S3:E13 Gregory Dickow Father of 5 with a new way to calm the soul

Season 3, Episode 13. Gregory DeCow hails from Chicago, Illinois. Father of 5, leader of a church, and author of his new book, Soul Cure. Without further ado, your host, Townsend Russell. This is the 100% Dad podcast. Uh, today we got Gregory. Gregory, go and introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you, you know, life on the road. Uh, the internet is failing me right now, uh, so I can use a cell phone to record but not the laptop to pull up my, uh, sheet on you.

Uh, no problem. Uh, well, it's great to be here, Townsend. I'm Gregory Dickow. I am a husband and father of 5. So I'm excited about your program and I love what you're doing, getting dads on the air and inspiring others to be better dads because we can all use the inspiration and encouragement. And father of 5, my oldest kid is 31 and my youngest is 16 and everybody else is in between there. And we are, you know, raising kids is a full-time job. And when you have a full-time job and a calling and a ministry and a church and 5 kids, it's, uh, it can be a lot. But, um, by God's grace, we're able to do it. And I'm excited about the opportunity to be here on the program with you.

Yeah, so, uh, so all 5, um, the oldest one's 16.

The youngest, youngest is 16.

Oh, youngest is 16.

Yeah.

Oh, how old's the oldest?

The old, my oldest kid is 31. She's, and all my first 4 kids, all graduated from college and they're all working full-time and they're all finding their calling and discovering their purpose in life. And then we had a 10-year gap between our 4th kid that we thought was our last kid and then the last kid. So they're 10 years apart from the 2 youngest.. And it was like really given a second chance. Uh, we, we, we didn't know what we were doing as parents. I didn't know what I was doing. I, I wasn't raised, uh, really well. My parents didn't know any better. They came from the old country. You know, my mother was born on the Tigris River in, uh, in Iraq. And, uh, and my father's from the same general area. And they, um, they did the best they could, but I was broken, as most people that are probably watching this know and can, and can testify to in their life of the brokenness they've experienced. So I had to reparent myself so I could be a good parent to my kids. And that was a process and actually is still a process, Townsend. I'm still reparenting myself, so to speak, so I could be a better parent.

So, so your parents grew up in Iraq?

Well, they, they came over when they were very young. My mother was 7. My father came over, his parents brought him over or had him when he, when they first came. But, um, yeah, we're Middle Eastern and, and that's, uh, you connect that with an Italian, Middle Eastern and Italian, that's a combustible, uh, for my wife being Italian and, and me being Middle Eastern. So it made for some fun, interesting times raising kids.

So, so I was going to ask, so what's, uh, because we don't get a lot of that, that big difference in culture, um, on the show. So I was kind of curious if you've heard anything from your parents' side of them coming over, having a very much different background, and then raising kids in America.

Um, yeah, is that—

I, I don't know, is that— is it advantageous? Do you just kind of blend in, or is it, is it hard to, uh, you know, keep the things that are important to you, like keep that aspect of your culture that you grew up in and you know, like involved in your life here in America? I mean, anything you speak into that, I'm just kind of curious on how that goes.

For me growing up, I, I, me and my brother and sister, we, we wanted to be American. We wanted to fit in. We didn't want to— when we were young, we didn't want to fit into the Middle Eastern culture. We wanted to fit into the American culture. But there was a marriage of those two things. Our family our parents were running a business as well as trying to be Americanized themselves and trying to make sure that we got some of their culture and not lose it. Now that we're older, we wish we would have had more of their culture, frankly. And we, you know, you know how it is. And, and if you could go back, I wish I would have learned this, the language. I wish I would have learned more of the customs. I wish I would have learned more of the history. Now when I study the history, I'm, I'm very very thankful, very, very proud of the heritage that I have and grateful for my parents doing the best they could coming to a new country and having to start over because they had to start with nothing.

So do you and your family, have you guys like taken trips back to, you know, I guess where your heritage is? Have you guys been back to Iraq or anything like that?

No, we haven't. I'd love to go there. It's been one of my goals. Um, but the instability there is just, uh, too much to, to overcome right now. So I'm gonna just believe that God's gonna open a door at some point to get there and to, um, and to experience that. But they haven't been back, uh, in a long time either.

