10 Key Takeaways from our top 10 podcasts | Ep. 100 with Pat McCalla and Brandon Lopez
We are celebrating a very important milestone this week on the No Grey Areas Podcast… our 100th episode!!!
This episode has a different and exciting twist, as our host, Patrick McCalla, and co-host, Brandon Lopez, take us through a journey of our top 10 episodes ever! From insightful discussions to looking back on our most popular guests, we’ll dive deep into the key takeaways from the top 10 podcast interviews that have resonated with our listeners the most.
Watch for a comedic, yet in-depth conversation as we explore the lessons learned, unique perspectives shared in each of these standout episodes, and the behind-the-scenes interaction from our hosts’ will be something you won’t want to miss! And, of course, we’ll start with #10 and then unveil our number one episode of all time—can you guess which one it is? 🤔
This celebration is all about YOU, our amazing listeners! We couldn’t have made it to filming this 100th episode without your support. So, check the links below to watch the full episodes of our top 10, and make sure to subscribe and keep tuning in for more conversations! Thank you for being a part of our journey,—here’s to many more episodes ahead!
Be sure to like our podcast, share it with a friend, and leave a review!
You can also watch the video versions on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next inspiring and motivating interview!
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No Grey Areas is a motivational podcast with captivating guests centered around how our choices humanize, empower, and define who we become. This podcast is inspired by the cautionary tale, No Grey Areas, written by Joseph Gagliano. Learn more about the truth behind his story involved with sports' biggest scandal at nogreyareas.com
Transcript
Speaker 2
100 episodes of no gray areas. I am Brandon sitting here with Pat, and we got a lot to celebrate today. 100 episodes of No gray areas. In this time, we've grown the podcast to over 55 subscribers. Over a million.
::Speaker 4
55 views. Oh, yeah, 55,000 subscribers.
::Speaker 2
Now. Most of them is just me and my fake accounts. I'm just kidding. Just plain. But anyway, we've had approximately 100 amazing guests on this podcast hearing about their stories, their experiences, their wisdom. So we can all learn about their lessons learned without earning their scars. Powerful stuff, I love it. So for this particular episode, we decided to do something really special.
::Speaker 2
Two things actually. Number one, we listened to the audience because we care. We listened, we heard. So we brought Brandon back. Yeah. You're welcome. And number two. Yeah.
::Speaker 4
You are right on that one. That's that's good.
::Speaker 2
And number two, we decided, you know, to have some fun with this episode that we're going to look back at the top ten episodes of no gray areas we're gonna go through, kind of like highlight reel, discuss a little bit, dig deeper as we go through them.
::Speaker 2
Sounds good, sounds good.
::Speaker 4
Right. And so let's start the countdown to it. So we're
::Speaker 2
coming in hot. At number ten. We have our buddy Pete Howard. Next year you can be number one if you try a little bit harder Pete. Love you anyway.
::Speaker 1
So.
::Speaker 2
Pete, talk to us about beauty, truth and goodness, which is kind of weird. I don't remember myself being on that episode. But anyway, let's go ahead. Let's take a deep dive into it.
::Speaker 2
that he tied a lot of things in here that I found very interesting. For one, of course, he's talking about something that you had mentioned is seeking truth, beauty and goodness. And tying this, of course, in relationship to Jesus, I think it was very important because he was talking about in our personal relationship with Jesus, but also the corporate level for church.
::Speaker 2
Often not, we go about life talking about what we want to do or what we want out of life. We talk about how we can do that, how being the actions actions lead to reality. But we often miss out on the core of the thing being the why. And I think often not, when we lose sight of the actual true.
::Speaker 2
Why? Because there is
::Speaker 2
no matter what, there is a why and whatever.
::Speaker 4
And he mentioned Simon Sinek just so that they for audiences to
::Speaker 2
And it's not that I don't think you necessarily miss it. You're going to hit what you want. It's just depends on the why that you have. Yes. And especially when we look at the corporate sense of things in the context of what he was talking about, like what church
::Speaker 2
the why is what is deemed to be most important and prioritized, right?
