Arise and Carry Your Cross | Ep. 8

What's the cost of carrying this cross? Well, you know, XYZ, blah, blah, blah. But the question that we really should be asking is, will it be worth it? Welcome to The Rising Tribe. I'm Jared.

And I'm Austin.

And our goal is to inspire young men to build strong families and discover their potential as men, husbands, and fathers.

And we'll do this by having authentic conversations about faith, family, health, and business as we strive to level up our lives and the lives around around us. Welcome everybody, how are you doing today? Uh, we're really excited to be on here again and, uh, drop our episode for the month of September. Oh, this will be August.

Yeah, so this, this is the August episode. Um, yeah, we usually try to have these, uh, recorded before the month comes out, but, um, we've been, uh, traveling around the world, so we're getting this one out here in the middle of the month. But let's do a little bit of an update. So you're in Georgia, and how is house selling going? How are you working on your And how are things with the family and all that?

Dude, we're doing really well. We just got back from Destin last week and we had this big, we had a big sales competition last week. I was in the semifinals, fell short a little bit about by about 2.5, 3 deals. But it was one of the best weeks I've had all summer. So it was, did double digits 4 days in a row, which was a big deal for me.

Wow.

It was awesome. So we went 15, 11, no, 15, 10, 11, and 10.

Have you hit—

4 days. Have you—

you've hit 15 in a day before, right?

I have. I've done 20 in a day multiple times. Um, and then the best previous, so I've done 20, 20, I did 17 one time, and then the best after that was 14. So I, I had one of my best days. It was great. And, uh, just, just push the pace. So Kony and I went head to head in the semifinals of our, of our sales competition this year. And now he's battling it out in the finals this year. And it's just, it's been, it was a lot of fun this year. I had a lot more fun with the competition, won some cool prizes. We won a Traeger and an Apple Watch and, you know, they all the little, little prizes they give you. Traeger is a smoker. So it has these little wood pellets and it burns it underneath and it just smokes the meat. And they're like Bluetooth. They have like, you can control them from your phone. So it's a meat smoker. Okay.

Okay.

But yeah, we, man, it was a fun week. So after that, we were doing really, we were doing really, really early starts. I was leaving the house around 9:30 every day. Sometimes earlier, like 8:30 to go start by 9:30. And it was just a fun week. Definitely, we were exhausted by Thursday night. But, uh, we went on a trip to Destin with 3 other couples and all of their kids. And that was just a blast, dude. Like just the beaches in Destin are gorgeous. Um, Georgia got to play with all her little friends. It's so fun to watch these little kids just run around with each other. They have their own little like ways of communicating. And so, um, then Kaya and I had some fun times too, like our brother our, my brother-in-law watched Georgia one night and Kaya and I went out for sushi, hung out at the beach. It was, it was cool to actually get a date night in together. Yeah. But life is good, man. Sales are coming along well. We just hit 631 accounts serviced, which is putting me at $437,000 in revenue. So The goal for the end, by the end of August is to be past $500,000 in revenue. And that'll put me in a really good spot to finish up my Golden Door.

Yeah.

Over the months that come, like throughout part of September, we'll be traveling a lot, but then I'll be, I'll have a lot of October to chip away. And then I don't think we'll need November, but we have it if we need it.

And can you remind the listeners just in case they haven't been tracking the requirements for a Golden Door?

Yeah, so a Golden Door is either 1,000 pest control accounts sold or $650,000 in revenue sold. So if you sold 1,000 accounts and each one was worth $650, then you're doing 1,000 accounts. But I have a buddy in the pest control industry that just managed to get it done in like 430 accounts because his average contract value was like well over $1,000. Wow. So there's different ways to skin a cat, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Definitely has been, uh, it's, it's just been a fun journey and it's, it's been really a lot of pressure recently for me cuz I, I'm the one making the pressure, right? Like, yeah, I kind of look back, I climbed that 14er out in Colorado. Mm-hmm. And it's impossible to climb a 14er if you, if you just look at the top of the mountain the whole time. Yeah. Cause it, it's like never gets closer. So sometimes I have to remind myself, okay, just put your head down, focus on one day at a time. And find joy in the process instead of, you know, just summiting. So that's kind of where I'm at recently, man. And it's been a, it's been a lot of fun. Now we're back and I'll do a week here in Georgia of selling. I'll do a week out in South Carolina because we've got a satellite office out there. And I'll just go dark mode and stay in a hotel for a week and just go for it. So, but that's kind of where we're at right now. How, what's, uh, what is new in your life? Are you, you're in Italy. Yeah. Last time you were in Kansas or something.

Yeah, I was in Kansas. Uh, and it's funny, uh, when I go back and, uh, I listen to, I listen to our different episodes, um, to, you know, look for editing things and then, and, um, kind of comparing audio levels across, uh, across all of our episodes. Um, it's funny to listen to the updates on life of like, okay, well, we should be going here. We should be— I should be in Senegal. I should be in Benin. I should be, you know, all these things. And that's just a testament to how sure things are in the military. That is that, you know, I can be 85% confident that something's going to happen. And what's actually going to happen is something that wasn't even on the list of possibilities 10 minutes before. And that always seems to be the case. So I was in Kansas last time to work on my French. Because at some point we're supposed to go back to Colorado Springs and be language teachers. Or sorry, I'm supposed to go back to Colorado Springs to be a language teacher.

It's a we thing when you're in the military.

Yeah, I know, it's like we, we, we are going. And actually my wife, she used to be a German teacher, and so we want her to— it would actually be really cool for both of us to be able to go back and teach. So the goal actually is for both of us to go back and teach. There was a couple when I was, when I was there taking classes, there actually was a couple, the husband was the single highest Russian speaker in the Air Force.

Like, wow.