Have you— is, uh, what faith is, uh, your church?

My church is very, um, uh, international in flavor, so we're non-denominational, but We, we just take a, uh, we kind of call our church the HIP Church. We're HIP, Happy Imperfect People. So we kind of celebrate our imperfections rather than try to cover them up. We kind of celebrate the fact that we're all flawed and we're all a work in progress, and we just teach right from, from the Bible, from the word of God, as many do. And, um But my church is, uh, is really built upon love. And I remember when I first started in the ministry, I didn't, I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't think that I was very good at it. And I remember God speaking to me. I'd started a few Bible studies and tried to get people to come, and I was very young at the time as well, so that didn't help. But, um, I remember hearing God speak to me and he said, I said, Lord, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to be a pastor? I didn't have an education for that. And God spoke to me, if you love people unconditionally, if you teach them my word uncompromisingly, and if you encourage them unceasingly, you'll succeed as a pastor. So that became my kind of motto. We're going to love you unconditionally, we're going to teach you uncompromisingly, and we're going to encourage you unceasingly. And that's kind of the, the, the backbone or the spirit of our church.

Is your, is your wife involved in the church with you?

Yeah, she co-founded it with me. We were little kids, we were 20-something years old, 28, 27, very young. And, uh, we, we had one kid at the time when we started. And then 4 more kids later, we're in the ministry as pastors, as young parents and new parents, and we're just trying to figure it out as we went along. And, you know, I guess we did okay because our kids haven't killed each other. They haven't tried to bump me off to get into the will. I don't tell them what's in the will because I don't want to be bumped off early, you know what I'm saying? So we just try to keep, keep peace. And we, you know, we've done good. You know, one of the things, Townsend Russell, that I, I like to say for parents and to fathers and to parents is the best thing we can do in this world is to give this world better people than ourselves. And if you can give this people— give this world better people than yourself through your children, then I think that's the ultimate success in life, that you've contributed something to the world that, um, that is unforgettable.

That's a good saying. I like that.

Yeah.

Are your kids— are they involved in your church at all?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We put our kids through college, all four, the first four. The last one will be going to college in a year or so. But we put our kids through college, and I just asked them at the time, because our church was developed by then and we had a we had built a building and we had a good following and we, we had some success on, on television and radio. And I told my kids, I said, listen, here's what I'd like to do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay for your college, but when you are done with college, give me one year of your life and work for me for one year. And at the end of that year, do whatever you want. If you wanna move to a different country, a different city, if you wanna do some other business, do whatever you want to do. Work for me for one year, give me one year back, and then do whatever you want. And all four of them stayed past that one year and basically took over the church. And now they just tell me what to do. So I just show up on Sunday, they point me in the right direction, and I take it from there. And then they, they, they start pointing to their watch when, um, when I'm going too long. So that's kind of how that works now.

So that's interesting. So what was the thought process behind that strategy of, I want you to come back and work for me for at least 1 year? What was the intent?

I guess the intent was I don't want my kid— I didn't want my kids to start their young lives with debt. So I wanted to be able to absorb and make whatever sacrifice we had to make to be able to put them through college. Some of them, you know, they all got a grant here and there, but it was, uh, it was, it was, it was expensive, as you would know, I'm sure, to put kids through— 4 kids through college. And at one point, all 4 of them might have been in college for 1 year at the same time because they were so close in age. Um, but the, the strategy was just to give them a debt-free beginning by saying, you know what, I'm not going to make you pay me back. But I am gonna ask that you work for me for 1 year. And, and they brought back new ideas. That was the thing. They brought back fresh ideas. They brought back innovation and change. And I, at first I was a little resistant towards it. I acted like I was willing to embrace it, but I was, I still had some old school in me and it was kicking along the way. But after now it's been a few years that they've been pretty much running our organization, running our church. And I'm just the, I'm just the, the teaching pastor.

Figurehead now.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and I only teach what they allow anyway. So it's, it's, they're really, they're really controlling my life, frankly. I must make a confession.

I know there's worse things in the world.

