He told me something, well, he said something on the documentary and then we talked about it, but it has stuck with me about the porn industry ever since he said it. I cannot think about porn and not think about what he said. What's tip? Everybody, Welcome to the podcast. One of my favorite people in the whole planet is on this episode helping me answer these questions. Bernie Calcote, Thanks for having me back, man, Thanks for being back, probably your hundredth.
Yeah, a lot of episodes and I've listened to the last few with you by yourself, and even though you didn't say it, I could tell.
In your voice you were like, I mean, it's Bernie, Bernie back so here.
I am absolutely absolutely. What we do is we answer your questions. We don't talk about us. We talk about us before we start recording, which is what we've been doing, you know, for the last hour or at least the time you got here. But what we do on this podcast as we record, as answer your questions. You email podcast at grangersmith dot com and I've got a bunch a bunch of questions. You want to jump into these,
Let's do it, man. Okay, this first one comes from anonymous It says, Hey, Granger, I love your podcast and continue to draw wisdom from it each and every time I listen to it. I'm a senior in high school and I've been fighting the following issues for the past few years, and honestly, pornography has been something that has continually eaten away at me and gotten to the point where I find it even hard to find anything worth
of value in myself. When I get up in the morning, it is relentless, like a wave that comes at me and drives me down wherever I try to reach out to God, and it makes me feel like I'm continually in a cycle of failure. Because of this, I hate myself as I have an addiction for it. I struggle to see any aspect of what I do in life as something to be proud of. And I've never been able to stand out in academics, sports, or even had a close friend throughout my life, and a similar part
of me hates my addiction. It hates myself even more for my failures in these areas of life. I just feel like I'm unnecessary in the life I live in. I know that this is a sob story, and it feels pathetic even writing it. But I've been so tired out of my failures that if you can give me any advice or tough love on how to rely on my faith in Christ to combat these things, I would greatly appreciate it. What a way to start off the episode.
Hum burns, Yeah, he asked for Granger's tough love. Who He's opening a gate?
All right. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look up my boy Joshua. Here. I got it, Bernie, I gotta tell you about this guy Joshua. So we went to Tyler and Parker and Chris and I went to this David Platt, you know David Platte. We went to this radical retreat in Jackson, Wyoming. And it's basically like Platt invited these these people in different spheres of Christianity of influence to come together. And you know, David,
it's all about, you know, reaching the unreached people. And so he brings people from all different walks of influence, puts them together in a room. And then we just had three days of just like telling each other, and we would divide up into groups and tell each other. You know how we have seen positive effects of our form of evangelism and how we've been able to reach different groups. And then we would listen to each other
and just kind of encourage and build on each other. Well, one of these guys there, his name is Joshua Broom. That is b R O O M E. And his Instagram I'm looking at it right now is at I am Joshua Broome And so I'll try to tell the story the best I can. Get off the plane in Jackson and there's this guy and we could all I could tell that the people that were actually going to this event, and he says, hey, man, I'm Joshua, and I'm like, I'm Granger and you're going to the David
Platt Thay. Yeah. Cool where you're from? You know? He's like, well, I currently live in Dallas. I'm from North Carolina. And I was like, cool, man, what's your story? And he said, well, I was in the porn industry for a long time before I was saved and Jesus saved me as I came out of it. And he's like, now I travel around and I tell people the evils of the porn industry and what it really is. The face of it, and I tell him the Gospel and I was like, dude,
I think I saw a documentary about you. And he was like, yeah, probably, I've told my story about and I started thinking about it. I had a couple of years before that. I was on a plane and going to a random concert and I watched this random documentary on YouTube about this guy who was a porn star that came out of it, was saved radically and came
out of it. And here I am with him, and I was like, dude, and you met your wife at the gym in North Carolina and then you worked at the like I knew his whole story, and ironically he knew mine. It's so crazy that those kind of things happened. But now this is the first porn question that we've had a bunch of come to me on this podcast, and this is the first time I've gotten one since I've known Joshua. So first thing, Anonymous, I want you to follow at I am Joshua Broom. This dude's story
is unbelievable how he got into it. He just wanted to be an actor, moved to LA was eating lunch one day and these really pretty girls came up and were like, you're so handsome. Are you an actor or are you a model? And he was like I'm trying to be you know. He was pretty monest about it and like, well, hey, here's a number here. This is the director and he like does these short films and
it's a great way to get into the industry. And sure enough it was like soft porn, and then that he met some people through that that then that turned into one more and it was always like, if I do one more thing, then hopefully that'll just kick me into what I really want to do and be an actor. And it's just this deep dark hole he just fell into and it got bad, really bad, and he was making a lot of money and it was really bad. He told me something, well, he said something on the
documentary and then we talked about it. But it has stuck with me about the porn industry ever since he said it. I cannot think about porn and not think about what he said. It is this when you watch porn, Anonymous, I'm talking to you now, When you watch porn, most likely you're watching two dead people because they committed suicide. It's like a ninety chance the girl is dead and like a seventy percent chance the guy is dead. Wow, you're watching two dead people having sex and they've already
killed themselves because of what you're watching. Wow, because of the trap that they're in, the drugs, the numbing, just to try to forget the intimacy is nothing. They hate intimacy and it means absolutely nothing to them. It has made them, it has dehumanized them crazy stuff. Yeah, followed followed Joshua, and then I'm gonna shut up and let Burns talk about this a little bit too.
Oh that's really good. Okay, this was anonymous no name.
Yeah, Okay, Well, first let me just say like I'm a good buddy of Grangeer.
We've known each other a long time.
If you haven't listened to this podcast when I've been on, like, I'm just a dude. I'm really here representing most of you, guys. I'm an everyday dude, just like you.
Trying to.
Really wrestle with God through life and cling to his word and understand my own faith claims and what that means and how to live that out practically. And when these questions come in, I just want to make sure you understand, like.
I'm just a dude.
Okay, So these are my thoughts, my initial responses based on my experience as of now. Like Granger said before, I could listen back to this in five years and be like a man, I would answer that this way now. But in this moment, this is the thing that jumps out to me, and man, unfortunately, porn is just one of the things that I see that this happening in.
Or an effect of it.
And I've been studying Colossians three. I don't know if we talked about this, but set your mind on things above, not on the things of this earth. I've really been thinking through a lot of passages that talk about the mind.
I don't think.
I think a lot of times we overspiritualize a lot of things, and we don't really consider how many times the Bible actually talks about our minds. And so then I start to consider versus like that or a mind set on the flesh is death, a mind set on the spirit is peace and life. Guys, there is a mind focus problem in our culture. We don't consider the
things that we consume the way that we can. I mean, and honestly, like we're not set up to really put facts to what we consume the way we do nutrition, like, oh, we know it has that much sodium, it has that much sugar. With the things that we're consuming, I think we just have to consider, like how are those things affecting us? How are we controlling our media intake, diet.
Like I really believe that if we stopped and thought about that, there would be a moment of shock, like, oh my gosh, now I know why there's these issues with my husband.
I know why there's these.
Issues struggling with pornography and a lot of what that does. If you think about a television, like setting the channel to what you want to watch, A lot of you anonymous. You may be like, what I want to watch is God's word for my life. Yeah, but your remote is broken.
Yeah, you cannot change that channel.
And I think a lot of that has been habitual and a lot of it's cultural, and so I'm not exactly sure how Besides, like talking with someone like Joshua finding some professional help, because once you're into an addictive state, you really need some professional help and guidance to help you fix that remote so that when that thing flashes. And for this person, it may be pornography, it may be something else for you. It may be retail shopping,
it may be alcohol, it may be something. But you need your remote to be sharp, so it switches back to the channel that you want to be on if it's not, if there's a glitch, or it just starts shuffling, because a lot of what we do is shuffle. I mean, guys, it just I feel like this is a real problem and this is just one of the outcomes that can come from it.
Yeah, let me back up exactly what you said. With Philippians one nine, Paul's talking to his church and Philip High. He says, it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to
the glory and prayers of God. So what Bernie's saying is that your love is going to grow with knowledge, and I don't think I don't think we think about that that. Like Bernie said, how many times the Bible talks about knowledge and that our love grows, our love for God grows with our knowledge. Of him. How do you get knowledge of him? You stick your nose in the word. And Bernie said, habitual. It's like making a habit of saying, hey, I don't want to do it.
The beginning of a habit usually accompanies I don't really want to and I'm too tired, or I don't understand it, or like if you're going to run, you don't just start and love running at the very beginning. It's you create a habit. We can go to Second Peter. Make every effort to supplement your faith and virtue with knowledge. He Second Peter is actually great because he continues that this idea his divine This is first, This is Second Peter. One. Three.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. How how Peter, through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence. We have to see this. We have to see that that here's another one. This is a one too. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God. So we have to see that what we're watching, what we're consuming, what we're putting into our minds,
uh is is making us who we are. So you may say I don't watch porn, but I watch HBO and occasionally there's nudity in it. So it's like softening you for that. It's like that, is that nudity okay? Or is that porn Hub? Well, no, porn Hub's bad, Granger, but you know it's like boobs every one while it's not bad, right is it? You're softening yourself for that. So that's the knowledge behind what we're saying. And so
I've given you so far. We've given you the habit and the knowledge, the idea behind it, the biblical backing behind it. And we've I've given you this guy Joshua Broom to follow maybe watch some videos. But now let's get practical. What can you do right now? And we've said this countless times on this podcast, but covenantiyes dot com.
Yeah, Covenant Covenant Eyes.
Covenant eyes dot com came from Chad Warren a long time ago. Yep, dude, that that's a practical way. Like, hey, you want to take this knowledge, you want to take that habit. We've talked about that channel, that remote that's broken that Bernie's talking about. I tell you right now how to put new batteries in that remote. You sign
up at covenanties dot com. And what that does is it you you sign up all your you log in all your IP addresses, your phone, computer, iPad, whatever you got, whatever you're watching, and and you log in with like your mother in laws, I don't think, maybe your mother, your sister, some somebody that's a really big accountability in your life, and it shoots them a message. If you go to a porn site that's putting new batteries in that remote.
Yeah, I dare you to do that. I dare you to put your mom as the contact. Yes, and see what happens.
Uh.
There's another couple of things that I'll say, and then we can move on. A book is called there's a book that I recommend called every Man's Battle. I don't know if you've read this, but it's really good. It has some practical you know, bouncing your eyes. There's some really practical things in that book that I would highly recommend.
And the other thing, and Granger and I have talked about this, you know, for years and years and I'm not even sure if you still do it, but mental exercise, like some call meditation, there's a lot of different ways you can do this. But I deeply believe in this. I deeply believe that if you're training your mind to be able to focus on what you want to focus on, which for me, it's like spirit, I want to hear you, I want to walk in the spirit.
I want to hear your word. I want it to be.
What's on my mind.
By practicing mental exercise when I'm aware, like very acutely aware, when I start to get distracted on something that's not and then I can gently come back so I don't get so far into the woods before I get to come back to where I need to be or where I want to be mentally. So find in some kind of mental exercise where you can like help that remote to switch back and switch back to where you want it to be. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes a
long time to build that habit. But the other thing I would do is get off of social media.
Period. That's good.
I'll probably end every question like that. Get off of social media.
Just give it a break for a while, guys, and let your mind just fast and recover from consuming so much, and just see what it does to your mind.
So I alsome, I don't think I could end the question without saying one more thing, and that is this. That's addressing your idea that you feel like a failure, continuous cycle of failure. You're not good enough for God, you hate your addiction. You say all of those things would be I'd be remiss to not tell you that that is the gospel and that you're at a good heart position to receive the Gospel of grace. It's the people that go, actually, I'm a pretty good person. I'm
pretty good. I actually love myself and I love that my habits are all good. Those people are much more difficult to reach with the gospel because the gospel says that no one is good. You're all good. You're in need of a savior. The parable of the tax collector in the Pharisees a good example of this. The Pharisees like,
you know, thank God, I'm not like him. I tithe, I'm so righteous, I'm amazing, And the tax collectors in the over standing far away looking down beating his chest, saying have mercy on me, a sinner, and Jesus says that man was justified. Yeah, so your heart position is right and good to think you hate your addiction. Good good, You're in a right place. You hate your addiction is the right place to be. It's the people that say it's not that bad. Those are the people that are in trouble.
Yeah, amen to that dude, Always in with great.
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how do I tell my family. I've already been to college and failed most of my classes, so they wouldn't be happy if I told him that this wasn't for me, and I don't have many hobbies or likes to really know what kind of career I want. That's the end of the email. Let me unpack that just for my own sake. Here, Okay, he says, how do I know if the career I'm in? So he's in a career and he feels like it's not right for him, or he's trying to discern if it's not right for him,
how to tell his family. He's been to college and failed most of the classes, so they wouldn't be happy if I told him this wasn't for me. I don't really understand that. And then he says, and I don't have many hobbies or likes or really know what career I want. So there's some depth to this question that he's not saying here. There's more. This is more than
you just don't like your job. You don't know what you want, even so far as to say that you don't even know if you like it or not the job you're in, and you failed college and your family's typically not happy with you. I'm gonna let you lead this one.
Yeah, it feels like.
It feels like maybe the reason that I hate to speculate because it's really tough for these questions, but that he thinks his family it would be hard to tell his family maybe because.
He has this track record.
Of like bouncing around, like he went to college, didn't do well, and then he did this, and he doesn't really isn't really drawn to anything, and so they're like, bro, just like you got a job, stay there, yeah yeah, and then he would have to go back and be.
Like a yeah. So it makes sense.
I've known these people. I feel like I've been one of these people. I was just never I guess maybe I just never had the pressure of like, you got to have a career right now.
So I and I also don't know how old he is.
Okay, if he's totally forty five, it's different than my guess. He's probably early twenties. She's early twenties. I mean, can we guess that? And yep, okay, I'd.
Say twenty five. You know college, been there, done that, failed at twenty four five.
Okay, so you have a job now.
This is gonna be my practical advice knowing the very few amount of details that I.
Know about your email.
There's a book called So Good They Can't Ignore You by cal Newport, and it talks about the craftsman mindset versus the passion mindset.
Okay, passion mindset.
Is I love yoga and I'm gonna quit my job start a yoga studio. And I haven't done any research on like, how many other people like yoga in my area, what other yoga studios there are, how to run a business, any of that. But I love it, so I'm just gonna go for it, and then I fail flat on my face instead of Hey, this is what God's put
in front of me to steward. I don't know if I have a lot of love for it, but like a craftsman, I'm gonna make the most of the opportunity and I'm gonna start learning this, and then i musa start learning my boss's job, and I'm going to learn everything there is to know about this, and I'm gonna do it better than everybody around me because I believe that that is going to open other opportunities. And all of a sudden, when I've done this for ten years
and people ask questions, I have something to offer. I have knowledge and experience that I can say, oh, actually, those ball bearings, they don't. You can't do it like that because of this, And I have that experience because nobody wanted to deal with these ball Bearings, but I was like, this is what's in front of me, So I'm going to be really I'm gonna be the best
in the world at ball bearings. And then all of a sudden you have some other opportunities that come and there is this fulfillment that.
Starts to happen. You do start to love it.
I can tell you, like I did not love building when I started. There was days I just did not want to do it.
But I stuck with it.
I got really good at it, and I had some mentors around me saying, hey, be better than everybody else at your job and start doing the job that you want to do.
Just little things like that, just to start building.
So I hope that that I.
Hope that that's some helpful advice. Yeah, don't again get off social media. You're probably looking at too much social media and you're seeing things like, oh, that job would be awesome, and you're not content.
It's stealing your joy in the moment. So I'll end again with.
I'm going to challenge you to end every question with that, don't get off social media. And that's good, Okay, challenge you every single one of this whole EPISODEA like Burne said, I don't know much about your story, but on top of what he said, I want to challenge you to finish something. M that's good. I don't think. I don't think you're a finisher. And that's not an identity, that's
a habit you've created for yourself. You have put yourself in a habit of when I don't like something, I just disengage or I quit, or I fail it, or I back off. And that's why now you're afraid to tell your family that you, yet again have failed to finish something. And I think if your family, which families are typically they they are upset because they love you. They want they genuinely want what's best for you, and I think if you would ask them, I think they
just want you to finish something. I think if you're working at McDonald's, I think if you just said, hey, i'm gonna commit myself to five years of flipping burgers, I don't think that would be disappointed. If you said I'm going to do it, and i'm gonna I'm gonna do it well, and i'm gonna do it for five years and you finish the race, I think that'd be something to say for it. So that's my challenge to you.
Anonymous is not even necessarily this career. You've already you've probably you already made your boss mad, and you've pretty you've probably already created an environment with the other employees like this guy didn't want to be here, So you might have to already leave this. But the next thing
you get into, I'm challenging you to finish. Finish something, set a goal, and finish regardless of how you feel, regardless of how you get bored, regardless of like everything Bernie said, you're not, regardless of the passion you're having for it. Just finish it. Because you're a man. I think you might be a girl, but I got a feeling this is a boy talking. So finish, bro finish yep. Next question comes from Elizabeth. Hey gr Ander, my name
is Elizabeth. I'm seventeen, and by the way, I'm just thankful we don't have an anonymous person to speak to here, Elizabeth, she says, I'm seventeen from a small town in southeast Iowa, and I love your podcast. I've been I have a question about dating. I've known this guy for a little over a year now and we go to the same church. We go to youth group together, and we're both strong Christians. We have confessed our feelings toward each other over the
last couple of months. We want to start dating, but can't because of rules my parents and he doesn't have his license yet. Rules from my parents and he doesn't have his license yet and won't until next July. We hang out at a youth group every week and sit together for church. We text every day and have a really good and deep relationship with each other. We want to hang out more often, but we could rarely find
the time and places to do it. We want to grow our relationship so that when we date, we can be ready for it. I also want to make sure that we keep God at the center of our relationship. Any thoughts or advice on this topic would be greatly appreciated. All right, thank you. Elizabeth seventeen from Iowa. What's about this messages You already are dating? Yeah, Like you're just it's a title thing you're having a problem with in the label.
They're wanting to like, you know, build a relationship for the future.
It's like you're doing that in probably the most healthy way right now that you can.
Yeah, Like good boundaries.
Yeah, still have communications, still have contact.
Yeah, you're very much dating, but you're you seem to be afraid of that label, most likely because your parents have created a rule.
Maybe Elizabeth is thinking when she's defining dating, it is the two of them going by themselves somewhere sure so in that they're not like going on dates alone.
Which I agree with. I agree with two reasons. She gives one rules from her parents and number two, he doesn't have his license yet and he won't until next July. Hey, Elizabeth, this is one of these times, and it's hard. I was once seventeen, and I don't know about you, but I remember seventeen very well. I remember middle school and high school very well, as far as looking back and remembering how I thought about certain things in life. And it's hard to hear what I'm about to tell you.
But this is a season of waiting and patience, and waiting is one of the hardest things to learn as a teenager. But it's also some of the most fruit you'll get out of your life is from the seasons of waiting. It's difficult to learn it, it's frustrating, it feels like two steps back, but you will grow and learn and mature in so many ways in a season of going. I know what I want and I know where I am, and I'm gonna wait to get what
I want where I am now. I wish I could have taken that advice at seventeen, because I struggled with that. We all did. But I think that's what I'm telling you.
What do you think, Burns, Yeah, I think that's right on. I think eventually you will thank your parents.
Wow.
Like what they're doing is extremely loving for you. They want the best for you. They want to protect you and help you kind of grow in a slow way. Like Gin you're saying, waiting and just trusting your parents. I think everything you're doing like, don't get too far ahead. You're on a longer journey than you think. Right now, you're probably just like, well, we got to get here. It's like, well, you're actually on pace.
I mean, and who are we right?
This is just our opinion.
It feels like knowing what we know that you're on.
Pace and you're gonna get there because the end goal, right is to finish. It's not to just sprint to the first aid station.
And then you know burn out. No, you want to like keep the right pace all the way through.
So yeah, I think this is right on, and it sounds like you guys are surrounded by a community that is, you know, supporting of you. The last thing that I'll say, just because Granger told me, is your seventeen year old girl, Oh yeah, and so you need to get off of social media.
It's probably going to distract.
You from your relationship with God, from being involved in your church, and from this relationship with his dude. So just go go ahead, and if you don't believe me, just look up. Some of the research has come out lately on like teenage girls and the effects of social media.
Guys, all of this stuff is about to come out.
These social media companies are getting very fearful of like all the data and research.
Like it is impacting you.
So just you know, there is amazing things right in front of you in real living color.
Just be present for those love it.
I'm gonna say one more thing, Elizabeth, I think you might need to hear this. If it comes easy, it usually won't last. And if it's going to last, it usually doesn't come easy.
You put that in a song I did. That's how you know It's true. It's in a Granger Smith song. Podcast is also brought to y'all by Cameo. You know, with the holiday season coming up, and you often have people in your life that seem to have everything, or at least they don't need anything, and you're like, well, what I get them for Christmas?
Well? Do they listen to this podcast? Are they a fan of me and my music or maybe the Smiths, or maybe after Midnight Radio or anything else that I do? Are they a fan of Earl Dubbles Junior? Well, you can go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith and get a personalized video from me. Super easy. I make the video on my phone. It goes right to you. You can get it done in just a few days, I mean, or maybe even the same day. It just depends on what I'm doing that day. But I'll get
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I started drinking coffee again. I mean and still drink a decaf, but start drinking coffee again.
So I got a little pep in my step.
Hold up on the record on the podcast? What what? What was the thought behind that?
Getting back on it?
Yeah, I don't know.
I was just like, what are you doing?
Man?
Like coffee's good. So I was drinking green.
Tea in the morning, so I was like yeah, And so I did it for a while before that, I was just drinking decaf coffee and so it was like, well, what's the difference, you know?
But no, I'm dude, I'm so happy. I felt on it a little less guilty in my life now because I always looked at you. And then John Marlin, he's another guy that's like, yeah, I knocked caffeine out of my life, and I'm.
Like, y, yeah, no, big dude, Like come on, bro.
That I mean, I love and I don't do much. I'm actually having coffee with your brother tomorrow nice at four pm. That's like as late as I'll go, and I definitely will have a cup of coffee. But I do my cup of coffee in the morn warning and I love it. I love that time of day.
Yeah, try to do it for try to go without it for a month, and then that first cup you have after.
That, Oh dude is so good.
It's just like so that's that's That wasn't the reason I did it.
I just I made the switch in the.
Fall, like August.
Yeah, I was like, I'm going to go to tea.
And then it was almost like, dude, what point are you trying to prove?
What are you? What are you doing? So did you notice anything different physically mentally?
Yeah, not mentally as sharp, not as much energy. Obviously you take caffeine and tea has like some caffeine, but it's sure very low. But I don't know, man, I think maybe a lot of it's just like psychosomatic.
Sure, what about below the head, like anything in your body? Do you notice anything besides energy level, like hunger? Did it suppress hunger or were you more.
Hungry whenever drinking tea only?
Yeah? Yeah, when you cut out coffee, no, not really great? Welcome back. Yeah, yeah, So that's why I was just doing anything.
And I wondered, like, do you have to do this for years?
Because people are like green tea is so good for you and coffee.
Is bad, and and so I was like, you live in South Austin things like that.
I don't say things like that up here.
Give him a coffee a beer.
Now.
Yeah, maybe you had to do it for like a lot longer to like get those effects.
But I gave it two months.
Man, great, they hate No you remember that book. We're way off record here, but you're in the book. It all starts with food. Oh yeah, yeah, Well it's a heart wing that that would that book says I think it's the whole thirty die. Yeah. That says that it takes thirty days to cycle something in or out of your system. So two months is plenty of time for you to know.
Yeah, but I wonder if the benefits are are longer, you know.
But dude, I don't think there is.
I don't know.
Great, maybe somebody can comment and say, like, here's the link to how green Tea made me live till I was one hundred.
But I don't know.
I like I like drinking coffee in the morning.
So yeah, and we should just say, as we're talking, if people, if anyone's listening, going, how is that not an addiction? We'll say, yes, it definitely could be. I have one cup a day, Yeah I have.
You know, I have a small cup in the morning, and you could probably stop a few.
Yeah, I could absolutely hit one cup. Now if I was like some people that just literally drink coffee all day, they have to. They can't function, they can't get out of bed without it, they can't think without it, then you go, okay, now we got to back this up a little bit. You know, we're we've got an addiction. So yeah, I get it, I get it. It is a drug if anyone's thinking that. But but I think handled in a controlled manner, one cup a day or whatever,
it's another big deal. Yep. Okay, first question here, not the first but first question since Bernie. Now I've been yapping from Isaiah, not the book, but the person says, Hey, Granger, how would you recommend getting over the mindset of always trying to prove yourself to those around you? I feel like I'm always trying to be pushing my absolute best and don't allow myself to rest. I grew up in a household that always shut me down and told me
I wasn't enough. Okay, how would you recommend getting over the mindset of always trying to prove yourself to those okay, and then feeling like you're pushing to be your absolute best and not allowing yourself to rest. It's like the opposite of the earlier email we had of the guy that, yeah,
seemed to be able to not finish anything. Yeah. So it's interesting because we kind of related to the other guy, and I think we could probably relate to this guy as well at different times, different phases of our life. First of all, I want to say to this that's a that's a good that's a good motivator behind you. It's good to have that in your engine. It's easier, I think in my opinion. It's easier to suppress this
guy than it is to motivate the other guy. It's easier to say, hey, you need to allow yourself to rest. You're going, you're going hard, your engine is running hot. I understand that you're you love go, go go and being your absolute best, but you need to back off and rest. It's easier to say that than it is to go, dude, you got to get off the couch and do something. You're you're failing at everything. You got to do something. It's harder to get that guy to move than it is to get this guy to slow
to rest. So what do you say to this guy?
I got a couple thoughts, and then I'll let you respond as well, because there's it sounds like there's two separate things.
Here, right.
There's he's working really hard and needs to rest, but there's also this thing that kind of sounds.
Like identity and like, yeah, like.
I'm trying to work more prove myself to other other people around me. And so I think to answer the our thoughts on the last part of that first, I just agree with what Granger said. I'm reading a book right now called The Body Keeps The score. I don't know if you've heard of this, but it's kind of about like the trauma that we can different people will experience in their lives.
And he.
Talks through PTSD UH with and he studied and did therapy with a lot of post war you know, military and I'm not all the way through it, so I can't speak to the whole thing, but one of the things that he talks about is how they actually some people will start to feel more comfort in those high stress situations because that's where they were used to kind of like being, so to actually rest it feels uncomfortable, and so they're like, no, I gotta I gotta get
back to that, because that is like comfort.
