What's the SECRET to Raising a Child Who Succeeds in Life?

[00:00:41] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of Two Witnesses Live. I am watchful, and tonight we don't really have a plan. Since this is a holiday weekend. Week. Weekend. Yeah, I'm tired. Since this is a holiday week, I figured we could just wing it today. I don't know if we'll go for an entire hour. I know, David. You could probably carry the show for an entire hour. So we'll see how this goes. We got a lot to catch up on. This could be. This could be an interesting show tonight. But anyway, how you doing today, dude, today is last weekend. Did you do any hunting? Ooh, Anybody get shot in the back? Good. Well, let's go. So what. So what were you guys hunting with? Okay. Yeah. It's been 20 years. Hang on a minute. They're saying they can't. They. They're saying they can't hear you. Let me remove you and re. Add you to the scene. See if it helps. All right, now try talking. Can you guys hear him? I know there's, like a 30 second delay, so we may be here for a few. It's trying to figure out if they can hear you or not. I hear you just fine. You're coming through loud and clear. So testing, 1, 2, 3. Yeah, I hear you loud. You're crystal clear to me. Technical difficulties. No sound for David. Really? Yeah, tried. I hear you just fine. But try signing out and signing back in. See if it helps. David is. No, he is not saying that. Well, yeah. Hey, have you guys heard the. Do you guys hear me? Can you guys hear me? Maybe it's me affecting sound on your end. Do you guys hear me at all? Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Hello? Hello? Hello. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Bam. Again. [00:03:47] Speaker A: There he is again. Okay, well, they hear me. Can you guys hear him? Try this again. Hello. Well, he's not talking, so if you don't hear him. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Yes, I see. Someone said yes. [00:04:02] Speaker A: All right, all right. Okay. I don't know if they're saying that to me, because I was just asking if they could hear me. All right, they're all saying they can hear you now. [00:04:09] Speaker B: Perfect. All right, cool. [00:04:11] Speaker A: All right. Shooting. Hunting, yeah. What are you guys shooting? You. So you brought your AR, your.308. You had shotguns. Where were you guys shooting? What were you guys hunting? [00:04:20] Speaker B: Deer. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Shoot Deer. [00:04:22] Speaker B: Deer. So I new to hunting. Well, not new now, but when I first came to hunting, I thought, you know, had this thing in my mind, like, I was gonna have to track something down. And there was, like, a lot of work to it. Little did I Know, you just kind of park on the side of the road. You walk into a field, and if you can sit still long enough, then you might catch deer. [00:04:46] Speaker A: That was pretty much my experience, too. I, I, it's funny how you build up this image in your mind of, like, I don't know, Bear Grylls, like setting traps and tracking animals and, you know, all of these steps. And it's more like sitting around a campfire and just waiting for. Or sitting up in a tree. Sitting. There's a lot of waiting. Or walking. [00:05:08] Speaker B: Yes. So we work, we hunt on public land. So we do. This was my first year to do some bow hunting prior to gun season. And here in Wisconsin, you can use a crossbow, so that was kind of cool to do that. I missed an opportunity. I didn't take the shot just because I wasn't sure. It was a little too far off. But then this year was the first year. So my sons have been doing it since they were 12, and right now they're 18, 20, and 22. And this is the first year that they've brought their guns. So they actually, since all the years before that they came, all they did was push for grandpa. So they would walk with me. We'd push the public woods, see if we can run anything in front of grandpa to take a couple shots. And if we get something, if it's brown, it's down, you know, we weren't really looking for antlers. They didn't, we didn't have a good recipe for antlers, so, so, but this is the first year they brought their guns. They brought guns, so they went and got licensed. So then it was. This year was more of a. Okay, let's talk about how to walk with a gun. Talk about the safety. Make sure where you're pointing. Can you see everyone in orange? And so it was a great weekend. A lot of learning, a lot of brothers making fun of brothers. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah. What is the, what is the, what's the joke, you guys, that you usually play on somebody? Grouse? No, it's not grouse. It's snipe. Snipe. Do you do any snipe hunting? [00:06:48] Speaker B: No. [00:06:52] Speaker A: They got me the first time I went hunting with that one. Sat me by a tree for three hours. Yeah. [00:07:00] Speaker B: That'S awesome. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Like, it's so dark. They're like, you'll see it. It glows. What? Yeah, I'm gullible. So what are your boys? So are they your do. Your boy. So they're of age that they could have their own rifle. So did they Bring their own rifles or were they. [00:07:27] Speaker B: No, because this. Since this was the first year that they've wanted. So I'm hunt. Okay. So hunting for my family is a. Is a week of the boys hanging out with dad, Uncle Nick, Grandpa, Uncle Giovanni, Uncle Elliot, and whatever friends. It's really kind of a man bonding thing. So they go to hang out with all the guys. However, some of the rules. And this. I wrote this in my book. My. The rules for going hunting with my kids was they could eat whatever they want and they could drink whatever they want. So. And this is starting at a fairly young age. And. And I've been known to drink tequila here and there. And grandpa likes his beer and, you know, Uncle Nick likes his brandy. And so there's. There's drinks there. And the kids, we brought soda and Gatorades. And as the kids were growing up, it was like, we're not telling you what not to drink and not to eat, and if you eat just candy, you're gonna get a stomach ache. And so we kind of let them gauge. And of course, they ate way too much candy the first couple years. And the other rule was they were allowed to say whatever they wanted. So there was no rules. If Uncle Nick dropped an F bomb, the kids could do the same thing. Right? But when we left hunting, that was it. Right? There was no more. So it was to teach them, you know, there's different rules for different scenarios. So anyway, they've been coming since they were 12 years old, each one of them respectively. Right. And they decided they didn't want the responsibility of carrying around a gun or shooting a gun or gutting a deer or field dressing, you know, any of that stuff. They didn't want to deal with that. But this year they were like, nope, we want to do it. So all three of them did it, and we're all excited. So it's a. It's a great time to bond with the kids. You know, the conversations that come up, they get to hear about me and my. Their mother, my wife, and what's. What's going on. Frustrations. The. The loving part of it, the funny part of it, the learning part of. Right. They get to hear. Then they get to hear grandpa talk, you know, about his relationship with grandma and give advice. And you hear Nick talk and Ellie and Giovanni. Everyone kind of puts in their two bits and they kind of get to see, okay, this is good advice. This is not so good advice. Or this is, you know, they get to process it all. So it was probably one of the best Parts of the hunting was the bonds they made with each other. So. [00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. So do they not. So are they off? Are they in college? How many of them are in the house still? [00:10:38] Speaker B: So right now my oldest is out of the house. He moved out right when he graduated high school. He went right onto the dorms at college and was like, nope, I want to move out. The second one was like, nope, I do not want to move out. I like staying home. So he's still with us and he is on his last year of college, and then the third one just graduated high school and he got to pick and he said he wanted to stay home as well. So I got two boys at home, and then my daughter, who's 15, she'll be 16 here and in Jan. In February, so. [00:11:19] Speaker A: Oh, trouble. Oh, yeah. [00:11:23] Speaker B: We actually want to do a sweet 16 for her, so that'll be cool. [00:11:26] Speaker A: Oh, that'll be sweet. Yeah. My. Speaking of cuss words, my daughter's first word was mom and grandma. Use that word. It's the. Okay. Curse words a lot. We didn't realize how often they used it until my daughter's first word was. I think it was. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. My wife might yell. Yell at me. I'm pretty sure that was. If it wasn't the first one, it was the second one. I'm pretty sure it was the first one, though. But, yeah, we thing. [00:11:57] Speaker B: How did it come about? Well, tell me the story. How did it come about? [00:12:01] Speaker A: Oh, so we. So we have actually have a policy that we don't really hide anything from our daughter. So she asks. We're dead honest about anything. That's how I was raised. That's how my mom raised us to where just like anything that we asked, we. She would warn us. Now, this is grotesque, or this is not appropriate for your age. So she would usually warn us. And, you know, on occasion we'd say, you know what? I don't want to hear it. Because she had a history of sharing. So all my mom's side of the family are doctors and, like, nurses. So, like, if there were times where you would ask stuff and they would go into detail and you'd be. You would soon learn that there were things you just don't want to learn about. So. So that. Because that I. And I enjoyed that policy growing up to where there was nothing ever really hidden, even. Even uncomfortable situations or situations that you normally wouldn't share with a child, my mom would always take the approach of, you know, I'll. I'll tell you this if you really want to know, but let me preface that, you know, this is not appropriate for your age. There's going to be things that you don't understand. I would really rather not share this with you, but if this is something that you really want to know, I will show share it with you. So we kind of take that same policy with my daughter, and it's, you know, for the most part, worked out really well for us. But one of the things that also goes in with that policy is language. So there are no bad words, Although they don't like me saying the F word, because being fully Scottish, I use the F word a lot, and I'm trying not to. I curse like a sailor, but. Yeah. So I have a policy, and this was the same when I was growing up, too, that words are just language, and there aren't any really bad words. It's just bad context. So if you're using a word in the bat in the. In the wrong context, that's where you need correction. So, like, if you stub your toe, you're right to say, you know. You know, or damn it, or whatever. You know what I mean? Or, like, in a stressful situation, use the right word appropriately. So my wife and her mother probably overused the word shit for a little too much. And it kind of came about to where we realized that once my daughter's first word was. So that's how that came about. But it's. I. I think it's had a really positive effect on our life, on my daughter's life, because they're both avid readers and they have very large vocabularies, so it's never really been a problem. They're very articulate. [00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. We. We decided that we would use curse words when we needed to draw emphasis. Right. So it was kind of a shock factor. I actually wrote it in my book, Behind Mommy in front of Daddy. I wrote that to be careful not to use your shock factor so much that it wasn't shocking anymore. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. [00:15:23] Speaker B: So whenever I would curse in front of my kids. It's beautiful. It was one of those that when I used it, you could see in their eyes. [00:15:31] Speaker A: It was like, oh, wow, Dad's mad. He's using the shock factor, right? [00:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So I used it to get their attention. It was few and far between. As a matter of fact, I recall one time we were walking through the mall with my first son. He must have been just under two. Angie was pregnant with the second son for sure. And we're walking through the mall, and I had a tough day at the bank. And I'm talking to my wife, telling her stories. And then I said, effing stupid, right? When I was talking about someone, I was really jacked up and upset, jacked up with anger. And my son turns around, says, daddy, you said a bad word. And I was like, oh, man. I was like, you're right, Gabe. You're right. I'm sorry. I should not have said that. Thank you for correcting me. So then we keep walking through the store, and then I look at my wife and I go, does he even know that word? And my wife kind of shrugs her shoulders, like, I don't think so. So then I asked when I was like, hey, you know, I get down my knees when I'm eye to eye with him. I was like, thank you for correcting me, but can you tell me what was the word that. That I used that was bad? And he says, dad, I. I'm not allowed to say it. I can't say it. I was like, just this one time. You can go ahead and say it. And he was like, stupid. I was like, you are right, buddy. That was a bad word. [00:17:07] Speaker A: It's funny. The words that we consider are stupid. I can't remember. Remind me, when we were in college, didn't we replace bad words with other words? Was it with you that we changed pretty for stupid? Or am I thinking of my wife? [00:17:21] Speaker B: Oh, I don't remember that. [00:17:24] Speaker A: That may have. That might have been my wife. So here. Here's where. Here's the thing when it comes to words is you're going to use a word for emphasis regardless of what it is. Our culture has deemed certain words to have a particular emphasis, but it's a constantly moving target. So for. I can't remember where this started. It must have been with my wife. Instead of calling somebody stupid. I think this started in a game. Instead of calling somebody stupid, we called them pretty so that they. So that it made them feel good. So if. If you felt that somebody was being stupid, you'd go, oh, that person is so pretty. And then it was. It was initially. It was just like, people are like, oh, thank you. It's like you've never seen this person before in your life, and they're. You're like, calling them pretty, but really, it's an inside joke. We would be calling them stupid until they catch on to. You know, I learned this technique from you when you were teaching me Spanish words that were not what you told me. They were. [00:18:31] Speaker B: But that was a practical joke. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a practical joke. No, but, yeah. So it's all fun and games until somebody catches on to where, when you're really saying pretty, that you're really calling somebody stupid. So my point in saying that is, is they've actually done this. I think they. I think there's been. After we had done that, I found out that this is actually a common thing to where people will start to enter. They'll start changing words in order to kind of hide the meaning. That happens in high school all the time. To where the. The whole underlying point is you're going to use a word in order to describe a situation. So if you're, if you're trying to add emphasis, it doesn't matter if the word is stupid or pretty. They both have the same implication. So when we were saying somebody is so pretty, we were really saying somebody was stupid. We were just using the word pretty. So eventually that word pretty becomes the bad word if it's used over a long enough period of time. So that's kind of my point when it comes to actually using language and words is you're going to use a word to describe a situation to, you know, to whether it's emphasis, whether, you know, it's. To have a shock value. And to your point, try to try to preserve that shock value with particular curse words and use them in the right context. And really, when it comes to, like, scripture and spiritual matters, it's so important to understand context and culture, to understand what the words meant to the people in that day and age, because words change over time. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Well, it's, It's. There's culture involved, but it's all about communication, right? And if you look at all the different ways God communicates with you, it's not just words, right? It. It's. He communicates through feelings, he communicates through the stars, he communicates through loved ones. There's plenty of ways to communicate, and I find people get hung up on communication rules as opposed to what are you trying to communicate. So when we went through this with our kids, and we're like, hey, we are using this for emphasis. I'll. I'll tell you another story. My daughter, at one time, I had asked her to. We My house, we have a pool in the backyard and we do lots of parties. We invite friends and family over all the time. Every once in a while, I'll even put on my Facebook, hey, pool's open. And then just random friends will show up and they bring food, whatever, drink I had a little kegerator I'd roll out there, and people could drink. Spotted cow, if anyone's from the Midwest. It was a great time anyway. [00:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:23] Speaker B: I asked my daughter to get me something. I can't even remember what it was. I was just, could you please go get this for me? And her response was, dad, you have two legs. Why don't you go get it? You know, it. It. I'm. She was being kind of silly, but at the same time, testing the boundaries. And, you know, can I push back? Because I can say this to my brothers, and then they'll go do it, right? I remember looking at her and I thought, how do I nip this in the bud? So, you know, I call her over a little closer and I whisper in her ear, and I said, you know, I say, please, for your sake. I could say, go get the effing. You know what? Right now. I was like, would you prefer that? And she was like, no. You saw her eyes. No. I was like, well, then let's keep this cordial. Can you please go get this for me? And from there on out, she knew exactly what I'm asking. You know, I'm not asking her to get stuff so that I can continue to be lazy, right? There's people around. There's food on the grill. You know, I don't remember the exact situation of what was involved, so I don't want to make it up. But I do remember bringing to her attention that, hey, you have to understand when someone's being cordial in. Great. Do more to encourage that type of communication. Right? Yes. You asked so nicely, for sure. I'm gonna go help out, right? So I. We definitely taught our kids that. But when we go hunting. Hunting was. They were allowed to say whatever they wanted, and. And they still didn't curse all that often. But, you know, there was a good rip here and there on the guys, and there was a lot of jokes that needed some colorful language. And, you know, just one of those moments to be proud with your kids that they didn't go too far, you know? [00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Sounds like you've done a really good job. Something that my daughter's. My daughter is 10 years old now, and she's just at that age to where we're trying to teach her to do more on her own. So, you know, she's gotten away for the years. She's gotten away with saying, you know, you know, can you go make me some food? And. And now it's. You're of age now. You can actually go make your own food. And sometimes that devolves to, I'm not your slave. Go make your own damn food. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Ours, we. My wife always had a knack for getting food that they liked and then giving them permission to get it right. So if everyone had a snack, here's a shelf in the cabinet. These are snacks that you can take whenever you want. Obviously, they weren't all snicker bars. Right. They were healthier. You know, fruits, vegetables, things like that. Or it came to granola bars. But then little by little, we would increase that to where then they started. Well, here's the bread. Here's the peanut butter. Here's the jelly. Here's right. And then they started getting more and more. And eventually one of them was like, well, I want to know how to make Mac and cheese. Okay. Right, so. And, yeah, they all kind of took to their different foods, but my oldest was a pop tart king. That's all he wanted to eat. Oh, those things are so bad. [00:25:09] Speaker A: Those things are so bad for you. Yeah, yeah, we learned that in college. They actually, they. They had the. I remember they had the fruit always available. So it's like, if you were ever hungry, you always had fruit available. They had the big fruit bowl. So we actually do that. We always have, like, fruit or some kind of snacks that she always has access to that we try to make healthy. Although sometimes we fail. Mom has a sugar addiction. My wife is one of those people that could literally eat sugar for every single meal and not gain a single pound. Me on the other. Me on the other hand, I'll have. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Growing a beard to hide this. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, yeah. Sugar just goes straight to my waist. But, yeah, so we've always made food available. Now it's to the point where we were trying to teach her more responsibility. It's just like, okay, this is how you actually make dinner so that you can actually contribute to the house. [00:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, that was a big thing in our house. We had four kids, so chores. [00:26:14] Speaker A: I imagine. So, yeah. [00:26:15] Speaker B: Chores turned into allowance. And then it was kind of one of those, you do chores, you get your allowance. And then it got to be, well, you know, if your sister or your younger brother hasn't done their chore, you could always do their chore. And then it was like, wait a minute. I got homecoming coming. I'm gonna go do everyone's chores, make some extra money. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, I guess you have new problems when you have more than one. One more than one kid? I only have one. I only got my daughter. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Oh, you wanna here's one of the best stories. Now, we're talking about money and responsibilities. And this has to be one of the stories that it's. Again, it's in my book, Behind Mommy, in front of Daddy. But this story led me to figure out how to be a leader. Just a leader in general, right? My son was watching tv. He must have been about two, a little old. No, I want to say he was about 4, because we had his younger brother Jacob, but Ian wasn't around yet. And then, anyway, Gabe came up to me and he says, dad, I want that toy that he saw on tv. And I told him, well, we don't have money for that. And because we didn't, We. We didn't have a lot of money at the time. We weren't poor, but we didn't have much. Anyway, I heard it. It's no sooner did it come out of my mouth, and I thought, oh, I remember my dad saying that to me. And I just thought, then we never had money for anything. And then I never splurged on myself. And. Right. So then the next time, he said it again, and I answered the same way again, oh, I'm turning into my dad. I don't want to do that. Eventually I caught myself, and he said it. I was ready with the answer, and he says it to me, dad, I want that, and I go, save your money. And here I am thinking that he's going to ask me about money, what is money? And maybe I'll get to talk to him about finances. Nope. He goes, okay, that was it. And I was like, oh, that was a letdown. That was. You know. So then the next time he asked me again, I go, save your money. And we probably did this for a couple months. Then one day I go, save your money. He goes, dad, I don't have any money. Get a job. He goes, oh, okay. And then that went on for a couple of months. Save. Save your money. Get a job. Oh. And then eventually I told him, get a job. And he was. I want to say, by this time he was around five or six. He goes, dad, I don't. How am I supposed to get a job? And I go, you see that dog poop out there? Pick it up and I'll give you a quarter. And so he went out picking up dog poop in the backyard, right? And I started giving him quarters for it. And that's how he got an allowance, right? Then eventually, I want to say he was about 7, 6 or 7. He really. It was kindergarten or first grade. He was really young. Anyway, he saved up for this toy $20. We went to the store. By this time, his younger brother is doing the same thing, picking up turds for quarters, right? And we're walking out of the store with Gabe's toy. He's been saving up, had $20. I hadn't taught him about taxes yet. So, okay, we put it on the counter. Jacob looks up and says, dad, I want a candy bar. And I answered him the same way I answered his brother all the time. I was like, well, how much do you have in your account? I have $2, right? Okay, let's grab that candy bar. You can buy it. And then Gabe looks at me and goes, I want a candy bar. And I look at my wife and Angie looks back at me and she's like, it's just $. And I look at her and I go, it's a dollar. It's a candy bar now. But when he's an adult, it's, do I go out to eat or do I pay the electric bill? You know? And she's like, she looks at me and she goes, I'm not telling him that's you then, right? So I, I get down on one knee and I'm telling him. I was like, look, here are your options. We can put the this toy back and you can buy the candy bar, and then you'll only have $19. You won't have enough for the toy. I said, or you can buy the toy and we have your snacks at home and you can have one of those. And so then next thing I know, we're walking toward the door, he's got his toy, his brother's painted with chocolate all over him, and he's crying his eyes out with his toy. And he says, dad, how am I supposed to save money for things that I don't even know that I want? [00:31:27] Speaker A: The age old question, whoa. [00:31:30] Speaker B: That's a question that most adults have not figured out. [00:31:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:35] Speaker B: And so I look at him and I'm not lying to you. He was only six or seven. He was young. And I told him, son, let's talk about long term, short term savings, right? He's like, what? So then I explained to him, it's just putting money in different piles, right? But now that kid is amazing with his money. Like, he got to the point where he was like, here's my allowance, dad, can you give me this amount? Can you put the rest in a savings I can't see? And put a little bit in a savings I can see, right? Because he had the app eventually got to the age where he got an app on his phone and could see his money, but then he got to managing his money. So when I say that this teaches me how to lead people is you don't give people information that they're not asking for. If they're not. Well, he. He didn't ask me about how to get a job until he was ready. He didn't ask me about Right. And when he got to the right question, that's when God gives you the open door to give the information. That's the whole pearls before swine. It's. [00:32:57] Speaker A: It really good point. [00:32:59] Speaker B: Letting people gain, grow in their understanding so that they know what it is they're looking for. And then when you show it to them, that is the sheep hear the shepherd's voice. That is 100. You got the open door. And I tell you that that has helped me so much when it comes time to working with co workers, to leading the teams that I lead, it's always asking them questions and see where they're at with information, let them bring questions back. And I don't go too far. If I. If I go too far, I end up regretting it. So. So it's not like I do it all the time, but I try not to. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Good lessons. So you ever seen. Do you ever watch Parks and Rec? Parks and Recreation? [00:33:46] Speaker B: Yes, I want all the. [00:33:49] Speaker A: Do you do. Do you do the. The Ron Swanson method of teaching taxes? You know, the little. The little girl with the lunch sits down and Ron sits down with her and he goes, let me teach you about the government tax system. And he sits there and he proceeds to take like a third of her lunch, like taking a bite out of everything and then gives it back to her and goes, that, my dear, is how taxation works. She's like, you ate my lunch. [00:34:16] Speaker B: That's awesome. I should start that one. I'm sure they get a kick out of it. [00:34:23] Speaker A: I'm surprised you don't do that. [00:34:25] Speaker B: Well, I just don't call it tax. I just eat their food. Their mom. [00:34:28] Speaker A: Yeah, right. You're like, is the dad tax. [00:34:34] Speaker B: Awesome? [00:34:35] Speaker A: Good times. Wow. So raising kids, man, that's awesome. [00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:41] Speaker A: How do you. So how do you. So do you make an effort to sit down and like, teach your children the scripture, or are you more of the principles and lessons of life? [00:34:52] Speaker B: You know, because I got burned going to church. It's. It's definitely the lessons, not the scripture. If I had to do over, I. I would have pushed myself to try and figure out how to bring in the scripture a little more because, well, you know, my background Scriptures were, like, on everything. My mom wrote it on all my books. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:22] Speaker B: You had the paper book covers because we couldn't afford the actual book covers they sold to school. So you cut the grocery bag and use that, and then mom would write a Bible scripture on it. So that's how I got all of those memorized. I kind of wished I did some because out of my kids, they all kind of have a. An understanding. They know where it comes from. The. My third son is the one that's like, I want to go to Bible fellowship. And so he and a buddy have started, you know, grabbing scriptures and trying to figure it out. And I've sat down with them and showed them and, you know, offered help as much as they want it. I think I. If I had to do over, I probably would have gave them a little more scripture. But I definitely stuck with the principles, trying to teach them values in terminology that they understand. Like, we taught them, the big kids take care of the little kids. Right. And that was value that would lead them all the way up to the point where when Grandma got dementia, it was easy to explain to them. Yeah, well, look, now you're the big kid, and Grandma's the little kid, and they could understand that. What about you? Did you do the principal thing? [00:36:43] Speaker A: I was so burned out on religion, and really, I am still, so. I don't know if you've heard this week's song. I did a song this week called Go Back, and it's addressed to the Church of Ephesus. But when I was writing that song, I was hell bent on not having any religious terminology put into it just because of our background. I'm