Ruslan: Live Events vs. Digital: The Ultimate Creator Dilemma | DSH #1530

The New Age stuff goes back to not a creator-creation distinction, right?

Meaning that there's a creator, he created everything, there's a mind that made our mind, but that this mind and my mind are one, and I'm creator, and I'm ultimately God.

It usually goes like this: the universe is one, you are one with the universe, the universe is God, therefore you're God.

All right, guys, returning guests here today.

We got Ruslan in town speaking at Ryan Pineda's event.

Thanks for stopping in, Matt.

Yeah, man.

Back for the second time.

Thanks for having me back.

Absolutely.

What's changed in the past year for you?

More live events, more speaking, more traveling.

Finished my first book.

Nice.

We did our first live event, the Blessed God Summit.

That was great.

We have about 400 people planning the next one now.

Wow, March 2026.

So yeah, I say more live events.

What made you want to pursue in-person stuff?

When you do things digitally, you don't quite get the gravity of the impact you're making because it's sometimes just numbers on a screen.

When you meet those people in real life, and I get recognized fairly frequently,

you start understanding the weight of what you're doing more and it impacts you more that you're impacting other people, which I think creates a degree of anchoring and humility.

So I think the more creators can be with their people in person, the better it is for both sides.

Because it's not this kind of parasocial relationship where they don't, they know you, but you don't know them.

But it also allows you to see the impact of what you do.

I agree.

Cause some people reach a certain level of status and they disconnect from their fans completely.

That's right.

They won't even talk to them.

Yeah, that's weird.

A lot of people are like that, though.

Like A-list celebrities.

I think that's lame.

I think if

people are the reason why any of us are successful, somebody's choosing to watch, I think we want to create every opportunity for that human connection.

Even if it's a, hey, shoot me a DM on Instagram and we'll chat.

And even people who may want something we get figure out if you can do what they want most people want a picture most people may want some advice most people may want some counsel the more i think as a public person that is creative and supported by people the more i can anchor myself the better so that's why the live events really yeah i agree i do a lot of live events too and there's something special about just that in-person touch yeah uh in regards to answering dms it's getting harder i'm getting a lot i can't really respond to everyone i try my best but it's taking literally hours a day now yeah if someone meets you in person and you DMs you, are you more likely to answer the DM?

If they meet in person.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because then I could put a face to the account.

I just met this person and they reached out.

And I mean, what do most people want?

Like the ask for you will be, can I come on your podcast?

Usually, yeah.

And you could easily just be like, hey, not right now.

No.

Hey, do this and this.

Right.

So I think once you get to the bottom of what people want and then that connection, for me, the feedback is invaluable to see what people are.

engaging with what they like what they don't like right like the the sample sizes so because it's better than comment section and and stuff agreed what's the biggest want people want from you when they approach you or message you i think

usually some sort of advice on being a creative and how to navigate this entire world usually it's something around that sometimes people will get like really into their personal stories and i'm like dude this is way above my comfort like you need a therapist i i'm not a professional but i'll often refer people because i have a therapist that that's really good and he tends to take clients and so i'll send a lot of people to my therapist and be like go go sit with someone that's or we'll go find a local church with a pastor, but that sort of stuff is just beyond me.

But if someone's like, hey, I want to do my first YouTube channel, what do I, what do I do?

I want to podcast.

Can you be my first guest on my podcast?

And I usually say, no, go do 50.

Right.

And then I'll come do your podcast.

And then that kind of,

you know, separates the wheat from the chaff.

Exactly.

I learned that from PBD.

He had the same approach, but I think it's 100 episodes.

Do 100.

150.

Anything in that ballpark will show someone being serious, Matt.

There's some crazy stats.

If you get to 100 episodes, I believe you're top one percent in podcasting because not a lot of people make it there yeah like it's it's actually pretty attainable if you put in the effort but a lot of people won't get to episode 100 yeah that's unfortunate it's crazy right because because once you find a groove in a system and what you want to talk about and try and get interesting guests even if it's still remote i feel like it kind of compounds yeah no 100 i mean i i definitely almost quit at first though like my first six months were tough really i was unprofitable I was filming on blurry iPhone 8s and not getting comments, not getting likes or whatever.

Because it's easy to get lost in the numbers both ways.

Now it's the opposite for me.

Now I try to remain humble with big numbers.

What made you not quit?

What was the boost, the surge,

the feedback?

There's something here.

I got to keep going.

My back was against the wall.

I was all in on it.

I didn't have a plan B.

Okay.

I was definitely part of it.

But then I caught a break when Howie Mandel responded to my cold email about coming on the podcast.

And I went out to his spot in LA and I was like, that was my first big guess.

I was like, I might be able to do something.

How many subscribers, followers were you at that point?

It wasn't much.

It was probably 10K or something.

Okay.

Maybe.

I mean, I don't know that you're a relatively decent-sized creator.

A lot of people don't reach that.

Well, yeah.

But 10K, you can't really make a living off of these days.

And YouTube keeps throttling the payouts.

It's getting lower and lower.

I don't know if you're experiencing that too.

It ebbs and flows for us, man.

We had our best month in March and then April was catastrophic.

And then like May is like, oh my gosh, this is like a really good month for us.

And then

June is like, oof.

So it's just, it just ebbs and flows.

Yeah.

I've seen my reach across all platforms down recently.

Really?

A lot of people are experiencing this.

I'm not sure if you are, but my views are down.

But I try not to get too caught up in stuff like that.

Yeah, you just got to keep creating, making good stuff.

What's the biggest focus?

Like, what are you trying to focus on creation-wise this year?

Creation-wise is figuring out creative ways to integrate the book into...

the YouTube stuff because people may know me for podcasting.

They may know me for reaction videos.

Trying to integrate the book into all of that to point people to something more.

Because I think what I do, probably a degree to what you do is a component of kind of keep your company content, right?

Depending on your guests.

So people are listening and they're like, oh, this is cool.

Like I could throw this on in the background.

This is dope.

But when you're trying to give someone a framework on how to do some of the things they want to do, but maybe they don't know they want to do it or maybe they don't know how to ask, that requires a bit of a creative strategy to say, let me put the medicine in the candy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's dive into the book.

You got a book coming out.

A lot of people say that's one of the most difficult things they've ever done was write a book.

So what was that process like for you?

Man, it was amazing because the editor found me from Penguin Random House.

Waterbrook is the imprint.

He was local.

He's about an hour from me.

Reached out.

Cold DM.

His name is Will Anderson.

Shout out to Will.

Cold DM reached out to me.

We were goofing around with trying to

podcast a book, like tell stories in a podcast and then transcribe it.

And it was like a complete dumpster fire.

Like it was not good.

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And so we like have a meeting with him.

And a lot of it was just kind of like, what do I want to talk about?

What are the things I kind of want to be?

Like, if I could anchor everything in one thing, what do I want to be known for?

And then

Will, oddly enough, is like, hey, you know, you can, we can go this direction, but it would probably be better for you to go get an agent, go find an agent, then create a proposal, then let's circle back.

And so we got an agent.

The agent was Esther from the Fed.

She's amazing.

She represents a lot of like the big higher profile Christian people.