I say that only.
To your point.
If you're if you're used to running and sprinting all the time, it's going to feel really uncomfortable. And man, I relate to you on this. Sometimes it can be really hard for me to rest. I think that's probably like a uh something you need to talk with somebody about accountability of like hey, man, let's just go out to the lake and fish and then you have some accountability to like I'm not gonna work, I'm not gonna just gonna go rest, but it's probably gonna feel a
little bit uncomfortable to work that, you know. In the other thing is addressing the first part. I think that there's a question of like identity maybe wrapped up in this so again, and I know we were joking earlier, but get off of social media. If you're if you're constantly seeing what other people are doing, you're not going.
To be pleased with what's in front of you. It's a thief of.
Joy and comparison is going to just like make you unhappy.
But the other thought is.
That idea of you know, always trying to please his parents or his family, is that we said something like that.
Yeah, my households always try to shut me down and tell me I wasn't enough.
Yeah, okay, so he's he's actually trying to overcome.
That.
Did Davids thing? David Goggin's dad always told him he wasn't enough.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably something you're just gonna have to wrestle with. I can tell you some things that I believe, but really you have to find and claim your identity. And if that is in the approval of your parents, it sounds like you're never gonna get it because all they do is shut you down and make you feel bad. You can easily go out and try to find it what you didn't get from your
parents and other people. But it sounds like you you have some like some work to do from maybe some trauma that they, I don't want to say they inflicted on you, but that you experienced, and then find in finding your identity and then grabbing a hold of that and letting that, you know, kind of define you, not what your parents did or didn't say totally.
The question Really, it's funny because it's divided with spaces in three sections. Number one, how would you recommend getting over the mindset of trying to prove yourself to those around you? Get off social media? That's literally my answer to that. Number two. I feel like I'm always having to push myself to the absolute best and not allowing
myself to rest. Be careful with self help industry. This is the personality that falls deep into self help and there comes a time This is a different topic for a different day, but there comes a time, I promise you I could attest when self help stops helping, So be careful with that. Also balancing that with knowing that there's nothing wrong with wanting to be your best. There's nothing wrong. That's the part I like of this question is I'm always pushing myself to be my absolute best.
Granger helped me. I'm like, no, that's awesome. I'm so glad that that's you and you don't allow yourself to rest. I get it. I feel that Bernie feels that. I hang around other people that feel that same way. You're not alone and you need to This is what I this is I'll tell you what I do. And this is kind of new is I have a shared calendar with like Chris and Paul's on it, Tyler's on it, Amber's on it, and people can book me for things like a phone call or an interview or something, or
maybe even a speaking event. But I've started putting on those hold for rest hold for rest, like the twenty ninth hold for rest, the fifteenth hold for Rest. So I'll start going through my calendar and I'll look at I'll just look at days and go that this is like a heavy week, so that next week I'm gonna go on Tuesday, hold for rest. That doesn't mean I'm just sitting on the couch. It just means I'm not taking anything from the outside on those days and I
stick to it. So for you, I don't know how that applies to your life, but maybe using your phone you go, I'm seeing that this is a busy season at work or whatever I'm doing, and so I'm gonna say, for these four days, i'm gonna go five pm. I'm not thinking about work. I'm shutting it off. I'm gonna go five pm to nine pm. There is no work, and I'm going to bed and stick to it. And if you find that you're not finishing by five pm,
get up a little bit earlier. But that's gonna help clear out your day, because for me, the backside of my day is a trash it's trash time for me. My mind starts getting worthless about five pm. I can't really help anybody. I'm not myself. I'm better off just playing with the kids, throwing the football with Lincoln, and eating dinner with everybody. I'm way better if I just do that, and then front load my day with things that I actually need to think about and plan. And
then the last thing, the number three. I grew up in a household that always told me, what enough? I think Bernie had some great stuff. Are you going to claim that is your identity? Are they going to tell you that you're enough or not? I believe you know the answer, But that's going to take some wrestling. It's
going to take some talking through that. It's going to take some forgiveness of them, of your family, like, hey, I just want to I know that you have wanted the best for me, but it has come across as hurtful for me. But also I forgive you of that. That might be a conversation you have with mom or dad or whoever's doing this, and there might be healing
to be found in that itself. And another one. Yeah, let's do it, Garrett says, Hey, Grangeer, I'm twenty one years old in my fiance and I are getting married in February, and we've been together for five years. I love her and the family. But as our days get closer, but as our day gets closer, some things have came on me. We both recently left our grandfather's church where
he preaches, and this is very hard for her. I try to be there for her, but sometimes I feel like I'm not marrying my fiance I'm marrying her whole family because of some of the stuff that happens and how much time she makes for her family and not mine. Again, I love her family, but I want to start our family and not join a family. This has caused us to disagree on how we see our future together and where we want to live and how we want our
kids to be raised. She's moved around a lot growing up, and I've stayed at the same farm my whole life. I have prayed a lot over this over these past few months, and I feel like he has not led me down a path on this subject, and I feel alone every time I try to talk about it with someone. I don't understand why all this has changed in the last few months, and why after five years I felt like her family is trying to get into our life
way more. Thank you, all right, Garrett. We don't know a lot about this besides what you said, and so there's no reason for Bernie and I just like pick this this email a part. But but just to say that this sounds this sounds normal. You've been dating. Now, you set a date, it's February, and you're nervous about it. It's coming up. You know it's getting real. It's getting real, and so then you start thinking about it's getting real. Oh man, am I really going to deal with her dad? Like?
