EXPERIENCE 203 | Intrepreneurship in Action - A Conversation with Cole Shrehlow, CEO of The Flyover and Chief Musician at The Crossing Church - The LoCo Experience

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I became acquainted with ColeStrelow circa 2012 when my wife

(00:04):
and I first began attending theCrossing Church in Fort Collins,
where Cole still serves as chiefmusician, he was a gifted writer
with a theology degree from asmall university in northern
Wisconsin.
And was trying to string anincome together through church
music, freelance writing, andcrappy jobs.
Few years later, he was thefirst employee of a startup
called Wintermind Group.
Featured in episode 24, whichlater merged to become Pop Acta,

(00:27):
with Cole as the right hand tothe CEO.
At Pop Acta, he headed a SkunkWorks project in 2022, which
sprouted wings and took off asthe Flyover.
Pop Acta.
A wholly owned subsidiary withKohl at the helm.
Condensed daily email news,minimal bias, and growing
quickly into state by stateversions.
Kohl's is a journey ofconsistent growth in
responsibility and impact, builton do the right thing.

(00:50):
Enjoy.
Let's have some fun.
Welcome to the Low CodeExperience Podcast.
On this show, you'll get to knowbusiness and community leaders
from all around northernColorado and beyond.
Our guests share their stories,business stories, life stories,

(01:11):
stories of triumph and oftragedy.
And through it all, you'll beinspired and entertained.
These conversations are real andraw, and no topics are off
limits.
So pop in a breath mint and getready to meet our latest guest.
Welcome back to the LocoExperience Podcast.
I'm here today with Cole Stralowand Cole is, uh, the chief

(01:36):
musician at the Crossing Church,uh, where I work.
sometimes attend.
Um, he's also the CEO of theflyover, uh, which is a media
company based here in FortCollins.
And he is a proud husband andfather as well.
Uh, thanks for joining us instudio Cole.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah.

(01:56):
Um, let's start with the thingthat nobody probably, unless
they're a subscriber knows muchabout, which is the flyover.
Uh, what is it?
The flyover is an email newspublication.
Okay.
And we have eight editions ofit, but the short synopsis would
be, it is a daily email thatcomes out with a general
overview of the news.

(02:16):
And it's designed to be a onestop shop so that if you want
to, you can just read this emailin five minutes and have a good
sense of what's going on.
In the United States and alsothe world.
I remember from like some yearsago when the partisan divide was
trying to be avoided, there waslike some specific email
newsletters that we like, wegive you both sides or, you

(02:38):
know, kind of thing.
You can find some that arereally intentional about that,
where they will literally tellyou like, Hey, this is what the
left says about it.
This is what the right saysabout it.
That's kind of neat.
We don't do that.
We just tell you what we thinkis true.
Fair.
Okay.
So you've got your own kind of,I listened to the.
Um, daily wire, uh, podcastpretty much every morning and
every afternoon.
Um, cause I don't read muchanymore.

(03:00):
I'm old and have bad, I gotglasses in the other room, but,
but they touch on four to seventopics briefly.
In the morning, you know, thatcomes out like maybe 6 a.
m.
or something.
And then again at 4 p.
m.
And so that's like one of theways I, you know, other than
scrolling through X or whatever,so I can see the value of, uh,
you know, and so why do people,it's a subscription email.

(03:23):
It is.
So they just want a quicksummary of.
The news, the important stuff.
Is it economics focused?
Business focused?
Is it politics focused?
It does not have a particularcontent focus.
Okay, it's really broad.
Okay.
So the top three stories wouldjust be whatever we think are
the most important stories ofthe day and actually it's more
like The top two are the mostimportant.

(03:43):
Sometimes the third one is a funone like a list or just
something interesting that'shappening.
Okay So it's pretty broad.
You know, we do sports,politics, whatever, science and
tech, uh, celebrity news.
If, uh, we actually don't do,okay.
That's good.
A lot of that.
That gives you more credibilityin my book.
What was that roast, uh, uh,that came from one of the award

(04:05):
shows the other day or towardit?
It was like, um, Hey, Hollywood,you know, One of the things you
learned in 2024 is thatAmericans don't care about who
you want to vote for orsomething like that.
Yeah.
And if one of, if a celebritydoes something really dumb and
it's funny, we'd probably runit, but we probably wouldn't
have them talk to us aboutthings.
And you're, what do you think?

(04:25):
Do you have a consistent, like,do you, are you the editor of
this publication theneffectively or not anymore?
Um, not anymore.
I've gone through all thestages.
So in the beginning I waswriting it and editing and
editing it and sending it.
Then graduated to editing andthen passed off most of the,
actually to still do itsometimes, but then passed off

(04:48):
the editing to our editor inchief, David Klein, who does
most of that these days.
And you, do you create contentstill?
Yeah, I do because we are,we're, What's that?
What was the celebrity guestcontent?
No, no, no, no.
Um, well, one of the importantthings about the flyover is that
it's no longer just one email.
Like we started it with thisnational edition, but then we

(05:10):
quickly thought, Hey, what if weexpanded this to States and did
the same thing, but on a smallerscale?
So we, we started the flyover inJanuary of 23 and then about a
year later we started the Texasflyover, which is just the same
thing, but only for Texas andthen last year we rolled out.
six more.

(05:30):
So we have seven state editionsand one national edition.
You know, as I think about that,as you know, newspapers have
faded so much.
And, and even, you know, the,the, the color or the Colorado
or the Fort Collins, theColorado and yeah.
Right.
Like, yeah, it's got a couple oflocal stories and a handful of
local reporters and stuff, butit's mostly national kind of.

(05:55):
Associated Press kind of stuff.
Yes.
So it's hard to pick up any kindof, even a state biased news.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's surprisingly not a lotof news products out there that
are geared at this, toward thestate level.
Yeah.
And what I like about that isthat there's, you know, there's
50 states, you know, uh, theirnation states effectively, you
know, governed by a federal, um,thing.

(06:19):
So just even by having it statebased, It kind of gives that
14th Amendment vibe.
Yeah.
I mean, there are some States inAmerica feel like a country.
unto themselves.
California comes to mind.
Lots of them.
I mean, there's just massive,massive markets and their
massive markets with incredibleamounts of loyalty and
distinctiveness so that, youknow, somebody in Texas is

(06:40):
really excited about WestVirginia is West Virginia.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
You can talk to someone aboutCalifornia, about West Virginia,
and they probably think ofsomething, right?
Right.
Understand the distinctivenessof the region.
And you have a separate NorthDakota, South Dakota edition.
Not yet.
What would you do a Dakotaedition?
Cause it was just, I don't thinkso.
I don't think so, but we haven'tgot that far yet.
Actually.
We have talked about splittingCalifornia in half, right?

(07:02):
Cause we haven't got there yet.
And it's just so big and sodiverse, right?
It's culture that people careabout are so much different in
death Valley or Truckee thanthey are in LA or San Diego.
And it's hard.
There are some businesses thatwould be interested in
advertising.
All over California, but themore you slice it up, probably
the more useful it is.

(07:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
And so your customers sign upfor, uh, the news, uh, your
subscribers, and then based onhow many subscribers are reading
your daily emails, or at leastsubscribe to it, then businesses
like have a sidebar.
ads and things like that as yourrevenue model?

(07:43):
Yes.
We are entirely advertisingsupported.
Okay.
Yep.
So there are several adsthroughout the newsletter.
There's two like larger sized adblocks and those go along with
the primary sponsorship.
And then there's smaller onesthat we call section sponsors
that are just little, like oneparagraph hits.
Okay.
And more of a kind of FYIinformation on this thing.

(08:04):
Yeah, just less copy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Um, And so what's the scale ofthe, is there multiple people,
content creators, like does eachof these states basically have a
content creator?
Each, each state has its ownwriter.
Okay.
And then we have one, two,three, four editors at this

(08:25):
point.
Oh, wow.
So how do you, I mean, I assumethis is your first, uh, I've
known you for a while, so it'syour first like CEO of a media
company, but how do you likekeep the The flavor of, of the
flyover consistent while havingall this, uh, state by state
content and whatever, I guess,uh, how does that fit fly over

(08:47):
time?
It is that fly over time.
It is a big challenge whenyou're growing as quickly as we
are to hand down the flavor ofthe distinctiveness.
Yeah.
Um, I think it just comes downto people.
That's kind of my wholephilosophy about business that
I've acquired so far is that,uh, people and systems are both

(09:09):
really important people.
Solve this problem.
Like if you have a few keypeople that really understand
what you're trying to do andwhat you're not trying to do,
then conversations just happenthat sort those things out over
time.
Um, we decided that we were okaywith hiring writers remotely for
the States because we felt likeit was valuable to have somebody

(09:29):
on the ground.
Yeah.
Like somebody writing aboutNorth Carolina to be someone
that's hopefully from thereactually lives there and would
just catch things that Iwouldn't catch.
Like I could talk about NorthCarolina, but I wouldn't
understand it.
Um, and that's, that's a lot ofjust kind of?
Input, um, you know, we talkabout our editors.
We keep here because we thinkthat the osmosis of just having

(09:50):
people in a room is supervaluable.
And that's how we pass down the,well, we, we kind of jokingly
refer to it as an oral traditionof what we do and what we don't
do.
I actually, um, This is maybeembarrassing, but for the first
time today, started writing downan actual style guide, which is
kind of nuts because we're twoyears in and we have eight

(10:10):
additions, but that's just howit's gone.
Like we're growing so fast, somuch going on that it's mainly
just conversations and everyonekind of gets it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But we're, we're trying to growup.
Um, is there like, likeobviously kind of like a, if you
could have a voice, Separatedand together for each of those
kind of 50 states demographics.

(10:30):
That's its own goal.
But what is the, like, is theresomething else that the flyover
is trying to do?
Is it, is it intentionally, isit programming us in some
fashion?
Is it propaganda of some sort?
All art is propaganda, right?
Um, We, Bye bye.
It's going to sound like acliche, but we honestly just

(10:52):
want to tell the truth.
That's how we approach it.
Yeah.
And, uh, news has gotten sowacky that the new rebellion is
just kind of doing the simplething in our opinion.
Like just telling people whathappened is revolutionary these
days, right?
With no slant on it.
It's hard to find.
It really is.
And to be clear.

(11:12):
Like we don't know how manypeople couldn't believe it that
that Kyle Rittenhouse guy shotwhite dudes, right?
Like they couldn't believe it.
They were sure he was gone outon black people with an assault
rifle.
Sure.
You know?
Yeah.
I think in, you know, both sidesof the aisle are guilty of this.
If you go to any of themainstream media outlets, um,
that cater to one side of theaudience, typically.

(11:33):
Like you you'll read an articleabout something that's happened,
especially if it's about thepresident's or about any
sensitive type media outlets.
Products, excuse me, anypolitical stuff, the people that
read those things, um, many ofthem are waiting and looking for
the attack.
Like they're ready for the slantand that's kind of waiting,
waiting for that thing.
Yeah.
So in a sense you can understandwhy like an MSNBC does what they

(11:56):
do because they're trying tomake money.
Sure.
And that's maybe a misconceptionthat I think some people have
about media companies as theythink of them as this just
totally, I don't know, neutralentity that sits around and only
talks about journalisticintegrity.
They talk about making moneybecause they're a business and
that's why they exist.
Like they have a mission too, ofcourse.

(12:18):
Um, but I think there's a littlebit of naivete about the
approach of media companies tothe world and why they exist.
Um, they're, they're going todeliver what their customers
want because if you don't, thenyou don't have a business,
right?
So there's this interesting.
Give and take there.
Which, uh, not to shift you outof this, but big news from

(12:39):
Facebook today and Instagram.
Did you see that?
I actually didn't.
I've been so busy.
Oh yeah.
Mark Zuckerberg said they'rebasically adopting a community
notes model and stopping thirdparty censorship.
Yeah, that is interesting.
I think that's worked so wellfor X now that maybe it was
inevitable.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Hard to say.
Um, but well, and Zuckerbergkind of went back to his roots.
He just cut.

(12:59):
Kind of scared a little bit.
I think so.
Cause the market moved away fromhim a little bit.
Right.
That too.
That too.
Well, and even, you know, whenhe shared that, you know, there
was a fair bit of governmentpressure for us to do this or do
that on Rogan's podcast, thatwas like, you know, a whole
bunch of people went, We knewit.

(13:20):
I knew my posts were gettingshadow banned.
It turns out they were.
No, but so back to the flyover.
We, like all media companiesneed to make money.
What we have noticed is thatthere's a lot, like a huge chunk
of Americans that just want tobe told what happens.
And maybe that's, I think that'sobviously been there for a long
time to a certain point, but Ithink there's a lot of fatigue.

(13:41):
Like people are tired of thelevel of bias in media and
they're ready for more of aWalter Cronkite style Just tell
me what happened.
I want to feel that way again,and I can make my own decisions
about what I feel about it Yeah,instead of being told how to
feel about something or yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah obvious slant put on thingsI think clearly there's a large
market of people that are justinterested in knowing what's
going on and Not only do theyonly want to know what's

(14:03):
happening.
They want it to come to themwithout the flood of You
Euphemisms, slanted language,editorialization, just nonsense
that should flunk you out ofjournalism school.
Yeah, yeah.
That gets you a job now.
So, so that oral tradition thatyou're talking about and that,
that future style guide thatwill be coming out in a Q1 or

(14:24):
whatever is, um, in someregards, that's part of it.
That's, you know, that it has tobe kind of true.
It has to not have a slant andan apparent intentional slant on
this.
Yeah.
I was writing down examplestoday of, to try to help writers
know like what to avoid.
And one of them would be, Iremember seeing articles about

(14:46):
Hamas and ISIS, I think beingreferred to as freedom fighters
and, you know, we call themterrorists, because that's what
they are.
Right.
Yeah.
And there's lots of reallysensitive hot button cultural
issues that are, in my opinion,typically hidden with euphemisms
in order to disguise the truenature of what's happening.

