August 6, 2024 • 23 mins
Things get personal in this episode. Benji is sharing his journey with depression and self-doubt, and lessons learned that have shaped his creativity and identity.
Join us as we discuss:
Connect with us:
Benji: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benji-block/
James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescarbary/
Join us as we discuss:
- How to handle losing your community
- Learning to hold space for those that see the world vastly different from you
- How to overcome self-doubt and find healing
Connect with us:
Benji: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benji-block/
James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescarbary/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fuck depression.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm getting over this and I'm gonna just do something
that clears my head and puts me in a different space.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
All right, So this is the part two. Emily leads
our creative team pitched this in an editorial meeting the
other day. She's like, well, you guys are together in
Orlando at the house. You need to you need to
do an episode about a moment where you didn't believe
in yourself. We did my episode last episode, and now
(00:34):
it's your turn. You're in the hot seat, Benji. So
so I present you with with the question tell me,
tell me about a time that you didn't believe in yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So I'm gonna set it up because I feel like
it needs some context. My family, specifically me as a
kid growing up, my dad was a pastor and we
grew up overseas.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So the church that.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I saw my dad pastor for a number of years
was like four thousand people plus very large international church Kenyans,
but it's in Nairobi, so it's like Kenyans Europeans, like
there's a lot of a good mix of like cultures whatever.
So success to me growing up looked a lot like
leading big teams and being on stage. And I can
(01:24):
see that in like most of the jobs that I've had.
I can see that in the way that I view
success and performance. And that translated into like as I
started getting jobs, So that was.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
My picture of success.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Fast forward, I get out of high school, I'm like,
what am I going to do with my life.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'm I'm gonna be a pastor.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
So I am. I help with a church plant right
outside of Austin, Texas. And for over the course of
a few years, basically that church went from twelve in
a living room to six hundred plus and so we're
building systems and we're growing and all the out things
of like this is what I thought as a kid.
Success was, it's like we just eat the thing grows.
(02:06):
You get to lead bigger.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Teams that you're teaching your teaching pastor.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I was speaking about eight to twelve times a year.
And at the end of this and I was I
was the creative arts pastor. So was leading av teams
with leading music, all anything creative. It's kind of my department.
So I loved that season of life. But it came
(02:31):
to this, we don't have to get super in the weeds.
But basically came to this point where our church was
making a pretty big decision, and it the decision we
ended up making split the church into a million pieces.
And I was at that point literally just traveling and speaking.
My life was church, My parents are still pastors, my
(02:54):
world in my community, which you touched on in part
one of this, like your friends are so much of this.
I had moved to this city to help start this thing,
and it came to this in flection point where I
was like, Okay, well we've made this statement. Now the
church explodes. Everybody's in different places and thinking different things.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Why were you traveling and speaking as the church was exploding?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So this is getting in there for a second, imploding
getting yeah, getting in the weeds for a second. I
was the Creative Arts pastor up until about eight months
before this decision. This was still my home church, and
I was still speaking very regularly.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So I'm super involved.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
But I had stepped down from the Creative Arts pastor
position because I was literally just starting to travel and speak.
That was my full time thing. I was doing that solo.
So at this point, as everything explodes and people are
in all these different places, COVID hit like three weeks later,
and so now not only was it okay, well everybody
(03:59):
has all these different opinions, but also like none of
us are really talking to each other. And the thing
that I've given the last decade of my life to
and helped build is kind of crumbling before my eyes,
and I don't it set off like to be truthful,
a crisis of faith. I was like, why do I
actually think this stuff? Why do I believe it? What
(04:20):
is like the packaging I was handed as a kid.
Then I was just like, of course that's right, you know,
my parents handed it to me. This decade of like
what I sought approval from and what success looked like
was very much painted by my upbringing. And so it
hit this just like brick wall, and everything kind of shattered.
And so in the COVID season of my life, I
(04:40):
started rethinking everything. Everything was on the table as far
as like my belief system, how like the community I
wanted to be a.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Part of, and what it honestly did.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Because I am very much success driven, and that was
the picture I had of success, It's like, what's the
point And if I built this for a decade and
it fell apart. Did I just waste my twenties? And
those kind of questions triggered a depression where I was like,
(05:13):
I don't know if I believe in my communication ability,
my creative ability, and I don't know how this translates
if I leave all of what I think did believe behind,
what the heck do I do now? And so that
was the inflection point of like I don't know what
job to go get. I know I can't go back,
and I don't really want to go back to what I.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Was fully doing before.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And so the mindset of like what's the transferable skill?
And you'll hear this a lot from people that were
in ministry that translate to like go over to businesses.
There's a lack of like understanding of how this skill
set will work. Clearly, spent some years I've found out
there's some transferable skills. But in that moment of like
(05:56):
where I don't even know what I get my identity
from or what my picture of success looks like, or
is it all just wrapped up in like how much
you can achieve and outwardly looks good because all of
those kind of in using a different terminology, but like
those vanity metrics were gone, and it was very much
me looking at myself, going what do I what do
(06:17):
I think? And why do I think it? I don't
know if I trust myself.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
What was the what you were married at this point?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah? What early in our marriage too, which.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Is what's Sydney's How does Sydney? Yeah, what she going
through while your world is like crumbling around you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I think it's really hard when something is super tied
to someone's identity to understand why it is, because we
we define ourselves in such different ways, Like I'm sure
the things that you think about when you think this
is what makes up James is different than how your
spouse things about this is what makes up James. This
is why I love James, which is beautiful in marriage,
(07:02):
but it's also super complicating because I don't think Sydney
ever realized how much of my life was dependent on
church and that circle. So when you pull that thread
in a time when it was already a pretty lonely season.
A lot of people experience loneliness during COVID like it's
just a wild time, but you started to pulling that thread,
(07:23):
I don't think she got a clear picture of the
fact that I had given literally the city I lived
and the only reason I met my wife was because
I moved there to start a church. So when we
talk about like work life balance, I didn't even know
what that was because my whole life was church.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And to be honest, there's things about that are amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's really hard to find that kind of amazing community
anywhere outside of like a religious environment like that, And
so it's been helpful in the long run for communication
because she goes, oh, I know, there's so many triggers
when it comes to like church and like things that
your life was dependent on.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I mean, we lived overseas.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Because my dad was a pastor, so it's like, how
many layers do you want to go on? How tied
that was to my identity. It started really good conversations.
But I because we saw so many people handle it
different ways. I'm really thankful that this sounds weird, but
when I say people went in all different directions, like
(08:23):
we at least were thinking in the same direction. So
it didn't cause this friction where it's like she's thinking
one thing.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
On thinking, did it bring these guys closer together?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It forced better communication, but for a season. I think
she didn't know how to handle me being severely depressed.
And that's from a communication standpoint. One of the most
frustrating things is on this podcast, I pride myself to
someone who can communicate, and in that season, I didn't
trust my communication skills. And I know, like, how do
(08:53):
I tell you what I actually feel? Because I'm struggling
to be honest and I don't know like if I'm
going to just resolve this or if it's going to
pass tomorrow. And even when I'd be vulnerable with people,
it's like I was seeing things so gray, like you
have this opinion, you have this opinion. I want to
be friends with both of you. How do I like
stay in the middle so that I don't cause more chaos?
(09:13):
And my wife was kind of seeing all of that,
and it's like, I don to help.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
You in the moment. Were you able to recognize the
depression for what it was but or was it just
a lot of confusion, like what am I feeling right now?
Or did you know like, Okay, this is this is depression.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I can't speak to like the whole season, but I
can say that, like the story I remember, which is
interesting going back to part one of like what you
shared was one night being with Sydney in our room
in Austin and having to admit, like I was like,
I don't use the word depressed because I have friends
(09:55):
who are clinically depressed, and I'm afraid to use that
terminology because I don't want to. I don't feel like,
based on what conversations I've had with them, that I'm
in that camp, so I would I would avoid those words.
And when I admitted that to her, I just remember
this like release of being like, no, that's that word
(10:16):
describes you and describe and it was a no brainer
to her. It's like I've been seeing this for months,
but like you wouldn't hear it or see it. And
that that night of just admitting it and just sitting
in it and honestly having my dog with us, like
it's really weird how grounding a dog can be, but
(10:36):
having our dog just laying on the bed with us,
and just like we're having this conversation and admitting that, hey,
I might not be where so and so person is
when they say that they're like depressed, But the only
word I have for what I'm feeling is that And
that's me trying my best to put my finger on
the pulse of what's happening. It was an extremely important
(10:57):
conversation and I I am lucky to have close friends.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I'll fast forward a little bit here for a second.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
My two best friends, all three of us have completely
different views on what happened, and.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
We were all a part of the church plant.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
They were close enough that it basically so two of
us were and one was involved with the church plant
that was like twenty minutes north, but knew everybody involved
and so was in the weeds on all of it,
and we would like talk about the decisions that were
being made, and we would come to like it was
almost like having someone super far on the left, super
far on the right, and someone in the middle. That's
like what our conversations are like. And my belief in
(11:38):
people and being able to have community that is like
supportive but doesn't think the same way is all based
on that. The friendships I have with those two people,
because we could see each other and hear each other
and challenge each other and accept each other at the
same time, and it was so hard to do in
a community of you know, the six hundred or so
people that were involved with the church at the time,
(11:59):
because the it was too big, there's no way that
you're going to be able to do that. But in
a in a room of three, it was like we
were all being heard, and it was we're just not
going to come to the same conclusion, but we're going
to hear each other and our ideas are going to
be tested because of it. And so that was probably
like the most life getting thing that happened in that
whole season, and it's super formative to even like where
(12:21):
I am now when it comes to what I believe,
whether it's around content and like there's a beauty in
one to many and like trying to get what you
believe out there, there's also a real beauty in like
no cameras are on. There's a couple of us sitting
in a room and we're just going out a topic
and we're really wrestling with what we think and then
when we leave, we're like we love each other.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So yeah, community versus audience, yep. Yeah, that that conversation
also makes sense why Breaking Points is.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
My favorite If you know my favorite podcast, it's Breaking
Points and it's literally a liberal and a conservative talking
about the news of the day, and they argue all
the time, and it's beautiful because and if this whole
thing that I just laid out, this whole situation, if
it presented anything. It's hard for me sometimes to define
(13:09):
exactly what I think. And sometimes that's because I don't
want to piss people off and I'm just trying to
play the game, and that's bad and that's me hiding
and chameleoning to the room. Other times it's because I
feel like I have so much empathy for people's lived
experience that I'm like, I'm not gonna discount what you've
lived in the worldview that you've got, and I don't
want someone to do that for me either. So I'm
(13:30):
imagining that there's a world where you can legitimately see
things the way you see them, and I'm just gonna
listen and take that in and try to form my
own opinion. But honestly, a lot of times I end
up in the gray. Yes, So much of this is
just me being like, Yeah, I'm just gonna have to say,
I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Know how long were you kind of in that darker
season before you felt like you got to the other
end of it, or was there a moment where you're like, Okay,
I think I'm on the other.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Side of this, but I would wonder what other people's
lived experience would be.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Speaking from mine, I think.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It was there was it was layers deep where coming
out of it was it was like layers to get
into and it was like, oh, I'm in the deep
end and I didn't even realize I was over here,
and it's been happening for the last six or eight months.
And then once I was there, I would like get
a little bit, I'll come up for air for a
little while and then be like, oh, this is what
it feels like to like not be in that anymore.
And then it would happen again and again. And one
(14:28):
of the big moments was running a marathon. I have
a playlist on my phone called twenty six point two
from when I ran the marathon, and it you can
bleep this out, but it literally just like the description
of the Spotify playlist is like, fuck depression, I'm getting
over this, and that like I'm going to just do
something that clears my head and puts me in a
different space. That was on my thirtieth birthday, So that
(14:51):
would have been a solid I don't know. It's probably
close to a year after it happened. My maths probably
also horrible. I'm gonna realize that after we It's stuff
that I have no idea what the timeline was, but
I know I ran the marathon on my third fifth birthday,
so I do think like there were some habits that
I established in that season that have kept me healthy now.
(15:11):
Running was one of those. Community definitely like choosing to
be honest because that's something I can avoid, and then
also like another part of honesty is like just trying
to figure out who you genuinely are and being okay
standing on a different opinion and where there's a lot
of things I love about the church community. One of
the hardest things for me growing up in church was
(15:32):
being willing to have a different opinion than the huge
community I was a part of because it was acceptable
to all agree and be in the same direction. Yeah,
so I've had to kind of unlearn that and choose
to stand on zone.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Has in that caused some division with your relationship with
your mom and dad growing.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Up, Like my mom and dad, Oh, good conversations, hard
conversations and ones where we used to disagree, but I
do think their humility has caused me to not lose
complete hope in past communities that I was a part of,
(16:11):
and there are lots of Christians that I can say
are in that camp.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
But yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Brought up some really hard and continues to That's that's
the thing about like the layers of this. Getting out
of it wasn't like I woke up and boom, I'm
out of it. And so I would say, even like
over the last year, I'm like, oh, I'm in a
pretty really healthy place with a lot of like the rhythms.
The way I think about this, my willingness to like
(16:40):
the grace that I extend to people that really hurt me.
I feel like I can see what they were saying
but also disagree and like I'm cool with it and
just leave it at that. So, yeah, I my parents'
hard conversations, and I think that has helped my agency.
I can stay and on my own, I can make
(17:01):
my own decisions, which is weird because I'm old and
I've been out of the house for a long time.
But you don't realize how tied some of those things
are together unless it's tested. And this was what they
did for me.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah. So now so now being in a completely different environment.
No longer in church environment, You're in the world of
you know, business media content, are there? Do you are?
Are you in a season right now where you, like
man I, where you believe.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
In yourself more than I probably ever have, which is
really cool. I think learning the balance of agency and
standing on a lupe standing alone or standing on your
own and community is one of the most beautiful things ever.
And I think so much of human evolution and like
our ability to learn and adapt is a cycle of that.
Can you stand on your own and your ideas? Can
(17:50):
you do that in community and respect others? And like,
just allowing both of those things to happen and giving
yourself space to do that is incredible. That has helped
my career and my willingness to be super honest with
people on our team where I'm just like, I'm gonna
have opinions that you're not going to agree with. I'm
still gonna say I'm older versions of anually not gonna
(18:11):
do that. And I think in business it's it's a
both and how do we collaborate and also have our
own opinions and think about the direction we want to
go in. So definitely has done a lot and there's
so many transferable skills that I see now that I
couldn't see then when it comes to content, creativity, collaboration,
business is awesome, man, A lot of this side of things.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, And I think it unlocks a when you have
that confidence in your own ideas and in what you
bring to the table, it is so much easier to
be willing to communicate those ideas across the organization. And
so you've always had I've always considered your ideas thoughts
(19:00):
to like when when Binji says something, I'm I'm going
to tune into it. And and some of that is
I mean, most of it is this the the idea
is there's substance to the idea that you're sharing. It's
obviously well thought out, it makes sense. You're not just
throwing things out of left air that you haven't out
(19:20):
of thin that you haven't considered. But a lot of
it is just the confidence with which you communicate it.
I think a lot of people, particularly earlier in there,
you know, earlier in your career, and actually you don't
have a lot of lived experience, so it's hard to
have confidence in something you just don't know. But but
I've I've always found that incredibly refreshing since you've been
on the team. You've been on the team three.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Years now coming on and three years.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I'll like leave us with kind of two things because I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
This is the communication side of me.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I think in short, this is the one of the
values of church. I think in like short, pithy statements.
So whether you like this or not, sorry, you're here
for it. So one of the things I've liked to
speaking to what you just said. When I was still
traveling and speaking, I would use this phrase, which is
so funny now because I look at where I was
and I don't feel like confident would have described me.
(20:09):
But I used to say courage today, boldness tomorrow, confidence
down the road, and the idea of there's no chance
you will be confident today if you haven't worked through
some level of courage or boldness because you have no
track record, Like how the heck am I supposed to
be good at business podcasting if I've never business podcast before.
When I'm doing host training and someone's on their first episode,
(20:29):
I'm like, good luck, you're on your first episode, Like
it's you're gonna have mind games because you've never done
it before versus the hundredth time. Because what happens is
the first time it requires a bunch of courage. The
second time is like you have the record of what
happened the first time, and by fifth, sixth, seventh, you're like,
I'm walking into confidence because of proven track record in
(20:50):
the past, and the only way to confidence is through
boldness and through courage. So I think that's a big
learning of the last few years, is like you just
have to keep trying stuff and keep doing things, showing
up and giving your ideas and accepting the feedback, because
that's the other Like if I share something and it's stupid,
I really hope you tell me it's stupid. I hope
here he says it's stupid. I hope our team is like, hey,
we shouldn't do that. But I still have to be
(21:12):
confident enough to share it. And that comes from some
level of courage to speak up. And the last thing,
that's like more of circling this entire two part thing
we've just done. This phrase came to my mind in
kind of right after, like I said, it was a season,
so I don't know, I wasn't out of depression, but
I was in this like going to therapy, and the
(21:33):
phrase was not shiny but oh so bright, and the
idea being before it was all about performance, like I
want to be on stage because it's like the this
is what this is what it looks like, this is
what success looks like. And so it was almost in
a lot of ways very self serving, like this is
what a shiny life looks like, this is what I
should be doing, versus brightness.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
When someone walks into a room.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
And they have an energy about them that's bright and
it's like it lifts everybody's spirit that's not shining, that's
a very different thing. So to me, now success looks
like presence. Success looks like quality of conversation. That's a
vastly different thing than like how did I show up
on camera in this episode.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Because it's like did we actually genuinely connect?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Okay? Sweet success, that's a much different metric. So I
think that's the other big sort of takeaways like I
don't really want to be shiny.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I don't want to look back and be like.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Man, people really thought I was awesome, and I want
to look back and be like man, I was really present.
I gave my best and there was like an energy
of brightness to it.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
So that's good. Yeah, I love it. Man. Well, thanks
for coming out here and being vulnerable and sharing it
with in a platform that is not, i mean, very different.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Go check out our other episodes.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
They are not like this.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
This is your first introduction to B to B growth,
you came for it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
This was awesome, man. I really appreciate the vulnerability, the courage,
the boldness to uh to share this story and yeah,
I think it's gonna it's gonna add another another layer
of uh yeah, of our connection on the show. So
I'm glad that we did this. Emily, if you're watching this,
(23:16):
thank you for for forcing us to to to do
a couple of episodes around this, this this topic of
you know things, you know, seasons of our life where
we didn't uh believe in ourselves.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So anyway that's being said, we are throughout
Fuck depression.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm getting over this and I'm gonna just do something
that clears my head and puts me in a different space.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
All right, So this is the part two. Emily leads
our creative team pitched this in an editorial meeting the
other day. She's like, well, you guys are together in
Orlando at the house. You need to you need to
do an episode about a moment where you didn't believe
in yourself. We did my episode last episode, and now
(00:34):
it's your turn. You're in the hot seat, Benji. So
so I present you with with the question tell me,
tell me about a time that you didn't believe in yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So I'm gonna set it up because I feel like
it needs some context. My family, specifically me as a
kid growing up, my dad was a pastor and we
grew up overseas.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So the church that.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I saw my dad pastor for a number of years
was like four thousand people plus very large international church Kenyans,
but it's in Nairobi, so it's like Kenyans Europeans, like
there's a lot of a good mix of like cultures whatever.
So success to me growing up looked a lot like
leading big teams and being on stage. And I can
(01:24):
see that in like most of the jobs that I've had.
I can see that in the way that I view
success and performance. And that translated into like as I
started getting jobs, So that was.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
My picture of success.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Fast forward, I get out of high school, I'm like,
what am I going to do with my life.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'm I'm gonna be a pastor.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
So I am. I help with a church plant right
outside of Austin, Texas. And for over the course of
a few years, basically that church went from twelve in
a living room to six hundred plus and so we're
building systems and we're growing and all the out things
of like this is what I thought as a kid.
Success was, it's like we just eat the thing grows.
(02:06):
You get to lead bigger.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Teams that you're teaching your teaching pastor.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I was speaking about eight to twelve times a year.
And at the end of this and I was I
was the creative arts pastor. So was leading av teams
with leading music, all anything creative. It's kind of my department.
So I loved that season of life. But it came
(02:31):
to this, we don't have to get super in the weeds.
But basically came to this point where our church was
making a pretty big decision, and it the decision we
ended up making split the church into a million pieces.
And I was at that point literally just traveling and speaking.
My life was church, My parents are still pastors, my
(02:54):
world in my community, which you touched on in part
one of this, like your friends are so much of this.
I had moved to this city to help start this thing,
and it came to this in flection point where I
was like, Okay, well we've made this statement. Now the
church explodes. Everybody's in different places and thinking different things.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Why were you traveling and speaking as the church was exploding?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So this is getting in there for a second, imploding
getting yeah, getting in the weeds for a second. I
was the Creative Arts pastor up until about eight months
before this decision. This was still my home church, and
I was still speaking very regularly.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So I'm super involved.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
But I had stepped down from the Creative Arts pastor
position because I was literally just starting to travel and speak.
That was my full time thing. I was doing that solo.
So at this point, as everything explodes and people are
in all these different places, COVID hit like three weeks later,
and so now not only was it okay, well everybody
(03:59):
has all these different opinions, but also like none of
us are really talking to each other. And the thing
that I've given the last decade of my life to
and helped build is kind of crumbling before my eyes,
and I don't it set off like to be truthful,
a crisis of faith. I was like, why do I
actually think this stuff? Why do I believe it? What
(04:20):
is like the packaging I was handed as a kid.
Then I was just like, of course that's right, you know,
my parents handed it to me. This decade of like
what I sought approval from and what success looked like
was very much painted by my upbringing. And so it
hit this just like brick wall, and everything kind of shattered.
And so in the COVID season of my life, I
(04:40):
started rethinking everything. Everything was on the table as far
as like my belief system, how like the community I
wanted to be a.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Part of, and what it honestly did.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Because I am very much success driven, and that was
the picture I had of success, It's like, what's the
point And if I built this for a decade and
it fell apart. Did I just waste my twenties? And
those kind of questions triggered a depression where I was like,
(05:13):
I don't know if I believe in my communication ability,
my creative ability, and I don't know how this translates
if I leave all of what I think did believe behind,
what the heck do I do now? And so that
was the inflection point of like I don't know what
job to go get. I know I can't go back,
and I don't really want to go back to what I.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Was fully doing before.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And so the mindset of like what's the transferable skill?
And you'll hear this a lot from people that were
in ministry that translate to like go over to businesses.
