The 5-5-5 Challenge

Earlier in the conversation, you said you grew up poor.

Yeah.

Your parents did a really good job of covering it, you know, and one of the things you mentioned is we always had good food and they were, they were great cooks.

Yeah.

Did that translate to you?

Yes, man. I probably will. You know, I'll say it like this. I suck at pretty much everything in life except for two things. Okay. One is prayer, and that's just through. I mean, reps, man. I do reps daily, weekly, monthly. I spent a lot of time in prayer because I believe in the power of words. And I've seen the, the answer to prayer and the power of prayer work instantaneously, like I said. And I've seen it over, over time. I've seen prayers go what you would think is unanswered for 10 years, 20 years now. Right, right. I had my 42nd birthday on Tuesday, and I can tell you that there's a prayer that's been resonating in my, my media family for, for over 15 years. And, and, and, and it's still what we, what, what we might think and we see as unanswered. But I, I believe that God's going to do a. A good work with that prayer. So back to that. I'm good at prayer and I'm good at cooking. So there is definitely not a person who I've ever cooked for that. The. From the time they've had the first meal. When I say, what would you like for your birthday? It's never a gift of materialistic things. It's always, can you come over or can I come over and have you cook for me? So that's when, you know, God's given. God gave me a gift. And, you know, that gift is intentionality. I've been that since I was a little kid. And so I've been able to use good times and bad times, whether it's been a funeral, a wedding celebration, officiating a wedding, even attending any type of event, it's going to be always over the best meal, even if I'm not the one cooking it. We're going to, we're going to have good food, man.

And I think it's one of the best ways to connect with people. That's where, like, actual fellow. That's why I, I wish I was better at it. I wish we as a family were better at it. Eating at the table and breaking bread together. My wife is an amazing cook. She's right up there. I'm pretty good outside. I can throw down on the barbecue.

Yeah, we Talked about that, man. That's a gift too, man. That's still cooking.

Yeah. But I find that I have more enjoyment from it in sharing it with others than I do in the actual act of doing it. Although that is a joyful part of it. And I like the process and the science and just art of that all goes into all of that. It's when somebody takes that first bite and you see them light up, right? Like, oh, my God, what this? I've never had barbecue like that before.

That's a big deal, man.

And. And then the conversation starts, and then the, how did you do this? And then that conversation gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And funny enough, it tends to almost always flow back to, hey, you know, it's a gift. It's reps. It's something that. I don't know why, but God's given me a, you know, a little bit of a blessing to be able to do this kind of stuff, and I love sharing it with others, and it's a lot of fun to do. My wife has the same attitude about it. It's where we pro find the most joy. And I already know this story about you, but I want you to share with the listeners and people viewing on YouTube out there. How did the breaking of bread thing become a thing for you?

Well, you know, probably started with my nana, I would say, going back to the. Something more elemental. So she's never made it past 4 foot 10 and probably 97 pounds. Had 10 kids and living in northern Michigan where there's snow, lots of snow. You, you know, we did things outside, but some of the activities, I ended up like, you know, I. I like to migrate and spend time in the kitchen. And that was something where I really connected with her. And she was a phenomenal cook. That's my mom's mom. And that. That really, you know, that segue. My mom wasn't as good of a cook because of the story we told earlier. Right. You know, being out of the house and not having access to that. And, you know, her and my dad spent a lot of time together on my dad's side of the family, you know, being French, they made a lot of, you know, the three most important ingredients in French cooking. Right. Butter, butter and butter. So, like, we had lots of butter, right? We had lots of butter and our food. And it was really. It was really good, though. You know, I just had this. I had this desire to not just feed other people, but it was. It wasn't. I knew from an early age, Jim, that I didn't want what you talked about, conversations, how it opens up a conversation, that fellowship, so to speak, we'll call it fellowship. I knew that if I wanted to break a barrier and really get to know somebody, and it wasn't going to be surface level conversation, and I really wanted to get to know somebody sharing a meal and cooking them and being intentional through cooking something that they enjoyed. So I'd ask the question, hey, what do you like to eat? If you can go out and eat at a restaurant, what's something that you don't cook at home that you go eat at a restaurant? Well, that's what I'm going to make. And I'm going to make it better than they've ever had before. Like, I'm going to make sure that they will always remember how this made them feel, because they might not remember the things I did for them or said to them, but they'll always remember how this made them feel. And so that just. That translated into something naturally with some young men. We started a cooking group. It started with just two guys that wanted to learn how to cook, and I started cooking.

