June 17, 2025 • 47 mins
Cecil Taylor shares his journey from small-town Texas pastor's kid to international businessman and broadcaster, weaving together lessons from football, faith, broadcasting, and parenting to help listeners live authentically in every area of life.
• Growing up in small Texas towns where football dominated community life
• Learning mental toughness and discipline from being "the smallest guy on the team"
• Building a broadcasting career from local football play-by-play to national sports networks
• Pioneering women's sports coverage through "The Women's Sports Hour" in the 1990s
• Developing the concept of "seven-day practical faith" to counter compartmentalized Christianity
• Addressing disillusionment with church by acknowledging imperfection while encouraging perseverance
• Creating the "unison parenting" approach to help parents present consistent messages to children
• Sharing colorful life experiences including singing for President Johnson and winning a hip-hop competition
• Encouraging content creators with the reminder that "your message is needed by someone"
Check out Cecil's Practical Faith Academy podcast and his book "Unison Parenting" to learn more about living authentically in faith and parenting.
Have a question for Mista Yu? Text the show and he’ll answer it personally.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
welcome back to one-on-one with mr.
Of course I am your host.
Mr U In studio with us.
Cecil Taylor, I know your nameLong morning.
Taylor's in the house with ustoday.
Author, former broadcaster,head of the Practical Faith
Academy.
He's a parenting expert.
He does a lot of stuff, sogreat value by having you in the
(00:41):
box with us today, man, thanksfor being here.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
How are you?
I'm well, thanks.
I'm excited to be with you.
I think we have a lot to talkabout.
I'm ready to get to it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We got plenty to talk about.
I want to make sure we haveenough time.
I'm going to give you as muchtime as I possibly have to do
this because there's so muchabout your life that's so
interesting, so many layers toyou.
I think it reminds me of me insome ways.
I got so many layers, I cantalk about 10 different topics,
and I think that's good forpodcasts.
Sometimes it might be hard tonavigate, but we're going to
(01:12):
have fun with it.
So, customarily, I ask all ofour guests that are coming in
for the first time describe yourupbringing, your childhood.
What's life like for youngCecil?
Talk about that a little bitfor us.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, I was a pastor's kid in small towns.
My dad would move around tosome of the different small
towns within South and CentralTexas.
So in fact in my first 18 yearsI only lived two years in a
town with a traffic light.
So that's how small things were.
And I went from there later tothe University of Texas, which I
(01:46):
had classes bigger than my highschool, and then from there I
moved up to the Dallas area and,believe it or not, I wound up
eventually being ininternational business where I
was traveling a lot to tomultiple countries.
I never would have imaginedthat when I was a small town kid
it was a big thing just to goto the nearest big city and then
(02:11):
to imagine going across oceansto different places.
It's just amazing.
So if you had told me whatwould happen in my life when I
was a little kid, I wouldn'thave believed it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Wow, I got got questions immediately and this
is kind of off the cuff becausewe didn't talk about this in our
pre-interview chat.
But you've been from texas.
Well, you and I are big sportsfans.
We'll talk about that a littlebit, not the context for our
full conversation, but can'thelp it.
I'm a sports guy, you're asports guy.
We're going to touch on beingfrom texas.
I know, I know the football ishuge in Texas.
(02:44):
Explain to me what it's like tolive in Texas with that, not a
stigma, but I guess thatidentity, that football is so
large.
Why is it so large in Texas?
Why is it a big deal?
Talk to me about the financialramifications of it, if you can
Get into it a little bit for me.
Why is that a big deal in Texas?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It really started in the small towns because it was
the main sport that peopleenjoyed.
Baseball was big, but footballwas always king.
I played football and I was thesmallest guy on the team but I
had to be the toughest guy onthe team, right?
So if you're the smallest, butthe whole community shows up,
the whole community is behind it.
(03:23):
All through the towns there'speople wear ribbons and put
stickers on their cars and thewindows are painted in the
stores and the town shuts downon Friday night so everybody can
go to the football game.
When my mom had little kids andI was small and she felt like
the weather was bad, we wouldstill park outside the end zone.
(03:47):
It was like a chain-link fenceand you could watch the game
from the end zone and if therewas a touchdown you were honking
your horn and that kind ofthing, right.
That's how I grew up.
The kids in elementary schoolwere underneath the stands with
a paper cup wadded up like afootball.
They were playing their ownfootball game down there,
dreaming of the day that theywould be on the varsity and all
(04:08):
the guys on the football teamwere the heroes to everybody in
town.
And then you start to multiplythat.
As Texas gets bigger, morepopulation comes in, more people
acclimate to that and thestadiums started getting bigger.
And now there's a statechampionship television for, you
know, in the playoffs.
I live in a county where wehave this is a suburb of Dallas
(04:33):
we probably have eight footballstadiums with more than 15000
seating.
So that gives you an ideathat's.
That's bigger than some smallcolleges.
In fact, in my county two ofthe national title games for the
lower divisions are played inthis county.
So that gives you an idea thatthe college football you know
the lower divisions are playedhere.
(04:54):
So football is football is king, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I can see that I always, always wondered is that
real or is that just aperception?
Is that a real thing?
But I mean, I hear about all ofthe guys that even come out.
I'm a big fan of college andthe pros so I kind of follow all
this going on.
And all these little smallschools, these small high
schools man, they seem to takeit really seriously.
Like this is like is it kind oflike football is their only way
(05:21):
out of where they live?
Is that the idea?
Is football their only way outof where they live?
Is that the idea?
Or is it that the parents havekind of ingrained in them that
football is the route we wantyou to take, it's the most
lucrative route, or is that alsoa misconception?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
There's always a percentage that think their
kid's going to get a scholarshipand they're going to go to the
pros and all that.
But statistically speaking Ithink people realize that's a
very small percentage, like twopercent.
I think it's the competitionand the things you gain out of
football.
I tell you what I wouldn't beas disciplined in my life, I
wouldn't be as tough minded indifferent situations if I hadn't
(06:00):
played football.
It gave me a mental toughnesswhen you push yourself to go
farther than you think and to goup against somebody bigger than
you and find a way to compete.
I got a little story there's.
There was a guy who played onan opposite team, who there were
these brothers, the Stoddardbrothers.
They both went to UT, texasLonghorns, both went to the pros
(06:23):
.
David Stoddard was a linemanfor the Broncos, les Studdard
was an offensive lineman for theEagles.
Well, in high school I told youthey were there, what?
I don't remember those guys.
Oh, you don't remember thoseguys?
Well, yeah, yeah, they're likein the.
You know they played in thepros in the 80s, so it goes back
(06:44):
that far.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Okay, that's my time frame.
I don't remember them.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, well, studdard, yeah, studdard, Studdard, david
and Les Studdard.
Well, in high school LesStuddard wasn't an offensive
lineman, he was a tight end andI was a safety Guess who guarded
him.
At one point the other coachthey noticed we seem to have a
mismatch here.
We've got like a 6'5",200-something pound tight end
(07:10):
and we've got this scrawnylittle safety on the other side.
Why don't we just you rememberthe old pop passes where they
just throw it right over theline of scrimmage to the tight
end.
They ran the pop pass eightstraight times, starting at
their 20, and every time it wasme hitting him low and hanging
on until the rest of the wolvescould get on him and pull him
(07:31):
down.
And you know, every time I meanlike my brain's getting rattled
right and at some point I hithim and the referee goes
touchdown.
I'm like were we near the endzone?
I had no idea.
They found a mismatch.
That's my claim to fame.
I was tackling a futureoffensive lineman in the pros.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Those dump passes, man, if you can make it work,
you can do it every time.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
You just throw it up high.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Probably bigger than the linemen, the D-lines.
That's probably why I work sowell In the pros those jump
passes.
They're not going to work asoften for sure, because the
linemen are huge.
Now you spend time not only insports, which I love, and you
also talked about the time inbroadcasting.
I want also talked about yourtime in broadcasting.
(08:26):
I want to get into your time inbroadcasting a little bit,
share one of your greatachievements in that area and
some of the stories you got.
And then I want to hear thatplayoff take you got.
You said you got a hot playofftake.
I want to hear all of thosethings.
Let's start with thebroadcasting.
What got you into broadcasting?
What you experienced there inyour time doing that?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
to a broadcaster what what you experienced there in
your time doing that.
Yeah, you know, I started inthese little towns.
My dad was doing tape, delayedfootball, play by play and and I
really wanted to get into itand do some too.
So uh, I asked him hey, can Ido a quarter with you, like I
could do the color and then do aquarter play by play.
And so we did it.
You know, we kind of shiftedaround.
I remember between the thirdand fourth quarters we're
shifting back so he could doplay by play.
(09:06):
And I said, well, how was it?
He goes, it's depressing.
And I said what do you mean?
He said you're already betterthan I am.
So I really, I really love theplay by play and I wound up
doing some small collegefootball and that kind of thing.
As far as play-by-play wasconcerned, I did everything from
football to volleyball to dirttrack racing I mean just all
(09:28):
kinds of crazy stuff when you'reworking for radio stations of
different kinds.
But I eventually got more intothe sports talk end of it.
And I was working for anational radio network.
But the way I got there wasthat I had started a Dallas show
called the Women's Sports Hourand I had a female partner and
(09:49):
we covered women's sports andnobody was really covering
women's sports at the time, butit was a rich time because this
was in the nineties.
So we were, we were talking topeople like Nancy Lieberman,
christy Yamaguchi, we would haveNadia Komaneci on the show.