So everyone from, I don't know, Dude Perfect to Tim Tebow.

Nice.

Right.

Like those are her clients.

And she was awesome.

And then we kind of created like a little bit of a bidding war between a couple of publishers and then went full circle and came right back to Will, who was the one that encouraged me to do the book.

The writing of it was a combination of me literally sitting down and writing parts of it, me ideating parts of it.

And then towards the end, Will would send me voice note prompts and I would send him voice notes back.

And then he would kind of take my, hey tell me a story about x y and z and then i'd send him a voice note back and then he would take it and massage it into the the content of the book i love it so it was a fun process it was i don't you know some people get ghostwriters some people get

they have those like pastors will take like their sermon series and then have that converted into a book but i enjoyed the process of creating i'd just go to my local library my library would have these little rooms that were quiet i'd go into one of those rooms and just lock in and pump out a bunch of stuff i love it man a good book is life-changing i think so you know it lives Beyond Us, it's really interesting to me.

I definitely want to write one.

You should.

You should.

Yeah, I feel like it can really impact people.

I mean, books changed my life.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah, I think of the books that had like an impact on me.

Like I think of like reading Power of Habit, you know, that's a good one.

15 years ago, and that had like a profound impact on me.

I read Disciplines of Grace had a profound impact on me.

Purpose-driven life, big impact on me.

So there was books that definitely changed my life.

And I'm like, man, if I can synthesize these ideas within the modern framework of what people are experiencing now, anchor it in Jesus, I think it'll move move the needle for some people.

And of course, the Bible, right?

That's right.

Can't leave that one out.

That's right.

And you always have it with you?

Always got it with me.

That's cool, man.

So were you reading it on the plane on the way here?

Yeah, I try to,

every day, generally speaking, I'm not perfect at this.

I try to go scripture before screen.

And so at the very least, I try to get into a proverb for the day.

So jump into a proverb and then find something in the New Testament.

And then

I'm an analog guy, but my friends at Logos Bible Software is amazing because the Logos, you can like click a word, go back to the original Hebrew or Greek, then see everywhere else that word is used, then look at a commentary inside the app, and it's, there's nothing like it.

So I kind of like start in the physical, go there, and then I have this little channel on my Instagram where I'll put like a little daily devotional type thing.

And again, I'm not, I'm not, I don't do it every day, but almost every day.

Nice.

It is on my bucket list to read it.

You should.

Cover to cover one of these days.

You'll love it.

You'll love it.

I think.

There's a plan that, oh, I'll get it for you.

So there's a year in the Bible plans.

About three and a half chapters, which is a bit much when you get into like the more dense parts like Leviticus and stuff.

But there's another plan that I think I'm going to start where it's two chapters a day and you get through the entire Bible in two years, you read the entire New Testament twice.

So that's a more of a feature.

Like almost anybody can sit down and do that.

Yeah.

But I got to get the name of the plan.

I just had David Platt on who talks about that.

And so that's a very attainable thing.

You know, anyone could read a chapter a day, two chapters a day might be a straight, but you're talking.

10 minutes of reading.

That's not bad.

Yeah, that's not bad at all.

And then you read through the whole, the whole thing in two years, you read the New Testament twice.

Have you read any other religious texts or just the Bible?

Yeah, I've sat with the Quran.

I've sat with the Book of Mormon.

I've sat with Jehovah's Witnesses, have this thing called the reasoning for scriptures,

quite a few different things.

Oh, wow.

I went through a solar system.

You were pretty open-minded.

I was initially because I started as an atheist, kind of became a deist, became a theist.

And then it was like, well.

These people are all making truth claims.

I probably should kind of understand what they believe.

Yeah, I know you react to a lot of the viral debates too.

Those get a lot of views, right?

The Christian debates.

Yeah, some of them.

Some of them are dumpster fires.

I think having debates as a Christian and you're not behaving like a Christian is a really bad look.

So I think the guys that do it really well, I champion.

So like Glenn Scrivener is one of my favorites.

Obviously, Wes Huff,

great, great debater.

Dr.

Sean McDowell, I think that's a really good example.

So I think there are people that do it really well.

And then I think that there's a spin-off of the debate broke culture within Christianity and they don't always carry themselves the most responsibly and kindly and some of that stuff could be harmful what do you think of Alex O'Connor's debates with Christians and other religions so I had Alex O'Connor at my first event let's go yeah

we had him uh debate is did Jesus claim to be God against David Wood David Wood's a pretty big apologetic he does a lot of stuff engaging with Islam and yeah Alex O'Connor was there great guy super fun to hang out with I like Alex a lot um it was his birthday came and hung out on his birthday dude yeah yeah So we sang a happy birthday into the debate.

It was very, it was very cool.

So Alex, a good dude,

really fun in person.

The debate with David Wood,

I think he had one really good rebuttal round, but he was arguing, in my opinion, an incoherent position.

Like you read Old and New Testament, and there's clearly

God the Father, and there's another

seeming person on earth representing God on the Old Testament.

And then the New Testament's kind of revealed that that is Jesus, right?

Interesting.

So one God, one essence, but two reflections of it.

And then the Holy Spirit is what, you know, is what comes when the church is planted.

So I think it was a bad debate prompt, personally.

I don't know if I think he picked it, and I don't think he did a good job.

And so what ended up happening was he had one really good rebuttal round.

I think David had a way better argument.

But then at the end, people lined up from the audience.

And that's when he kind of ends up taking an L is God logic, who's actually from here.

You should have God logic on.

He does a lot of debates in the Muslim world.

He's fire.

Yeah.

Avery, God logic.

Avery gets up and asks him one question about hebrews mentioning jesus as yahweh and clearly framing jesus as god god ontologically and alex like concedes in the q a that really oh i guess i yeah that's a good point wow yeah yeah i've never seen him do that okay i'll send you the debate you'll like it you'll like it it's long it's dense but you know with debates like alex's people think he won christians think david won like there's always going to be that unless it's a decisive victory yes you know like the west huff billy carson won yes man yeah yeah that That was, that was a, I think Billy played himself by walking out.

I think Billy could have sat there and just kept pontificating.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like he just made it worse afterwards.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like obviously he lost the debate, but just how he acted after.

It's bad.

It's bad.

And there's a lot of stuff brewing even behind the scenes.

Well, I don't know if you were aware of the divorce, but yeah, it just had a major fallout.

Like it kind of ruined.

Yeah, I didn't want to speak on his divorce in personal life, but yes, that's some pretty, pretty crazy, messy stuff.

That's That's public now?

Yeah, they made a statement last week.

I'm friends with both of them, with Elizabeth and Billy.

So I just suck to see that, man.

Yeah.

I can't believe a debate led to that affecting your marriage like that.

She, from my understanding, she's kind of coming to faith.

Is she?

I didn't know.

Okay.

So maybe

that part's not public.

I wouldn't be surprised.

I mean, and that's sort of.

what happened, what transpired.

Yeah.

She's probably looking for answers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I heard about it and I heard that she was going to faith.

That's all I know.

But yeah, it's, it's one of those like, I, I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

Please don't forget to like and subscribe.

It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.

Thank you.

I don't want that for Billy, man.

