#194 It's Time To Get Out...

You could find me on every other kind of platform talking about other things, but here we just talk about you and what you got going on in long form, you know, like we're having a conversation. We're having a little stroll down a country road. Me and you were walking to town right and you say, hey, man, got to run something by you. I got something going on. I'm like, yeah, what is it? Yeah, this issue going on,

We talk about it. I'm not always right, but I'm just gonna walk through it like me and you are friends. And the advice that I would hope you would give me back. What I want to do with this podcast really ultimately is I want you to know that I'm not the end stop for the answer to your questions. In fact, you could also be someone that answers these kind of questions too. I just maybe I want to model thinking through and starting with certain presuppositions like love

and creation. I want to start with things like that and go, let's think through this. Maybe I could bring up something you haven't thought of before, and then you could be this for someone else down the road. I'm not gonna this podcast isn't gonna last for the next hundred years, so maybe someone else, by me modeling it this way, someone else could do something like this. Maybe you start your own podcast. Maybe you do the same thing starting your own podcast. I would love to see that.

That's what I'm here for. If you have a question for me, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. We'll get right to it. I don't have notes, I don't prepare for these. I don't even read ahead. I'm just gonna go off the cusp here and you're gonna hear it at the same time. I do. Okay, first question, subdecline says moving out, Hey Granger, and hello earl. My name is Joshua. I'm twenty one from North Carolina. I just wanted to say I appreciate listening to your every

podcast since I started working at my current job. I just want to say thank you for the life lessons and bringing glory to God. I want to ask you should I move out from my mom. I lost my father when I was fifteen, so I had to become the man of the house really fast. So I've just always been helping my mom out financially as much as I can, and I think it's harder to do that

from a different household. I'm not bumming it living here, but at the same time, I feel guilty for thinking of moving because of how much we help each other right now. Sorry for the email if it was a little lengthy. Much love and God bless Okay, Joshua twenty one,

North Carolina. Great, great, great question, man, and I'm glad you ask it because this is a great thing to be thinking about for other people as well, because you're in a unique situation, lost your dad young and you feel an obligation to provide for your mother, and I think that's a good that's really good, man. I think that's a good heart position to have. You want to take care of mom. She took care of you for all these years. The least you could do is take

care of her. I think it's awesome, But what I want you to know is this, This is what I would tell you if we're buddies walking down this county road. The fact that you do that is wonderful, but it is not your obligation to replace your dad. And there's a fine line there between take care of mom and you are her provider like Dad was. You're not that. And this is where it gets complicated because in a way, you don't want her to be stuck in life and not be able to move forward after Dad, which is

it's been six years according to your email. You don't want her to be stuck and thinking that, well, Josh is gonna be here. I don't need anything in my life because I got Josh, and thank God for Josh. Josh is here. Josh is gonna provide for my baby. Boy will provide for me. I'm a little bit hinting at the movie water Boy. You guys remember the movie water Boy. It can become that a little bit, right

that foods ball is the devil Bobby, you know. Okay, I'm exaggerating, and I don't want to be disrespectful to mama. But you can become that for her if you continue to be her sole provider. So what you want to do. The way to love your mom is to help her along, right, and not say, hey mom, stay here and you don't do anything. I'll take care of financially. I'll take care of us. Don't you worry. Like I said at the beginning, I think your heart position is right, and it's great

that you think that way. But to really love her would also be helping her along, like, hey, Mom, I'm gonna I'm gonna move down the road a little bit. Then I'm gonna help you to grow into yourself as the independent woman that you are. Maybe sometimes you see the scenarios where the mom got married early. Maybe she was a teenager or in the young twenties, and she never really knew what it was like to live alone.

