December 12, 2025 • 34 mins
In this powerful shortcast of The Impossible Life Podcast, Garrett and Nick expose one of the most dangerous forces shaping modern men: passivity. Drawing from Scripture, real leadership experience, and hard-earned battlefield lessons, they dismantle the seven lies that keep men stuck, ineffective, and spiritually asleep.
Modern culture celebrates “go with the flow” attitudes, conflict avoidance, and emotional softness — but none of that looks like Jesus. Garrett reminds us that Christ was never passive. He confronted lies, protected truth, and led with courage. Real masculinity creates strength, protection, and flourishing — not weakness or drift.
Inside this episode, you’ll discover: The Top 7 Passive Lies Men Believe Each lie is unpacked with practical examples and Biblical clarity:
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Modern culture celebrates “go with the flow” attitudes, conflict avoidance, and emotional softness — but none of that looks like Jesus. Garrett reminds us that Christ was never passive. He confronted lies, protected truth, and led with courage. Real masculinity creates strength, protection, and flourishing — not weakness or drift.
Inside this episode, you’ll discover: The Top 7 Passive Lies Men Believe Each lie is unpacked with practical examples and Biblical clarity:
- “I’m just being patient.” Learn the difference between godly patience and spiritual laziness.
- “I don’t want to make things worse.” How fear of conflict quietly destroys families, marriages, and leadership.
- “I’m just laid back.” Why “laid back” can actually be a denial of responsibility.
- “It’s not a big deal.” The massive danger of minimizing problems.
- “I don’t feel motivated.” How children follow feelings — men follow truth.
- “I don’t want to be controlling.” Why real leadership is invitation, not domination.
- “If God wants it to change, He’ll change it.” One of the most damaging forms of spiritual passivity.
Apply for the Mindset Mastery Scholarship by January 6th
Join a group of likeminded Impossible Life listeners in our FREE Skool community by clicking here.
Get the Purpose Playbook by clicking here
Get the FREE Basic Discipline Training 30 Day Program by clicking here
Join us in Mindset Mastery by clicking here
If you're a man that wants real accountability and training to be a leader, click here.
Level up your nutrition with IDLife by clicking here
GET IN TOUCH
Social Media - @theimpossiblelife
Email - info@theimpossible.life
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's impossible. Let me tell you what I believe. It's
your weakness, it's not your technique.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Don't think you know.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
The Impossible Life Podcast and yes, sitting on a winning lottery. Second,
an idea that is fully formed, fully understood, that sticks.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is the Impossible Life Podcast because Nick and I
are attempting to live impossible lives. What we know is
that nothing is impossible. So instead of using impossible as
an excuse to not try, we'll use the pursuit of
impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's never been
done before, that just means it's unexplored. If they tell
(00:46):
you it's too hard, it's just waiting to be simplified.
Impossible as a default label used by uncourageous people unwilling
to take a risk. The real truth is this. The
solution to any impossible task starts with this question, if
I had to what would it take? What would it take?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host, Nick Surface, and I'm looking across as
a man who has never struggled with passivity a day
in his life. That's right, friends, The PHO Garrett Akaback,
a man who if he sits still too long, his
DNA starts doing push ups. Is not a lexicon.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I am a if you're familiar with life, language's different
temperament profile I have. I've always been a mover. I
would say I profile now as a shape or mover,
but naturally I'm very much a mover. And my parents,
you know, in the in the cognitive cycle of think, act, feel, feel, think, act,
(01:53):
my parents would always say that I was act think
feel because I just I took action. I've tried to
calibrate that into a to be a think, act feel person,
but I'm very naturally inclined to action. I have a
natural sense of urgency and I've never seen passivity be productive.
So definitely some truth in what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, And you're also the only man that I've heard
use say that two of his top skills are aggression
in violence. Neither of those are thinking?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Are like?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So anyways, very action focused? Why did I choose that? Very?
I feel like my intros Garrett have gone to a
more thematical level in recent times. If you listen to
the early episodes, it was just whatever I found amusing,
which sometimes it still is, but largely now I feel
like I tie them to whatever we're talking about, and
that's the evolution.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So I know you have, you know, seven fans out
there who really appreciate your silly intros, So don't let
them down.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
More like several thousand. They just don't message all the
time anyways, So today you may have noticed we're talking
about what I think is the greatest temptation of man,
and that's encouraged actively in society, which is to be passive,
right like, like terms like toxic masculinity and all these
things exist, which you know, we don't believe in toxic
(03:12):
masculinity because real masculinity is one of the most greatest
enabling agents in any setting possible. You get a man
who has actually masculine Think of Jesus, most masculine man
that ever existed. What did he do everywhere he went?
It wasn't It wasn't crushed people and put them down
and reduce other people's ability to be their best. It
was a guy who went around and loved and led
and protected and served truth and and gave people the
(03:34):
opportunity to be the greatest they could ever be, which
is to know God. And so I just that that
term to me is just such a.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well one of the scriptures. You know, you'll hear a
lot today in culture and this isn't necessarily the road
that we're going to go down that, but you'll hear
a lot of this in culture today. It's like that,
you know, Jesus loved everybody, right, that's that's a theological
statement we got to dive into. But people extrapolate that
into well, Jesus just wants everybody to get along, and
(04:02):
that's not that's what a lot of people think love is, like, oh,
everybody gets along. Matthew ten thirty four says that he
did not come to bring peace but a sword. Sword's sword.
The sword is the word of God. And it says
that that that word, that God's word, has the ability
to split soul and spirit from flesh, to divide the
very bone, right like it is meant to divide, It
(04:24):
is meant to cut Jesus. Jesus said, I come to
separate father from son, right, brother from brother. This was
what he's saying is I'm going to separate what's wrong
from what's right. And that's the absolute opposite of passivity.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, for sure, Well, gee, as we always do we
started with the Good Book, and of course incorporated the
Great Book, but the Good Book is Webster's.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We started we actually we actually started with the Great
Book just now and now we're going to pick up on.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
The Good Yes, yeah we have we have order in right.
But anyways, so, but the way he just so, I
read these definitions passive, and I was just like, oh
my gosh. So number one, the first definition, listen to
the first word suffering, not acting, receiving or capable of
receiving impressions from external agents, aka, you're just getting pushed around.
(05:14):
It's the example he gave. Like, one of the things
I love about Noah Webster's is faith in God was
so central to his life that anytime it needs to
demonstrate what a word means, in like where he gives
examples to help people understand it better, it's almost always scriptural. Like,
there's so many scriptural examples. So listen to what he's
Listen what he said. He said, God is not in
any respect passive. Hallelujah, man. That gets me fired up.
(05:35):
Number two, which I felt like, was the definition where
it made a little bit more sense if that first
one doesn't is unresisting, not opposing, receiving or suffering without resistance,
and like that is that is passive in all its forms, unresisting,
just gonna let it happen, be pushed on, not do
anything to be the change, to impose. And I mean
(05:57):
we've talked about this before. His weakness is being pushed
around and strength is pushing right, Like from a very
very simple way. Well, now here we are looking at passivity.
And like, I just love that he said God's not
in any respect passive, because here's here's what passivity will do. Gee,
I said, we got it. Like, let's talk about what
passive you will do. And the very first thing you
said is you said it angers God, right, and we's.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
That's First Kings sixteen with King Ahab right, whose wife
is Jezebel. And if you read the pretext to this verse,
this is in the middle of First Kings. But if
you read the pretext of this verse, and Ahab's married Jezebel,
who's not an Israelite, and allowed her to come in
and bring other foreign gods. And then First King sixteen
(06:42):
thirty three says and Ahab made an asheropol and did
more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God
of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him. Right,
it wasn't just about the asheropol, it was everything that
led up to that. Ahab was just allowing Jezebel to
do whatever he wasn't being. He wasn't the maker of
(07:05):
peace or the keeper of peace. He was faking peace.
He's like, well, I'll just you know, I just want
my wife to be happy. I'll just let her do
what she wants to do. I don't want the conflict.