Across the entire Air Force. He's not Russian, like, but he has, he had like 444s in all of his, in the written, or sorry, in the reading test and the listening test and in the oral proficiency exam. Like, and native speakers often get like a 2 in like the oral proficiency exams. Like, they are tough. These things are really tough because you have to be able to talk about everything, you know, everything from geopolitics to, uh, working on your car to going to see the movies, like, like a really, really wide range of topics. And anyway, his wife was a French teacher, um, and a phenomenal French teacher, and Italian was her hobby language and whatnot. So they are, you know, a linguistic family. Um, and so I— that's something that Marisha and I would love to do, um, to be able to go and teach So that's on the docket. So I was in Kansas. That's all that to say that that's why I was in Kansas for a little bit. But I am back here in Italy and the next time we record, there's a good chance I won't be here in Italy. We will see. I might be in Maryland. I might be in— I might be somewhere else in the States. I might be, you know, maybe Vegas, might be in Florida, might be in New York. I have no idea.

But we'll—

that's what keeps life interesting. But yeah, I'm back here doing my job and learning a whole lot every single day. We're missing quite a few kind of key people at work. So I'm just taking up a lot of absorbing new responsibilities and it's, it's exciting and it's a lot to learn. And, um, you know, I'm just doing my best, uh, but I love it. I love airplanes. I love all the, all the great Americans that I get to work with. It's quite unbelievable how just how much, um, people are willing to dedicate themselves to, um, to the cause of freedom is what it really is. I remember I, like, I joined the military in large part because I knew that I had been blessed quite significantly, like, throughout my life. Um, and not, not that I grew up in any sort of, uh, immense amounts of, you know, luxury or wealth or anything like that, but I did not have to face so many problems in life that I know lots of people do face. And there were really cool opportunities available to me. With a little bit of hard work and creativity. And I wanted to help make sure that our children are going to have those same opportunities. And so that was, that was a big reason why I joined. And it's so cool to get to be with dozens and dozens and dozens of great Americans who, who have done, who are doing that exact same thing. And it's wild since we live out here in Italy, right? We're in, we're in the middle of Europe and pretty close to the eastern, the eastern side of Europe, right? And there are lots of things going on over in Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and Poland. And then on top of that, there's been, there have been coups in Africa and things are not stable there. There's Chinese influence, Russian influence, blah blah. And it's, you know, when, when politicians, when government leaders, when they make decisions, it has very real effects on lots of people. And we are We're kind of, we get to be kind of right there seeing firsthand effects of what these things do and how they affect our lives. So it's exciting and sombering or sobering or kind of both, I guess, to get to be a part of that. And just, it's just a reminder really that this world is full of a lot of, you know, scary and terrible things and that inside all of us resides an enormous capacity for good and an enormous capacity for evil. And I get the weekly emails from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, and he has quotes in there all the time. And one of the quotes that he put in there from this last week was about the fact that your capacity to recognize beauty is the same capacity to recognize ugliness, and that your capacity to do good is the same capacity to do evil. And it got me thinking about that, because if you don't know what ugliness is, then you can't know what beauty is. And if you don't know how someone could be hurt, then you don't know how to be empathetic and ease the suffering of other people. So like it is, those capacities are the same. And so it's up to us to be able to develop that capacity and then to use it for good. And that's just, it's just, it's on my mind all the time that we have to be able to be strong in order to be able to develop peace. Like it's, I don't know, the words aren't quite coming to my mind, but Those are, those are things that we've been, we've been having conversations about at work here in my house with my wife.

And yeah, I think, I think we might with, with over where you are, all the countries are so close together. So they, they actually feel the effects of decisions made by neighboring countries. It is interesting that, you know, we, we really only border Mexico and Canada. That is it, right? Am I, am I off on that? Like, what other countries? I mean, there's really, really not a whole lot of— I feel like we don't get, even in the world wars, like we haven't been super affected by those. I know one of the things, this is totally random, um, you were talking about like why, like what people are doing for freedom. My, my uncle came out beginning of, before I started my summer sales season., and he shared with me the story about why he shifted his military career. And it was because when 9/11 happened, he was told to go home. Um, they were told like, go home, be with your families. And the reason why he switched from where he was into satellites was because he wanted to be going into the office whenever the country was under attack. So he wanted, he wanted to be going into battle or into, into the conflicts that he'd actually help resolve it as opposed to being told to go home. But I think, I think we take for granted sometimes the freedom that we have here. It's not like— it's just good to really take a step back and realize how blessed we are to be in— we live in an amazing country. It is.

Oh my gosh, we really do.

It is. And it's because of people like you that we have this. So it's, you know, my dad was in the military for years, my uncle was, my aunt is, like, I have a lot of family in the military. And because of those people that actually sign up to protect us that we have it. So, uh, yeah, I think it's something that we ought to remember always. So it's cool you bring that up, man. Yeah, there's a lot of conflict going on on your side of the world right now.

There definitely is. Uh, and we could, we could talk about that all day long.

Yeah, that's, that's a whole nother one.

But let's, uh, let's go ahead and jump into this. So, uh, this topic was actually my idea. Um, cause I, it was something I was pondering a while back. I typed up my thoughts on it. In my Notion and kind of set it aside for a long time. I was typing up— when I saw kind of real-world examples of something, you know, metaphorical or symbolic, I just type up my thoughts on it. And, uh, the other day we were talking about what do we want to talk about here on our next few episodes, and I was like, oh, let me, let me consult my list of, you know, things that I've written about or thoughts, ideas that I've had. And this is one that came up, and I was like, oh no, we, we definitely need to talk about this. I want to hear Austin's thoughts on the subject. So, um, it stems from a a scripture. Yeah, so there's a scripture in a book of scripture that we have as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it's called Doctrine and Covenants. And we believe it's a book of modern revelation from God back in the 1800s. And there's a quote in there from Jesus Christ, and he says, arise and gird up your loins, take up your cross, follow me, and feed my sheep. And what got me, I'll give a kind of a short intro and then I want to jump into your thoughts about it. But what Jesus says here is like, okay, we got things to do, right? So get up, gird up your loins, right? Right. You know, get your clothes on, get your armor on, prep yourself, take up your cross, follow him and feed his sheep. Like there's several different steps along this. So first, the first thing that kind of jumps to mind is a rise. And like you were talking about, you can't get to the top of the mountain if you're, if you're just staring at it the whole time. I remember hiking down into Havasu, down into Lake Havasu, and like the hike starts at the top of kind of like ground level and it goes down into a canyon. It said 10, 12, 14 miles, something like that. And then when you're done, you hike back up out of the canyon. And so the hike down, not that bad because it's all downhill. But I hadn't thought about this until you brought it up just now talking about that. And that was the hike back was miserable, absolutely miserable. Like, I— it was probably one of the worst hikes I ever did as a Boy Scout. And the reason it was so miserable is we could not see the top. We were— every corner we turned, we were like, oh, it's, it's— I remember seeing that rock, it's just around the corner. Turn the corner and there's like 3 more corners you can see from just right there.

Freak.

Now, okay, it is for— and every time Oh, it's just around the corner. Not, we're not around the corner. It's just around the corner. Not around the corner. Just over and over again. And so that's the first thing that Jesus says is to get up. Like you got to get it. You're not going to do it sitting on your butt. You're not going to do it sitting on your couch. And that's not to say that rest isn't necessary because we both know it absolutely is. But you got to get up. You got to arise. You know, dust off the dirt from yesterday because yesterday, there Today's got enough problems for you to be worrying about everything that happened yesterday, all the different ways that you were inadequate, all the ways that your forefathers were inadequate. You got to leave that behind because today we've got enough problems to deal with. Why not focus on today and tomorrow and not worry about what happened yesterday? Because we can't go back and change it. Like, there's nothing we could do about yesterday. So why don't we focus on taking what we've got now, girding up our loins, you know, getting ourselves ready, making our bed, getting out of bed, making it, putting on some clothes, putting on our armor, getting ready for the day, charging up our Segways and our iPads to go knock the doors. And then you get out and you knock the doors. And then the part that I love right here is take up your cross. And in this context, we know that Jesus is told that he has to carry his own cross. He has to carry the thing that is going to inevitably kill him, but he's got to put it on anyway, and he's got to carry it to Golgotha. And like, what, you know, it doesn't mean like, okay, well, I'm gonna die this way. So I've got to take that burden on me of how the form that I'm gonna— we don't know the future is going to look like. It's not that. This doesn't mean that. What I think this is really saying is, you've got problems, I've got problems, we've got problems. We've got challenges we face, we've got children who are screaming at us, we've got wives who need more from us. And we, and we're, you know, we're not perfect by any means. So we've got all of our inadequacies just like right there out in the open. We'd probably be doing better at work. We could probably be maintaining better relationships with our friends, with our family members. But we got to just take up our cross. Like, we gotta just take responsibility for it. Like, no one else is gonna do it. No one else is gonna come carry our cross. Like, we've got to take up our cross. Um, and then we just got to follow in Jesus' steps and, and follow him pursuing that which is perfect and ideal, and we can't follow anywhere else. We can't follow any other lesser mark, because if, if the ideal— if that is perfection, if he is perfection in this case, then that's what we have to be pursuing. And are we going to get there in this life? No. But we cannot look in any other direction because we will just fall even shorter than that. We have to always be striving towards that ideal. And then the last part, it says right there, feed my sheep. Like, that's everybody around us. We've got to be helping everybody around us all the time. Okay, I noticed I was only going to talk a little bit and then I talked a whole lot. So what are your thoughts?

Um, I never looked at this verse as different portions. Like, I always just thought, arise and gird up your loins, take up your cross and follow me. But there's a lot more instructions here. And I do, when it comes to gird up your loins, I just think it's kind of like a way of saying, come on, let's, let's get a move on, let's do this. Like, my dad, when he would wake us up, he'd always be like, up and at 'em, you know, and he would just like flick the light on and just, just bang on the door and just up and at 'em. And so I've done that to Kaya a couple times, just out of just out of, like, I don't know if it's in my genetics or something, but I've done it. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that was my dad. So, but I think, I think there's a, in my job, like you compared it to my job. It's like, yeah, there's a point where you literally just have to wake up and get out the door. And, and when it said, when we talk about like, and just do the work, like literally just show up and do the work like that is half the battle. And then I think where, where it says take up your cross, I think how we carry our cross is what makes all the difference. Because there are so many people in the world that have got problems that are 100 times worse than mine. And it's because of their attitude that they can carry their cross with joy. So like a perfect example I just shared with you before we started our phone call was like, yeah, at this moment in time our house is a bomb. Basically because Georgia, you know, decided to take a Go-Gurt and throw it on the floor and take her bunny, her bunny crackers and throw them.

And, and then don't even get me started on the current state of our car seat in the car. It is disgusting is what it is.

Yeah. I mean, and it's like, yeah, that stuff, I, I still struggle. Like sometimes I'll lose it if things are dirty and stuff like that. But if you think about it, it is actually a huge blessing because I have a happy baby. I have a home like where things can get dirty. Like these are what I call first world problems. Um, so I think it's worth asking yourself, like, is my cross even a cross or is it a blessing? Um, but because a lot of the things we fuss about, they're not the end of the world. Like, are your family members still alive? Do you have a roof? Do you have water? Do you have this? Okay, you're good. But, um, I think a lot of times like taking up our across, it is sometimes our bad attitudes or like maybe we have a perspective that needs to be shifted. And like I felt this, this last week at work where I just got back home from Destin. I was a little groggy, like, like tough to get back into my routine. And there was a particularly Monday where I was like, man, I just don't want to, I don't want to be here right now. I don't want to be working. And it's, but I still showed up. I still arise. I still got everything ready. I still showed up to work. But if you think about where that, where those feelings were coming from, like I wasn't really grateful for the opportunity I had. And so I had to shift it into gratitude. And eventually that's how I worked my way out of a funk. But I don't think it's necessarily at the snap of a finger. It's a snap of your fingers. You can just get out of a funk right away. I think it takes work. And I think, you know, working through emotions are good. You can acknowledge them and recognize that they're there, but they don't have to take you off of your your goal. If that makes sense. Like, that's kind of where I've been at this last week where, you know, some— I don't always have the greatest emotions to start the day, but I can still execute what I need to do. Because my family depends on it. Like, that's my job. And I show up. So those are some thoughts I have just like from a work perspective and from, you know, a family perspective, like, how do you view your problems? Are they actually problems? Problems that are worth fussing about anyways. Um, yeah, good, good litmus test is 10-10-10. Will it matter in 10 days, 10 months, or 10 years? If it doesn't, you should drop it. Um, but yeah, I don't know. That's— those are some of the thoughts I have going on this. I'm still thinking through it.

But yeah, and something I've been, I've been thinking about is what do we do with those problems that we, like, you know, those crosses, those problems that we can't get rid of, right? Because there are going to be challenges, burdens, obstacles that we cannot change.. And so, you know, there's lots of quotes of people out there saying like, well, you got to change the way you think about it if you can't change it. Like if you can change it, you should probably change it. And if you can't, then you got to change what you think about it. And I don't want to get too literal here in the metaphor, but imagine carrying a cross. Like there are better ways to carry it than others. Right? You like, when you go to pick up like weight plates, you don't like slap both hands on each side and then try to like, you know, squeezing together, pick it up from the middle. Like you grab by the the sides or the handles, like everything, everything there's, there's a better way to carry it. And so if there are problems that we are, we're struggling under, there might be a better way to deal with them. And it might be, you know, enlisting the help of other people, it might be getting perspective, or you, you have a sales coach, life coach. Yeah, that, you know, whose job effectively is to help you analyze the problems, the scenarios, the crosses that you have in your life and help you find a better way to face them and a better way to, to orient and carry them, if they're not things that you ought to just get rid of off of your plate, like you're talking about. And so I wonder— so, so Jordan Peterson talks a lot about we may think that what we were doing is useless or doesn't, doesn't move the needle by any means. But, but a way to think about it is, well, the truth is Yes, everything you do moves the needle in some direction. Because if you think about, if you think about it, you could very easily come up with 10 different ways to make your life a living hell, wherever it is that whatever it is that you're doing, right? There are 100 ways that you like, I mean, imagine right now, there are 100 ways you can knock on doors trying to sell pest control and make life miserable for you and everybody around you, right? If you showed up on the doors and you're a jerk to everybody, and, and when dogs are out there, you're screaming at dogs. And if the police, you know, if someone calls the police on you, because whatever reason, and you yell at the police, like that's not going to help you, right? It's just going to make your life and the life of everyone around you worse. And the example that JVP uses often is like, let's just, let's say that you're just like a, you're a lowly cook at a, you know, at some diner, you know, like a Denny's or something like there, you could come up with several different ways that you could make that breakfast absolutely terrible. You could burn the toast, you could, you know, you could have just the worst runny scrambled eggs that are still like that aren't fully cooked. You could have bacon that like crumbles to pieces because it's like overcharged, you could serve, you know, really like day-old coffee that you reheated, but then let it get cold again. You serve that to somebody like, like you could make that a miserable, pitiful breakfast. You totally could. And if that's the case, then you could definitely make it better. You could definitely do something to make it better. Now, well, and I think the intent behind that is that we are always doing something that is contributing to our current state of unhappiness. There are always things that we are doing where we are kind of working against ourselves. And we've got to be able to find better ways of just living in the life that we currently live without making changes to, you know, without switching jobs, without, you know, dating somebody else, you know, breaking up with whoever you're dating and dating somebody else. Like, there are things we can be doing right now in the lane that we're currently in to make our lives better. And we should probably start there first.

Yeah, I'm worried as you talk about that, I think of, you know, where you go, you go, you must go also, like, something external isn't going to change how you feel internally, necessarily. Like, you hear about this all the time where a person will break up with somebody and then end up dating the same exact person and have the same exact problems because they haven't really worked through internal things going on in their lives. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you talk about wanting to make things better. I think in my world, and I'm sure where you were in your industry as well, like in your, in your work, work field, like, there's a lot of people that have big standards for themselves, and they always want to be perfect. And I have found like this last week, that it's okay to have big standards, but putting expectations that you'll be perfect all the time is actually super detrimental. And it takes you away from your standards. So the one of the things that my coach has been working with me on is just instead of having expectations, just be grateful. Like, instead of having expectations, change them for appreciations. Like, be, be grateful that you have big standards and that you get to work towards them. If you ever fall short of them, it's not a reflection of Oh, I am now bad, or I'm not like, we tire, we, we, we sometimes beat ourselves up. And that, that's how I feel like I am, like type A, like I'm goal-driven. And if I fall short of a goal, sometimes I can beat myself up. And so that doesn't ever really help me do better. It's like, because my self-talk gets negative, I, you know, I'm expecting myself to be perfect. And when I fall short, instead of looking Instead of just looking at that one moment where I felt— fell short, it's, it's good to just like, okay, analyze it from an objective standpoint. Kind of like we talked about that one time where you had your summer knocking doors for solar. It's like, yeah, analyze it objectively. What happened? What didn't happen? Okay. What needs to change moving forward instead of, you know, tying an emotion to it? Learn from it and move on. So I don't know if that if that makes sense there. But something I've experienced this last week, and some of that has to do with, hey, fell short in a competition. I'm sure that, I'm sure that has had an impact on, hey, I'm kind of down on myself in some ways, you know. But at the end of the day, I'm really grateful for everything that I've been given in my life. And it's good to look back and have a big picture perspective on the growth that you have had. I think that helps when we're going through problems is to take a step back and look how far you've come. And that actually gives you more fuel to keep going forward. So just some thoughts I have there on that. But really, I mean, along the way, you know, it talks about feeding my sheep. I think one of the really, a really good way to get through issues is to not worry about yourself so much and help other people. And there's a reason that's there is because if you're really miserable, just go help somebody. You'll probably feel better later.

