Definitions of Success

Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke and this is the Uncut Podcast where we have uncut, honest conversations

about faith, life, and ministry.

We're sitting down to have this conversation today and Cameron, you said you had a question.

So I'm going to let you take over.

So it comes from, well, let's back up a little bit. I do have a question.

I do have a question. But I'm gonna, we'll preface it by saying we forever have, not the argument, but the

discussion as to who can do audio books and who cannot do audio books.

Right? I hear a lot of people, and they're always like, oh, I read that book, and I read that

book, and I read that book, and I read that book, and I read that book, and I read that

book. And I'm like, where do you get the time to sit down and read these books?

What they mean is, I listened to that book while I was driving, or vacuuming, or running on the

treadmill, or whatever. And I have always been not a person that can really do audiobooks. I,

I wish I could, but I don't ever have the focused time where I can sit down and actually listen to them.

And then there's just something about, I think I have this very deep seated latent fear that

if I don't have the actual physical book in front of me that I can underline, I'm going

to miss something or forget it or something like that.

Were you like the guy in class who wanted to get everything down in your notes kinda yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yep.

But I also recognize that I don't digest as much material as others do because of that.

And so trying to change that and it's like, okay, well, what are the, when do I act?

When do, when do I have any time? One time that I have like time where I don't normally need to think too much is when I'm

at the gym, not jujitsu, right?

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. trying to choke you out. Yeah, correct.

You're not listening. I can't have someone in my ears listening to...

Not listen to the seven habits of highly effective people while someone's got you in

a chokehold. No, the art of war.

But I go to the gym a couple of times a week in the mornings.

And so I was like, okay, I have Audible, got lots of credits on it, download a few books.

And so I started, um, this week, one of the books that we were introduced to at, um, GLS

up that you are also reading that, um, the director of operations, Jessica Conduit is also reading.

So, okay. So that's the book that I will read, but we're going to change that language. All right.

Cause you're not reading anything. Anyway, so I downloaded it and started listening to it.

Mm-hmm.

It's good. It's a good book. Leveling Up by Ryan Leak.

Yep. I really recommend it.

So the question that I want to ask you... He's got some heavy-hitting questions in there.

So I'm like sitting here like, I've read a couple chapters of the book and I'm like,

question is he going to ask? That's pretty much the first one. Yeah. Pretty much the first question.

Right? And he does ask some pretty good questions, but what?

Is Success Mm-hmm according to Luke Miller It's a hard question,

And we have to answer it according to Luke Miller. Yeah, we're according to Cameron Lightheart. Mm-hmm, right? Yeah, because.

Everyone's Definition Is different. Mm-hmm and it changes over time. Yeah, or it can change over time. I guess I should say Yeah, you know,

He gives a couple examples in the book about how the definition of success that he had when he was a kid,

was that you had a,

Unlimited minutes on your cell phone, right?

Yeah, if you were rich enough to have that because AT&T lets you talk Free after 7 Verizon free after 9 and then there were some people who had unlimited,

Yeah, right. You could talk as much as you wanted to I I remember friends getting grounded for months

because they went over their minutes during certain hours or whatever and like racking up hundreds of dollars

on their parents' cell phone bill.

Yeah, I remember when it was a really like, I was like, wow, when there was,

especially my wife's family at the time had call waiting on their landline.

So when you called in, it didn't ring busy.

It actually rang, but you got a little beep if you were talking on the phone

But let you know you had another call in you could click out of one call and come and do another

Did you did they have like waiting music? No? No, I was just ring the phone was ringing.

If you were on the phone it would beep in your ear beep so you knew you know another call coming in Wow,

Fans you never experienced call waiting on a landline. No, I don't think we,

I you weren't very successful. No,

Also, we probably just weren't that popular Anyway, I thought it was super cool,

And so he gives some examples of what it success meant for him as a kid.

But the whole point here is like, okay, how are we It's pretty difficult to determine a direction for anything in life that you want to pursue level up in. Yeah without a

definition of success. So if you had to begin to define what it means, what success is,

let's say professionally, as a pastor, and personally, as a person, what would it be for you?

