153: How to Build Habits That Don’t Break Under Stress | Justin Whitmel Earley

23:53Nick Bare:How big of an issue do you think identity is right now? And what is making it worse that we continually do day in and day out? Okay, where do I begin? In the ancient world, which is really not so long ago, nay, like let's say 150, 200 years ago, you would almost certainly take the vocation of your family and in fact your family would often be named after the vocation like you know like smith blacksmith or your identity was because of who you are from and you worked out of who you are right now i'm not trying to idealize the past there's probably tons of problems with it it's kind of nice to be able to pick your vocation, but it's sociologically important to notice the modern world is entirely different.

24:50Like what do we ask people when we meet them? What do you do? What do you do? You used to say, where are you from? What's your family? What's your dad's name? What's fascinating, probably you and I, Nick, probably most of our friends, they couldn't tell us. You ask your close friends, what are my grandparents' names? They almost certainly don't know. But you ask a distant friend, what does that guy do? They know. and again, without judgment on which side of history is better. I'm just saying we're on a side of history where your identity comes from your vocation, what you do in the world, not from who you are before you got to your vocation.

25:26That I think is dangerous for the modern world because we look to what we do to figure out who we are. And Christianity has an answer for this. it says look to what god did to figure out who you are the whole message of christianity is that you are loved in spite of what you have done good or bad like good and this is i don't think a lot of people understand this i'll just dwell on it for a second the message of christianity is not just you're forgiven your love no matter what bad things you do it's also that you can't be more loved like no matter what good things you do i tell this to my kids all the time no matter what bad things you do or no matter what good things you do i love you the same unconditionally Unconditional love.

26:08The central message of Christianity is that, that God loves you and wants to be with you. So repent of your sins and follow him, believe in him. But this changes everything about work because when you embrace that message, not just in your head, but in your habit, which my claim is, if your head goes one way, but your habit goes the other, your heart tends to follow the habit. And what we're after is like, you can name it a lot of different ways, heart belief, gut belief, like your soul, soul level understanding. We don't just want to know in our heads that God loves us. We want to intuit it, feel it.

26:47And that's a matter of heart and habit. And when you intuit that God loves you, you are finally free from being a slave to your vocation where, where every day is a judgment for you. Did I do well today or not? Your identity is judged. You're free from all that. Like it's, I cannot tell you how much better it is being a lawyer knowing that I'm loved by God. Cause now like an angry email from a opposing counsel or like a bad negotiation. Cause that's what I do. I negotiate business deals. My identity is not on trial. I mean, it's just a bad day. You know, that that's a small thing. And I can go out to serve my client, not, and it's bad client service when everything's about you.

27:26We know those lawyers, right? And we know those people. It's like everything is about them. So this is the flip of life. And it is really hard in the modern world to take your identity from something other than work, which is why Christianity is such good news for people like you and me.

27:42Nick Bare:How hard do you think it is for people who don't have a faith, who aren't Christians, to root their identity in something outside of work? You know, people smarter than me have said, we all have a God-shaped hole in our heart. And what we mean when we say that is that, one way the Bible puts it is that eternity is in the hearts of men. And everybody listening knows this, whether you believe in God or not, you know you long for something bigger than the world itself. Like nothing is ever enough. We were talking about this while we were working out. You grow old enough as a man and you realize every mountain you climb, there's another mountain on the horizon that's higher.

28:30Every wall you put a ladder up and you climb towards it, you realize that this isn't the wall. There's always a next thing. That's what it means to say eternity is in our hearts. Like something about us hungers for something that we can't find. And when you don't know that that God-shaped hole is the shape of Jesus. Like that he's the one who answers that. You just, you go looking for, I mean, this is unsurprising. And I've been there. I'm sure you've been there. Like all of us get there. It's sex. Maybe that'll work. It's career. Maybe that'll work. And a typical man goes through a progression.

29:11It's first it's hedonism. Then it's hedonism through sex. Then it's performance. Then it's career. And then you just kind of repeat the cycle until you drive yourself on the ground. But the wise man, the man who Jesus has laid hold of, looks up and is like, this ain't it. None of this is it. And so I say with great conviction, but also with great compassion, if you don't know who God is, you're gonna wreck your life looking for what's supposed to fill that hole in your heart. And most men will do it through career or hedonism, which is why we see so many men fall apart at our age. because it's not working.

29:52And then they realize, if this is not working, maybe I should just go leave my family and go do something else and be happy. You know, women generally don't think about that in the same way. Well, actually, this is slightly nuanced. The divorce rate is actually pretty high for women leaving right now because I think we have an identity problem in our culture. But I'm going to sidestep that problem, stay on target. Men generally think, I'm going to eject. like I'm out because they can't figure it out. And I think the great news of Christianity is that your vocation, your family, your fitness, all this will make sense when the center of gravity is in place and his name is Jesus.

30:33That's why I frequently go and reread

30:36Nick Bare:the book of Ecclesiastes. It's so good, man. I heard you talking about that. It just keeps humbling me. Yes. Yeah, it's like we just keep, as human beings, keep toiling under the sun, striving, expecting different returns. And I got to a point in my life where exactly as you're describing, I was driven by performance and achievement and career. And what I was finding over time is that as I kept putting that at the North Star of everything I was working towards, I was still achieving, I was still succeeding, but the return started diminishing. Yeah. I started feeling less. It functions like a true addiction.

31:20100%.

31:20Nick Bare:You need more and it gives you less. Yes. Yeah. It's like, I keep looking for that dopamine hit and I'm getting less dopamine hit and less dopamine hit. I got to a point where I was thinking, I don't know where to get dopamine. It's like a drug addict. I'm out. I'm out of my supply. Absolutely. Where am I going to get this from? Yeah. And until I gave my life to Christ, I experienced the renewal. and that's why I keep going back and rereading Ecclesiastes, and I fall in love with it more and more and more than I read it. It's so good. Because it gives us all of the answers. Yeah. My question for you is, before you started practicing law, you were in ministry, right?

31:59Nick Bare:And you were a committed and devoted Christian. What happened in the process of, you knew what scripture said, you knew what it meant to live a life as a committed Christian, but then as you started your professional career, it's like you forgot all of what the word was telling us to do. What happened in that process? Well, yeah, and I'm so glad you asked this. This kind of speaks directly probably to what a lot of people experience in the world, which is where they're sitting there saying, I mean, I technically agree with these guys. Like, yeah, they might nod their head at Christianity or like, I grew up in a Christian home.

32:40and even though I was super passionate and by the way, super smart about it. I mean, I had half a seminary degree. I read, you know, I'm a professional Christian as a missionary. The great insight for me was that God is not content with you knowing a lot about him. That's not the goal of the human life. God wants you to love him back. He wants you to feel love. like this this sounds uh have you read the book knowing god by packer um it's been a while but yeah i read that right now yeah it's been a while it's good it's it's so good it's a classic for a reason yeah um but you know all great right great christian writers like like packer will get at this idea that there's more to a relationship with god than head knowledge and i just think Nick, I was a lot in that realm of where like knowing and saying the right things was supposed to be enough.