Yeah, and, uh, man, I can't remember who said it, but I know a lot of people repeat it, um, and that is that if you help enough— if you help enough other people get what they want, you will eventually get what you want. Um, and I don't know, man, I think, I think the world works that way. Um, I think that, you know, whether, whether people want to say it's karma, uh, it's God, it's, uh, the universe, it's the cosmos, it's, it's whatever, um, I think that when we are constantly helping other people obtain what it is that they truly want, it's not just that we do that enough, then eventually someone will come down from, you know, come out of nowhere, come down from the heavens, and then just hand us on a silver platter that thing that we really want. I don't think that's how it works. I think as we are helping other people and we make it a priority to us to help those around us, that we, we change internally in the process and we become clear on what it is that we truly want out of life. And it's that process of development that, that actually, like, it is that process itself that guides us towards what it is that we truly want and puts us in a position to be able to receive it. I mean, so, so we'll go back to door knocking in this case, for example, like you, there are people out there, it may not be their number one priority in life to get rid of the bugs at their house. But it is definitely an inconvenience, to say the least, to have serious bug problems. And so if you're out there helping people get what they want, right, well, you're gonna make money off of it. But also, when you— and you'll be able to explain better on this, right? When you're selling, it's not— you're not— you don't go start a conversation with somebody with the thought, this person is going to make me $250, $500, $700, right? How do you— when you talk to somebody on a door and they come out and you're, you know, you're trying to sell them pest control, what is it that's going through your mind? How do you frame that situation?

If I'm doing it correctly, I'm worried. I'm just focusing on connecting with somebody. Like, that's the way you ought to do that job.

Job.

And I think any job that you're in or any position that you're in, if you just connect with people and get to know them, a lot of things just become— a lot of things like pricing and, you know, a lot of objections just melt away. And that's something that I've noticed. I had a— last Thursday night, I was so frustrated because I wanted to go out and sell 20 accounts and have my 21 accounts and have my biggest day of the summer. And at 5 o'clock, I had sold 4. And so I called my coach. I'm like, look, man, like, I'm not having a meltdown. Like, what the heck's going on, dude? Like, I doing everything right. I'm knocking on the doors and I'm at 4 freaking accounts, man. I'm in the finals of my competition. And, uh, he let me talk longer and I, and I, and I started to solve my problem as I talked. And in one of the conclusions I came to is it's 5 o'clock. I'm not selling 21 accounts. So move on from that, right? Like, like just give up on that and reset, like make an expectation, make a, make a goal that's actually going to be, that's actually going to be, um, like, uh, possible by, by 9:30, right? And so we changed it. We're like, okay, 10 or 12 accounts by the end of the day.

Great.

Um, and that relieved some pressure on me, but the one thing that was happening was that I was so focused on like volume and numbers and numbers and numbers that I did not connect with anybody. And so it was so transactional, right? It was so quick. It was like I was trying to close deals super quick, didn't even get to know people. And so my coach just told me, hey man, like, just go connect with the next person you talk to. That's all I want you to care about. And you'll end up selling them. I guarantee it. I was like, okay, cool. I'll go try this. I'll go do that. Good idea. And I ended up selling the next person and then the two people right after them. Just because I took a step back, I just connected with them. I talked about where where they're from. They're from Venezuela. Joked with them a little bit, talked about food. And while I was at it, I sold them an account. And the next person, I walked up to the dude eating a brownie and I just talked to him for like 5 minutes, like a couple minutes before I actually tried to talk to him about my product, right? But I think just connecting with people is one of the reasons that we're here on earth, right? Like I do believe like if you look from a doctrinal standpoint from like what we believe as members in our church is we are here to be tested and we're here to grow. We're here to learn and become more like God. We cannot do that without roadblocks. We cannot do that without problems. We can't do it without difficulties because that's literally what makes us stronger. It literally what helps us, it helps us grow into better people. Like I've never met anybody that was super duper cool, that was babied their whole life and had everything handed to them. Like, there's just no depth there. And so connecting with other people too is another reason that we're here, because we can— I think when we do have our issues or our problems, some of the times when I'm having rough days, I literally just— the purpose behind the rough day is no longer about me. It's okay, I'm going to get through this rough day so that I can know how to help other people get through rough days down the road. And I think that a lot of issues or like problems in my life, like one of the things my dad always used to say is everything happens for a reason. But I don't think that everything happens for a reason. I think we can put purpose behind everything though. So like, I think that God gives us the opportunity to give things purpose. But there are some very terrible things that happen in this world, like you talked about in the beginning of this podcast. And there's no like, okay, this is the reason that these people died. No, like, we have to give it purpose. We have to give, we have to give those things purpose. And we have to let those things inspire us to act and make changes in our lives and in policies. Like if you're looking at the things going on overseas right now, it's like, changes in policies, changing changes in government changes and how people act like those things happen on a macro scale and on a micro scale. But I think for a general— generally things happen, everything happens for a reason. And if there's no reason, okay, go find a purpose behind it. And a lot of times the purpose, it's an outward purpose. How can I help other people that are dealing with the same issue? That's what I've seen so far.

Yeah, it's funny. My mom says the same thing. She says that she doesn't believe that everything happens for a Austin. Um, and I tend to agree with that because we're— I believe, you know, we were put here on, on this earth, but we were put on an imperfect earth. A fallen world is what it was referred to, right? That, uh, that Adam and Eve were cast out of the presence of God, out of, out of the Garden of Eden, into a world where they were commanded, where they were told, you know, Adam, you're gonna have to work every single day to, you know, plow the fields, to rip out the weeds, and to make bread. And you will, by the sweat of your brow, you are going to live off that. Like, that's, that is what's gonna have to happen in order for you just to get to tomorrow. It is always going to be an uphill battle from the beginning, from the, from the very first day. And then Eve says, you know, labor is going to be miserable and having kids is going to be incredibly difficult.

I thought my wife was, I thought my wife was gonna die. I was like, we're in the, we're in the room and I'm like, okay, like, this is my fault.

Um, And if it, dude, if it wasn't for an epidural, like, like that is, that is one of the most, that was one of the most like terrifying versions of my wife I've ever seen was pre-epidural in labor, Mauritius. It was, it was terrifying. Uh, after that, things were so much better. So thank the heavens for modern medicine. But, but this, this is where this is actually one of the topics that we, that we wanted to cover on this, on this subject, right? We come into a fallen, terrible world. Where natural disasters happen all the time. Animal species go extinct and has nothing— and a lot of them have nothing to do with people, right? It's not like we're just going out and killing animals. And then there are all sorts of stuff that we don't intend to happen. Every action that, you know, that takes place in this world has some sort of consequence to it. And I don't know if you've watched— have you watched The Good Place, the TV show?

I've started watching some of it. Isn't that where a dude ends up in heaven and he should have gone to hell or something like that?

Or like, it's a, it's a girl.

Yeah. Uh, okay.

And it's, yeah, it's, it's a hilarious show. There's one part, one part in it where they have like a score of like how much, uh, how, how good your decision was and how bad it was. And, and like someone goes to the store, they buy a tomato and it shows up and it's like a negative 10 or something like that. And they're like, how is buying a tomato a negative effect? And then they go into it like, well, uh, the pesticides used to, to grow that plant, to keep the bugs off of it, have this negative effect on them. And, you know, a person who was picking it is underpaid by X number of dollars. So really what you're doing is supporting it. And it was like so convoluted that— and the, the consensus on that episode was there's nothing you could do that has, you know, zero consequences to it.

Nothing. Yeah.

But that doesn't mean we stop doing things. It means we've got to figure out ways to mitigate negative consequences and to make things worth whatever cost it is that, that is going to come along with it. And that's, and that's the big question that, that you actually brought up that we should talk about. And, uh, in Ed Mylett's, uh, one of his most recent episodes on his podcast Austin Maser, he says that we always talk about what's the cost? What is the cost, right? What is the financial cost of raising a child? I don't know, there's studies that show it's going to cost you, I don't know, $300,000 to raise your child over the course of X number of years. And if they go to college or you pay for it, then $500,000 or these absurd numbers. And yeah, we could maybe try to come up with some sort of calculated cost of exactly how much X thing is going to cost us, whether it's dollars or what is the the mental or emotional cost of all these things. What's the cost of carrying this cross? Well, you know, XYZ, blah, blah, blah. But the question that we really should be asking is, will it be worth it? Will it be worth, you know, I believe it would be worth any amount of money to raise a child. Like, I believe it because we were put here on this earth to raise families and to raise good people. And to continue on, like in our pursuing of the goal of becoming like God, we, like family is essential. We believe that we are God's children and like part of mimicking and imitating who God is and what he does is to have families and to raise children and to raise these children so that they can grow out and be a multiplying effect for good. Around the world. And so like, is that worth the cost? I don't, I don't know what the cost, I have no idea what the cost is of having children. And when, before we got, before we had Talitha, we had no idea what it was really going to cost us. We did our best to forecast some numbers. We did our best to, you know, we knew, okay, for a couple of months, we're not going to get a lot of sleep, this, that, and the other, but, you know, we're not going to stop having the baby. Like we're going to have the baby and we're going to give it purpose. We're going to, um, we believe this one is happening for a reason, but also we're going to give this cost, this, all the, the negative sides of this, we're going to give it purpose because ultimately, like, children are, um, like, they, they are the direct connection to the divine. They are a direct, you know, uh, window into heaven. And we see that every single day. And I think it is so incredibly important for us to have children and to, you know, and to propagate the, the, the human species and God's children.

I like that. I, I mean, when we, when we start asking, will something be worth it, the cost almost becomes irrelevant, and we just go for it. But I think when we, when we sit there and we, I don't know, I, when I go to the grocery store, it's like, if I want something, I'm just, and I think it'll be worth it, I just grab it. And so I want to, one of the reasons Ed Mylett shared this is because instead of just negotiating what the cost is on everything, start making your decisions on, is it worth it? And that's something how I've always made this decisions that way with my purchasing, because I'm just like, well, is it going to be worth it? Is it going to last me a long time? Great. I'm going to do that one instead. I'm not going to try to save a dollar or $20. It's like, no, is it going to be worth it? But aside from the financials, because I'm not the best saver, and Kaia will be the first one to tell you that, I think not just on financial decisions, but just decisions on— you know, who you marry, if you're going to have kids, where you're going to live, what you're going to do for work. And if you're in the pursuit of a goal, will it be worth it to hit your goal? Okay, if it is, then keep going. But instead of worrying about the cost, like, instead of worrying about the cost, start talking about, is it worth it? And if it is worth it, keep going. Those, those, that has gotten me through, like last year after I had hit hit 1,000 accounts. There were— there was a time where I was like, I'm done. And then I had a number in my mind where I'm like, well, I could hit that. I could hit 550,000 serviced. And will it be worth it? And the answer was yes, it'll be worth it. Because I'll get a— I'll get a pay raise and I'll be able to purchase a deck for my family. Will the deck be worth it? Yes, we're going to make so many memories on the deck. So we built, you know, this just sharing something from last summer. But that's a great way to work through problems is, is it worth it to get through this? Yes. Okay, well then keep going. And I think a lot of times we've got to, we've got to ask ourselves, like, how do we view our problems? Are things happening to us or for us? And I do believe that life happens for us. The one thing we've got to be careful with is I think when people are going through problems and people are grieving, it's like, it's not the best to be like, 'Come on, man, this is happening for you.' No one wants to hear that when a family member's died, right? That's—