::Speaker 2
That is why the why is so important. And that's what makes the how and the what,
::Speaker 2
it manifests into the, the what and and the how. And I think that's very important on the, of course, at the corporate level. But on a personal level, we often one of the words I really liked what he said was we go about life very much more transactional.
::Speaker 2
Yes. When we do that, yes. And if we are to belong to Christ, then if he is the why, then that should play and manifest into the what we're doing with our life and then the how
::Speaker 2
go on with that.
::Speaker 4
Yeah. And
::Speaker 4
here. Yeah. But transactional,
::Speaker 4
to be made in the image
::Speaker 2
I like that all right. That's actually a good mental like practice to do at the end of the night.
::Speaker 4
Number nine.
::Speaker 2
Number nine, coming in with number nine is the interview with Nino and Rene, a story of strangers, kidney transplant, all stemming from the word. Yes. Let's go ahead. Let's get into it.
::Speaker 4
which.
::Speaker 2
Which he needed. Yeah. Just want to make.
::Speaker 3
A great point. This point? Hey, you want my.
::Speaker 4
Kidney to a stranger who didn't even need it?
::Speaker 2
Yeah. I think when you look at the scripture, especially in, of course, relating it to God and our relationship with God, a lot of the blessings that God promises is through obedience. And so one of the things that you had mentioned is the more she listened and the more that she essentially said yes, the more of course comfortable things and more at peace.
::Speaker 2
She was at with certain things. And not saying that disregards how uncomfortable the situation might be, but we see a situation in which you say yes to God and something beautiful comes out of it, right? Something as strange as being a stranger, complete stranger to somebody finding out they have a need and feeling something in you to be like.
::Speaker 2
You know what? I can help this individual. And I think what's very interesting in this, too, as this, of course, relates to somebody of faith, but also on a secular level, I think that the more you go about life thinking of yourself less, not less then, but going about your life, think of yourself less and not putting yourself at this pedestal of the center of the world.
::Speaker 2
Honestly, I feel like it takes a lot of stress away. A lot of anxiety away. Yeah, puts you more at peace because there's not so much stuff weighing on you. Yeah. And so we say that. Hey, God, I'm going to follow you. Tommy sent me, and he's like, all right, cool. Talk to this person and get ready to lose a kidney.
::Speaker 3
Yeah, well, I'm. We're happy.
::Speaker 4
Well, you know, and we're laughing about it, but
::Speaker 4
message
::Speaker 4
a complete stranger who, as you said, needed to get an.
::Speaker 3
Important part of the story. Yes, yes.
::Speaker 4
All right, here we go.
::Speaker 2
Number eight. Yeah. How many? Not at number eight. Which this individual may be a little upset that he's at eight because it's our very own Joe Gagliano, in which this podcast is inspired by a book that he wrote called No Gray Areas, which he wrote in prison, a cautionary Tale of Decisions that you make. And in this particular episode, we talked about how, we are not defined by our past choices, our past mistakes, and
::Speaker 2
term that he coined the skeletons in our closet.
::Speaker 2
So let's go ahead. Let's take a deeper dive.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. I think when we talk about the skeletons in the closet, the mistakes and everything, and that we, might define ourselves by, I think what is very intriguing to me is that I think a lot of us tend to go about life remembering our past failures while simultaneously ignoring our past successes. And when we do that, we impress even more emotion into those failures.
::Speaker 2
We recall those failures even more great. But not only by that, we also start to live up to those failures. I think the the way that, you.
::Speaker 4
Know, when we live up to those failures, we start repeating those failures.
::Speaker 2
Right, exactly. And I think the reason why and the way that, you know, Joe even kind of chimed in a little bit, was he he used to live by and define himself by those mistakes. And I think what's very intriguing to me is whatever you deem to be true about you, whatever mental picture that you have of yourself, it is very difficult to not live up to those expectations of that reality like it's you usually live up to that truth, that reality, that mental picture that you have of yourself.
