The Coming American Revival with Chris Widener

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. And today we'll be breaking down the coming American revival. To drop these value bombs, I brought Chris Widener into EO Fire Studios. Chris was personally mentored by three of the legends of personal development, John Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, and Jim Rohn. Chris is in the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame. And today we'll be talking about is America set up for revival. We'll talk about how it benefits people outside of the spiritual aspect.

0:33We'll talk about revival and what it looks like for business owners and how it can change families and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chris and our sponsors. If you've ever considered launching a show on YouTube, I may have the solution for you after launching a very successful show on YouTube in 2024, MicroStrategy Today. I've learned a lot on what it takes to create a successful show and have launched a one-on-one mentorship program called YouTube 100. If you want to jump on a call and learn more about this program, shoot me an email, john at eofire.com.

1:07This is the year of YouTube. Let's go. Over 41 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire. Chris, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, you know, it's interesting. I just had a big disagreement on Facebook with somebody. A good friend of mine, a professional speaker, was talking about having accountability partners and this, that, the other thing.

1:48And I said, accountability is a myth that you can have somebody who's going to hold you accountable, it's actually impossible unless you say, okay, buddy, I'm going to lose 50 pounds. I'm going to go to the gym every day. Unless they come to your house, literally physically grab you, handcuff you, put you in the car and take you to the gym, they really aren't somebody who can hold you accountable. And so what I really mean by this is the only person who can hold you accountable is you. And if you can hold yourself accountable, you don't need an accountability partner. And an accountability partner can only hold you, quote, accountable to the degree that you hold yourself accountable.

2:31Because you say, well, I'm going to lose weight. And then you go to lunch with him and you order a big fat, you know, double burger. And he says, hey, buddy, I thought you were losing weight. Now you have a chance. It's still you holding yourself accountable. You know, you have to go, you're right. Give me two chicken breasts and some, you know, some steamed broccoli. But that's your choice, not their choice. So accountability is a myth. That's my unpopular opinion. Well, I love it. And Fire Nation, if you want real accountability, you got to have that in real life aspect to make it happen. And we're going to be talking today about the coming American revival.

3:05And listen, I don't bring many people on for a second time, even though I've been doing this for 12 years in 4 ,522 episodes to date. And I very rarely bring people on a third time. So you know that Chris is a pro. I mean, this guy obviously in the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame. So, I mean, this guy's a pro in every level. But man, I'm excited for this conversation because we're gonna dive into this topic of is America set for revival? Chris, take it away. It's funny, I was writing my 25th book and it was called The Capitalist. And I write short form, 20 to 25 ,000 word fictional accounts, usually a mentor and a mentee.

3:42And I was cranking along on this book called The Capitalist, which was to defend capitalism. The setup of the book is it's a billionaire who hosts a big family reunion and his sister brings a, an anti-capitalist Marxist daughter who goes to an elite university. And the, and the whole book was going to be their conversations and how he shows her how capitalism is actually not evil, but actually a really good thing. So about 40 % of the way through writing that book, I felt like this tap on my shoulder to write a book about revival in America. Now I used to be a pastor for 14 years from 88 until 2002, before I started writing and speaking full time.

4:17So I thought, okay, I'll dust off my pastor's hat. And I've also been very, very involved in politics. So I'm very, you know, interested in what happens with America and America's place in history and all these kinds of things. So I sat down and I wrote a book called The Coming American Revival. And the first thing I realized is that I had to, I had to tell people, this is not a prediction. It's not a prophecy, but it's a declaration of faith. And I believe that people of faith need to make their voices heard, not in a Christian nationalist kind of way. You know, in fact, I always tell people I'm not a Christian nationalist because I don't believe that nations can be Christian.

4:51Only people can have faith. You know, an institution, Congress can't have faith, right? It's all about renewing faith in individuals' lives. And the process of revival, a national revival, starts with individuals. When we see our faith and our lives revived and freshened and those kinds of things, that creates a bigger revival, typically through the faith, you know, world, then churches are revived. And when now, now all of a sudden you have thousands of people's lives or tens or hundreds of thousands of people's lives revived, that resorts then to churches and synagogues and things like that coming to life again and people, you know, reigniting their faith.

5:32When you see tens or hundreds of thousands of churches, now you have national revival. So it really all boils down to personal revival of your own faith. And there's a lot of people who grew up with a faith and they kind of felt like it didn't, you know, affect their lives much, or maybe they were bored with services or, you know, whatever, whatever reasons people, but they still have faith, but it's more like just a little burning ember. And my belief is that faith is such a profound part of life that I want to encourage everybody to get in touch with their personal faith and just really feel that, you know, feel that sense of purpose and accomplishment and, you know, all those kinds of things.