I don't want the issues. I don't want the trouble.
And the things that you avoid have a sneaky way
of finding their way into your life if you're unwilling
to confront them.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, that's so good man. And so we're going to
give you the top seven passive lies. We're not just
going to speak about passivity in general. I know that
that's like a lot of people speak out against passivity,
especially like in the realm of Christian men's world. It's like,
you know, and they talk about but we this is
the tools and tactics. This is like, let's just lay
it there. There's no if you can listen, you will
(07:44):
get all that you need. To get and so we're
going to go into the seven top passive lies and
show how what that looks like in today's world. Because
you may be going, well, you know, I don't know
if I married a Jezebel, or I don't have ashrapols,
you know, if you're being very literal, but in marriage.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And four because yeah, it's not just in marriage, right,
passivity can show up in any area of your life.
And that's what today's episode is going to do. We're
going to talk about some of the lies of passivity,
or I would say more so the way that passivity
lies will give some language and some dialogue around what
passivity sounds like that you know, the stuff we talk
(08:20):
about in this podcast is never to make anybody feel bad,
but at the same time, it's Jim Rohn said, feedback
is the breakfast of champions. Some people hate feedback. Some
people would think that feedback is disgusting. And what a
lot of this podcast can feel like sometimes is us
receiving feedback. So the way that you take it is
(08:41):
up to you. You can be frustrated by it, offended
by it, or you can say this is what's going
to help me grow. And so we want to give
some of these feedbacks. Not that Nick and I are perfect,
because we you know, the truth is we've had to
confront it just like anybody else. But if some of
what we talk about today, like oh man, I've said that,
oh I've fallen prey to those lives before, then that's
where you have to take action. Don't allow passivity to
(09:04):
take root in your life. Right, We've we've we've referenced passivity,
and we've talked about how to take action and how
to make a plan for your life. We've talked about
stuff like that in this podcast all the time. Really,
the focus of today is to just call out what
passivity looks like. This isn't necessarily the action plan, the response,
This isn't those things, but we want to make it
very clear. It's like a this is like a measuring
(09:25):
stick for passivity today.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, one hundred percent, man, because it's I was thinking
about that while you were saying you said, we're not
doing this to call anybody out like if I had
to sum up passivity, it's it's just the go with
the flow movement and what is what is one of
the worst things you could do if you work in
corporate environments, which I do and you do as well,
But you got to build your corporate environment or as
I enter into other people's, So I've.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Entered into other peoples as well.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I know what that's like for sure. Yeah, I'm just
speaking of current circumstances. I'm not saying you never have.
But what is it? What's one of the worst things
you could do is to offend somebody, to hurt their feelings, right,
and like that that the definite if you want to
do that, you know, if you want to make everybody happy,
sell ice cream, right, that's that's what you're going to be, Like, Hey,
who doesn't want a little scoop of ice cream? And
and just go around and be the nice guy, never
(10:11):
push back on anything, don't call anything out, and just be.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You'll laugh at this. Nick one of my friends who's
been going through a very difficult situation of I would say,
offending people around him. He's confronting some very difficult business
challenges and finding not everybody was his friend as much
as he thought he was he was. He was talking
to one of his mentors and he shared this story
(10:37):
with me that basically he was talking to his mentor like, hey,
what do I do, Like I thought these guys were
my friends, They're not my friends. And his mentor told
him to get a dog. If that's what If that's
what you're there for, get a dog, he said, you're
there for a job, you're there for a mission. Do
what you're supposed to do and let the right people
align with you. But if you're looking for me, people
(10:58):
to make you feel feel good, get a dog.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And see you. Just just in that storagey, you highlight
so much of where passivity comes from as a lack
of understanding of mission. Jesus offended people and confronted things
that were passivity and lies all the time, and he
did it from a place of love. He was not
passive in any respect, but he was also not offensive.
What I'm not saying is go find all the memes
that you think are hilarious that are going to upset people,
(11:23):
and just start sharing them because you're like, well, I'm
not passive. That's lacking love, you know. But to go
around and speak truth and to have a true understanding
of the mission, the reason why you're there, Like we
talked about we've talked about what passivity will do and
angering God. But the opposite of passivity is exactly what
we're saying. It's understanding and asking the leadership question, what
(11:44):
does the room require? Right, It's focusing on controllables and
what's required of you in any given situation, which means
you have an understanding of purpose in the first place.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It's a lack of understanding of priorities, not just priorities
for what is right, but also priorities for what will
kill you. I look at passivity this way on the
battlefield right. A lot of people it's like you're on
the battlefield and you start getting shot at, and you
say like, oh, well, I should duck down and so
that I don't get shot at, because getting hit with
a bullet would be bad. What's worse is that if
(12:14):
you stay in that position, the enemy will close on
They're shooting at you, so you won't fire back. And
if you bow to if you respond to them, if
you let them force you to take cover and hide,
they will close the distance on you. Right, And the
situation's only going to get worse. When our response and
the Sealed teams was if you shoot at me, I
(12:34):
will drop a bomb on you. Right. Well, you know,
before I can drop a bomb on you. You shoot
at me, all twenty of my platoon we're going to
get online and fire back at you with machine guns
and long range rifles very quickly. One shot is going
to get returned with twenty, and if you continue to
fire back on us, we'll drop a bomb on you.
What I'm not going to do is cower behind a
wall and hope that it goes away, because what we know,
(12:57):
if you're firing at me, it's because you want to
kill me, and I'm not going to get you the
opportunity to increase your position. That's exactly what passivity looks
like in your life. You're just hoping that things will
get better.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, I love that man. And if you're a married man,
or if you have a family, and even if you're not,
you know what, you know what it looks like. That's
such a great analogy. G not even analogy, it's I
mean it is analogy, but it's a real life one
of sitting there just taking the fire. If you're a
married man and you have a family, what you're doing
is when you're taking that fire, you're basically taking all
your problems and your own shortcomings and just passing them
(13:30):
on to the people you love because you're refusing to
confront the things that need to change in your life.
Because this is what I realized at a young age.
I was talking to somebody yesterday about this, a friend
of mine. I had this weird revelation when I was
like seventeen or eighteen years old, and there was I
was over at some girl from church's house that I liked,
and we were all hanging out, and you know, all
the women and some other people were getting food ready,
(13:50):
and you know what I was doing, g I was
sat on the couch watching football because the Pittsburgh's Doers
were playing and that was the most important thing to me.
And I sat there and I kind of knew, man,
I'm not really helping like and I had and no
one I had this thought. I'm like, this is so weird.
I'm blatantly not being a helper right now. I'm not
really being chipping in, and no one is asking me
(14:11):
to do anything. And then someone cracked a joke and said, like, oh,
I think whoever you marry is gonna end up being
a football widow on Sunday. Ak Like, when the game's on,
you're not the husband, that's all you care about. And
they said it a joke, and you know what, everybody
in the room laughs. It was funny. I had this
revelation at like seventeen or eighteen years old. I'm like,
the bar is so low for men. I could sit
here right now and do nothing and just and nobody
(14:33):
would challenge me on it. And look, there's nothing wrong
with watching games. I watch sports now, so I'm not
like having a pop at sports. It was just this
weird revelations at a young age that the bar for
men was low. You look at the TV characters that
we have, they are like they're celebrating passivity, you know,
like when I was growing up. You know, it still is.
Although I don't think people watch as much as Homer Simpson,
but like, look around at the shows you watch and
(14:54):
start asking yourself the question of the men. Is that
somebody who's leading or is that a guy who's just
sitting by and letting everything happen. I would I would
venture to guess that probably ninety five to ninety nine
percent of the shows that are on TV are just
are just putting up these passive men. Is like, hey,
here's the model, here's what it should look like. And
is an absolute lie. So g I want to dive
into these top passive lies if you want to look up.