We had like the 96 women'sbasketball team that won the
(10:09):
gold.
We had, you know, cheryl Swoopsall kinds of those.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh my goodness, Wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And eventually what happened was we went up to this
new national network that wascalled Prime Sports Radio but
eventually turned into FoxSports Radio, and I remember
that, yeah, yeah.
So so what happened was the theway we auditioned is they said,
hey, we'll let you try out forfour weeks on a Saturday morning
(10:38):
and if you pass the auditionthen you can be on our show
regularly.
Okay, on our network.
So the first week we had someauthor first on, and then we
shifted over and we were goingto have an Olympic gymnast,
dominique Dawes, on with us.
She was on the Olympic team, soDominique was like at a
(10:59):
football game or something andshe was trying to call us from a
payphone at the station atstadium and the signal kept
dropping and all this andfinally and it was terrible
sound I finally just said youknow how it is.
I just had to say, okay, no more, this isn't radio worthy, so
let's just cut it off and let'stalk the rest of the time.
(11:19):
So we had 20 minutes to go andan hour.
That was unplanned and mypartner and I just kind of
whisked through it and afterwardthe producer talks to me, says
rough, rough day, huh.
And I said, yeah, I'm reallysorry, and he goes.
You handled it like a pro.
I don't need to hear three moreweeks.
You're hired.
So we were on the nationalnetwork then.
(11:42):
So I'm really happy that I'veseen how women's sports has
grown today and a lot of thepeople I used to interview gino
ariyama and, uh, people likethat when pat summit was was
riding high at tennessee andtara vanderveer at stanford and
I'll see different names ofpeople that actually don staley,
(12:02):
who's a very famous collegebasketball coach yeah, national
titles she was playing in thosedays so I interviewed her back
in those days.
So it's kind of fun to see howthe sport has evolved, how much
more popular and widespread it'sgetting, and just feel like we
had a little tiny piece of that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I love that man.
What's your view?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
on women's sports today.
Yeah, I think they've got agreat opportunity because the
WNBA is now being promoted a lotmore than it was.
You have a couple of peoplethat are stars is now in Dallas
(12:48):
and is that first round rookiepick last month.
She wants to always take herteammates along with her for
some of her sponsorship deals,so she's trying to not just make
money on her own, she's tryingto bring others along and I
think that's a great philosophythat you see, let's see if all
boats can rise and I see a lotmore male players now supporting
WNBA or women's soccer or whathave you right Really coming
(13:11):
through with that?
So that gets attention whensomebody like Patrick Mahomes
shows up or something like that.
So I'm very upbeat on it.
Women's sports is great forgirls.
It is something that gives themconfidence.
They have lower pregnancy rates, they have lower rates of
(13:31):
getting into trouble in variouskinds of ways.
They build such self-esteem andthey probably learn some of
those things, like I learnedthat mental toughness they can
carry through in your life.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I'd love for the WNBA to have a little bit more
promotion.
We've talked about it onmultiple shows.
When I had my sports flagshipshow earlier last spring, we
could never tell when the seasonstarted.
We didn't know what stationthey were going to be playing on
.
I found out by accident becauseone of the stations that I
watched like some of my choirdrummers on, they advertise the
(14:07):
game for the WNBA.
That's how I found out.
When the seasons are, when theyplay, they don't promote very
well.
So that's something thatthey've got to work on.
But there's definitely amovement taking place and I love
to hear that's good for theyoung ladies.
That's really, really inspiring.
I love that part, man.
So what would you say is yourgreatest sports achievement in
(14:28):
your time of broadcasting?
Let's just see what thebroadcasting part.
What's your greatest sportsachievement there?
Would you say?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, I think getting from a small town radio station
all the way on to a nationalsports radio network was really
big and probably the biggest.
I'll name a second one.
I was pretty creative whenyou're doing small radio
stations and things like that,you're trying to find angles for
things.
So I had tickets for the 84Olympics and I called up this
(14:56):
local station and there were acouple of local athletes there
was a high jumper, female highjumper, and then there was a
coach who was in charge of thewomen's sprint relay team and I
said, hey, I've got tickets tothe Coliseum to see these events
.
How about I string for you, howabout I do live reports from
(15:17):
the stadium all the way throughon how they're doing in each
round and that kind of thing.
And they said, yeah, so I woundup calling in from the stadium
and basically being an Olympicreporter.
So it worked out really well.
You know I got to do Olympics.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know Olympic reporting, I love you, though,
if you don't mind sharing maybetips or tricks of the trade.
Some of our friends that arepart of our listenership.
They're content creators andpodcasts like myself, and many
of them are good friends of mine, and their desire is to get
more in-depth when it comes tosports.
(15:51):
They want to do more,potentially do sideline
reporting.
They want to do more stuff fromthe booth.
Tell me how it is a trick of thetrade.
Excuse me, or any tips you canoffer, because you went into
that as a young kid and you weresitting there basically doing
color commentary.
How did you learn how to dothat?
How did you, how were you ableto quickly adjust and be able to
(16:13):
, you know, analyze what you seeand call it with any kind of
tips and tricks you use to dothat?
Talk to me behind the scenes alittle bit about how you became,
did the broadcasting so quickly?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, I've always believed in preparation, right?
So let's say you're going to doa football game, I want to know
in advance, like, how shouldthe game go, how do I expect it
to go?
And that's after doing a lot ofpreparation, right, trying to
understand as much of the statsand the personalities, talking
to the coaches, whatever, inadvance.
And then you have a narrativeto start with, but it's
(16:52):
unscripted, right?
A game is unscripted, so youhave a narrative that either the
game follows the script or itdoesn't follow the script.
And then either one is a storyWow, this is playing out just
like we thought, this team'sdominating the line of scrimmage
, whatever.
Or wow, the passing game reallyopened up.
We never expected that.
300 yards in the first half,right?
So that was one thing I woulddo as a color and a play-by-play
(17:16):
guy I did both is to reallythink about in advance and being
very well prepared.
I had stats in my head ready togo.
If I was play by play a lot oftimes, I had some kind of shaky
color commentators.
I made them look good.
I would have stats that werewritten down that I would set
them up to say you know, maineHigh School is pretty good on
(17:41):
third downs, right.
And I'm pointing and they go ohyes, they've converted 47% on
the season.
You know they look like agenius, right.
And so it's not just makingyourself look good but it's
making the broadcast look good.
But let me tell you the onebest tip anybody in the industry
gave me, and I think it's agood general tip.
So I had I got to be the colorcommentator next to a guy who is
(18:06):
the news director actually onthe NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort
Worth talk about a connection,right.
And so that guy was doingplay-by-play, just kind of
having fun, and I'm doing colorcommentary, trying to come up,
and at one point I said justtalk about the business in
general news, sports, everything.
How do I succeed in thisbusiness?
And he said there's a lot ofgood people who are also average
(18:31):
people.
I was like I don't understandthat.
What does that mean?
He goes.
It means they have a lot oftalent but they're just average
in the way they put it out there.
They're just average in the waythey are able to enact their
craft.
They don't put in the way theyput it out there.
They're just average in the waythey are able to enact their
craft.
They don't put in the work,they don't distinguish
themselves in any way.
(18:51):
They have a lot of talent, butthey're not that much better
than anybody else.
And the people who succeed arethe ones who do extra, the ones
who find a way to take theirtalent and be unique with it or
be more perfect with it or whathave you.
And I think that applies topodcasting.
It applies to a lot ofdifferent things.
(19:11):
I've always tried to apply thatadvice, frankly, in anything
I've done in life.
How can I stand out more?
Because there's a lot of goodpeople out there.
How am I going to make my mark?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
That's incredible advice.
I love it.
All right, we spent almost 20minutes on sports.
There's a shocker, huh.
So, cece, you had a hot playofftake you told me about you
wanted to run a hot playoff.
Take by it Go for it brother,let me tell you it was yours,
man.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
This applies to the NHL, where they just had the
blowout in game three.
It applies to whatever happenstonight with Oklahoma City and
Indiana, and that is the playoffseries doesn't start until game
four.
Doesn't start until game four.
The reason is you take all thatskirmishing and everything
they're trying to figure eachother out and almost every and
(20:01):
statistically speaking, anysport.
It's 90 percent of the timeit's two games to one when you
go into game four.
So that means the narrative iseither it gets tied up and now
you've got a three-game seriesor one game, or one team gets
pushed to the brink because nowit's three one.
So game four is the one thatreally matters.
I don't even pay much attentionto the playoffs in a series
(20:23):
until it gets to game four.
That's when it starts, that'swhen it's on.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Okay.
Well, I can't do that infootball and in baseball, which
are my two favorite sports.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, Baseball to an extent.
Yeah, yeah, baseball to anextent right.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Depending on the length of the series.
Right, I can't wait to gamefour to get invested.
I got to be in all in or not.
But let's get on sports.
I'm having too much fun thereand we can spend a whole lot of
time there.
I don't think we should do that.
So let's move on to some otherthings that are really
impressive about your life andwhat you've been doing.
(21:02):
We talk a lot about offline,about, you know, just the
struggle that people have intheir faith, living their faith
practically, if you will.
In your estimation, this issomething that's a really
important question for mepersonally too.
But in your estimation, whatdoes a disciplined lifestyle for
a believer look like?
Because we meet people all thetime like you kind of want to
(21:23):
mention, with the sports analogy, the advice you got in
broadcasting.
You got a lot of people who aregood, do good things, I'm
saying, but I guess in a lot ofways they don't stand out.
