From Hustle to Wholeness: Finding Your Purpose with Pedro LaTorre

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I've never said this publicly. I want to say it.

(00:01):
Followers of Jesus, we should be leading the conversation
on a global level around purpose.
And we have failed miserably to have this conversation.
We are talking about the savior of the universe,
became to give us not just like more abundant life.
So I don't think purpose is about what we do.
I think it's becoming who we are always made to be

(00:22):
in the first place.
The irony is, when you are who you're made to be,
you do what you're made to do.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, welcome to the show.
Today on Stand Up Dude, we're joined by Pedro LaTorre.
He's been a musician, a pastor, entrepreneur, author,
and CEO of Brave Work.

(00:44):
Pedro once pursued a career toward professional baseball
before an injury redirected his path.
Since then, he has helped raise over $300 million
alongside organizations doing Brave Work around the world.
Pedro, welcome to the show.
And Tim, how are you today?
Oh, I'm doing mighty fine.

(01:05):
I love being around Pedro, one of my favorite peeps.
Thank you for being here, Pedro.
You know I speak the truth out.
I'm too used now.
It's doing Tim.
Yes, sir.
Love you, buddy.
Thanks for being here.
I can't wait to hear the beautiful things.
Just even recently, I thought I knew a lot of things
about you, which I kind of do.
But I just kind of been writing a book in the background,

(01:26):
holy moly, so look forward to hearing about that today.
Thank you, man.
So, Pedro, you do a lot of speaking, coaching,
things like that.
I know you have a new book that's going to be coming out.
Can you tell us about that, the title, and kind of who's it for?
Yeah, it's called The Purpose Mandate.
And I'm really excited about it.
Because no man ever think about purpose, so totally.

(01:49):
No one ever thinks about it.
Yeah, so good.
I mean, it's four leaders and people who maybe--
who don't even see themselves as leaders,
but they are.
I think all people are leading something,
whether you're leading a home, a family, whatever it is,
a business.
I'm leading their own life.
Leading your own life and your own meaning and calling.
So yeah, it's for people.
I mean, it really is.

(02:10):
It's one of those books that is for--
I wrote it for people.
This is my second book.
After the first book said, I'll never write a book again,
because it is just too dang hard.
So I just don't recommend it.
If you're trying to write a book, don't do it.
Unless you have to.
And so this book was a mandate.
It was a mandate.
And that's what we called it, The Purpose Mandate.
Because for me, it was personally something.

(02:31):
I felt like I had to sit down and put into paper.
And so I did.
And it was hard.
And it was time consuming.
And it was hard to sit through meaning and calling
in Jesus and all the different things.
But really, the hard of the book
is to help people move from a place of striving,
a place of hustle into a place of wholeness.
What does it mean to be a wholehearted human being

(02:52):
and live from a sense of identity?
Of who am I?
Who does God say I am?
And what does that look like?
And as always, Tim, I know you relate to this.
I want to write for people who don't go to church on Sunday.
So it's been my own journey of how do you write
from a gospel-centered perspective
to maybe a faithless generation in some ways

(03:13):
that it feels like giving up.
And so that's the heart of the book.
Is the intersection of faith
and also people who are exploring faith
and not sure about the things of Jesus
and why is purpose so meaningful to Jesus?
Like why did it matter that he came
and really he paid for purpose
is the essence of the book.
And so yeah, it's a big right, but it was fun.

(03:35):
- You know, this is not just an idea for you
that you thought you needed to write a book
on identity or purpose.
From what you just said about getting away from hustle
and going to, as you said, that has been your mandate.
Your struggle with just, what do you call it?

(03:57):
- Performance, the performance trap man.
And so this is not just an idea for you.
This is your journey that should be able to help
a ton of people.
- I hope so.
So I got just a question for you around biblical identity

(04:17):
in essence regarding especially manhood.
So a lot of men feel their worth comes from performance,
success.
And I've really noticed about around being a lot of men
that are married and being married for 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

(04:41):
As soon as you start talking to them,
all they start talking about is their weight of providing.
And so why do you think that so many of us struggle
to anchor our identity in Christ instead of our achievements?
- Well, 'cause it's easy and it's quick, you know.
It's way easier for me to find meaning.

(05:03):
And we're always trying to measure meaning.
If you think about it, we measure everything in life.
We measure the size of our TVs and our shoes.
- Interesting.
- All the things we own on some level are measurements.
And so if I can go get a quick hit of this is meaningful.
I'm meaningful.
Look at me, I matter, I'm belong.
We call it our primal ache.

(05:24):
So our primal ache is two questions, right?
Do I matter and do I belong?
And in those two questions, we're gonna get them answered
with units of measurement.
And so if I got a big truck, if I got a nice car,
if I got nice things, if I wear nice jewelry,
if I know nice cool people, if I'm an influential,
whatever it is, we all find ways to find meaning.
We cultivate ways where meaning creators,

(05:44):
that's what we do.
And the irony is, as we say often,
like your worth isn't found in your performance,
but I do believe worth is found in performance.
It's just not our performance.
It's the performance of Jesus.
And so that's what's so cool as the father of Jesus
is I get to wear one of two identities every day.
The one that says, it's on me to perform.

(06:06):
It's on me to earn.
It's on me to take care of my family.
It's on me to provide.
It's on me.
It's either on me or it's on him.
And if it's on him that doesn't mean I'm passive,
it doesn't mean I do nothing.
It means I work from an identity, not for an identity.
So all my work now is not--
Hold it.
It's not to earn.
Working from identity, not for it.
For it.

(06:26):
For it.
Oh, Jesus.
We spend so much too that.
Yeah, we spend so much time.
I think especially as young man, when I was a young man,
and I've got a 23 and a 26 year old, and they've got a pretty
healthy balance of it.
But yet, hey, they're in their 20s.
They are working-- what did you say?
For an identity instead of from a little bit.