33:38That was my version of it. I mean, other guys' version of it might be like, yeah, well, I go to church or like, yeah, I was raised in a Christian home. I'm saved. But following Jesus, which is what Jesus often tells people when they ask him, like, you know, what do I do to gain eternal life? He'll basically end up saying, follow me. And it's interesting because Jesus is calling, he doesn't just say, well, just believe in me. He says a lot of different things, actually, if you read through the gospels, but the thing he says most often is follow me. And that's because he understands you have to believe in him.

34:17You have to confess your sins, admit that he is Lord, and then do something about it. And lots of people will say those words, but they don't mean them or really know what they're saying. And following Jesus is a matter of your whole life. And Jesus demands your whole life, not just your head life. So for me, it was realizing that the practices of my life were leading me to put my identity in work. And I did not want to do that. I wanted to follow Jesus with my whole life. And this was the great conviction of my early thirties that has changed everything about how I arranged my life. Now, let me be, for anybody who didn't necessarily follow that, let me just sum it up and be really clear.

34:56The great message of the gospel is that Jesus loves you as you are. like you don't have to do anything. You can't actually to be saved. He saves you, like just believe, just surrender to him. So that means habits won't change God's love for you, period. But I firmly believe God's love for you should change your habits. So when I say all of what I said, I'm talking about what does it look like to actually follow Jesus? Not how he saves you. Like you'll never habit your way to being loved by God. This is the great point here. God loves you, surrender to that. accept it and now change everything in your life because he loves you that much

35:36Nick Bare:that's what i've experienced since committing my life to christ is that it wasn't i found jesus i was saved i then felt that i had to change some of the habits in my life to honor God. Yes. It was that I was saved. And because of that love, these habits naturally just started changing in my life. Right, right. It wasn't to get to a certain place or for a transaction. It was a transformation that I experienced that then transformed the habits of my life. There you go. Yeah. There you go. One of my good friends in Richmond, Matt Smethers, he's a pastor in Richmond, puts it like this, like habits aren't the way you earn salvation, but they're often the way you enjoy your salvation.

36:29And I truly think this is a great point to make. Like when I talk about the body teaches the soul and habits for your body to sort of bring faith and fitness together, it is not because if you don't do them, you're not a good Christian. It's because God made life so good, so beautiful. He loves you so much. there's so much you can do to enjoy the life he made you for. Like it is a blessing. And I honestly feel like I'm calling people and really Jesus is not me to a form of holy hedonism. It's like, there is a wonderful way to live life. That's why Jesus is often, he calls himself the way. He's the way, the truth and the life.

37:08Like following him is better than anything else. Like it is the way you enjoy life. But there's a way that when you seek your enjoyment, it's just that endless cul-de-sac of identity that we talked about. And people just, they wither and die. But Jesus calls us to life and life to the full. As it turns out, there's like a long history of Christianity with spiritual disciplines and ancient practices that work super well in the modern world for us to live our life fully following Jesus. And that is just a matter of enjoying salvation. I want to talk about some of these

37:42Nick Bare:spiritual disciplines and habits. And we were talking about this during the workout today, but one that was, I guess a few that have really spoke to me that I have personally struggled with in my life. And I think that a lot of people who follow me probably fall victim to this as well and don't even know it. and my goal with bringing this up and diving into it is I hope that it makes people not my goal or my hope is that we talk about this and people aren't looking at their community or their peers like that guy that guy that girl do this but internally reflecting on themselves saying am I doing this oh yeah and it's the false idols okay I've been trying to guess what you're about to say false idols in terms of uh exercise body image yes uh food yeah for example we were talking about like uh gluttony yep earlier you know like for me for a long time i have idolized and worshiped fitness i've gotten into these these fitness preps i've put races on the calendars and I have idolized them, worshiped them.

39:02Nick Bare:They have taken over all part of my life. And you can argue, I can justify to myself, but this is a healthy practice. This is a healthy habit that at some point can cross the line of becoming unhealthy and unconsumed and forcing you to sacrifice other parts of your life. Same with food. I was just having this conversation with Steph a few nights ago where I used to worship and idolize food. Yeah. In terms of I would, and I viewed it as like, hey, this is a passion of mine. This is a hobby where I would plan our next eight date nights of knowing exactly where we were going to go to dinner. That is pretty lit.

39:48Nick Bare:Wow. That's extreme. I would have reservations made. I would have looked at the menu. I knew what I was going to eat. I knew I was going to over consume at this meal. It's like, I'm going hard at this meal. And when I was younger - So you're like looking weeks in the future for like that enjoyment. Yes. That you're going to eat a lot. Yeah. Because I'm so disciplined in my diet all the time. Right. It's like, this was an idol for me. It sounds like, when you describe it like that, it's like - Now when I was younger, in my early teens, I had a severe eating disorder. Oh really? For majority of my life, I have struggled with eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with food, which has, I guess, forced me or resulted in like idolizing and worshiping food and having just an interesting relationship around food.

40:41Nick Bare:Yeah. Okay. I think we create these false idols in our life. and initially when I started learning and researching about false idols or false gods, it was other people. It was other, you know, the Bible talks about these false gods that exist. Yes, yes. And we can think about in society today, pop culture, artists, athletes, like these people that we end up worshiping, they are these false idols, but false idols can also be practices and habits within our life. Oh, yes. like fitness or exercise or work or food, for example. And this part of your book really spoke to me. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's a lot here.

41:28Let's start with the basics. Yeah, an idol does not have to be a deity that is fake. It doesn't have to be a religious shrine. Idolatry in the Bible is worshiping the created rather than the creator. So that could be apple pie, that could be coffee, that could be alcohol, that could be drugs, that could be sex, or that could be a false God. It could be Baal. Whatever is not God is an idol when you worship it. and you know one of the the best definitions of if you're trying to figure out what's an idol in your life some of you know it like some of you are hearing this and you're like I know what it is it's it's porn or it's food or it's money it's career but some of you are just thinking about other people's idols right now and to think about your own life just ask what in your life if you don't have, will you sin in order to get?

42:30Like, what will you say? I'll break the rules in order to get this. What will you not be okay without? What is, if it is removed from you, then you're not who you are anymore. Like there's your idol because the Bible wants to point us to God as enough, all sufficient. And then through him, he gives you the rest of the world. So So one foundation, anything that is created, that is worshiped, like this is what I need, can be an idol, which means like fitness can totally be an idol. So this is like right at the beginning of Body Teaches the Soul, as you know, I lay out this paradigm. And this is an interesting conversation, Nick, because we're on the opposite sides of the paradigm, okay?

