 00:34:34 that you don't just choose the church that you go to, that you are placed in the church that you
422. 00:34:38 go to, and you are placed there strategically, and you have gifts that complement the other
423. 00:34:43 gifts that are there, and also the things that that lack there. And that's why people get frustrated
424. 00:34:47 in churches and leave is because, well, this church doesn't have what I like. Well, that's why
425. 00:34:52 you're there. You're there to change that. You're there to complete the picture.
426. 00:34:56 I agree with you. I think there's a lot of a disconnect in most churches, it seems, with
427. 00:35:04 folks who, you know, say come from the marketplace. I'll use that term. And by that, I'm simply
428. 00:35:13 meaning folks who are not in the ministry from a technical standpoint. And then there's the other
429. 00:35:20 side of those who are in the ministry who are teaching. And there has to be a balance between
430. 00:35:26 following the leadership of the ministers of the church and supporting them both in skills and
431. 00:35:33 finances. So they teach you, you need to learn from them. And at the same time, if
432. 00:35:40 you can, and I would tend to argue that everyone can, in some form or another,
433. 00:35:49 give back to the church. And again, it doesn't have to be finances. But at the same time, it
434. 00:35:54 should be to a point. But it's very difficult to nail this down because we, as humans, like to
435. 00:36:00 try to come up with hard and fast rules, this one's one where I don't think there are any,
436. 00:36:06 because it just depends on the heart and the subculture, I guess, of that specific church and
437. 00:36:14 the people within it. Is that fair, Mike? Yeah, I think that the real takeaway from all of this is,
438. 00:36:22 and I'm going to look up the reference so I don't mess it up. I believe it's first. Yeah,
439. 00:36:29 first Corinthians. Well, okay, so let me back up first Corinthians 13, probably everybody,
440. 00:36:35 whether you are a Christian or not has heard the verses quoted from this at weddings and things.
441. 00:36:38 It's the love chapter. So one of the things that I've learned in my Bible college studies,
442. 00:36:45 because like I said, I have a degree from Word Bible College in Eskendido, California,
443. 00:36:52 you have to look at things in context. So people look at that love chapter, but the chapter before
444. 00:37:01 that chapter 12, this is where they're talking about one body with many members, and the ear can't
445. 00:37:08 say to the eye, I wish I was an eye or the hand can't say to the foot the other way around.
446. 00:37:13 Everybody's got a specific role to play, and the quicker we are okay with the role that we have,
447. 00:37:23 and we're not just looking for a bunch of other eyes to hang around with, and we embrace our role
448. 00:37:27 in building this body, the better off the church is going to be. Yes, I agree.
449. 00:37:36 This character ties in to, or do you want to expand on that, Mike?
450. 00:37:40 No, no, you're segueing into the second point, which is actually what I was going to do, but I
451. 00:37:45 will say that point number one, "Work hard and God will prosper you," is the author of a book
452. 00:37:50 called "Thou shalt hustle." I completely agree. Link in the show notes.
453. 00:37:55 So this ties into the second key that's mentioned in the book. Financial prosperity is often
454. 00:38:04 connected to sole prosperity. I think this dovetails in quite nicely with what we're
455. 00:38:09 talking about because you really have to be open to being taught and growing spiritually
456. 00:38:17 before you can develop the intellect and the knowledge that can then drive financial prosperity.
457. 00:38:27 And this likely ties into bookworm to an extent, Mike, because so much of what we do with the books
458. 00:38:35 that we're reading is gaining knowledge and learning about a variety of topics that eventually tie back
459. 00:38:43 into how we go about reaching other people, either through helping with technology or productivity,
460. 00:38:51 in our case, or developing a stronger faith in Christ. And as we continue to learn about that,
461. 00:38:59 it's interesting how it then plays back into the first key of working hard and God will prosper you.
462. 00:39:06 Those tend to be very closely interconnected. Yeah, so this is really interesting because
463. 00:39:13 most people think of prosperity as money. One of the things that I picked up from reading the
464. 00:39:19 Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn, and it's actually not even a physical book, it is an audiobook
465. 00:39:25 when I got it off of Amazon, he has a quote in there where he says, "Work harder on yourself than
466. 00:39:31 you do on your job." And I think that that is speaking directly to this point where prosperity
467. 00:39:37 actually occurs in a lot of different arenas. In the Bible calls that I went to, they talk about
468. 00:39:43 the five different levels of prosperity. And so at this point, I suppose people have either
469. 00:39:50 tuned out or they're really jacked about the angle at this episode is going, so I'll just unload.
470. 00:39:55 Just go for it. So first, you've got spiritual prosperity, that would be when you have the
471. 00:40:02 revelation and you've accepted Christ, like you are saved. And then from there, there's other
472. 00:40:10 levels along the way there is mental or emotional prosperity, there is physical prosperity,
473. 00:40:17 because the Word of God, if you believe that it is the Word of God, if you believe that the Bible
474. 00:40:21 is the Word of God, there are answers for every area of life in there. And so as you develop this
475. 00:40:29 relationship and as you study that word and apply those principles, you will see the prosperity
476. 00:40:35 in the other levels. Another level is relational. So your relationships will get better if you're
477. 00:40:40 doing things the right way. I 100% believe that. And that is a spiritual principle, not just a,
478. 00:40:46 how do I say this? Well, I guess worldly principle, but that's a Christianese term. I don't like to
479. 00:40:53 use that because if you're not familiar with that term, it seems like us against them. It's not what
480. 00:40:58 I want to make it sound like at all. But kind of the differentiation that this book is making is
481. 00:41:02 that there's like the church stuff and the non-church stuff. So there's a lot of non-church stuff,
482. 00:41:07 especially in the productivity space, which is based off of, I personally believe in the Word of God.
483. 00:41:12 And that's what got me down the path of writing my book. And then lastly is financial. Like,
484. 00:41:19 that's the last one that you typically see the manifestation of this prosperity. But that's the
485. 00:41:23 one that people look for. And so if you're just looking for the financial prosperity, you can miss
486. 00:41:28 all of the growth that's happening in all of the other areas and all the other ways that you are
487. 00:41:32 being prospered. Brandon Wentlan did a dojo module on journaling. And he talked about the gap versus the,
488. 00:41:40 basically it's like a gap versus growth. I think he used a different term. But what journaling does
489. 00:41:48 is it locates you. And if you don't journal, for example, you look at where you want to be and
490. 00:41:53 where you are now and all you see is the gap. You see, oh man, I wanted to have this. I wanted to be
491. 00:41:58 making this. I wanted to be able to do this. I wanted to have this time for you to whatever.
492. 00:42:02 I don't have that. And you can quickly get discouraged. But when you journal, instead of your reference
493. 00:42:08 point being where you want to be, your reference point is where you were. And when you look at where
494. 00:42:13 you were and you see that growth, that is actually very encouraging. And that creates a sustainable
495. 00:42:18 momentum to keep moving towards that ideal future. Got Mike excited.
496. 00:42:26 Kind of my thing. So I like the opportunity to talk about this stuff.
497. 00:42:31 I don't know if I should say you're welcome bookworm listeners or I'm sorry. Here you go.
498. 00:42:39 Let us know if you hate excited, Mike, then let us know that. Not just kidding.
499. 00:42:45 So I love the concept of having prosperity in a lot of different arenas because it's easy to think of
500. 00:42:55 the traditional term of prosperity. We immediately stereotype it with finances.