(06:49):
I think we all do.
This note-- Totally.
No shaming.
Fingerpoint.
No, there.
I got three or four--
And that's the work of--
I believe that's the work in our faith of sanctification.
Is that all of the work of the Christian life is to--
and I said this on the last time I was with you guys--
is to mature into our dependence of Jesus.
And so a huge part of that, if not the most fundamental part

(07:11):
of that, is maturing into my understanding
of how he sees me.
I spent a lot of my early years going, how do I see me?
How do you see me, Stu?
How do you see me?
And so my resume, the things I did
is how I accumulated worth and value and contribution,
not all of which are bad things.
I think those are biblical ideas.

(07:32):
But the way in which the Bible or the person of Jesus
went about giving us meaning and purpose
was through his performance.
And so his performance led to my understanding of who I am.
And I had to wrestle through 100,000 different versions
of Pedro before finally getting back to the way
my father sees me.

(07:53):
What's interesting is everything you listed--
not to derail things to you, but to you,
but to you, hopefully.
But caring about the way other people see you,
how you perform is what scripture would talk about it
as the fear of man.
Totally.
It is a trap, it says.
And that is the driving thing.
I've been having conversations with my kids about this lately.

(08:15):
And really, it's anything that can be taken from you
is not a good foundation to build--
That's so good.
--the upon.
And I know in our previous conversations,
you've talked about your performance
was like, ultimately, you hit a roadblock where you're--
I can't do anymore.
I'm just burned out.
I'm tired.
I'm exhausted.
Eventually, you fail.

(08:36):
And then what do you do?
Thank God we fail.
Yeah, thank God we fail.
That's when we hit that wall of like, oh, I'm human.
I'm finite.
I need something infinite that can't fail.
I love that-- yeah, I totally derailed the way.
I really know.
It's really well said.
Build your life on things that can't be taken away.
And I unfortunately knew that from a cognitive standpoint.

(08:59):
But I didn't believe that from a heart standpoint.
So I feel sad today that there's many of us in the world
that walk with Jesus, but don't actually understand how he sees us.
If my kids don't understand how I see them,
then they'll work their whole life to try to figure it out.

(09:20):
And they'll build their own stories and narratives
around how my father sees me.
Whether true or not, right?
Am I valuable?
Am I enough?
Am I talented enough?
Am I good enough?
Every time my nine-year-old son gets in the car right now
after a baseball game, he's like, how do you think I did?
But really, how do you think I did?
And he's not actually asking about his performance.
He's asking about his identity.

(09:40):
Do you think I'm still enough, even though I
struck out that one time?
Do you think I'm still enough, even though I miss that
ground ball?
Do you think I'm still enough that I didn't catch the ball
at first or whatever?
And it's a deep-- their identity questions he's asking.
And they come in like passing as a parent.
They don't come like served up like this.
This is the big moment.
You've--
It's micro moments.
And so thankfully, God has been really gracious with me.

(10:03):
I took on a million different versions of Pedro Litori.
And all of them were reactions to my childhood
and the things I'd walk through.
And so we can unpack that more as we go.
Yeah.
So I've got a couple questions.
You may have answered one of them.
But basically, what does the Bible teach us about manhood
and identity that culture often misuses

(10:27):
or completely distorts?
Well, that, Tim, is not at all a difficult question.
That's pretty simple, if you ask me.
That's my sarcasm.
[LAUGHTER]
You know, as soon as you asked me that,
I think the first thing that came to mind was like,
Jesus.
It's like, it's the Sunday school answer.

(10:49):
But it's true.
If you think of Jesus on the cross,
it's like this amazing--
you could look at it two ways.
He's so unbelievably weak, right?
Yeah.
Or he's either that or he's unbelievably strong.
That he can face such a grotesque moment.
And I choose to see his strength.

(11:09):
That he would give his life for the life,
the quite literally, the life of every living being human
on the planet that would ever live moving forward.
He would give his life as a payment for our life.
And that's strength.
So that strength personified, it's not--

(11:30):
So that's a render is strength in the kingdom of God.
And so he's strong, man.
And like that, to me, is spectacular.
So biblical manhood is having the ability--
let me give it-- let me make it really practical,
because it gets very spiritual and airy, fairy.
You know, you talk to somebody who is like a martial arts,
you know, a savant.

(11:51):
Like, and they can just kill you by looking at you
or squeeze your pinky and you die or whatever.
I have a friend like that.
Do you?
So I have a friend like that as well.
And I feel unbelievably safe when I with him,
because he likes me, you know what I mean?
But I feel scared for everybody else.
Yeah, man.
And I've got so many stories about him.
And I could use the example, though,
what's so interesting about him is that he hopes

(12:12):
he never has to use any of what he knows.
OK.
So he's got this strength that's under control.
And I think that's biblical manhood.
It's not avoiding weakness.
He actually got so strong because he
leaned into his weaknesses.
And because he cultivated strength where it was painful,
and difficult, and hard.
And he apprenticed under the way of somebody who knew more than him.

(12:34):
And so that's, to me, that's biblical manhood.
It's being unbelievably strong and a force
for good in the world, but simultaneously,
not needing attention, not needing applause,
not needing--
and truthfully, that's a part of my heart
that I think is still in development,
is cultivating those traits that look more like Jesus.

(12:56):
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you.
How do you personally live out the--
Kettlebells, you know?
Is it Kettlebells?
It's the Kettlebells.
It's always the Kettlebells.
Kettlebell sales just went up.
That's right.
Amazon, here we come.
I don't know, man.
I think it's the basic things of our faith.
It's community.
It's being around other men frequently.