yeah, that is the last thing they want to be hearing, dude.

Yeah, it's, it's not— you got to be tactical. There's some emotional intelligence that comes in here and giving people space. But ultimately, I think in order to work through problems like that, you've got to come to the point where you're— where it's happened for you. And I I have seen, like, my parents' divorce. I really believe that that happened for me so that I can— did I grew so much as a person, my family grew double. My mom, my mom's boyfriend's family is like, amazing. Got to know them. My stepmom's family is amazing. And like, my life would not be the same without them. I would not be— have had it not been for moving around in the military every some odd years, I probably wouldn't be as social as I am right now. And have the ability to make friends. So it's, there's a lot of good that has come out of literally my parents' divorce. They got married, or, you know, two different people, and now my life is better because of that. Life happened for me. And so it's easier to see this, like, hindsight's 20/20. But I think it's good to know that Maybe not everything happens for a reason, but we can give it a purpose. And so looking back, I've given a lot of things in my life purpose because I can't, I can't tell you the reason why my dad passed away. I don't know the reason dad passed, died, but I do know that I've given it a purpose to be more present with my daughter because I know that this life, like tomorrow isn't guaranteed. So that's enough for me. Like I don't need the reason. Reason. Like, in fact, when I go up to heaven, you know, when I see God, I'm not gonna be like, why did Dad die? It's like, no, like, like, and maybe, maybe there will be a reason, but I, I think that my cross to carry is giving something purpose and, um, and living and, and, and living with that purpose and letting it change who I am and change me for the better. So yeah, a lot of times our burdens turn into blessings, I think.

Um, yeah, well, and, um, yeah, I know I wanted to, to just piggyback on that. Like, do I— would I rather have, um, what would I rather have had? Uh, my dad not be a drug addict, my dad not lie to my mom and to our family for many years. Would I rather have had my parents gets, you know, get to stay together and live a long, happy marriage, and to get to retire the way that they plan to, and to live the, you know, the full life together that they plan to, and to have, you know, a big happy family, you know, that didn't splinter in the way that it did like that. Like, yes, obviously, yes, like, that's like a no-brainer. But things played out the way that they did. And I believe that God God has helped us to put— like, God has given some aspects of that purpose. Like, he did that. And then there are other aspects of it that we are required to give purpose. So one quick story as we wrap up here about God giving a purpose to some of this tragedy in the family was, you know, when we were living in Chile now, geez, like 6, 6 years ago, we got back 6 years ago. So yeah, just about 6, 7 years ago. I, it took me, it took me a year and a half or so to really, to really work through my parents separating and finding out the discovery of all sorts of, you know, years and years of lies and deceit and issues and drug raids and, and all this stuff with my dad. And it took me a long time to process a lot of that and to come to grips with, you know, there's a new normal. We have a new family. Things are going to be different when I go home. And I am okay with that. And, you know, it was this enormous burden lifted off my shoulders when I came to that realization. And I remember when President— we were going to have companion changes and normally, like my— normally me in that situation, I should have left the area and my companion should have stayed there. But instead my companion left. And it was kind of like a surprise, like, oh, like, you know, companion's gonna leave. Okay, well, you know, get a companion. Well, then the housemates that we had, because there are 4 of us living in the house. Well, our housemate was getting a brand new missionary who had, and President pulled me aside and he said, hey, there's a new missionary who's coming into your area. I don't remember what house he's living in and whatnot. But his dad is, um, his dad's an alcoholic and he has a feeling his parents are going to get divorced while he's out here. And he could really use, um, to benefit from, from some of your, some of your stories and some of your experience, um, and your ability to, to empathize in this very specific issue. And I said, uh, which, which missionary is it? And he, he gave me the name and I said, President, I'm living with him. Like, he's moving into our house. And President teared up, and he said something to the effect of, "God really loves all of his children." And I remember thinking how crazy that I just spent the last, I don't know, 18, 19 months, however long it was, working through a very, very trying time. And then to finally feel like I've emerged from the ashes a new person, and into our house moves a kid who's effectively in in a very similar situation, but at the beginning of the trial, like prior to the obstacle itself. And we got to live together for 6 months. And he and I had all sorts of incredible conversations where I got a chance to really kind of help him process and to hear him and for him to know that he could share these things with someone who understands extremely well some of the nuances of, you know, your parents splitting up because of an addiction of one of your parents. And so I think that was just such a mind-blowing example of God giving purpose to some of the tragedies of our lives. And then so many other things, and we don't have time to sit and talk about them all, but we could look at these experiences and think, you know, woe is me. You know, my life sucks because this happened, because my dad did this, because my mom did that, because so-and-so betrayed me, and because this person did that, like, I will never be able to rise up. The system is designed against me. The system doesn't like my kind of people. This isn't the, you know, the system is against me. So I will just have to sit here and accept whatever it is that life throws at me. Yeah, I think that's a terrible way to live. An absolutely terrible way to live because what you're doing is giving up the agency that God has given you. And you are saying, I am not able to do anything. And I'm going to sit here and wait until somebody else comes and changes my life until somebody else fixes their crap, then I will be able to, you know, to move on. And that is, that's contrary to what the scripture is saying. The scripture says, arise and gird up your loins, take up your cross, follow me and feed my sheep. Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what the system says. It doesn't matter what you think it is or what form or color or variation of victim that you are. We got to get up today. Like, forget yesterday. Forget everything that's happened already. We got to get up today. We got to take up what we got. Okay, get ourselves ready, take up whatever it is that we got, whatever situation we're currently in, pick it up and go. Pick it up and pursue the ideal. Pick it up and pursue the path that Jesus has followed, that Jesus has laid out for us. To get up and to strive every day to help the people around you, to make your life better, to improve, to repent of all of the terrible things that you've done in your life, and to move forward, to be graceful to other people, to show mercy to other people. People, to help others when they need it. And then that's it. And that's the direction that we're trying to go. And I think that is the path towards fulfillment and towards lasting, true, lasting, meaningful happiness.