501. 00:43:00 Like, oh, he's very prosperous. He's made a lot of money. He's very successful. He's made a lot of
502. 00:43:04 money. Like we tend to just interchange those terms quite a bit. So I love seeing that the term
503. 00:43:12 is being used in other ways. So and I again, it comes back to this key of financial prosperity is
504. 00:43:17 often connected to sole prosperity. So it doesn't necessarily, I mean, you see, it's is often connected
505. 00:43:24 to that doesn't guarantee it. And I think that's what you're getting at there, Mike.
506. 00:43:29 Exactly. And also the place that you give financial prosperity in the order of importance,
507. 00:43:35 the priority, the hierarchy that will determine whether you experience the
508. 00:43:38 prosperity in these other levels. Because there are a lot of people, for example, in the
509. 00:43:43 Asian efficiency community in the productivity community, you hear all these stories about people
510. 00:43:48 who on the surface are very successful. They've got a lot of money, but they are miserable.
511. 00:43:55 In fact, I'm thinking of one thing in particular, there was the planet of the apps, which is the
512. 00:44:00 show that Apple launched as part of Apple Music, but it's a TV show, which is confusing. But
513. 00:44:06 they had this banner ad that they got in trouble for because they showed this guy's picture and
514. 00:44:13 they took out one phrase from the episode. And this really wasn't the point that he was making,
515. 00:44:17 but this is what they chose. And it was something along the lines, if I haven't seen my family for
516. 00:44:22 over three weeks or something like that. And it was because it's a banner ad, it's like they're
517. 00:44:27 advertising and they're lifting this thing up as like, well, this is just the price you got to pay
518. 00:44:33 for success. And there was a lot of legitimate, and I'm glad there was backlash against that,
519. 00:44:37 because that's not right. In a particular case, yeah, maybe your app makes it big,
520. 00:44:43 but you've been burning the candle up both ends. You haven't seen the people who are most
521. 00:44:47 important to you. Maybe you've made a lot of money and a lot of people, they make the money,
522. 00:44:51 and then they look back and they say, oh, man, that was pointless. That was worthless,
523. 00:44:57 you know, according to Ecclesiastes. What was the point of all that? Because I lost the stuff
524. 00:45:01 that was really important. At one point, I did some research on what do a lot of people see as
525. 00:45:11 their biggest regrets as they're on their deathbed? What are these things that people wish they had
526. 00:45:18 done or were glad that they did whenever they know that their life is coming to an end?
527. 00:45:24 And it's a bit morbid to think about this sort of thing, and it's kind of a challenge to
528. 00:45:30 read some of this stuff. But hands down, the thing that people talk about the most is building
529. 00:45:37 relationships and helping other people. That seems to be far and away the number one thing that people
530. 00:45:43 either wish they had done or they were glad that they did. And to me, that should be the definition
531. 00:45:50 of prosperity is, have you helped other people in a strong way and have you been able to build
532. 00:45:57 relationships in a very encouraging way, which is seen through this entire book because it's a
533. 00:46:05 grandfather teaching these keys to successful living to his grandson. You don't really get
534. 00:46:11 more true to form than that. So it's something that this book, even from kind of a meta level,
535. 00:46:19 just in how the story is told, explains that principle in itself.
536. 00:46:24 Yeah, absolutely. Another kind of principle that is throughout this book, based on the
537. 00:46:33 relationship that you just pointed out, is the third key, which is a man must do whatever he can
538. 00:46:38 to provide for his family, not just his immediate family in this particular case, but it's the
539. 00:46:42 grandfather who's teaching these things to the grandson. I really like that because I think we can
540. 00:46:48 narrowly define family. And I'm not just talking like extended family. So let's just use, there's
541. 00:46:57 a term called the church family where let's say that you attend a specific church and the people
542. 00:47:04 that are there can benefit from what you have to give them. You can't just say, no, I got to take
543. 00:47:09 care of my own stuff. You do have a responsibility if you're going to call yourself a part of that
544. 00:47:14 church family. And I think that word family is really important because we can look at it and say,
545. 00:47:20 well, that's somebody else's responsibility. But that's the improper view of this. The best
546. 00:47:25 way to do this is not to come to church, for example, or even to a family, any sort of family
547. 00:47:33 meeting. I think that this principle still applies. Like if you come and you are looking for what
548. 00:47:38 you can get, you're making withdrawals from those emotional bank accounts that Stephen Covey talks
549. 00:47:44 about, that's not going to end well for you. But if you are coming looking for what you can give,
550. 00:47:51 that flips a script gets your eyes off of your own problems. And oftentimes you will find that
551. 00:47:57 your problems are solved by you looking to solve the problems of other people. I think that is
552. 00:48:03 super important, but then specifically pertaining to this number number three, a man must do whatever
553. 00:48:07 he can to provide for his family. The other obvious point here is that sometimes you got to do what
554. 00:48:12 you got to do. And it's not always going to be convenient, but you have a responsibility. You
555. 00:48:18 can not just say, well, I'm not passionate about that. Like go get a job. If your family is having
556. 00:48:24 trouble eating, you need to find a way to support them. I have all kinds of thoughts on this.
557. 00:48:29 It's going to get crazy political if I go there, so I'm going to skip some of it.
558. 00:48:32 I guess the non-political version is just this, that sometimes you have to do things that are not
559. 00:48:40 ideal. Sometimes you have to do things that you don't really want to do, but you do them because
560. 00:48:45 you have to pay the bills. You have to keep the lights on. You have to give miles that you have to
561. 00:48:49 feed. And that's okay. And it's part of the process. And it's not forever. Just buckle up and do it.
562. 00:48:58 It's a season. Winston Churchill said, if you're going through hell, keep going. Just don't stop
563. 00:49:03 there. And don't just sit and wait for, oh, someday the perfect door, the perfect opportunity is going
564. 00:49:07 to open. You make your own luck by doing the things that nobody else will do.
565. 00:49:12 Yes. And this ties into the fourth key. Trials develop your character, preparing you for
566. 00:49:18 increased blessings. So whenever bad things happen, I guess that ties into number five, too.
567. 00:49:24 When bad things happen, don't just sit on your hind, hind in and just worry about it and get
568. 00:49:31 up and do something. This is to help make you better. I tend to refer to some of my early
569. 00:49:38 jobs as some of my first character building experiences. It's like, okay, these were not easy
570. 00:49:46 jobs to be in. They were not fun. I did not like them. But they built a lot of character and taught
571. 00:49:52 me a lot, which has brought me to where I'm at today. So I wouldn't trade those. They were not fun.
572. 00:49:58 But it has prepared me for better things. And I'm very grateful for that. But you have to be
573. 00:50:05 willing to see it that way and not get upset whenever a bad thing comes along. You have to be
574. 00:50:10 willing to see it the right way. And as per the fifth key here, take responsibility for problems
575. 00:50:16 that are a result of your own bad decisions. Don't displace the blame. And we can get into
576. 00:50:20 this one a little bit more or two. But you have to be willing to take responsibility for
577. 00:50:26 something that happened, a trial that's come along. It may not be your fault, but you can take
578. 00:50:31 responsibility for it. Yeah, there's so there's a couple things here, which are really important.
579. 00:50:39 And the whole point of this book, I guess, is it gives you these 12 keys to successful living.
580. 00:50:45 There, I'm sure, have been books written on each one of these different keys.