::Speaker 2
And so if you allow those skeletons in the closet, those mistakes and those burdens, define you, then you usually live up to that definition that becomes now more of an identity, a more of an image of yourself. And I think that's a danger of that. And being able to free yourself as separate yourself of those things. I think there's a lot of power there.
::Speaker 4
back to our identity,
::Speaker 4
our closet, those past
::Speaker 4
okay. And I think
::Speaker 4
identity. Yeah. So important.
::Speaker 2
You know, one more additional thing that I thought of there too is I think what Joe did was, okay, so how do we not do, like, live by that kind of definition? Well, you know, I don't have to go to this extreme, but Joe wrote a book. Yeah, I'm all skeletons. So if you have skeletons in the closet, sometimes you've got a pope in the closet.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. Write a book put on Amazon. By the way, guys, everybody that might be interested in the no gray areas book can find that on the no gray areas.com. No gray areas. Podcast.com. You know Amazon maybe Amazon. There might be a special discount maybe.
::Speaker 4
Yeah that's a good read.
::Speaker 2
Maybe we'll see. We'll talk with the big man about that anyway. Yes.
::Speaker 4
Yeah yeah yeah. No. And
::Speaker 4
All right, here we go.
::Speaker 2
Number seven. So diving into number seven, we had this interview with a couple of Vietnam vets, a couple patriots, awesome, awesome men. And we got to listen to their stories. Let's go ahead. Let's dive in. Let's see what they had to say.
::Speaker 4
I'm not against
::Speaker 4
isn't there?
::Speaker 2
Oh, absolutely. And I think for most people to make this relatable for everybody, I think most people walk around feeling unloved or not loved enough, like their cups not being filled and underappreciated just
::Speaker 2
to begin. And so even just the simple kindness of just saying thank you,
::Speaker 2
to anybody, your loved ones, the servers that you might have at a restaurant, whatever it might be, a lot of people just want to feel appreciated.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. And then you stack that on all these other things that might be going on. Example here, being a Vietnam vet, the things that they experienced, to then come home just already being an individual that might already have that like similar kind of feeling as a lot of other people to then just be piled on and be called not just like not feeling undervalued or like underappreciated, but on the contrary of having people insulting them and calling them certain things, that could also be very degrading.
::Speaker 2
Were these veterans have gone to
::Speaker 2
do something that they believed was the right thing to do, coming home thinking that they're going to get a hero's welcome and to not get that. And when we go, we could take the same principle. Like if you're a your home household, if you're somebody within the household that's going out and making the revenue for the family, like you probably want to come home feeling like, oh, hero's welcome, I'm providing for the family.
::Speaker 2
And so there's thank you as an appreciation there. And then whoever might be at home, whether it be with kids or doing whatever it might be, having that same kind of level of appreciation, like something as simple as that. Yeah. Just to be vocalized could go a long way, just because I think most people, they want to be appreciated.
::Speaker 2
But I think a lot of people just go about their days just being underappreciated in action.
::Speaker 2
I want to add to that too. I think it's also our job to receive it. So like to give encouragement and to compliment that somebody's blessing you and for you to be like trying to be humble, like, oh, I don't. Yeah, it's all right. Don't like. No, it's all great point. Like, no, you're rejecting that blessing. You're rejecting that encouragement and that motivation or that compliment.
::Speaker 2
Receive it. Yeah it might some people might do that because it's uncomfortable. Some people might like, oh, you know, I don't want to go to my head like no receive it.
::Speaker 4
that, right?
::Speaker 4
work.
::Speaker 3
So I can go on, I go on good.
::Speaker 4
All right. Number six here we number six.
::Speaker 2
So number six we had our interview with Patty Wyatt. Patty shared with us how we can adopt the right now mindset and how to live life with urgency. Let's go ahead was check it out.
::Speaker 2
And I love that.
::Speaker 2
I was actually on the way here. I was listening to, Patrick about David Peabody podcast shout out. Yeah, he dropped an episode here interviewing the Rock. And the Rock actually said something that was very interesting that I really liked. He said that when he wakes in the morning, he doesn't walk towards the things he wants.
::Speaker 2
He runs to the things that he wants. And I loved it like there's an urgency with that. And when you look at people that or whatever you deem as success, whatever that looks like, most often not. There's certain characteristics and attributes that they all share. They're all different, but there's some attributes that they all share. And I think the Rock actually
::Speaker 2
spoke on a high and highlighted one specific attribute.
::Speaker 2
They have urgency. And I think one thing that we can take away is, well, how can I have urgency then? How can I live right now? And I think is one of the reasons why a lot of times it's hard for us to live in the right now is because we're so distracted. And so too, I guess I have another Namedrop, Alex Rossi.
::Speaker 2
He said something that I loved. He said that the way that you can measure focus is your ability to say no.
::Speaker 2
Yes. And so that you can say yes to the things that are important.
::Speaker 4
And that's intentional living. Intentional? Yes. Knowing what to say no to.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. And the better you're able to say no to certain things, your ability to stay focused increase is. Yeah. So I love that. And I think that
::Speaker 2
the right now mentality, that urgency is to just put yourself and place yourself in a position of strength of right now so you can do the things that are needed.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
Today.
::Speaker 4
quote me. I'm going to quote God,
::Speaker 4
sorry, but I don't do that.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 4
at it, you
::Speaker 2
Number five come in and hot for number five we got Chris Brown. Not the one you think we're talking about a different Chris Brown. Although that one probably needs a listen to this podcast. No gray areas. Anyway
::Speaker 2
Chris Brown talks about the power of our choices. And, not only that, but often the choices that we
::Speaker 2
regret.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think that one of the reasons why it feels so like regretful when you treat people on lovingly or you mistreat people is, I think when you start to actually meditate on it and really investigate it, for one you have to end up having empathy because you have to understand yourself and you start to realize that you are more like the people that have hurt you as well,
::Speaker 2
like you're holding a mirror up to yourself and it's like, man, I'm capable of hurting this person.
::Speaker 2
I regret it because now you're more alike than the people that you are upset with, or you're mad with, or you that you hold resent for or bitterness towards. Like
::Speaker 2
at my church when we were going through Genesis, we were going over Cain and Abel, and I was just sitting there and I was like, it was one of the more humbling messages I've ever had.
::Speaker 2
Like, man, I'm actually I could relate a little bit more to Cain than I wanted to admit. And I was like, man, I think all of us could relate to Cain more than we care to admit. And I think the problem with, I guess right now in our society is I think that we have, I guess, more of a epidemic of just self-centered people and selfishness where we it's easy for us to cast blame.
::Speaker 2
It's easy for us to hold somebody,
::Speaker 2
into resentment and bitterness. But we're so selfish. We're so narcissistic that about ourselves that we can't hold that mirror up and acknowledge, like, man, I've hurt people before, and I've not only done that, but I've hurt people that I love and that are closest to me and often not. I think we actually get in this in a little bit later, but, often not the biggest pain and the biggest hurt we have are people that you end up
::Speaker 2
allowing in.
::Speaker 2
Right.
::Speaker 4
what it is like.
::Speaker 4
narcissist at the same time.
::Speaker 4
Cannot love someone
::Speaker 4
here we go.
::Speaker 2
Or we're getting close
::Speaker 2
to our top three. But before we get there, we're going to stop at number four with our buddy and Bill Bush. Now Bill talks to us of how to deal with our hurt. We kind of talked a little bit about this in the last, you know, and number five here. So now we're talking about how we can deal with hurt.
::Speaker 2
Kind of like how I am when Pat actually stole McCaffrey from me for our fantasy football league.
::Speaker 4
I'm trying to trade him with you right now. You won't.
::Speaker 2
You know, answer my trade. Do you still dealing with it, pack? I'm still working through it. So let's listen to Bill Bush, see if I can learn anything and how to handle
::Speaker 2
my pain and my hurt that I got from you.