There are. No, really. We're so blessed to have kids that have become better than us. And I consider them better human beings than me. And I'm learning, inspired by them. So, um, but you know, I remember one of my kids told me one of the things he learned in college was somebody told him the best success that you can have in ministry is listen to the youth, listen to the young people, listen to what they're saying, listen to what their cry is, listen to what they celebrate, listen to what they get excited about. And so I really took that as advice from God to listen to the young people and really hear their heart. And sort of the Bible talks about being able to hold on to wisdom from that you've had for years and grab a hold of the, of the new at the same time, to be able to kind of bring those old and new together. To be able to do that is, um, is a, is an art that I'm still learning and a skill, but I, but I think we're doing a pretty decent job at, at taking the traditions that I, that I believed in from the Bible and matching those up with the culture that they want to create. Because kids know about culture and they know about environment and setting the thermostat. And so I just kind of yield to them on the, on the thermostat and I rise to that temperature that they set it at.

So, so I've heard that about churches before where there's this constant, um, constant yin and yang of the two. Large age groups, I guess. The older people that typically have a lot of money and are leaving endowments for the church when they die. And, um, but it's very important at the same time to not just cater to them directly because then you lose the younger crowd, which is the future of your church.

Yeah, exactly.

And so you can really— you can almost kill the church in a sense by, you know, catering just to one age group or the other.

It can die. It can die both directions if you can't put them together and One of the things I asked the older people in the church, I said, listen, you guys have been with me since I started. You guys have the wisdom, you have the maturity. I only ask that you open your arms up to these young people and let them make some changes as we go along and let them push back. And if you guys want to push back too, and I just open the dialogue. Older people push back, younger people push back, and then we get there.

Is there a discussion of let them fail a little bit? Like, we don't want them to crush the church, but let them experiment and play with things and let them mess up and screw up and like have a failing, you know, tactic or activity or program. And absolutely, and be okay with that.

Yeah, and be okay with that. I think when I was younger, I was much more strict and legalistic and more, you know, we don't want to fail at anything. But as I got older and as I failed myself enough times to realize, hey, everybody fails, everybody falls. Just fall forward, just fail forward, just get up. The Bible says a righteous man gets up, falls 7 times, but he keeps getting up. And so yeah, I wanted them to experiment, and I invited them to try things that I didn't like, and I invited them to do things that I wasn't necessarily— I wouldn't have done. And some of those things worked and some didn't. And and they learned along the way and really nothing had to be said because we all know when something is working and we all know when it's not. And so we kind of let that determine what we do, what we keep and what we let go.

Yeah, man. There's a great parallel there to parenting as well, as far as, you know, letting your kids go out and experience things and try things and not protecting them too much, but, you know, maybe giving guidelines, but, you know, let them stretch their wings and go fly and, you know, they might fall and that's okay.

Eagles push their kids out of the nest and make them fly. And so we have to be like that and we have to give them wings and we want them to innovate. And innovation is like, to me, a big thing in church. If we're not innovating, I don't mean having all the lights and the sounds, and I don't mean the technology side of things, although that's important. But I mean the way that we communicate, the way that we— what we communicate is still the same, but how we communicate it. It has to change and there has to be innovation and wisdom makes knowledge acceptable, the Bible says. And so I think we have to constantly ask for wisdom, seek wisdom, and that sometimes comes from old people and sometimes comes from young people too. I just want the wisdom. I don't care who it comes from.

So what does that mean? Like, how have you guys innovated, uh, in that sense?

You know, well, I, my early spiritual experiences were always, you come, you go to, you gather for church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and it doesn't matter who comes, you just have church. And my kids were like, look, we, we love that you want to have church, Dad, but we don't— if something's not successful, we have to, we have to look at why it's not successful. So if Sunday night we're losing the audience, we're losing the crowd, we have to look at what are we doing if we should be doing that or if we should be creating community and relationships in some other way that is more effective and includes more people. So with my kids, we're all about let's start community groups, which is not— they weren't the first ones to think of that. Obviously, people have tried to do that for years and years. But in my church, I had never got them to really work. So I just didn't do small group community stuff. And, but that's where they brought innovation. I was big meeting. I was a big meeting kind of guy. Get as many people in the room as you can. And they were close community people. And so they re— they rebuilt that. They created community life and community groups and the energy and the, and as well as the skeletal system, the structure for that, they created it all. And I just let them run with it. And it's been great because more people are involved, more people are serving, more people are, have relationships. And, um, and it's working.

