0:00

there's a cathartic thing that happens when you hear other people's struggles who have gone through very similar

0:05

struggles as you and so that's what I wanted to do to intro the book was to

0:11

kind of lay out the story of look I have not done this well I do not always do this well and so these are why I've

0:18

learned these lessons not because I crushed it but because I didn't

0:30

welcome to the will Spencer podcast this is a weekly Show featuring in-depth conversations with authors leaders and

0:38

influencers who help us understand our changing World new episodes release

0:44

every Friday will is a bit under the weather this week and so he asked me today's guest to introduce Today's show

0:52

my name is Matt Reynolds I'm the founder and CEO of one of the largest online fitness coaching companies in the world

0:59

barbell logic where our goal is to improve the quality of life of as many people as possible by

1:05

helping them experience strength and the refining power of voluntary hardship I'm

1:10

a longtime friend of wills and this is my second appearance on the podcast today I had the pleasure of having a

1:16

wonderful conversation about my new book undoing urgency reclaiming your time for

1:22

the things that matter most published by Forbes and on sale now at Amazon or any

1:28

major retailer or book are sold in our conversation we do a deep dive of the

1:34

problem of urgency how virtually everyone is drowning in urgency and how

1:39

that urgency often crowds out the most important things in our lives diminishing our faith and spiritual

1:46

disciplines are calling as husbands and fathers business owners good citizens

1:51

and often comes even at the expense of our own health and fitness urgency truly

1:56

is the enemy of the important it was a huge honor to be on the show and I'm incredibly grateful to will for his

2:03

support and friendship over the years so I hope you enjoy and get a ton of

2:09

practical value in our discussion about pulling weeds undoing urgency and learning to focus the bulk of your time

2:16

on the most important things in life which are almost never urgent but that are most intimately tied to your

2:22

personal core values for those ready to go deeper please visit will Spencer pod.

2:28

substack do.com and become a paid subscriber for AdFree interviews and exclusive content and remember will

2:35

sponsors aren't just businesses they're allies building Christian economic wealth for generations to come

2:42

supporting them isn't just spending money it's investing in an American reformation and with that let's begin

2:49

our conversation with Will Spencer and me Matt Reynolds author of undoing

Introduction & Overview of the Book

2:57

urgency Matt Reynolds welcome back to the will Spencer podcast hey brother thanks uh for having me I'm excited been

3:03

a little while been a few months has it been I think it's been like a year or so since you came on last time yes but not

Time Since Matt’s Last Appearance

3:09

that long since you've come and stayed at my house and got to experience the Ozarks that's right for the first time

3:14

which was a blast so uh yeah thanks for me back on the show that was August of last year actually hung out with you and

3:20

and Brandon and the crew that's crazy time flies it does so uh I'm excited to

3:27

talk to you today about your new book congratulations undoing urgency which I I think is out now probably by the time

3:34

this podcast come comes out it will be out but is it out like literally today December 10th is the official publish

Matt’s New Book Release Details

3:40

date you can buy it on Amazon I think it's going to like you said when this comes out I think it will already be out and so we've already sold 7,000 copies

3:47

which is insane and broken what yeah Forbes it's broken the records for Forbes already for pre-sale so they're

3:54

excited I'm nervous um because I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched and so some chickens have

4:00

already hatched it's uh we've already hit bestseller lists on Amazon pre-sale which is really rare to hit to hit

4:06

bestseller on on Amazon we'll see I don't it's really hard to make bestseller for New York Times and that's

4:13

not why I wrote the book and so but I'm excited uh Forbes was the publisher and uh so it's nice to have a name behind it

4:20

that that can actually kind of push it out there it'll be in all the Hudson News and and places in the airport and

4:26

Hudson actually decided they reviewed it and they want it as a face out book as a as opposed to a you know just a see the

4:31

spine of the book so that'll be if you see a Hudson News in January or February

4:37

of uh 2025 it should be a face out in the airports I probably will need to do an airport tour I thought it'd be cool

4:42

to just go to you know just a handful like do a circle airport tour of like some business trips and it would be cool

4:48

to just walk in the Hudson News and and see that as well as there's a handful of other uh book suppliers in the airports

4:54

that aren't Hudson uh and it'll of course be on Barnes & Noble and all the other all the other places you can buy

4:59

books but uh Amazon is Amazon is King at this point so the goal is to that's where the rankings come from and so um

5:07

yeah that's that's the goal for for sure for the from a ranking standpoint But ultimately I just hope this book is a a

5:13

blessing to others and it changes lives I think that I've read a ton of business books and there there are a ton of

5:19

business books I've read and I'm like that's a good book but it didn't really change my life my goal is I would rather

5:24

change a handful or a few scores or maybe hopefully a couple hundred lives

5:30

than to sell a million books and change no lives and so you know I'm not a I

5:35

don't make my money from writing books I'm not a Content producer for for money

5:42

I run a service business and so really the book was a thing that was it just held a ton of bandwidth in my brain

5:49

lessons I've learned over nearly 20 years of business ownership and and life

5:54

and almost 25 years of of marriage and uh and so I just put it all out there and for those that get the book the

6:01

intro is pretty hard and very vulnerable and transparent but I think it's

6:06

important because it shows humanity and it shows I think a lot of business owners that have been successful right

6:12

and this is not just a business book this is more of a lifestyle book and it's also not a Time hack book I want to be clear it's about how to leverage our

6:19

our time more effectively but not in a Time hack sort of way and so I think a lot of of successful people if if I end

6:27

up being qualified as that and I don't know that I do but if I am if I am I think people often

6:33

tell the story of just the wins and not the losses but I think the lessons are really learned more in the failures than

6:40

they are in the wins and so there's a lot of there's a lot of failure lessons there and these are stories that my

6:47

family knows and my staff knows and and people that know me know you know um my

6:52

pastor my church know but I still had to call my mom and say you I need you to read the intro because oh wow you know

6:59

this is there's some painful stuff in here and so but I think I think it you know I one one of my favorite business

7:06

books ever written going down a rabbit Trail already is is a book called the hard thing about hard things written by

7:11

Ben Horowitz who is a co-founder of andrees Horwitz which is one of the biggest venture capital and maybe

7:17

private Equity firms at this point these guys are interesting and Mark andron was just on Rogan last week he was and uh

7:23

these guys are prototypical um long-term liberal Democrats in the in the um Tech space

7:32

and completely flipped for Trump in the last year or so and um and the push back

7:39

and the things that they're seeing in that world Ben Horowitz wrote a book called the hard thing about hard things

7:45

he obviously now being the founder of a major multi-billion Venture Capital firm

7:51

has been very successful but his whole book is almost no wins and all losses

7:58

it's all like this is how hard it is to build a multi-billion Dollar business in

8:04

America today and the things you're going to have to deal with not because of America's culture but because this is

8:10

just how hard business is and it is so cathartic as as a matter of fact I'm about to go on vacation by the time this

8:15

comes out I'll probably be in Mexico with my family I hope that I am and Lord's blessed to have a business with

8:21

where I can I can work a little bit down there and spend some good time with my family and so I probably will listen to

8:27

that audio book while I'm sitting down on the beach there's a there's a cathartic thing that happens when you

8:32

hear other people's struggles who have gone through very similar struggles as you and so that's what I wanted to do to

8:39

intro the book was to kind of lay out the story of look I do I do not I have

8:45

not done this well I do not always do this well and so these are why I've

8:50

learned these lessons not because I crushed it but because I didn't so that

8:56

is an incredible way to start the podcast and you've given me so many different paths to go down um so okay so

9:03

I think first where we'll start is I think it's necessary for the audience to have a bit of context of what undoing

9:10

urgency is about sure and and the structure of the book because then I want to get into sort of what you said

9:16

about about the actual process of running that out over the course of being a business owner an entrepreneur

9:22

or or whatever in today's cultural climates let's start by talking about the book undoing urgency like what's the

9:28

structure of it what processes are involved let's let's let's fill in some gaps for people yeah and I'll even

Eisenhower’s Matrix: Urgency vs. Importance

9:34

expand it's not a business book either there's a lot of applicable as you get into the the later third and I'll back

9:40

up and I'll I'll lead into this but there's a lot of business things that we've learned over the years that we

9:45

talk about in the book but this really applies to I think almost everybody and

9:50

and it's because of this when when I was a kid if someone in the 80s and 90s and

9:58

probably same thing for you if somebody came up to your dad or my dad and they said how's it going how you doing same

10:04

sort of question we asked today question hasn't changed the answers changed question is how's it going how you doing

10:11

the answer in the 80s or 90s were good it was just sort of a flippant answer that like yeah it's good everything it's

10:17

good right it was sort of a small talk right and now it doesn't matter if you

10:23

ask the business owner the soccer mom the church leader how's it going the

10:29

answer is busy h I'm busy like you hear that way more often and I and so the

10:37

concept of the book is that we are really all drowning or most of us are drowning in urgency there are there we

10:43

have set up our lives surrounded by urgency of things we have to do all the

10:48

time and what that urgency does is it crowds out the important things and so

10:53

Charles hmel wrote a book years ago called the tyranny of the Urgent he said the the Urgent is the enemy the

10:59

important and then building off of that Eisenhower president Eisenhower has this Matrix that we can get into if you want

11:05

to talk about details where he said he Eisenhower said um when he was president actually at the end of the at the end of

11:11

the war as well he said I have two types of problems I deal with the Urgent which are almost never

11:18

important and the important problems which are almost never urgent mhm which tells me that there is a dichotomy there

11:25

between the Urgent and the important and I think what we to do is get caught up

11:30

in the Urgent and it crowds out the important so if you think about the

11:35

things that are most important in your life and certainly I would love to get into some of our core values my core

11:41

values your core values but for most of your listeners that's going to be you know family and faith and health and

11:47

fitness and even for me being a CEO of the company like the CEO stuff not the

11:53

in the trenches stuff in the business if I if I'm drowning in the urgency of the

11:58

dayto day what ends up happening is it it it pulls me from being the husband

12:04

that I need to be or the father I need to be or the leader I need to be whether that's in church or business and I want

12:11

to do things to pull from the urgent non-important things as much as possible

12:16

work on the things as efficiently as possible that are Urgent and important so that I can focus the majority of my

12:23

time on the things that are most important and often never urgent it is

12:28

never urgent to spend time with my family to my with my kids with my wife

12:33

it's never urgent to get the workout in today it's never urgent to do my spiritual disciplines it's never urgent

12:39

to do the vision casting for the business but all of these things are wildly important in my life if we're not

12:47

careful we spend all of our time drowning in the urgency working in life in business in church not on life on

12:55

business on we work in it not on it and I don't want to in that and and I was

13:00

telling you before we even started the call and I kind of stopped like let's talk about this during the yeah during the podcast is that this is still

13:07

something that I deal with every day like I have to get up every day and think okay what are the important things I need to accomplish today and and

13:15

that's a list of one or two or maybe three things and what are the urgent things

13:21

that need to get done but like it is not 5 years from now I will not remember

13:26

that this existed and that's a list of 25 things if I'm not careful I spend all

13:32

my time doing the 25 urgent non-important things or urgent and somewhat important things and I crowd

13:39

out the stuff that's the most important in my life I miss the workout I miss the spiritual disciplines I miss the time my

13:45

the quality time of my family and for the Urgent so that's really what the book is about it's about setting core

13:52

values understanding your core values which I love doing a podcast like yours because I think our core values are

13:58

similar in most of your listen are going to be similar to our to mine but identifying what those core values are

14:03

and then leading a life that is in in it's in congruence

14:09

with those core values I think if we look at our time if we look at our calendar if we look at our if we do a

14:15

Time audit we'll often see that the things we're spending our time on it are not are not cohesive with the things

14:22

that we really think are important and so ultimately that's what the book is about so it opens up with a lot of those

14:27

core value pieces how to identify that and then how to set the major goals in your life that to get to get the stuff

14:35

um done that needs to be done so that you can open up the time to be the person that you actually want to be not

14:41

just today but to build a legacy of who you want to be when you're say 80 I want

14:47

to be the jacked wise grandpa that loves Jesus and and if

14:53

I'm not living a life because the problem is I don't wake up at 80 and get there 80 it's not it's actually actually

14:59

not the goal that is the thing that brings the joy it's the 60 years before

15:05

the 80 before I'm 80 it's from 20 to it's from 20 to 80 it's the it's the

15:12

process of living a lifestyle that is in um congruence with with those core

15:18

values so that's really what the book is about and so it it goes like a lot of books do and I think I read a lot of

15:23

books and that are I mean I read lots of books the first third or first half I'm

15:29

like I get it I get the I get the thesis I don't need to read the rest of this thing for for us we wanted to make sure

15:36

we had value throughout the entire book so the book is you know starts at kind of the 50,000 foot view it dives into

15:42

the more personal View and then gets into the Tactical here's how you actually do this on a day-to-day basis

15:49

without being a Time hack book because I I don't want to be a time hack book right okay so just to just to back

15:57

up so the the important tasks that you define those are based on your core

16:02

values corre so it's not it's not as if you you uh just show up to the office

16:07

during the day and you make an arbitrary judgment about what tasks are important and what are Urgent the important tasks