I mean, you talked about Ahab other biblical examples of
(15:16):
passivity Adam. You know, she's eve ate the apple and
handed it right to him. Eli the priest like let
his sons run rampant in the temple and sleep with
women and like eat the sacrifices that he wasn't supposed
to and just let it happen. And his sons died,
and he did.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Said they'll come Oh, they'll come around.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, hey, good job that worked out well for you. You
talked about King Ahab. This is one I didn't really
think of, but I was reading it this morning. Pilot,
I'm washing my hands in front of in front of you,
and I'm just going to have them flogged and turn
them over to you to do what you want. But
it's not it's not my responsibility. Oh okay, so you're
not the governor of the territory.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
He was basically saying, this isn't my matter.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Right, Yeah, exactly. Just just hand it off to everybody
else so you can look into those examples more. What
we want. I wanted to make sure to give like.
This is in the Bible all over the place of
what passivity looks like. So, gee, let's dive in the
top seven passive lies. What's life number one?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Again? These are these lies are our language. It can
be do. Some of them describe actions, some of them
are specific words. But the first lie is this is
this is what passivity sounds like. It can be convincing.
Usually good lies are right. But the first live passivity
is I'm just being patient, right, But what real? What
real patience is like? Patience is not you sitting there
(16:31):
waiting around. Patience is waiting on God while you stay ready. Passivity,
passivity is avoiding responsibility with spiritual language. Right, If you
are patient, you're preparing your strengthening. You're like, God, let
me add them, let me get out there, right, Like,
give me an opportunity. Let let me go fight the giants,
(16:52):
you know, let me fight the Egyptians with nothing in
my hands, right, right, that's what patience looks like. You're
what God released me, Let me go do it. But
a lot of people will say that they're being patient
when really they're just being passive. And passive is well,
I'll just you know, I'll just let God do it.
It's you know, it's on his timing, it's up to him,
(17:14):
but you're not taking any action. Patience should always feel
like you're chomping at the bit, like let me advance
on the battlefield, let me move to the next position,
but you're waiting for God to release you to do so.
A patient man is not just sitting around unprepared, doesn't
have his gear ready, not in shape that such. He
(17:37):
would receive a call and then has to get all
of his things prepared. That's the difference between patience and passivity.
And I think a lot of men get busted on
that one. And that's because preparation is painful. Preparation is difficult.
It requires strength, requires endurance, requires hope and belief and
what God's going to do right. People will not prepare
(18:00):
as they said, well, well, I don't want to prepare
and then not get to go right. I went through
that so many times in the military, where we prepared
and trained for missions that we never got to go on.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I look at this as like that thing that you're
praying for and just hoping that God shows up and
does takes care of it all. That's the thing. You
should be doing everything you know to do and praying
for God to do what only he can do. And
that's how you actually show like patience in a godly manner.
Is you should be developing yourself like you said, you
should be preparing. You should be doing the things that
you know to do and praying for God to guide you,
(18:33):
praying for God to bring it about in his timing,
and praying for the Lord to do what only he
could do. And guess what God could do that you
can't change somebody's heart, right, bring salvation, change things in
a moment, like He can move in ways that we can't,
but for sure we can be faithful in so many
other ways. And as we said, gee, the test is
always faithfulness always Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Number two, Number two, I don't want to make things worse.
Ahabs a good example of this when when you're saying
I don't want to make things worse, you're also saying
I don't know how to make things better. You're focusing
on the wrong things, right, But I don't want to
make things worse. Is I'm afraid of conflict one of
the things they said in the Seal Teams, And this
(19:13):
isn't I wouldn't say this is novel to the Seal Teams,
but one of the things they would say is, don't
be the senior man with a secret. Right, don't have
like an issue that's going on and you're the You're
the most you're the high you're the most senior person
that knows about this issue. No but to deal with it,
but also make your leadership aware. Continue to drive it
(19:34):
up the chain. It's a secret because you're saying, well,
I don't want anybody to know about this. This is
a problem, right, You're avoiding the conflict. The reason they
say that is because most of the time, when you
no one loves to going to their leadership and saying
I got a problem. Nobody likes to do that. You
want to be, especially in a culture like the Seal Teams.
You want to be able to solve these problems yourself.
You want to be able to resolve it yourself. But
(19:56):
you need to take it to your leadership and say, hey,
look here's the problem I got, Here's how I'm dealing
with it. If I if I get to this point
where I cannot deal with it, I need you to
step in. Yeah. Right. Avoidance always creates bigger problems in
your life. And a man who has called to lead,
which is every man listening to this podcast, a man
who has called to lead cannot avoid conflict. When you
(20:20):
avoid conflict, you are inviting chaos into your life.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, that's so good man, and I want to I
want to caveat this. We speak a lot to men
who are married. I know not every man who listens
to this is married, but you will have conflict in
your life regardless if you're a leader. And what Garrett's saying, like,
I'm gonna speak to if you're having conflict in your marriage,
there's sometimes when things happen and you know that you
calling it out is going to cause an uncomfortable conversation.
(20:45):
And this is exactly what you're talking about. What we're
not saying is to just go around and start shooting
off your mouth about all the things that need to
be changed, because there's also skilled there's being skilled in conflict. Right,
It's not just that you go around you're like, well,
I'm not afraid of any conflict, so now I'm just
going to have every conflict. They're the same way that
like seal teams were skilled and having physical combat with
weapons you need to be skilled and how you have
combat with people not that you win, but that you
(21:07):
bring an outcome that is the desired outcome, because the
purpose of conflict is victory. And if you're having a
conflict with your wife, it's not that you have victory
over your wife, it's that you have victory together and
you're willing to go through the steps that it takes.
And so what this looks like in practical terms for
marriage for me is like, I know how my wife
is going to receive things you talked about earlier on
(21:28):
this podcast about the cognitive processing of think, act, feel, feel, act, think,
and like the order that you actually process information through
will have a wildly different impact on how things go.
My wife feels first, and I'm grateful she does because
I feel last, and the thank god, we bounced the
other out very well. So when I get information, the
first thing I do is I think, then I act,
(21:48):
then I feel. Later on, my wife will feel first,
then she'll act, then she'll think. So like if I
say something to her that I've already processed, and I
expect to be able to have like a nice logical
conversation where you go like, yeah, this is what we're
going to do. That's not what's going to happen. The
first thing she's going to do is process it with
her feelings. So I need to know this may take time. AKA,
I'm not going to talk about it right before bed.
I need to think about how I word this. You know,
(22:10):
I'm not going to be I'm not gonna skirt around
the issue. But I also don't need to just launch
it and like I need to get this off my chest.
That is not a good way to start a conversation
because what it needs to be is we need to
talk about this why because we have to understanding the
purpose of us being together is to bring about things
that only we could do together to advance the Kingdom
of God. So there's certain things we can't allow to
happen in our life, in our relationship, in the areas
(22:31):
we're involved in. And that's the context I had these
conversations in. When you have a shared vision with your
wife or with the friend or the person that you're
aligned with, conflict becomes so much more. I don't know
whether to stay peaceful or whatever, but like it has
purposeful because when you know what you're out there to accomplish.
Like I'm guessing you told the story. G you have
(22:52):
a guy who didn't have his gear prepared, and you
lit him up afterwards because you had just come off
a mission, and you're like, how are you citing your
rifle in after the fact. If you were just doing
that to a guy because and you guys weren't going
on mission, he wasn't a seal, that would be you
just putting your preference onto him. But the fact that
you're like, we're both of the seal teams. We're here
to protect and defend freedom and democracy, and we just
(23:13):
went out and risk our lives. There was like that
conflict was I'm guessing that guy wasn't like, hey man,
stop being a jerk, Like it's cool, bro, Like he understood, Yeah,
I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Oh, there was certainly an escalation. It was not It
was not a comfortable conflict, and it involved more than
just me in that person. But it was a commitment
to what was most important, right, I would He taught
me a lot about conflict in the Navy, because I
don't think I ever had one easy conflict. They were
all painful. So one you better be sure, but two
(23:45):
you got to know how to deal with it the
right way? Right, all right, let's get let's keep it
going people. Yeah, number number three, I'm just I'm just
laid back. Hey, I'm just an easy going guy. Right,
It's it's a I just I'm fine with it the
way that things are going. This is a total lack
of ownership mentality. God did not create men to be
(24:08):
passive observers. He created men to like. He created men
to build, to guard, to protect, to cultivate, to initiate. Right, God,
God created the garden, created man, and then place man
inside the garden and said build it and keep it.