That's always good. Always a good measuring stick.

Yeah. And then, and then COVID came, came along and validated what they were doing. Everything had to be smaller. Everything had to be based on community. People couldn't gather for big, for big meetings. For— I don't know how it is from where you're at, but for us it was at least 18 months that we were shut down until like, until I think January of, or maybe middle of 2021. So we had to do small groups and we had to do community life and we had to have a reason. And we started calling everybody and we started asking them how they're doing. And we— the personal touch was something that came as a good thing that came out of something bad.

Yeah, that really helps in churches if you can foster that one-on-one, uh, communication. Where are you guys located?

My church is in, uh, we have two locations. Our main campuses are in Chicago suburb called Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and then in this, right in the city of Chicago on the West Side, we have a church there.

Okay.

And, um, Chicago, drive back and forth to those campuses, and then when COVID started, I just stopped doing it and then my kids kind of took, are taking the reins of the city campus because it's a much more urban and it's beginning to be a younger community and a younger vibe. So they're kind of making it.

Okay. I was just in Chicago in October.

Okay.

I really enjoyed it. Everyone said, don't go, that's where you go to get shot, that kind of stuff. And I really, really enjoyed it. Um, yeah, we kind of stayed in that touristy area between the stadium and the Navy Pier. But man, the museums you guys have there, the food you have there, that park— I mean, the whole area was just— it was lively, it was fun, it was families everywhere. It was, it was a great city.

Um, yeah, it's not like what's portrayed on the media sometimes. And there is a bad part of town where the shootings happen. And yeah, and we do, we do go into those communities, and we have people that have been in gangs, and we have people in our church that have been on the dark side, and they go there, they go back there to bring light, and it's really a beautiful thing. And we, we hate violence, and we're against all of that, obviously, but we have to be the light, and we have to take, we have to take the risk and go in there and, um, and try to reach people, and that's what we're doing.

So, uh, so your kids, uh, when they went to college with the idea that, uh, they have to come back and work for Dad for a year Um, did they get degrees with that in mind? Like, did they get, uh, go after a degree that was hopeful for them, or just a generic degree, or something that they felt might be practical for the church, like production or media, that kind of stuff?

Yeah, what's interesting is my one— my oldest son, when he was, uh, like 13 or 14 years old, he told me from that age that he wanted to, um, he wanted to be in television production. He wanted to, uh, learn, uh, and produce film. He wanted to be in film, and he became like an artistic filmmaker of his own small, you know, short films, and was very, you know, very successful at college at that. But that— I told my kids— and then he came back and he really renovated and revolutionized our media team and our media department, which was very dinosaur-like because of— I grew up in the, in the day of, you know, television preaching, and at least my spiritual years, television preaching. And so I, I went, went forward with that. And to me, being on TV was important because it was getting the gospel out to more people. And my kids kind of helped reshape the TV and what we're saying and how we're saying it. And, uh, and I'm very grateful for that. So I let them pick whatever they wanted to study and pick whatever career they wanted. One of them ended up in film, one of them ended up in, uh, medicine, and then, and then, and then business. My daughter was in medicine, then in business, and then she got into modeling, and she's our, in our finance department. And so she's like an eclectic, uh, and doing all sorts of things. Got side hustles. And then, uh, my other daughter, my oldest daughter, is— was a communications major, and she's the glue of our church, and she loves every bit of it. And, uh, and then I have another son who studied music in college, and he studied, um, he studied youth ministry and pastoral ministry, and he's, he's become our worship leader, our youth pastor, and and really a spearhead of developing young, young new leaders. So I don't know how it all happened, Townsend, but we had— somehow they came back and they became everything we needed without us really knowing we needed it.

And it wasn't forced or coerced by dad.

It wasn't, it wasn't really. And honestly, I told them several times between that time and now, if you guys ever feel like you need to move on to something else, you have my blessing, you have my permission, you have my support, you have whatever you need because I am your number one fan. I'm not trying to get you to do what I need you to do. I want to get behind what you want to do and I want to, I want to breathe on that. I want to give oxygen to that. And, and I've, I've said that many times to them and they know it. And they're, and they're good with that. They love it.

Well, that's good, because I think that's one of the great mistakes some parents are making out there, is, um, like they're forced— like, we met one dad and he forces his kids to get engineering degrees, and they don't want to be engineers, but he's an engineer, and he says, well, that's fine if they hate me. If I'm going to pay for college, they're going to, you know, hate what they do for a living but at least make six figures. Yeah. I'm like, man, you were so wrong.

It's gonna pay in the end. Somebody's got to pay for that in the end, you know, like it's gonna turn into resentment or it's gonna— maybe it turns into where they're all like, yeah, you were right, Dad, we belong in engineering. But frankly, I think the best thing to do is give your children room to dream and give them space to dream and adjust them only when their dream is not any way remotely possible. But at the end of the day, everything is— just about everything is possible if somebody really wants to go after it, especially nowadays.

I don't know what it was like 40 years ago, but I mean, yeah, you can— I mean, now we're in the age where you can literally play video games and make a career of it. It's bizarre. But you can do literally anything you want and make a living. Maybe not be the ultra wealthy, but you could certainly make a solid living.

No, no. You could sell comic books. You could collect, collect things and trade things. Oh, it's unbelievable. The world we live in today is, and some people are so pessimistic about the world that we're in today, but yet I see it as just so many open doors have been flung open to opportunity and possibilities with the technology we have and with the new thinking that I think is intruding our lives, which is great.

Yeah, a lot more independence, kind of almost a return to small business and, uh, taking control of your own life. But you hit it, you hit it on the head with the whole resentment thing. I mean, the second one thing goes wrong in one of those kids' lives, they're going to tie it back to the fact that their dad forced them to do something. And you're, you're opening that window for, uh, you know, a lot of blame and resentment. That's just, that's no good.

It's, it's not, it really, it's not necessary because I think a lot of parents try to get their kids do something that, that, that the parent is— can be proud of, but we want our kids doing something that they're proud of and something that they want and something that they have passion about. And if we don't give them that, if we're not— if, if we're not pushing them towards that, we're really failing as parents. Because parenting isn't about raising our kids to be like us. Parenting is about raising kids in a way that they can be everything that they've dreamed, everything they desire. And all I want them to have in their life is the discipline to back up their dream. They have to back up their dream with hard work. They have to back up their dream with failure. They have to back up their dream with getting back up. They have to back up their dream with taking risks and investing their own money into themselves and into their dreams. And if they're willing to put the elbow grease into it that I grew up learning about. If they're willing to do that, they're going to succeed at anything, and I'm going to be their greatest fan.

That's well said. I kept thinking of things to add to that, and then you would cover it just a second later. Yeah, I mean, you gotta, you know, pursuing those dreams, pursuing those, you know, passions. I mean, it's great. You just have to bring reality into it and have that work ethic. And work ethic, it's not all— even when you're working in your passion, there's crud you got to go through. I mean, there's just You know, there's just realities to the world, and you have to deal with people, and people aren't always the best thing to deal with. And, you know, people let you down. People say they can do something and won't do it. And, you know, people say you're not good. People say you're great. I mean, there's— it's all over the map. So it won't be perfect.

Uh, no, and people need to know that. And we live in a culture where— I'm sure you've heard this saying lately as well, but it's, you know, soft times make soft men. Soft men Make hard times, hard times make hard men, hard men make soft times. And then the cycle continues. And we're— a lot of kids are growing up soft where they— it's one thing to have a dream and a desire to work on, to work online and to be independent, but if you don't back it up with hard work and sacrifice, and you got to be willing to get your feelings hurt and not be so touchy and not be fretful and not be resentful and not not be easily offended. And that kind of grit has got to come back to people if they want to truly succeed in life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And economically right now, so easy to make money. And it has been for the last few years. It's kind of like, so I started my career in '07. So I immediately got, hey, this is easy. And then, whoosh, you know, reality check in '08, '09, '10. Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

That's right. Which was a good thing because I was young and dumb. And, you know, I wish I had had some money back then because there were some great opportunities. And we were still able to buy a house at close to the bottom of the market. So it did work out a little bit, but there's great buys I wanted to do, but I was 21, so I couldn't buy these apartments and condos and things that were popping up that I wanted to buy, even though they were 30, 40 grand in Florida that now are worth like 200.