::Speaker 4
There we go. That solves the world's problem.
::Speaker 2
Number three.
::Speaker 4
Yeah.
::Speaker 4
You know,
::Speaker 4
That was nothing of you doing. It's
::Speaker 4
But joking aside,
::Speaker 4
We didn't do it,
::Speaker 2
there's a few things, thoughts that I have on this. The first one that comes to my mind is
::Speaker 2
culturally, I feel like we see our hurts. We see our bitterness and resentment that we might have for those hurts as a virtue. And the problem with that, it's hindering us. It makes us more miserable, makes us actually more reliant and dependent on the other person that has hurt us.
::Speaker 2
Because I'm the person of the belief that the only person that takes ownership of your thoughts and your feelings and your response is you, like I am in power of myself in the moment that I am hurt, which again, I'm not trying to devalue
::Speaker 2
make thin of the heaviness of what some, some people's hurt might be.
::Speaker 2
But the moment I start to give in to that hurt, and the moment I start to even build any kind of bitterness or resentment towards or amplify that hurt, I'm now giving power away of my words, my thoughts, my behaviors, my response to it. And now I'm dependent on that person. I'm now relying on that person. And I think,
::Speaker 2
like, I don't know about you.
::Speaker 2
I don't like to feel powerless. You know, I don't I don't like giving that away.
::Speaker 2
And I think that to even take this even further, I think that is where when you are hurt, for instance, like it's easy for us to then take that on and we, we learn a lot about ourselves based off the things that we tell ourselves.
::Speaker 2
I've been ever since I was in middle school, I learned, which.
::Speaker 4
Is why you should
::Speaker 4
Yeah, and I'm not. No, not joking here. Yeah.
::Speaker 4
to that voice,
::Speaker 4
yourself. Okay.
::Speaker 4
Go on.
::Speaker 2
And I learned this in middle school. There's a story of what happened or the reality of what happened and the story that we tell ourselves. Yeah. And we collect that story through, of course, emotion. It could be even imaginary,
::Speaker 2
don't know if you guys know this. Our nervous system cannot distinguish reality from imagination. Just imagine the shark in the pool that's real to your body.
::Speaker 2
But we either imaginary through emotion, through evidence that we might gather from. Oh, this person hurt me. This person said this, you know, all these different and evidence, evidence, evidences that we might collect, that we end up having this story of a reality that's happened and we form this mental picture of ourselves based off that story, and we start to now live up to that expectation.
::Speaker 2
And so hurt people hurt people. When you are hurt and you hold that to a and you amplify that, so it ends up becoming a truth to you. It hinders you absolutely. Because now you're living up to a truth that's faulty. But not only that, it now exposes you to the potential to then hurt somebody else because you haven't dealt with it yet.
::Speaker 4
at some point in my life,
::Speaker 2
Well said. All right. We're getting into our top three episodes
::Speaker 2
Coming in at number three is our interview with Mr. Dart Day, in which we talk about things that no one else talks about. Often not. We talk about the ugly and the bad things in life, but we do so simultaneously ignoring all the good. So let's go ahead. Let's explore this a little bit. Let's talk about the good things in life.
::Speaker 4
in: ::Speaker 4
isn't there?
::Speaker 2
Oh absolutely I think yeah. To kind of echo what you said there's no shortage of grief. But with that said if there's no shortage of grief we have to know that what grief is then in order to know what grief is we have to know what goodness. Yeah. And I think in light of anything that could be bad or,
::Speaker 2
evil or anything that might look that way, there's always going to be something good on the other side of it or even combating it.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. And we see that throughout history. Of course, we see that in every story, every every movie. You go to the theater in, like usually like it's a story of either redemption or some kind of hero greatest story. There's there's hope in that. And I think what's
::Speaker 2
I'm gonna actually quote you, I'm gonna take your quote, something that you've been actually saying the last few days, actually, and some of that he said was like, don't turn on the news.
::Speaker 2
He's like, I don't try not to go down that road is something that you had said, don't give your piece away. You know, and again, one of those things that you are in control of your thoughts, you're in control, like you have ownership of your thoughts, your words, your behaviors, your responses. And the moment that you subject yourself to outside voices and you start to give that away, you start to give that peace away and just gives you stress and anxiety.
::Speaker 2
But no, I don't think it's something that we should necessarily be ignorant to these things. But there is like I feel like in order to truly appreciate what is good and beautiful, you have to have some kind of knowledge of what is
::Speaker 2
bad and ugly.
::Speaker 4
And that's a great point. And that's where
::Speaker 4
or you have to recognize
::Speaker 4
beauty truth and goodness.
::Speaker 4
God.
::Speaker 2
All right.
::Speaker 4
Number two we're getting close.
::Speaker 2
Very close. Number two is our interview with Firefighter Fenton. And we talked about his experiences of being a shirtless firefighter on a calendar, which you can get for free with the purchase of no gray areas book. I'm just kidding. It's not free. It's not free. It's not free.
::Speaker 4
Yes. We don't know. We do know.
::Speaker 2
Why did you put them I know, yeah.
::Speaker 4
Well, okay.
::Speaker 2
Anyway, what we're going to do in this interview, what we're going to review with him, is a highlight of how to laugh through the mundane.
::Speaker 4
It's based on a true
::Speaker 2
Deep,
::Speaker 4
be for us.
::Speaker 2
Why? I think that's why comedians are getting paid so much more now, because they kind of break through the mundane. They enter the space in which people, quote unquote, should not enter. Yeah. And they make a middle ground for everybody to come together and laugh together.
::Speaker 4
what comedian that's what's so crazy about them,
::Speaker 4
is. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's not what the. Yeah.
::Speaker 2
And we go about life just looking at through that lens and they just, they kind of put a perspective of like this is kind of actually silly.
::Speaker 4
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
And we're putting too much weight to some of these things. And I think too, when you look at some of the attributes of whatever, and when I say successful people, that could be any kind of level of success that you might deem success, but also a, I guess, a metric or an attribute of happy people or happier people.
::Speaker 2
There's an attribute of optimism that they all hold. Yep. And the people that are more pessimistic end up being more,
::Speaker 2
unhappy, living more unhappy, being more miserable, looking through a lens of just, you know, oh, it is what it is. And it's terrible when it sucks. Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting enough to me. The people that are happier are the people that are more successful, whether they be financially or whether there be work or career or family, whatever it is, they just holds true to a optimistic viewpoint.
::Speaker 4
Yeah. And, and and it's kind of to your
::Speaker 4
Negativity
::Speaker 4
stories.
::Speaker 4
thought.
::Speaker 4
But I think there's a
::Speaker 4
things, and.
::Speaker 4
All right.
::Speaker 2
All right.
::Speaker 2
It's time for the main event of the evening. Yes, the main course. Yeah. We whipped up something special for you guys. Episode number one of our top ten of 100 episodes of No Gray Areas is Chris Hilton. And Chris Hilton in this episode shared a story of heavy grief and heavy loss.
::Speaker 2
My wife cried. I did not.
::Speaker 2
Sure, I probably lied right there too. But the the beautiful thing in this story, in this interview with Chris, is that we discovered, at least in his perspective, of all things considered, how God shows up in a very profound and a very, very special way, just not in regular life when things are good, but a very profound way in our brokenness, especially when you allow him.
::Speaker 2
So let's go ahead and let's dive right into it.
::Speaker 4
and it takes a big turn because all of a sudden
::Speaker 4
up and shed some tears.
::Speaker 4
enemy. I mean, it's
::Speaker 4
grief,
::Speaker 4
How do we walk through that?
::Speaker 4
It's a guarantee.
::Speaker 2
You know, I think what's powerful about everything that of course, the top ten that we listen to, being positive,
::Speaker 2
having optimism all these things. What makes this episode so relatable, like you said, was grief on a very personal level is something that we can all relate to to some extent. The thing that I find very interesting with him, though, is you can either sit in that grief and dwell on that grief and allow letting just be at a loss.