I think that's applicable heretoo, not that we're trying to
stand out in Christ and in ourfaith per se, but just doing the
good and kind of just steamingthe water and doing things
(21:48):
blanket-wise.
A lot of people do that andthey think it's good, basically
playing the minimums.
They think it's okay.
What does a disciplinedlifestyle?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
look like for a believer in your estimation.
Yeah, I founded Cecil TaylorMinistries to teach Christians
how to live a seven-daypractical faith, taking Sundays
into the rest of the week.
People would tell me I can dothis Christian stuff on Sundays,
but it's really hard the restof the week and the first thing
we think of is the spiritualdisciplines prayer, bible
reading in particular.
(22:19):
Those are important, but youshouldn't stop there.
We should be looking at how wecan be followers of Jesus every
day, in whatever we do andwhatever we find ourselves.
That doesn't mean you walk intoyour workplace and you know
you're just handing outpamphlets or something like that
.
But people can find out thatyou're a Christian in a lot of
(22:41):
different ways and sometimesit's a little comment like, oh
yeah, church this Sunday, thisfunny, funny thing happened.
Or yeah, I'm headed over to dothis volunteer work at my church
this evening and not to brag,just to kind of toss it out
there.
So people know your contextright, so that they understand
where you're coming from.
But what it really is about ishaving that discipline and
(23:03):
intentionality.
I think you have to beintentional.
We have to do things on purposeor else we don't get them done.
So we have to be on purposeabout how can I be kind.
What does kindness look like inmy life?
What does it look like toaddress different life
situations as a Christian whenthere's a crisis?
(23:26):
For example, there was a time Iwas out of work, we were dead
broke and I told my kids I hadthree kids at the time, will
still do and I said people arewatching us.
They're watching us becausethey've seen us in the good
times.
Now, how are we going to behavein the bad times?
What is our family really aboutin the bad times?
Just being conscious from thebeginning that our life could be
(23:50):
a witness in the midst of megoing 14 months without a job,
right, that kind of thing.
So how do we take scripture andSunday mornings and all that
and apply it to this situationin our life today?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I can definitely relate to being out of work that
long.
I know that, as a matter offact, it was longer than that
almost two years.
I totally get that.
That's powerful.
What does it mean to live aseven-day practical faith?
What does that actually mean?
Break it down?
For those that may not beacquainted with the idea of
faith at all, what's that looklike?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, I think one of the problems, frankly, that
people have with Christians isthat we don't seem to walk the
talk.
It seems like we talk one thingand then we do a second thing.
Right, I think that is.
You know, the book of James inthe Bible talks about being
double-minded saying one thing,doing another.
(24:48):
We can't be double-minded.
We need to be the same throughand through.
So to live a seven-day practicalfaith says I don't just go show
up for church on Sundays.
In fact, I live in a part of thecountry where church is kind of
a sport.
A little bit of the time thatpeople show up to be seen, a
little bit of the time thatpeople show up to be seen right,
(25:08):
not always because that's theright.
You know they're there forfaith, it's there for they're
there for social or to makefriends or to be seen or
whatever.
And so how do we get from thatkind of Christian-ish kind of
lifestyle to being through andthrough Christian seven days a
week?
And so I think that's what itis is.
(25:29):
It's being true to what wethink is our true selves and
being true to God, being truefollowers of Jesus every single
day.
So when I ask people on myPractical Faith Academy podcast.
What does it mean to you tolive a seven-day practical faith
?
Sometimes they point to tipslike hey, pray more, that kind
of thing, but most of the timeit's some variation of how can I
(25:53):
be the same person in allsituations and be a follower of
Christ all the time?
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's a powerful question, man.
What would you say to peoplewho are disillusioned with what
the church looks like right now,what the church is putting out
as far as, like you said,behavior, morality, et cetera?
What would you say to somebodywho's potentially listening and
watching right now,disillusioned with church?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, sometimes I'm disill.
Want to hear it over here.
Yeah, sometimes I'mdisillusioned with it too.
I think that what you need toknow is, first of all, there are
a lot of churches and a lot offlavors of church.
So if you have one that youencounter that you don't have a
(26:45):
good experience with, just knowthat there's many, many more
that are options that may beharder in a small town, but in
most cities there arealternatives that you can seek
right.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that if itdoesn't feel like somebody is
loving God and loving neighbor,then I'm not sure they're
(27:08):
following Christ as much asJesus would want them to do as
far as revealing who he is.
So you have to understand thatchurch is full of imperfect
people.
That's the biggest thing that Igot out of my head very early
on.
My dad was a pastor.
Let me tell you, when you'rethe pastor's kid, you see it all
and you see the sour underbellyright of what is in the church.
(27:33):
I have no illusions about howchurch can be, but I also know
that's because people are brokenPeople.
Even when they're trying to dothe right thing, do the wrong
thing, and so there has to besome patience and grace and
realizing that you're not goingto encounter perfect people and
if you do just get into a toxicsituation, then go find another
(27:55):
path, because there are peoplewho are sincere in the way that
they give and sincere in the waythey live.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I'm just trying to end the show.
Talk about parenting and someof your literary work regarding
that.
But one more question aboutyour podcast, practical Faith
Academy podcast.
Talk to us about why youstarted that and what you
learned from it since you'vebeen doing it.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, I started my podcast.
I was a longtime adult Sundayschool teacher on Sunday
mornings and just kind of didthat thing.
And when I started a podcast Ifigured, well, I'll just
basically do Sunday schoollessons, and it was a lot of me
talking out at everybody.
After a while I startedrealizing, wow, you know, God
(28:43):
gave me this gift of talking topeople in sports and in news
environments.
I loved interviewing people.
Why am I not doing that in myfaith and in my podcast?
So I converted over to thePractical Faith Academy theme
and I bring people alongside meA lot of times.
They're authors, Sometimesthey're not, Sometimes they're
(29:05):
just your average Joe.
I just interviewed a guy who Ifound on Facebook, who happened
to go on this pilgrimage walk inSpain, and I wanted to talk to
him.
Why did you do that?
What was that like?
What did you get out of it?
So I want to find out howpeople implement faith in their
corner of the world and whatsome of their ideas are that
(29:27):
they could share with otherpeople about living a seven-day
practical faith.
And that's what the podcast isall about.
I do it twice a month and I'mjust so happy with the people
who come on.
They're not always superarticulate, but they're faithful
and it's great to listen tothem.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I love this man.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
This is awesome.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I love podcasts like this because it's kind of almost
like what we did with our brandStart it off rapid fire,
throwing stuff out, and thenkind of morphed into more of a
let's walk together, more of awalking alongside.
Let's kind of go together infaith and kind of just build
connection and relationships.
So we kind of morphed into andrelationships, so you're kind of
(30:08):
more into that, especiallythrough this show, uh, and of
course, with our inspirationstation, uh broadcast as well.
So this is pretty awesome, man.
A lot of interesting stuffabout you.
Man, you sung a song for thepresident of the united states.
You're in the book of worldrecords.
We don't have a lot I, I wantto get an appearance, and so I
(30:29):
just had to put that out there.
Because that's two of threevery interesting facts about you
.
The third one is the one that Iwant to talk to all of them
really briefly, but the thirdone blows my mind you won a
local hip hop dance competition.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And you know what's even better, mr you, I embarrass
my daughter in the process,isn't that great?
That's the full exacto there.
What started as a?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
president man.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Well, I was six years old and the small town I was
living in was Johnson City,texas, when LBJ was president
and he didn't belong to ourchurch.
He was in a differentdenomination but he wound up
visiting our church on PalmSunday on the same day that he
went off and signed legislationat his old school that opened up
(31:21):
civil rights education forpeople.
So on that same day he came, onPalm Sunday and nobody knew he
was coming.
And I'm sitting on the frontrow with my little classmates
and we get up to turn around tosing some song for Palm Sunday
and there's the president rightand he came up, shook our hands
afterward and I get a lot of joyout of telling my wife, who is
(31:45):
a professional singer, guesswhich one of us actually sang
for the president.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, that was oh, come on, okay.
So what was the world record?
You wrote Mac in a Guinnessbook.
What was the world record?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I was in a service organization in college and we
did a fundraiser for I think itwas for leukemia, and we set up
at the municipal auditorium inAustin where people could try to
break world records and I waspart of a world record of the
number of people crammed into apickup truck.
So we set the world record with64 people in a pickup truck and
(32:23):
my job was I was in the cabwith about 15 other people and
my face was down at the bottomright where they closed the door
.
I was upside down in the cab sowe could fit well and they had
to close that thing right on myface.
And if that doesn't make youclaustrophobic, nothing will.
But I got through it, okay.
Okay, Do you remember the songthat you won, the?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
hip-hop dance competition with Daz.
Do you remember the song thatyou won the hip hop dance
competition with your dad?
Do you remember the song thatyou actually danced to?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I think they did some .
They just had some music trackin the background.
What happened was it was adance competition and my
daughter was in this dance cluband they were the judges had to
take some time to evaluate.
So they brought all the dads upwho were foolish enough to get
up there and said we're going todo this hip-hop dance
competition and I noticed likeeverybody is standing at the
(33:16):
back of the stage and they'reintroducing us and everybody
would kind of get up and kind ofdance a little bit and then
back up.
When it was my turn, I I comerunning up to the front of the
stage, I slide on my knees andI'm like, yeah, and so I won the
crowd over right away.
Well, what I didn't realize wasI thought that was like it.
