All right. Welcome to Heart Check-In Monday night, May 5th of all things. May 5th. It's
May already. May 5th, 2025. Welcome all. And we missed last week. Although, was there
a little action last week? Was there?
Last Monday?
Yes.
Well, there was nothing.
Well.
I think a couple of us hung out in the call and just kind of.
Oh, did you? Okay. I missed some.
It was a good time. Yeah.
I wanted to.
We share dad jokes.
Nice. I wanted to recap that, if possible. So, Abram, did you end up doing, I sent you
my email late. I don't know if you saw that. He's looking for the unmute button while he's
at the Italian restaurant.
Can you guys hear me?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay. I'm on my phone for the first time ever. So, yeah. Yeah. So, I just went over like
some little financial tips about. Okay. Long story short. So, I'll try to do this fast.
So, can everybody hear me? Okay. So, if you shop at Target, right, they have a Target
credit card they offer. You get 5% back on all purchases. So, if you shop at Target,
go apply for the card. Amazon. Amazon has a credit card. You apply for the card, you
get 3% back if you use the card on all purchases on Amazon. All right. You shop on Amazon,
go get the credit card. All right. I have credit cards that I use to get 5% back on
my gas bill. So, every time I go get gas, the gas is never going down, guys. It's only
going to go up. I get 5% cash back using a credit card for my gas bill. I have another
credit card I use that when I spend it at grocery stores for food, I get 5% back. Now,
this is not going to work for all stores. So, for example, stores that are exclusive
to Big Box or Costco, Mark's, Target, these places, they have their own like little deals.
But if you go to a local grocery store, like I live out here in Fresno, California, so like
Save Mart or Food Max or Food Co or WinCo, if you use certain cards or whatever, they will
work at these places. You get 5% back on food. All right. So, this is free money that you're
going to spend anyways. It's running costs. And then I also use other credit cards to help me
save 5% on my utility bill. So, that's energy bill. I don't know about you guys, but that
could be anywhere from $200 to $800. I know folks that are spending a lot of money every month,
especially here in Fresno where it gets super hot. So, our AC bills get like crazy high.
So, utility bills, sewage, water, gas, internet apps, your phone bill.
I might be missing one other bill where you could use different credit cards,
use their rewards, get up to 5% back. Now, some credit cards will give you 1%, 2%,
but I figured out which credit cards that I can get the most percentage, the highest percentage
for the category. And if you guys probably know this already, but credit cards have different
categories, right? They have travel. So, like Dave, for you and Jackie, right? You guys,
you should be swiping cards on stuff. And that way you guys are in mileage points, right? So,
when you go on these trips, save you some money. Now, the catch is this. When it comes to using
all these credit cards, you have to pay the bill off every month, the whole bill.
Because you don't use the credit when you don't have the money. You're just using these cards
like a debit card, right? Where running costs, you're going to spend the money no matter what,
and you pay it off every month. So, number one, what does that do? You never incur interest,
right? These credit cards are 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%. It's unsecured. It's not a secured loan.
They have super high interest rates. So, you always pay it off every month. You never get
any interest rates, and you're constantly building your credit at the same time while
lowering your overall running costs. So, that's long story short.
Yeah, I love it. So, this is-
That's all I got.
As a disclaimer, this is Abrams' view of-
Yes, my individual view, not anybody in the community or this community's view.
This is my personal view.
Yeah, this is Abrams' advice that he wanted to pass along, share with us in terms of
what he does in order to cut corners, earn money, and do that on a-
on a wide scale yeah sounds like you can save or get cash back up to 20 25 30
percent if you total them all up on your on yeah I mean that could be that could
be one to two grand a year for somebody and if you're making 30 to 40 grand a
year that's a big deal you know if you're balling out making the 80 to 120
I mean that's a different story but you're an average person hey saving a
couple grand every year that's a big deal yeah yeah I can be sounds good
thank you for sharing that appreciate that and I yeah I do have the rewards
cards I've chosen Delta as my chosen traveler and we knock the heck out of
those cards and pay them off and all of our business stuff and everything so
yeah no it's definitely it's been an advantage to us for sure all right guys
welcome on here we got 12 guys it's really cool it's really great what is
going on we had a fabulous time in Cartagena Colombia and it was a last
trip single last week we had 13 ladies that were taking their last trip single
this was an opportunity for them to attend this event and just you know
they're meeting me and Jackie for the first time which a lot of them felt very
privileged and happy to do that but at the same time it was an opportunity for
them to meet the other ladies that came on the trip from the community some of
them had been with the community for a couple years actually one of one of the
ladies was really an OG with us and it was really cool meeting her in person
and we just felt like you know it's just a great opportunity to take a trip and
where you want to travel and go with people that you don't really know but
you kind of sort of know because you're in the same video community and but then
you could know them deeper and we just had a lot of fun and there were some
really cool spiritual moments we had some with some sort of like you know
artwork sessions that we did in person that was fun and some prophetic
activation we had a one of the evenings we have a the the girl there the woman
that does our trip she lives in Florida but she's originally from Cartagena and
she was born and raised there and she suggested Cartagena as this for this
trip last year and this year because of her you know local knowledge and she
does an incredible job of putting everything together the schedule we
don't think about anything she just we just do Angela whatever Angela tells us
to do we just do it and it's great she's got all the food arranged and some of
the meals are included and some of the so we went people went horseback riding
we did like spa days we took a boat to the Rosario Island and spent afternoon
and on a private island you know in our own little you know cabana and it was
just really cool we did a lot of cool fun stuff when they took salsa dancing
lessons and that night we went to the Havana like like live music Caribbean
sounds you know club and it was just really awesome and danced and we had a
rooftop dinner farewell dinner at the very end it was just really cool you
know Cartagena's you can do a lot of things for very cheap there and Angela
does a great job of putting that together and there was a local there's a
local lady that is also a part of our community that lives in Cartagena and
she's actually a speech therapist and so she is obviously speaks English and
Spanish she is a very elegant successful lady and she lives there some of the
places you would not believe like you think I don't know whatever you imagine
when I say Columbia everybody has an imagination in their mind like what that
looks like or what that means or what that what that feels like but Cartagena
is a coastal city and it is really Caribbean no so it's like really close
to the Caribbean I don't know if you know if you look at a map Columbia is
kind of on the north side of South America and this particular city is
right on the sort of a sort of the very top northern edge and it is a it is a
port city and it's got a very Colombian or excuse me it's a very Caribbean you
know
Captain Jack Sparrow sort of vibe to it's 500 year old city
We we stayed within the the walled city and that city is 500 years old
The Spanish built it way back when and it wasn't just an incredible experience, but the lady that's local
She put together
on her own accord
You rented the hotel room rented the little conference room and had a conference for locals
Spanish speaking there was about I think eight ladies that came that only speak Spanish. We wrote to hand out our
about 20 copies of her
La labor del corazón, which is the heart work in Spanish translated in Spanish
And we gave 20 copies of those away to those ladies and multiple copies
So they could give them their friends and so forth. And so we were just
Privileged to be there and minister to them speak to them
Jackie was sharing just the basic heart core the core heart work message and the last year single, you know
invitation to
To to do family and to do it well and to do marriage and do life well, and so it was really cool
they were really
transformed and
blessed by just the opportunity for us to minister to them and
And of course, that's Jackie
Imagine Jackie having to stop every five seconds as she's speaking and have an interpreter like do like
I don't know if you've ever spoke with an interpreter like you're doing the speaking and then you're being interpreted
but that's not easy, especially if you're used to used to speaking and used to just going and talking and
Stream of consciousness and then but you have to stop every five seconds to have somebody interpret what you're saying
So that that's not an easy task. So Jackie's, you know doing that and she did a great job
And so it's just a really great trip. So that's kind of where we were last week and it was all good and
people were really
Set free there was some deliverance and people were still doing some some some heart work
But mind shifts and heart shifts and all kinds of different things. So it's just really really cool. So
I've always said and maintained that
You open up a zoom
Online group and a thousand women will come and they'll just within five minutes share all their deepest darkest secrets
you know be willing to like open up and talk about a bunch of things and just be great about it and everything and and
Then then say hey, do you want to go on a trip? They're like, yes, of course. I want to go on a trip, right?
But you do the same thing to men and it's crickets
Men don't show up. They're like, no, I'm not doing that not showing up in the zoom. I'm certainly not talking about my feelings
I'm certainly talking about anything revealing anything or being vulnerable to anybody about anything, you know, especially on a zoom
So it takes a while for men to warm up to this whole even just coming together, you know sort of thing
I don't know if you guys know John Chris the comedian, but he has a whole bit about like, you know, you you
You sell out a women's event in two seconds and you can have the men's event on sale for 18 months and nobody ever signs
up for it I
Said but I I've always maintained if you take men out into the woods for the weekend
Handful of men out in the woods for the weekend, you know, you made friends for life
you know because there'll be there'll just be something about going out and doing
Killing something or just tear it up crap and burning stuff and whatever and having to survive
you know the
cold or whatever that just brings men together and
You know
You got the manly men and then you got like that like really soft skin like, you know
No calluses on the hands guys that are out there too. And they're just like toughen it and acting like they're
you know, they're they're surviving more than they really are and you get that experience and
You connect with men and then you might get them to open up a little bit and
you can have a zoom call and you follow up and you know start something that way and I've always said that about men and
Our program sort of reflects a little bit of that in terms of just the difficulty. It is to connect with men. So anyway
I would be willing to to try to put together a men's event sometime this year sometime in the near future
Something like that. I don't know if any of you would be interested in that
but
Maybe you have some suggestions. Maybe you have some ideas. Maybe you have
You know doesn't have to be like super elaborate
You know the expense to get there and you know have food and shelter and whatnot
And it doesn't have to be a full-on out in the woods experience either could be something else that you know
That kind of comes up. So anyway, I want to entertain those ideas. Should you have those I'm not asking for them right now
but if you want to submit that and you know, put that in email me or or the team and
What's your email address?
My email is David at JaneMedia.org.
Oh, so you run that route, okay, thank you.
David, my name, at JaneMedia.
I'm sure y'all know by now that that's the name
of our company, JaneMedia.org, not .com, .org
on that email address, .org.
Wonderful.
So yeah, if you have any thoughts on that,
you have any connections,
you have any, like, you know,
there are lots of people that do, like,
little men's retreats and tour groups.
It's like, they're in business to do that, you know,
and you can hire them to go out and you can,
so sometimes that even works out a little better
because I don't have to go out and plan anything to do.
I would be terrible at doing that.
And, but somebody could take you out in the woods
and put you on a horse or take you out in the desert
and ride motorcycles.
I know a guy that actually does,
has a sort of desert thing.
California and takes people out in the desert
and rides motorcycles and kind of crazy.
Anyway, so I'm just throwing that out there.
That'd be kind of fun to do a men's retreat,
like to meet some of you guys, all of you guys in person.
And I know not everybody would be able to maybe make that
or do that, but we'll see what we can put together.
So this week, guys, what is going on?
How are you doing?
Who's got a win?
Who's got something you want to process?
Who's got something that is going on?
Did you got questions about?
Yeah.
Who's got their hand raised?
Let's see, what's going on?
Hunter, Kenton.
I'll start up here.
Hunter, let's hear what you got
and then we'll have Kenton and then whoever else.
Well, I was, you were thinking about that
while you and Jackie were away on some overseas trip,
I went to one of the events in Cleveland,
the May 3rd one,
where they had singles event and bowling event.
I drove out to Ohio, not just to see that,
but I also drove out to see how things in my home state
are like and see my mom and dad and mom.
That's a far drive for you.
Wow.
No, it's only, it was a little bit about eight hours drive,
eight hour drive.
So I drove out there and I came down and I found,
and I went down there and saw Chrissy and Brittany.
And of course, I try to,
everybody tries to go in and tries to meet people,
all the people they can, but try to ask questions.
But me, I try to go out and be the best version of myself.
Usually what happens is, sure, you may not meet a,
I figure, you know what?
And of course, Chrissy complimented saying,
I'm building some confidence in it.
I build some confidence and I try to stay in touch,
but I try to stay in touch with it and building confidence.
And then everything ended.
Sure, I may not meet anybody, but you know what?
Putting myself out there is all I can do.
And then submit it to God is usually-
Did you have a good time?
What?
Did you have a good time?
Yes, and I had a good time.
I got to bowl and I got to meet people
and a lot of them are local in the area.
And I told them, I live in New York.
So I figured, you know what?
If I don't meet anyone, oh, well,
it's just good to meet someone from your home state.
And maybe if you can get a relationship,
you can marry and move back.
So I go back and had a good time.
And I ask questions to make them feel special,
but not make myself as relevant
and try not to keep them bored
and ask questions like interview kind of stuff.
But, and then all the people
in the last year singles group,
we all got our group photos together.
Nice.
And it's basically like one of the singles
where people get together and we try to make,
how we get all these devices to make it happen
so you can meet somebody.
But I figured, you know what?
Let's just go ahead and do it.
That's all I can do.
But I think it's something people are expecting
to meet their partner and they don't.
The more you try, and I figured,
the more you try to expect to meet your partner,
the less likely you're gonna meet them,
the less likely it's gonna happen.
It's basically, you go there to have fun.
So I went out and got back and I drove back to New York
and I told them, I told Chrissy and Brittany
that I would, Tom, I make it home safe.
And I told them then, it's like, great.
And it's like, how'd you like it?
And she goes, that's great because that's,
oh, that's, oh, I liked it.
I like, they're a nice people.
How about you?
It's like, oh, good.
I got to go back and come back.
And it was nice seeing how things in my homestay were,
even with Chrissy.
Nice, nice.
Well, good, I'm glad you went out there for that.
I'm glad you had a good time, made some connections.
And yeah, so welcome to that.
Chrissy's, I'm already, Chrissy's,
Brittany, I'm in a level two one.
And I think maybe Chrissy, I might be in level one
or level two, but I think I'm gonna.
Let's try to get in contact with them in messenger.
It's like the more you think about it, the more you get anxious, you turn
into this ancient adjustment rather than submit to God and you can become a solid.
Sounds good.
Yes.
Good.
Thanks for sharing Hunter.
Appreciate that.
Um, Kenton, David, uh, I got your hands up.
So Kenton, what do you got for us tonight?
Hey, good.
Oh, you guys probably know I was dating a young lady for the last year and a half.
And it was sort of a God set up in which, uh, when I first met her, just Lord, just
download his life, her life right in front of my eyes and, uh, what was going on in
her life and showed me a lot of different things.
And I explained that to her and it was like, she just fell apart because she
didn't think anybody knew all about that in her life.
And of course it was a scary thing because she never met
anybody that was prophetic before.
And I, it was, it was anything.
And then the Lord asked me, he was, he was preparing me before that gentleman.
Literally I was reading books, articles about the prodigal son slash daughter.
And, um, who was the prophet who married the prostitute?
Isaiah, I believe he was anyway.
So anyway, so, uh, that whole thing was together and she fits right in that
category, she keeps on running away from men.
And so for the last year and a half, Lord asked me just to literally to
love on her unconditionally, which was interesting because that's my first
assignment I've ever had to do that would have to love somebody unconditionally,
never expect anything in return in doing so it was a real process for me too.
But we came to an end here about two weeks ago in which she just could not
commit to, to, um, what did they say?
To moving forward into marriage.
And, uh, she's always using the element that, you know, she didn't want to lose
her girls because she had screwed up her first life, et cetera, et cetera.
And so she was not willing to move forward.
So I says I had to, well, we'll have to bring this one to an end then, because
I've been waiting for a year now and I don't think you're going to be moving
forward any day soon, but she still wanted to stay in contact with me as well too.
So I'm now moving forward again now into looking for a woman again.
So I definitely need your prayers for one thing.
Um, I'm going to let this young lady keep on contact me.
So I keep on encouraging her until that time at which, um, I'm involved
with another relationship, then of course it has to be broken up.
That's only the right thing to do.
So I just, uh, just want to get back out there again and just, uh, start looking.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
Well, definitely we'll be agreeing with you in that journey
and sorry, that didn't work out.
Um, but yeah, that's, that's kind of the, I love your, your sense of pursuit
in what it is that you're looking for, what you want, what you feel like God
has for you, so that's admirable.
That's not, we don't find that a lot actually in, um, in our society today.
This is kind of like why, you know, our last year single program exists is to
encourage, you know, men and women who are marriage minded, that there is,
there's preparation and work to be done in order to reach the finish line.
As you would say, if you would say reach the altar in relationship, because,
um, you know, it's just, it doesn't, it doesn't just happen happenstance
magically, nothing, nothing in life usually does happen by happenstance.
I mean, there's definitely positioning.
And again, I'm not trying to say that it's about a bunch of work.
It's just about doing that's what hard work is about.
I don't know if you know this or not guys, but hard work is not about hard work.
Matter of fact, Jackie jokes a lot.
She says, if I named my book titled my book, the hard work, there actually would
have been probably a lot of people interested in going, oh yeah, I need that
book, the hard work, you know, and everything, because it's, it's noble
and it's righteous sounding, you know, it's, it sounds like, you know, it's
like, you know, yeah, it's like a good thing, but hard work isn't hard work.
It's just work that's necessary that a lot of people just don't want to be
vulnerable and transparent enough to do.
They don't want to be honest enough with themselves to
authentically do the hard work.
And heart work is required because it's the preparation that brings you into your
best self that then makes you the most attractive.
I, we, there was a question and answer session that we did with the
ladies when we were in Columbia.
And they, those ladies grilled me for about an hour.
Why, you know, what's the deal with men?
What's the deal with, you know?
Like they're asking, like, we want to know from a guy's perspective, you know,
and I'm like, Oh Lord, like, I don't know if I should have opened this up or not,
you know, type of thing. But, you know, the ladies are just as, you know,
how many of you think ladies are just a stereotype, right? How many of you think just most
ladies are, what was the word I was thinking of? That they're not confident, that they're insecure.
I think they're human. So all the above.
All the above. Yeah.
I'm finding, David, that a lot of them are not only insecure, but they're also
immature in their faith still.
Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, Kent, you've been working with the Lord for a long time. So,
I mean, like anybody you'd meet probably would be in that space, but you're right,
underdeveloped in a lot of ways, men the same way. And I talked about to the ladies, I said,
you know, first of all, we're having, if we want to admit it or not, whether or not we want to
admit it, we're having a masculinity crisis in our culture, in our world at large. We just are,
you know. If you want to put it this way, where's the war? Where is the passion? Where is the,
you know, where is the resolve? Where's the resolute purpose of why we exist, type thing,
right? A lot of people will say, you know, men are the way they are, it's because we haven't
had a war in a long time. And I don't know, maybe historically, maybe anthropologically,
sociologically, that might be a little bit of truth to that. But at the same time, there's also
an enemy of your soul that has a strategic alignment against just identity, period.
And the way it affects men is in their ability to be humble, or excuse me, meek. Meekness,
and I've talked about this before, meekness is not weakness, meekness is power under control.
So that requires several things. It first and foremost requires men to recognize that they have
power. And it also requires men to understand that there is a responsibility with that power.
You can't just react Neanderthal and just break stuff and break people and just react in,
you know, passion and anger, nothing, everything doesn't get fixed with a hammer
type of thing. Right? Men have a tendency to just, you know, in their own self,
to want to fix things, and they'll fix things and they'll fix it with brute force and strength.
And in an unredeemed and unrighteous way, men, left to their own devices,
will just take what they want. And if they can't have it easily, they'll do it by force.
They'll wickedly scheme and plan to do things and terrible abominations. Right? I mean,
how many women are starting wars? How many women are committing atrocious crimes? Right?
It's mostly men doing these terrible, horrible things. That's men who are unrighteous,
left to their own devices. We have thousands of years of history of that. Right?
But at the same time, it's like, what are we supposed to do? We've talked a lot about this
from a man's perspective. What are we supposed to do in this modern age
with this power, this authority, this manliness, this masculinity? It requires us to be very
intentional. It requires us to step up into responsibility. It requires us to step up in
maturity to go, what's the kind of man that I can be that not only is humble and kind,
but has respect in the marketplace, has respect in society, has respect in family, has respect
as a provider. Right? That's a huge challenge that we're dealing with.
I was trying to get the ladies to understand that it's okay for you ladies to relax a little bit on
men.
to not be such traumatically tied
to all the men that have failed you in your life.
And for you to, this is what we talk about,
drop the hanky for ladies,
and give men a little bit of a clue.
I tell people all the time that men generally
are kind of clueless when it comes to relationship.
You know, there's some guys that are really suave
and they're cool and they've got their kind of Don Juan
and all that kind of stuff.
Most men, especially if they're interested in a chick
and they're interested in a woman,
they're like, man, she's really pretty.
I don't know what to say to her.
I don't know what to do.
I don't even know even if I would do anything,
like how that would even come across
and would she even like it
and would she be even open to it?
And it's just like, ladies, give men a hanky drop.
Give them the benefit of the doubt.
Give them an opportunity to pursue you.
No, quit being so like, you know,
just resistant, all your walls up,
all that kind of thing, you know, have it all figured out.
If you can catch me, you can have me type thing.
You're like, you know, can you keep up type thing?
Like, no, that is so not the vibe
that we want to put across in the kingdom perspective
of being pursued.
And of course we teach in last year single, right?
Proverbs 18, 22, when a man finds a wife,
we teach ladies to become the wife that they aspire to be.
We also teach the men to become the man
that they aspire to be.
It's not when a husband finds wife,
it's when a man finds a wife,
he's found a good thing and obtained favor of the Lord.
So the wind, that's an invitation.
That's an invitation for you to become all the man
that you can be to go pursue a woman
who's been preparing herself as a wife.
And when you find her and she's like,
not just a hot woman, like a beautiful woman,
but she's a wife, she is one who is willing to
stand alongside and to help as a helpmate,
that's a powerful thing.
You're obtaining favor of the Lord.
You're finding a good thing.
You're finding a powerful thing.
That's what you're looking for.
Any reactions to that, guys?
Questions?
I do, Dave.
Comments, concerns?
Yeah.
I'd be interested to know what the ladies are being told
on what it looks like to drop a hanky today,
especially today.
I mean, the olden days, the knights and everything else,
they drop a hanky, it was obvious.
And they dropped it and the knight would pick it up.
But what are they being taught and told today?
I mean, they're told to,
a lot of it is just the posturing of their attitude.
Like, you know, when a guy asks you out on a date,
you know, unless you've got a good reason
to not go on the date,
like you literally have an appointment
or like you're like ill or something,
you go on the date.
It doesn't matter whether you look at the guy and go,
oh, that's not my type, whatever.
But the same thing with the guys.
It's like you go on the date.
Why do you go on the date?
Because that's why we teach it's a yes until it's a no.
The reason that's a powerful statement is
is because you have to go through the rudiments.
You have to get to know people.
You can't just dismiss somebody after a first date
because you weren't vibing with them.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, it's a yes until it's a strong no
to pursue this person.
And it's worthy to get to know this person.
So as we're training women in this way, right?
It's worthy to get to know somebody.
We're training women, hey, be easy to get to know.
You know, be interested in what the guy has to say.
Be interested, don't just be completely talking
about yourself the whole time and completely, you know,
vapid, let the guy pay, you know?
I believe that if it's gonna be a date,
I'm a guy, when I was dating Jackie
for the time that we knew each other
and we weren't married, I mean, I paid for everything.
And I even went in the hole to pay for everything.
I was not doing well at the time of my life,
but I was not going to at all let her pay for anything
unless she just did it and, you know,
I didn't have anything to do with it.
There was just no way I was going to do that because
Cause that's just not only the way I was raised,
but I just felt like that was putting my best,
strong man foot forward, right?
But at the same time,
you have some situations where like,
women are offended by that.
Women are like, oh, this and that.
What does that mean?
And they're like, I don't want to be handled.
And I don't want to be like, you know,
there's all kinds of different things.
It's like, just be easy to be found.
If you're going to be a wife and you are a wife,
then be easy to be found.
You know, so we teach,
we teach the ladies and we teach them things like,
hey, if you got a PhD, that PhD don't mean nothing.
You may be the boss at work,
but you're going to be,
you're not going to be the boss in this relationship.
And that doesn't mean the man is going to be the boss.
It means nobody's going to be the boss.
It's not about being the boss.
It's about being in relationship.
You know, so many women who are the boss at work,
want to come into a relationship
and handle their relationship like they are their workload.
You know, they're the manager, they're in charge.
I'm making the plans.
I'm making the thing like, no, let the guy make the gesture.
Let the guy come up with an idea for the date.
Let the guy lead, you know,
don't just think you have to lead.
Give him the space, give him the opportunity
and do it in grace when he's not good at it.
And he's not used to leading.
And he's obviously not doing things the right way
because women, they're like,
they know all the things that are supposed to go on a date.
Give him the grace to go, this guy's trying.
You can tell he's trying.
Women know when men are trying or when they're not trying.
And as long as the guy is trying to do his best to try to,
wow, like maybe impress this woman
or trying to get her attention or trying to do like,
give the guy the opportunity to do that.
It's a powerful thing.
Dave, we're in the 21st century.
Women should be able to allow to call a guy
and say, listen, I'm interested.
Are you interested?
I mean, we have to, that's what I mean about insecurity.
I mean, for myself, I am so secure
and I know where I'm going in life
that most women call me controlling and manipulative
when actually not at all.
It's just, I know where I'm at in life.
I know I'm with God.
I know with Jesus, I know what I'm looking for.
And a lot of women says, well, you're coming on strong.
And I said, well, it's not strong.
It's because I know who I am and I'm confident, I'm sure.
And so it's nice for a woman to actually call me
and say, listen, would you be interested?
Because like in our own community,
I would know, have no idea which one of them
would be interested in dating me at all.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
No, and we tell women that as well.
It's like, look, it is 2025.
Like there's some guys that just like,
there's such a backwardsness
in a lot of our cultural things today
that there are guys that are really good, valuable guys.
They just need a moment.
They need a breakthrough.
And if that means that you have to be the one to say,
hey, would you like to go on a date
or I'm interested or whatever?
Now, eventually women want men to initiate
and show leadership.
But that doesn't mean you have to lead everything.
That doesn't mean like,
my wife is a powerful leader, period.
Whether she's a man or a woman, her makeup,
she is a leader of leaders.
She walks into a room and will lead
if nobody's already leading.
She's one of those people that just walks in like,
oh, nobody's leading in here.
Like, okay, here's what we're gonna do.
She just leads.
One time, I won't tell that story.
Anyway, it's a funny story.
This is too long.
Anyway, so I'm not just kind of like sitting back going,
oh, I'm just gonna let my wife lead
because she's such a strong leader.
I'm just telling you that nine times out of 10,
in terms of like ideas and thoughts,
like she is thinking about things all the time.
And every day, she pretty much knows
what she's gonna do that day.
Like she wakes up with like,
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that.
Not because she's planned it out the day before
and she's so organized, because she's not.
I'm just telling you, she just has an intuition to know,
here's what I'm gonna do in the next five minutes.
And lots of times, I'm in relationship now with her,
I'm relaxed in doing that and letting her do that
because I'm not trying to like come up with some idea like,
oh, here's what we're gonna do today.
We're gonna do this, this is what needs to be done
and like try to like tell her a bunch of stuff.
Because nine.
times out of 10, she's already been down there and done that.
Like she's already in that vein.
And we don't have the kind of life to where we're like,
we have an eight to nine to five type thing
where we're like our life is prescribed already
because we just go to work and we have this routine.
Like our life is like different every day.
I mean, it's kind of become a routine.
But what I'm trying to say is,
I don't try to lead my wife in those ways
where she already knows what she's doing
and what she wants to accomplish.
What I need to do is initiate in sort of the more romance,
sort of like the connection sort of areas in my life.
That's where she wants me to lead.
Now there's parts of our business,
there's parts of our life that I'm better at doing things.
And she's like, hey, I need this done.
What's the best way to do this?
Then she like defers to me.
She refers to me because she knows
I'm better at certain things.
But I'm not like waking up every morning
as the man of the household.
And you better do what I say
because this is what I'm supposed to do.
And I'm telling everybody what's happening.
That's not what happens in my house.
You know what I'm saying?
So we've learned how to work together.
So you're in a relationship.
That's a beautiful way is when two people
wanna come together and they want to highlight
and take advantage of each other's strengths.
And you are complimentary in your relationship
rather than competitive, right?
Just because of some archaic rules that say
that it's gotta be this way and that way.
Any other questions?
Joshua says, if you're a man and think you picked
your woman, think again.
There's some truth to that.
Yeah, women are sharp.
Women are just intuitive.
They know things without knowing things.
All right, thank you so much for your time.
I appreciate it.
They know things without knowing things.
All right, so I have a situation.
Yes.
On Messenger, I tend to be the one to instigate the chat.
And I wanna know, is it usually that?
And I usually go up to people with women.
I try to go to them and I'm trying to find
as a way to keep in an effort to get to know them
and just ask questions as though,
rather than like a job interview style,
rather than get to know the person.
And I'm almost the entire time, I'm the one doing it.
Is there something wrong with this?
Because I would say-
No, I mean, Hannah, you're an initiator.
You're like, you're someone that just takes action,
typically.
You're sort of a forerunning kind of guy.
What you want to do is you want to
definitely, I admire the fact that you're willing
and not concerned, and you're very active
and proactive in that way.
I think that's very powerful.
I think it's good.
Have you found the right person that reacts to that?
Because maybe they feel like you come across
a little strong just because you're extremely intentional.
Maybe that's something that can be curbed a little bit.
Maybe that can be refined a little bit,
but don't stop not initiating.
I love the initiating that you do.
Well, when I wrestled in high school
and they said, you're about to go to a tournament
and wrestle, I always get afraid that I might lose,
but I know my coach said, if it's a loss,
that'd be a loss.
But of course I can't run away from the fact.
It's more like I go out and face it
and go in a tournament and look what happened.
I give it my best.
Basically, I got that kind of mentality built into me.
So it's basically, you can't run away
from where you're facing.
It's basically, instead of being initialized,
I developed the notion of not running away from the problem,
like afraid of a day and chickening out.
You just go up and face it.
Absolutely.
No, you do that part very, very, very, very well.
That's where I developed it.
The part where you are maybe not getting the traction
that you want is the sensitivity of where's this person at
and how they're gonna react to you.
And this is where,
if you're ever into the situation where you're developing in a relationship and
You need to be inquisitive and asking hey, you know
How can I do this better? How can I you know?
How can I approach somebody without?
You know making them concerned that you know, this is gonna be too much
Type thing. Yeah, it's basically and then that's and that's not maybe requires the talking less
All right
It's not so much me trying to go out even be all these years trying to go out and make it but it's just the more
I tried to attend the desire for someone intensifies some more
I tried to the more I start trying to go out make it happen
and even even this means manipulate the circumstance or the person she suspects something right about you and
She ends up being not being the one in the first place
so learn how to learn how to try to
Ask questions and say your statements in about half
the number of words and half at the time and
and
See if that works better so that you can have a little bit softer approach
And get some get some response out of the person
Might be helpful. All right, who else has got something on this guys?
I was gonna say can I piggyback on that I could hear from everybody
Can I piggyback off that go ahead Zach?
Yeah, hunter. I was gonna say like I know it's something I've had to deal with myself with conversations and that's the thing about online
Dating and conversations like texting back and forth. It can be hard and it can feel very
Feel very much like a grind sometimes so I would say I would just encourage you to try and focus on
The questions that are gonna be more open-ended and it will actually like spark
You know more conversation as opposed to like very direct straightforward questions
Like, you know, what's your favorite type of food? Where it's your favorite color?
Like yes, some of those things are important
But at the end of the day, like we really want to know somebody's heart. So it's like
Pardon me still deal with some of the bronchitis stuff
But just like some of those things like, you know, what are the things that really
You know, what are the things that keep you up at night? Like what?
You know, what are your passions like what are the things that motivate you what are the things that drive you like those kinds of topics
Are the things that gonna?
Probably be more insightful and more
Intriguing to somebody than just the simple straightforward things, especially
If we're still in that like phase one stage where you know for women, especially they're getting those questions from like four or five
Different people. So the more unique questions that you provide the more likely they are to engage in that conversation with you, too
Yeah
It's good, thank you Zach for sharing that I I'm kind of in the same mind too it's like
It's like the balance of the two
I'm kind of in the same mind too. It's like
It's like the back-and-forth
messages and then it's like if
There gets to be a period where I'm have to wait too long to hear from her then I get worried and it's like
The anxiety with that. It's like like, oh does she not like me after all, you know, if she's not responding, you know
It might be that she's just busy with something or or you know, or she's sick or whatever
But but sometimes it still hurts to be like, oh man, like I've waited this amount of time and I haven't heard from her
You know, yeah
Yeah, no, I mean the the more that you can refine I mean
Women love a man that will smile
you know, this is why sort of like the
You know the the typical like walking up
You know movie scene where a guy walks up to a girl in a bar and he's you know
He's the hero and he's got all the lines and he says something that makes her laugh or says something that you know
It's smart alecky or whatever just tell you know, totally counterintuitive than the the normal guy that walks up and says hey
How you doing, you know, like, you know trying to be cool and
He comes up with humor, you know, like so you know
Walking up to a girl not just like smiling creepily like, you know with like a smile on your face
That's not good. But saying what you're saying with a smile like hey, hi, you know, what's going on?
You know, or maybe using a joke your approach is you know can be
Refined there's a lot of information. There's a lot of
information and
But I think the best thing to do is practice in a mirror I
I
I've done that for a long time,
not for like trying to pick up women,
I
but when I'm doing presenting or when I was a teaching
I
or when I was just like trying to like be,
I
like I knew I was gonna be on platform or on stage,
I
you know, that I was going to be doing things
I
and I had to be, you know, presenting.
I wanted to put my best foot forward.
So I would practice in the mirror,
all sorts of things to try to come across
in a way that was engaging, entertaining.
Like you get people's attention,
you know, that's stuff that could be learned
and acquired for sure.
All right, who else?
Well, I'm actually gonna go again,
just more kind of a general update,
since Abram did ask.
Yeah, I saw that.
Yeah, I know I've been out for a few weeks
just with different illnesses
and obviously we didn't have a check in last week.
But yeah, kind of update on the person
that I've been talking to
or that I was told about a month ago.
We've been on a handful of dates,
we've been in constant communication,
you know, things are going well.
We're just keeping it low key right now,
keeping it simple, you know,
just kind of letting things be
and probably not trying to put too much pressure on it,
but still like be intentional about moving things forward
and trying to spend time together.
Obviously, bronchitis and flu and, you know,
pensioner stuff took me out of commission for a few weeks.
So we probably haven't spent as much like
in-person time together as we probably could have.
And obviously both of us work for a church,
the same church.
So Easter and all that chaos,
you know, just kind of takes up
a lot of our bandwidth as well.
But yeah, things are going well,
you know, still keeping myself,
trying to do my best to keep myself open and engaged
and, you know, like where it's at right now.
How do you feel with the thought of seeing her again?
Like next time you see her,
it's probably maybe going to be at work
or something like that.
Or, you know, just come across,
like, what does that, what does that,
what kind of feelings does that evoke inside of you?
Like, oh, I can't wait to.
Yeah, I would say I'm not at the point where I would say,
like my heart's leaping to see her, but it's not like,
Are you excited?
Are you interested?
Yeah, but it's not like off-put either.
Like it's still just kind of in the middle.
Like, you know, I think both of us,
we're still just kind of in that phase of,
especially since, again, we're both,
we're coworkers in a sense, you know,
it's something that we both want to tread very lightly
and intentionally with so that, you know,
God forbid it doesn't work out that, you know,
neither of us.
Have to go get different jobs.
Yeah, that sort of thing.
I get it.
Let me ask you this.
Like you said, you were told about her.
How did that happen again?
A fellow coworker of ours is kind of like a mom
to a lot of the girls on staff.
And she's somebody that I've worked with
through our pastoral care ministry.
And she just,
She was a coach to me.
Yeah, so she just texted me and was saying like,
that she knew of somebody that was interested in me
and was trying to keep it very like hush hush,
very mysterious.
And-
Why was she doing it that way?
I think probably because,
excuse me,
one, the fact that I, you know, that it was a coworker,
I think she wanted me to make a decision based on character
more so than name or looks.
And so she was trying to-
Oh, she was just trying to fill you out, that's all.
Yeah.
And I was trying to say like,
hey, like when she actually texted me,
I was in Orlando at the time.
And I was like, look, can we just like talk on Monday?
And then she just like dropped the name right out of nowhere
and I'm like, oh my gosh.
And being a very over analytical person, over thinker,
I'm like, now I got to think about
how I want to approach this.
Let me ask you this.
When you-
Heard the name or saw the name. I guess is what you you saw it
Yeah, and of course, you know this person, you know who this person is because they work in
Like what was your initial reaction other than the freakout? Was your reaction like oh
Or was it like oh like, okay
it wasn't it wasn't so much like
the
Excitement or disappointment so much as it was just more
Confusion it was like wait, really
her oh
You were surprised it like like you were surprised because you didn't think
This this person would like you or you were surprised in I was surprised that anybody like me
But a lot of guys I really do I think that's yeah
Guys I think a lot of like look when Jackie was standing on my front porch talking to me as a neighbor
And she came back over
I mean you guys know the story
But she came back over to kind of like check and see if I was home and finally when we actually met in person the
first time other than the time she yelled at me she came back over and
She said I might I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that here's this beautiful woman standing on my porch like just having
a conversation with me like
What woman would do that like I was just like she was giving me basically proverbial time of day so to speak and I was
just like
Is this really happening? Like what is like I was very
elated
Because I was like obviously attracted to her and it right away
But at the same time I was also like what does this lady want?
Like there's just no way that she's standing on my porch talking to me
Just just because she's wanting to just have a conversation like, you know, or she's even interested in me. I'm like
What is what is going on? You know, so there is that
Some of that, you know, we're yeah, like what is happening?
yeah, and I think for me too, it was also a good bit of I
Need to know what my initial feelings are
so that I can
You know approach this relationship
With the right intentions and
you know the right mindset because you know if I
And I know I talked about it a month ago on that check-in, but it's like, you know if I
was
Really more concerned about like looks and how I appear with somebody. It probably wouldn't have been something that I did but you know
Taking the time to evaluate, you know, because again, this is a person I've known for probably
You know ten years. I would say maybe
I mean because that's that's how long I've been on staff and yeah, we've never really run in the same circles
But yeah, but you've never you have several mutual friends and obviously like working for the same church. Yeah
But just like
There been we were both in missions for a good while
And you know, we get having several mutual friends. It's like, okay, there's
What are what are those things that we can actually build a quality relationship on?
What are those areas of alignment that we do have and is that enough for me to you know?
At least be open to a date
And I was like you got to solve all that on one day
That's that's that's just how I am
Because like I mean I've
Dated around the best of that if you can
Date done and then we'll talk about more of that kind of stuff. Yeah
No, that's good though, I'm happy for you
Okay
So because because of the illness and just because of this life right now
You've actually not been able to go out and on a real date is what you're saying at this point. Um
Um
Well, we we went on a hangout or something. We we did a couple
Before I got sick, so like we went and got coffee and just kind of talked. Okay, so you've had and then
Yeah walked around like a arts market, you know little farmers market type thing that fun
Yeah, no, we enjoyed my time
You think she enjoyed it
Yeah, okay, yeah, like I said, we've been we've been texting almost every day for the last month
Yeah, yeah, it's it's not like a lot of like get-to-know-you stuff
But it's still just like staying connected and communicating
Absolutely. You're gonna get back in the saddle here again because you're gonna be starting feeling good
You know all that's gonna go away and then
You're like, all right, let's see what this is all about.
Love it.
Actually have the energy to really put in
and do like a proper date.
Sure, sure, no, I understand that.
Awesome, well, good.
Zach, love that.
Thank you for the update on that.
It's awesome.
We're going to be in your corner
trying to champion you in every way we can.
Good stuff.
Anybody else tonight?
We got, we're two minutes past.
What's it called?
I had a pretty good Zoom date with the lady from Community.
For those of you who run out of creative ideas
to do for a Zoom call, we had a Zoom karaoke date.
We just played music in the background off YouTube
and just went tit for tat on different songs.
That's pretty bold.
Some people are like very intimidated by that.
Yeah, she warned me in advance, she's not a good singer
and please, please don't judge her.
I'm like, hey, it's mine.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, like I'm not a good singer,
but yeah, I'm down with that.
She was cool.
It's just about having fun.
That's why they call it karaoke.
That's right.
Not karaoke super great.
That's right, I love it.
But yeah, it was fun.
It was hysterical because my roommate walked
in the background and started singing out loud
while I was singing and didn't realize
he was on the call and I just turned around
and started laughing.
Like, bro, I'm on a call here.
Yeah, and he was like, oh, I'm on the call.
I'm like, yes, together.
And you sing better now than you do
when we go out to actual karaoke.
So that was the first date or whatever.
No, it was like our second,
I think it was our second or third FaceTime,
like Zoom call date.
Okay.
Where do you think you are at right now with this person?
I'm not like overly excited to see her.
I don't know why, like she's a cool person,
but like there's just so many moving pieces
in my head right now from putting an offer on a house
and the posing process and that.
And doing my cross country road trip to DC next Tuesday.
Yeah, you got a lot going on.
Yeah, it's just like a bunch of stuff in my head
that's like, even jumping on that ARC site,
even though that's free and getting like clicks,
like not clicks, getting like likes or random comments
from someone that's like 15 years older than me
or 15 years younger saying, hey cutie.
And I'm like, well, I guess this is the hanky.
Hi, nice to meet you.
And, but then like, I put my phone down
and I don't look at it for a few days
and then all of a sudden they're not there,
you know, like they've lost interest or something.
Even the gal.
It can be seen as far as this ARC app.
I mean, you know, we feel like.
Like I like it better for sure.
Yeah, we feel like, I mean, you know,
it's just like anything.
They reached out to us because, I mean, this is,
first of all, one of the interesting things is
this is like Christians who have developed
an app for Christians.
So most Christians aren't actually ran by Christian people.
But anyway, that they reached out to us
because they wanted an element of like healthy conversation
around relationships, heartwork, preparation for marriage,
preparation for relationships.
And they don't have that content.
And they heard about our program
and they like our balance and very healthy,
spiritual, but yet fun approach to, you know, what we do.
When we talk about, you know, preparing for, you know,
marriage, minor, and all that stuff.
Preparing for, you know, marriage, minor relationship.
So we'll see how that goes
and we'll see how that works out with them.
I don't really know how, you know, people are just people.
So regardless of what kind of technology you put together,
people will just act like people do.
But at the same time, I think there's a set of culture.
There's a set of like parameters
that they're trying to put in play there
that help facilitate good Christian people
to connect in healthy ways,
rather than just, you know, like all the other apps,
just swiping and just trying to, you know,
tend to-
You know, for all the wrong reasons type thing.
Yeah.
By the way, just real quick, I did ask that lady from community out on a date for in-person
for when I'm established in school, like when I moved to Iowa and I'm set up there.
She's in Wisconsin.
So it's like, oh, you know, by comparison, that's only a five or six hour drive compared
to the 40 hours I'm going to be on the road.
So.
Right.
Good.
Well, we're we're we're hopeful with you then on that and.
And we're supporting you in that.
Thank you for the update.
Yeah.
Good.
Just good stuff.
I got a quick question, David, the Hartworth Book Printed Edition.
Is that something that is normally sold by Amazon because I saw it online?
Yeah, it's published.
It's published on Amazon only.
OK.
Oh, well, that works out.
It's a KDP Amazon publication.
Cool beans.
I was going to buy it and give it to my church before I left Vegas.
Yeah.
Thank you.
That'd be great.
Hi, guys.
Eight past the hour there.
So love y'all.
And if you got some things that you want to suggest as far as like men activities, we'll
kind of try to see if we can get something together.
It'd be kind of I know everybody's all over the country, but who knows, we might be able
to put something together that works out for a lot of guys to come together and do something
fun.
Let's play some football building, life building.
It's going to be good.
Men's Roman Candle Fight.
Roman Candle Fight or kick.
Let's play.
Let's play football.
Tackle football on a football field.
And an NFL stadium.
I'm on Abram C.
You guys will have a chance to get off the knees and you're all done.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Painful.
The trash talk begins.
Fishing group.
Fishing.
Dude, buddy writing.
Come on.
I'm actually learning some jujitsu with some other guys.
Nice.
It's good.
All right, guys.
I'm going to conclude the call.
I just thank you right now, Lord, as they are endeavoring to really truly come into
their most authentic kingdom identity, Lord, that they're just they're met by your promise.
You promised that you would. Well, you draw us and then we seek you and then you meet
us there. And so, Father God, we thank you for that. We thank you that you see us. We
thank you that you know us. We thank you that you care enough to really bring us into our
best selves. And we just pray this in Jesus name. Amen. And amen. God bless you guys.
Have a great night.
Good night, man.