So this is the first time. It's very scary. And so the sun could say, Mom, look I'm not leaving town. I'm just gonna go down the road and I'm gonna continue working. And Josh, you need to be thinking of your future and your future wife and your future family that Lord will and you'll have. And in order to do this, you got to start experimenting with your independence and then let mom have her independence. And you say, Mom, I'm a phone call away. I'm a four minute drive

in my truck to your driveway. You need anything, I'm there. You need a dollar, I'm there. You need a meal, I'm there. You need to talk, you need to cry, you have a nightmare, you're afraid that someone knocked over your garbage cans. I will be there in four minutes. But as I love you, mam, I want to help you become independent. And if I'm here kind of sheltering you and providing for you, then I'm afraid I might be inhibiting that from happening. So you got that aspect

going on. And then Josh, and then you got your your own life, and you're you're too humble to admit this, and so I'll say it for you. But buddy, you got to be thinking about yourself as well, because what a death in the family like this does. It could it could bring us all together, or it can divide us.

And right now it's dividing in a way that it's separating you from a life that you could be having right now with a wife and possibly children and even a career, like what happens if you get a job and they want to they want to promote you to a job with longer hours, and you think that starts conflicting with taking care of mama. Then we got the water boy scenario. I just want I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not telling you have to do anything I'm saying, But I am just wanting. I'm wanting

you to think critically about all odds. And if you're saying the goal is to love mama, if that's the goal, which I think it should be a great goal, one of many goals. But if that's the goal, then I want you to consider that leaving the house might be part of it. Meeting that goal, leaving mama might help her to spread her wings. Right. Thank you for the email, brother, Let's go to another one here. Sub decline says made a mistake in the relationship and wanted to do things right. Hey, Granger,

I want to remain anonymous. And then it says I met Chase when I was nineteen, and we connected instantly. At that time, we were nothing more than friends. He joined the military and married quickly after that. Twelve years later we reconnected after he was going through a divorce. At the time, I was completely quote in love and we made choices. Looking back now, I see how damaging they were. We spent two years together where I moved

in and became stepmom to his kids. He was my best friend and exactly the type of man I was looking for in my future husband. However, I felt that our relationship wasn't honor God, seeing as it was still he was still not yet divorced and I was living with him before marriage. I wanted to go on a break so that he could take care of his divorce, and I figured we'd come back to each other healthier. He jumped into relationships. I grieved. It's been two years.

I haven't been on a single date since. Do you have any advice? PS. Listening to your podcast has helped me because it encourages me that I made the right decision. I want a marriage that is honoring to God. Okay, Anonymous, I'm going to do a quicker recap just for my own brain because I'm hearing this for the first time. You met this guy when you were nineteen, and you'll connected. He joined the military and he married. Fast forward twelve years you guys reconnected it as he was going through

a divorce at the time. You were completely in love, and you guys made choices back then that you see, we're damaging now, Okay, I understand, I'm tracking. You spent two years together, you moved in and became stepmom to the kids. But I'm paraphrasing. He wasn't completely divorced yet, it wasn't finalized, and you guys were living together, So then you want you You realize this might be bad, so you kind of pull back, and then he surprises

you and just jumps into other relationships. Okay, kind of revealing his true colors. Got it? Anonymous, thank you for the email and being vulnerable. And I think the purpose of me here in this question is just simply to encourage you. I think that's what I'm here to do. I'm not here to answer a specific question because you didn't ask a specific question. But besides, do I have

any advice? And my advice is you've done well. Yeah, you've made mistakes in this relationship, haven't we all, haven't we all? But the difference between making a mistake and relationship and sitting in it and living with it and not fixing it. There's a big difference between that and making a mistake in a relationship and realizing, oh, I've done wrong. I need to cut this off. I need to separate myself from this, I need to turn from it.

That's where that word repentance comes from. I need to turn away from my mistake and turn towards Christians would say towards God. Repent and turn back to God. And so that's what you've done exactly. You made a mistake. Once again, this is not a judgment call, because who raise your hand if you haven't made a relationship mistake. Ever, no one's raising their hand. Okay, you made a mistake.

You moved in, you did this thing. But guess what, it's okay because you recognize your conscious was eating you up, and you turned away and you changed course. You're you're sailing down this path and you're like, this is going this is headed in a bad direction. I better, I better pull down the sails and change the boat to a different course. And so that's what you did. And

guess what happened. You changed the boat. You started heading down a new path, a new course, and you look back at the old path and you saw oh man, there's a waterfall. I was headed straight down. The boat was about to crash. But I felt I felt the need to change course. I felt like this wasn't honoring God. I felt convicted. I changed course. Now. Now look at you. You're sailing on open waters, and you know now that you're better for that because you got your eye open.