16:14

themselves are are determined by who you are as a person the things that are most important to you um and that is what

16:21

determines whether something is important not some external deliverable by someone else is based on your own

16:26

expression of of what's essal your life that's a great explanation and I would just the only the only um push back I

16:34

would have on that is I would say those are the most important things okay and so coming back to Eisenhower Eisenhower

16:39

is saying okay things are either urgent or important but when you really look at

16:45

it and Steven cvy and seven habits are highly affected people I think it was the first one to talk about this Brett

16:50

McKay's talked about this on Art of manlin other books have talked about this but it's created what is what we now call the Eisenhower Matrix and I

16:56

talk about this quite a bit in the book Eisenhower didn't come up the Matrix but the reality is that there's actually you

17:02

can to you can look at every single thing that you do in a day or in a week or a month or whatever and you can put

17:09

those in one of all of those tasks all of those things in one of four quadrants

17:15

so you have the things that are not urgent not important and I would I would

17:20

qualify those things as like binge watching Netflix video games internet porn do

17:27

Doom scrolling social media some of those things are very clearly immoral

17:34

I.E internet porn and some of those things are not necessarily immoral they maybe amoral but they are they are not

17:40

urgent not important and our argument would be for that Quadrant One non- urgent not important things we should

17:46

literally purge them we should eliminate them from our lives and then quadrant two would be the things that are urgent

17:53

but not important I'll give you an example as we're doing this podcast I'm almost certain

17:59

a team of guys are going to show up and clear all the leaves we have 16 trees in my yard and they're going to and it's

18:05

it's you know early December and I've got all these leaves in my yard and they're going to clean up the leaves I'm in an HOA if the leaves aren't cleaned

18:11

up by the end of the weekend I'm going to get a letter from the HOA to say clean up the leaves right

18:18

urgent not important right it's the so right that's right grocery shopping like

Examples of Urgent but Unimportant Tasks

18:24

I don't groc like guys it's $10 to have any grocery store deliver to

18:30

your front door so that's urgent because you need food but it's not important you

18:37

don't need to spend two hours going grocery shopping I can spend 15 minutes on the app buying the groceries and the

18:43

groceries show up two hours later on my front doorstep mowing my lawn a lot of housekeeping chores we have a

18:49

housekeeper maybe you can afford a housekeeper once a month once every two months maybe it's every week maybe you have a housekeeper that lives in your

18:55

house it doesn't like your financials will determine that but I don't want to clean my floors and baseboards we keep a

19:02

clean house we're not messy people but we hire people to do those things and so

19:08

it also may be things like basic I have an executive assistant that handles the vast majority of my emails my calendar

19:16

my podcast you know interviews things like that those things are often urgent

19:23

but not that important housework like whatever those things are in your life

19:29

and and so we want to in that quadrant 2 we want to delegate or automate those things delegate has been the primary

19:37

factor over the past 40 50 60 years as AI comes in I think there's more things

19:42

that we're able to automate I think those are fine it's another conversation we can have we're going to try to

19:48

leverage as much as we can technology to automate things like calendar setups K Lee you know there's tons of apps that

19:55

help make you more effective that you don't have to do so these things that are urgent but not important then

20:01

quadrant three which is where most of us who are business owners or say

20:09

Executives upper upper level managers we have a ton of stuff that we have to do that's urgent and important and this is

20:16

where the differentiator between what you said is there are things that I have to do every day so for example today

20:21

this morning at 515 a.m. I recorded a State of the Union Address we we call it

20:28

the State of the Union uh for my company to put out to all of the employees the

20:34

entire staff it's a staff of 100 plus another 300 coaches and that's urgent and important the State of the Union

20:40

needs to go out it's Q4 they haven't heard from me in a while it's between Thanksgiving in Christmas they need to

20:46

hear that thing I need it took a long time to set up it's 5:15 it was still dark outside I'm trying to set up

20:52

lighting and you know and you know ring lights and I went in my daughter's room and she had a makeup light and I was

20:57

like I need this to too cuz it's too dark in the room and you know set all the stuff up uh teleprompter the thing

21:03

did the thing urgent and important the Urgent and important things those daily tasks those emails that have to be

21:09

responded to that the EA can't do the you know the the project management list

21:15

the daily tasks that are important and Urgent especially as you move up in the

21:20

if you're in the corporate world or that have to be done those need to be done very efficiently so going back again

21:27

Quadrant One non not important eliminate quadrant two urgent not important

21:32

delegator automate the sorry quadrant three urgent

21:38

and important we want to do those effectively efficiently as possible that means no notifications on the phone

21:45

notific no notifications on the computer often doing those when other people sleep for me that's when people are

21:51

still sleeping in the morning it might be for for you it might be at late at night my IQ is about 80 at 8: at night

21:59

as you know me I go to bed early I get up early so I get up early I get great work done and that work in the morning

22:05

very early from like 3 in the morning 3:30 in the morning I don't set an alarm youve you've stayed with me in my guest

22:11

room I just wake up make coffee go downstairs walk the dog this time of

22:16

year it's cold outside wakes me up a little bit get a little bur get a little CH little chill we'll come in and I

22:22

knock out work for for 3 or 4 hours before my family wakes up and I'm doing urgent and important work family wakes

22:29

up yeah do my workout and then the key there is if I do that

22:34

efficiently it opens up the most time possible for that Quadrant 4 which is

22:39

extremely that's the most important stuff but is never urgent it's the it's

22:44

the being it's spending time with my family with my wife with my children

22:50

it's spiritual disciplines it's reading my Bible it's working out it's Health

22:55

it's Fitness Faith Church it's those things those things are like it's never

23:01

urgent to read my Bible it's never urgent to take my wife on a date but

23:06

it's extremely important to me and if we're not careful we drown in the urgency and it pushes out the importance

23:16

and so I want to instead get rid of the things are not urgent not important

23:21

delegate the things that are Urgent not important I want to be as efficient as

23:27

possible on the things that are urgent and important which I spend a lot of time doing as a CEO so that I can free

23:33

up as much time as possible this is really a discussion about freedom and versus bondage of your of your day of

23:39

your time of your schedule so that I can be free to do the things that are most important to me that will leave the

23:46

Legacy that I want to leave as the husband and father and Christian and

23:51

church leader and and and leader in the business that I want to be I want to spend the most amount of time doing that

23:57

thing and that is the Eisenhower Matrix and that's really what the book fleshes out long term okay this is great because

Will’s Struggle With Morning Priorities

24:05

maybe you can help me answer a question a personal question that I've been struggling with so um I've noticed for

24:11

myself that the best time that I have in terms of mental focus Clarity Etc is

24:17

when I first wake up yep so I've struggled with what I do in that time

24:22

what I can do in that time is I can write or I can which is for me is urgent and important work like original creat

24:28

original creative writing putting my thoughts into some you know solid form

24:34

or I heard people say well the first thing you should do when you get up you should read the Bible or I've had a a

24:40

trainer a doctor it was actually as Dr Joe boova I don't think that you were on that stream with us but he said yeah but

24:47

he said you know the best time for men to lift is first thing in the morning when they wake up because their

24:53

testosterone is at its highest so those are three different things that I can't all do at the same time

24:58

and and and when I if I out then I want to eat something first and so if I eat

25:04

before I out then by the time I get around to doing any work I youan know I don't have a gym in my house I have to

25:10

leave and so it just obliterates it obliterates that focused time but it seems like these three important and

25:16

somewhat urgent things well maybe working out isn't quite so urgent but you know these things VI for time so how

25:22

do you solve that it sounds like the first thing you do is get up make coffee urgent important work and then Bible

25:27

work okay but I don't think that's the right I don't think that's the only answer right so I think figuring out

Daily Routine & Time Management

25:34

what will allow you to do this best is is the best answer so if I got up at 7

25:41

or 6 a.m. or something like that I would I would work out I would work out first thing that would be the first thing I do

25:48

okay because I get up at 3 and because I have a home gym and because if I deadlift at 3:15 in the in the morning

25:55

what um there's that's a fast track to divorce that's a joke my wife so you

26:01

know I can't deadlift downstairs in the gym because I have a home gym at 3:15 in the morning so what I do is I get up I

26:09

make the coffee I I focus as much as I can I you know walk the dog get cold and sit down

26:17

and and have this routine where I give myself about an hour to an hour and a

26:22

half of urgent and important work and even occasionally whatever urgent not

26:28

important work that I can knock out very very quickly and not send to the to the EA I do first thing so I do that first

26:36

and I'm still at listen at 3:15 even though I wake up and I'm awake and my brain is going enough when I lay in bed

26:42

that I know I have to get up I'm not I'm still a little bit groggy I'm not like I

26:48

couldn't get up into a state of the union at 3:15 in the morning I'm still you know occasionally pouring water into

26:53

my coffee grinder where that's not where the water goes and so and so I get up yep and I

26:59

make the coffee and I do the work so I work an hour hour and a half and I knock out as much as I can efficiently early

27:06

in the morning and then when my wife wakes up I and and for me that's also

27:13

like online coaching because I'm still an online coach I coach my clients I break down their videos I've done that

27:19

for tens of thousands of hours so I'll I'll do that stuff and then when she

27:24

wakes up at 6:45 we'll often walk we walk around the neighborhood we talk about the day and

27:31

then we come in and we prep and we do a workout and then I come in from the workout and I have the protein shake or

27:37

the post-workout eggs or whatever and then I sit down and I start to do the important work and so that's how I Do by

27:44

the way I left out the thing so I do the Urgent work for the first hour and a half because and then I read my Bible I

27:52

do my spiritual disciplines and that's because of this and this is just me and this is my personality I have a really

27:59

hard time focusing on the things that I'm reading and trying to learn so so

28:04

for those your listeners hopefully most of whom are Christians are reading their Bible anding their spiritual spiritual

28:10

disciplines I have a hard time my my brain is not functioning at full capacity immediately it takes a little

28:17

bit of time but the time that it takes say an hour or less is stuff that I can

28:22

still knock out the emails and the project management stuff as a CEO if there are if there are questions that

28:28

are being asked in the company and I can't answer them by the time the rest of my company wakes up some of whom are

28:33

on the west coast many of whom are on the west coast so two hours behind me if that question isn't answered their

28:40

work stops until they get an answer from me so I do Urgent important work first this is just me and then I do spiritual

28:48

disciplines I often make another cup of coffee I go to the bathroom I make another cup of coffee like when I'm

28:54

doing urgent and important work I'm I've prepped all those things I've gone to the bathroom I really TMI but I've gone

29:01

to the bathroom I've made the coffee I've and then when I do Urgent important work I'm not allowed to get out of the

29:06

chair I'm notifications off hammering urgent important work that's how I do it

29:14

I get up very early in the morning I do that for an hour hour and a half then I go make another cup of coffee I take a 5

29:21

minute break I lot times walk around I might even go outside on the back deck it's cold I might hit I've got a cold

29:27

Plunge you know I've got a hot tub things like I might sit in the sauna for a few minutes just kind of like get the

29:33

blood flowing in my body hit the cold punch then come in and do the spiritual disciplines because for me it's hard I

29:40

wish I could focus on the spiritual disciplines if the cloud of urgency wasn't hanging over my head but because

29:47

for my personality it is I will have anxiety reading the Bible while I know

29:54

that there are questions that have to be answered and I could answer them in 5 or 10es minutes right so I do I answer the

30:00

questions first then I take a little break and when I say a little break I'm talking about a five minute break a

30:06

10-minute break Max another cup of coffee ready to go now I'm in spiritual

30:11

discipline mode I read my Bible and it's not a check it off the list I want to be

30:16

in a place and this is why I don't do it first because I think if I did it first it would be like just get through the

Health & Fitness in Daily Life

30:22

next chapter of Second Kings and I would just read through but I want to like I

30:28

want to dive into the thing I want to really do it right yeah and so then it's

30:33

spiritual disciplines by that time my wife has woken up we go on a walk we

30:40

work out we eat we shower and we don't shower together although there's nothing

30:46

wrong with that but she takes a bath I shower and uh and then I get to sit down

30:53

and I get to be CEO Matt and I get to do the things that are most important at that so now at now it's 8:00 a.m. in the

30:59

morning I have done urgent important work I have done spiritual disciplines I

31:05

have trained I have eaten I have showered I've dressed for the day I'm

31:10

not in pajamas or sweatpants or whatever and it's CEO time and I go to a private

31:16

office just which is here luckily thank the Lord here in my home I've got

31:21

several places I can do this and I sit down and I start to do the important work that is less urgent so so it sounds

31:28

like what you do is you you get up at 3 which I think is probably not going to be feasible for a whole ton of people

31:35

that's a that's a it sounds like a a biological it's sounds like a wiring thing for you I don't I know that

31:41

something I even want to do right just FYI okay I I actually when I came to

31:47

stay with you and and you went to bed at like 8 or 9 I actually wanted to ask was this something that you trained yourself to do over years it's just who you are

31:54

yeah there are pictures in my I actually my library because of where the sun is right now um

32:00

not my office and in my library I have a bunch of scrapbooks that my mom gave me because my mom is a boomer and kept lots

