Calling vs Clout

In today’s episode of The Pulpit & Porch, Tony and Robert pull up a couple of chairs to talk about a tension that’s all too real in our culture: Are we chasing our calling, or are we chasing clout?

From social media platforms to the pulpit, the temptation to seek influence, recognition, and applause is everywhere. But what happens when clout overshadows calling? How do we discern the difference, and how can we stay rooted in what God has actually asked us to do?

This is a conversation about ambition, authenticity, and aligning our lives with purpose rather than popularity. Grab a glass of sweet tea and join us on the porch. We think you’ll find yourself nodding along and maybe even rethinking what you’re chasing.

#ThePulpitAndPorch #Podcast #FaithAndLife #CallingVsClout #ChristianLiving #FrontPorchConversations #PurposeOverPopularity #SweetTeaAndStories

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to the Pulpit and Porch.I'm Tony Maher and with me, as
always, is my friend Robert Kell.
Hey everybody, we are so glad you're here.
The pulpit and porch is where wekick back, put up our feet and
have real conversations about life, faith, growth, and maybe
even a little sports and pop culture.
If you're looking for a perfectly polished sermon,
you're probably in the wrong. Place.
Yeah. Around here it's more about
those honest heart to heart conversations.

(00:23):
That's the one you have on a front porch with good friends.
Sometimes we stay on track, sometimes we take the scenic
group. And honestly, that's half the
fun, isn't it? We dig into the highs, the lows,
and all the in betweens of living out your faith in real
life. Along the way, we may pull up a
few extra chairs and invite somefriends under the porch to share
stories and ideas that just may change the way that you see
things. So whether you're chasing your

(00:43):
purpose, building your faith, orjust trying to live a little
more fully, pull up a chair, grab some sweet tea, and join
us. This is the pulpit and porch we
got to see waiting for you. We're all being spied on.

(01:08):
Technology is listening to everything that we say.
It's taken notes. Your your wife is right.
Like we've just become like the two dudes on The Muppets that
set up. I love those guys.
I love those guys. And, and can we just say that
Muppet Christmas Carol is one ofthe top five Christmas movies of

(01:29):
all time? And we're sitting here in the
close of summer and not like clothes of summer, but the
clothes that we're getting readyto say goodbye to summer and
head into fall. And so we're perfectly capable
of talking about Christmas Movies Now because I'm pretty
sure that Hobby Lobby already has all their Christmas stuff
out. Michaels.
So are are we in the Christmas season now?

(01:50):
We've covered like 6 topics in the 1st 30 seconds of this show.
I. I, I will say you can say Muppet
Christmas carols in the top fiveand that is, that is more than
fine. That's what I love about
opinions. They don't have to be right.
They're. Right.
To me that's. What I'm saying they don't have
to be right to everybody else and it is.

(02:11):
I love this weather you are after.
Old There's only one more sleep till Christmas.
You're, you're in like about to go into a depression because
it's going to get cold. Yeah, no, I I really enjoy cool.
I like cool weather. And so this like this morning, I
went out to greet you as you were coming in and I actually

(02:34):
stretched out my arms and did like a Creed with arms wide open
type thing because I was so amazed and refreshed by the cool
air that hit my skin. And I just don't like cold.
Oh, it's yeah. But it's, I mean, like we're
talking, it's August and it's 48° today.

(02:56):
It's it's about to get cold. I'm excited.
I love cold. But you wear you wear a hoodie
in 112° outside I. Don't I mean, you call it you
you're calling my like sun shirts a hoodie.
They're they're like. Dude, you're wearing a a a.
I've got a. Zek on sweatshirt I got.
I got a hoodie on it's and it's it was 47° when I left the 49°

(03:20):
when I left the house today. It's 57 right now.
I think that is very much that is something like people should
let us know, like is it acceptable to wear?
Let us know what you think on social media, we would love to
hear. Acceptable to wear a a a hoodie
at 57° right it which? Is 61° right now my.

(03:40):
Watch says 57. It might be 57 in this House,
but. 57 in Jonesboro. 61 according to weather.com right
now. I'm on.
That's the Apple thing, and I could go to Weather Underground,
which I think is more accurate, but you can't put that on your
watch. Anything that has underground in
it is not more accurate. Oh, no, it's absolutely more
accurate. That might be the most accurate

(04:01):
things. We don't like it because it's
underground, but it might be themost accurate.
Where are we even going here, man?
I told you we're being spied on.We're we're constantly being
listened. OK, so tell us why and then
we'll get into the topic. I am in the gym this morning and
my wife sends me the this streamof texts from bed that is just

(04:24):
her Instagram feed is all on this topic that I'm like where
did this even come? She's like what is going on Like
our phones are listening to us. Every conversation that we have
is making its way. Talking about Travis and Taylor
getting engaged. No, no, I wasn't.
But. OK, sorry.
What's on her? What's on Creepy?

(04:45):
I think it's creepy. OK, so we're not.
That we're constantly. Itself isn't an.
Issue no the topic is the fact that that.
You all have been talking. About if we talk about something
specific right now, then when I log on to Facebook in three
weeks from now, my feed will be filled with ads for whatever it
is that we're talking about. I love these Wintergreen

(05:07):
lifesavers that we are each indulging in right now.
I'm not. I'm eating a peppermint.
Oh, OK. No, So hey, so you, you have
somehow managed to enhance and maybe ruin my, my life all at
the same time in the last, in the last three weeks.

(05:29):
And it's made my life very exciting.
Yeah, my, my youngest son in hissenior year has decided to play
basketball for the second time in his life.
And so he is. He is in the current moment of
tryouts right now for for your squad, yeah.
For our listeners that don't know, I coach high school

(05:50):
basketball. I've done that for this will be
my eighth season. 8th and 8th. And possibly final season.
I don't want, I'm not making an announcement here on the public
sports podcast. I'm not looking for everywhere
that I go on the road this year for them to hold special
celebrations for me, give me gifts or anything like.
That. Yeah, yeah.

(06:10):
So I'm not officially making my my retirement announcement here,
but it's it's looking like trending that direction.
But yeah, and, and your son has decided to come and try out for
the team and I've got a little inside track that I think he's
probably going to make the squadand.
Well, he went and bought new shoes before tryouts.
I'm. Excited, very excited to have

(06:32):
him. We've got a a big squad this
year, so we're going to have twodifferent teams at junior
varsity and a varsity. Your son is a senior this year,
so he's not eligible for the junior.
Varsity team. And yeah.
He can be happy on the bench on the varsity just as well as on
the JB. Oh, he's gonna get playing time.
He's gonna get playing time. Yeah.
So Speaking of announcements, our buddy Kyle that was on a a

(06:55):
couple episodes ago with us justannounced that he's running for
a pretty big office there in Sparta, White County, where he
where he lives and is currently,you know, CEO to YMCA and things
like that. So.
He's running for an office. Is that like a a marathon type
thing that you know, run for A cause?
I think politics typically is, but he's running for an office.

(07:19):
Kyle could Kyle, and I know you all couldn't see him, but Kyle
was a professional bodybuilder for a lot of years and then just
decided, hey, I'm I'm going to stop the bodybuilding part.
He still works out. He's, he's absolutely huge, but
he just started running and livelike the second time he ever he
ran, he ran like 13 miles or something.

(07:40):
I mean, so he could run for a run, you know?
People look at you and I and they say they're absolutely huge
too, but it's for a completely different.
Well, me, not you. And so I managed to jog up and
down a court twice a week to play basketball.
And I play soccer with Brody right now, but but yeah.
So anyway, Kyle's. Running.
So he's running for office, Yeah.

(08:01):
So if you are in the Smyrna. Sparta.
Sparta, Sparta. County.
Area yeah visit your your polls and vote Kyle Goff not sure what
he's running for but or running from mayor Mayor all right so we
just had a bit of a mishap here in the studio I don't.

(08:25):
Know about a mishap as much as afirst time for sure.
First time, Yeah. First time for me, first time
for you. It was exciting.
We were in the midst of conversation and then all of a
sudden we lost power, went everywhere to everything.
For like 40 minutes. Yeah, so we recorded this
episode. We had a great episode, I think

(08:46):
probably the best episode we've ever had in talking about this.
We. Were smart enough though to know
the power wasn't aligned. Well, yeah, we we did when it
went. Dark it wasn't like we were just
recording and talking and all ofa sudden like, oh hey, that was
a great episode. How long did it run?
You're like the powers out so. And, and I had said let's just
start the whole thing over. We were only about 8-9 minutes

(09:08):
into the episode, but you said no, that was great what we had
going there. I don't even remember what we
were talking about because it has been about an hour since we
we threw the headphones off because we'd lost power.
But power's back on. We're back up, we're running,
and things are good here on the porch.
Yeah, great's always a strong word for our opening, but I

(09:29):
think we would have it, It is, it is what it is.
And we would not have changed it.
And I think we would have just tried to recreate it.
So you get an opening, you get aquick, abrupt, abrupt ending.
I'm sure you'll smooth that transition out in editing and
and now here we are. Or I could do like some other
podcasters that make millions ofdollars a year off of their

(09:51):
podcast. He's like, hey, we'll edit that
out and post edit. And then that's on the live
recording. They do not.
Yeah. So I.
Won't name any names. I don't.
Know if you. As a guest on our show Someday
I. Don't know if you edit it or
not, but here we go. So anyway.
But I don't I don't even know how to make a transition.
Oh OK, here we go. So I we all we talk a lot about

(10:13):
movies and TV and things like that, and in prepping for
today's episode, I was digging through some articles online and
looking at some things in this one organization had written an
article and it. Can we even told our audience
what we're talking about today? Do we need to before?
This maybe we can just. Keep going.
Yeah, so and so this actually kind of lands out to be one of

(10:34):
your one of your favorite moviesand like The Secret Life of
Walter Mitty. And, and I'm gonna be really
transparent. It's been years and years and
years since I've seen this and Idon't remember all of the little
details, but basically Ben Stiller's character is out
looking for Sean Penn's character.
And he finds him and Sean bringshim over to kind of sit him down

(10:59):
and, and he just kind of describes this whole situation.
And Sean Penn's character says to Ben Stiller says they call
the snow leopard the ghost cat. So you've you've got to give a
little bit more back story for our listeners who maybe haven't
seen the movie. So you a.
Very mundane life. Secret Life.
He's he works for Time magazine,Life magazine, sorry, he works

(11:20):
for Life magazine and he is in photo processing.
So he works in a dark room all day with a very small staff in
the bottom basement of of Life'sheadquarters in New York City.
But the top photographer in the world that contracts with all
the major magazines and everyoneis Sean Penn's character.

(11:43):
And the final episode of Life print edition is being produced.
They're shutting down their print and going online only and
they have this picture that thathe has sent in Sean Penn has
sent in that is that the brass want as the cover photo for the

(12:07):
very last ever episode episode edition of issue of Life
magazine. Problem is, he can't find it.
Walter Mitty can't find it and he's been the the photo
processing guy for 30 years and he's never lost a negative
before and he's lived this very mundane life.

(12:28):
He's never travelled outside of New York where he lives.
He has no friends, he has no life, no relationship.
He just cares for his mom and his sister and he embarks on
this journey to find Sean and find the negative.
What happened to the negative tohopefully save this final

(12:50):
episode. And he travels all over the
world, experiences some of the most remarkable adventures.
He jumps out of a helicopter into shark infested waters.
He visits Iceland. He goes skateboards into a
volcano. He sings karaoke.
He does has all these amazing adventures in searching,

(13:13):
following the path, each clue that he can have to where this
photographer may be. And he ends up in the Himalayas
where he finally finds him. They've never met in person.
They've corresponded via e-mail and phone for years and years
and years, but they've never metin person.
And so he goes and he is trying.Sean is trying to capture the

(13:36):
elusive snow leopard, and when Walter Mitty comes upon him in
the Himalayan Alps. After hiking for days through
blistering winds and snow and playing soccer with warmongers
and warlords in in the base of the Alps, he finally finds him.

(14:00):
And then? Yeah.
And thanks for sharing all that because honestly, I couldn't
have given that much detail. Like it's been a while.
And so Sean just kind of says toBen, he says they call the snow
leopard the ghost cat. It never lets itself be seen.
And then Sean goes on to say beautiful things don't ask for
attention. And in that space, he just kind

(14:21):
of is looking at Ben Stiller's character and going, you're a
ghost cat. You've created you've you've
held kind of the keys, you've held these photos, you've held
these images, you've held these ideas and no one has ever seen
you, but you've done something incredibly beautiful and in in
beautiful things don't ask for attention and.

(14:42):
That's that's such a cool line. There's another There's another
great line in that scene. I know you love this this movie
so much. I love this movie.
And in that very scene, there's another one where he's all set
up. Sean Penn's character is all set
up and he's camouflaged. And he tells Walter Mitty, when
Walter Mitty finds him in the middle of the the Alps, he he

(15:04):
finds him. He says, I've been sitting here
for six hours waiting on him to make an appearance.
Here he is. And he comes and the snow
leopard comes out and Sean Penn just sits there staring.
And Walter Mitty says, aren't you going to take the picture?
And he sets the camera and he goes, no, he said.

(15:26):
Sometimes I just want to be in the moment.
Sometimes things are too beautiful to capture with a
picture. I just wanted to live in my mind
and be in the moment. And then he says the thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I and that so, so the
conversation today is wrapped around this idea of calling
versus cloud is is how we've titled it.

(15:48):
And but you know, like, what do you how do you live inside of
this calling and passion and desire you have inside of a
world that seems to chase like fame and all these things?
And and I know that can maybe Colleen and clout might feel
like very, you know, pastor ministry words.
And we're pastors in ministry. But in, in all reality, it

(16:11):
really doesn't matter what your role is, whether you work for
your local government, whether you are a pastor at a church,
you're, you know, a parent that you know, that is your role.
Like you stay at home and you work with your kids and for your
family and for your house. I mean, or, you know, whatever
you do like, regardless of what the level you, if, if you're a

(16:35):
follower of Jesus, you have a calling and how do you live that
out inside of your daily life? And I just thought that was a
really cool reminder inside of that as we're getting started of
just what this is and son and this whole idea that beautiful
things don't ask for attention and this world that we live in

(16:56):
where I think all we do is ask for attention.
Yeah. And you and I off the air during
our power outage conversation, we're talking about how clout is
so important for people nowadays, for a younger
generation, that we've seen studies recently that say that
the number one thing that this current, this young generation

(17:20):
wants out of life is clout. That they want to be when asked,
what do you want to do when you grow up?
They want to be an influencer. What do they want to influence?
They, they don't care. They just want to be known.
They, they just want clout. And I think that we've so often
missed that idea of calling, that idea of what it means to

(17:41):
truly do something with our lives that we are deeply,
passionately called to, that that keeps us awake, that gives
us energy that we would do for free if if we were given the
opportunity. It drives us, it moves us, it
motivates us. Yeah.

(18:02):
And, and I think that one of thethings you said there and and I
don't, I don't think I'm going, I don't want to go down this
path in a in a different way, but something you said is we
want to be known. And so the way that and and I
think unfortunately it it's it'sconsuming almost all generations

(18:23):
now. I saw the other day that there's
this, she calls herself the something granny and she just
does these really funny, like one liner things of I mean,
basically one thing she was like, don't you know, like you

(18:44):
may think things are hard or youmay think you don't have a shot,
but like there's druggies who get up every day and find a way
to accomplish their goal. Don't get outworked by a
druggie. And I mean, and so like, like,
and she's like 80 something years old.
And so I think this whole thing of like, how do I do funny
things? How do I get attention?
How do I be known? But I think that biblically

(19:05):
like, like we were created to beknown like, like we're created
to, to know our, you know, to know God, to know him.
We all have an unique desire to be known and to know.
Yeah, and to love and to be. Loved And so the tension comes
down to is that in the space of living our life, do we sometimes

(19:27):
in this desire to be known, which is very biblical, do we
turn it on its head and make it very selfish, self-centered
maybe and start to step into these ideas of how do we get how
do we become famous? That's what I was just going to
say. Is there a difference between
being known and being famous? You know, we talked about this

(19:52):
like in the whole idea. I mean, when you think about it,
like, take the, the 12 disciples.
I mean, and people go, well, Judas didn't.
I mean, nobody names your kid Judas anymore.
I mean, so I mean, he's still famous regardless of, of how he
landed Paul. I mean, you look at David, I
mean, you know, I understand he was a king and, and maybe you
could go, well, even if you, if you don't believe the Bible, I

(20:15):
mean, you might go, well, he wasa king and, and so he had these
things. But like these guys are, are
we're still talking about them thousands of years later, even
though they they were just living life like, you know, you
take. You know, when David was 15 and
stood up to Goliath, I mean, youknow, I say 15, give or take a
couple years. I mean, when he was a teenager

(20:36):
and went after Goliath, I mean, he he did certainly wasn't
thinking I'm about to be famous.He just wanted to stand up for
God. And his courage and boldness in
a moment led to him being known in a way that he never expected.
Like in the same time, like the disciples, like most of them
were stinky fishermen and, you know, just random people that
were living around and Jesus called them and they followed.

(20:58):
And they never thought in a million years that they would be
the face of what they ended up being the face of and known the
way they're known. And so I I don't know.
But yet that's what they thoughtthey were getting when they
joined Jesus, when they became the Talmudine.
In fact, we even see it two years in two of them argue over

(21:21):
who's going to get to sit on theright and the left.
They still, they still didn't understand that it wasn't about
them, that they still were in itfor the clout.
They, they were in it for what is this going to do for us when
this new Kingdom is established,when Jesus overthrows Rome and
reestablishes Israel here, man, we're going to have a front seat

(21:43):
to that and we're going to be celebrated.
And, and do I get to sit on the right?
Do I get to sit on the left? Where do we get to be in this
new Kingdom? So what we see is human nature,
the human nature, regardless of how we start with all the
humility, confusion, struggle, tension that we start with, as
soon as we start to really understand what potential is

(22:05):
there, there's always this moment of this is the could this
be about me? Could I leverage this for this
defining thing in my life? And, and, you know, and
ultimately those guys ended up turning a corner the, you know,
10 of the 11 that weren't Judas.Were.

(22:26):
Murdered for, you know, for the cause.
And, you know, like you said this past Sunday, I mean, John
died as an old man stuck on an island.
I mean, because he wouldn't shutup talking and wouldn't die in a
pot of boiling oil. So I mean, it's just all these
things. But, yeah.
So you kind of get to the space of life daily.
How does it affect us as we start to navigate things?

(22:46):
Yeah, I want to go back to is there a difference between being
known and being famous? Because I just saw somewhere
recently that 74% of people in America say they're lonely.
But I would feel like I'm known.I would feel like I'm known by

(23:08):
my wife, I'm known by my kids. I have some close friends that I
feel known. I don't feel lonely.
I, I, I feel known, but I'm not famous.
And I think that you can be famous and still be lonely.
I think that you can be We we'veseen that, you know, you've
there's famous interviews with Tom Hanks and what's his name

(23:31):
was probably the most famous onewhere Jim Carrey talked about
how he has everything anyone could ever want and he feels
lonely every single day because the only thing he really wants
is relationships and and that. I think I think definition
starts to really kind of be the the playing point of that.

(23:52):
Like you, we could people say, oh, I just want to be known, but
I think they have to define whatthat is.
So in, in terms of what we're talking about being known,
being, having, having friends and family around that you care
about and care about you for youand I, we would say a
relationship with Jesus that feels, you know, a big, you

(24:14):
know, the the biggest part of our life that that helps us
identify who we are and we navigate through and move and we
love others and. And that thing preaches really
well. It does.
It's, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying like, look, I, I
mean, I'd literally told you offair, like I'm just now after
like a year, almost a year and ahalf of being out of some

(24:35):
spiritual disciplines that I need to do, I'm just now
starting to step back into a couple of them now.
I'm very intentional and with them as I'm stepping back in,
but like it's super easy to go Ilove Jesus.
Yes I do. I love Jesus.
How about you? But like it's really hard to
actually love him day in day outto to die to self take up the
cross follow him type of mentality.

(24:57):
So we want to have this conversation today on centered
around calling versus clout. And you and I spent probably a
good 20 minutes during our poweroutage talking about this for
ourselves personally, that we have some goals for our show in
the next nine months year that we want to grow our our

(25:17):
influence. We want to grow the number of
followers that we have on socialmedia, the number of subscribers
to our podcast. And so I guess the first
question that I want us to dive into is, is platform building
always a bad thing? So what you're saying is this is
our last episode because we can't do that anymore?
And I hope not because we just invested a lot in the new

(25:38):
microphones. I, you know, I guess.
And we have a really great guestcoming up, couple of really
great guests coming up. Really good guests coming up.
So we better we, we better get. At least two more episodes and I
think that here's here's the tension for me is because I
think what I'm going to say is going to sound like I disagree

(25:59):
with myself and I might I and what you just said is 100% true.
We would like to have more people following.
We just, we enjoy having the conversation.
We're not, you know, it's, I mean like it's we enjoy talking
through things. We would really love when people
listen. We enjoy when people shoot

(26:21):
emails or send us messages and things like that and we get a
chance to respond and, and talk about different things and
answer some different thoughts. But I guess I don't wake up
every day going, oh man, I hope 100,000 people listen to the
podcast this week. I, I don't like, I care because

(26:42):
I like what we're doing. And I think we're talking about
stuff that matters and, and thatto life and to family and to
journey and just through what wedo.
So yes, I, I, I mean, I guess you can.
It's not a terrible thing to be known in the way we're talking
about of, of people knowing who you are.

(27:03):
I just don't think it can be theonly reason you wake up to just
be OK today. I've got to grow my platform by
10 people. I've I have achieved success
today. If all you care about is more
people for the purpose of your own benefit, then then I I think
that's where the struggle startsto hit a little bit.

(27:25):
Yeah, I, I, I think for me, I know when I'm leading from
calling and not from clout. When I would do it even if no
one knew that I was doing it, that I would do it even even if
no one saw it and maybe more importantly, even if no one
celebrated it. When it's clout, I think that I
start to care more about the optics than than the outcome.

(27:46):
And I think that there have beenperiods in my life where that's
definitely been the case. This past week, I was honored to
be able to teach at your church.There were what, probably 7075
people there maybe? 70.
People, there was a period in mylife where I never would have
done that less than less than 1000 people.
I'm not stepping on stage. And that was all pride.

(28:08):
It was all pride. And so I at some point with
maturity, you come to a place ofrealizing that it doesn't matter
if there's one person, it doesn't matter if there's 10,000
people. That one person is just
important as the as the 10,000 and and I had to get to a place

(28:29):
in my life of saying if I have been changed through if God has
worked something in me during the 2030 hours that I put into
working, studying, writing this message, then it was worth the
time and worth the the investment of time equity into
this. But there was a period in my
life where if a Church of less than 500 would have said, we

(28:51):
want you to come speak, I, I would have said, no, I'm too
busy for that. I'm, I've got too much going on
that that's not worth my time and effort.
And, and so I think that it's really looking at why are you
doing it? Why, why is it to build your own
personal brand or reputation or for the platform that you get

(29:12):
it? Are you getting or is it truly
because you feel like this is something that is is you're
deeply passionately motivated by?
No, 100%. I mean, yeah, I mean, you know,
we were talking in that same conversation about there's
there's pastors right now that could be leading, you know,

(29:35):
churches with 10,000 plus peoplewho make an intentional effort
and they're kind of quietly showing up at a church that has
4050 sixty people. They're not the pastor.
They're a member. They hope that most like they
are hoping people don't know whothey are and they just show up
and they're, they're sitting in the teaching.

(29:57):
They're a part of discipleship and they're going out and making
disciples. They've they've really just kind
of stepped into the space of I've done the thing where
there's all this, this notorietyand all this stuff.
And as I got there, I just felt like the closer I got to God,
the further I got away. And it doesn't mean that
somebody who's leading a big church, like I don't, I would
never say that Craig Rochelle ora lot of those guys are, are bad

(30:22):
guys and bad leaders. I mean, Craig Rochelle does as
much for my leadership as any human on the planet.
And I think that's who I am. This goes way beyond ministry.
You think that In fact, I'd say it's even more prevalent outside
of, of ministry with a lot of our listeners that what are
those things that you're doing out of calling?
And what are the things that youwere doing out of clout?

(30:43):
And I would come back to what I said that would you do this even
if no one saw you or celebrated it?
Or are you doing it for the recognition for how it can
promote you rather than promote the the calling that that you
have? What are some internal or
external signs that kind of leadyou to know whether or not your

(31:07):
motivations might be off? Like one thing for me is if I'm
starting to neglect my family todo it, if I've all of a sudden
deemed it so important that it'slike, oh, I got, I don't have
time to go, you know, shoot basketball with my boys or, you

(31:28):
know, time to watch a show with Mel or something like that.
Like I don't have, I feel, I feel stressed when they come
into the room because I have this thing that seems to be more
important. So, you know, for me, that's one
of the metrics is I've had to try to, you know, as you, I
mean, with everything you learn balance.

(31:50):
And you know, and over the last 21 1/2 years as we've navigated
parenting and kids and almost 2726 1/2 years of marriage,
like, like, I think that that has been the thing that I've
started to learn is when, when I'm starting to feel overwhelmed

(32:11):
by just the presence of people because this thing has become
important. I'm going, I'm a little off
kilter with that. What about you?
For me, if I get jealous, it's clear sign that my motives are
off is if I get jealous of someone else's success then then
I know you know that that there's something not right

(32:33):
there. Do you think there's a Part 2?
Sorry, were you finished? I don't.
Want to? Yeah, I just, for me, that's a
sign that I've drifted. So, so let me ask a question
inside of that here. Here's a tension that sometimes
I sit in. Do you think that sometimes
there's metrics that are put on a situation that cause you to
have to care about it, even though, and so you you don't,

(32:57):
you don't want to feel jealousy or tension or something in that
space. But because of the metric of how
other people at your job or other people in your
organization view that particular thing, whether it's a
customer, whether it's, you know, you know, a family member
or whatever, you now feel like you have to perform in that

(33:19):
area. And it pushes you.
I think an easy way to describe that if you've ever attended a
church, like there's churches that are going, hey, like it's
not. And I'm not saying like churches
that just go, it's our four and no more.
Like we don't want anybody new coming in.
Like I'm just talking, you know,if you're a small church and you
and you love leading from a small church and you tend to
grow people up and send them outand they go out and make a

(33:41):
difference. And you have this little like
ministry of discipleship that you're doing.
But yet at the same time, you know, you're not climbing the
ladder, you're not growing, it'snot getting bigger.
And so when people show up, theyjust kind of go and they move
on. And you start to feel like, man,
maybe I should step in. And I think you could view a job
that way. Oh, hey, we're not, we're not.

(34:03):
We like being a small business that does this, but people go,
well, they're not doing enough with this here or this.
So they didn't add that additionon or they didn't step into this
role. They're not doing enough on
social media. I'm not always fully aware.
I mean that you step into things, people start to go and
you start to feel this pressure to change who you are, who

(34:24):
you're called to be to, to meet the needs of some other things.
I mean, do you think that's a part of this that can happen?
I, I definitely think that's a great sign that your motivations
maybe are off a little bit is ifyou're more worried about some
how something looks as opposed to whether or not it's right.
Yeah. And, and man, I can get caught
up in that sometimes. Yeah, I do too.

(34:45):
I get worried about things in that space of man is, you know,
it's it's like, OK, I'm very focused.
I'm trying to lead down a path or I'm trying to journey down
this personally or whatever the situation is, whether it's at
work or family or just personal projects and things.
And, and then all of a sudden things start to spiral a little

(35:07):
bit and you feel you should see somebody else's social media
page and their life seems to be so much better.
Like I don't even like posting on social media.
Why do I care? Why do I care what they post so
much? And you know, and.
I think the bigger thing is whenyou post and then checking how
many people have liked it, Do people like it?

(35:27):
Do people comment? How many comments do I have?
How many likes do I have? And man, that's the kind of
thing that just makes me want tostay away from social media
altogether because I don't want to get wrapped up in that.
I don't want to get caught up inthat.
But yet even even small little things, you know, you want to
see how many, how many people gave me a thumbs up?

(35:47):
So in that, in that thought, I mean, I don't, I guess I could
say is it possible? But I might would rather ask how
do you pursue influencing people?
Because we're called to be an influencer, like as a follower
of Jesus, we're called to influence people for, for good

(36:09):
to, you know, like how do you dothat with, is it fair to say
without losing your soul? I mean like getting sucked in
the spiral of of all the crazy that's out there.
Sure, influence isn't bad. Influence is a tool, right?
Influence is a tool. But if your identity gets
wrapped up in your influence, and I think you're in trouble,

(36:32):
influence is influence has to serve your calling, not replace
your calling. And so often I think that our
social media following, the number of subscribers that we
have, the number of likes that we have, the number of people
that we have that are coming to our events, that our influence
can replace Our Calling, that weget more obsessed with the

(36:56):
numbers. We get more obsessed with the
optics than the actual mission. And I think that's a problem.
But yes, you can absolutely pursue influence in a good
healthy way. And influence can be a great
thing to help you in pursuit of your mission.

(37:17):
It's it's a tool. What would be this is maybe an
unfair question to ask here because it, I mean, it's, it's a
lot. What would be like a step?
I'm not even going to say multiple.
What's one thing that we could do if we wanted to influence in

(37:40):
a, in a proper way? How like, I don't know, maybe
it's a check or a balance that we put into place.
What's, what's a step that we can take that kind of moves us
into a, a path that we could start to really heal?
If we've already gotten down a path of trying to influence for

(38:00):
selfish motives, or if we want to put up guard rails, what's a
step we could take there? Unplug.
That's what I would say. Unplug, reset.
You know when things are, when things are off, when your
network is slow. The best way to fix it is to
unplug it and reset it when you feel like things aren't going

(38:22):
the way that it should. Your computer's glitching out.
Number one way to fix it, first thing, when you call customer
support, the very first thing they'll say is if you tried
restarting it, unplug it. Leave it unplugged for 30
seconds. Sometimes it's not just enough
to turn it off. Leave it unplugged for 30
seconds, for a minute, fire it back up.
And I think that when you find yourself getting off track, when

(38:43):
you find yourself becoming consumed with things that are
not what you want to be consumedwith, you find yourself living
more for influence, living more for clout than for your calling.
Unplugged from it, you know, unplugged, reset.
How long does that reset take? I I don't know but to to take a

(39:03):
step back and get rid of the thing that is causing you, you
know, to stumble. I think it's interesting too,
because when we say unplug, the thought could be, oh, he's
saying turn off my computer, turn off my phone, and that
might be what you need to do. Turn off the TV, turn off all

(39:28):
the electronic things that suck us in.
But there are moments where likefitness could be your, your
thing and you just, you have to get another workout in.
You have to get another in another like step on the on the
rung taken care of like it. There's a there's a lot of

(39:51):
different things and some of them can look externally very,
very good for us. But if we get down a path where
it's drawn us in a bad way. Like you said unplugging,
disconnecting, it's not saying stop, it's just saying reboot at
a friend of mine and he said, doyou ever tell my wife I said
this and I never, I never did. But he was like in everything

(40:16):
the answer is reboot. Like if you're struggling with
your spouse, he said not not divorce and go back.
He said, I'm saying get away, exhale, reboot the day, like get
started. He's I'm not saying leave, I'm
saying reboot. It might mean you need to take a
drive. But he said if, if, if things

(40:36):
there's tension. Fixes a lot of things.
It does, and I love what I love what you said there.
Yeah. The other thing that I would say
with that is be sure that you have people in your life that
don't care about your platform. Make sure you have people that
care about your heart and and not about your influence.
They love you for you. They care about you, not about

(40:58):
the platform that you have and what you can do for them.
Yeah, I, I think it's always interesting because like, I, I
love conflict. Like I don't wake up looking for
it, but I ain't. Scared of it man.
I was Bruce. Bruce.

(41:19):
Bruce was the conflict guy, man.I miss him every single day.
But you said that and just made me think of Bruce.
One of his favorite lines was whenever two or more gathered
together, conflict will arise. Yes, and you know, I only knew
him for, you know, a few months and maybe like it's a little
over a year. And he he said that several
times as somewhere the other dayand Bruce's name came up.

(41:42):
I'm trying to think where it wasnow.
But it's just one of those moments though of like like in
that space, sometimes people will say something and and
they're like, hey, I don't I don't really know how to say
this. And they think it creates this
attention. And now we can't speak.
And I'm going, awesome, here we go.
They're like, what? And I'm like, guys, we just

(42:04):
needed to fix things. We just needed to reset.
Now we all know now everybody's aware, everybody's, everybody's
grievances have been heard. We can move forward.
And people just don't understandthat they've been nervous for
six months to talk to you. And when you go, cool, thanks
for sharing that. We'll fix that tomorrow.

(42:25):
What? Dude, it's not a big deal.
Like you're acting like, you know, DEFCON 5 here and I've got
a hit is five the bad one or theone the bad one?
I don't remember. Like whichever one's worse.
And like I'm you're, you're, you're thinking, Oh my goodness,
we've got to hit the red button.And I'm just going, this is
easy. We fixed everything.

(42:46):
And that reboot can happen in somany different ways, through a
conversation, through taking a walk, just sitting down, turning
on some music, letting things kind of reset in your heart and
your mind and your soul. I mean, I, I have found like,
you know, Melissa and I've, we just need some space and we've

(43:07):
not been around each other. I'm like, hey.
And she's like, I need to go to the store.
And I was like, can I drive you?And she's like, well, yeah.
And I'm like, cool. And if it's just been a busy few
weeks and I feel like we just need to.
And it's just like, I just want to drive and hold your hand and
that's it. We don't have to tall, don't do
anything. But resetting can come in a lot

(43:29):
of different ways. I think sometimes we overlook.
Yeah. Hey, we're going to take a quick
break, hear from our show sponsor, and then we'll be back
to continue this discussion. Is your ministry ready to reach
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management, they offer everything you need to take your

(43:51):
ministry to the next level. We're proud to have them as our
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All right, so we're back. We want to definitely thank
Higher Ministries for all their sponsorship of the show.
One of the things that I was thinking about as that was
playing is that you asked me a question earlier about how do

(44:16):
you how do you know if you're leading from calling?
How do you know if you're leading from clout?
And I said that it's if I do it if no one saw it or if no one
celebrated it. And I was thinking about this
show that we've been doing this.We're quickly approaching like
150 episodes of this show. We have a faithful following

(44:40):
from this show, but it's small. It's nowhere.
Some of the shows that you and Ilisten to regularly, they have
millions. One of them that we both listen
to semi regularly just crossed the billion mark of listeners,
billions with AB as in boy, I, Ijust, I figure like I need to

(45:00):
clarify that because it's so astronomical to me that, that I
can't even wrap my mind around that.
And yet every single week you show up every single week,
you're, you're not making money off of this thing.
We're not rich and famous off ofthis thing, but every single
week you show up, every single week we put these headphones on

(45:24):
and we sit down and we have these discussions.
Not for the influence that it can bring to us, but for the
influence, hopefully, that this show can have in the lives of
someone who's out there trying to live their life more
faithfully, trying to be a better follower of Jesus in
their workspace, in their home, in their community.

(45:47):
And I think that if I ever got to where there's some statistics
that I've seen from some pretty big podcast publishers and, and
companies out there, that what we've done with our show is
already better than 95% of the people who start a podcast.
Most like something like 9598% of people who start a podcast,

(46:09):
make the investment of, of the equipment, the time, the energy
into it, don't get past 20 episodes that the vast majority
were over 120 episodes. You know, like I said, coming
up, you know, we'll cross the 150 episode barrier in the next
couple of months. And yet we're not famous from
this thing, but it's something that I look forward to every

(46:30):
single week. It's one of the favorite parts
of my week because I think that there is influence that's
happening there. Yeah, I mean, I go ahead, sorry.
I wish because I think there's influence there, but but also
because I enjoy the time that I get to spend with my friend.
I enjoy the the process with you.
And I think that even if nobody was listening, there's still

(46:51):
value in that. There's there's still something
good that's coming out of it that's not tied to money or fame
or clout. And so hopefully you have
something like that in your life, hopefully that everyone
has something that is something that they feel is important in

(47:13):
their life that isn't directly tied to something monetary that
they're receiving. Yeah, you know, when, like when,
when you talk about things and and in that space, the scripture
talks about that we should do everything is under the Lord.

(47:35):
So if you're going to step into it, do your best to do it well,
Do it. Do your best to do it holy and
and do your best to honor God, to love others and and make
disciples as you're going through something else.
I would say is like life's hard.And I've had my share of moments

(48:02):
where like things have been, have been tough because of my
own doing. I've had my share of moments
where things have been tough because of other people.
And I just I enjoy the conversation, I enjoy the
dialogue. I enjoy what we're talking about
because I think that you and I are both willing to be pretty

(48:26):
transparent and just kind of go,Hey, here's here's a moment
where things hurt and here's a moment where things are hard.
And, you know, we, we try not toair our kids dirty laundry or
anything and stuff like that. I mean, those are those, those
are their stories to tell. And they don't need to become
famous for one particular thing because, you know, we rattle out

(48:46):
stories. But I think that's the, the hard
part of it. And I think for, I think for me
kind of sitting in this space asI was researching this show, and
I said this to you earlier, there were two things that kind
of popped up like Jonah continued to kind of which we're

(49:07):
actually teaching at church later this year.
So, you know, I've been kind of thinking through that story a
little bit anyway. But Jonah kept popping up of
like God has called you to something and he's running the
other direction. And I'm basically, by the way,
when we teach this series, just going to show the Veggie Tales

(49:28):
Jonah movie. I'm going to break it up into
four segments and show a little bit each week.
So 30 minute, 430 minute shows or something.
But I just, I think that Jonah was called to something and he,
he went a different direction because he didn't agree or he
wanted something to be different.
He wanted to sit on the hill andwatch, you know, God burn things

(49:50):
to the ground. And God's like, I've got a
different plan. I've got grace, I've got mercy
here. And, and I want to help the
miserable and afflicted. I'm having compassion on the
miserable and afflicted with a desire to help.
And that's what I want to do. And then, you know, just for me,
the other thing that popped up, and this is the heart of, of
this for me too, is just Philippians 2.

(50:11):
I mean, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vacancy, But
you know, but, but like Jesus taking on the very nature of a
servant. And I just, I, I, I think those
two thoughts of man, how, how dowe step into calling?
How do we step into what God really has for us in life?

(50:32):
And, and I think sometimes we think what I'm doing doesn't
matter. And so God must have something
better or different or bigger for me.
And I just, you know, as I get older, I just wish that I could

(50:57):
have gone back to 20 year old meand, and kind of said, Hey,
what, what you're about to step into is worth it.
And I could have helped that kidbe more faithful, to be more
committed, to be more focused and really kind of changed maybe

(51:20):
a path in the direction for I'm thankful for where I am now.
There's some bumps and bruises along the way, a few broken
bones that I wish it could be different.
And I think that's just the hardthing.
When you start to chase a littlebit of clout, it always leads to
a little bit of pain. Yeah, so can you think of a time
when you're calling had to override your desire for

(51:41):
recognition? I don't know that I've ever been
that famous like that, I mean, or that like, I don't.
I'm trying to. Oh see, I I can think of things
right now. Just I may, I may just be
thinking too big I I think. You are.
I think you are because when we were in our when we were in our

(52:02):
power outage, I feel like we both talked about those moments
in our lives. For me, I was in a place that I
was starting to gain a name and recognition within the
professional storytelling community.
What we were talking before about if you were to look at the
storytelling community is Hollywood and you've got A list

(52:23):
stars, B list stars, C list stars, and we have an A+ list
storyteller joining us in a couple of weeks on our show.
But I had gotten to where I was like AD list, you know, I was, I
was on the map. I was AD list, but I was on the
map. I was performing with all of the
A listers. I was sharing the stage with all
of the A listers and I looked atwhat that was requiring, but

(52:48):
that was requiring of with travel to go all over what it
was requiring when time away from my family.
And I said that's not what I want.
I've got my number one calling is to my family, and I don't
want to sacrifice that for chasing this other thing on a

(53:09):
stage. And you went through the exact
same thing. You were doing things.
You were, you were on the sidelines at NFL stadiums taking
photographs. You were you were doing things
in with your photography that millions of people would give
anything for. You had the kind of place and
position in that world that people have spent a lifetime

(53:33):
chasing and never received. And because it wasn't your
calling and because you didn't like the again, same things that
I felt that the times that it was going away, the, the things
that it would cause you to miss in the life of your kids and,
and with your wife, you stepped away from that.
You, you gave that up when thereare people out there that would

(53:55):
say, how could you set down the camera when you had your foot in
the door? You didn't just have your foot
in the door. You had burst through the door.
You were, you were in there, andyou gave that up because you
cared more about a higher calling.
I would say I was a delister as well.
I would say I was in that same boat.
I mean, no different than you. I'd, you know, I don't know what

(54:17):
the end of the day, man, they just collect dust on a shelf.
I mean trophies and things are fun and you win.
So you've got people that are spending every ounce of their
energy chasing for that. Yeah, I mean, look, it's not
lost on me like what I got to do.
I feel incredibly fortunate and blessed.
And I know you feel the same wayabout storytelling.
And and so what's funny is though, is like, not even with

(54:39):
my kid, but like I still the favorite thing I love to do is
like, I love this past season. I got to sit at an in line with
an in Brody senior year and I got to snap photos of him doing
something that he's loved and played for 18 years.
And, and it just, you know, it comes to an end And now, you

(55:02):
know, he's playing these adult leagues and and he's like, hey,
dad, I want to start a team. Will you play with me?
And I go out there and do my best to not, you know, blow an
ACL out or something like that. But I love getting to live those
moments with him. But you know, taking photos of
Kobe playing baseball or landingat A at a show.
But like my favorite things havejust been to sit in these

(55:22):
moments of, of kind of creative spaces and just kind of capture
something that's been really unique that didn't cause me to
have to be gone 22 hours a day to, to kind of chase that down
and, and then go and do. And so no, it's not lost on me
at all. I'm incredibly grateful for for
what I got to do. But like I said, at the end of

(55:43):
the day, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's honest.
They sit on a shelf. I think most of them are in a
box right now. And you win a few awards and you
do a few things and it's a good time.
But if you, if you miss your kids living life in the process
of chasing all that stuff, I don't know exactly kind of how
all that plays. So yeah, I just, I always tried
and, and I hope that I did, I had a lot of, like I said, I was

(56:05):
probably AD Lister at best. And I've got buddies that that
do this at the top levels and, and it's incredible what they
get to do. But yeah, I think that the
calling sometimes is, is different for everybody.
And those guys love their families.
Well, so I'm not saying you can't do it.
I couldn't. I needed to be a little more
present than I could be. And those guys love their

(56:27):
families. Well, they're incredible
husbands and wives. They're, they're incredible
people that many of them love the Lord and and they're very,
very passionate about that. And so I'm so thankful there's
people like that in that space that are doing that.
It just, yeah, it wasn't, wasn'tmy, it wasn't where I needed to
be doing the most impact and stuff.
And I think that's hard when youget a chance to be successful in

(56:49):
something. And I think you would echo this
and then you kind of go, I thinkit's, I think it's time to do
this something different. All right, we're going to
lighten things up a little bit and we're going to go to one of
our favorite segments, Truth or Trash.
Now, we don't have a guest. Normally we do Truth or Trash
only when we have a guest sitting in studio with us and we

(57:10):
ask them the questions. But I'm going to ask you the
questions. All right, I'm giving no and I'm
doing them just like Robert Best.
I'm changing it up. I'm giving no, no answers to why
I say what I say. I'm just going to say truth or
trash and move on. Hey, there might be some that
you want to dive in a little bitdeeper.
I'm not. I'm.
I'm doing my best not to do it. I'm not doing my best not to do

(57:32):
it. I'm going to just truth it,
trash it, and move on. All right, truth or trash,
you're not building a platform. If you're not building a
platform, you're not stewarding your calling trash.
Trash. All right, everyone is an
influencer now. True.
You can't handle the truth. Being on being real on Instagram

(57:53):
is just another brand strategy. Trash.
Trash. You can be closer to God on a
hike in the mountains than in a church Pew.
Truth that I would probably givea caveat here if I was giving
them. Give your caveat man.
Go for. It I think the church matters,

(58:13):
but I think that God also like is is with us like he he retreat
Jesus retreated out to the woodsand he got away and he hiked and
he did things and I think there's a lot of truth in the
fact of that we can be really close to God in the middle of
the woods not just sitting in a church view you.
Can't handle the truth. Truth.
Breakfast food just tastes better at night.

(58:36):
Oh. True, you can't handle the
truth. Tastes really good in the
morning though too. Dad jokes are an art form, not
an embarrassment. You can't handle that.
I'll give you true. I'll give you true.
I, I guess. Yeah.
I'm not. I I do dad jokes occasionally.
Not often. Social media is the biggest

(58:56):
threat to spiritual growth today.
I'll say trash adjacent. I mean, it's their truth
adjacent to somewhere in betweenthose two, but I don't know if
it's totally trash. But yeah, I'll go trash.
Hot takes are just clout chasingin a hoodie.

(59:19):
I'll, I'll say, I'll say trash. Telling your dog happy birthday
on Instagram is a cry for help. I will say truth, even though my
family does it all the time, Oh my goodness.
We do lots of birthday posts forour dogs.
If you make a TikTok dance at a funeral, you're officially out

(59:40):
of bounds. I would feel like you've gone
too far, so I would say truth. But I guess if you're at the
funeral of a TikTok influencer and that's what would make them
happy, I'd say go for it. You can't handle the truth.
And that is truth or trash. You did great.
I did well except for the coupleI had to kind of step into.

(01:00:02):
You did really well. I was.
I was proud of you in that. So Robert, we have sat here
during our power outage time andwe talked about goals that we
have for this show. We talked about goals that we
have for the number of people that we want to reach the
number. We've talked about things we can

(01:00:23):
do to grow our social media influence, to grow our
subscriber count. There's a danger in that that
that becomes an obsession. There's a danger in that that
that becomes a focus. Who in your life calls out your
cloud chasing? You do a pretty good job of

(01:00:49):
that. You know, in the role I'm in,
there's a lot of people that like to humble me occasionally.
And so it's all, you know, I have, but I don't, I don't want
that line to that line of peopleto be crazy long.
And so there, there's, there's two or three people that I, I

(01:01:11):
live life in a pretty close proximity to that, that have
some ability to, to say some pretty heavy things to me that
I'll reflect on. I mean, you hear the thing,
don't never ask for advice, never ask, never take criticism
from someone you wouldn't ask advice from.
And I don't know that that's a great analogy in life.
But I do kind of have to step back sometimes and go like, is

(01:01:34):
that person on the same vision, mission, values of what's going
on? What's the truth in there and
what's the trash in there? And how do I go?
So So yeah, I've got, I've got asmall crew of people.
I look at mail often and go, I need you to say some hard things
here if you need to say them about this.

(01:01:55):
And then I'll launch into something.
What about you? I would say the same thing.
I've got a few close friends, you being one of them, and my
spouse, who are brutally honest with me when they need to be.
I think that those people, they're not impressed by
platform stuff and they'll call me out if I ever start chasing
attention or when I start chasing attention over purpose.

(01:02:21):
What spiritual practices keep you aligned with your calling?
We've talked a lot and I haven'tmentioned this book in a while.
We're actually teaching part of this in student ministry right
now. John Mark comers practicing the
way you and I both talk a lot about Dallas Willard's different

(01:02:42):
things and and there's so many more.
Excuse me, I so I mean, I, it's something that I do the practice
through the OR I step through these practices and what are the
disciplines that I need to kind of be in to, to follow Jesus?
Well, scripture reading is a bigdeal to me.

(01:03:02):
I can tell when I'm, when I'm not doing that at a level I need
to. I appreciate the buddies church
a few weeks ago and we talked about the the practice of
journaling, which I am the worstjournaler in the world, but I
talked about that from the perspective of when I journal
like it's typically like I'll write out a couple verses and I

(01:03:24):
start looking at like original text of the words and things.
And so for me, studying the scriptures brings an
understanding of my obedience and following of what Jesus
says. And so I'm I'm I'm working in a
rhythm of that practice. There.
You and I talked fasting, prayer, Sabbath.

(01:03:45):
Those are are moments and spacesthat I do.
One practice that I have is I took all of my family members
and I put their put them in every day as a reminder, like an
alarm that goes off inside of mycalendar that at their birthday,
it pops up for me to to pray forthem and just in a rhythm of

(01:04:10):
life, you know, I go right, that's terrible.
It's not that I don't pray for my kids, It's not that I don't
pray for my wife. It's just.
That let's let's clarify that a little bit because that that
made it sound like you only prayfor your kids once a year.
On their birthday, No, sorry, it's daily 365 days a year that
pops up at the at their birthday, at the at the time.
So like my birthday is June 2nd so it's 6O2 it's. 6O2 every day

(01:04:35):
it would pop up on my phone. AM and PM.
No, I just, I do it once and andit it's really kind of
interesting. It worked out that it went in.
Because that would really disrupt your circation.
Rhythm it went in birth order like it kind of thing.
So it was male and then the boysin the birth order and it kind
of works through and it's from pretty early kind of 8:00 AM in
the morning till 7:00 at night and it pops up throughout the

(01:04:56):
day. And and I didn't tell the boys,
but they'll sit, they'll be sitting in the van.
My phone's hanging there and we're driving.
It pops up and it says Colby andhe's like, yeah, like the other
day Brody and I were driving, you know, popped up.
We were just riding somewhere. I was like, time to pray for
Brody. He said thank you.
And he just drove on. And so, I mean, but it gives me
a chance. And so it's just things of it's

(01:05:18):
a practice, though. It's a training that I've got.
And so so yeah, those I really value the spiritual disciplines
and and things and, and I'm I'm training myself to be a little
more consistent and, and more ofthis.
What about you? I would say a lot of the same
things, yeah, silence, solitude,you know, the daily time in
Scripture. Those those rhythms, I think,

(01:05:41):
just keep me, just keep me grounded in the fact that I
don't need to be impressive, I just need to be faithful When.
That's so good you don't even impressive.
You need to be faithful. So when have you like when we
talk about this influence versus, you know, kind of clout

(01:06:02):
and calling in life and, and things that, that how we
navigate and, and, and move through our daily, daily rhythms
and stuff? When have you felt the most
alive inside of your opportunities?
Maybe I'll, I'll say leadership,but like your, your influence
and, and your opportunities to navigate through the lives of

(01:06:23):
other people through leadership,influence and those types of
things. Yeah, so I, I wrote this
question and in in all fairness,we wrote this episode probably a
long time ago. Yeah, this one's been God.
Really blessed us with a bunch of really cool guests that had a
lot of quick availability. Yeah, yeah.
So I, I had to revisit this thisweek in preparation for this

(01:06:47):
episode. And I got to this question and
and I thought, where was I at when I wrote that?
What? Was I thinking?
What was I thinking? That's what typically what I'm
thinking all the time when I read it the first time.
What was Tony thinking? And so it, it caused me to
really spend some time thinking through that.
When have I felt the most alive?And I think there's a couple of

(01:07:08):
different things here, is that influence is energetic,
influence is contagious. Influence is addicting.
It's addicting, and there have been many times in my life where
I've got to stand on a stage andspeak in front of people and

(01:07:30):
that feels really good. That feels really good in the
moment, and you come off of thatstage and there's a rush there.
There's definitely a high that comes in that, but inevitably
there's always a crash that comes.
I've never been addicted to alcohol, I've never tried drugs,
never been a smoker or anything like that.

(01:07:52):
But my dad, that was his career is he helped people fighting
substance abuse. And, and so I know that after
every high there's a crash and it's, it's was the same in that.
So at first my initial thought was, oh man, I nothing feels
better than when you just know the Holy Spirit is moving in you

(01:08:16):
or in a storytelling show and you know that you have, everyone
is on the edge of their seat waiting on every word, but
there's a crash that comes afterthat.
So and then, and then you leave and all the questions start
coming into your mind. Was I, was I effective in that?
Did anybody like that? Are they going to invite me
back? Are the comments going to come?
Am I going to get emails later today or tomorrow morning from

(01:08:37):
this? And so I don't know it, that
wouldn't be my answer. As I started thinking through
it, I started thinking through aperiod in in my life when when I
was weekly speaking in front of hundreds of people and had
people that were listening to myteachings online every single

(01:08:58):
week. And I was miserable.
And I can remember I was thinking what is happening with
my life I'm at. I'm at the pinnacle of of where
I wanted to be and yet I feel empty.
And I had a guy that was youngerthan me.

(01:09:18):
He was more in shape than I would ever hope to be.
In fact, he was a personal trainer.
That was his job. And I sat in the hospital as he
had had a stroke while he was out running and was was talking
through his wife and his three-year old son as they were
getting ready to pull the plug on him.
And day after day, neglecting myresponsibilities that I had as a

(01:09:42):
leader in an organization to go sit in a hospital with this
family. And I'd never, I hadn't felt
that alive in so long. Being able to try to bring the
hope of Jesus into life in its most miserable times and its
darkest shadows. And so when I, when I went back

(01:10:05):
this week and was thinking through this question, it's
those moments when I've been in small rooms having real
conversations with people makinga difference that maybe nobody,
that definitely no one other than the people in that room
never saw. But I know that that it mattered
that what was happening there really mattered, that it wasn't

(01:10:27):
just someone coming, being entertained, checking something
off a list, and then forgetting about anything they'd ever heard
as they try to beat the Baptist to Cracker Barrel.
It was conversations, it was interactions that deeply
mattered. And those are the moments when I
knew that I was at the center ofmy calling.
Those are the moments when I knew that I was not chasing

(01:10:49):
clout. I was simply just being obedient
to the calling of my life. How about for you?
Yeah, I mean, it's, I don't, I've never had the the platform
and things that you've had in those situations and stuff.
But I, yeah, I just sat and, youknow, we had a season where we
just sat in our home and 10 to 25 people a week were showing up

(01:11:14):
of just, we were just sitting ina circle and talking life.
And there was definitely a faithelement to that.
And we talked about it from a faith perspective.
But what they did in my life andwhat I hope that I had a small
chance to impact and invest in theirs was literally the the

(01:11:36):
greatest moments of of things that that I think in leadership
in life and in friendship and infamily and stuff that that I
lived in, in any of the journeysof what I've got to do is maybe
what I call a job or in those things and stuff that I kind of
do in that space. And so I was so grateful for
that season of just being able to personally really be faithful

(01:12:01):
in some moments and spaces. And then just as a as a
collective unit of who was circling up there, just that
that loving community that we had.
And we didn't always agree. We had a lot of really hard
conversations and long conversations that sometimes
when we get around each other, we still kind of step back into,

(01:12:21):
but literally just some of the most beautiful people I've ever
had a chance to be around and seeing God do some crazy things
in their life. And, and he's done some great
things in my life because of that.
And that for me was, was just something that was way more
special. There was no job title.
It was just a dude and his family that, that were that

(01:12:43):
wanted to that open up their house, fixed lunch every week
and people came in and sat down and we ate food and just talked
about life and, and how to, how do we navigate that through a
space of, you know, through a faith lens?
And what does that look like foryou?
What does that look like for me?And if those things don't align,
how do we just step forward and,and kind of move into some

(01:13:04):
really cool spaces? And, and I always shared things
from, from my belief in Jesus. And they are, they shared.
Some of them have shared that same belief, some didn't, but it
was just a really cool space. I love that.
That's great. Yeah.
I think for our listeners that are out there that maybe are, as
we wrap this up, that maybe you're in a place where they
feel like they're chasing clout over calling that that's the

(01:13:28):
focus of their lives. I, I, I just want to say this,
that I have been through some dark times in life.
I have been through some really difficult moments.
I know that you have to as well.And I can tell you from personal
experience that clout will not hold you up when life falls

(01:13:49):
apart. Clout will not hold you up when
life knocks you down. But a calling will.
So chase the calling. Don't chase the clout that is
all the time that we have for this edition of the Pulpit and
Porch podcast. I want to thank you for tuning
in and joining us on this conversation.
I want to thank you for being patient with us as we

(01:14:10):
experienced about a 45 to an hour minute power outage there
and hope that that will all playitself out well in post edit and
what you're finally hearing at the end.
But we want to thank you for going on this journey with us.
I want to encourage you. As much as we talked about
calling Overcloud in this episode, we do want to encourage
you once again to find us on Facebook, Instagram, on the

(01:14:33):
World Wide Web. Like us, support us, subscribe
to our podcast, share our podcast with our friend.
And we would really love for youto join us in the conversation.
You can do that by commenting onour posts on Facebook.
Not because we want the likes orwe want the comments, because we
genuinely would love to hear your thoughts on what we're
talking about. And we want to be sure that you
tune in next week for another incredible edition of the Pulpit

(01:14:55):
and Porch podcast. Have a great rest of your week.
We'll talk to you soon.