Now you're looking out ahead. You're looking for waterfalls. Right. Every once in a while, you climb up on your mast. Is that the right word. You climb up on the mast of your sailboat and you get up on that little lookout and you got your eyes open, and someone says, what are you doing up there? And you go, I have seen open waters lead to waterfalls, So I always want to make sure my course is on the right track. That's good, that's good stuff. And you don't know that

as much if you've never made a mistake. So these mistakes are put in our life like this, these obstacles, so that we learn from them. And that's our choice. We learn from them or we go off the edge of the waterfall. So my answer to you on advice is I just want to encourage you to keep your eyes open, stand the lookout, You've got a clear slate. You're on open waters. You made a great decision. Look what happened to this guy? Now you know? Next question?

Going blind on these The subjectline says not sure what to do? Hey, Granger, could really use some advice. A few months ago, my ex broke up with me. We were together almost for a year because of my mental health. It got the best of me and I said some things I still regret to this day. We broke it off because my ex wanted me to focus on myself to get better, and I went through no contact with

them for about two weeks. My ex messaged me one night while I was doing homework and I got really excited at the same time sad because it could have been the last time we spoke. Ever. Since then, we have been talking NonStop and we are right back where we were in a few months, I've been I'll be traveling to go see them for their birthday and spend about a week with them. As time gets closer, I feel really excited and sad because it will not be the same. What do I do to make these negative

thoughts go away? Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you. Jess Okay, Jess, I'm gonna track with you here real quick, making sure I understand your email. You were together, you broke up because mental health got the best of you, you said some things that you regret. You guys, broke it off, your ex sit focus on yourself to get better. Then he messaged you one night. That always happens, you know, these kind of messages always come at night, right, They

never come in the morning. They come at night. That's when loneliness strikes. And then you got you got kind of excited and kind of sad at the same time. And then you started talking NonStop and it was like you were right back at the beginning. And then you went to travel to see them. I don't know why you said them, Like, why are we talking about them all of a sudden. Maybe maybe the family, maybe he has kids, I don't know. Let me just make I'll make this quick. You want to know how to make

these negative thoughts go away. I think you're relying too much on these relationships. When he broke up with you, saying your mental health got the best of you and you said something that you regret. So you guys broke it off so you could focus on yourself to get better. I don't think that happened. I don't think you're well. I don't think anything got better. I think he just got lonely and messaged you. He got lonely. He messaged you. You're an ex. You were the next one on his

phone list. I promise you, I don't mean that to be offensive to you. But he pulled out his phone. He was like, I'm lonely. Who could I call? Oh? Yeah, I'm gonna call Jess because she's probably lonely too. And so he messaged you and he said, are you lonely? I'm lonely and you said, yes, I'm lonely. Are you lonely? And he said yes, let's get together. That's the summary of what happened. And then of course things got right back to where they were. You start chit chat and

you figured out all that. Yeah, I remember, I remember. Things were so good. We're so quick to forget about the bad and the negative things and so quick to just jump into the good stuff. So now you're worried again. You're worried about those negative thoughts coming back. Maybe maybe you're gonna say something you regret again. And I'm gonna tell you this, Jess, you will nothing changed except loneliness got in the way a little bit, so you're gonna

have to. Like I said, I want to make this question quick, but it's time to get out because I'm not saying you're gonna mess up. I'm saying this relationship is not working until things get fixed, and they're not gonna be fixed together. Okay, this is just lust. This is just loneliness kicking in. That's all this is. I promise you you're not gonna find anything at the end of this path except for like the last question, a waterfall.