32:07

of scrapbooks and you probably seen this the the boomers are now giving their kids all the crap that they owned over

32:13

the years and that and their children their Gen X and Millennial children are like we don't want all this stuff but in

32:20

I looked we took we walked our kids through a few months ago the scrapbooks and there's a picture of me sitting

32:26

crisscross applesauce you you know cross legs okay you've not heard that term

32:31

never before in my life oh you're not a you're not you weren't a kindergarten teacher will Spencer so not correct so

32:38

when you sit on the floor with your legs crossed kindergarten teachers called that crisscross apples sauce okay I

32:45

don't know why I didn't invent it okay and my mom and dad always woke up really

32:51

early to like 5:00 a.m. or whatever somewhere in that ballpark and in the midwest before the very early news comes

32:59

on which might be 5:30 a.m. or 6:00 a.m. in the midwest we have a show called AG

33:05

day like agricultural day and it was an hour maybe two hour show where it was

33:12

Farmers talking about the day price of pork bellies and corn and uh you know

33:20

how the rain was and things like that and so she has a picture she got up and I was I'm maybe two or three years old

33:26

and I'm sitting in front of one of those big box tube

33:31

televisions you know with the tele like in wood in casing yeah wood

33:36

paneling sitting yep exactly right I'm sitting on the floor right in front of it like this close it's amazing I'm not

33:42

blind and with the sound way down and I'm watching AG day but I didn't grow up

33:48

on a farm again I'm a badst preachers kid but that that was what was on TV in

33:55

1982 when you woke up at 4 in the morning and you were 2 or 3 years old so I would wake up and I would just like

34:01

turn on a day and I would sit crisscross applesauce in front of the TV on the floor on the shag carpet and watch this

34:09

show and my somehow my mom got a picture of this she's like you've always been that way I've Al also like you can see

34:16

as the sun goes down like I'm hot and sweaty and red and I've always been hot natured she also has like I'm a big guy

34:22

now lift a lot obviously and but I've also been like very hot natured and and she has a million pictures of me at

34:29

three four five six years old just sweating profusely from my forehead like those those things are inate in me so

34:36

the waking up early and the being very hot natured and sweating is normal I

34:41

know that's not normal for most and so understanding your circadian rhythm

34:47

of when you wake up when you go to bed again by the end of this podcast my my

34:54

IQ will have dropped to about 85 and so um so don't like let's lower

35:00

expectations for the end of the podcast because it's bedtime and that's that's when I spend time eating watching great

35:07

movies we watch documentaries like we're a big documentary family love watching documentaries as a family and and so you

35:13

know I talked about the non-urgent not important things binge watching Netflix

35:18

or streaming TV I I would call non-urgent not important but for my family there is actually a thing that I

35:25

I would actually take some of those documentar and things that we learn and talk about we pause documentaries about

35:31

10 times during every documentary and we talk about the history behind the thing that we're watching so we're watching a

35:38

thing on Church Hill or watching a thing on World War II or watching a thing on like whatever and I stop and I go wait

35:43

do you understand what just happened here like this is what's going on and we talk about the thing and so that take

35:49

for for us and it's just us and it's I'm sure it's some others but not everybody

35:54

it takes that streaming television vision from Quadrant 1 to Quadrant

36:01

4 because now what we're doing is we've eaten dinner together at the table we've had family worship we've done the things

36:08

we've decided we're going to watch like watching Chernobyl Chernobyl right now which we've my one of my daughters and I

36:15

have watched my wife and other daughter had not watched and I was like this is an excellent historical documentary

36:21

about what happened in Russia and Soviet Union 1986 and the you know nuclear meltdown so we're watching this thing

36:27

like and that is a learning experience for our family that we enjoy we just never watch more than one episode in any

36:34

one night after that it's board games it's talking it's more Family Worship it's

36:39

going to bed it's doing what whatever we just don't do four hours of TV together right and so so it's it's not that I'm

36:47

saying that by the way we've also done family vacation or family uh thanks like

36:53

thanksgivings and holidays where we we break out the old Nintendo 64 and we all play Mario Kart together and it's a

37:00

blast the four of us doing the thing so I'm also not saying that video games like I'm not a video game guy I I'm not

37:07

a video game guy primarily because I'm scared of what it will do to me because video games are amazing at this point

37:13

I'm like yeah give me a good World War I or World War II video game and I might get sucked in forever so I stay away

37:19

from the thing but playing Mario Kart for 45 minutes with my family that takes it from a quadrant 1 to a Quadrant 4

37:26

like this is a blast you know we make popcorn you know we drink it's eggnog season my family loves

37:33

EG do you guys do you drink eggnog I have drunk eggnog yes not a fan I mean I

37:38

I it's not something that I like crave it's not something I crave during the holidays I grew up not celebrating

37:45

Christmas so eggnog was something that I had way later yeah yeah they don't like you eight day you don't have eight days

37:51

of eggnog in the Jewish culture 8 days of matab Bal soup that sounds way worse

37:56

I would much TR have eggnog yeah so a good a good matab Bal soup will blow your mind it is true I have yeah that is

Long-Term Thinking & Generational Impact

38:03

true um yeah I mean I so I want to be careful in putting judgment on the

38:08

things outside of like the internet porn and the and the the you know Doom scrolling or the binge watching it's

38:15

it's the the what I would what I would say the the fault or the sin is in the

38:21

binge or and obviously with porn immoral but you know for for things like else

38:27

like we will often watch a show at night as a family after dinner we talk about

38:32

the show we learn from the show we're not watching Game of Thrones we're watching uh a documentary that has

38:40

historical evidence that matters maybe good maybe bad and we talk through the thing like hey let me tell you the this

38:46

has been skewed this direction for this reason and so we do those things and so

38:51

that's that's the way my daily schedule works but what I want to be careful of in the book and I have and I was careful

38:58

in the book is saying everyone needs to wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning

39:04

work in the morning when everyone else is sleeping doing the Urgent and important work spiritual disciplines

39:10

work out so that by 6:00 a.m. you've gotten all those things out of the way and it's time to just work on the

39:16

important things because I think a lot of people are wired the opposite and I think that's fine if you wake up at 600

39:21

or 7 or eight and you you have your own system in place and you're most creative

39:27

at 7 or 8:00 p.m. and when my as my IQ is winding down yours is cranking up I

39:34

think that's fine there's no judgment there is the key is identifying what are the things that are Urgent what are the

39:39

things that are important focusing on things that are important when they when they make the most when they're most

39:45

effective that's that's helpful because I think not everyone like I've tried to force myself to get up at five and it'll

39:51

work really well for a couple days if but I find that it's very difficult for

39:56

me you because I'm a social person to get to bed at 9:00 I just it's just it

40:01

might be an impossibility for me it also an impossibility for me to get to bed at 9: CU I'm already sleeping ex EXA

40:07

exactly for the opposite reason right yeah but but I have recognized inside myself that there is benefit in the

40:14

early morning hours before everyone else is awake and I think this is why Benjamin Franklin said because he is the

40:20

origin of this phrase Early to Bed ear makes a man healthy wealthy and wise and I think that's why he said that because

40:26

he recognizes that a man has such a a diverse range of responsibilities that

40:31

extend outside himself that I've noticed for me as soon as I'm aware that the

40:36

world has started waking up somewhere around like 9:00 something like that my whole day changes and then later in the

40:43

evening like for example after 10 or 11: when I know everyone's sleeping then I then I get that Focus time back so you

40:50

know I think to some extent there's we may be wired to have this maybe environmental situational awareness that

40:56

there are people that have legitimate demands on our time and our energy and our attention and we have to be present

41:01

and available to them including family members subordinates employees Etc right or or just the next person down the line

41:08

of the information manage management chain but to wake up early and to have that time where it's like I'm not

41:14

responsible to anyone right now or I'm going to knock out as you said those emails that you know for your fellow

41:20

Executives that need to that they need to have in their hands in order to work that day like to take care of that you

41:25

know those demands but if you have that time for yourself in what whatever it is 90 minutes or whatever I think that's

41:32

that's invaluable to have whenever you can whenever you can get it yeah for sure I think the thing that doesn't

41:37

change is that people who are wired to work and work well and I would argue

41:43

most men that's really what we're called to do in Genesis 3 is to do the thing we

41:49

will find a time to work when everyone else is sleeping that's right so whether

41:54

that's early in the morning or late at night find the time that works for you I

42:00

don't care like and and and I I coach a lot of people that that do this so when

42:06

I say I don't care I'm not saying I I want you to do it I just don't care what time of the day it is right so whatever

42:13

time is most sustain I I get the same question as a strength coach should I work out early in the morning should I

42:19

work out in the afternoon should I work out at night I I say whichever one you're going to do consistently for the

42:25

next 10 years is the one you should do H if that's 5:00 a.m. if it's 300 p.m. or

42:30

it's 10: p.m. I don't care so long as you get the workout in and so if you're

42:36

someone who wakes up this is a conversation I've had with Brett McCay from art of anness about um motivation

42:43

and discipline which um try to um there

42:48

there is a a famous influencer uh Navy SEAL who often takes pictures of his watch at 4:30 in the morning and I don't

42:55

I don't do that because it's at 3:5 in the morning and I don't want to feel like I'm better than him and which

43:01

obviously you are he's a he's a good dude he's fine and but the point the point there is that for for us I want

43:09

people just to do the thing that works and so if training at 5: in the morning

43:15

Works train at 5: in the morning if spiritual disciplines at 5: in the morning or 6:00 in the morning work do

43:21

that if it's 10: in the morning do that if it's 3: in the afternoon do that and if it's 10: at night do that there is

43:27

zero chance I would comprehend anything I read in the Bible at 10 p.m. we

43:34

occasionally have a church I mean you've been to some of our church stuff you know a social event a dinner that goes

43:41

to 9 or 10 p.m. and I mean like I can't I'm just I I I can't comprehend anything

43:48

at that point so for me it's early in the morning that's when the comprehension comes and for me you know

43:54

3: in the morning 3:30 in the morning 4 in the morning whatever it is till s when my wife and kids wake up that's my

44:02

best work of the day that's the most efficient work of the day and again coming back to that quadrant the Urgent

44:08

and important work is the work that has to be efficient and let me be clear Quadrant 4 is not about efficiency right

44:16

family time husband time parent time spiritual discipline time occasionally

44:22

workout time could could be but you know Health sort of stuff that's not about

44:27

efficiency that's importance and so we're trying to make time to do that stuff so as as we get deeper in the book

44:34

and we talk about the Tactical aspects of the game plan of goals actions metric

44:40

execution I'm not applying goals actions metrics execution to how good of a

44:45

husband I am right the the point there is to apply those to the previous three

44:51

or certainly two quadrants so that when I get to the husband time I'm not like

44:58

hey we got an efficient 45 minute date right now like everybody knows this right this this is actually got asked

45:04

this on a podcast I like yeah we don't apply that to the things that are most important that those tactical things for

45:10

efficiency occur on the urgent things that that actually matter that are Urgent and important or that are Urgent

45:18

and maybe not as important but have to be done purging quadrant one and still

45:23

making as much time possible for that quadrant for I want to spend as much time possible in the word I want to

45:30

spend as much time possible with my wife with my children nobody looks back and says I wish I was a more efficient a

45:38

more you know I worked more as a CEO as a as a business owner as a whatever and so I do want to be efficient at those

45:44

things but the reason I want to be efficient at those things is so I can do the things actually matter to me which

45:51

come back to my core values which is being a great husband great father the Legacy I want to leave of the jacked

45:58

wise old grandpa that loves Jesus to that goes for generations to come not

46:04

just to my children but to my children's children and to multiple Grand great

46:09

grandchildren and great great grandchildren that I will I may never know and they may not even know my name but if I set the culture if I set the

46:17

values in my family now the values can be passed down so while like I I don't

46:23

know the names of any of my great great grandparents I know the names of my

46:29

great-grandparents I've met them as a child I have very small memories of them

46:36

I know my grandparents well and they're really the ones who I think helped us uh

46:42

you know they took on um they accepted and took on Christianity and and sort of turned us into a covenant family I would

46:49

say um but beyond that I I don't know and so the reality is is how much value

46:55

has been has been pushed down from like my my grandpa was here for Thanksgiving last week and uh he's 89 and it's uh I

47:04

get choked up this might be the last Thanksgiving we with him he's pretty frail um he's still mentally pretty

47:11

sharp but it really physically frail and I've lost my dad and he said uh you know

47:16

you're you're it's not going to be long and you're going to be the you're going to be the patriarch of the family you're going to be the leader of the family and

47:23

I thought to myself I already am and I I wasn't going to say that to him because he he is still alive but the reality is

47:30

is that my job is because he is a wonderful man who loves Jesus is to

47:35

carry the torch and carry the ball down the field and I want my children and my children's children and my children's

47:42

children children to carry the ball down the field even if they don't know my name I hope the values that I instilled

47:49

in them because of the time I spent doing the important things and not the urgent things that I'll never remember

47:54

no one will ever remember the urgent things the base camp project management and the emails and the podcast and all

48:01

the things no one will remember that but the values that I instill in my family while they may not even remember my name