(15:07):
And that's all over the place.
For sure.
We, we try to just not do that,like just describe it.
But again, like just describingsomething, honestly, not easy to
get, make some people angry, butI mean, totally.
Well, I was thinking aboutIsrael, like even like before
this October 9th, I think, yeah.
Was it October 7th?

(15:27):
Maybe it was that attack.
I don't remember the exact day,but it was before that, you
know, Netanyahu was in realtrouble was in a lot of, you
know, corruption mud and havinga hard time with their Supreme
court.
You know, and you know, this warhas taken a lot of, uh, Some of
the troubles off of his plate ina way, right?

(15:48):
And and not to totallydissimilar from Zelensky in some
way.
It's sure, you know, as long ashe's the freedom fighter War has
a way of galvanizing people andmaking troubles go away for a
while.
Yeah, they always come back youconsume content Like how do you
how do your writers get theirnews?
And how do you get like newsabout the world that you can

(16:08):
kind of help to determine?
What are those most importantstories or is that just based on
your advertisers?
You Just kidding.
Well, you know, we write aboutwhat we're allowed to write
about.
To be clear, we say whatever wewant.
I've never had any input fromanyone, nor will we take it
about what we're allowed to talkabout.
Um, our writers and editors justdo a big scour of the internet.

(16:32):
You know, they kind of startwith the news wires, AP and
Reuters, which used to beneutral and really aren't
anymore, but they're stilluseful to see what's happening.
Google news is a great resourceto see what's happening.
Just kind of those things.
make the rounds across lots ofdifferent places, including some
that we wouldn't actuallypublish articles from just to
see what's happening.
And part of the battle isfinding, you know, we want our

(16:54):
people to read multiple sourcesabout a story to get a well
rounded picture of what'shappening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then to pick a source thatwe think communicates the
clearest and the most trulyabout what's happening.
There was, I found a post on myex from a few months ago and I,
I shared a article from like, I,I, when I see something as Al

(17:18):
Jazeera, um, on the Google newskind of site or whatever, I'm
like, well, you know, I know theangle that they're coming from,
but I know there might be somethings that are more true in
this article than some I mightread.
Yeah, you definitely get abigger picture by reading both
sides of it, especially with aextremely controversial issue
like that.
Yeah, but then there was like a,a new Al Jazeera because Al

(17:40):
Jazeera stopped being shared byGoogle for a while at least.
Oh, did it?
Yeah, like shortly after thatOctober 7th thing.
And I think they're back onthere again now.
So I don't know if they had tokiss and make up to Google or
something, but they had chosenlike some kind of an other Arab
oriented news site to be their,uh, Google news allocation for

(18:01):
that.
That's interesting.
And that's actually part of thestory of the flyover.
I think is that the internet isnot just about first party
publishers anymore.
It's really about the peoplethat curate stuff and put it in
front of the aggregators.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The aggregators.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I think the internet ismoving more and more toward
aggregation.
Are you old enough to rememberfark.
com?
With a K?

(18:22):
Yeah.
F A R K.
No, I don't.
Oh, that was, it was anaggregator of stupid Stories,
and they would each have alittle label, uh, I think it was
FARC, and, uh, like, there wasone label that was Florida,
like, they would just share, youknow, Stories about Florida,
man.
Yeah.

(18:43):
Historically been Florida, man.
Florida has raised, changed itsreputation in the last 10 years.
We have an addition in Floridaand we have all kinds of Florida
stories.
Right.
Like the dude that like hooksonto a shark and rides his
unicorn pony floaty out at twomiles into the ocean, hoping for
the best, some states are easierto write about than others.

(19:04):
Um, but anyway, that was anaggregator way back, probably
circa.
OUTTA 2003.
Mm-hmm 2005.
Like you were what?
Behind the ears?
Still?
Probably at the time.
But that was an aggregation sitethat I would go to just to see
this one.
Probably very interesting.
Weird dudes.
Mm-hmm Uh, impression of whatwere the dumb and silly stories,

(19:27):
and sometimes nudes were thethings that a person should
have.
Um.
Yeah, I think we, that's part ofour model is aggregating.
It's not just that we also dooriginal writing.
Like everything we put in thereis our own perspective on it.
But a key part of our valueproposition is just scouring the

(19:48):
internet to find what we thinkis what matters the most,
because there's such a glut ofcontent on the internet now that
it's actually value and justspending the time looking
through stuff.
Don't make me screw around somuch.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, So let's talk about, um,where did the flyover come from?
Maybe let's, can we talk aboutthe inception story?

(20:10):
Um, I guess just for guests, uh,the, I want to say local think
or local experience podcast,episode 18 or something, uh,
Jacob lease, um, was my guestand at that time he was probably
in about middle of year two ofthe winter mind group.
Uh, so you were, you were numberone employee of the winter mind

(20:32):
group.
I was, it was me and Jacob inthe basement in conjunction with
Brian Oaks.
Yeah.
Okay.
And what were you doing?
Uh, can we go way back to there?
Yeah, of course.
This inception of, and then Iwant to go back.
Well, we'll come back to once wejump in the time machine, we'll
come back.
We can go as far back as youwant.
There's a funny story about themoment I was born.
If you want to hear it, I do,but winter mind.

(20:55):
So I was doing the stage for us.
Yeah, I was, uh, I've beforewinter mine for a long time.
I was doing a lot of jobs that Idid not enjoy, nor was I well
suited toward them to them, butthey put money in my bank
account.
And so I did them.
Yes.
Um, and then the great JacobLease called me great, powerful,

(21:15):
great and powerful.
Jacob Lease called me and saidthat he was, he had mentioned to
me like six months before thathe had started this business and
thought it was going well.
And Thought maybe there'd be anopportunity.
And I was just so jaded at thatpoint.
I was like, yeah, okay, Jacob.
Sure.
Like, right.
Like the world's actually goingto work out.
Yeah.
Like at some point you kind of,it's hard to believe anything
when you're having, when you'reon a rough path.

(21:37):
But then right when I wasconsidering leaving Fort Collins
to go take a job with adifferent company in Kansas
city, actually, where I'm from,when my, where my parents live,
Jacob called me and said, hewanted to talk about this
position at winter mind and theywere doing.
Fundraising for nonprofits viaemail.
Okay.
And so I jumped on it.

(21:57):
I jumped right out of a concretetruck and into Jacob's basement.
Okay.
What was the, what was it wasyou were driving a concrete
truck?
Yeah.
It was the previous.
Yes.
Which like entailed like drivingaround with full Tanks of those
guys with the thing, like it inthe right place and cleaning it
all up at the end of the day andall that, all the stuff that you
would imagine you look like apretty strong back guy, not as

(22:19):
strong as you wish for concrete,not as strong as it used to be.
Right.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, so you're happy tocheck this thing out.
And what were you doing atwinter mind?
Yeah.
Uh, I was getting emails frompeople that we worked for and
then doing some light coding tothem.
And then just making sureeverything was like doing a QC

(22:41):
of the actual, and an email, ifyou don't know, is a piece of
HTML.
So just doing some light codingon it to make sure everything
was correct.
All the tracking links werecorrect.
Okay.
Um, and then using our systemthat Jake built to actually send
the emails at an enterprise orlarge level.
Okay.
And so I, it was actually kindof, so you're spammers.

(23:01):
No, of course not with goodinformation.
We know we're definitely notspam.
Okay.
So you're, but you'refundraising for different
nonprofit organizations andcurated email outreach.
There are a list of people thatare interested in that kind of
thing that have expressedinterest in a particular cause
or whatever it is.
Yeah.
So you try to kind of match.

(23:22):
Philanthropists of varying typeswith causes that they might be
more interested in and throughsome intentional outreach,
something like that.
Okay.
All right.
Um, and so like that obviouslygrew and so the circuit me,
what, this is what that wasright at the beginning of the
local, this was like, rightbefore COVID hit, okay, yep,

(23:44):
January, 2020.
Okay.
Yep.
That's when you joined.
He has started.
It is.
Yeah.
I remember sitting in thebasement with Jacob looking at
the news about COVID and we werejust.
Kind of casually saying like, Iwonder if, I wonder if anyone
here will ever get this.
I mean, it was that stage.
Right.
Right.
Brand new.
Yeah.
I don't have to worry about itreally here.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember those days as well.

(24:05):
So then what does that look likegoing into that?
Like, were you in an essentialbusiness?
You were working remotely, so itwas fine, probably.
Yeah.
I mean, what was like from a,like you jumped into this
startup.
And then I just kept going toJacob's basement every day.
Yeah.
I didn't really do whatever hetold you to do.

(24:28):
I mean, we, so we did that for awhile.
Did you know how to do this HTMLstuff and whatever?
How did you, he just, he taughtyou how to do things he didn't
want to do anymore.
Or you had to go learn it, watchYouTube videos and stuff.
Um, he taught me a lot of it.
Yeah.
I mean, well, I guess I had donesome HTML.
It was like reasonably talentedat tech stuff.
I just hadn't done it for a jobbefore.
Okay.
Gotcha.

(24:48):
Not actual tech.
Not like you were kind of adigital native.
So it wasn't scary to you, butfigure it out a little at a time
kind of thing.
Yeah.
So I just jumped in and startedfiguring it out.
Jacob taught me a lot and.
kept doing that, and then wemoved to desk chair in Loveland,
in downtown Loveland, which is aOkay, yeah.
Shared workspace.
Yeah.
We got an event coming up therein a few weeks.
It's a nice spot.

(25:09):
Yeah, it is.
Mm-hmm They're, they'recommunity partners.
You know Jim down there?
I do, yeah.
Yeah.
And the whole team.
Really?
Mm-hmm We did that for a longtime before we moved back to
good old Fort Collins.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then like it was Winter MindGroup for a while.
Mm-hmm And that's originally atleast Jacob and Brian.

(25:29):
Yes.
And then we merged with anothercompany that was doing very
similar things, um, with twoother guys that own that company
that were a long time associatesand friends with Jacob and
Brian.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Yep.
And then, but Jacob continued tobe the CEO of this, what became
Pop Acta?
Yes, it became Pop Acta andJacob was the, became the CEO of

(25:50):
that company.
And then, like, to, like, theflyover origin story is Is that
you?
I got this idea.
It's not me.
Or it's Jacob saying It's notJacob.
I got this idea.
Brian?
Nobody?
It's not Brian.
It's a guy named Guy Short.
Okay.
Yep, one of the owners.
Sup, Guy.
Um, Guy.
He's got this idea.
He's like, we need to generateour, our own center of truth.

(26:14):
Uh, center of truth.
Well, I think he just enjoyedlike, go ahead.
Like the intro to Tucker Carlsonpodcast.
He's like, we're not, uh, agendadriven or propagandist.
We're honest brokers.
Right.
Uh, that's kind of the theme I'msensing maybe from Guy.
Yeah, for sure.
From your team.
He enjoyed, um, some otherpopular morning newsletters,

(26:37):
like 1440 morning brew.
I think the skim, like it's a,yeah, I've been a subscriber of
the skim before, actually.
Okay.
Yes.
We were not the first people towrite a morning email.
Okay.
Um, that industry is, Thrivingat the moment.
It's kind of like podcasts andthat anything you're interested
in, right.
You can find a newsletter foryou.
It's probably an ish thing.

(26:58):
Yeah, that's fair.
So I think he just enjoyed themand realized that.
So most newsletters, they startwith the content.
Like you are interested intennis or woodworking or the
news or whatever it is, if youhave a subject matter interest,
or you have expertise orwhatever it is, you want to
write about this thing.
And so you want to start anewsletter.
And so you move from content tothe email world.

(27:20):
Okay.
We were already in the emailworld.
So we did it in the reverseorder where we had an idea for
content, but that was after wewere already in the world.
Huge number of database that wassorted and dialed and yeah, like
just knew the email world.
Well, that was a competitiveadvantage for us that we
realized we could start aproduct and use what we knew

(27:41):
about the world of high volumeemail to get off to a fast
start.
Yeah.
Which also kind of other rapid.
Like, was there already a stateby state edition thing idea at
the very beginning?
Or was it like, Oh, wait, weneed this too.
I solved another problem.
No, that, no, that came later.
Yeah.
With the single edition, itseems so simple when I think on

(28:03):
those days when we just had oneedition compared to what we're
doing now.
But yeah, so that was guy'sidea.
It was a great idea.
And then we, at the time I wasrunning one of the teams at pop
back to.
And I started to do to write theflyover as I was managing the
other team that went on for awhile is just it's a small

(28:24):
business.
You're absolutely stretched toosmall.
Yeah.
Like you do what you have to fora while.
Right, right.
Um, and then we As soon as thisflyover revenue could meet one
third of your salary, then youcould kind of focus on growing
that.
Something like that.
Yeah.
We You know, you have an idea,but you don't know how people
will receive it.
And it became apparent prettyquickly that people were into
it, which was great.

(28:45):
And that allowed us to startstaffing up and making plans
from there.
Is there like a, a face of theflyover or is it like when you
think about the daily wire, it'sBen Shapiro or whatever, or, you
know, Tucker Carlson network orwhatever, but it's not in that
sense.
No, but there's, I'm the closestthing to the, like, I'm probably
the only name that goes inthere.
I'll sign things sometimes.

(29:06):
Like the Babylon Bee has its ownkind of persona now, even though
kind of the creator of theBabylon Bee mostly doesn't do
much with it anymore.
Right.
Now we try to make the brain thestar of the show.
Yeah.
Which is contrary to someadvice.
Like, a lot of people will tellyou people follow people, not
brains.
And that's, I think, true in alot of contexts, but in this one
we felt like it was importantnot to attach it to a single
person.

(29:26):
Yeah.
And just to make, The brand, thething that people come back to,
like if I got hit by a bustomorrow, the flyover would,
would keep on going and theycould come hire you or someone
else wouldn't hire me.
I don't have enough of theskills, although I'm curious.
I enjoy, uh, digesting largeamounts of news, telling the
truth about it.
Just do it in a podcast.