(13:18):
It's having people call me out on stuff they see in my heart
because they love me.
And they're not calling me out.
They're calling me up.
Yeah.
It's prayer and devotion to Jesus, which I so struggle with,
because I'm a pioneer by nature.
And I can allow my pioneer nature to be my master.
And then I'll call that Jesus that I'm following

(13:38):
and it's dangerous.
And so it's like it's prayer, it's presence, it's walks.
It's getting in a closet and being still with him.
All those things.
Yeah, more recently.
And I think you get to a point in your life
where you're like, we were talking about this
before we got on today.
It's like you either believe this stuff
and you're going to practice it and do it or you don't.
And I'm at that almost 39 next month.

(14:01):
Like I don't want to be spiritual sounding.
I want to resonate what I believe.
There's a quote the cynics have sort of in Greek,
rooted in Greek philosophy, but they say,
don't talk about what you believe in body it.
And I think that's my heart.
It's like, I want to embody what I believe
and talk less about it and be more about it.

(14:22):
What was your Henry Ford?
That was the Henry Ford thing.
What I'm doing is better than what you're talking about.
Bazinga.
Like that.
Yeah, it is.
Bazinga is worth it.
But that's the transcript.
I mean, I think it is definitely is now.
We will.
So when the Bazinga of the world, okay?
I like what you did.
You can use to call you back into the performance trap.

(14:44):
What you do is lean into not just metaphorically,
like and practically lean into walk, walk us back down that list.
You spend time around other men getting into your prayer closet.
You get into the word worship worship is a powerful weapon.

(15:04):
Worship is a powerful weapon.
Amen.
And so what you what you were doing there is better than what we often just talk about.
Sure.
Yeah.
And I want to be about it, man.
And again, there's a lot of days where I'm not.
Yeah.
I look back on the day and I'm like, why did I not take more time to pray?
Yeah.
I think about Billy Graham in his ministry.
And that was like one of his big regrets when he was asked the end of his life.

(15:27):
What's what's something you would have done different?
Read more.
I would have prayed more.
Yep.
I'm like, if I had to be asked that now, I'd better step up my game.
I think if I had to be asked that now, I'd probably would maybe give that same answer
my dad, you know, pastor the giant church and did a lot of incredible things in the kingdom.
And when he retired, about the near in near ring, he wasn't retired yet, nearing retirement

(15:47):
when my brother and I went to college, he cleared out one of the closets with all the clothes
that maybe we left behind, et cetera.
And he put a chair in there in a pillow and a little light that he could turn off and
on once he turned the light off to get to find his way in there.
And he would basically say the same thing.
The amount of time that he spent in prayer would have been, would have even more multiplied

(16:13):
the things that the Lord did through him when he was here on earth.
So powerful, man.
Because you're going to smell like an act like the people you hang around.
You know what I mean?
Like literally, like the people I hang with or you go to eat at a steak restaurant.
You leave, you didn't just leave the restaurant.
The restaurant goes with you and you smell like the restaurant literally smell like so

(16:33):
in the same way when we spend time with God, we begin to act like God, react like God, live
like God, talk like God.
And I think that's the whole purpose of the whole stinking thing, man, is not to just walk
with them but to walk like them.
And that's my heart.
I don't want to just walk with God.
That sounds cool.
No, I want to walk like them.
What does that look like?
And that's surrender.

(16:54):
And that's the whole work of purpose, in my opinion.
I think that's the foundational truth of purpose.
Far out.
That's so good.
I love what you said there a second ago just want to re-in case anybody missed that.
Basically, we're saying, look, if you truly believe of all of the principles and the characteristics

(17:17):
and the realities of walking with Jesus, then why are we not doing it 100 percent?
I know there's a lot of 100 percent people out there at least you think you are and sometimes
think that I am.

(17:38):
I give them all and pretty much everything I do yet, this walking with Jesus part.
Wow, what if I went 100 percent in that?
What if we went in 100 percent in that?
In the irony, if you believe it, where is the 100?
Yes, and I would say the 100 percent is so hard in following Jesus because it's 100 percent

(18:01):
of letting go.
And that's what makes it so difficult.
It's given up your eye performance.
It's not your eye performance.
It's your eye performance.
Because that can easily become a performance in another self, where we're in the Pharisee territory
at that point.
And so it's doing, it's creating more laws.
There's these laws, we'll make more laws.
It's like that's how powerful I am and how advantageous.

(18:22):
Okay, like at what point is the 100 percent of letting go?
Yes, that's difficult.
That's hard.
It is.
That's the idea.
That's giving up what you've written your story around, your identity and what that means
and what that must look like and what that needs to look like when other people see you.
Yeah.

(18:42):
When you talked about sometimes our weakness and strength, what if what we considered needs
to be our strength as our identity out there?
What if we flip that?
It felt like you kind of went there a minute ago.
What if your true strength was your weakness?
Like I'm talking like your softheartedness.
Like come on Pedro, you know, man up like what if I'm getting pumped over your tent?

(19:08):
What if your softheartedness was freaking the giant, that's the giant kingdom.
Yeah.
Well, like even the Apostle Paul, that's his thing.
I know when I am weak, I am strong.
That's right.
He is saying that the Christ actually, when he's like, hey, he's beceaching the Lord, he's
like, I've got this thorn in my flesh and God's answer is, you know, after three times

(19:32):
of him saying, would you please, whatever this problem is that Paul had, take it away and
he goes, no, my strength is made perfect in weakness.
My power is perfected in this.
Yeah.
So it's the upside downness of the kingdom of God.
It's not the way the world works.
It isn't like you're saying we could reach the 100% now we're really Pharisees, you know,

(19:53):
just leading ourselves to hell rather than actually to Christ.
And I think what's the implication of that passage that so well said, dude, the implication
of that passage is something we avoid as followers of you, especially as men.
He's like, he doesn't just say, my, his power is made perfect in my weakness.
I think we'd always men be like, yeah, I get that.
Like, I got some weak spots.