581. 00:50:48 Oh, easy. Yeah. We're kind of going over them fairly quickly. But the trials specifically,
582. 00:50:55 let me speak to this one first. Trials, I mean, number four, trials develop your character,
583. 00:51:03 preparing you for the increased blessings. Doesn't matter the source of the trial,
584. 00:51:07 like you were saying, like, it may or may not be your fault. You cannot change that now,
585. 00:51:12 but you can change how you are going to deal with this thing. And you can determine that I'm
586. 00:51:17 going to have the grit, I'm going to have the perseverance to see this thing through. And I'm
587. 00:51:21 going to learn from this experience so that it doesn't happen again. And I can avoid this
588. 00:51:27 negative situation. That's a very, very important mindset for people to develop. Because if you
589. 00:51:33 have the other side of that, the other thing you could do is like, Oh, what was me? This is
590. 00:51:36 completely unfair. I shouldn't be in this particular place. All of those things can be 100% true.
591. 00:51:43 But how does that help you? How does that change your situation? How does that make anything better?
592. 00:51:48 You know, that's the real key here is looking for the way to improve the situation, looking for
593. 00:51:55 the way to solve this problem, looking for the way to get out of this particular trial. And I think
594. 00:52:01 that the reason that that prepares you for the increased blessing is that those things,
595. 00:52:05 they add to your experience. And then next time you're not going to be so gullible,
596. 00:52:10 you're not going to fall for those things. Okay, like I said, whether it's your fault or not,
597. 00:52:14 you can see the warning signs a million miles away. And you can avoid that thing
598. 00:52:19 if you don't want to do it. And the other thing here, the taking responsibility,
599. 00:52:21 this is like I said, it's kind of related because you may not have been the one who originated the
600. 00:52:27 situation that you're in, but you are the one that can change it. And so taking responsibility is
601. 00:52:33 not saying that, Oh yeah, this is completely my fault. But what I do from this point forward,
602. 00:52:37 that is completely my fault. If I just continue to accept that this is the normal state of being,
603. 00:52:44 then yes, that is my fault. However, why don't I try and change some things? Because who knows
604. 00:52:50 what could happen here? And a lot of the success stories that you read, especially in the types of
605. 00:52:55 books that we read for for Bookworm. And if you study the authors, like a lot of them have this
606. 00:53:00 own their own personal story where everything was going wrong, they were sleeping on the couch in
607. 00:53:06 their friend's basement. And then they found the thing that worked. And then they completely
608. 00:53:11 changed their life. Well, that's that's the the tipping point right there is they found the
609. 00:53:17 thing that worked. But you can't find the thing that worked. If you're not looking to change,
610. 00:53:22 if you are not looking to improve your situation, you will not discover that thing that worked.
611. 00:53:26 And you'll be stuck living on the couch in your friend's basement forever. And that's the thing
612. 00:53:30 that really that really irks me, I guess, is the acceptance of those situations as like,
613. 00:53:38 this is the way it's always going to be. Because I know whether you have a Christian belief system
614. 00:53:43 or not, that these spiritual principles apply, and that energy or motion attracts energy. And
615. 00:53:49 as soon as you make any sort of motion, take that first step, just that first step towards changing
616. 00:53:54 your situation, a lot of things will fall into place that you never could have predicted.
617. 00:53:59 And I think this can play into the second half of the next key. Don't displace the blame
618. 00:54:06 for in this case for problems or as we've been talking about trials. So often we see things where
619. 00:54:15 something really bad happened. And the two questions that normally come up are,
620. 00:54:19 one, why would God do this? Or two, the devil's out to get me. There's usually one of those two
621. 00:54:26 things. But it takes a bit of honesty with yourself to look at the situation and potentially see
622. 00:54:34 that this is your own bad decision that led you to it. The story in the book you talk about,
623. 00:54:42 Antonio, he had built a facility for creating these Venetian trading beads. And he essentially
624. 00:54:51 had too many furnaces going underneath the building. And it ended up catching on fire and the whole
625. 00:54:57 thing burnt down. That's what led to the learning of this principle. And because of the situation,
626. 00:55:04 and because it was so emotional, Antonio struggled to see that it was his own fault in that case,
627. 00:55:13 because he had too much going on. And when it first happened, he was asking, well, why would God
628. 00:55:18 do this? And some of his workers were doing the opposite saying the devil's out to get us. Like,
629. 00:55:23 they were going through this whole thing. Well, then Alicia, who is Antonio's mentor through this.
630. 00:55:30 And I guess I'm destroying some of the book here. Sorry, spoiler alert. After the fact. Sorry about
631. 00:55:35 that. But the Alicia takes him through the process of seeing that you had a lot of furnaces under a
632. 00:55:46 wood ceiling. That's always going to result in bad things at some point. This is your own decision
633. 00:55:55 to lead to this. Don't displace the blame and put it on God or the devil. This was yours.
634. 00:56:00 In this case. And I really don't like this one, Mike. Because I think I tend to fall into one of
635. 00:56:10 those two on occasion, not always. And maybe not even most of the time. But on occasion, I know
636. 00:56:16 that that's my gut reaction is to fall into one of those. Because I don't want to admit that
637. 00:56:21 I've potentially made a bad decision. I don't think any of us really wants to do that. But
638. 00:56:28 being willing to take the blame for something, take responsibility for it. I think there's a lot
639. 00:56:34 of value in that, of course. But it's not easy to do. No, it's definitely not easy to do. I think
640. 00:56:42 it's Genesis 822 talks about seed time and harvest as long as the earth remains, these will
641. 00:56:47 exist. And that is basically cause and effect. And I like the story in the book that you brought up
642. 00:56:54 because a lot of times what we get, the results that we see are literally cause and effect. We
643. 00:57:00 are where we are today because the decisions that we made yesterday, you are a product of your
644. 00:57:05 routine and your habits. But if you don't have the proper perspective, you can't see this stuff.
645. 00:57:12 And so while I'm going to mess up the names in Tonya, Alicia, no, Antonio was the grandfather.
646. 00:57:20 Yeah, so he probably should have known that you throw a bunch of extra furnaces in a wood building.
647. 00:57:27 It's going to get really hot. Eventually, there's going to be a fire. Like, yes, that's not,
648. 00:57:31 you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that. But in the moment, like you said,
649. 00:57:36 it's completely out of left field. How in the world is this? Why is this happening to me?
650. 00:57:41 I never could have seen this coming. Well, yes, you could have, if you would have
651. 00:57:44 understood the situation correctly. Lots of hot burning things and wood. It doesn't go well.
652. 00:57:50 Yeah, and a lot of times, all it takes whenever we feel that way is a mentor or somebody who can
653. 00:57:58 correct our perspective and they don't have to be like, you idiot, what were you doing with all
654. 00:58:02 those furnaces in a wood building? All they have to do is say one thing and it's just a perspective
655. 00:58:07 and then you're like, oh, yeah, I guess I should have seen that. And that's the important part of
656. 00:58:15 the process too, I believe though, because another thing that I teased out from point number one was
657. 00:58:21 that God only blesses what we actually put our hands to. In my book, I put it, I said that God
658. 00:58:28 will only delegate what you are able to administrate. Like, if you just sit on what He's given you
659. 00:58:33 and what He's got for you to do, then why should He give you more? But when you have a misstep and
660. 00:58:39 the furnaces that you've built, the fact the warehouses or whatever that you've built, they
661. 00:58:44 go up in smoke, that's not the end. Like the fact that you failed once doesn't mean that
662. 00:58:51 your whole life is a failure. Anybody that I know who has done something great has had missteps
663. 00:58:59 like that along the way. And sometimes it's just a little bump in the road because I tried this
664. 00:59:04 thing and it didn't really work out. Sometimes they really believe this is the thing and they
665. 00:59:07 sink their life savings into it only to find out that, ah, they've misjudged the market or whatever,
666. 00:59:13 you know? But recognizing that this cause and effect system like this is at work in unpacking all
667. 00:59:21 of the circumstances and all of the results and figuring out the root causes is extremely valuable.
