BraveMen S4E125: Steve Weatherford - Shaped by God

Steve Weatherford is all in. No matter what he does, he is passionately all in, which is what made him a great football player. He won a Super Bowl with a New York Giants and he was the punter and known as, in fact, a half time. It's a great story. I'm not going to give it away. He tells it in this interview we do here today on Brave Men. Steve Weatherford, as he says, he played in the NFL for 10 years, was on five different teams, but as he said it, he said he got disappointed and discarded five times. In other words, he had the job and then got cut and then got another job. We got cut, played with the Saints, the Jets, and of course won the Super Bowl with Eli Manning in the New York Giants. But the shirt that I love that he wears a lot says, Jesus is king. Jesus is king. And Steve Weatherford's a friend and a remarkable man, a great inspiration to all of us. He's got a supplement company that I use to supplements. In fact, I've got to sit right here. And he was going through some times in his life where he's like, man, I don't know, I've got to, I'm successful. I've got all this stuff going on and it just doesn't fulfill me. We'll find out the story. How we found fulfillment today on Brave Men. If you, if you're discipling somebody, if you're involved in a local church, you want to build a men's movement there. I want to raise up strong men because we know strong men make strong families, strong families and make strong churches. Go to cmn.men, christian men's network, cmn.men, all the tools you need to help us out with your son, your children, your family, or in a local church setting, local community faith setting or local men's group. I was just telling, in fact, a couple of friends, I just got the report from Brazil. We've got 7,000 small groups meeting across the nation of Brazil right now with the book Maximized Manhood and number of the other tools we have. cmn.men, find everything you need there. Today on Brave Men, you'll meet Steve Weatherford. If you want to get fired up, this is the one to listen to. In fact, this is the one to listen to and listen to again because you'll get fired up inspired and moments of great revelation, which I believe and pray in your life and my life will bring transformation. It's not just about information, is it? You can get a lot of that. That's why the internet's got tons of information. The transformation comes by the power of Jesus Christ. So here comes the guy with the shirt says, Jesus is King, here Steve Weatherford today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Talking with Steve Weatherford and Steve has got an amazing career in athletics, but you've got a lot of things going on in your life, man. It's great to have you here, great to have you on Brave Men today, Steve. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Man, I honor you. Thank you for having me on this show, but you guys have no idea how much pastor has been an encourager for me over the last two years. I honor you, man. Thank you for being a guy that I know is in my corner and doesn't need anything from me, but just wants to see me grow. Hey, man. And so now you want a Super Bowl with a team that we hate because I'm like, my kids grew up in Dallas, right? I grew up in Cali. That was a Rams fan. So, but with the Giants, right? Yeah. I mean, you guys had an amazing game, Super Bowl XL 46. Yeah, 46. Yeah. And you guys won the Super Bowl. Yeah. Eli Manning MVP second time. Yeah. Crazy. But you won it in the last minute. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, man, it's going to take a full game to be able to beat Tom Brady. And I think probably both times that the Giants defeated them in 2008 and 2012. They were the more talented team, you know, just on that particular day on paper. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think they had had more pro bowlers. They had younger, faster players. But, you know, that's why you only play one game. That's why it's really exciting. It was the best of five then. Yeah, it might be different. They might get us. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was an amazing game. You had a great game. And just really good stuff happened for you. That's a fast thing when you talk about that, talented on paper, but on the day of the game. Sounds like the, the, those men that turned back in the day of battle. I'm not saying that's about Brady. Of course, he's a warrior. But I'm just saying in general, we have a tendency to look at talent as the most important thing going. Well, man, if you look a lot of people don't know this statistic, but this actually an interesting statistic that there are more undrafted tree agents into the National Football League that have a 10 year NFL career than first rounders. No, how does that make sense? That is a fact, Jack. Wow. How does that make sense? Because if you're drafted in the first round, you have superior pedigree, superior potential, size, speed, strength, talent, accolades, all the potential. That's a combine. Right. You did all, you had all the, all the metrics. Yeah, they, all the metrics, they sister intelligence, you know, they look at all of your orthopedic. They probably go back to your after score. It's literally, yeah, it's literally like picking a lottery like I'm going to invest in this one because I believe this one's going to pan out the best for our team. They put a lot of money, a lot of money into them. And so my hypothesis from playing the National Football