He didn't place Adam in the garden set. And Adam
was like, oh man, this is pretty chill, right, Like,
(24:30):
thanks God, Right, No, he gave out a job. Yeah,
he gave Adam a job in the garden. And so
look at all these situations in your life, says, how
do I make this better? Right? What am I here
to do? How do I add value in this place?
And that doesn't mean every room you step in you
need to you know, push someone aside and get behind
the wheel, but every place that you're in, it's how
(24:50):
do I add value here? How do I make this
place better, not just like, oh well, it's just good
the way that it is. Case Ara, sirra, that's that's
not the right process.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Similar to that, but not the same going it right
into lie number four is it's not a big deal. Okay.
One of the we've talked about this before, and I
talk about this and foundations of an unstoppable team in tactics,
knowing your tactics but also knowing the enemy's tactics. This
is one of the tactics of passivity is minimization. Minimizing
(25:26):
is one of passivity's strongest weapons to take things that
are important and go you know again, it's people firing
at you and going, oh man, if you just put
your head down, it'll all go away. The problem's not
there anymore. That's minimizing the problem, right Like where the
extreme other side of that is like hypervigilance of I
(25:46):
think we detected and v patrol twenty kilometers from here,
seek and destroy. Right, I'm not going to allow these
negative things, these bad things, to have any any space
around me. When you neglect things, you are invited again
inviting chaos into your life. That's what passivity is doing.
It's trying to make you avoid the things that are
(26:08):
meant to make you better instead of stopping the things
that are trying to kill you. That's what passivity wants
you to do. Just let these bad things into your life,
and neglect will fertilize in your life, right, and neglect
brings destruction. Neglect will fertilize in your life when you
convince yourself that an issue doesn't matter, right, that is
how you are sowing seeds of destruction in your life.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and the garden analogy you gave whenever we were
talking about number three g is so is such an
perfect one from the work that God's put us to do.
Because for every man out there listening and every woman,
what is the garden that God's given you? Like you said,
it's not that you go into every room you start
shooting off about like all the different things. But if
you're the man, guess what Your marriage is your garden,
Your family is your garden, Your home is your garden.
(26:53):
The church that you go to and that the people
that you influence, these are the gardens. So think wisely
about what you sow and what work is required of
you in those Let's keep moving all.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Right, number number five. I don't feel motivated. I don't
feel passionate about this. I'm not I'm not excited about
what I'm doing. This is this is a form of
passivity in saying like, well, I won't I won't move
unless I feel like moving. And this is this this lie, right,
all of all these forms of passivity are different lies.
(27:22):
This lie is the lie that actions must follow feelings.
The Biblical process is that feelings will follow in obedience,
you don't wait to feel strong. What you do is
you trust in the Lord. You let your strength come
from him. You act out of obedience, and then you
allow the strength to come. You say, hopefully God will
be with us in this. I know that God will
(27:42):
work through me in this situation. You don't wait to
feel it. You don't wait to have everything. This is
a great example of this, of like the feelings portion
of this is where kings in the Bible, there's multiple
kings who did it. Where kings in the Bible would
count their men before they went off to battle. And
God was frustrated with this. Why because they were they
(28:03):
wanted to feel confident before they stepped out. In the well,
if I know that we have more guys than they do,
then I will feel like a winner. Then I will
ride out to battle. And this this very much frustrated
God because before they counted, God said go, God said go,
and I will be with you. And instead of them
trusting and God will be with me, they were trying
(28:24):
to trust it in their feelings.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, so good. You know who struggles with not following
their feelings? G toddlers and small children.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I'm serious. I hope we're working through that in my household.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Well say man, and like, I hope that if you're
a man, you sit there and go like, man, I
don't ever want to be a toddler or small child
in the way that I carry myself, and that, like
I hope that kind of shocks a few people because
I think about that sometimes when my kids are like
I don't feel like it, I'm like, that's not a
valid excuse, Like that's you know, I get that. You've
got to overcome that, all right, what's over six?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
So these these last two are so good? Lie number six.
I don't want to be controlling. I don't want to
be bossy, right, that's what people like, They'll be passed like, well,
I don't want to. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
I don't want to be, you know, boss babe or
or boss guy or whatever it is. I don't want to.
I don't want everybody to feel like I'm controlling them.
(29:16):
Here's what passivity does right. The same way we've talked
about the superpower of perspective, Perspective can work against you,
and the lie of passivity will frame leadership as control.
Leadership is not control right. Leadership is not domination. Leadership
is direction. Leadership is protection. Leadership is sacrificial initiative. Leader
(29:37):
Leadership is an invitation. It's something that I've talked about
a lot. Great leadership is an invitation. God doesn't force
us to do things. He invites us to follow him.
That's what great leadership is. A lack of leadership in
your life where you're instead of if you're saying, well,
I don't want to be controlling, I don't want to
be bossy. That's a lack of leadership that will bring
more problems than whatever the conflict that leadership will ever create.
(30:01):
Just like the situation that you referenced of me confronting
a guy who wasn't prepared. I thought that conflict was
better than the potential future conflict of having a teammate
who was unprepared on the battlefield. Right right, when you
compare them in that way, you're like, well, that actually
sounds worse. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
It was not a comfortable day. It might have been
physically uncomfortable as well that day in resolving that conflict
of a man not being prepared and having to get
confronted on it. But what would have been worse for
him and for the rest of us is that we're
out on the battlefield and he wasn't prepared, right, Yeah,
very good? All right?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Gee, well we've been through six seven is a holy number?
What's what is hard? Perfection?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Here? Here's one of the sneaky lies of passivity, and
this is, you know, don't we don't jump into doctrine
a lot. And so I'll address this from like a
very general standpoint that I feel like most people can
agree with. If you, if you're someone who like everything
is about doctrine for you, this podcast has probably frustrated
you because we've focus so much of our time on
(31:01):
all the things that are not doctrin I say that
to say that you could. If you are a super spiritual,
overly doctrinated person, this one might bother you. But lie
number seven is that if God wants it to change,
he will change it. This is spiritual laziness. God works
through men. God does not work in spite of men.
(31:22):
So what you've got to understand is like, hey, God,
this is Garrett's theology. God is sovereign, man's responsible. I
have a part to play. I'm not the guy. I'm
not the author, I'm not the creator. But God made
me for a reason. God created me with a purpose
and I've got to do my part. So much of
my part is trusting in him. But God wants me
to trust in him, wants me to take action through
(31:44):
my trust in him, because that's part of what's training me.
And what God wants for his sons, just like I
want for my children, is for them to grow, for
them to develop, for them to become who God's created
them to be. And you're not going to grow by
saying my Dad will do everything for me.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, that's so good. I think that that's one of
the big revelations. I remember when you said you said
God chooses to work through men, and it's all throughout scripture,
it's smacking us right in the face. Jesus left for
a reason. It said, it's better than I leave, otherwise
the helper won't come to you. And it's like, wait what, yeah,
because that was all It's always the plans that He
would work through men. And when you have that revelation,
it really removes the law of the excuse because you know,
(32:21):
it's sounds logical to go like, oh, well, God's going
to make it happen.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's two things being true at the same time. God
doesn't need me true also true God wants to use
me right, And it's not an either or, it's both
of these things are true at the same time.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
That's so good. Gee man. So I hope that this guy's,
like I said, this is a tools and tactics, so
we're I hope that this is highlighted in your life
some of the areas where you have accepted passivity. It's
the lie that's constantly pushed on you. And guess what,
it doesn't have a whirling light that says, hey, here
comes a lie. Passivity alert, But like, you need to
start recognizing these things. Awareness proceeds change and if you
(32:58):
can start to recognize when thought come through of I'm
just being patient. I don't want to make things worse.