Did they ask you?

Yeah, they asked. They're like, hey, dude. Because when we're all hanging out, we're having, you know, we open up a bottle. They wanted to learn about wine. They knew that I had, like, a background of being a wine kind of sewer. And so they're like, hey, man, I want to. I want to know what a good bottle of wine is. Because both of them, these two young guys, at the same time, they were in their mid-20s. I was in, like my mid-30s at the time. So this is a hot minute ago. They had this idea like, hey, I want to be able to, like, cook something good. And they thought they were good cooks, right? Everybody thinks they're a good cook when they put chicken in a pan and not to roast some zucchini in the oven. Right? That's my go to. And so lime juice. Right. It's ridiculous. So they. They wanted to learn about wine and not spend a lot of money on it. So we'll come over, we'll do a pairing. And so for me, it's just another Tuesday. For them, it was like the. And. And. And I'm. I am going to say this to brag is because it just opened up this. This idea to them. They were like, oh, my goodness. I had no idea how easy this can be by being intentional. The selection of an ingredient. You don't need a ton of stuff. It's what you choose Right. I'm not just gonna go buy the chicken at the grocery store that's induced with tons of sodium, so the pounds are higher because it's got a bunch of salt water in it. Right. I'm gonna go buy the best chicken I can buy. I'm not gonna be like, you know, frugal with it because I want a great piece of chicken. I go buy the a really good middle price bottle of wine that's gonna pair with it. I'm gon veg or just something a side dish that's going to pair well with that. I think the first time, though, wasn't chicken. I made a meal that is near and dear to my heart, and it was cioppino. So I made chioppino, which is like a seafood stew. And so we made. We made shapino and paired it with some wine. And these guys were so blown away by such a simple dish that tasted so good. They were like, dude, can we. Can we both of them at, like, same time, like, this is awesome. Can we do this more often? We'll all pitch in. I want to learn more. And I went, yeah, sure. I mean, we're going to hang out anyways, right? We were all serving together at church. And so I was like, oh, this is a way I can kind of give back to these guys or volunteers. Let me get back. So it started with two. And literally the second week before we decided to do this, the next week was, hey, can I bring a friend? And I said, yeah, sure, bring a friend.

And.

And within by the fifth week, I had, I think, 27 grown men in my kitchen.

Little. Little pack in there and, like.