668. 00:59:29 And this also, you know, I'm kind of doing tons of segues here, but four, five, and six trials
669. 00:59:34 develop character taking responsibility for problems and then see challenges as stepping stones,
670. 00:59:40 not as obstacles. These all three came out fairly quickly, if not all at the same time in the book
671. 00:59:45 all over that one incident of the warehouse, not warehouse, but the plant basically burning down.
672. 00:59:53 Along with some of his boats actually, which was a problem considering that's how they got things
673. 00:59:59 to different places, but Alicia helped Antonio see that the plant burning down may have been,
674. 01:00:08 and in this case it was, his fault for putting too much fire underneath the wood roof,
675. 01:00:13 but he helped them also see at the same time that although that trial wasn't fun or it wasn't going
676. 01:00:23 to be an easy challenge, it was something to see it as a stepping stone and not as something blocking
677. 01:00:30 him from doing something better. Because Antonio was considering dropping business all together
678. 01:00:35 and going back to the monastery as a result of this, as opposed to seeing it as a chance to build a
679. 01:00:42 better manufacturing plant and grow from it. And I know lots of people who have made that emotional
680. 01:00:51 rash decision is like, well, that obviously didn't work or God didn't obviously want me to do that.
681. 01:00:57 No, you idiot, it's not that, it's that you messed up and it's all part of the process. I think
682. 01:01:03 that's the important distinction here is that the challenges of stepping stones, not as obstacles,
683. 01:01:09 that is in the value judgment that you associate with them. So an obstacle you view it as like,
684. 01:01:16 this is something that I absolutely need to overcome, it's unnecessary, it would be better if it was
685. 01:01:21 not here. But a stepping stone, it's almost like this is a necessary step in the process which is
686. 01:01:28 going to get me to the point where I want to be. And I guess this is kind of getting into some of
687. 01:01:33 the stoicism stuff, the Ryan Holiday stuff, but not making that value judgment of, oh, this thing
688. 01:01:39 is great or oh, this thing is terrible is really important because if you ascribe the value judgment
689. 01:01:45 to it, as soon as you say that, oh, this is a negative thing, you think that you shouldn't have
690. 01:01:49 to deal with this. And when you think that you shouldn't have to deal with it, you resent the
691. 01:01:53 fact that you do have to deal with it and you can completely miss the lesson or the takeaway
692. 01:01:58 from that particular situation. And then that's not to say that God burned down Antonio's factories,
693. 01:02:06 but there is value that from the event that there is something that you can learn from it.
694. 01:02:13 I guess that's the big takeaway for me is always be looking for those lessons that you can learn
695. 01:02:17 and that will help you avoid situations like that in the future if you don't want to
696. 01:02:22 experience the thing, but not being resentful of the process itself.
697. 01:02:25 As people who, as entrepreneurs who are always coming up with new ideas and trying to develop
698. 01:02:33 new things, especially if you're in the world of development, you're going to run across things
699. 01:02:37 that just destroy what you have built very quickly because it's not uncommon to build something
700. 01:02:45 and then have someone else build a competitor right away to try to beat you out.
701. 01:02:50 And you have to be okay with that or know that it's going to be there and not see it as
702. 01:02:56 something that is there to cause pain for you, but at the same time, it's something to help make
703. 01:03:04 you better. I'm trying to think, who is it? Gazelle? They do the, they'll buy your phone back from you.
704. 01:03:11 Actually, that's where I sold my old MacBook Pro, but they buy that stuff back. Well, there's been
705. 01:03:16 a number of programs that come out from even Apple themselves where they will do a lot of the same
706. 01:03:21 thing. Gazelle welcomed that and saw it as a way to get better and saw it as a way to
707. 01:03:28 continue to deliver a better service to their customers. They didn't see it as competition,
708. 01:03:35 they saw it as a way to help more people and to make the offering even better.
709. 01:03:40 I think that's the way we need to come at this is not worrying about it, but seeing it as a good
710. 01:03:45 thing, which is not easy like we've been saying. Yeah, I would say that it's not even viewing it
711. 01:03:51 as a good thing, but just recognizing that it is and can't change the fact that it's happened
712. 01:03:57 or where do you go from here? If you constantly are looking forward instead of backwards, you won't
713. 01:04:02 get upset about all the missteps that you took. Agreed.
714. 01:04:10 Now, this leads us into the next key here. Be meek before God, but bold before men.
715. 01:04:17 This is my favorite chapter. This is where Antonio meets the pirate.
716. 01:04:21 I'll let you introduce it then. Basically, the point here is that as it pertains to
717. 01:04:32 your standing before God, you always have to make sure that you recognize the fact that you are
718. 01:04:38 not God. That's how I interpret this. You will always not be God, and you can try to make
719. 01:04:44 yourself God. It's not going to change the fact that you are not. So, recognizing that,
720. 01:04:48 accepting your place and approaching God in the right mindset, the right reverence, that is
721. 01:04:55 going to be very, very determinant of what you actually get when you spend time reading your
722. 01:05:01 Bible praying, etc. That's going to be important. That you are meek, teachable. I guess the best
723. 01:05:07 way to describe this is like Julio, for example, in this story. He's not trying to interject with
724. 01:05:13 all the things that he's learned. He's just taking in what his grandfather is teaching him. He's
725. 01:05:20 learning from his own experience because his grandfather knows more than he does.
726. 01:05:24 Now, being bold before men, though, you kind of have to flip a switch. This is not to say that
727. 01:05:34 you are thinking of yourself better than other people, which is, I think, probably the common
728. 01:05:40 manifestation of this mindset, but it is being confident in your abilities and in your rights
729. 01:05:49 before other people. So, in the story, for example, this pirate contacts him and he's kind of a bad
730. 01:05:57 dude. He says, "I want to have a meeting." So, he's kind of scared of this guy. He doesn't want to go.
731. 01:06:02 Turns out he ends up going and then gets a big business deal out of it.
732. 01:06:05 And that's just... Very big business deal. Actually, what he had to do, though, was he had to
733. 01:06:12 overcome his emotion and his fear. So, that is something that everybody deals with. And that's
734. 01:06:19 also why I think something like Toastmasters is so important because the number one fear that
735. 01:06:24 people have is public speaking. Number two is death. So, people are more afraid of getting up in front
736. 01:06:31 of people and talking than they are about dying themselves, which is kind of messed up. But it
737. 01:06:36 comes back to this being bold before men. Most people, they think that they get in that situation,
738. 01:06:40 they've got nothing to say. Like, what can I possibly add to these people? And I've experienced
739. 01:06:46 this in my own very brief, very young public speaking career. Like, I have not appeared before
740. 01:06:54 large audiences, but even the audiences that I have spoken in front of, I suffer from that. I'm like,
741. 01:07:00 well, this person is here, this person is here. Like, why are they here to listen to me?