(20:13):
Like he says, so I will boast all the more in my weakness.
So not only is he willing to see it, he's willing to say it.
And that is manhood.
I'm willing to see within myself, but I'm also willing to name it in the context of close
relationships and in places of growth.

(20:33):
So I think that's a powerful part of what it means to be a real man in following in the
way of Jesus is that I don't, you know, I have a client, a guy, a coach.
And he's a pastor and Ohio amazing friend.
He's become a close friend and his name is JD.
And one time on a call, he, I was saying like eight minutes, I was ranting.
I was like, this is what we're leaning into.

(20:53):
This is the stuff.
This is the heart.
And, you know, sometimes I can be really wordy and I could, it takes me, I have a verbal
processor.
I said to say it to get it.
And they're like, that was it.
Sorry, I took me nine minutes, you know, like, it's hard to take your whole life here.
Yeah.
And then he goes, he synthesized it because he's a pastor and he preaches all time.
He's so smart.
And he said, so you're telling me that I can't surrender what I'm not willing to see.

(21:15):
And I was like, yeah, you can't surrender, which you're not willing to see.
So Paul is saying, I not only see it and I name it, but I say it to the Lord and I confess
it to those around me.
Yeah.
So why?
Because when I do that, my wound gets healed.
My deficiency gets healed.
And with Jesus, he never just heals the wound.

(21:37):
He turns the wound into your work in the world.
But many of us want the work without the healing of the wound.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the beginning of purpose, in my opinion, let me just say this because like we're on a
podcast and I've never said this publicly.
I want to say it.
The church followers of Jesus, we should be leading the conversation on a global level

(22:01):
around purpose.
And we have failed miserably to have this conversation.
We are talking about the savior of the universe coming and giving man life, woman life, purpose
and meaning.
And we're sitting on the sidelines while everybody else is chasing it and music and fame
and stuff and social media followers and whatever thing and accumulation of wealth and

(22:23):
power and influence and all the grimy, right?
And then we got Jesus and we hold this truth to be true about who he says we are and we
hide it.
Like we hide the reality of like he came to give us life and life more abundantly, not just
life, more abundant life.

(22:46):
His kingdom is filled with blueprints for his followers and purpose for his followers.
And supremely, I don't believe it's a work of doing, I think it's a work of becoming.
So I don't think purpose is about what we do.
I think it's becoming who we are always made to be in the first place.
The irony is when you are who you're made to be, you do what you're made to do.

(23:11):
So like it's a crazy like reversal where he's like, yes, not about what you do.
It's about who you are.
Yeah.
But ironically, when you know who you are, guess what?
You do what you're made to do.
A bird knows that it's a bird every day.
It doesn't wake up.
Am I a bird today?
Can I fall out of office limb and just like do bird things?
Fly to do bird.
They don't think about it.
All of creation does what it's made to do without question.

(23:34):
We are the only beings on the planet, historically and forever, that have a choice in what we become
and who we are.
And that choice is there because of sin.
Jesus restored it.
We should be leading the conversation, not behind.
Yeah.
We should be on the front lines of culture going, I know who I am.

(23:55):
Not just what I'm made to do.
I know who I am.
Guess what?
When you know who you are, nothing can steal that.
And there is no job that is going to give me more meaning than what I get when I spend time
with my father.
There's no task I'll ever do.
There's no podcast I'll ever be on.
There's no person I'll ever know that will give me more meaning than what I get, more
purpose than when I get than when I'm with my dad.

(24:18):
That's that solid rock that Jesus speaks about.
Building your foundation on the rock, not the same.
The same.
Yeah.
It's not movable.
Yeah.
Pedro, you sent us some notes and stuff in your book, which isn't out yet, but it's going
to be soon.
One of the things that you wrote about was that purpose is personal.
Yeah.
Can you unpack that a little bit?

(24:39):
What do you mean by that?
Yeah.
So I think there's three things that I've learned about purpose in my life.
Maybe they resonate with you guys too.
I hope they do.
But number one is that purpose is personal.
In other words, it's related to our story.
It's unique to each of us.
I'll come back to that in a second.
The second part of it is it's always painful.

(25:01):
Underneath purpose, there's something painful that's happened to us.
Maybe something painful that didn't happen.
That sounds crazy, but a lot of times it's not just what did happen.
It's also what didn't.
Maybe we weren't loved in the ways we needed to.
Our questions weren't answered.
Do I matter to have a long?
And so we went--
Love with hell, dirt.
Yeah, with hell, dirt.
Tide with hell.

(25:22):
Totally.
Or somebody passed away.
Are you lost dad?
Or somebody didn't protect you in some sort of way.
We all-- every human being has these things, right?
It's kind of like the hero origin story.
That's right.
Usually a point of pain, right?
So it's always-- it's always personal.
There's always some sort of pain around it.
And again, that doesn't always mean deep, deep diving pain.

(25:42):
It can also just mean pain, something difficult, hard.
And then lastly, it's always powerful.
The personal part is the part we most avoid.
So many of us are pretty familiar with the pain.
We're pretty familiar with even what it means
to step into the powerful part of our purpose.
But until you've really gone back into your story

(26:03):
and you've looked at what took place in my childhood
and it is those developmental formative years
of where the foundation, the concrete mix is brewing
and the truck and it's getting poured out and spread out.
And we are learning about love.
We are learning about our value.
And all of us have gaps inside of that time of our life

(26:26):
on some level.
And that's part of where God works His greatest miracle
if we're willing to go back.
And that doesn't always mean trauma healing for all of us
and deep recovery work or counseling or therapy.
It can.
And I highly recommend partnering with a biblical counselor
in that.