And I'm paying for this, right? So I'm going, geez, like, now it's costing me, like, $1,000 in groceries because we got 27 guys attending and we're still running out of food. But the cool thing about that is. Let's rewind with what I just said we had. They invited a friend the second week, each of them with four guys. And out of those four guys, the two new ones asked if they could bring a friend or two. And it wasn't just the food. Now, the food was what attracted the men, okay? But what kept them coming back was the fellowship because we introduced, hey, let's pray together. I had YouTube. I would just play worship music, and sometimes I would just leave. I would delegate some responsibility in the kitchen. Like, hey, we're making, like, one. We're making risotto. I said, hey, everybody's gonna take a Turn, add in some liquid. You see, you start getting. You know, I'd go through the process of, hey, it starts, you know, starting to dry up, gets a little mushy. Add another quarter cup of chicken stock or white wine or whatever it was. And, hey, you're gonna be up in five minutes. Set a timer. We can't stop stirring. Just keep folding it, folding it, folding it. So guys felt like now they had a hand in making something they had never made before. And I believe that that's when it tastes better. When you have a hand in something, it tastes better, right? Because you feel a part of it. And so we. We would be in the living room worshiping to a music song, and some guys would sing, and we had other men of faith from church there. And then we just saw this organic growth of guys, like, breaking off into their own little groups and praying over one another. I saw guys, like, laying hands on the back of someone's head and praying for them because of what they were going through. And it just elevated into, like, this men's group of prayer and worship and food. And I was like, man, just one day, someone's like, dude, we should name this. And I'm like, I mean, might mess it up. I don't know if we should register a name at church or call it anything. And we were. I was driving to Dallas with a couple of guys that were in the group, and they're like, hey, we want to go with you. I was sick at the time, and I wasn't supposed to travel alone. And so I had a couple of the guys from the group that got close to me ride with me, and we're on the way, and they're like, hey, man, if you could ever open up a restaurant or you were to do, like, a group where we charge people to do this, like, where they come and they learn, and we can turn this into a Bible study. And we could, like, not monetize it, like, give back from any profit, but at least it'll help you pay for the groceries and stuff.

Yeah, it's getting expensive.

It was, right? I mean, dude, I was spending, like, five grand a month. It was ridiculous on food for these guys. And you know what? It was. It was fine. I mean, not once did I ever make it about that, right? It was just. I did it because I was like, oh, my word. These guys are hungry for more than just food. So the. The money was independent, just meant nothing at the time. And. And they brought it up. They're like, man, this is a way we could give back. And I was like, you know what would be cool? Let's call it garden of Eat 10. Like we're eating Garden of Eaton. And man, it just took off. And so then there was like they stemmed out their own groups because some guys were like one kid, I remember 19 years old, his name was Oscar. He was taking two buses. He would take a bus from Galveston to South Pasadena and then from South Pasadena all the way to west Houston in the Memorial area of Houston just to attend this function.

So just so everybody knows, that's probably about a two hour process or so. Yeah, that's no joke.

The cool thing about that to our process is gave him an hour of prayer time on the way and back, man. And he started praying for people on the bus. He took an opportunity to be inspired. And so the stories that I could share, Jim, we would need three more of these just to share from the level of people we were connected to. And then they wanted to invite their girlfriends and they wanted to impress them and let's come. And I'm like, guys, I mean this is so it was good because it turned into something very big. And then, and then when I got real sick and and my wife was pregnant, it was time to focus on my family. I said, guys, like I'm passing on the lantern, so to speak, right? Yalls candles is lit. Go do this with as many people as you can and don't stop. And. And rumor has it there's still seven men's groups where they get together and they listen to. To worship music and pray and man, that was 2000, started 2018. I stopped in late 2019. I mean I did it for a little over a year and recently it came back up at a John Maxwell leadership conference. And I was asked by a publisher to potentially write a cookbook and talk about the phases of that. Because to them it was like there's cookbooks, there's devotionals and there's books, but there's not all three. And like you are like, Jason, I don't think you realize that you represent three very unique opportunities of something that may or may not have been done before. And we'd like to explore that opportunity with you. And so here we are. Right. I was.

Please tell me the name of the book is going to be Garden of Eaton.

It is. Man. They've already got the COVID I got the COVID The color of the rendering. It's awesome.

I can't wait to see it. That is a super cool.

So we get to introduce recipes of my nana and my mom and my dad, and from my wife's side of the family, from my travels, a missions trip that I went on, you know, I got to eat some. Some. You know, I love different cultures of food, and I've got to travel the world and different parts of the United States, experience their culture. I'm connected to people in the restaurant business. I want to give a shout out, like, literally to Chef Kieran Karen of Kieran's restaurant in Houston, Texas. She's like a celebrity chef. She's been on tv. She's competed on Be Bobby fl. And man, if I want to take over, she wants me to take over her restaurant. Kieran, I want to take over your restaurant. You're asking too much money for it. But I gotta tell you, dude, she's like my second mom. I love her. She's a believer, and she makes unbelievable food. She touches so many people's hearts. And if I. If I could do something even remotely close to the people that she touches through food, I mean, that's. That's somebody that I would. I would collaborate with every day of the week and 10 times on a Sunday.