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

That would've been a game changer.

That's another thing about parenting. Your show about dads is so important. I think one of the things that dads have, have been weak at teaching their kids is how to handle money and how to truly, uh, make their money work for them. And I think that we, we go to school and we, we learn all these things in college, but there's never really any classes in high school or college about how to make money and how to budget and how to use, how to understand what's going on economically in the world.

And I'm not 100% sure there should be because The more I learn about public service and government, the more I realize they're not the most competent organizations. So maybe they shouldn't be teaching. I genuinely think that while that needs to be taught, parents need to be stepping up. We shouldn't be blaming the schools for not teaching personal finance. We should be blaming mom and dad for not teaching personal finance.

Dads need to lead the way, no doubt.

Parents need to teach.

To teach their kids.

Yeah, 100%, because that's a conversation that's actually going the opposite way, where we just talked about kind of how like people are taking control over their life more. They realize there's more income opportunities and, you know, small businesses rising. They're calling it entrepreneurship. I mean, those are all heading in good directions. And, and you were talking earlier about how, you know, people today understand culture a lot more and understand people a lot more than they used to. Um, finance, I feel like, is going— with the exception of the income side, the expense side is going in the opposite direction, where we're still very much buying things to impress people, um, instead of buying what's smart. We're still spending so much on cars, yeah, that we don't need, but only because we want to be able to take a picture on Instagram and show it and get a whole bunch of likes. We're buying— the amount of money that's being spent on clothes and just stuff, just stuff that's not necessary, um, yeah.

So we don't— what you're saying is we're really good because we don't just need to teach our kids how to, how to handle money. We need to teach them how to have things that, how to understand what, what true worth is and what, what things are truly valuable to go after in life. And money is not where the value is. The value is in becoming the best version of yourself and giving yourself as a servant to the world rather than trying to get the world to serve us and get the money and get the fame and get the popularity and get the likes on social media. We have got to teach our kids what's truly valuable and what, what truly makes them, uh, people that have true worth. Self-worth and understanding their value is, I think, one of the most critical things that parents have to teach their kids and model for their kids.

And that, that ties into that dad before that was forcing his kids to go the engineering route, as if a high income and money is the solution to all of life, is what will make you happy, is what make you content, is what will make you satisfied in your soul. It's not.

It's not.

It's not at all.

There's so many—

I mean, if you're, if you're on the California coast, you should realize that all those fun celebrities and all those ultra-wealthy people, so many of them are miserable. So many are getting divorced. So many are constantly being sued and suing other people. There's a lot of misery. There's a lot of suicide in that world. It's not like once you get rich, you're happy forever. It's just, it's And in fact, sometimes it goes the opposite way.

Yeah, it really does. Misery does not have any discrimination. It comes into every person's life who pursues the wrong things. And happiness is truly made out of gratitude and out of really valuing people for who they are rather than for what they can give us and what they can do for us. And so I really think that if parents could teach their kids and dads would take the lead on really instilling in their kids a sense of true identity is, and your worth is not found in what you have. It's found in the deepest part of you, the soul, a heart, the mind to think, the heart to feel, and the will to make good decisions. That's, uh, that's really what we need to, we need to go after is health in our souls, healthy minds, healthy emotions, healthy inner— hey, everything's going on on the inside.

Say that one more time because I got it, I liked it, but I didn't have it memorized.