48:06

and they may not be able to say great grandpa Matt Reynolds did this if I do

48:12

it well it can last generations to come right to to a thousand Generations

48:18

that's what the Bible tell like that that is a I think a promise on some level that we can have faith in that we

48:26

can pass down to our children and our children's children you are consistently one of my

48:31

favorite podcast guests do you know that thanks I me that's that's what it's

48:36

crying I'm red I'm like I hope I hope people are listening to this not watching the YouTube video please go

48:43

over to YouTube and watch this right now so no I mean that's that's really what it's all about and that's that's why

48:49

your book is important right undoing urgency and and we were talking before we started recording the reason why I

48:56

think this matters contextually just to just to you know zoom out to the 100,000

49:01

foot level I think we all agree that with the election of Donald Trump you know about a month ago yep Christians

49:09

now and everyone's been saying this Christians now have a window of opportunity to build and depending on

49:15

who you talk to that window could be 3 months 6 months you know maybe a year 4

49:21

years who knows but we feel that there's a window we've been given and everyone has been saying we've been given a

49:26

reprieve doesn't mean we won the game right we've been given a reprieve and praise God

49:31

Hallelujah for that how long that reprieve last who knows but we know that we have it and I've observed uh for a

49:38

long time that one thing that Donald Trump did from his 2016 to 2020

49:44

presidency that I think is unquestionable I think there are a lot of questions we could ask but the one thing that was unquestionable

49:50

unquestionable to me at the time was that he had provided air cover for men

49:55

to build whatever else he did there was air cover for men to build so that when the storms of 2020 came a lot of men

50:01

were more antifragile than they would have been under a Clinton presidency a Clinton a Hillary Clinton presidency in

50:07

2016 would have been devastating right so because men built from 2016 to 2020

50:13

when 2020 came along it was hard but a lot of people experienced quite a bit of growth for example the guys up in Moscow

50:19

y r Canon because they had they had done so much building it beforehand so now here we are here we are run the clock

50:25

forward an additional 4 years right uh or 8 years I suppose from 2016 where we have another window to

50:32

build we have this time and this is this time is a very very precious resource

50:38

every single day so how do we go about it in order to in order to build in order to solidify what we need to

50:44

solidify in order to have a and and in order to have a Long View for what's coming down for our families to come

50:52

that is I think how Christian men and Christian women who support them should be thinking about this moment that's why

50:58

I think this book undoing urgency is so important to come along right now because time management is not something

51:05

many people have learned from their fathers sure it was it wasn't something that I learned my dad just worked all

Urgency in Today’s Political Climate

51:10

the time and so I just worked all the time and you didn't identify the difference between urgent and important

51:16

and like what was the thing that just he just worked that's our dad's generation they were just they just worked yeah there

51:23

were like work life balance what's that you know it's it's it's just work right and and that's great it's a it was it

51:30

was great for me until I was around 18 or 19 years old right but it just it's not a way to live it's a good way it's a

51:36

good way to burn out it's a good way to you know work yourself to death it can pay off later so now there's a question

51:42

of like well as a as a as a Christian man I have to balance my daily label

51:47

labors my daily responsibility add something onto that that includes like well how to build for the future addon

51:54

health because we're fighting in obesogen culture add on spiritual disciplines and in my case you know no

52:00

family yet God willing that's coming soon but I'm thinking about that as well and that all has to be managed properly

52:06

with the right mindset and and practices period because it doesn't get done

52:12

spontaneously as as I'm sure that you know yeah so I I think the first thing we do is we look at the call of men in

52:20

early Genesis and Genesis 2 and 3 so so one we're called to work I I I would

52:27

challenge anyone that says that men are not called to work we're called to work no matter what now the the the value of

52:34

that work let me get in I'll put a put a a flag in it for a second we're also

52:40

called to be fruitful and multiply take Dominion like all these things matter these are all important things and then

52:47

what is the work that happens after the fall is that you're going to work the ground all the days of your life Thorn

52:53

and thistles are going to grow up and so the reality is that if we don't work and cut the thorns and thistles it will

53:00

choke out the fruit and so our job and so this is where the important stuff comes in I

53:06

think if you spend all your time cultivating the ground or planting the seeds but not but not cutting out the

53:13

weeds pulling the weeds cutting the Thorns then it's all for not because the

53:21

fruit never grows and so obviously there's what I love about your podcast is I can go I can go into covenant

53:28

theology with this but yes you can right so the the reality is is that I used to

53:33

think of covenant theology as um what I would call Charlie

53:38

Brown's Christmas tree it was like this thin little stock and every time you got saved it was or not every time but when

53:45

you got saved you became a little branch on this crappy little tree only only

53:51

that's not the picture that's painted in scripture it's this this beautiful abundant olive tree that grows and that

53:58

that our job is to cultivate and do the things that create fruit they will know

54:03

us by our fruit they will know us by our work they will know us by the work that produces fruit these are all pieces of

54:10

of gospel pieces of scripture that are that are that are given to us that are that are the very the very inherent

54:17

infallible word of God and so and so for us I think it's very easy and of course

54:23

we know culturally you know Paul didn't understand or the New Testament like God

54:29

knew what was coming but you know the AI Revolution and the internet and the very

54:34

small world that we live in and like the vast globalism that we live in today like all that sort of stuff was not

54:40

really probably considered at the time while the Bible is still completely applicable to that for

54:46

us we have to take the Bible and apply it to this crazy culture that we live in

54:52

we don't we don't say the thing that's written in the the Bible is no longer applicable because of

54:58

the culture we say how do we apply the Bible to the culture and the culture is

55:03

freaking crazy right and so we live in a world where it's very easy to get for our work

55:12

to be choked out by the thorns and thistles and weeds our job as men is to pull the

55:20

thorns and thistles and weeds or pull the weeds and cut the thorns and thistles so that we produce fruit and

55:27

whether that means in the work itself in the actual work we do for occupation whether that means in cultivating our

55:33

family our homes our marriages our children our churches these are the

55:39

things that matter and the the problem with time management in

55:46

2024 and the opportunity that we have now in 2024 and beyond for some period

55:51

of time is that men now have an opportunity to pull a lot of weed

55:56

and cut a lot of thorns and and reduce the thistles tremendously right and this

56:02

is what is so powerful by again like do I think Donald Trump's a Christian

56:09

probably not I don't probably not right no but God puts leaders in

56:14

place and I think about you know it's almost still a joke but I don't think

56:20

it's going to be a joke in another year like the the department of government efficiency the Doge with Elon Musk and

56:28

vake you look at a guy like Elon Musk you talk about men building things right

56:34

I want government to get out of the way and let guys like that just build yeah

56:41

but not just him because he's exceptional we can look at him and say yeah but that guy's got an IQ of 180 and

56:47

he's like crazy but like I want that for all men I want that for All Families I want

56:55

that for all churches I I want that for the good of humanity I want that because Christ sits on the

57:01

throne and because we have an opportunity to build and to grow and so if we are bogged down come back to the

57:08

absolute deepest of the trenches we have an opportunity to build but we binge

57:13

watch Netflix and we play video games we look at internet porn and we Doom scroll social media no like we have to plant

57:21

the flag and say we're not going to do it we are going to build we have we have no idea how much time but we have some

57:27

time to build something that is incredible that will last beyond us that

57:33

will go that will go far beyond like so you obviously you know I'm not neither

57:39

one of us are Catholic there is a I think it's a Benedictine

57:44

um Abby where the monks are I don't know where what do monks go to abies I

57:49

don't monasteries maybe it's Monastery outside of Tulsa and uh there's a long

57:54

story there that I won't get into the background but anyway that it built over years and those guys while I don't agree

58:02

with them theologically at all um they they are playing the long game these are

58:09

guys who have built the cathedral out of rock that they they from the land they

58:16

bought on that they bought and and built and built you know the old rock if

58:22

you've ever been to England or Scotland and they've got the old you know Stone fences the stone walls they've built

58:27

that they've gathered the food and the g they've planted the gardens and they

58:32

they're playing the long game and so I think for us the most important work we

58:38

can do right now is play the long game and play the long game is efficiently as possible and that sounds a little bit

58:43

like a like a dichotomy because like how can you play the long game as efficiently as possible well I want to

58:49

plan as many seeds as I can right now and cultivate as hard and fast as I can well I'm not up against the rest of the

58:55

world who fighting me tremendously as they have been the last four years to cultivate these seeds to plant these

59:01

seeds to grow these I don't I don't do you have a yard at your house no okay so I'm kind of a

59:09

yard nut I'm like a I'm a 45y old and then pretend that I'm a 70-year-old I'm the guy that like wants to have the

59:15

nicest grass in my yard The Roots get the strongest in the late fall going

59:21

into winter the best time to plant grass is actually in the late fall and and winter

59:27

because the roots will get strong during the winter and they will come up

59:32

incredibly green and strong and vibrant in the spring if you plant grass in the

59:39

spring it might take but there's I would say there's a 70% plus chance it will

59:45

burn up because it won't be strong enough by the time the summer comes it's

59:50

going to it's it's it's the parable of the sewer right so that the key is is that we we plant when the soil is ripe

59:59

we cultivate when the times are good which are now yeah praise be to God for

1:00:05

four years or two years or 6 months whatever that thing is so that the thing

1:00:11

lasts long term that is the point of focusing on the important and again

1:00:17

coming back to the book if we drown in the urgency time go think about how many

1:00:22

times in your life and maybe even right now you look back and you think like how fast time has passed now we've lived in

1:00:28

a really weird time because we've had Co in 2020 and 2021 and however long you want to extend it like there's been this

1:00:34

crazy and the the macroeconomic condition has changed dramatically and the political climate has changed

1:00:40

dramatically but there but for most of our lives like I look back on I don't know 97 through 2000 and I don't even

1:00:46

know what I was doing right I don't know what I accomplished right and so we have

1:00:52

a time right now where we have to work in a way that is playing the long game

1:00:59

but we do that in as efficient manner as possible so that by the time the enemy

1:01:06

Rises up again and it will the roots are as strong as possible

1:01:11

and we've planted the seeds and cultivated the plants and the the tree

1:01:16

The Olive Tree the fruit the things that are as strong as humanly possible to

1:01:22

withstand the enemy at that point like if we have a time right now where we don't have hopefully we don't have

1:01:28

enemies spraying DMT and and round up over over our Gardens right like that's

1:01:34

not DM no not DMT what is it DT sorry DMT is a different that's a different

1:01:39

thing yeah we don't have the crazy fertilizer we you know whatever the thing is and so you get what I'm saying

1:01:46

I do so so you know we've got we've got a time where Now's the Time to to there

1:01:53

there's a term I want to use that I can't use on this podcast but to to take the World by the coones and do the thing can I say that

1:02:01

you just did yeah just that's whatever and so the the point is like we want to do good work in the stuff that matters

1:02:08

that's important and so and so this all comes back to I think understanding what your core

1:02:14

values are and what really matters what's the Legacy you want to leave what's the long game you want to play

1:02:19

what is your what do you want your family to look like not in 20 years which 20 years matters like I think you should think about 20 years but in 100

1:02:26

years and 200 years what what does that look like well we have an opportunity

1:02:32

right now that I think we're going to look back in history and say like we have an opportunity to plant the seeds that will become the fruit that will

1:02:37

become the fully grown fruit trees the the these incredible trees that bear

1:02:43

fruit a 100 years down the road 200 years down the road and hopefully 20 years down the road hopefully 5 years down the road but the fruit is better

1:02:50

200 years later right the best the best wineries are coming from these French and Italian wineries that are coming

1:02:56

from Vines who have been there for 200 years that have made it like you can't

1:03:02

you can't create great wine out of a new Vine you can create decent wine out of a

1:03:08

relatively new wine but I want to create a fruit that matters and so no one will look back on no one will remember

1:03:14

barbell logic no one will remember Matt Reynolds the CEO of the company that

1:03:19

will remember the guy hopefully or even if they don't remember the Guy They'll remember I hopeful the values that I

1:03:26

created in the family in the church in the community that I live in that will last for generations to come like that's

1:03:33

and that's the difference between the influencer mentality which is like I want to be popular I want to be known

1:03:41

versus I want to build something that last far beyond me is with the same thing I think we've talked about in a

1:03:47

previous podcast I couldn't care less if my business doesn't need to be based on Matt Reynolds my business needs to be

1:03:54

strong and healthy out outside of me and so and and my family at some point will

1:03:59

have to be strong outside of me because I'll be dead so I get to use my time wisely to focus on the things that are

1:04:06

important to plant the seeds to cultivate the plants to build the trees to do the things that will last for

1:04:12

Generations Beyond far beyond my lifetime like that's what we're trying to do and we believe that is true

1:04:19

because Jesus sits on the throne and is King right now and he is by his grace

1:04:24

has given us the ability to to have a time that we believe is a time of Peace where men can cultivate and grow and

1:04:30

build so I want my desire is for everyone else to get out of the way and

1:04:38

let people let men build that's great I mean I I love what

1:04:45

you said there about the influencer mentality versus the Builder mentality

1:04:50

right what do you what are you going CU remember when I came to visit you guys you gave me the book The emth revisit vised mhm I I have that on my shelf

1:04:58

outside so and one of the things that I think is relevant about that classic

1:05:04

Business book to now is that there's a difference between you know all of the

1:05:09

business practices are contained within you as an individual versus have they been externalized so that someone else

1:05:16

can do them and then and then something begins growing organically as a result of that right so then you then you've

1:05:22

built something that lasts for the generations even if you don't it still it still runs and I think that's that's

1:05:29

a vital mindset because I I do believe that it's very easy today to sneak in

1:05:35

the idea that we're going to live forever like and I don't mean that anyone actually consciously thinks

1:05:40

they're going to live forever but to but to live without an awareness of our eventual death and as a as a result of

1:05:47

that we don't think what happens after us because there is no after us but if

1:05:53

we think as men in terms of well there will will be and after me what will live on after me I think that's that is a way

1:06:00

to think about things that can feed into the notion of like okay if there will be something after me and I want something

1:06:06

to continue on that isn't necessarily just my name but my influence right in terms of in terms of what I've created

1:06:12

what does that mean for me today right now this morning as I just got out of bed yeah you realize first it's not

1:06:19

about you right I I think that's a really important like understanding is to say like well

1:06:26

it's it's just not about me and then two I think you see the dichotomy we've talked about this I think on the

1:06:31

previous podcast as well of a of a hopeful or postmill eschatology versus

1:06:38

um several Generations a couple hundred years of generations who thought not yeah a couple hundred years of people

1:06:44

who thought like Jesus is coming back right now today I don't think they played the long game cuz I thought I

1:06:50

think so many people thought that they were the last generation yeah now we may be the last generation but I don't think

1:06:56

we are right and so and so like I don't know if Christ is going to return a 100

1:07:03

years from now or a thousand years from now or 10,000 years from now so but I don't I don't think he's going to return

1:07:10

in my lifetime it'd be great if he does yeah Lord come quickly like please but

1:07:15

if he doesn't then I'm playing the long game because Christ sits on the throne

1:07:21

we've been called to go and make disciples teaching them like discipling them baptizing them and teaching them

1:07:27

everything he taught us right like that's the point that's that's the key that's the long game that we're playing

1:07:33

and so that starts with our family I want to create that Covenant household that that lives hundreds of years Beyond

1:07:41

me like maybe the best thing you could do as a man is create a culture and a value

1:07:49

system and a and a covenant familyhood and and potentially even a covenant

1:07:55

Community Covenant business like maybe not Covenant business but you the value system is still attached to the business

1:08:02

that lasts so far beyond you that they don't even remember your name but the values still live on and the values are

1:08:09

not this is again something I can't say on most podcasts the values are not my

1:08:14

values right the values are the gospel like that's the point and so I'm trying

1:08:20

to create that in my family in my church in my business in my and listen there

1:08:26

are lots of people in my business and some of them will listen to this and they'll be like the heck are you talking about you know it's like but but this is

1:08:35

the this is the advantage that I have as a founder of a business of this size is that everyone understands exactly what

1:08:43

our values are in our business and they would say they would understand that

1:08:48

this the creation story of the business or the story of the business is the story of the founder now what is the

1:08:54

story of the founder found ER the story of the founder for me is this is the story of the the power of the Gospel in

1:09:00

my life and this is the important thing and so when I'm caught up in the Urgent

1:09:07

I'm caught up in the thing that's not the story of the gospel and the way it's changed my life the way it's changed my business the way it's changed my

1:09:12

marriage the way it's changed my children the way it's changed my church man our church like again you came down

1:09:18

here our church has doubled in size in like the last four weeks then you was in your living room when I was down there

1:09:23

it was in my living room and we bought a building it's doubled in size and I haven't had

1:09:30

conversations about this but I just can imagine there are there are original members in our church most likely or

1:09:37

early members in our church who are terrified about the fact that it's doubled in size oh sure that because it

1:09:45

just naturally has to on some level change the culture there's lots of people to deal with like there's new

1:09:52

problems like what do they believe like all those sorts of things but again like what are we doing this for was the goal

1:09:59

50 years from now to be 25 people in a living room like ITC and let me be clear the

1:10:06

goal is not to be a mega church either sure the goal is stages between there that's right the goal is to change as

1:10:13

many people as possible for in the power of the gospel and to do and to and to and to literally carry out the Great

1:10:19

Commission and when we get to a point that we're big enough to make more churches like that's that's part of the

1:10:25

goal and so I think if you push back against that I would challenge it because like that's what we're called to

1:10:32

do and that's what I'm called to do as a husband not make new churches but to to create that value stream that comes from

1:10:39

the gospel of the power that's Chang this is what's so beautiful to me about people you actually honestly like you

1:10:46

are a great story of this that are probably um I think you've talked about

1:10:51

this enough the first true like Covenant Christian member of your family yeah and

1:10:58

so and so there is you know so I'm I'll get choked up I'm praying for you to find a wife and have some children have

1:11:05

some Covenant babies and like because because you are the new branch on the

1:11:12

Olive Tree and it doesn't look like Charlie Brown's Olive Tree it's not this skinny little crappy trunk with

1:11:19

individual like here's will and then eventually here's his wife a different branches no no no no no like off of that

1:11:25

Branch comes a wife and children and grandchildren sorry and so like that is the beauty of

1:11:33

life and so again we get so caught up in the urgency that we miss the forest

1:11:40

through the trees we missed the olive fruit through the through the tree like

1:11:45

we don't get it and like this is the stuff that matters and so the point of

1:11:51

the whole book if you get buy the book great love it but if you don't understand the value of the thing that

1:11:56

is don't drown in the urgency focus on the stuff that's important that's what

1:12:02

matters like there's Beauty in that like I I want I want to actually hire by the

1:12:08

way if you're listening to this and you're an artist I will hire you I I want to create a what my what my view of

1:12:16

what the Olive Tree looked like which is Charlie Brown's Christmas tree was for all of my life and what the Olive Tree

1:12:22

actually looks like now and I and I want to put them on both both sides of my office like one on the left and one on

1:12:27

the right and say like it doesn't look like this it's not a single Branch with lots of little individual branches

1:12:33

coming off it's this beautiful olive tree that grows fruit off of fruit fruit off of branches and also sometimes

1:12:40

branches get cut off and grafted in and those things are beautiful too like that's all God's work we just stay

1:12:46

faithful to the gospel and these are the things that are important in life and when we drown in the urgency we miss it

1:12:53

and we'll blink and it'll be 4 years from now or 2 years from now and the the Congress will change and like it doesn't

1:12:59

change anything about Christ sitting on the throne but right now in America we have an opportunity to build we have an

1:13:04

opportunity to grow we have an opportunity to develop and cultivate that Olive Tree those plants and those

1:13:10

those trees and that growth like those are the things that we have to do right now and if we if we sit on our Laurels

1:13:15

or if we get and I think most of the guys are probably listening to your podcast aren't they're not lazy maybe

1:13:21

some are I'm sure some are but most are probably drowning in urgency and both

1:13:28

the lazy and the overworked missed the important and the important is the thing

1:13:35

we have to focus on just want to back up to something he said a moment ago um about the first

1:13:42

Covenant member of my family you're the first person to say something like that to me oh really yeah I mean I mean I

1:13:48

mean true and and you're right I'd never really thought of it that way and I I

1:13:55

guess this is probably going to sound funny uh you know I'm used to being an outsider for so much of my life right so

1:14:03

uh from travel that's what I you're just a walking Outsider whether you like it or not and you know journeying through

1:14:09

so many different you know religions and and political orientations like I'm just used to being an outsider and it's only

1:14:18

hit me in the past four to five months really cuz I'm also kind of new to reform theology to this kind of world

1:14:24

that's much bigger and there's more to it than I realized especially today and so it's only hit me in in the past few

1:14:32

months you know like no will you're part of this thing there's a there's a Spencer Branch yeah that didn't exist

Will’s Unique Role as a First-Generation Christian

1:14:41

before your conversion that's right there is right is there anything more beautiful than

1:14:47

that no that's incredible right and so so you are you are the branch of the

1:14:53

Spencer family and now and and I think that's why you feel the weight

1:14:59

of creating more fruit having more family leading the family that you currently have to Christ finding a Godly

1:15:06

wife and having children like that's where that's why the pressure that's why you feel the weight of that is because

1:15:13

yeah and it's not and by the way let me that's not to put humanistic pressure on you at all it's just like I think you

1:15:19

get the gravity of it like it's if everybody in their conversion is their

1:15:24

own Branch than their own branches nothing special right but if you're the first branch of a family and you build a thing

1:15:32

like when I wrote my uh when I signed the book to my grandpa a couple days ago

1:15:38

on Thanksgiving I mean I couldn't even there's no way I could read it on on here because I would get so I would get

1:15:45

so choked up he and my grandma were the first Christians in my family and and and I understand the

1:15:52

gravity of that like there there is incredible weightiness to that and so so

1:15:58

man first off thank you for being able to do the podcast to be able to talk about these things cuz I don't get to talk about this um most podcasts I'm

1:16:05

going on business podcasts and lifestyle podcasts and someone you know but to be

1:16:10

able to have the freedom to talk through those things like there is when we talk about the important things and you can

1:16:15

read it in the book it's not I don't gloss over it it's pretty evident while

1:16:21

at the same time not shoving it down every reader's throat still being published by a mass publisher right um

1:16:29

understanding that that is the most important thing understanding like our role that we play in building into

1:16:36

Christendom in building into our families and our church and our community and like and not because God

1:16:42

needs us but because it he Delights in it is that's what's so incredible is

1:16:49

that because he chose to love us before the foundation of the world chose you

1:16:55

you now get to Delight God by building fruit with his

1:17:03

obviously with his help tremendously or even all his work um in building fruit

1:17:09

on the Spencer branch which did not exist before you which is pretty incredible it is it is and I hadn't that

1:17:17

sounds silly I'd never really thought of it that way before because most of the questions the most of the questions that

1:17:23

I get asked are about the the family that I have left behind or that left me behind or however you want to look at it

1:17:29

in fact I was I was on the new St Andrews the uh University in Moscow they

1:17:34

just had me on their podcast of flames and crowns with Lennox Cal Wanga I believe is how you say his name yeah so

1:17:41

uh so that'll be coming out tomorrow when we're recording it will already have been out when people listen this listen to this and he like like the like

1:17:48

cross politic like so many other people have asked me like about the response of my family to becoming a Christian yeah

1:17:54

well what was it like being an ethnic Jew who became a Christian and being left behind which is a perfectly valid

1:18:02

question it is but a much I I would argue a much more important question is what's it like being the first guy the

1:18:08

first branch on the Olive Tree for your family and what sort of weight do you bear to build the fruit off of that

1:18:15

thing God I hope people don't watch this on YouTube and watch me cry and turn red can you guys just if you are watching

1:18:21

can you just listen to it please not watch I might just clip this out and post it on Twitter well no no it's like it's so

1:18:29

there's so much weight in it man yeah yeah and like you know I hope I hope

1:18:34

Sunday when you take communion which we take every Sunday that you that you feel

1:18:40

the weight of it because the the gloriousness of it is is it had nothing to do with anything you did Yep this is

1:18:48

the goodness of the Gospel that it's everything that Jesus did to do that to to here's what's Wild here's another

1:18:56

wild thing that maybe nobody's ever told you your family got cut off the Olive Tree yes and then you got personally

1:19:04

grafted back in yeah that's wild that's wild yes it is yes I

1:19:11

remember I read ROM there is gravity to that oh I remember when I read Romans 9101 the first time like oh well there

1:19:18

it is I'm out and I'm in yes that I have thought about yeah that I that I but I

1:19:26

mean how to let that land in me has been a has been a big challenge like I think

1:19:32

I'm I acknowledge it I'm consciously aware of it but the emotional what you're talking about the emotional weight the emotional gravity of it

1:19:39

perhaps I've never quite let it hit me before or maybe because I've been so looking looking back at what I've left

1:19:46

behind I I haven't yet fully turned to acknowledge what it is I've been grafted

1:19:51

into yeah so that you know and that and which is natural right which is natural it's a there's a grief there's a grief

1:19:56

process but yeah I I uh I do feel the I do feel the weight of that and I do

1:20:02

believe as Doug Wilson talks about the D dromic blessings for faithfulness I've read those passages and have them all

1:20:09

marked up in my Bible and and and I I'm doing it I'm doing it I'm doing right

1:20:14

well I mean like this time two years ago like if I were to go back and look at who was my guest on my podcast in

1:20:21

November 2022 I I off the top of my head I don't know but I but I know I'd had Doug

1:20:27

Wilson on at least once by then but like covenant theology I didn't know what that was you know I'm I you know

1:20:34

soteriology like all these things have unfolded over the past couple years to the point now where it's like oh wow

1:20:40

maybe I can finally understand this for real in an embodied sense it's not head

1:20:46

knowledge right it it's feeling the weight and the emotional reality of it and then extending that into the future

1:20:52

you're the first person to say anything like that to me others may have thought it or felt it or seen it or or simply assumed that it was

1:20:59

implied but but but to hear it said to me is is very meaningful is very

1:21:05

meaningful so thank you yeah it's true and I feel I feel the weight of it for you you know and I feel the weight of it

Matt on Generational Legacy & Family Impact

1:21:11

for me like I've got two daughters who you know one of whom has a serious boyfriend and and you think about again

1:21:19

like your olive branch which is a branch with one essentially one Olive let's say on it one piece of fruit and your goal

1:21:26

is to like get that thing to Branch out and and produce lots of fruit um obviously through um through the work of

1:21:34

and power of Jesus Christ same thing same thing for me like you you have to recognize that you don't have total

1:21:40

control over that thing and you stay faithful to it and I get worried about

1:21:45

like who my daughters are going to marry and if they're you know are they going to give me lots of grandkids and coveted

1:21:50

grandchildren and all those sorts of things and you realize like a lot of that just sort of of my control while I still try to plant those seeds and and

1:21:57

build those values and you and you realize like God is just sometimes God is just good and God has been good to

1:22:03

you and it's really an amazing story that um you don't have to be this thing

1:22:10

that is a is a a spiny little crappy branch on the Charlie Brown Christmas

1:22:16

tree but that you get to be part of this incredible um

1:22:21

voluminous fruitful olive tree as part of the family of of of Jesus Christ of

1:22:28

Christians which is really really cool man I wish I could give you a hug right now so I'm glad we glad we got through

1:22:34

so here's here's what I would challenge to your listeners here's my sales pitch

1:22:40

because I would love to hear how much of that comes through in the book so for those of you who are listening to this

1:22:46

not to listen I run a company that's a service company we do fine I it's not

1:22:52

about selling the books I couldn't the book get the cheap but but find it on sale get it I don't care go get at the

1:22:59

library used copy whatever it doesn't matter to me right I think I think the Kindle and the audible like all those

1:23:04

things are going to be on S like whatever get a sale one yeah yeah it's it's not but I would I would I would love to hear from your listeners and I'm

1:23:12

super easy to find Matt Reynolds barbell logic my email is easy I'm it's all over the place you can find my EMA you can if

1:23:18

you spend 30 seconds and you can't find my email your IQ is too low to send me email so but if you read the book and

1:23:26

you listen to Will's podcast if you listen to this podcast I want to know if you feel that thread in the book because

1:23:35

I've tried to read write a book that is not a overtly iny yourface Christian

1:23:40

Gospel centered book that has these threads that run through it that I can be very proud of that I can pass down to

1:23:48

my families and these values are still stand and for people who know me I want those things to be and look I'm very I'm

1:23:54

very open about being a Christian and these are my core values in the book I say those things but I'm not talking

1:24:00

about olive trees and Olive branches but like I think if you listen to this podcast I would love to hear if you buy

1:24:08

the book and read the book I would love to hear from you reach out to me by email I promise you I will read the

1:24:14

email and I will respond personally my EA will not respond to your email like do you see that that thread that ribbon

1:24:23

that binds it Al together of like what he's really trying to tell you guys is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the

1:24:30

thing that's most important and family and faith and spiritual disciplines and

1:24:36

and even Health on some point because again I think health is important this been in the without going down the polit

1:24:43

it's been nuts the last couple weeks on Twitter of fat pastors and all the things that we see but I would just say

1:24:48

like the health and fitness piece like this is what I do there's been a weird um crossover for me and that I've been

1:24:56

very reformed and calvinist and things for years and I've been a strength coach

1:25:01

for years and for those of you who are still watching YouTube even though I'm crying and I have a red face and all

1:25:06

this stuff um those felt separate that my so my fists are not together and then

1:25:14

something happened and I started to do podcasts like cross politic and and the Ogden guys and Moscow guys and all the

1:25:21

whatever all the guys and those worlds like combined and there started to be this

1:25:27

ribbon that binded that together and what I see in the health and fitness

1:25:33

space not to be judgmental against U quote unquote fat pastors because I I

1:25:39

don't want to be that it's that if we're playing the long game if that's the goal and like yes you

1:25:47

know like Paul says if if I get if if Heaven is tomorrow like Lord come like

1:25:52

let's do that but if but if not I don't just want to walk my

1:25:58

daughters down the aisle at their wedding I want to walk or be there for my granddaughters and my great

1:26:03

granddaughters and man if God blesses me my great great granddaughters to walk down the aisle as well I want to play

1:26:10

and so I can't do that if I'm not healthy and so and so while the health

1:26:17

is not this on the same level as the spiritual health and the values and the family health and the the leader ship in

1:26:24

in your in your church or in your business or whatever the things are like there's still a there's still a long

1:26:30

game there that we're trying to play and I I realize our days are numbered but I also think there's you know again read

1:26:36

read Proverbs and and and and read Ecclesiastes and you

1:26:41

get to see like the dichotomy of both of those things I still think that there is Proverbs is pretty clear that God the

1:26:49

the tendency is for God to bless those with with a long life with those who

1:26:56

work and take care of their bodies and do the things like and we're not guaranteed it right like you can do the thing you can di at

1:27:02

2 but I want to not do the things that will kill me at 50 I want to try to do

1:27:10

the things that will allow me to see the long game that hopefully I planted of

1:27:16

value and and building of of my of my family's Olive Branch for 40 50 60 more

1:27:25

decades or years to come five four five six decades to come and so that's where

1:27:31

the health piece comes in like if you are unhealthy you're not almost certainly

1:27:37

not going to watch your great your great grandchildren walk down the aisle at their wedding and and what a joy to be

1:27:44

able to do that if if you're able to Lord if the Lord spares you and you're

1:27:50

able to be healthy through that so so that's where the health stuff comes in and I think that's where there's importance there so certainly for me my

1:27:58

being a Christian first and a and a and a Christian leader both in my church and my business in my home in my family in

1:28:05

my spheres of of influence and sovereignty with my family with my wife with my children like that's that's

1:28:12

number one for me um but I would love like I have eternity to enjoy Jesus and

1:28:19

so I would love to see if the Lord blesses me and he terries to be able to

1:28:25

see another another four five six Decades of what the Reynolds Family looks like from now unless it goes bad

1:28:33

and then I'll let God can kill me anytime he wants to he can do that anyway yeah it's true

1:28:39

and so um I think I think that's where the health part and I think that's why I put that in the important piece I I

1:28:46

would certainly put it as a you know uh whatever 1B or something below those other things but I think that's still

1:28:53

really important and so um I think it's important for us because we have fallen into it such a we we live in a time of

1:29:00

such um excess and and we can eat you know we can door Dash anything we want

1:29:05

to our home and we can we can eat junk and we can eat food and and then we get up in the morning we study scripture and

1:29:12

we and we are good Dads and and good husbands and we do those things but we don't take care of ourselves or we drown

1:29:18

in urgency or we drown in stress um and we have a stroke or a heart attack or whatever and you're like man you missed

1:29:24

it and you didn't have to and so that's where I think the health piece comes in I just I just at

1:29:31

this point man I I've been a professional strong man and a professional powerlifter and I just don't care about how much weight I lift

1:29:37

like I still love to lift heavy it's still super fun um and I still do but I I just want to lift to be to be healthy

1:29:45

I don't want to lift to be I don't care about the strength any like I'm strong enough for anything life can throw at me

1:29:51

at this point right like to this day like my late 40s I'm I'm strong enough for anything life will throw at me but

1:29:59

I'm not necessarily strong enough for the stress of 18-hour workday mhm which

1:30:06

the strength doesn't help right and so at some point I have to focus on do I

1:30:12

really want to see the fruition of like literally the fruit of the Olive Tree of

1:30:18

the Reynolds branch in my family and I do and so I want to be there not to just

1:30:25

watch my daughters or walk my daughters down the aisle but to watch their daughters walk down the aisle and again

1:30:31

if the Lord blesses maybe their daughters walk down the aisle that's always been one of the

1:30:37

tough Parts about the Christian conversation regarding health and fitness is trying to land in a why in a

1:30:44

Godly why because a lot of people will resist the call to Fitness because they'll immediately jump to well it's

1:30:51

all about Aesthetics and I don't want to be vain right they'll throw it into the vanity category and uh I I don't think I

1:30:58

think that can be a proper category depending on how some men conduct it right and and but I think in in general

1:31:05

to dismiss you know uh weight training healthy diet right in general as as a a

1:31:13

category of vanity is wrong but I think fruitfulness Prosperity Health sober

1:31:19

mindedness y I think all of these are far more accurate categories I've I've

1:31:24

said for years if if you could snap your fingers and give anyone 24 hours in

1:31:30

their ideal body whatever that looks like right what their ideal body weight and and at the end of 24 hours they

1:31:38

would have to go back to wherever they were when you snapped your fingers at the end of 24 hours they would be begging you they would change

1:31:43

immediately they've never know because most people have never known what it's like to be to be either truly fit truly

1:31:49

strong or or both whatever whatever that looks like right and so because I know

1:31:54

that when I started the Renaissance of men when I started this podcast what four and a half years ago four four or

1:32:00

so years ago that was the that was the the fittest the strongest and leanest I'd ever been in my entire life I had

1:32:06

unlocked a whole new level of energy of clarity of Mind of motivation Etc and so

1:32:13

naturally a lot of fruit came out of that and that's that's stuck with me and so I often challenge people to say like

1:32:19

how would you be how would you perform in your everyday life how would you feel if if you had just checked that off your

1:32:25

to-do list that doesn't mean 8% body fat up on stage at a at a body actually not

1:32:30

typically healthy correct it's actually something between where you are now and

1:32:36

there right yeah exactly like and 20 PBS off of anybody I would I give I give

1:32:41

everybody a mulligan of about 20 pounds today you know and I think that's a product of so many different things

1:32:46

sedentary lifestyle you know uh uh probably air conditioning probably has a

1:32:52

lot to do with it just for men well because we don't have to our bodies don't have to resist the elements anymore and I think we don't we don't

1:32:57

work manual jobs we sit a desk like all those sort of things like why why was

1:33:03

right processed foods why you've seen the pictures from the 70s on the beach where there's nobody that's fat that's

1:33:10

right why is nobody fat on the beach I'm going to I'm going to again I'm by the time this comes out I'll probably be in

1:33:16

Mexico surrounded by fat people and and right and and and I struggle with the

1:33:23

same thing like it's this this there is this thing that when I am overwhelmed

1:33:29

with urgency one of the first things to go for me is often is the food and the

1:33:35

alcohol and the training and the you know and so those things you and you follow that you know and you're and the

1:33:41

next thing you know you're like wow I've put on 25 lbs and I'm less healthy than I was and and so my body weight has

1:33:47

fluctuated tremendously I would just say that for for me and for our business and again this is not a pitch for the

1:33:53

business but it really is you laugh at barbal logic I'm loving all the pictures you can do

1:33:58

them like our our focus is normal people improving their quality of life Yeah by

1:34:04

experiencing strength and health like that's the point it's not about 22-year-old kids who take pictures of

1:34:12

their abs and post it on Instagram that's just not who we train and and I'm

1:34:17

not going to say that every kid that does that is in sin or whatever I just I think that Aesthetics

1:34:24

everyone wants to look better I don't think there's anything wrong with that but I think Aesthetics are a byproduct of performance Improvement and quality

1:34:30

of life Improvement if you improve your performance and quality life strength Health Etc the Aesthetics will improve

1:34:37

you'll feel better about yourself aesthetically but more importantly you'll be healthier stronger perform

1:34:44

better quality life will be better I want my quality life to go up year after

1:34:49

year after year and here I am in the mid-40s hit a peak you know around 50 55

1:34:56

and hold until I'm 90 100 whatever and

1:35:01

then die and that's okay there's nothing

1:35:06

like because what most people do are the opposite they hit their Peak at 19 20 25

1:35:12

and they slowly decline into this you know they osteoporosis and osteopenia and they lose lose all this muscle and

1:35:19

lose all this bone density and they and they they get so frail that have to go into it I don't ever want to go to go to

1:35:26

a nursing home you know and so I want to maintain quality life and then just the

1:35:33

Lord take me that's okay so that's right yeah no I think that's a good way of thinking about it because I think a lot

1:35:39

of our culture is also uh in terms of short-term thinking I'm going to live

1:35:44

forever right me Centric individualistic and then also heavily youth Centric it's

1:35:50

a strange it's a strange phenomenon I see people all the time on Twitter like oh I'm 30 now it's so over like what

1:35:59

right I believe firmly I've said this to countless people a man does not truly become useful until he's 35 he does and

1:36:07

I would say his Peak is 35 to 45 or 35 to late

1:36:12

40s and then I think you can maintain that lifestyle for probably another two

1:36:18

decades I mean we've had tons of clients that man we have guys that are 65 years

1:36:23

old deadlift over 400 lb that's incredible that's plenty

1:36:28

strong for anything life throws at them that's right right but not not only are they strong and I say that maybe like

1:36:35

and they're not 300 lb right they're they're 185 exactly and they're strong

1:36:41

and they're healthy and they're lean and they're you know we do their blood markers and their their metrics are

1:36:48

strong and so I think those things are important because and and so I'll be careful the way I say this because of

1:36:54

the things I've seen even on X this week I want to stop calling it Twitter cuz it's X now because that's true right

1:37:00

it's earned the right to be X after after helping Trump win the election the right to be X but because of the