I don't want families torn apart.

I don't want households separated and divided.

I really think Billy could have been like, hey, okay, you know what, guys?

I got some of this stuff wrong.

However, I still believe in the Akanaki or whatever they're called.

And

the tablets and just kept doing his thing in that world without

trying to present himself as an authority on this world and i think that's where he played himself and that's a learning lesson for creators in general like know your wheelhouse and know what you're an expert in and know what you are not an expert in that was a big lesson for me it taught me like yeah don't speak if you're not an expert basically because that's right so i would like i would never debate someone on mormonism because i'm not an expert in mormonism and i actually got a buddy that might debate at our next event uh jacob i met he came to our last event named jacob brilliant mormon guy brilliant debater like really good debate why would i debate him on his thing?

Right.

That's stupid.

I position myself instantly in a place at a disadvantage.

So like, I, I just, I wouldn't, now I may have opinions on stuff, but I would never position myself as an authority on someone else's thing unless I spent decades and years or I have, I have some sort of like photographic memory and I'm a savant or something, you know?

I love how you're incorporating debates in your in-person events.

Yeah.

I haven't really seen anyone do that.

It's fun, man.

And here's the deal.

Debate culture online, again, I'm not the biggest fan.

I do think it leads to good things, things, but there's something about, hey, come in a day early.

Let's everybody get together.

Let's go to dinner.

Let's get to know each other.

Let's humanize each other.

And then let's have a charitable, formal debate.

And we'll have some open dialogue and some, you know, some fireworks with Spark and live Q ⁇ A where the audience can ask you questions.

It's, it's, it's a great format.

But I think there, in my opinion, I want it to be classy.

I want it to be good faith.

I want it to be, we believe the best about each other, even though we strongly disagree.

And that's what we saw with David Wood and Alex.

And we're going to continue trying to do that.

That's sort of my goal with moderating debates this year.

I don't want any personal attacks.

I don't like that stuff.

I think keep it civil.

Don't interrupt each other as much as possible, you know, because there is that culture of debates online, like on Pierce Morgan, where it's just a screaming match.

I think there's, one, I won't do anything virtual at all unless I really know both people and I think they can be contained.

But two, I think just a meal together before sets the tone so different.

That's great advice.

I'm going to start doing that.

Yeah, dude.

Like, even if you just like pull up with some Chipotle and you guys just kick it in the green room.

You got a really cool green green room here, by the way, and just have like just some food and just chat and get to know each other.

I think that lowers the temperature.

Yeah.

Are you yourself partaking in these debates?

I don't have a desire only because if I'm going to debate, I want to honor my opponent.

Yeah.

And the way you honor your opponent is by preparing for a debate.

I'll debate things.

Like I'll debate the concepts in my book.

Like I'll debate.

you know, godly ambition or stewardship or financial literacy, like things that I'm like immersed into or things that are the overflow of my life.

Those things I will debate in those, but like getting technical on something very myopic, like, ah, I'm not, I'm not that guy.

I will have like tense conversations, but that's because I know some people I could push.

So like voice of reason, a friend of mine, you're about to have him on.

When I had him on, yeah, we had like a pretty fiery

back and forth.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

But that's not a debate.

Like that's my, that's my dog.

Like that's my, that's my guy.

And he's a way better debater on me.

So like if you're talking church history and all this stuff, you know, he's a Catholic, I'm a Protestant.

I mean, he'll cook me.

Right.

But that, like, there's relational equity there.

And so we could do that.

I just had Jay Dyer on, who's a big in the Eastern Orthodox space.

We had some good back and forth and all that sort of stuff.

And then, you know, he'll, he'll get into like, well, that's a fallacy.

And I'm like, well,

I'm not making state, absolute statements.

I'm just processing why I disagree with this point that you made, right?

And so when someone lives in that world, I'll have a good heartfelt conversation with them, but not a, not a, we're going to just debate the entire four hours.

So I had Jay Dyer on we debate we kind of went back and forth like an hour and jay dyer jay dyer is pretty good at debating he's kind of a part of like the elite level of debaters i would say he lives in that world he has a master's in philosophy there's no way i'm gonna get jay dyer in a debate you know what i mean but i could at least provide clarity on why we disagree and then let the audience come to their conclusions makes sense what do you think of the bryce crawford versus adam 22 episode did you watch that one i did i did um i thought it was really cool that adam 22 came back after Bryce's team fumbled the footage.

That was super dope because he didn't have to do that.

And Adam, despite all the cuckery and all the craziness, has always been a stand-up dude.

He's always pretty straightforward.

In my interactions and seemingly in almost anyone I interact with in that world,

so it's interesting to see someone that is so unpopular in the online sphere, but like keep it so genuine in person.

And I don't know what to do with that, you know?

But yeah, so I did.

I thought Bryce did a good job.

I think Bryce is, man, have you got Bryce on yet?

Yes.

Yeah, he's dope.

Dude, for his age, it's brilliant.

I was impressed.

Yeah.

He's a good kid, man, and he's really in like boots on the ground doing ministry.

Yeah.

You know, and I, and I love that.

So yeah, I thought it was a good episode.

I think,

I think Adam is at a crossroads where

He knows that the lifestyle him and his wife lead does not lead to flourishing.

Do you think he knows that?

I think he knows that.

Because if it did, then he wouldn't be okay with his daughter doing it.

So he just announced yesterday, I'm not sure if you saw this, that there will be another scene with Jason Love and his wife.

They're working on it.

So when I see stuff like that, it makes me wonder, like, is he just doing this for attention, for money?

Like, what's the goal here?

Probably all the above.

Yeah, I think he loves attention.

I think he loves money.

I think he loves being infamous.

Because he's went from being famous to now he's infamous.

I think he enjoys being the villain.

It's the WWE.

He's in the Jack Doherty level where it's like mainly hate now, but it's still attention, which is a dangerous spot to be in.

It is.

I keep telling it, man, like that the Adam 22 Christian arc would be awful.

Like, that would, I mean, imagine, like, you turn it all around and he, you know, cleans his life up and starts going to church.

And like, there's this one girl on that arc right now, Nala.

I don't know if you've seen that one.

Yeah.

Total 180.

Yeah.

I think,

you know, people,

some Christians really dragged her.

and really went after her.

And I'm like, she's still getting attacked right now.

Yeah.

And I'm like,

why would you guys not want her to change?

I think people were like, you need to give all the money back and it's like well i'm no financial expert i don't think of people make as much as people think they make most of them don't yeah yeah most of them are like patreon youtubers like there's very few which is a what a what a weird thing to do and then fail at yeah it is it's got to be embarrassing right

you put yourself out there and it just doesn't work and you don't ever make more than a couple hundred bucks a month like that's a that's pretty bad yeah must be rough i don't know i i I like Adam.

I think he's a stand-up guy, though.

Yeah.

You know, at least he's straight up.

At least he owns it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think, listen, I don't think anyone's beyond redemption.

And by redemption, that word redemption in the scriptures means when Jesus redeems us, he buys us back.

So like something is lost and he's buying it back.

Like there's a cost.

I don't think anyone's beyond redemption.

Yeah.

Because we can name some extreme examples, but you still believe that they can redeem themselves?