Yeah. Okay. So to me, the soul is the mind to think, the heart to feel, and the will to decide, the will to choose. And when we teach kids their true worth is their soul, the way they think, how they handle their emotions and how they make decisions, that is the greatest thing we could ever impart to people. And that is where a kid kid's true worth is. That is where a human being's true worth is, is in their soul. And we should be cultivating their soul. Yeah, like Jesus said, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? And although that's an evangelistic verse that people use sometimes, it really, it really is telling us— Jesus is really telling us that your soul has so much value that all the, all the wealth in the world does not compare to the value of one human soul. And if we can teach our kids to know their value in that way, that they are, that they're, there's greatness inside of them and there's, and there's worth inside of them because of who God made them to be. Then, uh, the people will be less superficial and less, uh, you know, focused on things and more focused on people.

That's a good saying. I, I know in your bio you had a new book coming out and it had the word soul in it.

Yeah, it's called Soul Cure. And, um, it's basically taking the last 30 years of my life and putting into, putting onto paper the things that have helped heal me from fear, from anxiety, from depression, from the time I was 16 being, having suicidal thoughts to the time I was in my 20s and 30s and 40s with anxiety and all sorts of, uh, moments of depression. And I think that we're living in a culture of emotional— mental health is the number one need in people's lives right now. And mental illness is, is, is not only growing in the last 2 years from after COVID, but in the last 20 years, the mental health condition of our country and our world has deteriorated. So many suicides, like you said earlier, so much depression, so much sadness, so much anxiety. And Soul Cure, my new book that's coming out in a couple months, is all about living from the inside out and cultivating a person's worth from the inside out. In my church, we don't, we don't condemn people's lifestyles, we don't condone people's lifestyles, we cultivate people's worth. Because if you cultivate somebody's worth, then they're going to, they're going to value themselves in such a way that they will make good make good decisions when they understand their worth. If you don't feel you're worth much, you'll make decisions that are at the exact level of your sense of worth. But if your sense of worth is high, you'll make high-level decisions. If your sense of worth is low, you'll make low-level decisions. And that's what Soul Cure is all about.

And so what does it mean to feel a sense of worth to you?

I think to realize that you were made on purpose purpose by God, that you, you were made with a purpose. You were made for something greater in life than what this world teaches. We were made to have relationship with God. We were made to be people of substance with depth in our life. We were made to find and search for the treasures that God has put inside of us and then bring those treasures. Somebody might have a treasure of love for music. They need pull that out of themselves and, and, and, and just discipline themselves to develop that skill. To, to, they need to pull it from within. Everybody's got gifts and skills and abilities and desires inside of them. And if we can get our kids and we can get people to understand that, to believe in the deposit, the God deposit, God has deposited something inside of every human being, and our life journey should be a, a sort of a pirate trying to find a treasure. And the buried treasure is inside of the human soul. The buried treasure is inside of the human being. And if we can pull out the treasures that God put in there, that's when we discover our true worth and our true value. And that's when we become something that's very— someone who's very valuable to others as well. Really, no, that we're of no good to anybody else if we're always feeling bad about ourselves. But if we can discover that the treasure that's inside of us is real and that God put it there and it's our responsibility to dig it out, then we can become— we can begin to give something substantial to this world, whether it's our skill, our gift, our ability, our empathy, uh, our, our ability to make money and be a blessing to people. Whatever it is, we need to discover it and then we need to develop it and then we need to distribute it. And I'll say that one more time because it's really important people hear this. We need to discover what's inside of us. We need to develop what's inside of us, and then we need to distribute what's inside of us. And that's the, to me, the definition of success in life.

So from a father's perspective, um, if you have a child, a teenager, someone in their young 20s who's struggling to figure out what their talents and skills are, what kind of counsel would you give to them to help them find that and discover that?

I would play every sort of game I could play with them. I would read all sorts of books to them about different people's experiences. I would read to them and then I would assign them reading books that helped me find out what I— and I can't even remember, I've read hundreds of books and I don't even remember many of them, but I remember what they taught me. And so I would expose my kids to more that's out there in life. You have to experiment. You have to try things and fail. You have to taste different things. You can't just like hamburgers and pizza. You have to taste— you have to taste sushi when you're young. You have to taste Japanese food and, uh, and Italian food and, and British. You got to just taste Indian. You got to try everything. And so I think that in trying different things playing instruments. We made all of our kids play an instrument. We made all of our kids learn a little bit of a foreign language. And in doing those things, they discovered that they liked some of those things. They discovered that they didn't like some of those things, and they eventually stumbled upon what they did like. But if you don't expose them to more things, then they'll grow up insecure. I think it's really important to give kids plenty of experiences to explore what their desires and and what their likes are.