Take your sale down, set a new course, get onto some open waters, get your head up, be looking out the waterfalls, and do some healing here. There's gonna be some healing. It needs to happen. We'll take a break to your back. This podcast is brought to you all by Better Help. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp dot com, slash Granger, and get on your way to being your best self. Now. I've said so many times on this podcast that I'm not a therapist. I'm not

a psychiatrist. I just tried to speak you the truth that I know. But if you need further help than that, Please go get some professional help. And if you are someone that's never done therapy before, and maybe you're just you're not the kind of person who wants to go lay down on a green couch, well I'll tell you there's other alternatives out there. It's so easy to get caught up in what everyone else needs from you and not take a moment just to think about what you

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go anywhere. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with the licensed therapist, and then you could switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Find more balance with better Help visit betterhelp dot com. Slash granger today and get ten percent off your first month. That's better help. H e lp dot com slash Granger And just a reminder that on August first, Like a River,

my book comes out. I'm so excited to get this book into your hands. I think this will be such an important thing for so many questions that come in. I could say, have you read the book? Check out the book, and then we could discuss further. But if you're going through things similar to what I did, and that's anything to do with loss, whether that's a job or a dream, or a car or a pet, or like me, someone you loved, well, then you could read this book Like a River and we could discuss further.

I think it's very important that you hear exactly what happened and hear how I was healed. The book is called Like a River. You could actually pre order the book right now at grangersmith dot com. Back to the podcast. All right, Back to the podcast and starting off with an interesting question. It just kind of scanned it before I hit record here. Subjicline says our God, and the email itself says, Hey Granger, I have a question about God. I'm sure. I'm not sure I've ever heard you explain

this in a podcast? How do we know our God is the real thing? I grew up in a Southern Baptist and nation. I have accepted Jesus, but as I get older, I always ask myself, how do we know our God is the real deal. I don't know for sure, but I'm sure every religion will tell you their god parentheses. Gods are the only right real thing. Only one group

is correct. But how do we know it's ours? I've always heard to walk by faith and not by sight, and I have my whole life, but sometimes I just question this subject, and nobody's ever been able to explain.

Thank you for your music and your podcast. Yigi question comes from Brayden and it's a good question, and Braidan, I want to first of all, I want to validate the search because I think the search is biblical, and I think I think it's very important for all religions, all spiritual people to cultivate a desire for the search for truth. I think it's important definitely for me, definitely from my personality. I think it's important to not fall under the facade of does God walk by faith? Just

gotta believe? Hey, what do you think about God, I don't know. Just gotta believe, just gotta have faith, just gotta have faith. That's dangerous to do that because if you're not testing your faith, right like Paul says, we need to test our faith, If you're not testing it up against truth, then how do you know it's real? And so you could tell people all day long, I just believe. Just got to have faith, just got to believe.

Well that's interesting, Okay. Now there's many ways that faith is tested, and one way is by persecution or trial, are suffering. You're gonna know quickly through suffering or trials or persecretion, persecution, you're gonna know, oh man, I am mad at God, or I don't believe in God anymore because God would never allow this bad thing to happen.

Or you're gonna run and you're gonna get closer. It's gonna the suffering, the trials are gonna draw you closer, and you're gonna God, I trust you, I run to you, I need you even more now than ever. So then you go, Okay, my faith is passed the test, or my faith is so flimsy it just completely shattered. So I first I want to acknowledge the the wrestling. I think we should wrestle. I don't think we should. I

don't think we should play around with doubt. But I think there's a difference between like doubting and testing our faith up against truth. Because because why why do I say that? I say that because we can be self deceived and anyone that doesn't recognize they can be self deceived is self deceived. That just came right back around at me, didn't it. Yeah, So if you don't think you can be self deceived, I promise you you are

being self deceived right now. So we need, we need to be affirmed by first of all, people other people around us that are in our faith, that that that can that can say you, here's here's what you're thinking, and here's what I or I have struggled with this, and and we all come together and we help give each other assurance. Right, you need assurance and deeper than that, I would encourage you to explore all the religions. Some people might not agree with that. Some people might say, oh,

I don't know about that, Braden. I think you should. I think you say here's what your question says. All religions will tell you that their God is the only real deal, and you're correct. You're also correct in saying that only one can be correct, right, There's only one that can be right. So all the religions claim that their God is the God, and they can't all be right. Only one can. So I would tell you go on

a journey, Go on a journey searching through these different religions. Oh, it's it is a deep well, and I enjoy it. That's my personality. I'm a history buff. I love dig I love World War two, I love the Civil War and Vietnam and Great Depression. And I love history. I love digging in and I love biblical history. So I would encourage you to go down the Islam route and research Mohammad, who he was, the time period, how he got his revelation, how the Qoran was eventually written. Okay,

that's a good route to take. Study set of the Jews. Study the Jews and why they think that the Messiah still has not come yet, what they're looking for and what they believe they didn't see in Jesus. Go down the route of the Jehovah's witnesses, go out, go down the route of Charles Day's Russell, go down the route of Joseph Smith with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. This is the overview of the Abrahamic religions.

