Episode #019 A Visit With Brennan Dedon

 Well, welcome to the Truly a Masterpiece podcast. Again, my name is Craig Walker. I'm your host. Hey, I thank you guys so much for joining us for this podcast. I hope it's something that really helps you. If it is, I hope you'll click that subscribe button. Also consider sharing with your friends, helping me extend my reach. Well, I'm back today with my good friend, Brennan Dedon. You may remember Brennan from one of the earliest podcasts that I ever did. He's one of the first graduates of the program. We've continued to have a great friendship and to talk and I've continued to hear great stories from his life. So I really wanted to invite Brennan to come back today to share some of those things with you that I know will be tremendously helpful. 

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Transcript

 Well, welcome to the Trudy of Masterpiece podcast. Again, my name is Craig Walker. I'm your host. Hey, I thank you guys so much for joining us for this podcast. I hope it's something that really helps you. If it is, I hope you'll click that subscribe button. Also consider sharing with your friends, helping me extend my reach. Well, I'm back today with my good friend, Brennan Dedon. You may remember Brennan from one of the earliest podcasts that I ever did. Brennan was hosted on here. He's one of the first graduates of the program. We've continued to have a great friendship and to talk and I've continued to hear great stories from his life. So I really wanted to invite Brennan to come back today to share some of those things with you that I know will be tremendously helpful. And so I hope you stick to the very end because it just got this show kind of rebuilds all the way to the end. We're getting to the best stuff at the last. So that's how it's going to go today. Brennan, I really just want to say thanks again for being here. Ask you tell us about your family. Let's get this thing rolling.

 Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here, Craig. Thank you for having me back. And as always, it's just so good to see your face, old friend. We're doing good over here.



 Families are healthy and happy. We're all running downhill at Christmas time, you know, just trying to spend as much time with each other and try and recover, rest, you know, and in the midst of a very busy season that can sometimes overwhelm us or distract us from the things that really matter, you know, all the hustle and bustle. I try and kind of gut check those moments where I feel like I got to do a lot of stuff. And I just want to be home with my family. So but everyone's well, and we're doing really good over here.

 You know, I really didn't plan to say this, but I could imagine this being a different season for you than it was probably two years ago.



 Or two years ago, you're more than that people pleasing mode. And please your boss, please the pastor to church, please your small group leader, please your family, which is kind of a top and please God. And it's kind of chasing all these things at one time, while you're really getting no rest. I can remember that being a weary time for you. So it's good to see your face now, as you said, see in my face, just seeing yours, it's it's really lit up like a Christmas tree. You're happy and joyful. You look at peace. That's exciting to see.



 Yeah, yeah. Even in a season of kind of craziness that we'll talk about a little bit. You're right. And I didn't even plan on or maybe we haven't even talked about that. But you're right. Before I went through the Truly a Masterpiece program, you know, this season leading up to Christmas was all about,

 know, try it so so filled with anxiety, and pressure to do the best for everyone get the best gift and, you know, just, just be awesome all the time. And it was so much pressure. And I was always feeling like was failing or letting myself down and letting others down and and you're right. I am coming into this season with way more peace than I've ever had.



 Even even through the midst of it all. You know, it's great. Thank you for saying that. That was that was good insight.

 Yeah, I think that was just so the Lord because I would not talking about it either just hit me because I think a lot of people listening and you know, they're gonna be listening to this after Christmas, but still, I think it'll be helpful. Because no matter what's coming into your life, you're always going to be forced to look am I trying to please man or am I trying to please God if you can nail that done down that I'm only living for him. What a change that makes in your life. I was going to ask you another question I play and follow up with was how's this impacted your family? I think this is real important to hear. And the reason I asked that because I tell most people I think I try to say it to everyone going into it, that what I expect is going to happen if you have that breakthrough this transformation that we hope you have. You're going to have more influence in your family, your wife, your children or your husband and your kids than than you ever imagined. That's that's really going to happen. But on the other side of that, you I tell her by I warned them, you've got to understand they're used to living to the old you that was used to people pleasing, used to conceding or giving in. And now you've changed how both tells both sides. How has it impacted your family positive? Because now we're two years past it. And you've had all this time to grow. So what have you seen? What's going on? I can tell you my story, I can remember probably as much as five years because it all was just changing so quick. What was it like in this first two years for you? I want to document it and maybe come back again in five years and ask you that. Yeah, I love that.

 Definitely. I love that.