That doesn't mean there's not without consequences.

God,

that's important.

Yeah.

So,

I mean, a murderer murderer is redeemable, but he will still have to go and deal with the consequences of said action.

What would those consequences look like in your eyes?

I mean, in our society, it's life in prison or death.

Right.

There's caveats and there's sometimes people were in a car and a drive-by happened and then somehow 20 years later, they get off.

I have friends like that, you know.

Yeah.

And man,

those people come back and

they turn it around.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When someone, when someone, because in California, we had a big thing.

I'm not sure if you guys had this it where it was like a good amount of people who had life without the possibility of parole something changed in one of the clemency laws or something and there was a good amount of folks that if they showed that they were reformed and redeemed they they got out really and so uh one of my really good friends got out and um

he is is killing it he's crushing it and he got life and he got out i think he i think he got life he got life and he went in um

he got i'm pretty sure he got life yeah i think he and then he he was in a drive-by situation wow and he he ended up winning this like state version of a prison version of an episode of Shark Tank

and put together an entire proposal and then won it.

And then when he got out, he had the funds to go start like a cleaning business and now hires people from that life.

Wow.

And now has like, I think around a dozen employees and buildings.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot of examples like that, right?

Johnny Chang, Michael Franzise.

That's right.

Guys that were in prison and turned it around.

Yeah.

When people hit that rock bottom, I think perspective, right?

Like gratitude, when you know what you, what you lost and then you potentially have a chance to turn around, it's pretty powerful.

But again, I would say, I bet you all those guys, I know Johnny Chang, I haven't met Michael.

Michael Frenzy used the mafia guy.

Yeah, I haven't met him in person, but we follow each other on Instagram.

I'm sure all those guys would say yes, not without consequences.

There's consequence.

Even if they weren't, I got to go to jail.

There's still consequence.

There are remnants of our thing, of our problems that we deal with.

Yeah, that trauma doesn't leave you, right?

It stays with you subconsciously, maybe.

That's right.

Gratitude.

I share that with you.

That's where we agree.

I have a gratitude journal.

I think it's important.

That's good.

That's good.

Yeah.

So we have like a prayer journal.

We have a devotional.

We have, I have like this leadership thing that I do.

And everything that starts with praise reports.

So I start with praising God for the good things.

And even at home, we do

something as this is going to sound super silly, but something as silly as like rose and thorn.

Every night when we sit down and have dinner, we do rose and thorn.

What's up?

My kids.

So what is your rose for the day?

What is something you're grateful for?

What is something you're happy for?

We always open with a rose.

And then we go, now, what's your your thorn?

What's something that didn't go your way?

Oh, wow.

And so the more, oftentimes, the more we practice the roses, the thorns become inconsequentials.

Thorns will turn into like, I didn't get to work out today.

You know, and if someone really had something bad happen to them, then it's an opportunity for the family to sit and listen to what happened.

I love that.

Because I've been working on it, like talking with my fiancé more about my thorns.

It took me years to open up about my problems.

That's awesome.

You know, I used to just.

bottle it in.

Yeah, that's, I mean, most dudes are like that.

You just suppress and suppress and suppress it before you know it.

You could, you could over, overcook, you know, like a pressure cooker.

Yeah.

You know, that's what happens to guys, man.

I'm sure you see a lot of that in young guys these days.

Unfortunately.

Lack of purpose and just bottled up emotion.

It's common, right?

Yeah.

I'm sure that's one of the biggest problems people are messaging you about.

Lack of purpose.

Hey, I have this dream to go do this thing, but I don't know how to do it.

Is it too late for me?

I really want to do, I really,

when I first did music full-time from 2015 to 2020, it was I want to be a rapper.

I want to be an artist.

How do I become an artist?

And I'm like, man, like, like,

you don't understand how hard it is.

Now it's, I want to be, I want to do YouTube.

I want to be a YouTuber.

I want to be a streamer.

I want to, right?

And

best time ever to do anything creative or anything with a small business.

Like, I don't know if what you and I do would have existed 25 years ago.

Like in the 90s, like we would have, I don't know, what, go work for some like TV broadcast or something.

Right.

That's it.

Now, almost anybody can do this and scale it, but that there still has to be sequencing and a bit of God's providence or what some people would call luck

and just like an undeniable work ethic and grind.

Oh, for sure.

There's a dark side of entrepreneurship.

Oh, yeah.

A lot of sacrifice.

I've had burnout a lot.

Yeah.

You know, these days I've gotten better at managing it.

But how do you manage it?

So I take weekend semi-off.

Okay.

I used to work seven days a week.

Now I'd say I work like partially on weekends.

Okay.

So that helps getting active, getting in the gym, playing basketball.

I actually brought Bryce to basketball after our episode.

Is he nice?

He was okay.

He hasn't played in a while.

Yeah.

Working out, getting stressed out, sauna, taking care of my physical health and my mental health.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Who was it?

Someone gave me a gym.

Justin Early said something to the degree.

I'm going to butcher this quote, but there's a quote.

He said, the man that works with his mind needs to relax and rest with his body, making his body active.

And the person that works with their body needs to relax by making their mind active.

Interesting.

Ain't that good?

That's really good.

Right.

So if we're always here and we got to be sharp, we got to know the topics, we got to do our research and in a content, it's all ahead.

Right.

So the way we relax is like, go play ball, go weight, weightlift, go on a walk.

I find this weird solace in yard work.

Like I like pulling out weight.

Realists.

Yeah.

It's the weirdest thing.

It doesn't make any sense on paper.

Probably should hire somebody to do it, but I enjoy it, right?

And then, yeah, the people that are physically working probably need to just sit down, read a book, you know, listen to a podcast.

Wow.

I love that.

That resonates with me because when i play basketball it's the it's the most calm i am even though for some people it's stressful right yeah i'd imagine playing sports working out but for me i'm like wow i could finally decompress yeah well because this is so stressful yeah building this is really hard man 76 episodes last month come on yeah i know you're filming animal right yeah you're probably filming hours a day too though yeah

we do four days a week we hit it hard about three

uh i say i'd say at least an hour on camera a day sometimes three to four hours on camera wow um and that usually will incorporate one guest a week.

So we're not pumping them out like you are, but then we do a daily live stream show, if you will.

Yeah.

What type of guests are you looking for, mainly?

Man, we, I'm, I'm, okay, so here's my challenge.

I'd love to hear that.

I'm trying to interview people that I find interesting and figure out how to package it so the content pops, right?

So like I just had Justin Early on.

Justin Early is a best-selling author.

He wrote a book called Habits of the Household, which my wife actually recommended to me.

Amazing book.

He booked before that.

I can't remember the name, but it was about

like

habit formation from the perspective of the scriptures in the Bible, right?

And he wrote another one before that about community.

That's the one I'm reading now.

Yeah.

That's that's amazing, right?

And so, like, as dudes, we sometimes forget that we're social creatures.

Like, you actually do need to sit down and talk to another dude.

Our wives and girlfriends are great, but there's only certain things that dudes can talk about.

So, like, I'm reading that book now.

So, like, Justin Early, man, he's, he showed up.

So, I just had him on the podcast.

