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The more times you can take off the crown of people saying, you're so good, you're so good, you're taking off. Nope, take it off. And that removes all type of performance pressure. Nope, this is the true me. This is who I am.
What's up fam? This is your boy JJ. We have an awesome mini man. So with you guys today, I'm pulling in the big guns, Kaleb Ward, who is married to Janine and Mipola. You guys might have seen them on the Happy and Healthy podcast. I don't know if he's the official co-host yet. I think he should be. But man, today was really fun. It's a little bit of a different episode.
We're a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more fun. And Caleb, man, he just, I guess he can't help but ask awesome questions. I was kind of frustrated because I'm like, do you're, you're a guest on, on our podcast. Let me ask you the questions. But that's just the kind of guy he is. We have a great friendship off the podcast. And he just can't help but be humble and curious and ask awesome questions. So I think as we'll really enjoy the episode. One big thing is just like, hey, why do you want to do hard work?
Do you want to do hard things? Why do you want to sell in life? Why do you want to have a vision? And I think that heart is the most important thing you could ever ask yourself before we jump into the episode today. The two things I got for you today on what I'm loving is number one. I would say what I'm loving is, hey, if you're going to Amazon, basically, if you guys didn't know this, I used to work for Amazon. I was a buyer. And I still work in e-commerce on Amazon specifically.
Whatever brain, you know, that you really enjoy and you really like for the most part when it comes to like consumer electronic products like chargers or cameras or headphones or, you know, for me today is like Lulu lemon and allo really nice as
leisure clothing is all these manufacturers in China keep the products that they make and then another buyer comes and says, hey, I want to make this exact same thing maybe just a little bit less nice. And those products typically find themselves on Amazon or an alley,
or you know, Temu who had like five Super Bowl ads, which was crazy. So for me, I love like Lulu lemon and allo shorts, but I don't own a single pair of them. Bird dogs are the same ones that they have like the built in liner. So I actually love like the knock off at leisure Lulu shorts. And you can find those on Amazon.
I think my favorite one that I found is crazy yoga and they're great. I'm about to buy another couple pairs of them. So yeah, that's what I'm loving in my life lately. And then in my DMs you guys please keep sliding in my DMs. Here's the question I got last week that I really loved. Hi, JJ,
should your girlfriend tell you when she's ready to be proposed to or how should one do it after eight months of dating. How do I know the signals. Hey, I think this is a great question. Fun fact Kate actually told me at the six month mark that she was, you know, wanting and looking forward to being, you know, married to me if that was a decision that I wanted to make.
She also kind of gave me a timeline saying, hey, I'm not here a waste time. And if you don't propose to me in the next six to eight months, then I'm going to consider walking away now. Not everyone is as direct and as for this Kate, there's not really a right way or a wrong way to do this. I would just say the healthy way though is to talk about it. Like if you've been dating over three months or six months.
Like as a man, I really think what it looks like to lead with clarity is to say, hey, there's a direction that this relationship is going. I might hear to waste your time. I might hear to waste my time. If I am dating you and we have moved into the relationship phase. It's because we both here really want to evaluate each other as a romantic partner for life, right as a husband and as a wife. Now, after you get into relationship, listen, like I just people get really caught up on this.
People are going to get engaged to each other at different times of life, whether it be at seven months a year, two years, like it's really hard to give prescriptive advice for everyone's story. Our rule of thumb is just hey, 12 months is a perfect amount of dating. There's no rush to get to 12 months and at six to 12 months, I really think that's the time where as men and women, you really finalize and decide whether or not this is someone I can and should marry.
In that time, I love before you decide to marry them, something like pre-engagement counseling is such a wonderful and wise idea. A lot of people wait till they get engaged and send the save the dates and put the deposit on the venue to do something like pre-marital counseling.
It doesn't really make sense to talk about the skeletons and the closet or the big red flags or the big deal breakers after the ring is on the fact. Those are some things that you should definitely be talking about before you make the decision to get engaged. Because in my mind, once you're engaged to someone, you made it really, really hard to walk away and you're very, very much more close to getting married than you are to just dating and being single and walking away.
So yeah, I would say at eight months, you should be having those conversations to be honest as a man, hey, I'm very much inclined on keeping this relationship alive. I definitely see you as someone who I could marry. I would not put timelines on it, but I would just say I would love to make a decision right about marrying you in the next six months, 12 months.
I would love to make a decision about marrying you soon, like I have intention here. Anyway, that was a long intro. I love you guys. Please enjoy this episode with Caleb. And I will see you guys next week. Let's go.
Caleb, my buzz brother, okay Travis Kelsey, AKA Paul Walker. Come on. What's good, man? I'm a little tired, but you know, we're, I feel like if you're in your 20s or 30s, you just have no excuse. You can't say you're tired because I don't know. I read a stat that was, I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard on a podcast. It's probably true.
But they were saying how when you get married or you have a child, which you're about to experience your testosterone levels plummet. And so since we've got, since I've gotten married, I've been like really taking my vitamins, really exercising, and a half marathon. And 18 days, so I've been really training for that. So my body hurts, but we're here.
Okay, well, so fun fact, I know why the T levels drop. Do you know why it's not because there's a there's like it's actually, you know, very, very common for a guy to say, oh, you're having a baby, get ready for your T levels to drop by that red meat, like get on, get on that corner of our diet.
It's because of one reason you sleep less. It's literally because you sleep less. And when you get married, you probably sleep less than when you did obviously because there's just new things happening and, you know, you're on different schedules. And then when you have a baby, obviously, you sleep way less.
You know, I've heard this a lot of men who have childs, you know, or children, and they're like, oh, I'm not sleeping at all. I'm not sleeping at all. I'm not sleeping at all. Do you think that that's played out? Do you think you think genuinely, dude, who are having a baby, you know, married couples, you have a baby are actually sleeping two to three hours, four hours at a time.
Or do you think that's just something people say? Well, I'll tell you in about a month, and I'll give you like an honest, non dramatic perspective. How's that? But, you know, it is funny. Like, I think about college. And I'm like, man, you want to know how you know someone didn't all all nighter and stayed up.
They'll tell you first thing. They'll tell you it's just like they can't help but tell you yeah, people can't help but they can't help tell you about two things in life. Not sleeping or the second one is this one blows my mind because once I tell you you're going to see it everywhere.
Yeah, people have to tell other people that they've fasted in some kind of capacity. Sure. Yeah. Or ice baths. Like, I feel like it's either like ice baths. It used to be CrossFit. Now it's like kind of gone into that. I don't know. Everyone has to tell you about how hard they're working. If they're I'm running right now. So I'm of course telling everybody that I'm running.
And so why why do you think that is? Well, it's a good question. The ice bath thing, dude. I'm like, I love that for you guys. You don't have to put it on your Instagram story every single time you ice bath. I think it's maybe I'm just like pissed that I don't have a nice $500 ice bathtub in my backyard. But it is like guys can't help but share.
Yeah, but I do feel like once you've done it, I've done it twice. When you do it, you need to tell people about it because what it does to your your body and your brain, the serotonin it kicks in. It's unbelievable. And then you get you get kind of mad because you start viewing as other people like, oh, you're really like your week.
You don't experience what this is when you go on an eight mile run like it's hard to not tell people because of how difficult it is. And you just want to you just want people to know, you know, OK, well, listen, I go well, here's the thing. I did them in college.
I played football and we like it was ice bath and not because all the entrepreneurs were doing it. We did it for recovery, right. And we would from high school on, you know, we'd ice bath and workout in pretty tough conditions. But we that was just part of our regiment or program. And I think probably what we're getting to is there's just something about doing something hard and feeling the sense of accomplishment that we can't help but share.
We're also lazy like our generation of men like I believe our lazy that was I was lazy in different areas. I think we're all pretty. I think every human or every man, especially is very disciplined as certain areas of their life.
It could be one or two things or like for me before I got married, my diet was horrible. Like I was lazy when it came to, you know, cooking the right foods and all the things. And so I feel like becoming more disciplined as a man is essential to evolving into the man that you want to be. And that's the kick I'm on or no.
You don't think any generation of men before us for lazy. I don't think they could be. I think they might I think they were lazy and probably like, you know, I just feel like men in the back in the day had to wake up at a different time. There was a different layer of expectation. There was less ways to make money. So it's not like you could, you know, create money by being a social media or starting your own business. I mean, you could.
But marrying an influencer or like, I don't know. There was a different layer of expectation. And I don't know. You see now that's like people talking about, you know, they want the work week to be, you know, three days. There's work from home. And even when I was in corporate, you know, up until a few months ago.
Dude, I was telling our boss, we need remote day. You need, you know, you'll do anything to just get out of that, you know, corporate mundane. So yeah, I think our older generation had it tougher. There's probably some truth to that. But hey, am I catching wind of are you a hustle guy? Like are you a grind guy? Are you like you'd listen to YouTube videos like day and night before these runs? Like, talk to me.
I know my toxic trait. What? My toxic trait. It's not like keeping up with the Kardashians. It's not this. It's not, you know, even really Netflix or YouTube or whatever. It's a real of like these cheesy Steve Harvey motivational like or TD Jakes or Jocco and David Goggins. And it's like, you want to be a guilty pleasure.
Oh my gosh, if I wanted like, if I want to like go run eight miles, I'll just like go on my Instagram Reels. And it's just like some guy on a podcast talking about how you're not, you know, doing enough. Yeah. There's probably a little bit more X-Footive language in there. Right. There's a there's a there's a video from Jocco that I listened to when I'm feeling tired. And I got this from listen to one of Joe Ergins podcasts, but it was you feel tired? Good.
Oh, you feel, oh, you feel sad. And he's like, good. Oh, your marriage is struggling right now. Good. And it's like, you need to go through that to be able to experience what good even is. So good. So anytime you wake up at 5 a.m. And you slept two hours. Good. And it's just like, gosh, that gets me going. I don't know why bro.
I listen. So first of all, nice flex that you're guilty pleasure is listening to pump up, you know, like hustle videos from David Goggins. That's that's man. I can't believe that's your guilty pleasure. Like you're just motivation is fleeting though. That's why it's a guilty pleasure.
It is it is leading because in this dude, it's so funny. There's this there's this reddit post I saw all the other day. And it was like screw you David Goggins. And he goes. My son started watching your videos about a month ago. And the kid is out of control now. He does man on his bed. He started sleeping on the floor because unnecessary mattress softness. And do says homosexuality. He put a pull up bar in his room. And he's locked in there for hours, zoom pull ups.
The other day I got up at four to use a bathroom. And I hear him yelling to himself, who's going to carry the boats. He's never seen or even been on a boat in his life. And it just goes on and on and on about this eight year old. And she's like, you need to fix this David Goggins.
Bro, he's the reason I almost tore my Achilles. It was about two years ago. I got a hold of his stuff. And he was just like, you don't need to do rest days like rest days are an invention we created in a society to help produce or to help companies who are, you know, I forgot his reference.
This is was like, pharma has told you that you need to rest. So you're at home buying more potato chips or your, your, your subscribing to more TV channels. And, and so I started running training for a marathon just randomly dude just randomly. I'm post two knee surgeries like doctors are like, don't run. And David Goggins called me a B word. And I'm like, oh my gosh, he's right.
I hear you I would, I would say this, but always remember and listen with the soul and heart of who you are and how God created us because the second I hear the note rest days, I'll, I'll take that and I'll get him up and I'll get out, you know, and I'll, I'll be honest, I'll wake up. So I wake up every day at 4.45 AM.
I'm days on the way to the gym. I'll put up Schwarzenegger. I'll put up Goggins. I'll put up Leonardo Scott. There's all these great YouTube videos. And yeah, they give me amped up. But even just Goggins right there. It's so easy to drink the cool aid. And I'm like, wait a second.
Let me think about this with my heart and soul and guidance of what's got me to this point life. And it's not motivation. It's how God's designed me. And God, I'm like, no rest days. I'm like, tell that to the God of the universe. I'm like, you after creating and doesn't need a right. He doesn't need a rest day. Chose a seven day to rest. Well, here's a perfect example of that daring when I was doing the new rest day thing. I ended up straining my Achilles.
I had to pull out from the marathon. I didn't run again. So I ran every day for about a month there. I think I trained for a month and a half. Quit because I hurt my Achilles. I didn't run again for a year and a half later. And now I'm running a half marathon in 18 days. And I run once a week. And the rest of the days I recover. I do my therapy exercises and I do other exercises.
But I rest now. And now I it's kind of like it's a blend. It's a balance. But I just believe in my heart that we don't have to train ourselves to be to take rest days. I think that just comes naturally. So I don't think that we need to I don't think a lot of people have the issue of, oh, I need to I need to rest.
It's like that. I think that comes naturally. So I think I would err on the side of work as hard as you can because ultimately like when you're really tired, eventually your body just falls asleep. And so I think we should find a balance. But I think we should push ourselves a lot more than we're pushing ourselves usually. I think what we've seen nowadays. Yeah, there's probably, you know, you could probably split the personalities into people who need to hear.
They need to work harder. Right. And and they're being lazy. And then there's the other side where it is, you know, probably like your any gram threes or perfectionist, your high performers who are just like, hey, you need to cool off. Like not everything in your life is built. Right off what you're doing. I think there's a I'm the guy who's not lazy when it comes to like performance and like exercise and like stuff that I enjoy.
But like I'm back and score and now finishing up my undergrad and I hate it, dude. 30 minutes there. I'd rather be going on a run for four hours. Like I have to be disciplined in that, but I am extra lazy when it comes to my studies. And so I wish I could take a little bit of what I have over here and bring it to knowledge and reading. And yeah, but things that like will pay off more down the road because ultimately, isn't that funny? Yeah.
Isn't that funny? How there's like some things for you that are extremely easy and you find so much pleasure and joy and then you just absolutely low with and hate things over here. Right. And then you can find another guy, you know, who's he's got as masters and divinity. Right. And he's like, you're telling me I can skip a 30 minute workout and go read literature for 30 minutes and run essay on it. Like sign me up. Right.
That's rough. No, you said the word divinity. You said divinity. Yeah, masters of divinity. I went to Bible college for about six months and man, Bible scholars are a different level of like intelligence. Like I, I've you talked to a Bible scholar before. Yeah, you want to think you're a good Christian after talking to a Bible scholar. Oh, it's I mean, well, you know, they're incredibly intelligent and they've taken all their time and effort. Right.
And it's just honed on one thing. The Bible and it's and it's yeah, I do I do feel I do feel like a dumb Christian. Sometimes when I'm around. But I do think actually though, the most intelligent Bible scholars, you'll meet though, can explain very complex and difficult things to a third grader. That actually is like the ones who lose me. I'm like, I'm not saying they're not smart. I'm actually saying the most intelligent of them though can take the most complex things.
And we'll talk a lot. I think, you know, we talked about hard work. And I don't know about you, but I grew up with this quote, which is hard work beats talent every day, especially when talent doesn't work hard. And my dad like drilled that into me because I was a chubby white boy who is just not that good at sports.
I played like full back and linebacker and I wanted to be a quarterback. And so I had to learn, you know, how to be a quarterback. And, you know, I look back and I'm like, dude, to be honest, like this hard work, hard work preaching myself to work hard and have work ethic.
It works to agree, but it just falls so flat of I think how we're designed as men, you know, instead, and what I wish I would have known at 1617 that I didn't realize until college and even to where I'm at today as a husband and soon to be father is this, you know, the idea of telling someone to work hard for work hard, sake is just stupid.
And that's where I think hustle culture kind of falls short. I think you have to have a purpose and a vision that is so alluring to you that you are so desperate and hungry for that you say, guess what? I'll do anything to get there. I want to be the most in shape. I want to be the best husband I can and I'm desperate, but like I'm desperate to be at that place.
And I'll do therefore anything to get there and that will fuel my hard work in a short term and the long term more than anything else I could ever listen to right and emotionally get myself amped up on and actually last me a lifetime. Is that something that you feel like you've learned or where do you think you fall when it comes to doing hard things, why they've been so hard for you and how it maybe feeds in the vision and purpose.
Yeah, I feel like I try to look at I think every month I really take a look at my life and I'm like, what am I neglecting? And so when I got, when I was engaged for about six, seven months to Janine my diet, I wasn't doing any cardio.
I wasn't disciplined in the areas that I knew I needed to be disciplined in and when I started running and I started doing things I didn't like doing what it was doing was in that process, my brain sort of firing in different ways like I can't believe I'm running five miles or never thought I would could do that.
And then you start like your brain starts going, well, maybe I can do that thing out. I was neglecting in like school and like maybe I could go to medical school and I could you know read my Bible now or I could you know manage my feelings when I'm angry, angry better and I could be a better husband in this way, I find it that when I'm doing things that are very difficult for me, it opens up new pathways into my brain of like other things I'm neglecting.
That being said, when I went on an eight mile run, I got home and Janine needs my help with stuff around the house and she needs me to show up and be a husband and I'm like, babe, I'm tired, I'm sore now.
And so you can't let your your do hard things outside of your marriage outside of your seat and let that come into like your marriage and like as an excuse to like not show up. So like if you're in school and you're working 60 hour weeks, well, I'm sorry, like it doesn't give you the excuse to then go and treat someone badly because you're tired or you don't have the capacity or you're not checking in on your friends because you just can't do another, you know, social thing because your brain is not working.
Your brain is worked. Here's the thing and I love how you said it. It's who are you giving your best to you and first, meaning I would I would when I first started waking up early and trying to instill more discipline and habits and I go to the gym, I could try and like practically justify these things in my life. And I was like, all of a sudden I'd be getting home, I'd be helping Kate, I would still be productive and my quiet time at home was distracted. It wasn't as rich as I'd love it to be.
And I was just sitting there and I was like, man, I'm giving my best effort towards building my body and a pseudo twisted way that's really for me at the end of the day and not necessarily for God. If I can wake up and go workout and give that my best, I can wake up even earlier and give God my best first and I notice within myself, I'm not a late night, nine o'clock guy as far as giving God my best.
So for me, I was like, just wind the clock back, create as much time as I need and that's where before I even go into the gym, I'll sit in my car for 20, 30, 40 minutes and I'll do my devotional, I'll do my prayer time, I'll do my worship and I'm just sitting in the parking lot because for me, that's become like my quiet place.
And I want to arrange my goals alongside my priorities in life, like I want to be a, I want to be in great shape, right? I want to take care of my body, but that's not my God. So while the sun, when I be giving my best effort and time first to that, if my priority, I say right and declares God number one, then my wife and then my body.
Why do you think that if you take a Christian who works out a ton, he's running all the time, he's really healthy, he's in like really good shape and someone could go, oh, you have a vanity issue or you, this is your idol, but you could take a Christian who, you know, has their Jesus time, but is lazy, they live a sedentary life.
And no one would call them out for their lifestyle because it would be seemed or deemed as being rude or unimpathetic or that you're judging. You know what I mean? I feel like there's a double standard there. There is, but I think it's, you know, the heart behind your why matter so deeply, I think, right? Like, think about that Christian who works out and stewards his body.
We have to be deeply honest with ourselves at the end of the day. When I look at myself the mirror and I see my body changing and growing and getting more in shape, there's a celebration in that, but I have to be so deeply right me, JJ, I have to be so sincere when I say when I want to work out.
And Paul talks about this idea of in Corinthians, he wants his life in every area to be so radically transformed by the gospel that every area of his life, you could point to think about like a spider web, any area of JJ's life, I want someone to look at it under a microscope and glorify Jesus the way I eat the way I talk, everything hidden, everything behind a closed door, how I treat my wife, how I treat my dogs.
If you had full access to 100% of my life, I sincerely desperately want it to only point to one thing, which is Jesus. And so I take that and then I go workout and I say, honestly, I want to be disciplined, I want to be healthy, I want to have an awesome body. Not so I feel better about myself than today, I have to be really careful about pride here, you know, and flexing and all these things in the compliments, I genuinely want to have a great body because I genuinely want to glorify God.
But the person viewing that right might view it as vanity because that is what vanity looks like quite frequently right in the world. So what do you think about that? You think that's yeah, I think so when I fell off a skateboard, I dislocated my Patela, I blew out all my cartilage. I couldn't hit legs for no lie about two and a half years. And so recently I've been able to start squatting again, it's been a four year process or so much PT that I had to do.
But people would make fun of my chicken legs all the time, like, oh, your upper body is bigger than your lower body and I was so insecure, like I was so insecure for the longest time. And I had to realize, man, like I had my identity in high school and college in the way that I looked and I really felt like freedom, dude, when I finally just was like, you know, I'm wearing shorts, I don't care anymore.
And because my identity is not in either how people perceive me, but like, I know like what the Lord believes in me. And I know what I'm called to as a man. I know that I have a wife who loves me. Ultimately, like, I think it's in Galatians, it's like, why would I seek their approval of man when I'm trying to seek their approval of God.
That is ultimately it, like we as men seek the approval of God. And I think a really good podcast is I think it's a city Robertson's husband Christian, he has like a called for eight or something. And he talks about this a lot. And where it's like that balance of being an athlete and working out and not letting that overtake your life of like, man, when I look in the mirror, I like to weigh my back looks, I like to weigh my arm looks.
And now I can be the husband that I can be now I can, you know, now my wife is going to like me now my wife's going to be attracted to me now my, you know, people I walk into room and people stare at me.
And that's where I find my fulfillment. And it's like, no, because beauty is fleeting. And eventually you're going to be a seven year old man. And if all your identity for the past 40 years was built on the approval of others of how you look, you're going to have a really hard time with God when you when you are
wrinkly, so you better figure that out now. Yeah. Well, you know, you're so you're wide, you're wide, deeply matters. Right. Because the other thing too is I think we justify our wise based on the results we see. And I can be deeply insecure and so insecure and caring that I want to be so accepted and validated. I will diet like crazy. I will workout like I will look like a shredded beast. Right. But and I can be like it's effective. It worked. But my the means and the why matters.
I got into the best shape of my life about a year. I'd say like eight, nine months ago, but I didn't I wasn't doing it in a healthy way. I was fasting for a long period of time, getting in my calories late at night. I and my body was suffering. But on the outside, I looked like I looked healthy.
But internally, I wasn't and I knew that and I knew that like when even when you're building a business, if you're making money the wrong way, eventually gets exposed and that goes into everything in your life. If you are the top leading salesperson in your business. But you know that you're on your phone every single day. And the only reason why you really got their sales is because you know you got kind of lucky. And so on paper, it looks great. But eventually.
I feel like I haven't mastered yet. And I'm still working on because you know growing up like I was in Diet culture. My mom, my whole family was on Weight Watchers at a very early age. They just were like they were very health conscious, but they there were all these like FAD diets. And it was like the keto this week, you know, and this and that this week, not dog on my fam.
But they were like very into like the Diet culture. And that caused me to look at foods very interesting growing up. And so my brain was always just wired to like look the best try to be the best. And that's and like kind of taking the scripture of like your body's a temple out of out of context, maybe a little bit.
Right. Totally. And I think that's it is funny where you hit the faith and fitness world. When it comes to that, because I do think we're always looking kind of for an excuse to kind of cover up really what it is just feeding our ego and pride. What do you think of the like the gym Christian influencers like what do you think of like you know we're Christians, but you know we're showing a little.
You know we're we're we're we're we're we're we got we got like a Bible verse with a good soundtrack and we the muscles are popping and everything. Do you think there's a line to that? What do you think? I'm curious. I don't know man. I think a lot of it fires me up. I think it's it's it could cause someone to stumble. So I think that might be my only worry, but like Janine, you know, post her videos of her working out every single day.
And I know that she really tries to keep it to where it's like as modest as possible. It wouldn't cause anyone to stumble. So I think it's it's the heart behind like the why. But it is something that I can see sometimes I'm like, well, that's you know, that's interesting. Yeah, we've talked about monocene less before and and it does come down to the individual's heart. I think one thing we have to accept is first of all, I I can't judge everyone's on their journey, you know, as far as growing.
And I when I see that my temptation is the judge and I feel like the spirits beckoning is to pray. God, I have no idea where they're at. I just hope that their heart is in a place where it wants to glorify you and grow in that.
And if they are wearing something that's revealing or scandalous, I think the gym culture, you know, in general, outside the Christian world is super, super just vain. I think it's all vain, just like any other area of the world. But specifically, I think it's just a, it's you might as well have a shrine dedicated to yourself, you know, and I only know that because I've been there. Like I have worship myself.
It's so bizarre like you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, you might as well have a statue carved out of yourself and be worshiping yourself. But do you think that there is something just in our genetic code, I mean, 300 years ago, when you would look at like a tribe and you would you find the biggest male probably like you're the leader of the tribe, you're going to protect us.
You are going to, you know, feed us, you're going to hunt, you think there's something still within our DNA as men, we want to be a protector of our family, we want to people to believe that we can lead our tribe. And it might be seen as vanity, but do you think there's some merit to I do see some of these guys and I'm like, no, I think there is some merit to like wanting to.
I don't know be a leader and it's hard to be a leader when you're eating potato chips on your couch. I think, yeah, I think there's a shred of merit based on how we were designed that's gotten so blended and twisted by our flesh because the one leader I've committed to devoting my life to form every shot, have it action,
indeed, my entire life is dedicated to mimicking one guy who was a leader, the world's best leader that's ever come. And I'm like, man, that is just so the opposite, I feel like of how he modeled a leader in everything he said, right, is the upside down kingdom of main hood and what I see, which is the greatest of you is the least among you as the disciples, right, kind of like Duke it out as young, you know,
or teenagers, by the way, so 14, 18, 19 years old, you know, just like they're going through puberty, they're going through this idea of like what it looks like to be a man and they're coming to God saying, who among us is the greatest right that you love and they're just so dumb and I'm like, that's me, you know, and Jesus is just like you guys just don't get it.
Like you guys will understand maybe an eternity one day when you see the cosmic death that I am I am Jesus I am the Holy Trinity who's been here from the beginning is going to be to the end and I have come down all the way down to the place of a servant where I wash your feet, I speak your human language, I I dumb myself down all the way to this place of just meekness, right, and
and and servanthood and I'm like that actually fires me up more in my soul, I feel like it's this like cold engine that just when I start hearing that truth activated in my soul, I feel like that unlocks an eternal motivation and activation of my biblical main hood more than any goggins, you know, video could ever come close to it's like a sovereign cosmic gap of emotional mental motivation.
You know that's fleeting here on earth and when my soul like when I wake up to the the sobriety of how how hungry my soul is as a man to just be activated and everything like imagine just that waterfall you have ever seen Lord the rings two towers.
They just break these dams open you know they flood into Saramans like you know fire village I'm like man imagine being just so spiritually impacted by biblical truth and Jesus's way of leadership that it just unlocks the dams and burst forward into like your emotional physical mental life.
And I'm like as we talk about doing hard things I'm like that I would say the day my life changes when I just felt like my main hood was just radically just transformed and just completely flipped upside down. So good compared to what I was feeding myself. Have you thought about doing poetry? No, godly that felt like if we could clip that last three minutes you just went into this like I was hearing your words and I could like it was painting a picture like in my brain.
And so that was that was good you thought I feel like you have you know I feel like a lot of questions I ask I know the answer to but I feel like while I'm asking you I'm like working through my the things I'm questioning in my own brain.
And I just love your answer to every single one of my questions or even just thoughts because I feel like I'm a verbal processor and it gets me to trouble sometimes because like I'll say something that like I don't really believe but I think other people might believe it and like there's some truth to it. And I have to be able to work that out and you've always been somebody that I'm a hey man I'm thinking this and you'll be like okay let's break this down.
And so I've just always appreciate that about you. And well I appreciate you know I think the the best thing that Janine married and you is the fact that you're hungry to grow and you ask great questions and here you are in my podcast asking me questions you know what do you want to know you want to ask a question.
Yeah I do I would I would ask you know currently how does your spiritual life and motivation to be a man kind of doesn't conflict against the hustle culture and the David Goggins like do you feel like they're conflicting messages or do you blend them together into this Caleb motivation that's specific to you.
Wow yeah so I do think they can overlap but they can easily become where I can like today I'll be honest with you I didn't read my Bible today because I I was meeting with a guy for coffee and you know we're talking about business we're talking about you know we're he's he's kind of one of my mentors and super godly guy and but you know it's more about how we're going to succeed and how I'm going to provide and some ideas that I have and then immediately.
I went right to the gym and immediately I came back to work and immediately I'm on this podcast and I didn't I woke up I didn't you know take a second just to be like Lord thank you for another for another breath thank you allow me equip me to be a good husband like wouldn't that be a better way to start my day if like everything is about him like the first thing I do isn't to roll over like I got on tick tock and Twitter immediately to check the game from last night and to check the stock report and this and that and this and that and this and that and I'm going to do that.
And I think that's where it can become unhealthy when my mind is so focused on providing for my wife providing for our 401k providing for to our we can give to providing in a place where I can go work out and you know make sure my wife likes what she sees you know instead of being like okay like one step out of time I don't even have the tools ready to go out and defeat the day because it's a losing back.
It's a losing battle and I don't have the framework you don't have the framework to look through the lens of your day and that's the Lord and that's and that's his Holy Spirit. It's going to be a tough day and and I've just found that when I and Jeanine does this so much better than me I mean she every morning and that's why man if you're single you don't you want to marry somebody where you know hopefully you're just
equal Christian like with them but I don't have to doubt that Jeanine is on that couch very early in the morning with that Bible open and she is getting into it and not saying I don't do that with her a lot of times but there are days I miss that and there are days where I am preoccupied with the pressures of society that we've put on men and that's how I find my worth and how my wife perceives me and when she's just like that and I'm not going to be able to do that.
And when she's just like man I married you because you were a godly godly man and spiritually I was so attracted to you that if you can if you lose that and that was the beginning focus of why she felt love with you you're going to lose yourself along the way.
But what if I'm single you know how do I how it single Caleb without a wife have that same kind of what I would probably call that as bumpers you know you go bowling and you insult bumpers right if you suck at bowling like me those bumpers that just keep you in the in the lane what would what would those bumpers look like to just remind you like came in Caleb friends bro I would not I want to Jeanine would have dated me if it wasn't for my friends because
you there's only so much self control for like as a single man it's so hard there's so much either temptation or just so many different like you know when you go to the store and there's so many different jellies to choose from like man it's hard to choose which jelly you want and it's like as a man it's like you can go this route you can go this route you can go this route
you can go that route and I I surrounded myself by men who loved the Lord so much that it was uncomfortable sometimes it were so nosy and involved in my dating life and in every time I woke up to my roommate it's kind of funny you like I feel like you did you you will marry your roommate a lot of the times I would wake up every morning and see my roommate Luke in the word and in prayer and that was and he was older than me and it's funny Jeanine is older than me and I and so it was just
like I had dudes in my life who I think in a lot of ways were better than me and had more spiritual maturity and and it challenged me to like they would remind me of who I am when they would see me not in church for a week or they would see me speak in a way or like I remember one time I was laying in bed one night where I was we're all in my but my roommate's room it sounds really weird but all three of us guys are sitting there
and you know the growth my year all the day down and this was about a year and a half ago when I was like thinking about going back to school to finishing my undergrad and my buddy goes Caleb like you've talked about this for so long like either be about it or do it like stop talking about it and I've seen a pattern in your life where you're doing a lot of talking or that's about your faith or and you're not really
living out some of the things you're saying and bro it hurt it hurt so bad but it it it it it rooted me in like wow I had like a mirror and that's what Jeanine does to me even now in marriage like she's like a mirror and you need to let down your pride to allow people to come in and speak into your life and if you don't have that like do it do a search on
it and make a post like you need to find it find it immediately have you ever heard of this verse proverbs 27 6 no you're gonna you're gonna love it because here you go wounds from a friend can be trusted but an enemy multiplies kisses wow I've never heard that before I have never heard that before and some people might hear that and just go on like a crusade of just absolutely crucifying their friends I don't think so that would probably be a minority
but I think there's a lot of guys who need to hear that from receiving or giving truth to their friend I I would tell you as a single guy I wish I would have had the courage to speak up a little bit more like what your friend said to you with with the Holy Spirit guiding those words and truth and love and just saying Caleb hey man I love you
and and this might hurt a little bit but you're doing a lot of talking in your life and just as a friendly brother who sees and has the privilege of being your life it's all talk like I'm not seeing a lot of walk and but if I didn't really love you or even worse was an enemy I'd be like yeah Caleb I love it when you talk about this stuff don't push don't push so much pressure on yourself you know yeah you should you should honestly open up a podcast where you just talk about this more me
so you know Caleb as you said that I'm like man I do look back and there were a few times in my life where I live with roommates and they were bad guys and vice versa I just kind of wish I would have had the look not I want to say self respect but like just the like gumption to say you know what I want to live with guys who are going to challenge me in every way but most of all
spiritually dude my roommates would take a photo of my bed when it wasn't made and put it in the group text and make and like I don't do that because it made me it was rude but there was a level of accountability that was uncomfortable and annoying and but guess what I sure made my bed when I knew they were coming over again and I sure you know now I'm you
know try to make the bed you know being married a lot more and and so yeah I think a lot of things are rooted in the how you surround yourself but yeah we're growing dude I'm trying to be well it's great you know but you know the one thing I think I hear you say that I love is you know when I don't feel like doing something you know what carries me through a lot of times the power of habit that that's probably my
favorite thing about habits is because if I'm if I'm being honest I'm lazy but I embrace a laziness I don't demonize it I don't say it's a great thing I just embrace it and say you know honestly I'm lazy so 4.45 when I don't feel like waking up you know what will it be a habit a really really great habit and I think you know no a heron he's a
pastor and a Nashville with an awesome up and coming church with Grant Skeleton called the way church we've done stuff with them and he goes honestly I just I was not and a great Bible reading habit so and I love coffee so he said I would not allow myself to make that nice pour over coffee and blah blah blah until I read my Bible and like you know what if that is the
little hack or habit and tip that you have to get yourself to get in such a spiritual rhythm and habit I think for the short term I'm fine with it because the long term habit and practice itself is not so that you can keep getting coffee but it's so that you can grow into missy with grotto with God I'm an even just as you're talking like I fail and a ton of ways and I think I'm that is the reality of this I think you can follow a lot of these
people on social media you yourself being one and you nice it we have you know phone calls and it's just like you you can never get to a place where you think you've got to be a good as a man yes like you got to keep evolving because the minute one thing starts to slip and you start getting good in one area another thing it's just like it's kind of like the economy when something goes something it's like you know something
happens and it changes and circumstances change or your wife has an issue here and the minute you start thinking you're good and and then it's like you're missing in this area and so I think yeah I think I think you've covered a lot of it do you have any more any more questions for me JJ yeah probably a closing one or two house I thought we're going to go five three hours you know with a cat Williams and Shannon sharp did like a three-hour
podcast dude I want to do one so bad but everyone kind of took it as an excuse to doing super super long content and like we're not as interesting as Shannon sharp I can be I can't be do Janine get so mad at me sometime because I'm pretty unfiltered and and I think that's what's like that's what I want to see I want to see that's why I like some of these podcasts that love them or hate them but they're so unfiltered
where you're getting such an authentic version of themselves I'm not saying it's right but I do think that especially as Christians I never would just want to like come on a podcast or come anywhere and be like
just act like I have it 24 seven altogether and speak in this this righteous way why is that why yeah because I would it would be fraudulent I think I think it'd be fraudulent to like come on a podcast after an argument with your wife or knowing you've acted in a certain way and to get on a podcast
I think that's why you've seen so many pastors getting trouble or things happen because they aren't like like our pastor says all the time I think it's so good like taking off the crown and if you can the more times you can take off the crown of like people saying like oh you have it you're so good
you're so good you're like taking off nope take it off and that has like in that removes all type of performance pressure it's like nope this is this is the true me this is this is who I am I think it's a it's a huge I think we constantly point at ego right and you know J.P. says all the time I was built to reflect glory not absorb a single ounce of it and you know one thing that I do that I mean that for me is
second Corinthians nine you know or sorry second Corinthians 12 were guess what Caleb all we can do and all we should do as men who are sober to our sin and flesh is boast and our weakness right it's like all I can do is just boast and my weakness because when I'm weak guys who's magnified
but you know what sucks about boasting any weakness it sucks to like you leave if you ever a situation after you boasting in your weakness too long you leave you're like day they probably think I suck you know there's you want people to innately believe is that the right word innately yeah
yeah you want people to innately believe that you are like that's what a human being you want people to think you're special and so when you boast in your weakness it feels counterintuitive but I think it really does it creates authenticity in the room where people can start coming forward
and like oh you're not perfect oh here's what I'm struggling with too and it creates like a just a place where people are just being able to be vulnerable well you know what hit me as you walk away and you think about that I'm like because I've been there to two degree I want to walk away
and say man I hope Christ was really magnified in that conversation I hope they really I hope they were really struck by how awesome Jesus is not because you know I always be myself up you know I shared this last week or with another guy a Tim Keller talks about you know the gift of self-forgetfulness and he gets when you meet someone who's truly humble you don't walk away from them saying man there's just so humble or man they really just beat up on them
so much he goes you walk away saying man they were just so focused on other people you know they were just so focused on me the whole time they were so focused on Jesus the whole time you know what I've tried to live my life by and I think it's similar to what you just said
is if you see something great and somebody tell them if you see an attribute in somebody there's there's too many people walking around with unbelievable skill sets that no one will point out because they are either they don't think that would mean that much of that person
but I've tried to make it like a it can be the smallest thing dude when you're around somebody and you're just like you just you just you want to be somebody who just is an encouragement to you never know what they're going through like I need that so much of my life now like people will say things to me now and I'm like dude thank you for saying that it can be the small thing hey man like you're I think someone told me like man dude you're looking taller and I was like thank you
well have you seen that graphic with the circle imagine a big circle big white circle with like a little little dot in it and it's like what you know about someone's life is that dot and what's actually going on in their life is that whole entire circle
right and it's just such a helpful picture of like you just don't know but I actually love that I think you have a kindness in you that really desires to empower people which I think listen God speaks so much more through people and our lives and I think we even realize
but Ephesians 4 talks about the edification of the church and the edification of their body and I think you you do walk in a gifting of the power of the tongue which is to identify I know I just I think that that is that's such a compliment and that's something that I want to be