742. 01:07:06 But if you understand that you do have something of value, that can translate into the confidence
743. 01:07:17 to go before those people. So, this is something literally that I'm dealing with right now,
744. 01:07:22 because I'm trying to get more experience, more visibility. So, I've... I'm reaching out to other
745. 01:07:29 podcasts. And the standard email that you get from people who want to be on podcasts is usually
746. 01:07:37 very self-serving. Like, hey, I'd be great for your podcasts. We get these all the time for the
747. 01:07:42 productivity show. Most of the time they're addressed to TAN, even though TAN's not on the
748. 01:07:46 podcast very much. So, right away when they say hi, TAN, you know that they've never listened to
749. 01:07:51 an episode. Secondly, with the productivity show, we typically focus on specific problems from the
750. 01:07:57 dojo. And so, people will come in and they'll say, hey, I've got a great guest for your show.
751. 01:08:03 And they're... And I'm just like, you don't listen, because we don't really have guests for our show.
752. 01:08:07 And then they go on to talk about how great their guest is. Like, that's what I don't want to come
753. 01:08:11 across as. So, this is really difficult for me, because I have to frame this in a way, especially
754. 01:08:17 in a template, where maybe I've listened to the podcast, maybe I haven't, but communicating in a
755. 01:08:23 way that I'm confident in the message and the value that I can bring to their audience feels
756. 01:08:30 really internet marketing to me. You know, going back to your initial point, your initial follow-up
757. 01:08:36 item. Like, in our discussion about the cognitive biases and how those pertain to marketing,
758. 01:08:41 this can be very difficult, but it's important because you have something of value to add to the
759. 01:08:50 conversation. So, recognizing that is important, but then also not overstepping your balance.
760. 01:08:55 That's really the key to this point, I think, is the balance.
761. 01:08:58 And that's not an easy balance to find, because... And you might not have had a chance to listen to
762. 01:09:07 the latest theoretical, because Josh and I talked about the art of thinking clearly a little bit,
763. 01:09:13 and how it is okay to use some of those biases when you're marketing, but you have to do it in a way
764. 01:09:21 that will help the other person. You have to have their best interest in mind. If you don't,
765. 01:09:26 then it's coming across as the scummy internet marketing thing that you're getting at. But
766. 01:09:31 if you're genuinely trying to help, it's okay to use some of those in that way. And it is really
767. 01:09:39 hard to find that balance. But at the same time, you're saying breaking that fear
768. 01:09:45 in a way that helps you help other people, if you can make that connection, that's the goal and
769. 01:09:54 the purpose behind this key. Is that a fair way to describe that, Mike?
770. 01:09:58 Yeah, I think so. In the study guide thing, at the end, they actually, one of the sections,
771. 01:10:04 talk about the acronym fear, which can be applied a lot of different ways. But the one that I liked
772. 01:10:10 that they used was false evidence appearing real. As it pertains to my personality, and I will say
773. 01:10:19 false humility, the tendency can be to say that, well, I don't have anything of value. I don't
774. 01:10:25 have anything to contribute. I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to sit here and watch.
775. 01:10:29 And I would argue, and this is something that I struggle with and deal with on a daily basis,
776. 01:10:34 that that is wrong. Like you do have something that you need to contribute. You do have something
777. 01:10:39 that you need to add. You do have something valuable. There is a vocation. There is a need
778. 01:10:43 that you are specifically designed and created to meet. And if you do not do it, we all suffer.
779. 01:10:48 Yes, agreed. Now I want to move on to the number eight, because I'm also looking at the clock,
780. 01:10:57 we got to move. The next three, we can probably lump together. They all have to do with money.
781. 01:11:04 Or the next four, maybe. Yeah, possibly. All right, so let's do this. We're going to lump the
782. 01:11:11 next four together. So number eight, live debt free and below your means. Number nine,
783. 01:11:18 always keep to your budget. Those two for sure could be lumped together.
784. 01:11:23 Yeah, it implies you have a budget to begin with there. Number 10, loaning money destroys
785. 01:11:29 relationships. Number 11, set aside the first 10% to honor God. And this all comes around the idea
786. 01:11:38 of what do you do with your money after you have earned it in some way. And if you try to
787. 01:11:47 lump all of these together, what you tend to see is one, you need to create a budget. So in other
788. 01:11:54 words, decide what your money is going to do before you've done anything with it. So deciding
789. 01:12:01 where I'm going to spend the money that I'm earning before I've actually gotten to that point,
790. 01:12:07 if you follow me there. Once you've got that budget, decide that the first 10% is going to go to
791. 01:12:15 God, to the church in this case, make sure that whenever you're building that budget,
792. 01:12:22 your income is greater than your outgo. You want to make sure that you're on the positive,
793. 01:12:28 not in the red. If you're in the red, that's a problem. And then at the same time, once you've
794. 01:12:34 got all of that decided, do not loan money to other people because it will destroy those
795. 01:12:41 relationships. And if you ever listened to the Dave Ramsey show, one of the number one things
796. 01:12:47 that people struggle with is mom and dad, let me money and I'm trying to pay them back or
797. 01:12:51 my kids need to buy a car and I want to give them the money, like loan it to them. And most of the
798. 01:12:59 time, the complaints that come with that is that this is destroying our relationship and it is
799. 01:13:05 causing a lot of problems within the family. So if you ever want encouragement to not loan money
800. 01:13:12 to other people, just listen to that show. It'll set you straight pretty quick.
801. 01:13:17 Yeah. And in the book, at the very beginning, they stop at this restaurant where it's clear that
802. 01:13:24 Antonio knows the owner and they basically get a really good meal. And then later on in the book,
803. 01:13:30 you find out that the owner of that restaurant is actually a family member that he refused to
804. 01:13:35 loan money to. Yes. Which I thought was a little bit of a sensationalized example. But
805. 01:13:42 I get the principle and you are 100% correct that you do not want to be owing money to other
806. 01:13:50 family members because it causes stress on the relationships. Now I would, I do think it's worth
807. 01:13:55 pointing out here that loaning money destroys the relationships as point number 10 says,
808. 01:14:01 giving money is a little bit different. Now that doesn't, some of the same principles still apply
809. 01:14:06 that when someone comes and asks you for money, you don't just whip out the checkbook and meet the
810. 01:14:11 need. I mean, if you're able to do that, and you want to do that, that's awesome. But even that
811. 01:14:16 can be enabling in some senses. So really the point that he's making in this book is that you
812. 01:14:22 want to stay away from those things because you're not really helping that person. You're the easy
813. 01:14:27 button in that particular situation. And if you enable them, chances are they'll never going to
814. 01:14:31 figure this out for themselves. And so there's going to be failure. And now there's going to be
815. 01:14:35 the added stress that they owe you money. And I completely agree that you should avoid that whenever
816. 01:14:41 possible. I forget where I've heard it, but I've heard the phrase that if you loan somebody in your
817. 01:14:50 family money, Thanksgiving dinner doesn't taste the same. Like it.
818. 01:14:56 Yeah, that's a that's a Dave Ramsey. Changes there. Is that it? Is that where I got that? Okay,
819. 01:14:59 I wasn't sure. Apparently I'm a Dave Ramsey fan, as you can tell.
820. 01:15:03 Well, these four points right here explain why he recommends this book.