And so, the challenge is, how

can I get those episodes to pop with people I genuinely find interesting that I think are ushering in good and beauty into the world and package that.

Because the things that pop are the things that are confrontational, sensational, controversial.

Yep.

And someone that's just writing great books that help people, like, how do I get that to go?

I face the same issue.

I'll have on the brightest minds, the most successful people, and it doesn't pull the views as like.

some degeneracy or whatever.

You know what I mean?

That's just social media.

Like the algorithm rewards that behavior.

That's why you got guys like Jack Doherty pranking people like Neon or whatever pranking people but Tally's in jail right now because he just got caught up with the numbers.

I heard he's not is he is he sentenced yet?

I don't know if he got sentenced yet, but he's facing three charges in the

Philippines.

Yeah, it's looking really bad.

He's been on the show and he was sober when he came on and I don't know.

Something happened to him.

He followed the

Molly Somali was the dude's name.

Oh, the black guy that was in, was that Japan or something?

Yeah.

It's like he like followed that model.

Yeah.

I don't know anyone that would look at that that content strategy and be like that's a good idea it's just not

like i'm gonna go and annoy people in countries where i could actually get in trouble yeah for this but me seeing it from afar i can see how they get there yeah because when you're live streaming you're chasing numbers if you're not pulling viewers you're gonna do crazier and crazier things to get the viewership back up you know what i mean so live streaming you got to be really mentally strong to make it there.

So I came to the conclusion.

We go live four days a week, sometimes three days a week.

This week, we only went two times a week i came to the conclusion that our lives aren't very big relatively speaking

400 people 500 people right um but i came to the conclusion that

if people are watching our videos and actually doing something productive for themselves i don't want people sitting around and watching me for eight hours right i want them to grab a little tidbit and like go do the thing that you actually feel called to do yeah instead of just passively consuming someone take action right dude yeah take action so it's like i i came to the conclusion that like i'm good Like I don't need to be pulling in thousands of live viewers because if they're with me for three hours a day, like that's three hours of their day.

Right.

Hearing me kind of keep them company.

It's cool if someone's in the gym.

It's cool if someone's on the way to work.

But like, yeah, so I came to a conclusion like, I'm cool.

Like if I don't, if I don't ever get to an average thousand viewers or 2,000 viewers, like fine.

And we'll have streams that pop off.

Yeah.

I think the most we've ever gotten is probably like five, six thousand is a live stream, you know.

But that's like news breaks, something sensational is happening.

Everyone wants to hear what I think about it.

Well, that's a good spot to be in mentally, I feel like.

Yeah, because then you're not anxious or worried.

A lot of people, I would say, are not in that state of mind.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, again, chasing numbers, chasing money.

Yeah.

It's just natural human instinct.

Even myself, when I have a slow month, I'm like kind of down on myself, but I try to remember the long game.

You know, yeah.

Do you ever find yourself like obsessed with numbers?

I used to.

I think now that

I

two things.

One,

I've had a lot of

refreshment

in the concept of identity, right?

So identity,

and I explore this in a book a bit.

Identity tends to be two

things, the way society perceives it.

The one that we probably relate to is identity will be outside in, right?

So

outside in identity is

what value metric status do you generate and that is your identity.

So like in high school, if you played ball, your identity was you on the basketball team.

Right.

Forget if you're interested in tech, forget if you're right, that whatever you generated the most amount of value in, that was your identity, right?

So it's an outside in identity.

As entrepreneurs are very susceptible to that, the numbers, the metric, the thing.

Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum where identity is like an inside-out identity, right?

So like

atomic habits, James Clear explores this idea of people chase the numbers, but what you really got to change is the processes and the systems.

But how do you change the processes in the the systems if you don't view yourself differently?

Right.

Which is true.

So did they study people who quit smoking?

The people who quit smoking are people who did not identify as smokers any longer.

They were more likely to quit smoking.

Right.

So you change the way you perceive yourself.

So I'm an athlete.

Therefore, I have systems in my life that are athletic, like going to the gym, like working out, like going 10,000 steps a day.

And then I get the outcomes.

that an athlete gets.

I get, I'm more shredded, I eat better, so on and so forth.

Right.

That is true to an agree, but the issue with that model is that it's still subjective to whatever you feel like.

I can't just say I'm an astronaut, right?

No, like there's only a certain number of astronauts.

I can't say I'm an athlete when I'm not a professional athlete.

I might have athletic aspirations, right?

So it's still subjective.

And a third category of

identity that very few people talk about is

Jay Wonder Wallace defined it as top-down identity.

So it's not inside out.

It's subjective.

I feel like whatever I am, therefore I am.

It's not outside in.

You provide this value.

Therefore, we say you're, it's someone else declares who you are, right?

And so as being a Christian, my identity is defined by not what I provide and not what I feel like, but who Jesus says I am.

Wow.

Right.

And so if my identity is I'm no longer a sinner, I'm a saint.

If my identity is I am the temple of the living God.

Right.

If my identity is I am the righteousness of God because of what Jesus did on the cross for my sin, I am now righteous.

I'm declared righteous.

I'm righteous because of what he did, not because of what I did.

And I could keep going on, right?

I'm a son.

I'm a father.

I'm a child of God.

And I could keep adding these things.

Now, my identity is anchored in something beyond me and beyond what society says I am.

It's actually anchored in who God says I am.

So now, if we go to fitness and I go, man, I can't just eat whatever I want.

My body doesn't belong to me.

It's the symbol of God.

God lives in me because of the Holy Spirit filling me.

I need to be more active.

I need to be around more for my kids.

I need to take care of my body.

I can't eat processed foods.

I can't sit around all day.

I need to strength train because if I strength train, I'll get more muscle.

If I get more muscle, I'll be around longer, right?

My body is not my own.

It's the temple of God, right?

Hey,

I don't have to stay stuck and addicted.

I don't have to stay in the cycle of repeating my trauma and living through these things.

Why?

Well, because Jesus died for that.

And Philippians says that he gave me new desires and the ability and the power to do what obeys him.

So that means there's something ontologically different about me because I believe in Jesus.

He enters me and now I have new desires and I have a new trajectory for life.

Right.

And so it's like, it's like James Clear's model of identity, but actually something beyond me that declares who I am and not my own, oh, I'm just, I'm not an addict anymore.

It's like, well, based on what?

Right?

Based on what?

Oh, it's based on who Jesus declares I am.

And then

the systems change and then the outcomes change.

that is fascinating i didn't know uh christians viewed their identity that way oh absolutely yeah yeah it's not my identity is not who i think i am it's who jesus says i am holy crap yeah that's blowing my mind so now think about that as a creator my identity is not in the views i generate my identity is not in the money i generate my identity is not in the clout i have my identity is not in the size of my platform my identity is not in any of those things my identity is i'm a child of god i'm loved i'm accepted i'm forgiven i'm embraced i have purpose

my purpose is to know god and make him known I have responsibilities in a family to love.

I'm a father, my husband, all these other things.

So that's all peripheral.

You know, it's like, it's like, it's like wanting to get a certain GPA in high school.

And then you get out of high school and you're like,

why was I so worried about that?

Right?

Like, it's all inconsequential.

