Does it feel like something is missing in your life, despite your efforts to improve it? Have you been told to work harder, longer hours or focus on one area at a time to achieve success? But still, you feel like something's not right? The pain of this disconnect can be frustrating, leaving you feeling unfulfilled and incomplete. But what if there is a better way to approach life? Join us in this episode as we explore the Five F's of Life: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Future Possibility with Jerry Dugan. Discover how you can prioritize your values and relationships to achieve fulfillment and true success on your own terms.

"Ultimately, a lot of these guys are following somebody else's definition of success." Jerry Dugan

Access all show and episode resources HERE

About Our Guest:

Jerry Dugan is a multifaceted individual with a passion for helping others achieve balance and fulfillment in their lives. As a leadership consultant, training facilitator, and public speaker, he's dedicated to guiding individuals in their pursuit of success in faith, family, fitness, finances, and future possibilities. In addition to hosting the insightful podcast Beyond the Rut, Jerry has also authored a book of the same name that further explores these foundational topics. With a unique perspective drawn from a diverse background, including being a skilled tuba player, Jerry's expertise and genuine enthusiasm for helping others make him a truly engaging and inspiring guest.

Reasons to Listen:

• Discover the art of balancing vital life aspects and nurturing relationships.
• Uncover the transformative potential of the Five F's for a rewarding life.
• Learn how to identify and attain personal success on your own terms.
• Gain insight into fostering a workplace where your team can excel.
• Explore the benefits of confronting challenges and venturing beyond your comfort zone.

Episode Highlights:

00:00:00 - Knowing Yourself and Defining Success,

Jerry suggests that identifying values and beliefs is key to defining success. He emphasizes the importance of finding meaning and purpose in one's life.

00:01:36 - Jerry's Work,

Jerry is a consultant, coach, and public speaker. He helps leaders become servant leaders by finding clarity and alignment in their work and personal lives. He bridges the gap between career success and faith-based values.

00:05:25 - Alignment with Seat Go Create,

Jerry and Tim discuss how both podcasts aim to redefine success. They highlight the importance of finding meaning and purpose in one's life, rather than following someone else's definition of success.

00:07:54 - Jerry's Tuba Days,

Jerry shares a hilarious story about how he became a tuba player in middle school.

00:10:53 - The Importance of Identifying Passions,

Jerry explains how he quit band in high school to pursue football, but eventually returned to band because playing the tuba was his true passion. He emphasizes the importance of identifying and pursuing one's passions in life.

00:12:06 - Pursuing Passions,

Jerry talks about how he pursued his passion for playing the tuba and how it led him to join the army. He reflects on how he gave up his passion to pursue something that wasn't his dream.

00:17:32 - The Comparison Trap,

Jerry discusses how we compare ourselves to others and get into a rut by following someone else's path. He believes it's important to examine our passions and understand what we want to accomplish in our lives.

00:19:39 - Defining a Rut,

Jerry defines a rut as a pattern of unproductive behavior. He believes that when we don't have a grounding in who we are, who we want to be, and who we're becoming, we can fall into somebody else's path, which becomes a rut for us.

00:21:14 - Ruts Are Relative,

Tim and Jerry discuss how ruts are relative, and what might be a rut for one person might not be for another. They also discuss how the world we live in today makes it easy to compare ourselves to others and get into a rut.

00:22:36 - Grind It Out,

Tim and Jerry talk about how sometimes it's necessary to grind it out and stick with something for a long time, like Moses did for 40 years. They recognize that ruts are relative and that it's important to understand what we want to accomplish in our lives.

00:24:57 - Work-Life Balance,

Work-life balance is different for everyone, and it's important to find the right balance according to individual priorities. The apostle Paul was content in whatever situation he found himself in. However, modern society tends to lean towards discontentment.

00:26:18 - Pursuing Goals,

It's important to determine if a goal is something we truly want to pursue or something someone else told us we should do. If it's the latter, it may lead to self-sabotage. Knowing what we truly want and what our priorities are can help us make better decisions.

00:30:01 - Five F's,

The five F's are faith, family, fitness, finances, and future possibility. These are the areas in which we should focus our attention to create a fulfilling life. By prioritizing these areas according to individual values, we can make decisions that align with our goals.

00:34:48 - Leaving a Job,

Leaving a job is a tough decision, but it's important to prioritize our mental health and well-being. Choosing to leave a job that goes against our values can lead to a more fulfilling life and a happier self. Trusting in our financial security and in God's provision can make this transition smoother.

00:35:35 - Prioritizing Family,

Prioritizing family over work and friends can be a difficult decision, but it's important to maintain healthy relationships with those closest to us. Building a strong relationship with a spouse

00:37:18 - Getting out of a Rut,

Jerry shares how he got out of a rut by focusing on the five areas of his life: faith, family, fitness, finances, and future possibility. He talks about how he quit his job, lived off of savings for a few months, and started his own business, which led to the creation of his book.

00:41:19 - Struggles with the Five F's,

Jerry talks about how he's doing well in the areas of faith, family, and future possibility, but struggles with finances and fitness. He explains how he and his wife have been working on talking about money more effectively, and he's realized the importance of exercise and healthy eating habits.

00:42:33 - Impact of Family,

Jerry explains how family impact has been the biggest thing he's heard from over 300 interviews on his podcast. He talks about how many people pursuing success in their career or business have neglected their family, leading to divorce or strained relationships. He emphasizes the importance of being present and engaged with family members.

00:43:14 - Prioritizing the Five F's,

Jerry discusses the order he prioritizes the five F's in his life: faith, family, fitness, finances, and future possibility. He explains how his faith and family are top priorities, and how his focus on future possibility drives him forward. He acknowledges the need to work on finances and fitness.

00:49:58 - Introducing Gertrude

Tim shares how he uses an AI tool called Gertrude to come up with conversation topics for his podcast. While Gertrude provides some good questions, there is a question about being a Proverbs 13 man that they don't understand. They discuss whether Gertrude is trying to manipulate them.

00:54:18 - Pursuing Dreams

Jerry talks about pursuing his dream of being a speaker and starting his own company called BTR Impact. He wants to inspire leaders to be servant leaders and help companies retain their talent. His vision is to travel the world and speak at events while being an empty nester living in a big city.

00:57:27 - Beyond the Rut

Jerry discusses his Beyond the Rut brand, which includes a podcast and book of the same name. He shares how the brand has evolved and how he wants to help people get out of their ruts. Jerry also talks about his company BTR Impact, which focuses on leadership development.

00:59:47 - Create

Jerry chooses "Create" as his word from the Seek, Go, Create trio. He is currently in create mode, taking all the ideas he has sought and making them happen. Jerry encourages listeners to identify their five F's (faith, family, finances, fitness, and future possibilities) and get out of their ruts.

Key Lessons:

• Prioritize your values and make time for the things that matter most to you, such as faith, family, fitness, finances, and future possibilities.
• Be mindful of the impact of pursuing wealth and career on your family and relationships.
• Seek guidance from God and family before making important decisions.
• Continuously examine your life and make adjustments to avoid falling into unproductive patterns of behavior.
• Recognize when you are following someone else's path and identify your own passions and goals.

Resources & Action Steps:

• Check out Jerry Dugan's podcast, Beyond the Rut.
• Purchase Jerry Dugan's book, also titled Beyond the Rut.
• Consider hiring Jerry Dugan as a leadership consultant or training facilitator.
• Define what success means to you and align your work and personal life accordingly.
• Take time to know yourself and your values to live a life of meaning and purpose.

Thank you for listening to Seek Go Create!

Our podcast is dedicated to empowering Christian leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals looking to redefine success in their personal and professional lives. Through in-depth interviews, personal anecdotes, and expert advice, we offer valuable insights and actionable strategies for achieving your goals and living a life of purpose and fulfillment.

If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, we encourage you to subscribe to Seek Go Create on your favorite podcast platform, including Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode and can stay up-to-date on the latest insights and strategies for success.

Additionally, please share this episode or what you’ve learned today with your friends, family, and colleagues on your favorite social media platform. By sharing our podcast, you can help us reach more people who are looking to align their faith with their work and lead with purpose.

If you love our podcast and find it valuable, please consider leaving us a 5-star rating and review on your preferred podcast platform. Your review can help us reach more people and inspire them to redefine success in their own lives.

For more updates and episodes, visit our website or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. We appreciate your support and look forward to helping you achieve your goals and create a life of purpose and fulfillment.

Are you a Faith Driven Leader? Take our quiz to find out! Discover how aligned your faith is with your work and leadership style.

Thank you for listening to Seek Go Create!

the folks who struggle the most and feel probably that

they're in the deepest of ruts are the ones that don't take time to know

who they want to be and like what?

Is it that makes me tick?

What do I believe in?

What are my values?

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

This is where we talk a lot about success.

We dig into it.

We're gonna be doing that today.

We redefined success in business ministry, but be talking about just

general success in life, I believe today that will pertain to everyone.

I'm Tim Winders, I'm your host coach.

I work with leaders, leadership teams.

So I dig this stuff I've actually got I consider him a buddy friend of mine.

We've known each other for a couple years and around podcast circles,

and he's got a lot of great things going on with a new book and all that.

And I'm gonna read his.

Official bio before we get started, just so I get it good and right

and then we'll we'll dive in.

I'm glad you're here.

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

This is Jerry Duggan and Jerry Duggan is a leadership consultant, training

facilitator, and public speaker host the podcast a great name beyond the rut.

He's just written a book also by the same name that we're gonna be talking about.

He helps build servant leaders by finding clarity and alignment

in their work and personal lives.

There's a lot more stuff to Jerry's bio.

We'll dive into that as we get going.

Jerry, welcome.

Glad

Thanks so much.

This is awesome.

Excited that you're here.

Excited that we get to have this conversation because I get

to ask you things that I may not have ever asked you before.

I know it's almost like payback, like when

you were on my show, right?

But different.

That's been, I was thinking about that.

That's been a few years ago.

Yeah.

I was a

Yeah.

the Rut, and we had the conversation there.

Now he's, I've got him in my crosshairs and we're gonna go at it.

First question, Jerry, let's go ahead and get it started.

The way I like to, let's pretend that we don't know each other that well, but

I think this is a good question anyway.

And if someone bumps into you or if I bumped into you and they ask

you what you do, what do you tell people when they ask you that?

Oh man.

I tell them I play with three cats at home every day and I'm living the dream.

No, I'm kidding.

I tell them that for work, I help leaders become servant leaders and

find that success both in their career but in alignment with their faith and

also have success with their family.

So how do you have it all really?

How do IUC succeed in my career, in business, without

losing my faith or my family?

So that's what I do.

I do it through consulting, co coaching but the thing I love doing

the most is training workshops.

So team building workshops with managers and directors, all that good stuff.

So that's what I do.

Good.

I'm gonna dive into two things.

You brought up servant leader and also just we like to really dive into how we

define success here at Seek Go Create.

But before we do that I'm now hanging out with the RV with my granddaughters

and I was out walking them and a cat, a black cat, walked across our path and my

granddaughter gets dogs and cats confused, yet she hasn't distinguished that.

She goes, oh, there's a cat.

Can I go pet it?

And my comment was, no, cats aren't to be petted.

But being a cat guy, know nothing about cats.

Do I need to educate my granddaughters about cats?

What do they need to

Oh.

Stay away.

I don't know.

I'm on the opposite end.

But cats, unlike dogs, cuz dogs just run up to you.

They wanna be your best friend.

They've got no cares in the world.

No fears in a way.

But cats are a little bit more autonomous, so they choose

when they wanna come to you.

And I know a lot of kids like to run up and grab cats and hold onto them tightly.

Not the best way to approach them.

But if the cat does come up to you and wants to be pet, then pet it.

If they look like they wanna climb up, you then you can grab them

and hold them and carry them.

Our, one of our cats is a black cat and he's the baby in the family now.

He walks up to you, he gives a baby kind of cry.

He reaches up to you and you're like, oh my gosh, this is too cute.

We're empty nesters now.

So this is the closest thing we have to kids again.

But yeah, I would say yeah, for kids Cats like their independence.

They like to be free.

They like to choose when they get petted or picked up.

So let them come to you.

Don't go chase them down and grab them and please don't reach under the bed and

grab them by the legs and pull them out.

They don't like that.

Yeah, she was wanting to jump out of the little wagon.

I was carrying her around the block and say, oh, let me go after the cat.

And it's a, I guess it's like a neighborhood cat,

cuz I've seen it everywhere.

It's outdoors and it does its thing here.

We're right in Colorado Springs right now.

Anyway, it's good.

I'm always concerned that cats are looking at me thinking,

how can I kill this person?

But maybe that's not the case.

They, maybe that's my issues I need to address and we don't need to right now.

We've already offended a portion of the people here at Seek Go Create.

We apologize and we'll move on Jerry, man I'm excited you're here because

what this allows me to do, even though you and I have been on masterminds and

we've been in the Christian Podcasters Association for I guess two plus years

and I looked at the thing here, you've been podcasting for almost you're

like getting close to 10 years now.

Is that right?

Yeah.

I believe January of 2024 will officially be 10 years.

Wow.

particular show, beyond the rut, August, 2015 was when it started.

So yeah, it's been a while.

I've the equipment and the software has changed tremendously since those days.

And so like before, it used to be funny that you would

record a podcast on your phone.

Now it's, the, some of the microphones in these phones are better than the

microphones that we have in webcams.

And yeah, we've come a long way.

So we may have an og, like we may have someone who's been around, in,

in the beginning, before RSS feed even.

Anyone knew what that was.

But

I'm not that far back, but

anyway.

you were.

Jerry, one of the things I love about having this conversation

is that to me I don't even know if I've shared this with you, but a

while back, I listed out people that I knew that had podcasts, platforms,

things like that, that I felt their audience was aligned with the

target audience for Seek Go Create.

And to me, what you do with Beyond the Rut, with how you push the

boundaries of what success means and all that, to me it seems as if what

you're doing and what we're doing here is a pretty good alignment.

Am I right on that?

And it's okay to disagree.

You know me.

I'm okay for you to say, Tim you're wrong.

I can't believe you hate cats.

We gotta have the world balanced that way.

That might be the only difference though because we at the court,

we both look at what is success.

A lot of folks who we found over the years who feel stuck in a rut, when you

dig deeper into their story or their situation, they have all the boxes

checked for what success looks like.

They've got the job, they've got the income, they've got the house,

the cars the in-laws actually like them, whatever it is.

Like they've got the family, they're married, they've got kids, but deep

down inside, they don't feel like they're living a life of meaning or

purpose or that it really is gonna matter when things are over and

that's where they feel stuck in a rut.

Or they put so much effort into this job that they probably don't even

like, because they're concerned that if they lose the job, they lose the

income that loses all the stuff.

And so ultimately a lot of these guys are following somebody

else's definition of success.

I know for me, I was a pre-med student at a young age.

So I graduated high school, went into college originally, was

recruited for tuba performance.

I don't know if I ever told you that.

For

and tuba performance, so music performance, but

specifically the only instrument that mattered to me was tuba.

I didn't care about anything else.

I was in a heavy metal

on.

Hold on, man.

I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit taken back.

We went from pre-med to the tuba,

yeah.

and I have to bring this up.

This, I can guarantee you.

I have never mentioned this in any public forum for 50 years.

I started in band, in middle s elementary school, late middle school, braces.

We were, I was playing the trumpet because the trumpet seemed cool.

Yeah.

because of where I sat in the band, which is down near the

end of the row, which anybody in music would know what that means.

I wasn't good.

And my buddy was there with me.

The band leader came to us and said all right, we need two guys, one to

play tuba and one to play baritone.

And he looked at the two of us and said, which one you doing?

My buddy got the tuba, I got the baritone.

And we didn't have to pay for it, it was like owned by the band.

Yeah.

needed us to do that.

So I played the baritone for about whatever, not even as cool as the tuba.

At least people know what the tub is.

So you are a tuba player, man.

I was, yeah, so seventh grade, oddly enough.

And I told my dad, I want to be in the band and I wanna learn an instrument.

My dad's caveat was great, as long as I don't have to rent an instrument

for you, pick whatever you want.

And I, I don't know why I sat in the back of the room the day

we were picking instruments.

I, I originally wanted trombone cuz of the slide.

Looking back, my arms are short, so I probably wouldn't have been

that good of a two trombone player because I'd have to eventually

throw the slide and then that's it.

I'm done.

I have to go get the slide and put it back on the horn for those

who know what I'm talking about.

So as we're getting to the back of the room, my friends look at me.

I was four eight at the time in seventh grade, and my friends

were like, Hey Jerry, I dare you to play that thing back there.

We didn't even know what it was called.

And I was like, that, what is that again?

They're like, I don't know, but it looks cool.

It's bigger than you.

Go for it.

It was on a stand, so I'd have to climb in and sit in this chair and then play.

There was a sousaphone the marching tuba.

And so it was my turn.

And Mr.

Wright, he asked Jerry, what do you wanna play?

And I was like, I wanna play that thing.

And he looked up and he said, the sousaphone.

I'm like, sure.

Yeah.

Is that the big thing with that Looks like a cobra.

And he's I got a bad feeling about this.

You're already calling it a cobra.

I'm like, yeah.

And I would do that, like snake attack people while I was in the band.

And he told me to stop doing that.

But that was it.

And then the next day we got to play the horns for the first time.

And I got to play that first note and he goes, bro.

And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna play this.

This is it.

And seventh grade, eighth grade my band director eventually buys a

concert tuba before me to use in the, so the school own the horn, not me.

And then I go on high school and I'm like, you know what?

I think that cheerleader's cute.

I'm gonna quit band.

I wanna play football because that's the only way to get

that cheerleader to notice me.

The band director in high school, my friends ride at me on, cuz

she needed another tuba player.

She wanted three.

And my friends were like Jerry, he plays tuba.

I don't want, I don't know.

Why is he not here?

And somebody said something about a cheerleader and football.

And he hobbles off the field, he's not that big.

He's probably gonna die.

And so my new band director was like we gotta save him.

And I'm making up all the dialogue.

I don't know if this is how it actually went down, but eventually I was

asked to be in the high school band.

I joined, they, they assigned me my horn.

My band director signs me up for something called Youth Music Monterey,

which is like an honors orchestra.

And so it's like select baseball, but for band.

So these are like the best from the local area, high schools and middle schools

coming together to learn orchestra pieces.

They assigned me a tuba instructor and this was like

when it really got cool for me.

This is all my freshman year.

And Jim Powell Letti, he's my tuba instructor in youth music, Monterey.

And I remember we're in his home studio and he tells me the story

about sight reading because apparently I wasn't that good at it.

I didn't know any of my scales.

And he's Hey, let me tell you about site reading, why it's so cool.

And he tells me about when he was in college, his tube instructor

performed for the orchestra that performed for the movies, the scores.

And so he got to go with 'em on recording day and he said it was just

so cool cuz we were like, in this studio the tube instructor got his

packet of music off a countertop, had his name on it and everything.

And he had a studio assignment.

And so they walked to that studio and walks in, closes the door,

puts the music up there, and he's just like flipping through.

Plays a couple of sections, and then after about five, 10 minutes

of doing this gives a thumbs up to a mirror, which he later realized

was the, I guess it wasn't a mirror.

But anyway the recording guys are on the other side of that glass and then

the red light comes on and they're live.

And the tube instructor of Jim pti who's a college kid at the time, the

guy just plays the whole stack of music.

One take nonstop.

That part was the spaceship and close encounters of the third kind.

And when he told me that was done in one take and it was a tuba player,

my mouth at the floor, like I'm not studying with that guy, but I'm

studying with the guy who studied with the guy who was the spaceship.

And I was like, I want to be the guy that is the spaceship and the

sequel of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which they never made.

But that was the inspiration to keep playing performing.

I was in honors bands, honors orchestras, got recruited to perform

at University of the Pacific.

But the last minute I switched gears cuz I had this nightmare that being a

super performer is not noble enough of a profession to make an impact on the world.

What are you gonna do play in polka bands the rest of your life?

And I switched, I became a pre-med student and I started taking classes

like organic chemistry four times.

I was not a quitter.

And yeah, it's what led me to join the Army because with a 2.1 gpa,

you're not going to medical school.

Which my faculty advisor knew, like I was tutoring people to get A's and

B's in the classes I was failing.

And he's the guy knows the concepts, he knows how to do this.

But he's bombing the exams.

He's not turning his stuff in the labs.

He does not wanna be a doctor.

He doesn't wanna do this.

This just isn't his thing.

And so he tried to encourage me.

He's this guy has a knack for teaching people.

Maybe I can encourage him to go into education and teach, and he'll

be employable and he'll be happy.

And I told him something like, you know those who can't teach?

And he just, from that point on, he just started signing off on paperwork.

Hey, get outta your kid.

Like he realized I was too proud to, to take his advice.

But yeah, from there, join the Army Surf four and a half years.

Went through a combat tour, came out of there, got hired

by a healthcare organization.

And it was about a year into that when they were ready to send me off

to nursing school and become a nurse, to become a nurse educator, that

I realized they didn't want to go.

And that was the aha moment of I've been pursuing somebody else's

dream and that was my mother's dream to be a doctor, not mine.

And I was like, wow.

So yeah.

At

the

court, yeah.

fascinating thing about that is just, let's just look at this

all within the aspect of success.

I love the conversation about the story because there was a lot of

lessons, I believe about success along the way I think they're

things that all of us deal with.

I love that moment you said, a girl, a cheerleader, I'm gonna go play football

because that's what that girl or the cheerleaders are more interested in

truthfully, and you can answer this question or not, you stood out more,

you were more unique, more whate, whatever words we want to use that

tuba instead of playing football.

What have you ever thought about what your life would've been like?

Had you the football route?

Would you

Oh.

I continue, I did both actually through high school.

It was, I was one of those kids that I would pref, I would play

my game and then I would be in my football uniform during halftime.

So I was one of those kids you would see in Texas halftime shows.

Now once I made varsity, it was, I was strictly a football player who

happened to march in the band cuz the band still did parade competitions and,

Yeah and a tuba player.

It's kinda like the bullpen catcher.

You're not gonna kick that guy out.

You need that guy, sorry.

A teammate of mine used to say that in college.

He's I'm the bullpen catcher.

He's not gonna throw me off the team.

Now the third string guy is in trouble.

I'm safe.

I'm the guy who always warms up the pitcher.

It's cool.

And I was like, I'm the tule player.

You're always gonna need me in competition.

The home crowd and the football game is not gonna know that Jerry

the tule player was not there.

The judges on a parade route are gonna realize you don't have

enough foundation in your sound.

Yeah, I guess I had job security on the band.

But yeah, I didn't play through college high, I football that is, I stopped.

but a lot of us, a lot of us do just that, first of all,

we don't understand all the options available, which sometimes that's good.

Sometimes too many options is not a good thing.

Yeah,

And then we choose a route that is, a family member thinks medicine

or some lawyers or things like that.

No, seems like no one says lawyers anymore to, to dig at the lawyers

that might be listening in.

Probably not.

pretty confident lawyers don't listen to podcasts, but that's a whole nother topic.

they do.

They do.

I know a few.

I, I know a lawyer by the way.

I know a lawyer who's in a family of physicians and he's considered the black

sheep in the family cuz he's not a doctor.

Poor guy.

Cuz you went down that path.

Oh my goodness.

But it really is this whole thing of success.

There's expectations that people place on us.

There's comparison to other people.

Joe did this, so I need to do it too.

Now we have comparison, to the nth degree with social media and things like that.

How does that feed into people getting into a rut?

How does that lead to what you consider or define as a rut?

Oh yeah.

So a rut I've had to look this up because Laura Paget, I

don't know if you remember her.

She asked me the actual definition.

I was like, you know what?

I know what it is, but I never actually looked it up.

So it's a pattern of behaviors that are unproductive and when we look at

what other people are doing, whether it's podcasting or entrepreneurship,

Self-employment, a career path.

There's a template we see in front of us and we think if I do those

things, then I will have that success and that's what's expected of me.

I need to go have that success.

And then we just start going through those motions without

really asking, is that who I am?

Is that what I want to do?

Because I do sometimes wonder what would life be like if I stuck with

Tuba and said, that is my passion.

I wanna be the guy in the back row, bust out the lowest note

in the Audi, in the crowd.

It's just, it's fun and, what would life be like?

And I'll never know cuz I gave it up to pursue something that wasn't my dream

and I wouldn't get, I wouldn't do it all differently because that path is where

I'd met my wife, had my kids, and had the adventures that I've had so far.

But I know if I'd followed my passions, Tuber would be the thing.

I probably would be in a polka band somewhere in Germany right now.

But I'd also be in an orchestra.

I'd be in a military marching band.

I would have seen the world through music and travel and all those things.

And I gotta remember what the question was oh, yeah, comparison.

There we go.

Bam.

I was like, what is the so after a while though, if you're following

somebody else's footsteps, you almost have that expectation

to have the same exact results.

And I see it in podcasting.

I see it in all these different walks of life.

Even the person who's just disgruntled at work I've been here for 15 years, why

did that person get promoted and not me?

And not really thinking about am I a right fit for that role anyway?

Am I in the right fit for what I am right now?

Is this what I even wanna do?

I hate this job.

And not really taking that time to look into themselves and understand

what is it they won their lives.

Like when their life is done, what would success look like for

them in the areas of their faith?

They're.

Family, fitness, finances, and their future growth,

the trajectory they were on.

And a lot of us don't take time to examine that.

And I think when we get into the comparison trap and we don't have a

grounding in who we are, who we want to be, and who we're becoming, then it's

easy to just fall into somebody else's path, which becomes a rut for us, cuz

it's not productive to what we want to accomplish and what we want to be.

Yeah, I think it's fascinating and in the world that

we're in today, we're recording this in 2023, we have access to so much stuff.

To look at other people and see where they're at, or at least their

best because we see it on social media and all over the world.

And then, we can tap into it with things like this, podcast,

videos, stuff like that.

And I think about like my grandfather, who, if I think about my grandfather's

life, I would say he was in a rut.

He was a guard that sat in a 10 by 10 room that was like a sauna in the

winter because it had this heater that kept it, pretty much 85 degrees.

And then when it was summer in Mississippi where he was, had one window unit that

kept it about 45 degrees so he could hang meat in there, and the windows were

frosted up and he went and did that.

But you know what?

I never picked up on any discontent or anything like that, and I'm

pretty sure this might be an interesting thing to bring up here.

I'm pretty sure had I asked him, granddaddy was what I called him.

If I would've said, granddaddy, what are you doing with your life?

What's your purpose?

What does it mean?

And all that.

pretty sure he would've said, what are you talking about?

I get up every day.

I go to work, I come home, I get to go fishing every once in a

while, and I get to see you and the grandkids every once in a while.

That was his life.

That was his world.

So I do think there is a bit of What we manufacture around us.

I think ruts a relative.

Does that make sense?

Just respond to that, because I do think we're in the world we're in today.

We almost have too much of an ability to, though, one other thing at

you I recently read, the story of Moses, and he was, for 40 years, he

was on the backside of the desert.

All indications were was a rut, but for 40 years he was there,

Yeah.

In a desert, those are,

so I'm poking holes at you to get you to real.

Let's talk about this and I'm, because I'm in agreement with you, but I also

want to know how do we know or not know, or when do, were we supposed to just

grind it out and just stick with what we're doing for 40 years like Moses did?

I don't know

Yeah.

to that.

So what are your thoughts?

Oh, man.

First, yes I think a rut for somebody is relative, for me, in the corporate

space, I know there are people who they think that success is the level of

attainment that they have in their job position, and they're satisfied by that.

But for me, I know that the moment somebody asked me to put

more than 40 hours a week in the office, I'm already resisting.

I'm like, you know what?

On my deathbed, I'm not gonna say, man, I wish I put five

more hours a week in the office.

I'm gonna be saying to myself, I wish that I found a way to sneak out of

the office and be with my family more.

Kinda like your grandfather.

He was content that he had time with his family.

And he had no aspirations to be more than a security guard in his profession.

He was fine with that.

My dad was kinda the same way.

He's fine with doing a nine to five type of job and chill out and just

relax and be a leisurely person.

And now relationship, relationship-wise, he's probably suffered, he doesn't

have the deep friendships he would've wanted or the career satisfaction

he probably would've wanted.

But for me though, like there's a certain set of priorities I've got, which aren't

gonna be the same as you or the same as, my previous boss or my coworkers.

And the same, my coworkers aren't gonna have the same priorities.

I think it's important to be in tune with what those are.

And I think the folks who struggle the most and feel probably that

they're in the deepest of ruts are the ones that don't take time to know

who they want to be and like what?

Is it that makes me tick?

What do I believe in?

What are my values?

What do I, what am I against?

What are my boundaries in life?

And if I know those things, I can now start answering questions

like, what is work-life balance?

Trevor Noah is a comedian who recently came out and said, there's no such

thing as work life balance, and there's just life and that's it.

And I'm like there is, in my book, I think there is a work life balance.

There is your professional life and you do things, you get things done.

But then you don't want that so much to get in the way of serving

a church, worshiping God, and connecting with your wife and children.

That is in my book.

And so if I scale back on doing professional work, So I can have

more time with my God and my family.

I will choose that, and I will be perfectly fine with that.

But there are other people that are like, you know what?

I can work a longer day today because I will achieve this

level of success at work.

And they're fine with that too.

But it comes at a cost.

It, they're choosing that work over the rest of the areas of their life.

And so for me, there is work life balance.

It is different for everybody.

It's just where do we put those fulcrums for that balance to happen?

I do think it's relative.

let's go ahead and throw some scripture at this conversation.

Let's go to, you know what the Paul, I was about to say, Paul,

I'll have to say the apostle Paul.

Let's go ahead and Paul said that.

That he is content wherever he's at.

And he's abounded and a based, and I think in our culture, our modern day

society, we are almost, we almost lean towards being discontent, malcontent.

I don't what's the right wording on that?

Not content.

Yeah.

And and I think it's interesting coming

from Paul, I get abound.

I get a bass and all and I've gone through that, we've poked at the word

success a lot here I've had companies, businesses, and I know you've worked

in roles and things, that people would look at you and go, man, that

Jerry, is hitting home runs, but.

Maybe on the inside you weren't.

Yeah.

And so how do we layer what we learned from the Apostle

Paul in, I guess one thing that, that I struggled with a little bit.

I worked corporate gig for nine years and after the second

day, I knew it wasn't for me.

I knew it.

I'm not meant to work for somebody else.

But it took me eight and a half years to get out of it I was

just working on other things.

I had businesses on the side, all that kind of stuff.

How do we know when we're just supposed to be content?

Suck it up buttercup, just sit back, be quiet, do the job, do the work, whatever.

Versus what we're about to talk about that you taught in your in your book

that just came out beyond the rut.

Create a life worth living in your faith, family, and career, versus putting

some things in place to move that rut.

How you know what, because I know you've interviewed a lot of people too.

How do we know when we should just hang tight or when we

should start pursuing things?

What's the indicators there?

Yeah.

I think the one question, probably the most important question is this really

what I want to do or is it something somebody else told me I needed to do?

A lighter example would be, I've got a friend who.

Every time everybody's challenging themselves to go achieve the goal.

This guy wants to do a cold shower challenge and get everybody on board.

Cold shower challenge.

And I'm like, why?

And the idea is, if I do the cold water challenge or the cold shower

challenge, I'm already tackling a very tough thing early in the morning, and

therefore I've got the confidence to go forth and conquer the rest of my goals.

And I'm sitting there thinking, I don't want to I, I will still pursue

my goals with or without the cold water, the cold shower challenge a.

And so the first time this guy proposed it, I was like, yeah,

sure, I'll get in on this.

And I did it for a week.

And then I started to realize everybody else in the group was lying.

They were not doing it.

And then eventually they fessed up.

I'm like, am I the only one doing this?

I'm only doing it because I wanted to support all of you, but it just,

I don't get any value out of it.

I'm not gonna do it anymore.

And so I stopped.

And so then in the future, when it kept up, Coming up over and over

again, I just politely declined.

I'm like, I, no, I'm just not gonna do it.

I have no desire to, and it doesn't add to or take away

from what I really wanna pursue.

So that's one thing.

And then I shared earlier that the realization that becoming a doctor

was my mom's dream, not mine.

And so I had some indicators there, like self sabotage.

I was the guy who had the ability to do well in science and understood

the concepts covered in class.

But I purposely made sure I didn't study the study guide for the exam.

I just wouldn't touch it.

I stayed away from all the bold print that would've gotten me the

grade I needed on the test, but I understood all the little things that

made all the big stuff make sense.

And it was just yeah, I just didn't prepare.

So that'd be another example.

I like

but.

the one thing about that cold challenge, first of all, we live in

an rv, so there's times I'm dealing with

Yeah, you have no choice.

Yeah, we woke up a couple mornings and ago, no propane,

and it was like 40 degrees inside.

We were inside there.

I felt as if at one point I was spending some time with the Lord and

I was saying, Lord, oh, what about this ice plunge and this cold water?

You know what, is that something I should do?

And and I felt as if now this is me.

I'm not giving a, a prophetic word to anyone here felt as if

the Lord said, why would you do that when I gave you hot water?

But that's a whole nother time,

Just wait for the propane tank to come in.

But the cool thing about what you're bringing up is

that I think you have to be owned don't necessarily be a follower.

I think there's times that we do that.

I know you've got military background on, there's times that

you just, you get in line and you go along with what's going on.

But I love that, what is it that Jerry is design created purposed for?

What's Tim supposed to, you know what, it may be two different things and we need

to embrace that and, do we find that out?

What's the, are some mechanisms or ways we can go about finding out

directions to go if we go, I don't know if I need to do this cold water.

Yeah.

pretty confident.

I don't, let me just go ahead and say, not for me, I'm a, I love my warm showers.

So by choice I do not do 'em.

So one thing I love looking at is what I call the five Fs.

And I didn't come up with 'em.

I just, I wanted alliteration, so I changed all the words into.

Words I start with f and they're in order of priority for me.

So first and foremost, my faith.

So how am I doing in my walk with Jesus?

Am I spending time in prayer every day or all the time really?

When it comes to decision making, is that the first person I go to and, get quiet

and just listen for that tug on my heart.

Am I reading the Bible?

Am I reading books from other spiritual leaders?

Am I going to church?

Am I plugged in small groups?

Am I being fed and am I feeding others?

And am I serving others in my faith?

So that's the first thing I look at.

And if I find myself trying to do everything in my own power, not trusting

in God, then I'm like, ah, there, there's problem number one right there.

But then I also look at my family situation.

One thing my wife and I have been in agreement with since day one of us

dating was whoever we marry, that's the person we're gonna be married to.

And we want to be married to that person.

It's gotta be somebody who's willing to do what it takes to be a better

person, be a better communicator be a servant to each other in a sense.

And so that was something we were both very much in agreement

on before we got married.

And, 21 years later, that's still us.

And then because of that relationship, we could be better parents to our kids.

And then everybody else takes a backseat to those two relationships.

My marriage and my children.

And then so a lot of my guy friends were like, what?

You're gonna, you're gonna choose your wife over hanging out with us.

Yep.

Why?

Because I don't go to bed with you guys.

I go to bed with her and, 30 years from now, I'm still not

gonna go to bed with you guys.

I'm gonna go to bed with her.

And as far as who I want to look up to, me, my kids, I, they're gonna be

the ones that have grandkids for me, and I want access to those grandkids.

And I wanna be an influence on their lives too.

So my relationship with my kids needs to be better than my relationship

with all the everybody else.

And my boss, it's no, you sign off on the time card.

You give me guidance in my work.

But I'm not gonna spend more time than I have to or need to.

Now I'll seek, counseling and mentorship and coaching from you.

And, if we become best bud, sure, but you're still gonna

fall behind wife and children.

You're down there somewhere with all my buddies.

So I take a look at family and then fitness.

How am I doing not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually?

So tying back into faith as well.

And then finances, sometimes when my stressor might be, we've spent

more than we were supposed to this month, or that there's a pay increase.

How are we going to manage that?

Or we wanna take a vacation.

How are we gonna pull that off expense wise?

I set aside money for those big purchases.

And then future possibility, what am I doing every day as part

of my daily routine to make me better today than I was yesterday?

Maybe it's an exercise routine.

Maybe it's, the saver's acronym from Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning Routine.

So I, I do a blend of all those, so there's silence.

What's the a affirmations?

V is visualization.

E is exercise.

R is reading, S is scribing or writing or journaling.

I used to do all those things in the morning in a two hour block.

Now I just give myself two hours.

Choose any of those in any combination you want and enrich yourself.

And so that's so if I wanna spend two hours reading, I do that.

If I wanna spend two hours journaling or writing an article, I do that.

If I wanna walk for the whole two hours, I usually don't.

But if I wanted to, I could.

I think once I cheated and I spent like an hour doing pour over coffee in the

morning, and my wife's what are you doing?

I'm like, quiet time.

Just she's I'm going back to bed.

I'm like, okay.

And so I look at my life in those five areas faith, family, fitness,

finance, and future possibility.

And I look at, how are things going?

What are the things I want in my life in those areas, so I want to be plugged

into a men's group and a married couple's group and go to church every Sunday.

I wanna serve my church.

Those are four big things for me.

I want my wife and I to be closer than anybody else in the world fitness-wise.

I don't need to be like a muscle bodybuilder, but I wanna be able to go

three flights of stairs and not wheeze.

And I wanna be able to tie my shoes and not lose breath.

When my kids get married I have a vision that my father-daughter dance is gonna be

a really cool one that makes people cry.

And so I have these things I've visualized in my life and I make life decisions

based off of how will this support or hurt the, that vision in those five areas.

And, recently I, and you might be aware of this I left my corporate

job, I was at a director level.

I had a team reporting to me.

I not only impacted a healthcare organization with about 9,000 people

in it, but during the the pandemic.

I was able to collaborate with another healthcare organization

that had 40,000 people in it.

And so my work wasn't just impacting us, it was impacting another healthcare

organization as well in six US states, in four different countries.

And, the, these are good things.

It's yes.

But the thing that made me leave the job was my wife saying to me, cuz she saw

that things were getting heavier for me.

I was upset with something that happened at work.

They went against a lot of my core values.

And my choice was really stick around and endorse what happened or, and rebuild

or get out of there, let that person fix that mess and go do a different thing.

And my wife said to me, just quit your job.

I was like, wow, you're miss, we gotta have financial security

before I do anything else.

And she said, yes.

And I trust two things.

Three.

She's first of all I trust God's gonna provide for us two.

I know he has because we have a nest egg to fall back on.

And I know you know the numbers.

I was like, yeah, I know the numbers.

And she said, and third, I want my husband back.

And I was like, I never left.

I'm here.

And she said, no, you're not happy, Jerry.

You are angry at the world.

Angry at your boss.

Angry at the work situation, Jerry.

And it's so bad that our kids have come up to me and asked

in private, are you and dad?

Okay?

And when she pointed that out to me, I went through those five F's, I'm like I

trust god's, working in me and around me.

So that hasn't faltered, but wow, my family's at risk.

And, but this job, it pays good money.

It's a six figure income.

It's the highest I've ever earned.

I'm on the path to be vice president someday.

And I caught it there.

I was like, someday, like I gotta stick around six or seven years

to take this guy's job if I don't jump out of a window before that.

Cuz he was just, he was a pill.

I won't name the guy.

And, but anyway, it, it was a challenge and and I just realized I am putting

on the golden handcuffs because, Everybody's expected me to keep this

job and keep this paycheck coming in.

And my wife is telling me I don't care about the paycheck if I'm

losing my husband in the process.

And I was like,

Thanks for reminding me of that.

And I put in my resignation that it was a holiday weekend, so that Tuesday I put

in my resignation and everybody around me noticed, wow, you seem happy and

there's like a bounce in your step again.

And our kids, they came back to visit and they're like, dad's back.

And my wife's yeah, I got my husband back.

And and so it's just.

That is, the long way to answer.

Like, how do I know I'm stuck in a rut?

It is looking at those five areas of my life, faith, family, fitness,

finances, and future possibility, and really thinking about what do I want

in those ar those areas, how am I doing right now and what is impacting those?

And it, it's led me to quit a job to live off a savings for a few months and start

my own business and take a leap of faith.

So that's where the book came in.

It was like this realization that, for the last seven years of the podcast, it's

always been a dream and a written goal of the podcast to have a book published

that is the manifesto of the show.

Define your own version of success.

Recognize when you're in a rut.

Create goals to get outta there, create a life vision for yourself,

and then go take action to get there.

And we're a show that's gonna help you do all those things.

And we even put in a book for you.

So if you don't wanna listen to all our episodes, here is who we are.

In summary, it was meant to be a like a free download.

And I think you were on that call.

Like we were like we can make this a free download and just get it out there.

Somehow that morphed into a 124 page book available on Amazon.

And it's like in paperback Kendall, it's an audiobook form.

And I'm like, yeah, that got outta hand.

Like that was supposed to be a free giveaway.

And I wound up self-publishing this thing and it looks great.

I had professionals edit the document for me the cover design.

I had professionals do the artwork.

I had my friends and family help me select the actual cover and it feels real.

It's like tangible.

It's here are the thoughts and ideas and concepts behind beyond the rut.

This is the message of the show.

And because of that book I'm seeing like, being a guest on podcast,

like I now have a message that's coherent this is my message.

I can go to organizations.

Johns Hopkins reached out to me and said, we want you to talk to

us about what to do when you feel like your career's stuck in a rut.

And I'm like, What?

This is so cool.

Yes.

And by the way, is it paid?

And they're like, yeah, sorry.

We didn't mention that part.

And so it's really cool to see just by following that one goal, after quitting my

job, following that one goal, getting it out there I'm actually checking off boxes

on my bucket list and I'm feeling good.

And it's ah, wow, I'm doing what I wanted to do.

Yeah.

thing, the cool thing I love what your wife did cuz I was around, we,

Jerry and I get to jump on a mastermind.

It's on the schedule once a week.

Sometimes we're both on there, sometimes we're not.

It but we connect once a month-ish might be a way of saying it.

Yeah.

See each other.

Don't have deep conversations like this, which is fun.

But and I will say I was around when I remember that was going on we did see

a different Jerry begin to materialize.

Not that, it was like, oh my gosh, Jekyl and Hyde.

Now it's just like lighter area, a little more open and

definitely getting more focused.

Sometimes when a change like that occurs, it gets us focused on the

things that might impact that last one.

They're your future,

Yeah.

you know what?

I feel like now's an opportunity to write a book and all but before we get too much

further though, away from these five Fs, I wanted to ask a few questions around

that because when I see five things like that, I start wanting to force rank them.

And so what I'm gonna ask is over the seven, eight years of beyond the Rut

interviews and those over these five F's, what is, what's the one that you

see that have gotten beyond a rut?

What's the one that they've struggled with the most, if there is one or the one that

keeps coming up time and time again that you observe or notice, and maybe the five

F's have materialized over time and I'm, because I'm gonna share kinda where I'm

at now with the one that's working the best and the one that's working the least.

And I'm gonna ask you the same question too, because I think that's part of

our evaluation process as we go along.

Yeah.

Family would be the one that we've heard the most in.

Over 300 interviews.

Family Impact has been the biggest thing, and it's somebody who was

pursuing a career, pursuing income, pursuing wealth and it took a toll

on the family and it was that aha, or maybe it was a divorce, that made them

realize I need to regroup who I am as a person so that my next marriage

is stronger, healthier, and endures.

And or a strange relationships with our kids.

And that it was the idea or that realization.

I don't want to die with my kids thinking I'm a total stranger and a monster.

I need to be a better dad for them.

And pulling themselves together to be that dad who's present, even if mom

and dad aren't together again, that they're present and engaged father.

And so family has been probably the one that stood up the most because

it's probably the most universal, it now the ones who are Christian

will also typically, once they've gone through that trial, Will

praise God and give credit to God.

And so that's where the faith comes in first and foremost.

So as they grew stronger in their faith, o other things started to fall

into place because they were, just from a Christian centric perspective.

Realizing that the closer I get to God, the closer I get to everybody

because I'm more aligned with the love and sacrifice that God is.

And I express that to other people.

And it's I see Christians bringing that to the table, and the rest is like the

extra symptoms that come into play.

I've talked to folks, once they got right with their family and their

faith their health got better.

The finances got into a healthy position.

They weren't pursuing.

They still make money.

They're still successful in their career or their business, but it's not the number

one driver for who they are as a person.

And they could lose the business and they'll still be happy with

who they are, and they'll go back and they'll earn that money back.

They're like that relationship with money has become healthier.

It's a tool, it's a vehicle.

It's not who I am.

And then the futures that it, for me I put them in order.

So family, fitness, finances, that future possibility is that kind of the rocket.

It's like what's propelling me forward?

It's all the other things I haven't covered yet in these areas.

All the things I haven't learned yet.

All the people I haven't met yet.

All the ways I haven't helped people yet.

You know that's future possibility.

Yeah, it's interesting for me as you were going through

those five Fs, and I did read the book too, but I actually read

the book about a month or so ago.

So it's actually not as fresh in my mind as usually have when I've read

a book that I'm interviewing someone.

But I do recall just the foundational principles that I,

in my mind that were valuable for anybody that picks the book up.

Is it something for leaders and people in corporate?

Yeah.

But is it something for a teenager a 20 something?

Yeah, I actually think so, especially because the quickness of it,

the good examples and stories.

So great job on the book.

Thank you.

it, but as I'm, as you were talking about it, just then, I

was sitting there thinking to myself, one of these five is my high point

now, and which one is my low point?

I think I put faith and family right up around the top.

I happen to be parked right in the backyard of my daughter

and son-in-law and grandkids.

So when I finish clicking record over the top of my computer,

I just saw my three-year-old granddaughter come in from school.

I'll go out and we'll play and all that kind of stuff.

my wife and I are going at date night.

Anyway, things are and my faith is always a strong point, but my fitness

one is very interesting for me.

I've got this little knee thing that's been nagging at me and.

And so I, I immediately put that one at the lowest because I've just got a

little in a pain that's been bugging me.

And I only share that as a lob to put it back to you, which one right

now would you put as one's rocking?

I'm at a high point doing well here.

And then which one would you force rank to the lowest one that maybe you're having

to work on or there's something going on there, struggle or something like that?

Just, I think so that I think that's how we'd be true to ourselves by forcing

Yeah.

one are we doing well at?

Yeah.

So the top three where I'm doing really well would be faith,

family, and future possibility.

I still do my morning routine in some way.

I'm reading books, doing interviews on podcasts, grow

me like you wouldn't believe.

And people ask, why do you do so many?

It's I get to learn from people who were succeeding in life in one of these

areas, and I get to glean from them and it makes me a bigger, better person.

And in a way, at least better than it was yesterday.

The two that are lower finances would be one just because for the last

five or six months yeah, we made the decision, let's live off of our savings.

Either a look for a job or build a business.

And we chose build a business.

And so there are extra expenses that come with that.

It's oh, hey, yeah, this is getting a little nerve-wracking.

Okay, we got income tax return came in.

Okay, now how does this all work?

Now I'm like, boom.

I wouldn't put that at the very bottom though, because my wife and I talk

about money now better than we did five, six years ago, two years ago even.

Because this is it.

Like whatever revenue we generate, it's yeah.

But we're even talking through like, how does the money flow through the business?

When I was in real estate in 2006 through 2000, 2010, 2011, somewhere in there.

Good timing there, by the way.

Good

Yeah.

that.

Yeah.

Right time to perfectly for the bubble to break finding out there

was a recession when I left my job.

the

Yeah.

I'm that guy.

It's oh, there's a lion in this room, and I just closed the door.

What?

That's not a good idea.

But that's, but I'm that guy.

I walk into a fire pit without knowing it.

And Oh, where was I again?

Oh yeah, so you know, finances, we've gotten better at talking through that.

But fitness, I think would be the thing that's at the bottom of the

rung because while I was going through that season at work where I wasn't

happy, it was a toxic environment.

I put on 40 pounds.

Like I had lost weight, I was eating healthy, I was exercising every day.

But the stress of a project, the stress of work I stopped doing that and I

put 40 pounds back on, if not more.

And getting back to that, realizing and having that awareness of like, when

I'm stress eating, when I'm avoiding exercise when I'm using my friend

Mike as an excuse to, I gotta go walk.

It's oh, Mike canceled so I don't have to go.

And my wife's you can still go, just wait till the sun comes up.

You guys like to go at five in the morning and strengthen numbers and all that, but

wait for sunrise and still do your walk.

I'm like, Yeah, but she's right.

It's like there isn't anything stopping me from going from my walk at seven in the

morning as opposed to five in the morning.

But yeah, I would say fitness is at the bottom right now.

And and I've recognized that not just because you said something

here, but it was like, why is it tiring to walk up the stairs?

Oh yeah, I'm heavy.

Yeah.

I'm finding it because I hit 60 this year and

and, have a three-year-old and a 11 month old granddaughter that

we're hanging out with a good bit

Oh yeah.

and we go on walks most afternoons and stuff like that, and

I'm just and I'm finding I'm not able to do some of the rhythms I like

because of this the little knee thing going on, but, one of the things

that I'm coming to terms with what I can and can't do, which I think is

an interesting thing in life also.

I think that's an interesting and funny thing, but I like the fact I've

actually, I'm meeting with corporate client, the leadership team this next

week, and one of the things I do often is I take our mission and values,

especially our values, and I cause the leadership team to force rank

them to do just what we just did right

Yeah.

It's okay, what's so you've admitted, and it could be a

season where just fitness might take a little bit of a backseat to finances.

We know it's gonna be interesting as you're starting a business and all

that, but it's just that time and that's good and it's all fine and all that.

We're good.

I want us to talk more about the book in just a moment before we wrap up and how

people can find it and everything, but.

This portion of the show sponsored by chat G P T I did something interesting

and at the time we're recording this.

I don't know where, I don't know what'll be going on.

When people listen at the time of recording, one of the big things going

on is chat G P T and things like that.

And I do want people to know that both Jerry and I are real people.

We're not ai, of this has been AI generated, including

our likenesses and all.

Cause truthfully, if I were gonna generate myself ai, I would look a heck

of a lot better than I currently do.

Gotta have more muscles.

But I did something Jerry, and I don't know if you've done any of

this with, the things you do in podcast.

I know there's a lot of tools and all out there, but took

your bio from your one sheet.

And I fed it into, I call it a her, that could be wrong,

it could be something else.

But my wife and I have a name for our chat.

G p t.

We call her Gertrude.

We fed it into Gertrude.

And we said, I said, Gertrude, I'm about to talk to this friend of mine.

I know questions to ask and no conversations to have, but me 10 questions

that I should ask based on this info.

And I'm gonna read some of 'em out.

I don't want you to answer them, but there's one that we're going

to use to show the challenges with.

Oh, nice.

This is gonna be awesome.

Because there was something in there.

Very fascinating.

There was some good questions like, what inspired you to start the podcast?

You faced adversity and redefining success.

You're, you went, I think family went through divorce, dad's

attempted suicide, stuff like that.

We I don't even know if we want to get into that now.

Why is it important for people to have vision in their lives and goals?

Some really good ones here,

Yeah.

but there was something that you mentioned about Proverbs 31

Yeah.

in your, and so let me give you the question.

This is sponsored by chat, G P T or Gertrude.

says, talked about the importance of being a Proverbs 13 man in a healthy marriage.

Oh,

What does that look like in practice and how can

men strive to embody this ideal?

Now what I did was I whipped out my Bible, cuz I'm thinking maybe she knows something

that we need to know from Proverbs 13.

right.

I'm scrambling here.

I'm like, I don't know.

Proverbs 13, I know.

31.

either, but I've got things like a wise son, he's his father's.

I'm trying to find something related to marriage.

We, we, I think people would know.

Proverbs 31, the soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing.

By pride comes nothing but strife.

But with the well-advised, his wisdom,

Oh wow.

wise men will be wise.

I've got all of things highlighted in

Here.

13, so I'm wondering if she is attempting to manipulate us

to go to Proverbs 13 and Proverbs 31.

What do

Wow,

here?

What do we have this portion of the show?

Sponsored by chat.

G P T.

man, maybe Gertrude's smarter than we realized.

Cuz I purposely said Proverbs 31 husband because, everybody's familiar

with the Proverbs 31 wife and they're not familiar that there's a husband

mentioned in three different verses there

does he do?

What's his role there?

Yeah.

It turns out he has full faith in her.

Like he, he trusts her.

Another verse, he's he's re he's well respected at the city gate.

So these are like the guys who are the movers and the shakers and

the leaders in their communities.

So this guy has a.

no slacker.

He's no deadbeat.

He's not just sitting around watching, Jerry Springer on tv.

Yeah, exactly.

He's not the, Hey, bring me a sandwich guy.

He's the, Hey honey, I fully trust you got everything here.

I'm gonna go talk to the guys about pasts and some legislation

and maybe beef up security around here to make everybody safe.

All right, we'll see you when I get back.

And so then there's that.

And then he just praises her in front of the children.

And he's not like making fun of her.

He's not talking about her looks or intellect or anything like that.

He's praising his wife in a way that's modeling it for the kids.

And so that the.

So everybody says she's blessed.

Look at her.

And so those are the three verses I was aim amen at when

I say Proverbs 31 husband.

But in Proverbs 13, I guess you can't go wrong here like a wise

son, hes his father's instructions.

But a mocker does not.

And I think I got some highlights in here on the Bible app.

One person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing, another pretends

to be poor, yet has great wealth.

And so for me that's always a great reminder.

Who you are on the inside matters way more than what you look like to everybody else.

And and so that ties in with what the conversation is we've been

having, which is like, how do you know that you're pursuing your

own dreams versus somebody else's?

How do you know you're in a rut?

And versus just needing to slug this thing out and keep on your path.

That's pretty cool.

Very good.

Yeah.

I'm glad when I first got that question back from ChatGPT, I said, okay, we're

gonna have a little bit of fun with it.

We're gonna mock AI that's so popular now, but.

You know what?

Let's spin it and make it positive.

Maybe the AI was pointing us to something.

Pretty much we can't go through Proverbs and find anything that would contradict

almost everything we've discussed here.

you talk about your future and what's that's really rocking

along for you and I know you've got podcast that's doing great.

Rocking along, you've got the book.

That is excellent.

Done very well.

What's coming up in the future that you're really super excited about?

And you've mentioned a couple things here, but something else about

the future before we wrap up here

The biggest thing is I'm pursuing the dream, like the dream

I've had and my wife and I were talking about it just a few days ago that

Because she had asked me no, we were talking about living in Dallas because

she's grown up in Corpus Christi.

I've grown up all over the world as an army brat.

And we were talking about how big Dallas is and how she never dreamed

that she would live in a city like this.

And I had said to her something like, I have, it's weird.

I never thought I was gonna move to a big city.

I just, ever since we left the army and I had that first job out of the

army, I always had into my head that we would be a family that lived in a

big city, empty nesters at some point.

And I would be traveling the world, speaking at organizations, speaking at

events, and that we would just, that would be our life, and it wouldn't be like a,

I gave up family for fortune or fame.

It was like in the dream, in the vision.

I am in a hotel, but I'm in a suit.

I'm getting ready to go downstairs to wherever I'm doing my talk, but

I'm calling my wife first just to tell her what I've been up to that

I'm about to go downstairs and I'll call her as soon as I'm done.

And I'll see her tonight.

That kind of thing.

And it's just like this very vague dream.

And I'm in it right now.

Like I've published the book.

I'm hoping the book leads to speaking engagements paid

keynote, present appearances.

And I've also started a company called B T R Impact because I wanna take all the

things I loved about my corporate job, which was doing leadership development

trainings some coaching, and really inspiring leaders to be servant leaders

in how they approach their teams.

So when we're looking at current events right now with quiet quitting

50 million people quit their jobs in the US last year in 2022.

And leaders are struggling, how do we keep our talent here as opposed

to running off to the competition and you got all these different ideas.

But Gallup did a survey recently and and I think about servant

leadership and I'm like, the seven pillars of servant leadership

fit that, and I love this thing.

And if I could just share that message with companies and leadership teams and

help them apply those principles, not only would they be leading like Jesus,

whether they knew it or not they'd be leading in a way that people respond

and say, I wanna work for this guy.

I, I wanna stay here and I wanna work here for as long as I can

until they realize they probably could have hired somebody better.

That's what I wanna do and that's what I'm working on.

I'm building the messaging around that so that I can better communicate

that out to different companies and yeah, just freelance as a leadership

development trainer and coach.

And also be out there as somebody who talks about getting out

of your rut, whether it's your career or something else in life.

So that's what's going on.

I like how everything revolves around that beyond the Rut brand.

I think that's good.

And I'm sure of people would say, oh, you've planned that all along.

And I'm, but I know better.

You stepped into the podcast years ago, and so has somewhat evolved, is awesome.

If you wanna have a little bit of fun with your wife, she know, she mentioned

she didn't see herself in Dallas.

Say, Hey, listen, I just talked to a buddy of mine and he just

wanted me to ask you, have you ever thought about living in an rv?

right.

It'll be a good conversation.

I'm sure it'll go well for you if you just bring that

Oh, I actually brought that up.

When we first interviewed you for Beyond the Rut it was probably the fastest

snow I heard come outta her mouth.

Yeah, it was as far as living in an rv she'll go camping with

me if there's an RV involved.

I'm like, but I like going in the woods with a hammock and just bare minimum.

And she goes, yeah no.

If RV is in this, the conversation, yes, I will go camping with you.

I was like, oh, cool.

I do, I can see all of that stuff happening for you that

you brought up to Jeremy and I'm watching it as it unfolds and as one

that's done a lot of those things too.

I could definitely see your path down that.

And it's very exciting when one is outside of a rut, going down a

path that's a little bit different, unique, you can't see the edges, the

rims, the safety bars along the side.

I can see you doing that.

So that's very exciting.

Where do people need to go to find out about you to get

the book all of that stuff?

Just give all that right now.

We'll include it down in the notes, but where do they need to go?

Awesome.

So for the podcast the book itself beyondtherut.com

is the hub for everything.

If you wanna go straight to Amazon and buy the book just beyondtherut.com/book,

and I'll pull up the results right there for you on your browser.

And then if you're interested in me being at your organization or event as a speaker

or to run a workshop, btrimpact.com is that website and it gives you a

list of the different topics I cover as a speaker for keynotes and workshop

topics as well, what those entail.

Yeah, beyondtherut.com and then btrimpact.com.

Excellent.

Thanks Jerry.

We are seek, go create.

You know that.

I know you do.

I'm gonna give you one of those words to choose and why.

As my last question, seek, go, or create, which one do you choose?

Right now I am in create mode, so I'm going with create, yeah.

Taking all the ideas that I've sought.

And yeah now it's just making it happen.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Jerry.

What a fun time we've had.

And the author of the book, beyond the Rut, create a Life Worth

Living in Your Faith, and Career.

Make sure you get a copy of that.

Go check 'em out over Beyond the Rut.

I am confident if people listen in here, they'll enjoy beyond the rut also.

And I appreciate you being here.

I'm glad we're able to have this conversation because it's a more

focused conversation than probably we get to have when we're all around

our masterminds and things like that.

Make sure you share this.

Listen, I bet some of you know somebody who's in a rut.

Some of you might be in a rut, but if you know somebody, share this

episode with them so that they can hear some of the things talked about.

Identify their five Fs that Jerry mentioned, and hopefully

get them out of that rut.

Appreciate everybody listening in here.

are seek go create.

Until next time, continue being all that you are created to be.