821. 01:15:07 Yes. Yes. And if you go through the study guide, you see Dave Ramsey mentioned a lot
822. 01:15:12 when they're going through that area of it. There's a lot of good stuff here, though. And
823. 01:15:16 this is these are things that you read them and you're like, well, yeah, I know that. But do you?
824. 01:15:21 I mean, do you actually keep a budget? And if you do, do you actually spend less than you make?
825. 01:15:27 Like it's very common sense, but common sense isn't so common. Like you have to look at the
826. 01:15:33 actions, you have to match that up. And that's really what you believe. You know, it's not the
827. 01:15:38 fact that you know that you're supposed to do a budget. It's not the fact that you know you're
828. 01:15:42 supposed to live below your means and have some savings for when things go wrong.
829. 01:15:46 But all of this stuff like is compounded. We're talking about the factory fire, for example,
830. 01:15:52 like that was the result of some choices. One of the things that Dave says in the Financial
831. 01:15:57 Peace University class that he does is the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And really,
832. 01:16:02 what that means is that there is going to be some crisis. It is unavoidable. But most people
833. 01:16:08 don't look for the crisis. They don't look at the fact that, oh, you know, for the last five years,
834. 01:16:13 things have been going pretty well. I guess I should be ready for that rainy day for when
835. 01:16:16 things are going to go wrong. And they don't. They live paycheck to paycheck. And then
836. 01:16:20 the car blows up and you need a new one and you're like, ah, I don't have the money. Like
837. 01:16:24 suddenly never comes suddenly. And you should be expecting these things and you should be building
838. 01:16:30 those into your budget. And if you do do that on a consistent basis, it makes the times that
839. 01:16:34 those things happen much, much easier to deal with.
840. 01:16:39 Agree 100%. So there's a lot here because so much of this is how to manage money in a,
841. 01:16:51 you know, to use the cliche term prosperous way. And it's just not normal. It's just not. And
842. 01:17:01 whenever you think about, you know, take the first one here, live debt free and below your means,
843. 01:17:05 how many people actually do that? And how many people use a credit card to buy something like,
844. 01:17:10 I'll just put that on the card. Like, I don't have anything against a credit card per se,
845. 01:17:15 but when you're using it to buy things you can't afford, that's a problem. And it will eventually
846. 01:17:21 expand to the point that it leads people to very inappropriate ways of managing money. I've heard
847. 01:17:29 stories of people who they get a new credit card and they don't think they ever have to pay it back.
848. 01:17:36 They think it's their money. They don't realize it's a credit card. It is a loan. You have to pay
849. 01:17:45 that back. The number of people who actually think that astounds me. And I can't help but wonder how
850. 01:17:51 they got to that point. And it's it makes me wonder if parents at some point have just said,
851. 01:18:00 I'll just put that on the card, knowing they're going to pay it off later. But the kids don't see
852. 01:18:05 that part. They don't see the the paying it back part. They just see, I'll just put it on the card.
853. 01:18:10 And I wonder if people get to a point where they just see it as, you know, this is my money because
854. 01:18:16 I can just put it on the card. Why? What do you mean I have to pay it back? I just wonder how people
855. 01:18:20 get to that point. All this to say, don't go negative. Be intentional with it. And if you earn
856. 01:18:31 a certain amount of money, make sure that your expenses are less than that.
857. 01:18:35 Yeah, there is a cognitive bias that speaks to this specifically, but I can't find it in my list
858. 01:18:44 of hundred from the last episode. I'll just summarizing what it says is that we tend to discount things
859. 01:18:58 that are in the future. And so that's why if you listen to Dave Ramsey, he always recommends that
860. 01:19:05 you pay cash for stuff because when you pay cash for things, you feel the pain of the money leaving
861. 01:19:11 your account at that exact moment. And you lose that as soon as you use a credit card. And he, by the
862. 01:19:17 way, he he backs this up because I tried to sign up for the entree leadership conference. And they
863. 01:19:25 would not take a credit card. It caused some problems actually, but I was able to figure it out.
864. 01:19:29 But they because I don't really use a debit card, I use the Amazon credit card just because I don't
865. 01:19:34 have to think about it. It's auto paid every single month. And I go into Amazon and I've got a bunch
866. 01:19:39 of points that I can use. So very, very simple system with a little bit of benefit. We always pay
867. 01:19:44 off the entire balance every single month. It's not an issue. But it was an issue when I tried to buy
868. 01:19:49 something from Dave Ramsey. So he lives what he preaches regardless of what you think of him.
869. 01:19:55 The other thing I think is worth calling out here is this set aside the first 10% to honor God. Now,
870. 01:20:04 I am going to hold back a little bit here because I know that my views on this are probably not
871. 01:20:10 the majority, I'll just say. But I really think that this is critical. I believe that if you do not
872. 01:20:21 set aside the first 10%, so that's like 10% of the gross, not the net. If you are going to abide by
873. 01:20:27 this system and say, yes, I am a Tyler, because that's what tied the means 10%. It is critical
874. 01:20:34 that it is the first 10% because that's what activates all of the other systems that God has
875. 01:20:40 said in a place. And I know story after story after story after story after story of people who
876. 01:20:45 have just started doing this just as a way of testing God. You know, most people are thinking,
877. 01:20:51 oh, you can't test God actually in Malachi three, that's the only place where it says,
878. 01:20:55 test me in this if I will not open the windows of heaven for you. And I can tell you from personal
879. 01:21:00 experience that our income has gone up year after year after year when we have implemented this
880. 01:21:06 system, the setting aside the first 10%. And lots of other people that I know have experienced this
881. 01:21:12 as well. Great book on this particular topic, by the way, is The Blessed Life by Robert Morris,
882. 01:21:17 which I believe is another Ramsey recommendation. But it really gets into this whole financial
883. 01:21:23 system concept. Because like I said, there's a lot of this stuff that if you're going to make
884. 01:21:27 the distinction church, not church, there's a lot of stuff that exists outside the church,
885. 01:21:31 which is actually Christian biblical principles being played out in the world around us. And this
886. 01:21:37 one right here is very critical. And I think it kind of ties into the last part here,
887. 01:21:43 understand the power of partnership, because what you are saying when you agree to tie the
888. 01:21:48 do things God's way is yes, God, your system is better than any system I can come up with,
889. 01:21:52 which is probably a fairly safe statement to say. I mean, if you really wanted to get
890. 01:21:59 into that, Isaiah, I believe a 65 says your ways are higher than our ways, your thoughts are
891. 01:22:04 higher than our thoughts like God sees things you don't see he sees all of the opportunities that
892. 01:22:09 are out there in the future that you cannot predict. And if you are in the will of God, if you are
893. 01:22:13 doing things according to the system of God, then that opens up a lot of doors that not that God
894. 01:22:19 doesn't want to bless his people, but he just can't because you haven't completely trusted him. I
895. 01:22:23 know that like if I'm if I want to bless my kids, for example, not that any sort of reward is based
896. 01:22:34 on what they do, but who they are, the amount of blessing that I can give them the whether that
897. 01:22:40 be financial, emotional, relational, whatever, like it requires a response from them. If they are
898. 01:22:47 stone cold teenagers, who whatever, you know, like that's that's going to limit what I'm able to do
899. 01:22:53 for them. And I think that that's honestly where a lot of what parents get into trouble because they
900. 01:22:59 get into those years and they don't see the response and they try to overcompensate from
901. 01:23:03 from their end. And you can enable a lot of bad habits that way. But I think that this is this
902. 01:23:09 is really, really important because when you say when you make a one step to show that, yes, God,
903. 01:23:14 I am I am in I'm going to do things the way that you think they should be done because I know that
904. 01:23:18 you're a lot smarter and better at this than I am. That that that puts the wheels in motion for a
905. 01:23:24 lot of different things. I know that whenever I look at this key, understand the power of partnership,
906. 01:23:33 one of the first things I tend to think of is something we talked about early on in this
907. 01:23:38 conversation is building those relationships and doing mentoring. And it really comes through
908. 01:23:45 in the book with Alicia mentoring Antonio and seeing how he helps him learn these principles
909. 01:23:55 and do something with them. But the story that comes out at the end that really ties a lot of
910. 01:24:01 this together, you know, you mentioned the part where one of the the priests was scowling at Antonio
911. 01:24:08 or Alicia, it happened to both of them. And they both smile back. In Alicia's case, he's smiling back
912. 01:24:16 because the priest doesn't necessarily understand how much he's doing and what he is doing at St.