(26:47):
It's founded in the gospel.
But the reality is it's always personal.
It's unique to Tim's story and Stu's story.
And when we lean into that, we see something very fundamental
about the way God sees us.
And for me, I had to go back into my own story
and look deep within and I won't make the whole thing about me.

(27:07):
But as I did, that gave me such a perspective
on the way my father made me.
And what his unique thumbprint was on my life.
And what I carry, all caps, all caps, father.
And it was so helpful.
And it continues to be the reminder of like,
my dad made me like this.
This is a part of so my tenderness or my heart

(27:29):
or the way I see the world or the fact
that I can walk into rooms and feel people's emotion
without them opening their mouth and understand
perceive what they're feeling.
My dad made me like that.
And the enemy hijacked that for much my life.
And it turned it into they don't like you.
They don't see you can tell.
They don't like you.
Now you gotta go please.
Now you gotta go perform.
Versus, you go back.

(27:49):
You go back.
And again, uncovering that wound, however great or simple it might be,
was the beginning of uncovering my work.
And quite literally the work I do now in the world
is helping other people heal from their wounds.
That's amazing.
Amazingly literally brave work.
We didn't, I don't know if he mentioned that,
but that's the name of your company.
Yeah, what you do.

(28:10):
What you do.
And what you did brave work, you're not just talking about it.
Yeah.
So with that, with it being personal, painful and powerful.
Like you're really saying this leads to healing.
How would God use this really to heal the lives of men,
how that impact the families, their churches, their community?
Yeah, so I think of like our wounds

(28:33):
as the well in which we source all of our energy from.
Okay, it's crazy.
So your well is either been healed or you are covering it up.
So we call it suppression or exaggeration.
Okay.
And so you're doing one or the other.
So in that well is the contents of your life,
your lived experience.

(28:54):
And the more healthy, we could use like a water term,
like the more alkaline balance to your water,
the more equal healthy your water is,
the better the flow of your life will be.
And so you're not striving in relationships,
you're not performing,
you don't feel like the way to the world on your shoulders,
which I did for most of my life.
You don't feel the need to people please,

(29:16):
you don't feel the need to be codependent, you don't.
And it doesn't mean you don't struggle with any of these things.
It just means you're very keenly aware
of when you're dipping into old ways and old patterns.
Yeah.
And so for every man who's like,
I wanna live deeper my purpose,
but I got the strain of bills and life
and in all these different things.
It's like man, the deeper you go into that well

(29:37):
with the person of Jesus,
the more you will see how he sees you
and you will realize you were never made to carry that.
So the mantra that was put on my house
when my father left was son,
he said, you're the man of the house,
take care of your mom, take care of your sister.
You were whole seven years old.
Seven.
So every time I go,
I did it in the parking lot before I got here,

(29:57):
I started thinking about all these different business decisions
we gotta make in places and people pulling at me
and the different things and responsibilities and all that.
And what do I hear?
I hear two voices, first voices, usually my own.
Gosh, I gotta figure out this out.
That's the man of the house.
Yeah.
And then I go, Holy Spirit, what is true about that?
And he goes, I'm the man of the house.
Oh, I like that.
And so if I'm familiar with my wound,

(30:19):
then I can hear my father's voice every time it comes back up
and it tries to speak and it speaks all day long.
It just does, but that's part of my sanctification.
That's part of him going, I'm gonna make you into my image
not so that you can walk around as like a floating spiritual person
like so that you can actually be grounded
in your deficiency,
power made perfect in weakness.

(30:39):
And that's the beginning of what it means to be a man.
Like a man has faced his inner world,
allowed the Holy Spirit to speak to him about the truth
of what's really going on and who he really is constantly,
continually.
This is the act of what it means to live a brave life
that we continually surrender so that why we can be more like Jesus.
Jesus lived in a posture of continual surrender.

(31:02):
That's what it means to not walk with him,
but walk like him.
So that's the aim of our life.
We should be an open book before God constantly.
Why?
Because we're sourcing our outer activities from our inner world.
Okay.
So he has access and some men in my life have access
into my inner world.

(31:22):
Why?
Because the more healed I am, the more holy I am,
the more I can reflect my father's image in the world
and I'm not fighting for control over my own image.
And so it brings peace, it brings perspective,
it brings relationship,
it brings the right people into my life.
I attract people that are attracted to him,
not just Pedro's gifts or talents or abilities or deficiencies.

(31:44):
And so it literally creates a playing field.
And then you go to your kids.
I don't have to teach my kids all the time about identity.
They are with me and they understand what it means to be a Laturi
because their father has spent time with Jesus.
And so when my kids are going through things,
I'm not reactive.
Why?
Because my father's not reactive with me.
He responds.
He comes down to my level.

(32:05):
He looks me in the eye.
He addresses the feeling, the fear, the sadness,
the loneliness, the shame.
He's not afraid of my emotional realm.
When we're afraid of the place that Jesus wants to heal,
where we will literally live enslaved to that place.
And then we're trying to follow him.
And it's like, man, why would you ever follow a healer

(32:25):
and not let him heal you?
And dude, I did that for most of my life.
I walked with the healer, talked about the healer,
and I never let the healer heal me.
And so the work of manhood, the purpose of our lives
is not to do things for God.
It's to become like him.
And if he surrendered, if he laid his life down,

(32:45):
you look at what it means to be a husband.
Husbands love your wives and what?
The way that Christ loved any lay his life down.
Well, you can't lay your life down
if you're not willing to see it.
It's impossible.
How do I lay something down if I've never looked at it?
If I've never been honest about this happening
to me as a kid, this is what I went through.
This is what I did.
This is what I didn't do.
This is what dad did.

(33:06):
This is what dad did.
Not to shame and blame and not to be a victim,
but to take ownership of the very story
that God had been writing with my life.
I believe when we surrender, we see redemption.
Now I see God moving through all the places I used to hide
and it's literally become my work.
And now it's helping other men, families be restored,
pastors, leaders.