I'm not going to get perfect in every area but you know it's something that I want to keep striving for you know yeah and then because you know and then it all comes back to I just if there's a guy listening to this the why you're why I would actually say you tell me what you think about this your why is the most important thing about you yeah I walked for so long in my life high school college and just didn't know why I did anything
and I would take this job I'd be working this job and I'm like why the heck am I here like why am I yeah I'm getting paid you know some money but like there's no reason for me to be here right right now because this doesn't like there's nothing within this because I don't have a framework I don't have that why and it wasn't until about three or four years ago where I started to be intentional with everything that I did everything had like a you know a future looking into this
if how this is going to affect my life and I think you got to write that down and it's really really really really changed my life like I I my why like I got to stop saying like so much I I something and like just kills me I want to hear your why because I think it says a lot about a man like I really and this is cliche but I want to love God and I want to love people that's it if that's the it's that if that is how I'm judged upon the day I die is how I love God
and how I love people then nothing else everything I everything else I'm doing if I'm going to go back to school like how I love God and love people through that and every decision I make you know and then it's yeah and it's easy to have a written why it's really hard to live out your why you know my why I mean I'll be honest I think it's it's always been journey I just I'm desperate to know God more
and I'm desperate to specifically with men show them God's love and there's just so much more for them I just you know and I've been so convicted lately especially on the evangelism I'm just like man do if I really believe what I believe why am I not more concerned with the eternal souls of every single person I am running into why am I I'm not going to do it
I'm I I have three or four guys at the gym I'm taking up right now that over a year I've built up a relationship why am I'm not like heartbroken and just beckoning and begging God to show up in their life and inviting them and encouraging them and asking them questions right like that's where if my why is really that I love God and I really love people and I really love men and I want them to experience Jesus why is that not translating into my every day
yeah well I think it goes down to what you want your why to be versus what your why actually is and what my why actually is is self-centeredness yeah success you know how people view me people think I'm funny like that's really my flesh my fleshly like why but spiritually and what my soul craves is the approval and the love of God
and the only way to really have the approval of God is by accepting him into your heart and living out what you live not by your works not by anything but it's like I just love the crossover between and this goes into the hustle culture it's like you're saved through grace and faith alone right but also the the crossover to that is faith without works is dead and so I'm trying to find a balance between those both both those scriptures
right and then well and you know a life saved by grace should be so fueled by that gratitude and impact it just overflows into an activated life of faith and works but why don't and I know we got a wrap up soon but why do you think that a heart doesn't break a lot of times for I'll see guys at the gym and you know today
I was talking to a guy and taught he was talking in a certain way and you know I just I left and I didn't think about it and I feel like I used to I feel like when I first gave my life to Christ my I would literally get so torn up that if every person didn't know him and I feel like I've gotten a little bit you know just kind of used to it you know been a Christian for so long it just becomes redundant after a while
that is a you just pointed out like a good thing that I want to remind myself like why my heart should break when people don't know him yeah I think it can be a couple things I think people and myself included struggle with evangelism of the gospel for a few different reasons it can be apathy it could be a fear of what they might do or how they reject me it could be ignorance to the good news of the gospel and what's at stake here
like ignorance to eternity is probably one of the biggest reasons of just thinking it's all about now in this life and having no consciousness and sobriety to eternity and what's at stake we're talking about billions and billions and billions of years at stake compared to these fleeting moments and seconds and minutes of time on this earth last question I want to ask you when you get off these podcasts do you ever struggle with like man what did I say like the approval of
did I say anything dumb you've been podcasting for a long time I've always wondered I've only done this for I've been on genins you know eight or nine times this is like one of my first this is my first podcast I've done ever without Janine and I feel like every time I leave bro like how do you get to a place where you are not bounded to the opinions of what I said that I sound articulate in the Christian world that I say something wrong or unbebacool
I feel like I'm in this like struggle bus of not caring what people think and then also at the same time like really like like I'll go to the comments and I get like anxiety where I'm like oh no what what's going to be said here yeah that's a good question it's such a good question
I think it kind of reminds me of that story told walking away from the conversation of like did they think I suck you know all these things like man I just want to be so obsessed with Jesus entrusting that anything dumb anything you know prideful anything arrogant that that came across was was me in my flesh trying to make it happen and just total total and there's grace for that right like I don't say everything right and perfectly every time
and I know that but I think I I boast in that now more than ever before because if there is one thing Caleb that even impacted you in this conversation and vice versa I attributed to Jesus speaking through us which is the greatest miracle I could ever freaking ask for right and I just like I just I just surrender to the fact like hey God if there's
anything that any semblance of good that was right that was holy that struck a nerve that hit good soil and there's a see there thank you Jesus because that was 100% you and I I am just I know myself at this point and you've just God is revealed layer after layer after pride after ego after just like self glorification that you know I just know anything that's good that comes out of these is is just Jesus and I'm totally at peace with the fact that anything I'm thinking about review I saw lately
laughing at it I'm like it's true you know when JJ speaks it's not it's no bueno that when God does through me it's always good most in your weakness amen well bro I love you so much thank you for coming on this this I felt like this was a co co hosted you know Jason and Travis Kelsey podcasts more than I like this was like legit felt like just a regular phone call we have yeah I know bro well I'm looking forward more I think this is a lot of fun
man and I just I love your humility and your insight and I love the fact that you'll I'll put yourself on the chopping block for Caleb sake and for other people sake and I think you know it takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to say the things that you do thank you I learned it from you I you learned it from Jesus yeah amen through the vessel of JJ yeah there you go that's one way to say amen all right love you bro love you too man