And then I would go into Buddhism and go to Buddha, and then I would go into the Hindu religion and research the ancient Hindus and where they came from. Go down this path and start looking, start taking notes and looking, and you're like Granger, WHOA, This is not what I meant? Is it not? Is this not what you meant? Because it sounds like you're searching. It sounds like you want some assurance. And I promise you, I'm just one beggar

telling another beggar where I found bread. But you're gonna find some crazy things down this rabbit hole, and you're gonna have to answer one question, two questions. This is what I think. Two questions. This is what I what I go back to. Though there's many and I've studied extensively on this, but there's two questions you have to answer. One, where did we come from? I'm not talking about your mama. I'm talking about where did humans come from? You're gonna

have to go back to creation. It was either it was either creation created by a super intelligence, right okay, so created by a superintelligence, or created out of an accident, and it would have to have the accident has to have come from nothing. Now, atheist, I argue atheists, I don't argue. I debate atheists that challenged me on this saying that it doesn't have to come from nothing. But atheists, in their viewpoint, always will stand on the fact that

they are atheists because they do not know. So that's that's whether they could always fall onto My truth is I don't know that no one could know the truth. Let me take a breath. I love this stuff, but you got to start with where do we come from? So it's either a super intelligence sparked life, could have been the Big Bang, could have been whatever you want to call it. But it sparked life, it breathed life into into life, whatever this central point of that was,

or something spontaneously happened out of nothing. Because why do I say nothing, Because something can't come from nothing. It's impossible that something that matter comes from non matter, or if it did come from something, that means something had to have been eternal forever. So this is the creation issue. That's a deep well, go down that rabbit hole, and then fast forward several thousand years and you've got to go to the empty tomb. This is the issue where

all the Abrahamic traditions intersect. You've got to deal with the empty tomb. Because most credible scholars in the world, regardless of religion, will agree on this. Jesus was a real person who lived in a real time, who had real followers, who had a real message. Okay, Jesus, the same real person with real followers, with real disciples, was crucified and killed by the Romans. Jesus, after he was killed, was put into a tomb three days later. This is

what everyone agrees on. Three days later, the tomb was empty and the stone was rolled away. They also agree that he claimed to be the son of God. So here we go. Here's this named Jesus. He was a very loved prophet who his followers believed and followed, and he was crucified for heresy by the religious elite in Jerusalem, partnering with the Romans, and he claimed to be the son of God. They killed him on a cross, crucified him three days later. The tomb where he was placed

is now empty. This is what all credible scholars agree. So at that point I give it to you and I say, what are we going to do with the empty tomb? What are we gonna do with this? You could say, well, maybe the disciples stole the body. I say, he had two guards and they were sleeping Roman guards. Well, maybe they defeated the guards and then the guards fell

asleep and they stole the body. What they do with the body, because Jerusalem would have been completely upturning everything to find this body, whether it was the the Jewish Anhedron or the Roman elite. They would have been turning the town over to find the body where to go? Then I say, why would they have stolen it? Here's the crazy thing after that, why would they have stolen a dead body from a grave three days later that started to decompose, stolen it, hidden the body the dead body,

or burned it or destroyed it. And then their faith grows, and suddenly they start preaching the message that he's alive again. And then they're killed for saying that, and all of their families murdered, and yet somehow they have peace about this, enjoy about this, They have hope in this, and they say, our Savior has risen, he is alive, and he has shown his deity as the god Man by resurrecting like no human has ever done. And now this is I'm just saying what they said, right, I'm not forcing my

opinions on anyone. I'm just saying. Then he goes around and he spreads this message to over five hundred eye witnesses. All of them say, we saw him, we believe him. Jesus is alive. He came right he the stone has been rolled away, he came out of the tomb and he's alive. And the Romans say, oh cool, we're gonna kill you unless you say that's a lie, and they say, kill me. Why would they do that? They're either crazy and I don't think all these crazy people could coordinate

