I began, as I began to research this fear thing and how debilitating that is, it became
more and more apparent to me that that's actually where most people live now.
In America, 70% of young people between the ages of like 18 to 30 are saying that fear
is like their number one problem.
Well what an exciting thing.
I just want to say as we jump in here and start to digest this book, for me it's a proud
moment even though I didn't write it.
This has been a labor for you, but just living it with you over the last five years and the
inspiration that's come behind it and now we're going to dig in and talk about it.
So really exciting.
It really is, Ryan, because it has been such a, it feels like a long journey to me because
it really started with COVID and I started thinking about some of these concepts.
It's been four plus, almost five years of research and work and you've been a part of
every aspect of it as the executive pastor of the Road Church.
I mean, we're together at least five days a week, all the time.
We've been doing that for 10 years.
Yeah, it's fun to see, like just as the words have taken shape on the page, but just from
practical principles, daily disciplines and all of that, and just you modeling that and
leadership at the Road for us and all the staff.
So really excited that this is now moving into the community.
Here's a picture of the book that is being released and is released now and just so excited
to get this out in the hands of folks and see how it's going to start transforming lives
because it's just so practical and very user friendly.
So I was going to jump in.
What is a habit?
What does that mean to you as you would define it?
Great question.
I think a habit is a routine.
It's an action, something you don't necessarily do it daily, but you consistently do something
to the degree that it becomes automatic.
So it's kind of like driving home.
Sometimes when I drive home and I pull into the driveway, I don't remember the entire
trip from wherever I was because it's so automatic.
And what's so great about habits is at first they're hard, but they get easier because
they become so much a part of your routine and the actions that we start to have, as
it were, the ability to not even have to think about something, but it's still forming
our character.
It's still forming our life.
And so that's why habits are so important.
But to be honest, Ryan, I didn't think that much about it.
I'm a very disciplined person.
So are you.
Both of us were collegiate athletes.
So we already know about discipline and the importance of discipline.
So I knew about habits, seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey was a big
book in my life in the seventies.
I began to understand through research that habits were so crucial in our lives in a more
defined way.
Yeah, I love that and bringing it down practically for people just to have those small bites
at a time.
But then even you do such a good job in this and it's going to be fun to explore as we
go on in the journey.
But where you're tying biblical principles to the habits that can really resurrect, reform,
and transform our daily lives.
So we're getting into that.
I want to jump back, go a little bit about maybe what was the inspiration?
What kind of drove you?
Because we were talking a little bit about even one day, I think we're sitting by the
fire pit and you go, man, I feel like God's putting this book on my heart.
And it was the early inception and embryonic phases of Breakthrough Courage.
Walk us through a little bit about maybe what was driving you in that season to create this?
Well, remember COVID, remember how our church went through that and everybody did all over
the world, not just in America, but here in Colorado being in a state where there were
some mandates laid down for us, even as churches to shut down.
And so what we did, as you remember, because you were a part of everything was we began
doing identity research and studies and asking the question, is this really legit?
Or is this some kind of a control thing by kind of the government or the medical industry?
Well, we began to discover some things, right?
But I think it wasn't that that was the inspiration.
It was more the fear.
It was a fear I saw in people and the fear I saw in even Christians and even pastors.
Yeah.
They were so fearful.
Right.
And as I began to research this fear thing and how debilitating that is, it became more
and more apparent to me that that's actually where most of it came from.
people live now. In America, 70 percent of young people between the ages of like 18 to 30
are saying that fear is like their number one problem. And ideations with suicide,
drug addiction, depression, anxiety, and even agoraphobias and panic are a big part of those
20-year-olds, even into the mid-30s. And I would like to think, you know, these people should be
kind of the most fired up about their life. They should be the most idealistic,
they should be the most excited. I mean, 18 to 25, 18 to 30?
That's right. I'm thinking about my age.
You get to my age and I can see where some people start going, well, it's kind of,
I'm a loser, you know, like I really haven't done anything with my life. But I always,
I remember my 20s being very exciting, kind of thinking of the adventure, what I was going to do
and stuff. So that's pretty sad. And Harvard even had a study that I talk about in the book that
shows that we are the most fearful nation since World War II. So this is the worst we've been
since World War II. And I can't even imagine the comparison, because if you know anything
about history, you realize the whole world was worried and fearful that Hitler and the Russians
were going to take over the world. And to think that we're at that same level now is pretty bad.
So I just began to do research on it. I looked at it scientifically. I looked at what the studies
were about fear that were out there, because I didn't want to be, I didn't want to pastor a
church that was built on fear. And so that was the genesis of the book, was just looking at fear.
I kind of started with fear. I didn't start with courage. I started with fear and asking the
question, why are so many people stymied by this and paralyzed by this emotionally, mentally,
and even physically? So COVID stirred up the soup and kind of what was blatantly down on the bottom
of culture kind of rose up. And I went, wow, I'm a pastor. I'm a leader. I'm a father to my
congregation. I owe it to them and to myself and to my family to figure this thing out.
So that was when the concept of how we walk by courage began to manifest itself. I like what
Winston Churchill said, speaking of World War II, but Winston Churchill, the former prime minister
Britain says, you know, fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.
Love that.
It's really, there you go. I mean, that to me was like, when I, when I saw that, that,
that was certainly a part of a paradigm shift in me.
Yeah. I mean, and it makes sense. And I love that, you know, you were attacking it from,
and the way I've thought about this is just that fear and courage are really two sides of the same
coin. And you referenced that here that there is this intertwining, there's connectivity here.
I think of fear, and we've talked about this, is fear is the economy of, you know, Satan's kingdom
and courage is the equity of God's kingdom as he tries to inspire his creation in that.
So how do we fight that? And then you even referenced here, and we've heard how many
times the Bible says, do not fear, do not be afraid. Right?
144 times.
144 times. And then courage, I think it was like 114.
Exactly.
So there's something to that for our makeup, our design, intuitively, God,
our creator knows that we need to be encouraged.
That's right.
And then even starting out the introduction here, and Joshua is going to be kind of a
theme running through the book, but his life, his narrative, and all the things he's called to do.
That's right.
And then the things that we face on the landscape, it's so interesting as you're talking about
the demographic that's getting hammered right now in society. And I'm thinking about myself,
when I was that age, and the same thing. It's like life's in front of me, all the goals,
all the desires, the dreams, and you're full of life.
That's right.
You're not so much in the rear view mirror yet, checking out your wounds and what you took your
good licks on and where you learned from some big failures, those are yet to come. But to see
kind of things held hostage by this narrative of fear that just is permeating our culture.
It's true.
Timing of your book, just to revitalize, bring breath, bring life, bring encouragement
into our community and influence us.
So Ryan, to support what you're saying and to give maybe anecdotal data to the idea of fear,
I was meeting with the assistant to the mayor of Colorado Springs about six months ago. So the mayor
had been elected. We had had the debate of the two mayoral candidates here at our church.
So I was meeting with his assistant, because he used to be a pastor.
And I asked him, I said, what do you think is the number one problem, or the number one
issue in Colorado Springs that needs to be addressed?
And he said, mental health.
And then he said, fear.
So here we are in a very, I would consider our city a very successful city.
We're on the up and up.
I mean, we are a city that is continually growing, one of the fastest growing cities
of middle size in the United States, number one destination, U.S. News and World Report
last year, I think we were number one for people moving to a city.
And I think we're like number one or number two as the most healthy environment in the
United States.
So Colorado Springs is a up and coming, very cool place to move to.
He said, the biggest issue is mental health and fear.
So that just shows you how pervasive this is.
And all that COVID did was sort of, like I said, kind of stir up the soup and show things
kind of came to the top that I think, and all I can do is speak for me, I was unaware
of.
Well, it caught us by surprise.
I think a couple things jump out in the book initially.
And then just to support what you were saying, too, I had read a stat that supporting Colorado
Springs as a city, I think we were in the top five of the educated.
So I think we had per capita, one of the top five cities in the country with people living
here with PhDs.
So not only are we an up and coming city, we're a highly educated per capita city.
And yet fear is just looming over the background and narrative in people's hearts and minds.
So very telling.
And another stat that a lot of people don't know is that we were the number at least a
few years ago.
I don't know now, but we were the number one city for suicide among youth in the state
of Colorado.
Absolutely.
That's tragic.
Isn't that crazy?
So here we are, everything we're saying, and talk about bringing it down to the young people,
number one, with suicide ideation and suicide, actually successful, if you can call it that,
successful suicides in our city.
And we seem to be a city where that shouldn't be true, but it is.
And what's interesting, I want to point out in the book is that, you know, that stat leads
five years prior to COVID.
So for the last decade, right, this has been kind of coming in and impermeating our society.
But I think COVID gave us the microscopic lens.
There was already a fracture happening in humanity.
And COVID just deepened that and revealed more of that.
People staying at home, the isolation, all the stats we've read, how unhealthy that was,
the mental health continuing to decrease.
So yeah, all the more reason, be obedient with what God was putting on your heart and
developing these nine habits to live from.
So good.
I was going to jump in.
I want to read a quote here and kind of moving back into this concept of habits.
Habits harness time and energy.
Time is the currency of purpose.
This means that our purpose and destiny are largely determined by the habits we develop.
So powerful.
And really just stopping and pausing on that.
And even just interflexion to say, let me take inventory of my own life.
Where are habits that need to be either strengthened and develop more?
What are habits that need to be stopped?
And what are habits that I need to start entirely, right?
So thinking through that lens as we go through this.
Well, everybody's got the same amount of time.
Not everybody has the same amount of energy, but purpose is reflected more by how you use
your time than you even know.
So, so many people have a purpose, they say, to be a success in some field.
I see this a lot with musicians.
We have a lot of musicians in this church and they're young people and they want to
be worship leaders, let's say.
But then they don't practice, okay?
So they don't actually put in the time to be a worship leader of a congregation, which
is, they say that's their purpose.
That's not their purpose.
You don't, you don't ask people what their purpose is.
You look at their life and the way they live their lives, that's their purpose.
So if a person says that, I'm not sure about my purpose right now, I'm kind of in flux.
That's such a good answer, right?
And if I was talking to them or counseling them as a young person, I would say, well,
probably going to be important for you at some point to find that.
And then you've got to begin to develop habits that get you towards your purpose.
Because that's, that's what a habit is.
It harnesses time and energy.
Then it begins, not all at once,
but it gradually begins to define your purpose.
It begins to move you in that direction incrementally.
So that's why I like to say,
when I said this in the book, in the introduction,
I said, look, it's not really
where you're at right now that matters.
Right, yeah, that's a great point.
It's more your trajectory.
It's more the trajectory of your life.
So you say, well, I wanna be an engineer.
And you're starting school and everything,
you're struggling with classes and engineering
and everything, and you kinda wonder
if you can really cut it, if you can really do it.
But you're, don't look at that.
But are you in a trajectory,
at least headed in the right direction?
Because incrementally, you'll get smarter.
Incrementally, you'll get stronger.
Incrementally, you'll start understanding
concepts better, right?
So it's more the trajectory of someone's life
than it is where they're currently at.
Because too many people look at currently
where they're at and get really, really discouraged.
And I wanna challenge them, think,
what's God putting on your heart
of what you wanna become?
And then start incrementally on that.
So true, I love that because,
especially with where we're unpacking this
at the beginning of the year.
So many people are goal setting,
gym memberships go through the roof the first of the year.
And then they have, it's actually a thing now
where it's like national quit day,
which the second Friday of the year,
people have already tapered off
whatever they wanted to start.
And probably because they go right out,
pull too much, lift too much, get too sore.
And that just discourages.
So this concept of do a little a lot
and do it often is so key.
I heard somebody say, like,
you wanna start going to the gym,
set your alarm clock, get up, get dressed.
Okay, that's day one.
Okay, day two, get up, get dressed,
step into the gym, go home.
And then maybe day three,
then you're actually gonna go pick up a weight.
And so it's just kind of exactly what you're saying,
where building these small shifts,
these small changes that add up over time.
And in the book, you reference,
I think you give the example
of what even it is financially,
this concept of the mathematics of compound interest.
That's right.
And it's so huge.
I think it's a great analogy.
And it's like, they call it the miracle of compounding.
Yeah, that's true, yeah.
Because a little bit saved here and there,
at first, everything you have in savings
is just the principle.
And then you add a little bit more to the principle,
and there's that much more that can compound,
that can multiply.
And so a little, a little, a little becomes a lot.
So that's the way I look at it.
Now, I guess the way I might taper what that quote
or what that illustration you gave
was as far as going to the gym and everything
would be, don't go to the gym.
Okay, don't even go to the gym.
Just get out of bed and do one pushup,
and then go take a shower.
And the next day, do three pushups.
And so start, if it's physical exercise you're going after,
just do something.
And then maybe for you, it's going to the gym,
and maybe for somebody else,
it's just simply going into the living room
and doing a few pushups and sit-ups,
but consistently doing it.
That's my story.
On the physical side,
it was just me getting up in the morning
and realizing, man, I'm making this way harder
than it needs to be.
Because we live in Colorado,
and it's cold in the morning a lot of times.
Get in the car, drive to the gym.
That means I've got to have all my stuff there,
take a shower, then come to work and all that.
Okay, that's too much.
I'll never sustain that.
But I can sustain getting out of bed,
getting on the floor right at the end of my bed,
and pumping out 10 pushups,
and then 10 sit-ups, and then 10 air squats one time.
And then it's two sets, and then it's three sets.
And so that's kind of how I see it.
And so it is, it's like you said,
and it's in the book,
a little done a lot is better than a lot done a little.
It reminds me of a quote that I've often loved
and reflected on myself to define
kind of what we're talking here a little bit about
is these habits.
And the quote is,
action is the most important thing.
And so action describes who a person is.
Words describe who they want to be.
And so we've heard-
That's really good.
You and I have heard, right?
A lot of people just talk.
I love that.
Right, they just talk.
And then you see, let's put it into action then.
And that's really what habits are.
Yeah.
So good.
And that's why it's important,
as a parent, to raise your kids in a home
where there's some discipline, some boundaries for them,
because it's all about delayed gratification.
And as young-
People, we just want it now.
We want a lot now.
We don't really want to put in the time for it.
Every generation's been that way.
It's not unique to this generation.
That was true in my generation.
And that's why sports can be important and things like that,
because you have to keep showing up.
You're not just accountable to your parents.
You're now accountable to a coach.
And he doesn't give a rip.
If you don't want to show up, then you're off the team.
That's great discipline.
But that's developing little habits along the way
that can have an impact later.
No, that's absolutely true.
It's funny that, would you say that people
that have had maybe an experience in competitive sports
will have an edge up on digesting this versus never
competing or having that?
Yeah, I think that this is what I heard.
I heard that almost all of your top executives,
and even some of the wealthiest people in the world,
were collegiate athletes.
So it's really at the high percentage.
I think it's like 75% or 80% of your most successful people
were collegiate athletes.
Now, that's on a success continuum, right?
Sure.
But yes, if we go back and go, OK, they were this successful,
what made them successful, it was habits
that they harnessed their purpose around.
They harnessed their time, energy, and money around.
I wrote the book probably less for them.
Makes sense.
And maybe for people who've never learned that.
Because those guys, a lot of these, they've got it.
That's great.
Now, this is a spiritual aspect, too.
It's not just mental and emotional, but it's spiritual.
And that's what we'll talk about when we get to habit one,
because that kind of sets the pace
for the rest of the other nine habits.
But I'm looking for the person who feels defeated, who
feels like they're not doing so good in this.
I'm hoping that this will inspire them
to want to go after it.
Because they already have habits.
Right, they do, good, bad, or otherwise.
Everybody in this room, you guys that are filming everything,
we all have habits.
That's right.
But there's good habits, there's bad habits.
There it is.
There's quality habits, and there's kind of lame habits.
But we're all living.
So we have the habit, let's say, every time we sit down
or we're waiting in line somewhere,
we pull out our phone, and we look at the latest social
network that you're on, Gossip.
So you're looking at that.
Or you've got a book with you, and you're reading a book.
You're working your way through an historical novel.
Or a biography, or something like that.
So everybody has habits.
But quality habits make a quality life.
Poor habits make a poor life.
Yeah, there was a great quote you have from the Green Bay
coach.
The Lombardi?
Lombardi, yeah.
Lombardi is super good.
And it's so true.
It's about the type of habits and what they develop in us.
And one way or the other, they're
either developing good character or bad character.
It's kind of that reaping what you sow concept, which
is obviously biblical as well.
That's right.
So stepping into that, I had a question.
Is when you were laying this out and having read the book,
you can see where they incrementally
do build on each other.
And we'll go through how that concept is actually
lived out in the book and how we all build it.
But just to even restate what you said, reading this
and having been a collegiate athlete,
I mean, there's some muscle memory that you can touch on
and that you can go back to.
But even people who don't have that in their background,
this is like putting the cookies right on the low shelf.
And I think that's so practical and applicable for anybody
to pick up and start to develop better rhythms and better
habits in their life.
Well, I hope so.
Yeah.
I mean, I hope so because, first of all,
I'm not like some sophisticated writer anyway.
But I made it for, I wrote it for men and women.
It's interesting.
I feel like that men get disciplined
when they get their job.
Like whenever they get that first job after college,
if they went to college or after high school,
if they're not going to go to college,
but that job sort of harnesses their habits and stuff.
I feel like with women, there is something
that's of the spiritual nature within them
that seems to get habits, good habits, quality habits earlier.
It's interesting how much better women
do in school in an academic setting than most men do.
It's different for all of us, but my hope
is that it's inspirational enough for someone to say,
man, I want a quality life.
I want to understand what my purpose is.
And then I'm going to.
I'm going to harness my destiny through how I spend my time,
even if it's just an incremental small change,
I'm going to bring some small changes into my life.
And I know they're going to reach,
they're going to reach a new place,
a new level of quality just by doing a little bit a lot.
Yeah.
For those that are tuning in real quick,
what would you say, and the stat on,
how long does it take to form a habit?
Oh man, so the smallest number I've seen is 21 days.
Yeah.
So when we wrote worshiper warrior up here,
that was a 21 day devotional because of that.
Then you read others, they say 30.
Okay.
And then with whole heart 45,
which is our big thing that we're doing,
we do every year at the road,
church at the beginning of the year,
which involves the emotional, the mental, the physical,
that whole thing for 45 days.
Well, that 45 days wasn't random.
I'd seen another study that said 45 days.
Yeah.
Which is almost double the 21, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So anywhere between 21 and 45 days
seems to be kind of the marker.
If you can do something for about three or four weeks,
if you're seeing the benefit of it, you'll keep doing it.
If you can do it for 21 to 45 days,
you're going to, you've probably developed a new habit.
So true.
And that's,
it's not that long, Ryan.
No.
Think about your whole life in front of you,
all the stuff that we have to do with our job
and with getting married and family and all that.
For sure.
What's 21 to 45 days to get something going like that?
That's pretty amazing.
And to your point, like we all have the same amount of time.
It's that first, maybe that initial discipline
of sitting down and dissecting your time on a daily basis
to find that, it's not that we're finding time,
we're just maybe better utilizing where we do have space.
If we're completely honest with ourselves,
how much time do we waste?
You know, the weekly conviction of,
oh, last year or last week,
you had this many hours on screen time.
You're like, yeah, okay, there's room.
There's space in my life to carve and make space for this
and bring it tangible.
And that is nice.
I mean, so when you set out to start a new habit
and you start to experience the positive net results,
that is very motivational.
And it becomes very tangible for you to want to continue.
It has to become intrinsic at some point,
not just extrinsic.
I give that illustration of Japanese, learning Japanese.
So I was in Japan.
I'm a missionary in Japan.
I'm working with college students
and I'm not naturally gifted at languages.
So the only reason I passed Spanish in high school
is because my gymnastics coach was my Spanish teacher
and he needed me to pass in order for me to compete.
So he made, he just,
he did some things that were interesting
to make sure that I passed.
So I go to Japan and I know that I'm not gonna be as good
as everybody else probably.
So I, in my mind, I thought,
well, I like being with people.
I enjoy conversation, enjoy talking.
It's a talking habit.
It's a language, right?
I'm not learning it on paper.
I have to actually communicate it.
So I came up with this little scheme of every day
going to the college campus and finding Japanese students
that wanted to talk to a foreigner American in Japanese.
And that was easy peasy because every Japanese student
wants to meet an American and wants to,
they especially want to meet an American
who's interested in their culture.
So I started doing that.
So that was easy.
Then the hardest thing about Japanese for Americans
is the grammatical structure of the sentences,
but you don't learn it by just memorizing it.
You actually have to practice it.
So then I made it a vow, kind of made a personal vow.
I'm gonna get in a habit of trying a new grammatical
sentence structure each week.
So here's what I'm doing.
Dialogue, 10 minutes a day, five days a week,
and then one grammatical sentence structure challenge
during the entire week.
So then the next week it's a second one
and a third one like that.
Nice.
That's great.
And it really worked well.
And I became fluent in the language.
What I learned, which I think's a key part of habits,
and this is part that I don't see anybody writing about,
but I think it's more, it's identity.
Yeah.
You gotta have an identity shift
before it's gonna really become you.
It has to become you.
If it's just an extrinsic thing you're doing
to lose weight or an extrinsic thing to,
I don't know, study something,
whatever the habit might be that you're in.
It's from the outside coming in,
which is a good start, by the way.
Yeah.
Like I started with that.
But then I learned that I had to feel the language.
English. I had to even become almost like a Japanese, I had to become a Japanese in
my heart. I had to understand the way they think and the way they feel in order to flow
linguistically with the way in which they talk. And, you know, one of the most complex
languages in the world is English. And English is really felt. It's actually grammatically,
it's very, very complex and difficult. You don't even know, and I don't even know how
complex what we say are, but you would if you had to learn it as a second language,
right? So Japanese don't learn English very well most of the time because of that. And
we don't learn, Americans don't learn Japanese, the language very well either, because it's
a feel, it's an identity. You got to start identifying with the language through the
culture, through the people. So I feel like habits are that way. That's really good. Habits
have to become you. You have to begin to say, that's what I do. That's who I am. And as you
do that, you won't lose it. I mean, it's harder to lose because that's who you are. I think that's
what men and women who are alcoholics struggle with. That's what men and women are coming off
drugs, you know, struggle with. Their identity is being an alcoholic. Their identity is being a
drug addict. And so somehow they've got to break that and begin to see themselves differently. And
that is not who I am. That's huge. Okay. I'm a child of God. I'm a spirit-filled believer. I'm
a king. I'm a priest. I'm a son of God. I'm a daughter of God. And amazing things happen when
you have this identity shift. Yeah, I love that in the book. And it was going into saying things
out loud. There's this audible declaration, this belief system, this narrative that's changed in
us. And I think that's so powerful that because we see spoken word in God's biblical creation and
design of our world, and it's a spoken word. And so there's power in the spoken tongue over our
minds, over our identities. And so many times, so many of us live in a narrative that's been
spoken over us, whether we've created that right. That's a really good point. Bad habits in our
lives are just things that we've believed in a narrative that's been given to us. Yeah. The
speech center is at the very beginning of God saying, let there be light. So here we are, very,
very beginning of Genesis. That's the first action God begins to create. But the way he
creates is interesting. He creates by speaking into existence what's not there. So it's not
there. We get all caught up in the virgin birth of Jesus. But what about the virgin creation of
the universe? That's a little bit bigger than the virgin birth. So the virgin birth of the
universe was spoken into existence. And so that's why I have those declarations in the book with
each habit where you have to declare each day, 10 times that particular habit that you're
developing. I love that. Creating that habit, that discipline, and kind of rewiring the brain
and the narrative that calls us into, I think, unity with God's kingdom as he's seeing us. We're
now coming into alignment audibly with him. I think that he's got to just be smiling when he
sees his creation respond like, yeah, that is how I've always seen you. That was your original
intent and design over your life. And so thank you for stepping into that. Yeah. It's kind of how I
picture him maybe responding in those moments. Yeah. So super good. Kind of back to Japan and
thinking through as we talk about fear and then embracing the courage with these concepts. You
know, you're new on the landscape. You're already wrestling with maybe, you know, your limitations
with foreign language, but there's a desire. Was there some fear that stepping onto a campus and
engaging initially, I mean, before there was this positive feedback, you had to face some fears. I'm
going into a foreign land, into a foreign country with foreign gods, and I'm bringing my God, the
truth of the Christian walk, the gospel of the kingdom. And you're trying to learn how to
communicate that to these, these precious people. Huge, huge fears. Wow. Because I just had such
fear of failure. And I felt like I'm going to look like an idiot out here. I'm trying to stammer
through this language and, and then to try to talk to students who come out of a Shinto Buddhist
background to start thinking about Christ. Right. Pretty hard. Yeah, it was pretty hard. But, you
know, you don't raise support because
missionary by wimping out over every little fear you have.
True.
So I kind of overcame it quick, and then I began to enjoy it.
Yeah, that's clear.
That's awesome.
I want to jump back to this quote you have in here
from James Clear, super good.
Author of Atomic Habits, New York Times bestseller,
the quality of our lives often depends
on the quality of our habits.
With the same habits, you'll end up with the same results.
But with better habits, anything is possible.
So let me tie that quote that you have,
and then maybe talk a little bit,
as you were crystallizing or distilling the habits you
wanted to focus on, was there a specific rhyme or rhythm,
or how did you land on these nine habits?
It was a labor of gradually understanding
what seemed to be the elements that God's
put in each one of us to build new habits in certain areas.
So I didn't come with any kind of preconceived notions
at all.
Matter of fact, I wasn't even thinking of writing a book.
I wasn't even thinking about nine habits.
I was just more looking at fear and trying
to see how do we overcome.
How do we overcome fear?
I remember overcome was a big word to me at the beginning,
like five years ago.
I was thinking overcome.
And then I realized, well, this is really about courage.
It's more about courage.
Liz is the one.
My wife is the one who came up with breakthrough courage,
because she knew for weeks, at least, maybe even a month,
I'm like, I need a title for this.
And she's the one who came up with breakthrough courage.
One morning when she woke up, she said, I got it.
Breakthrough courage.
And I was like, yeah, that's it.
But I wasn't thinking about habits at first.
And then I began to see habits really do define us.
Habits define us.
They do.
I don't care what you say.
I don't care what I say.
Look at my habits.
That's who I am.
So some guys say, well, I don't drink very much.
I'm not an alcoholic.
But they go, well, then stop.
Just stop drinking.
If that's causing all these problems in your life,
just stop drinking.
And then they can't, but they say they can.
As a dad, for me, kind of assessing how am I doing,
what's the measuring stick on fatherhood
with Ryan and his kiddos?
And I'm thinking, well, what habits do they
see me living out consistently?
Which caused me pause to reflect and say, well,
in my story in Family of Origin, where did I see good habits
modeled in my life?
And I went to my grandfather.
I saw my dad model really good habits
with people and relationships.
I saw my grandfather model really good habits
with just physical fitness.
And being able to do a lot of things
well into his late 80s or early 80s, late 70s,
where he was ahead of his demographic in mobility
and strength and all that.
I'm like, well, that was really inspiring.
So it just caused me to think, OK,
what habits am I modeling that hopefully my kids are
catching?
And so for you, as you thought through this,
people that inspired you in the areas of discipline and habits,
what would you say?
Very similar to you, Ryan, my dad.
I can still remember we were in Huntsville, Alabama.
He was planting a new church.
And I was in his room, and he's doing sit-ups and push-ups.
It's funny, I can just remember that like it was yesterday.
That's awesome.
That was a long time ago, right?
Yeah.
And then dad takes, you know, he's 93 years old right now,
and he walks almost a mile a day.
Wow.
So he just always has been a, and then time with the Lord,
I've seen with his Bible open there.
So I think I grew up in a very disciplined home.
That helped a lot.
And then I had good coaches.
You know, I hear kids talk about bad coaches.
I remember one bad coach in baseball, Little League,
football, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, wrestling,
these sports.
I had great coaches.
All of them were good models to me.
That's huge.
I think when I look at it and I think about what I'm modeling,
I didn't discover the habits that I wanted from all of them.
It came from like three or four different people
that I saw, right?
So my grandmother was the one who was really
faithful in the scriptures.
And I saw her studying God's word all the time
and taking copious notes.
It's really good.
And I love that, again, I just can't state enough,
just that it takes, we just need to find courage for us
to make the changes that we desire,
because we want different results.
And it's accessible to everybody.
We all have the ability to do this
if we'll just embrace, partner with God and His kingdom
to start making these incremental shifts in our lives
to see real results and real change.
Absolutely.
Super huge.
Absolutely.
I guess, what would you say your hope for the audience
as they pick this up, where would you
want to encourage them as they're even just getting
started?
As it's daunting, you know, we start to think about habits, and again, I'm thinking to the gym,
the driving, the daunting task, the cold weather of Colorado, but then how do we overcome maybe
some of those initial hurdles? Because every habit, one could say that there's a couple
hurdles before that's developed into a habit. First of all, everybody has fear. Everybody has
fear of something. It's a fear of never getting married. It's a fear of staying married. No,
but it can be that for some people, you know, but everybody's got fears about their ability
to be successful. I think there's a lot of fear of failure. There's a lot of fear of the shame
in our life. So my hope is that through these nine habits, men and women can replace the fear
with faith and courage. So like with Joshua, going into the promised land in Joshua chapter one,
he is full of fear. And yet God says to him four times, be strong and courageous.
And everybody's got a Jordan River. I mean, everybody's got a river of doubt. Everybody's
got a river of fear that God's calling them to cross over, to go for it, to break into their
promised land. So I believe that that's what God wants for every one of us is to cross that Jordan
River of doubt, the Jordan River of shame, the Jordan River of fear through developing a new
way of living, through harnessing your time through habits. Absolutely. I love that. We're
going to talk about bloodstained allies in the days ahead and those things, but I'm thinking
as Joshua in your illustration is getting initiated into the task ahead. He's first
initiated by Moses, kind of his coach. And he's watched Moses model it now for 40 years with these
people in the desert. And he's speaking it into him. He's like, you know, you're going to need
to be strong. You're going to be courageous. And then we see later in the book of Joshua,
where God does come back and stands on that encouragement from Moses, stamping it further
into the heart of Joshua. So for me, that was just a reminder of, you know, when we hear thoughts,
when we hear things and phrases in our mind, especially when we're trying to make change
and change the results, change the habits in our lives, that we start to maybe not replay the
negative narratives, but we start to focus on and think about the people that have spoken life and
positive things into our lives and really start to, you know, hang there, build the foundation,
start the foundation on that. There's people that have believed in me along the way, even when I
didn't believe in myself. And I just think that's huge as we start this process of journeying down
these nine habits. That's great. I'm excited to do it. I'm excited to do it with you. It's
going to be fun. It's going to be great.