1:37:06

arguments that I often see with this thing like I I would love if you are listening to this and you are a pastor

1:37:13

or a church leader who's struggling with this again please reach out to me I will not try to sell you something that's not

1:37:20

the goal the goal is to help you un understand what you need to do to move

1:37:25

forward and so and so the attacks on the

1:37:31

older Boomer and late Gen X pastors that are you know overweight on some level

1:37:38

not morbidly obese but or and maybe morly obese but a lot of them are just you know somewhat overweight I think

1:37:44

that there is a a simple hard effective solution to those things it doesn't take

1:37:52

six days a week two hours say hard did you say hard it's still hard but it is simple like it's not complicated it's

1:37:59

not and complexity is seductive right so people want to and I you know we see this in theology all the time where

1:38:05

people argue about any weird variation especially reform theology that we're both in but like the Simplicity of the

1:38:14

work is is there's Beauty in that but to be

1:38:19

clear simple does not mean easy that's right simple is and simple plus hard

1:38:26

equals effective and so if you're listening to this and you're like I'm the guy you're talking about I'm the 45

1:38:32

or 55 or 65y old Pastor or church leader or Deacon or what or just dad and I have

1:38:40

to get this under control again reach out to me like shoot me an email I'm not going to try to sell you something like

1:38:47

one I I don't even have space on my roster to take you but I will definitely give you help and I will help you you

1:38:54

because I I want I want you if you're 45 55 65 in the same way that I want me to

1:38:59

be able to see multiple generations of your family watch the fruit grow that

1:39:06

you spent your life planting like I just I don't want to be the farmer that that

1:39:12

plants the seeds and has this Little Seedling and then dies and never gets to see it and I know you get to probably

1:39:18

see it from heaven and all this but like I want to I want to hug my grand kids as

1:39:24

they cultivate the same plants as they cultivate the tree as they cultivate the fruit like those are the things and

1:39:30

that's why Health matters it's not so you can deadlift 400 lb which is cool

1:39:36

but like that's not number one number one is quality life Improvement and health and and those sort of things and

1:39:42

so so I so I in the book I qualify that as as one of the important things to me

1:39:48

now again I think it should be probably important to most just like I think if you have family family should be there's

1:39:55

other things like you know being a CEO of a company is not going to be important to some people or you know

1:40:00

potentially Christianity is not going to be uh super important to some people like religion whatever is not that read

1:40:06

the book and so should be again yeah thank you um but that's okay like I I

1:40:12

there there's also a thing that we've seen as we train people at barbell logic

1:40:17

that happens that when when people take personal responsibility for their health

1:40:24

and their strength and their performance it it is often the first step in a movement in the right direction and by

1:40:32

right I mean right in the right and so they correct direction yeah in the yeah but also

1:40:39

right turn direction and so yeah and so it's it it gets them out of victimhood

1:40:45

mentality it gets them out of you know I was raised with a you know a bad parents in a bad situation with a bad hand of

1:40:52

card like okay in the fifth grade I'm okay with you using that example but at

1:40:59

41 I'm not like at some point you have to take responsibility for like

1:41:05

everybody like genetics social socioeconomic status family upbringing

1:41:12

background whatever that is at some point you just have to be like I'm a grown-up and I have to take responsibility for my own actions it's

1:41:18

amazing what putting a bar on your back and squatting does for people that have never done that who've played the victim

1:41:24

mentality their entire life and so that that sense of responsibility that comes

1:41:29

in is wild because I've watched clients and coaches and employees if

1:41:36

again if you're listening to your employee and you're not this it's okay move that direction and not play the

1:41:43

victim because there's something about like I have to have personal agency to

1:41:48

be able to get strong and take control of my own health and again you and and I

1:41:53

understand that there's still like a sovereignty of God piece here that God still kind of controls on some level of

1:41:59

those things but but I'm I'm certain if you sit at home and binge watch Netflix

1:42:06

and door Dash all day and drink too much alcohol you're not going to wake up one morning with six-pack abs and healthy

1:42:12

pretty sure that's not how that works and so you still got to put in the work and uh and so yeah it's uh it's it's an

1:42:18

important thing too not as important as the the Legacy and The Virtue and the

1:42:25

values and the family and the Olive Tree and all the stuff that we talked about but still pretty important because I

1:42:30

think it just dramatically improves your chances to see the fruition of that labor and I think seeing the fruition of

1:42:37

the labor is wonderful but I I still think the process of the labor is

1:42:42

actually where the joy occurs the fruition is amazing like right the seeing the fruition is great or you know

1:42:49

like the you know the the concept of Michael Jordan winning championship was wonderful for him but 3 days later he

1:42:56

just looked to the next championship yeah Kobe Bryant looked at work and just said like there's value in

1:43:03

the work I'm going to enjoy the championship but I'm going to enjoy the work more and so I think for us we have

1:43:10

to have the same attitude like there's just right now there's a time in 2024 going into 2025 where we have an

1:43:17

opportunity to enjoy the work that is important that God has entrusted us to

1:43:23

to build our families build our communities build our churches build our businesses build our homes build our

1:43:30

bodies in a way that God can God can

1:43:35

give fruition to he can bless he can make better he doesn't have to he's not

1:43:40

guaranteed we're not Prosperity Gospel people um but at the same time I think that we're still whether he does or not

1:43:47

right it it's it's it's shad mhach and Abednego right like we know our God can

1:43:54

bless us this way or can deliver us we believe he will but even if he doesn't

1:44:00

one we will be faithful and choose rightly and two he is still faithful and he is still God and he is still Sovereign no matter what so but our job

1:44:07

is still to do the work and let and then let God build the fruit our job's not

1:44:14

actually not to make the fruit our job is we're called to the work amen this is great I I don't I I'm

1:44:21

grateful that you're on the podcast so we can talk about stuff because I don't get to talk about the stuff because all the all these things do they do fit

1:44:27

together they fit together in in a very important way that I don't hear a lot of people synthesizing you have a lot of

1:44:34

bros who you know who say don't be a fat Pastor you know strength is Godly amen

1:44:39

yes true great fantastic right you know Health all that stuff and then and then you also have the concept of Legacy you

1:44:46

have the concept of building you have the concept of family you have the concept of the Olive Tree all this stuff it all fits together into cohesive

1:44:54

vision of the Christian Life that's right all of these pieces are part of a whole and I think one of the things

1:45:00

that's really exciting about uh probably the reform theology World despite all

1:45:05

the insanity that's going on sure but one of the things that's exciting is this recovery of Covenant thinking and

1:45:13

this is as far as I can tell this is a topic that I've only heard talked about increasingly over the course of the past

1:45:19

year right it's it's only recently that I've noticed that it's coming up more and more

1:45:25

probably because of the Baptist to Presbyterian Super Highway that's that's going on right now but this way of

1:45:31

thinking in terms of covenants enables all of these different aspects to be melded together into what do I do as a

1:45:40

man today to think about my myself my household my community my church my

1:45:46

family my legacy right all these things fit together in the Notions of covenants

1:45:51

because we have Commit ments that binding commitments that God makes to us that we make to those around us and by

1:45:57

carrying through those binding commitments that I think is what makes for a good man A Good Man is a guy who

1:46:03

does what he says he's going to do that's your man card the price of your man card is ex is accountability right

1:46:10

and so and so I think there are a lot of um boys you know and some of them are

1:46:16

driving adult male bodies yeah who avoid responsibility because they want to avoid accountability sure right yes the

1:46:23

old Driscoll the old Driscoll line boys who can shave yes that's great I'm not necessarily promoting Driscoll but like

1:46:30

that's the line he would use it's boys who can shave right they were's body y

1:46:35

on the other hand you have Doug Wilson who says masculinity is the Glad Assumption of sacrificial responsibility

1:46:40

I say it all the time what does sacrificial responsibility look like relationally it looks like a covenant it

1:46:47

looks like a commitment it looks like accountability and so stepping into the sphere of accountability right means

1:46:53

you've now taken on all these different covenants around you maybe not they're not all theological in nature but they

1:46:58

all have to be managed with your individual commitments to your time that's right so that's that's how I see all these things fitting together and

1:47:05

that's why it's exciting to have this conversation because I've been thinking and creating cont I've been thinking about masculinity for 20 plus years 24

1:47:12

years at this point I've been explicitly creating content about masculinity for four years plus and now here we are all

1:47:19

the pieces are finally fitting together with theology it's such an exciting it's such an exting moment collectively

1:47:25

for Christians for men and and for me personally yeah I've gone through the same thing and I I think you know this

1:47:32

about me I have a history degree I was a history teacher in my first career and I recognized that I was taught history

1:47:40

where there were these pieces of history and they were all siloed and they were like completely

1:47:46

like World War one and World War II were completely separate and you know and and and the American Revolution and civil

1:47:53

were SE and you and then you realize there's actually a ribbon that binds all of those together that's right and I

1:47:58

think what you're discovering and what you just laid out is that there's a ribbon that binds all of these things

1:48:04

together from the most important things of like that like Christ and him

1:48:10

crucified at the gospel down to the less important things and then understanding

1:48:15

like how our role as men as Fathers as husbands as men who are strong as men

1:48:21

who are capable as men who are powerful as men who can work as men who can can work in the field and and by the way to

1:48:28

be clear there are many days where the thorns and thistles grow up around the

1:48:34

things that I'm building I built a very successful business and yet there are

1:48:40

many days I sit down with my wife and I go Thorn I have a term and I say thorns and thistles and she knows what it means

1:48:47

she means it means like I've been up since 3: and it's 7 now and I've been working for 4 hours and it's all been

1:48:53

thorns and thistles today so far and then she knows how to handle it doesn't

1:48:58

mean like I'm going to fly off the handle or anything but it means like it's been hard already in the first four hours right and that is that is okay

1:49:06

because that is still like there's a goodness in the god that that's the Brokenness of creation that we look

1:49:12

forward to eventually to be restored right where where the stones

1:49:18

cry out where the where the all of creation is groaning for like every every time someone comes to Christ and

1:49:24

says is this the last one is this do we are there sorry are there no more Thorns

1:49:30

are there no more thistles right and so and there are days where I'm blessed today was a day like

1:49:38

that I man I've been on podcasts and meetings for like probably eight hours today and the Lord has just blessed me

1:49:45

with conversations like this and I'm like thank you Lord for a day that wasn't full of thorns and thistles today

1:49:51

you I didn't you didn't owe that to me that wasn't something that was but but there's still there's still um Beauty in

1:50:01

the days where the thorns and thistles are there because you look forward to a day that is to come when those go away

1:50:08

and we also get to celebrate the fact that Jesus sits on the throne right now and is the king of the world right now

1:50:14

today like Jesus is Lord period right now today and so uh these things

1:50:20

understanding as men the ribbon that binds all those things together I think is one of the most important things that

1:50:27

you can possibly understand especially for your listenership which are probably

1:50:32

mostly guys like 20s to 40s I would guess somewhere in that ballpark a little bit older now actually okay 30s

1:50:39

to 50s whatever 30s to late 40s what to understand the ribbon that binds that all together to understand like how does

1:50:47

my Christianity gospel um fitness health fathership

1:50:54

husbandry you know um Church leadership business ownership there is a ribbon

1:50:59

that binds all those things together we we are called to work well to do the job to the best

1:51:06

of our ability but also to understand how all of these things kind of flow together and they do flow together they're not siloed and so when I was a

1:51:13

history teacher when I recognized that I could when I learned how to teach the

1:51:19

ribbon that that bound all of those stories together that's when it that's

1:51:26

when it was internalized in my students if it was just World War I over

1:51:31

here and then World War II over here but it's like World War I created World War II and here's how yes it did when you

1:51:37

were able to when you were able to explain that like the ribbon was the thing that I hope and I know because

1:51:44

it's been many years I haven't taught since 2012 that my students have reached out

1:51:49

to me on social media and Instagram and stuff like that and said you were my favorite teacher and here's why because you like you you made it all real like

1:51:55

you made it alive and so this is why we watch documentaries as my family because I'm able to to build that and tie that

1:52:02

ribbon together but same thing we do the same thing with like here here's why we

1:52:08

follow the you know regulative worship as opposed to as opposed to normative

1:52:14

worship or whatever and so we walk through those things together so they understand the the tie that binds those

1:52:20

things together that ribbon is the thing that you literally can it's almost like

1:52:27

it's not a perfect linear line but it is it they are the major Milestones of your

1:52:33

life that you can see and looking back in hindsight 2020 Fanny Crosby famous

1:52:40

him writer who's blind and say I look back and I can see that these things all

1:52:45

tied together and they all pointed back to Jesus like that's that's the point

1:52:52

so I want to take that thread idea and I want to be respectful I know it's late in the day for you and you've got uh

1:52:57

some important family time maybe to watch some documentaries but I want to go back to something that you said early in the beginning and see if we can tie

1:53:03

it all together sure you talked about how vulnerable it was to write the

1:53:09

introduction to your book and you talked about at the beginning um is it Mark Horwitz or horowitz's book horz yep Ben

Matt’s Vulnerability & Personal Narrative

1:53:16

Horwitz and his book uh the hard thing about hard things right about the about

1:53:22

the amount of failures that uh that they've had to go through that you've

1:53:27

had to go through to build something and so I want to I want to take that and and