I don't even remember my GPA for most of the high school.

I don't know if you do.

I don't remember.

I do just because it was so bad.

But yeah, I don't.

Yeah.

I don't, it's like, it was so inconsequential when the grant.

And so I think like a lot of what we're dealing with now will look back either in the next life or in this life.

You'll probably probably look back when you have kids in a family and you're you know 45 50 years old and you'll be like what was i doing like why was i chasing this i do that every two three years honestly

and so and there's nothing wrong with like wanting to build something great it's just in how do we build something great right so there's there's a practical side now here's the here's the second layer of that there's nothing wrong with desiring greatness right Even in the scriptures, there's a moment where the disciples multiple times are arguing over who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God.

So remember, from their perspective, they're expecting a messianic political messiah that's going to overthrow the Roman occupation.

And so, they're arguing, who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom?

Who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom?

And Jesus tells them, He says, Hey, like the Gentiles and the pagans, they lord over you, they dominate you, they're domineering.

It shouldn't be like that with you.

You

should seek greatness only in who's willing to serve.

You want to be great?

He who is the servant of all is going to be the greatest, right?

The last shall be first.

And this happens actually at the last supper so like that famous painting one of the things they're arguing about at the last supper is who's gonna be the greatest no way yeah yes it's the end of luke uh at the end of john uh this hat this is a more argument they have so so so jesus never rebukes the disciples desire to be great he never rebukes it he redirects it and redefines greatness greatness is servanthood greatness is stewardship greatness is not being obsessed with just what this world can produce right and so now add that as an entrepreneur, if my objective is not just in status and trying to build my own castle, but it's in actually trying to help and serve as many people as I can.

And I'm strategic with how I do that.

I don't just have one anchor of, oh man, this YouTube better pop.

Cause if I have a bad month on YouTube, it all falls apart, but I'm anchoring it in multiple ways I can help people.

Live events.

We have our journals.

We have our devotionals.

I have a book coming out.

I speak in places.

And I'm genuinely consumed with helping people.

And by helping people, I mean the version of myself from 20 years ago, 10 years ago, what do they need?

How can I help?

How can I give them a little bit of wisdom?

I'll be all right.

I'll be fine.

It doesn't, it doesn't matter how much it does or doesn't generate today, because I think ultimately whoever helps the most amount of people wins.

So do you believe in karma?

That being said, then I believe in reaping what you sow.

Reaping what you sow, which is similar to karma, I'd say, right?

Karma is like you're storing up a cosmic debt for yourself.

And if you do too many bad things, then it'll bypass that.

And so

reaping with show is a little different.

I believe we live in a cause and effect universe.

So God set it up in a way where, man, if I plant good fruit and I pull the weeds out and I take care of the land,

hopefully he'll send rain.

Right.

Right.

Maybe he'll help me build an integrated irrigation system that can help me source some of the water that when the rain comes, I can steward it better.

Right.

But all of that comes in the next season.

The only thing that grows instantly are weeds as someone that works on my yard.

Like I'm like, dude, I just pulled these out like a couple of days ago.

Like I'll come back Friday from this trip and there'll be more weeds.

And I'll be like, I got to pull the weeds out again.

So I think the journey of an entrepreneur of a creative is you're constantly pulling bad things out.

100%.

And then you're trying to cultivate good seed going forward.

The issue is that all that good seed isn't produced until the next season.

So there's ventures you're doing now that you're thinking about that aren't going to happen and are going to yield a result until the next season.

So like for us, we really want to get our podcast side popping on the Spotify podcast and Apple podcast.

We have one of the biggest Christian YouTube podcasts on YouTube, and we don't chart on any of the Christian.

I could help you with that.

We'll talk after.

Yeah.

And so like, all right, cool.

We got to clean up our podcast.

I got to stop throwing 10 minute, 15 minute YouTube videos on the freaking Spotify app.

That's a mess, right?

Let's clean it all up.

Let's work on the descriptions.

Let's title it different.

Let's package it different.

Right.

And so now, but that may not generate anything for me for six months to to a year the next season.

And I'm okay with that.

Right.

So I think as long as I'm thinking about multiple things and how I can help people in multiple ways, the results will come.

If I'm the type of guy that does all the things, the results will come eventually.

And I'm also, and I also don't become the type of creator that's so aloof that I fall off, that I become the villain, that I become the

Jack Doherty or the Adam 22, right?

I think I'll be fine.

And so there's the answer to the question of like, I don't really stress out about this stuff anymore.

I think about it.

We look at it.

You know, we have goals that we want to hit every month and we got payroll and we got health insurance for everybody.

Like we really take care of our guys.

So I think about it, but I don't obsess about it the way I use it.

Makes sense.

Yeah, you're playing the long game.

I think in today's society, everyone wants fast, instant results.

And that's just a hard concept to rewire in people I see.

You know, they want instant gratification.

Because TikTok.

did that for a lot of people.

Yeah.

Right.

TikTok, when TikTok came out, I mean, you could pop off and get a million views on your first video.

that happened to me yeah i got 10 million on my first podcast clip that's crazy two years ago come on and i became addicted yeah yeah you know now i'm scrolling probably an hour a day on tick tock and tick tock now has changed to where it's not as easy i could barely get a million now on tick tock it's not as easy i used to get a million on like every five ten videos yeah but it's it's gotten a lot harder yeah i got more competitive they changed the algorithm you know and so i think it's like that that that little window it's kind of closed on tick tock and so now then it goes back to okay now we're back to playing the long run now i'm on instagram trials yeah that's the waiver now yeah now probably instagram trials trials you haven't used that yet no what is that uh so when you post a reel you can turn on trials which goes to non-followers only and then if that video pops off you could share it to your main feed so it's a good way of testing concepts and ideas that's actually really helpful yeah so i've heard of this i i haven't used it yeah try it out play around with it you could repost all your old content and see what pops off okay that's really good to know yeah so we're milking that you got to take advantage when stuff is a new feature.

Yeah.

That's when we're pushing it.

For sure.

There's always a new thing.

Yeah.

But dude, that was really interesting.

Cause and effect.

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, everything's cause and effect to some degree.

With the caveat that you're able-body, you're sound mind, you're in the West, which is generally not going to kill you if you say something crazy about the government.

It's not going to, you know, chop your head off if you're a Christian, generally speaking.

What if you get like a bad disease or something?

So yes, there's the guy that lifts four times a week, eats super clean, does all the things, and still gets cancer.

Like that's tragic, right?

That's the byproduct of living in a broken, fallen, sinful world.

Those happen, but generally speaking, what we're doing is we're trying to stack the deck in our favor.

We're trying to do everything we can to say, hey, my body's a temple of God.

I don't want to get cancer.

So I'm going to do things that are going to mitigate my risks to get cancer.

Stay within a healthy weight, have more muscle, healthy body fat, eat good, don't eat processed foods, right?

Yeah.

You could do all that and still get cancer for sure.

100%.

Do you believe there's an energetic component to life, like spiritual like energy?

So I think that word energy is

a loaded term, right?

So I think like energy in the sense of, yes, in that like food is technically energy.

Calories are energy.

It's an energy expenditure.

Right.