(29:46):
Um, so I guess like, what doespop back to do that's different?
like that niche, because they'rejust email, but for other
people's causes, whether it benonprofit organizations,
political campaigns, um, other,yeah, it's just a link in the

(30:07):
chain to help causes get infront of people that care about
it.
Yeah.
Okay.
So will the flyover point peopleback to pop act in a fashion?
No, it does not.
It's its own kind of medicallysealed in terms of, and that's
why you're like separate.
Now you have mostly no ideawhat's really going on at pop
act anymore.
I wouldn't say that Jacob talksand whatever else, I wouldn't

(30:28):
say that we share an officespace.
Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, but I work exclusively onthe fly over these.
Yeah.
Is that, uh, well, Jacob willlisten to this.
Probably.
Has that been a good decisionfor you?
Has that been like, cause it'sprobably comes with a lot more
like there's nobody to tell mewhat to do.
Oh, I have people to tell mewhat to do.

(30:51):
I'm sure.
I know what you mean.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, yes, I think it was a gooddecision.
I think I was, I was justinterested in trying something
new.
And, uh, Writing has kind ofalways been my thing.
Like I enjoy that.
And that really had nothing todo with what I was doing at pop
act.
And then this opportunity cameup to use, we're going to get

(31:11):
bored and go leave and dosomething else.
Perhaps if he didn't find yousomething, Oh, I don't know.
Probably not.
He's still done.
I'd probably still be there.
Took you out of the concretetruck.
Yeah, I'd probably was not in ahurry to run anywhere else, but.
Was excited about thepossibility to do something that
scratched that itch for me.
Um, I guess what else do youwant to talk about as far as

(31:32):
like, what were, what would besome of the main things you've
learned about business?
Let's say, um, like, in growingfrom like a, like, cause you're,
when you're there, you know,working in Jacob's basement and
it's, you know, three of youdoing stuff and kind of spinning
up a new.
Revenue model, even a newconcept of sorts, uh, winter

(31:54):
mind was like to go from thereand to, you know, scaling teams,
hiring remote writers in otherStates, trying to keep that
content tight.
Yeah.
I, I think I've learned a lot.
I, I have the benefit of beingaround a lot of smart guys and
girls that know quite a bit.

(32:14):
So I've had, We have the benefitof having people in leadership
that just think differently.
And that means you see differentsides of issues constantly,
which is helpful.
So I think it's helped medevelop emphases are not one
sided, like hopefully you'rekind of well rounded because
I've just learned a lot frompeople that are really smart

(32:34):
guys like Jacob and guy andBrian and Dan that are super
excited about.
What they've learned and we'llpass that on.
And then you kind of take thatand strap it on and try to be
well rounded.
I think I've learned that peopleand systems are both extremely

(32:55):
important.
And that if you leave one sideout of that equation, you're
going to be in trouble.
And I would put people at thetop of the hierarchy of what's
important in business, obviouslynothing original.
Smart, focused people can makeit work even without a system,
but.
A system makes it a whole lotbetter.
Yeah, it sure does.

(33:16):
It does.
And so I've experienced that,like, what is it, what is it
like to do something yourselfand then to add a lot of other
people into the mix and we'vebeen able to build a really
great team.
Like I'm thankful every day thatI walk in for the folks that
work for us.
Do you like them?
And yeah, we get to come to workevery day with people that I
actually enjoy and that aresmart, good at their job,
proactive, and that just goes amillion miles toward what you're

(33:39):
trying to accomplish.
Yeah.
I think smart people with goodattitudes are.
The most important thing.
Are they coming to your cause ordo they're coming because they
want to work in media or they'recoming because they want to get
out of what has become such apropagandized media thing.
And to have somebody attemptingto give me the facts is

(34:01):
refreshing.
I think it just sounds like afun job.
Okay.
I think that we have people fromlots of different backgrounds,
some of which are what you'redescribing.
Um, some have less of aprofessional writing or editing
background.
but they're all good at it andthey all were interested in what
we're up to.
Okay.
So we don't try to market toone.
We don't try to draw people froma particular background,

(34:21):
although we like it if they havesome sort of journalistic
experience.
Layoffs at MSNBC lately.
Yeah.
Well, sorry.
Too soon.
You know, I'm kind of like, I'ma little bit Elon Musk can't

(34:44):
just be one person becausenobody can tweet 40 times a day
and run four companies andwhatever.
But I don't know.
He's something else.
He really is just like, anyway,um, let's talk about your other

(35:47):
job.
Okay.
Um, were you, You weren't firststage, or were you there at the
Crossing Church from its firstdays?
They mentioned the other daythat we're 15 years of church
here this month or later thismonth.
I rolled into town in 2012 andthey got started in 2010.
Okay.
Okay.
And how did you connect?

(36:07):
Were you, I remember GaryMcQuinn was part of the church
in the earliest days and he wasfrom Kansas city.
Yeah.
Gary went to the church that Igrew up in and I had known him
since he was, I think in seventhgrade or so.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Um, so he was kind of a mentorfor me growing up.
He was the cool guy that waslike four years older than me
that I emulated in a lot ofways, even if I wouldn't have
admitted it.

(36:28):
Interesting.
So Gary was great.
Was he early in the ministrytrack kind of stuff?
Yeah.
Or, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
His parents were, um, in thesame small group as my wife's,
uh, aunt and uncle in Kansascity area.
Really?
Yeah.
So they, they knew Gary frombefore he moved out here.
Okay.
Yeah.
So.

(36:49):
Yeah, I was sitting in a houseon Matt street in Olathe,
Kansas, where I lived with fourof my friends.
And let's just say I was in themood to get out of town and do
something else.
And, um, Gary called me andasked if I was interested in
moving to Fort Collins.
And I honestly had never evenheard of it.

(37:09):
Sure.
I didn't even know.
anything about Fort Collins, butI said, sure, let's do it.
We've got this church.
They really need a worshipleader.
We could pay you 600 a month.
Nothing at first, but yeah,they, they did help me out.
Um, so Gary called me, I was inthe mood to get out of Dodge
because my girlfriend had brokenup with me and I was just like,

(37:31):
let me get out of here.
If you've ever been there inlife.
And so I threw everything Iowned in my Crappy Honda Civic
hit the road, headed out West.
Interesting.
So that's really what drew youhere.
Yeah.
Um, let's, let's actually, whilewe're in the time machine, let's
just keep going back.
Like, let's go to five yearsold, five years old.

(37:52):
Yeah.
Okay.
Like give me the family dynamic.
Uh, give me, uh, siblings, allthat.
I am the oldest of eightchildren.
Oldest of eight.
Yeah.
Dang.
Okay.
So I grew up.
I would say it felt like I washalf parent, half child
sometimes because there were somany kids.
And what was the span of those?

(38:14):
Uh, 18 years.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm the oldest of four in a 10year span.
Okay.
So I've got half kind of theexperience that you did.
I learned how to cook when I was11.
There you go.
You know, feed my siblings, but,uh, I'm sure it was different
for you.
I remember going to basketballpractice my senior year of high
school and, you know, Well,first I went to the hospital
because my brother had beenborn.

(38:36):
I ran off to basketball practicemy senior year.
I'm like, Hey guys, I just havegot a new brother.
Yeah, big thing.
I mean, it's no big deal.
It happens every year or otheryear.
Yep.
It was a good thing though.
Like where your parents, um,like it's like Catholics or, um,

(38:57):
some of the other, not Catholic,just love kids.
Yeah.
Yep.
Awesome.
Okay.
And were they with a, like, howcan you afford so many kids that
were they in the Kansas cityarea already?
Yeah.
Okay.
We were in Kansas city, whichwas pretty reasonable market.
Yeah.
My dad is a doctor.
Okay.
So that helped.
And yeah.
And your mom was stay at homethen?
She was.
Not, yeah.

(39:18):
She was a nurse for a long time.
Seems like plenty, uh.
Yeah, I think she worked harderthan probably I do as a full
time person.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, so you had, you were, youwere back up.
You and a couple of the otherolder siblings were back up to
mom on this herd of kids.
Uh, and what were you like, likewhen you went to kindergarten?
Were you already likeresponsible?
Uh.

(39:38):
No, I didn't even go tokindergarten.
I was homeschooled.
Oh, you were homeschooled?
Yeah.
All of you guys?
Uh, no.
No.
There was a big mix of thingsthat we did.
I kind of did a little bit ofeverything.
Like I was homeschooled for awhile, then tried public school,
then Christian school, thenhomeschool.
Just did a little bit ofwhatever.
Okay.
And everybody kind of got toself direct in that way.
Um, I don't know if it was selfdirected, but.

(40:00):
It changed as the generations,not the generations, but the
years went by, I think mysiblings spent more time in
public school, but I did alittle bit of everything.
Okay.
Yeah.
And like, did the music comeearly?
No, I, I mean, I did piano alittle bit when I was younger,

(40:20):
but I think it was my freshmanyear in high school.
like most 15 year old boys, Ijust wanted to impress girls.
So I sure started to, I figuredlearning the guitar will do it.
Well, guitar goggles is a realthing.
So I picked that up and okay.
And what was your, like, wereyou a good student?
Were you an athlete?

(40:41):
Uh, not interested.
Not a good student.
I was an athlete.
I loved basketball, did trackand cross country, had, had
dreams that my physical abilitycould not Fulfill in the
basketball world, but I did playat a small school.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Um, and then like, just pickedup music.
Were you, were you raised in aChristian family as well?

(41:01):
So that was there with you fromthe start.
Um, then you went, what was yoursecondary education?
Um, where'd you go to college?
I was like, secondary education.
I don't even know what thatmeans.
Did I do that?
I think it's a thing.
Okay.
I don't know.
Did you?
Yeah, I did.
I went to a Bible collegeactually in Wisconsin.
So you go to Green Bay.
Yep.

(41:21):
Keep driving north.
Okay, go into the woods.
Yep Go past the rows of treesand all the cabins and whatever
in the snow and just keep going.
And then you get to pin bindWisconsin, like up on the
Southern shore of superior orsomething.
It's about 45 minutes away fromiron mountain, Michigan and the
up.
Okay.
Yeah.
So the way up there.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(41:41):
My uncle was the president ofthe college at the time.
And a lot of my friends havegone there.
I decided kind of last minutethat I wanted to go up there
cause I thought it would be goodfor me for a year just to spend
some time.
That's a lot of girls up therethough.
Probably like 400 of them.
Okay, all right.
No, not that many.
Um, and I didn't, Ever dateanyone in college, so no, not

(42:01):
that many.
That's why you picked up theguitar originally, but that
proved out not to be like theNope.
The Lord had other plans for theguitar and it had nothing to do
with girls.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
Were you a songwriter rightaway?
Uh, I messed around a littlebit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, cause, cause like, to behonest with you, like when I

(42:22):
first came to know you, likeafter our first coffee meeting,
probably years before you wentto work for Wintermine.
Yeah.
I remember thinking writer wasone of the defining, what writer
and kind of philosopher causeyou would share more of your,
you probably shared more of youroriginal music earlier in the
Crossing thing.
Although maybe you still do.
I think so because I had moretime back then.

(42:43):
Right.
There were no kids involved.
Yeah.
A chance to write a song was,yeah.
Yeah, that's before I gotmarried.
Yep.
Fair enough.
So, um, so that was all kind ofmore later as you kind of
evolved as a, as a person.
Yeah.
I don't think of myself as agood musician.
I think, no, I mean, I'm notthat great at the guitar.

(43:04):
Like I know what I'm, I can, Ican play the guitar, but I'm not
like.
I always compare myself topeople above me and I'm very
small.
You know Jimi Hendrix?
I know Jimi Hendrix.
I can play enough.
I can sing enough to like, itworks.
I don't think I'm a recordingartist.
Like a man's got to know hislimitations.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I know mine and I thinkthey, they work well in what I'm
doing.
Um, I do enjoy writing songswhen I have the time to have a

(43:29):
little bit of a gift for that.
And sometimes they work.
Um, for whatever reason, theyalways end up being Christmas
songs.
A lot of them do.
I wrote a song for when my wifewalked down the aisle at our
wedding, though.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
Do you want to sing it?
No.
I have a confession to makethat, uh, like in the, over the
last maybe two, three years, I'm50 now.

(43:52):
So my, my voice just doesn'thave the range that it does.
I no longer can, can, can.
outperform you on the vocalsparts of the crossing worship.
There was a season where, whereI could get a little higher
highs and a little nicer shifts,but no, probably I don't have
your impressive range by anymeans.
No, I mean, well me neither, butmine kind of overlaps with

(44:13):
yours.
It used to, now I've lost someof the places that you can go.
I can no longer go.
Uh, so anyway, it's hard to makeit work for everyone.
It really is.
Um, how are you the, like whenit's chief musician, does that
mean you have Like what songseverybody's playing even if
you're not there that week andstuff.
No, what's that job really looklike now?

(44:36):
It just means that I pick outthe songs that we're doing if
I'm on okay that Sunday I don'tif somebody else is doing it and
then it means that I practicewith the team and then I'm there
Sunday morning And you're theretwo to three times and you get
at least one week off a monthkind of thing more like two
Okay.
Okay.
Um, so not as much lift as itused to be.

(44:56):
Probably.
I did it four days, fourweekends a month for years.
Right.
And it's kind of crazy when Ithink about it.
Um, I could never do that now,but it worked when I was, A
young man.
Yeah.
You know?
Well, and you were likefreelance writing without a real
job.
And then broken a coffee shop.
Like, yeah, you want me to dothis four times.

(45:18):
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll do it four times.
Sounds great.
At least it fills my time.
Um, so is that something youwant to continue to do?
Like you're, you're a CEO now.
Like you can be like, Hey, youknow, I'm a little too busy with
my jobby job.
But that's a good question.
I don't think I'll do itforever, but I think I will do

(45:39):
it forever in the sense thatI'll be available forever.
Like if somebody needs me tofill in, I don't know how long
I'll do it.
You could shift down to once amonth here soon, even
potentially, I think eventuallysomething like that'll happen.
Honestly, I think it'd bebetter.
Someone else took over that hadmore time than I have available.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause people will always ask,like, you know, they want to
have the stuff ready early.
They want to have like specialstuff.