::Speaker 2
Or you can sit in that grief, let it like, experience it and don't just like, ignore it, don't just walk away from it, but seeing God move in it and allowing God and move into it. So like one of the things that he said was like, I think it's interesting. I don't think you could truly be happy.
::Speaker 2
I don't think you could be truly optimistic if you have never actually experienced grief to some kind of capacity. So one of the things that he said was you don't need to be comforted if you're never been uncomfortable. You don't need anybody to provide you anything. If you've always had providence, which is very interesting, very intriguing. I love that he mentioned that
::Speaker 2
because it's.
::Speaker 4
A deep sigh.
::Speaker 2
It's a very deep thought. It's like asking in a way. It's also like asking I or heard on telly outlets say this. He said, it's like asking a weak person to be strong in a moment that requires strength, when all they've done is be weak, like, they can't. They can't really do it. And so for somebody in this kind of position that he was in, that I think a lot of people listening again, this is number one because I think we all relate to it is the how how do we how do we how do we play in this?
::Speaker 2
How do we figure this out? How do we work through this? And I don't know if there's a straight answer to that. The thing, of course, with Chris is leaning on leaning on God and letting him comfort, letting him provide you like it's one thing to experience God in a profound way, in grief and loss,
::Speaker 2
like to kind of experience that.
::Speaker 2
But the only way I feel like you can really experience God is by allowing God to be God in your life, and to allow him to actually.
::Speaker 4
Goes back to what he was saying.
::Speaker 4
Yeah.
::Speaker 4
unless we run to him in our grief in those times and
::Speaker 4
little different than my journey,
::Speaker 4
much.
::Speaker 4
missing when you do that.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think if we could put an equation to that, if we can, everything that we just talked about, the top ten, if we could put it all into an equation, I think what's interesting is I think no matter what, we all have problems. That is the human experiences problems. That's like baseline. We got problems. All of us.
::Speaker 2
I think the difference is for people that are able to grow and to like, evolve as an individual and come out the other side. Well, they look at these problems as problems where people that don't and they struggle and they suffer through it a lot, is they look at these problems and they take them on as a truth about themselves.
::Speaker 2
So like if you look at.
::Speaker 4
Christian Identity, yeah, it becomes their identity instead of just a problem.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. Like for instance, somebody might have been very, very hurt. Somebody that went through Chris's situation might have been like, I am not worthy to for them to be with me or they hurt me because I'm not I'm not good enough or all these things. What we end up doing is we take hurt or we take problems and we start to adapt that to a mental picture of ourselves that ends up being true.
::Speaker 2
We combine that. Then in addition to a pessimistic and a negative negative attitude, and then we combine that with a no urgency to we live either in the past or the future with no urgency to actually find a solution. You put those two together and you're going to have somebody that equals a very miserable and unhappy person. Now,
::Speaker 2
what's the equation for somebody that can live, I guess, more of a happier or a life lived?
::Speaker 2
Well, I guess we can look at these things and look at them as problems because we all again, we all have problems. We can look at them as problems that they are, because if they're problems, that means people are problem solvers. We combine that. Then in addition to an optimistic viewpoint, a positive viewpoint mindset, and then we combine that with the pursuit, the right now mindset, the urgency mindset, the pursuit of a solution.
::Speaker 2
And you're going to find somebody that is going to end up finding success and happiness.
::Speaker 2
Maybe not to like the purity of things. Not, not that's not what I'm saying. Like I'm not saying like you're guaranteed, you know?
::Speaker 4
Yeah. If you have a good life, like, you.
::Speaker 2
Know, not like, not like the good life, that's.
::Speaker 4
You're not saying that.
::Speaker 2
No, but that is I think the equation of what makes people successful, what makes people happier, what makes people live a life lived. Well, yeah.
::Speaker 4
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
We'll see.
::Speaker 3
You stay.
::Speaker 2
Stay tuned.
::Speaker 4
We we will. We're looking forward to having Brandon back. So thank you so much.