So if you do your body fat, they'll say like your basal metabolic rate is whatever amount of calories based on your expenditure.

So yes, in a very technical sense, in the sense that like

there is a realm beyond this realm.

Yeah.

I would absolutely say, yeah, there's a realm beyond this realm.

There's spirits and there's angels and there's demons and all that.

Yes, I believe all of that is real.

In the sense that like

your thoughts are things, like your thoughts have vibrations or your words create your worlds.

I don't think that is as accurate as people want it to be, because if that were the case, then every struggling SoundCloud rapper would be a megastar.

So manifestation, you're not affected.

Yeah, I'm not afraid.

And I'm not saying it doesn't work.

I'm saying when it does work, it's under demonic forces.

Oh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think when people are using these like i'm gonna i'm going to i'm gonna speak these things i'm gonna create these things the enemy has power too there there is a enemy that that has power scriptures call him the god of this world so i think there is a way to do these things um but you also got to work and you also got to be lucky right or whatever that is so yes i think it's usually under that now when an average person is like hey

I'm going to speak more positively, right?

Well, it's positive people are more pleasant to be around.

Right.

Right.

So I don't think it's a one-to-one of like, you spoke said thing and this thing happened and materialized to you or you thought that.

No, it's just that if you're speaking positive and you're thinking positive, generally speaking, you're probably more present to be around.

You're probably more anchored in gratitude.

You're more fun to be or you're a good hang.

You're actually trying to solve people's problems and serve people.

But I don't think it's the thought in and of itself because I know people that think very positively and don't do anything and don't get any results.

And now I know you know these people too.

I know people that are very pessimistic.

Oh, they're paranoid.

They think they're going to fall off.

They think this all going to change, it's going to end tomorrow.

And there's a paranoia there.

And they're negative.

They're naturally negative.

Yep.

And they build massive things.

Grant Cardone's a great example of that.

He told me he's always on edge.

He's super pessimistic.

PBD as well.

Oh, PBD.

PBD has a whole thing about being paranoid.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like, yes, be positive and be encouraging and be stand up.

But you can, there's also people that are very negative and pessimistic that build incredible things.

Do you think you need both or do you dive all into positivity for yourself?

Oh, no, I need both.

I have a degree of paranoia.

Okay.

Yeah, because I know I could be my own worst enemy.

You know, I know, I know my, my

desire is unchecked without community, without the Holy Spirit can run rampant.

Greater men have fallen and ruined and shipwrecked their life.

You know, and if you've ever been around and seen people that had it all, had the family, had the business, and then they shipwreck it, just ruined it everything.

You have a degree of paranoia about yourself.

And then, yeah, I think within business, you want to be paying attention to the markets and the trends and where things are going and keeping a pulse on things.

Just don't want to let that define you.

Yeah, I guess you can't be totally optimistic to the point where you're blind.

Because you're delusional at that point.

You're delusional.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Right.

We all need a degree of positivity and just like, hey, how can we help?

And what is it?

But when you're just like, you know, those people too, though, you know, I've had them on the show.

Yeah, they're just delusional.

You know, and it might break my mind.

I know it's coming.

I know it's coming.

It's like, yeah, but are you doing anything for it to?

Change anything in your current circumstances.

Yeah.

I've never heard the demon angle with manifestation.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

So how does that work?

Because I have a vision board.

I like say goals out loud.

Like, so where does the demon stuff come into play?

Well, I don't want to speak for you because I don't know you well enough, but I think generally, like if you are calling on something beyond you or you think you're God, right?

Because a lot of the new age stuff goes back to not a creator creation distinction, right?

Meaning that there's a creator, he created everything.

There's a mind that made our mind, right?

But that this mind and my mind are are one and I'm creator and I'm ultimately God, right?

Which is when you get to the root of what Billy Carson taught, when you get to the root of some of these things, that's really what they're saying.

It usually goes like this.

The universe is one.

You are one with the universe.

The universe is God.

Therefore, you're God.

I've seen that take.

Now, that's Genesis 3, bro.

That's the fall.

That's the enemy coming and telling Eve, you will be like God.

And it doesn't mean be like God in a virtuous sense.

It means you will be like God as an ontologically, you're going to be different.

You know what I mean?

And so I think that paradigm is very dangerous.

If someone's, I've had vision boards before, I've said things out loud.

I read scripture over myself, right?

If I'm like trying to remember, I messed up in this area, but I remember Romans 8, 1, therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

That's not the same thing as like, my mind is God in the universe and I'm going to manifest realities with my mind.

If you're taking before and after photos, or say like, like I had a really, I got really shredded a couple of years ago.

I'm trying trying to get back to it i've been down like 15 pounds uh i might look up the photo for me when i was jacked and i'll be like man i'm gonna shoot for that that's not the same as like and i'm going to use the power of the universe to be this thing right so i don't know enough about your situation but but with the the line for me is when you start thinking you are god and whether practically or by proxy i think that's where you're opening up yourself to demonic forces yeah i'm not on that level and then there's people that claim they could speak to god on command i'm i'm pretty skeptical.

You know what I mean?

What do you mean to God on command?

Like they'll just meditate and be able to communicate or they'll channel, like I had on a channeler,

viral clip.

Yeah, she was great.

Yeah, it's just like I'm a little skeptical.

I'm being sarcastic.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I actually had anxiety during that.

It was interesting.

Yeah.

I don't know what she channeled.

I think she channeled something demonic.

That's why you had anxiety.

I had a tight chest.

Yeah.

Like I'd never had that on an episode before.

I've filmed 1500 episodes.

Yeah.

So

I think all of us are created in the image of God.

All the scriptures in Ecclesiastes say that eternity is written on the human heart.

And so, I think even if you're, you don't know where you're at with Jesus, you know enough and you have a conscience and you're created in an image of God where your

spirit, your soul is going,

some's off, some's off.

She's manifesting.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That channeling stuff is,

there's just no proof with it.

You know what I mean?

Like, I know the Bashar guy is pretty famous too.

It's just like, I don't know what to think of.

They're channeling something.

I think they are.

Like, you can feel weird.

Like, it feels, it feels, have you been in a room with a channeler before?

No.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, I think the dangerous part is the

erasing the distinction between who we are ontologically and who God is ontologically.

Yeah.

I think that's a very dangerous place.

And that's a lot of the new age, new thought type stuff.

And listen, some of it's even crept into Christianity.

There are churches that kind of preach this like, you got to believe hard enough and then God will give you your miracle.

You got to believe hard enough and God will give you the million dollars.

And it's like, man, you could, you could believe and god may say no i've i've seen clips yeah yeah i've just like you seen to the tyler um tyler what is the guy the guy does super dope documentaries where he'll go into like the world's most dangerous city yeah yeah you see the one he just did on the prosperity church no i didn't see oh you would love it bro i gotta check that out yeah and it was cool because he did it in a way that didn't bash all of christianity it didn't hyper generalize all of christianity it was like hey these guys are fleecing religion that's not good was that the one where they locked the doors in and said you had to donate to leave no but it's that style church.

Okay.

It's that style church.

No, he pulled up on Benny Hinn and rushed the stage.

It opens with that and closes with that.

It's like a 30-minute episode.

So it's a really good episode.

And he did a good job in that.

He actually had Christians in the episode.

He reached out to one of my friends, Mike Winger, had that in an episode.

And I was like, man, that's so good.

But this is, that's the thing is like, there's, there, there has, in my opinion, there has to be an alternative for all of this.

And it can't.

Christians sometimes are so heavenly minded, they have no earthly good.

So it's like, dude, just place your faith in Jesus.

And like, you got your hell insurance.

And it's like, yeah, but like, what about all this now?

Like, I want to usher in good.

I want to build something.

I want to help people.

And I think that's where I was like, okay, there has to be, because the Christian will either like, say, punt your life or

God will give you your wildest dreams if you believe and give enough.

And both of those are wrong.

Both of those are wrong.

I think the answer is stewardship.

Like the answer is managing.

what it is that God has given you and being faithful with it.

I love that.

That's the form of journalism that we need more of when they cover both sides in one video yeah he killed it that's awesome yeah is there a lot of divide within the christian community because i saw george shanko get called out a few times i don't know exactly what happened there but i mean

any community that becomes chronically online there's going to be division you can get with christians and 95 of the stuff we agree on right so george is a friend like i was on the phone with george a couple days ago yeah i was driving in from from maine to boston i just randomly hit him up i just randomly call him he'll pick up when he calls me so he's a friend and i think george is in that place of of like, he's a bit newer.

He is, he's been successful and famous for a long time.

And he's working it out in front of the whole world.

That's a brutal place to be.

Right.

You know, but I think all things considering, I think George is doing fantastic.

I think George Django is doing really good.

And so, yeah, there will be people that disagree with him about this one thing and then like, he's a wolf or he's a heretic or he's a this.

And they'll use the strongest degree of language.

He's got called a wolf.

I mean.

You get in comments, yes.

But there was other creators that said some pretty wild stuff about him.

And about me.

I mean, there's thousands of videos made about me.

Really?

All kinds of stuff.

What are they attacking you for?

I mean, some of it will be people from different streams of Christianity.

So sometimes it'll be like the Eastern Orthodox people will have something to say.

Sometimes it'll be people who think that because we sell stuff, it's wrong and we shouldn't sell anything because we're Christian and Christians are called to be poor.

Other times we'll talk about money flippantly.

We'll talk about money in a way of like, hey, just like we talk about health and fitness.

Hey, God has a lot to say about money.

Proverbs.

lays out most of our principles on financial literacy today.

Live on less than what you make.

Avoid consumer debt.

And if you're in consumer debt, get out of it as quickly as possible.

Dave Ramsey.

Dave Ramsey, right?

Invest, save for a rainy day, have an emergency fund, save for a rainy day.

Be generous, have a plan, right?

No, ultimately God's in control, but have some sort of plan.

Gazelle intensity, Dave Ramsey preaches that a lot.

Like if you're going to lock in on something, go all in for a season, right?

And so like a lot of these principles are

in the scriptures, right?

There's one of my favorite verses is

he who chase he who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies will have their fill of poverty.

Right.

And so like add that to this content creator space, like, am I working my land or am I chasing fantasies?

Yeah.

Am I being faithful to what's in front of me?

So all of this stuff comes, I think, from a biblical worldview, a lot of it.

And it gets co-opted.

It gets corrupted by either the world or prosperity preachers.

And then what happens?

People will then be mad when someone's just giving a general take.

Like, I'll just be like, hey, you don't don't have to struggle and be live paycheck to paycheck in america yeah you know you can actually like save and get out of debt and have a plan and crush it in these different areas and it's like that's the you're talking about money it's like yeah

like one out of five or one out of six of jesus's talks was about money wow he talks about money a lot i could read you a passage you'll find trippy you know um he was an entrepreneur right oh he was a carpenter i've heard that paul was a tent maker so paul would go and preach the gospel and he would say stuff like hey even though you should be taking care of me financially and you have taken care of others, Peter and Peter got the script with a wife and all that, you know what?

I'm just going to go and I'm going to go be a tent maker.

I'm going to have my little small, small business on the side so that I don't have to be a burden on you.

And you can't even say that money is a part of this thing.

Yeah.

You need to take care of himself.

I mean, we got wealthy kingdom tomorrow.

It's all about aligning those principles you're talking about.

That's right.

That's cool, man.

Well, I can't wait to see what you're up to, what debates you line up.

And we'll link all your stuff below.

Anything else you want to close off with here?

Let me read you one passage of scripture before we get out of here.

Okay, so this is like one of my favorite.

We did a whole devotional based on this.

It won't be too long, but I think you'll be like, oh, that's fire.

So Luke chapter 19.

So this is the parable of the 10 Minas or the 10 10 bags of gold, right?

It says, while they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable.

So parable is a story.

He said, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear.

He said, a man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.

So Jesus is the man of noble birth in this story, right?

He says, so he called 10 of his servants and gave them 10 minas, put his money, put this money to work, he said, until I come back.

The KJV says, occupy until I come.

I love the language of occupy until I come.

The ESV says, do business with this, right?

So Jesus is leaving, gives resource to these servants, do business with this, put this money to work.

right uh but the um

but his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say we don't want this man to be our king.

He was made king, however, and returned home.

Then he was made king, however, and returned home.

Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money in order to find out what they had gained with it.

What they had gained with it, right?

The first one came and said, sir, your minus has earned 10 more.

Well done, my good servant.

His master replied, because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of 10 cities.

The second came and said, sir, your minus has earned five more.

His master answered, you take charge of five cities.

So the first one took it, you doubled up.

The second one took it, doubled up, right?

Then another servant came and said, sir, here's your meaner.

I have kept it laid away

in a piece of cloth.

I was afraid of you because you are a hard man.

You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.

So what is that?

That's business.

That's leverage, right?

So Jesus is described as someone.

The master is described as someone that you're reaping where you did not sow.

He's using leverage.

He's shrewd.

His master replied, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant.

You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in and reaping what I did not sow.

Why then didn't you put my money on deposit so that when I came back, I could have collected with interest?

Then he said to those standing by, take this mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.

Sir, they replied, he already has ten.

He replied, I tell you that to everyone who has more, who has, more will be given.

But it's for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me.

Whoa.

Jesus said that?

Yeah, dude.

So that's Luke chapter 19, verse 11, right?

Pretty gnarly stuff, right?

He was ruthless.

Yeah, man.

So, so, so, like, one, you're reading that, and that sounds like a pretty entrepreneurial passage of scripture.

Yeah.

Right.

Hey, I'm giving you resource.

Be faithful with it.

The framework is, this isn't my resource.

This is God's.

My life is God's.

My body's God's.

My family's God's.

And then he's coming back.

And so he wants to see how I've been faithful with it.

I've given, right?

And again, the Christians, sometimes so heavenly minded, no earthly good.

They want to part their life.

They don't want to be faithful.

But when you read, and this is one, I could take you to Matthew 25, I could take you to so many stories when you read this, and you're like, dude, Jesus sounds like a gangster.

Yeah, stories about us.

Well, thanks for sharing that, man.

Appreciate you, brother.

Come on again.

Check them out, guys.

Peace.