They go OK, there's two dance,we're going to narrow down to
(33:39):
you and this other guy, and youguys got to go three rounds of
dancing and hip hop.
So we were really breaking down.
By the end.
He was doing the robot and Iwas doing the calisthenics, so
we didn't have much in our bags,but somehow they just liked me
and I wound up winning it and mydaughter was so embarrassed she
(34:01):
laid down on the floor in theback of the auditorium so she
didn't have to see.
Meanwhile, my son said that'sthe proudest I've been of you in
my life.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Oh, my goodness, I love it, man.
Great story for the familyreunions.
I love it.
I love it.
Excuse me, we don't have awhole lot of time left, but I
want to spend that on parenting.
I think we had too much fun.
Is what I'm getting from all ofthis.
You wrote a book on parenting,if I'm not mistaken.
(34:35):
You have several tons ofparenting books out there.
It's kind of the thing.
What makes unison parentingdifferent from the other books
on the market right now?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think the thing that's uniqueabout it.
There's a couple of uniquethings.
One is, first of all, insteadof being just my own opinion or
purely academic researchalthough there's some in there
it's based on a lot ofexperience and not just mine.
So I taught parenting classesin my church for 15 years to a
(35:09):
total of 700 families and Iwould roll out these parenting
ideas and then they would playback to me how those went.
I also spent 30 years in mychurch working in volunteer
youth ministry.
I got to know teens very well.
I got to see the results of allkinds of styles of parenting
right.
So there's a lot of backgroundand experiences and anecdotes,
(35:34):
those kinds of things that comeout of that experience.
But the other thing towards theend of that 15 years of
teaching, I started realizinghow much friction there is
between parents.
A lot of the times they mightshow up at the class together
but they were not on the samepage.
And I started teaching thisconcept of unison parenting Now,
(35:57):
unison is when in a choireverybody sings the same note at
the same time.
And I asked my wife, who doessome compositions, why does a
composer choose everybody singthe same note at the same time,
instead of harmony, and she goesyou do it when you want to
emphasize the message.
Hey, as parents, we want toemphasize a common message to
(36:20):
our kids, and so we need to singsame note, same time, same page
.
So what I teach in the bookthat is unique is, in addition
to a lot of great parentingadvice based on all those
experiences, there's thisfoundation underneath where I
say here's how you get on thesame page, here's how you stay
on the same page because there'spitfalls, and here's where the
(36:41):
pitfalls are that you might getoff.
And then how do you get back ontrack when you make a mistake
and you're not on the same page.
So that's what the book's aboutthis combination of great
parenting advice and then watchout for the unison parenting
angle.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
It is a book only for Christians, or can anybody?
Can be applied to anybody.
Who's parenting for young kids,for teens, older kids, who's?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
it targeted for specifically, if you can answer
that.
First of all, with theChristian aspect, it does come
out of a Christian context andthat's in the subtitle.
However, the book just won asecular competition for
parenting and family and I thinkthat validates my view that the
principles in the book,although they come from a
Christian context, can apply toany family, and there's one
(37:32):
chapter of the book that's outof the nine that is pretty
related to religion and there'slittle devotionals in there, but
the rest of it is just greatparenting advice.
So if you're not a Christian,take a read of it anyway,
because I think you'll get a lotout of it.
So I forget what the otherthing was you asked me on top of
(37:53):
that.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
But it doesn't apply to any parents.
One day I asked but also, is ittalking to our younger children
?
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So the way the book is structured, it's really for
parents to start any time,wherever they are, and they need
to start getting on the samepage, even if that kid's in
diapers.
But it's really for ages fourthrough 18.
The first half of the book ison parenting fundamentals.
How do you do all this?
You just apparently stuff andstart bringing that kid up,
(38:24):
because I spent so much timewith teens and that's such a big
question for many people.
The back half of the book isabout the teen years and in the
first half, even as we're goingthrough fundamentals, we start
doing some building block thingsto make the teen years easier.
So even if you've got a kid infirst grade, third grade, fifth
grade, you want to read thisbecause you're building to where
(38:47):
, when they're age 14 and 16 and18, it's going to go easier.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Makes sense, makes sense.
I love this man.
This is really good.
You mentioned something aboutopposition parenting.
My mind went to a differentplace, because we had major
challenges raising our daughters.
But what is oppositionparenting?
What is that?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Well, the opposition parenting is where the parents
oppose each other, sometimes noteven realizing they're doing it
.
It's almost subconscious, butthen it starts coming out more
graphically.
So let's take the easiestexample, but I could list you 20
different scenarios.
But the easiest example is oneparent grew up in a strict
household.
The other grew up in a lenienthousehold.
(39:28):
So the one who's strict startsacting strict and starts pulling
this way.
Well, the lenient parent saysyou know, we need to balance
things out, bring it back to themiddle.
So I'm going to do thingsreally lenient to counteract
that strictness.
Well, it doesn't work.
You know what happens next.
You can probably guess thatstrict one says whoa, what's
happening here?
(39:48):
Too much leniency.
They go harder towards thestrictness, then the other one
goes harder towards the leniency, and now you've got a tug of
war going on.
You've got two sets of rules inthe house, the kids are
confused but they learn how toplay it and you've got a huge
mess, a huge battleground.
That's opposition parenting.
And so I have a technique oflean in, not away, which is in
(40:17):
some of my materials and soforth.
But the idea, the basic idea,is let's find a way to work
together instead of workingagainst each other, and this can
apply to a lot of scenarios.
How about nutrition?
Right, the one wants to eathealthy, the other one says, ah,
let them eat fast food.
You know, you could just go ondown the line.
Academics, important, notimportant, yeah, all that kind
of thing makes sense.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Just got a couple more questions for you to be
close episode.
We had so much fun.
Sorry we have to stop, but youknow we're up against it now.
But even how would you, or evenwould you convince a parent to
pivot if they've been winging itfor years as far as their
parenting style?
I would convince them to pivotyeah.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, my catchphrase is for the sake of the child.
There's so much damage you cando to a child and I really talk
about what the best parentingstyle is, compared to three
other major styles that arewrong, that just do this
long-term damage to kids.
I just saw something real quick.
I saw something in the paperthe other day.
A man didn't really want tohave the second kid.
(41:18):
It was a daughter.
She's four, has aneight-year-old boy.
He wants to spend all the timethere.
The four-year-old girl isalready picking up that I'm not
worth anything in this household.
He's doing major damage to thatgirl, even at age four, because
he doesn't want to havesomething to do with her.
So, for the sake of the child,we get over ourselves In a
divorce situation.
If you're angry with each other, it doesn't matter.
(41:39):
For the sake of the child.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Oh, I love that.
I love that I actually got twomore questions.
This last question is the onethat primarily asks all of our
guests.
They know when they come in.
I'm going to close the showwith this question.
If you're not in your currentvocation, that means you're not
a parenting expert, cecil.
You're not writing books.
You're not podcasting over atPFA.
What's Cecil doing with hislife?
(42:05):
You can't pick broadcastingeither.
What's Cecil doing with hislife?
And you can't pick.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Broadcast to eat it.
No, it isn't.
I tell you, it's my dream and Idon't know if I can figure out
how to do it.
But, believe it or not, Ireally want to own and operate a
mini golf course.
My grandfather and I used toplay mini golf together.
We shared that and we wouldtalk about if we had a course
here's what we would do and wereally seriously considered
(42:29):
doing this.
And you know, he got to wherehe was too old and passed away
and and so I've always kind ofcarried that torch that I would
like to do what my grandfatherand I set out to do.
So maybe someday I don't know Iprobably can't afford it in the
big city.
I'm probably going to be in asmall town with a, you know, a
little quarter of the big city.
I'm probably going to be in asmall town with a little quarter
(42:49):
of the downtown area that I setoff for doing mini golf or
something.
But anyway, that's what I'dreally love to do.
It's just a little fantasy.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Hey, who knows, it could definitely happen, man.
That's what's going on with us,man.
We got people who are authorsand speakers and bloggers and
even experts about this you knowthe genre that are watching and
listening to this show.
What would you say to encouragethem, whether it be in faith in
parenting, in facing theirbroadcasting career?
What advice would you give tothem?
(43:17):
And after we're done with that,we'll go ahead and jump off.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Go ahead your message is needed by someone.
Whatever it is, your message isneeded.
You don't know who it is, youmay never know who it is.
You may feel, whatever it is,your message is needed.
You don't know who it is, youmay never know who it is.
You may feel like, whatever itis, you're just talking into the
darkness, into the ether.
But somebody needs what youhave to say and hopefully they
will find it.
It's your job, of course, totry to promote and things like
(43:42):
that so they'll find it.
But have faith, whatever it is,it doesn't have to be Christian
.
Have faith in yourself, havefaith in your message.
That that is needed.
Quick example Lynn Austin,famous Christian fiction writer.
She was on my podcast.
She had written 40 books.
She's in Fiction Hall of Fames.
So she was saying that she wasabout to retire and a prisoner a
(44:06):
female prisoner wrote her andsaid I read your book in the
library and I decided, based onthat book, not to kill myself.
And Lynn said maybe all 40books, maybe all the fame I got,
everything that happened in mylife was to reach that woman.
You have someone who needs tohear your message out there.
So keep, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
You have someone who needs to hear your message out
there.
So keep going, keep going.
That's an outstanding story,man.
Thank you for sharing that man.
Ladies and gentlemen, cecilTaylor, author of Unison
Parenting and host of thePractical Faith Academy podcast,
don't forget to jump in with us, man no-transcript, if you
(44:50):
don't mind doing that.
When we get offline, we canfind you really easily find your
work.
Reach out to you if they wantsome advice on parenting or even
on faith.
So look for you to do that forus and for all the viewers and
listeners.
Thanks for listening andwatching us once again.
The Show's going well andyou're a big part of it.
This is about you and it's madefor you.
So thank you again for watchingand listening.
Have a great day.
(45:11):
See you soon, mr U.
We're out.
welcome back to one-on-one with mr.
Of course I am your host.
Mr U In studio with us.
Cecil Taylor, I know your nameLong morning.
Taylor's in the house with ustoday.
Author, former broadcaster,head of the Practical Faith
Academy.
He's a parenting expert.
He does a lot of stuff, sogreat value by having you in the
(00:41):
box with us today, man, thanksfor being here.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
How are you?
I'm well, thanks.
I'm excited to be with you.
I think we have a lot to talkabout.
I'm ready to get to it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We got plenty to talk about.
I want to make sure we haveenough time.
I'm going to give you as muchtime as I possibly have to do
this because there's so muchabout your life that's so
interesting, so many layers toyou.
I think it reminds me of me insome ways.
I got so many layers, I cantalk about 10 different topics,
and I think that's good forpodcasts.
Sometimes it might be hard tonavigate, but we're going to
(01:12):
have fun with it.
So, customarily, I ask all ofour guests that are coming in
for the first time describe yourupbringing, your childhood.
What's life like for youngCecil?
Talk about that a little bitfor us.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, I was a pastor's kid in small towns.
My dad would move around tosome of the different small
towns within South and CentralTexas.
So in fact in my first 18 yearsI only lived two years in a
town with a traffic light.
So that's how small things were.
And I went from there later tothe University of Texas, which I
(01:46):
had classes bigger than my highschool, and then from there I
moved up to the Dallas area and,believe it or not, I wound up
eventually being ininternational business where I
was traveling a lot to tomultiple countries.
I never would have imaginedthat when I was a small town kid
it was a big thing just to goto the nearest big city and then
(02:11):
to imagine going across oceansto different places.
It's just amazing.
So if you had told me whatwould happen in my life when I
was a little kid, I wouldn'thave believed it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Wow, I got got questions immediately and this
is kind of off the cuff becausewe didn't talk about this in our
pre-interview chat.
But you've been from texas.
Well, you and I are big sportsfans.
We'll talk about that a littlebit, not the context for our
full conversation, but can'thelp it.
I'm a sports guy, you're asports guy.
We're going to touch on beingfrom texas.
I know, I know the football ishuge in Texas.
(02:44):
Explain to me what it's like tolive in Texas with that, not a
stigma, but I guess thatidentity, that football is so
large.
Why is it so large in Texas?
Why is it a big deal?
Talk to me about the financialramifications of it, if you can
Get into it a little bit for me.
Why is that a big deal in Texas?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It really started in the small towns because it was
the main sport that peopleenjoyed.
Baseball was big, but footballwas always king.
I played football and I was thesmallest guy on the team but I
had to be the toughest guy onthe team, right?
So if you're the smallest, butthe whole community shows up,
the whole community is behind it.
(03:23):
All through the towns there'speople wear ribbons and put
stickers on their cars and thewindows are painted in the
stores and the town shuts downon Friday night so everybody can
go to the football game.
When my mom had little kids andI was small and she felt like
the weather was bad, we wouldstill park outside the end zone.
(03:47):
It was like a chain-link fenceand you could watch the game
from the end zone and if therewas a touchdown you were honking
your horn and that kind ofthing, right.
That's how I grew up.
The kids in elementary schoolwere underneath the stands with
a paper cup wadded up like afootball.
They were playing their ownfootball game down there,
dreaming of the day that theywould be on the varsity and all
(04:08):
the guys on the football teamwere the heroes to everybody in
town.
And then you start to multiplythat.
As Texas gets bigger, morepopulation comes in, more people
acclimate to that and thestadiums started getting bigger.
And now there's a statechampionship television for, you
know, in the playoffs.
I live in a county where wehave this is a suburb of Dallas
(04:33):
we probably have eight footballstadiums with more than 15000
seating.
So that gives you an ideathat's.
That's bigger than some smallcolleges.
In fact, in my county two ofthe national title games for the
lower divisions are played inthis county.
So that gives you an idea thatthe college football you know
the lower divisions are playedhere.
(04:54):
So football is football is king, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I can see that I always, always wondered is that
real or is that just aperception?
Is that a real thing?
But I mean, I hear about all ofthe guys that even come out.
I'm a big fan of college andthe pros so I kind of follow all
this going on.
And all these little smallschools, these small high
schools man, they seem to takeit really seriously.
Like this is like is it kind oflike football is their only way
(05:21):
out of where they live?
Is that the idea?
Is football their only way outof where they live?
Is that the idea?
Or is it that the parents havekind of ingrained in them that
football is the route we wantyou to take, it's the most
lucrative route, or is that alsoa misconception?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
There's always a percentage that think their
kid's going to get a scholarshipand they're going to go to the
pros and all that.
But statistically speaking Ithink people realize that's a
very small percentage, like twopercent.
I think it's the competitionand the things you gain out of
football.
I tell you what I wouldn't beas disciplined in my life, I
wouldn't be as tough minded indifferent situations if I hadn't
(06:00):
played football.
It gave me a mental toughnesswhen you push yourself to go
farther than you think and to goup against somebody bigger than
you and find a way to compete.
I got a little story there's.
There was a guy who played onan opposite team, who there were
these brothers, the Stoddardbrothers.
They both went to UT, texasLonghorns, both went to the pros
(06:23):
.
David Stoddard was a linemanfor the Broncos, les Studdard
was an offensive lineman for theEagles.
Well, in high school I told youthey were there, what?
I don't remember those guys.
Oh, you don't remember thoseguys?
Well, yeah, yeah, they're likein the.
You know they played in thepros in the 80s, so it goes back
(06:44):
that far.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Okay, that's my time frame.
I don't remember them.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, well, studdard, yeah, studdard, Studdard, david
and Les Studdard.
Well, in high school LesStuddard wasn't an offensive
lineman, he was a tight end andI was a safety Guess who guarded
him.
At one point the other coachthey noticed we seem to have a
mismatch here.
We've got like a 6'5",200-something pound tight end
(07:10):
and we've got this scrawnylittle safety on the other side.
Why don't we just you rememberthe old pop passes where they
just throw it right over theline of scrimmage to the tight
end.
They ran the pop pass eightstraight times, starting at
their 20, and every time it wasme hitting him low and hanging
on until the rest of the wolvescould get on him and pull him
(07:31):
down.
And you know, every time I meanlike my brain's getting rattled
right and at some point I hithim and the referee goes
touchdown.
I'm like were we near the endzone?
I had no idea.
They found a mismatch.
That's my claim to fame.
I was tackling a futureoffensive lineman in the pros.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Those dump passes, man, if you can make it work,
you can do it every time.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
You just throw it up high.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Probably bigger than the linemen, the D-lines.
That's probably why I work sowell In the pros those jump
passes.
They're not going to work asoften for sure, because the
linemen are huge.
Now you spend time not only insports, which I love, and you
also talked about the time inbroadcasting.
I want also talked about yourtime in broadcasting.
(08:26):
I want to get into your time inbroadcasting a little bit,
share one of your greatachievements in that area and
some of the stories you got.
And then I want to hear thatplayoff take you got.
You said you got a hot playofftake.
I want to hear all of thosethings.
Let's start with thebroadcasting.
What got you into broadcasting?
What you experienced there inyour time doing that?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
to a broadcaster what what you experienced there in
your time doing that.
Yeah, you know, I started inthese little towns.
My dad was doing tape, delayedfootball, play by play and and I
really wanted to get into itand do some too.
So uh, I asked him hey, can Ido a quarter with you, like I
could do the color and then do aquarter play by play.
And so we did it.
You know, we kind of shiftedaround.
I remember between the thirdand fourth quarters we're
shifting back so he could doplay by play.
(09:06):
And I said, well, how was it?
He goes, it's depressing.
And I said what do you mean?
He said you're already betterthan I am.
So I really, I really love theplay by play and I wound up
doing some small collegefootball and that kind of thing.
As far as play-by-play wasconcerned, I did everything from
football to volleyball to dirttrack racing I mean just all
(09:28):
kinds of crazy stuff when you'reworking for radio stations of
different kinds.
But I eventually got more intothe sports talk end of it.
And I was working for anational radio network.
But the way I got there wasthat I had started a Dallas show
called the Women's Sports Hourand I had a female partner and
(09:49):
we covered women's sports andnobody was really covering
women's sports at the time, butit was a rich time because this
was in the nineties.
So we were, we were talking topeople like Nancy Lieberman,
christy Yamaguchi, we would haveNadia Komaneci on the show.
We had like the 96 women'sbasketball team that won the
(10:09):
gold.
We had, you know, cheryl Swoopsall kinds of those.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh my goodness, Wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And eventually what happened was we went up to this
new national network that wascalled Prime Sports Radio but
eventually turned into FoxSports Radio, and I remember
that, yeah, yeah.
So so what happened was the theway we auditioned is they said,
hey, we'll let you try out forfour weeks on a Saturday morning
(10:38):
and if you pass the auditionthen you can be on our show
regularly.
Okay, on our network.
