Podcasts about i'm christian

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/kTE7MhFGjWI " alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]   Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Hi, I'm Beatty Carmichael, and welcome back to the Get Sellers Calling You Real Estate podcast. And I'm just really excited about today's call because I get to interview another wonderful set of agents with an amazing story, and who are actually clients of ours. Tom and Nancy Cleppe from Franklin, Tennessee. And I'm just really excited about today's call because I was able to speak with Tom and Nancy earlier. They have a really neat business and story. And I really wanted you guys to hear it. So, Tom and Nancy, how are you guys doing?   [00:00:39] Hi, Beatty, how are you? I am very blessed. We're lucky. Blessed as well.   [00:00:46] Well, very good. Very good. And I want to talk about those blessings in a moment. So they'll be great. Just also, a quick reminder for those who are listening and watching, watching, this is an Internet call. So if there are any type of Internet interruptions, just please part in this part in those four for that. So tell me, Nancy, I'd love just real quickly, just a little story about your real estate career. I know you're in the Franklin area, but maybe how long have you been selling just anything about you guys? Just the introduction of who you guys are.   [00:01:23] Nancy looks at me like I should start right away then. So so Nancy had been in business, in real estate business before I was eight years before I got involved in it. And she said to me, one day, you should get into real estate. This is before we were married, actually. And I said, no, I don't want to work weekends. We can build our business. We don't have to work weekends. So three weeks later, I was enrolled in a class and what, six months or less later, I had my license and we started a team. And so that's eight years ago. 70 years ago, no.   [00:01:57] Ok. So I got to ask your question. Do you work weekends?   [00:02:00] No. Rarely, I should say no. Obviously we if if necessary, we do.   [00:02:07] Ok, cool. Well, it's out now. Let me ask you just Horton comes quantifying purposes like how many transactions a year do you guys do?   [00:02:17] This is consistency we like. We do. I want to say that we do 50 units a year, but it's anywhere from 30 to 60 units.   [00:02:25] Ok. So 30 to 50, maybe 60 on a good year. And rarely work weekends. So I'm out. So the typical client that I talk to works 50, 60 hours a week, works week as you ask them. Hey, what's that? How is your weekend? They kind of with this blank stare or astonished voice pause in the voices, they say. What's a weekend? Right. So how did you how do you guys build your business where it's rarely on the weekends? I mean, how do you make that happen?   [00:02:57] Why you've got to be purposeful. You know, the first thing is you've got a time block and you've got to use your week well so that your week will fall together and follow. It's in the, you know, Monday to Friday business hours. And one of the ways we do that, we put God first, we put family second, and then our real estate business is third. And it seems like doing that, things just kind of fall into place. You know, we work hard during the week. We try to get it all done and we schedule as much as we can during the office hours. And obviously, we have clients that can always meet during office hours, and that's when we fall back to, you know, weekends or evenings to accommodate them. And it's pretty rare.   [00:03:36] You know, I love to explore that just a little bit, because as you're talking, Nancy, my mind went back to two or three other agents I've interviewed, and they all had the same pattern. And I think this is a pattern that's really worked to pull out in terms of setting the parameters. Okay. I'd like one of my clients, he or he does two to three times the volume. You guys do personal production. He does it differently side. I don't want to make that comparison, but what he does is he works. At the time I was asking him this question about thirty five hours a week. Yeah. No, seriously. And and I asked him how in the world did you do that? He said, well I structure. He said, I choose not to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I choose not to work on the evenings unless I just have to. And I'm willing to give up business by me too. But he says when you put those parameters in place, you just fit your business around it. And I think a lot of agents never put those parameters in place. Yeah, sounds like you got some monster over there.   [00:04:51] Well, we have construction going on as well.   [00:04:55] Oh, okay. I love it going on. I thought that was maybe the door. We we're having a fun discussion about the dogs before their call, so. Great. So tell me a little bit. So 30 to 50 transactions a year. You don't work weekends. You set parameters. Tell me a little bit more about your business practice. And most importantly, how do you keep the business going? I don't have I want to kind of go and go towards what is it that you're doing that keeps your business? Because I know a lot of folks who would love to have 30 transactions a year and they're working 50, 60 hours a week just trying to get there. But what have you guys found to be the pattern that works for you that keeps you guys going? Does that is that a fair question to ask?   [00:05:42] Yeah. You know, when Nancy and I got into business or when I got into Nancy's business, she was kind of coasting for the lack of a better term and how she was doing your business. It was kind of coming to her by your relationships. And then I come in and it's like I have a sales and marketing background. It's like, wait a minute, we can be doing this, this and this to bring customers into us. We can do this business to set ourselves up so that there's stuff out there that's working without us kind of dealing in. I have it. I keep saying I'm the luckiest guy in the world because when it comes to contracts and negotiations and closings in one, Nancy's the structured one. She keeps all of that in line. I refer to myself as the guy out front bringing people in and the guy after the close of the sale then keeps in touch with them so that we give referrals and repeat business from that. So Nancy takes care of all the middle. And I take you to the beginning in the end.   [00:06:31] If you're a single agent, that would be a single agent with my capacity. That would be difficult.   [00:06:38] I totally get it. So. So you're more behind the scenes, Nancy and Tom, you're more in front of the scenes, is that right?   [00:06:46] Until it's time to switch. I'm in front of the scenes up front and then, like, we'll go to a listing appointment, get a listing and they never see me again. It's up close.   [00:06:54] Ever from there. I handle the listing and getting up and running and handle all the contract negotiations to get it to close. Okay, cool. Yeah. We don't need assistance to help us with those things, but I think the core of our business has always been it comes from our relationships with people.   [00:07:12] Talk to me about that. Yeah.   [00:07:14] Well, you know, I had a business before Tom joined me and we do a lot of referral business. I think our first several years together, our business was solely on referral business and then friends and family, you know, they trusted some of us and they want their friends to, you know, experience the same trust that they have with us. So whether they use us for a transaction or not, they feel comfortable referring their friends to us.   [00:07:40] So how big of a group are we talking about with this? Your relationships?   [00:07:46] Wow. There's fourteen hundred people in our in our database and we consider two hundred of them close. You haven't referred broken down and advocate a being. See, depending on if their client if they're just friends with referrals and if they're local.   [00:08:04] Ok. And then what? What do you guys take to nurture that? I'm assuming you do something. Is that correct?   [00:08:10] Yeah, we do. We don't do enough. It seems like sometimes. And there's other people that say we do too much. So like events, we're always doing client events to keep people safe. To get as many touches at once makes a lot of sense to us. And of course, everybody appreciates a good party kind of deal. We also do community outreach stuff where we're giving away. We have like an ice cream sundae. We're well into. This is a Sunday where we'll we'll give away ice cream at the local custard store and everybody we publicize it than anybody who comes in, gets to sample the ice cream, obviously, and then we get to shake hands with people that are not necessarily in our database or weren't at that point. And, you know, we're making fundraisers, fundraisers and the local fire department.   [00:08:58] And we've also raised money for a couple other organizations by giving away things and asking just asking people to donate when they can't. Like, we gave out pumpkins last year and pumpkin patch, we gave a pumpkin to everybody that they donated or not. But then we had a little jar set up for donations and those people died.   [00:09:17] So tell me how. Because one of the things that we talk about, especially like with a geographic area to do fundraising events or some sort of civic community event where you get the people into the same a common spot, you're the the civic champion, so to speak, of that cause, and then you get a chance to meet them. Help me guide me through, if you would. Let's take one of these fundraisers that you do. What's the process? How do you if you just come and give me a short synopsis of the process and most importantly, how it's structured so that you interact with the people if you're interacting at all. Does that make sense?   [00:09:58] It was probably our biggest.   [00:09:59] So I guess, you know, maybe when I was a kid, a delinquent and I might have had I had a lot of parties. Right. And it was just a matter of putting ourselves out there. You just create the event and invite people to come in. Those people that came had a good time and those people that didn't come heard about it kind of deal. And so the next time they had one, they wanted to come. And we just kind of promote it that way. The idea is, is we put the event out there and make sure that everybody knows about it, at least four different touches. And if they show great, if they don't, they kind of miss the event when they come, then we try to have as much set up prior to the event so that the day of the event, we're not running around cutting watermelons for everybody. There's somebody either the watermelon is cut or somebody else is doing it. And the more that we have in place for that than we heard the term wants to Elm's buds. That's exactly what it means. But we're just shaking hands. We're walking around laughing with everybody and be who we are socially. And that's really where people then kind of engage in that in in some events, depending on the person and depending on on the drive, we'll say something like, you know why you're here. Can you tell us a little bit, you know, who do you know that might be interested in?   [00:11:11] Might you rarely ever say, who do you know, say something about who might have had the good fortune of having a Beatty that might be interested in in getting a bigger house or what? You know, just got a promotion that's looking into getting a bigger house or something along those lines to start that conversation with Nancy. And I don't have trouble starting conversation. It's a matter of is the event just a celebration or is the event a lead generation event?   [00:11:40] Interesting. Do you all do any follow up after an event like a thank you know for coming or anything like that?   [00:11:46] Yeah, absolutely. Everybody gets a handwritten thank you card. I think last year we made sure handwritten thank you cards went out. They get at least an email. Thank you. And then we got a lot of follow up calls as well. Well, a cool thank you for coming or sorry we missed you.   [00:12:02] I'm sorry we missed you guys are just as important. So we send all of those emails out as well. Man, you missed a good party. Here's what you missed. Kind of deal. And we'll send pictures and that kind of stuff so that they're interested in coming either the next time or or at least keeping involved in what's happening next.   [00:12:18] So these are these are just these are big, maybe not big, but they're fun party happy atmospheric events. And then a lot of follow up to continue touching afterwards. Right. I like that. Have you found anything that's kind of anything that you can share besides what you just shared, that if you go back and say these are really, you know, like the top two or three most important things you've learned and doing these things that make it successful.   [00:12:49] I think advertising at a time or getting the word out ahead of time, it seems, when we get lazy, not lazy, but get busy and we don't get the word out as early as we need to. And and those extra follow up touches prior to the event is what seems to make the most successful. We're doing it and having it catered and, you know, doing all the things we need to do. But if we don't get the word out early, we don't have a good attendance.   [00:13:13] So what? So what's the timeline? How far out do you start contacting in invitations and then talk to me about when you start to actually make the personal contacts to make that personally.   [00:13:25] So the save the date goes out about six weeks in advance. And then I think just as the Sarah question, she's not with us. She's our assistant. But they get text about once a week after that, OK? They get an email that tells what the event's actually about and kind of what they can expect. And then just some reminders for hours, BP.   [00:13:46] And there's a handful. The truth is, is that you're not going to get everybody. You can't call everybody then obviously on the list kind of deal. So you call a couple of key people and make sure that they're coming. Check the RSVP fees, try to get as much RSVP so that you can plan accordingly. Obviously, the earlier the better. And then just create from there, know create the list that you're going to call it is. And then when you make those phone calls to them, you know, are you making sure that you're going to make it? And do me a favor, bring somebody along with you. It's like I can bring somebody in your life. I got you on the phone, of course. You know, so and so. It tends to be good in that sense with our neighbors to come as well.   [00:14:23] We are fortunate enough to live on a farm. And so we don't have next door neighbors what we do, but they're pretty far away. So we like the community to know that we're that we would like to do a lot of fundraising for community community, that we support the churches here. All of the churches have ice cream socials in the summer. And we try to get as many of those as we can, but we get to know the neighbors that way. And then when we have an advance, we'll even put a sign up, a big sign in the yard that says everyone's welcome. So it's not just our client and it's client people that, you know, we love and want to do business with. Right.   [00:14:59] So there are key key for that question. I mean, I'm on the phone every day. I get in the office about seven o'clock. I do a script practicing beforehand. I prepare for my day. And at eight o'clock I'm on the phone and I'm on the phone until noon every day. Whether I'm doing a follow up was how it ended or I'm doing lead generation, calling the people in our database. And there's the it's it's the relationship building. I wish I could say I was better at it.   [00:15:24] Some of the times I get we just switched over a new system in in I'm not making as many context as I'd like to be making because I'm trying to like fill the system in as I go kind of deal and make it good that sense. But for the most part, it's just keeping in touch with them, whether you're sending them a thank you card or thinking of your card or inviting them to an event or sending them birthday cards, we've got to force the birthday process. I mean, you get into an email, you you get a phone call, you get a text messages, and often you'll just get a card as well. So, well, I say often cards take a lot of time and so do the phone calls. So you got to kind of balance your mind on what you're doing with.   [00:16:03] Well, if you were to put an end, I must say, I mean, like these 30 to 50 selves a year that you guys do, are most of those coming from your personal contacts referred to or directs? Is there a way? I don't know if this is a fair question, because I know when you're just doing all these relationship things, it's hard to measure and quantify. One is more important than another. But is there a way that you guys have mentally quantified in your mind, which are the most important things that you're doing in terms of these ReachOut events and which are just kind of supporting things?   [00:16:41] Is that a fair question? It's a great question. And, you know, I'm I would say that we're just not measuring enough to know it.   [00:16:49] I think that. I think the phone calling is actually the most important, because that's something that we can do consistently every day.   [00:16:58] Now, of course, you can't you don't talk to everybody every day, but the events are kind of a couple of times a year event. And so we're touching them. We're trying to do them four times a year. So we're touching them during that time. And I think a personal one on one phone call probably goes the furthest in getting us, you know, repeat business and referrals business.   [00:17:17] I can up my game a little bit here recently in regards to the phone calls, it's like I'm setting up appointments nowadays, which I didn't do in the past because I was so focused on business kind of deal. I'm setting appointments just to have coffee with people in in trying to set up so my afternoons are filled with going and have coffee. No, no, remember. I don't drink coffee. So it's just a matter, it's just a matter of getting in front of these people. In the conversation they bring up real estate, which is really, really enlightening, kind of really cool that they bring it up, you know. So how's business with the man making it into it? You know, by the way, you know you know anybody that just recently had a kid or maybe a job promotion or those kind of questions come up then. And then the other thing is, is that we're tapping back into. So it's Nancy and I have been involved in motorcycle's in fact, that's where we met, was at a motorcycle store alone. And and so Harley Davidson, that's my that's my life for 30 years was motorcycle. So we're going back to those people and creating events around specifically around motorcycle enthusiasts and then doing stuff that is, you know, I guess dovetailing if there's another event going in, we're definitely going to be there and we're definitely going to be a figure in the event. And then we're definitely going to be promoting. It doesn't I don't ever want to make it sound like we're promoting real estate business. We're simply promoting Tom and Nancy and and then talking about business. And it's a different, different mindset than what I've always said or then what I have had. It became a grind in the past. It was how much business can you do, how much business, which business can you do and not doing not even been greatly successful. And then going back to just how what kind of person do I want to be?   [00:18:59] We know that's the basics and real estate. I was interviewing a another friend of mine who's actually here in town and he's been selling real estate twenty five years broker. And the cool thing about him is I was asking him, I said, now, what type of marketing do you do? I've never done any marketing. I said, never done any advertising. Now he's I've never spent any money and marketing for business and said, so what do you do? He says, I'm I'm just cause I I'll call people and say, hey, how's it going? Let's get together. And that's it. I said, that's it. You know, is this what you guys are doing? And what's interesting is, is he has never had a time when he never hit his goals financially because he you know, his just like you guys. God, first family second, business third. And he grows his business to the point that he accomplishes his business goals. So he has time with his family. But it's it's always it's only about Tony furious about a relationship. And that's what you guys are doing. That's what's so beautiful.   [00:20:10] There's lots of room for improvement.   [00:20:12] Yes. Now I get that. I want to shift just a little bit. Have you done. Have you tried things in the past that were an absolute failure? Let me see if I can phrase this the right way. I don't want to say that was an absolute failure in turn someone off from doing that, but maybe it was a failure for you. And you know why. In other words, most things out there work for somebody if they're in business. Hopefully they work for somebody. And the question is, have you tried some things that didn't work that you learned from? And is there something you can share with our listeners as to why it didn't work for you, that maybe if someone has similar, similar or a similar situation as you guys, that maybe you can help them understand what works, what doesn't? I don't know if that's a fair question.   [00:21:03] Now that we have had anything that has just totally failed, we have some things that have been more successful than others. And one thing that happens with us and our agents are like this, but we don't consistently use everything that we have available to use, either from lack of time or lack of money. But there was a couple of years when we farm to market, farm to neighborhood, and we were successful with that. Well, that kind of went away because we got involved in other types of marketing things. And it wasn't that it wasn't successful. We just haven't done it in the last couple years. So we could go back to that. But then we probably have to give someone else, because just the lack of time probably makes sense.   [00:21:45] The other aspect, it would be like open houses. I mean, you can farm the market indefinitely, build the relationships that are indefinitely build. Unfortunately, we don't live in a neighborhood, so we can't farm our own neighborhood, which to me lends credibility a little bit a little bit different way. And then you can grow out from there. If you're moving into a neat or you're working a neighborhood, you're gonna do you gotta find out about the neighborhood. You got to get in a frenzy to make events that happened in there. And it's always kind of out there.   [00:22:12] So that would be reason for a decision not to put that much effort into it. And yet there's lots of reasons to put it into it. Another thing would be something that we have been unsuccessful at following through with the same with the farming is on open houses. You have an open house and you've got people that are coming in. And all you have to do is set up one appointment at every open house to get a buyer or seller. It's like done. We should be doing that. And at the same sense, you know, it's a weekend job. Right.   [00:22:46] And then you have to follow the system not wanting to work weekends.   [00:22:50] Look, system, I think that ideally, you know, if I was to lay out my open house on Tuesday, had put arrows out and start the marketing on it on Friday, I'd put Gob's to somewhere around 20 different signs out.   [00:23:03] And then on Saturday or Sunday, I have open houses.   [00:23:06] There would be two hours long. And, you know, make an event out of that and making sure that we've got up systems to that. And we just don't do that.   [00:23:15] And that's why open houses are such a great way for new agents to start their business because they have time.   [00:23:22] You know, I've always said, what do we have more time or more money to invest in into a certain marketing thing that we're gonna do for that time period in our business.   [00:23:33] And if you don't have any money and you knew you don't have a clients, open houses are definitely the best way to go. We actually have more money than we have time. Right. That's the place to be either right now. Well, I always feel like we have more money and we have we definitely have more money than we have time.   [00:23:52] I totally get it. Well, you know, I think it goes back to the parameters that you guys mentioned in terms of, you know, you set the parameters and you operate within it and open houses violates the parameter if we don't work on weekends. Right. So now, hey, speaking of those parameters, I want to go back if I if we can. So you have a hierarchy, God, family business. Talk a little bit more about that. I want to talk a little bit about just that whole balance and those parameters. I don't have a specific question yet, but can you maybe maybe give me some your thoughts and what you do and how firm those parameters are? Just gonna craft what's going on with you on that.   [00:24:41] Well, this business.   [00:24:44] Can lead you astray easily if you let it. You know, you can get so wrapped up in in making money or pleasing the clients and you can take your eyes off what's really important, which is pleasing God and saying yes to a client isn't always the best thing for them or you. And so I think if you go back to kind of the old bracelets we used to wear, what would Jesus do?   [00:25:10] You know, sometimes you have to say no.   [00:25:12] For whatever reason in kinds don't like to be told no and usually all is business. In that situation. But that's something that, you know, is important to us. We go to a listening appointment. We we talk before we go. And, you know, is this a house that we want to live? And, you know, what are the criterion which we're willing to take this? You know, we're not ruling to compromise our values. We're not willing to be dishonest. We're not willing to just be at the beck and call of our clients knowing that that's not best for them or us. We're not going to serve them well if.   [00:25:51] You know, we're at their beck and call 24/7. That makes sense. We're not here.   [00:25:57] I mean, that's it. So Nancy and I just come from a place of of knowing faith and hope is clearly there for us. So. So we know that there's a that there's a higher power, that what happens to be Jesus Christ as we know and love them. And if she shows up for us, you showed up for us in the past and he's shown up for Stanely.   [00:26:15] And whether we're whether we're saying a prayer before we go into a listening appointment or we're saying a prayer at the listening appointment or or we're just making sure that when we start our day, they were grounded in in in in the word or in, you know, meditative state where we know that, you know, we're covered.   [00:26:35] All right. Hey, let's talk and let me talk on that, because different people bring their relationship with Christ into their business in different ways. When you do your real estate business and you're in interacting with clients, do you do anything that I'll call it just overtly Christian? Let me say this makes sense. When we were looking to buy our house and we were putting the offer, writing out the offer on it, you know, my realtor who's a Christian, said, well, let's pray over this. And we prayed. OK. Do you guys do anything like that with your clients at all?   [00:27:11] Absolutely. We don't want to go in talking about, you know, being Christian, because sometimes people can oversell and under deliver. And I think we'd rather over deliver and undersell. So we try to let that show up in who we are and not what we say. After most listing appointments, Tom just very casually says, is it OK if we say a prayer? He says it just like that. And have we heard anybody say no? No, I don't think we have.   [00:27:40] We've picked up cues along the way. I mean, you know, they've got a cross hanging above their bed or something. I mean, it's it's you pick up cues along the way. But I don't know about you, but I have been turned off by plenty of people that profess to be Christians. And they're the first ones to start like pushing and shoving and lying and cheating, you know, like man men. So so we don't go in there with, you know, a Christian tone. We go in there with a humble tone and then go from there. Like I said, like Nancy just said, the opportunity presents itself to say prayer. Is it OK? It's always a question.   [00:28:15] And how did how did the clients respond to that?   [00:28:18] I mean, I think the majority I can't remember anybody that's actually said no. Most people are very excited. You know, they realized then that these are probably some pretty sincere people that want to pray for us and really are concerned about what goes on with this transaction, whether we lost our house or not, and whether we sell our house or not. You know, it's they're getting a feeling for us through prayer and our actions that we're the type of people that are going to have their back. Even if it doesn't turn out to be a sale.   [00:28:51] I love it. And what other ways? I'd love to find out if you don't mind sharing just a little bit more, maybe your relationship with Christ and how you feel. It's kind of impacted what you do in real estate. Can you share something on that?   [00:29:07] I'm a I'm a recovering Catholic, and what I mean by that is, you know, we went to church as a as a family firm because all the least you could do.   [00:29:20] I just remember Mom saying something felt the least you could do is give God an hour or a week in there. And I went through catechism, confirmation and communion and all of the sacraments. Catholic. And and when I and when I separated from that and I and I needed some stability, I knew that I could go back to the Catholic Church and get that. And yet when I needed a personal relationship, I didn't have that. And I'm also a recovering alcoholic and still in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I found Jesus. He showed up differently for me than he did for many other people. But I just developed a personal relationship at that point. So that's just kind of my baseline. So if I've got that personal relationship as a result of my connection, the things that I do, and I don't mean the overt things that I do for other people in regards to my communication, my prayers in the morning, my meditation, my gratitude throughout the day. I've got reminders that proper by my full and that's as a sign for gratitude. And. And those are the things that keep me connected to the spirit, keep me connected to Jesus and go from there. Nancy, similar know, we write we read the Bible and we go to Bible study and we help out at church and we do mission work and we do this. But we don't do that to earn glory or to earn favor. We do that because that's servant.   [00:30:41] Right. Talk to me. This is really interesting. You mention relationship. A lot of times, you know, people think about Christian as a religion. What religion are you? I'm Christian. Things that sort in your life. You use the word relationship a couple of times. What does that mean to you? And why are you using that in this context?   [00:31:04] Help me understand that.   [00:31:07] Wow. Guess because he saved me. Tell me more. I mean, so, you know, my life is is not been a smooth sailing. They say the road to paradise is not it's not smooth. And in mine has been hellish. I mean, I've had a.   [00:31:27] Whether it was.   [00:31:31] Childhood diseases that I was able to to work through or that Jesus pulled me through or whether it was an illness that removed me.   [00:31:39] I was a I had a corporate profile job and I'm moving up in it and I get disabled and I'm not able to go there. And I think it's what what I what I do. That's going to make it better and then make it to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and in and pulled from the need to satisfy others so that I can get that paycheck or that notoriety or whatnot. And then I'd like to say that, you know, that recovery at that point was perfect for me, no drugs and alcohol. But the truth is, is that I found Internet addiction, Internet pornography addiction, and I needed to work the steps on that. And as a result of that, unfortunately, I lost my first marriage. And in the way that that was kind of hammered on me, it can have a real negative connotation in society. And with my former wife and and in you know, I had my faith at that point. And so I look back.   [00:32:44] And I know he is with me, and that's in a can't, whether it's Nancy and I or whether it's another close friend or somebody that I work with. I know what teamwork is. And it's not because of what I do. It's because of what we do. And I can't. And I have a relationship with Christ the same way. It's not because of what I do and that just because of what he does, it's what we do together. Next, the relationship.   [00:33:07] That's really neat. In terms of that relationship and trying to I've got kind of pictured in my mind's eye what I want to ask and then trying to formulate it into a question. So someone's listening to this call. They're going through challenges and they pray. They've gone to church. None of that really is not clicking. It just doesn't seem to be, quote unquote, working. They they check off the little list. What is different between what you did and going to church and doing catechism and those things? And this thing you call a relationship. Help me. Help me understand. All right. That person that may be listening. What's the difference between relationship and these things that we call, you know, doing the Christian thing? Is that.   [00:34:10] Yeah. Well, first of all, it's not a checklist. You can't check the list and say, I went to church and I read my Bible and I prayed. So why isn't my life happier or better, whatever it is they're looking for? I mean, that's not how you have a relationship with another person. You don't check off the boxes while I called so-and-so today and I met them for lunch.   [00:34:31] So, you know, we should be really tight now. You know, you have to think of it that way. A relationship is a one on one ongoing experience with another person. And that person has Jesus and he. Is better than to your friends, because he he's always there and he forgives so quickly and so easily. I think a lot of people come to faith when they're that they've hit bottom. And he's standing there waiting. You know, he wants to help you up and pull you up and. I don't know really how to tell people to.   [00:35:10] You get to that place where they're surrendering everything to him. But that really is the only answer. You know, you're probably going to do it. Meaning surrender everything to him. You can do it now or you can do it later. Most people like to go through a lot of pain before they do it.   [00:35:28] Like, do they just.   [00:35:29] Well, they don't like it, but they do it. So if you can do that, you know, sometime in your life. If you're tired of going through the pain or maybe you're not in a lot of pain now, you will be, you know, it's coming. That is something that being a believer or being Christian doesn't mean that you're not going to have troubles. It means that God's going to get you through those. And the sooner you learn that, I think the happier that you'll be just having that solid foundation to turn back to as opposed to what do I do now? And that trying to help yourself.   [00:36:05] It just doesn't work.   [00:36:08] I think the relationship with Christ for me is developed in in two primary ways. And the first one is in nature. I can't look around me and think that there isn't something greater creating this. I mean, we're in the change of seasons right now. The colors of the leaves will be changing colors and then we'll go into winter and then. Oh, my heavens. Spring comes and you're like, well, of course, he's going to put spring after after winter because it's just and, you know, I say he put it there because I believe it was created by him. And so I can just watch around me. It doesn't mean I like all of the seasons. Frankly, I don't even like spring. But it sure does bring out beauty, you know. And and I appreciate that. And the other thing. So in nature, I see that what I've seen in people as well to the relationship I have, you know, this. This is been a twenty five year road for me to get to this point. And that's not twenty five years old, that's twenty five years. When I met Christ in that in that relationship way in like my sister turned me on to a book, The Time for Joy, which is in scrap pages nowadays. But I still read it. Not every day as much as I used to, but I read it. I read it this morning again. And it's just that meditation. And then, you know, eight or ten years ago, another friend gave me a book by Derek.   [00:37:27] It's kind of my Bible leader book. Think of the rings. Dear friends. Thank you. And then, of course, I got a recovery Bible from somebody else. And I got I got in business. I was handed a journal, you know, and said how you can put God first. That's for writing about it when you go to bed and be grateful and in in recovery in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, they they encouraged prayer and meditation. They encourage a relationship with God. And, you know, so and so all of the friends that I met in that sense and every Thursday night for the past eight years have been in a men's men's meeting which started out at a church. Now we've been through several different churches and it's clearly Christian driven. We just call ourselves the protocols at this point. And there's just a topic where men from thirty six years old at 84 years old are getting together and talking and in that crisis shows up. And in that the relationships built I mean, we cry together, we laugh together. We in in there's not a meeting that goes by that you don't know that there's a presence of God.   [00:38:35] So. That's really neat. I love what you're saying, Nancy. You know, someday you're going go through tough times. And I was thinking I just had one of our podcasts, actually, Elk LP coming out before this one, but I've already recorded it. By the time we're doing this interview and is talking about the Israelites going through the wilderness, you know, coming out of Egypt. And it seems like they always put themselves into a position. God takes them to a position of dry point. OK. Where there is no water and and they always wait till they're about dying of thirst. They start complaining to God and God shows up with their answer vote.   [00:39:19] What hit me reading it is God would have given them the answer. They just ask God to light early before they got to that point for inspiration.   [00:39:26] Does that make sense? Yeah.   [00:39:29] I think sometimes we we wait until it's unbearable and that's when we we, you know, seek the Lord and crown the Lord. And yet Jesus said I came that you might have life abundantly right now and always have to do is this kind of saken right now.   [00:39:47] Let me ask you a question on that, because you guys have gone through a lot of struggles. I know. And if you were look at your life now. I know there still probably struggles. And if you look at your life 10 or 15 years ago or 20 years ago or maybe a little bit further back when your relationship wasn't with the Lord, wasn't his strong. And I'm I'm just looking at the life with a relationship with the Lord now versus where the relationship was a lot less. Are the struggles significantly different? In other words, now that you have a great relationship with the Lord, is the struggle or a stronger relation is a struggle a lot less in terms of things hitting you than it was earlier? Or is the struggle level about the same? Does that make sense?   [00:40:38] Yeah. It's about the same struggles.   [00:40:40] Both the same. What is the response to the struggle? OK. The joy in the struggle helped me. Now the struggles are about the same now with a relationship being more mature vs. not really pursuing it. What's the difference?   [00:40:56] You know, sometimes when something disaster is happens, your first responders response is to panic and, you know, despair and, you know, having this guy here that just says to me, you know, we need to start Perrow right now. And God's not going to leave us now. He hasn't so far. And it's just really a matter of a couple of minutes. You can take a few deep breaths. You can say a prayer and come back to he's going to get us through this. Whereas I think years ago, you know, you rely on your own, like, what can I do to get through this? And sometimes you can. I mean, sometimes it's up to you to do the next right thing, but often it's not in our hands. The things that are really hurting us and bothering us are totally out of our control. And that's what you come to realize in a close relationship with God is that he's in control. And hearing our prayers is the most important thing we can do now. We don't need to try to fix it. You know, either we can't or it's completely out of our hands.   [00:42:01] There's. So you've got to think so.   [00:42:06] There has to be a physiology shift and that can be like breath work, breath work to me has always been extremely important because like breathing happens without me thinking about it. And yet, when I think about breath work, to me it's a connection with with everything else. I mean, I exhale carbon dioxide and the trees inhale it through the trees. Exhale oxygen. And I inhale that. And so there's there's a definite connection there with that stuff. So it's in it's a conscious I'm breathing and I'm kind of counting or I'm doing feeling the chest rising and lower. So there's a physiology that happens with it. And then there's also an anchoring opportunity.   [00:42:41] So for me, I have an inker that when things don't get to it, I can I can just anchor and it'll pull me back into those thoughts of when I was blessed with feelings of blessings or feelings of abundance or whatnot. And just anchoring it added recognize that. That's good. So there's a physiology that starts and then there's that the you know, it's all about mindset, 99 nine mindset. It's got to be 90 percent of it all. And if we're talking about God and we're talking about gratitude and we're talking about abundance in in the proverbial fan gets hit with life, you know, we can go with talking about the proverbial fan and the stuff that's flying or we can talk about the good things. They're in the office. There's a saying that your thoughts eavesdrop, get your thoughts, eavesdrop on your words. And so if you're gonna be talking about the things that are not favorable, then you're that's where you're gonna be hanging on. And that's what you're going to find support in. If you're thinking about things that are, you know what I want I want to use the word good. But that's way too general. Things that are of abundant, things that are of joy, things that are of Christ, things that are of life, things that are of relationship. Then it's soon certain to go in that way in Christians.   [00:44:01] You know, I love the mindset. When you mentioned that my mind went back to Roman, say, with Paul, has the mind set on the flash is death. But the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. And where we set our mind is the outcome we get. Right. And. And I not long ago, we were going through some challenges. And my son is very wise in the spirit and we're talking about these different things. And he said, Dad, the battle is won in the spirit before it's won in the natural. And you know, that's so true. And, you know, God is a god of patterns. And he has a pattern. And he keeps repeating that pattern in one pattern that you guys have seen in your life. I've seen in mine. And that is that. God takes care of you. God takes care of you, as you say, can follow him, in fact. I would probably suggest without knowing the inner workings of your business, that if you were to look back over the life of your business. That all the big wins and and transactions and revenues that covered all your expenses probably were things that God brought to you, that you didn't really work.   [00:45:22] Yeah. Yeah, I would almost guarantee it. Yeah.   [00:45:25] It's a it's a pattern. And because of that pattern, we can live in joy in the midst of the struggles that come our way because we always are in struggles. The question is, do we try to reline ourselves to solve them or rely on the Lord? And the pattern with the Lord is he always handles it for those who love him and who follow him. So that's kind of the big takeaway I'm getting with you guys. Yes. Well, this has been really neat. I've enjoyed this. Is there anything else? As we start to wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share business spiritually? A combination or anything else that. Before we wrap up the call.   [00:46:20] Thomas reading his notes. No, I'm not. There a tax in place? There's two things that come to mind.   [00:46:28] First of all. In watching videos and in watching and reading other people's real estate businesses and do this, do that, do this, that I've put other people on pedestals and in like that envy, maybe envy is is a word that might fit it as well. But I want to be like them or how come I can't do that or what's happening. And when Nancy and I sit here like this, I don't ever want to be thought of as the guy that has the answers because we struggle day in and day out. But we've got the answer of relying on our greater than ourselves. And we know that if we just get up in the morning and put our best foot forward, that the answers come in as long as our house is in order as we stand in the rooms. And so it's it's their struggle and there's pain and there's loss and there's reward in. Life is clearly way more abundant now than it was before. So. So don't do what I did and yet do what I did. But don't think of Nancy NYes any better or worse than we're just on the same path in the same. Going in the same direction and doing things have a little different speed than you are because everybody is is on the path.   [00:47:52] The other thought is, is.   [00:47:54] Some of the things just kind of along those same lines. Some of the things that were said here by what you've read and what Nancy and I have come up with in the moment, and as we said a prayer before we started this, I think this is a good podcast. And I'm looking forward to listening to those two people because they get some good stuff to say.   [00:48:14] Well, y'all are definitely just an amazing couple. Anything from you announcing that, trying to put you on the spot or anything, that song line before we wrap it up?   [00:48:23] Now, I just you know, for me, the most important thing is to have Tom as the leader of our family. And he continues to do that. He leads our company and he leads our family. And that's important to me. I hope to retire someday sooner than he does.   [00:48:38] And it's just nice to know that the person leading our company and leading our lives is a man of God.   [00:48:46] Absolutely. There is another passage that says no. Why be submissive to your husbands as crisis, as the churches, to the Christ husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. And the picture that I got was this. You know, in the in the Christ center form of marriage, the husband is the covering of the family. And it's the husband's responsibility to take care of the family. Right. Ultimately, and as the bride of Christ, all of us make up the bride of Christ. He is our husband. And we can trust him to cover us. And trust him to provide for us. And it hit me as I as I was reading through this in the spirit, just kind of spoke this to me. At least I believe it was the spirit that said, you can trust me to Beatty, I'm your husband. And you don't have to worry about all of these decisions just to, you know, follow the leading I give you and leave it all up to me. And it's just really freeing. So it's wonderful to have a man of God is your husband to to just follow and lead your family. So. I really appreciate that.   [00:50:00] Thank you. Thanks. All right. Well, as we wrap this up, if you do like this podcast, be sure to subscribe to it and you'll get a lot more. Be sure to like us on iTunes and YouTube and learn more about us and how to grow your business and how to grow spiritually if you want. At our Web site, get cellar's calling you Acom. Thanks, everyone. You'll have a great day.   [00:50:23] Thank you. Thanks.   P063

This podcast will cover a little bit about who I am and why I decided to throw my hat in the ring for podcasting.

In this episode Shadell and Lauren discuss the tragic news about a Former Boston College Student Charged in Boyfriend’s Suicide on Graduation Day. And how do you know when you are in a toxic relationship and what should you do to get out? We give our thoughts on a toxic person that has come forth that they are that toxic person, and what should they do now that they are aware? Next the couple talk about T.I.’s question to his wife Tiny about why do people get married? And Tiny explaining how her mother told her she should get married for financial stability and not love! Which would you chose? Then the couple get into Kanye West banning his 6-year-old daughter from wearing makeup and crop tops: “I think and feel differently now that I'm Christian”. Lastly we get into relationship advice and give ideas on what a husband should do when you have no money for your first year anniversary? Keep the conversation going! Website: PagingTheSimpsons.com Twitter: @PagingSimpsons Instagram: @PagingTheSimpsons Facebook: Paging The Simpsons YouTube: Paging The Simpsons Send in your questions at: PagingTheSimpsons@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew: Former Olympic Gymnast Shawn Johnson and NFL player Andrew East sit down to share their most vulnerable sides and open up like they never have before. https://open.spotify.com/show/7aGLm9HYn9mEyVr1FDzrpa?si=bgb4jh_nTyGiIabdk8BD8g --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/PagingTheSimpsons/message

Several years ago, Rev. Pat’s oldest sister sent her a blog post entitled, “I'm Christian, unless you're gay.” The writer noted he really wasn't writing about homosexuality or about Christians. He was writing about when well-intentioned folk, it could be any one of us, feel justified in abandoning loving-kindness because of who someone is. We aspire in our lives to live out our UU principles of compassion and acceptance. Yet, can we think of anyone, any groups we might list in the following blank: “I am a loving, compassionate Unitarian Universalist, unless you are a ______”?

Thinking Thursday’s are about critically thinking, breaking out of boxes, and discussing new ways we could live this life together. We often spend a lot of time arguing about our opinions. I'm vegan! I'm Christian! Republicans are evil! Democrats are Satan! What if we looked at our opinions differently? Could we create a better society? BOOK MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R.Hawkins M.D. Ph.D. Thinking Thursday: Thinking Thursday is about learning how to think. We live in a world where people like to tell us what to think, but has anyone taught us how to think? Examining the worlds greatest thinkers is a great place to start. Send us thinkers you'd like us to feature. Call 206-395-5608 and leave us a message. E-Mail us zacg@LosingOurReligion.org or message any of our social pages (links below). Do You Love the Podcast and Want to Support It? Support the podcast by leaving us a Rating & Review on iTunes or your podcast app. Do your Amazon shopping through our links. Donate to the Podcast. Join the CounterCulture Society and become a Producer through our Patreon. Follow, Read Blogs, and Hang Out with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LosingOurReligionPodcast.com. Receive Weekly Communication and Encouragement: Join our email list. This podcast is produced by select producers and created by @ZacGandara & the CounterCulture Society™.

Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: I'm Joe Fontenot. This is the Answering The Call podcast. This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Today's guest is Kyle Beshears. Kyle talks about a new word, new word to me at least. Kyle was here at the Defend Conference, and the word he taught me was apatheism. Gary: Apatheism? Joe: Apatheism. Gary: That's a new one on me as well. Joe: It is, it's not fruit, it's something else, which he's going to tell us about now. Gary: Let's hear from Kyle. Joe: Okay, so Kyle you've said something that doesn't get said often and it's called apatheism. In some ways we can guess what it's about, but I think your explanation is much more helpful. What is apatheism? Kyle Beshears: Yeah, the word's a bit intuitive. You can parse two words out of there, apathy and theism, a clever way of trying to describe a feeling of indifference towards questions related to God's existence is how I would initially define apatheism. There's a ... I don't know how to describe it, the-ism we think has to do with the way we think, right? Kyle Beshears: It's a belief, it's cognitive, but I think apatheism affects our heart as well, and how we feel, our emotions. Apatheism is not just finding questions related to God's existence intellectually or being apathetic to them intellectually, it's also an affective reaction to questions about God. I might define apatheism as when a person believes questions about God are unimportant and they feel that way as well. It's both a belief and a feeling. Joe: Okay, so let's work that out. Like a role-play, right? Your apatheist, I am me, and I say, "Kyle, I would like to talk to you about God." What do you say? How do you act? Kyle: Well me personally I would be polite, but to have the conversation ... Joe: A kind apatheist. Kyle: Yeah, yeah, you seem like a nice guy Joe, but in reality I really don't want to have this conversation. I find it as uninteresting as arguing over whether or not Pepsi is to be preferred to Coca-Cola, right? It's just not an interesting conversation to me. Joe: It's sort of irrelevant. Kyle: Irrelevant, yeah, I don't find that God affects my life, my relationships, my future, and I don't think ... Maybe he affects you in a personal way, but that's that's you, that's idiosyncrasy, that's unique to each person. To me, I don't care. Joe: Do you think it's a generational thing? Kyle: Thinking through it, I think it's probably more prevalent in younger generations, so millennial's and younger. I've just been reclassified as zenial, so I guess we're in between generation Y and the millennial's. Joe: Okay. Kyle: I think probably you're starting to see it in Y, in zenial's, millennial's, and whoever comes next. I don't think it would be fair to assign apatheism to just younger generations. I think you see wherever there is a decrease in religious attendance and church services, wherever you see an increase in religious un-affiliation, I think you'll find apatheism there. Kyle: Apatheism may even be ... You might be able to find apatheism more geographically that generationally, right? Pockets in the Northeast in the United States, Western Europe, Canada, I think you'll find that apatheism is more prevalent with those people than in say southeastern United States or majority world contexts like South America and Africa where church is growing, you'll find a complete opposite. Joe: Where do you think apatheism comes from or what causes it? Is there an easy answer for that? Kyle: No, I don't think there's an easy answer for that. I think you can trace the beginnings of apatheism maybe as far back as pre-Socratic thinkers. You have this movement in ancient Greece where some philosophers are starting to move away from polytheism and they're moving towards this ... It's not monotheism, but it's God is everything and God is fate, right? Kyle: The problems you're having with your crops or your relationships or your wealth are not because of fickle gods, it's because of fate, so why should you care about the gods? You see an apathy towards the comings and goings of the gods, but it's not replaced with the apatheism we experience. Their apathy was a virtue like you come to just recognize that you can't control fate. Kyle: The moment you truly understand that, you'll find bliss, you'll find happiness. I think the kind of apatheism we experience today starts to rise in the Enlightenment period where people are rejecting Christian theism in exchange for agnosticism, which is we can't know if God exists. Deism, which means a God exists, but he or it doesn't really have any direct impact on our daily lives. Joe: Set it and forget it thing. Kyle: That's right, yeah, the popular phrase is the absentee landlord. Atheism, no, I'm unconvinced that God exists, right? There's this a line from one of those Enlightenment era atheists named Denise Diderot. I'm going to pull it up real quick. Sorry, you'll have to edit this part. Joe: No, it's okay, we don't edit, this will all be in there. Kyle: Oh, okay, great. Joe: They're listening to us right now. Kyle: Good, good, so Denise Diderot, famous Enlightenment atheist thinker, and he distills apatheism in his time in this one sentence. He says, "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all," right? If you don't know much about hemlock, you should not put that on your tacos. Joe: That's the stuff that kills you. Kyle: It will kill you, yeah. Joe: Painfully. Kyle: Hemlock and parsley look similar, right? Diderot is saying it's more important that you discern between what can go on a salad and what will kill you than warrior fret about whether or not God exists. Joe: I feel like that betrays this huge idea already that God doesn't exist. If he exists, it's more of the idea of God exists. The same emotional attachment we might have like a small kid has to a blanket, do you know what I mean? This makes me feel good, I almost feel like in once sense what he's saying is forget about the blanket, it's just a toy thing. Joe: There's real issues, something could kill you and not kill you. The irony there is that what happens when you die? It really does matter if there is a God or not. Kyle: It is deeply ironic with this question, what happens when you do mistake the hemlock for parsley and you end up dying? Joe: Right. Kyle: Well, now the question of God's existence becomes of the ultimate importance. Joe: Right. Kyle: Yeah. Joe: Yeah. How do you put apatheism on the scale with atheism? I think a lot of people know atheism, whether it's the new atheists which are angry and want to pick the fight, or whether it's just the person who says look, "I'll be honest with you, I've thought through this, I don't think God exists. I'll talk to you about it, but it's not something I talk about a lot." Joe: Then you've got this new class or this newer category, newer to me, apatheism, which is just like this is completely irrelevant. Where do you put those on a line as far as the easiest people to talk to? Kyle: Yeah, intuitively you would think apatheism has a lot to do with atheism. If you don't think God's existence is important, well then you must not believe in him. That could very well be the case for a lot of people, but actually I think there is something that an atheist and a theist has more in common than does an apatheist, and that is interest in questions relating to God's existence. Kyle: If you were to ask a Christian theist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Yes, of course I do." Then you would be able to have a conversation, "Well, what is that God like? What are the implications of that belief?" If you were to ask an atheist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Well no, I don't," and then you'd be able have a conversation. "Well, what does God's nonexistence mean," right? Kyle: Now if you were to go to apatheist and ask them, "Do you believe God exists?" They're going to shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't care." That indifference drains any conversational power out of the whole dialogue, right? They won't have the conversation with you, because they don't care to have the conversation. In one sense atheists and theists should both share a deep concern about apatheism, because both the atheists and the theists find questions relating to God's existence important, because they understand the ramifications of answering the positive, theism, or negative, atheism. Joe: That's really interesting, I never thought about that before. An atheist should be concerned about the ramifications of an apatheist. Kyle: Absolutely. Joe: Clearly a theist of the Christian should be concerned, because we want everyone to be restored to God and love God and have a happy life. The atheist should be too, tell me why. Kyle: Yeah, I mean a simple scenario, who's going to buy Richard Dawkins books, right? Let's say Richard Dawkins publishes a new book, which is a very compelling, intellectual argument against the existence of God. The people that are going to buy those books are people interested in the question of God's existence. The atheist, the theist, and even the agnostic are sitting in a room having a conversation about God, because they're all interested in whether or not he exists, and what God is like if he does, and what it means if he doesn't, or even what it means if we can't know. Kyle: The apatheist is on the opposite side of the room looking over at those three having the conversation thinking they're wasting their time, it's completely useless. Yeah, I think that should be deeply concerning to atheists and agnostics as well as theists. That maybe rounds us back to the question that you asked earlier, which of those do I find most difficult to engage with the gospel, the atheist or the apatheist? Kyle: Unequivocally, I think it's the apatheist, because at least when you're approaching atheism, you have a mutually common interest in whether or not God exists. Joe: Yes, okay, so I have a very specific question about this. I'm going to come back to that in just a second. Before I get to there, what are we talking about? Are there a lot of people that are apatheistic? How do you count, find, survey apatheistic people? Would they even care? Then how do they compare to atheists or agnostics? What's the ratio? What's the population? What are we talking about? Kyle: Yeah, this is a frustrating thing looking into apatheism. It's impossible to tell how many apatheists there are in any given culture. The reason is because if you go to polling data, so things like American Religious Value surveys or Pew Forum or Gallup that ask questions about religious identification, those pollsters do not double-click into the reasons for why people don't believe. Kyle: Very quickly we might say, "Well I know where all the apatheists are, they're in the nones, the N-O-N-E-S," right? The religiously unaffiliated, those people who when asked if they have a religious affiliation, they say, "No, none." Apatheism is not restricted to the nones, and there may be nones that are not apatheistic, right? You may just not have a religious affiliation, but it doesn't mean you don't find the question of God's existence important. Kyle: Further, to complicate matters, you can find apatheism in people who identify as a religious tradition. You can say, "I'm Jewish, I'm Christian," but they don't really care what that means. Joe: For sure, I mean, there's so many, not so many, but I already at the top of my head think of so many secular Jews who are popular in the media or whatever. I feel like in a lot of ways they don't really care. They're Jewish by culture and heritage, but not religion in the spiritual sense. Kyle: Here we're in New Orleans, I'm in Mobile in Alabama. We're in the South, the primary religious affiliation is going to be some kind of Protestantism or Catholicism, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that they care about what that means, it just means that, that's the household they grew up in, that's the tribe to which they belong. Kyle: Apatheism permeates both religious affiliation and non-religious affiliation, so it makes it very tricky to try to gauge. Joe: Where does apatheism as a proper noun end, and where does all the category, whatever you would call this, and maybe this is apatheism, all the category of say the people that come and sit in the pew, but don't do anything, do you know what I mean? They don't tithe, they're not active, they're coming for some reason, maybe it's social, maybe it's guilt, maybe it's who knows? Joe: We all know this exact group of people and they're usually a large group of people, is that apatheism? If not, is apatheism something different or more extreme maybe? Kyle: Yeah, so I think what we're walking around now is the difference between apatheism and what's called practical atheism or pragmatic atheism. Practical atheism is as old as the Bible itself. We hear Scripture lament that the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Now that doesn't mean that they were actually atheist. The fool doesn't say, "There is no God." The fool says in his heart, so there's a dissonance between what this fool believes and how this fool acts, right? Kyle: This is the height of foolishness that you believe that there is a God or you acknowledge there's a God and you recognize that the implications of God's existence affects your ethical moral behavior, but you act as if he doesn't exist. I think for a lot of our experience in the church, what we're seeing is practical atheism. Kyle: It's a profession and even maybe a vague belief of God's existence, but a refusal to recognize and act upon the implications of that belief. How that's different from apatheism, is that the apatheist doesn't care about God's existence or nonexistence, he or she could care less. The practical atheism's apathy is sympathetic, it's not real. Kyle: An apatheists apathy towards God's existence is real. To me, from my experience and my readings, this is very new. This is a very new thing in the life of the church, not one that it's had to approach perhaps ever. Joe: Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that you and Tala Anderson have written or presented a paper on this. Kyle: Yeah, that's correct, so Tala Anderson is a professor of philosophy over at Oklahoma Baptist University. He and I and a couple of other folks presented papers on apatheism at the American Academy of Religion in Denver this past November. The goal of that presentation with those papers is to define apatheism from an evangelical, Christian perspective, and then to propose ways in which we might approach it as gospel believing evangelistic, Christians who are first concerned that you don't care about God's existence. Kyle: Second, that we would like to see you come to know the Lord Jesus the way we do. Yeah, we felt it was one of these conversations that the church ought to start having, right? Especially as the United States continues to secularize in an unique way from the rest of the West. A little slower than Canada and Western Europe and a little more diverse, right? Kyle: We're seeing an increase in interest in neopaganism and the occult, which is completely unexpected. Joe: Interesting, yeah, where did that come from? Kyle: Apathy, right? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: We are secularizing in a different way, but yeah, as a challenge to the gospel, we thought it would be a wise thing to begin, at least bringing it to the public mind. Joe: Yeah, getting the word out there. Kyle: Most people experience apatheism, they know it, but they don't know it. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: Right? The second you say even the word apatheism, people go, "Oh yeah." Joe: Right. Kyle: I know exactly what you're talking about. Then it makes that thing that was intangible, tangible. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: If it's tangible, well now we can talk about it, because we can identify it, we can see it, and we can prayerfully think through how we ought to approach it. Joe: This brings me to the question, one of the questions I wanted to ask specifically was how do you start a conversation with an apatheist? An atheist, right? That's easy, there's so many entry points. It might be intimidating, but it's clear there are a lot of ways in. An apatheist says, "I don't really want to talk about this." How do we talk about something someone doesn't want to talk about? Kyle: Yeah, this is the tricky part, right? The word that's probably floating around in people's minds with a conversation like this is well that's apologetics, right? I know what I need to do, I need to go bone up on apologetic methods, arguments for God's existence. If they don't find God important, well maybe if I argue that he exists, they'll find that he's important. Kyle: Unfortunately, that presupposes something that's not there, that they're interested in having that conversation, right? Joe: Right. Kyle: I certainly don't fault people, because as creatures created in the image and likeness of God designed to have a relationship with our creator, we are by default we have interest in God's existence, right? Thinking that everybody thinks the way or feels the way we do about God is intuitive, right? Certainly, that's the model we received from Scripture thinking about the context and the time in which it was written. Kyle: Everybody thought God or gods existence is in the little g, like multiple gods, is important. We've built our apologetic models off of that, and rightly so as a biblical foundation. For example, the most famous apologetic model that's cited from the New Testament is Paul's Areopagus sermon in Acts. When he goes into Athens and he's preaching the gospel and people find it interesting, so they invite him to the Areopagus or Mars Hill in the King James. Kyle: They want him to present this new philosophy they're so unfamiliar with. As he's walking there, he passes a pantheon, so he sees a bunch of statues of gods. He notices that there's one statue to the unknown God. They are so superstitious, that they wanted to make sure they didn't offend the one god that they might not have remembered in their little collection there. Kyle: This one God is really interesting, because there's something special about him, right? He seems to proceed the other gods, there's something more powerful, more mysterious about him. Paul notices that they're very religious and he leverages that religious interest. He starts, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious." Kyle: He presupposes that they both share a minimally common interest in theism, even though they are polytheists and he is a Christian. At least they both think that God's existence is important. From that story we've built our apologetic methods, have we not? I mean, I find it very rare to read a book on apologetics without that model coming up. Kyle: That's so important, because it's so good, but what if we live in an Athens without a statue to the unknown God? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: What if we live in a society now where there may have been a statue to an unknown God, but it's come under disrepair for being neglected, vines are growing on it, soot, it's been chiseled away, right? People don't care about the Pantheon anymore, how could Paul have started, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you're very religious." They would say, "What do you mean? No we're not, we don't care about what you have to say." Joe: It's like in the one hand you've got we're in a car and they're in a car. We have gas in our car and we're going north. They have gas in their car going south, and we're trying to get them to turn their wheel and come north, the right way. This new scenario that you're talking about here is like we're in a car and we're going north and they don't have any gas. Kyle: Right. Joe: It's like a totally, foundationally different issue. Kyle: That's correct, yeah, so that's why I argue that it's far more challenging to present the gospel to an apatheist than it is an atheist or an agnostic, because you are robbed of that minimally common belief. Not only are you robbed of that minimally common belief, but the question, do you believe in God, is zapped of its power because of indifference and apathy to it. Kyle: That question is meaningless to an apatheist, in fact, they may even feel negative towards it, because they're so tired of being asked it, right? Joe: Right, so you're starting at a deficit almost? Kyle: Exactly. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: You have to take a step backwards in just recognizing that we don't share that minimally common interest is crucial to approaching apatheism, yeah. Joe: Excuse me, what should I do if I've ... I have this friend and he's apatheist, I'm just going to say, and I have a few friends that I already know fit. Say they're not friends, say we don't have a relationship already, is that the key? Is it having a relationship? Even then, maybe they don't care to talk about this. I'm the kind of person, jumping into me for a minute, I'm the kind of person that I will get confused like sports. Joe: I'm like which one is the football and the basketball? I'm at that level, right? Extremely ignorant when it comes to sports, just a real idiot, and so somebody wants to come and talk to me at sports, I'm just like I will smile and be nice and can't wait for you to stop talking about this, right? How would a person come to me and talk about sports in a way that's interesting? Joe: How do I go to a person and talk about something spiritual when they just simply don't care? Kyle: Yeah, so in that scenario what I would say is you are interested in sports, you just don't know it yet. Joe: Oh, good one, I love this, please tell me more. Kyle: How do I get you to recognize that you actually are interested in sports? Well, I would begin by finding what are you interested in period, right? When I say that the classical methods that we've developed from apologetics, we've presupposed something that perhaps we don't have any more. What I'm not saying is well we'll just nuke apologetics altogether, right? Kyle: We're just going to start over again, that's absolutely foolish throwing the baby out and the bathwater, right? Joe: You've got nothing. Kyle: No, there are people in the history of Christianity thinking theologically, philosophically and approaching their cultures, that I think anticipated this type of thing. I think we look to, in their technical terms, individuals that have explored presuppositional or existential approaches to apologetics. Things like the moral argument can be very helpful here. Kyle: What we do is we start from the bottom up, rather than the top down, right? The to down approach is you believe in God, I believe in God, but you believe in God in a way that does not align with reality, so let me explain to you how. Let me argue that, let's go through your objections, and then boom, we get to the gospel. Joe: Which even works for an atheist, because you would say, "You believe in the value of this concept God, you just believe that it's false." Kyle: That's correct, yeah. Joe: Right. Kyle: Then you deal with objections and then get to a gospel presentation. With the apatheists though, I think you have to flip the script a bit, you have to start with the bottom up. We start with the individual, and I've found that most people are interested in themselves. Joe: Yeah, sure. Kyle: Via fallen nature that we are our favorite thing to think about. When I'm having conversations with apatheists, the place I start with is not God. He is the goal of course, but the place I start with is them. I ask them, "What do you find interesting? What drives you? What are your fears? What are your hopes? What are your desires? What do you think is virtuous? What do you think is unvirtuous? What do you think is good character? What do you think is a character flaw?" Kyle: Naturally most of those conversations go towards political things. What I try to do is I try to steer the conversation towards issues of morality. Then employ what Francis Schaeffer identified as pressure points and worldviews. Things that are held inconsistently or ideologically, and really push on them and ask, "Why? Why is that?" Kyle: Very quickly, for example, using the moral argument for why murder is wrong. You would ask a person like, "Why do you think murder is wrong?" The person would say, "Well, it's not good to kill somebody, because you're taking away that person from their family." "Well I agree with that, but what if a person, another person believes that taking away that person from their family is good, is a good thing, and they have one reason or another? Well who's to say that you shouldn't murder that person?" Kyle: Well the conversation then goes to there's governments let's say, right? You shouldn't murder, murder is illegal, so I guess that's why I think murder is wrong. Well what if there is a government that decides murdering is good, right? Joe: We've had that before. Kyle: We've had those before in history, right? Then what do we do, right? You argue this until you're in this theoretical land of a one universal government that determines whether or not murder is wrong. Then well you can imagine that universal government decides at one point no, genocide is good, so now what do we do? Well I don't know, what do we do? Kyle: That's a pressure point in their worldview, they can't explain why they believe murder is objectively wrong. Joe: Yeah, I think this is interesting, because a lot of the stuff we learned in apologetics, we've essentially shuffled the deck on. We're still using all those cards, we're using all those approaches. We're using all those ideas and concepts. We're using the reductio ad absurdum, the logic, like take this to its logical end and where does this take us based on what you said you, etc. Joe: We're doing it in a way, like you said, which I think is so critical, we're doing it in a way that starts with something they care about. Kyle: Right, that's exactly right, yeah, and notice the entire time I was having, we were having this very speedy, truncated vision of that conversation, I didn't bring up God once. Joe: Right. Kyle: I didn't need too, that wasn't the point in the conversation at the beginning stage. Then the question becomes well, why can you say murder is objectively wrong? I don't know. That moment, the, I don't know is called doubt, right? Doubt, when used sometimes, is quite advantageous. You've caused them now to think critically about their worldview. Kyle: Soren Kierkegaard has a great line about doubt, using it in this kind of a way. He says, "That doubt is a higher form than any objective thinking, because it presupposes the latter, but it has something more, a third, which is interest." Joe: Yes, because doubt is not simply, I don't know, like agnosticism in the little a, agnosticism. It's not just simply a vacuum, it's an out of balance vacuum. I feel uncomfortable, because something needs to be back in line. Kyle: That's right, so this is Kierkegaard's point. Doubt's a good thing in these kinds of situations, because if you're apathetic about your faith, if you're apathetic about a position, no amount of questioning or propositions is going to zap you out of that apathy until you're interested. Obviously you can't be apathetic toward something and interested toward something simultaneously, it's impossible, it defies both terms. Kyle: How do you get somebody from apathy to interest? Kierkegaard says, get them to doubt something about the thing that they're apathetic about, or that is related to the thing they're apathetic about. Then you have interest, and interest is important, because it zaps the apathy of its power, right? That one thing that they were completely disinterested in and indifferent towards just a moment ago, now becomes something that they have to seek out. Joe: Yes, doubt becomes like the fulcrum gets them back into the interest area. Kyle: That's right, that's right. Joe: That's very interesting. Kyle: At this point, in these moments of doubt, they start to think objectively. Now for the first time maybe in a long time they're interested. This is when you make a gospel presentation. This is when we can re-approach apologetics in the way that perhaps we're more familiar with, right? We've not assumed the presupposition that these men of Athens are very religious in every way. Kyle: We've gotten them interested and then now we can move forward. Joe: Really, unless a person is clinically depressed or something like this, unless a person is really just disconnected and not motivated to live, they are interested in something, in things. They have ambitions, they have motivations, and I feel like what you're saying is we just need to do the work of finding those. They are not being upfront in that kind of way in the way that an atheist is. Joe: An atheist says, "I'm very upfront about what I disbelieve." Somebody who is apathetic in this way says, "I'm not really gonna tell you in that way," right? Kyle: That's right. Joe: This conversation is boring to me, but it's not boring. It's just the framework of it's boring, and what you're saying is you come in with this back door, you find the doubt, find what they're interested in, expose the doubt, and then the new interest emerges, the relevance to the real conversation. Kyle: That's right, if you've struck a vein that truly causes them to doubt, interest inevitably comes. Nobody's ever doubted something and then not felt some kind of interest towards why they doubted that thing, right? It's a very, very powerful tool to use, it just needs to be used wisely and appropriately. Joe: Sure. Kyle: Perhaps even in moderation, you don't want to just throw somebody into an existential tail spin. Joe: Yeah, this is for your own good. Kyle: That's right. Yeah, I think it's a challenge, right? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: It's a challenge. Joe: It's a challenge, but it's also a way forward. I think you come across someone who is in apatheist, someone who's really just apathetic about spiritual things, you're like well I don't know what to do. I think a lot of people feel that, and having this approach first step I think is very helpful, it's very helpful for me. Kyle: Well that's good, that's good, yeah. Yeah, I would say I've had this kind of conversation quite a few times now, and one of the things that I've had told to me is that just seems like a lot. I can't even remember this conversation that we had, how am I supposed to draw up this framework the second I identify an apatheist? One, I think these types of things come with experience and practice. Kyle: Evangelism, of course, is a gifting that the Holy Spirit gives us, and it's one in which he guides us, and one that we become better with through experience. The challenge I would say is well don't worry about being able to draw on this and other things that you've thought about before, go do it in and see if the spirit is not good and willing and able to guide you through these things. Kyle: Then second, in these moments we're called to be stewards. If we're stewards of the message that we're given and we rely in faith that even in our stumblings we're trying to analyze somebody's worldview, find pressure points, push on them, get them to doubt, get them to interest, that first of all this is precious to the father. This is an act of worship and it's pleasing to him. Kyle: Second, he's good to use it, so you may not zap them out of their apathy the first time, the third time, the fifth time, the 10th time. That's okay, like you may be chapters one through three in a story that's 50 chapters long. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: Yeah, it's a challenging thing, but I still think that not only are we called to through the great commission to engage all peoples, which include the apatheists, even if they're more challenging than others, it's something that the spirit indwells you to do, right? He's there with you in these moments. Joe: I think the encouraging thing to me is having the right tools, knowing what to do, at least in some sense is a good thing, but ultimately, it's not my job to save anybody. Kyle: That's right. Joe: Right? It's just my job to say why I care. Kyle: Yeah, that's right. Joe: To me that's encouraging. This has been really great Kyle, I want to ask you one last question, how are you answering God's call? What does that mean and look like and so forth in your life? Kyle: Yeah, I mean personal day-to-day, the way I'm answering God's call is through finding the ways in which he's sanctifying me, and digging in and pushing into those. It may sound very basic, but I think it's very true. This comes through repentance and through prayer and through reading Scripture and acting on the things that God has told me to do and not just filing them away in a journal. Kyle: Very recently, just being candid, the Lord has pressed on, or just pushed on my heart in prayer that he would like to see me be more aware of what repentance means and to be bolder. Answering God's call for me in this season of life is being keenly aware of what is repentance, how often do we do it? Should I be doing it more often? What does it mean to be bold, to be bold for the gospel? Kyle: It means being a good husband, it means being a good teacher. It means being a good preacher when I'm given those opportunities. I think for me, the short answer of how I'm answering God's call is he's given me talents like from the parable, talents to steward and to multiply. Every day I ask how can I multiply the talents that you have given me? Kyle: Not just to receive an answer, but to act on that answer as well. Joe: It's a great question, how can I multiply the talents that you've given me. This has been quite a joy as always. Thanks for coming to the podcast Kyle. Kyle: Yeah, Joe, thank you for having me, it was a pleasure.

Through our partnership with the Coalition of Black Excellence founded by Angela J. we have the pleasure of sitting down with the founder and CEO of GIRL STEM STARS Kiwoba Allaire. Kiwoba sits down with us to discuss her exciting non-profit and its commitment to advancing young girls of color in STEM. We also promote CBE Week, an event designed to highlight excellence in the black community, connect black professionals across sectors, and provide opportunities for professional development and community engagement.Donate to GIRL STEM STARS today! http://www.girlstemstars.org/donate-todayFind out more about CBE/CBE Week! https://www.cbeweek.com/TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and listen, y'all. Living Corporate is partnering with the Coalition of Black Excellence, a non-profit organization based in California, in bringing a Special Speaker series to promote CBE Week, an annual week-long event designed to highlight excellence in the black community, connect black professionals across sectors, and provide opportunities for professional development and community engagement that will positively transform the black community. This is a special series where we will spotlight movers and shakers and leaders who will be speakers during CBE Week, and today, we have Kiwoba Allaire.Kiwoba: Hi, everyone.Zach: Kiwoba Allaire is the founder and CEO of GIRL STEM STARS and an executive business partner at Google. She is inspired and dedicated to helping young girls build successful futures in the tech industry. Kiwoba sits on local non-profit boards for the United Way, the Sheriff's Activities League, The Family Network, and Ronnie Lott's All Stars Helping Kids. Among her many accolades, Allaire was named one of the top 50 mufti-cultural leaders in technology by the Coalition Diversity Council, Women Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal, recipient of the Sistahs Rock Beyond the Limits Award, San Francisco Business Times’ Most Influential Woman, Forever Influential Woman, and Silicon Valley Business Times’ Most Influential Woman. Now, listen, y'all. We typically have air horns. We're gonna drop the air horns right here. She got all the badges. She's certified, y'all. She is here. Welcome to the show, Kiwoba. How are you doing?Kiwoba: Fantastic. Glad that the fires have subsided. God sent some rain, and we have blue skies. It's nice to be in California today, to say the least, you know?Zach: Absolutely. Well, no, definitely happy that you are--you and yours are safe and sound. So I know I gave our audience your profile in our intro, but do you have anything else you'd like for us to know about you?Kiwoba: I'm from San Francisco, born and raised, and I'm married. I have a wonderful husband named Patrick, and I have a little boy who's turning 5 next month, Christophe, and they are the love of my life. I have a, you know, great family. I'm blessed to be alive, you know? You'll know why when I say it--when I tell you later, but I am very grateful to be healthy and alive.Zach: Absolutely. You know, what do you--you know, we're gonna talk about Girl STEM Stars today and your background at Google and the work that you've done within your organization as well as your job and your career. What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to STEM?Kiwoba: I would say that there's no room for creativity in the STEM fields. There are creative STEM careers, such as working in virtual reality, Pixar, making movies, or music data journalists or NASA, Spotify, Electronic Arts. There are even fun activities that I like to do myself, which is, like, paragliding and scuba diving. When I'm flying in the air with my husband, there's a lot of STEM. Scuba diving? There's a lot of STEM on my back, keeping me alive under 100 feet of water, underwater, and I generally don't see people that look like myself doing any of these activities, you know? It's the same with, like, golf. I mean, look, there's only one--we have one really highlighted person of color, black man, playing golf, and there's a lot of STEM when it comes to golf when you think about it. You know, just--there's a lot of fun activities that I just don't see people that look like myself doing, and I like to highlight that to the girls at GIRL STEM STARS.Zach: No, that's so true, and I will say that for me, as someone who doesn't really have a STEM background, it is easy to think about STEM and say, "Okay, well, it's just Xs and Os, 1s and 0s." Very binary, right? Kiwoba: It's everything we do.Zach: Right.Kiwoba: Yeah, it's everything we do. Zach: Absolutely, and when you talk about it--even, you know, in just, like, makeup. Makeup. You need deodorant, and I'm just looking--and the reason I said makeup, I'm looking--I'm in my bedroom right now, and I'm looking at my wife's nightstand, and I see deodorant--and I see deodorant on my--you know, just cologne. You know, print design. Just all types of things that it's integral to. So what impact, to your point around not seeing a lot of us in the spaces that you engage for--that you engage recreationally, what impact do you believe you are making when black and brown girls see a black woman featured so prominently in STEM, in the STEM field?Kiwoba: Huge impact. You know, I've been on both sides of it. You know, when I worked at an AI--artificial intelligence--company, tech company, called Rocket Fuel, I was the director of global giving, so we wrote a lot of checks, but I--like, thinking, you know, we need to do more than just write checks to charities. We need to actually--me, as the only black woman at the company at the time, I need to be able to lift girls up, not just give hand-outs. So in the position that I was in there, you know, I was the only black female executive, and I had the opportunity to bring children to our campus. Gorgeous campus, you know? It had a big gym and Olympic swim pool, rock climbing wall, the whole nine yards, and a cafeteria. Great lawns. And the kids would come and they're like, "Wow. What do I have to learn to work in a place like this?" Or when I bring them to NASA. Because of, you know, my position in the community, I have people that reach out to me from NASA, from, you know, Google in the past, and Microsoft, Yahoo. They reach out to me and say, "Hey, we want your girls to come." We bring them--we've had a relationship with NASA for the last five years, and some of the parents and the mothers will come as chaperones, and they start to cry. They're like, "Oh, my God. I didn't know anything like this existed." So being able to be in a position to lift girls up into what it looks like to work at a STEM--at a tech company, it blows their minds. Literally. I could imagine--I remember when we took them to Yahoo, and I had a bus to pick them up. Took them out to--I wanted to kind of give them a cultural experience. I took them out to dim sum. They loved it. And, you know, keep in mind, these girls are coming from either homeless shelters or they're coming from deep, deep in the unrepresented communities where, you know, some of the girls are--they live in a flat, an apartment, with 10 other people, and one bathroom, one bedroom, you know? Some of the girls are from very violent neighborhoods, right? So for them--you know, some of the parents are incarcerated. I remember one of the girls who was on the bus got a call from her father, who was in jail, in prison. So just getting them out of their community, one, giving them a good meal, and then I've got them now, or--[inaudible] I've got their attention, and then, you know, to step foot onto, like, the Yahoo campus. They literally all went, "*gasps*". Like, "This must be what Disney Land must look like." I'm like, "Yeah. Yeah, it is," you know? And then they're like, "Ooh, look, there's some cute Asian boys over there." [inaudible]. And, you know, they come inside to the lobby and they see all the gadgets, and they're given gift bags and t-shirts, and they're like, "Okay, I'll make sure to give this t-shirt back at the end of the day." I'm like, "No, sweetie. That's for you." They're like, "*gasps* This new t-shirt is for me?" 'Cause some of these girls haven't had a new piece of anything all of their lives, right? And then when we get the ERGs, which is--Zach: Employee resource groups?Zach: Employee resource groups, exactly. When we get, like, the black networks and, you know, all the females--the female engineers coming, or I have--when we're at NASA, I have the black female rocket scientists come and speak to them. They're just like, "*gasps* Oh, my God." You know? When we're on the bus, I'll ask them "What do you want to be like when you grow up," you know? And they're like, "Ooh, I want to be like Beyonce," or I want to be, you know, "a dancer in a video," and at the end of the day they'll be like, "Ooh, I want to be like that pretty black rocket scientist. I want to be like her." I've had congresswoman Jackie Speier come, and I think that's actually one of your questions, so I'll go ahead and let you ask it.Zach: [laughs] Well, first of all, this is great, and we don't have to have--we can freestyle it too, but this is good. I'm curious, really kind of talking about the program a little bit more, can you give us the origin story? Like, what was the motivation behind it? And where in you building GIRL STEM STARS did you realize how big of an impact it was making?Kiwoba: Okay, so I'll start with the first question. And, you know, I'm Christian, so it's okay, right?Zach: Absolutely, yeah. Go ahead.Kiwoba: Okay, great. Okay. So I--GIRL STEM STARS was born very organically. So I had to have an emergency surgery, and after that surgery I was told everything was fine, and two weeks later everything was not. I wound up passed out on my floor in our home, and my husband had to rush me to the emergency room, and all I remember them telling me was that "Call your family," and I'm like, "Why?" And they said, "Call your family, because your white blood cell count is off the charts." I don't remember anything after that but my husband telling me, after it's all said and done, that I had three absesces in my abdomen, and they had to do an emergency surgery to get them out. Supposedly, I woke up after all the surgery. I was in a normal room for two weeks, and I was holding court. I had my computer on my food tray, and I was having people come in from work and working, right? And I guess I was late working. It was, like, 3 in the morning, I was told, and I was talking to a nurse, and the next thing you know, all of my major body functions crashed at the same time. My heart, my liver, my lungs, my kidneys, everything crashed and, you know, they sent the crash cart, and my husband said they called him at 3 o'clock in the morning and said, "We have induced your wife into a coma because she's dying," and I was in a coma for about three--a little more than three weeks, and they figured out finally what was wrong with me. I had--we had some help. God sent--at the last moment, God sent some--all of the chiefs of surgery, the chief of pulmonary, some guy from Stanford, and then they finally figured out what was going on, and I was septic, and they had, like--had me on, like 10 IVs, and I was all, you know, needles everywhere, hoses and wires. So when I came out of it, my aunt--I was in ICU for over a month. When I finally got home, I couldn't walk. I had lost 50 pounds of body mass, and I'm a thin woman, so I couldn't afford to lose it. So I couldn't walk. Everybody carried me up three flights of stairs in our home and put me into bed, and my aunt came and visited me, and she's my prayer warrior. She's amazing, Auntie [inaudible], and she said, "Honey, you know that God sent his [inaudible] angels to save you, to keep you," 'cause my doctor said that I nearly died. I was 5 minutes from death three times. She says, you know, "That is God working hard. Those angels are--they're warring over you," and she said, "The devil tried to take you out, but I'm telling you right now that you were saved not to go back and work at that tech company--yes, you know, do your job, but you were saved for a greater purpose than just working at a tech company. You need to think and pray about what that greater purpose is, because you have a greater purpose on this earth." And I said okay, and I believed her, you know, after, you know, my cardiologist. The fact that I had a cardiologist was crazy because, you know, I was, like, a gym rat. I had a trainer. I was all [inaudible] up, you know, and, you know, for my cardiologist--she was an Asian lady that stood halfway up me, right? And she's screaming at me like, "You must take your medicine! Do you realize you were 5 minutes from death three times?" I'm like, "Okay, I guess I'll take the heart pills."Zach: Oh, my goodness gracious.Kiwoba: So yeah. I was intubated. You know, they had a tube down my throat for breathing and all of that. I was out out. So when I was home, you know, I was home for about three months, and I thought about, you know, "What is this greater purpose that I would--that I was saved for?" And I started to think about what bugs me the most, and then I realized, you know, I used to complain to HR and recruiting, "Please start hiring people that look like me. Stop hiring people that look like you." And, you know, being the only black woman there, I mean, it started to get kind of creepy, you know? I'm married to a Frenchman, a Caucasian guy, and, you know, if I didn't go to--if I didn't go to church or my parents' house, I didn't see anybody that looked like myself then, you know? Our [cert?] wasn't around then, you know? We live in--we live in an Asian neighborhood, so it's like, you know, "When do I get to see anyone that looks like me?" Right?Zach: Sure, yeah.Kiwoba: So then I realized, "Hey, instead of complaining about the situation, be the change you want to see," and I picked up the phone from my recovery bed and called LegalZoom and said, "I want to start a non-profit that advances girls of color in STEM," and--at first I said black girls, but then I--like, let's be a little more inclusive. Girls of color from underrepresented communities, and that's how GIRL STEM STARS was born, you know? It took me nearly dying to realize I had a greater purpose in me, and that greater purpose was to have an impact on the young girls in my community, and--you know, my bigger vision is to take it globally. Zach: So what was the moment, or did you have a specific moment in building GIRL STEM STARS, where you saw the impact and you realized how global and how major this could be?Kiwoba: Yes. When I was at Rocket Fuel, I--you know, the program was growing pretty, pretty big, and I had 100 girls, mostly black girls, but we had, you know, Pan-Pacific girls we had Pan-Asian girls. We also had Latinas and such, and we had a room of 100 girls in the same t-shirt, GIRL STEM STARS t-shirt, and we had little goodie bags, and we fed them breakfast. I had a black female rocket scientist come in and speak to them, and I remember--she's gorgeous. Her name is Aisha, Aisha Bowe, and she's amazing. You should interview her one day, and she said, "How much money do you think I make?" And the girls are like, "I don't know, $5,000?" You know, 'cause [inaudible] where they're coming from, right?Zach: Sure. And they're kids, like, you know? Yeah.Kiwoba: "No, higher. Higher." "10,000?" "No." "50,000?" "No. Higher, higher." She says, "I make over $100,000 a year," and the girls fell out of their chairs. They're like, "*gasps* Whoa. Wow. You must be a millionaire," you know? And I have all of my speakers bring in their pictures from when they were the age of the girls, which is between 8-18, but I prefer pictures, like, from when they're, like, 10 or something in pigtails, you know, doing sports or whatever, and then show them now, like, in different countries and then in their home and whatever, and their families, so they can really relate and--you know, so she'll say, "This was me when I was a little girl in pigtails, and this is me now, standing next to a celebrity," or whatever it is, right? And the girls are just, like, going, "Wow. Wow," you know? And then she talks about the type of work that she does. I had another lady come in and talk about how she's looking for water on Mars, and the girls were like, "Wow." Then I had--you know you've got them hooked, right? And then I had congresswoman Jackie Speier come in, and she is a mature woman, and she's Caucasian, and, you know, they had--you know, she had her security guards and everyone come in, and, you know, we had--I had the girls line up and clap when she came in, and they were mumbling to themselves, "What's this old white lady gonna have to say [inaudible]?"Zach: [laughs] That's so funny because that's so, like, true. That's so black. That's such an honest--[laughs]Kiwoba: And Jackie's my friend, right? And she's spoken for me many times, and I know she heard them, and she's like, "Uh-huh." "Okay." And I know I heard them. So Jackie and I are looking at each other and, you know, we wink at each other. So we get all the girls to sit down, and I don't remember if Jackie showed a picture of herself young. I don't remember, but she started off--and, you know, I introduced her, "Congresswoman Jackie Speier!" And she gets up there and she looks at them and she gets--everyone's quiet. She's quiet. She waits for the moment, and she goes--and she pumps her--she beats her chest, and she goes "I got shot up five times, left for dead overnight, nearly died," and they're like, "Ooh, here she comes. Okay. Okay. Okay." Then she said, "Then I got married, I got pregnant, and my husband got run over by a car on his bicycle at Golden Gate Park," and they were like, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" And they're like, "Okay." She got their attention. They're all at the tip of their chairs. She goes, "Now I'm gonna talk to you about adversity. Now I'm gonna tell you how I need to know STEM to run this constituency. I am a boss," and then she ends it with a picture of her and President Obama. The girls jump out of their chair and they're like, "Oh! Oh, man! Oh, man!" And I'm like, "Oh, my God." I had goosebumps going up my arms, and--so then, you know, at the end of the day--they all had little notebooks, and at the end of the day--and Jackie spoke forever. First, you know, her people were telling me, "Okay, you know, she's only got 30 minutes, okay?" "Only 30 minutes [inaudible]," and they were, like, frustrated. They were so frustrated. They were all spinning around in the hallway going, "What are we gonna do? [inaudible]." She was in her moment. She was in her element, right? So at the end I said, "Okay, now you told me what you want to be when you grow up. You wanted to be like Beyonce. You wanted to be, you know, a veterinarian so you can play with puppies, or you wanted to be a dancer in a music video. Now what do you want to be?" They're like, "I want to be like that badass congresswoman. Can I get her autograph?" They all run up, and they get in line to get an autograph from the badass congresswoman and take pictures with her and do selfies with her. We have just created a new STEM hero and icon in their lives. That's when I knew we were making an impact.Zach: So of course all of this is amazing, and really--in alignment with the story you just shared as well as when I'm looking at your content on your website--what I'm noticing, and what I'm really excited about, when I look at GIRL STEM STARS is that there is a clear effort and intention around making STEM practical and available for the girls that you're trying to reach, and I think for me coming up, when I thought about STEM, I would think about being, like, a scientist, or being some type of engineer. For me, those things were, like, as far away as being, like, an astronaut. Right? I was like, "Okay, how do I even do that?" When I would think about some of the math and things behind, it just seemed so far away, and I think, again, one thing kind of talking about the program, you all, you have these camps that I believe, again, kind of bring STEM to life and kind of bring it up close for the girls, and so I'm curious, do you have a favorite camp? Do any kind of stick out to you or anything of that nature?Kiwoba: Yes, NASA. NASA is one of the most mind-blowing camps that we have. The parents, you know, they fight to get on that list. We've been doing STEM camps with NASA for the last five years, and we're grateful to be invited every year, and we will get a busload of girls, 50 girls, every year. They're all from underrepresented communities, and some of the mothers to chaperone, and when we roll into NASA, we stop at the big front gate, and one of the engineers will get on, the one that invites us every year. He will give us a driving tour of NASA, and the girls are just--their faces and noses are pressed to the windows going, "Wow. Wow. This looks like a movie set, like a sci-fi movie," you know? They're all just blown away, and some of the--like, the mothers crying going, "I never knew anything like this even existed in the Bay Area." And then we will go to a big conference area, and we will meet the interns, the summer interns, and we usually have our teenagers do this camp, and it's all day from 7:30 in the morning until about 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon.Zach: Wow.Kiwoba: Yeah, and at first, you know, they're on the bus, and they're all tired, and I ask the same question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I tell you, Beyonce is famous. I mean, they always say Beyonce.Zach: She is beloved though, yeah.Kiwoba: I'm waiting to hear, like, Nicki Minaj. I don't know.Zach: Oh, no, no. I think Beyonce has--she has Nicki beat by a good mile or so.Kiwoba: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] So anyway, that's what they're saying on the bus, and I've got video of it too, you know? So when we get there, they all get into the conference room, we feed them breakfast, and they're--you know, they're tired. They're not used to being, you know, up that early in the morning, especially when they do these on Saturdays, you know? And I tell them, you know, you should congratulate yourselves, 'cause, you know, you're investing in your future, you know? You could be home like the other kids, watching cartoons and eating cereal, you know? You're here, you know, investing your future. And your parents, you know, thank you. And then a beautiful black woman with braids down her back comes in with a NASA jacket on, and they're all like, "Ooh." "She's pretty," you know? And she'll say, you know, "Hi, I'm Dr. Wendy, and I am a rocket scientist here at NASA," and they're like, "Ooh!" They're like, "Okay," and then the interns are all in their teens. They're, like, 16, 17, 18 years old, so the teenagers are seeing--will go from station to station. We probably hit by five different departments in NASA, and we also do breakout sessions, and we also [inaudible], and there was an engineer, a rocket scientist, that would take us--give us a tour, and we'd go around to these different locations. One could be drone testing. Another is a simulated space ship, where we can actually go in and see what it looks like to live in a space ship and touch things and hear what the interns are doing. They're creating little robots that fly in the air and bring tools to the astronauts. I mean, wow. Just amazing stuff, right? And there's other kids that are, you know, also working with rocket scientists to find water on Mars. That's a really big thing right now. Then we'll have a big--they host a big lunch, a big barbecue lunch, with a DJ, and the girls get out, and they dance, and they get--the black engineer group at NASA will come, and they'll dance with them, and they'll get to talk and get mentored by the black females at NASA, and at the end of the day of course, after Dr. Wendy will speak to us again and show videos, I'll say, "Okay, what do you want to be like when you grow up?" "I want to be like Dr. Wendy! I want to be like those other black women we were dancing with!" So I want them to have a real experience with these black female engineers and rocket scientists where they eat with them, they eat at NASA, they dance with people, they get to hear what they do, the type of work that they do, how they got to work they got to. So they're completely immersed in the environment, and, you know, it's like, "I did NASA." It's, like, you know, a major field trip to another country, to another world, really. Another world, because, you know, from their little perspective where they're coming from--some of these girls, like I mentioned before, you know, a flat or a homeless shelter--a flat with 10 people or a homeless shelter. This is--this is mind-blowing, and you see their little minds just go pop, and I'm like, "Yes, we got them." [laughs] Yeah, it's cool. It's really cool.Zach: It's easy to underestimate the value or the impact that that--outside looking in, what that has on a child. I remember for me, STEM wasn't really my background, Kiwoba, but it was music, and so for me, in middle school and high school, you know, I was one of the--one of the better players in Dallas, and I actually played in the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, and I was--Kiwoba: Very cool.Zach: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I was able to play with the orchestra. I was able to play at the [Meyerson?], which is, like, this big concert hall in Dallas, and it was great, and so--Kiwoba: That changes your world, right? That changes your whole world.Zach: Yeah. It changes your entire world, and then even like, you know, when I did some volunteer work where you have underrepresented kids come in who are--who come from poor backgrounds and they get to see your workplace, and they view the work site, and they see you. You know, they see somebody like me. I'm a young, black man, and I tell them I'm a manager or, you know, I just did this, that, and the third, and I travel every week. Just them seeing me and them asking, "So wait, you do this? You travel?" And it just blows--it changes their entire perspective, so that's incredible.Kiwoba: Yeah. I do the same thing. I bring the girls by my desk, you know, like at Google or, you know, wherever I was, at Rocket Fuel. I would give them a whole tour of the whole building, and they're looking around, and, like, "There's where the engineers work. See, there's accounting," and one of my friends--they hired another black woman, who was the head of accounting, and she'd come out in all her glory--you know, she wore beautiful clothes. She was stunning--she still is--and she's like, "So I'm the accounting part of this tech company," and, you know, "You have to know math to be able to be in accounting, but this is another way to get into a tech company," is through accounting. Then I would introduce them to the--you know, the head of marketing, who happened to be a female as well. Not of color. And the head of legal was female as well. The head of HR was female. So I would have them--we would go by each of their offices in their departments. She's like, "I'm the boss of this whole department." They're like, "*gasps* Wow." They can see the different departments in a tech company, right? So they meet, you know, everybody. The engineers, everyone. So that also allows them to see the different avenues into tech companies or into tech in general.Zach: You're right. Like, I think it is really is, when you think about STEM or when you hear the word STEM, rather, it's easy to go to, like, some scientist with a white lab coat and their sleeves rolled up, and they're, you know, pouring mixtures back and forth, and again, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's much more far-reaching than that. Kind of going back to the top of our discussion, STEM is in every single thing we do. There's some version--there's some version in STEM in literally every single thing that we touch or interact with or think about, and I think to your point around having them see the various avenues of how it all intersects is really important. So where can people learn more about GIRL STEM STARS? And how can they support? Like, what are the various avenues and options they have to actually support your organization?Kiwoba: So they can go to GIRLSTEMSTARS.org. That is, you know, where the Donate button is. We really need donations because these camps are not cheap, you know? And I don't charge. I don't charge the parents at all. I've had parents from Google and, you know, from different tech companies try and have their kids come to my camp, to pay. They're like, "I'll pay you $300," you know, "for my kid to go to your all-day camps," and I'm like, "No." This is for kids that can't afford to go to fancy camps, right? Their parents can't afford to. So we want to continue to make the camps free for the girls, you know? That means paying for buses and food and all of that. T-shirts, you know? All day to keep a child all day long, you know? So donations are definitely how people can help. Please, please. Give monthly. A monthly donation has more impact than a one-time donation, but that's most definitely what we need to do.Zach: Well, so first of all, I don't want to--and I don't want to zoom past that part, because there's so many opportunities and things out there, but they're limited by economic barriers, right? Like, the fact that you're able to offer these programs for free. Not for a reduced cost, not for a discount, but for free to these families is so important, and it's one less excuse, you know? And it's a big deal when a parent gives up their child for a day, even if they're chaperoning them, to follow them--to allow them to go off from their direct care, and then to do that and then to ask them to give up something monetarily in a situation where they may not--they may not have the means to do so. So that's beautiful that you're able to do that, and we'll make sure to have the donation link in the show notes, and we'll direct folks to donate there. Now, this has been a great discussion, but before we go, I feel as if--I feel as if you have some more wisdom and some more jewels to share, so I'd like to ask if you have any parting words or shout-outs before we wrap up here.Kiwoba: I would say, you know, thank you, God, for saving my life, so that I can have this impact on girls around the world. Also, keep in mind that I'm trying to--GIRL STEM STARS isn't about getting girls just into tech companies, but we're also--you know, this is why our girls are from 8-18. We're also creating the future board members, the future decision-makers, the future entrepreneurs of the world, you know? And that--you know, we want to have our girls be in those higher seats that are making the decisions about the world, about, you know, starting their own tech companies maybe. Starting whatever. Being entrepreneurs, right? And we're trying to give them that entrepreneurial mindset that you are in control, you know? That these kids, they can make a decision to say, "Okay, I can watch cartoons in the morning, or I can go to a GIRL STEM STARS camp at NASA," right? So giving them the opportunity, picking them up with a bus, feeding them, doing this all day long with them, it literally changes their whole world. I've had parents constantly sending me emails going that one trip changed their whole daughter's perspective on life, and she's starting--you know, her grades are better. She knows that--she knows what she sees, you know? 'Cause we--a lot of the girls are regulars. Sometimes, you know, they're different, but for the most part, you know, when these girls to go to all of these different events, you know, Makers Faire, and to city hall, and be treated like absolute ladies, you know? We treat them like gold. We roll out the red carpet for them. That day will never--it will never leave them, you know? It changes their whole life, and we know that we've changed them in that one day and that they're looking for--they've seen and experienced a better future for themselves. Zach: Absolutely, and often it just needs that--takes that one spark to set off a whole new set of dreams, so that's incredible.Kiwoba: Exactly.Zach: Well, awesome. Look, that does it for us, y'all. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. Remember, this is a special series brought to you by the Coalition of Black Excellence. To learn more about the Coalition of Black Excellence and their CBE Week, look them up at CBEWeek.com. If you have a question that you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Kiwoba Allaire, founder and CEO of GIRL STEM STARS. Peace, y'all.Kiwoba: Goodbye. God bless you all.

Today we consider the “holy kiss” passages and what they might mean for us today. Also the Full House gif (lol) reminds me of my daughters who teach me that true affection has a physical component.

Real 2016 | Part 7 | If I'm serving God simply "because I'm a Christian", what is the point in serving?What would it look like for us to genuinely, personally and vulnerably explain why we put God first? Why we walk against the current of the world? Why we consistenly choose to risk our reputation in illuminating the character of Jesus?

Today we discuss a recent viral video appearing on buzzfeed called "I'm Christian but I'm not". We talk about our thoughts in response to comments made about the video and engage in a very robust and thought provoking discussion. Join the discussion at: https://www.facebook.com/The-Tasty-Waffle-Podcast-486377064856131/ Email us at: tastywafflecast@hotmail.com