43:12Yeah. There's three things you can do with your body. You can ignore it, you can idolize it, or you can image God through it. and you can guess which is the Christian way, right? Yes. We are image bearers of God. And I'll talk about what that means in a second. But mostly in our culture, we see people doing one of two errors. There is a Christian-ish error that I was all about. I ignored the body. Life is all about the spiritual realm. And I put up quotes because that's not how God made the world, which is super interesting. Most people, a lot of people in Christianity think like this. It's sort of a modern heresy.

43:53So hang with me here. Genesis one, God made the material world and called it good. Like most people actually know this about the Bible. He creates light and separates day and night and then says it's good. He creates animals, calls it good and water and land calls it good. This is extremely theologically significant. God thinks material creation is good. And then guess what? It comes to creating humans and it says he made man and woman in his own image and he calls them very good. We are the pinnacle of creation. So C.S. Lewis calls this trying to be more spiritual than God. If you ignore the goodness of the material world, you're trying to out-spiritualize God and it's not gonna work.

44:35But a lot of Christians like me do it. They think all of life is in the head. All of life is in this sort of like spiritual world and any engagement with your body is sort of like, oh, that's temporary, that's going away. You know, it's vain. Yeah, like it has to be vain to care about it. But that completely ignores the grand storyline of the Bible, which you could sum up like this. God made your body. He saved you by the body of his son, Jesus Christ. And wait for it, this is actually kind of wild. The Bible says that he's gonna resurrect us to new bodies in the new heavens and the new earth, that heaven is a physical and spiritual place.

45:14So the idea that we separate the spiritual and the physical is really a product of the fall. The fall is when sin comes into the world. And what happens is death is when our spirit gets separated from our body. That's what we call death. So any theology that sort of embraces just the body or just the spirit, ignore or idolize, it's gonna be a theology of death. It's gonna mess you up somewhere or the other. I was on that end of ignoring the body. Lots of other Christians are. You know, you and lots of other people are on that other end where this is all I got. Like this is everything. And you think about it.

45:51If you give the world a materialistic viewpoint, like most people in America have, like this is what you get. It's just atoms. It's just biology. It's just evolution. Like this is all there is. Well, yeah, you better hold on. Like this is your one shot. This is everything you got. Like your body becomes the idol. Of course, you idolize it. And that breaks you. Like, and it'll, if it's going well, it becomes vanity. When it's going not well, it becomes shame and body image issues. And this is like most of the world that, you know, you encounter people just obsessed with health or fitness and their body is their barometer for how they're doing.

46:30But Christianity has a lovely third way, which is like, no, no, no, no. Don't ignore the body. God made it good. Don't idolize it either. It's not all there is. God, God is the end goal here. And so this is, I think, where this conversation both gets really interesting and really practical. Because if you can say something that I like to say, so the point of your body is not to ignore it, not to idolize it, but to image God through it. But anybody with a head on their shoulders is gonna be like, well, what does that mean? Here's what it means. God is love. You are the physical reflection of an invisible God.

47:08God is spirit. You are physical. Your job is to image a God of love. We've got a good idea what that looks like in Jesus Christ. He lives an outward life for others. So I would say your body, your main goal is to figure out how do I love like God loves using this body? And it's gonna look so different for so many people, but you can apply that to lawyering. You can apply that to fitness. You can apply that to motherhood and pregnancy. See, you're just looking at wherever you are in life and saying, what is my body for? It's for loving other people. This is a great call of life, right? People ask Jesus, what's the summary of all the Bible's teaching?

47:48He says, love God, love neighbor. That's what your body's for.

47:52Nick Bare:Yeah. So any training you do should be of glory to God and of service to your neighbor. And guess what? That's going to change your training. Yeah, someone put it into really clear and practical terms for me a few months ago. And they said, God has never asked you to sacrifice your body, but use your body to be obedient to his word and will. And that made me really think about how I've been treating my body over the years. Sacrificing and running it into the ground. Right. Which for a long time was my identity and provided me a lot of, I would say pride. I had a lot of pride behind that. Yeah, I'm the person who's going to wake up early and grind it out and wear myself down.

48:41Nick Bare:So by the end of the day, when my head hits the pillow, I got nothing left. But it's not that I have nothing left for myself. I got nothing left for anyone else. I got nothing left for my family. I got nothing left for my team. I got nothing left for the person to the left and right of me. That's a dangerous spot to be. Yeah, let me, so can I talk about exercise chapter in here? because it's so I'm going to get to that. Like, how do we pour out our lives for other people? Like, this is the question, right? But exercise came in a funny way for me because I'm living this head-centric life, you know, having this mental collapse I told you about.

49:20Right in my mid-30s, I decide I want to start my own law firm. And so I'm working from a coffee shop, like keeping overhead really low, right? I'm just like, we're sending emails from a coffee shop. And I hear all this banging next door. and I'm like, what is this? I thought it was a car garage, but I go look, and it's the door to this CrossFit gym, and I look inside the window, and this dude is, I didn't know at the time, it was cleaning jerks, you know, he's just lifting this massive amount of weight above his head, dropping it, and it's like banging on the floor, but he's got the chiseled body of a Greek god, so I'm like, I knock on the door, interrupt his workout, not really thinking, and I'm basically like, can this happen to me?

49:59Like, if I go here, I was flirting with the vanity part of it, but I knew at that stage in life that my body was being ignored. And so I wanted to get into exercising. So he tells me about the classes. I start going to the noon classes and turns out wanting to exercise and actually exercising are super different. Like the former is super easy. The latter is really hard. It does hurt, right? Like you're ground into a pulp. Like you are poured out, you're pulled apart. And so in the CrossFit style workouts that I was jumping into, there's these short bursts, these workouts of the day. and I would get exhausted by minute six and I'd take a bathroom break or grab some water.

50:38And you know, long enough bathroom break, you come back, the workout's over. So everybody's kind of looking at me weird, but I hadn't been there long enough to know that I was sort of missing the point here. So you're just tapping out. Yeah, I was just tapping out. And so one day we're doing a workout where it has actually a bunch of cleaning jerks over and over. And I think at like minute three or four, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm exhausted. So I go to get some water and my coach, Ryan, the aforementioned body of a Greek God guy steps in front of me and he's like hey just one more rep like you know make a furrowed brow go pick it up do one more and then I go to get water he steps in front of me again he's like nah just pick it up and I do it again and then I look I was like oh he's not moving I look at the clock I got eight minutes left I'm like this guy is going to stay here I didn't know basically he was you know modeling your go one more yeah but he stays there the whole time I collapse on the floor at the end of the workout one exhausted, but two realizing probably couldn't even put it into words, but this idea in my head of the wall wasn't the wall.

51:39Interesting. Which is like interesting, good for a gym poster, but here's where the story for me got really interesting. The next morning I am getting breakfast for my two-year-old and he's got a sippy cup of milk on the high chair and I'm serving him something. Can't even remember what it is. And he knocks the sippy cup off. I bend down to pick it up and my legs are so sore. I'm like, ow, ow. Put it back on his high chair, go to get something from the kitchen. And he just backhands the cup off the table again. And I turn around and look at this guy, like as if he is trying to provoke me. I know that feeling.