There's a lack of like understanding of how this skill
set will work. Clearly, spent some years I've found out
there's some transferable skills. But in that moment of like
(05:56):
where I don't even know what I get my identity
from or what my picture of success looks like, or
is it all just wrapped up in like how much
you can achieve and outwardly looks good because all of
those kind of in using a different terminology, but like
those vanity metrics were gone, and it was very much
me looking at myself, going what do I what do
(06:17):
I think? And why do I think it? I don't
know if I trust myself.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
What was the what you were married at this point?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah? What early in our marriage too, which.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Is what's Sydney's How does Sydney? Yeah, what she going
through while your world is like crumbling around you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I think it's really hard when something is super tied
to someone's identity to understand why it is, because we
we define ourselves in such different ways, Like I'm sure
the things that you think about when you think this
is what makes up James is different than how your
spouse things about this is what makes up James. This
is why I love James, which is beautiful in marriage,
(07:02):
but it's also super complicating because I don't think Sydney
ever realized how much of my life was dependent on
church and that circle. So when you pull that thread
in a time when it was already a pretty lonely season.
A lot of people experience loneliness during COVID like it's
just a wild time, but you started to pulling that thread,
(07:23):
I don't think she got a clear picture of the
fact that I had given literally the city I lived
and the only reason I met my wife was because
I moved there to start a church. So when we
talk about like work life balance, I didn't even know
what that was because my whole life was church.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And to be honest, there's things about that are amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's really hard to find that kind of amazing community
anywhere outside of like a religious environment like that, And
so it's been helpful in the long run for communication
because she goes, oh, I know, there's so many triggers
when it comes to like church and like things that
your life was dependent on.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I mean, we lived overseas.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Because my dad was a pastor, so it's like, how
many layers do you want to go on? How tied
that was to my identity. It started really good conversations.
But I because we saw so many people handle it
different ways. I'm really thankful that this sounds weird, but
when I say people went in all different directions, like
(08:23):
we at least were thinking in the same direction. So
it didn't cause this friction where it's like she's thinking
one thing.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
On thinking, did it bring these guys closer together?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It forced better communication, but for a season. I think
she didn't know how to handle me being severely depressed.
And that's from a communication standpoint. One of the most
frustrating things is on this podcast, I pride myself to
someone who can communicate, and in that season, I didn't
trust my communication skills. And I know, like, how do
(08:53):
I tell you what I actually feel? Because I'm struggling
to be honest and I don't know like if I'm
going to just resolve this or if it's going to
pass tomorrow. And even when I'd be vulnerable with people,
it's like I was seeing things so gray, like you
have this opinion, you have this opinion. I want to
be friends with both of you. How do I like
stay in the middle so that I don't cause more chaos?
(09:13):
And my wife was kind of seeing all of that,
and it's like, I don to help.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
You in the moment. Were you able to recognize the
depression for what it was but or was it just
a lot of confusion, like what am I feeling right now?
Or did you know like, Okay, this is this is depression.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I can't speak to like the whole season, but I
can say that, like the story I remember, which is
interesting going back to part one of like what you
shared was one night being with Sydney in our room
in Austin and having to admit, like I was like,
I don't use the word depressed because I have friends
(09:55):
who are clinically depressed, and I'm afraid to use that
terminology because I don't want to. I don't feel like,
based on what conversations I've had with them, that I'm
in that camp, so I would I would avoid those words.
And when I admitted that to her, I just remember
this like release of being like, no, that's that word
(10:16):
describes you and describe and it was a no brainer
to her. It's like I've been seeing this for months,
but like you wouldn't hear it or see it. And
that that night of just admitting it and just sitting
in it and honestly having my dog with us, like
it's really weird how grounding a dog can be, but
(10:36):
having our dog just laying on the bed with us,
and just like we're having this conversation and admitting that, hey,
I might not be where so and so person is
when they say that they're like depressed, But the only
word I have for what I'm feeling is that And
that's me trying my best to put my finger on
the pulse of what's happening. It was an extremely important
(10:57):
conversation and I I am lucky to have close friends.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I'll fast forward a little bit here for a second.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
My two best friends, all three of us have completely
different views on what happened, and.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
We were all a part of the church plant.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
They were close enough that it basically so two of
us were and one was involved with the church plant
that was like twenty minutes north, but knew everybody involved
and so was in the weeds on all of it,
and we would like talk about the decisions that were
being made, and we would come to like it was
almost like having someone super far on the left, super
far on the right, and someone in the middle. That's
like what our conversations are like. And my belief in
(11:38):
people and being able to have community that is like
supportive but doesn't think the same way is all based
on that. The friendships I have with those two people,
because we could see each other and hear each other
and challenge each other and accept each other at the
same time, and it was so hard to do in
a community of you know, the six hundred or so
people that were involved with the church at the time,
(11:59):
because the it was too big, there's no way that
you're going to be able to do that. But in
a in a room of three, it was like we
were all being heard, and it was we're just not
going to come to the same conclusion, but we're going
to hear each other and our ideas are going to
be tested because of it. And so that was probably
like the most life getting thing that happened in that
whole season, and it's super formative to even like where
(12:21):
I am now when it comes to what I believe,
whether it's around content and like there's a beauty in
one to many and like trying to get what you
believe out there, there's also a real beauty in like
no cameras are on. There's a couple of us sitting
in a room and we're just going out a topic
and we're really wrestling with what we think and then
when we leave, we're like we love each other.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So yeah, community versus audience, yep. Yeah, that that conversation
also makes sense why Breaking Points is.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
My favorite If you know my favorite podcast, it's Breaking
Points and it's literally a liberal and a conservative talking
about the news of the day, and they argue all
the time, and it's beautiful because and if this whole
thing that I just laid out, this whole situation, if
it presented anything. It's hard for me sometimes to define
(13:09):
exactly what I think. And sometimes that's because I don't
want to piss people off and I'm just trying to
play the game, and that's bad and that's me hiding
and chameleoning to the room. Other times it's because I
feel like I have so much empathy for people's lived
experience that I'm like, I'm not gonna discount what you've
lived in the worldview that you've got, and I don't
want someone to do that for me either. So I'm
(13:30):
imagining that there's a world where you can legitimately see
things the way you see them, and I'm just gonna
listen and take that in and try to form my
own opinion. But honestly, a lot of times I end
up in the gray. Yes, So much of this is
just me being like, Yeah, I'm just gonna have to say,
I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Know how long were you kind of in that darker
season before you felt like you got to the other
end of it, or was there a moment where you're like, Okay,
I think I'm on the other.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Side of this, but I would wonder what other people's
lived experience would be.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Speaking from mine, I think.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It was there was it was layers deep where coming
out of it was it was like layers to get
into and it was like, oh, I'm in the deep
end and I didn't even realize I was over here,
and it's been happening for the last six or eight months.
And then once I was there, I would like get
a little bit, I'll come up for air for a
little while and then be like, oh, this is what
it feels like to like not be in that anymore.
And then it would happen again and again. And one
(14:28):
of the big moments was running a marathon. I have
a playlist on my phone called twenty six point two
from when I ran the marathon, and it you can
bleep this out, but it literally just like the description
of the Spotify playlist is like, fuck depression, I'm getting
over this, and that like I'm going to just do
something that clears my head and puts me in a
different space. That was on my thirtieth birthday, So that
(14:51):
would have been a solid I don't know. It's probably
close to a year after it happened. My maths probably
also horrible. I'm gonna realize that after we It's stuff
that I have no idea what the timeline was, but
I know I ran the marathon on my third fifth birthday,
so I do think like there were some habits that
I established in that season that have kept me healthy now.
(15:11):
Running was one of those. Community definitely like choosing to
be honest because that's something I can avoid, and then
also like another part of honesty is like just trying
to figure out who you genuinely are and being okay
standing on a different opinion and where there's a lot
of things I love about the church community. One of
the hardest things for me growing up in church was
(15:32):
being willing to have a different opinion than the huge
community I was a part of because it was acceptable
to all agree and be in the same direction. Yeah,
so I've had to kind of unlearn that and choose
to stand on zone.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Has in that caused some division with your relationship with
your mom and dad growing.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Up, Like my mom and dad, Oh, good conversations, hard
conversations and ones where we used to disagree, but I
do think their humility has caused me to not lose
complete hope in past communities that I was a part of,
(16:11):
and there are lots of Christians that I can say
are in that camp.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
But yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Brought up some really hard and continues to That's that's
the thing about like the layers of this. Getting out
of it wasn't like I woke up and boom, I'm
out of it. And so I would say, even like
over the last year, I'm like, oh, I'm in a
pretty really healthy place with a lot of like the rhythms.
The way I think about this, my willingness to like
(16:40):
the grace that I extend to people that really hurt me.
I feel like I can see what they were saying
but also disagree and like I'm cool with it and
just leave it at that. So, yeah, I my parents'
hard conversations, and I think that has helped my agency.
I can stay and on my own, I can make
(17:01):
my own decisions, which is weird because I'm old and
I've been out of the house for a long time.
But you don't realize how tied some of those things
are together unless it's tested. And this was what they
did for me.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah. So now so now being in a completely different environment.
No longer in church environment, You're in the world of
you know, business media content, are there? Do you are?
Are you in a season right now where you, like
man I, where you believe.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
In yourself more than I probably ever have, which is
really cool. I think learning the balance of agency and
standing on a lupe standing alone or standing on your
own and community is one of the most beautiful things ever.
And I think so much of human evolution and like
our ability to learn and adapt is a cycle of that.
Can you stand on your own and your ideas? Can
(17:50):
you do that in community and respect others? And like,
just allowing both of those things to happen and giving
yourself space to do that is incredible. That has helped
my career and my willingness to be super honest with
people on our team where I'm just like, I'm gonna
have opinions that you're not going to agree with. I'm
still gonna say I'm older versions of anually not gonna
(18:11):
do that. And I think in business it's it's a
both and how do we collaborate and also have our
own opinions and think about the direction we want to
go in. So definitely has done a lot and there's
so many transferable skills that I see now that I
couldn't see then when it comes to content, creativity, collaboration,
business is awesome, man, A lot of this side of things.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, And I think it unlocks a when you have
that confidence in your own ideas and in what you
bring to the table, it is so much easier to
be willing to communicate those ideas across the organization. And
so you've always had I've always considered your ideas thoughts
(19:00):
to like when when Binji says something, I'm I'm going
to tune into it. And and some of that is
I mean, most of it is this the the idea
is there's substance to the idea that you're sharing. It's
obviously well thought out, it makes sense. You're not just
throwing things out of left air that you haven't out
(19:20):
of thin that you haven't considered. But a lot of
it is just the confidence with which you communicate it.
I think a lot of people, particularly earlier in there,
you know, earlier in your career, and actually you don't
have a lot of lived experience, so it's hard to
have confidence in something you just don't know. But but
I've I've always found that incredibly refreshing since you've been
on the team. You've been on the team three.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Years now coming on and three years.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I'll like leave us with kind of two things because I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
This is the communication side of me.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I think in short, this is the one of the
values of church. I think in like short, pithy statements.
So whether you like this or not, sorry, you're here
for it. So one of the things I've liked to
speaking to what you just said. When I was still
traveling and speaking, I would use this phrase, which is
so funny now because I look at where I was
and I don't feel like confident would have described me.
(20:09):
But I used to say courage today, boldness tomorrow, confidence
down the road, and the idea of there's no chance
you will be confident today if you haven't worked through
some level of courage or boldness because you have no
track record, Like how the heck am I supposed to
be good at business podcasting if I've never business podcast before.
When I'm doing host training and someone's on their first episode,
(20:29):
I'm like, good luck, you're on your first episode, Like
it's you're gonna have mind games because you've never done
it before versus the hundredth time. Because what happens is
the first time it requires a bunch of courage. The
second time is like you have the record of what
happened the first time, and by fifth, sixth, seventh, you're like,
I'm walking into confidence because of proven track record in
(20:50):
the past, and the only way to confidence is through
boldness and through courage. So I think that's a big
learning of the last few years, is like you just
have to keep trying stuff and keep doing things, showing
up and giving your ideas and accepting the feedback, because
that's the other Like if I share something and it's stupid,
I really hope you tell me it's stupid. I hope
here he says it's stupid. I hope our team is like, hey,
we shouldn't do that. But I still have to be
(21:12):
confident enough to share it. And that comes from some
level of courage to speak up. And the last thing,
that's like more of circling this entire two part thing
we've just done. This phrase came to my mind in
kind of right after, like I said, it was a season,
so I don't know, I wasn't out of depression, but
I was in this like going to therapy, and the
(21:33):
phrase was not shiny but oh so bright, and the
idea being before it was all about performance, like I
want to be on stage because it's like the this
is what this is what it looks like, this is
what success looks like. And so it was almost in
a lot of ways very self serving, like this is
what a shiny life looks like, this is what I
should be doing, versus brightness.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
When someone walks into a room.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
And they have an energy about them that's bright and
it's like it lifts everybody's spirit that's not shining, that's
a very different thing. So to me, now success looks
like presence. Success looks like quality of conversation. That's a
vastly different thing than like how did I show up
on camera in this episode.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Because it's like did we actually genuinely connect?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Okay? Sweet success, that's a much different metric. So I
think that's the other big sort of takeaways like I
don't really want to be shiny.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I don't want to look back and be like.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Man, people really thought I was awesome, and I want
to look back and be like man, I was really present.
I gave my best and there was like an energy
of brightness to it.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
So that's good. Yeah, I love it. Man. Well, thanks
for coming out here and being vulnerable and sharing it
with in a platform that is not, i mean, very different.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Go check out our other episodes.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
They are not like this.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
This is your first introduction to B to B growth,
you came for it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
This was awesome, man. I really appreciate the vulnerability, the courage,
the boldness to uh to share this story and yeah,
I think it's gonna it's gonna add another another layer
of uh yeah, of our connection on the show. So
I'm glad that we did this. Emily, if you're watching this,
(23:16):
thank you for for forcing us to to to do
a couple of episodes around this, this this topic of
you know things, you know, seasons of our life where
we didn't uh believe in ourselves.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So anyway that's being said, we are throughout
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