So I'm gonna need a link to that restaurant so I can go check it out when I'm in Houston.

You cannot come to Houston without going there with me. That's.

Oh, okay. Let's go do it.

Like, if I found out that you went there without me, na. Like, well, what is it? Steve Furtick said the offense is the event. Remain offended. You would offend me, and I would choose to remain offended.

I was kind of hoping you say you'd go. I was kind of hoping you'd say you go.

So that basically means you can't. You can't come to Houston and go there without me.

Gotcha. Last thing.

Yeah.

I noticed, like, a bit of a theme here. The food thing, the. Joining and leading in a church, VP over at First Choice, the previous history and accolades there, the getting sick and dealing with that. A baby that wasn't supposed to be here. And as I watch you and talk with you, you have this emotion about you that's. That's joyful. Talk to us about that for a minute.

You know. You know, it starts at a. Again at a. At a young age. I'll never forget in my family, it was Jason. Don't you. You might not ever be the greatest looking, the smartest, the funniest. Just whatever you do, whatever room you're in, make sure you put life into the room. That was really the basis of our home. That's why we. We had a lot of joy in our household, and we faced quite a bit of adversity. You know, my older brother and older sister weren't angels growing up. Neither was I. I just learned from them to make good choices. They didn't make the best choices. So I was like, oh, thank you for the lesson. But, you know, we just had this. We had this reoccurring theme, and a lot of it had to do, actually, not a lot. I will say that it had everything to do with the relationship that both my parents had with God, independently, as believers and also together. I'll never forget the. Probably the greatest lesson I ever learned in this life about marriage was from my mom. And she said, jason, the more I fell in love with Jesus, the more I fell in love with your father. And it just. I mean, it's gonna make me emotional because it's resonated with me. The closer I get in my walk with Christ, the more I love my wife, even for the things that I might not like my body and my mind tells me I don't like. I find myself loving her more. And then in turn, it's reciprocated. And that gave me. I mean, I just witnessed so much joy. I mean, joy over occasions, even in death, we celebrated the person's life knowing that they were in heaven and that was. We would meet them in heaven when it was our time. That was with family and friends. And so this. This theme of, like, choose joy just. Just resonated with me throughout my life. And there was a. There was a period of time where I didn't. I mean, I was very depressed. I had somebody of 16 years of my life have an opportunity not to leave me, and they did. And then I got sick. And that. And during that, it was when I was with my strongest in my faith, too. Right. I had the strongest walk with the Lord at that time in my life. And. And so there was times where I actually prayed to the Lord and said, God, you know, I am enough. I've done enough. I don't need to wake up in the morning. And. And that's not a good place to be. And so that was a very. There was a short period of time where I allowed to believe some lies from the enemy and from other people as well. But, man, just. There was still that reoccurring theme, because the people that were closest to me that I just mentioned, like my parents, like my wife, like Aaliyah, like my. My best man in my wedding, my brother Fendi, on A bond, you know. Andrew D. Barbarous Jeremy Foster a pastor. I mean, the list, the list goes on and on. I surrounded myself, thankfully, with winners, man. With winners. And those winners chose joy. So even when I didn't, it was short lived, man. That time was short lived. And so theme of choose joy has just been rampant. And then, you know, finding a church where it's like, you know, love God, love people, choose joy. Make a difference, change the world. Right? I mean, that's literally the vision, right? And then the mission goes behind it. And, you know, joy and that, that lifestyle is a choice, Jim. And, and I had a unique, like.