6:15I, my life verse, and I'll end with this, my life verse, when I was a teenager, I picked a Bible verse to be my life verse, and it's John 10, 10. And it says, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. And as a teenager, you know, 17, 18 years old, who grew up, my dad died when I was four. I was raised by a mom who had borderline personality disorder, 28 homes, 11 different schools, shipped off to live with relatives twice, once in the fourth grade, once in the ninth grade, started drugs in the sixth grade, did opium for the first time in the eighth grade and made all my money at the horse track.

6:51You could see that I was looking for an abundant life. And I just attached to that. I want an abundant life. I only get a short little time here on earth in the grand scheme of eternity, but I want my life to be full and promising and fulfilling and that great word abundant. And so, you know, at 58 years old, I had a lot of really great mentors. You know, Zig Ziglar, I co-hosted a TV show with him. I co-wrote Jim Rohn's last book. I ghost wrote for John Maxwell. My first business mentor was the CEO of Mars Candies, just a little$30 billion a year company. I've had lots of mentors, John. And one day, about a year ago, I was brushing my teeth or shaving or something, and I looked in the mirror and I said, and people might think this is sad or whatever, I'm 58 years old, but I said, wait a minute, I'm the older man now.

7:44And now I need to be that guy for younger guys that all those guys were for me. And so I'm really making a transition in my career and really getting back more into ministry And really just my focus is particularly on men. How can I help men reinvigorate their life, their purpose, their faith? And I just started my 26th book. In fact, I'm going to write the first words today. I've got it all outlined, but it's a book called Something More. And it's basically a follow-up to the coming American revival in that once your faith gets revived Now you can find that something more that so many of us are looking for and i'm excited about that Chris you're just an action taker.

8:27I always say, you know successful entrepreneurs. There are three things they're productive. They're disciplined. They're focused Productive. What does that even mean? That means you are producing the right contents I mean, 25 books working on your 26th starting today. I mean, that is productive. That means you are producing the right content. I love this. Now, I want to talk about the divisiveness that is in the U.S. right now. Like, I want to keep things tight because we have a lot to get to today. But what is the spiritual state of America? I think the spiritual state is that we're floundering.

9:00In fact, I always tell people, you know, and I'm very involved in politics and I had a candidate and I, you know, I pushed and as you know, like everybody does, but I kept telling people our political problem is not our problem. Our political problem is a symptom of our spiritual problem. And our spiritual problem, I think boils down to this hundred years ago, we all had the same worldview. We all came from the Judeo Christian worldview. In fact, Richard Dawkins, the greatest, most well-known atheist in the world made waves about two months ago when he said, I'm not a Christian at all. I'm an atheist, but I sure like Christian culture.

9:34And he was talking about the Christian values of love one another, love your neighbor, serve one another, bear with one another, forgive one another. And I thought it was really fascinating. I like what Christianity is about, although I don't believe in Christianity. And so most people came from that worldview. In the 60s and 70s, you had the rise of the God is dead, secular humanist, Marxist worldview that has ingratiated itself into so many of our institutions, government, education, all those kinds of things. So now we have two opposing worldviews. We have the Judeo-Christian capitalistic worldview, about half our country, and the other half is either fully in the camp or one foot in the camp of secular humanists, God is dead, socialist, Marxist, anti-capitalism.

10:17And the real problem is this. We used to just disagree because we came from the same worldview, But now we have different worldviews. We want to go in different directions. And the real problem is both sides view themselves as having a moral imperative. So it isn't just that we disagree and I'm right and you're wrong. It's we disagree and I'm good and you're evil. And that's the real problem in America today, I believe. Fire Nation, there's a lot of problems in America today. There's a lot of good. There's a lot of bad. We need to cycle out. You talk about Jim Rohn a lot because he was one of your mentors.

10:53You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And so I know Chris keeps a really tight gauge on who he spends his most time with because of that as a Jim Rohn disciple. I know that I am so key on the five people that I spend my most time with because I want that positivity, that good energy. I want those good values that Chris was just talking about to be surrounding me. Like that is a key thing in my life going forward. And we have a lot to talk about around this topic, Fire Nation. And when we get back from thanking our sponsors. No one really knows what the future holds for your business, not even you.

11:30Predictions are just that, predictions. Rates will rise or fall, inflation's up or down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until we can actually see into the future, over 41 ,000 businesses have future-approved their business with NestSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one fluid platform. NestSuite gives you one source of truth. so you have the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. And with real-time insights and forecasting, you can see into the future with actionable data. If our businesses needed this type of software, I'd use NetSuite in a heartbeat because whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.

12:14Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire, netsuite.com slash fire. When you need help in your business, you need it fast. The problem is finding great employees doesn't always happen quickly. It's time consuming to find great candidates and ensure you're hiring the best fit for your role. Well, if you're an employer who can relate, I have one question for you. Have you tried ZipRecruiter? ZipRecruiter has figured out how to solve this very problem. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

12:54And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash fire. Thanks to ZipRecruiter's smart technology, they start showing your job to qualify candidates immediately, saving you both time and money. So relax, employers, and let ZipRecruiter speed up your hiring. See for yourself. Just go to ziprecruiter.com slash fire right now to try it for free. that's the same price as a genuine smile from a stranger, a picture-perfect sunset, or a cute dog running up to you and licking your hands. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash fire. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Chris, we're back, and you know this, being a third-time guest over the past 12 years.

13:35I mean, you're averaging about an episode every four years, which is pretty awesome. So I want to know what you think about this next, because Entrepreneurs on Fire, my audience, Fire Nation, they are business owners. what would revival look like for us? Revival literally means to come alive again. That's literally what it means. Viva, you know, Viva Las Vegas. That means long live Las Vegas or whatever. So revival means literally to come alive again. And I always say, whether it's in the family or it's in politics or it's in business or, you know, whatever, that it's about people coming alive again in their core values.

14:12Now, we all say honesty is the best policy. I say honesty is the only policy. The Bible says do not lie, bear false witness, et cetera, et cetera. And so just a very simple thing would be don't lie. Don't lie in business. Don't stretch the truth. Be honest. Be authentic. Could you imagine what business would be like or anything? Politics. Could you imagine if we had a revival in politics and none of them lied? Holy cow, that would transform America right there. But I just say, you know, find those core values of your faith in business. Make sure that you're being honest. Make sure that you're treating customers fairly.

14:51Make sure that you're taking care of your employees because it comes out of your values of honesty and integrity and generosity and all those kinds of things. And I'll say one thing in regard to entrepreneurs particularly. I wrote a book called The Image, which was it was five misunderstandings of the Bible as it relates to business. and one of them was a lot of people of faith find themselves thinking, well, I can't be ambitious. Well, here's an interesting thing. I believe that we're made in the image of God, and God is ambitious, right? You know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to create 30 million universes.

15:26Bam. Okay, that's pretty ambitious, right? I'm going to create a little world, and I'm going to create billions of people, and pretty ambitious project. So I did a study on the word ambition in the New Testament. And it's interesting because five times in the New Testament, ambition is used in a negative sense, a negative sense. But every single one of those five times that ambition is mentioned in the New Testament, it is all as a negative, it is always followed, pardon me, it's always preceded by the same word, selfish. It's selfish ambition that causes us problems, it's generous, grateful, gratitude, ambition, purpose-filled ambition that is actually ingrained in you.

16:15And folks, it's put in you by God. He made you as an ambitious person because we need entrepreneurs to build businesses and hire people so they can feed their families and pay their bills. So I think my message to ambitious people, entrepreneurs is be ambitious, but just always stay tied down to your faith-based roots about not being selfishly ambitious. Now, this doesn't mean you can't have a big house, drive a nice car, you know, take fancy trips, but it's really more about the core of who you are and why you do what you do. I mean, if you're only doing it for the money, that's kind of spiritually bankrupt.

16:53But if what you're doing is fulfilling purpose and that brings you money, that's amazing, you know. And so walk in your faith, walk in your core values, be ambitious, build those great companies and organizations, but always do it for the right reason. Let's talk about blueprints. My team, my listeners, they love processes. They love systems. They love blueprints. What is the blueprint for personal revival? Yeah. So it comes from the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. And it was right after King Solomon, who, by the way, was the richest man to ever live. In fact, I've been checking this recently, Chet GPT says that he would have been worth in today's dollars about$2 trillion, which means he could buy and sell Elon Musk about eight times.

17:41And he had just built the first temple for the nation of Israel. And God came to him and talked to him about when things go bad and go wrong. And he said, if my people who are called by my name will do four things, and here's the four things, humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Then will I hear from heaven and heal their land. And so he gave them this blueprint of revival. If you find yourself spiritually bankrupt, if you find yourself, you know, all these different positions we find ourselves in, there's a process, there's a blueprint. First of all, you have to be humble.