So the first week we had someauthor first on, and then we
shifted over and we were goingto have an Olympic gymnast,
dominique Dawes, on with us.
She was on the Olympic team, soDominique was like at a
(10:59):
football game or something andshe was trying to call us from a
payphone at the station atstadium and the signal kept
dropping and all this andfinally and it was terrible
sound I finally just said youknow how it is.
I just had to say, okay, no more, this isn't radio worthy, so
let's just cut it off and let'stalk the rest of the time.
(11:19):
So we had 20 minutes to go andan hour.
That was unplanned and mypartner and I just kind of
whisked through it and afterwardthe producer talks to me, says
rough, rough day, huh.
And I said, yeah, I'm reallysorry, and he goes.
You handled it like a pro.
I don't need to hear three moreweeks.
You're hired.
So we were on the nationalnetwork then.
(11:42):
So I'm really happy that I'veseen how women's sports has
grown today and a lot of thepeople I used to interview gino
ariyama and, uh, people likethat when pat summit was was
riding high at tennessee andtara vanderveer at stanford and
I'll see different names ofpeople that actually don staley,
(12:02):
who's a very famous collegebasketball coach yeah, national
titles she was playing in thosedays so I interviewed her back
in those days.
So it's kind of fun to see howthe sport has evolved, how much
more popular and widespread it'sgetting, and just feel like we
had a little tiny piece of that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I love that man.
What's your view?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
on women's sports today.
Yeah, I think they've got agreat opportunity because the
WNBA is now being promoted a lotmore than it was.
You have a couple of peoplethat are stars is now in Dallas
(12:48):
and is that first round rookiepick last month.
She wants to always take herteammates along with her for
some of her sponsorship deals,so she's trying to not just make
money on her own, she's tryingto bring others along and I
think that's a great philosophythat you see, let's see if all
boats can rise and I see a lotmore male players now supporting
WNBA or women's soccer or whathave you right Really coming
(13:11):
through with that?
So that gets attention whensomebody like Patrick Mahomes
shows up or something like that.
So I'm very upbeat on it.
Women's sports is great forgirls.
It is something that gives themconfidence.
They have lower pregnancy rates, they have lower rates of
(13:31):
getting into trouble in variouskinds of ways.
They build such self-esteem andthey probably learn some of
those things, like I learnedthat mental toughness they can
carry through in your life.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I'd love for the WNBA to have a little bit more
promotion.
We've talked about it onmultiple shows.
When I had my sports flagshipshow earlier last spring, we
could never tell when the seasonstarted.
We didn't know what stationthey were going to be playing on
.
I found out by accident becauseone of the stations that I
watched like some of my choirdrummers on, they advertise the
(14:07):
game for the WNBA.
That's how I found out.
When the seasons are, when theyplay, they don't promote very
well.
So that's something thatthey've got to work on.
But there's definitely amovement taking place and I love
to hear that's good for theyoung ladies.
That's really, really inspiring.
I love that part, man.
So what would you say is yourgreatest sports achievement in
(14:28):
your time of broadcasting?
Let's just see what thebroadcasting part.
What's your greatest sportsachievement there?
Would you say?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, I think getting from a small town radio station
all the way on to a nationalsports radio network was really
big and probably the biggest.
I'll name a second one.
I was pretty creative whenyou're doing small radio
stations and things like that,you're trying to find angles for
things.
So I had tickets for the 84Olympics and I called up this
(14:56):
local station and there were acouple of local athletes there
was a high jumper, female highjumper, and then there was a
coach who was in charge of thewomen's sprint relay team and I
said, hey, I've got tickets tothe Coliseum to see these events
.
How about I string for you, howabout I do live reports from
(15:17):
the stadium all the way throughon how they're doing in each
round and that kind of thing.
And they said, yeah, so I woundup calling in from the stadium
and basically being an Olympicreporter.
So it worked out really well.
You know I got to do Olympics.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know Olympic reporting, I love you, though,
if you don't mind sharing maybetips or tricks of the trade.
Some of our friends that arepart of our listenership.
They're content creators andpodcasts like myself, and many
of them are good friends of mine, and their desire is to get
more in-depth when it comes tosports.
(15:51):
They want to do more,potentially do sideline
reporting.
They want to do more stuff fromthe booth.
Tell me how it is a trick of thetrade.
Excuse me, or any tips you canoffer, because you went into
that as a young kid and you weresitting there basically doing
color commentary.
How did you learn how to dothat?
How did you, how were you ableto quickly adjust and be able to
(16:13):
, you know, analyze what you seeand call it with any kind of
tips and tricks you use to dothat?
Talk to me behind the scenes alittle bit about how you became,
did the broadcasting so quickly?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, I've always believed in preparation, right?
So let's say you're going to doa football game, I want to know
in advance, like, how shouldthe game go, how do I expect it
to go?
And that's after doing a lot ofpreparation, right, trying to
understand as much of the statsand the personalities, talking
to the coaches, whatever, inadvance.
And then you have a narrativeto start with, but it's
(16:52):
unscripted, right?
A game is unscripted, so youhave a narrative that either the
game follows the script or itdoesn't follow the script.
And then either one is a storyWow, this is playing out just
like we thought, this team'sdominating the line of scrimmage
, whatever.
Or wow, the passing game reallyopened up.
We never expected that.
300 yards in the first half,right?
So that was one thing I woulddo as a color and a play-by-play
(17:16):
guy I did both is to reallythink about in advance and being
very well prepared.
I had stats in my head ready togo.
If I was play by play a lot oftimes, I had some kind of shaky
color commentators.
I made them look good.
I would have stats that werewritten down that I would set
them up to say you know, maineHigh School is pretty good on
(17:41):
third downs, right.
And I'm pointing and they go ohyes, they've converted 47% on
the season.
You know they look like agenius, right.
And so it's not just makingyourself look good but it's
making the broadcast look good.
But let me tell you the onebest tip anybody in the industry
gave me, and I think it's agood general tip.
So I had I got to be the colorcommentator next to a guy who is
(18:06):
the news director actually onthe NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort
Worth talk about a connection,right.
And so that guy was doingplay-by-play, just kind of
having fun, and I'm doing colorcommentary, trying to come up,
and at one point I said justtalk about the business in
general news, sports, everything.
How do I succeed in thisbusiness?
And he said there's a lot ofgood people who are also average
(18:31):
people.
I was like I don't understandthat.
What does that mean?
He goes.
It means they have a lot oftalent but they're just average
in the way they put it out there.
They're just average in the waythey are able to enact their
craft.
They don't put in the way theyput it out there.
They're just average in the waythey are able to enact their
craft.
They don't put in the work,they don't distinguish
themselves in any way.
(18:51):
They have a lot of talent, butthey're not that much better
than anybody else.
And the people who succeed arethe ones who do extra, the ones
who find a way to take theirtalent and be unique with it or
be more perfect with it or whathave you.
And I think that applies topodcasting.
It applies to a lot ofdifferent things.
(19:11):
I've always tried to apply thatadvice, frankly, in anything
I've done in life.
How can I stand out more?
Because there's a lot of goodpeople out there.
How am I going to make my mark?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
That's incredible advice.
I love it.
All right, we spent almost 20minutes on sports.
There's a shocker, huh.
So, cece, you had a hot playofftake you told me about you
wanted to run a hot playoff.
Take by it Go for it brother,let me tell you it was yours,
man.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
This applies to the NHL, where they just had the
blowout in game three.
It applies to whatever happenstonight with Oklahoma City and
Indiana, and that is the playoffseries doesn't start until game
four.
Doesn't start until game four.
The reason is you take all thatskirmishing and everything
they're trying to figure eachother out and almost every and
(20:01):
statistically speaking, anysport.
It's 90 percent of the timeit's two games to one when you
go into game four.
So that means the narrative iseither it gets tied up and now
you've got a three-game seriesor one game, or one team gets
pushed to the brink because nowit's three one.
So game four is the one thatreally matters.
I don't even pay much attentionto the playoffs in a series
(20:23):
until it gets to game four.
That's when it starts, that'swhen it's on.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Okay.
Well, I can't do that infootball and in baseball, which
are my two favorite sports.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, Baseball to an extent.
Yeah, yeah, baseball to anextent right.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Depending on the length of the series.
Right, I can't wait to gamefour to get invested.
I got to be in all in or not.
But let's get on sports.
I'm having too much fun thereand we can spend a whole lot of
time there.
I don't think we should do that.
So let's move on to some otherthings that are really
impressive about your life andwhat you've been doing.
(21:02):
We talk a lot about offline,about, you know, just the
struggle that people have intheir faith, living their faith
practically, if you will.
In your estimation, this issomething that's a really
important question for mepersonally too.
But in your estimation, whatdoes a disciplined lifestyle for
a believer look like?
Because we meet people all thetime like you kind of want to
(21:23):
mention, with the sports analogy, the advice you got in
broadcasting.
You got a lot of people who aregood, do good things, I'm
saying, but I guess in a lot ofways they don't stand out.
I think that's applicable heretoo, not that we're trying to
stand out in Christ and in ourfaith per se, but just doing the
good and kind of just steamingthe water and doing things
(21:48):
blanket-wise.
A lot of people do that andthey think it's good, basically
playing the minimums.
They think it's okay.
What does a disciplinedlifestyle?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
look like for a believer in your estimation.
Yeah, I founded Cecil TaylorMinistries to teach Christians
how to live a seven-daypractical faith, taking Sundays
into the rest of the week.
People would tell me I can dothis Christian stuff on Sundays,
but it's really hard the restof the week and the first thing
we think of is the spiritualdisciplines prayer, bible
reading in particular.
(22:19):
Those are important, but youshouldn't stop there.
We should be looking at how wecan be followers of Jesus every
day, in whatever we do andwhatever we find ourselves.
That doesn't mean you walk intoyour workplace and you know
you're just handing outpamphlets or something like that
.
But people can find out thatyou're a Christian in a lot of
(22:41):
different ways and sometimesit's a little comment like, oh
yeah, church this Sunday, thisfunny, funny thing happened.
Or yeah, I'm headed over to dothis volunteer work at my church
this evening and not to brag,just to kind of toss it out
there.
So people know your contextright, so that they understand
where you're coming from.
But what it really is about ishaving that discipline and
(23:03):
intentionality.
I think you have to beintentional.
We have to do things on purposeor else we don't get them done.
So we have to be on purposeabout how can I be kind.
What does kindness look like inmy life?
What does it look like toaddress different life
situations as a Christian whenthere's a crisis?
(23:26):
For example, there was a time Iwas out of work, we were dead
broke and I told my kids I hadthree kids at the time, will
still do and I said people arewatching us.
They're watching us becausethey've seen us in the good
times.
Now, how are we going to behavein the bad times?
What is our family really aboutin the bad times?
Just being conscious from thebeginning that our life could be
(23:50):
a witness in the midst of megoing 14 months without a job,
right, that kind of thing.
So how do we take scripture andSunday mornings and all that
and apply it to this situationin our life today?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I can definitely relate to being out of work that
long.
I know that, as a matter offact, it was longer than that
almost two years.
I totally get that.
That's powerful.
What does it mean to live aseven-day practical faith?
What does that actually mean?
Break it down?
For those that may not beacquainted with the idea of
faith at all, what's that looklike?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, I think one of the problems, frankly, that
people have with Christians isthat we don't seem to walk the
talk.
It seems like we talk one thingand then we do a second thing.
Right, I think that is.
You know, the book of James inthe Bible talks about being
double-minded saying one thing,doing another.
(24:48):
We can't be double-minded.
We need to be the same throughand through.
So to live a seven-day practicalfaith says I don't just go show
up for church on Sundays.
In fact, I live in a part of thecountry where church is kind of
a sport.
A little bit of the time thatpeople show up to be seen, a
little bit of the time thatpeople show up to be seen right,
(25:08):
not always because that's theright.
You know they're there forfaith, it's there for they're
there for social or to makefriends or to be seen or
whatever.
And so how do we get from thatkind of Christian-ish kind of
lifestyle to being through andthrough Christian seven days a
week?
And so I think that's what itis is.
(25:29):
It's being true to what wethink is our true selves and
being true to God, being truefollowers of Jesus every single
day.
So when I ask people on myPractical Faith Academy podcast.
What does it mean to you tolive a seven-day practical faith
?
Sometimes they point to tipslike hey, pray more, that kind
of thing, but most of the timeit's some variation of how can I
(25:53):
be the same person in allsituations and be a follower of
Christ all the time?
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's a powerful question, man.
What would you say to peoplewho are disillusioned with what
the church looks like right now,what the church is putting out
as far as, like you said,behavior, morality, et cetera?
What would you say to somebodywho's potentially listening and
watching right now,disillusioned with church?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, sometimes I'm disill.
Want to hear it over here.
Yeah, sometimes I'mdisillusioned with it too.
I think that what you need toknow is, first of all, there are
a lot of churches and a lot offlavors of church.
So if you have one that youencounter that you don't have a
(26:45):
good experience with, just knowthat there's many, many more
that are options that may beharder in a small town, but in
most cities there arealternatives that you can seek
right.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that if itdoesn't feel like somebody is
loving God and loving neighbor,then I'm not sure they're
(27:08):
following Christ as much asJesus would want them to do as
far as revealing who he is.
So you have to understand thatchurch is full of imperfect
people.
That's the biggest thing that Igot out of my head very early
on.
My dad was a pastor.
Let me tell you, when you'rethe pastor's kid, you see it all
and you see the sour underbellyright of what is in the church.
(27:33):
I have no illusions about howchurch can be, but I also know
that's because people are brokenPeople.
Even when they're trying to dothe right thing, do the wrong
thing, and so there has to besome patience and grace and
realizing that you're not goingto encounter perfect people and
if you do just get into a toxicsituation, then go find another
(27:55):
path, because there are peoplewho are sincere in the way that
they give and sincere in the waythey live.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I'm just trying to end the show.
Talk about parenting and someof your literary work regarding
that.
But one more question aboutyour podcast, practical Faith
Academy podcast.
Talk to us about why youstarted that and what you
learned from it since you'vebeen doing it.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, I started my podcast.
I was a longtime adult Sundayschool teacher on Sunday
mornings and just kind of didthat thing.
And when I started a podcast Ifigured, well, I'll just
basically do Sunday schoollessons, and it was a lot of me
talking out at everybody.
After a while I startedrealizing, wow, you know, God
(28:43):
gave me this gift of talking topeople in sports and in news
environments.
I loved interviewing people.
Why am I not doing that in myfaith and in my podcast?
So I converted over to thePractical Faith Academy theme
and I bring people alongside meA lot of times.
They're authors, Sometimesthey're not, Sometimes they're
(29:05):
just your average Joe.
I just interviewed a guy who Ifound on Facebook, who happened
to go on this pilgrimage walk inSpain, and I wanted to talk to
him.
Why did you do that?
What was that like?
What did you get out of it?
So I want to find out howpeople implement faith in their
corner of the world and whatsome of their ideas are that
(29:27):
they could share with otherpeople about living a seven-day
practical faith.
And that's what the podcast isall about.
I do it twice a month and I'mjust so happy with the people
who come on.
They're not always superarticulate, but they're faithful
and it's great to listen tothem.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I love this man.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
This is awesome.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I love podcasts like this because it's kind of almost
like what we did with our brandStart it off rapid fire,
throwing stuff out, and thenkind of morphed into more of a
let's walk together, more of awalking alongside.
Let's kind of go together infaith and kind of just build
connection and relationships.
So we kind of morphed into andrelationships, so you're kind of
(30:08):
more into that, especiallythrough this show, uh, and of
course, with our inspirationstation, uh broadcast as well.
So this is pretty awesome, man.
A lot of interesting stuffabout you.
Man, you sung a song for thepresident of the united states.
You're in the book of worldrecords.
We don't have a lot I, I wantto get an appearance, and so I
(30:29):
just had to put that out there.
Because that's two of threevery interesting facts about you
.
The third one is the one that Iwant to talk to all of them
really briefly, but the thirdone blows my mind you won a
local hip hop dance competition.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And you know what's even better, mr you, I embarrass
my daughter in the process,isn't that great?
That's the full exacto there.
What started as a?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
president man.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Well, I was six years old and the small town I was
living in was Johnson City,texas, when LBJ was president
and he didn't belong to ourchurch.
He was in a differentdenomination but he wound up
visiting our church on PalmSunday on the same day that he
went off and signed legislationat his old school that opened up
(31:21):
civil rights education forpeople.
So on that same day he came, onPalm Sunday and nobody knew he
was coming.
And I'm sitting on the frontrow with my little classmates
and we get up to turn around tosing some song for Palm Sunday
and there's the president rightand he came up, shook our hands
afterward and I get a lot of joyout of telling my wife, who is
(31:45):
a professional singer, guesswhich one of us actually sang
for the president.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, that was oh, come on, okay.
So what was the world record?
You wrote Mac in a Guinnessbook.
What was the world record?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I was in a service organization in college and we
did a fundraiser for I think itwas for leukemia, and we set up
at the municipal auditorium inAustin where people could try to
break world records and I waspart of a world record of the
number of people crammed into apickup truck.
So we set the world record with64 people in a pickup truck and
(32:23):
my job was I was in the cabwith about 15 other people and
my face was down at the bottomright where they closed the door
.
I was upside down in the cab sowe could fit well and they had
to close that thing right on myface.
And if that doesn't make youclaustrophobic, nothing will.
But I got through it, okay.
Okay, Do you remember the songthat you won, the?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
hip-hop dance competition with Daz.
Do you remember the song thatyou won the hip hop dance
competition with your dad?
Do you remember the song thatyou actually danced to?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I think they did some .
They just had some music trackin the background.
What happened was it was adance competition and my
daughter was in this dance cluband they were the judges had to
take some time to evaluate.
So they brought all the dads upwho were foolish enough to get
up there and said we're going todo this hip-hop dance
competition and I noticed likeeverybody is standing at the
(33:16):
back of the stage and they'reintroducing us and everybody
would kind of get up and kind ofdance a little bit and then
back up.
When it was my turn, I I comerunning up to the front of the
stage, I slide on my knees andI'm like, yeah, and so I won the
crowd over right away.
Well, what I didn't realize wasI thought that was like it.
They go OK, there's two dance,we're going to narrow down to
(33:39):
you and this other guy, and youguys got to go three rounds of
dancing and hip hop.
So we were really breaking down.
By the end.
He was doing the robot and Iwas doing the calisthenics, so
we didn't have much in our bags,but somehow they just liked me
and I wound up winning it and mydaughter was so embarrassed she
(34:01):
laid down on the floor in theback of the auditorium so she
didn't have to see.
Meanwhile, my son said that'sthe proudest I've been of you in
my life.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Oh, my goodness, I love it, man.