You'Re saying it like choose joy. But we have a choice. We can choose the other thing too, right? We can choose. We can choose darkness. We can choose neg. We can choose all of those as well. And I see so much of it. You know, it's why I don't watch the news. It's why I really limit any of my time on social media. It's why I limit who I allow to be a friend is what. Anytime somebody asked me for, like, friend on Facebook, by the way, I still do that. I'm the one that goes and looks through, like, hey, these are the people that have asked.

Okay?

I go and look through their, Their profile, their feed, what are they putting out into the world. If it's positive, all right, you're in negative, man. No, I'm not going to allow you into my world. You're going to mess up my algorithm, my algorithm of joy.

Yeah. And.

And I, And I work hard, I mean, I work really hard to ensure that those people are in my life because I can't do it by myself.

Yeah, it's a daily thing, man. I had a guy a lot, lot smarter than me, much more wisdom and a little bit more experience and ears on me. And he. And he said, he goes, I don't watch the news. Check the news. And it was. He said, you know, in your own life, you know, joy is a. Is a choice because it's a. It's a posture like anything else. You really want to be vulnerable and give it to God and worship. Get on your hands and knees. That's a physical posture. Moses did it. You want to have a moment. You haven't heard from the Lord. Maybe you need to identify what that distraction is in your own life that's keeping you from hearing from the Lord. You want to experience with the Lord, you got to be vulnerable enough to do it, and you got to have time with him. Just like anything else. Like, you and I, right. We give each other time. We wouldn't have had our friendship go from like 0 to 100 in that short period of time if we wouldn't have spent time together and had substance of like, Jim, I want to pray with you the first time we have a conversation. Like, I'm not going to say I'm going to pray for you. Like, we're praying.

Yeah. We're going to pray together right now.

Right now. Yep. Because those are opportunities. And I think that we have a unique opportunity as leaders in our own respective industries and for our own companies to choose joy. And that has an effect on culture. Right. John Maxwell had this really interesting thing in the sixteen Laws of Communication in the new book. I have no problem plugging it, and it was probably one of the most powerful things. Yeah, right. It's probably one of those most powerful comments that he made. And I know it came from scripture, and I know what inspired him was the Holy Spirit. He said the. Your most effective message is the one you live.

Oh, yeah, that's the one.

That's a golden nugget right there, man.

That's the one that people go, why is he like that?

That's right. And so you want to know my difference and why I choose joy as. As. Because God asked me to.

Well, I feel like, you know, I've been fortunate my lifetime. I've gotten to meet quite a few people that choose joy, and I'm instantly attracted to it. It's like, oh, I want more of that.

Yeah.

So why. Why would people choose the other route? Why would they choose to. To tear others down, be divisive between each other? All the things that we see in the world today, or at least believe about the world today, that it's divided, it's negative, it's greed, it's all of this stuff. Why would people choose that over joy if joy is so attractive?

I mean, you know, it's not always what's attractive is the choices that we make. Right. It's how is it packaged. Right. I mean, the news is meant to keep us confused. So there's a lot of people that watch the news that buy into what the news is saying and media saying. And I think that it depends on the agenda of the source. Right. If your agenda is to be the head of the class, you're in the wrong class. Right. I mean, think about that. Right. Let that sink in for a little bit. Because we all struggle with pride. I struggle with it. I have to remind myself every single day Right. That my words matter and. And I need to be more selective with them because, you know, the flesh of Jason wants to. Wants to go down the rabbit hole of sarcasm because I know it's funny. There's sometimes, like, my humor that's natural in me, and it was the way that was raised my whole life is, man, the more sarcastic we are, the funnier it is. And that's not always the case with everybody else. And it's so, you know, I have to also think about the other person's perspective on the person receiving it. So I think that. Why would someone choose it, man? Obstacles. Life. Life gets in the way. There's so much white noise out there. But if we don't recognize it as white noise, it will affect you. And that one day it affects you. The second day, you choose to allow it. That person who offended you, again, we'll go back to the choice. We have a choice to remain offended. So when it's a person, it's a business. It's a decision someone made that we don't agree with, and it doesn't fit our own agenda. That's the source. Right now I'm offended, and now I'm internalizing. That's where revenge comes in. It's where people want to go after somebody's character, their integrity. It's where I'll. I'll go shut down, and now I'm not producing. Mana can be applied in so many ways, and I just think that everybody has an opportunity.