18:19You have to humble yourself. And, you know, the Bible says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And it's interesting. He's not indifferent to the proud. He is opposing the proud. So we have to humble ourselves before God. We have to realize our state in life. I mean, look, I'm 58. I got maybe 20, maybe 30 more years. And then I, like a wisp of wind, blow into eternity. So I love to go and look at the stars, and it humbles me because I'm like, I am just such a small speck, and yet God loves me. Amazing. And then we have to pray. We have to commune with God. And there's lots of different people from different faith backgrounds, and we all pray differently and those kinds of things.

19:00But the reality is, is that prayer is the ability from us here on earth to talk to our creator. So we need to pray. We need to seek his face. Jesus said, ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be open to you. There's a pursuit of God that we must take. And then the last one is, we must turn from our wicked ways. That just means start with the things you already know that you're doing that, you know what, I need to cut that out of my life. I need to get right. I need to focus myself, get back to my roots, get back to my core values and really turn away from these things that are hindering me.

19:39Chris, you've dropped a lot of value today. I mean, you speak from the heart. You're obviously an amazing speaker and you're an amazing seeker of truth, of wisdom and a deliverer of that value. Bring it home for us. What's the one thing out of everything we talked about today that you would love for Fire Nation to walk away with? I was at a conference when I was 22 years old and I was standing in the lobby. There's 500 people there, didn't know anybody. And I'm holding a cup of coffee and I turn around and I come face to face with about a 55 year old woman and a 30 year old woman. And I didn't know at the time that it was a mother and a daughter.

20:12Well, as I turn around, I'm literally like 14 inches from these two women. And the younger woman, her jaw drops open, her eyes widen, and she's staring at me. And her mom notices this. I found out later it's her mom. She turns to her and she says, is this him? And she just nods. She still has not spoken a word. And the mom begins to tell me, this is my daughter. We came here for this conference. And in the middle of the night last night in our room at 2 in the morning, she woke up. She shook me awake and she said, I just had the most vivid dream. I saw a man in my dream and I was told to tell him something.

20:49So she looks back at her daughter and she goes, so tell him. And this woman looks at me and she said, I'm supposed to tell you to be a voice, not an echo. And John Lee Dumas, as God is my witness, I don't know their names. I don't know where they're from. I'd never met them before. I never spoke to them afterwards. They disappeared into the crowd. And that has been my theme for my life, my entire life. Be a voice, not an echo. People who are successful, you know, you pioneered JLD, you pioneered an entire industry. You were a voice, not an echo. And there are people who we hear speakers. And I mean, if I had a nickel for every time somebody quoted Jim Rohn without attribution, I'd have been retired 10 years ago.

21:36They're just echoes. They're echoing. They're not a voice. Mark Sanborn, I don't know if you've ever had Mark on your podcast, but you should get a hold of him. He's had 5 million books sold, former president of the National Speakers Association. Great guy. He says, you know the problem with thought leaders? And I said, what's that? He said, most of them don't think. So for 30 something years, every day for 15 minutes a day, And he quits at 15 minutes. It's just 15 minutes a day. It's nothing but Mark, a pen and a yellow legal pad. And he thinks he is a voice, not an echo. And you can find this in all sorts of industries where people are a voice, not an echo.

22:17They're the guys that pioneer new industries. They pioneer new processes. They pioneer new services and products and, you know, all those kinds of things. Steve Jobs was a voice, not an echo. He took this idea and said, let's make a phone luxurious and he killed BlackBerry with it, killed the biggest phone company in business, killed it because he was a voice, not an echo. So that's what I would challenge you to be in all your doings and all your comings and goings and all of your work and all of your things that you're involved in. Make sure you're not just regurgitating what other people do.

22:53Make sure you're not living somebody else's dream and desire for your life. Be a voice, not an echo. It's advice I've taken for 30 something years, and I will continue to take it until the day I die. Chris, there are some people listening now that simply have chills. And if they want to connect with you, learn more from you, what is your call to action for our listeners today? Yeah, absolutely. First thing, go to comingamericanrevival.com and that'll take you straight in to be able to buy the Kindle or the book or the audio program. And if you want to connect with me, my direct email, nobody else gets it, I get it, is chris at chriswidener.com.

23:30And I answer all those myself. And so I would love to connect with anybody who would find a reason for connecting. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, as Jim Rohn always says. And you've been hanging out with CW and JLD today. So keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Chris in the search part and the show notes page will pop right up. And Chris, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chris for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation.

24:07Successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That is why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step by step. So visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. If you've ever considered launching a show on YouTube, I may have the solution for you after launching a very successful show on YouTube in 2024, MicroStrategy Today. I've learned a lot on what it takes to create a successful show and have launched a one-on-one mentorship program called YouTube 100. If you want to jump on a call and learn more about this program, shoot me an email, john at eofire.com.

24:43This is the year of YouTube. Let's go. Over 41 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire.