In this episode of Move Right, Zach sits down with Dr. Jack Skeen for a conversation about identity, greatness, and one of the most important questions a person can ask: Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Starting from Jack’s work helping leaders find clarity around their path, the conversation challenges the labels many people have carried for years—things like “too intense,” “too sensitive,” “compulsive,” or “ADHD”—and asks whether those traits may actually be pointing toward a person’s unique design instead of just a problem to manage.

This conversation goes far beyond career advice. Zach and Jack explore why so many people end up living like “plow horses,” trapped in responsibility, performance, and other people’s expectations, while feeling disconnected from what actually makes them come alive. They talk about the difference between being shaped by labels versus discovering greatness, why many people answer life’s biggest questions in the wrong order, and how fear of what others think can keep a person from ever stepping into the life they were made for. They also get into Jack’s belief that what culture often calls a disorder may sometimes reveal both a person’s greatest risk and their greatest gift.

Through the lens of Move Right, this episode is about learning to see the breadcrumbs of calling, paying attention to what makes you feel most alive, and recognizing that real greatness is often found in the very place other people told you to tone down, suppress, or fix. This is a conversation for anyone who feels stuck in the wrong lane, senses there is more in them, or wants to understand how identity, purpose, and contribution connect in a deeper way.

To watch the full conversation, find Move Right with Zach and Jake on YouTube at @ZKosturos.

Additional Discussion Topics:

• Why many people live by labels they never chose
• How to tell the difference between a burden and a calling
• Why greatness often hides inside what looks “wrong” on the surface
• The danger of living as a “good boy” or “good girl” for too long
• Why caring too much about what others think keeps people stuck
• How to look for breadcrumbs that point toward purpose
• The difference between being a plow horse and being a reservoir
• Why waking up a person’s greatness can transform a life or a company

Most people walk around with a label.

They got it from a teacher, a doctor, maybe a parent, or a personality test.

Compulsive adhd, too sensitive, too intense.

And then they spend their whole life thinking the label is what's wrong with them.

My guest today is Dr. Jack Skene.

He has a PhD in psychology and a Master's of divinity.

He spent the last 25 years coaching executives at companies like Verizon, Motorola, and Servicemaster.

His clients include guys like Manish Pabrai.

He's the value investor that a lot of people compare to Warren Buffett.

Jack helped Mohnish see he was running the wrong company.

I actually went through Jack's process myself.

And what you'll hear in this conversation is Jack making the case that the thing you've been told is wrong with you is often the thing pointing at your greatness.

We get into how to find it, why most people are afraid to, and a story Jack told me that I don't think he tells very often on camera.

Let's get into it.

All right.

Thanks for being here.

I got a special guest with me today, a friend of mine and somebody that I look up to greatly named Dr. Jack Skeen.

I learned about Dr. Jack Skeen through a guy that you may have not heard of before, but you may have.

Some people compare him to a guy named Warren Buffett on a smaller scale, but a lot of the same concepts.

His name's Mohnish Pabrai.

And I heard Mohnish telling a story one time about how he was building this business and.

And this business was successful, and it was growing and it was thriving, and yet he felt just exhausted inside.

He felt like, man, this is not what I was created for.

And I don't exactly know how he got in touch with Jack here, but he did.

And Jack took him through this process that I believe he calls the roadmap.

And through this process of the roadmap, the takeaway is Mohnish finds out, oh, I'm running the wrong business.

And Dr. Jack helped him figure out, like, really who he is, who's.

What is his superpower, what does he get excited about?

What is he meant to be doing?

And the.

And the rest is history.

Right?

He sold his business and he went into full time investing.

He created a new business, and now he's.

He's really well known in the investment community.

And so I heard that story and I thought, I got to meet.

I got to reach out to this.

This Jack guy because I feel like I've wrestled through so many of the same questions and frustrations and anxieties.

And so I reached out to Dr. Jack and I signed up, we went through the roadmap process and he really helped me get a lot of clarity, which I'm still working through.

It's a process.

I think I'll let Jack tell us if I'm doing a good job or not.

But I felt like it was so impactful and I think, you know, so much of what I want to talk about on, on these videos and in these conversations is like, how do we move to the right?

How do we move from where we are to what's possible?

And I just think Jack has this really unique viewpoint, this really unique stance that I think people should hear.

And before we jumped on and hit record, he said something to me that's the focal point of where I want to start, which is this.