 I would say some of the biggest fruit I've seen is just

 a deeper connection with my kids that they they are getting to see and get to know who their daddy is, who you know,

 makes me me. And they're, you know, unapologetically, but also like full of love, full of full of compassion. And I'm much more aware of maybe some bad habits or traits that try and creep back in. And I'm able to correct those super quick because I'm I'm a firm believer that the leadership always sets the tone. And as a father, as a head of a household,

 parents, we set the tone of our household. And so if I'm reacting with, you know, poor self control, or, you know, I'm not being as patient as I should, then it's reflecting on my kids, I'm seeing them act that way. I'm seeing things, you know, being repeated or mimicked. And I'm not seeing that as much anymore, right? I'm able to see my whole family's atmosphere being completely different than it was before.



 And not only am my kids getting to know me more, but I'm getting to know them individually,



 on a such a deeper level, because I'm actually present. And I'm not just trying to wear the best daddy of the of the year hat. Yeah, on listening and responding. I'm not I'm not skipping that brain. I'm continually practicing the the rethinking process. When I'm when I'm, you know, even routine morning commute to school, right carpool, even in the routine, trying to really listen and engage and respond with thoughtful engagement.



 And I've seen just a massive amount of kind of deeper connection with my kids.



 I would say my wife definitely sees it too. But on the flip side with my wife, she's spent we've been together 20 years this year, where this is our 14th year of marriage, we've been together 20 years.



 And for 18 years,



 she was she knew how to respond. She knew what to anticipate. You know, when we would I'm not, you know, I've gone through truly a masterpiece, Craig, but you know, we still get into fights occasionally, you know, things still come up. Things aren't things aren't always, you know, I am not perfect. I still, you

 know,



 because I'm not either. I'm so far from it is sickening. But at least now I can see it and I can admit it and I can work toward the change.

 Yeah, the sum, you know, I used to have this guttural



 turtle I used to fold, you know, we get into an argument and I would immediately go straight to I'm a failure. That was what I would feel. I would have this guttural response that said, I'll do better. And that's all that ever happened. I would shut down, I would say I'll do better. And I would just feel like a failure, any sort of critique or criticism or complaint that she would bring to me, I would just shut down. And instead, now, I've been able to go, okay, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I made a mistake. That whole that shift of I'm not a failure. I'm not riddled with shame. I made a mistake. That changed everything that is like fundamentally such an important tool in the toolkit of just being like, Oh, yeah, I definitely could have done that differently. Like, even in the worst argument being like, I know I'm being a jerk right now. And I'm making a mistake and I'm sorry. I'm wound up. But, you know, she, she for all these years has, you know, programmed herself to know how to respond. And I have to use grace and patience to know that I've changed really rapidly. But I have to use a lot of grace in really overly communicating being overly communicative with my words, my actions,



 my body language. And I don't do it right all the time. I do it wrong a lot. But I'm aware that I'm doing it wrong. And I know what I can do to,

 improve that not just do better, but I know, I know what needs to happen. And a lot of our conversations are like, you know, trying to bridge that gap between what she's anticipating, and what I'm actually saying. And so that can be a little bit of a rub sometimes. And, you know, when I'm like, deep diving and all this self improvement stuff, and I'm telling her, here's what I need from you. They don't like to be told what you need from them. So sometimes that can be a bit of a rub. And I just have to be more patient and use a lot more grace.



 And yeah.

 I want to talk about that just for a second, just because people that are listening,

 I know what's going on, what went on, what was going on in your mind, what was going on in my mind, pre-transformation,



 you make a mistake.



 And that's mirrored back to you and the behavior of someone else or the words of someone else.



 And immediately,

 you know, it was like, I'm sorry, I'll do better, but you don't do better. And the reason, and I didn't do better either, is because that was my identity. I was that kind of person. I was the kind of person that I always lose my temper. I always say the wrong thing. I always put people down. I'm always harsh. I'm always passive. And I'm not just talking about myself and just throwing labels out, though some of those do fit me and I was always those things. You feel that and you do shut down because you think that's who you are. You really believe it. And that's what shame is. That's that not enough, not good enough,



 not worthy of feeling that we live with. And because it's our identity, we can't change. And what you worked through was to discover, no, this is a new picture. This is who I really am. And once you made that decision, and by the way, you touched on something else, you said, I always use that rethink, which is one of the parts of the course. And I want to say this here, everybody listening, I'm really working hard to make that a workshop. I want to do a live workshop and just cover that one tool. That one tool can change your lives. You may not need the rest of the course if you can get this one thing down.



