are we live you know what ash we are live welcome to another episode of to the unknown pod
uh we are we are glad to have you here uh my name is jordan i'm here with ashwa ryan and matt
we are friends we are bitcoiners we are uh either or or have been in ministry in in various
ways. We're small business owners. We do a bunch of things. And basically, again, to give you an
idea of this podcast, what we do, we come in every week and we spend time on Twitter. And so rather
than just let that time just fall into the abyss, we want to redeem that time. And so we take it,
we bring tweets that we found that we think would be helpful, whether on the level of a father,
as husbands, as just men, as business owners, whatever it is, we bring them here, we kind of
share them and then just get each other's opinions on them. And we enjoy it. So we're
just going to jump right into things. We're going to stop doing so much introduction like we've done
in the past. One of the first things that we want to mention here, for those of you who might not
know, we have one little bit of business and that is that, let me share this here because I share
here it goes, the shill. Here comes the shill. We have to start with the shill, of course. We have
the Orange Umbrella Kickstarter. This is the first kids book offered by Thank God for Bitcoin,
TGFB Media, where I am the director. We are, look at this, 86% of the way funded. We have six days
to go. Hop over here if this interests you at all. It's a Bitcoin kids book that doesn't
mention the B word. It's designed to be a covert orange pill for those of you who have family
members, nieces and nephews who you want to help understand Bitcoin. It's a great little book,
The whole thing rhymes.
It's got Christian undertones for those of you who, again, want to and value that as well.
So come over here.
We've got over 104 backers.
We really want to get this up to $12,500 so that we can get this funded.
It's an all or nothing thing with Kickstarter.
So, hey, Jordan, come clean.
Is there a hidden Jesus pill in there too?
Oh, well, this is there.
Yes, there absolutely is a hidden Jesus pill.
If you're a Christian and you read this book, you're going to be like, oh, my gosh, this is fantastic.
So, yeah, this is one of these things.
Again, all of it's subtle.
All of it's subtle, but it's very clear.
And so, yeah, I just think if you have Bitcoiners in your life who, you know, you want to hear a good story, then it's great.
If you have, again, just Christians in your life, they're going to appreciate the Jesus level of the story as well.
Again, it stands alone.
Even if you didn't know there was anything about Bitcoin, it's a great story.
We'd love to get it into more people's hands.
So that's one way you can support the pod.
You can support what we're doing.
Go subscribe or grab your copy today.
We've got a bunch of different options that are denominated in sats.
Thanks to the Opportunity Cost app or browser extension.
Go grab that and denominate your whole life in Bitcoin.
And again, shill over.
Go for it.
Shill over.
Guys, what are we going to talk about today?
I believe we've talked about this.
We have this nailed down.
The forgotten cost or the forgotten foundations of wealthy families.
That's kind of what we decided to talk about.
So let's just hop right in.
Here we go.
We found this tweet from one of our favorite Twitter follows of recent weeks.
Has been the DeChristian Life.
I don't know why they chose that name.
I need to hear more.
What does that even mean?
I do not know.
But it is a fantastic account.
just about, I mean, so many of the things that they're posting are just fantastic,
very helpful, challenging to us as men. And so here we are, we're going to share this here.
Well, the biggest difference between your family and a wealthy family is something that's been
forgotten now for about three generations. And that is that the wealthy families band and bind
themselves together to build wealth. But now we've been programmed by media. And in fact,
the same wealth of people that don't want competition,
we should strike out on our own.
We should do it together.
Leave family.
Let them fend for themselves.
You're an independent.
You're on your own.
You're powerful that way.
No.
You're weak in that way.
How does that make any sense that you're powerful by yourself?
Only together, in partnership, in community, in family,
does that make any sense that we can band together
and win in this very, very difficult game called commercial likes?
And is it any wonder that all the rich came from family money?
Some of these families have been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years, generations
of wealth.
They're handed down.
It kind of doesn't matter whether it's the corporate structure method or the trust method
or the waterfall method.
It's that they've all banded together.
And some of you are like, I hate my family.
Well, that's your personal problem that you should probably solve that or get yourself
a new family because it's so impossible for the average person to get ahead by themselves.
but with a family together, not your family, but in a family environment, that's when you
multiply your chances of massive success for not just you, but for them and your entire community.
Yeah, no, I think that the thing that just appealed to me on this front is we, again,
some of it's, there's this famous story from David Foster Wallace, who's a writer, you know,
a couple of decades ago. And he basically told a story about these two fish that are swimming in
the water and this older fish is swimming by them and says to them, Hey boys, how's the water today?
And the two fish go, what's water? And it just talks about the fact that there's these, there's,
you know, for, especially those of us who are younger, when we're younger, there's these
realities that exist that we're, that are just pervade. They're so pervasively effective on us,
um, influence us in so pervasively that we don't even recognize they're, they're there. We just
take for granted that this is just reality. This is just all we've ever known. And one of the ways
in which you can apply this is that we live in a super individualistic culture right now.
And part of that is just by virtue of the, at least in the United States and the West,
by virtue of the wealth that we have and the fact that we have monetary stability
to degrees that has, I mean, rarely been and scarcely been experienced throughout all of human
history. And so we're able to survive and get by ourselves with one income or as a family with
two incomes between husband and wife. We can live in many ways without needing to rely
monetarily to the same extent that many other people did in the past. And so I think one of
things that this brings out is just the fact that, again, although that's possible, you still
leave a ton of things on the table, a ton of, you know, things are a lot harder than they would
necessarily need to be because of that. And so I think that just hearing somebody speak to
just the reality of how things actually still work today at the wealthiest levels and how things
have worked all throughout human history is just a very good and needed reminder or lesson to those
of us who haven't grown up where those kind of dynamics are understood. So anybody else? What
do y'all think about that? Dude, I have a story that kind of illustrates it well.
after high school and after I started life.
And it was tough, you know, just like in a sense,
starting from scratch, I didn't like,
I didn't go into the family business.
My dad was a dentist.
But yeah, I didn't, I wasn't interested in doing that.
And so in a sense, I was,
it was like I was starting all over again
and I didn't have, you know,
there was no family enterprise to jump into.
but I had a buddy of mine who was in the same situation and so we're I remember we're talking
on the phone one day and he was telling me that he was you know he was just about done with college
and he was going to be a an investment advisor you know like Edward Jones or something like that
and I was just like am I dude have you ever thought about just going to school for a couple
more years and just taking over your dad's dental practice and he's just like literally had this
massive light bulb moment right as we're talking i'm like yeah it's pretty crazy i mean if you're
like i i'm not i don't want to do it personally but like if if you're interested that's like one
of the like best opportunities you could imagine because like that's the hardest thing about
getting started um in a medical career is like if you have a family member like if your parent
owns the practice and you're just taking it over. You work with him first, you get free training
and then you buy him out. And it's like an incredible thing. Dude, he like literally one
month later, he was enrolled in dental school, meets his wife at dental school. Now they're both,
they both came back and took over the dad's practice. It was probably one of the most profound,
but like it illustrated it because I'd have other friends who also went into that path. And it's
like they end up signing themselves up for, you know, 10, 20 years of debt just to even get started.
And people don't understand like those hurdles, like they can set a person back a decade or two
trying to get over those initial hurdles where a family that's intentional about how they do things
can help their own children like skip that 10 or 20 year period.
And that's not a bad thing.
like we've and it's what's crazy i've yeah i kind of feel like we've we've turned it into this
uh it's almost like we've shamed we shame people for talking about it and it's like no like it's
there's nothing shameful about being you know like strong position financially and being able
to provide for your family and um it's literally just like being physically healthy like there's
nothing shameful about it like take care of your um anyways yeah so i a hundred percent agree i
think um but yeah it's hard to learn it all learn everything for the first time like if you if you
know you weren't born into a family where like your parents had that vision um i think probably
i don't know all four of us are probably somewhere in that camp um but yeah there's no time like
today to change the course for our children so yeah and i think another thing is it's just like
i think about all these farmers right there's there's all these people who were farmers
over the last 40, 50 years.
They have all these farms.
They have all this land.
And so much of them,
the story that you hear over and over again
is that they get to the second generation.
Their kids stayed on the farm.
Their kids helped.
Their kids made that their career.
And it's this third generation
that doesn't want to stay there.
That has seen,
it has been indoctrinated
with this message of,
you have to go to college.
You have to go.
this is how you get ahead. And in so many cases, it's literally just here, no, here, I want to put
shackles on you and, and, you know, enslave you into debt. And actually this is the one type of
debt that you can't actually declare bankruptcy on. So we're going to take the one kind of debt
that you can't declare bankruptcy on and give it to the most vulnerable people right at their,
right as they're launching off into the world. It's like, it's, it's insane. It's just like when
you actually objectively take a step back and look at it, you're just like, what in the world?
And so to turn down, like being part of your, you know, turning down this legacy that your family has left for you and just basically selling it off and saying, I don't want that.
And then they're selling it, you know, selling it off either to strangers or to large corporations.
Like it is just a staggeringly sad reality.
It is just so frustrating in terms of just, yeah, in terms of this source of wealth and source of experience that, you know, again, that's the other side of things is so much of experience is so much of a life lived.
And the goal of that is that you're able to pass down these lessons and be able to take what you've learned and help people who are coming behind you, especially your kids, you know, learn things about the world as a result.
And this kind of dynamic just completely breaks that.
And it's basically like it teaches kids to look at their parents as like, oh, there's this, they're just, they think in this old way.
You know, I don't, I don't, you know, it basically renders these parents and grandparents as, you know, irrelevant or renders their experience irrelevant.
And it renders, you know, it just creates this temptation to despise all of this real life, you know, experience that has provided for generations of your family.
I just it's super frustrating especially when you see again all the debt that that results in
just the long-term consequences of this thinking it's just frustrating I want to add one more thing
I will say that it wasn't just that that third generation rejected like like took it for granted
and rejected it there was also a very real um there were some very big mistakes that those
older generations made in how they balanced their time like they were extremely hard like
so i'll say it was the greatest they call it the greatest generation it was like our grandparents
basically they were extremely hard working but they worked too much and sacrificed their families
oftentimes uh like uh working 16 8 you know 16 8 16 hours a day kind of a thing yeah like
seven days a week and ground themselves into the ground you know like uh with working uh even up
until they died sometimes and i've actually had conversations with a local farmer multi-generational
farmer who said straight up, I will not go down the path that my grandfather and father went down.
And it was this thing. But so it is. But that's also sad because they they were doing well,
but they could have done much better in the sense that, you know, it's balancing like
you can't work too much like you, you know, you have to work on your family more.
and so it could have been different
where it was balancing those things
but ultimately the end result is
if you don't do it well, then the kids will just say
I don't want this at all. I want a completely different life
and they reject it all and
that's also literally just as sad
because like you said, it all doesn't get passed down
they miss out on the benefits
There's, you know, yeah, but.
Yeah, I just, I feel like one of the examples you look at in the ancient world, and I'll use Jesus and Paul as an example, but it wasn't just them.
It was the vibe back then.
They had a trade when they were teenagers.
and um and so that i think this ties into some of our previous discussions where
some of the entrapment even in the spiritual community in the pastoral community missionaries
all that kind of stuff i haven't lived it but i've i've talked to people who are just like
i need a break my family needs a break um this and that but you're in the uh sort of church
industrial system you know and it's like unless you go back to school for another degree unless
you change your mission field, unless you change, you know, your church or whatever,
you went through and you're trapped in it. And, um, and just to say that's the spiritual side,
ministry side, but that's true in every area is they had a bankable skill probably by the time
they were like 16 or 17. And that hasn't actually gone away. Uh, both Osh and Ryan know, uh, Dean
Krakauer and other people in on the island here who have mentored up welders and carpenters and
stuff like that from 13 and on and their own kids from younger than that who have gone on to start
their own businesses heavy machinery tree cutting you know all these other things which offer
a freedom to in Paul's case for instance to minister and and full-time you know do his thing
spiritually or on the other hand to say these guys won't trust me if I ask for money so I'm
going to work like all like all the rest of the people and set an example and he tells I think
it's the Ephesians he tells them we never ate a piece of bread without paying for it you know
and my my way of looking at I believe it's in Ephesians no I'm sorry uh I think it's in Acts 20
when he did when he talks to the church that he's about to leave I think he brought in his his guys
Timothy Titus, those kind of guys into his business because he says, neither I nor anyone
who came with me took anything from you, but we provided for ourself and I'm set to set you an
example. So maybe I don't know if that's, that's not too much of a bunny trail to say something's
wrong with the idea that like from a young age, people are not being raised up with skills and
these trade skills are not antithetical to an intellectual life. You know, they're not
antithetical at all, they can
lay the foundation for the freedom,
maybe even the freedom to speak the truth when it's
uncomfortable, when you might be pressured
otherwise.
Jordan, could you share the Dale Partridge
post that just goes right alongside
this? Oh, shoot. Which one? I didn't
see that one. I just put it in the studio chat.
Okay, gotcha.
Coming at you.
Okay, I'll start reading this.
Do it.
So he says, the reason most children
move away is because their parents never gave them a reason to stay. If you want your children
to grow up, stay local and build upon your family legacy, here's how to do it. One, provide them a
faithful and deeply connected local church When children are members of the same congregation throughout their childhood they develop strong relational bonds making it difficult to imagine leaving when they grow up
Two, provide them with real estate. Whether it's a home, land, or down payment, giving your children
a place to live will encourage them to stay close. Ideally, purchase a larger family property, 15 plus
acres, to host a few generations. Three, provide them with a business to take over. You can't hand
down a job. So it's wise to build a successful business that your children can inherit and scale
for future generations. And then finally, four, provide them with an educational experience or
school for their children that allows them to share in the same traditions, moments, and milestones
that once shaped their own lives. A church, a home, a business, and a school, these are the building
blocks of life. A strong, multi-generational-minded patriarch will thoughtfully provide these for his
children and grandchildren. So yeah, I found out this week, a lot of what we've already been
talking about. I think the school piece, I mean, if you choose to home educate, you still need an
educational community. I think having other young people where you can learn around and having other
educating moms to support, uh, uh, you, the, the mother of your kids that's trying to educate them
really goes a long way. Um, so I would say I agree with all this. And I think that that business
idea, like having gone into the ministry where it is, where I could hand, hand off like things I
learned, but it's not actually, I can't hand over a ministry necessarily. Right. So, um,
there's just so much to be said for having a business and the value of, of inviting the family
into that and then having something to give your, your kids. Um, and then just one last thought
related to, I mean, real estate and how generous you are with your kids when you're young.
I was hanging out with his other family
and they have
we're talking about college
and how much they give to their kids
and all that
and they're like oh yeah
like on their own
they're going to have to pay for it
they're going to figure it out
they're going to take out their loans
and all that
and there's certainly ways
that you can
you can not require enough of your
of your kids
and make it too easy for them
and trust baby
kind of pacifier action.
But I would commend setting up your kids well
to the best of your ability.
And I think helping them buy a house,
I mean, it goes to the real estate conversation
to what if Bitcoin is your hurdle rate
and is the thing that you're like,
well, why would I be in real estate
if I can buy in Bitcoin?
But what if real estate wasn't an investment?
What if it was really about having that sanctuary for multi-generational living, multi-generational legacy?
So I think in that reason, you want real estate.
The problem is it's monetized as a savings mechanism.
So it's overpriced, right?
Right. So I'm curious to hear your guys thoughts about this post, as well as how you weigh the, not the investment value of things like business and real estate, but the intrinsic, non-tangible family value of those kind of things.
I would just add real quick one of the one of the things like when I when I hear somebody say that
they're not going to like somebody who's got money who says that they're not going to give their
the kids are on their own like one of the things that comes to mind is is the the um the instruction
to fathers not to provoke their children to wrath and I just think like there there's a whole
generation of of baby boomers and the people who come you know they're people coming behind them
I don't know who that is, Generation X, whoever.
But just coming behind them who,
a lot of the baby boomers don't understand
the economic realities with currency devaluation
and what that's done.
They don't understand those dynamics.
And so they just assume that,
oh, well then my kid's experience
and my grandkids' experience is just like mine.
And it's like, no.
I mean, literally all you had to do was buy a house
at dirt cheap prices and just not be an idiot.
and you pretty much could be a millionaire.
That's really true.
You don't even need a business.
Yeah, just stick money in the stock market
and don't be an idiot and you can be a millionaire.
That's literally what was able to happen
for a whole generation of people.
And so to act like, you know, I did this
and so now you're on your own
and I'm not giving you anything.
I just would have issues with that.
Like that just seems like you're potentially
beyond how reasonable is it also just like it seems like a real way to you know to to provoke
your children by you know if they see if they see their dad and their mom like sitting on all this
money and you know they just recognize like you're not really willing to to help me out obviously
now again I'm there's there's a hundred ways in which you know you could caveat this and
situations in which you know the opposite would need to be true like no one debates this but like
the attitude is kind of what I'm getting at more than anything. Like you, if you are, if you are a
parent, like one of the ways in which you, one of the things that you're called to do is to embody
God, God as father, like God is the father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named.
And so for, for you to take this authority that in, in this, you know, biological reality that
God has given you, this role that God has given you and to steward it in that way seems completely
out of touch with how God operates with us. Like he doesn't just, uh, you know, just demand that we
operate on, on, on our own. Like, in fact, he, that's one of the things he wrestles with us to
do is to depend on him. Uh, and so again, there's obviously there's ways in which it can go wrong,
um, that you want, you do want to be careful about, but I just, I think some of the attitude
that I've heard from a lot of people, it seems like you're, they're missing the mark.
yeah i think the i think the raising up too is is not just a lump thing like here's a house
congratulations here's a business congratulations that's not even necessarily what they need they
may need especially as a young family that's the highest stress for a young family is finances
yeah and if you can say hey we're gonna you know we're gonna be mom and dad are gonna come watch
the kids you guys can go on dates and make more babies we're gonna help you with a down payment
on a house, you know, maybe not the house. We're going to help you by transferring the business to
you on payments, but we're going to show you how to succeed so you can make those payments. You know,
that's an example where it can be still discipling, still requiring that level of work and showing up
in management, which I've said before many times, you know, the parables Jesus gave, it's the good
manager, the good steward, the good manager, God leaves us his, uh, his garden. God leaves us his,
um, in fact, one of the parables, you know, how do you treat your workers? He returns for judgment
and he goes, Oh, look, you've been taking care of my property and you've been treating that you're
there. You've been managing while you've been treating people well. And for those who didn't,
they're cut up into pieces and thrown into outer darkness. If you want to look that one up, but,
But to not just give it is not even what they necessarily need, but to make them empowered to be able to do it.
Yeah, I had a conversation with an elder in our church a couple weeks ago about this because he is that patriarch who had that vision for his family.
And he bought a very large property that several of his kids are living on now and even his grandkids.
And he had some interesting comments.
I don't remember everything you said, but one thing that did stick out is it doesn't always work out to have a multi-generational property in the long term.
But that piece of property can definitely be used on the short term as a massive blessing.
So, for example, one of his grandsons just got married.
And they're living on the property in, you know, like a, you know, it's kind of like a Puna style starter shack kind of cabin type of situation.
But like when you can live basically rent free for maybe a year or two or three, like you can save up an enormous amount of money for maybe to build your own house, you know?
So it's like, it's not, it's, it's, and what is that?
That's like, it's helping free them up to flourish.
And I would say that's part of God's creation mandate for us.
Like we innovate and we improve things in this world to make it so that the next generation doesn't exactly have to like that their work looks a little bit differently.
And, you know, and as you were talking, the illustration that popped into my head was like, well, like we created plumbing.
So like, like that, so people didn't have to walk down to a river and spend half the day doing laundry and like washing clothes.
Like, should we want the next generation to still have to do that?
Or are we okay with like having plumbing where the water gets like piped up to the house?
But then, oh, but they're not going to learn how to work.
We still need to raise our children to be good stewards and work hard and be faithful.
But that frees them up to like spend a half a day like training their kids or having kids or doing other like higher, more noble tasks.
And we should celebrate that.
But for some reason, there's this disconnect, I feel like.
And it's, again, it's like one of those things, like the first video we were watching, you get shamed.
Like it's this shameful thing that like, it's so weird.
But it's like the families would actually work together for each other's flourishing.
And you're just like, no, that's like, you're a cult, you know.
And it's like, no, no, actually, you're just doing what God's created us to do.
and yeah, anyways.
I got a quick anecdote.
So I reached out to,
shout out one-legged Canadians,
Dave Warren,
who was a...
He literally only has one leg.
Okay.
I was going to say,
I need a little bit more explanation
on the fact of like,
what is a one-legged Canadian?
Okay, so,
and he was a patron.
I would call him a patron
for my family
where we didn't ask, we didn't try.
We were just, they came alongside us in the church,
saw what we were doing with our small business.
No aspirations to open a restaurant.
We were just there doing community
and came alongside and said,
hey, we want to talk to you guys.
What do you think about opening a shop
right in the village?
You know, you have three days to respond.
And that's Dave.
So we said yes.
And this is a good example where they went out,
they bought this,
They put a bid down that they're like, only if the Lord wills will we ever get this.
They got it.
Over time, they handed off the process to me where I was responsible for building it up,
for getting the permits, for all this other stuff.
And in the end, they signed over the rest of the property to us.
Wow.
Which, by the way, we still had to come up and pay that thing off $3,000 plus a month.
So it wasn't like it was a lump sum.
Here's like a million dollars.
It was like, here's an opportunity.
Yeah.
And if you rise to the occasion, then you can.
And look, at this point, we own the property outright.
And I'm working with someone to try and to take over what we did.
And if God wills, I'll try to be generous in the same way that Dave was generous to me.
And I just chatted with him yesterday to come out and visit us and take one of my pulpit days.
And it looks like he's going to do that.
So he's going to come visit us after a decade.
But this is something that we can, it's real.
And I want to try to solve a little bit of the demographic crisis right now in America.
I know it's not arithmetic, guys.
But if you're out there and you're afraid of having kids, these kind of opportunities come at you as you have kids, not before, usually.
So start doing righteous deeds.
Start having those kids.
And you'll be surprised there actually are a lot of people out there that want to help you.
And this speaks to the video, how he said, if it isn't your family, find a new family.
I don't think he means abandon your family in the video.
It's like there's still people out there that want to help.
And what is the rare, my little call almost every time we get together, the good steward
is the rarest thing in the world.
It's not real estate.
It's not money.
And if you make yourself into a good steward, I think you'll find out that these kind of
things come your way just by getting out there.
Hmm. It's like the Naval quote. It's not the information or it's not that. Yeah, it's not information that's scarce. It's the stewards of the, it's the stewards that are scarce or the stewards of information that are scarce.
Well, that's, I mean, that's Jesus. I mean, sorry. Sorry, Naval. You know, the labor.
Yeah, he's gay. Yeah, he gets it from Jesus. He borrows it.
Yeah. Naval, we still love to have you in the pod. Go for it. We'll get it at some point.
But speaking of that, speaking of working and of just an opportunity being the thing that we can be called to give to people.
Let me just share this right here.
It is, oh my gosh, my children are doing something.
I don't know what it is, but it is very loud.
Here we go.
My favorite quote outside of the Bible is a quote by Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus Aurelius, one of the five great Caesars.
Right?
And I'm one of the co-founders of the Stoic philosophy.
And he said in 600 BC.
Okay, he did not say this in 600 BC.
His timing is incorrect, but the quote apparently is real.
So just want to preemptively say that.
See, that the impediment to action advances the action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.
In other words, the obstacle is the way.
I just think this is a brilliant quote.
It's a brilliant idea of just thinking about so many of the things that are in your life.
You're like, ah, man, I wish I could just get rid of this thing.
And many times, again, it's almost like there's a God who's just putting these things in your life to help you to grow.
And to help you to learn to just continue to fight harder.
and then and again like there are obviously our times where uh you know you will come up against
things and there'll be something in your life that you're it is it is just like man i just need this
thing to move and you know but the the lesson that you're taking from this is like i'm fighting
against this thing i'm trying i'm trying to push this boulder up the hill it's not working it's
not working but again throughout this process of trying to push this giant boulder up the hill
you're getting stronger you know you're getting stronger you're learning more about you know about
yourself. You're learning more about all these different things. And, uh, and so again, just
this, this reality, it just spoke to me and I just thought it was just such an encouraging and true
thing. I've, I've listened to so many business stories cause it's interesting to me on like the,
how I built this podcast, for instance, and I haven't seen one without the wilderness and without
the dark night of the soul, not even one. And a lot of times the story, like there's one with
Starbucks. I won't take a whole pod to talk about it, but he came to where he was going to lose it,
period. Someone outbid him. Man. And literally out of the blue, you must know this story. Yeah,
it's a good one. Out of the blue, one of the Microsoft founder guys calls him up into his
office. You know, is this all true? What I heard? Guy says, yeah, it's true. Tells him the story.
He says, okay. Walks in the other room, does whatever, makes a phone call. He calls the guy
who had outbid, I can't remember the Starbucks founder's name right at the moment, but he calls
Howard Schultz. Howard Schultz. Yeah, it was Howard Schultz. And the guy who he's talking to
was Bill Gates's dad. Oh yeah. Yeah. So he calls the guy, you know, rich guy to other rich guy,
you're not buying this. You know, he outbid him. He walked into his office, him and Howard Schultz.
So Bill Gates's dad and Howard Schultz walked into the dude's office who had stolen this,
who had stolen this bid from him, like stolen this.
Say, outbid him.
It's fair.
It's the market.
He did not.
Exactly.
Okay, let's be nice.
And so whatever, Bill Gates' dad walked in there and said,
you're not going to buy this.
Looked at him and said, do you understand?
And he goes, yeah, I understand.
Because again, Bill Gates' dad was super influential in Seattle or whatever.
And that was like a $6 million buy.
That's $6 million without that one completely out of the blue interaction.
No Starbucks.
so um no starbucks no other cafes that was the thing that made america have cafes so
uh we can hate on the big doggy all we want but that was the story when they weren't big and and
by the way that's like that's the story and going back to the script to to bible how often is
steadfastness considered like one of the highest uh qualities um and i can't help but think of the
fruits of the spirit end off with self-control which i'm not a greek guy like osh but as i
understand it that can be translated um self-mastery also so men we should be aspiring to
self-mastery so that we can push through when other people fall fall back because dudes like
that guy are watching you don't know they're watching but they're watching and at some point
they'll um they'll come and do the assist yes be a master of your domain
all right we have another one i fell there i still like a little seinfeld oh oh man to those
who have ears let them hear i didn't pick that one up all right we have another one about family
we have another tweet about families from michael foster pastor of a church in ohio author uh one of
the best twitter follows if you're not following him he he does these fantastic super long either
tweets or tweet threads uh that i just really appreciated the last couple years he drops foster fire that right he also a friend he also a friend of the program i spoken out the tgfb at the TGFP conference a couple years ago So here it is right here
I'll just read this.
Or Ash, was this yours?
I mean, it is.
I already read one, though.
Okay.
All right.
I'll read it.
Here we go.
The kids in a big family don't all grow up with the same parents,
even when they share the same mom and dad.
Time is a way of working on people.
Parents aren't exempt.
By the time the youngest arrives, mom and dad are changed, sometimes softer, sometimes harder, sometimes both.
That can help or hurt.
Usually it does a little bit of each.
Our kids came in waves.
I think he's got like seven, seven or eight kids.
Our kids came in waves.
The first three were boys born about two years apart.
That was wave one.
Then came Nicaea, our daughter.
She died.
Her death split the timeline.
It created a silence between the children that we had and the ones that are still to come.
Then to our surprise, another girl.
She began wave two.
After her came Cedar, then Cyprian.
last came the ones we call we thought we were done wave uh serene and fox from our oldest to
our youngest nearly 18 years span the age or span the gap long enough for the for a family to become
a living record each child carries a piece of who we were and we carry the weight of who we've become
because of them in the early years we were wide-eyed and wound tight we didn't we didn't
want to mess it up our kids got our time but the fuel behind it wasn't just love it was fear i'd
play with them for hours, then lie in bed convinced I hadn't done enough. One of my bigger regrets is
how often we spanked. That's how we were taught. It wasn't the only tool we used, but it was the
one always within reach. And while I see strength and loyalty in our older children, I also see
attention in them. I need to control things, a current of anxiety. I can't pretend it isn't
connected to how often we reach for the rod. I've had to tell them more than once when they asked
why the younger kids don't get spanked as much. I had to say it plain, we spanked you too much.
Please forgive us.
Still, a lot went right.
They ran wilding creeks through balls and open fields,
listened to bedtime stories almost every night.
Though not with the orange umbrella, I will say that.
Maybe that was part of the problem.
They were raised in the church.
They learned the Bible and the catechism.
And they had a dad who somehow kept going on five hours of sleep.
I was strong then and stubborn and driven,
but we were young and scared.
That fear shaped more than we saw at the time.
The world splits history between AD and BC.
Our family splits before and after Nicaea.
I said it a lot about her already. So i'll just say this her death broke some something in me
And that break let in something deeper
I learned how to hurt how to sit with sorrow how to hold grief and not try to fix it
And that changed how we raised our children. We grew slower to anger
We didn't stop spanking altogether, but it wasn't the go-to anymore
We started reasoning more taking things away explaining not just reacting and yes, we probably overcorrected
That's what people do
Our younger ones are looser a little messier, but I don't see the same nervous energy in them
They breathe easier.
I'm not as one-on-one attentive as I used to be.
I can't be.
I'm outnumbered, but I found new ways to stay close.
Family dinners, family movie nights, rides to work.
I've traded intensity for steadiness, and something better has grown in its place.
If you age right, you mellow in some places and sharpen in others.
When you're young, everything feels big.
You chase every little thing, but age teaches you what matters.
You see men you once looked up to raise vipers.
You watch good intentions rot under pride and you realize you don't have the bandwidth to do it all
So you start pruning you cut what doesn't bear fruit and you cling to what does
Pareto's principle shows up 20 of what you do brings 80 of the fruit
You learn to keep the main things and let the rest go. That's how you settle down without giving up
That's how you get sharp without becoming brittle
Every good parent carries regret anyone who says otherwise is lying or too proud to know better. Don't trust them
We have regrets. I'll write more later, but we don't let them win
My parents failed me in ways. I forgave them. I will fail my kids
I hope they do the same if not their day will come they'll ask for forgiveness from their own children
Years from now my oldest will tell stories to my youngest stories
The little one never heard and the little one will tell different story or will tell stories back different ones
They're both time capsules
They carry pieces of who I was good and bad light and shadow
But if I keep repenting if I keep leaning into grace, they'll look back with love
No one starts out knowing how to do this. So don't freeze up
your kids don't need pristine parents there's no such thing as the old saying goes god writes
straight with crooked sticks by grace he makes saints out of sinners children so give them what
you've got and keep chasing christ with everything in you ask him to make your efforts count if he
can soak us if he can set a soaked altar on fire he can work through your imperfect parenting
keep going mom and dad you're not alone god is with you and that's enough
dang bro that is that is a good word
oh i i feel like that does describe um you know it describes my oldest pretty well i am i'm super
proud of her and she's uh she's very aware of you know even that even what was described there
how we've changed over time uh this the whole how it's administered method is is a good point
that it's not, well, I mean, this is my point. I don't know if it's his point. It's not exactly
what you do exactly. It's, I think it's about being real and about repenting to your kids
whenever you have to. It doesn't have to be about spanking. It could be about being too harsh,
you know, or, or too lenient. Yeah. Or, or, yeah, that's right. Or too lenient. Or, you know,
we have one who's definitely neurologically just different from the rest. They're all different,
but she's especially different. And I have to tell her when I, when I ask her forgiveness,
you know, I don't want you to be anything different. I want you to be just who you are,
who God made you. Um, and, and I think for me growing in as a dad is also growing in like
sympathy for what it's like to be them, you know? And if I, if I, for instance, if I provoke my child
to, um, to anger, or if I provoke them by not giving them a nap when they needed to have a nap,
and then I took them on a long trip and then I took them to a wedding like yesterday took them
to a wedding which uh then it got rained out so we're all trying to hide under little bushes to
stay out of the rain and then and then I don't show patience to them when we have to walk half
a mile back to the car which yesterday I think I did pretty good actually but I you know okay well
that's another way of provoking them I didn't recognize how difficult it would be to be in
their position and say, well, you still have to obey. Well, it's not so easy though. So, um,
and I also think kids are so, um, they're so much smarter than we give them credit for,
even as babies that they do understand if we explain and if we remain humble and say, um,
you know, I'm sorry, I stole this, uh, this is what happened. This is what I should have done.
they are so able to forgive and able to move on.
You're not destroying them by making mistakes.
But if you're proud, you might be destroying them.
Yeah, just what you just said brings to mind Psalm 103.
And it says this, Psalm 103, verse 10 through, we'll read 10 through 14.
It says, he, God, does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
for as high as the heavens are above the earth.
So great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.
As far as the East is from the West,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children.
So the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him
for he knows our frame.
He remembers that we are dust.
And yeah, I just think that is a,
that is just a, such a, just a sobering reality
of just like, there are, there are so many times
where I don't, I like, where I get impatient,
where I'm like, I'm not thinking about their frame.
I'm thinking about, you know, no, you didn't listen.
You didn't do this.
And obviously there are situations
with that, that is the correct approach.
But there's other times, again, to your point
where like, actually upon reflection,
I did not, I didn't put them,
I didn't set them up to succeed.
I set them up to, and I required things of them
that aren't reasonable for a four-year-old
when I'm a 34-year-old or 37-year-old man.
And sometimes I have problems.
I have issues.
you know, maintaining that standard. And so I think there's a lot of wisdom in what you're saying,
Matt. So I found this post and then shared it with my wife this morning. She read it and
I think it, I don't know which part of it brought her to tears, but she had a little bit of
tears in her eyes. And we reflected a bit on this idea of storytelling. And when you have a lot of
kids so our 18 year old and our so we started our family in hawaii and so the olders have memories
of hawaii right and and we're realizing we have a almost six month old now and then an 18 year old
that's going to uh is moving out to go to school and so they're gonna experience different things
they're gonna have different stories to tell and my wife and i really are different people than we
were when we were like 23 and 24 year old newlywed church planters. Like it's just a different world.
And, and each of our kids has a name that has a deep meaning that speaks to what God was teaching
us and doing in our life at the time. And, uh, a, just the tradition and rhythm that we have as a
family is every, every year on their birthday, we tell the story of their birth and of their name.
and and we we speak that truth and that reality into them that god has a purpose in your life
that that you you are a purposeful part of our life and and then but all the siblings get to hear
it they know each of the stories um so yeah i just i think storytelling is so important
and it's kind of like just one of those um like the the post just has so many elements that connect
to the to the deeper things in life i i feel like yeah it just is a lot more to chew on
and reflect on but i'm i'm definitely thankful for it
I think the thing that hit
I mean
I think his main point is
stay humble
I think that's probably
stay humble
stack kids
yeah stay humble stack kids
but I would say
I think I'd like to pass on
a nugget of wisdom looking back
you know as i ponder what he wrote so i have a 19 almost 20 year old and the youngest is six
and if i could encourage a young father today it's easy as dads to compartmentalize things and like
and and to pick areas of life that that we didn't uh like that didn't go well for us when we were
growing up like like i wasn't disciplined enough when i was a kid and you know and you suffer
because of that for decades right because you didn't learn a lot of lessons you should have
and you didn't you weren't trained maybe the way you completely should have been and so we try to
focus on oh i'm going to make sure my kids are disciplined it's like a garden like their kids
are like gardens and that's like laser focusing on all their weeds you know and going around always
making sure that you're super diligent to sniff out and pluck those weeds up, which would be like
the spanking. But at the end of the day, it's all a balance. We have to love our kids.
And if I had advice to pass on, it would be like, love your kids tangibly with time as much as
possible from the earliest age possible all the way until they're out of your house. And to not
think that it only matters when they're older and wiser and you can have deep conversations
with them.
It's extremely important even when they're young.
So I would just say those disciplines probably wouldn't have been so frequent as they were
if we were more faithful or if I was more faithful when I was first a father.
Spending more time with my children, leading them in devotions more faithfully.
Um, yeah. And there's nothing at the end of the day, there's nothing that, that, um, you can't, um, nothing, um, yeah, nothing can replace just the time spent with them.
It's like, like it's, it's really that important. So like do whatever you can to spend time with each of your kids and pour into them and disciple them. And, um, and I think that that really helps balance everything else out.
You shouldn't have to discipline as much,
and there should be a deep affection from each of your kids,
you know, if things are healthy.
And, yeah, and be humble in front of your kids
and ask for forgiveness as you realize these things.
Yeah, they can really understand what's going on.
Sorry, Jordan, you started, but you're muted.
I'll give you an example
I lay down with my kids most nights
And let them all take the baby
And so many times
I've got work, I want to pound out maybe another hour or two of work
Before I go to bed
And one of them will say, can you lay with me tonight
And a lot of times when I take that time
They actually have something they're thinking about
Oftentimes related to the Lord even
Or something that happened earlier
or they'll say things to the point of this tweet about, you love me, and that's why you correct me, and that's why you discipline me.
And if you didn't love me, then you wouldn't do that.
And little things like that, that's like it was in their mind, and they want me to lay next to them and talk about it for a little bit, even if it was five or ten minutes.
And so just to encourage myself as well as anyone listening, they are really little people. I mean, they're little full-orbed people. They're not like a sub-adult. They're a child. They have all the emotions. Maybe intellectually, they're not grown, but they have all the intellect too.
so yeah it's powerful um it's powerful to think about just be be honest be real repent probably
almost every day you know to your child that'll keep you humble too and uh and i'm i'm enjoying
my sixth more than i enjoyed my first not because she's better but just because i've grown to
enjoy children more too so yeah there's like i've had that realization where something like that
happens where you know i'm like they're asking for one thing but they they want something different
like they're not asking for the thing that they actually want and it's like okay dude yeah it's
because they're four years old or five years old like they they don't know you know they're not
going to lay out for you the whole case of like what they're thinking so you you have to kind of
you have to do the work you know in your on your part of just being like all right is there something
more here. And like, I was, I can't remember who was, I think it was, it might've been Michael
yesterday too. He's like, if, if any of your kids is saying, dad, dad, look at this, dad, look,
you probably better look. And it was just one of those things where I was like, yeah, okay.
You have to kind of take, you have to let them come to us on their own terms.
And by virtue of doing that, we're going to, we might see like by virtue of trusting to go there,
you're going to see. It's like the faith proceeds, proceeds sight in this example.
It's not that the game that they want to play, it's not that they really actually want to play
it that much versus they actually just want to be with you and play it with you. They want to do
anything with you. But yeah, it's easy for us. Like we can be a little bit blockheaded at times,
occasionally. Blockheaded. Occasionally. That's what Moses is telling me.
Yeah, every day.
I think this kind of hyperlinks over to the legacy thing earlier too,
because it's like, I think my folks, to give you an example,
set a pretty good example in front of me in terms of how they treated one another,
in terms of like steady Christian faith.
But I don't feel like I got the theology,
and I don't feel like I understood what they were doing, you know?
And so I think part of that, you know, one caveat I'll throw into that legacy thing is I don't think everybody is built to be a business owner. I could be wrong, but I think that there's a certain stresses there that is not for everybody.
Yeah. But having but still, if I can do more things with my kids side by side or have them help me as they get older with things or, you know, our kid, we operate short term rentals, which we use for hospitality.
also. My kids clean. They know how to, they know how to, they're, they're really involved in,
in that, you know, um, I, I pray that I'll be helping my son build things and fix things,
uh, as, as he continues to grow side by side that is not so abstract, but it's something where they
can see, Oh, I could see how this would be me when I'm a big daddy, you know, or a dad, you're so
strong. Yeah, I'm strong. Guess what? I think you're even going to be stronger than me. You
know, um, just, just things that are, um, related to the legacy and that, and that includes,
um, you know, bookkeeping and tax preparation and things like that, that are sort of abstract
when you're young.
But, um, yeah, just trying to say those things hyperlink together.
How can they see your example and follow it rather than just dad provides?
That's all I know, you know?
Yeah.
Um, all right.
Well, I'm just trying to think.
Asha's got 10 more minutes.
I'm just trying to think where should we go here.
Do we want to, I mean, we've already been going for about an hour.
Do we want to, Matt, you want to save the Schellenberger stuff,
the homelessness stuff for the next one maybe?
Yeah, no problem.
All right, cool.
We'll do one closing one here.
Now it's Zinn and Epstein last.
Well, way to bury the lead.
Goodness gracious.
Yeah so we won go Zinn We save that one But we will do you know we spend a little time on some Epstein Okay all it So we just found out yesterday That apparently guys Listen no big deal JK LOL
There actually was no
There was no
Nothing really
Epstein wasn't trafficking kids for anybody
Just
It was all just a big misunderstanding
For the last seven years
No big deal
The tweet that we have here
Comes from our friend
Friend of the program
Sovereign Bra
I need to get him on here at some point.
He's a real good dude.
But he basically shared this.
Breaking Department of Justice.
Considered Jeffrey Epstein case now closed.
No further documents to be released.
To which the Sovereign Brah remarks, wow.
And that is definitely, I mean, it is just staggering.
The level of things, I mean, just the other day,
a video purportedly outside of Jeffrey Epstein's cell was released.
Ironically, somehow they didn't think this was going to be caught.
One minute of footage is removed from that video.
Yeah, I don't know what just happened, guys.
Sorry about that.
But yeah, so we're talking about Epstein.
We're talking about the fact that apparently this was all the last seven years of Epstein stuff has been totally in vain.
They're really psyched.
There wasn't actually any trafficking of children for anybody going on.
We don't know why Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison.
And I mean, just it's all a big mystery to it.
It was long.
Nothing to see here.
Not droids that you're looking for.
Exactly.
Ash was mentioning the fact that Trump was in a meeting today.
Somebody brought it up, asked him a question.
And Trump was like, are we really still talking about Epstein?
This guy, you know, he's not a good guy.
Why?
You know, what's the big deal?
Why are we talking about this?
Let me see if I can show this.
Yeah.
And then Pam Bondi said, oh, the missing minute.
Every video has that.
It's something to do with the clocks.
We'll show you how that is normal.
So, wait.
Well, the jury's still out on that one.
Yeah, here we go.
We'll see this.
One of the biggest ones is whether he ever worked
for an American or foreign intelligence agency.
The former labor secretary, who was Miami U.S. Attorney,
Alex Costa, he allegedly said that he did work for an intelligence agency.
So, could you resolve whether or not he did?
And also, can you say why there was a minute missing from the jailhouse tape on the day?
Yeah, sure.
Did I just say so?
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
This guy's been talked about for years.
This is Eurocringe.
I'm sorry.
We have this.
We have all of the things.
And are people still talking about this guy, this creep?
That is.
They're talking about the lack of prosecutions.
You want to waste the time and you feel like answering?
I don't mind answering.
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened.
Good catch.
It just seems like a desecration.
But you go ahead.
Sure.
First, to back up on that, in February, I did an interview on Fox, and it's been getting a lot of attention because I said I was asked a question about the client list.
And my response was, it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file along with
the JFK, MLK files as well.
That's what I meant by that.
Also to the tens of thousands of video, they turned out to be child porn downloaded by that
disgusting Jeffrey Epstein.
Child porn is what they were.
Never going to be released.
Never going to see the light of day.
To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that.
We can get back to you on that.
And the minute missing from the video, we released the video showing definitively the
video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide.
And what was on that, there was a minute that was off the counter.
And what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year, every night, they redo that
video.
It was old from like 1999.
so every night the video is reset and every night should have the same minute missing so we're
looking for that video to release that as well showing that a minute is missing every night
yeah so that's that's one of these things that's what they're deciding to go with uh i mean just
absolutely staggering that you're gonna try to gaslight people with this we know that epstein
had cameras in his home in New York City.
Cameras all throughout this thing.
A bunch of people have testified to it.
Bunch of women who were abused, trafficked,
including one of them, Virginia Jufri,
or however you pronounce her last name,
who just died, was killed a couple months ago.
Again, just the whole crazy thing.
This is just a really weird angle to go on this one,
especially when you know that Ghislaine Maxwell's dad was a, I mean, very likely was an agent for
the nation of Israel and did, did suffer that. He was buried in Israel, you know, had, had a whole
lot of things. He died under suspicious circumstances as well, fell off of a yacht.
Again, lots, lots of really weird things going on. And so just to try to act like this is just
going to go away out of nowhere when this is a humongous part of Trump's, I would say a huge
part of his support, but a lot of his supporters were, you know, really wanted to know more about
this and to have it kind of just hushed up and, you know, put away in the way that it has been,
especially the timing of this is super suspicious. It's just a really, really weird thing. And I
would argue, and I'm sure some of you guys
would agree with me, it's going
to, the effect that this is
going to have and this has on people's
trust, even people who voted
for Trump are
aligned with him
ideologically.
Their willingness to trust him
when this is kind of the way things
have gone down, it's
not going to do him any favors.
So, yeah, just the whole wild
thing. How much of
Cash's support was due to that also?
Well, there's a whole weird thing about that.
Kash Patel, his girlfriend is like 23 years younger than he is.
And she's also from Israel.
And so, again, just like this, Israel has this history of basically putting people around.
In a way, it's all spies.
Like spies, this is what they do.
They get next to people who are influential in order to steer them in certain directions and stuff.
And so, again, just a whole, just a whole weird, whole bunch of weird stuff going on here.
I feel like I put a post up there that I responded to.
I don't know if you want to pull that one up,
but it has to do with C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.
Have you guys read that one?
So the third one takes place on Earth,
and it has to do with that the scientists and politicians
are literally interacting with demons.
And so my post is like, okay, the theory that's being presented to us is,
for Epstein, it was just the love of the game. It wasn't money. It wasn't influence. It wasn't
that he was an agent. He just loved that, you know, pervert game. And, uh, so I present an
alternate, which is people literally acting with demons theory. Um, it's, it's, which is, uh,
you know, I'm too lazy to change the meme. I just posted on there. It says scientists, but
someone else made that one. This book is getting off to a slow start, which it does get off to a
slow start compared to the other parts of the trilogy and then by the end you have uh you know
um merlin coming back from the ancient past and like sicking animals on all the politicians and
all this really awesome c.s lewis stuff um but it had but but within it it's like they're literally
in the scientists and the leaders are literally interacting with the spirit realm so there's
another theory just to put out there you guys and um just as a sympathetic human being it's really
like, let's just say that everything they said was true. Turns out there was no list,
turns out such and such. Like, I don't appreciate being spoken to as if we should just, oh,
I thought there was one. How weird. There isn't one after all. Let me go on with my life.
You know, there needs to be a little bit more like, I understand why you would be so surprised
about this. And let me show you everything that's possible to show you. And let me bring in a
separate, you know, investigator to also confirm like what we've done, you know, something to at
least let us know that you understand why we would be pretty suspicious. And instead of that,
there's not even, there's not even the courtesy of. They're not, they're not respectful levels
of lies. Like they're, it's, it's a dishonoring to, to us to lie at such a, yeah. Yeah. We don't
know where his money comes from. We don't know why he got special treatment when he actually got
arrested and convicted of, you know, sex crimes earlier when he lived in Miami. He was able to,
like, come and go. You know, just had, he had literally women coming and going when he was in
prison. Like, there's all kinds of special treatment that he got that, again, we just don't
have any way to account for why things happened. There were, like, judgments that were given
that just were totally off the wall.
And so, again, all of these things are pointing to intelligence,
like to him being him heading up some sort of intelligence honeypot.
And now we're just going to hand wave that for whatever reason,
whether it's got to do with the names that would go down.
Again, just the complete 180 from Trump and from Patel.
Like Patel seems like scared.
That's what I've kind of seen some interviews with him.
He's just like a totally different person now than he was, you know, in the months leading up before he was ever affiliated with the administration and stuff.
It's just really a weird, really weird situation.
And so what I wonder is how does Elon Musk have special access?
So he keeps throwing out, well, Trump's on the Epstein client list.
That's why we're not going to see it.
And of course that came out when the big hubblub breakup that they had.
And then Musk, I think, deleted that tweet and apologized or said, I spoke rashly.
He recently posted, I think, I saw one about Steve Bannon.
He's like, Steve Bannon's on the list.
And then in another interview, he says Reid Hoffman's on the list.
I just want to read.
The richest man in the world has access or is just whatever, just likes talking crap about people and is lying through his teeth to shame these ultra-wealthy, powerful people.
Like literally the most powerful man in the world.
Oh, yeah, he's on the list.
A fellow billionaire.
Oh, yeah, he's on the list.
Steve Bannon.
Yep.
Where's that coming from?
Elon is a prolific vibe pedo tweeter.
He's impressive.
Very few like him.
And then I saw recently Melinda Gates actually explicitly said
that that relationship was part of their divorce.
That was an old interview too.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's, I mean, again, to walk away, to walk away.
Now, again, she became a gazillionaire,
but a multi-multi-multi-billionaire as a result of divorcing.
But just to walk away from being married to one of the richest five people on earth,
not just something you're probably going to do
just on the lark.
Again, she's also incentivized to keep quiet
to a certain degree, but the fact
that she's willing to, and the fact that she would
mention that Epstein is part
of why is just
bonkers. But again, these are not the
pedos you're looking for.
Don't worry about that. We're good.
Don't ask questions.
I think the most concerning
part about
this whole thing is that
it obviously
they're covering it up.
I mean, if you have half a brain,
this isn't a complicated thing.
It's not a conspiracy theory.
And it's pretty apparent that it's
either a foreign intelligence agency or our own
or they were working together.
And they were so successful at honeypotting
so many powerful politicians and billionaires
and this people in positions of power
that it was too big to prosecute.
And we're already at an all-time low level of trust
in the system, in our government, in our leaders.
And I don't doubt that releasing the list
would explode the last little shred of trust
that people have in the system.
um but i don't think they're going to get the result they're after like because by literally
treating everyone like they're completely retarded and covering it up the way they are
it's i mean you just go onto twitter and look at how people are reacting these are these are like
diehard supporters like literally that like their supporters elected them to deal with this because
we've spent our whole lives being lied to by worthless politicians that are apparently above
the law still you know rules for thee but not for me and like my trust is now lower today than it
was yesterday and it will probably lower tomorrow as more it gets revealed and yeah for i mean it's
this fourth turning like it's uh i don't know uh i feel like if i can jump in with a pastor thing
I live in like a center for conspiracy theories.
We have multiple families that we know that are flat earthers, for instance.
And so I'm always talking people off the ledge.
I'm not like Mr. Conspiracy.
I'm Mr. Step back from the ledge and consider it, you know, consider it again.
And look at Isaiah who says, do not call conspiracy all that the people call conspiracy, nor be in dread, but let God be your fear and let God be your dread.
So to me, that's like my foundational message about conspiracy. And so it's sad to have to go, okay, as Ryan said, let's just say in my personal family life, all my children are going to be told because of my experience, you can't trust the government.
You can't even trust the IRS to give you money that they owe you. And so every single one of my six kids, all my grandkids, and anyone else that I have the opportunity to influence, that's going to be the message. Not the primary message. It's going to be about Jesus, but that's going to be the message. So I'm always going to pay the absolute minimum tax without evading tax forever.
I would rather burn money
I'm exaggerating a little bit
but I would rather
Listen, if you get extra money, you can just
buy Bitcoin with it and send it my way
I'll help you, Matt
I look at Uncle Sam as a beloved uncle
who keeps trying to get money
to do fentanyl and die on the street
and so the loving thing is
not to give him the money
to destroy himself
Now he's a pervy uncle
That's who Uncle Sam is now
He's going to take those dollars and use it for dying, for killing himself.
And so you have to say, you know, turn around.
But I'm not encouraging evading taxes or lying about your sats or anything like that.
I'm just saying short of those things, that's what anyone I influence is going to get that from me.
And that's probably times millions of people now.
So how can you have a country where the people absolutely do not trust their government, you know, and now we've taken a turn?
I think a big part of this, again, because you can – it might be somebody who listened to the first 45 minutes of this podcast and then you're like, why are you spending the end of this talking about Epstein?
Like we, one of you guys joked about this.
It's like, okay, here's the problem is like you, like you, we are called as Christians
from day one, literally from page one, page three of the Bible, like to be wise as serpents
and innocent as doves.
And part of the, part of being wise as serpents and innocent as doves is understanding when
people are trying to lie to you.
And so you have an obligation to not be lied to and like, to not like, especially when
it's blatant. Like you have an obligation to follow, like follow. So if there's sowing leading
to reaping, like you need to see, wait a second. They, I was told this and this and this and this
and this. And what are they, if someone is now going completely, like going 180 degrees
different, like what are the, what are the things that would incentivize somebody to do that?
And so like, you have an obligation to, to be wise. And, and, and so like, this is just like
the Epstein thing. Like it's, it's one, this is like one test case. This is one place where you
can work out and exercise your reasoning abilities and just basically come to the conclusion that,
wait a second, there's so many things here that don't make any sense. And so, yeah, I think that's
a big part of why I think this matters beyond, obviously, the implications for what it says
about political processes and all kinds of different things. We need to raise up another
generation of leaders and politicians that won't take a bribe and that won't give into temptations
and honeypots like this uh that are blackmail proof yes like that's the thing is like if you
like the reason why people are able to be blackmailed is because they have their they have
deficient character they've done things that they're scared of people finding out about and
so the easiest way to avoid that is by not having those things if you learn to you know tell on
yourself before stuff gets in,
gets to this level where,
you know,
you're,
you're ashamed of it.
Um,
you know,
the famous,
famous person who talks about the fact that,
uh,
They're like, you know, I don't care what anybody else says about me.
I sing worse things about myself on Sundays.
You know, it's one of those in our hymns on Sunday.
It's one of those things where, yeah, like this is Christians are basically, we are set
up to be blackmail proof.
Like this is God.
God wants us to be blackmail proof.
I think one of the hard things, and it's a reality in all power structures is there's
actually a glass ceiling for people who don't have dirt, you know?
Yeah.
And I mean, if you think about a mafia example, I don't know if you've ever seen Donnie Brasco, the movie Donnie Brasco, but true story, you know, made into a Hollywood movie. And you get welcomed into the big power structures by becoming dirty.
you know so like in the in the mafia example it's like first he's he's a cop who's infiltrating the
mafia so first they go and they kill some guys but he's in the car outside so he can't be a witness
to the murders uh but he was there right he was there with him he's getting a little bit dirty
and then like on another occasion like they kill the guys he's not with them but then he comes in
and he has to help them cut the bodies out you know so that's like level level number two and then
now you're getting introduced into more now you might have into the finances and now you understand
what's going on next and stuff like that and next thing you know you have to participate in murders
stuff like that so so i'm not saying all our politicians are murders but uh it's it there's
a glass ceiling so how do you how do you how do you break how do you break through the glass ceiling
um you know the lord knows the sins and all those sins will be uncovered as he says in in luke 12
yep but uh we can't see it but that's the that's like and you know for for all these my entire adult
life even when i was 18 20 years old i was reading about or watching videos about you know the
bohemian grove video that alex jones put out you know years and years ago and i i haven't looked
into that since i never saw anything that disproved any of that and then there's like the skull and
bro the skull and bones group in um is that yale or heart harvard i can't remember and how many
leaders came out of this thing where they're like doing terrible things to each other just
in the name of like breaking down your conscience but also sharing in something that puts you kind of in this club other stuff about Bill Clinton like 25 years ago I was learning about you know so um I don it it honestly hard for me to
imagine what the list contains that would make everybody shut up. I mean, I'm just saying as a
person, it's hard for me to imagine. Cause I don't believe that everyone is buyable, you know? So
it's, it's a bit crazy. And that's part of the reason why I threw out the, uh, the, the C.S. Lewis
thing is like, it's got to be, it's spiritual, it's political, it's financial. But I mean,
what are they going to threaten people with that every single person stays quiet, except maybe,
you know, people who disappear? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, what you're describing is like
mutually assured destruction. You know, you get something that is, you know, incriminates everybody
so that there's no incentive for them to reveal it. Now, at the same time, again, this is like,
I mean, you can Trump Trump's own ascent politically came out of nowhere and thwarted a lot of evil things that were that were, you know, wanted that people wanted to do.
And so I get I just keep Scott. God cares more about his glory and the good of, you know, the good of people than than we are committed to anything that any wicked person is committed to anything.
So, yeah, all it takes is one. I'll take this one whistleblower.
yeah you know like we we saw this with snowden we see this all these things you're only one
one whistleblower away or one of these guys makes a mistake the hubris leads to downfall
um or again the ghost grabs somebody that's the other thing we get right is uh you know like you
get you get somebody who's like yeah i know this is going to completely destroy my life but uh i
fear the lord and so i'm going to tell the truth like it's like we're we're not that that's not
outside the realm of possibility either so it's it's also like um i think something that i don't
think a lot of people are talking about is um this is like how many leaders in the last 40 or 50 years
like and how many like politicians can we look up to and be like man that like that is a man or
that is a man worth emulating.
Like almost like that is a person I looked up to as a hero.
And it like one by one And you like even those that are like doing some good things and like pushing back on certain things like maybe correcting certain evils in our culture right now down they go
And just one after one, it's like, dude, I've spent my whole life being let down by like all these national leaders.
It's pretty crazy.
and I think part of that's an illustration
that like our hope does have to be
in Christ alone
but it is a bummer
it's just sad
right?
I mean it's like a
it's just sad
there's no other way to put it
it's like
yep
I can't like
it's just not
that's just not how a man's supposed to be
it's not how we're supposed to deal with wickedness
it needs to be called out
it needs to be brought into the light
and like to the victims
and all the people like, it's like, sorry, our leaders are so terrible.
Like if anyone's listening to this podcast right now, you know, and they're sorry that
they won't apologize, but they've been compromised and they're terrified or who knows what.
It's just like the whole, but the whole thing is like, yet again, our leaders are letting
us down.
So, um, the, the gospel, the gospel is like such a good answer to this because Jesus describes
in a lot of different ways, but he describes it as like yeast or as seeds that are being thrown
around and depending on where the soil it lands in. Or using the yeast analogy, it's like,
it's pervasively all around us, but it's actually the gospel itself is a message.
It's not a political movement and it's not even a church institution. And it's not a particular
tradition either. It's the message of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and all the other things
he taught and did and this this spreads organically and in some cases it might spread in a special way
when the trust in institutions in religion in traditions are failing uh if god wills
because it's it's you can't stop a grassroots movement which has to do with um it's data not
to say it in a not to say that in a crude way it's data it's truth it's knowledge it's information
not based on what institution you belong to but based on something that was done in history And so you know I love what you said earlier Jordan
On another pod, I said, you know,
the gospel power is for us to convince people,
but not to coerce them.
But you mentioned the Holy Spirit,
and I thought after that pod, I'm like,
well, actually, I do think the Holy Spirit coerces us.
But just not, it's not for us to coerce,
but I do think God is a little bit coercive in a loving way.
that could be an entire another thing.
I'll just throw a bombshell out there.
But yeah, from a human perspective,
the power is just to share and to spread the truth.
Yep.
All right.
That is our last tweet for today.
In this divided episode,
we'll stitch this together.
And so those of you who are listening
to this unpurely audio and after the fact,
you won't even know anything went wrong.
Hopefully this will all be,
It'll just seamlessly fix itself.
So enjoy that.
Again, we just want to close by reminding people that The Orange Umbrella, our kids book that
myself and a buddy wrote, we are about 86% of the way funded.
We got 14% to go in six days left.
Go, you know, hop, grab your kid or your nieces and nephews, a copy or multiple copies.
Again, it's a Christian Bitcoin kids book that doesn't mention the B word or the J word if you're Christian.
But it's unmistakably Bitcoin-related and unmistakably Christian.
So go grab yourself a copy, multiple copies.
And again, that will be a huge help to getting that project over the line.
We are grateful for you guys.
If you guys are enjoying what you're listening to and enjoying what you're hearing or watching,
And those of you who are watching live, you can do us a humongous favor by going to subscribe.
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We are grateful for you guys, grateful for you, Matt, Ryan, and Ash, who had to bounce.
We'll see you on the next episode of To the Unknown Pod.