(46:00):
And I'm like, I, what I can doright now is show up and I know
all the songs a bunch of times,but I kind of need everybody
else to kind of practice ontheir own.
Yeah.
I think it'd be better if.
There was someone that had timeto really focus on it, honestly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is there somebody on the worshipteam that could rise up in that?
Yeah.
There's another guy.

(46:20):
Um, well, he's no less busy thanI am though.
Jack Crenshaw has his own.
He's great.
Yeah.
He's super.
Yep.
Um, he doesn't have more time.
His range is a little higherthan mine.
So I have a harder time singingalong with him.
You might too.
We talk about that, but I'm surehe's nice for a lot of guys, uh,
and gals.
Um, anything that you wouldwant, like, you know, just the
random listener that maybe goesto church and participates in

(46:43):
the worship, but just to a peekbehind the curtain of, um, sure.
I mean, I worship teams.
I really believe in a simplemodel doesn't mean everybody has
to do it that way.
So I grew up in a Baptistchurch.
Okay.
We sang hymns with a handle oldschool.
Yeah.
Old school, which I think wasgreat for my development.

(47:05):
I was just like looking at notesand singing and doing that every
week.
Yep.
Um, But I am a big believer insimple church in, and especially
in like the singing portion ofthe service, just doing it in a
way that's really accessible foreveryone.
Yeah.
I think there are lots of placesthat have shifted to more of a
performance style thing whereyou engage in it by listening to
it and kind of singing along.

(47:26):
Yeah.
Um, It's just not how I preferto do things.
I like to try to pick songs andpick keys that allow everybody
to get involved.
Um, I love to get, drop it downto acapella at least once a
service.
Totally.
I was just going to, I was justthinking about that.
Yeah.
Cause that's what it's about.
Like, it's not about me andthat's a big problem.
I think in that space withpeople making it about them and

(47:51):
I, I would, luckily I wastrained by a great teacher.
friend named JD Summers, who wasjust really good at it and also
had a great perspective on it,taught me well, like, Hey, this
is not like your time to shine.
Like, Oh, this is not about you.
Like get up there and help themsing.
Yeah.
That's what you're doing.
Um, and I, I don't like doing itany other way than that.

(48:14):
And that means that I would picksongs that are.
Some of them, I mean, I lovehymns because of the richness of
the, of the language and the,the meaning behind it.
So the job is almost like todraw out worship.
Yeah.
I'm trying to lead worship.
That's what I'm doing.
Yeah.
Not put on a concert.
Yeah.
It'd be a lame concert if you'recoming to hear me.
But my, my goal is just to helpother people engage in it.

(48:35):
And that means you do things acertain way that allows people
to participate in it.
Yeah.
Um, you want people toparticipate.
You want to look around and seeother people singing.
And for the church body to dothis, like the liturgy, the work
of the people is every Sunday wecome together and we do it
together.
And if you can like, look outinto the crowd and see somebody
or more than one person, likesinging their heart out with

(48:59):
tears.
Yeah, I mean, that's not alwayslike, that's not how you measure
your success, but it kind of ishonestly, like when I'm looking
out there, like, I want to seepeople singing because if
they're not, then I feel likeI'm failing because if, if
everyone just shows up to listento me, we failed.
Yeah.
Um, I want people to show up andto And what do I need to know to

(49:21):
be able to engage inworshipping, um, along with us,
doing it together?
And it's about us doing it, notme.
I've had that, uh, those momentsbefore, you know, even though I
was baptized, I guess, gosh,back in 2002 or one or something
like back then I was kind of aSemi christian growing up kind

(49:46):
of in comparison, probably.
Semi christian.
It was like, I went to churchand stuff a little bit, but
well, I didn't know what thegood news was even after being
confirmed.
So I couldn't give you some ofthe evidence of my, like, I
don't know if it was my fault,but I was pretty curious about
everything else in the world.
So I think they just kind ofavoided that.
It was more like.
If you go to this church, thenyou're good.

(50:07):
Don't sweat the small stuff.
Here, memorize the books of theBible.
A lot of people have that story.
Yeah, I think so.
I don't think it's uncommon,necessarily.
It's kind of my story, sort of.
Yeah, even as a Baptist, it'skind of background.
Not the same thing as you, but Imean, there's always that
element where, like, if you growup in it, like, I made a
confession of faith when I wasfive years old.
Right.
And maybe that was real, butwhen you're like 16, you're

(50:29):
thinking about like, I don'tknow about this, you know, it's
not as clean as we would like itto be, but yeah, yeah.
Well, and it would be nicer forall of us if it was just
cleaner.
Anyway, you get baptized andyou're just clean from there.
Clean thoughts, easy, easyliving.
Got the floaties on.
Alas, it's not easy.

(50:50):
Um, we'll end up delving intofaith, family politics.
What else should we do in thisfirst chapter of Any business y
things, any music y things youwant to touch on or should we
just take a little break andkind of come back into some of
the more, uh, topically orientedconversations?
I mean, I don't know if we'regoing to come back to any

(51:11):
business stuff.
I mean, I could talk about my,my journey to, uh, How I got
here.
I mean, yeah, let's do it.
I, so I knew that.
Oh, so yeah.
So you get here.
Yeah.
Keep going.
Yeah.
Do it.
Well, yeah.
I got in the car, got in theCivic.
Got outta here, Yeah.
Um, let's do, and man, did Ihave some terrible jobs?
just the worst I was.

(51:32):
Yeah.
So you like living in Gary'sbasement or something like that?
Yeah.
Or like Yeah, I have a thing.
Yeah.
I lived in some basements.
Yeah.
I lived in Jacob's basementactually.
Okay.
We'll get to that part.
So yeah, I came out here and.
So I graduated from Biblecollege.
Good luck with that.
Did you want to be a pastor?
I wanted to be a missionaryactually.

(51:53):
Okay.
I thought that's what I would dois cause I, so I spent two
summers in North Africa andMorocco.
Okay.
And I was pretty passionateabout that.
I enjoyed it, but then I cameback and I think reality kind of
set in about just who I am.
Yeah.
Like I spent college, I wouldsay learning a lot about who God
is.
And then time after college wasalong with that also just

(52:16):
learning a lot about who I am.
Yeah.
And being realistic.
Okay.
Like, or maybe even morespecifically, like learning who
I'm not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And thinking about like chargingoff and starting a church in
North Africa was like, you knowwhat?
I don't think I'm going to bevery good at that.
Yeah.
Like, it's just not really,there are parts of that that I'm
wired for and parts of it thatI'm just not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's just not, I don't know.

(52:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
So that's what I wanted to do.
But I came out here and juststarted helping out at church.
And then my first job wasworking at a flood restoration
company with Rich Gardner, who,you know, Rich and I, if we just
look each other in the eye foranother company or for, cause he

(52:59):
went independent for a whiletoo, uh, for a company, for a
company.
So both of you are workingtogether for this crappy flood
restoration company.
And we can.
If we just look at each other,we know, like, we got some
stories, like Rich and I havebeen through it.
That industry has You know, it'salmost there with bankers and
attorneys in terms of, you cantrust me, I'm a flood

(53:22):
restoration expert.
Oh, gotcha.
Well, I wasn't, uh, swindlinganybody.
I was just swimming in theirbasement.
Oh, gross.
You know, that kind of thing.
So it was, it was not a fun job.
You just got the job was just todeal with sewage and different
things.
Yeah.
I saw you get, you have yourlocal moment thing.
It'll come from that.
Okay.
All right.
Um, but I did that for a longtime.

(53:42):
Felt like a long time anyway.
And then just bounced around.
Like I, I did work for agovernment contractor here in
town making maps.
Oh yeah.
Kaki CACI.
I've seen that company before.
Yeah.
It's like G G O whatever, likeGIS kind of properly.
It was things that I think AIwould do now.
Probably.

(54:02):
Yeah.
Um, It was kind of fun,actually.
It wasn't bad, except after awhile, you just, your brain
started to melt.
And what is that word?
That's like the art of mapmaking cartography.
Yes.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Good job.
Sort of.
I was a sort of cartographer fora while.
Are you excellent at Scrabble?
Um, my wife usually beats me.
So no, I'm just curious.

(54:24):
You know, a lot of words.
You're just not that, uh, Idon't know.
I'm just not that great atScrabble.
She just wants to win more.
Probably.
She is competitive.
So I did that.
And where is, where does Alexcome along, by the way, like
this journey from church?
So she was there.
Well, that, that's kind of afunny story though.
She, so I saw her pretty earlyon, like that first year that I

(54:47):
was there.
And when I saw her, I had thisflash of recognition, but I
couldn't place it.
I knew she looked familiar.
Like, who's that pretty girlover there?
I don't, I feel like I've seenher before, but it'd be awkward
if I went and talked to herbecause I have no idea.
Right.
Probably not actually.
So now I'm just the dorky guygoing to ask this girl.
But it turns out she was fromKansas too.

(55:09):
She was from Emporia, which isabout an hour and a half
Southwest of where I'm from.
Okay.
And we started to find outthings about each other, such as
we had a lot of, or we had somemutual friends Which was good
because she remembered being inthe same room as me and not
liking me.
Oh.
I didn't remember her at all.
So you'd have these mutualfriends kind of stand up for you

(55:30):
and say that.
Yeah, kind of like I, Irecognized her, but I remember.
Or she remembered, like,noticing something that I did
that she did not like.
Oh, I don't know if I was justin a bad, I'm pretty good at
making bad first impressions andI definitely did it with her.
So then she saw me and was like,Oh yeah, I know you.
I don't like that guy.

(55:51):
Um, but then mutual friend waslike, no, no, like give him a
chance, whatever you should.
And then, then we found out thatwe were born on the same day.
Oh, which is?
November 11th, 1987.
November 11th, which is VeteransDay.
It is.
Or always.
Always.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So we were born about an hourand a half apart on the same
day.
Wow.
Like, six hours apart.

(56:12):
Interesting.
Which is just one of thosethings that gets you talking.
Yeah, yeah.
You realize that.
Was she there at the crossingfrom the McQuinn connection from
Kansas or how did she landthere?
No, she found it in a directoryof churches.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just was checking it out.
Gospel Coalition, I think.
Okay.
Interesting.
Um, so what was it that, like, Iassume was, was Gary also from

(56:35):
the same kind of Baptist churchbackground that you were from?
Same church I went to and thesame college.
Same Bible college iseverything.
And then, um, The crossing wouldprobably be contrasted as maybe
a little bit more less dogmatic,uh, of sorts, maybe?
Actually, not in importantthings, just as dogmatic in the

(56:56):
really things that actuallymatter, in my opinion.
Yeah.
How, yeah.
So how did you resonate with thecrossing from a, from a
theological standpoint when youarrived, how was it different
from what you, it jived with?
A little bit less strict aboutsome of the things around the
edges.
Okay.
Fair enough.
All right.
Yeah.
Um, Do you had, like, even inhigh school, other times in

(57:18):
your, like, faith background,had you been, like, wondering?
Or Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
Things really changed for me myfreshman year in college.
It kind of felt like the matrix.
You start seeing the zeros andthe ones, like you understand
life for the first time.
Yeah.
So I did, yeah, uh, college was,it was really big for me.

(57:41):
Okay.
Yeah.
And like, in what ways would youcare to expand maybe a little
bit more?
Well, I was spending all dayaround a bunch of friends that
were a lot more mature than Iwas a lot more like spiritually
mature.
Um, and just a good environment,like an environment that was
admittedly like really rigid insome ways that was unhelpful.
Yeah.
But within it, there's thisgroup of awesome people that I

(58:02):
spent all my time with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And.
That had a big impact on me.
I think, um, I'm not sure ifyou're a sports guy at all, but,
uh, last night, the, the NDSUBison won their 10th national
championship in the last 15years or something like that.
And like some of their playersand stuff that have had
interviews, like it's just kindof that kind of team where

(58:24):
everybody's so.
like invested in the team, thatMichigan team that J.
J.
McCarthy came from kind of hadthat same kind of tone last
couple of years ago or whateverit was.
And just that notion of we're abrotherhood here.
It's beyond that.
And that sounds like kind of theenvironment you're describing.
It was a brotherhood, which goesa long way for a 19 year old

(58:45):
dude.
Yeah, for sure.
You need that.
Yeah.
So when we departed, you hadstarted to change, uh, minds of,
uh, Alex and Uh, or at leastyour friends that helped to get
you, uh, at least a, a firstdate.
Gary threw Gary and his wifethrough a birthday party for us
without telling me about it.

(59:06):
Yeah, but this is like beforeanything.
And then we sat next to eachother.
They knew that Alex didn'tparticularly like me, but
they're like, you're gonna like,we like him.
So you're going to sit next toher.
You just need to learn more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somehow that worked.
But a big, but a boom.
Yep.
And was it a, uh, high speedRomance engagement and just

(59:27):
shortly by modern standards.
It was super high speed.
I think, I mean, I think wedated for like a year and then
we're engaged for four months orso.
So, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jill and I were, we did it for ayear and then got engaged and
then we waited another wholeyear.
Cause yeah, she was still incollege and her dad was paying
for it.
I was scared.
He was going to make me pay forit.
If I married her first, so wegot married right after she

(59:49):
graduated.
Yeah.
I distinctly remember my fatherin law.
Like when I.
Asked him if I could marry hisdaughter.
Yeah, which I did because I'mold school.
Yeah, same and he Like he was hewas positive but the one
question he had was like andhe's trying to be nice She was
like, how are you gonna makemoney?

(01:00:11):
How do I say I don't know in away that gives you confidence?
Some hope at least.
Yeah.
What was your, your status inlife at that moment?
I was, I was doing the mapthing.
I was a cartographer.
Okay.
Well, yeah, you know, that was,uh, It wasn't terrible.
Just slightly above povertylevel.
Yeah, it was like 14 an hour.
Okay, so it was pretty povertylevel.

(01:00:31):
Yeah.
But at least it was consistent.
At least I had a job.
He didn't know how much money Ihad.
He didn't need to know that.
He just didn't need to know thatI had a J.
O.
P.
As far as he knew, you mighthave made 18, 20 bucks an hour.
Right, exactly.
Who knows?
Um, so yeah, I did that.
And Then I went to work for thisterrible marketing firm.
Like someone started an appmarketing company.

(01:00:53):
Okay.
And it was just not great.
It was just some random job.
Yeah.
It was just two people.
They needed someone to writecontent for them.
Are they still around?
No, it's long, long gone.
You don't talk about themanymore.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah, not really.
That didn't go well.
They didn't go to jail ornothing though.
No, they didn't go to jail.
It's just like poorly run andbad experience.
Um, And then from there, I didUber for a while.

(01:01:16):
Okay.
Okay.
And then I'm kind of surprisedyou had a new enough car that
you could qualify to do Uber.
Right.
Well, Alex had a better job thanI did.
She's a dental hygienist.
She's like, you can borrow mycar.
She made a lot more than 14 anhour, which was handy.
That's actually a really greatjob.
One of my Yeah.
Um, one of our close friends,they live in West Vail now, but,
um Hmm.
She, the, the wife went tocollege for dental hygienics or

(01:01:39):
whatever.
And I, you know, it had the fouryear degree, five and a half
year degree with economics, andI was a banker and stuff.
And it was so annoying becauseshe made so much more money
within me early in our careers.
Dental hygiene school is nojoke.
It sounds like it's verydifficult.
Like they have to put in like amiserable two years.
Yeah, it's not, it's not an easykind of journey, but for 20

(01:02:02):
grand, you couldn't make.
15, 000 a year more than allyour friends early in your
career.
And, you know, yeah, she wasonly working three days a week
when I met her.
And I was like, you do what now?
Right.
I work at six and they'remiserable and you make twice as
much as I do.
It was not how I drew it up interms of like, you don't want to

(01:02:23):
be in that position where yourwife is way, making way better.
Did you think that you werelooking for a sugar mama?
Or just that you needed tofigure some stuff out.
I don't think so.
But she did have some hardconversations.
Cause I was like prettydetermined and like, I gotta
feel like I know what I'm goodat.
I gotta find a thing thatmatches my skills.
And I couldn't.
Which was, which was what at thetime?

(01:02:43):
Writing.
It was writing.
Yeah.
Okay.
That was like the only thingthat I was like, yeah, this is
like a multiple skill.
That's what I remember from whenwe first connected.
Um, kind of in those same days,really.
But then she got pregnant.
Okay.
And then.
That just changes things.
And so I went and I got my CDL.
Okay.
That, uh, I forget what it'scalled.
There's a school in town.

(01:03:03):
Yup.
Yup.
You see the trucks drivingaround every once in a while.
Like whatever those guys make 24an hour.
It was more than 14.
Um, so I did that.
I went and got my CDL and I wasjust such a fish out of water.
Right.
I mean, I adapted to it, but itwas like every day I would show
up and be like, I'm doing this.
Because I'm a man, because Ihave a wife because there's a

(01:03:24):
little kid on the way and I justhave to do this.
What are you like drinking threeraw eggs on your way out the
door in the morning?
It was, yeah, it was kind ofrough.
So I did that.
My first job, like the first CDLjob I got was working for a
company in town that movesdrywall around.
Okay.
So if you see those trucks witha big hook on it, sure.
I had never seen this in actionbefore, but they roll up to the

(01:03:46):
job site, dude gets a remotecontrol out.
Hooks the, um, big, a big loafof drywall.
Loaf of drywall is a good way toput it.
And then pulls it over to awindow and you shovel it in
there.
And that job sucked.
A little dusty.
Uh, you're carrying drywall.
Like that stuff's heavy.
Oh, right.

(01:04:06):
Like it was as strong as I'veever been in my life.
That's for sure.
Right.
Um, but we're not really builtfor that.
Like we shouldn't sign up forrugby and we shouldn't do
drywall deliveries.
No, I had more of a, yeah.
So I did that.
That wasn't fun.
And then I went and did, uh,let's see what was next.
I went to the oil field.

(01:04:26):
Oh yeah.
With your CDL, with my CDL andhauled water.
Okay.
Frack water stuff out in WeldCounty, you know, slinging
water.
That was interesting.
I don't, I mean, I didn't knowanything about the oil industry
and.
Then all of a sudden I was outthere riding around, like

(01:04:46):
driving this big truck, whichactually I was kind of good at,
like, I liked driving big stuff.
Like it was kind of fun, youknow, like, Well, you got the
confidence that it's not, you'renot going to wreck something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I kind of enjoyed drivingstuff around, but the hours are
terrible.
Like I was getting up, I had tobe in, uh, what's that town East
of Greeley.
Um, Well, Eaton is north andthere's, uh, uh, Keer starts

(01:05:09):
with a K.
Uh, Kuh, Kuh.
I should really know.
Kersey.
Kersey, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it was in Kersey.
South and east of Greeley, yep.
And I had to be there at six.
Oh, damn.
So.
So you were leaving here at like445 or something.
Leaving super early and wedidn't, it was like a 12 hour
shift.
And my daughter had just beenborn.
Wow.
Adelaide.
So it was, it was, it was athing.

(01:05:29):
So I was, uh, Doing that for awhile, but the interesting thing
about the oil field is thatthat's kind of a brotherhood
like you mentioned earlier.
Sure, yeah.
You get out there and the thingis there's real danger.
Yeah.
I mean, there's super highpressure There's gas like you're
walking around with this monitorand if if it starts beeping like
run against the wind And so Ithink that that level of danger
kind of galvanizes because Inoticed the big difference

(01:05:51):
between construction site lifeAnd oil field life similar kinds
of dudes, but construction guysare just angry in my experience
Like a lot of anger.
Yeah, and they had to settle forthis job.
Yeah, I think so You And then inthe oil field, it's more like
there's some of that, but it'smore like, we actually do have
each other's back because thisis dangerous.

(01:06:12):
And I'm going to do this for awhile, or I'm doing this because
I've got a family and I need tokind of make, Mm hmm outsize
income compared to the educationthat I'm bringing to this
industry or whatever exactlypeople are out there for
opportunity But they just workthemselves to death.
Yeah funny story about the oilfield just to Demonstrate like
what the mindset is like I wasat a frac pad after they were

(01:06:36):
done and I was just cleaning itup cleaning it up And that's one
of those things where after theylike moved the stuff all out or
whatever.
The Halliburton guys would belike, Oh, it's just water.
I'm like, okay, it's just water.
It's purple, buddy.
Glows.
I wonder how much cancer I'mgetting today.
Um, but I, I was by myself inthe middle of the day, cleaning
up all this, this water withsome suction.

(01:06:58):
And I knew there wereHalliburton guys there.
They always have the redjumpsuits, jumpsuits on.
I just think about, uh, I'mthinking about Dick Cheney in a
red jumpsuit.
He should be in an orangejumpsuit.
Yeah, he probably should, butRed jumpsuit is fine.
Uh, I knew they were, I knewthey were about doing something,
but it's a big area and Icouldn't see them.
Okay.
By myself, totally quiet.

(01:07:18):
And then out of the corner of myeye, I saw six people in red
jumpsuits sprinting in the samedirection.
Oh.
And that's like max adrenaline.
Right.
You run the same freaking waythey are right now, like, I
mean, I was about to, I feltlike I could run faster than
anyone at that moment, like Iwas just taking off thinking

(01:07:40):
this is it, because they warnyou about this stuff.
They tell you like, if you seesomeone running, you freaking
run the same way you hold yourbreath, don't breathe like this
could be it.
And so like all that goesthrough your mind in about half
a second.
Right.
And then as I turned to run, Isee a football fly through the
air.
Like they're over there playing500 or whatever.
And I thought I was about to dieand I was not thankfully, but

(01:08:03):
that's how on edge it can be inthat industry.
I'm not surprised.
So, so like what a carbonmonoxide cloud can just like
come at you and kill you orsomething?
No, there's this gas that is inthe ground.
Okay.
Um, in the Weld County area andI'm sure in other areas, but the
guy said it used to be just likesouth of 14, I think.
And now it's north of it aswell.

(01:08:24):
Um, I forget what it is.
Sulfuric gas or mustard gas,basically.
I forget the name of it, butit's one of those things where
it's like, you know, three partsof a million could kill you or
whatever.
Oh, damn.
Very small, like you don't.
You need to not breathe it.
Yeah, interesting.
That's why if you go to a frackpad You'll see them walking
around with little monitors onyeah, and they're just if it
gets one part familiar.
It's like It freaks out.

(01:08:44):
What's up?
Is it like arsenic based orsomething?
I couldn't tell you.
I would be talking out of mybackside trying to guess what
it, I don't remember.
So you work in the oil fieldsfor a while.
You got this little baby, youngwife.
That was hard.
Who's no longer making the kindof money she was because now
she's all of a sudden, yeah,can't work three days a week

(01:09:07):
anymore.
Um, what'd you guys do?
Did you have families?
We had some great friends namedthe dollars.
I don't know if you know, Jillor Mark dollar here in town.
I don't think I do.
They graciously took care ofAdelaide while, while Alex was
working.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So it's kind of like a, for themmostly volunteer.
You guys have to buy some foodonce in a while and stuff.

(01:09:29):
Yeah, that kind of thing.
Yeah.
So that was super helpful.
Wow.
And then after that I did theconcrete thing.
I worked for two differentconcrete companies.
Um, one that was based out ofalt.
And then Martin Marietta here intown.
Okay.
Um, I got fired from the one andall.

(01:09:49):
Because you didn't know what youwere doing or, well, I'm sure if
you talk to them, they'd tellyou something that I did, but
they, I think they just didn'tlike me and kind of made
something up and yeah.
Uh, well, no, actually.
So I was working like 12 hourshifts and then forgot that they
had what they call a safetymeeting and in the, And the
construction and like theconcrete world safety meeting

(01:10:10):
means like, yeah, we'll talkabout the OSHA thing for five
minutes and then we'll just yellat you about whatever else is
going on.
Um, yeah.
And they had one at like five 30in the morning in alt and I got
off work at seven o'clock afterlike a 14 hour shift and forgot
about it.
And they were super pissed thatI forgot about that meeting and
then just kind of used it Ithink to get rid of it.
They didn't like me.
Do you know what safety meetingmeans in, uh, It's uh, at least

(01:10:35):
with some of my friends, it'suh, like when you go smoke a
joint before you do a bigproject.
Oh, gosh.
I, uh, I didn't get firedbecause of that.
It's been that way for like 25years.
Anyway.
Um, and I, I neglected that.
We have the, the, the localexperience.
Oh, the true local experience.
The homegrown experience.
joints there.

(01:10:55):
I forgot to offer you one, but Ithink I'll pass on the Elon
Musk.
I figured probably my mom willprobably watch this.
Um, anyway, so then I went andsuccessfully talked my way and
do another job in the industryhere.
It's a pretty establishedplayer.
Martin Marietta, huge, huge.
And they're a pretty goodcompany.
Um, so that was going fine.

(01:11:16):
Yeah.
Um, but you were still going tomove back to Kansas city just
for, I mean, I did not likesupport from family and your job
sucked really never get to writeanything except for like when
you were stopped at stoplightsand you're like, that literally
happened.
I still have stuff on my phone,like stories from when I was
just sitting there waiting forthe next load.
You're just like explodingprobably for lack of.

(01:11:37):
Opportunities to expressyourself kind of felt like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the concrete world is not,it's because you don't know what
time you're going to start.
So every night you call in andthey're like, okay, you need to
be here at 543 tomorrow.
Right.
With a fresh load.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Well, just like at the plant.
Load up at that time.
Yeah, yeah.
But they were so strict aboutbeing late.

(01:11:58):
Like they, I did get in troublebecause I was, they were like,
you were 30 seconds late.
I was like, dude.
Yeah.
I was 30 seconds late.
Cause it's.
Four 47 in the morning.
Like I understand, I understandthat you need to run a tight
ship, but jeez.
And my baby cried like literallythree hours last night.

(01:12:19):
So I slept from 10 untilmidnight.
And then again, from two untilthree, there were plenty of
mornings like that.
And then you get called overcause you're a 30 seconds late.
And I was like, guys, I can't dothis anymore.
Like, this is freaking insane.
Yeah.
Um, so that's why I think maybenow my management style, I'm
like, I don't care if you're 10minutes late, like just.
You know, get here at areasonable time and stay till a

(01:12:40):
reasonable time.
Do your job.
But don't be 10 minutes late fora meeting with me.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, but there's twodifferent things.
Let's just, let's just bereasonable here because I think
when people relax, they tend toperform better.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
I dig it.
There's the nugget.
And so then that's kind of wherewe came from.
Like when Jacob calls, cause youhad like a one or two year old

(01:13:00):
by then.
Do you guys have a second?
Yes.
Kid too, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
He was newly born at that point.
Okay.
So I had the son and thedaughter.
Okay.
But I did get sort of an offerin Casey from cousin connection.
I was going to go do that.
Which was going to be what?
I was going to be writing for apolitical company.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
Whether or not it actually wouldhave happened is kind of up for

(01:13:22):
debate.
It was an interesting situation.
All right.
I think I had an offer fromthem.
Like I was operating.
Oh, I did.
But like, it was like, youanswer my calls, man.
A trust based offer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Uh, and then Jacob came to mewith the winter mind thing and
yeah, everyone.
What an interesting thing.
Like it's kind of a say yesstory in some ways.

(01:13:43):
It is.
It is a say a story.
And I was thinking about like,what could you learn from my
journey?
Like, I think a lot of people.
Look at a ladder in front ofthem and they think like their
challenge or the process is howdo I get onto that next rung?
But the, honestly, the reallyhard thing is when there is no
rung, like there's no ladder,like when you're working at a

(01:14:06):
concrete company and it's likethe opposite of what you should
be doing is like, well, there'snothing like, there's, it's
just, I hope lightning strikes,you know?
And so I think what I took awayfrom that though, is that if
you're in that situation whereyou feel like you don't know
what's next, The most importantthing is just how you handle
yourself and your reputationbecause being a part of a

(01:14:28):
community will Probablyeventually get some sort of an
opportunity for you if you'rethought of well, yeah Yeah, and
so I Jacob liked me so that wasgood lived in his basement
apparently some years before orwhatever before You guys got
married?
Right before I got married, I, Ishagged, I lived in, uh, Jacob
and Leslie's.
You're like, dude, I just spentsome money on a ring, I got no
money for rent really for thenext few months.

(01:14:49):
Could I live in your basement?
I remember quite literallyscraping the money together for
that ring and just broke.
But, yeah, so I lived in Jacob'sbasement, which was fun.
Got to know them.
Yeah.
Um.
So, Jill lived, um, next door toLeslie.
Oh, really?
When I first started datingJill.
Hmm.
And if I remember right, likethe, I think the story is that

(01:15:09):
Leslie like ratted or didn't raton Jill, but she like confronted
Jill over the fact that I, mycar was there in the morning one
day.
Cause Jill's folks, you know,were part of the Mountain View
church, which is also whereLeslie and Jacob had attended.
She was all over it.
She's a confront the dragon kindof a gal.

(01:15:32):
That's great.
Jacob needs somebody like thatin his life.
Some of my favorite people inthe world.
Same here.
I wish I was more intentional,spent more time with them.
Um, so that's quite aninteresting, uh, dynamic.
And actually I really like thatlast bit of, like, you know,
I've, I've, I've You know, Ileft banking, and like, tried to

(01:15:55):
start a restaurant, ended upwith a food trailer, had this,
got this local think tank thinggoing, and now people are like,
I remember, do you make anymoney on the podcast?
I'm like, no, not really, but Ilike doing it, you know.
But, the thing I said in Rotaryespecially was just, kind of
kept my legs pumping, and waitedfor a crease.
Yeah.
And that's a little bit, youknow, you were both in a

(01:16:16):
position to say, yes, you'd evenwith me, like when we first got
connected, like that writerphilosopher kind of, yeah,
thinker, creator stuff.
Would you like to hear my ideasworld?
A little bit like, like the,the, the truth message resonates
with you, whether it's the truthof media or the truth of Christ,

(01:16:39):
frankly, and that was, yeah.
You know why?
Partly why I featured ownlisteners, people that are
listening out there now shouldcheck out my blog from December
of 2024, which gave some kudosto and, uh, some thoughts around
the notion of Shalom, which was,I read that.
That was neat.

(01:16:59):
Um, yeah, kind of a tail on anda tribute to your sermon from
some weeks before.
So thanks for that.
I didn't, uh, do you, how do yousharpen your sharpener?
Sword, uh, from a faithperspective, like, was that like
you were assigned to that weekand you had it coming for a
while and you just got thepreaching thing.

(01:17:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I just panicked every nightfor about five nights and then
it was over when you wait untilthe last minute, it only takes a
minute.
I do my best work under fire.
Not really.
It should have been, I alwayswish I had more time, but, um, I
enjoy doing that.
I don't do it a whole lot,obviously, but it is an all
consuming week.

(01:17:40):
Yeah, for sure.
When you have, uh, other stuffgoing on in your life and
you're, when you're trying to dothat in the margins of time that
you have, it's.
Quite difficult.
And do you have churchleadership responsibilities
beyond the the worship team kindof leadership element?
No, you don't have to, you'renot like a proper pastor.
You don't show up for Tuesdaymorning meetings or whatever
that kind of stuff.

(01:18:00):
Don't care if we're under budgetthis month and are tithing.
I mean we care about all thatstuff, but it's not my burden in
the sense of like I'm the firstperson that has to know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
Um I feel like we can roll intothe, uh, the later segments of
the Loco Experience, the faithfamily politics, uh, things.

(01:18:21):
Um, we've talked about faithintermixed here and there.
Um, I guess, why?
Why have, why were you raised inthe faith and remain connected
to it for the most part?
Um, have you, have you, Wetalked there a little bit of
periods of doubt.
Why why Christianity not?

(01:18:42):
Yeah Hebrew or Jewish, you knowIslam.
Why not something else?
Why not something else?
Are there many paths?
Mm hmm.
That's one of the questions thatpeople well, I mean I Christians
with I It was the faith handeddown to me from my parents.
Okay is I feel like that's theFor a long time that answer has
been unpopular.
Right, but it's actually a goodthing.

(01:19:03):
Yeah Yeah, like where I'm comingfrom like I'm trying to do that
for my kids It's a positivething like not everybody has to
have a story of like wanderingin the wilderness for forever
and then discovering Rightsomething like it's I think it's
it's a good thing It's nice tohave a culturally anticipated
thing rather than an exceptionalthing.
I think so.
I mean there are obviouspitfalls associated with the The

(01:19:23):
cultural realities ofChristianity.
Like if you, it's easy to blendin and to be fake, like, yeah,
there's all that stuff, but Ithink that I had a former client
when I was a banker say, well,one thing I know is if you say
you can trust me, I'm aChristian.
I cannot trust that person.
Yeah.
It's unfortunate.
You know, statements like thatfloating.
Yep.
I have experienced it and seenmy, my dad experienced that in

(01:19:47):
business some too, with otherpeople.
And it's sad.
Um, but I think the reason,unfortunately it's because
people do it.
Yeah, you know, like, I don'tknow.
Unfortunately, that's, uh, thereality in Christ forecasted it
is like there, you know, you'llsay, I said that I claimed the
name Lord, Lord, but I neverknew you.

(01:20:08):
Yeah, the dynamic and reality ofthe church is that there's lots
of people inside of it thataren't either aren't actually
Christians or just don't actlike it.
We can't sort those things out,but yeah, you just keep going.
Um, but I think the reason thatI am still a Christian is
because like, after it washanded down to me as I grew up

(01:20:31):
and started to think on my own,like it, it made the most sense
to me.
And navigate this brotherhoodconversation.
Brotherhood conversation, butalso, I mean, I am fascinated by
some things that are easy toignore.
Like, one of them is just thefact that we exist.
I mean, if you ever want to tripyourself out, just like, think
about the fact that we're here.
Right.

(01:20:52):
Why is there something ratherthan nothing?
That's wild.
Yeah.
Like, what, because there has tobe, like, with every rationality
and every, like, rule of how theuniverse works, you think about
the concept of a first mover.
Sure.
And, like, how is it possiblethat Just right here.
It doesn't matter.
Right.
Instead of no matter, how is itpossible that the world exists

(01:21:12):
because every single explanationfor those things, every single
attempt to account for the factthat you and I are here with a
natural explanation ultimatelyfails logically, because there
is no rational explanation forexistence.
If you discount supernaturalrealities, like you either have

(01:21:33):
to say either matter, it hasalways existed, right?
Or it came about by naturalprocesses, both of which violate
logic.
One of the things I've talkedabout on this podcast before,
but not for a while is likeafter the, The wood telescope
came out or whatever.
What's the new thing?
The what?
The new telescope, the fancyone.

(01:21:55):
Oh, the web web.
Yeah.
James Webb.
I thought it was like the woodentelescope.
That was like, they were likeyears ago, you know, they were
kind of, they kind of came tothis conclusion that the
universe is like 13.
8 billion years old, give ortake, right?
And here's why we think thatbased on these new fancy
pictures.
And it kind of seems like itwas, had to have been
intelligently designed beforethat moment.

(01:22:18):
To, like, go off the way it wentoff.
Like, you can find quite a fewarticles along that line since
that time that that telescopewas released.
But in contrast, when I was 12year old trying to figure that
kind of stuff out, it was like,Well, there's either the Big
Bang, Or God, intelligentdesign.

(01:22:40):
And now it's like, well, no, itlooks like there was some kind
of intelligent design thingbehind it.
There's a lot of mystery.
If you believe in the big bang,then there might've been
something ahead of that.
There's obviously lots ofmystery in the origin of the
universe.
I don't claim to understand allof it.
I think we can disagree aboutthose things and still be.
Brothers and sisters.
Um, but yeah, so anyway, to me,like there's this seed of just a

(01:23:04):
demand for an explanation of whywe're here.
And then it goes down the roadfrom there for me personally,
it's like, okay, now I believethat there has to be some sort
of a creator.
Cause it's the only thing thatmakes any sense and all other
explanations fall short for me.
And then there's just the lifeof Jesus.
Like there's a testimony ofJesus.
There's, uh, this person who ismore personally attested to

(01:23:27):
historically attested to thanany other one, any other person
in history who was seen bywitnesses.
After he was crucified comingback to life like you have to
reckon with those things, right?
Right got a deal with that likeyou, you know You like C.
S.
Lewis said you have to say thathe's a liar a lunatic or Lord
Those are really the onlyoptions anyone that says they're
God Like you either need to likeput that person away because

(01:23:51):
they're crazy Don't put themaway because they're claiming
something that's insane kind ofa con man.
Yeah, they're con man or They'retelling the truth.
And Occam's razor points metoward the fact that it's true.
That's not the only reason Ibelieve, but that's like part of
my journey.
Is that the older I got, themore I questioned it, the more
it stood up.
Not that there's no mystery andnot that there's no things that

(01:24:14):
it kind of ties together with.
the way that he talked in someways.
Kind of that, like he could havebeen more, look at me, look at
me, like you were talking aboutin your worship performances,
but his real destiny was both tobe the sacrifice, but also to
point to the opportunity to, uh,reestablish a relationship with

(01:24:39):
the creator.
In a way, how do you, I had, um,some faith conversations with,
uh, with a close friend just theother day talking about kind of
the, the, the three in oneperson element, you know, the
father, son, Holy Spirit kind ofelement.
And like, how do you reconcilethat?
And is it.

(01:24:59):
Like, I guess, let me just sharewhat I said about that a little
bit.
And because where I don'tprobably feel as comfortable as
where the Holy Spirit fits in,but kind of from even a little
bit like my, from my blog, thechaos and structure and order, I
almost imagined God the fatheras all the pent up energy before

(01:25:19):
the big bang, as well as kind ofthe creative ability.
In some ways, but then the word,the, the, the Christ person
being kind of some of thestructure and order that was
applied to all this energy insome ways, and the Holy Spirit
is more like the, the mysteriouslittle ghost that can talk to us
and get us to be normal insteadof meatbags.

(01:25:43):
Um, yeah, I think.
But yeah, talk to me about yourimpression of that, because I
think that's a big.
Are we monotheists?
Are we tritheists?
I would say yes.
It's one God, three persons,right?
Yeah.
Uh, I, first I would just saythat I think part of the journey
of faith is, um, being okay withmystery.

(01:26:06):
I think when you're younger,Maybe you're like, yeah, I want
to understand everything andhave an opinion about everything
and it really matters And I dothink a lot of it matters But
one not the beginning of wisdomlike part of wisdom is being
okay with mystery and saying Idon't understand everything
perfectly Yeah, and that if Iwere meant to understand this

(01:26:26):
perfectly, it probably wouldhave been communicated a little
more clearly Okay, and so yeahThat's how I feel about the
whole, like the, the mystery ofthe Trinity.
Like, I can't explain how that'spossible.
And I would look like a fool.
I think if I tried to, like, Ijust, you try to, you, there's
that, um, Maxim that was popularfor a while of not putting God

(01:26:47):
in a box, which I understandwhat they're saying, but also
it's like, well, what if hebuilds the box?
Like, what if he defines theparameters and says, this is
what I'm like, and this is whatI'm not like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's all you can do isjust look at how he describes
himself and take those thingsinto account, um, on their own

(01:27:10):
and then hold them together aswell as you can and not try to
be able to understand, like, howcan three in one be possible?
Like, well, he's God.
I don't know.
Like, how did he speak the worldinto existence?
I don't know.
And a healthy amount of that isgood.
As long as you don't go so fardown the road that you're like,
everything is fine.
I don't care what's true orwhat's not true.
Like there's a healthy balance.

(01:27:31):
I think of like embracingmystery and then also holding on
to what God says about himself,like what he's like and what
he's not.
So when you think about, um,like the, the third of the stars
are the devil's minions kind oflanguage from that revelation
passage that you preached on.
Um, is that a real physical act?

(01:27:51):
Like, is that.
I mean, obviously, in ourunderstanding of the universe as
we see it, we're not going tosee these stars cast from the
sky, but is there, I guess, inyour interpretation of the
world, best to understand it, isthere demons floating around?
Is there, you know, are there,What, what are those kind of,

(01:28:13):
like, when you hear a story likethat, Revelations 12, like, how
do you interpret, like, howthat's actually going to be, or
is that metaphor?
I don't think it's metaphor.
I think it's, it is apocalypticlanguage describing real things.
Okay.
Yeah.
So anytime you read Revelationor other books of the Bible.

(01:28:34):
One of the first things you haveto do is think about what the
genre of literature is.
And I heard somebody compare itto a newspaper.
Like if you're reading anewspaper, you kind of, you
don't think about the comicsection the same way you think
about the editorial section.
Like you understand that there'sgenres of literature and that
those are communicatingdifferent things in different
ways.
So you have to keep that inmind, which means if you want to

(01:28:55):
understand revelation, you haveto think about first century
apocalyptic literature.
So now we're really getting intothe, which is basically the book
of revelation.
That's what it is.
Yeah.
But there's actually other thereare other works that are like
non canonical.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So you can like go back and lookat how those, not that I'm not a
biblical scholar.
Sure.
I did four years of Biblecollege in the woods.

(01:29:18):
That's what I'm working withhere.
Um, but yeah, so I, I, um, Ithink that those things are,
it's using apocalyptic languageto tell a story that's true.
And it doesn't mean that it'sphysically manifest in exactly
the same way as, you know,that's why you get some
goofiness with some books orlike, Just think people talking
about like super literalinterpretations of that there's

(01:29:41):
well and Daniel predictstribulation as being like 1400
days and Paul's is or no John'sis only 1350 Or whatever, you
know, a different kind of, uh, aperiod of this and that,
whatever.
Different authors working indifferent genres.
And there's a lot of mysterythere.

(01:30:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair.
But I do believe in a physicalelement to all that stuff.
Yeah.
And I think going back to whatyou're talking about, we're
talking about the story ofChristmas.
Um, sure.
That passage that's talkingabout this dragon waiting in
front of the woman, like it's,it's representative of what was
actually happening, which isthe, the dragon.

(01:30:23):
Was this King Herod, right?
Well, yeah, there's the, there'sthe shadowy dragon.
Cause a lot of times there's theactual events and the future
events all woven into one.
Yeah, yeah, they are.
But I think Herod takes thatrole in that vision.
It's like, he's the one that'slike waiting to devour the
Messiah when he's born.
Right.
And so what's done and heaven isdone on earth.
But as directed by the devil,ultimately.

(01:30:45):
Yeah.
He wasn't, that wasn't just anormal thought.
You know what?
I'm going to just kill all thebaby boys.
I think it is kind of a normalthought for a psychopath in the
first century ruling a part ofthat region, like, because it's
not a unique event in history.
Yeah.
That kind of thing.
Sadly it's not like, I can'tbelieve this happened.
Like that kind of thing has beena normal, um, terrible, but not

(01:31:09):
unheard of.
So I believe in shadowy powerbehind the scenes, just taking
Someone like Harrod that wasyeah signed up to do a terrible
thing easy to manipulate fromthose shadowy forces if you
will.
Yeah We're really getting intoit.
Yeah, it's a little deeper thanI'm going to go If you good you

(01:31:31):
need a potty break or not, no, Idon't need a potty break Well,
by the way, we were gonnamention that we were both
wearing our socks because itsnowed here several inches last
night So we both came to theoffice wearing boots and yeah
Neither one of us wanted apodcast wearing boots the whole
time.

(01:32:29):
So, family or politics next?
Let's do family.
Okay.
Um, one of the things we like todo is a one word description of
your children.
Would you like to attempt thatfeat?
Fun.
Well, let's do one.
Uh, can you do a separate wordfor each of them?
Yeah, each of them.
Yes, and you can expand, talkmore about them and stuff.

(01:32:50):
Adelaide?
Adelaide.
Adelaide is the older girl.
Six year old, seven year oldgirl now, just turned seven.
She's gotten kind of big.
Yeah, she's tall.
Yeah.
Um, I would just say sweet.
She's That's pretty nice.
She is Excuse me, that Supereasy first child.
I think some people have like,she's just recognize you didn't

(01:33:10):
have a lot extra for her, uh,but they loved you all the more.
Yeah.
Um, just a super easy kid toparent.
Like really sweet loves whateverwe're into.
There's a lot of fun.
Um, she's just a great littleenthusiastic, conforming and
great little kid.
Like very excited about whateverwe're doing.
It's so easy to parent.
How fun.

(01:33:31):
Um, And then there's my fiveyear old son who is a lot more
difficult to parent.
Okay.
I would say energy was his.
Is this one word?
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, he's a boy, right?
You know, like our culture justwants boys and girls to be the
same and they're not like,they're just not, I mean, like
he has challenges associatedwith him that are never

(01:33:51):
associated with Adelaide.
Yeah.
Like his physicality, hisrunning around and breaking
stuff.
Like he can't help himself.
You know, the seeds ofmasculinity sprouting, like he's
a boy and he, he's a little bitof a bull.
And she might be able to beathim up for three more years, but
she won't because he's a boy andshe's a girl and whatever.

(01:34:14):
Rafe is just a really smart kidwho is very into whatever I'm
doing.
It's fun to have a, have a boythat's like, thinks you're cool,
wants to do whatever.
Whatever you're doing and hasstretched us as parents, but you
know, obviously we'll love himjust as much as Adelaide and
are, are figuring it out.
So, uh, aside from Gary'sencouragement, like what was it

(01:34:38):
ultimately that, that drew youand Alex together?
Is that family was forming orthat kinship, if you will.
Yeah.
Aside from the, the birthdayconnection, the Kansas city
connection, like, yeah, thoseare just fun things.
She must've changed her mindabout you at some point.
Apparently, apparently she did.
Um, no, I just, I liked hervibe.

(01:35:02):
Yeah.
I liked, like, it was easy tohang out with her, you know, I
was attracted to her and We feltlike we could be friends easily
because we had a lot of commoninterests.
Like there was never, I neverfelt like I didn't have anything
to talk about with her or thatwe were so different that it was
hard to find commonality.
Like, We just have a good timetogether.

(01:35:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, that's really nice.
How are you the same and how areyou really different from each
other?
Where this marriage hascontinued?
We're the same in that we bothlove to hang out at home.
Okay.
And that's just such a blessing.
I am so thankful that she hatesdoing stuff as much as I do.
Like, this is a big night outfor you here.
You're going to be here until 6.

(01:35:44):
15 or something.
How long is this going on?
Hey, it's fine.
Uh, no, she's great.
Um, what do you guys do to spendyour time together?
You just read, hang out on thecouch, scrabble.
Oh, you said she beats you inscrabble.
Uh, we, I avoid that cause shebeats me.
We do play board gamessometimes.
Yeah.
Um, but we do a lot of readingas we're on the same couch and a

(01:36:05):
lot of watching shows anddreaming about vacations.
Yeah.
Talking about the future.
Couch time is the thing thatlike marriage councils, marriage
counselors would say you need.
I feel like we're really good atthat.
And like, there's not like a,Hey, we need to go do something
or whatever.
It's just, let's just causethere's a show on.
It doesn't mean we can't talkabout whatever we want to talk
about here.
Yeah.

(01:36:25):
Yeah.
I dig that.
So we have a lot in common.
Um, and then the ways we'redifferent is that she's more of
an extrovert still than I am,and I think is more like a lot
more time conscious than I am.
Okay, yeah, I can see that.
Like, I think time is her lovelanguage, if you believe in love
languages.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, whatever it is.

(01:36:46):
Sure.
Like, she, she wants Like,quality time thing.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Like, once there's been timewith me and that was a source of
friction in the beginning, Ithink that I didn't understand
her well enough and she didn'tunderstand me well enough and
that I need a little more spaceor did back then.
Right.
She does not want space.
She wants to be close to me allthe time.
And that was like, just kind ofa natural friction point when

(01:37:06):
you realize like, Hey, we'redifferent.
Yeah.
And you figure that stuff out.
I need a little space, like getoff me.
Yeah.
Like that sounds bad.
Not that I want to be away fromher, but like, The creative
pursuits we talked about, like,you know, a little bit of space
to do that stuff.
Like Jill and I are that waytoo.
Like, I just kind of wouldrather just be hanging out with
her all the time.
And like, especially when she'sworking at home, like, and I'm

(01:37:28):
home, you know, like, Hey, whatdo you think about this?
I'm working like, I'm like, theTV's on.
You're not working.
Well, I've worked.
Yes, it is.
I barely hear it.
Like I'm working.
Yeah.
But I think.
If you're too much the same, itcauses problems.
Oh, for sure.
Because you just fall into thesame ruts and we're different

(01:37:49):
enough that we can help eachother, like come out of those
ruts.
I think like, I think she ismuch better at time management
than I am in some ways, like,Hey, it's seven 30 and the kids
need to go to bed.
And I'm like, Oh yeah, I wasthinking about that too.
Actually, I wasn't at all.
And I think I'm maybe a littlebit better at keeping things in

(01:38:09):
perspective and not getting.
bothered by stuff and likesmoothing things out a little
bit, like providing somestability.
And we take those strengths andweaknesses and put them
together.
And 10 years in, we're still,we're still growing along.
Are you 10 years this last year?
Yes.
Congratulations.
Thanks.
That's probably, that's wayabove average these days.
Yeah, probably so sadly.

(01:38:31):
Um, what would you say, is thereother family aspects that are
significant to you guys?
Do you guys have a lot ofinteraction with grandparents?
And, and we do, my mom's intown.
Okay.
If you mean, yeah, like my mom'sin town right now.
Yeah.
Um, we still, we still see a lotof our parents.
Yeah.
Um, Alex's folks are out herefor Christmas and then my mom

(01:38:52):
got to come out.
She's still hanging out near theWest branch, but for, but you
still get a lot of interactiontime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They both live back in Casey.
Well, plus they got seven otherkids.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot of kids, but Ithink we both really value.
We both, both for ourselves tobe able to spend time with them
and also that our kids get a lotof interaction with them.
Yeah.
It's been a hard thing for us totry to figure out, like, should

(01:39:14):
we move back to Kansas Citybecause our family's all back
there?
Yeah.
Um, but the opportunity has beenhere.
Yeah, and that's it feels likewe talk about that every six
months like yeah, and the answeris always No, we shouldn't move
back.
Yeah, but it feels like it willbe Sunday.
Okay, eventually.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's an interestingperspective Politics I guess All

(01:39:38):
right.
That's our last, uh, mandatorysegment.
Um, you, you know, you kind ofsaid you're, you're, you're
truth brokers here at theflyover and stuff, but, uh, you
know, certainly you've probablybring some political slant to it
as well as your editorial staffand whatever.
But where do you, everybodydoes.
Yeah.

(01:39:58):
You know, that's one of ourbeliefs is that no one's
neutral.
How has your politics developedover maybe the last five or 10
years, especially?
Oh, I think I've become morepractical as one does when they
get a little older.
I think I used to be more of a,I used to love Ron Paul and I
still have a lot of respect forhim.

(01:40:19):
I don't know.
I may be like less, uh, lessnaive than I used to be about
what's possible, but still havepretty similar beliefs about how
I think the world should be.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's, um, you know,I'm probably a, uh, libertarian
first and foremost.
And, you know, I came up withkind of my own ideas and then

(01:40:42):
learn about Ron Paul?
I was like, yeah, what, he'ssaying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, cause I was kind of inthat five years ahead of that
kind of conversation.
So me and Jacob probably havethat in common that we were kind
of coming to those conclusions.
Then Ron Paul came along and itwas like, yeah.
I had a lot of respect for him.
I think he's one of the onlypoliticians that I felt like I
had personal respect for.
Interesting.
Maybe that's naive.

(01:41:02):
Maybe he's a bad guy too.
I don't know, but I liked whathe had to say.
Fair enough.
And like maybe there's someelement of you know, maybe
Russia will invade Ukraine ifthey see a weak U.
S.
or, you know, maybe China willtake Taiwan if they, if we don't
have bases all around the SouthChina Sea and Philippines and
elsewhere.

(01:41:23):
I don't know.
Well, I, yeah, I thinkpolitically, I, I think it's
important that we care aboutwhat's good for our neighbor,
what's the best for our society.
And I'm a generally conservativeperson because I think that The
old paths are the best paths.

(01:41:44):
Yeah, yeah.
I think that the old paths aremore likely to lead you towards
truth, although we can obviouslythink of historical exceptions
to that, like where things werequite obviously bad.
I had a blog years ago that was,uh, I rephrased the Ten
Commandments as the tenprinciples for your best good.
You know, try to not be socommandment y.

(01:42:05):
But, but like, it's just betterif you bother your father or
mother.
Like that's actually just betterthan if you don't.
Yeah, exactly.
It's, it's really simple things.
Right.
Yeah.
I think that the world is insuch a rush to find new ideas.
Hmm.
Um, and often new and novelthings are not good.

(01:42:25):
I was, uh, you know, uh, x.
com conversation recently where,um, I commented that.
It feels like some people in themodern era would like A.
I.
to, like, become A.
G.
I.
and, like, become the boss.
Because they don't reallybelieve in God, but that could
be the God.

(01:42:45):
They want somebody to tell themwhat to do.
Kinda.
Yeah.
What is the right thing?
Yeah.
And you know, and other peoplefrom a faith background,
especially whether it be Jewishor Christian or even, um, Islam
or others are like, well, it'skind of written here, you know,

(01:43:05):
it's principles based.
It's not quite, you know, it'snot, and then there's a whole
bunch of other people that arelike, I just try to do what my
therapist Right.
You have a Deep question.
They're like, well, I'm justtrying to pay rent.
Yeah.
I'm just trying to stay alive.
Well, like, like what percentageof practicing therapists that

(01:43:29):
people can book appointmentswith today, uh, would you trust
to have a balanced conversationwith you?
If you were having a mentalhealth, I don't know, not a
great number, 20%, somethinglike that, because ultimately
people are people, yeah, they'reall broken too.
Yeah, I think so.
I think my philosophy in life isthat.

(01:43:49):
Um, I personally don't haveanything to give you that you
don't have, I believe Jesusdoes.
And I think I can give yousomething in pointing you toward
him as I've helped you find whatI found.
Yeah.
Um, and so anything that I haveto offer people is not my own.
Like I didn't, I don't have any,I got no fresh ideas really.

(01:44:11):
Not really.
Like there's nothing, nothingnew under the sun.
Like I You're just trying to goback and find, find the wisdom
that has been written down forquite a long time and proven for
quite a long time.
And it turns out, like you said,that some of these things that
it's easy to scorn or turn yourback on are actually like what
you should be doing.

(01:44:32):
And there was no mystery.
Like, I think there's this, Isay there's no mystery, I talked
about mystery earlier, but likethere's this inherent need for
people or some people think theyhave to find something esoteric.
Transcribed Like knowledge issecret.
Knowledge is the secret club.
You're supposed to be a part oflike, if I just get to like the,
and they don't think of it thisway, but like the third level,

(01:44:54):
sure.
Quadruple Mason, whatever it is.
Yeah.
Like, like what?
Let's try to earn rest, try toearn rest.
If I get smart enough, then Ican just chill a little bit.
You try to find somethingesoteric or something.
That everybody else doesn't havebecause you think there must be
something else out there But thetruth is like you need to look
the other way.
You need to just think aboutwhat is Written in stone over a

(01:45:18):
long time.
That's just right there.
Like it's not a magic clubThere's not some secret code out
there that's going to set youfree.
The truth will set you free.
And I believe you believe likeit's just right there for you.
Like you don't have to ascend amountain and talk to some old
guy in a shack or something.
Like you just need to open upyour Bible.

(01:45:39):
I'm thinking even about the,like one of the reasons I really
liked the, the podcast format isI get to bring other people's
wisdom instead of me.
Hmm.
Acting the guru, you know, I'mnot the best podcast host out
there, but I'm interested intalking to people I find
interesting and whatever.
And yeah, seeing what theythink.
Um, and that's kind of the sametone.
I was just looking over at theseven habits of highly effective

(01:46:01):
people.
Like it's not really so muchthis writer saying, do this.
Cause I've come up with theseseven new tips and tricks, da da
da da, he's like, no listen,listen, listen, listen, I
studied 5, 000 highly effectivepeople, and these seven things

(01:46:22):
are kind of the truth of howpeople are often effective.
And it's usually not novel.
Right, exactly, and the Bible iskind of the same way, and the
principles around humanpolitics, and Canada going
crazy, two no's out, I guess,you know?
Right, exactly.
So to bring it back to business,it's like a, this is a Jacob
Lee's doctrine for all of usthat pop back to the ideas live

(01:46:44):
in the excess ideas live in theexcess of execution, meaning
like you can have a millionideas.
The thing that's probably goingto get you from A to B in life
is just actually doing one ofthem.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like showing up today, doingyour work and then going home.
It's like following the pathevery day.

(01:47:04):
True in business, true in yourspiritual life, I think is like,
it's just not a mystery.
It's more about consistency.
Next right step in front of thelast one and knowing where
you're going a little bit.
Yeah.
Are you optimistic about, um,this country now?
Um, you know, we got, you know,I don't, I never asked you about

(01:47:26):
your Trump fanaticism or thewhole election 2024, which was
kind of a crazy.
It was wild.
It was fun to watch.
The scene, you know.
Uh, what was the, uh, myfavorite short description of
the year was the, uh, thevegetable made way for the plant
without a vote to savedemocracy.

(01:47:50):
It was, it was an interestingtime for sure.
I think I'm fairly optimisticabout the future of America.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that.
I think culture has swung waytoo hard in one direction.
And I think you're seeing abacklash to that now.
Yeah.
And Alex and I were talkingabout this last night at how,
like, it's also possible to gotoo far in the other direction.

(01:48:12):
Um, culture tends to be apendulum.
Yeah.
And it just goes back and forthand it seems like when it's
really far in one direction It'sreally hard to imagine it coming
back the other way But I thinkwe're in one of those points
right now, whereas we're reallycoming back the other way And
hopefully it doesn't swing toofar crazy.
Yeah Yeah, yeah, but I thinkpeople are just sick of what
they perceive as nonsense Yeahin america things that just seem

(01:48:37):
to be silly on their head Thatare accepted or pushed upon you
and people are finally kind ofhit a breaking point No matter
what you think like youmentioned trump like everybody,
I don't think everybody thatvoted for him really loved him
to be honest.
I would not imagine.
So, yeah.
But I think people are so tiredof the direction of America that

(01:48:59):
started in the Obama years insome ways and just went really
hard that way to where we lookedaround and people are thinking,
wait a minute, like, It's kindof a King has no clothes moment,
right?
How is this?
Okay, these are the updatedtitle nine rules Yeah, like
really, you know, it seems tritebut like it's emblematic.
I think we see a video of like aIf you see a 6'9 Biological male

(01:49:26):
playing basketball with a bunchof 5'8 girls Any reasonable
person thinks yeah, somethinghas gone wrong here And maybe
that's not something thathappens all the time or like the
thing but that's that's a thingrepresentative, I think of how
people view culture.
Like, wait a minute.
It's a visual like story thattells you what happened.
How do we get here?

(01:49:47):
Cause it feels like 20 years agothat never would have happened,
you know, and you can point toany number of social issues you
want, but that's my sense of it.
It's just that people are,sensing that we've gone way too
far in one direction.
It's time to push back, pushthings back the other way.
Well, and I, like, I think aboutsuch things as like, like all

(01:50:07):
these girls, especially transingthemselves, you know, trying to
turn into boys and some boystrying to turn into girls
usually later, you know, itseems like usually the 20
something boys that become girlsor whatever, but it's so harmful
to them usually.
Yep, it's um It's a destructivepattern in our culture And I'm

(01:50:30):
talking more probably about thebecause I interact more with the
boys that have become girls kindof hmm, you know because they
were unsuccessful at becoming aman and so now they wear nails
and I'm a I'm a firm believerthat Um, you cannot

(01:50:52):
fundamentally change yourself inthat sense.
Like, it's in every single, youknow, in your DNA, your gender
is written into that.
And not to discount that thereisn't confusion for some people
for whatever reason, but, um,it's so silly to think that you
can go into an operating roomand change your whole identity

(01:51:13):
and like become a man.
If you're a woman, like that's,ludicrous.
And we're at this point inculture where you're almost
expected to say that.
You shut up.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean, that was justprobably the most extreme
example.
Yeah.
It's a lot of extreme examples,but then they just point to
other things that are downstreamthat like, if this happened,
there's a lot of other stuffalong the way.

(01:51:33):
I say it, I said it in mypodcast recently with somebody,
or maybe it was just aconversation.
I was thinking about the, The,the, they're eating the cats,
they're eating the dogs momentin the debate.
And I was like, well, you know,if you're going to eat the cats
and you're going to eat thedogs, you know, you got to go
down to the humane society andget them for yourself.
You can't be stealing people'scats and dogs.

(01:51:55):
It's so funny.
To barbecue them.
Uh, yeah, maybe that was thebattle cry.
Like whether it's true or not,like they're eating the cats.
Like, someone's got to say likethe emperor has no clothes.
Like things have gone very wonkyaround here.
Well, and some of those stories,like recent news, current
events, and sorry to keep youlate, but like in the UK where
they're like, we, we arrestedthe 13 year old girl for public

(01:52:19):
and, or for public intoxicationbecause she was found with, uh,
seven 30 something Pakistani menand they're.
And we didn't talk to thePakistani men because we don't
want to confront that problem.
It's hard to wrap your mindaround.
I think that's, um, people areso desperate to be thought of

(01:52:44):
well by a certain group ofpeople.
Yeah.
They will come to findthemselves doing something
ludicrous.
Just to be thought of well bythe zeitgeist.
Yeah.
And if the zeitgeist is crazy,but all you care about is being
thought of well by people thatascribe to the zeitgeist, like
you're gonna find yourself doingsome things like are happening

(01:53:04):
in England that just make nosense.
Yeah.
And putting people in jail forFacebook posts.
Right.
Um, and ignoring the tragediesthat are happening.
Hey, my neighbors keep gettingraped by the Islamists.
Oh, that's a, that's a arrest.
Right.
Okay.
It's hard to wrap your mindaround.
You know, they do, they aregetting raped by the Islamists,

(01:53:26):
I'm sorry to say, but it's true.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, that isn't a laughingmatter at all, but it's Right.
And it's, yeah, I mean, I thinkpeople are It just shows how
swayable people's beliefs are.
Mental stuff is like thatbecomes something that's better
to just keep the peace and overreactionary Because I think
they're obviously there are realproblems going the other way in

(01:53:47):
society but like if yourreaction to racism is I can't
comment on anything someone witha certain skin color does then
like That doesn't make anysense.
Like, why can't we just, whycan't we just have common sense
and evaluate, uh, people by whatthey do and evaluate situations
as they arise and not try tomake broad sweeping judgments.

(01:54:10):
How would you evaluate theEuropean situation today
compared to 20 years from now?
Uh, I'm going to get over myskills trying to talk about
geopolitics.
Um, I think in some ways they'rebehind us in the cycle of where
culture is going.
That's my only comment.
They will see similar movements.
They are seeing similarmovements actually in like the

(01:54:31):
Netherlands, if you remember thefarmers thing, Italy and yeah, a
lot of different things.
Um, I feel like they're They'refollowing along on a similar
path culturally as the UnitedStates and they're just like 10
years behind us That's myamateur armchair.
Yeah, that's fair We like justkind of move faster like they
took took us there and then kindof they're gonna be slower and
coming back Out of it too.

(01:54:51):
Yeah, maybe so if you Let's talkabout business like you didn't
really and I'm not I wouldn'teven call you an entrepreneur
right like you saw opportunityand you were the right man for
the job when it came to Yeah,I'm not a founder.
I think I was just there to pickup the mantle.
Yeah.

(01:55:12):
Well, and certainly probablyyou've figured out how do we
make money?
You know, how many resources dowe spend on this?
How many editors can we hire?
How many States can we launchwhen there's a lot of those
kinds of things.
It's an ongoing conversation.
So that, that is there.
Um, but what would you say liketo or about entrepreneurs?
To entrepreneurs.

(01:55:32):
To entrepreneurs, yeah.
Aspiring entrepreneursespecially.
People coming out of highschool, thinking about going to
Bible college, thinking aboutstarting a business.
Don't know what that would be.
Hmm.
Um, I think it goes back to thepeople comment.
Like I don't have anythingoriginal to offer for business

(01:55:52):
advice.
Honestly, I think that successcomes from working really hard
with good people.
Like ideas are kind of easy tocome by sort of, but it's also
about timing.
Sure.
Like you have to have the rightidea at the right time, but I
think it's just all aboutexecuting with people.
Um, so build your people skillsis the most important thing in
some ways.
Bring good people into yourorganization.

(01:56:13):
Like be very selective or learnfrom good people.
A big formative part for you wasthat.
You probably learned more fromthe men that you were around at
the Bible college than from theBible college.
I did.
And I've learned a lot more frombeing around Jacob and guy and
other people about, um,regarding business than any book

(01:56:33):
I've read.
The people you spend time aroundprobably learn more from faith
from Gary and Aaron, Daniel andet cetera.
Then, yeah, you become like whoyou spend time around and the
people that you bring into anorganization are going to define
it.
Ultimately, like that you can'thave a bunch of people that are
moving one direction and haveyour organization not go that

(01:56:54):
same way.
Yeah, fair enough.
Um, and so I guess I would sayjust be very careful about who
you associate with.
Yeah.
Not in terms of like trying tokeep yourself pure or whatever,
but just like, yeah.
Um, especially on day to day isthat people are creating with
and for you.
Yeah.
Like we would not be where weare right now if we didn't have
people that were invested in theidea.

(01:57:17):
And wanted to help bring itforward and just get along with
each other.
I have learned a lot about that.
Um, culture fit is important asany other.
Um, item on someone's resume.
You've got the skills, don'thave the culture.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like culture is extremelyimportant.
Okay.
Um, final segment, the Locoexperience.

(01:57:41):
Okay.
The craziest experience that youwant to share with our
listeners.
Well, uh, back when I wasworking for the flood
restoration company, Oh yes.
There was a, there was anunfortunate incident in a house
in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a group ofolder, older folks were living
there.
And the story went that cats setthe house on fire via pushing on

(01:58:05):
the stove or something.
That's the story.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But there was a fire in theirkitchen.
And so these people in this, uh,in the middle of winter.
So they moved out the cats didnot.
Okay.
So there's a house that's had afire Yeah, that has about ten
cats living in it.

(01:58:25):
Just yeah, never leaving thehouse.
So just think about it And thenthere is me good friend Rich
Gardner In a van headed up toCheyenne to go inside this house
and to try to bring out itemsthat are not destroyed and
catalog them.
Oh God.

(01:58:46):
And so we're sitting in there inthis freezing cold house because
the heat isn't on or anything.
Cause there's a fire.
Um, it smells like hell itself.
I have never.
Like you walk in and you're likeretching immediately.
Something like that.
I've never wanted to get out ofbed less in my life.
Like never knew that I could bethat miserable.

(01:59:07):
So that's one of them is like,well, that's one of the things I
think about when I hang out withrich, like we really been
through it, like we, right.
Have, uh, spent a month.
And we're going to be doingthat.
Cause was Rich on paid staffearly in the crossing journey?
No.
So he was at first kind of anintern.
You couldn't be here.
He was a pastor, but he was, wedon't have enough budget for

(01:59:28):
everybody.
Kind of thing.
So we did that.
And then the other equivalentmoment I think was when all the
floods happened like downtowards Boulder.
Sure.
And there's been a couple.
Mhm.
Yeah.
I think it was 13.
I think it was.
Yeah.
That sounds right.
Especially when they had to findthe lions and whatnot.
Yup.
Down there in someone's basementthat had flooded via their sewer

(01:59:49):
system.
And it's me and Rich and hazmatsuits, like doing the same
thing.
And we're like carrying stuffupstairs.
And this poor woman would see uscarrying some fairly, some
family heirloom upstairs andjust start crying.
We're like, Oh, sorry.
Like.
It's fine.
It's fine.
I'm not having a good timeeither.
Right.
The crib that you're sad about.
Yeah.
I learned that you should neverkeep anything valuable in a

(02:00:11):
basement.
Yes.
Just don't do it.
That is true.
We have our stuff that is in thebasement is in tubs, so, um,
yeah, they're recording again.
I don't know if she'll use thatfeed or not.
But, um, so it could get, youknow, 10 inches deep in the

(02:00:32):
basement without, like, fillingthe stuff in there.
That's smart.
Yeah.
That would help.
At least it's that.
Yep.
Right.
Um, but we don't have any otherroom.
We need basement stuff.
Um.
What is the number of cats thatyou would, uh, be willing to
host in your home?
Zero.
That's probably zero.

(02:00:53):
Do you guys have a dog?
We don't.
I think if we ever moved to aplace that has more space, we'd
like to get one.
But it just doesn't make sensein our, we have a tiny little
yard and yeah, there's thegarden in the back instead of a
yard and normal dogs wouldn'tlike it.
No.
Um, if people want to sign upfor the flyover.
Join the flyover.
com.
Join the flyover.
com.

(02:01:13):
Just put your little email inthere and you'll get spammed
like crazy from these, uh, truthbrokers.
You will get our emails andthere's also seven state
editions.
So if you live in Texas orFlorida, North Carolina,
Georgia, um, some other ones,Colorado, yeah, uh, you should
Google that as well.

(02:01:34):
All right.
I dig it.
Great.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for sharing the time.
Yep.
And, uh, look forward to, uh,next worship service.
Sounds great.
All right.
Thanks, Kirk.
All right.
Cheers.

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EXPERIENCE 203 | Intrepreneurship in Action - A Conversation with Cole Shrehlow, CEO of The Flyover and Chief Musician at The Crossing Church

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EXPERIENCE 203 | Intrepreneurship in Action - A Conversation with Cole Shrehlow, CEO of The Flyover and Chief Musician at The Crossing Church