52:12Yeah. And look, dads, moms, we do this all the time. We think that our toddlers are trying to make our life miserable. We ascribe to them like evil intent when they're just a baby. They're a toddler, like they're a foolish little child. And I looked at this kid and I'm, you know, this is my error as a dad. I'm about to pop off on him. I'm about to yell at a toddler, maybe even spank a toddler for being a toddler. And then I hear this voice in my head, pick it up. And I almost look around like Ryan, like my coach, as you hear, it was totally the Holy Spirit. Just pick it up. And I went and picked up the bottle, just like I picked up that clean and jerk.

52:52I put it back on the high chair, winked at my son. and I had a realization that morning, Nick, and this is probably six plus years ago. It's stuck with me ever since. The gym was not just the gym. It was a spiritual gymnasium. Through my body, God wanted to teach me something about where grace begins, which is at the end of yourself. I had lived so long as a parent thinking, when I'm done, I'm done. And I was like that in the gym too. When I'm done, I'm done. not realizing that is precisely getting past the point that you think you can do when you go one more right when you pick it up that's where real growth starts to happen so in your life of service to family to work to friends when you are and this is important because you're not doing it for you right it's for them outward service when you talk about romans 12 right offer your bodies as a living sacrifice why is it living because you're not killing it so it can't do anymore you're stewarding that sacrifice for other people.

53:51This is when you get to the point where you think you have no more patience, but grace means you do. You think you can't be kind to your wife again tonight? Yes, you can. God is with you. You think you can't hold off on that addiction one more day. It's just, you can't go that far. Yes, you can. God is with you. That for me, this is where fitness and exercise has become a service to spirituality rather than a distraction from it. And I think Like this is, paradigm is totally possible. But you've got to put exercise in that place of imaging God through it, not idolizing yourself in it. Right.

54:25Nick Bare:What were your struggles in terms of, what were you idolizing? Work and success. Okay. Totally. I mean, yeah, I wanted to be the best. I wanted to have the highest GPA. I wanted to be, I wanted people to look at me and say, well done. Good job. ignoring the fact that the ultimate well done, good and faithful servant has to come from God, not man. So yeah, I wanted the approval of men. I've always wanted that. I still want that. I struggle with that right now. Well, society rewards us for that. It's what makes it challenging. It's like there's so much positive reinforcement for achieving and sacrificing and crushing yourself.

55:10Nick Bare:It feels good. It does. Everyone's like, look at that guy. Yeah. Well, and this is, I was telling you about our podcast earlier while we were working out. So me and great friend, Brooke Moser have started this podcast called Intentional Fatherhood. And one of our main themes is that for men, you spend the first stage of your life building your life. We call it getting your life together. It's actually from a great writer, Ronald Rollheiser. He writes about this. But all of us are familiar with this. Like your teens, your twenties, sometimes even your early thirties, it's this stage of you get your life together.

55:47And a lot of it is good. Like you do want to build. Like as men, we're called, God made us this way. It's good. You want to provide for your family. You want to get a job, start a family. It's big decision time, like in your twenties. Like, what am I going to do? Who am I? This is great stuff. But then something happens to us. It's happened to you, happened to me. It's no surprise that my collapse was right around the time of young children. Most people have a huge gear shift in their life when they realize, suddenly they look up one morning and like, I have a wife, I have a couple of young kids and life has radically begun to change because what they're sensing, but they're scared of is that it's not about them anymore.

56:28It's about these kids, it's about this woman. And that is one of the most holy turns that you can make in your life as a man to realize you have been building your life in order to now give it away for the sake of others. This is the outward turn that we're talking about earlier. Your body's not for you. It's for loving God and loving neighbor. So keep it fit for that purpose. Feed it well for that purpose. Run hard in your career, but for that purpose. But many of us have an early life crisis. I did. We fall apart mentally because we are so scared to give our life away. Because we don't know that that's where happiness is actually found.

57:06The paradigm of Jesus is that he empties himself. The Bible says that he humbled himself, came down to us and died for us on the cross. And therefore God exalted him. This like down up motion is the motion of life. Interestingly, it's also the motion of exercise, right? Obviously you have to break your body down and then rest in order to heal it, feed it in order to heal it. It's built into our biology, but it's also built into our life path. And in intentional fatherhood, Brooke and I are talking a lot about this because men struggle at this turning point where they realize, oh, I've gotten my life together not to turn around and get accolades for it, but to give it away.

57:46And if you don't make that turn properly, you really, really start to fall apart. But people who make that turn become kings because they realize life is about service. Life is about giving. Life is about love. And that's actually what builds you up into an elder statesman, which is what we long to be. somebody who cares and shepherds and stewards their power for the good of others. Like that's being like Jesus, but try to hold onto it and say life is about me. Can't bear it. It's too heavy, man. I'm just like, yeah, a lot of thoughts right now.

58:18Nick Bare:Hit me with a, lots of thoughts. This is exactly what I have experienced the last two years of my life. and I've been trying to put it into so many different words in the way that you were just describing it to me. It's like you were speaking to me. And I believe there's a lot of, I speak to a lot of men. So I'm gonna say men, but maybe men and women who are at a similar season of life that I'm in right now experiencing just this. Yeah. Because as I've shared what I'm experiencing in this pivot that I'm making, there's been so much interest. Like, man, tell me how, tell me why, help me. I'm getting that so much.

59:11And it's now like, as you're describing this,

59:14Nick Bare:it's all so clear. See, I've experienced a lot these last couple of years. I know you've had a big year. Yeah, I mean like - You've had a big year. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for what God's doing in your life. It's been a crazy year for me and my family. and it's committed my life to following Jesus Christ. It's been leveling up as a husband and a father and a business leader and just this renewal of my mind. But now the way that you paint this picture, I got to this point where I spent my early 20s, my late 20s, my early 30s, like really putting in work and building a career and setting myself up for success for myself if I'm being honest yeah yeah and I got to a point of this exact realization that you're making right now of oh I got to this point to now give it all away yeah and that scared me for a the the question I was going to ask you is like what why are people scared of that and then as I was about to ask you a question, I started asking myself, what was I scared of?

1:00:27Nick Bare:And I can't really tell you what I was scared of. I think I was scared of losing what was so predictable and comfortable in giving that away, not knowing what this next phase and chapter would look like. Yes. Yes. You know, when we were working out, I was telling you about the book that I read about a year ago called Halftime by Bob Buford. And it talks about this concept of the first half of your life is focused on success, personal success. And the second half is significance or this service to others. And I believe now I'm on that other side of the transformation and pivot. Yeah. And I don't have that fear anymore.

1:01:09Nick Bare:I'm not scared. Yeah. But it feels like rest and peace. That's good. And I now understand why that first half of my life made sense and why the transition and pivot was so hard. But now being on the other side, I'm like, oh, I feel good. It's a sign you're making the turn. Yeah. I mean, it's a long turn and there's a lot of life left. But yeah, I mean, open invite to anybody listening and to you. Mid-February, 2026, we're doing an intentional fatherhood conference to talk about this stuff with young dads about how to make the turn and get your life together in order to give it away. But I'll say, I think you described that idea of looking at it and both wanting it and being afraid of it is perfect.

1:01:59And honestly, if you don't feel that, then you're not looking at what we're talking about. Anything great in the world, let's talk about a wife, a beautiful woman that you want to marry. This totally happened to me with Lauren at the age of 20. I looked at this beautiful woman and I was like, I want to spend the rest of my life with her. Like this looks, this is incredible. This is what I was made for. And at the same time, I realized this is going to ask everything of me. I will have to never leave her. I will have to always love her for better or worse and sickness and health. That scared me to death.

1:02:35I wanted it so bad and it scared the heck out of me because that's what callings do. that true callings in the world, like give your life away for the sake of others. Like, oh, you sense. And I think every guy listening to this right now senses. That's what they were made for. To be a soldier for other people. To be a soldier for the King. His name is Jesus. Like give your life away for the sake of him and his goodness and his kingdom. When we see children rightly, we see that. I want to give my life for them. But will you live every day for them, right? When we see our wife, we think I would give my life for her.

1:03:09What will you live for her? when we see Jesus, I would die for being a Christian. Will you live for him? And that call is daunting, but it's also what we were made for. So if you're a man listening to this, you're going to feel both, but like any workout or any race, just head into it. We know we're gonna feel nervous before a good workout, right? Because it's gonna be hard, it's supposed to be. So is the call of Jesus. If you don't feel daunted by it, then you're not looking at that call. but if you also don't feel like, I think I'm made for this, then you don't see the goodness of the king yet.

1:03:44And I think you're describing what it looks like to make that turn because you feel both. But as you start running the race, you realize God made me to run this race. God made me to give it away. Now, everything that I was doing before, the training, the prep, the eating, the work has a place. It's for something that's bigger than you. And gosh, that feels good. This is what I mean when I say like the God-shaped hole can only be filled by Jesus. Augustine put it this way. My heart is restless until it finds rest in thee. And I think men know that. They're so tired of trying to fulfill their life by their career.

1:04:22Your heart is always gonna be restless until you find rest in God. And then you're like, I could run forever. I could do this forever. Oh yeah, I can give it all away. You have a superhuman power called the Holy Spirit, which is like run into your career now for the right reasons. And that is what men are made for. Yeah, the right reasons.

1:04:40Nick Bare:Yes. And that's why I want to be very careful about sharing this transformation I've experienced. I don't want people to hear me talk about this and think that I'm saying, And my 20s and early 30s were spent doing the wrong thing. Yeah. Everything I had to do from like research and work and building, it all had to get me to this point for me to learn what's the true reason. Yes. What is the purpose in all of this? And I would have never learned and realized that if I didn't go through the last decade plus. Well, first of all, that's a nod to the call of God. He, which is a beautiful thing. He organizes our life.

1:05:26Like there is a story for a reason and yours is a great story. Like you did, you've done incredible things, Nick. I mean, and you have been following because of this. People look and say, oh my gosh, this is incredible. God knows that he's using that. But just like we talked about with idols, anybody who takes the incredible things that they've done and says, this is the point, this is for me. Well, they're going to crumple. And the great story that God is writing through you and longs to write through me and every other listener on this is that those things that are good, right? Idols aren't bad because they exist.

1:05:58Like money, power, sex, exercise, all these things, God made it. Like it can be used for good. They're not bad by existing. They're parts of creation that God calls good. They can be used for great good or they can be used for great evil. And the greater the thing, and by the way, the human body is pretty great, right this is why we idolize it a lot the greater the thing the more beautiful it can become or the more evil it can become depending on how you use it so absolutely i would reject wholeheartedly anybody even if you said it it's like you know all this stuff i did before was worthless no it's not yeah god wants to use it actually it's great treasure he wants you to steward it not throw it away it's about using it probably you use it badly it becomes an idol it destroys you and everybody around you.

1:06:43You use it well, you become a king like Jesus, stewarding it for the good of others. Use it.

1:06:50Nick Bare:Yes. I fully believe in that. I just wanted to be very clear, not saying all, like these things are not bad things. It's just in like the way they are used and potentially idolized that can be destructive to life. The strength of a man can be used to serve and protect or it can be used to hurt, kill, destroy. It's the same strength. How do you use it, right? The strength of a man is good. Just use it well. Yeah. Another habit that I feel like we should talk about, which is almost the complete opposite of performance and exercise and training is rest. I was hoping we could talk about this. Yeah.

1:07:32Nick Bare:Because man, for the first time we were again - I was shocked at how little you told me you sleep. We were talking about this in the gym. Yeah. I've now, for the first time in my life, prioritized rest and sleep. And I will tell you, I feel so much better. I'm not surprised. My energy feels good. But rest is so much more than just sleep. Yes, yes it is, yeah. Right? And you open up the chapter of the book all on rest and sleep. Page 95, sleeping chapter. And - Wow, you're a lawyer here. Footnote sites, 95. Come on, man. This ain't my first rodeo. I got, you got John Piper here quoted. Yes, that's right.

1:08:18Nick Bare:And I love the way this opened up and this is why I wanted to share it. Once a day, God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. Yep. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. It is like a broken record that comes around with the same message every day. And this is what I love. man is not sovereign man is not sovereign man is not sovereign let's talk about rest let's talk about sleep yeah uh and something else you said like that i loved and i'll summarize rest is not for exhaustion rest is for satisfaction and like what i've built into my life and this is like a habit that i've built in Steph and I have built in around rest and sleep primarily.

1:09:10Nick Bare:As we were kind of talking about earlier in this conversation, is like our morning and evening rhythms and routines. These habits we put in place to set our day up for success in the beginning and then close them in the evening. But it's crazy what happens when you finally prioritize rest in your life and you don't live in the sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system can actually activate and work. Yes, yes. So rest is so important biologically and theologically. And that's what's so cool about sleep and Sabbath is that you can see reflections of both of these here. The Bible is wildly unique in that it starts with a God who rests.

1:09:53This is not how ancient creation myths go. Like most ancient creation myths have warring God's blood and violence of victor and the world is born out of war and violence and power. Genesis is weirdly different. It is a picture of a God who is very powerful, but also very artistic and then rests. He creates this incredible creation. And then on the seventh day, a God who does not need sleep decides to rest, which gives us this idea that the world that we're born into and the image of the God that we are made in is one of satisfaction and rest and ability to sit back and say that was enough. It's good.