It's pretty insightful. Like, our agenda personally, like, what we're after can lead to the negativity, of course. But if we don't. If we don't worry about what our agenda is and we worry about what God's agenda is, for us, Joy is easy.

I mean, that's a hundred percent true. That's. And that goes back to in the beginning, we were talking about, like, you know, for me, I can. I can speak from just my. From my own experience. You know, when I was obedient, man, things were easy. When I mean obedient. I mean, when I allowed God into my decisions, right. I knew I wasn't doing it alone. I'm not the one in control. Joy was easy even when things weren't that great. And then when I was like, nah, man, I gotta do this on my own. I'm not feeling it. Right. My faith is dying at the church I'm at. Well, what was I doing to change it? Nothing. I was doing the same old thing. It's like the definition of Insanity, Right? I was doing the same thing repeatedly over and over again, expecting a different result, and there was a different result. It just wasn't good.

I have unfortunately been a member of four or five churches throughout my lifetime where it was really good. I mean, super active, and the Holy Spirit was there, right? But then all of a sudden, there's this little shift. There's this little chirping, there's a little bit of drama, and it just festers. And then all of a sudden, the church isn't the church anymore. Some of that has to do with certain leaders leaving and certain leaders coming in and that type of thing. But I had this tendency of going, well, what's the pastor doing about this? Right? Like, that's his job. And as I've gotten older, I reflect on, like, why aren't I doing something about it? Why aren't I, like, instead of jumping in on the drama and jumping in on the, hey, we need this. Pastor needs to do something about this.

Wow.

Okay. No, he doesn't. Like, we need to. We're the ones doing this. We're the ones having the time. Like, why do you feel that way? What can we do about it? How can we solve it? And. And doing more of that instead of more. Feeding the flame.

Yeah. You know, I think, you know, there's a. You know, a lot of people, you know, they. They may. They may find, like, reading boring. But, you know, we have so many ways of. Of getting information fed to us. And I think that, you know, it goes back to the. That. I mean, sociologists and psychologists, they all agree on this. What goes in, right? What we see and what we hear is what comes out. It is the most simple. It's like psychology 101. So you have to ask yourself, if I'm down, if I'm depressed, if I'm having problems. You can literally start with, what's the music you're listening to? Right? What are the television shows that you're watching? I can tell you, I. I was like, the most, like, man, I want to watch Breaking Bad. I can't wait till the next episode. And that's a really good. I'm not gonna say that it's not a good show. Great acting, great content, all the stuff, right? Nudity, violence, blood, killing, drugs. All the great stuff, right? Because. And I say that it's great because, you know, if you're not having fun while you're sitting, then you're not doing it. Right, Right. So that's. That's one thing I want to say right? Here on record right now, you're up to no good and doing some bad stuff, and you're not having a blast. You're with the wrong group of people, and you're doing it wrong. Whatever you're doing is wrong. Stop.

Oh, man. That's on that note.

Yeah. I want to tell. I want to. I'll make it quick, man. I was challenged with the 5, 5 and 5. For 21 days it takes to. To create a habit or to break a habit. I was given a task because I was. I was actually doing load in, load out at 1. I had a church one time and loading in chairs and stuff, and we were listening to rap music on the stereo system, right? And they were dropping some words, and it was good music. I'm not going to say it wasn't. The beat was good, the lyrics were good. Everything was good.

If you're from Houston, you like rap music. It just is.

