Faith, Finances & Mental Health For Men

0:00 I mean, the area of Defiance, man, has so many broken people, broken homes, people honestly need help in every single aspect of life. Yeah. You know? And so just being able to show up in that regard and feel like I'm making a difference pays more than any check could.

1:04 because I had a lot of money in that bonus. Yeah. Hey, that's Uncle Sam, though. Sometimes, man, took an entire year of, you know, fighting, trying to figure it out. People telling me they got the answers and it's working, and then, man, it's still three months later, still no answer, this or that. That process of hurry up and wait. Yeah, exactly. So that's what I sat through. And I mean, I had so many friends that kept me afloat, and I'm not talking small amounts, because my bills were at that point in time still on the higher end. Yeah. So I'm talking, I had friends allowing me to borrow a stack at a time, like, in order to stay afloat. It is. That's blessed. That's blessed. It really is. That's blessed, man. And so those people, like, helped keep me afloat, but trusted that I was actually going to give the money back.

2:04 of how much I've given out. Like, less than the last three weeks, I've given a little over a thousand to friends. Yeah. And that will put me over that $1,500 mark. Yeah. In my savings right now that I don't have, because I've been helping people out. Right. But those are my bros. They're the same people who help keep me afloat, I'm sure, you know? So at the same time, I was like, "Yeah, of course, I'm gonna make sure you got it." And, you know, I felt like God telling me, "Look, I've got you. You're gonna be good." Yeah. At the end of the day. But it goes so much against the way I was raised, the way I was taught, the wisdom and strategic planning that I normally have.

3:08 before my actual emergency funds. Like, that's the way I'm used to living. Yeah. I ain't got none of that right now, you know? I just borrowed from my TSP to reset all of my monthly finances. Yeah. You know, to even be able to get back to where I want to be baseline, let alone all my different accounts, the way I have them, you know?

4:13 coming out, joint bills, that money disappeared. And if my paycheck was going into that account, I couldn't survive, because that just ate my entire paycheck, everything. Especially if you're getting it drafted. Exactly right. Yeah. So I learned quick that whatever account my bills come out of has to be separate from whatever account my direct deposit goes into. Yeah. So now it's set up, and absolutely nothing comes out of the account that my money goes into, because nobody else is deciding for me where my money is going. Yeah. My money works for me. I'm choosing what's being paid and when.

5:18 in a bank, they don't see where their money's going. Exactly. And I think Dave Ramsey actually talks about that a little bit, like you got to see where your money's going. Yeah. Because if you don't see where it's going, you're going to spend it like it's unlimited. Exactly. You ain't got unlimited money. Exactly, man.

6:19 I just left my wallet on the counter, and the guy, I never updated my license to Philadelphia from Ohio, so he mailed my wallet, after he didn't see me for a few days, to Ohio, back to my old apartment address. Not even like my dad's house, no family, nothing, like my old, bro. Yeah. Locked building. It was my favorite wallet. It was my Coach wallet that my mother gave me for my birthday. Never saw that wallet again. Dang. Thankfully though, I had a second wallet that had an extra business card, credit card, business debit card, personal credit card, personal debit card, my Social Security card, so, like, a second form of government-issued ID, right? And that was all in that second wallet. So I was able to use that second wallet, just move all the money over to the other bank account so that I could cancel all of those cards, right, and shut everything down.

7:22 you know, there's a lot of things and bills you can't pay from a Cash App card. Right, right. So I learned then, yeah, you have to have another line of defense. You have to have alternative methods or ways of being able to attack. I mean, obviously you learn so much of that in the Army, but so much that got drilled into me before the Army from experiences like those. Sure. That's right. Now within, in, yeah, exactly. We're still able to function. But I mean, if your whole bank account, you got two accounts and they're both Chase and your wallet's stolen, what credit card are you using? Yeah. What debit card? How are you functioning? How are you surviving?

8:23 you don't want to be caught up with no cash and you, yeah, there's a card or something. Facts. One thing my dad taught me young, yeah, is a man should always have physical cash on them. Yeah. For whatever happens. You just don't know. You don't know. And that's definitely a clutch one, and that's come in handy a few times for me, where I have been in situations where cash was the only thing I could use in order to get by. And even as the world continues to get more and more advanced technology-wise, we all have to continue to hold a little bit more cash. Yeah. In reserve.

9:26 some cash and reserve somewhere in your house. I don't care if it's the old-school mattress. Who was not El Chapo, somebody else is a big drug lord, and he had empty fields that he would dig up, and he had like 400 million. Pablo. Pablo, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There we go. There we go, man. And they don't know how much currency you have. Yeah. They don't. They don't know. Yeah. So now they don't know how much is in circulation. They can't control you or force you in any direction by gauging where to price things, how to price things, and how to socially herd you in a particular direction based on how much money you have. Right, right. Having a physical currency. Yeah. Physical currency.

10:31 one of my favorites. And even if you make something out of it, it's still gold. It still retains its value. Yeah. So you can use, like, cash is, it's paper. There's going to stay paper, and if you destroy the paper, you lose the value. It's gone, you know? But I can make a gold chain, I can make the a hilt to a sword. Yeah. You know, I can make silverware out of it. All I gotta do is melt it down. I'll find something forming up with a gold bar, literally, you know? And so there's so many different options that you have with those precious metals that still allow it to retain its value. Yeah. As opposed to cash or, you know, other things that disappear if it changes shape or changes form. Right. So that's what makes that such a clutch thing to me.

11:35 live that lifestyle, that you can get to the point. So, like, I don't feel like you should date if you don't have the funds necessary to go on dates. I don't think you should marry somebody with a goal of living a lifestyle that you can't afford to live. Now, you guys can plan out what that looks like. Yeah. You can build towards that, and you can work towards what that looks like. But in terms of walking down that aisle, I don't think you should walk down that aisle until you guys have discussed and reached whatever goals you want to reach beforehand. Yeah. Because one of the leading causes of divorce in America is financial issues. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's 50, I think they say. Yeah, literally. Yeah. So between that and raising kids, so those are two aspects or avenues that you can do your best to control. Obviously, life happens when it comes to finances, but understanding someone's spending habits,

12:39 understanding how to get ahead. If you're with somebody who is afraid to invest but you're somebody who likes to invest, which is an issue I've had in the past, you got to figure those things out before you're in a committed long-term relationship. Don't move in together, sex, you know. Yeah. What I'm not doing is leaving my money to sit still and lose value because you're afraid of something you don't understand. Right, right. You know, and I've realized that that's a bigger life philosophy for me, and that's allowed me to then communicate earlier on, "Hey, these are certain things that I have that are big picture for me." Right? I like to stand on my values regardless of what that means for me personally and my personal well-being. Right.

13:47 they have that resonate with who you are as a person. And so I was able to recognize the reason why I like certain shows, because they have, I was communicating about a series, One Piece, that's like my favorite. I've been reading One Piece since I was a little kid, and it's still being serialized, and it's still coming out to this day. So as I was discussing the things that I like, I'm like, man, those are things that I feel like define me. Those are aspects of myself. Yeah. That I would use to describe myself to another person. Oh okay, now I know I resonate with it, and now I can communicate to somebody else. Yeah. These are the things that are important to me.

14:54 when they realize that there's something wrong. Okay. Yeah. So people get upset when they come to church and people are causing problems, they're not healthy, this or that, and they're not going to be, because they're here because something's wrong. And then you run them off because you want them to be perfect, right? You want them to have everything figured out, and it's going to take some time. You don't break your arm and then go see the doctor and then tomorrow your arm is better. When I fractured my back, it was 16 weeks. Wow. Before I was good again, and that was like base level. Like, I'm talking walking on my own without pain, being able to lift a weight whatsoever. And then I still had to go through the process of strengthening my lower back again. Yeah. Before I got anywhere close to lifting the types of weights that I was lifting before. Right. So you're talking about a year-long process, right?

15:57 process, that growth process, takes a long time. And then guess what? If you're already in the church, if you're already here, you're already trying to make yourself better, or you've been in church for a decade and you got your life figured out, then my message ain't for you. Yeah. Right. So they're like, "Ah, well, you know, you post this on social media, you look like this, you do like this." And listen, the way I carry myself keeps other people from interacting with me. How can I ever reach them? Right? I never will. Never will. So the only way for me to reach new people is for me to present myself in a way that allows them to feel comfortable having a conversation with me.

16:57 Why? I mean, yeah, they know he works at the church, but they also see me putting their work in the gym. Yeah. You know what I mean? And they see that I'm a cool person. I can have conversations, I can do this, I can do that. I still got self-control, right? I'm still maintaining my personal boundaries, you know what I mean? But I don't have to be in there with a hoodie on. I can wear a tank top, and it's okay, you know? Like, yeah, yeah. Gotta take that pump cover off every now and then. That's what I'm saying. You know what I mean? You gotta, you know.

17:57 six months or a year later, when they need to talk about something, they know I'm gonna be at the gym. Yeah. So, oh man, I need to show up, I need to catch him, he normally comes at this time. Cooler. I've had people hit me up on social media, man, a year or so later, and they're like, "Man, I didn't know who else to talk about, so I came to you." Yeah. But if I was supposed to end office or push them away, or holier than thou, or "I got everything figured out and I don't talk to people," or, you know what I mean, I'm just so out of touch with reality, out of touch with real life, you know, so closed off that nobody has access, and then how in the world am I going to reach these people?

19:01 those disagreements with other people, because that's what I stand for. Right. I guess I don't know how many people actually know that, I don't think in the Bible, whatever, says where Jesus was in a church. He was usually ministering in the streets. Yeah. Crowds. I don't know very many stories where He went and preached a word in the church. It was always in the streets. Facts. And when He did, He was challenging the beliefs, or fixing or correcting the areas where they didn't have it right. Yeah.

20:03 argue with the religious leaders and try to reshape how they thought, and that does happen. But by and large, like you said, He was out, yeah, trying to be transformative for people's lives, and that's such a huge thing.

21:06 some cement around your neck and throw you in the river, because that would be a better ending or outcome for you than harming one of my little kids. That's what Jesus says. Yeah.

22:08 No. Ain't gonna fly off the, I mean, tornado, right? That's about the only way, literally. Right. And so we have so many different tools and things out there, right? I have a variety of different firearms, and none of my firearms have fired themselves. Amen. Okay. They don't do that. I went to the extreme once, don't do this at home, okay? One of my brothers came to town. I set it down, you never point a gun at yourself, it was unloaded, but either way, I set it on the table facing me, and I spoke to it. I said, "Fire. Go off. Harm me." And guess what it did? Not. I don't think it did a thing. It didn't. It didn't fire, it didn't go off. I'm still standing in front of you today. It was unloaded anyways, but even unloaded, you don't point it at yourself. But that was the extreme that I went to to show the point to him that it is the person behind it, okay? It is the human. It is the individual who needs us to step up

23:13 and intervene on their behalf before they get to that point. Yeah. We have to show up for people. We absolutely have to show up for people before they get to that extreme. And people will communicate it to you. People will let you know when they should or shouldn't be around certain substances, items, objects. They let you know. It's up to us to listen. It's up to us to pay attention. And sometimes we miss it. And I've gone through that, where I lost somebody to suicide, and I felt like after the fact that I should have recognized all of the different factors. I mean, I was trained by ProMedica Hospital to work with anti-bullying, suicide, and rape prevention, you know, I, Dad sits on mental health board, all of these different avenues and ways that I should have been the one to recognize it, and I missed it. And I carry that for a long time, because sometimes how things play out in reality and how they read from a textbook or from a PowerPoint slide are two different things. And you

24:18 only learn those differences through experience. You only learn those differences through going through life with people, and then you start to realize how those things actually show up in day-to-day life. But we have to be aware, and if you have questions or concerns, you have to vocalize those things.

25:21 life, you know, because I didn't make the decision that I should have made, or I didn't recognize what I should have recognized before it got to that point. Yeah. You know? So we absolutely have to, because these are the people that care most to us, that matter most to us, that we want to see alive, that we want to see their future, we want to see them become something or somebody, right? Like, I've hit the age now that my sister never made it to. She never made it to 26. Wow. It was about eight or nine days before her 26th birthday. Oh man. So once I hit 26, I'm like, man, I couldn't imagine not being, like, you know how much life I have left that I want to live. I'm asking God to allow me to live it. Yeah. But we really don't know, right?

26:21 nothing I could do about it after the fact. All right? So we have to recognize these things as they're happening and make sure we're keeping one another safe and alive. Man, I know that was heavy. I know that's a lot to try to bring in, but I truly hope you guys are understanding how important it is, especially as we go into this winter season. I know last episode we talked a bit about that seasonal depression and that drop that people have once that weather changes, once holidays start to hit, and you start to miss those people that you have lost, or you got different family situations where different things happen with your parents, whether they're still alive, but they're just not the type of parents that they needed to be for you. And so now you're going through that holiday season thinking about those things, right? We have to recognize those. And as people are picking up, you know, college students back in school, or you got students or kids in school, if you have kids, and recognizing the

27:21 different patterns in their behavior, or as things start to change with their, their workload and course load, and how much is stressing them out at school, whether or not they're being bullied at school. There's so many different things and factors that affect our day-to-day lives. Yeah. Whether you have bad customers coming in, whether you have employees, fellow employees, co-workers that you don't like working with. There's so much that people hold on to, and so many battles that people who start to put up those walls because they don't want to be hurt, whether it is, you know, by a partner, trying to get to know somebody, or their partner doesn't listen to them, they just kind of brush off those emotions or things that they're dealing with, or your partner has so much going on that they don't have the capacity to hear you, and now you both are kind of just reaching that threshold.

28:23 healthy as a man within your relationships, within your life, and just become that version of yourself that you want to be. Amen. Man, become that Classic Man. That's right. That's what we do here.