I'm just easygoing. It's not a big deal. I'm not
very motivated. I don't want to be controlling. God can
do it. Like, if you can start to recognize where
these types of thoughts have been dictating your actions have
started to creep their way into your life, you'll start
to weed out all the things in your garden that
shouldn't be there, and you'll begin to become like your
(33:20):
father God, who is not passive in anything. You'll be
the person who affects change, who asks the question, what's
required me in the room, and you'll go out and
start to see things grow, and you'll be the person
that produces through thirty sixty one hundredfold in everything that
God's entrusted you to have.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Thank you very much for listening. Guys, Remember to share,
like subscribe. If you think that this would be something
that someone would enjoy, please send it to them.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
We appreciate it all.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
If you want to get in touch, you can follow
us on Instagram at the Impossible Life. You'll find us
on there. You can also email at Impossible Life Podcasts
at gmail dot com you have any questions. If you
want to get in touch and find out about Carrot's
personal or business coaching, that's the way to do it.
Thank you again for listening. Go out there and think
better and live the impossible. To see again soon
Speaker 2 (34:08):
MHM.
That's impossible. Let me tell you what I believe. It's
your weakness, it's not your technique.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Don't think you know.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
The Impossible Life Podcast and yes, sitting on a winning lottery. Second,
an idea that is fully formed, fully understood, that sticks.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is the Impossible Life Podcast because Nick and I
are attempting to live impossible lives. What we know is
that nothing is impossible. So instead of using impossible as
an excuse to not try, we'll use the pursuit of
impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's never been
done before, that just means it's unexplored. If they tell
(00:46):
you it's too hard, it's just waiting to be simplified.
Impossible as a default label used by uncourageous people unwilling
to take a risk. The real truth is this. The
solution to any impossible task starts with this question, if
I had to what would it take? What would it take?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host, Nick Surface, and I'm looking across as
a man who has never struggled with passivity a day
in his life. That's right, friends, The PHO Garrett Akaback,
a man who if he sits still too long, his
DNA starts doing push ups. Is not a lexicon.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I am a if you're familiar with life, language's different
temperament profile I have. I've always been a mover. I
would say I profile now as a shape or mover,
but naturally I'm very much a mover. And my parents,
you know, in the in the cognitive cycle of think, act, feel, feel, think, act,
(01:53):
my parents would always say that I was act think
feel because I just I took action. I've tried to
calibrate that into a to be a think, act feel person,
but I'm very naturally inclined to action. I have a
natural sense of urgency and I've never seen passivity be productive.
So definitely some truth in what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, And you're also the only man that I've heard
use say that two of his top skills are aggression
in violence. Neither of those are thinking?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Are like?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So anyways, very action focused? Why did I choose that? Very?
I feel like my intros Garrett have gone to a
more thematical level in recent times. If you listen to
the early episodes, it was just whatever I found amusing,
which sometimes it still is, but largely now I feel
like I tie them to whatever we're talking about, and
that's the evolution.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So I know you have, you know, seven fans out
there who really appreciate your silly intros, So don't let
them down.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
More like several thousand. They just don't message all the
time anyways, So today you may have noticed we're talking
about what I think is the greatest temptation of man,
and that's encouraged actively in society, which is to be passive,
right like, like terms like toxic masculinity and all these
things exist, which you know, we don't believe in toxic
(03:12):
masculinity because real masculinity is one of the most greatest
enabling agents in any setting possible. You get a man
who has actually masculine Think of Jesus, most masculine man
that ever existed. What did he do everywhere he went?
It wasn't It wasn't crushed people and put them down
and reduce other people's ability to be their best. It
was a guy who went around and loved and led
and protected and served truth and and gave people the
(03:34):
opportunity to be the greatest they could ever be, which
is to know God. And so I just that that
term to me is just such a.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well one of the scriptures. You know, you'll hear a
lot today in culture and this isn't necessarily the road
that we're going to go down that, but you'll hear
a lot of this in culture today. It's like that,
you know, Jesus loved everybody, right, that's that's a theological
statement we got to dive into. But people extrapolate that
into well, Jesus just wants everybody to get along, and
(04:02):
that's not that's what a lot of people think love is, like, oh,
everybody gets along. Matthew ten thirty four says that he
did not come to bring peace but a sword. Sword's sword.
The sword is the word of God. And it says
that that that word, that God's word, has the ability
to split soul and spirit from flesh, to divide the
very bone, right like it is meant to divide, It
(04:24):
is meant to cut Jesus. Jesus said, I come to
separate father from son, right, brother from brother. This was
what he's saying is I'm going to separate what's wrong
from what's right. And that's the absolute opposite of passivity.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, for sure, Well, gee, as we always do we
started with the Good Book, and of course incorporated the
Great Book, but the Good Book is Webster's.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We started we actually we actually started with the Great
Book just now and now we're going to pick up on.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
The Good Yes, yeah we have we have order in right.
But anyways, so, but the way he just so, I
read these definitions passive, and I was just like, oh
my gosh. So number one, the first definition, listen to
the first word suffering, not acting, receiving or capable of
receiving impressions from external agents, aka, you're just getting pushed around.
(05:14):
It's the example he gave. Like, one of the things
I love about Noah Webster's is faith in God was
so central to his life that anytime it needs to
demonstrate what a word means, in like where he gives
examples to help people understand it better, it's almost always scriptural. Like,
there's so many scriptural examples. So listen to what he's
Listen what he said. He said, God is not in
any respect passive. Hallelujah, man. That gets me fired up.
(05:35):
Number two, which I felt like, was the definition where
it made a little bit more sense if that first
one doesn't is unresisting, not opposing, receiving or suffering without resistance,
and like that is that is passive in all its forms, unresisting,
just gonna let it happen, be pushed on, not do
anything to be the change, to impose. And I mean
(05:57):
we've talked about this before. His weakness is being pushed
around and strength is pushing right, Like from a very
very simple way. Well, now here we are looking at passivity.
And like, I just love that he said God's not
in any respect passive, because here's here's what passivity will do. Gee,
I said, we got it. Like, let's talk about what
passive you will do. And the very first thing you
said is you said it angers God, right, and we's.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
That's First Kings sixteen with King Ahab right, whose wife
is Jezebel. And if you read the pretext to this verse,
this is in the middle of First Kings. But if
you read the pretext of this verse, and Ahab's married Jezebel,
who's not an Israelite, and allowed her to come in
and bring other foreign gods. And then First King sixteen
(06:42):
thirty three says and Ahab made an asheropol and did
more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God
of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him. Right,
it wasn't just about the asheropol, it was everything that
led up to that. Ahab was just allowing Jezebel to
do whatever he wasn't being. He wasn't the maker of
(07:05):
peace or the keeper of peace. He was faking peace.
He's like, well, I'll just you know, I just want
my wife to be happy. I'll just let her do
what she wants to do. I don't want the conflict.
I don't want the issues. I don't want the trouble.
And the things that you avoid have a sneaky way
of finding their way into your life if you're unwilling
to confront them.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, that's so good man. And so we're going to
give you the top seven passive lies. We're not just
going to speak about passivity in general. I know that
that's like a lot of people speak out against passivity,
especially like in the realm of Christian men's world. It's like,
you know, and they talk about but we this is
the tools and tactics. This is like, let's just lay
it there. There's no if you can listen, you will
(07:44):
get all that you need. To get and so we're
going to go into the seven top passive lies and
show how what that looks like in today's world. Because
you may be going, well, you know, I don't know
if I married a Jezebel, or I don't have ashrapols,
you know, if you're being very literal, but in marriage.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And four because yeah, it's not just in marriage, right,
passivity can show up in any area of your life.