So, this is, it's a really interesting question because I've really wrestled with, like, where

Where does ambition sit in the life of a pastor?

Like, that's always been an interesting question for me to try and wrestle with, of like,

is this something I feel called to? Is this something I just want to do? Is this something

that like, is it okay to want to pursue whatever kind of success is? Like, is it okay to have

ambition inside of my professional life, which is also my ministry life? You know, there's always

been that. So I've kind of, I've wrestled with that.

Yeah, because ambition and that can look a lot like pride. Yeah.

Or self-centeredness or materialism or whatever. Right. And so that's kind of, I'm like, huh. And that's always been actually a question that I've

had to like, I've been bouncing back and forth in my, in myself. Anytime I've wrestled with like

goals or things like that that I've wanted to do on a larger scale in my professional life, I've always been like, am I

allowed to want to pursue that? That's always been a question.

Of the I've like, just personally asked myself, I'm just like, is this, is this just pride? Or is this something

that like, I actually want to or ought to be doing, you know, so

that's always so when I read the book, and I was like, listen to the book? No, I was reading it, actually. I actually have a paper copy of it. My wife is

listening to it, but I am actually physically reading it. I was reading it very diligently,

and I kind of stopped here the last couple days. And so, getting into that chapter and

sitting there and trying to think, okay, and he has a really

good paradigm because he's not he's, he really tries to encourage you away from naming, like, an achievement,

necessarily your success, but kind of you pursuing after qualities and pursuing after, you know, being a type of

person. It kind of tries to kind of break down the, because

that's the whole point of that illustration, right? Is that.

Well, if you were pursuing, like, a cell phone of unlimited minutes, and you got it, well, now that seems like a really

silly achievement. Right? And so what would be, you know, you.

You know, like thinking about this, like.

You know, this podcast, you know, we're like, Oh, well, like, let's pursue so many people listening

to this podcast, which like, might be a goal that we pursue. But if that's the ultimate goal,

that's the main thing we go after. In, I don't know, 20 years when nobody listens

to podcasts anymore, and everything's just downloaded into our brain, like,

Like, all right, I'll chill my existentialism.

And you know, we're at that place like, and we're like, oh yeah, we had this podcast with

so many listeners and people be like, so like, well, having a successful podcast be a silly

thing in the future, right?

And so what would be a better goal for it?

Perhaps a better goal would be to have anyone who listens to this podcast benefit from it. That would be a better goal or something like that. So anyways,

I'm just dodging the question you asked me is all I'm actually doing.

All right, so some of the things I kind of put down professionally and have been

kind of some of my somewhat professional goals, is I've really wanted to explore.

Becoming a better writer and preacher. I feel like.

Those, particularly preaching, has been a thing that has been kind of a a significant gift that has been affirmed in my life throughout years, even as I was pursuing

ministry while I was in Bible college, I would have professors who would pull me aside and say

things like, you need to make sure that you get into a position where you get to preach. You need

to continue to steward that gift. And so, and they hear lots of people preaching.

Sure.

So, they don't just say that to everybody, I'm assuming. I don't know. Maybe they're all just

in conspiracy, but... So, that and preaching, like, is kind of a brother, at least in my mind,

has a lot of brotherly relationship with writing in that, like, if you're writing good sermons,

you are, in some sense, you're writing. So, there's some differences, obviously.

But, so yeah, that too, is the way I kind of formulated it was to be be a writer or a preacher worth listening to.

Like, how could I pursue, you know, so that like, what I like, beneficial to those who

listen or to who those who would potentially read anything I wrote.

And so like, that's been a big, overarching goal over the last, like, particularly this

year, I set at the beginning of the year, I kind of was like, what would it look like

if I leaned into sharpening some of my preaching skills a little bit. I grabbed an online preaching,

course, master class type thing, which I've made partway through and it's been really just good,

encouraging, and kind of helped me focus in on some, oh, I had never thought of that particular

point before. So I guess professionally that's like one thing that seems particularly clear,

that seems clear. And then the other piece, I guess, that has always been is just to.