Yeah, I think as— and I just love the— that you tied it into just not giving up your happiness to other people. Because if our happiness were dependent upon other people, we would be miserable all the time. Like, it is really up to us how we— our mindsets, like how we view our lives, determine our lives, I believe. Like, that's why, you know, my company— I didn't get to go last year, but my company went on a mission trip and they were helping these guys down, these kids down in Colombia. Some of like the freaking happiest kids in the world. And because they just were grateful for what they had. And they lived in terrible conditions, but it was just, they were just grateful for what they had. And I think sometimes we can fall into the trap of comparing ourselves with other people, or we can fall into the trap of giving up our agency. To somebody else to fix our problems. And it's like, no, like, you've got to— where you are in life is a direct— it's a, it's a result of the choices and the decisions that you've made up to this point in your life. So just take responsibility for it and move forward if you want it to be different. Your bank account, how much you have in your bank account, that's a direct correlate— it's indirect. That is because of how you have spent your money or saved your money. That is, that number is because of how the choices you've made. Your, your weight, your health, that is to an extent because of the choices that you've made. And so you can change it though. Don't live your whole life saying, well, because of my genetics, I can't do a workout, or I can't eat healthy. No, you can, you can do that, you know. But I think it's really good to just give ourselves an audit of our thoughts and to ask ourselves, like, do these thoughts actually serve me? There's a lot of times where I catch my thoughts and I say, oh, this thought does not serve me. It is not empowering me. It's just not helping me. So I'm going to change the thought. And instead of self-talking, like I have experienced some pretty like negative self-talk on the doors as well. It's one of the reasons I like my job because I've become hyper-aware, hyper-aware of my internal dialogue. And if I catch myself beating myself up, like, man, you don't know how to do this job, or man, you don't, you don't deserve to be in the spot that you're in. Like, I just say, hey, hold up, hold up. Wait a minute. Like, is this thought serving me? No. Okay, well, I'm going to move on and replace it with something else. And so if you're in a spot right now where you're like, have this victimization, like victimization ideology where you're like, you're stuck in the rut because of this person did this to you, or you're in the Uncle Rico, like, hey, I was going to be the star quarterback, but the coach didn't put me in. Dude, like, that stuff's real though. Like, that people actually live that their whole lives, but not as blatantly goofy as Uncle Rico from like Napoleon Dynamite. But there are variations of that same story in everybody's lives, and it's worth going through and auditing and figuring out like, no, like, I am where I am because I chose to be where I am, and, uh, take responsibility for it. Yeah, so that's, that's kind of the vibe I got from what you just said there.

Yeah, well, and even if you didn't choose exactly where you were, you didn't choose how much you weigh, and you didn't choose the, the circumstances that were, that were thrown upon you. Like, like, my grandpa had a business partner who ran away with all the money and left my grandpa without anything in, in this business. Like, That kind of stuff happens. Like, tragedy is real. This world is fallen and terrible things happen all the time. But you are where you are. And there's nothing, there's nothing we can do about that right now. Or yeah, up until today, there's nothing we can do about it. So, you know, maybe, maybe you're here because you, you made some bad choices. That is very possible. And I'm sure that no matter what, there are some decisions that we have made that have put us where we are. And if we're unhappy with that, well, maybe, maybe we made bad choices, or maybe we didn't make any choices. Maybe we've been living in drift. Maybe we've been just letting life happen to us up until this point. And that's why we are where we are. And it's not a sin of commission, but a sin of omission. We just haven't done anything to change where we, what direction we were headed in. So of course we're going to end up here.

Well, yeah.

So whichever combination of sins of commission and omission, like we are where we are. The only thing we can do about it is to start doing something different today, to arise, to gird up your loins, to take up your cross, and to follow the ideal and to feed the sheep, right? To help the people around us. And that is the solution. I think that is the path. So anyway, we got to wrap up.

I love it.

Because both of us got to go. Austin, dude, I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation and get this episode out. I'm excited. We've been getting a lot of really positive feedback from lots of people. So thank you, everybody., who's reached out to us, um, to give us, give us positive feedback. And I know we've had a couple audio issues with some episodes being louder and quieter than other ones, and that is currently something in the works. Uh, a lot of episodes Austin and I are not in the same, uh, in our, in our normal usual recording locations. And so, you know, fighting the background noise and the children and all of that is a real, real struggle.

Or country. Sometimes we're in different countries and states.

That's like most of the time. We're not— this is good.

We got to start the podcast with, uh, where's Jared?

Um, so dude, I throw up a website and have like a map and, you know, just today's episode brought to you by X Country. So, um, anyway, Austin, thanks so much for being able to have this conversation. And, uh, we'll be catching up soon, man. I'm pretty excited.

Until next month.

Thank you, everybody.