It just is what it is, man. And the pastor's like, hey, man, I'm not against that. I know the song too, right? I could probably sing some of the lyrics even. That's how cool my pastor was and is and any. And he goes, man. But I want to give you a challenge. I'm gonna preach about it. It's the 5, 5 and 5. Before you go digital every morning, I want you to spend five minutes reading scripture. I want you to spend five minutes in prayer, and then I want you to listen to about five minutes of worship music. And I want you to do that for 21 days. Now, I'd like to see you do it for a year, but I want you to do it. Huh? Five, five and five. It was list. Read five minutes of scripture, do five minutes of prayer, and do five minutes of listening to worship music, right? So worship music, prayer, and either some sort of devotional or reading scripture, okay. Where you're at least getting part of the message from the Bible said, and do that for 21 days, right? Because they were doing the 21 days of fasting. So what he was asking me basically to do a 21 days of fasting leading up to Easter was to get rid of social media in the morning. Like, don't get on your phone right away. Don't go to your email. Start your day off with this. Now, I already had a routine, okay? But it wasn't all three. And it was interesting what happened. And I want to share it with you. Jim is. Since then, just those 21 days, it is so rare for me to listen to secular music. Now. That was Seven years ago.

Wow.

And in the last seven years, my go to playlists on my phone and at our wedding, my wife and I's wedding was filled with worship music. And it opened up the door to something I've been able to even share with you a little bit, was the discovery of this really amazing quality of worship music that I didn't even know existed and was out there because I still had this old adage of, you know, the old white guy in a suit preaching at a pulpit and the old. Just traditional worship songs, you know, standing there.

Yeah, it was that. And there was like two. Two other sources, Amy, Grant and Petra. Like, that was it.

Yeah. You sprinkle some Phillips, Craig and Dean in there, and you better watch out, man.

Okay, well, that was neat, but there's not much of it, so now I'm going to go listen to this other stuff. I actually grew up playing basketball with Scarface, like that group, they were on the court with us, stuff like that. So there's a. There's a little nugget for you.

So just wanted to share that, man. That was the five, five and five. And I can. It just. Again, it just elevated this relationship that I have with my Lord and Savior. It elevated my relationship with others. I believe it gave me a different lens to look at people when we do connect groups, even in business at work. It was actually seven years ago was the first time, and I wasn't afraid to share my faith. I've never been ashamed of it, but it was the first time that I actually. It challenged me to pray before business meetings and to ask if I could pray before meetings and internally in the office as well as with other people in business and clients. And the fear. I think there was some fear of doing that in the past, man. I go in with confidence because now it's received so well. When you're going to share a meal with a client that you're. As a prospect, you know, you're doing business with them, yet it's someone you're targeting. And to say, hey, man, do you mind if I bless a meal and just ask, hey, you know, Lord, bless this meal. Bless what we're going to say. You know, give them a double portion of success, double portion of legacy, double portion of finances. May they get back to their community. Let this meeting be blessed and your will be done. And then to bless the food, man, I just. It's really. It's.

I can remember that time in my life where it was. There was fears because you just didn't know Right. Like the other person, what their belief systems were, or if you were in a business setting, like in your offices, what. You know, everybody's got their own way, right?

Sure. Yeah.

But I never had anybody say no. And. And the more I asked, the more yeses I got. We all like yeses. So now it's easy now, I guess, like, hey, we're gonna pray. Is that okay with you?

And.

And if anybody did say no, okay, I'm gonna respect them because I'm not gonna. I'm not going to push Go.

Yeah.

It's just not the way I am. I'm not wired that way. I don't think that's what it says scripturally to do, but I'm going to live my way, and hopefully I'm that through that action, it continues to be attractive. And maybe I'm not the right person for him, the right voice for him, the right message for them, but it's a piece along the way that they might bump into the next guy like Jason, and it might be the right piece. And those pieces all add up. The more of us out there doing, I think the better it is.