913. 01:24:22 Peter's because Alicia helped take the old cathedral down and started helping to build from a financial
914. 01:24:33 and a a how do you explain that from an intellectual standpoint, he was using his knowledge and
915. 01:24:42 expertise to help build the new. That was the partnership he was working on, but the priests that
916. 01:24:49 was scowling on him didn't know that likely. So he's getting upset, but for the wrong reason in
917. 01:24:55 that case, he didn't fully understand it in that case. So I thought it was interesting that this
918. 01:24:59 comes out at the end because it ties so much of all this other all the other keys together.
919. 01:25:03 And you don't really see it until the end. So I thought it was interesting that Alicia had this
920. 01:25:09 partnership with the monks as per the story and was able to help fulfill their vision in a lot of
921. 01:25:18 ways. And some of only part of it really was financial, even though it was a huge financial
922. 01:25:24 burden to do that, it wasn't a big deal for for him because he had built a massive empire of
923. 01:25:31 trade. So I love that it all comes together in this power of partnership because the two sides
924. 01:25:41 are definitely not against each other. They are definitely interconnected. And when we finally see
925. 01:25:47 how to do that and fulfill it on both sides together, there's a lot of amazing things that can happen
926. 01:25:55 with that. Yeah, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And that's why the partnership
927. 01:26:03 piece is so important. And also the perspective that I mentioned earlier, like instead of looking
928. 01:26:07 for what you can get also looking at what you can give, if you approached all of the relationships,
929. 01:26:13 business relationships, whatever that way, then you're going to have a lot more fruit from it because
930. 01:26:20 you've got this partnership where everybody is working together and what you can what you can
931. 01:26:24 build together when you are really in alignment is significantly more than anything that you could
932. 01:26:29 do by yourself. And that can be that can be business. So if you are working in a real partnership where
933. 01:26:38 this is really a win-win, then financially, maybe is the way that you you experience the growth that
934. 01:26:45 way. But I also think we touched at this at the very beginning, the mentorship piece, like you just
935. 01:26:49 mentioned, the discipleship model, like this is important. If we are partners of the gospel,
936. 01:26:56 which is what it says in the Bible, then we need to embrace this partnership mindset. And we need
937. 01:27:01 to go and we need to find those people that we can mentor. Just think like Alicia mentored Antonio
938. 01:27:07 and Tonya mentored Julio or I guess he probably mentored a Felipe at some point. Or at least
939. 01:27:15 he'll mentored up. No, okay, I'm messing this up. There's Alicia, the main guy, he mentored Antonio
940. 01:27:21 Antonio's father was Felipe. He was the monk and then Julio was the grandson. But just in this
941. 01:27:27 story, like we've got a lot more potential for the mentorship to happen. Like what if Alicia had
942. 01:27:35 mentored more people than just Antonio? What if Antonio had mentored Felipe, Felipe mentored Julio
943. 01:27:42 and all of the people that they that were in their sphere of influence? Like imagine, I guess the
944. 01:27:49 thing that gets me excited about this is just thinking about the people who are in my church.
945. 01:27:54 My church is not a big church. It's roughly 150 people. But if I am able to communicate and mentor
946. 01:28:02 in a sense, the things that I understand as it pertains to this particular area, as it pertains
947. 01:28:10 to this particular book, and I'm able to get even a handful of people who start their own businesses
948. 01:28:16 and it becomes successful and it completely changes their life. And then they go and they
949. 01:28:20 find five more people. Like within one generation now, we've gone from one to five to 25.
950. 01:28:25 I think that that gets lost in the translation of this particular book because it's so focused on
951. 01:28:29 that one relationship. But there is exponentially greater potential impact through the power of
952. 01:28:36 multiplication that is in this partnership. Do you want to move on to action items? There's more
953. 01:28:45 you want to go over on this because I think that's a great place to say we've tied this all together.
954. 01:28:50 We can end it there. People want more excited. We want to contact me directly.
955. 01:28:56 I was like, I think we could just go on and on and on and on. So we need to draw a line here
956. 01:29:02 somewhere. So I'm looking at the action items that you have on here, Mike, or lack thereof.
957. 01:29:07 Start talking. Well, like I said, this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart.
958. 01:29:16 I literally wrote a book on this exact topic. So I feel like this is a great book and the narrative
959. 01:29:23 that they share is awesome. And there's a lot of stuff that you can glean from it. It's also a
960. 01:29:28 lot of stuff that I have. I've gotten a revelation of through my own personal study. I would say,
961. 01:29:35 so I had trouble picking out an action item, but the one thing that I really do want to change
962. 01:29:41 now that I am looking at this, I want to do a better job with our budget. So my wife and I
963. 01:29:48 are going over this literally right now. And what we're recognizing is that we've kind of let it
964. 01:29:53 slide a little bit. And I know that that is something that we need to get, we need to get on top of.
965. 01:30:00 I want to be able to go in there at any given moment and know exactly where everything went
966. 01:30:04 and where everything is going. So we've got a program that we're using to do that. And
967. 01:30:09 I guess that would be my action item would be get the budget 100% up to date.
968. 01:30:15 Yeah, I know my wife and I have been running a personal budget for a number of years now,
969. 01:30:21 and it's been incredibly enlightening and very helpful. So I can't say that that's a takeaway for
970. 01:30:28 me in my personal life, but I also know that I haven't really done that for my business. It's
971. 01:30:35 always operated as keep expenses as low as you can and drive as much of an income as you can. But
972. 01:30:40 I've never sat down and written a full on budget for my business. It's easily in the black by a
973. 01:30:48 long shot since it's a web business. So there's very little for expenses in respect to what it
974. 01:30:56 drives as an income. So I don't really have to worry about that. But at the same time,
975. 01:31:00 I couldn't necessarily tell you that all the expenses that I have for that are the right ones.
976. 01:31:06 So I need to be a more intentional about that. So that's going to be one of my takeaways here.
977. 01:31:12 The other is, and I wrote it as be okay with being aggressive in business. That might be a bad
978. 01:31:18 way to say it. But I want to make sure that I'm not being complacent with what I'm doing in my
979. 01:31:28 business and being okay with trying to help more people. And that's been kind of my drive with
980. 01:31:35 the guild lately. And it's something I want to be better at. I want to be
981. 01:31:40 able to help more people in this way. And I say being aggressive. And again, I don't know that's
982. 01:31:46 the right term for it. But I'd like to use my business to help more people. And that's what I'm
983. 01:31:51 shooting for. Nice. So author style rating hit me, Mike. Well, I definitely like the author style.