1:10:36It's really good. And then he creates us, right? As creatures who need sleep, which is also super interesting. We go down the evolutionary path of, you know, it's a strange evolutionary claim to say that lying still and vulnerable for a third of your existence is the way to become an apex predator. Like it doesn't quite fit the narrative. There are some good arguments for why we might have evolved to become people who sleep, but there's also a lot of flaws in the macro argument. Now, I'm a lawyer and a writer. I'm not trying to make an argument there either way. I'm just saying, it's interesting to think that humans were made to go completely vulnerable for about eight hours a day and that God made this as a feature, not a flaw, like you're meant for it.

1:11:21So I think it tells us two things. One, we are not like God. We are not sovereign. We need a nap. Like the Psalms say, the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. God is not limited, but we are. And part of our biological need for sleep is, this is why the book is called The Body Teaches the Soul. The more we look at biology, the more we understand theology. when you go through sleep you realize i am a limited creature so much of the modern world is telling you you don't have limits or surpass your limits um this is a huge part of the sort of ai superhuman idea that we we will figure out a way to become limitless basically to gain eternal we're all looking for eternal life um the ai superhuman search just says that yeah we can figure it out technologically of course that's destined to fail um christ has already given us eternal life.

1:12:15We have to embrace our limits and sleep is one great way to do it. Turns out it's also the best thing for building strength, for building creativity, for loving others, for being rejuvenated, for being a great worker. All these great things come from sleep because it's how God designed you. And this was huge for me, Nick. I mean, as you read in the book and I told my story earlier, all my troubles began with the inability to sleep because I was living so arrogantly thinking, oh, I can be more and do more. I don't need rest. I'll sort of life hack my way into the bare minimum of it, which is another form of idolatry is to say, I'm just going to do, do, do, instead of being able to lay down at the end of the day and say, all right, I couldn't finish everything today, but I did enough.

1:12:58I did what God called me to do today. I'm now, I'm going to rest. That's super hard. And that's the theological reflection too. That's Sabbath, right? So when I started sabbating, my whole life changed as a young lawyer. Because of course, you think about this as a lawyer, we don't think about taking a day off. We think about, oh, Sunday's the day I can get all the other stuff done because nobody's going to bother me. So I did that. I lived that life for a while. Yeah. I mean, I did that and my mental health collapsed. I imploded and many do because we were made to rest and realize what I just said, but I'm going to say it again because it's so important.

1:13:35If you're going to rest, if you're going to Sabbath, you're going to get to a point where you realize I could do more emails, but I need to stop. I could do more errands. I could clean the house a little more. I could help whatever, but it's got to be unfinished. I just got to stop. This is theologically significant because what we're doing is we're realizing that we are people who cannot finish at all, which is why Jesus on the cross said, it is finished. This is, you ever think about this? We can't finish it all, but the good news about the universe is that in Jesus, everything that needs to be done for the good of all humankind has been done.

1:14:15That was the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is finished. So Sabbath is a rest and rejuvenation in the truth of that, that because of what Jesus has done for you, given up his life and risen again for you. He calls you now to accept his free grace, believe in him, follow him. So rest. Like one of the main calls of Christianity is calm down. It's not about you. It's about what God did for you. And as it turns out, when you understand that, you become like a little baby again. I mean, you see your little kids, they conk out in your arms. Why? Because they know that somebody is bigger than them and stronger than them and loves them.

1:14:55and you can really rest when you know that. And when you look up, even as a strong man in middle age caring for your family and realize there's somebody stronger than me and he loves me and his name is Jesus, you can finally start to rest. And Sabbath is teaching you that as a rhythm. Sabbath is a rhythm of salvation. Jesus finished it all, I can rest.

1:15:21Nick Bare:And when I think back to years ago, I really struggled with the thought of rest I think primarily because I had a lot of pride around just working nonstop and I wouldn't be able to if I finished all my work at say 6pm we ate dinner before having kids and we had nothing to do the rest of the night I would find something to do I get back on my computer I get back to work and I had a lot of pride in that. And I think a lot of it was because I thought I was God. I thought I was as powerful as God. I can do it all. I can be the savior. I can save my life. I can save this business. I can save my future.

1:16:15Nick Bare:I can do it all. And until I realized I'm not and never will be God and I don't have the wisdom or the power and never will. Right. It humbled me. Yeah. And taught me that there's power and need for rest. As you were talking about that, for some reason, this conversation with this individual popped up in my head that I haven't thought about in forever. Okay, I'm curious. And this was shortly after I made the decision not to work seven days a week anymore. And I remember having this conversation with someone and they wanted to meet up to get some work done. They said, we'll meet you at the office Saturday.

1:16:55I said, well, I won't be there Saturday.

1:16:59Nick Bare:And they said, what do you mean? I was like, well, we don't work Saturday and Sunday. We take off. And they looked at me like, your team doesn't work seven days a week. And I was looking at them just as puzzled as they were looking at me. I said, no, we don't work seven days a week. And for some reason, that conversation just popped my head. It's Saturday, dude. Of realizing like, I used to have this mentality. a lot of other people do is like, I mean, you see it, it's written on people's Instagram photos, rest when you're dead. Like kill yourself, sacrifice yourself, keep striving, keep, man, I've been there before.

1:17:40Nick Bare:It doesn't result in the outcomes you'd hope for. No, it's like any idol. It will kill you and others around you because you have to respect your need for sleep and not idolize your productivity. The great news though is, because I talked to lawyers about this and they're not convinced immediately at least, the great news is that again, the biological impact is a reflection of the theological impact. When you work so hard that you collapse, you're resting from the work. You're like, I have to now rest because of the exhaustion of the work. And you were quoting that part earlier that the kind of Sabbath rest we're talking about is not collapsing from the exhaustion of work.

1:18:22It is resting in the goodness of God and what you're called to do. So you don't rest from the work. This is how Tim Keller, a wonderful pastor who recently passed away, but he's just a wonderful pastor put it. We work from the rest. This is why the Christian calendar actually begins with Sunday as the first day of the week. A lot of people don't know why is it first? Because it's the idea that we begin in the rest of God and then go to work out of it. Biologically, this is true too. Like if you're gonna train hard, you need to sleep well. You need to start with rest and then train hard and then continue to rest.

1:18:58And our identities are like that. And when we don't rest, when we don't practice Sabbath, we fall apart mentally and we fall apart physically. And anybody's just a matter of time. If you say you rest when you're dead and if you say I'll rest when I'm dead and you really mean it, you'll get it. You'll die younger. And you might actually die really young because you might run your life that hard that you just ruined it all. And it might be a identity death or it might be actual death. But the way to live life and live life to the full, as it turns out, again, this is Christian hedonism here. Rest in the goodness of God.

1:19:35It actually feels great. And for people like you and me, I would just say, lots of times we don't know what to do to rest. I call this the work of rest. rest is not just stopping. For me, and I love this quote, it's from Abraham Heschel. He says, a man who works with his mind should Sabbath with his hands. And a man who works with his hands should Sabbath with his mind. When I heard you, this is in your book, right? Yes, it is.

1:20:04Nick Bare:Yeah. When I heard this in the book, I sat on that for a while. Yeah. I mean, it's wonderful ancient wisdom. And actually, it might be an interesting distinction between you and I. Your work is obviously hybrid, but when I think about resting well, I think about a handyman project, a hike, a workout, something to get my body moving because, dude, I work in my head. I'm writing, I'm at keyboards, I'm negotiating, my work is words. But when somebody who's out there, you know, fixing utility poles seven days a week, or maybe they're, maybe they're an athlete, you know, if your work is with your body and lots of people's are, you probably want to read, meditate.

1:20:48Nick Bare:That's how rest is for me. I love, I love reading. You probably want to listen to podcasts. Now, it goes without saying that I think family time and worship should be part of your Sabbath, like spending time with your family. We have a big family lunch on Sunday. You know, we go to church, but, but I'm going to sleep in on Sunday as late as my kids will let me. We're gonna make a huge breakfast. We're gonna go to church. We're gonna see family. And then I'm gonna do something with my body. And I think this might be a theme of the conversation, right? Like it's so good. It's so wonderful. God has invited me not to this demanding, exhausting life of following him, but this life of fullness and abundance where it's actually stop being a slave to the world and start being a slave to Christ.

1:21:33and you realize you are finally free to enjoy life. And I go back to work so ready to work hard and pour my life out, you know, for the other five, six days a week.

1:21:41Nick Bare:Yeah, I found that as I've prioritized rest, I'm no less productive. I'm more productive. Oh, studies will show it's definitive. You're more productive. Yeah. The way to less productivity is never stop working. The way to more is have good boundaries. Yep. You know, a lot of people with our tagline being going more. and this is what my last book that I just wrote was all about. So many people think that it is just this physical action, discipline of doing more and more and more. And that can be part of it, but it's not everything. It's part of the ethic. The intent of going more was meant to be a mindset that isn't intentional.

1:22:27Nick Bare:Years ago, and I've shared this quote many times before, but Jordan Utter, who used to be our brand director, he had this quote on his computer. It was written on a sticky note. And I saw it, this was probably 2019. And I was over by his computer and I saw the sticky note and it said, lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest. And I read it over again. Lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest. That's good. Go on more for me has always been this mindset of making intentional decisions. It might be to rest and sleep more so that you can then do more and do better later.

1:23:12Nick Bare:You can then go on more. Go on more is an outcome. It's not just an action. Yeah. And I think that's where a lot of people get things wrong. See, I'm not asking people just keep grinding away. Yeah. Don't just keep doing more for the lack of intentionality because doing more is actually easy. It's like, for me, if you were to say, sleep less, work more, run more miles, spend more time in the gym, build a business, easy. But what's actually harder for me sometimes is slowing down and resting and recovering. and resting because of, and I love this, for satisfaction, not because of exhaustion. That is the, for me, it's a North Star.

1:24:01Nick Bare:Yeah. Get there. That is the win. That is go on more. You know, like we talked about with idols, it's not the thing. It's what you're doing with the thing. And I love the motto, go on more, because it's so close to my story of Ryan telling me, pick it up. You know, that idea of, oh, there's more in me. than I thought I had to give is a wonderful reflection of following Jesus. There is more love in me. There's more patience in me. There's more service in me. There's more strength in me than I thought because of God's grace with me. But it depends on whether you're doing the right thing. You know, it's a great motto and anything great can be used for great evil or great good, like we talked about.

1:24:40And when you're using it in service of health, faith, family, you know, good work, it's so good. but if it's something you know if it's your addiction don't go one more stop repent turn around if it's scrolling stop if it's i'm i'm continuing to push in work because you know going one more is finally going to make me who i am i just i want to say again with compassion and conviction stop turn around look at jesus go his direction and then you'll be ready to go one more right because you can go on the wrong things and you you need to stop but the reason this is so great is because when you, when you're going in the right direction, going one more is the ethic of Christ.

1:25:20He gave up his life for the good of us. Like he went farther and we want to be like him.

1:25:26Nick Bare:I think you were sharing this in Habits of the Household, but you're talking about these, these micro prayers that you do. And you use the example of like - I'm a big fan of short prayers. Yeah. You're using the example of like your kids fighting upstairs and naturally the tendency is to, to sprint upstairs and break up the fight. Yell at them. Yeah. But it's slowing down. And as you make your way up there, have this short like micro prayer. Yeah. Asking for like the patience and the wisdom. Yeah, I call them pause prayers. Pause prayers. That's right. Pause prayers. And as we're like having this conversation, I'm thinking of continuing to follow Jesus and push on this pursuit of what is uncomfortable.

1:26:17Nick Bare:And this phrase has been coming to me a lot recently and it's tested, not tempted. And I don't know exactly why it's been like speaking to me a lot recently, but I'm trying to navigate it as I'm in prayer. And every time that I find myself in a situation where I'm challenged and I want to react, take a step back and i just i tell myself the lord is testing you right now how are you going to respond good in a way that's going to produce perseverance perseverance character character endurance yes and i sit with that a lot right now of god doesn't tempt us the enemy tempts us but God is testing us frequently.

1:27:08Nick Bare:And I want to keep being, if I'm tested by God on a consistent basis, I know I'm close to him. Yes. I want those constant tests. I have that fear. Yeah. Like Lord, when you stop testing me, what's going on? Yeah, if you're not doing hard workouts, you're not going to grow, right? I mean, this is so obvious on this podcast that it's almost silly, but it's funny how much we don't apply that to life. that God wants to grow you through suffering. It's kind of uncomfortable. Like God will say, I want you to be like me and keep in mind that I'm the God who became man. We're talking around Christmas time, right?

1:27:46This is the Christmas story. God becomes incarnate human being to suffer and die so that resurrection life, eternal life can happen. This is the path. And if we're looking at the rest of our life and we're looking for easy at home, like easy in our work, easy in the rest of life, those sort of simple repetitions of unintentionality, you're not growing in your faith. Like God wants to use difficult circumstances in your marriage with your kids in business to grow you. And there's a way of life that we look at it and we just resent it, particularly in the stages we're talking about. Like we were building all our life.

1:28:22Now we got to our thirties and there's kids and there's a wife and job is harder than we thought. And we're just like, oh, it's not like, it's so hard now, it's not funny anymore. And we eject instead of saying, oh wait, in giving it away, I'm becoming like Jesus. This is the point he's sanctifying me. So life is going to be like a workout. It's going to be hard. And it's also going to be like the result of the workout. You're stronger, you're better, you're happier, you're healthier. But spiritually, that's true. And the pause prayers are huge for me and reframing those moments where I'm like, what I want to do is bring the aggression and anger on my kids.

1:28:59I got four boys. So it's very easy to just get in the fraternity of testosterone of like they're shouting, I'm shouting, they're mad, I'm mad and I'm bigger, I'm stronger. So I win instead of being like, pause, pray. Let me come in here with patience. Let me come in here with love, strong love, authority. Boys will hurt each other and themselves. So will girls, they're children, they need guidance. So I'm a strong authority, but I'm a gentle authority, a loving authority. And I couldn't do that without prayer. And nor can you make that turn in marriage or work. You can't look at it and be like, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to treat this as sanctification as a head project.

1:29:38Like you pray, you stop and pray. I tell people all the time, pause and pray, pause and pray. Bible says pray without ceasing, which means you're basically doing it all the time. Like it's an internal monologue of just talking to God and saying, and this is one of my favorite quotes, Anne Lamont said this, that the most powerful three prayers are help, thanks, and wow. I go to help a lot, but it's prayer. It's just looking up. It's like Ecclesiastes. It's constantly looking up and saying, this is hard. Where is God? Just look up, help, help.

1:30:10Nick Bare:Yeah. I catch myself sometimes having conversations with Steph, especially on the weekends uh where i'm like you know we're if we're in a really tough day we're just getting beat up yeah i'm like you know our friends who don't have kids yet they don't even know they don't even know oh they think they think like oh they're complaining about their life right now you're busy yeah you're tired but then i think back to yeah but they're not getting these tests that we're getting right now i think this all the time they're not growing like we're growing and just like think about how blessed we are that we are we are being tested daily this is uh it's so glorious i think about and this is not to judge i mean everybody's in different places but i think about some of the idol of our culture postpone having kids postpone getting married get your career together travel make money and i i look at and they they look at marriage and family as maybe a capstone to life.

1:31:10Or a burden? Well, they think it may be like an achievement they'll get later, but right now it's a burden. Yeah, so maybe it's like, oh, the last thing I'll do is I'll find a wife in my 30s and maybe have a kid at 40.

1:31:22Nick Bare:I got you, okay, I'm following you. Yeah, so it's like, it's the capstone. It's like the last thing, the cherry on top, maybe. Marriage and family in the way that God designed us is the cornerstone. It's the foundation of life because of what you said. it makes us real men. Men who realize, oh, life is actually hard. Life is about service. Life is about love. Life is about sticking around. Life is about using my strength for others. Not to control others, not to beat up others, but to bring them in, to hug them. Like these are not for being fists and pounding the table. They're for being hands that pull your wife close and pull your kids close.

1:32:00I think people who postpone marriage and family because they want to travel, they want more money, they want career success early. I pity it a little bit because you miss the real growth of a human being that comes from a toddler waking you up at 2 a.m. and you don't have a choice. You don't get to decide, do I want to get up or not? You go help that kid. And that service makes you a real human being. It's the growth. We call it sanctification. It makes you more loving.

1:32:32Nick Bare:Man, that perspective, the cornerstone rather than the capstone is like really, really good. Yeah. I should be quoting a sociologist, Brad. He's out of UVA. I think it's Brad Wilcox. He has a book on this. So he's got really good research, but this is a problem in the modern world, particularly modern America, that it's a capstone rather than a cornerstone. And I want to tell any man listening, follow Jesus, get married, have children, like that order. That builds a good life. There's a way you are made. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. You want to worship the God who invented the wheel and following Jesus, marrying a great woman who also follows Jesus and having kids and training them to do that is the cornerstone of a a good life and so much fruit, so much good work, so much wonderful identity will come from those good things.

1:33:31If you mess up that order, you know, have kids first, don't marry a woman, do it all without Jesus. That's a real recipe for confusion. And you see it everywhere right now. Like most of our societal problems are caused from messing up that order. And I don't think actually that's a radical thing to say. I just think it's fairly objectively true. society does better when you have a foundation of who god is a man commits to a woman and stays with her and they produce children together almost every every index of human flourishing maps to those things in that order is there a country who does that better than others you know i'm not smart enough to know that but i'm sure somebody researching in the comments can go i'd be very curious you can go do that there's like uh but i mean brad wilcox um he does i he has good sociology on this i would go check out the the the clear objective sociological impacts of getting married young and staying married um nobody doubts this i mean you nobody nobody's confused about the problems of poverty of prison of crime of rape and drug i mean almost all of our sociological problems are happening in men who don't have fathers.

1:34:49Yeah. This is not hard. It's hard to fix. It's not hard to name. You know, strong men change the world when they commit to a woman and stay with their children. This is why this book is so wise. This is why it's the foundation of life because it gives simple recipes like that. This is what God made you for. where he made you to get married and have kids and care for them. And so much of the rest of life is built on that foundation. And when we reverse it, when we think, oh, life is all about career and we start ruining our families, the world becomes what we know the world to be, really, really broken.

1:35:26Right. But men are called to be at the center of that change.

1:35:32Nick Bare:I recently read this book called Living Life Backwards. Oh, I've heard of that. I haven't read it yet. It's all about the book of Ecclesiastes. It's really, really good. Oh, that sounds great. I know somebody recommended that to me, but I haven't read it yet. And in one of the sections of that book, one of the chapters, it talks about how we have to embrace repetitiveness and that we as people in this world pursue change, newness, novelty. Right, right, right, right. and we want different. For example, if we apply it to what we were just talking about, a man gets married and has kids and he gets bored.

1:36:15Nick Bare:He wants change. So he starts committing sin or spending more of his time at work and traveling, I suppose, with his family because they want and we want change and newness and novelty when the reality is we have to embrace the repetitive nature of life. And that consistency produces the fruit of which life was meant to create. Yes, it is. Stay on it. Go one more. If you're doing those things, those are the right reps. Go one more. Be consistent. Show up. Well, Justin, this was great, man. This was pretty fun, huh? This is a powerful one, dude. Let's go. Even mid-conversation, you were bringing up some things and I'm thinking internally, like, man, this is making me think.

1:37:00Nick Bare:But dude, I really appreciate you making this trip. and I have, not just me, but me and Steph and a lot of the people here at BPN have enjoyed the books and the impact they're making in our lives as individuals, but also families as well. Well, thank you, man. It's such an honor to talk to you and it's an honor to be speaking to all you who are out there listening. Like your audience is incredible people and to tell them about how much Jesus loves them and how a life built on that is the good life. I mean, this is what I'm trying to say in all my books, Body Teaches the Soul Habits of the Household, the podcast, Intentional Fatherhood.

1:37:34I mean, it's about following Jesus and I'm so excited to get to talk to you about it. I mean, working out with you this morning and talking about God in between these pump sets is probably gonna be a highlight of 2025. Dude, that's what gets me jacked up.

1:37:46Nick Bare:Let's go. Having strength sessions with a bro and having good conversation. Oh man. I get a huge high and dopamine hit from that. Amen. Well, maybe, just maybe one day I can come back and we can go one more. Let's do it. All right, brother. I appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah, man.