Execute the office of being a pastor faithfully, right? Because I remember reading before I was

as a pastor, like reading the statistics on how many people either quit, fail,

like get disqualified out of the pastorship. And it was a pretty high statistic. And so it's not a

profession or a calling that a lot of people finish with. There's a high dropout rate.

Or finish well. Or finish well. Yeah, that's even a higher percentage. And so

So want to, for me, finish well over the long haul to be faithful.

I think one of the things that we were doing like a leadership class last year, and you

had us do everybody, you encouraged everybody to do an exercise of like, what would you

want people to say at your funeral?

Which was like a heavy question.

Everybody really felt the weight of that question.

Which is really a Stephen Covey question.

Yeah. So, and I was like, okay, like, and for me, the way that that plays out

is even more than faithful pastor, when more than a like writer or preacher worth listening to

would be like, he impacted my life in some positive way.

Like that would be, that would be the thing is to have positive impact on people's life,

like a lasting impact.

Like, I mean, you shouldn't be a pastor if you don't wanna help people.

You know, so, um, so I guess those would be kind of like the professional markers of success for me.

Um, and maybe I need to kind of level those down to maybe some smaller goals that aren't like, I don't know, like so long term, but those are kind of the, where that kind of sits for me personally, like I'm in my first year of marriage.

And so, I'm still acclimating to being married and doing life differently, because up until

now, my personal goal has been to get married or be successfully single, to be single well,

which there's a whole podcast episode for you.

And so now it's been like, okay, what does it look like to be a husband that my wife

can depend upon to get things taken care of or done when she needs them to be done or

to be anticipating that, to take care of and provide for a family well.

So all of that is relatively new, not new in that I've never thought about it, but new

in its reality to me a little bit.

So yeah, I think that's kind of like, right now, like I would say probably the big one

is to, my goal would be to be a husband who can be kind of relied upon with high confidence.

That's kind of where that kind of sits for me, I think. Yeah, it must be a, I'm sure that it's a, the question is big, but especially in your

personal life, you know, coming to the, coming to a, like a,

There's not many to it.

Transitional moments in personal life that are much bigger than getting married no it was a significant hinge point i went to bed by myself one night for the last.

I'm well or went to bed as a single guy for the last time you know and so.

That i went home with someone that was radically different like surprise yes and and she hasn't left so. It's very good.

And so, but that, yeah, that's made a significant impact. And I guess like, even as I'm thinking

about the question more broadly, because that has been such a massive.

A massive shift, one of the things I've been, that's been a challenge personally,

is to continue to prioritize like, my healthy friendships that I've built while I was single.

To not let those necessarily go to the wayside, which is a very, very natural thing to have happen,

even when you're dating someone seriously, right?

People will moan, oh, where did he go? Like he got, you know, there's all those jokes

that men will say about other men who went, go and spend time with like their fiance

or girlfriend or wife and things like that.

And there's some unhealthiness to that. We don't want to rag people for being faithful,

to the person they make a covenant with.

At the same time, we're not in covenants with our friends, we're not in covenants with our wives.

No, like one of you has a covenant with the Lord with the other person, so don't, you know,

don't prioritize boys' night out over, you know, being faithful to your wife, but at the same time,

like, a healthy marriage thrives when partners have friends and relationships,

And so like trying to keep that in mind that part of the part of me part of the

the Luke, that Oksana.

Liked, fell in love with, is the Luke who had good friends who were supporting him and

he was interacting with, like, that was part of who she fell in love with. And if I let

that go aside, I'm not just missing fun times, I'm missing support, relational connection,

places where I'm getting my needs met, I'm caring for other people, and that all is positive

of things I get to bring into my marriage relationship.

So thinking through like also not just being a faithful husband but also being a faithful friend

in that capacity too of making sure that those, they don't eclipse each other but get to help one another.

I wanna go back to your professional goals and specifically around like being a writer or a preacher,

that is worth listening to or worth reading.

Like how do you imagine that you would gauge or measure what it means to be worth?

I don't know. Cause that's a really relative, like I literally came up with that phrase

like two weeks ago. So it hasn't sat in my brain very much.

So I don't know exactly what that, Other than just knowing that I'm sharpening my axe well.

Well, like that I'm like like because I I want to,

There's a book on my shelf that's a fantastic book. It's called Caring for Words in a World

of Lies. It's a book about writing. It's about words, sentences, phrases, and it talks about

how we use language and what's the ethics over how we use language. Like, am I just using language

in order to cajole, convince, to get something from someone.

Am I selling you something and I'm trying to just get it from you?

Or am I engaging in words and language in a way that's like, actually treats you as an other,

and we get to partake in this and have a true conversation. So it's reflections and stuff like that.

So like, I want to read that. want to look at some books of like, um, I'd love to find like a resource that

analyzes how CS Lewis wrote sentences.

Cause he wrote really good sentences. Like if you want to get, if you want to get technical, like on the

technical side of writing, like, like Lewis was a master at writing excellent

sentences, like he really was good at that.

And so like thinking through like, okay, how do I, at the sentence level, craft a good sentence, not just a MLA approved

sentence that will make my teacher happy, but is something that someone can read.

So I guess there is a little bit of doing some judging myself,

kind of pursuing some of those technical aspects to see what can I learn and what can I do to practice and be that.

And then the other thing I would say like speak and write things that are worth that I know are worth listening to

or I myself have found beneficial in my own soul right like I shouldn't I

shouldn't write something that I myself wouldn't read wouldn't read or doesn't

or don't think is like beneficial like or or isn't contributing to the

conversation in a meaningful way. And so like that, you know. Do you feel like you

have a different writing voice than you have a, let's say, preaching or speaking

voice like when you write what kind of voice do you feel like you

They're probably pretty similar, if for no other reason, because I've mostly just been

writing sermons, you know, like, and even in my sermon writing, when I manuscript, I

do sort of just let form and structure kind of go, because in, like, preaching, like a.

Really strong way to make a point is to do that bulleted list thing, and the Lord was with them

in the water and in the fire. That's a really strong rhetorical thing to do when you're.

Speaking, but doesn't translate very well into the written word. That's a little bit harder to do.

So, when I myself am writing a sermon, I'll kind of break what would be good written form

in order to just write purely for the hearing. Because that's the primary,

space where that's going to be used. I'm certainly by no means like a John Piper. Like, if you ever,

listen to John Piper, you could as might as well just read him. Because he manuscripts,

like his book writing is his preaching and so if you you were to ever read a

manuscript of his you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a book he

had written or a sermon he'd preached. It's a smart use of his intellectual,

energy. Absolutely I mean and that's I mean that's who he that's how he's gifted right he's you know Dr. Piper you know like he's and that's how he

he does it, you know, but for me, I just, I'm, I'm, I'm not,

I'm not smart enough to be an academic preacher or I'm not Like, like, I don't think I could.

You are, it's just not how you choose. It's just, yeah, yeah. It's just not my, it's just not my, it's not my jam.

So, but Piper also thinks you shouldn't tell jokes in her sermons.

Yeah, well, Piper's a...

Brother in Christ. He's a brother in Christ. I don't always agree with him either, but have benefited from him.

Um, so, so yeah, that's kind of, you know, I think there's a little bit of the

question of like, I don't know, I guess like the, the other, the unanswered or

the untouched question, I think you were, your original question was getting at is

like, is there a num numeric value behind like how many people would read or listen?

No, no, no. Okay. I, I, I mean, because there are, you know, I have similar,

I have similar definitions of success.

I think mine have changed over the years.

I wouldn't say that there, you know, I don't want to say like from a patron,

I don't want to say it so patronizingly,

I don't want it to sound patronizing when I say that now I've been preaching

for 18, almost 19 years now.

And in the span of that preaching, you do a lot of writing and you do a lot of reading,

and your gift changes and the way that you preach changes changes and the way that you view preaching changes and how you preach.

Everything changes. you're kind of in an evolution.

So, no, I don't think that I, there's not, not looking for a numeric number or anything

like that because, you know, I also like have a similar desire to write.

I think, um, I think actually that I am probably a better writer than I am a speaker.

I think that it just works better for me.

I feel like I'm a better writer than I am a speaker. But one of the big questions has always been,

would you write if no one read it?

And I think you become a, you have the heart of a writer when the answer is yes.

I would write if no one read it, because the reason I write is because there's something,

God has planted something inside of me, and this is the way to get it out. Now obviously.

I think every writer wants to be read. I want to be read as I write. But I don't think that

success, no, is measured in any number of readers or listeners or anything like that. I think that's

actually a fairly poor definition of success because it stands kind of in the same place.

As everything else. Well, okay, so if you say that I have a goal of being a writer that sells

10,000 books, what happens when you sell 10,000 books? Are you done writing at that point? Or do

you understand the task of writing or the goal of writing to be something different than numeric?

Which was the root of my further question about what does it mean to be a writer worth reading?

Yeah, because when you look at, like view Google, and you go and look at some of the

stuff that like, what does it take to be a New York Times bestseller?

Your church has to buy thousands of books and put them in the closet here.

Yeah, I think you have to sell upwards of $5,000 or 5,000 copies in one day or something like that,

that, which is a massive amount of books to move in a single day.

And like, in order to do that, there has to be such a marketing machine behind you.

It's, it's a little bit like, and, and sometimes like this is, this is the other

thing too, is that you have to be willing to write the book that will sell, not the

book that you maybe want to write or want to read or feel like you ought to write.

And so you very quickly will, you know, you can chase the number, but is that what you want?

Right? At the end of the day. Right.

It's necessarily what I want. And besides the best advice I saw was like if you

want to sell a lot of books like you should just be a good writer. Yeah. Like

focus on that and if that follows then good for you. But like you know that kind

of. You need to write about things that you want to write about. Right. I can't I can't

tell you how difficult it is to preach about things I don't want to preach about. Yeah. Right? It's impossible. You really can't as a preacher. And so to, you.

Know, imagine writing about something that you don't want to write about or

something that you don't have passion for or not interested in or haven't experienced or something like that. It's a really just difficult, trodding type of,

work. Yeah, you end up having to, you have to push through the resistance, which

might be your flesh, or might be our, like, yeah, might be any number of things.

So, but, so what then are your, what, do you want to be a writer, or how do you

conceptualize, is that how, is that one of the big things that you conceptualize

like a goal of success in your professional life? What? No, I don't. I,

I think that writing can be a tool that is used.

To pursue how I feel about what success is.

Because to use the funeral analogy again.

I think it's an important analogy and simply because it does,

I think it does get down to the root of what we want to be known for.

Yeah. And that's really what you're talking about with success.

What are you going to be known for? Yep.

Right. And there's really two places that I want to be known for, or to be known.

I want to be known in heaven.

And I want to be known in the lives, minds, hearts, and memories of my wife and my kids.

And then by extension, my grandkids.

I was thinking about this as I was,

beating the pavement of the treadmill this morning. How would I articulate what really is my truest heart,

desire for my ministry and my calling?

And you know I would say like first personally is you know he he made some Ryan leak made some kind

of reference to you know if someday your Thanksgiving table is empty mm-hmm you probably

have not reached any worthwhile level of success.

And I was thinking, how would I articulate,

what I feel in my soul about wanting to be a success in my personal life?

And the only way that I really can feel like I want, like I could say at this point,

and it's really young and fresh, and probably it's not, probably wouldn't change

if I had some time to sit with it,

is I, success for me would be.

To be the greatest example of the character of Jesus the character of Jesus that my kids and my wife have ever seen.

Hmm. I remember growing. I remember not growing. I remember in college we sat in a dorm room a bunch of guys and we were like kind of asking the question who is the,

Person that in your life that is most like Jesus,

All right, and I didn't have anyone hmm I'm like, I don't really know. I was like probably my grandma,

But like there was no one that was like stood out, stood out.

That was like, yeah, like they encapsulate the life of Christ.

And I remember my roommate, one of the guys that I played soccer with, was like, my dad.

Hmm, my dad. And I remember that very vividly. And I felt like something clicked in me at that

moment where I was like, if my son doesn't say that about me, I failed. Hmm. Yeah. You know.

If my daughters can't say about their husbands, if you don't love Jesus as much as my dad does,

if you're not as gentle, if you're not as kind, if you're not as compassionate and merciful and

forgiving and loving, if you're not as strong, if you're not as protecting, if you're not as just,

then I got no time for you. And my son, I want him to be able to look at me and say,

my dad truly walked with the Lord and had the character of Christ when I'm not in the room.

You know, you'll say that when I'm not in the room and mean it.

And then same thing with my wife, like my husband sacrificed himself for me and surrendered

his own, the things that he wanted in life for me and loved me like Christ loved the

church and gave himself up for her and treated me with gentleness and respect and leadership

and compassion and strength and provision and all of those things.

And then, so like I feel like for me, that is the, like that's the,

if I failed at every other thing.

Like if I got those things, if I got that right, I don't know how I could see it as anything but

success. Because then the measure of who we are extends, we no longer then personally become the

the cap of our influence.

Because it gets pushed down a generational line where my kids don't have to fight against

the brokenness of their home in order to disciple their kids to Jesus because it just flows out of them

as a just a natural thing,

because it flowed out of their dad and poured into them and poured into their kids.

Well, how many people can we even sit here and think of who had all the other kind of measures of success

we could think of, but then either posthumously or later in life, their family rats them out

as like, yeah, you think my dad's great,

but you didn't see how much of a terror he was at home.

And then all of a sudden all of that success.

Doesn't mean anything because the people who knew him best say that was a sham,

Yeah Oh Professionally speaking I,

Do have I mean I do have ambitions to be an excellent writer, to be a pastor of pastors. But similar to the personal,

is like I was searching for language for this earlier today, and I was like,

how would I describe that?

And within the context or within the reality that we as pastors are not responsible

for people's salvation. Yep.

Right, that the Lord is the one that works the salvation unto others. Right.

And it's the Lord that saves, it's not us that saves. Right, as much as we joke, we can't drag them into heaven. Exactly.

Yeah. Right. But we have a role. Yeah.

Obviously, we have a role. Right. You know?

And I, um, I.

Try and find the language for it. Success for me would be to have to be known in the salvation

timeline of a stadium full of people. So people come and go out of your life as pastors, as

friends or whatever. And there are people that maybe sat under my leadership or sat under my

preaching as congregants of mine in past churches or even the church that I'm currently in who I'm

no longer their pastor for whatever reason. But maybe they came to know Christ in the ministry

that I was leading or responded to the Holy Spirit after I preached a particular sermon

and the Lord moved on their heart and they responded in that moment.

And or maybe it was a conversation that I had no idea was like impacted them or something that I

said or something that I did, I had no idea that it impacted them at all. And I never will know

this side of heaven. But that when I get to heaven, the Lord in his grace as a, I'm not shy

to say this, like as a reward will say, that's the stadium full of people that have you somewhere in

in their salvation timeline,

the history of like how they came to be here.

And to do that.

You know, each pastor is a little bit different, right? And so to say, okay, well,

you know, if that's the measure of success, then, you know, what are the tools you're going to use

to plunder hell and populate heaven, right? And, you know, I would like to be a faithful.

I would like to provide a faithful and authentic presence for people where they can experience life

change. Like hold the space, hold an authentic space for them and be a presence for them.

That makes that transformation possible. And in the midst of holding that space,

I would like to take the Word of God and I'm able to proclaim it and articulate it in a way that

draws people to faith in him. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Word of God. And I think

that as I grew, as I continue to like grow in ministry and in the trying to be a little bit

more self-aware and, um, understand my, like who I am and who I am not right. Like holding a place.

Of like authentic presence and environment for people where they feel safe and heard and seen,

an environment where they can easily respond to the proclamation of the gospel is I think

one of the ways that God has primarily gifted me or just helped me to not screw it up every

single time. Yeah. But I think also that there's part of that, that there, I get a sense that

that there will be a season in my life where writing is.

More,

More central to my ministry than it is or Should be right now. Mm-hmm,

Feel like my ministry right now Needs to be people centered It's is centered around Jesus, right, right?

Yeah, yeah minute. It's centered around Being the ministry of Jesus to other people, right?

Right. Right. Not, not providing information, encouragement, inspiration, exhortation, admonition, or whatever

teaching through my fingers. Right. I think that will come.

I also think that like, I'm sure you feel this, I know you do, is that writing feels

like the scariest adventure through imposter syndrome that I ever would experience even

more than preaching for some reason. And that seems weird to me. Why would I feel

like more of an imposter writing than I do preaching sometimes? As a man who's trying

to be more like Jesus, but a preacher of the word, a sinner. But yeah, the thought of writing fills me

with such significant dread over who in the world would believe a word that I have? Who am I?

Right? So that's part of the fear that keeps me from writing now. But I do think maybe that there

will be a season in the future of my life in ministry. Maybe that season's next year,

or maybe it's in retirement. I don't know. Where the Lord is like, okay.

You actually have something to say now. You've got something to say. You've been through it,

man. By God's grace, I'll finish well. By God's grace, I'll finish well. I don't want to wait

retirement to write. I really do want to write right now. But I don't feel like it's where my

energy and is needed most right now.

Yeah, so...

I'm eager to hear more, you know, that question, what does it mean? What is success? Yes.

Is the first question in the first chapter that I'm guessing is going to be the foundation for a scaffolding of how are we leveling up to that place?

Yeah.

You know, now, um, and, uh, so hopeful to be able to maybe put some more meat on

those bones as we move through it.

But yeah, it's an important question.

It's not unlike other questions that are similar to it.

Sure. I mean, core values and what are you aiming at?

What do you want people to say at your funeral? And what do you want to be about your mission and life and like all of those

things. It's the same question. It's just couched in a little different language.

So probably not dissimilar from questions that you've, you know, our listeners or viewers have

thought about or been asked or that we've been thought about or been asked or whatever.

Right, but it takes, like, the thing is, it's worth asking those questions again, because

we are so, um, I am so easily distracted.

Yeah. I will say yes to the thing that comes down the pipe without wondering, is this actually

the thing that I'm supposed to say yes to?

And so sometimes we need a moment of clarity to stop and say, all right, what am I, where,

I'm my on course, I still going the direction I feel like I'm supposed to be going. So Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, hopefully our listeners, hopefully you've benefited from this conversation, able to like, maybe do some on your own reflection.

Yeah. Yeah, we'd recommend I'd recommend at least so far from what I've listened to. Listen to not read.

I've read, by the way, Ryan leaks book leveling up.

We're gonna tag Ryan in this tag him in this video or in this podcast episode.

However, we can do that and maybe we maybe we can convince Ryan if he's listened to it this far to come and be a guest on the podcast.

That would be amazing. Virtually.

Hey Ryan, we're just trying to we're trying to chase failure here.

Yeah.

Okay, so you tell us yes or no. So come be a guest on the podcast, we'd love to have you.

As always, if you are listening or watching and you have questions that you feel like

you'd like to hear us ramble on about for 51 minutes and 07 seconds, you can send those

in to our texting line, 716-201-0507.

You can also comment anywhere that you're watching this. Please rate the podcast wherever you're listening to it,

like it, you know, press the thumbs up button,

share it if you can, social media platforms, whatever, and then subscribe to wherever you're listening to.

Yeah, if you give us, if you make a recommendation of a podcast to a friend and you choose to recommend us,

like that would be a high honor to us if you did that.

Yes, we'd love that. So I think we've been sitting at the like high 30s subscriber mark.

Yep.

The measure of success for us this week is to get past 40. There we go. Yeah.

So, you know, have your moms and dads subscribe to us. Yep.

All right, thanks for listening. We will talk to you next week. See you then.

Music.