984. 01:32:01 I really enjoyed the book. I thought it was very engaging. It was very interesting. There were a
985. 01:32:10 couple things that I had minor issues with. But overall, I really, I really like the message of
986. 01:32:17 the book. I think it is very needed. Honestly, I have trouble rating this one. Because I think
987. 01:32:28 that there's a lot more here that you really have to understand in order for this stuff to really
988. 01:32:33 stick. So I think it's great as like a first step. But I also think that there's a lot more
989. 01:32:40 that you have to understand before you're really in Antonio's shoes, where you're super successful.
990. 01:32:47 And I think that's not necessarily deceiving, but it's kind of lost in the in the translations.
991. 01:32:54 Like, well, if you just understand these 12 things, then your life's going to be radically
992. 01:32:57 different. It kind of reminded me of those posts that you see, like one small hack to change your
993. 01:33:03 life in only two minutes a day, you know, seems a little sensational to me. Just a little.
994. 01:33:09 Yeah. And I know that this is colored because of my past and my own personal experience with this
995. 01:33:16 subject, my Bible college degree, and my own personal research that I literally did hours and
996. 01:33:21 hours and hours of on this exact topic. So I don't expect everybody to come from the same
997. 01:33:26 reference point. But I'm going to rate this at four stars.
998. 01:33:29 Nice. I will agree with you on author style. Very easy read. And I do like that it's story form.
999. 01:33:38 The again, I mentioned early that the study guide on this was something that I did read,
1000. 01:33:46 but there were some bits of it that I jumped over just because I felt like we'd already talked
1001. 01:33:52 about it. And that kind of, I think if I was sitting down and I was going through this with a group,
1002. 01:33:57 that would be a different story because it looking through some of the discussion questions,
1003. 01:34:02 I could see how it would be very helpful in a group setting. So that's something that I know
1004. 01:34:06 I could see as helpful. I also know that I would agree with you in that this is a great starting
1005. 01:34:12 point for people. I can't say that this is going to, and even in at the end of an Antonio's talking
1006. 01:34:19 to Julio, his grandson, and saying that he needs to meet, he's going to meet someone back at the
1007. 01:34:28 steps of St. Peter's in a year. So even that he's talking about how you're going to be connecting
1008. 01:34:35 with somebody else to learn more about this. So I think there's there is a level of it doesn't
1009. 01:34:41 stop with the book. And I kind of wish that had been called out a little bit more because if you
1010. 01:34:47 just read this and think it's going to solve a lot of problems, it's not going to happen. I don't
1011. 01:34:50 think any book is really going to do that. So there might be a bit of a misconception with that.
1012. 01:34:55 For a rating, I think I would put it at 4.5 here, Mike. I'll up you one. I think this is one that I
1013. 01:35:03 plan to and have already recommended to a handful of people who are struggling with some of their
1014. 01:35:11 mindset when it comes to money and the church and how do you work through some of the issues on those
1015. 01:35:18 two and how do they work together. So this is a case where I have a few friends and family members
1016. 01:35:26 who are well off. I wouldn't say they're super wealthy, but they do all right for themselves
1017. 01:35:32 and they really struggle with their relationship with that and the church and how those two play
1018. 01:35:38 together. So I've recommended it to them and I think it's a great starting point for people in
1019. 01:35:41 that position. That's why I put it there. Yeah, I would agree with that.
1020. 01:35:46 All right. So the next book then is Thinking Girl Rich by Napoleon Hill, which is my choice.
1021. 01:35:54 One of those classic books that is referred to a lot that I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I
1022. 01:35:59 haven't read yet. You like to pick these. Yeah. I feel like I should have done this. Okay,
1023. 01:36:04 now we'll do it publicly. Online accountability. There you go. There you go. Following that,
1024. 01:36:12 I've selected the Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, which is should be an interesting read. It's all
1025. 01:36:19 about being willing to put yourself out there and ask for things and get over the fear of doing that.
1026. 01:36:26 Nice. My gap book is one that I ordered off of Amazon and I always ordered the hardcover versions.
1027. 01:36:35 Turned out that the hardcover version was actually not available through Amazon, but it was also
1028. 01:36:41 available through an affiliate seller and it still offered the prime shipping. So I got it. It was
1029. 01:36:47 fairly cheap. It was only like five or six bucks and I got it and turns out it's a signed copy.
1030. 01:36:53 So that's super cool. So my book is Do Over by John Acuff.
1031. 01:36:58 Nice. I'm a fan of Acuff. He derates some good stuff.
1032. 01:37:03 Yeah, he's a very entertaining author. Very easy to read.
1033. 01:37:06 Yeah. I'm reading kind of a, I don't want to say textbook, but it's definitely a long in depth.
1034. 01:37:14 Book. We'll see if I get through this one in a week.
1035. 01:37:16 If you read a book, which is by a person who writes textbooks, does that make it a textbook?
1036. 01:37:23 I don't know. That's a very good question because it's very easy to read.
1037. 01:37:27 By someone who writes curriculum, I guess. Is it a textbook?
1038. 01:37:30 So this is by Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education. My wife and I are planning to
1039. 01:37:39 homeschool our girls and this is a book that was recommended to us by a long time follower of mine,
1040. 01:37:47 Matt. And I know that he homeschools his kids and they have some very similar viewpoints to us.
1041. 01:37:56 And I'm very interested in his take on this. They've been at it longer than us.
1042. 01:38:00 And he highly recommended this as a place to get started in understanding how to homeschool
1043. 01:38:06 in a very positive way. So I'm interested in this. Again, we'll see if I get through it in a week.
1044. 01:38:14 It's what is it? 250 plus pages long and a fairly small type and long pages. So we'll see. We'll see.
1045. 01:38:22 Good luck. Thanks.
1046. 01:38:25 All right. If you want to recommend a book, I know that Joe specifically has mentioned that he's
1047. 01:38:32 going to be grabbing a bunch of recommendations. And I was looking through the list too. I'm definitely
1048. 01:38:36 going to select a couple as well. So we would love to get your recommendations. And you can do
1049. 01:38:42 that by going to bookworm.fm/list. And there'll be a button to recommend a book. You will also see
1050. 01:38:48 a list of all the books that we have covered, as well as the books that are on the schedule,
1051. 01:38:53 and also all of the books that are currently recommended.
1052. 01:38:57 Yeah, I'm planning to do that likely in the next two to three weeks. So get them out there,
1053. 01:39:04 get them out there now. So since this episode was very different, I'm very curious to see what
1054. 01:39:12 people think of it. So there's a couple ways you can let us know if we're headed down a path that
1055. 01:39:17 you absolutely hate, or if you absolutely love this, because I have a feeling this is a polarizing
1056. 01:39:21 episode. A couple ways you can do that. Leave us an iTunes review. So you go to the link in the
1057. 01:39:26 show notes and you can get there that way. Or you can go to the productivity guild where we have
1058. 01:39:31 our conversations about each episode. So you can do the feedback thing on one of those two places,
1059. 01:39:37 and links to both of those will be in the show notes.
1060. 01:39:41 Thanks everybody for joining us. If you're reading along, the next book up is Think and
1061. 01:39:45 Girl Rich by Napoleon Hill, and we will talk to you next time.