1:53:32

run it through the filter of what the ribbon is through the through the the lives and careers of successful men so

1:53:40

that people don't walk away thinking that like oh this is an overnight process that it's all sunshines and

1:53:45

rainbows and skipping down the yellow brick road you know the process of getting anywhere of value involves f

1:53:52

failure it involves false starts it involves treasured projects not working out it involves mistakes and sin so I

1:53:59

wonder if you can talk a little bit about that and sort of tie it all together for for that process for you

1:54:06

and now to hear well I I think the thing that is required is um an an unwavering

1:54:14

and brutal self-awareness of your failures which I think most

1:54:20

people uh often don't want to talk about and certainly our parents generation the reason I had to have the

1:54:27

phone call with my Mom the reason I had to have the phone call with my in-laws uh who are both love them both if you're

1:54:34

listening to this love you guys both uh but they are literally middle- of the bell curve prototypical Boomers you

1:54:40

don't talk about that stuff yeah and I go I got to talk about this stuff

1:54:46

because that's where the lessons were learned and hang on

1:54:55

the hardest conversation I've ever had in my life was going to my

1:55:02

in-laws um 15 years ago and saying I was unfaithful to your

1:55:08

daughter yeah and um man I begged my pastor to be there

1:55:14

because I was afraid her dad might shoot me like that's how scared I was

1:55:20

legit and U but he didn't and they were of course devastated and you know it

1:55:26

wasn't like we forgive you and it's okay it wasn't it took some time um

1:55:33

but the ribbon that binds it all together is the self-awareness of there

1:55:39

will be sin and there will be failures and if you look at passages

1:55:44

like Matthew 18 and like church discipline and things like that we often look at that in sort of a negative light

1:55:49

but the reality of th those sort of things is like the purpose of that thing is

1:55:55

reconciliation and by the grace of God he completely reconciled my marriage by

1:56:00

the power of the gospel and so the lesson is learned in the failure if

1:56:06

you'll allow yourself to confront it be upfront about it confess it repent from

1:56:12

it be open and honest by the way we we both my wife and I held that in for I

1:56:18

don't know a year or two and and it just it ate it ate Us Alive like cancer and

1:56:24

until we finally were were able to tell those stories we weren't able to get

1:56:29

freedom from it and so and so for me telling those stories there's freedom in

1:56:35

that it's not bondage it's not bondage to the sin it's that I I'm no longer a

1:56:40

slave to sin I'm I'm a slave to righteousness I'm I'm I'm free from that right so that's not who I am and still

1:56:47

that's who the enemy sometimes comes up in the middle of the night when I wake up at 2:00 in the morning and and the

1:56:53

enemy is like that that's still who you are and I'm like wait that's not who I that's not who my that's not where my identity is found anymore and so the

1:57:00

ribbon that binds it all together is to understand that like we are we are by Nature

1:57:06

depraved we will sin and fail and I pray desperately that most of the readers of

1:57:11

my book don't sin and fail as much as I did in those years but that if the

1:57:18

lesson isn't learned if the repentance doesn't doesn't come if the turn away from the

1:57:23

sin doesn't come if the knowledge isn't turned to wisdom that's then passed down

1:57:29

to others and turned into action that it was all for not if I hide the sin my

1:57:35

entire life even if I Repent it to my pastor and my wife and the people that it affected but I tell no one no one

1:57:43

else who who can learn and so the reason that a book by a very secular humanist

1:57:51

Ben horowits hard thing about hard things is so powerful to me as he talks about the struggle how much more

1:57:58

powerful is our conversation about our struggle with sin and depravity and

1:58:04

failure and not resting on God's sovereignty and his goodness and his

1:58:10

grace and the atonement and his and God the Father riness us and Jesus's cloak

1:58:15

of righteousness like all of those things like those are the lessons we have to learn and pass on to our

1:58:22

Community to our family to our people to like everyone that's within our spheres

1:58:27

of sovereignty like that's where the ribbon is that binds that together and so you know also for me as a guy that

1:58:32

owns a business it's now you know a good-sized business I don't want those skeletons in

1:58:38

my closet I want to tell the story I I want I want it to come from me

1:58:46

I don't like and I and you know I've told my wife I've told my executive assistant I'm like listen there may a

1:58:52

day you get an email from someone that I had a relationship with 15 years ago 20 years ago I don't know but like I got

1:58:59

nothing to hide I've told the story yeah so it doesn't come out and become Church

1:59:05

disciplined because of something I've never confessed it's a thing that I've confessed I've repented of I've told and

1:59:11

this has been a hard conversation even with my church um even my local body

1:59:16

Church to be able to tell those and as I'm I'm I'm an elder in training at this point and your listeners May listen to

1:59:23

this and be like if he's ever gone through that he's disqualified you may be right like I'm not an elder yet so we're working through those things but

1:59:29

the reality is is that um The Gospel has the power to reconcile all sin and so um

1:59:38

my job is to live a life faithful of a church leader and an elder and let God

1:59:43

impress upon the heart of my pastors and Elder um and and elders and church body

1:59:51

um if I'm wor worthy of that and I'm not worried about it but but I think the

1:59:57

real value comes in the lessons learned and so I've learned lessons from more

2:00:03

lessons from the failures than from the successes and to give those lessons that I've learned in failures I desperately

2:00:10

hope that people learn some of those lessons and don't have to go through them on their own like they're going to go through their own failures hopefully

2:00:16

they don't have to go through some that are as insane as the stuff I went through um and then

2:00:23

what's beautiful about it it's it's almost like if I talk go back to the ribbon equation the ribbon feels

2:00:30

like tattered and dark and stained and

2:00:35

black and dirty and gross and then I was reconciled out of that and for and again

2:00:43

what the gospel says is like and then God WRA me in the cloak of Jesus's righteousness and Jesus atone for all

2:00:50

those sins none of those sins that I committed 15 20 years ago were surprises to God yeah God knew that those things

2:00:58

were going to occur in eternity past and so that was that's my story that's part

2:01:03

of my story and so um I'm able to take those things I'm able to take those deep

2:01:10

dark horrific painful often telling the stories I I feel okay right now but I

2:01:16

often tell if I have to tell the details of those stories uh even today 15 years

2:01:21

later like it'll tear my stomach up and I'll have to go I have to be like I've got to pause the podcast and go sit on

2:01:27

the toilet for a few minute like it's that it's that painful um and for real is TMI but that is what it is and um but

2:01:36

that ribbon goes from tattered and black and dirty and gross to to White to like

2:01:44

even though I am still depraved and even though I'm still sinful and even though I still struggle with sin God still sees

2:01:52

me as positionally righteous and sees me with the the cloak of righteousness and so then that leads me to The grac Driven

2:02:01

effort of then I want to tell people the story about the things that God has led

2:02:09

me through and saved me from and reconciled in my marriage so that they

2:02:15

don't have to go through it so that they can learn those lessons for their marriage they canar learn those lessons for their their

2:02:22

parenting and and Leadership and business in church and whatnot and so for me that's the story and so that

2:02:28

story is told in the book and again you know I would love if you read the book and you you feel that and you see that

2:02:34

and you hear that I would love to to hear your own testimony about like what that meant to you and so um yeah it was

2:02:40

it was tough man putting that stuff out to my family and to my friends and my my staff actually my staff was very

2:02:46

concerned they were like were very nervous like some of them still haven't read it and a bunch of them are going

2:02:52

out I you probably saw on Instagram I signed a bunch of books yesterday and they're going out one's coming to you

2:02:57

and um and you know they're like what are the stories you're going to tell and I'm like here we go I mean what what at

2:03:05

this point I've told it on the podcast I've told the stories and so there if

2:03:12

without without the de depravity and the sin and the devastation of the sin how

2:03:20

good is Grace like Grace isn't good without that and

2:03:26

so we we understand how good grace is and so when we get a day like today that I've had where God has just been so

2:03:33

gracious to me and given me great conversations with people that I love um

2:03:39

that means less without without the sin and depravity and I wish I I wish it

2:03:44

didn't I wish I had all the benefit of the grace and the goodness without the sin but I can't like that's that's the

2:03:51

whole book of Romans like that's what it is like there is how good is Grace

2:03:57

without the like the Potter that makes the vessel for Destruction gets to also make the vessel for incredible you know

2:04:06

benefit right like the for this beauty and this Elegance well if every if every

Building Trust Through Confessing Vulnerabilities

2:04:11

piece of pottery isn't is beautiful then is anything

2:04:16

beautiful right so you have to have some that are made for Destruction I've lived

2:04:22

a life of both the elder brother and the prodigal son and I think that's I hope

2:04:28

the beauty of my story and that I can I have a tremendous um connection to both of them

2:04:37

I have lived the life of elder brother first prodigal son second and then

2:04:43

hopefully somewhere where I'm not a self-righteous elder brother in my older age but living more of a life of of as

2:04:50

close to Holiness as I can and um and so I think that gives me a unique perspective that I that I speak

2:04:56

to in undoing urgency well I just want to note one thing that you know of course your staff

2:05:03

members will be concerned about some of your personal stories but you know the the reality is that there will be a

2:05:09

number of people Executives right staff members as well who knows probably not

2:05:14

for your company but you know out there sure who will have had their own episodes of unconfessed infidelity

2:05:19

that's right and they will look at and they will know and they're and they will always be sleeping wondering when the

2:05:25

skeleton's going to come out of the closet that's right and as painful as it is when the skeleton comes out of the closet it is always better to take that

2:05:33

responsibility onto yourself sure and own it and step into a place of of true humility and courage than it is to be

2:05:40

confronted with it out of the darkness Y and so and so that courage that you showed you know yes of course there

2:05:47

might be a I don't know we might call it a reputation hit or something like that with it but

2:05:52

realistically the reputation hit of when something is revealed you know that's the sort of stuff that gets so much

2:05:58

worse and so and so I applaud you for having the courage to put out that story

2:06:04

in a book in a in a in a published book because I remember reading that section of the book and it just sets the stage

2:06:11

of like okay this is a real guy this isn't this isn't a guy who's postering himself as a master of the universe this

2:06:18

is a guy who took his licks and showed up and kept fighting and this is what he built out of that so even more than I

2:06:24

think taking my licks but to I I deserved them I made my bed and I had to lay in it and so it wasn't that I was an

2:06:32

abused child that didn't deserve it like I deserved every lick I got yeah and and

2:06:37

there were lessons to be learned from those things so yeah man so thank you thank you for letting me tell my story

2:06:43

you're welcome and always a pleasure to have you on the show and to have these really heartfelt brotherly conversations

2:06:50

about the things that are most important to us I'm always blessed by them especially so this time yeah love it man

2:06:56

thank you so much for having me on the show you're welcome where where would you like to send people to get the book real quick uh the best place to go is is

Closing Remarks & Where to Find the Book

2:07:03

probably ryanm reynolds.com so I go by Matt Reynolds Ryan Reynolds is a famous actor as you know Matt Reynolds is an

2:07:10

infielder for the Cincinnati Reds I believe ryanm mat reynolds.com is a great place to go get the book but you

2:07:15

can get on Amazon or any place that you go buy books I will say that Amazon probably helps us in the rankings more

2:07:21

potentially for New York Times bestseller list and and Amazon but um man I would just be honored it's not

2:07:27

really about that stuff it's about I hope you read the book and it changes your life if it does and it makes an

2:07:32

impact please reach out to me um I'm M Reynolds at barbell hyen logic.com again

2:07:38

my email is really easy to find if you just search Matt Reynolds at barbell logic um on Google my email will show up

2:07:45

if you send me an email I will I promise you I will respond um if you read the book also if you read the book and you

2:07:51

love it I would love a review because it helps on Amazon as well U tremendously with the algorithm which is just the

2:07:57

game you have to play these days um but if you don't love it like don't leave a review or leave a onear review if it

2:08:03

sucks like it's okay like just be honest I'm not asking for you know non- honest

2:08:08

like be transparent that's totally fine tell me what you love tell me what you didn't love uh would love to have feedback on it um the Memoir is probably

2:08:16

coming in a couple years so I might have to sell the business before I get to the memoire but the Memoir is going to be nuts

2:08:22

and so uh yes yeah just imagine the intro expanded to about 15 chapters um

2:08:29

it will be um but I think I have to tell that story at some point like the full

2:08:35

all the details of all the stuff because it's just it's C and it's not all just sin and craziness but just the craziness

2:08:40

of owning business and you know times that you you're you know you're running a business it's like worth a bunch of

2:08:46

money but you can't make payroll and you put you know $50,000 or your own money which is pretty much all you have in

2:08:52

your account into uh the business checking account to make payroll like there's so many stories like that that

2:08:59

are just do or die moments that could have broken the business and and could have killed the business entirely that

2:09:06

again by God's grace he's uh allowed us to thrive and and just change a lot of people's lives for the better and so I'm

2:09:12

I'm very grateful um for sure both to him and and to great friends like you

2:09:17

and uh and and the rest of my reformed community so thank you so much subcribe me on the show amen thank you so much

2:09:24

Matt thanks brother