(33:26):
Why?
Because I'm simply allowing God to heal those parts of me.
And now it's invetational to other dudes
who are like, what's that?
And it's not Pedro.
Let the Lord in.
So as you were sharing that, that hit me like Jesus
is often will refer to him as the great physician.
The Holy Spirit even is like the one he's coming alongside.
He's convicting and everything.

(33:48):
And two thoughts.
When we are confessing something, you pointed out,
it's not just sin though it is sin,
but it's also sin done to you.
And it might just be circumstances things that happen.
The wounds that were there.
But imagine going to a physician.
And he's like, I don't like blood.
And he's like, I don't want to look at it.

(34:08):
And you're just like, he's just like just describe it to me.
You're like, well, it would probably be better if you looked,
like the bones sticking out or something.
And it's like that wouldn't be a good physician, right?
He's not.
But in this sense, you're the one who's having to go, yeah,
actually this is really what has happened.
This is the truth of the matter.
You can't get the proper prescription

(34:30):
if you don't have the right diagnosis.
And I think if we're coming to Jesus and we're just like,
yeah, but just could you leave that door closed?
I don't want anything to do with it there.
That's so well said.
It's so overwhelming when we think of it that way though.
But if he's lying and lame, it means he's both tender and thorough.
Yeah, yeah.
He doesn't play around.
So he doesn't look at your wound and go, oh man, that's sad,

(34:53):
but hey, you're going to be okay.
So let me go.
Come on, let's keep going.
Oh no, he's a gentle lamb.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
That was wrong.
I'm so sorry they offended.
I'm so sorry they forgot.
I'm so sorry he left you.
I'm so sorry they said that.
But also, let me tell you who you are.
Yeah.
In the moment, I remember being in Los Angeles, California

(35:15):
in an apartment in Chinatown.
This is a true story.
There's a guy I shout out to my buddy, DJ Promote.
He's a DJ for La Cray and Maze Man, his wife changed my life.
And I had a kind of an intensive kind of time
with her and this counselor.
And she had me close my eyes.
And I'll never forget this moment.
I don't think I've ever shared this publicly.

(35:36):
And she said, I want you to just clear your mind the best you
can.
Open your heart and ask the Lord how he sees you.
And I was like, whoa, I've never even done that before.
You know what I mean?
And if any man is listening, you're going, where do I even
begin, Paige?
These are all these ideas and sentences and thoughts.
Like, where do I even start with all this?
But you talk about prayer and you talk about confession.

(35:57):
It's like, where do I even start?
And then we don't do it because there's just too many things.
Start here.
Close your eyes and ask the Lord, it's simple.
How do you see me?
How do you see me?
Tell me what you see in me.
And that right there, if you start every day, Father, tell me how you see me.

(36:17):
It'll change your life.
Because you can't be seen by God and live out of alignment.
It's impossible.
When you literally allow the Holy Spirit in, and so many of us as men, what we do is we deflect
to the opposite.
God, this is all about you.
And I'm just going to follow you.
I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to be strong and faithful.

(36:40):
I'm going to get it done.
And it's like, that sounds good and it makes for great movies for Braveheart, right?
It's not what it means to follow Jesus though.
I mean, Jesus is, tell me how you see me.
Because if I don't know how you see me, I will go make up versions of myself.
And I'll go, I'll perform for my wife and I'll perform for my kids.
I'm 15 years deep in marriage.
I don't have time for performance.

(37:01):
I'm worn out by the performance and the dance.
And man, I need to be seen by my father, known by my father.
And here's why that can feel selfish and self-centered to culture at large right now.
But here's why that's important.
And when God the Father sees us, what does He see?
He sees himself.

(37:22):
Yeah.
He sees Jesus.
Yeah.
Podcasts done.
Yeah, there we go.
Rapid.
That's so what he's not trying to, to, to, he's trying to help us see how he sees us.
And if he sees us as finished and complete and lacking in nothing and full.

(37:44):
And we start to come into alignment of that.
That's the beginning of healing.
That's the beginning of moving and leading your family in a different way.
That's the beginning of not feeling the way in the world on your shoulders.
Listen, I'm constantly being tested in this.
So this is so difficult for me.
I'm not, this is not like a man, it's easy.
I figured it out.
And this is what it all, this was all about.
It's like, you know, this is really hard.

(38:04):
Following Jesus is so difficult, you know why?
Because you're following Jesus.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
He does not work a square plus b square equals c square.
He works a square plus b square equals school bus.
Like what?
That don't even make, that's the wrong formula.
Right.
That's what he does.
Five loves to finish.
Let's feed five thousand, ten thousand people.
It doesn't make sense.
Here's your next move.

(38:24):
Here's your next move.
Yeah.
Faith is completely unpredictable.
Right.
But if it's founded on, on being with him, the, I believe the disciples acted like in crazy
ways.
You, we make fun of people who get out of boats and walk on, try to walk on.
Well, I would be easier.
You got to walk on water for like, however long.
Like that's pretty, pretty, pretty crazy.
Why did he do that?
Because he knew how Jesus saw him.

(38:49):
He knew how Jesus saw him.
That's what caused his faith.
That's the premise of all of our movement and life.
That's the premise of purpose is knowing how you're seen by a father.
And you don't, and the irony is whether you succeed or fail, it doesn't matter because
you've already succeeded because you know who you are.
Mm-hmm.
And our work is not, it's worship.

(39:11):
It's just worship.
It's like, well, what if this fails?
Yeah, what if it does?
I'm not a failure.
All the way back to what you're saying, it's, it's the resting.
It's the letting go.
It's the completely trusting him.
There's, there's a pastor.
I remember him saying like all of the work that Jesus ever did, he never did.
Yeah.
And his point was like, if you read the book of Luke, everything he did was by the power

(39:33):
of the Holy Spirit because he was fully man.
It wasn't like, you know, the analogy of Clark Kent is Superman, but when he's Clark, he
pretends like he got hurt, but he's not really hurt.
No, he was a man.
He laid aside his rights and privileges while still maintaining his Godhood.
Like it doesn't entirely make sense in our brain.

(39:53):
But including the example was that he was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
So your entire Christian life is actually to be lived, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who
gives you the strength, who gives you that example of everything that you are capable of, you
know, living in the identity of Christ.
So man, I feel like we could, we could go on for like 10 more hours.

(40:16):
I know, I know.
I wanted to say something before we get too far away from what you said and then just lead
us from there.
But bro, like, whoa, you know, you said, you know, you let people, you ask them to close,
or eyes, and that's God to say, how do you see me?

(40:38):
Personally, my shoulders went from this.
They just went and relaxed.
And I realized that he, you know, I'm sitting here doing, and he sees me as being.
And just wanting to just be, not just wanting to always do.

(41:03):
And you know, that was my experience, Pedro, that was just almost instantly when you said
that.
But what about the guys here that did that or that thought about doing it and were afraid
because they've never asked God that.
And they're afraid what they're going to hear or they don't know what they genuinely

(41:28):
don't know what God thinks of them.
Would you walk them through that beautiful brave for many?
For me, it wasn't that brave for many.
That is a brave task that you've just asked them to do to ask God what, well, yeah, he honestly

(41:54):
sees them.
Would you lead them towards being able to do that?
And what that can mean for them right now in lifetime?
Yeah.
I think if you have fear or shame around the idea of sitting with your dad, sitting with the
King of the Universe, sitting with your father, I just want you to know me too.

(42:14):
It is scary because many of us have these perceptions of God where he's looking at us kind of grossed
out.
Like, I got you again, Pedro again, you're calling again.
What do you need?
Do you not get it by now?
And that's how I've experienced and a lot of ways my earthly father, it's no shame on him.
He loves me.
He cares for me.
He's awesome.

(42:35):
But a lot of the way I saw my dad is the way I see my father, my heavenly father.
And so if you struggle with like, man, I want to get along with God, I want to do that.
I just, I'm kind of scared as to like what he might say to me.
Like what, what, what if it's not what I want to hear?
And I just want you to know your father's voice and your father's heart towards you is unchanging.

(42:59):
And it always has been.
And that's the beautiful part about a holy God.
Is it doesn't just mean he's holy in the sense that he's set apart.
It also means that he's holy in the sense that he's consistent.
He's consistently pursued you your whole life.
He loves you.
He's crazy about you.
He's madly in love with you.
He doesn't just like you.
He doesn't just like you.

(43:21):
He loves you.
That's a beautiful gift.
So even if you don't believe that today, I wouldn't say like, you need to just believe
that and that's it.
No, no, no, I'm telling you, I spent three decades of my life trying to earn love, trying
to perform raging against the love of a father and just saying like, look what I can do for

(43:45):
you.
I don't care about what you did for me.
Look what I can do for you.
And I actually thought what I could do for God was way better than what God did for me
if I'm being honest.
And that's sad.
And he met me in that.
He met me in that ego and that despair and that sadness and my wounds and he'll meet you
in it.
It's just, it is extremely brave, extremely scary, but it's also extremely beautiful once

(44:11):
you do it.
When I was in LA, I didn't finish that thought, but when I was in LA and she said close your
eyes and tell me what you, what you see or hear from God.
And I was like, well, I got my eyes closed.
First thought, I got my eyes closed.
I didn't see it.
Nothing.
And as I had my eyes closed, I literally saw like came out of focus into focus, a

(44:33):
lion's face like, wow, fast.
And I opened my eyes and I almost opened them thinking like, did anybody else see that?
Cause I don't, I've never had anything like this happen to me before.
And she goes, what'd you see?
And she's taking notes.
And I go, is this going to sound weird?
And she's like, just what'd you see?
And I said, I saw a lion.
And she said the last two days, the last two men who sat there said this exact same thing.

(44:54):
Oh my gosh.
Wow.
And so it's confirmation.
Like, he sees me as a lion.
And what that was for me.
And if you're listening, I encourage you to go sit with your dad.
He's got thoughts about you.
He's got his ways are higher.
His thoughts are higher.
He's intimate.
He's well acquainted with you.
He's designed you.
And what he said about me was that you are, you are more like me than you know.

(45:16):
What's the phrase I heard?
You're more like me than you know.
You are gentle, but you are unbelievably powerful.
And, um, I did not believe that in that moment.
So if you do this, wherever you are driving at home, pull over on the side of the road,
it doesn't matter in a closet by yourself.
It doesn't matter.

(45:37):
Coffee table in the morning for the family's up.
If you do this, I just want you to know what he says about you.
You may not believe right away.
And he's also okay with that.
He's also okay with going, I'll prove myself.
The Bible says his mercy are new every morning, which means I'll prove myself to you again.
That's how much I love you.
I didn't just die for you one time.

(45:58):
And that's the thing.
And it's like, well, you should just know I love you, which is my relationship with my father.
You should just know I love you.
I shouldn't even have to, you should just know.
And instead, we have a father who goes, no, I wake up every day to be with you because I
love you and I want to be with you.
And I want to know what's on your heart.
I want to know what you're scared of.
And I want to know where you're sad and you're lonely and you have fear of money and the
fear of man and whatever you've got going on.

(46:19):
And also, I'm going to keep reminding you of who you are.
Even on the days you don't believe it, especially on the days you don't believe it.
What a good dad.
What a good father.
He doesn't amannual God with us type of father.
You show me a God, any world's in the world who does that.
Show me one.
You'll never hear anyone else talk about Jesus the way we talk about Jesus.

(46:42):
It's not made up.
It's not fluff.
It's real encounters with a living father who every day waits to tell us this is who you
are.
So if you want purpose in life, if you want to know what you're made to do, then you have
to know who you are when you know who you are, everything flows from that.
It's not a vocation.
You're not chasing a vocation.

(47:04):
Now, sometimes, as my mentor said, sometimes your giftings and your vocation seem like they're
aligned.
And that's really cool and it's really special, but they are uniquely different.
They sometimes do this.
You might be a really great orator and a pastor and you're like, "Whoa, I was made for
this."

(47:24):
Actually, you could not be pastoring people and go speak at corporate events and crush.
I got a friend who does that and he absolutely crushes that game.
He's literally one of the best speakers in the world, but he also teaches at a church
on Sunday morning and he's unbelievable.
Why?
Because God's, so it's important to separate my doing from my being, my work, from my

(47:46):
identity, why so we can understand.
When you do that, here's what's really cool.
I just want to end with the stuff.
I feel like to say this.
When you do that, your purpose is all the time.
It's always happening.
It's always happening.
I'm always living in my purpose.
It's never, it's sometimes I vocationally get paid, but a lot of times it's just, it's happening

(48:07):
around bonfires, it's happening in an intensive with men, it's happening with coaching, it's
happening in training coaches, it's happening at home and my wife on the car, the kids, my
purpose because I'm living for my identity.
I'm doing it right now.
I didn't have to prepare for this at all.
I didn't have to think about why because it's a part of who I am.
So now the pressure's off.
I ain't got to perform.

(48:28):
I don't care if you like me or not.
I hope you do, but I don't care if you do.
I'm not trying to offend you.
I love you.
You know, I love you, my, you're my guy.
But I don't have to come here with a sense of, man, I hope they like me, man, I hope they
ask me back one day, man, I hope they, they tell other people, man, it's just, I'm just
being who my dad made me to be.
And I can do that lovingly.
I can do that gently, but I can also do that powerfully.

(48:50):
Purpose is those three things, right?
It's personal.
It's painful.
But when that pain is healed, man, it's unbelievably powerful.
You tap into something that is, is unreal.
And it's not a job.
My purpose is bigger than a job.
It doesn't fit in a box.
It didn't for Jesus and it won't for me.
Sometimes I'll get paid.
Sometimes it fits into a thing.

(49:10):
Well, but they are, they might look that they might do this sometimes, but not who I am
infuses what I do.
And when I live that opposite, boy does life get messy and complicated and deeply stressful.
When I live from that identity of who I am, my dad does incredible things through my very
feeble faith, through my carnal mind.

(49:34):
He renews me in ways and he does things.
And I'm like, I don't even know how we got here.
I don't even belong in this room, but my dad has been talking to me and then here we are.
And it's a different way to live, man.
It really is.
Hope for every man, every person, but every man, especially on this podcast, that you can
get to a place in your life where you are not defined by what you do.

(49:58):
Peter, thank you so much for being a guest on the show today, but also for sharing your
heart what God has done in your life and showing men how that gives them hope.
This isn't just unique to you.
This isn't just something God did for you.
It's something that He is making available to literally every man watching, every man in

(50:21):
the world, every woman in the world.
And I hope that people who are watching, who are listening, that they come away and they
just go, man, I can take hold of this truth and actually take action by resting in my
identity as a son of the king.
And that would define their whole lives, redefine their whole lives.

(50:42):
How can people find out more, get ahold of you, whatever, all the socials I know.
Let's just give them one.
I mean, Instagram or whatever is always a great one, page of the story.
But yeah, I mean, website page of the story comms the easiest way.
Cool.
All right.
We'll also include those in the show notes.
So if people are just dying to click a link instead, you can go there.

(51:07):
Guys, thank you so much for tuning in for this episode of the Stand Up Dude podcast.
Tim, do you have any last words you want to just wanted to do?
Purpose mandate is the book coming out very soon.
We will have you again, can keep your ears open and eyes ready to see more of Pedro and

(51:30):
more about your purpose as he so eloquently and gently and purposely will help guide us
all in the things that guide us taught him how to be the man that he is today and being
is much bigger than doing.
So we're not just talking about doing, but the doing comes from our being with Jesus.

(51:58):
But I want to encourage you that we've talked a lot about hearing God today, asking what
he says and listen or going to your prayer closet and here and for those that maybe think
that's a little weird, it's not weird at all.
Just think of something that you've been, maybe a teacher told you or your mom or your

(52:23):
dad told you and you can remember those things.
That's what it is.
God reminds you who you are.
You may have not heard those specific words before, but it's not weird at all.
In fact, it's highly encouraged to get used to listening to God's voice.

(52:45):
It's closer to you than you think.
It's more clear than you can imagine.
And I just encourage you that when you do hear it, a really underestimated part of hearing,
God is doing what he says.
So take him up on what he says.
That's where that trust and that risk comes into hand.

(53:08):
And if you forget, as Pedro so eloquently said, he will remind you every day his mercies
are new.
So I thank you, Pedro, for being here, brother and God bless you.
Hope, desire and bless.
Great things for you as you teach and guide men's hearts to Jesus, to being the man they're

(53:32):
created to be.
Thank you, man.
Thank you for being here.
It's my honor.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
If you would like some other practical steps before Pedro's book comes out, you can go to
standupdo.com/stand and there's all kind of growth paths for you that encourage you to
know Jesus more deeply so you can look more so like Jesus.

(53:54):
So I love you guys.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you.
See you next time.
Yes.
So drunk.
Now I'm left burned and broken.
Time to go.
[Music]

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

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From Hustle to Wholeness: Finding Your Purpose with Pedro LaTorre

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang