Episode Eight: An Interview with Jason Hietbrink

.Jason Hietbrink, founder of Amplify Coaching, shares two struggles which shook him to his core causing him to question his identity, his worth and to be angry with God. Jason shares how each of those, which on the surface seemed terrible, actually were gifts of God's grace in his life. He is living proof of how even unwanted change can bring us to the next best chapter! 

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:16):
Welcome to and then it's podcast where we look at
what comes after the struggle, atough season or setback. My name
is Susie Chafin. And I'mabsolutely passionate about
helping people transform fromstruggle and surviving to
absolutely thriving. Today youare in for a real treat. I have
the honor of sharing with you aninterview with my good friend

(00:36):
and mentor Jason heat brink. Asa colleague, I know his level of
professionalism, his work ethicand how he shows up always with
his best. Jason is the founderof amplify coaching, and he has
such a heart to serve otherpeople. But before amplify
coaching, he had some lessons tolearn. Jason was at a higher

(00:58):
ageing leadership role in hisorganization, he started
immediately out of college, andhe moved to an area completely
brand new didn't know his souland started five franchises
simultaneously. He was the 10thfranchisee in the company. He
was there during a period ofrapid, serious rapid growth
where there was no systems,there was no training. And he

(01:19):
really forged the way increating the processes and the
training necessary to replicatethe growth. And he ended up
being the number one franchiseein the nation for over six
years, which is no small feat atall. He then moved into a number
of different leadership roles inthe company, but he was

(01:39):
ultimately responsible for halfthe country overseeing 450,
franchisees 75 leaders and 65million in revenue.
But Jason is going to share twostories which shall come to the
core, but it created the pathwayto where he is today. And he is
living proof of how evenunwanted change can bring us to

(02:02):
the next Beck's chapter. Jason,I just want to say thank you so
much for letting me interviewyou today. Thank you for having
me on today. So I was justthinking about this record right
before I hopped on with you andjust was praying that hey, if if
our story in any way canencourage our help anybody else,
then that's just what I want tohave so grateful, to be honest

(02:24):
with you. And you know how muchI love your podcast and respect.
And I'm excited about what youare building here and what
you're helping helping otherswith, with the the n then
series. Thank you. Thank you, Iappreciate that. Let's dive in.
Well, thank you. And you'reright, as you recount some of

(02:45):
the things that you mentionedabout my past success with the
organization that I wasfortunate enough to start with.
And it was a great organizationto work for and great
opportunity and was able to do alot of a lot of great things.
I absolutely was, unbeknownst tome, it was finding my sense of

(03:08):
worth identity, from the successthat I was having from the
titles I held from my ability tomove up within the organization.
So I I remember distinctconversations with my wife at
times over the years as I wasmoving into different leadership
roles with the company. And itwas just I just felt this, this

(03:28):
tension and pressure and need tocontinue to rise to the next
level to continue to get to thenext place in the organization
and climb that ladder. And notreally having a good sense of
why that was I just knew I hadto.
So what we'll come back to thatagain. So soon as you asked me

(03:49):
to share about you know, whatwas one struggle in my life
that, you know, taught me alesson or helped me help forge
you know who I am today. Andyou know, I know that's a lot of
what this podcast is about isunderstanding. When we face
difficult times when we faceawkward moments in our life that
are difficult. Sometimes it'svery, very challenging to see

(04:11):
that anything else could be onthe other side of that, that
would be good. That anythingelse could be on the other side
of that that would be what wouldmake going through what we're
going through right now worthwhat we're going through. And I
thought about that question. I'mlike Nana, there are a lot of
things that I could talk about.

(04:33):
But the one that stuck out todayis the one that I'll share
about, which is the extremefinancial loss that my myself my
family went through severalyears ago. So I'll kind of just
bring you up to speed. It'searly 2014, maybe late 2013 wife
and I are just thinking about,hey, we've lived in Omaha now
for eight years,I guess at that time, maybe

(04:55):
seven and a half years. Andwe're both originally
from Lincoln, we both havefamily in Lincoln. At that time,
our kids, I think were maybefive and two. So we're right in
the thick of that, you know whatthat's like raising little kids,
my wife was staying home withthem, which was way harder than
the job that I had. And we werejust thinking about like, now

(05:17):
that I'm in this leadershiprole, with the organization, we
didn't we're not really tied toOmaha in any way. There's
nothing that's keeping me here.
We've sold most of thefranchises that I ran. So we
started dreaming, like, Wherewould we want to go? We could
live anywhere. We could live inCalifornia, we could live in New
York, we could live in New York,when I say New York, I would
never want to live in New York,we could live in North Carolina.
That's what I wanted to say. Wehad some friends in North

(05:40):
Carolina, we thought aboutmultiple different places. And
long story short, we ended uplanding on moving back to
Lincoln, which for me, that waslike my last resort. I do not
want to go back to Lincoln'swhere I grew up, in my mind,
that was regressing. I'm goingback to my hometown. And so we
made the decision, mostlybecause we had family on both

(06:01):
sides, her parents, my parents,that would be within 10 or 15
minutes, it would just reallymade the most sense to be close
to family versus moving 1000s ofmiles away from them. So with
that decision, what went throughmy mind was, well, we're moving
back to Lincoln. And we'removing out of this house that I
love that we live in Omaha thatwas on a lake and it was just
this incredible house. I'm like,Well, I'm gonna build, we're

(06:24):
going to build the home of ourdreams, if we're going to live
in Lincoln, because if I'm goingto live in Lincoln, Nebraska, I
better like where I live. So wemade the decision to build a
house, I made a decision tobuild our home. And we went with
a builder that I thought madethe most sense, even though my
wife had some reservations. Thisis a reoccurring lesson of mine

(06:46):
of my life is to listen to mywife's intuition,
not mine. And anyway, we westarted building the house. And
I remember distinctly going outthe very first time after they
laid the foundation. And lookingat like the set the sheer size
of this, the foundation of thishouse. And I'm like, this is

(07:08):
enormous. This is way biggerthan we imagined. Because when
you're looking at drawings onpieces of paper, and it says I
owe 20 by 30, and thesedifferent things conceptually,
like I don't really understandwhat that means. But when you
actually see it in real life,it's like, oh, my gosh, this is
way bigger than we thought itwas going to be. That's okay.
Right. It's the house of ourdreams. 30 year mortgage, it'll

(07:29):
be fine. So, and our thoughtprocess is we're going to retire
in this house. So speed alongthe building process. Again, it
was a lot bigger than we hadimagined. I mean, our main level
I think was around 3700 squarefeet. We had two bedrooms
upstairs. When we finished abouthalf the basement, down below, a

(07:49):
little over 6000 square feet iswhere it ended up being. But
what I loved about it, likeyou'd walk inside, and there'd
be these three, like three tearsof, of Windows. So it's just a
wall of windows as soon as shewalked in 2022 foot ceilings. We
had this incredible fireplace,we had a patio out back with a

(08:11):
fire pit, huge yard, we boughttwo lots and one lot was
literally to house. And then theother lot was just the yard for
the kids and the dogs.
In a basketball hoop you knowset up that was really cool
basketball hoop the basement wasso much fun with the kids. We
had a playroom, to the side witha chalkboard on the like the
entire wall was a chalkboardlike it was just the perfect

(08:32):
house. For at that time, myseven and four year old, my wife
and I, we were just I mean mywife designed like 90% of it. So
she she just wanted to run oneday and had this idea in her
head of the house that we wantedto have and like give it to the
architect. And of course there'ssome things with load bearing
walls and things like that, thatwe have to adjust. But that's

(08:54):
kind of the picture of what thehouse was it was. I mean, this
is beautiful house.
And so we're heading into theweek of closing on the home. And
we get this one last invoicefrom our builder with the final
bill on the house. And thatfinal bill was somewhere in the
neighborhood of about a quartermillion dollars more than what I

(09:16):
was anticipating it being Wow.
And I remember looking at thatnumber and just thinking to
myself, This can't be right. AndI contacted the builder and I
was like there's there must be adiscrepancy here. I'm sure we've
already paid some some thingshere. And they said no, this is
correct. This is what is stillleft remaining on your final
installment for paying off thebuilding costs with the bank.

(09:41):
Well, the problem was to make itworse that the House appraised
just to give some real numbersto this. The house appraised for
about 100,000 It was 805,000 butthe house cost 1.1 million.
So you do the math on that.
You can only get a loan for upto what the House appraises for.

(10:05):
So not only did we have to putthe down payment in for, you
know, up to the 100,000, or youknow, the 20% of 100,000. But on
top of that, we had to make upthe difference between the
800,000 number and the 1.1million number. So, very
quickly, literally in one day,and 24 hours, all of the work
that I have done, for the last10 years, everything that I had

(10:28):
accomplished all of the successand monetary gain that I had
vanished. Wow.
AndI just remember the feeling in
my gut, I was walking the dogthat night, it was probably
early December, we'd alreadymoved into the house, by the way
they were finishing upconstruction, as we moved into

(10:50):
the house, I talked him intoletting us do that. Because we
were living in an apartment andwe were ready to get out of the
apartment. And so we werealready living there for like a
couple of weeks by the time Igot this invoice. And I just
remember walking around thinkingto myself, like,
what are we going to do? Like,this is going to wipe us out
entirely if we can even figureout what to do.

(11:15):
And, and give some backgroundhow, like some people may be
listening and thinking like howthe heck does this happen?
Right? How do you how do you getto the end, I mean, people
usually your house cost morethan they thought it was going
to cost but at least they knowwhat the house is going to cost.
There's not this like quartermillion dollar oops, surprise at
the end. And that's not arounding error.

(11:35):
And the way this happenedessentially was that as we were
making different choices, withinour our budget and the
allowances they gave us forvarious things in the home, we
would contact them because wedidn't have any documentation of
like what our allowances were,it was just, you know, we're
over at the shop, buy instuff for the bathroom or tile

(11:57):
or whatever it is, we would callour our general manager, or
whoever the guy is for thecompany. And we'd ask him like,
Hey, what is our allowance forthis? And he'd say, Oh, you can
you can get anything you want inthere, it'll, the allowance will
cover it.
But come to find out that wasn'tthe case, our allowance actually

(12:17):
was a certain amount. And wewere getting things that were
much more expensive than that.
I remember getting a call fromthe builder. And him saying to
me, Hey, there's we had to flipthe house around a little bit.
Because there's like a main linefor the electric company that
runs on underneath the ground.
We can't dig that up. So we hadto flip the house a little bit

(12:39):
and rotate it. But the good newsis by rotating it, because of
the grading, we were able to getyou guys a walkout basement like
Oh, fantastic. Well, thatconversation about we got you a
walkout basement. What he'sactually saying was, hey, it's
going to cost $35,000 more. Andwhen I say that, do you hear
$35,000? More? Or do you justyou're gonna walk out basement.

(13:02):
So I'm not a builder. I've neverdone this before. In his mind,
he thinks that I should knowthat's going to be more brick,
more windows, all these things.
And I remember one time theycalled us and said like, Hey, do
you have these two pillars outfront?
And they said, We can do this?
We can do these pillars withstone, we think it'll look a lot
better than brick.

(13:24):
Would you guys like to do that?
I said, I don't know if I wantto do that. How much more does
it gonna cost? And he said it'svirtually the same? Oh, okay,
fine.
Well, that was $1,000. Right? Sothere was just lots of these
little things along the way.
That added up to this massiveamount. And, you know, so we
thought it might cost 850 houseand up costs. And you know,

(13:45):
what, about 1.1 million so thatthat essentially, like I said,
Why wipe this out entirely, itwas a cost plus project. So for
anyone listening who's thinkingof building a home,
there are lots of great buildersout there. Not every experience
is like this. But definitely ifyour home is going to be over,

(14:06):
let's say 600,000 Do not do acost plus project. Come to find
out this builder had had otherscenarios like this that people
had experienced. But therewasn't much we could do legally
because we'd signed all thepaperwork we'd signed off on all
the insertion orders, or thechange orders and things. It was
mostly conversations over thephone. So there really wasn't

(14:27):
much that we could go off of. Sothat was that was December 2020
or December of 2014.
Wow. I can't even imaginefeeling like you just wiped out
everything that you earned,saved, worked for. How that must

(14:48):
have felt that mean? I thinksometimes those kinds of old
sudden this house that wassupposed to be this blessing.
And this wonderful thing foryour family has now kind of
turned into some kind ofA really a form of bondage.
That's 100% what it was, I canremember. And it was always when
I was walking the dog had hadthese like feelings and
epiphanies. But we're walkingthe dog in the middle of the

(15:11):
day, one time a few monthslater. And actually, this
happened almost every time Iwalked the dog when I when I was
walking back toward our house.
Every time I'd walk back towardour house, and I see the rooftop
and the distance, and thatmassive, ridiculous structure
that we never really meant tobuild that big. I just felt like
the house itself was likesitting on top of me every time.

(15:31):
And it did it felt like aprison. It felt like it was
meant to be our dream home, butit felt like it was it was a
prison. It was a it was a placeof bondage instead.
Yeah, I mean, we, we made itwork. Like I said, it wiped us
out entirely, was very stressfulfinancially for the next couple
years.

(15:52):
And the house, you know, we hadlots of great memories in that
house. But we came to a point afew years later, after living
there, where it was through aseries of different sermons and
conversations we had and justjust thinking about our future
and how hard we were working, wewere essentially working hard.

(16:13):
Stress stressing ourselves outin order to stay in a home.
That's what we were doing workreally hard. I, I had opened up
an additional franchise with thecompany in addition to my full
time leadership role to helpmake ends meet. My wife was now
starting to work part time, likewe were doing everything we
could to just, you know, pay themortgage and the upkeep and the

(16:34):
taxes and,and things were fine. But it's
like, is this the pace that wereally want to live out? Is
this? Do we want to work hard tostay in a home?
And when we came to aconclusion, where it's like,
well, what if? What if someday Ilost my job? What if some day,
you know, I the money wasn'tthere that we were making right
now. And the economy was crap,the housing market was crap,

(16:56):
like it was back in 2009. Imean, if we would, we wouldn't
be able to sell the house likewe would be stuck. So we made
the decision before things gotto that place, that we were
going to intentionally sell thehouse, even though we knew we
could stay, we can make it work.
We did not want to live thatlifestyle. We did not want to be
a slave to maintaining thisexterior lifestyle that everyone

(17:20):
else would see around us and beimpressed with our home and what
we had. So we made the decision,we're going to sell it and just
felt deeply convicted that thatwas something God was calling us
to do.
By the way, I have to share thislike
so my office faced this street,my windows face the street in my

(17:44):
home.
And I bet 10 times a day, therewould be a vehicle that would
drive by the house, like twomiles an hour.
And you'd see people's faces.
Impressive. Yeah, like, oh mygosh, what is that thing is that
an apartment complex? Like thatwas just kind of and I'm not

(18:05):
saying that like a like anarrogant way. It was just it was
just hilarious. Like, Yep, gotsome more Gawker's. Like I just
we text my back and forth mywife and I like up got smart
Gawker's, again, like 10 times aday, someone's drive by like two
miles an hour. It's like, get agood luck. Good luck. Good luck.
So when you make that decision,just to to downsize, or to let

(18:26):
the house go? I mean, I can'timagine. They're just must have
been such a sense of internal,like,
peace and relief. It was both. Imean, it was it was a sense of
peace. Like, okay, we can dothis. But it was such it was so
hard. And when you build a home,and it takes it took nine months

(18:48):
to build the house, right, we'rebringing the kids over week by
week, seeing the progressgetting excited. The kids had
their rooms, they had theirspaces, we had our everything
was the way it was every roomwas designed exactly how we
wanted it. Every last fixture.
And I remember my wife cryinglike just not because she wants
the big house, but just cryingbecause

(19:10):
we don't want to we don't wantto leave. Right? We feel called
to leave, but we don't want toleave. We love this house. And
explain that to my kids. It wasit was just tough because they
don't want to go.
They love the house too. Andeven just the uncertainty about
where we're going to go andwhere are we going to live?
Well, it's going to be a house.
That's probably half the sizeguys. Like I don't want a house

(19:32):
that's half the size. So Iexplained that to my guys. How
old would you then 2017. So tomy seven and 10 year old, like,
I don't want to I don't want asmaller house and when I was 34.
So it was difficult. But yeah,there was a sense of relief.

(19:54):
And I think mostly there was asense of relief because
what we assumedWhen when it was going to
transpire from that decision,we're going to list this house
for a million dollars, we'llprobably sell it for like 975.
And we'll pay the realtor feeand we'll walk away with still a
good amount of cash, like wellrecoup a lot of the money we had
end of it. So that I think gaveus a sense of peace, just have

(20:17):
like, okay, we're moving awayfrom the house. But it's not
gonna be a total loss, like,we're gonna have this revenue,
we can put this down towardsanother house or vacations or
whatever, you've made thedecision to sell the house, it's
a hard decision.
But you've grown up with yourkids, they've seen this house,

(20:38):
it's their home, and there'sthis emotional attachment to it,
you built it with your wife, shedesigned it, and making the
decision at this point to stepaway. It's giving you peace,
because you know, or you'reexpecting that this is that you
are making a financially sounddecision that this is going to
bring additional financial peaceto you. But instead, the outcome

(20:59):
was really something verydifferent. Yeah, that's a really
good way of putting it wethought,
okay, we're being obedient tothis. This is what we this is
what the Lord is calling us todo. And this is a financial this
is a decision based on lifestyleof reducing stress. And it's
it's a good financial decision.
Maybe not because we have to,because we have to do it. But we

(21:20):
don't want to be in a positionwhere we are upside down. And
this house, it's 100%. Thereason it was driving it, so I
never thought of it that way.
But yeah, what so what whattranspired was, I think we
listed the home maybe in June of2017. And like I said, we listed
it for about a million, and thena million went down to

(21:44):
959 50, went to 900 900 went to875 and 875 went to 850. And I
remember just this process, thisis over the course of nine
months, you know, showing aftershowing and people not but not
budging. And one of the reasonswe didn't sell it for what we
had into it was wasn't becausethe house wasn't worth it was

(22:05):
because of the neighborhood wewere in, we had overbuilt this
home, it was probably the mostif not, or maybe the second most
expensive home in theneighborhood. And people just
weren't willing to pay for thatand which is understandable. So,
you know, if every time wedropped the price, and every
month that went by, I justremember thinking to myself,
like it was just like a like aknife in my heart, like on my

(22:26):
back or someplace in my body.
And it was being twisted. I justfelt like Lord, what are you
doing? We put we did what yousaid we put this up and like, at
least the unspoken agreement inmy mind was I followed you, you
reciprocate by making this showup. Right? Make this easy, you

(22:46):
make this go this way, make thisgo the way that I want it to go.
And, and it was just so I justfelt like every time we dropped
the price and more months wouldgo by it was like Are we ever
gonna sell this house? If we dosell the house, we talked to a
realtor one time who we wereexploring switching realtors,
about six months in. And thisother realtor we were talking to

(23:09):
told us like you're gonna sellthis for about 750. Well, if we
do that, then we literally arelike paying somebody else to
like buy our house. I justcouldn't make it. I'm like I'm
not going to do is this what youwant, like this is what you
want. So I just rememberthinking that to myself. And
anyway, fast forward to March of2018. Nine months have gone by

(23:31):
houses listed at 850. And we getan offer for 810. And we take it
so 810 was the final number. Wewalked away you paid a realtor
fee and things maybe we walkedaway with 40 grand or 50 grand I
can't remember exactly out of Idon't know having 350,000 or

(23:51):
something like that we didn't doit. So that was a pill to
swallow. And then you combinethat now though again, remember
this house we moved from is abrand new house we designed
everything the way we wanted itto be. We moved to our new home
which was actually in my wife'sdream neighborhood. My wife

(24:11):
loves big trees, the old homesthe character loves that stuff.
So this area in Lincoln calledSheridan was her dream place to
live in there's a shared inBoulevard street within the
neighborhood that is her dreamstreet so she's ecstatic she's
like this is this is like myfavorite possible scenario of an
area to move into and don't getme wrong it was a gorgeous it

(24:34):
was a gorgeous home we're movinginto and we're very fortunate to
be in a home like that about ahalf million dollars and but if
your frame of references 1.1brand new every everything's
brand new the way you want andyou're moving into a house
that's half a million that's 85years old, and everything's old
and not the way you want. I wasvery frustrated. My kids were

(24:55):
frustrated. I get my wife wasecstatic. It feels silly at
times.
Saying this is if this is like ahard thing, right? So you move
to a half million dollar housepoor guy. Right? And there is an
element of that that's true.
Like no, this really is, this isnot difficult. My kids don't
have cancer, there isn't likesome kind of

(25:17):
complete travesty that's goingon. But it's not even about the
numbers, right? What it's reallyabout is
the experience as someone whois finding their worth and value
in their status, theirachievements, what they have,
ultimate, whatever it is foryou, everyone's different. When
what when where you find yoursense of worth values to

(25:39):
nificant starts to get strippedaway from you.
That is what makes an experiencelike this difficult.
So we, we moved into that home,and that was that that was that
was a difference. So I thought,Okay, at this point, I've taken

(26:00):
my beatings and, and are, we'velost almost almost everything.
We reserve we kept some,but at least at least now we can
settle down, at least now we canrebuild and start to kind of
move on from here. I want topause right there. Because you
mentioned this earlier, too,that like, very often when we
feel like okay, I'm finallysubmitting to your Will God now

(26:24):
everything's gonna go reallyeasily. And you're going to show
up and you're going to do yourpart. And I know what you're in
that transfers to every area ofour life, we think that it's
it's going to go so simple, nowthat I'm doing God's will.
But as you've continued, thiswas like there was still more

(26:45):
teaching that he wasn't, therewas still more lessons to be
learned in this, even though youwere doing what you knew you
were supposed to do, is stilldidn't go the way that you were
anticipating. Yeah, sometimes wethink that obedience leads to

(27:06):
a desired outcome, our desiredoutcome, obedience does lead to
a desired outcome. But thequestion is, whose desired
outcome are we talking about?
Sometimes there does obediencesometimes will lead to my
desired outcome, but what Iwant,
but oftentimes, that's not thecase. And what obedience always

(27:26):
leads to is God's desiredoutcome for us in our life. And
when my will gets met with hiswill, and those two we can't see
right now on the podcast, whencrashing my my fists together,
when those, those meet, andthey're going in opposite
directions.
God always wins. So, in thosemoments, like I just got this to

(27:50):
this tattoo on my right arm,this last week. It's a Greek
word that means surrender, whichis one of the greatest lessons
I've learned through all this.
When when when we aresurrendered to God's desire for
us in a moment in our lives,that is painful and difficult.
That is where and the only waythe only path to experience joy

(28:13):
and freedom, otherwise, allwe're left with is resentment
and anger. And that's where Iwas I was in a place at this
point in time, of resentment andanger.
But it gets worse, so I havemore detail. And we're fully
surrendered to God, regardlessof the outcome than what we go
through can be really difficult,but we come to the other side of

(28:36):
it is always a better place. Andit's always his we see how
things will work out. So that's,that's beautiful, Jason. And
just one other quick note onthat, like I and all these
things are spoken from someonewho has had to learn these
things the hard way, because I'mhard headed.
And so much hardheaded reallywhat it comes down to is the

(28:57):
idols that we have on our lives.
And I mean, whether you're aChristian or not, like we all
are serving something.
We're all serving something. Andyou know, I believe, you know,
in that the Bible is true, andthe God of the Bible, and in His
scripture, like it is very clearthat

(29:19):
God is a jealous God, meaningthat he loves me so deeply. He
loves us so much so deeply, thathe will do anything in his
power, which is unlimited, toensure that he is the one and
onlything that we worship and serve

(29:39):
in our life. And that's notbecause he's selfish, and
because he's just aegomaniac. It's because he has
designed us to find our rest orjoy, or peace, all of our other
systems and all the things thatwe're pursuing in our life that
we want andAnd we pursue and other things,

(30:00):
he's designed us to find thosein him. And so the greatest joy
I can ever have is to find myworth, identity, significance,
value,sense of, of belonging, all
those things found in myrelationship with the Lord. And
so he, he often will use hardcircumstances and storms. And he

(30:21):
certainly has in my life, topurge the things inside of me
that are pursuing other things,other idols, other things that I
believe will bring me thosethings. And by doing so, brings
me brings me back brings us backto the one thing and the only
thing that can actually satisfyus. So the

(30:43):
the storms are meant to bean environment where God can
form and shape us and shake usout of the things that we're
pursuing. And I'll share anotherinsight with that a little bit
later. So now you're in thisshared in house. And
you mentioned it was a little 85years old, and not new, the

(31:06):
opposite of what you have movedout of. And there were a few
repairs and things that neededto happen.
Yeah, and you know, we expectedsome, you live in a older home
that you're just going to havesome of those things, but what
we experienced was, I mean, itwas, if you've ever seen the
movie with Tom Hanks, Money Pit,yes, it's an old movie in an ID.

(31:31):
I don't even know that I wasreally like, oh ages when I saw
that when that movie came out.
But I definitely saw it lateron, it came out in the 80s. And
that is almost almost to a teelike what our life was like what
our life became. So again,recapping, here, we've lost
$350,000We've debt, we left our dream
home, thinking that that wouldmean that God would be blessing

(31:53):
us in the in a sense that wewanted the blessing. And it
ended up being the opposite. Andnow we're, we're settling into
this new place. And we'relooking to rebuild and kind of
go from here, and we figure ourproblems are over at this point.
financially. I've learned thelesson, right? I've learned this
lesson.

(32:14):
But when we moved in, there wereall kinds of things that were
unexpected. Even with the homeinspection. There were just a
myriad of things that hadhappened beyond what they had
actually pointed out to us whenwe first bought the place. So we
spent, we knew this would be thecase. So we spent about 60 hours
worth of man labor, Man Manlabor, 60 hours worth of labor

(32:35):
with like landscaping treeservices, just to clean up the
yard. The thing was a junglewhen we moved in and it was it
was it was a nightmare. So thatwas very expensive. We knew that
was coming though, the things wedidn't know were coming were
that we had to replace all thestorm windows in the house. The
furnace went out our oven brokeand made to replace it and this
wasn't just like a regular oven.
This was a 48 inch range likecommercial grade. So replacing

(32:58):
that was like 15 grand weedwould rot all over the exterior
of the home over all the faciawater was coming in. And again,
this is like the prior buyersand sellers like Yeah, we
haven't had any water problems.
Well, first big giant rain, wehad water everywhere.
And we'd replace all the facia,the sink fell through in our

(33:20):
master bathroom upstairs, we hada leak in the main level
bathroom that had bled into thedrywall in the ceiling in the
living room, garage door broke,the water softener broke, we had
to remove a 70 year old treethat was dying in the front
yard, we probably knew that wascoming I suppose we had a pipe
that burst in the basement. Thegarbage disposal broke me to

(33:42):
replace that dishwasher brokehad replaced that we had all
kinds of electrical problems.
unbeknownst to us, and we shouldhave we should have known this
with the inspection. But therewas tuckpointing all over the
outside of the house. And forthose of you don't know what
tuckpointing was because Ididn't know what tuckpointing
was, in these older homesespecially like because ours was
a stone, stone home. It's all ofthe joints that connect the

(34:07):
stones together. Over time thosethings start to kind of become
brittle and break. So afterlet's say at five years, it's
time to start replacing some ofthe mortar in between the
stones.
And so tuckpointing is one ofthose jobs if you're sending
your kids out to the trades,have them be a tuck pointer. I
mean, we had bids for like 30grand tops that point like parts

(34:31):
of our house. I'm like This isinsanity. All you're doing is
just like putting some mortar inthese creases, but like it's
just really specialized thingand so tuckpointing all over the
house. We had water coming intothe basement we had
water leaking the family room,like I said from the shower, we
had a stone cap of our chimneywas cracked. Some point I'm
going to replace that. And ontop of all of this, our roof was

(34:53):
original as well as the oh mygoodness, the gutters and
downspouts so 80 year old roofand downspouts and gutters.
So it's like any day now thosethings are gonna break. And
that's, you know, it's a slateroof, which, you know, those,
those things are not cheap. Soit when you total it up, and

(35:13):
this is again gives you aninsight into where my mindset
was, I actually spent the timeto total up all the money we
spent on fixing the house.
That's how angry and bitter Iwas.
It was about 1600, it was anaverage it wasn't it wasn't
equal in equal equal incrementsevery week, but it was, but if
you average it out, it was about$1,600 a week in expenses for 30

(35:37):
weeks. That's That's how muchrepairs we had in the first 18
months of living there. So 350,last three to $50,000 last year
for this new place, not soexcited about it. And now we're
just continuing to lose anothersix plus figures. And I'm just
thinking myself, like God, whatare you doing? Like I already

(35:58):
learned my lesson, I alreadyknow I shouldn't find my
identity, my worth and mymaterial gain and the status and
things like that. I understand Igot the point, right. Because
over the course of over thecourse of four years, we'd lost
over 150,000. I mean, everythingwe had, right, we had maybe a
little bit amount of savingsleft, but it was it was just it
was just gone. And beyond justthe financial picture was just

(36:21):
my emotional state. And my ego.
It was just, I was so angry, Iwas just angry at God. And I was
just like, wasn't wasn't, wasn'tenough to lose over $300,000 In
the last house. Like we obeyedyou we moved just like you said
we should we did what you said.
And you have more more of thisin store for us. Like, I thought

(36:42):
we were getting away from that.
As often when people are goingthrough a difficult time. It's
like how much more like whatwhat else is there? Is it you
know, it's it can feel like thatcan be like It's permanent, it's
going to be that way forever.
And I'm sure in that moment whenlosing almost half a million
dollars, basically evaporatinginto two different houses. Like

(37:04):
that had to be I can't evenimagine how frustrating and how
upset you must have been anangry, like you said for losing
that kind of money. And you'reat that time when you're when
you're angry at God, you'rewe're maybe not even angry at
God just angry in general. Youknow, how, how did you bring
yourself through that time? Howdid you besides adding up all of

(37:27):
the expenses? Okay, what did youdo to to, to find the blessing
in it? Or was there a blessingin it? Yeah.
You know, as you were talking,this may be a crude analogy. So
forgive me. I know that thestomach flu seems to be going

(37:47):
around right now, like all overthe place, especially here in
Lincoln right now. And my sonhad it Thursday night, and
Friday morning. I think heliterally I've never seen
someone puke that much in mylife. He literally I think he
puked over 35 times we'vecalculated.
Andyou know, we've all been sick
before with the stomach flu attimes, and you end up just

(38:07):
feeling like okay, that's thelast one. Like, there's no way
there's anything possibly leftin my stomach. It's all out.
It's all got it all out. Right.
Right. And I think sometimes,that's how
idols can be in our life. Thatwe, I mean, I think that I've
got it all out like, Okay, I'velearned my lesson. God puked it

(38:29):
all out, I got nothing left,right, or the situation we're
going through. It's like it,there's there can't be more than
this. Like, I can't even I can'teven bear the idea of there
being more than this, whetherwe're dealing with a financial
situation like we were in andyou're dealing with the loss of
the loss of a loved one or thehealth situation, or maybe it's

(38:50):
a relationship with someonethat's been abusive or been
difficult or a situation in yourchurch, whatever it might be.
And that's how I felt for sure.
I definitely felt like that wasthe case. And I And to be clear,
I wasn't angry with God. Becausein at times,

(39:12):
really what it came down to, asI thought reflected a journal on
this during this time was that II just believed bottom line,
life would it be better if wehad that 450k That money,
money broughtsome sense of security and
happiness, I suppose.

(39:35):
I just I just didn't believe Ididn't believe that life could
be better in the situation I wasin than the situation that I
wanted to have happen.
And so that, that space betweenour current reality,
the story we had written forourselves that we wanted to go a

(39:57):
certain way we wanted to go inanother direction.
and where we're currentlyliving,
being able to embrace andbelieve that there is more life
to be had where I am right nowand where God has placed me than
there was, if I had had gotteneverything that I wanted

(40:18):
it's easy to mentally assent tothat truth. Because of course,
money doesn't buy happiness. Howmany times have we said that?
Oh, of course, like, like, Godis like, my career, my
achievements, those things arenot most important to me, my
family is my faith is we saythose things. But until we were
actually faced with what wereally believe, all right, and

(40:41):
we're faced with a circumstancethat takes away the thing that
we have been finding our senseof worth and value. And that's
when we're actually forced toface that reality and say, well
do what do I really believe? Andfor me, I still didn't believe
that. But I remember those werea lot of hard earned wasn't just
dollars in the bank. It was itwas a lot of the work that you

(41:04):
had put into it, too, I imagine.
Yeah, that's a good point. Thatwasn't like an inheritance that
we had. Right? Or it was, thisis something that was created
from the ground up hard work,starting, you know, our own
business and, and a lot of lotof difficult times, pushing
through.
Yeah, and then and I would seepeople I mean, that was the

(41:25):
other thing, too, when you're inthose moments of, of difficulty,
or you're in the storm. Seemslike everybody else is in
sunshine.
Do you look around, I'd lookaround and I see like everybody
else is like, Yeah, our our homevalue went up by 20%. So we
refinanced and got more money.
I'm like, Cool, I sold my housefor 30%, less than I paid for
it. And I continued to losemoney every month, like, Why

(41:48):
can't my story be like yours?
And again, goes back to becauseif my story was like yours, then
life would be better. And, toyour point earlier, your
question earlier, like, Okay,well, how did you get through
this?
I remember, I remember exactlywhere I was sitting in our
living room, on our chasethe couch, I remember

(42:10):
journaling.
And I was journaling about howI just got I just believe life
would be better if I had themoney.
And I it very few times in mylife that this type of thing has
happened. And I don't even Idon't know if it was an audible
thing. Probably not. It was justthis thought entered my mind.

(42:32):
And it was so clear to me thatthis thought was not necessarily
my thought. It was a thoughtfrom something outside of me.
And it was it was a question,rather than an answer. It was
something along the lines of Ihave this in my journal, and I
didn't get a chance to findbecause we moved and I don't
know, my journal is but my oldone.

(42:53):
What if all the financialdifficulties
that I've placed in your lifeover the last four years, were
the exact circumstancesnecessary?
For me, being God to shield youfrom a path of destruction that
you otherwise were travelingdown?
That's powerful.

(43:14):
And I think you should havethese.
What if all, what if all thefinancial difficulties that God
has placed in us over the pastfour years were the exact
circumstances necessary for Godto shield me from the path of
destruction that I was otherwisetraveling down? What if all the

(43:35):
storms that that were in my liferight now we're actually his
mercy to me, to save me from alife spent pursuing something
that could never fulfill mydeepest desires.
So it hit me at that moment thatlike, Jason, this is my grace to
you, the this, these storms are,are not evidence of punishment

(43:57):
for you. They're evidence ofgrace, that's, that's moving you
from a place that you wereheaded down, that was sure to go
off the cliff at some point intime later in your life. Right?
I'm 30 years old, living thismillion dollar plus house, and
not even knowing that I have somuch arrogance and pride and so
much of a sense of identitywrapped up in what I've

(44:19):
accomplished, even though Iknow, I know my mind that those
things are not where life isfound. But somewhere along the
way.
That idealization of money andsuccess, had creeped its way in
to my heart. And if I continueto if God continued to let me go
down that path for the next1520 30 years,

(44:44):
I don't know where it would havetaken me. It actually scares me
to think about where it wouldhave taken me how it would have
impacted my relationship with mykids. How would have impacted my
relationship with my wife, howit really impacted my
relationship with Godand the amount of
of life that I would haveactually missed out on. Not as I
was defining it at that point intime where life is found, right,

(45:08):
like being found in success andall these other things, but
where life is actually found.
That was, that was a big momentfor me, recognizing that it sent
me on a journey.
Forgot to continue to removethese things in my heart, this
my work success and financialsuccess are what makes me
valuable my performance equalsmy worth.

(45:32):
It doesn't feel like a gift togo through losing money or to
have the financial setback overand over. But seeing that is
actually his grace, to keep youfrom going to a place that you
were inevitably bound to go,which was going to be very far
from him. Probably ultimately, afull of pride and probably full

(45:54):
of arrogance and things thatwere not for you. That was not
as planned for you, and it hurt.
But the beauty in that is, Ithink that so many people who
might be listening, they'regoing through something really
hard to and it doesn't feel fun.
It doesn't feel it's notenjoyable. But what if it was

(46:14):
their grace to what if it'stheir grace from God that is
actually shielding them anddirecting them to a path that is
so much better than the one thatyou thought you had intended for
yourself? Yeah, yeah. And thatdistinction, and sometimes you
hear that statement, especiallywith your that right in the
middle of something. And it'sjust like, This sounds so

(46:36):
cliche. Are you kidding me? Likewhat I said, What Susie said,
like, That's so cliche, like,oh, it's God's mercy and grace.
Sure, it is, like, this feelslike anything other than love.
This is the opposite of love. IfI was God, having loving God, I
would not be doing, we'reallowing, fill in the blank.
Andhow naive of me or naive of us

(46:59):
to thinkthat we have a corner on
the totality of all thecircumstances in our life and
what is being used for what andwhat is good or not.
I, it makes me think of,you know, Paul, when he was

(47:24):
I forget which which book namedthe Corinthians But he was
talking about how he has a thornin his flesh.
And one of the reasons for thatwas to actually keep them
humble.
And because he was he was solike, he was just he was so
successful, all these things hewas doing. And sometimes the
only, the only reason thatsometimes we have those storms

(47:44):
is for our own humility, I willtell you, I'm much more humble
and much more empathetic topeople. now than I was years
ago, there's no question thatshapes me, but also impacts
others. And sometimes even themoment we don't even see have a
difficult time evenunderstanding what could be the
redeeming value of this. And Idon't mean to, like keep having

(48:06):
this, because I know there's abroad array of different
listeners. And I don't mean tocontinue to kind of keep going
back towards like scripturenecessarily. So even if you're
not someone who's a Christian oridentifies that way, look for
the lesson in this notnecessarily like what is, you
know, like, keeps talking aboutthe Bible and stuff. But
you know, God oftentimes usesthings that would seemingly be

(48:30):
the worst possible circumstancesfor the greatest good. Certainly
the death of his son would be agreat example of that story of
Joseph would be a great exampleof that sold into slavery, right
living for years in thedungeons, like, how could you
possibly use this for good andends up, you know, job would be
another great example of thattime and time again, God gives

(48:51):
those examples. It's notnecessarily that people always
get reinstated, with materialpossessions and reinstated with
everything in their life backthe way they wanted it to be.
But so much good, does and canand will come from difficult
circumstances. As Fast forwardseveral years later, you're in
the organizationat a very high level in the

(49:15):
organization, and you'reresponsible for so much of the
success of the organization, ofcourse, a combined efforts of
everybody underneath you and allof that as well.
But she found yourself in aplace that you've never ever
expected to.

(49:36):
Yeah, sosee, when we moved to that
house, and shared it, and thatwas 2000 it was May of 2018. So
fast for the clock, not quitefour more years.
And I got a phone call March 15.
That was completely for meunexpected that I was being let
go for my position.

(49:58):
And I've been at the company Nowfirstly,
16 years is the only companyI've ever worked for outside of
being a college kid and havingjobs throughout college.
And it was interesting becausebecause on the one sense, like I
was completely, completelyshocked, and it blindsided me.

(50:23):
And had that happened.
Three or four years prior priorto all of this financial turmoil
and all the things that I wentthrough with God, basically
ripping out of me. And by theway, I still struggle with this
Suze. So this isn't like that.
There are still times where I, Irealize what's happening, I'm
finding my worth my identity andmy performance and, and what am

(50:44):
I cheating and what I have, andso that's still something over
and over. Yeah, I feel like it'sjust this spiral in my life, I
feel like I keep learning thesame like six lessons over and
over again, I don't need tolearn anything else new, I just
need to get those things down.
But the lesson that God taughtme was that Hey, Jason, your

(51:04):
self worth, the good life thatI'm seeking.
They're not found by working forsomething that I'm missing.
But in receiving what I'vealready been given.
And so for me what that meantfor me, and you can apply this
however you want that your selfworth the good life, you seek
where you believe, like the goodlife actually exists, right?

(51:27):
We're all seeking and allpursuing the good life, we have
a story in our mind of what ofwhat the good life is, we're all
chasing it.
Those things are notfound in something that you'd
have to work for something thatyou're missing, they're found in
receiving what you've alreadybeen given it for me what that
meant was that, like, my worth,my identity, my significance,

(51:51):
everything that I need to havethe good life.
I already I've already beengiven from God, I don't have to
work for it, I don't have toattain something, I don't have
to have something different inmy life than where it is today.
For me to have that. And thatwas a lesson I learned. And so
it was almost like, in someways. I know it was much more
than just this. But had God nottaking me through what I went

(52:15):
through those four yearsfinancially, and kind of taught
me that lesson, which I continueto learn today. Losing losing,
like you think think think aboutlike for someone who finds their
worth and identity in theirwork. And in their performance
and in their title. And in themoney that they pull in, and
their salary.
For somebody who finds theirworth and identity and those

(52:35):
things, what is the biggestnightmare they could ever
experience? Right? Outside ofjust like failing, it's being
fired.
Having having literally no jobtitle, no income? No, I mean,
basically being told, like youare not good enough. Goodbye.
Andthat would have devastated me

(52:57):
four years ago, if God hadn'talready done so much work in my
heart, on this topic of myidentity, my income and all
those things.
But very quickly, within like aweek, like just the amount of
peace and sense of like, God'sgot this and not in like a trite
sense, but But yes, very much.
So.

(53:19):
Whatever you have in store forme, like I'm, like, I'm okay.
Like, I trust you.
So it was it was such abeautiful experience for me,
just his tenderness and kindnessto me in that in those moments
where I was, otherwise, youknow, should have been totally
freaked freaking out. Becausenow I have no job and what are

(53:39):
we gonna do? Oh my gosh, right.
I think the trial that you wentthrough before definitely
prepared your heart to be ableto see this as I'm going to look
through this as a lens as agift, even though I'm sure there
were moments where you didn'temotionally feel that way for
sure. Because you could haveeither gone a very dark path and
had been full of rage andbitterness and

(54:04):
could have, you know, wished alot of harm for a lot of people.
Or, but you chose really to say,Okay, God, this is this is the
gift again, it doesn't reallyfeel like a gift. But here you
are now, hasn't been quite ayear since that happened. But
you've really already developedsomething quite amazing. You've

(54:25):
founded a brand new coachingcompany, founder of amplify
coaching and consulting. Youhelp business owners, and high
impact business owners reallytake their business to the next
level. And just I know fromconversations I've had with you
howI mean the joy I hear in your
voice, the knowing that you'reworking on the mission, that is

(54:48):
for you that God's createduniquely for you to do in this
space is been a joy to see Iknow we were all so Devis
stated when the march 15announcement was made, but to
see where you are right now, Ithink it's without a doubt, or
you're supposed to be.

(55:11):
I appreciate that. AndAbsolutely.
If you had asked me a year agotoday,
what's gonna be going on in yourlife a year from now, Jason, I'd
be like, no be about the same asit is right now. And instead, we
sold our house, we felt likethat was the right decision. But
what's interesting is we stillwe still shared and House of

(55:33):
course, we all know what thereal estate market was doing
earlier this year, I was crazy,insane. It was it. God doesn't
have to do these things, inorder for him to be good. And if
this if things still didn't gowell, with selling this house
and Sheridan, it would still beokay. But sometimes, like,
I think he does things justbecause it's humorous. And, or

(55:56):
just because he takes delight indoing things like this. But I
put it for sale put up for sale,and we listed it for way higher
than we thought we were gonnaget it, we put it like 750. He's
like, that'd be the dreamnumber, right? There's no way
we'll get above that.
Because we bought it for five.
And we had a cash buyer. Noinspections, that bought it,
sight unseen from California,for 850, within three days, so

(56:20):
we had this, we had the firsthouse scenario took nine months
to sell. Second house scenario,three days, first house
scenario, price goes from 1.1,down, down, down, down, down to
a 10. Second scenario, pricegoes to 750, up up up to 850. So
it's just a funny scenario inthe sense that we ended up like

(56:44):
just laughing because it's likewe sold this other house that
was half as much for more thanthat house that was twice as
much for yours, you're a lotless that you got back some of
your last two, we did oh, we gotYeah, we got some back, we got
some of that back, and then someand so you just looking at the
situation today from like amaterial possessions like that

(57:08):
type of standpoint. And we movedto Lincoln, when we were 2014
built a $1.1 million house, youknow, where my identity worth,
we're all on a completelydifferent place. Eight years
later, here we are, we're livingin a rented duplex.

(57:31):
And we have, I mean,a fifth or a quarter to an
eighth of the space we had maybeless than when we first moved to
Lincoln, and ruining life is farbetter now than it was then.
And to your point, like thecoaching, and consulting

(57:53):
business that I've beenfortunate to start, I mean, it's
been phenomenal. Like I, everyweek, like I love the
opportunity to impact the livesof people to work with high
achieving high, high performingbusiness owners, and help them
dream bigger than they've everdreamed before. both

(58:13):
professionally and personally.
And then watch just to watchthem work towards those and make
them happen so much faster thanthan they thought it would be
possible. And with so much withso much more ease than they
thought possible. Is is trulyjust one of the most life giving
things so I, I yeah, I I thoughtthe job that I had was

(58:39):
everything that I wanted andneeded and the Lord has caused
us to take a complete left turnand
we're in a very different placethan we ever thought we would
be. But it's I mean, I'm, I'menjoying what I do now more than
I ever have. I think two of thelife lessons that your kids have

(59:03):
learned. Just watching you know,now they've they've learned that
value doesn't come from where welive value comes in who we are
and our identity in Christ. Andvalue doesn't come with title
and to watch for them to watchyou go through that so
gracefully.

(59:24):
Is such a life lesson that I'msure it's going to carry into
their their future for Jason,thank you so much for sharing
your story. Any last words orany bit of encouragement that
you might want to give anybodywho's going through season? That
feels impossible?
I think the first thing I wouldsay is that

(59:48):
whatever you're going through inthe moment
just just remember that it'sit's a
it's a it's a chapter it's aparagraph
It's a section of your story.
And I think sometimes we aregoing through something in the
moment, it can feel like this isthe definition of our story from

(01:00:11):
here on out.
And it doesn't necessarily meanthat circumstances will change.
Sometimes they do. And sometimesthey don't. But the most
important thing I think is, isthat through the circumstances
we find ourselves in, we change.
And when we change, and we don'tneed our circumstances to
change.

(01:00:33):
That is, I think, where you findthe most powerful
the most powerful joy and themost powerful
enthusiasm, excitement for lifeand for for, for what you've
been given, becauseit's not dependent upon outside
circumstances, it's completelyreliant upon something that you

(01:00:58):
have chosen to receive. So Iwould just encourage you,
wherever you are to choose toreceive, and to look to what
you've been given.
Instead of looking to change theoutside circumstances, still
pray for that still, you know,still deciding it's okay to

(01:01:21):
desire that.
And to pray for that. But seekto find
what can I receive in thismoment right now, even though
this is difficult, that byreceiving it would help me live
with grace and joy, and faith,amidst whatever it is that I'm
going through at this moment?

(01:01:41):
That was beautiful. So wellsaid, if somebody is interested
in learning more about yourcoaching business, what's the
best way for them to get a holdof you?
Yeah, so we are launching ourwebsite or our website here
pretty shortly, it's going to becoached with jason.com. So

(01:02:02):
that's the best place the bestplace to go to learn more. My
email is, Jason, at your amplifycoach.com. And I again, I work
with primarily high achievingentrepreneurs and business
owners. But if you're interestedin just connecting and learning

(01:02:22):
more about what it might looklike to work together, I do
have, I think, three spotsremaining. For 2023, for one on
one coaching, we'd be happy totalk and just really see if I
can serve you. Not everyone's agood fit for what I do. And but
my my objective when I talk withpeople, is simply just to serve
them powerfully whether theybecome a client or not to make

(01:02:46):
an impact on their life. That'sjust a gift I've been given. And
that's the gift I want to give.
You know what I'm what I'm doingnow, professionally, I've been
doing my entire life, really, soit's just a joy to get paid for
it now.
Well, Jason, thank you so muchgrateful for you as as a friend,
and as a coach and a leader andthank you for pouring into the

(01:03:10):
people on this episode today.
Yeah, thank you for having me,Susie, and thank you for doing
this podcast. I think it's justa it was just amazing. And you
were you're very good at it. Sothank you. Thank you