like, we grew up with so much use of God and, you know, religion shoved down our throats. I mean, it was literally everything we did all the time. Everything had scripture verses on it, Scripture plastered everywhere. That's probably why David and I probably know the scripture better than most people. I mean, how old are we? We're 50 years old now. And it was like everything, every waking moment, for 30 years, for the first 30 years of our life. And so I had really gotten burned out on it. And once I had actually broken out of the restrictive framework that was put around us, I realized that God was in more than just the Bible. God was everywhere. God is the God of the world, right? I mean, like, he's the creator of the heavens and the earth. He's the heavens declare his glory. The creation testifies of him. And I realize that you don't actually have to have chapter and verse in order to know your creator. If you think about it, the Bible was written by men who knew the creator. It was just their way of communicating what they knew to us. Yes, it is. It is a perfect book. It helps you understand him. And the scripture can't be broken, but there are other ways to learn to know him. So that was kind of like our thinking. Raising for the longest time is just, I love God. Never have left God, continually pray always. I've prayed my entire life. Still have conversations with God. It's religion I have an issue with with. And religion primarily pushed by religious narcissists like these people who want to use it as a mechanism to control you, to bend you to their will. I never wanted that from my daughter. I wanted her to love God the way I love God and the way I know you love God too. Because we had, growing up, we had that love for God instilled within us. But it's just like the religion of things really made it hard to discern the difference between, you know, men's will and God's will. So we. It's funny, they actually pull more scripture out of me than I want to share with them. So like my daughter, because she sees how much I love God, she wanted a Bible, right? And she wanted me to teach it to her. So, you know, we got her a little Bible and we used to read it also. When my wife and I went through a hard time in 2020, when I went crazy, when I realized we were in the end times because I changed, she didn't realize. So I've known my wife for 20 years. 25 years, since 2000. Yeah. So I met. I met my wife pretty much soon after I left the Way International. Soon after I left the ministry, I met her in an apartment complex. So she had never really seen me really on fire for God. She just knew that I, like, I had good principles and good morals. So in 2020, when that, that switch flipped and I realized we're in the end time and it's like we have work to do and like I'm just trying to get my bearings, it freaked her out because she had never seen me so passionate for the Bible and scripture. Anyway, I'm bringing this back around to them pulling it out of me. Anyway, we, we had gotten to a point to where, shoot, I. I lost my point. On. On. So they, they have both, I think, because they were. Neither one of them have ever had the, the scripture or like, they were never abused with the Bible. So they have. They have a real genuine love and curiosity for it. So they tend to pull it out of me more so than I make the effort to actually, like, sit down and teach them. Oh, I remember my point. Yeah. So there was. There was a point where my wife and I had actually separated and gone through some tribulation, and both of us were really adhering to biblical principles. She was raised with biblical principles. She had a wonderful mother and father who probably gave her a better example in some ways than I was given when I was raised, because they would take in strangers and give them, you know, feed them for, like, on the holidays. They would invite just random strangers and feed them and take care of them. That was her. And she, you know, she had a loving mother and father and just had this wonderful upbringing. So she and. And they were, you know, Christians. They, you know, they. They talked about God and they had, you know, love your neighbor type beliefs. Right. So one of the things that I loved about her when I met her was I dated some questionable women, and she was so pure, and it was because of her upbringing. You know, she just had that deep love for God and love for her neighbor, but she didn't really have the education or the experience that I had. It was just part of her life. Right. It was just the way that they lived. They just lived those principles of love God and love your neighbor as yourself. So when it comes to, like, the actual scripture, you know, because we were so grilled on it and because of the experience that we went through, I didn't really make an effort to teach chapter and verse so much, but they pull it out of me because they have such a desire to want to know it. And, you know, they. Because they see me, especially since, like, 2020, they've seen, like, you know, what I've gone through and what it's taken to get us to where we are here today. In a lot of ways, they're almost better witnesses than I am because, like, you know, my daughter will be like, my dad has a podcast, and he talks about the end times. Did you know we're in the end times? It's like, they're fantastic. But, yeah, we didn't With. With. We didn't make a specific effort to really, like, sit down and read our Bible every night or anything like that. But it has happened. You know, there was. There was a period of time where when we were going through our. Our tribulation and we got back together, we went through marriage counseling and it was a Christian marriage counseling and that was actually part of it. And for a period of time every night we were sitting together, they would give us these emotion sheets. What was his name? Bob Weiss. Something Weiss. I'll have to find, I'll have to find the thing we went through. If anybody wants to like improve your relationship. It was such a good core course to go through. I'll have to look it up and post it on the stream later. But we, we went through this. He gave us a list of like 300 emotions. And every night we would sit down and we would pick two emotions. And you would, the way that it would work is you would recall a period of time when you experienced that emotion. And anybody listening wasn't allowed to ask any questions. They just had to acknowledge you with positive reinforcement and then another one, I think they were allowed to ask you a question or something like that. Anyway, we did these exercises to where during that time when we were going through our counseling, we were learning about emotions. And it's interesting because we also did Bible study and prayer at the same time too where we would maybe read a section of scripture and then we would pray to pray together too. So it's like, it's interesting because they just pull that out of us. It's just because we've lived that style and they didn't go through the abuse so they're less reluctant to like, you know, you know what I'm saying? It's just like they don't want, they don't want to, they don't have that weird hang up that you and I might have. Having gone through some abuse, you know. [00:45:23] Speaker B: I, I tend to think like I've been in religion where it's abusive and I tend to think of it more as like teenagers. When you tell a teenager you're not allowed to do this, then they're having a tough enough time trying to get themselves not to do it. So when they see their little brother or their other older brother doing what they are trying so hard not to do, they can't help but no, don't do that. And they attack them for doing what they are trying to challenge themselves not to do. And I tend to think that that's the whole reason why the law wasn't the first. Adam and Eve wasn't handed a Bible here. [00:46:09] Speaker A: Right? [00:46:10] Speaker B: Right. It was after, you know, that didn't come about till Moses after the getting kicked out of the garden, after reading stars, after grandpa teaching everyone. Right. Then eventually you get to Moses and it's written down Right. I tend to think that when you get into those religions, it's because people are still learning the rules and they haven't yet learned to. To. To listen. Right. Because communication is two ways, and most of us know how to talk. You give us a mic, we're gonna talk. You give us a chat room, we're gonna chat. Right. But if. If it comes to reading, every chat that comes through, I'm gonna skip a couple of these. They're too long. Oh, here's a short one. I'll read and I'll answer to that one. Right. We haven't heard. We haven't learned how to listen. Right. We haven't heard. We haven't learned the art of paraphrasing. Someone says something and you repeat it back to them with different words and try and grasp onto at least one point of meaning in what they say and listen to their mind go, yes, that's it. Yes. Right. Because when you do that, they jump on it right away. Yes, someone finally heard me. And when people get the word of God or they learn principle and it starts to work for them and they see someone do it wrong, they're not waiting to listen to why the person's doing it wrong. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:44] Speaker B: So they jump on it. They're not waiting to win that person over with the shepherd's voice and win the sheep over. Ask them a question, see what they're thinking. What's their logic behind it? They're not doing any of that. So. I know. You know, we used to say the problem with religion is man. Right? [00:48:05] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [00:48:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And. [00:48:07] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:08] Speaker B: And it's purely because we have this thing called time with us, and we have to grow slowly over time. We don't. You know, every once in a while you get these quick jumps, but overall, it's kind of slow when. So that's our restriction. And when we're trying to gather people together and give them all the goodness that we've experienced, we tend to use it as a club. And then we start beating people over the head. Like. I don't want to say it, but seals. [00:48:41] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what happens, is people think they're right, and then they start using that ego to beat people over the head. [00:48:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:48] Speaker A: It's funny, you reminded me when you were talking about listening. His name is Dr. Doug Weiss, and you can just Google that name. And he actually has courses, and I think he has the worksheets and stuff that you can actually use in your own life if you. If you want to learn how to Become a better listener if you want to learn how to build relationships. The they pulled it out of me. Like, me and my wife were doing this, and my daughter's like, hey, I want to do this. This sounds like fun. It really was a lot of fun. And one of the things that we did is so the two emotions thing. So you would pick two emotions. So you get a list of 300 emotions, and you pick two of them. One of them you weren't allowed to ask questions. And I think one of them you had to paraphrase. So it was like a practicing listening what people were saying, and then you had to say it back to them so that they would say, yes, that's what I was going through. And what it does is it. Yeah, what it does is it teaches you to articulate what you're feeling. Because so often, I mean, like, that just. That was just 300, and there's way more emotions. It's like anger, frustrated, you know, happy, elated, excited. You know, it's just like you pick one of these, and you have to describe. Grab a time when you were elated and you got to think about it. [00:49:57] Speaker B: What's interesting about what you said is that you were also given the permission to feel that way. [00:50:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, of course. [00:50:04] Speaker B: So often we don't give ourselves permission to feel angry because it's a negative one, but it's in acknowledging it that we can figure out how to get away from it. [00:50:16] Speaker A: Well, yeah, and there's a lot of learning. One of the. One of the things that I've learned later in life that is so helpful is labeling things. And we've. We've been really pushing that here on the channel with, like, the narcissism stuff, because there's so many things in the scripture that we see in the stories, we see in the behavior, we see in the results of what happens. And if you can put a label on it and associate it to something in your life in your day and age that you can understand and relate to, then you can either. If it's positive, you can go, I want that in my life. If it's negative, you can go, I want to avoid that. And that's the. Really. That's the real interesting thing about this whole idea of narcissism and empathy, because narcissism really is how you would summarize Satan. You know, ego, pride, selfishness, you know, steal, kill, destroy. That's the result of what narcissists do, is they steal from people, they kill people, they destroy people's lives. You want to avoid that. That's your enemy versus Jesus, who was empathetical, who forgave, who listened to, who took care of, who served. You know, it's, it's, that's what you want to be. You want those attributes in your life and anything you can do to move in that direction to be more like Christ, the better off you are. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Definitely. I, I think it's important to, to see those characteristics, both negative and positive, make those decisions. It's, you know, so many. There are people that have a challenge learning from anything, right? They can learn from something that has the right degree, something that's gift wrapped the perfect way, but in reality we should be able to learn from, from anything, right? I often think of the whole reason why our family has pets, right? We have dogs. We don't have a cat because my, me and my son are allergic, but we have dogs, right? And learning how to communicate without words, that's the epitome of having a dog, right? You have to watch what they're doing so you can learn from all aspects of life. You go to work and there's authority and then you see, there's backbiting and then look to see how much actually gets done, look to see how much could have gotten done. When people agree, when you're honest, when you're dishonest, I mean, you can learn from so much and yet we think that it's limited. And what can teach us and who can teach us? What is the, I don't know who quoted, I know someone, I don't know who it is. So if someone's smarter than me in the chat, go ahead and throw it in there. But it was, every man is my superior in one way or another in that I learned, right? And that is a huge quote for me. It's helped me so much because here I am thinking I know so much about the Bible because of my upbringing, and then I'm turning around and learning a basic godly principle from one of my employees because they corrected me on something. I'm like, ah, you are right. Whoopsie. [00:53:41] Speaker A: That's really, that's really what the Bible all about is right? Living, right. I mean, it's, it's interesting because the stories actually show you the consequence, consequences of living like the adversary and the, and the, and the consequences of living like Christ too. You're going to suffer persecution. It's going to be hard. It is hard to love somebody who others might not love. You know what I mean? Think of the Good Samaritan. The guy who's been beat up, left for dead on the road that everybody else just walks by. That's hard. But you know what? That's what makes you a really good person. [00:54:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's like, I mean, that's ultimately what the Bible is about is it's really how to live rightly, live with integrity, and to live like the example of what God expects us to live. Live how he expects us to live, which is Jesus. That's what his. That's what he did. He is the example, and that's what the Old Testament is. I don't know if you've ever actually gone through and read the 613. There's 613 commandments in the Old Testament. Most people think of just the ten Commandments. Love God, love your neighbor, don't steal. Stuff like that. Don't have any other gods. There's actually 613 commandments. And they, they read like a book on how to love your neighbor. Stuff like, you know, if you see your neighbor over burden, you know, go help him. It's just like. It's just like. It's just, it's just an instruction manual on how not to be an. You know what I mean? It's just like, if you want to put it in modern language of. And so given that it's like you don't always have to use chapter and verse in order to teach what's in it. Yeah, it helps if you want a reference point for something to, you know. And you can lead to, you know, records and stories and examples, but it's not a requirement. [00:55:36] Speaker B: And when it comes down to it, using chapter and verse is only going to help people who know chapter and verse. So it's limiting your, your audience. When you reprimand your child. Try using chapter and verse. When they don't know the chapter and. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Verse, they're gonna look at you like, what. [00:55:56] Speaker B: What's going on? But you start asking questions about what are they trying to achieve. Right. That was one of the toughest things to do as a parent, was to realize that these kids have wills. Right. When a baby's crying, it's because they want something. When the kid is disobeying, it's because he wants something. They have a will. And when you figure out what it is they want and you can help them get what they want the right way, now they're going to start listening to you. Yeah, but if you're, if you're just going to defy them, if you're just going to take away what it is they were going to try and get. If you're going to impede any of their movement forward, then you shouldn't be surprised that they're going to be rebellious. Right? And that's the way God writes it down in the Bible for us is so that we can, we can attain those things that we, that he wants for our lives, number one. And that we in the end want for our lives as well. It. Yeah, I, There was a time where my son wanted to date this girl who I did not like her for him, right. And, but it's not my choice. He was old enough to date, right. He was in that early teenage. And so we wanted to let him go, but he had responsibilities. I had to figure out how to plan his day and how to plan a date that he would enjoy going on with her and then allow him to do it. Right. So it took a lot of work to get all his chores done and go out on the day. And he probably did that a couple times. But eventually he came up to me and asked me if I thought she was worth all that work. Right. And that's kind of what you're aiming for. You're aiming for bring me these no brainer questions so I can help you so that when you get the haymaker, please invite me into that conversation. Right? And yeah, in that conversation I was, thank God I was bright enough that day to say, well, are you a giver or a taker? He was like, I'm a giver. Is she a giver or a taker? Oh, she's a taker. I was like, what do you want? Right? And then he figured it out. Eventually he moved on. They, they went separate ways. But in order to get an invitation to where my words actually mean something, I have to take advantage of all of those simple questions that kind of seem like I could just ignore and give them a one word answer. But no, I have to delve into it and make sure he gets what he wants and sees understanding so that I'll get invited when it's a, a humdinger of a question. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Yeah, what a good way of doing that. I can imagine that's hard when like you're, you're like, I don't want my child involved with this person. But you're like, I, we kind of have the similar mentality to where it's just like we will allow our daughter to experience things so that she'll, she can learn. It's just like I'm not gonna, because if I tell her no she's just going to want to do it more. So it's kind of like you have to allow them to experience it, then come back and go, wasn't everything you thought it was going to be, was it? [00:59:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm gonna quote my book again. Behind mommy, in front of daddy, if anyone's out there. But I show there's two ways to lead people. The, the opportunity for them to get hurt, Calamity, to do things wrong, is the wall. And someone's running full steam at that wall. I can clothesline them and stop them from hitting that wall, right? And now they're safe, but I've stopped them. And then when. When I'm helping them up off the ground, they're looking at me and they're saying, you stopped. [01:00:08] Speaker A: You're the one who did it. [01:00:09] Speaker B: I never saw the wall. You stopped me. Right? Or as they're running by me, I can say, watch out for that wall. Right? Just whisper it. Watch out for that wall. And then when they hit that wall, they fall to the ground. I'm in their best position to offer a hand to help them up. Those are the two ways to lead people. The deal is to decide which one do I use. Do I clothesline or do I whisper? And the way that you decide which one is by inspecting the wall. Is that wall gonna kill them? Is it gonna maim them? Is it gonna hurt them? Is it just gonna slow them down? What is that wall gonna do? And as I inspect that wall, then that will help me decide how to correct that kid that's running into it. And maybe I do need to clothesline them, or maybe I just whisper, I love it. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Clothesline them. What a good lesson. I mean, man, what a good way of. And that goes. You can apply that to so many different things. You know, if you're in a position to teach someone, do you allow them to suffer the consequences of something, or do you protect them? And the deciding factor on what it is you allow, how far you allow them to go, is how much is it going to hurt them so. And why it's beneficial to also have a good relationship. Mother, father, child relationship. And if you're not in that kind of situation, you can still do those kind of things. I was raised single parent. For the longest time, it was just me, my mom, and my sister. And then I ended up getting a stepdad who I consider to actually be my father. And he was strict. He went the other way. So he went to the extreme partially because of the ministry we were in he was subject to too much of the religious narcissism. I tell people I was grounded for five years of my life because I was a. I was a rebellious child. Because I was. [01:02:15] Speaker B: I was from you. [01:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Rebellious too. But, yeah. So me and him butted heads because he just went way overboard. He would try to protect from absolutely everything. And honestly, in some cases, you just have to allow people to experience things. And the deciding factor is how bad is it going to hurt him. Yeah. Yes. And then just be. And that. That also goes with communication also, believe it or not, because allowing somebody to have an opinion contrary to you is very hard to do. Like, if you're in a conversation with somebody and they are disagreeing with you, you have got to get to the point where you're okay with that. They don't have to believe what you believe. The better way of winning somebody over. And we used to say this, too. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still, where if you force that person to believe what you believe, you're not effectively changing their mind. You have to allow them to continue to believe whatever it is and find the path that will get them or you to the point of an agreement. So that's. That Therein is the challenge in life, is listening to what that person is saying. So often people will say something that you agree with. They'll just use different words so you think they disagree with you. So you have to figure out what it is that they're saying, and then if it is contrary, figure out how to communicate with them what you believe and come to an agreement together. [01:03:55] Speaker B: I think one of the things that really helped me when I learned that in life, I had a friend that I worked with. He was my assistant manager. I was the manager at the time, but he taught me how to look at using neutral language. And I had not even thought of the concept. This was what I believed. It's contrary to what you believe. Right. And he would say things like, fair enough. And I was like, yeah. Oh, wait a minute. That kind of threw me for a loop. So then. Then I started thinking I could be wrong. I often am. That's Dale Carnegie. Another person says, you could be right. Oh, that's a good neutral way. So then just learning different ways to say it, neutral, then you're not looking for that constant battle in terminology. You're allowing them to decide, and it's not shaking your decision. That was a real powerful thing for me to learn. I think I was like, yeah, I learned it. [01:04:57] Speaker A: I was. I Just learned it a couple years ago. Yeah. I used to always say, you're wrong. [01:05:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:10] Speaker A: No, but nobody wants to hear they're wrong. Yeah. It's so much easier to say, if that's true, then how does. How does this work? Or can you explain to me this situation? Because so often you. If you. If you genuinely listen to what somebody says and if it's contrary to what you believe, you can find a question that will expose their error if they're in error. And that's the better way to get somebody to recognize their error is by getting. As. In a lot of ways, you're actually doing the thinking for them because maybe it's something they haven't considered. Well, if what you believe is true, then how. Then you know, how does this work? How about this? [01:05:52] Speaker B: I. I've learned that true leaders dominate the questions. [01:05:58] Speaker A: Yep. [01:06:01] Speaker B: Looking at it, then you're leading people. [01:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. If you're just constantly vomiting information. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Nobody wants it. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Nobody wants it. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Not like that, at least. [01:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, cool. Man, this was a fun conversation. A lot of family talk, a lot of talking about raising kids and, you know, just practical. Practical stuff in life. I mean, just conversations with people, listening, getting places, leading people. What a good conversation to start the week for Thanksgiving. Right. I mean, we got Thanksgiving here. In a couple of days, you're probably going to have some tough situations. [01:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:39] Speaker A: Listen. Listen twice as much as you talk. [01:06:44] Speaker B: Definitely gonna have family with opinions how they feel about the. The. The whole election, how they feel about hunting your whole life in general. And they're gonna tell you, and yet you still are gonna love them because they're family. Right. I mean, that's. That's the great thing about it. [01:07:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:09] Speaker B: Family. [01:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So I don't know. So I definitely won't be on. We probably won't have a show on Thursday and Friday just because the holiday. I'll be busy. We have. We do big family get togethers. Do you do big family get togethers? [01:07:23] Speaker B: Yes, we do. [01:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:25] Speaker B: Very big. Yes. [01:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So probably won't do a show on Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow and Wednesday are still up in the air. We didn't really plan anything this week. I started kind of thinking, like, oh, we could do. We could go through the churches in Revelation, because I did that song to the Church of Ephesus. Oh, man, that song. If you guys haven't listened to that song, listen to it. I'm trying to figure out the ways that you can communicate, like, the lessons that are to those churches, because, like, that's my all Income. That's like the only thing left to do before Christ returns. It's like he literally had those letters written to those churches that say, this is what you need to do before he returns. And if you do, there's amazing benefits and rewards. So I'm trying to find all the ways to communicate that to people and make them. Make them want to dwell on that. And I think I nailed it with the music. That song is so good. I listened. It's funny, I listened to it nonstop this weekend. We just had it literally playing on repeat. And I do that when I'm making music to find out how annoying it is. So if you can listen to something over and over again and still love it after the end of the day, you know you've got something good. If after like the fourth or fifth time you're turning it off, that's not a good song. [01:08:41] Speaker B: If it feels like Manomina, right? Yeah. [01:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah. But yeah. So I'm really excited to work on the next six songs. So I'm gonna do one song for each church to try and capture the essence of what those churches, those assemblies need to do before Christ returns. So I'm excited about that. But anyway, I didn't. I didn't plan out today. So this is why you kind of just kind of got David and I just talking about life is. It's one of those weeks, holidays and busy things. So don't know if we'll be on tomorrow. We'll find. We'll. We'll see. See how it goes. But anyway, this was a lot of fun. I enjoyed hanging out with you, dude. Talking about family. Everybody in the chat, thank you for coming and listening to us. I hope you learned something. Anybody have any questions? Oh, you guys were asking what happened to Chris. So Christopher and I, we're good. There's no issue. Christopher has started his own ministry. You can find him at Christopher M. Brock. He goes live several times a day. He also does a show at 6pm I always get this mixed up. Pacific Standard Time, 9pm Eastern Standard Time. So that's where you can find him. You can just into the browser, type in Christopher M. Brock and you'll find him. He'll probably be on the show. I don't know. We'll have him on the show. He's. He's busy. I'm busy, you know, obviously doing shows, but everything's good there. He'll probably be on the show next week. We'll see. Or maybe in the weekend. Well, oh, no, we can't do this weekend. Because of the holiday stuff. It'll probably be next week, but. Yeah. Anybody else have any other questions? No. All right, guys. Well, I appreciate you guys showing up and listening to us. David, thank you so much for coming on the show today and hanging out with me. [01:10:40] Speaker B: Thanks. [01:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So in the meantime, everybody, have a fantastic evening. And if I don't see you again, have a fantastic week. Love you guys. God bless. [01:10:51] Speaker B: Love.