It's why do we get out of bed in the morning?

Right?

A lot of us, we don't know why we get out of bed or maybe we're getting out of bed for something that's not really our path, it's not leading to our path.

And Jack helps people find their path.

He helps people figure out why they're getting out of bed every morning.

And so with that, Jack, thank you for being here and I'm excited to have this conversation with you.

Well, Zach, thank you for inviting me.

You're a very special person.

Appreciate that.

So I just want to jump right into it.

How do people, or how should people figure out why they get out of bed in the morning?

Well, first they might just ask themselves the question, you know, it's a great place, like, why did I get out of bed today?

What am I doing?

And then is this something I really want to do?

And I bet if half the people asked the question, they'd say no.

Maybe more than half would say no, I'm not doing anything I really want to do.

So true.

And so I, I would agree wholeheartedly.

And then I.

The next question I would ask is, so what, what, what can they do about it?

What's like, you know, say you're a 32 year old guy and you're married and you got a four year old and a two year old.

And you know, and that's one of the things that I wrestle with is, is there's this friction between.

You have this plow horse analogy, which I love.

And you talk about this idea of a plow horse, right?

Where, where everything that you're quote, supposed to do is like sacrificial Right.

And it's draining and it's exhausting.

And I know there's been so many times, not in my family life, but definitely in my work life, where I have felt like a plow horse.

Like, I don't know how much further I can pull this thing.

And yet you talk about, like, well, there's a difference between being a plow horse and a reservoir.

And to me, that's like a biblical connection.

I don't know if it's meant to be, but it's this idea that, like, we're supposed to be filled up and receiving something that just naturally overflows from us.

And I. I, like, I totally agree with it.

I believe in it.

And I find that it's.

Sometimes I'm just not sure exactly how to make it a reality.

And so I think that there's probably lots of people who listen to this who probably feel the same way.

And so is there.

I mean, this is what you do, right?

You help people figure out what that looks like in their life.

But is there.

What does that look like for the average person?

Well, I read a book a long time ago.

It's called Fire in the Belly by a guy named Sam Keane.

And the book was really for men, but I think it's probably applicable for everybody.

It said there are two questions everybody ought to ask themselves, and ask themselves in this order.

So the first question is, where am I going?

You know, that assumes there's some path that belongs to me, some way I'm supposed to live, something unique and special in me that needs to be expressed in the world.

And then the second question is, who's going with me?

You know, once I know where I'm going, who's going to support me on this journey?

And Mr.

Keen suggested that most people answer them in the wrong order.

You know, they find somebody and get married and have some kids.

Now they have no.

Now they know where they're going.

Where they're going is servicing their family.

You know, everything in life becomes about a responsibility, and they feel trapped, but they look around themselves, they see everybody's trapped.

Everybody's in the same trap.

So maybe there's no way out of this trap.

I should just get used to living in it.

And I think that's such a sad, sad state of affairs.

What do you think about that?

That's really good.

I think that, you know, the idea of people feeling like they're in a trap is so true.

When I think about it in my life, the times where I've felt like Man, I've literally said this before where I go, sheesh, what I've wound up here, it's like a spider web.

It's going to be real hard to untangle.

And so my question back to you would be, do you think that it's.

It's fear at the root of it, or do you think it's lack of clarity or what do you think it is that gets us to the point where it's so easy to say, you know, and that's really what I want to have these conversations about.

It's like we get so used to what we call normal that we almost lose sight of what's possible.

And I. I feel like oftentimes, probably most of the time at the center of that, there's got to be some fear.

But, you know, you do this with people every day.

And so I'm.

I'm mostly interested to hear what you think is at the center of that.

Well, I know that all of us, I. I think universally, all of us were trained to be good boys and girls.

Yes.

You know, trained to go to school and be nice to the teacher.

So the teacher gives us a good grade.

And if we get a good grade, we can get into a nice college.

And if we get into a nice college, we'll get a good job.

And if we get a good job, we'll meet a nice spouse.

And if we meet a nice spouse, we'll have two nice children.

And darn if we have not been good boys and girls.

And that's just been the path.

So.

So we were never taught that being a good girl and boy was not the best way to live.

It's fine for a season, but there's a time to grow beyond that and to give up caring what other people think of me.

And until you master that, I think people are pretty stuck.

It's really good.

I think that right when you said give up caring what other people think, you know, it's like the, the ringers going off in my head because I think that so often that's.

That's the case.

Right.

We maybe we're not pursuing what we really want to.

What we really have a passion for a gifting in.

Because we're worried about, you know, what so and so is going to think about it.

Are there, Are there practical ways that you think somebody who maybe.

I mean, listen, I think everybody should come and work with you.

I do.

But, you know, there's a lot of people that probably can't do that, and probably if they all did, you couldn't handle it all.

But, but like, what can the everyday person do in their own life as they're kind of like.

I think about my brother in law, Jake.

He normally is on the podcast with me and, and we have conversations going back and forth.

He's 24 years old, you know, he's been married for a year and a half.

And I know he's wrestling with a lot of these questions.

And so for somebody like that, you know, he's waking up like, where are we going?

Where am I going?

Is a good question.

Who am I going with?

Is a great question.

What is like the first step in the process look like.

After that or the first step after that?

Okay.

I think the next step is to believe there's greatness in you.

I don't think most people believe there's greatness in them.

One of the things I like to ask people is if everybody's given 10 units of greatness, how many units do you think you're currently using now?

Hmm.

And it's kind of a trick question because if you say you're using nine, that means you're about done.

You're not, your life's not going to change very much.

And if you say you're using like one or two, then shame on you.

Why have you been living in such an impotent way?

So if you can acknowledge there's some more greatness in you that you have not embraced, then you can start to dream a dream.

Dreams are so empowering.

That's good.

What, what could I do?

What, what do I have that would make a difference in the world?

You know?

Oh, go ahead.

One of the things I've had, I had when there was letterhead around, I used to have on my letterhead a tagline.

And the tagline said, changing the world one liter at a time.

Nobody's ever hired me to change the world, but I always thought no matter who I was working for, my task was to change them in a way that they could begin helping the world to change for the better.

That's good.

One of the.

When you said that everyone, greatness inside of them, one of the things that I thought was so interesting about, and you can correct me if I misunderstood, but what I understood is one of the parts of the process that you take people through actually helps to identify what maybe mainstream culture or mainstream psychology might call a disorder.

Right.

And for those of you I didn't mention in the beginning, but Jack, you, you were, you were technically, probably still are practicing a clinical psychologist.

Right.

But also so A Mass or a PhD in Psychology of some kind, and then.

And then a PhD in divinity.

Right.

So you have, like, this.

This very unique combination there.

And I think what's so interesting is, again, this is like a deviation from the norm, which I think is part of what gives you this unique greatness, is that you look at these.

What other people call disorders, and what you told me, as far as I understood it was sometimes, most of the time, that's actually going to point to you where your uniqueness.

Your uniqueness lies, but also where your greatest risks lie.

Is that about right?

Yeah.

One of the things I think is amazing is you think about snowflakes.

Every snowflake is different, and every snowflake is beautiful.

Yeah.

But if you look at a pile of snow, it doesn't look different or beautiful.

Yeah.

And so I think to the extent each person is.

Shows their uniqueness, embraces their uniqueness, that's when you see their beauty, it's not in being like everybody else.

Then you're a pile of snow.

It's in discovering what's different about you.

So I look for the differences in people.

I also want to talk to people who've known you a long time, and I ask them questions to understand what they think about you that's different and unique and special.

Why were they attracted to you?

Why would somebody marry you, Zach?

What did they find about you that was magical?

And I want to understand whatever that is is really important.

It's part of your greatness.

That's good.

So, like, if we take me as an example, I'll be the guinea pig here.

Okay.

You know, my.

My teetering on disorder score was what had.

Had to do with compulsion.

And when I.

When I.

When I got that from you and you told me, you know, the upside of compulsion is.

Is a pursuit of excellence or a desire for excellence.

And it's so funny, because you told me that, and I went back and I looked through all my life, and I go, yeah, that's about right.

And then you said, but the downside is you can circle.

Right?

Right.

You can just be.

You can.

Your standards can even end up being too high.

And I think, well, yeah, that's about where my shortcomings stem from.

But I think it's so interesting, you know, I think about kids today, and they're diagnosed with ADHD or ADD or autism or whatever it might be.

And I think sometimes for me, and I love this because I want to tie it in, you have these three ways of thinking about it where you say, Life happens to me, life happens by me, or life happens for me and through me.

And you always say that you're.

You're taking people from the second one to the third one.

And so when I think about, like, people when they're told that they have, you know, OCD or they're told that they have adhd, I think that oftentimes we're telling people that in a way that actually, like, makes them think something's wrong with them that can't be fixed or harnessed and utilized and directed into a place that can do great good in the world.

And I think it's so interesting because in.

In my time with you, it was like, well, yeah, if you.

If you don't recognize it and you don't pay attention to it and you're not cognizant of it, it can certainly be those things, but.

But at the same time, like, it's in you to be harnessed and to be directed in a way that can do great things.

And when you look at so many of the people who have done these amazing things in the world, oftentimes they were clinically diagnosed with something.

I was a terrible student in elementary school.

I didn't learn a thing.

And in the eighth grade, the teacher, the reading teacher told me I was not college material.

I know why she said that.

I really wasn't college material.

But it wasn't that it wasn't in me.

It was just.

She did not see it in me, and I did not know it was in me.

So when I figured out how to use who I am, I was unstoppable.

So good.

You know, a similar thing happened to me when I was two things, actually.

I was 14 years old, loved baseball.

I always played baseball, and I wanted to be a professional baseball player.

And, you know, I was doing dumb things and screwing around, and.

And then I had these two baseball coaches that were.

They were both maybe in their early 20s, you know, coaching a summer ball team, and.

And they pulled me aside one day and they said, you know, you've.

You've got all the potential, but you got to believe in yourself.

You don't see it.

We see it.

And.

And when you see it and you're willing to.

To.

To invest into it, you can go as far as you want to go.

And.

And I remember, like, after that summer, I stopped doing all those dumb things, and.

And I started working hard, and I, like.

And my whole life changed.

My entire life changed.

And I tell people all the time, like, one of my greatest passions is to Help see.

See in other people what they can't see in themselves.

Because that changed my life.

I had.

In college, I had a college professor who, oddly enough, now that I just thought of this, we took a personality kind of test in.

In this.

In this college class.

She pulls me aside after class.

I just remembered this.

And she goes.

She goes, zach, she goes, your scores are on borderline ocd, so you gotta be really careful.

And she kind of gave me some of the same things that you said, which I just remembered.

And she.

But she told me, she said, but you're actually.

You're really smart, and I hope you take this seriously.

I think you can go really far and do really well.

And up until that point, like, I was a freshman in college or maybe a sophomore in college, I never thought of myself as, like, really smart.

But again, same thing.

She saw something in me that I couldn't see in myself.

And I think back over my life and I go, and maybe that's why I'm even doing this, right?

Because I just go, yeah.

I mean, knowing where I came from and where I ended up, and I can tie back.

I think God was sovereign over it all, but he put these people in my life who saw something that I couldn't see.

And.

And I just think that's so powerful.

And I think that's ultimately.

Like, when I think, what is Jack doing?

You say that you help people find their superpowers.

Or earlier on the call, you said greatness.

And is that really what you're doing?

You're just.

I mean, you're, like, professionally getting to see in people what they can't see themselves.

I'm doing my best because I think it's hard to get that accurate a picture of yourself from the world around you.

You know, people are so superficial.

They don't see each other very deeply.

Interesting.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So do you think.

Do you think it's.

Because earlier you said, like, we get.

You said we gotta stop worrying what people think about.

Do you think so?

Because I'm trying to, like, how do I turn this into something that somebody listening to this can.

Can really use and benefit from?

Do you think one of those things would be if you are constantly worried about what other people think about you, then it's hard for people to see your greatness because you've got, like, a veil over it.

Right?

It's true.

And you've got to be around people that have insight, people who really can look beyond the superficial, look beyond just having fun or getting a beer or Screwing around on the weekend or, you know, going fishing and just pass in time.

Which brings nothing wrong with any of that stuff.

It's just.

There's more.

Yeah.

It brings up another thing I read that you had said and you.

I think you.

You couch it or coin it, vanilla people, right, this, right this idea that, like, their pursuits, there's not a lot of depth to them.

And.

And then another one that I know that you had referenced, but I believe it comes from Warren Buffett when it says, like, the real measure of how well you lived your life is when you're on your deathbed, how many people love you.

Right.

And it sounds like that's kind of what you're saying, is you gotta be around people who genuinely love you, who know you deeply, who you can be transparent and authentic with.

You have a business, don't you?

Yes.

What's your business?

Well, my primary business is in commercial real estate.

And what is your goal in commercial real estate?

The great question.

I think primarily the goal that we have is to give people safe places, healthy places to live and work.

We do commercial, we do multifamily, and ultimately, I think, to help build a better community.

I think that a lot of times landlords get a bad rap and sometimes that's know that's a fair assessment.

But I think that most of the landlords, most of the developers, most of the management companies are really out there and they're actually trying to do a good job, trying to give people safe, clean places to live and businesses places where they can thrive.

And so I would say that, you know, at the end of the day, that's.

We, we want to be a positive influence in our community that way.

Are you good at it, the real estate business?

Yeah, I think so.

Do you know what your edge is?

Yeah, I think my edge is that I think that I'm good at.

I think I'm a good communicator.

I think I'm good at building relationships.

I think that people who know me well know that I care and that I really am trying.

Do you.

Do you do well with the details?

Well, I. Yeah, I do really well with details, but I don't necessarily love spending all my time in them.

Yeah.

One of the things that distinguishes you is you're compulsive.

Right.

You take a lot of responsibility to get it right, and you're really good at the details.

And not many people have that.

Sure.

Now, most people, I would imagine, are in commercial real estate because they want to make a good living.

Yeah, of course.

Do you make a good living.

Yes.

Is that enough for you?

No.

Okay.

That's the missing piece, Right?

Right.

That's the missing piece.

You're making a good living, you're successful, you've done a good job.

But is there more in you?

Definitely.

That's why you're doing a podcast.

Yes.

It's fascinating.

You could just be hanging out with your buddies right now, but you're doing this because you know there's more and you want the more.

Yeah.

Can I ask you a question about that?

Since I'm.

Since I'm the guinea pig.

So one of the things I've thought about so many times is.

Is like, if.

If I'm dotting all the T's, crossing all.

Or if I'm dotting all the I's, crossing all the T's, on paper, it looks like, you know, why.

Why wouldn't he just be content with doing that?

There's always been this part of me that's like, okay, but if I'm just out there trying to train people how to do what I've done to get to where I am today so they could feel the way I've been feeling, am I really helping them?

And listen, I don't want that to sound like I'm not grateful or that I haven't been super blessed or that we haven't made an impact, but I think sometimes what I'm really wrestling with is.

Is.

And I think that's why I resonate with you so much, maybe, is because to me, I go, like, all of that stuff is.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it's like there is something beneath the surface.

There's a current underneath that, you know, and this is a total aside.

But now you start talking about AI and some of the tech changes and stuff, it's like.

And I think what everybody is longing for.

You asked me before we hit record, doesn't everybody want something, desire something?

Yes.

And I just feel like part of it is we want our humanity.

Like, humanity is a place where there's love, where there's connection, where there's, you know, where there's.

We rely on each other, we need each other.

And so it's like, I'm.

And, yes, part of that is the marketplace, and part of that is innovation and all these things.

But if all of that comes at the cost of our ability to just be human with each other and to connect on this deeper level, then.

Then to me, it was like, literally like the Bible says, what is it?

What does it profit Us, if we gain the whole world and lose our soul or lose our connection or lose our humanity.

And so I think that I'm having a hard time threading the needle between, you know, like, I don't think it's either or.

I think it's both.

And.

And in my vision, like, where do I want to go?

Where am I going?

I hope that where I'm going is to a place where I say we.

We can still pursue the greatness, we can still pursue innovation, we can still pursue provision, but we.

We can't do it at the cost of our own soul or at the cost of, you know, our ability to connect with each other.

Do you have a message that the world needs?

Oh, I hope so.

Yes or no?

Yes or no?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I think so.

Yes.

Do you take that message to the.

World of real estate in tiny little pieces?

Yes, you do.

Is it a big enough platform to satisfy the calling of the message?

No.

No.

So is that what you're doing now?

Are you trying to find and build the platform bigger than commercial real estate?

Nothing wrong with commercial real estate.

It's great.

But something bigger for the message?

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

It does satisfy you to be doing that?

Yeah, Yeah, I love it.

Yeah.

Say that again.

Yeah.

And I love it.

I love it.

Yeah.

So I'm 75 years old and I do what I do because I love it.

It's deeply satisfying to me to talk to each individual I talk to.

And what do you think?

What do you think underneath that satisfaction, like, for you?

What.

What.

Is there something in particular that you love about it?

It's my greatness.

It's where my greatness shows up.

You know, I'm an ordinary, regular guy, except not doing that.

And when I'm doing that, I'm in my greatness.

I'm extraordinary.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

That's cool.

So for Jake, if you were talking to Jake and he's like, I don't know.

I don't know what my greatness is.

I don't even know where to look for my greatness or how to find my greatness, what would you tell him?

I'd say, look for the breadcrumb.

You know, look for.

For some people, they find moments of their greatness.

They stumble on them.

They.

They had a conversation that lit them up.

They had a teacher that talked to them about something in them that they've never forgotten.

They had a job that they were doing that they absolutely loved and they've forgotten.

So look for the clues.

Ask the people in your life, the people who love you.

What's great about me, what's magical about me?

Most people get scared because they, they're afraid that if they discover this, they're not going to be able to make themselves go back and pull the plow.

Yeah,.

But there's something bigger.

They shouldn't think of it as an either or.

Either I keep doing what I'm doing or I'm poor.

They ought to think of it as if I found to my greatness, I might make more money, but I'll certainly be more satisfied.

Hmm, that's good.

So when you go into businesses.

Cause I know part of what you do is you do, you know, you go into businesses and you help.

I would assume at the, at the C suite level, how does that, you know, like for somebody that's running an organization and then they've got people working for them and maybe a bunch of those people aren't working in their greatness.

How does this mentality.

Cause that's another thing that I have a great interest in is like, in the, in the organizational world, how do we apply these individual principles in, in a, in an overarching organization to a point where, like, the people who are working there can feel like, yeah, I'm in my greatness.

Even though, you know, we know that there's.

Every business has some roles that maybe aren't the most enjoyable or the sexiest or whatever it might be.

It's like, how does somebody know, one, as an organization, how to create that in their culture, and then two, as an individual, like you said, when, when is it worth.

When am I supposed to just quit doing this in order to pursue this.

This greatness somewhere else?

Well, you know, in some ways, when we're talking about a person, we're talking about their soul.

You know, how awake is a person's soul, how thriving is a person's soul.

And there are a lot of people who are just getting by.

They're just treading water.

They're not really very alive at all.

But the more alive a person gets, the more powerful they're going to become.

The same is true of a company.

A company has a soul too.

You know, if everybody's scared and they're pretending to be what they're not, and they're all just getting through to get the next paycheck, the soul of the company is going to shrivel up and its power is going to be lost.

If you can wake up your people, you can get them to be who they really are.

You can Teach them what their greatness is.

You can let them craft their job around what they're gifted to do.

That company is just going to take off.

It is going to be unstoppable.

So for me, it's about waking people up inside a business.

First the CEO and the C suite, then the next level, then the next level down, the next level down till it gets down to the truck drivers and forklift operators.

That's good.

I love the.

The more alive you are, the more powerful you are.

How true, I think that you can even just see it, right?

Like in your own life, when you feel alive, you just know there's a vigor there.

And when you feel like the life's getting sucked out of you, that vigor disappears.

Does.

I got one more question.

I don't know if I don't.

I don't know if anybody's asked you this before.

I don't know if.

If anybody any.

And I'm not asking you to answer it in a detail, but I read on, I read online that you had had an experience when you were 15 that shaped kind of who you are and what you do and how you see the world.

And I'm not asking you to share what that experience was, but maybe just, you know, 15, that's like, pretty young to have that kind of an experience.

Can you tell us anything about it?

I'll tell you the whole story.

Oh, all right.

So at the end of the school year, I met this girl and I.

She's my first girlfriend, really had a big interest in this girl, but she was going to the beach to babysit for a family, and I was afraid somebody would steal her away from me because I was a very insecure guy.

And she told me the only time I could be with her in the summer was at a camp.

And it was in the middle of the summer.

So I go to this camp, and it turns out it's a Christian camp.

And I was really angry about that.

I felt like they had set me up.

They were trying to do something to me.

And I was not a religious person.

My family was not really a spiritual family.

And so I resisted every rule at this camp.

I wouldn't stand up when they stood up and sang.

I would.

I held the girl's hand even though I wasn't supposed to.

I was a real jerk.

And the last night of the.

Of the camp, they had a little chapel meeting.

I was at the meeting, and they had something they call an altar call.

And the altar call is if you believe Jesus died for your sins, and want to be forgiven that get out of your seat and walk to the front of this little chapel.

And Zach, I'd say against my will.

I wouldn't have done this in a million years.

I hadn't thought about it.

I wasn't convinced of anything.

But I was out of my seat and I was walking to the front of this chapel, and I went out into this field and I had this amazing experience.

Like, all of a sudden, I saw life in a way that I'd never seen life before, thought I could ever see life.

A transformational, completely transformational experience.

And I didn't know what it was.

I didn't know what to make of it, and I didn't know anything about God.

But I made a deal with God that night.

And I said to God, I'll do whatever you ask me to do if you'll give me more of this experience.

And I started interpreting my life in terms of the deal.

And so they asked me to stay at the camp that I hated.

I thought, well, God's asking me to stay at the camp, so I'm going to stay at the camp.

And so that was really been the guiding light for my life since I was 15.

Not.

I haven't always faithfully following it, but it has been the path I've always come back to.

That's incredible.

So you're 15, and then did you go into professional clinical work first or the minister work, or did they happen at the same.

Like, how did that transpire?

Well, I came back from camp and I started going to church.

And within months, they were asking me, the youth, to be a youth director in a church.

I'd never read the Bible.

Now I'm a youth director at a church, and so I'm doing that.

And then another church asked me to assist the pastor.

So now I'm in the pulpit assisting the pastor.

Then he suggested I go to seminary.

I thought, God's asking me to go to seminary.

I had no intention or desire to do that, but I did it.

And I had to learn Greek and Hebrew and things that I had no aptitude for.

And.

And so then I started a church because that's what you do when you.

When you've been trained as a minister.

And the church grew, and then the church split.

And after the church split, I went back to school and got a PhD and learned that I had a unique gift.

So it was just.

It was like I was being led through this deal I had made with God.

I love that.

And I love.

And I know we.

I think we share this.

When I was getting out of college, I got asked to go on staff at this church that we were going to and, and I was really considering it.

And then my wife got offered a job back home where we had grown up and just felt like that was the, the right move.

And so I didn't go on staff.

And for now, 25 years, you know, I've spent time wondering, you know, was I supposed to go on staff that day or that at that time.

Because at one point you told me I was a preacher, you know, like in our, in our work you are.

And, but it's real similar because I think that what I feel like God was leading me to is like there's lots of great pastors in the professional ministry, in the buildings and leading the congregations, and yet I just have this viewpoint that like, that's great, but our real work is to be done, you know, in the non, not inside those four walls like in the marketplace and you know, in our sports teams and, and in the places that we congregate in normal life.

And, and I just love that like you're working in like I think about what you're doing in the business community and with business leaders and, and all the people that you work with as it is ministry, right?

It's ministry in the sense that you get to, to take all that stuff that God prepared you with and for, and you're applying it outside of what, you know, most people would consider professional ministry.

And yet I just think like, but that's where, that's where it's needed the most.

And I've never gotten a sense from you and I hope I don't come across this way either.

Like I'm trying to convince anybody of anything.

Right.

One of my favorite marketers, Dean Jackson, I don't know if you ever heard of him, but he says a compelling offer is always insurmountably more powerful than a convincing argument.

And that's good.

Isn't that good?

It's very good, yes.

And so to me that's, you know, I think when you ask what is the bigger message?

I think I'm still trying to figure that out.

But, but I think a huge part of it is if, if the stuff that we say works inside the four walls, only works inside the four walls, then it doesn't really work.

And so I just want to help hopefully be a part of having conversations with folks like yourself and with my brother in law Jake, and with other guys and gals that are on a journey.

I don't think any of us are standing here saying we have all the answers by any means.

But I just wanted to tell you that I, I really appreciate, appreciate what you're doing and I hope that everybody who's listening or watching really got something helpful out of there, useful out of there.

If I'm going to do a plug for you here, Jack, but if you're watching this and, and you're like, I think just like me, I think I got to talk to that guy, would you just tell him how to find you and what that looks like?

Yeah, the easiest thing is the website check, Jack.

Skeen S J-A C K S K-E-E-N.com or you can reach me at my email, which is the letter j skenegroup.net awesome.

Well, thanks, Jack.

And for those of you who are still here, we appreciate you being here, as always.

Would love it if you would share this with a friend if you got something out of this or there's somebody in your life while you're going, hey, I know they've been wrestling with that and I think they'd really benefit from this.

Would you just share it with them?

And if you haven't already, we'd love it if you'd subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to this and we'll see you next time.