their message, align their message perfectly. Or they are lying and nobody lies if they're gonna be killed for it, right, especially their family, Like we're gonna kill your whole family. Nope, it's the truth. Well that's stupid. And number three, they were telling the truth. I don't know if Braden, I don't know if you expected this long of an answer, but I give all this information to you. Have fun, buddy, have fun. Oh man, Sometimes I get going a little

bit too long. I think here's a question I have here. Subject line says lost lost Hey Grangdew absolutely love your music and your podcast. I'm nineteen years old from Buffalo, New York. I got a lot on my mind from this past year I'm trying to figure out, so I'll try to keep this email short. There's a girl and I met her a few years ago, but at the time I was too unsure of myself to introduce myself. Sometime after that, she began dating one of my friends

who broke who They broke up last year. About the time of the breakup, we began working at the same place, so we began to talk and hang out with other friends. By this time, I'd become more confident in myself, so a few months later I thought it might be best to ask her before I got a chance. I learned she just started dating one of my other friends. She and I are still friends, and since then she's found

someone else. That's where our relationship will stay. A bit later in the summer, I spent a weekend with a group of friends and their friends and the weekend felt like I was connecting the dots to one of the girls I met there. Everything about her is attractive to me, and we had plenty of time talking. At the time, I was compelled to ask her out. But that weekend I learned she was younger than me by three years and that exceeds my gap for dating. Oh yeah, sorry

to laugh. And because of this and my uncertainty if my feelings were real or drink induced, I have refrained from asking her out. In regard to both of these situations, I often asked myself, have I made the right choices? Is God trying to show me something, etc. I'm unsure what specific question I'm trying to ask you, but my same question is what are your thoughts? Okay? Question comes from anonymous and Buddy, you are all over the map. This reads like you wrote it in like poetry form,

or like every sentence is on its own line. And I'm not sure what to tell you besides the fact that you're nineteen and I just want you to pump the brakes a little bit. Man, you're a little bit girl crazy. Just pump the brakes. Your confidence will grow as you just get a little bit older. That's it. You're feeling insecure, you're feeling like you don't you're not what was the word you used, you're not as I don't know what you use. I don't know besides drink induced.

But I I'm kind of lost at this question. Besides, I think you're just a little girl crazy, and I think it would be wrong of me to encourage you down a path of asking more girls out and trying to figure this this. I would just say, buddy, pump the breaks, hang out with your friends, suppress those feelings of got to ask her now, got to ask her now, and just go with the flow. Be natural about it. If you're with a girl and you think she's cute,

just tell her she's cute. If not, don't. But it's not rocket science, and you're trying to make this into like some math problem, So pump the brakes. I think you're nineteen and you just need you need a few more years. A few years need to go by, and it's going to fix a lot of these problems. By the way, you're not going to honor God. This is what you said at the end. Is God trying to

show me something? Well, he might be trying to show you something by saying, Hey, this drink induced dating thing is this is just not going to be very good. I know that for a fact. Next question Subjectliente says making time for priorities. Hey, Grangeer, my name is Wes. I'm nineteen. Here we go another nineteen year old nineteen. I'm from Coopersville, Michigan. I like your music. I love your God centered podcast. I was wondering if you have

any advice regarding finding my priorities. I've been having trouble remembering everything i have to do, and I've been letting people down by forgetting things. I've been getting more sleep lately, which seems to help, but I feel like I'm always too busy to get everything done, which is why I was losing sleep. I'm wondering how you make time for your priorities, like spending time with your family, which I assume is really important to you in the middle of

everything else that you do. Thank you so much, God bless Wes. Appreciate the email. Brother nineteen, shout out to Michigan, and your question is going to be about making time for priorities. I am a little bit, a little bit concerned to be going with you that you're nineteen, and you are you have so much going on that you're

forgetting things and letting people down. Maybe the advice to you at this point is, Buddy, it might be time to start learning the art of saying no. This is an art, and this is something I still struggle with and I'm trying to get better and I try to remind myself daily. But it's okay to say no. You could say no politely. Hey man, do you mind helping me? You got to pick up truck? Do you mind on