 And that's why I just want to make it just just a free part of the coaching and put it out for everyone to get. And so I hope you'll sign up when I offer that soon. And that I really believe that'll be coming in January, early February, probably the latest. And so I'm just saying, I agree with what you said, Brandon, I think that's one of the most powerful tools that a person can master and begin making that a part of your everyday life, everyday life, just rethinking what I hear. And this is what I used to think, now this is the right way to think. And that's a great tool. So thank you for, for bringing that up. That's a great word. So you've seen all the positives, you've seen, you've seen the negatives as well.



 Both are true in your home, in which I expect that to be the case.



 So I see how you're growing. I see what's going on with you. Now it's come to the fun stuff, some of the fun stuff I've been looking forward to talking about. And we're talking about your growth. There is a story that you shared with me back in the summer that I really wanted everyone to hear. So exciting was your vacation to hell, or maybe it was a better vacation to the apocalypse because it's when all the bugs were released.



 And you were so excited about it because the new you, how you responded. So tell us about that.

 Yeah, yeah, Craig, sure.



 So over this past summer, we planned a beach trip. We planned a trip to the beach and, and just on the heels of me getting through the program two years ago, I finally, with the revelation and the breakthrough that I went the rapid change in graduating the program, it gave me the boldness to have vision for my family, to have a vision for, for my family and for what I wanted to see.



 Building memories together would look like you know, I'm a, I'm a person who's always craved adventure and discovery. I love that I'm an outdoorsman at heart.



 But I was never given the opportunity to do that as a kid. And so I had this, this thing deep down in my heart that always wanted to go camping and take my family camping and go on the heels of the program. I mustered up the courage to speak and tell my wife, I have a vision and want to buy a camper so that we can regularly take our family on these trips so that we can build these wonderful memories together. And all this, you know, this vision for what I wanted to see, you know, these, these years, I've got three kiddos as a little reminder, I've got a 13 year old, a 10 year old, and an eight year old. And so this is just critical times in these, in these, in these years. And so fast forward, right, bought a camper two years ago, like, right after the program, I was like, we can do this.



 And in the cell was, hey, babe, when we go to the beach, like, we don't have to spend all this money on hotels and beach house, like we have a camper. And I got one of those off-road kinds, so we can camp right on the beach, and we can go on the campgrounds and save all this money. It would be amazing. We have everything we need. And we do. And we did. And we've made a few beach trips and it has been fun.



 But this year's beach trip was especially memorable.



 We planned it. And the, the, we booked it a few weeks in advance. The, the week before the trip, there was a hurricane that, that had a big storm front that came through. This is in South Texas, along the coast.



 And so we were, we had a booking at a camp, a state park campground. And so kind of waiting on it, checking every day, should we go? Should we not? Is it going to be okay? Is the storm surge down? Called them. They said, "Hey, we're good to go. Come on out. Come on. It's all good. Okay, we're gonna do this." And we committed. We, we drove down there and, and, and we have all our gear. We have our camper, everything. We, we pull, I mean, just happy. We're singing songs and we're just looking forward. It's also my birthday weekend. I'm turning 35, right? So a lot of pressure to have just an awesome time, right? We've got all these things planned. So we, singing songs, we pull into the campground right at dusk. So the sun had just set. I mean, it just got dark, like, right there. And we pull into the campground and what we, what we see is like swarms of like, oh,



 yeah, I don't know. We, we didn't know what it was really. What is all this? This is weird, moths or something. When we finally get to the, to start to unhook the trailer and set up the campsite, we realize it is Jurassic level mosquito swarms.



 And panic. The kids, you know, quickly fall into a panic and the wife and everybody's having a panic attack and they're, they're just like, they're biting you through your shirt. They're the size of your fist. You know, all the, all the stories, right? But it is like that. It is, I've never, I'm, I'm from South Louisiana. I grew up on the bayou. I've never seen anything like this. I know mosquitoes and I've never witnessed anything like this. And, and in my mind, I'm thinking if I can just, if I can just set up, we have a pop-up camper with a, you know, and so I'm thinking if I can just set up, if I can just set up, you know, I'll keep the family in the car, just y'all stay in the car while I hurry up and set up. And once I set up, I'll light all the citronella candles in there and I'll, I've got this little electric racket bug zapper. I'm a be mer, like Rambo in there with the mosquitoes, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna clean house and then I'll let you know when it's good and safe and then you guys can come and we'll be all right. We'll get through the night. Maybe it's just dusk, you know, you know how it can be. It's dusk. And so I'm in there for an hour. Zap, zapping, zapping, and zapping, and zapping. And man, they're just, they're still coming. They're just, they're just, there's, they're just still so many. And I think I got it kind of, I've got a roll of duct tape and I'm finding cracks and seams and I'm just trying my best with everything I have, right.



 And I think it's okay and I get the family in there and,



 and it's getting worse. They're, they're infiltrating somehow.



 And I think, you know, there's a vent on the side of the camper. Maybe they're getting in through the vent. Maybe there isn't a screen so I can go. So I took a roll of duct tape. I have my headlamp and my son, my youngest, my boy, he's not my youngest, but my boy, dad, I'll be brave. I'll come with you. I'll help you. I'll hold the flashlight.

 I've got this vision. I've got this vision of RV



 with, oh gosh, what's his name? I forgot his name. Now within that movie, the raccoons and his boy, they're going to get the raccoons out and hand up. It was a mess.

 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.



 So my, my son's, I'm going to be brave. I'm going to help you. And so we go around the backside of the camper and we're, we got to roll a duct tape. I'm going to tape every hole and crack and crevice. And he shines that light and we couldn't see more than two feet in front of us because it was just black swarm. And he lost his mind and ran, you know, ran crying. And so I, I go back in the camper and everybody's hyperventilating. Everybody's crying. Everybody's screaming.



 And you know, we didn't budget.

 Vacation is ruined. Yeah.

 We didn't, we didn't budget. We didn't have the budget to just, oh, we'll just go to a hotel. Right? Like we'll just pivot. You know, we didn't really have that baked in. There was in my mind, if this is just me, there's no option. We're going to figure this out and we're going to sleep here and we're going to be fine. But I'm looking around and that is not an option. We cannot stay here. It is very clear. We cannot stay here. You know, a car drives by and the light shines outside the window and the kit, you know, they just see swarms and they, they, you know, they're like, yeah, like Jurassic Park and they're hiding from the dinosaurs. Seriously. So as this is all unfolding, I take a few deep breaths and I sit down on the little bank at the little seating area in the camper. And I've got my, I've got my head hands on my head and I'm just, I'm just trying to think.



 Got to figure this out. And my oldest daughter has been cool, calm and collected the whole time. She's been trying to take care of everybody and she comes to me and she kneels down at my feet



 and I can see her. She has been, she has been trained to know what dad's going to do next. Dad's going to lose his,



 right?



 He's going to lose his mind. He's going to lose his S, you know? So she's, she's on her knee. She's, she's consoling. She's like, dad, hey, hey, dad, hey, look at, hey, it's all right. And she's, she's, she's like, she knows. She's trying to save the day. Yeah.



 And in that moment, it's almost like I had this, this out of body kind of moment where I was like, oh, she's preparing for how I would have responded.



 The old me, the old me would have packed it all in and we would have driven eight hours back home through the night.



 And everyone would have been crying and disappointed and crushed and dad would have said lots of choice words. And, and I would have been a failure. I'm an idiot. I'm a, I'm a failure. I can't believe I put my family in this position. You know, this, I, it would have all been about me.

 Yeah.

 But in that moment, I sat there, I took a deep breath. I hugged my daughter and I said, let's go find us somewhere to stay tonight, you know, and got on the phone, found the cheapest, sketchiest, I mean, you know, something like out of a movie, you know,



 a motel down the road. And I think we, you know, it took us eight hours to get there. Took us a few hours of chaos.



 And I think we finally checked into a hotel. I think we laid our heads on our pillows at like 12 o'clock at night.

 Right. Eight hours to get to the campground, a few hours to deal with the chaos and another what to find your hotel and get checked in. Yeah. You know, what I remember most about the conversation afterwards is you told me this story and, and then I'm waiting on, okay. And waiting, embracing for the worst. Like, how do I redeem this? And you said, man, and it turned out to be the greatest vacation we ever had. I thought, what?

 Yeah, it was, you know, I embraced, you know, I always preach to my kids adventure, adventure, adventure. But adventure doesn't just mean everything going according to plan. Adventure means it gave me an opportunity to show my kids, how do you respond when things don't go your way? When things don't go according to plan? When you didn't have a backup plan and you have to think on your feet and figure out a backup plan. Do you stay stuck in that shame of this is going to be the worst? I, you know, this trip is the worst. I can't believe it. The old me would have never been able to, to shake off shame from that moment on. We got into a hotel, we cleaned up, we got some rest. We woke up just a few hours later before the sunset, before the sun rose, and we saw a baby turtles hatch on my birthday. All right. We redeemed it. We, we had the most wonderful next day, you know, and the rest of the trip was just taking it for what it was a day at a time. Not big plans, not what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? We just took it a day at a time. And it was so exciting. And I was so proud of being able to roll with it. I was, I would have never done that, ever.



 Yeah, I hear you. It gives me so much hope.

 Yeah. Congratulations. That's a terrific story. And I just, I just want everyone else to hear it because it, I think it gives everyone hope.



 It doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to create crater. We don't have to resort,



 default to I'm a failure.



 We can default with faith. There is a way. And that's really, you know, honestly, that's what my whole coaching is all about. It's, it's trying to help people default to faith. Like God's got you. He's on your side. He's for you. He believes in you. You belong to him. And that's really it. That's the foundation.



 Well, I'm grateful. I want to go on because the next part that I wanted to come to is, you know, it's, to me, it's, it's equally important. This is, I'd say this is a much higher level. The story you just told is early. That's as low hanging for the people get to experience once they have the breakthrough breakthrough. But this next story, this next part of your life that, that again, I got to be a part of, be your prayer partner and mentor through it. And I say mentor really, I didn't do anything. I just, I really got to hear it and, and maybe try to offer some encouragement.



 This was, this was advanced. This is advanced. And again, we're only two years into this. So it just shows others how fast a person can change once they know who they really are. I want to talk about this next venture you got into because you have, this is part of being free to be you. You've had this desire to build furniture, custom professional, I think commercial as well, but really a high quality furniture. I'm not talking like hundreds of dollars. I'm talking about thousands and thousands of dollars worth of furniture and as a hobby, really. I mean, you want to do it professionally, but still, and keep your day job. Yeah. And so take us from there that you had the courage to step into this and do it. How did that feel to you? And then we'll go to the next part of it.

 Yeah. Yeah.



 So I've always been, I've told you I'm a, I'm a outdoorsman at heart. I'm also a bit of a craftsman.



 I just, my escape is building things, creating things with my hands, having vision, and then kind of processing through woodworking particularly as my outlet.



 But I grew up, working all different kinds of trade jobs and gaining skills along the way.



 But



 when,



 I've always had that desire, but I never really felt like I could practice it unashamed. So when I, the old me used to have these competing factions of identity, because I didn't have an identity of my own. I had this perfect father, perfect professional, and perfect husband, and nowhere was there space for a hobbyist or a me. You know, I created such a bifurcated personality stream of living that if I was ever wearing one, I was ashamed of not being the others. It was never space for me to actually build things and not feel ashamed of the time I was spending doing it. So just the boldness of being able to build things unashamed and know that my wife loves me and supports me and my kids know that that's me nurturing my heart and my mind and my body in that time of doing it. But along the way, a couple of years ago, I built a really, really close friendship with a friend who also shares those desires in building and crafting and woodworking. And over the course of a few years since we basically on the heels of us doing



 truly a masterpiece, I really started having the boldness to say, "Hey friend, you have a woodworking business. You have a wood mill and a kiln and a full wood shop and



 I have a day job, but you do this full time."



 I have this vision that I feel like God has given me for a business proposal that would allow for me to use some of my architectural contacts to



 build custom furniture, design and build custom furniture. And I suspect that we could do that together.



 And so let's pray about if God would have us partnering first. Before we do anything, let's just pray about that. And so we spent about a year praying together. We would hold worship sessions and pray together and journal and listen and get back and say, "Look, let's come back together and share what the Lord is speaking to us." And over that course of a year, we came to the



 conclusion that the Lord had brought us together and was authoring and



 creating the opportunity for us to be together and that it was to be blessed and to be done. We drew up a business plan and came to an agreement on how that would work, how that partnership would work.



 And I set off into my relationships in my day job and got us some projects, some pilot projects, what we called it. I said, "Hey, before we go gung-ho on this thing, let's prove the business model. Let's do just a few pilot projects and let's track everything. And let's just see if it has legs. Let's see if it works."



 And so with a developer that I work with quite regularly, got with them and sold the story, essentially.



 And they signed us on and away we went. I spent a year working with their architect to design some custom furniture, some tables, some boardroom,



 co-working and dining tables for their projects, for their commercial projects.

 These were live edge tables, is that correct?

 Live edge tables with wood that we harvested from the project site. So we took down trees that were going to get taken out and turned into mulch and we harvested those and milled them into lumber and then worked with the architect to design what they needed, whatever they saw fit. And so I was the designer and the sales and the upfront person to...



 I work in this world every day. And so this is my...



 I speak the language and everything. So I worked with them.



 My friend took the logs and processed them. He has the mill, he has the equipment. And while I'm over a course of a year working with them and designing them, these big commercial projects take a long time. So we issued a purchase order, received 50% deposit of the total sale of four tables of these projects.



 And away we go. Now we have funding. Now we can start manufacturing.



 We have...

 We can come through.

 Right? Yeah. Everything's coming together. Wow. This is real.

 God led you. It's all fitting. It's perfect. Yeah.

 Yeah. It's amazing. And you come to Red Sea. All along the way, I'm having to pump the brakes and kind of stiff arm the developer to a degree who is trying to add. Can we get countertops? Can we get art? Can we get more, more, more? And I said, hold on. We're going to commit to the four tables. We're not going to commit to any more than that. I want to assure that we can deliver with quality and integrity of what we promise. We're a small shop. This is our first shop. Thank you for giving us this shop. But we're working the kinks out and you need to understand that. But we're just going to take on this. You know, they want to give more and more and more. And I had the wisdom and I wouldn't say I, the Lord,



 exercised wisdom through me.

 God in you.

 Yeah. To say, hold on. Don't take it all. Don't take it all. Don't, you know. And so we got the deposit, which was a lot of money,



 several thousand dollars, a couple tens of thousands of dollars. And we, you know, from when we received a deposit, we have roughly six months to manufacture, which is plenty of time,



 but still a lot of work to be done.



 And so a month goes by two months, you know, and I'm, and I'm, now I've done the year of upfront, you know, sales and marketing and deliverables and, you know, all of the setup, design, drawings, blueprints, you know, all the things that have to happen. I've drawn up the business plan or the schedule. How are we going to execute? We need to have these parts done by this time, that part done by this time. Here's how much everything's going to cost. Here's the profit or not. I've done all the business stuff. Right. And now it's transitioning into his territory. Hey, we need to start manufacturing and you're full time. I'm part time. I'm going to provide some time to put hands on assistance, but you're going to need to take the lead in doing the manufacturing.



 And so we, we scheduled regular work meetings and, you know, month after month, I'm not seeing, not seeing progress really coming together. I'm saying, hey, when's, we need to have the stuff milled and out of the kiln by this time. And that time would come and go. And so, man, we were really months were going by and, and, and, you know, we're down to three months till delivery. And, and to my knowledge, nothing has been really started manufacturing. So finally, you know, get his attention and we have a tough conversation. I say, what's really going on?



 And he finally confessed that some things with the business and the financials of the business hadn't been going well. And he was struggling to keep the doors open. And in that season of struggling to keep the doors open and, and everything afloat, he had, he had reappropriated all of our funding in to do that. And confessed to me that he, he didn't really have the ability to complete the projects. We have three months. We have no, nothing started.



 All the money's gone.



 And, you know, I get a, I kind of get a shrug of the shoulders like, you know, life has been really, and, and I love this, I love this man to death. I know his heart. I know his family. I know him intimately as a friend. And I can see the suffering that he had gone, he had gone through a lot of loss, a lot of grieving, a lot of family hardship over the course of this year. And so I felt for him, but I also was, you know, with the shrug of a shoulder, I can see a man who was kind of defeated and didn't, didn't have the, the bandwidth to really move anything forward at that point. And it was, it was revealed to me that I, I could have had better vision,



 maybe in those, in those first few months to recognize what was going on and to make action sooner.



 But I wasn't beating myself up. I wasn't, you know, I, I took a deep breath and I said, look,



 I'm going to talk to you as a friend first. I love you. And I'm sorry that this is happening.



 All right. You need to know that your, your circumstances suck and I feel for you, but I'm need to take that friend hat off for a second. We have to talk business.



 Because what has been done, you knowingly or unknowingly put me at risk.



 Your reputation was at risk. You gambled. It was worth more.

 Exactly. With my integrity. Your, your name is a footnote on the year and a half of business dealings and years of relationship that I've built with this client. Now, if we go and say we can't do it, that's my name, not yours. I know your business name is on the contract, but, but it's me, you know, and, and, and that is not acceptable. I can't do that. I don't want to do that. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to pause.



 We're going to take seven days. We're going to pray and fast with our wives. And we're going to, you're going to come over to our house in seven days from today.



 And we're going to talk about what, what God is going to have us do next.



 Okay. Because here's the deal.



 I don't, I can't judge you and your mistake. I can't. If I was backed into a corner and didn't have a dime and everything was at risk of being taken, I don't know the decisions I would make. I hope that I wouldn't have done, which you did, but I don't know. So I can't judge that. But where we are is where we are.

 we said we were going to pause, pray fast with our wives. No, we are, when we're married, we're one, we need to make sure our decisions are in alignment and that we have confirmation.



 So

 did that.



 And in that time,



 the Lord, you know, I reached out to you, Craig, and I said, Hey, I need you to be praying. There's a circumstance that's happened. And the old me would have, would have immediately been like, what an idiot you are. You didn't listen to your gut. You must have been wrong about what God said.



 You're in trouble. Like you're a fail. Like all of the worst things, but I didn't do any of that. I just went straight to the Lord. And I, I didn't know what was going to happen.

 But I knew God had an answer.



 So in that time, in that seven days of fasting and praying, I, the Lord spoke to me and said, Hey, why don't you, he just kept saying, call Danny, call, call, call this other buddy, call this other buddy, and call in some prayer warriors. So I called in you, Craig, and maybe one or two others. And, and, and the Lord was saying, call your friend who does manufacturing and just be honest and tell him what happened. Tell him where you're at and see if he might be able to help you. He has his own business. He has the ability to do, he was already going to do some of our metal manufacturing for the projects. So I reached out to him and we're not that close, me and that friend where we haven't spent a lot of time together, but I kind of spilled the beans and said, here's the situation I'm in.



 Would you be willing to help in some way? Is there, is there a chance that maybe you could, maybe we could subcontract some of this work to you to help build some of these tables. And, you know, if I need to go out and get a loan, so that, so that, you know, I could, we can manufacture, then that's what we'll do. And he, he just, he very quickly said, just, just come over tomorrow and let's talk about this. And what he said, he said, let me pray with Tiffany. Let me pray with my wife. That was a, that was a confirmation piece right there that goes, oh, okay, something serious is happening.

 So when, when Danny said, let me pray with my wife and come over tomorrow, let's talk about this, I knew we were heading in the right direction. And so I went and met with him and he, he, he said, here's what I'm going to do. We prayed about this. I'm going to help you, you know, and I came prepared. I had my slide deck. I had my financials. I was prepared to give a pitch, but the Lord paused me right before I walked into his house and he said, you're not here to sell.



 You're not here to convince him.



 Just talk. Just tell him. Answer any question you can. Just show him what you have. Show him the design. Show him the, just show him what you did. You're not there to convince him. Look, you go in there. You just trust me and just share. Don't hold anything back. Don't overwhelm him, but you're not there to convince and sell something. Just trust me. So when I went in there, I walked him through stuff and he goes, wow, this is the most organized mess I've ever seen.



 This is more than I ever get. And I said, oh, okay. And he goes, here's what we're going to do. We prayed about it. I'm going to help you.



 But, and I'm going to front you. I'm going to front all the money. You don't need to go out and get a loan. I'm positioned to help cover all the costs



 right now, but you're not going to put this in my name. You need to put this in your name.



 You, this is your project. You've worked so hard and you were, you were codependent on this other guy and it left you in a mess. He goes, you can do this. You should, you should put this in your name.



 And it reinforced and gave me that, that, that, that justification or the boldness to go, you know what? I can do this. I don't have to be codependent. I can start my own. He said, look, you need to be like the GC. You need to have your own company or your own name and sub, sub it to me. Because at the end of the day, I'm going to take care of this, but I want you to make some money because I'm the whole time I'm going, look, I don't care. I'm, I don't care if I make a dime. I just want to redeem my name. I want to deliver. So if I need to give you, look, I'm willing, I'm going to give you all the profit. And he goes, no, no, you need to make some money on this. We're going to make sure you make some money on this,



 but go ahead and make you, it needs to be in your name. And he, he helped, uh, encourage me. And so I left there going, wow, God just poured out his blessing on me where there was conceivably no way.

 Yeah.

 There was, there was no, you know, I don't know anything about getting a business loan or, or any of that. And God poured out his blessing in that moment. And I said, whoa, God is clearly moving. Okay.

 I want to interrupt here and just interject a thought because I think this is what happens, uh, to most people. And it certainly has happened to me many times in the past. He could still happen today. I hope it doesn't. And that is that we get into a project we've trusted God, we've prayed, we've, we've sought counsel, we, you know, we've done our best. We go into it thinking God led me into this. We even tell other people God led me into this. And then our hurdle comes and all of a sudden you think, oh, well God closed the door or we say God closed the door because that sounds real spiritual. It's a nice way of saying how I'm backing out. I quit. Well, you didn't do that. I have a saying one, I was not one of my pastor. He's actually my pastor. He's my first pastor ever had. And my mentor, he's still a good friend and mentor today, Kenny Lewis. And he told me once when I was a really young believer, he said, Craig, never doubt in the dark, what God has told you in the light.



 All he's saying is when God tells you something, just take it to the bank.



 And when you come to a Red Sea experience, just expect the waters are going to divide. You may have to stand there for a few days. Like Moses did. It literally was a few days before the land dried up, but it don't trust me. Trust God that is. You'll dry it up. And you may be anointing King and now you're running from the soul and thinking you're going to die thinking as a terrible decision. Just, just wait. Trust God, you're going to be King one day or like Jesus, you may have left heaven to come redeem man. And you end up on a cross.



 Trust God, there's going to be a resurrection. There is God loves to resurrect our life.



 Really, I think the best way to say it, God loves to redeem our story. And the reason he wants to redeem our story is because that's what he wanted to do all along. And if there wasn't this hardship and we could have done it without him, then he would get no glory for it. But when we come up against a wall and we trust God that he's going to park the waters, cause a resurrection, he's going to do something on our behalf, then he really will get the glory. We just got to be willing to stand there while the winds are blowing and parting the sea. And sometimes it's hard to do, but this is what I want everyone to hear. If you'll do that, you will see God like you've never seen him before. And that's just what you did in this. And you've seen him on a whole new level. Now you know how much more greater God is than you knew before. You know how much more powerful he is than you knew before. But here's the most important part. You know how much more loving he is than you ever knew it before. And that's why I hope everyone takes away from this story. He didn't abandon you because you had hardships. Oh no, that wasn't God abandoning you. That was God giving you an opportunity to let him be glorified in your life. And you did it. You did it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

 Thank you.

 Yeah.

 It was, I would have been so paralyzed in doubt, in doubt and self-doubt and shame, but I



 just knew that his hand was on me and that he created me for... He put that vision in my head for the business. And why wouldn't he be with me? Right? And so that was just the first instance where he showed that he was clearly pouring out his blessing on me and getting me through it. Through it with grace and with dignity and with love and compassion towards my friend, even. Through the whole thing, was able to not only preserve a friendship that could have been absolutely wrecked, but I believe strengthen that friendship.

 Yeah. That's so much a part of the story that you didn't react in the flesh, but you remained in faith, which is walking by the spirit. You let the spirit of God control you and he was able to bring the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful, gentleness, and self-control in your life.



 And bless others through it so that your friend was also able to be redeemed part of the story. And I know we didn't even time to talk about that, but that's such an important part of it. And this is something I want everyone to hear.



 When you begin to discover who you are, you only do it because you discovered



 who God is. That's true. So I say to everyone, what I hope you get is three things. One is to discover the wonder of God. Because if you really discover the wonder of God, then you'll begin to discover the wonder of you. Just how much to you there really is so much more than you ever imagined. And when you begin to see that, you begin to realize, wait, he didn't just make me like this, he made everyone like this. And then you discover the third wonder of the world. And that's the wonder of others. You begin to love like your love. That's the most exciting thing that I think I've experienced through my own transformation and now see happening in the lives of others. Well, Brandon, I've got to wrap it up. We're going to be out of time. And I just want to say thank you, man, so much for for carving out this time. I know your wife took your kids and went out and did things so we could have this time be private tonight. Tell Melissa I so much appreciate it. Your kids thank them so much for me. And I want to thank you on behalf of everyone that listens. I know they're encouraged as well.

 I want to take just a minute and invite you who are listening today to join this what I think is a growing families of followers of Jesus Christ who've won their battle over shame.



 You've put off self-doubt feeling like that you're not good enough feeling like you're an imposter living in fear that that people are about to figure you out. Instead, what happens is you develop such a confidence in God because you're in Christ. Instead of feeling like people are about to figure you're out, you begin to say to yourself, hey, I'm about to figure this out.



 You don't feel the box anymore. And that's a really good place to be. Join us. Subscribe to this podcast. Sign up for my weekly email. And maybe you want to consider coaching whatever it is. One day maybe next year at this time I'll be interviewing one of you. God bless you. I'll look forward to next time.