I love her dad? But is he going to be over her all the time? And her mom? Like I never really thought about her, you know, at once she was my girlfriend's mom, but now she's going to be my mother in law. And then this whole like church thing has got me crazy. And then are we going to be moving around like she She seems comfortable with moving around and I'm from the same farm and where
all kids? I mean, how will we even rate? I think this is your mind's just racing because you're the impending date is coming, and so just forget all of it. We can just make this simple. Forget all of it. And will you love her? Will you commit your life to her through thick and thin, through sickness and health, better or worse, rich or poor? Will you make a decision to stand next to her, to stand by her even when it stops helping you, when it stops benefiting you,
Will you still be there for her? And will she say the same for you. If the answer is yes, then go for it and it'll these things will just work themselves out. You're looking into this crystal ball, into this future. And now since it's getting real, like Bernie said, you're getting cold feet a little bit. And I let's say, continue on the path. Do you love her? Will you commit yourself to her? Will you make a covenant with her? Not some infatuation, but will you stand by her? And
then you can start thinking about the alternatives. There's a lot of families out there that are horrible, and this one doesn't sound bad, right.
I think what you're going through is something to push into because these same things, whether it's not going to be the exact specific things like your grandfather's church or at this, but there's going to be things in your marriage. There's things in my marriage with my wife that we still have to learn, how to communicate, how to compromise, how to be humble. So this is good practice that this happened. It's really normal, and hopefully you see it as that, and it's not like a red flag of
like I got to get out of here. It's like, now, bro, you're going to run into this like for the rest of your life. You can either do that with this person that you love and grow in intimacy and grow your family, or you can do it by yourself, but you're still going to run into it. This is like human condition of we have to live together here, we have to learn how to communicate and work through emotions and feelings and experience.
And what happened.
The other thing that I'll tell you or just recommend, very practical.
There's a book called The Most Important.
Year of a Man's Life, and then on the backside, or the upside down back, it's the most Important Year of a woman's life. And so you're reading the book together.
You're reading the man's, she's reading the woman's. And it was written, I believed, by husband and wife, and then they and so they would talk about the topics that really the most important year of this marriage being the first year, and so it kind of would give you a glimpse into here's some of the things that we're going to really start to come into the first year.
One of those that I remember with Leslie and I was these I guess you could call it your normals is what they I guess that's what they call it. What she thought was normal was moving around a lot. What you thought was normal was being on a farm. But what you guys have the opportunity to have is y'all's new normal. You get to decide that, and you don't decide that by her saying this is what we're
doing or you saying this is what we're doing. In a loving relationship, it's like, hey, let's have this conversation. I want to genuinely hear what your heart is and why this is important to you, and I want to try to serve you in that way the best possible. And then she would do the same thing, and then together you guys would create a new normal. Maybe you can start some of those things in conversation now that will kind of just ease some of the pressure maybe
that you're feeling as it's getting closer. Your family doesn't get to dictate this. Her family doesn't get to dictate this. It's up to the two of you to communicate, to be joined together and say this is our marriage together.
Let's let's do this.
That's really good man, Garrett. We wish you the best and we just want to tell you I think overall what you're feeling is normal. Yeah, and thanks for emailing buddy, all of you, all of you guys, Thanks for Oh, Bernie, you forgot You forgot to tell him something next.
Okay, so he's I mean, I don't know how I forgot this. Get off of social media.
And preparing for the wedding. You're gonna look, you're gonna see other people and they're perfect little lives that they have that you think they have, and they don't get off social media. Yeah. Yeah, we love you guys. We'll see you next episode. See thanks for joining me on the Granger Smith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
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