Great story for the familyreunions.
I love it.
I love it.
Excuse me, we don't have awhole lot of time left, but I
want to spend that on parenting.
I think we had too much fun.
Is what I'm getting from all ofthis.
You wrote a book on parenting,if I'm not mistaken.
(34:35):
You have several tons ofparenting books out there.
It's kind of the thing.
What makes unison parentingdifferent from the other books
on the market right now?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think the thing that's uniqueabout it.
There's a couple of uniquethings.
One is, first of all, insteadof being just my own opinion or
purely academic researchalthough there's some in there
it's based on a lot ofexperience and not just mine.
So I taught parenting classesin my church for 15 years to a
(35:09):
total of 700 families and Iwould roll out these parenting
ideas and then they would playback to me how those went.
I also spent 30 years in mychurch working in volunteer
youth ministry.
I got to know teens very well.
I got to see the results of allkinds of styles of parenting
right.
So there's a lot of backgroundand experiences and anecdotes,
(35:34):
those kinds of things that comeout of that experience.
But the other thing towards theend of that 15 years of
teaching, I started realizinghow much friction there is
between parents.
A lot of the times they mightshow up at the class together
but they were not on the samepage.
And I started teaching thisconcept of unison parenting Now,
(35:57):
unison is when in a choireverybody sings the same note at
the same time.
And I asked my wife, who doessome compositions, why does a
composer choose everybody singthe same note at the same time,
instead of harmony, and she goesyou do it when you want to
emphasize the message.
Hey, as parents, we want toemphasize a common message to
(36:20):
our kids, and so we need to singsame note, same time, same page
.
So what I teach in the bookthat is unique is, in addition
to a lot of great parentingadvice based on all those
experiences, there's thisfoundation underneath where I
say here's how you get on thesame page, here's how you stay
on the same page because there'spitfalls, and here's where the
(36:41):
pitfalls are that you might getoff.
And then how do you get back ontrack when you make a mistake
and you're not on the same page.
So that's what the book's aboutthis combination of great
parenting advice and then watchout for the unison parenting
angle.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
It is a book only for Christians, or can anybody?
Can be applied to anybody.
Who's parenting for young kids,for teens, older kids, who's?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
it targeted for specifically, if you can answer
that.
First of all, with theChristian aspect, it does come
out of a Christian context andthat's in the subtitle.
However, the book just won asecular competition for
parenting and family and I thinkthat validates my view that the
principles in the book,although they come from a
Christian context, can apply toany family, and there's one
(37:32):
chapter of the book that's outof the nine that is pretty
related to religion and there'slittle devotionals in there, but
the rest of it is just greatparenting advice.
So if you're not a Christian,take a read of it anyway,
because I think you'll get a lotout of it.
So I forget what the otherthing was you asked me on top of
(37:53):
that.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
But it doesn't apply to any parents.
One day I asked but also, is ittalking to our younger children
?
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So the way the book is structured, it's really for
parents to start any time,wherever they are, and they need
to start getting on the samepage, even if that kid's in
diapers.
But it's really for ages fourthrough 18.
The first half of the book ison parenting fundamentals.
How do you do all this?
You just apparently stuff andstart bringing that kid up,
(38:24):
because I spent so much timewith teens and that's such a big
question for many people.
The back half of the book isabout the teen years and in the
first half, even as we're goingthrough fundamentals, we start
doing some building block thingsto make the teen years easier.
So even if you've got a kid infirst grade, third grade, fifth
grade, you want to read thisbecause you're building to where
(38:47):
, when they're age 14 and 16 and18, it's going to go easier.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Makes sense, makes sense.
I love this man.
This is really good.
You mentioned something aboutopposition parenting.
My mind went to a differentplace, because we had major
challenges raising our daughters.
But what is oppositionparenting?
What is that?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Well, the opposition parenting is where the parents
oppose each other, sometimes noteven realizing they're doing it
.
It's almost subconscious, butthen it starts coming out more
graphically.
So let's take the easiestexample, but I could list you 20
different scenarios.
But the easiest example is oneparent grew up in a strict
household.
The other grew up in a lenienthousehold.
(39:28):
So the one who's strict startsacting strict and starts pulling
this way.
Well, the lenient parent saysyou know, we need to balance
things out, bring it back to themiddle.
So I'm going to do thingsreally lenient to counteract
that strictness.
Well, it doesn't work.
You know what happens next.
You can probably guess thatstrict one says whoa, what's
happening here?
(39:48):
Too much leniency.
They go harder towards thestrictness, then the other one
goes harder towards the leniency, and now you've got a tug of
war going on.
You've got two sets of rules inthe house, the kids are
confused but they learn how toplay it and you've got a huge
mess, a huge battleground.
That's opposition parenting.
And so I have a technique oflean in, not away, which is in
(40:17):
some of my materials and soforth.
But the idea, the basic idea,is let's find a way to work
together instead of workingagainst each other, and this can
apply to a lot of scenarios.
How about nutrition?
Right, the one wants to eathealthy, the other one says, ah,
let them eat fast food.
You know, you could just go ondown the line.
Academics, important, notimportant, yeah, all that kind
of thing makes sense.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Just got a couple more questions for you to be
close episode.
We had so much fun.
Sorry we have to stop, but youknow we're up against it now.
But even how would you, or evenwould you convince a parent to
pivot if they've been winging itfor years as far as their
parenting style?
I would convince them to pivotyeah.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, my catchphrase is for the sake of the child.
There's so much damage you cando to a child and I really talk
about what the best parentingstyle is, compared to three
other major styles that arewrong, that just do this
long-term damage to kids.
I just saw something real quick.
I saw something in the paperthe other day.
A man didn't really want tohave the second kid.
(41:18):
It was a daughter.
She's four, has aneight-year-old boy.
He wants to spend all the timethere.
The four-year-old girl isalready picking up that I'm not
worth anything in this household.
He's doing major damage to thatgirl, even at age four, because
he doesn't want to havesomething to do with her.
So, for the sake of the child,we get over ourselves In a
divorce situation.
If you're angry with each other, it doesn't matter.
(41:39):
For the sake of the child.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Oh, I love that.
I love that I actually got twomore questions.
This last question is the onethat primarily asks all of our
guests.
They know when they come in.
I'm going to close the showwith this question.
If you're not in your currentvocation, that means you're not
a parenting expert, cecil.
You're not writing books.
You're not podcasting over atPFA.
What's Cecil doing with hislife?
(42:05):
You can't pick broadcastingeither.
What's Cecil doing with hislife?
And you can't pick.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Broadcast to eat it.
No, it isn't.
I tell you, it's my dream and Idon't know if I can figure out
how to do it.
But, believe it or not, Ireally want to own and operate a
mini golf course.
My grandfather and I used toplay mini golf together.
We shared that and we wouldtalk about if we had a course
here's what we would do and wereally seriously considered
(42:29):
doing this.
And you know, he got to wherehe was too old and passed away
and and so I've always kind ofcarried that torch that I would
like to do what my grandfatherand I set out to do.
So maybe someday I don't know Iprobably can't afford it in the
big city.
I'm probably going to be in asmall town with a, you know, a
little quarter of the big city.
I'm probably going to be in asmall town with a little quarter
(42:49):
of the downtown area that I setoff for doing mini golf or
something.
But anyway, that's what I'dreally love to do.
It's just a little fantasy.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Hey, who knows, it could definitely happen, man.
That's what's going on with us,man.
We got people who are authorsand speakers and bloggers and
even experts about this you knowthe genre that are watching and
listening to this show.
What would you say to encouragethem, whether it be in faith in
parenting, in facing theirbroadcasting career?
What advice would you give tothem?
(43:17):
And after we're done with that,we'll go ahead and jump off.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Go ahead your message is needed by someone.
Whatever it is, your message isneeded.
You don't know who it is, youmay never know who it is.
You may feel, whatever it is,your message is needed.
You don't know who it is, youmay never know who it is.
You may feel like, whatever itis, you're just talking into the
darkness, into the ether.
But somebody needs what youhave to say and hopefully they
will find it.
It's your job, of course, totry to promote and things like
(43:42):
that so they'll find it.
But have faith, whatever it is,it doesn't have to be Christian
.
Have faith in yourself, havefaith in your message.
That that is needed.
Quick example Lynn Austin,famous Christian fiction writer.
She was on my podcast.
She had written 40 books.
She's in Fiction Hall of Fames.
So she was saying that she wasabout to retire and a prisoner a
(44:06):
female prisoner wrote her andsaid I read your book in the
library and I decided, based onthat book, not to kill myself.
And Lynn said maybe all 40books, maybe all the fame I got,
everything that happened in mylife was to reach that woman.
You have someone who needs tohear your message out there.
So keep, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
You have someone who needs to hear your message out
there.
So keep going, keep going.
That's an outstanding story,man.
Thank you for sharing that man.
Ladies and gentlemen, cecilTaylor, author of Unison
Parenting and host of thePractical Faith Academy podcast,
don't forget to jump in with us, man no-transcript, if you
(44:50):
don't mind doing that.
When we get offline, we canfind you really easily find your
work.
Reach out to you if they wantsome advice on parenting or even
on faith.
So look for you to do that forus and for all the viewers and
listeners.
Thanks for listening andwatching us once again.
The Show's going well andyou're a big part of it.
This is about you and it's madefor you.
So thank you again for watchingand listening.
Have a great day.
(45:11):
See you soon, mr U.
We're out.
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