So, so diverse in the education, and I would assume despite what mom and dad are interested in, like going beyond that, a larger, broader perspective in the world. So you can see, so then does it kind of become, hey, I have an interest in this, let's see if I have a talent in it?

Yeah, I think so. I think if, or I think if you have an interest in something, you can develop the talent for it. I mean, if you're, if you're 5-foot-nothing, you you can't necessarily be an NBA star one day, but you—

Listen, no one told that to Muggsy Bones.

That's true too, right? And you're right. Well said. Who's the other guy that was so short, but he was so good? But there are a lot of them. You're right. The point is, is that I guess we have to find things we love. We have to expose our kids to things we love and the things they love. And once they find something they love, they pour themselves into it. And if they fail, then they move on to the next thing they love. If they succeed, then they found their destiny.

Hey, so let me ask you, if someone has a talent in something but they don't enjoy it, do you think it's their responsibility, their calling, to like still work on that and develop it because they have a natural gift? And then I guess to try and force like a passion or love?

Yeah, that's a really great question. I think, I don't think so. I think that if someone might have an aptitude for something and it doesn't, maybe I have the aptitude that I could really become a good pilot and I could fly a plane myself, but I don't love doing that. Then I'm not going to do it. And I don't, I think our kids should have the same freedom. They might have the aptitude for for a lot of different things, but they— it's passion and aptitude and discipline. When you add all of those things together, that I think there's got to be that, that concentration of ingredients, that combination of ingredients.

Yeah, no, I think I agree with you. I think maybe, maybe if there's a clear, a clear talent young, maybe push them to kind of explore that a little bit. Not only that, not focus on it, Uh, but yeah, I mean, life's too long to be miserable doing something just because you're good, right? If you're not happy, then yeah, I think I'd agree with you there.

That's why get involved in— get— we got to get our kids involved in many different things. We got to get them involved in music, we got to get them involved in sports, we got to get them involved in, in reading, we got to get them involved in technology, and they will then navigate their way to the things that come natural to them and the things they get excited about. And the more a parent can expose their kids to that in partnership with them, not just go figure it out, kid, but actually do it with them, take the time. I know parents think that— parents complain all the time is there's not enough time. Listen, there's a lot of time that it takes to have a dysfunctional family 20 years from now is way worse than the amount of time that it takes to invest in your children now and do whatever it takes to sacrifice to make their lives better.

For sure. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things as we go city to city, I mean, we, you know, just going to like Houston, we're in Houston right now, so going to NASA and just exploring all the, all the, all the technology within NASA. I mean, there's so many different job aspects within NASA besides just being an astronaut, uh, you know, going to all these different, you know, animal places, zoos, and going behind the scenes and things like that, and you know, going to different sports complexes and, uh, lots of different museums that expose you to a whole world of, you know, children's museums will really open you up to a whole world of subjects.

No doubt. You, you nailed it, man.

When you expose kids to that kind of stuff, it broadens their perspective in the world.

Yeah, the beauty that's in this world. And I can't thank you enough, man, for connecting today. And thank you for taking the time to, to talk to me and reach out, man.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate having you on. Uh, why don't you give one last plug for your, uh, your book or your church, and, uh, we'll go and call it a solid podcast.

Yeah, you bet. The book is called Soul Cure. C-U-R-E. Soul Cure. It's the recipe, it's the ingredients for a healthy soul. It's also the steps out of the lack of health in your soul. And the church is lifechangerschurch.com. lifechangerschurch.com. Online around the world. We have members everywhere. We invite everybody to connect with us at any time and feel the love that they will experience because God's love is the number one ingredient of life. And that's the, that's the thing that I'm all pumped about, getting the love of God out in every way we can. So thanks, Townsend.

Absolutely. Hey, when does that book come out?

Comes out in May, uh, first beginning of May. Soul Cure.

Gregory, thanks for coming on. Have a good one.

Got it, brother. Thanks, man.

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