Thursday night? It really helped me if you can come over Thursday and help me move a couch and a dresser. And you're thinking, Man, I get off work at five. I've got stuff that I've got to mow the grass. I got to catch up with stuff I promised this person. And so it would be okay to say, buddy, I'm so sorry, but I can't my Thursday stacked. I can't

make it. It's it's an art to say that because sometimes we feel like, well, a friend would help another friend move a couch, and that's just in a scenario. I'm trying to build a scenario because I don't know what it is that's clogging up your days. But what happens is you go to work, your boss holds you a little bit, you don't get off at five, You gotta get off at five thirty. You rush home, your truck is running on empty. You got to go do

the you know, mow the grass. You find out now your lawnmar's not starting, so you try to fix that, and then you're doing a bad job mowing the grass. You're stressed out, and then you get in your truck to run your friend's house to help move the couch. You realize you're still on empty, so you got to stop at the gas station, so you go in there and then you're spending money trying to fill up your tank,

and then you're texting your buddy. You're running, you're rushing, and you're just a little bit anxious, and you're like, hey, man, I know I told you I'll be there at seven, but it's probably looking more like seven forty seven forty five. Just had a lot, and he's like, man, yeah, no worries, but yeah, if you can make it as soon as

you can, you get there. And then he's there and he's a little frustrated, it's raining, and you're trying to get the couch down the stairs of the three third story of apartment complex, you're putting in the back of your truck. You're trying to I mean, and then you're getting to bed and you're wondering why you can't sleep.

You're like, man, I can't sleep because you got a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff rattling around in your head, and all this could really I could give you a million ways to go on advice, but a lot of your question I think I think it would be appropriate for me to just say, buddy, Wes, you've got to learn the art of saying no and being okay with that and not thinking that you're less of a friend, or less of a brother, or less of

a son or less of a boyfriend. If you say, I'm so sorry, but I've got a lot going on right now. Could I take a rain check on this. I can't move the couch on Thursday, you know what. I can move it on Sunday, but I can't move it on Thursday. And if you could learn to do that more than you say yes. And this is not about this is not about not serving people or not pouring yourselves out to others. It's not about that. This is about you being your best and keeping a good schedule.

So why so you don't let people down? Because if you say yes to too many people, you're gonna let all of those people down instead of people like at the very beginning, say not, can't make it Thursday good? Then I'll get somebody else. But if you say yes and then you run late, you see what I mean on all of this is a hypothetical situation I built. But I'm just trying to help you this because you asked me what do I do? What do I do?

I have to say no a lot, probably nine times out of ten in my life I have to say no. I can't. I can't do that. I'm so sorry, but I have to say no so that the things I say yes to I could be my best. And like I said, I still struggle with this. I'm still not great get this, but it is a daily habit that

I put forth in my mind. Okay, right, I gotta say no. I hope that helps, brother, and I hope you can imply that, and I hope you could do a little bit better than I did when I was nineteen because I struggled as well with that kind of thing. We're just filling my plate, and that's important for all of us. It's not good to have a it's not good to have the virtue of being busy. I don't like that. I've said that before on this podcast, but I don't like the virtue of being busy. And that

is what's what we do in this culture. Like how you been, man, good busy? You busy? Not me too, man busy, And somehow we attributed that to like that's like a good thing, that's like a positive thing in your life. You could say it like this. You could say, hey, man, you guys staying busy like you're expecting a Yes, you're staying busy, right, Please tell me you're staying busy, man, because what if you answered no, not very busy now would sound like you're failing you stay busy man, No,

not very busy at all. That sounds like no, I'm just not doing good in my life. And that's just false. And I wish this culture would get out of that. I wish we could break the habit of acting like busyness as a virtue. There's nothing wrong with working hard and filling the day with some hard work and going to bed tired and exhausted in a way because you laid it all out there. But there's a difference between that good, hard, diligent, deep hard work and now I'm

just busy all day distracted. It's not good. Hope that helps, brother. I appreciate all y'all and we'll see you next morning. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload

a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yi