Yeah, for sure. I agree with. Isn't it interesting to see, like, how the things that we may be afraid of. Of doing that just a simple call to action. You go, man, that was much easier. And I thought all I had to do was do it. All I had to do was do it. What was I afraid of?

Yeah, I wish I was. I wish it was more of a habit, to be honest. Sometimes I just forget, like, we're, like, we go to dinner, we're hanging out with buddies and stuff, and we just start eating. I'm like, about five minutes now, like, oh. And I go, hey, guys, I forgot. I forgot. If we bless this meal, and they're like, still cool with it. It's not a problem. This has been a great interview, Jason. I. I knew it was going to be. I didn't know it was going to be this good.

Thanks, man.

I appreciate everything that you share today. I know it's a different podcast than what we would normally do. Pretty heavy. F. Know if people listen to our podcast, they. They know about that from me. But I hope they found something in here, no matter what's going on in the world. Positive, negative.

Sure.

But they found something in there that they're missing. They're missing. Excuse me. Well, they're missing this piece of joy because they have peace with where they're at.

Yeah.

If that's something that you're missing, Call me, message me, DM me like I was. Send up a smoke signal, whatever. Yeah, I'm more than willing to talk with you about it, which, so we're called here to do. I'm not ashamed to say it in any way, shape, form, or fashion, and I appreciate you, Jason, for being of that persuasion as well.

Man, Any. Any amount of time that I get with you is a. Is a blessing, man. From the first time we met, I know that our lives are going to be threaded together forever. First thing I told my wife after the time I met you was, you know, and even in scripture, we see it in our own lives. I've heard a lot of sermons on it where it says, you know, you're going to have a relationship with a friend for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And I knew from the word get. I told my wife, I said, this is going to be someone I'm close to, close with for a lifet. It is. It's truly my honor, man.

Likewise, brother.

I'm. I'm here to continue into a life with you, man. Let me know whenever. And I'm happy to give my resume of my accolades. So it's. It could be somewhat more relatable, but some other time. It's not to me, it's just not that important, man. It's not. It's not what I've done. It's who I am. And the next step for me is I'm praying that God gives me the. The courage to have legs for legacy. And the same for you, man, because for me, that's. That's next steps is choosing joy and. And having the right legs for the legacy that's to come. So it'll be good to share that at some time.

Thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate. I know we took a lot of time that. I know your time is valuable. I'm honored to have you on the show. Honored to have you as a friend, and thank you.

I feel the same way, man. I appreciate it.

I'm gonna let you go if you want to hang out for just a second, though. Yep, I will. I'll go ahead and close out here and. And we'll wrap up in just a second.

Sounds good, man.

All right, cool.

Whoa.

Not. Not where I was expecting to go. There was a couple of things in there that I really wanted to make sure that we honed in on, because I knew them about Jason, but the depth, the wisdom, the just unabashed freedom of knowing that he's a man of faith. I didn't know we would talk about that as much as we did, and I'm glad we did. I hope in listening to this episode, actually probably two episodes, this is part two now, that if there was a touch, there is a feel, a tug, a nudge in any way, you can always get a hold of me through. You can message at Contractor Radio on Facebook. You can message on our YouTube channel. Private message me. Shoot. I'll give you my phone number. My phone number is 715-808-1542. It's been my number for 26 years. It's never changed. I don't have anything to run from. I've paid. Everybody I ever said I would get was gonna pay. And too many people want to give me money at that number, so I ain't getting rid of it. If you felt a nudge, you need to talk to somebody about your faith or what faith is all about or this journey with God. You stuck. You've paused. You're starting. It doesn't matter. Reach out to me. Shoot me a text message and we'll start a conversation. I'm no angel and neither are you. We all sin. We're all hypocrites. We all mess up. But I think that's what. I think that's what the church is for. What better place for us? Thanks for hanging out with us on this episode of Contractor Radio, and we'll catch you next time.