And that's what today's episode is going to do. We're
going to talk about some of the lies of passivity,
or I would say more so the way that passivity
lies will give some language and some dialogue around what
passivity sounds like that you know, the stuff we talk
(08:20):
about in this podcast is never to make anybody feel bad,
but at the same time, it's Jim Rohn said, feedback
is the breakfast of champions. Some people hate feedback. Some
people would think that feedback is disgusting. And what a
lot of this podcast can feel like sometimes is us
receiving feedback. So the way that you take it is
(08:41):
up to you. You can be frustrated by it, offended
by it, or you can say this is what's going
to help me grow. And so we want to give
some of these feedbacks. Not that Nick and I are perfect,
because we you know, the truth is we've had to
confront it just like anybody else. But if some of
what we talk about today, like oh man, I've said that,
oh I've fallen prey to those lives before, then that's
where you have to take action. Don't allow passivity to
(09:04):
take root in your life. Right, We've we've we've referenced passivity,
and we've talked about how to take action and how
to make a plan for your life. We've talked about
stuff like that in this podcast all the time. Really,
the focus of today is to just call out what
passivity looks like. This isn't necessarily the action plan, the response,
This isn't those things, but we want to make it
very clear. It's like a this is like a measuring
(09:25):
stick for passivity today.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, one hundred percent, man, because it's I was thinking
about that while you were saying you said, we're not
doing this to call anybody out like if I had
to sum up passivity, it's it's just the go with
the flow movement and what is what is one of
the worst things you could do if you work in
corporate environments, which I do and you do as well,
But you got to build your corporate environment or as
I enter into other people's, So I've.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Entered into other peoples as well.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I know what that's like for sure. Yeah, I'm just
speaking of current circumstances. I'm not saying you never have.
But what is it? What's one of the worst things
you could do is to offend somebody, to hurt their feelings, right,
and like that that the definite if you want to
do that, you know, if you want to make everybody happy,
sell ice cream, right, that's that's what you're going to be, Like, Hey,
who doesn't want a little scoop of ice cream? And
and just go around and be the nice guy, never
(10:11):
push back on anything, don't call anything out, and just be.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You'll laugh at this. Nick one of my friends who's
been going through a very difficult situation of I would say,
offending people around him. He's confronting some very difficult business
challenges and finding not everybody was his friend as much
as he thought he was he was. He was talking
to one of his mentors and he shared this story
(10:37):
with me that basically he was talking to his mentor like, hey,
what do I do, Like I thought these guys were
my friends, They're not my friends. And his mentor told
him to get a dog. If that's what If that's
what you're there for, get a dog, he said, you're
there for a job, you're there for a mission. Do
what you're supposed to do and let the right people
align with you. But if you're looking for me, people
(10:58):
to make you feel feel good, get a dog.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And see you. Just just in that storagey, you highlight
so much of where passivity comes from as a lack
of understanding of mission. Jesus offended people and confronted things
that were passivity and lies all the time, and he
did it from a place of love. He was not
passive in any respect, but he was also not offensive.
What I'm not saying is go find all the memes
that you think are hilarious that are going to upset people,
(11:23):
and just start sharing them because you're like, well, I'm
not passive. That's lacking love, you know. But to go
around and speak truth and to have a true understanding
of the mission, the reason why you're there, Like we
talked about we've talked about what passivity will do and
angering God. But the opposite of passivity is exactly what
we're saying. It's understanding and asking the leadership question, what
(11:44):
does the room require? Right, It's focusing on controllables and
what's required of you in any given situation, which means
you have an understanding of purpose in the first place.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It's a lack of understanding of priorities, not just priorities
for what is right, but also priorities for what will
kill you. I look at passivity this way on the
battlefield right. A lot of people it's like you're on
the battlefield and you start getting shot at, and you
say like, oh, well, I should duck down and so
that I don't get shot at, because getting hit with
a bullet would be bad. What's worse is that if
(12:14):
you stay in that position, the enemy will close on
They're shooting at you, so you won't fire back. And
if you bow to if you respond to them, if
you let them force you to take cover and hide,
they will close the distance on you. Right, And the
situation's only going to get worse. When our response and
the Sealed teams was if you shoot at me, I
(12:34):
will drop a bomb on you. Right. Well, you know,
before I can drop a bomb on you. You shoot
at me, all twenty of my platoon we're going to
get online and fire back at you with machine guns
and long range rifles very quickly. One shot is going
to get returned with twenty, and if you continue to
fire back on us, we'll drop a bomb on you.
What I'm not going to do is cower behind a
wall and hope that it goes away, because what we know,
(12:57):
if you're firing at me, it's because you want to
kill me, and I'm not going to get you the
opportunity to increase your position. That's exactly what passivity looks
like in your life. You're just hoping that things will
get better.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, I love that man. And if you're a married man,
or if you have a family, and even if you're not,
you know what, you know what it looks like. That's
such a great analogy. G not even analogy, it's I
mean it is analogy, but it's a real life one
of sitting there just taking the fire. If you're a
married man and you have a family, what you're doing
is when you're taking that fire, you're basically taking all
your problems and your own shortcomings and just passing them
(13:30):
on to the people you love because you're refusing to
confront the things that need to change in your life.
Because this is what I realized at a young age.
I was talking to somebody yesterday about this, a friend
of mine. I had this weird revelation when I was
like seventeen or eighteen years old, and there was I
was over at some girl from church's house that I liked,
and we were all hanging out, and you know, all
the women and some other people were getting food ready,
(13:50):
and you know what I was doing, g I was
sat on the couch watching football because the Pittsburgh's Doers
were playing and that was the most important thing to me.
And I sat there and I kind of knew, man,
I'm not really helping like and I had and no
one I had this thought. I'm like, this is so weird.
I'm blatantly not being a helper right now. I'm not
really being chipping in, and no one is asking me
(14:11):
to do anything. And then someone cracked a joke and said, like, oh,
I think whoever you marry is gonna end up being
a football widow on Sunday. Ak Like, when the game's on,
you're not the husband, that's all you care about. And
they said it a joke, and you know what, everybody
in the room laughs. It was funny. I had this
revelation at like seventeen or eighteen years old. I'm like,
the bar is so low for men. I could sit
here right now and do nothing and just and nobody
(14:33):
would challenge me on it. And look, there's nothing wrong
with watching games. I watch sports now, so I'm not
like having a pop at sports. It was just this
weird revelations at a young age that the bar for
men was low. You look at the TV characters that
we have, they are like they're celebrating passivity, you know,
like when I was growing up. You know, it still is.
Although I don't think people watch as much as Homer Simpson,
but like, look around at the shows you watch and
(14:54):
start asking yourself the question of the men. Is that
somebody who's leading or is that a guy who's just
sitting by and letting everything happen. I would I would
venture to guess that probably ninety five to ninety nine
percent of the shows that are on TV are just
are just putting up these passive men. Is like, hey,
here's the model, here's what it should look like. And
is an absolute lie. So g I want to dive
into these top passive lies if you want to look up.
I mean, you talked about Ahab other biblical examples of
(15:16):
passivity Adam. You know, she's eve ate the apple and
handed it right to him. Eli the priest like let
his sons run rampant in the temple and sleep with
women and like eat the sacrifices that he wasn't supposed
to and just let it happen. And his sons died,
and he did.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Said they'll come Oh, they'll come around.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, hey, good job that worked out well for you. You
talked about King Ahab. This is one I didn't really
think of, but I was reading it this morning. Pilot,
I'm washing my hands in front of in front of you,
and I'm just going to have them flogged and turn
them over to you to do what you want. But
it's not it's not my responsibility. Oh okay, so you're
not the governor of the territory.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
He was basically saying, this isn't my matter.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Right, Yeah, exactly. Just just hand it off to everybody
else so you can look into those examples more. What
we want. I wanted to make sure to give like.
This is in the Bible all over the place of
what passivity looks like. So, gee, let's dive in the
top seven passive lies. What's life number one?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Again? These are these lies are our language. It can
be do. Some of them describe actions, some of them
are specific words. But the first lie is this is
this is what passivity sounds like. It can be convincing.
Usually good lies are right. But the first live passivity
is I'm just being patient, right, But what real? What
real patience is like? Patience is not you sitting there
(16:31):
waiting around. Patience is waiting on God while you stay ready. Passivity,
passivity is avoiding responsibility with spiritual language. Right, If you
are patient, you're preparing your strengthening. You're like, God, let
me add them, let me get out there, right, Like,
give me an opportunity. Let let me go fight the giants,
(16:52):
you know, let me fight the Egyptians with nothing in
my hands, right, right, that's what patience looks like. You're
what God released me, Let me go do it. But
a lot of people will say that they're being patient
when really they're just being passive. And passive is well,
I'll just you know, I'll just let God do it.
It's you know, it's on his timing, it's up to him,
(17:14):
but you're not taking any action. Patience should always feel
like you're chomping at the bit, like let me advance
on the battlefield, let me move to the next position,
but you're waiting for God to release you to do so.
A patient man is not just sitting around unprepared, doesn't
have his gear ready, not in shape that such. He
(17:37):
would receive a call and then has to get all
of his things prepared. That's the difference between patience and passivity.
And I think a lot of men get busted on
that one. And that's because preparation is painful. Preparation is difficult.
It requires strength, requires endurance, requires hope and belief and
what God's going to do right. People will not prepare
(18:00):
as they said, well, well, I don't want to prepare
and then not get to go right. I went through
that so many times in the military, where we prepared
and trained for missions that we never got to go on.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I look at this as like that thing that you're
praying for and just hoping that God shows up and
does takes care of it all. That's the thing. You
should be doing everything you know to do and praying
for God to do what only he can do. And
that's how you actually show like patience in a godly manner.
Is you should be developing yourself like you said, you
should be preparing. You should be doing the things that
you know to do and praying for God to guide you,
(18:33):
praying for God to bring it about in his timing,
and praying for the Lord to do what only he
could do. And guess what God could do that you
can't change somebody's heart, right, bring salvation, change things in
a moment, like He can move in ways that we can't,
but for sure we can be faithful in so many
other ways. And as we said, gee, the test is
always faithfulness always Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Number two, Number two, I don't want to make things worse.
Ahabs a good example of this when when you're saying
I don't want to make things worse, you're also saying
I don't know how to make things better. You're focusing
on the wrong things, right, But I don't want to
make things worse. Is I'm afraid of conflict one of
the things they said in the Seal Teams, And this
(19:13):
isn't I wouldn't say this is novel to the Seal Teams,
but one of the things they would say is, don't
be the senior man with a secret. Right, don't have
like an issue that's going on and you're the You're
the most you're the high you're the most senior person
that knows about this issue. No but to deal with it,
but also make your leadership aware. Continue to drive it
(19:34):
up the chain. It's a secret because you're saying, well,
I don't want anybody to know about this. This is
a problem, right, You're avoiding the conflict. The reason they
say that is because most of the time, when you
no one loves to going to their leadership and saying
I got a problem. Nobody likes to do that. You
want to be, especially in a culture like the Seal Teams.
You want to be able to solve these problems yourself.
You want to be able to resolve it yourself. But
(19:56):
you need to take it to your leadership and say, hey,
look here's the problem I got, Here's how I'm dealing
with it. If I if I get to this point
where I cannot deal with it, I need you to
step in. Yeah. Right. Avoidance always creates bigger problems in
your life. And a man who has called to lead,
which is every man listening to this podcast, a man
who has called to lead cannot avoid conflict. When you
(20:20):
avoid conflict, you are inviting chaos into your life.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, that's so good man, and I want to I
want to caveat this. We speak a lot to men
who are married. I know not every man who listens
to this is married, but you will have conflict in
your life regardless if you're a leader. And what Garrett's saying, like,
I'm gonna speak to if you're having conflict in your marriage,
there's sometimes when things happen and you know that you
calling it out is going to cause an uncomfortable conversation.
(20:45):
And this is exactly what you're talking about. What we're
not saying is to just go around and start shooting
off your mouth about all the things that need to
be changed, because there's also skilled there's being skilled in conflict. Right,
It's not just that you go around you're like, well,
I'm not afraid of any conflict, so now I'm just
going to have every conflict. They're the same way that
like seal teams were skilled and having physical combat with
weapons you need to be skilled and how you have
combat with people not that you win, but that you
(21:07):
bring an outcome that is the desired outcome, because the
purpose of conflict is victory. And if you're having a
conflict with your wife, it's not that you have victory
over your wife, it's that you have victory together and
you're willing to go through the steps that it takes.
And so what this looks like in practical terms for
marriage for me is like, I know how my wife
is going to receive things you talked about earlier on
(21:28):
this podcast about the cognitive processing of think, act, feel, feel, act, think,
and like the order that you actually process information through
will have a wildly different impact on how things go.
My wife feels first, and I'm grateful she does because
I feel last, and the thank god, we bounced the
other out very well. So when I get information, the
first thing I do is I think, then I act,
(21:48):
then I feel. Later on, my wife will feel first,
then she'll act, then she'll think. So like if I
say something to her that I've already processed, and I
expect to be able to have like a nice logical
conversation where you go like, yeah, this is what we're
going to do. That's not what's going to happen. The
first thing she's going to do is process it with
her feelings. So I need to know this may take time. AKA,
I'm not going to talk about it right before bed.
I need to think about how I word this. You know,
(22:10):
I'm not going to be I'm not gonna skirt around
the issue. But I also don't need to just launch
it and like I need to get this off my chest.
That is not a good way to start a conversation
because what it needs to be is we need to
talk about this why because we have to understanding the
purpose of us being together is to bring about things
that only we could do together to advance the Kingdom
of God. So there's certain things we can't allow to
happen in our life, in our relationship, in the areas
(22:31):
we're involved in. And that's the context I had these
conversations in. When you have a shared vision with your
wife or with the friend or the person that you're
aligned with, conflict becomes so much more. I don't know
whether to stay peaceful or whatever, but like it has
purposeful because when you know what you're out there to accomplish.
Like I'm guessing you told the story. G you have
(22:52):
a guy who didn't have his gear prepared, and you
lit him up afterwards because you had just come off
a mission, and you're like, how are you citing your
rifle in after the fact. If you were just doing
that to a guy because and you guys weren't going
on mission, he wasn't a seal, that would be you
just putting your preference onto him. But the fact that
you're like, we're both of the seal teams. We're here
to protect and defend freedom and democracy, and we just
(23:13):
went out and risk our lives. There was like that
conflict was I'm guessing that guy wasn't like, hey man,
stop being a jerk, Like it's cool, bro, Like he understood, Yeah,
I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Oh, there was certainly an escalation. It was not It
was not a comfortable conflict, and it involved more than
just me in that person. But it was a commitment
to what was most important, right, I would He taught
me a lot about conflict in the Navy, because I
don't think I ever had one easy conflict. They were
all painful. So one you better be sure, but two
(23:45):
you got to know how to deal with it the
right way? Right, all right, let's get let's keep it
going people. Yeah, number number three, I'm just I'm just
laid back. Hey, I'm just an easy going guy. Right,
It's it's a I just I'm fine with it the
way that things are going. This is a total lack
of ownership mentality. God did not create men to be
(24:08):
passive observers. He created men to like. He created men
to build, to guard, to protect, to cultivate, to initiate. Right, God,
God created the garden, created man, and then place man
inside the garden and said build it and keep it.
He didn't place Adam in the garden set. And Adam
was like, oh man, this is pretty chill, right, Like,
(24:30):
thanks God, Right, No, he gave out a job. Yeah,
he gave Adam a job in the garden. And so
look at all these situations in your life, says, how
do I make this better? Right? What am I here
to do? How do I add value in this place?
And that doesn't mean every room you step in you
need to you know, push someone aside and get behind
the wheel, but every place that you're in, it's how
(24:50):
do I add value here? How do I make this
place better, not just like, oh well, it's just good
the way that it is. Case Ara, sirra, that's that's
not the right process.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Similar to that, but not the same going it right
into lie number four is it's not a big deal. Okay.
One of the we've talked about this before, and I
talk about this and foundations of an unstoppable team in tactics,
knowing your tactics but also knowing the enemy's tactics. This
is one of the tactics of passivity is minimization. Minimizing
(25:26):
is one of passivity's strongest weapons to take things that
are important and go you know again, it's people firing
at you and going, oh man, if you just put
your head down, it'll all go away. The problem's not
there anymore. That's minimizing the problem, right Like where the
extreme other side of that is like hypervigilance of I
(25:46):
think we detected and v patrol twenty kilometers from here,
seek and destroy. Right, I'm not going to allow these
negative things, these bad things, to have any any space
around me. When you neglect things, you are invited again
inviting chaos into your life. That's what passivity is doing.
It's trying to make you avoid the things that are
(26:08):
meant to make you better instead of stopping the things
that are trying to kill you. That's what passivity wants
you to do. Just let these bad things into your life,
and neglect will fertilize in your life, right, and neglect
brings destruction. Neglect will fertilize in your life when you
convince yourself that an issue doesn't matter, right, that is
how you are sowing seeds of destruction in your life.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and the garden analogy you gave whenever we were
talking about number three g is so is such an
perfect one from the work that God's put us to do.
Because for every man out there listening and every woman,
what is the garden that God's given you? Like you said,
it's not that you go into every room you start
shooting off about like all the different things. But if
you're the man, guess what Your marriage is your garden,
Your family is your garden, Your home is your garden.
(26:53):
The church that you go to and that the people
that you influence, these are the gardens. So think wisely
about what you sow and what work is required of
you in those Let's keep moving all.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Right, number number five. I don't feel motivated. I don't
feel passionate about this. I'm not I'm not excited about
what I'm doing. This is this is a form of
passivity in saying like, well, I won't I won't move
unless I feel like moving. And this is this this lie, right,
all of all these forms of passivity are different lies.
(27:22):
This lie is the lie that actions must follow feelings.
The Biblical process is that feelings will follow in obedience,
you don't wait to feel strong. What you do is
you trust in the Lord. You let your strength come
from him. You act out of obedience, and then you
allow the strength to come. You say, hopefully God will
be with us in this. I know that God will
(27:42):
work through me in this situation. You don't wait to
feel it. You don't wait to have everything. This is
a great example of this, of like the feelings portion
of this is where kings in the Bible, there's multiple
kings who did it. Where kings in the Bible would
count their men before they went off to battle. And
God was frustrated with this. Why because they were they
(28:03):
wanted to feel confident before they stepped out. In the well,
if I know that we have more guys than they do,
then I will feel like a winner. Then I will
ride out to battle. And this this very much frustrated
God because before they counted, God said go, God said go,
and I will be with you. And instead of them
trusting and God will be with me, they were trying
(28:24):
to trust it in their feelings.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, so good. You know who struggles with not following
their feelings? G toddlers and small children.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I'm serious. I hope we're working through that in my household.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Well say man, and like, I hope that if you're
a man, you sit there and go like, man, I
don't ever want to be a toddler or small child
in the way that I carry myself, and that, like
I hope that kind of shocks a few people because
I think about that sometimes when my kids are like
I don't feel like it, I'm like, that's not a
valid excuse, Like that's you know, I get that. You've
got to overcome that, all right, what's over six?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
So these these last two are so good? Lie number six.
I don't want to be controlling. I don't want to
be bossy, right, that's what people like, They'll be passed like, well,
I don't want to. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
I don't want to be, you know, boss babe or
or boss guy or whatever it is. I don't want to.
I don't want everybody to feel like I'm controlling them.
(29:16):
Here's what passivity does right. The same way we've talked
about the superpower of perspective, Perspective can work against you,
and the lie of passivity will frame leadership as control.
Leadership is not control right. Leadership is not domination. Leadership
is direction. Leadership is protection. Leadership is sacrificial initiative. Leader
(29:37):
Leadership is an invitation. It's something that I've talked about
a lot. Great leadership is an invitation. God doesn't force
us to do things. He invites us to follow him.
That's what great leadership is. A lack of leadership in
your life where you're instead of if you're saying, well,
I don't want to be controlling, I don't want to
be bossy. That's a lack of leadership that will bring
more problems than whatever the conflict that leadership will ever create.
(30:01):
Just like the situation that you referenced of me confronting
a guy who wasn't prepared. I thought that conflict was
better than the potential future conflict of having a teammate
who was unprepared on the battlefield. Right right, when you
compare them in that way, you're like, well, that actually
sounds worse. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
It was not a comfortable day. It might have been
physically uncomfortable as well that day in resolving that conflict
of a man not being prepared and having to get
confronted on it. But what would have been worse for
him and for the rest of us is that we're
out on the battlefield and he wasn't prepared, right, Yeah,
very good? All right?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Gee, well we've been through six seven is a holy number?
What's what is hard? Perfection?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Here? Here's one of the sneaky lies of passivity, and
this is, you know, don't we don't jump into doctrine
a lot. And so I'll address this from like a
very general standpoint that I feel like most people can
agree with. If you, if you're someone who like everything
is about doctrine for you, this podcast has probably frustrated
you because we've focus so much of our time on
(31:01):
all the things that are not doctrin I say that
to say that you could. If you are a super spiritual,
overly doctrinated person, this one might bother you. But lie
number seven is that if God wants it to change,
he will change it. This is spiritual laziness. God works
through men. God does not work in spite of men.
(31:22):
So what you've got to understand is like, hey, God,
this is Garrett's theology. God is sovereign, man's responsible. I
have a part to play. I'm not the guy. I'm
not the author, I'm not the creator. But God made
me for a reason. God created me with a purpose
and I've got to do my part. So much of
my part is trusting in him. But God wants me
to trust in him, wants me to take action through
(31:44):
my trust in him, because that's part of what's training me.
And what God wants for his sons, just like I
want for my children, is for them to grow, for
them to develop, for them to become who God's created
them to be. And you're not going to grow by
saying my Dad will do everything for me.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, that's so good. I think that that's one of
the big revelations. I remember when you said you said
God chooses to work through men, and it's all throughout scripture,
it's smacking us right in the face. Jesus left for
a reason. It said, it's better than I leave, otherwise
the helper won't come to you. And it's like, wait what, yeah,
because that was all It's always the plans that He
would work through men. And when you have that revelation,
it really removes the law of the excuse because you know,
(32:21):
it's sounds logical to go like, oh, well, God's going
to make it happen.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's two things being true at the same time. God
doesn't need me true also true God wants to use
me right, And it's not an either or, it's both
of these things are true at the same time.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
That's so good. Gee man. So I hope that this guy's,
like I said, this is a tools and tactics, so
we're I hope that this is highlighted in your life
some of the areas where you have accepted passivity. It's
the lie that's constantly pushed on you. And guess what,
it doesn't have a whirling light that says, hey, here
comes a lie. Passivity alert, But like, you need to
start recognizing these things. Awareness proceeds change and if you
(32:58):
can start to recognize when thought come through of I'm
just being patient. I don't want to make things worse.
I'm just easygoing. It's not a big deal. I'm not
very motivated. I don't want to be controlling. God can
do it. Like, if you can start to recognize where
these types of thoughts have been dictating your actions have
started to creep their way into your life, you'll start
to weed out all the things in your garden that
shouldn't be there, and you'll begin to become like your
(33:20):
father God, who is not passive in anything. You'll be
the person who affects change, who asks the question, what's
required me in the room, and you'll go out and
start to see things grow, and you'll be the person
that produces through thirty sixty one hundredfold in everything that
God's entrusted you to have.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Thank you very much for listening. Guys, Remember to share,
like subscribe. If you think that this would be something
that someone would enjoy, please send it to them.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
We appreciate it all.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
If you want to get in touch, you can follow
us on Instagram at the Impossible Life. You'll find us
on there. You can also email at Impossible Life Podcasts
at gmail dot com you have any questions. If you
want to get in touch and find out about Carrot's
personal or business coaching, that's the way to do it.
Thank you again for listening. Go out there and think
better and live the impossible. To see again soon
Speaker 2 (34:08):
MHM.
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