League for 10 years is a lot of the first rounders get what they wanted and become complacent. And so I watched because I played long enough, I watched a lot of first rounders come and go and I played on five teams. You know, so pastor, you got to believe that I'm experiencing a lot of head coaches, a lot of different talents, but every team that I'm on, we have a new crop of first rounders. And you can, you can see, because every year you're going to get at least one first rounder. And I can almost by the time I was in my fifth or sixth year, I could look at the first rounders that we're going to have 10 year careers and be like Larry Fitzgerald. Right. I mean, that guy was just a consummate pro or Calvin Johnson, you know, like I just, he's a, he showed up. There is this show. It does a stuff. You know, and then I have an opportunity to play with, and this is not me, gunning him at all. I actually honor him. I'm proud of his growth. I'm proud of the man that he is and he's growing into. But oh, Delbacom, Jr. You think about it. The guy gets drafted. He's 20 years old in New York City millions and millions of dollars and all of the influence in the world overnight. Right. And that's like, that's what all, that's what the world wants. The world wants like, man, give me influence. Give me influence. And if you give me influence, I'll build, I'll be responsible only then. And then I'll build a relationship with you. But the way that Jesus wants us to do it is Jesus wants to build relationship and be responsible with it. And then, then we'll have influence with God and man, you know what I mean? And so for me, I just played long enough to be able to see some of those common denominators and then some of those success stories. And that would be my hypothesis as to why more undrafted for agents, more like Rudy Rudiger's more guys that shouldn't make the tale. Here Dallas, it's Bill Bates. Yeah, you know, why was he here every year, every year, every year they go, yeah, well, this is probably the last year and he goes, they try to get a thousand years. Yeah, and you did 10 years, man, that's. It's unheard of really in some ways because NFL stands for not for long. I wouldn't say it's unheard of, but the percentage of guys that get into the NFL and play one year and then guys that play for 10 years plus is a very, very small percentage. A lot of that has to do with staying healthy, you know, a lot of that has to do with men every single year, you got about 2000 hungry lions that want your job, they want your job and they'll do anything to get it. And so it really, unless you're a guy that's on a really high guarantee on track, and that's only about 5% of the team. So there's about 90 to 95% of the team that during training camp, you're squeezing your butt cheeks, man, when they're handed out because they do three different rounds of cuts. And the night before they cut, I mean, we've all been surprised. We've been traded. I do that guy's gone. Yeah, I mean, I've played for 10 years and it's awesome. It's like very proud to say that like I'm in that alumni club, but you know, hear me when I say this, everybody that's listening to this, I've been cut five times. I've been discarded and been the trash five times. So it's great for me to sit up, you know, here, healthy and fit and almost 40 years old and six kids. And you know, if you look at my Wikipedia page, it's pretty radical. Yeah, but a lot of people don't realize I was discarded as trash five times in trauma. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a, that's a really important thing for me to, to make sure that I have conversations and I let people know because for the longest time for I'm 39 years old right now. And for 35 years of that, I tried to hide all of my scars because I felt like, man, if people knew this about me or that about me or that I created, then that I had this coping mechanism or addiction, they would all leave my life. And then in the last four years, I feel like God has really restored me. He's renewed my mind. There were so many different things that I struggled with that I disqualified myself. You know, if you're looking about talking about talent on paper, yeah, my Wikipedia page looked great. But man, if everybody else knew this other, the dark way, the dark way of Wikipedia page, it's the self talk. Yeah. It's a negative self talk. And then, and you know, because you're appreciated for your talent. And this is where I feel like whether it's the church or culture, Western culture, we've gone through everything's based on a metric. It's your talent. It's your performance. It's this. It's, I mean, even the Dow Jones and all that kind of stuff that none of us know anything about. You know, it's just a bunch of guys out there doing something with the economy goes up and down. But the fact is, is that that's all based on a quarter system now, like like 90 days, you could be in or out, right? 90 days every day somebody says, well, the Dow went up. And oh, my gosh, it went down all these things, all this performance and all these sorts of things. And how do you keep yourself? How did you? Let me, let's go back to some Steve. You were, you were highly talented, went to school in Indiana, did well in all kinds of sports, soccer, track, right, football, you do all these things. And you become appreciated for your talent. And you're really at that point celebrated. Yeah. And you don't have to really work on your character because now it becomes the metrics is your performance. And we've built a culture on that. And then it's almost like we're surprised. Well, hey, how come this guy messed up? How did this happen? Well, because he didn't have built this character. Yeah. How did that come about? Where were the points that you go? Man, you know, how did you deal with? How did you cope with in the negative parts of your life? How did you cope with being cut? Being unappreciated like guys would say, Hey, yeah, love you, man. You're awesome. You're out. How did you cope with it? What was the, what was the thing you were going through at that point? You say you get set free four or five years ago? How were you coping with it in your 20s? Yeah. I believe that's the one area of my life that when you talk about what a professional is, is somebody who's able to control their their mind will and emotions for succinct amount of time. And I believe I did a really good job of compartmentalizing things. I sustained some sexual trauma from a teacher, a male teacher when I was 12 and it was kind of sink or swim at that point because I was stuck with questions like because I got saved like six months before that. And so I got saved. And then this happened. So I had about six months of like, Oh, okay, great. Like this is what this is what life is about. Like it's it's going to be good. And now I fit in because Jesus loves me. I know I don't fit in in my family. I know I don't fit in in Sunday school because I got kicked out of Sunday school almost every Sunday. That's the place everybody's supposed to be welcome, right? Yeah. But but I got saved at 12 years old six months later. Two different times a teacher did things to me that he should never do to anybody much less a little boy. And that that spun me out into like, man, if God is God loves me and he wants to save me, how could he ever let something like this happen to me. So I had questions about God. I had questions about, well, since this happened, does this make me gay? Could God could God still love me? And so the question I'll circle back to your question, how did you handle getting cut? How did you handle getting beat and track? How did you handle? Right. If you're if you're telling me, Steve, that your self worth was tied up in, can I win or not? How did you handle losing or being discarded and cut? Well, I learned at 12 years old, how how to compartmentalize feelings and emotions and to put them into like the basement of my life. Yeah. I had to hide them away and just when, you know, and that that can only take you so far. And it and it took me up into my 30s. But at a certain point, if you check off enough boxes and I had four goals as a 13 year old kid, I remember walking into the dentist office, picking up a muscle magazine and it just sparked all of these dreams for me. I decided in that moment one day I want to be on this muscle magazine cover. I knew that I wanted to be a dad. I wanted to be a world champion or an Olympic champion. And I wanted to become a pro athlete. Those were really clear goals for myself. I achieved all of them by 32 years old. And then you realize, I don't feel any different. I become a world champion. You know, I signed a contract that made me a millionaire in a day. So you more than I ever could have asked or imagined. But because I had a God size hole inside of me. And then I had a whole basement full of addictions, coping mechanisms, toxic mindsets. So that's what it was. In other words, you built see the problem with compartmentalizing and men do this is that those compartments leak. Oh, buddy. Well, it's not even that they leak just think about like pornography. For me, that was like, okay, I got rid of this problem. And then that was the next problem. But there was the one thing that I didn't let anybody else know about. It was like my trusted friend. Yeah. And that was pornography. But it's to what you said leaking. It wasn't leaking for me. It was almost like you put like you put it in the corner. If it's there long enough, it will start to create mold. And then like, you know, you got like a venting system in your. In your in your basement. And it's almost like it takes to just that little bit of mold. But then I've got a family. Then it starts to to get into your your wife's room. Your room. It gets into your bedroom and ruins sex life. It ruins your intimacy. It ruins not just intimacy. Physically, but like how much she trusts you. Then it gets into your daughter's room and your son's room because it changes who you are. And it really starts to it's almost like moving moving to a different state. When you have a family, there's going to be like new allergies. Well, this is this is something that every single person is allergic to. It's a poison. And in my mind, I'm thinking, well, I'm not cheating on my wife. It's a lester of two evils. But it's still evil. And so like if the men listening to this right now. I really want to be like the best version of yourself and the best leader that you can be. You have to stop right now making decisions between good and evil. Like put that aside, man. Like you should be making decisions between what's good and best and choosing best. Every single day because if you're listening to this podcast, you know good and evil. You know the commandments. You know enough of the scriptures to live right. But but you and I need to stop disqualifying ourselves before we even start this thing out. We know the right thing. James the half brother of Jesus said the reason you do wrong is because you don't do right. And you already know what the right thing is. You know, we've got the witness of Christ in us. And potato if you're listening to this and you're a follower of Christ, you've you've already got that sense. See as Lewis talked about it in his in his book, Mirror Christianity and he talked about that there's a moral law. How did he come to Christ? He began to see that if it's wrong to take somebody's stuff in Indonesia and it's wrong to take it in the UK and it's wrong to take it in Iceland. Why is it wrong? Why isn't there a place where it's okay? Yeah. And he began to see there was no overarching moral law and he found out basically he discovered through that search that it was called the Kingdom of Heaven. And that it had that it had identity and definition and it had it was a person. And he goes, oh, and that's how that was it and in J.R. talking of course talked to all that kind of stuff. But you know, but that coping thing the the issue is what you do what you put in your heart, you'll eventually do with your hands. I've got guys that tell me all the time, you know that you've got this you got this pornography. Let's just take that and there's so many different addictions. I mean hobbies can be an addiction, right? In the same way the gambling is there's all sorts of things that can be addictions. But the fact is is that is what you allow to define you determines your destiny and you carry that in your heart. And so that thing in your heart. Prober's force says guard your heart because from your heart comes your life. So what you put in your heart is what you'll do with your hands. And that's why so many guys look at you and go Steve, I have no idea how I ended up here. I have no idea how this happened. I can't even know how well let's track this back doing this with your hands. And the problem is is that that's that's the issue with the metrics and performance is that we judge everybody based on our hands. God looks at us based on our heart because that's who we really are. So we look at a man based on his let's say he's an executive and he's doing well and he's got the company going right and everything is going good. But he's but he's jacked up in this other area eventually this area whether it's alcohol or pornography whatever it is. He's going to end up in this and people say wonder what happened to that guy wonder why a guy spun out wonder why this thing tipped. You know it could be it's like the guys who ran in Ron and they just they just had they were lustful spirits man they killed it for a decade people like on the covers of magazines and everything else. But their heart was lustful and they ended up tipping over into that now you ended up on a cover of muscle fitness and all kinds of stuff right. Yeah yeah it was I was able to to check all of those off and the one thing that was important to me is I didn't want to like reach out to muscle and fitness and say like I want to be on the magazine. It required me becoming the fittest man in the NFL not once but twice before I got the invitation to do it. So the reason that I mentioned those things isn't like me doing a humble brag it's really connect with everybody on here. I know that we've all had like goals or or we've set our sights on things and maybe we've achieved some of them or all of them. I mean maybe you haven't achieved any of them at all and you went in a completely different direction in your life. Well I just want to speak from a place of I did check those boxes and it didn't shift anything inside of me. Like the fill that yeah the most the most depressing night of my life. I thought was going to be the greatest night of my life you alluded that I had a really good game in the Super Bowl was the greatest game of my life actually. There's still a Super Bowl record and here's a deal dude I'm a punner. So how much impact can you really have? Well I had four puns and all four of them were inside of the 10 yard line. The really drastically makes Bill Belich and Tom Brady rethink and have to retool the plays that they were going to call. And I say that to say after my first punt it was down to the two yard line and we got a safety the very next play. So I had a massive impact on that game to the point where at halftime this is a humble brag. And I think it's cool to go for Chris Collinsworth and and Al Michaels the guys that you were calling the game. Yeah they were calling the game at halftime they said I don't think we've ever said this before but if we voted for an MVP at halftime it'd be the punner Steve Weatherford. And normally during the game we have the TVs on with the sound off in the in the locker room but it's the Super Bowl. So we want to be focused and everything and I found this out later. Man I'm so glad that you didn't know that I didn't hear that because if they would have said that at halftime bro I'm telling you pastor I had to change my pants. Wow you know so I really had an incredible game and it was 47 miles from where I grew up. It was an Indianapolis I'm from Terraholt so I got my grandma there my mom my dad my brothers my sister their kids just everybody that I love I think I spent 20 grand in tickets. Yeah I think I spent more money on tickets than that. But the point is is everybody was there that that mattered to me and I had the greatest game of my life so literally you couldn't paint this picture better. So I remember holding the Super Bowl trophy and sharing it with my family and then going to the after party and you know you got Kenny Chesney playing a private show for the team and like all just crazy out of this world. And then I remember going back to my hotel room and even though you win the Super Bowl because the you want to protect the shield you don't want guys bringing random chicks back to your room no women on the floor so I went back to my room about 230 in the morning I remember sliding my key card. And walking into my room and it being exactly how it was when I left before I became a world champion and I walked up to the window and I was on about the 17th floor and I remember looking down at circle city which is an area real trendy area of Indianapolis and everybody's down there looks like Marty grow their party and you see all different kinds of NFL jerseys and people celebrating and drinking and just having the best time and so happy. And I realized you know I took a deep breath and before I could get that full breath out by myself for the first time this huge wave of depression came over me because I realized I did it all and it didn't shift anything at me I don't feel better I don't feel different and this was actually way better than I ever could have dreamed or imagined. And that was why I believe after at that moment I knew that my time in the NFL was numbered because I didn't believe that there was anything inside of that sport or industry or adventure that was going to fix that God's eye hole inside of me and that really began like a vision quest for me that lasted about two and a half years and then I had like a really powerful God moment and I've never been the same. Clint Gresham who's a mutual friend play with Seattle long snapper he said he remembered sitting in the training room about two months after they had won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks and he said one guy looked over at him he said he said man I thought it would be different he's looking I thought it would be different and Clint said told us he said you know what he was really saying is I thought it would fulfill me as a man I thought I would qualify you to have authority over something. So I had that moment and then probably a month after that I got a five year deal for 13 million dollars and I wasn't even expecting or dreaming of that that wasn't even on my vision. Yeah, I got franchise tag yeah people may not know what that is but like you definitely don't franchise tag upon every team gets one franchise tag and that essentially means there's one player that's going into free agency that won't be on your team next year that you can kind of trap on your team. And we had 28 champion world champions that were going into free agency at all 28 of those stallions they chose me. So like man like dude how much more qualifying could you be as a punter in it's in New York City and like you know you go to your rings ceremony at Tiffany's and you know dude unbelievable faster so sorry I didn't want to take that in the wrong direction. No, no, it's good. So what was the God experience? So the God experience thank you for putting me back on track. So we had that moment and so I played out for more years that was 10 years in the NFL and then I really just knew that football was not going to do it for me. So I thought like maybe I'm supposed to get into media and use my voice because during my career I'd done quite a bit of TV and radio in the off seasons because it was in New York City was so easy accessible and so I built up a good network of people got a great job had my own TV show. I spent prime time driving New York City millions and millions of listeners did that for a year and a half and just so unfulfilled because I realized I thought I was going to be able to use my voice because I had a microphone but I had a boss tell me what I could and couldn't talk about. And so I kind of like left the NFL because I didn't want to be in that and now I put myself back in it and so I ended up moving to San Diego after two years of doing media and I got plugged into a church called it's a wake in church now. Our great friends. Yeah and I love them. I love them so much. You're going to lay in me. Mathesias. Yeah. He's been on brave men. Okay. He's good. Growing communicator. Yeah. So I honor him. I love him. Him and Dr. Matt have really shifted and changed things for me because I grew up in church and I'm setting the preface for my radical God. So just if you'll just bear with me. So I honor them but the reason that I that I honor them for specific you know part of my spiritual journey was I had grown up in religion and always felt really bad about who I was that I was like damaged and like I knew that I wasn't gay at this point. But I thought like I was damaged and I was dirty and like man of God's just not interested in somebody like me you know because of that I had you know percussed problems drinking problems womanizing problems like literally anything that can make gambling. Anything that can make fireworks go off. Yeah. But I was after the open head. Yeah. Looking for the dopamine. Yeah. So what you need it was an oxytocin head. Yeah. Right. So I say those things to say I got plugged into that church and that was a spirit. Yeah. And you could feel tangibly you could feel God in the room and I'd never really been a part of like worship or that actually you felt God in your presence it was more like read the words like everybody else next to you don't move around sit on your hands you know I remember being in church and getting you know and I honor my dad but I needed it but getting smacked in the back of the head so I'd stop like tickling the girl in front of me. Yeah. So I was when you were 28. No. My maturity level. But so this church really introduced me to the Holy Spirit and what I mean when I say that as you guys listen to this is I love my dad and my dad raised me the best that he could be he wasn't really equipped you know to give me words of affirmation and be super cuddly and so I felt like I was going to be a part of that. And so I felt like there were well affirmation doesn't have to be cuddly yeah it just has to be affirmation right right so that's to fill that right so so my dad was amazing father but he was an old school dad and he bought my first car from me at 16 years old and wow and the way that I kind of helped to paint the picture in my mind of what religion with God is and what relationship with God is is man I remember driving this 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood bro and dude this was like a freaking boat but all my buddies wanted to roll with me and it was crispy we bought it from a guy they went blind so this thing was so choice pastor and I remember busting a U-turn about three months into having this car because one of my buddies was walking on sidewalk going the other direction and the next thing that I hear and feel is crunch and this is what religion is when you and I make a mistake and we're like my dad's going to kill me you know that's the first thing I thought to myself as I got to call my dad he's going to free kill me. Yeah relationship with God is making the very same mistake but as soon as you hear that crunch you think yourself I got to call my dad he's gonna know what to do yeah and that was powerful for me because I was always like running for God running from God feeling disqualified from this now is like that welcomed me in so I could heal things that I have compartmentalized because I don't want God to know about him even though I knew he know about him and I know that doesn't make sense but I know that people listen to me are they're picking up when I'm going down to Jesus name Adam Adam it says Adam hid from God and now this is a guy who actually talked to God walked with God created by his hands had Eve created out of the side of him and yet he still thought because he was human he still thought he could somehow hide and when God said to him where are you it wasn't about his location it was about his mindset yeah yeah is where are you Adam you know what what's going on man what happened to your head it wasn't like where are you you're and and so that that so at the church at awakened church in San Diego you had an awakening so yeah picking that back up so after I had like I experienced church and I experienced that perspective of God in relationship I started bringing my family I said we're going to go to church now this is what this is what we're going to do I don't exactly know up this different and so we've started going and we started listening and you know getting plugged in and things like that and about a year after you're in a half into that somebody invited me to mens prayer and I'm like all right I'll go to mens prayer it's at Tuesday morning at 5.30 a.m. so everybody that's there's got to pay a price to be there's not like something of convenience yeah I'm not real cool by no no it's not like if I have time I'll swing through nobody's up at 4.30 and swinging through anywhere so my point is everybody there was paying a price and it was just that next layer of relationship with God and so I really started leaning into that for six months and then somebody invited me to go to emerge which is their big men's conference so mind you as you guys are listening to this I was about two years into really pursuing God pursuing relationship with God so this thing didn't happen overnight you know this is a faithfulness thing I kept going back I didn't understand it but I kept going back I kept going back and they were to have a bad month but I keep going back I was just I wanted to treat this this vision quest of unlocking the spiritual component of my life the same way I did my physical fitness or my mental you know authority that I have over myself because I don't only play 28 seconds a game seven plus seven seconds per game really is that what it is yeah dude I'm the highest paid person you've ever had on the show ever and I for eternity I will think about it I played four and I want to get derailed here but I played 4.3 plays per game and about seven seconds per and I saw I played 28 seconds per game they paid me way too much money for that so I don't want to get this we'll come back to the math yeah so so I was really pursuing God for two years I got to invite to emerge and I go to emerge and at this and and now I'm letting you guys know my powerful God moment where everything changed and it was four years ago in the desert in Southern California and my church awakened and if you're listening to this man this is an incredible event for you guys to possibly check out next year but this event this is my Bethel you know this is like the place I'll always keep going back to because I believe the God will continue to reveal to me there very special place to me so we get there and they give every single person and I got special permission from my 11 year old son to come with me so they give every single one of us and we sleep intense it's three days out in the desert so they give every person a two by four with a string attached through both sides that you kind of put over like a backpack and they said when they issued it to us we want you to write down everything that you brought into this desert that you want God to take away yeah so I took this thing I'm like dude I need to freaking out you know but I just simplified it man I wrote down porn I wrote down pills I wrote down lust I wrote down worthiness because I didn't feel worthy of God so even after this pursuit for two years I still didn't so I wrote these things down and so you're wearing it on your back though you saw a lot of porn alcohol you know say everything forget you saw you saw it so we're all yeah we're all carrying it around and the very first speaker that comes up we're in this tent of 2000 people I'm sitting about midway back pastor and pastor Jurgen announces the first speaker says his name Keith craft he walks out I don't think anything of it and then he speaks into the microphone and I'd never experienced like a lightning bolt of God yeah but as soon as he spoke into that microphone like I recognize that voice but it but to me it wasn't like oh that's a familiar voice it was like more than familiar like like dad's voice right and I was like my skin started vibrating and I got really warm but in a comforting way and I'm like in the twilight zone I look at my buddy that invited me to come and I'm like Nick his name's Nick unsworth and I'm like Nick what's this guy's name and he goes he looks the program is like Keith craft I'm like so I Google the name and the first picture that pops up is him breaking Yeah ladies and gentlemen are over his head with power team and I didn't share this earlier but that's when I got saved you know my parents took me to church my whole life but I felt disqualified from their faith but when I saw Keith breaking bricks and bending bars I'm like wait a minute that guy's a Christian because he was bold and he was courageous but he's also crying on the stage I'm like oh I cry a lot wait a minute so you were in a power team meeting when you were kid yeah so I saw the power team when I was 11 get out of here that's when I got saved you're kid yeah 12 years old I got saved and Keith was the front man right so then I I go to this number of friends that were in there yeah so I go to my I'm sure that you do you probably know all of them so I go to this first men's conference that I've been to as an adult because in the NFL did we're working on Sunday so you guys can enjoy the entertainment after church right so I hadn't been for a long time and and he's up there with his son and he's speaking this message and I don't remember one word because my mind is like his voice like all I could like I could just feel like God right and so he got done speaking and I ran up to the front and there was like everybody went to go mob him because it's like a circus tent so I'm grabbing people by the back of the next and biblically just throwing them out of the way and I and I get up to him I'm like pastor Keith because everything is clicking to me as he's speaking I'm like pastor you're never gonna believe this but I got saved when I was 12 in Baton Rouge Louisiana at Comi Baptist Church on this state you did it and because of that not only did I get saved but like it gave me permission to start lifting weights it gave me permission to be radical and bold it gave me permission to want to go out there and drive a nice car because I always felt bad that I wanted the things that everybody at my church were like so it was really permission giving seeing him but then it was also it was like a snapshot of what's possible right but the radical thing was is you go forward and then I saw him again and he's 60 years old or 59 years old at the time and I'm like dude he's still possibility because I could tell this is what was so inspiring is he was still on the same principles yeah he was still speaking the same language building his life you could tell he was living at that values and principles of the word of God yes so character versus talent unbelievable so I experienced that so I said all those things to him and he's like oh my gosh okay like send me a message on Instagram so I'm walking back to my chair and I feel like I'm walking on clouds because I'm realizing in this moment not only is God real like for real real yeah that he's good and he's working all things together yeah because I knew that I got saved 25 years earlier so it's 25 years exactly 25 years well and I get back to my chair and I'm like Nick unsworth now mind you guys I brought my son to this this place and I go up to Nick I'm like Nick you're never gonna believe this and I begin to unpack the story to him and his eyes are getting bigger and bigger wow and then I paused halfway through and I'm like wait a minute where's my son I've realized I didn't I'm where's my son and he looks at me he goes oh my gosh you're never gonna believe it he points up at the front my sons like this oh wow he's down there praying receiving no no no receiving Jesus for the first time wow how old was he yeah 11 11 the same age that I was when I received Jesus and it was the same pastor that inspired him to do it oh come on man so that was the radical God moment that I was like whoa you know because here's the deal I was pursuing God for two years and I was looking for you know like man like like show me your real show me that like you've had my back all this time yeah and that happened I was like okay maybe I'm supposed to learn something from this guys not more not more than just a moment I feel like maybe some people listen to this if you know maybe you've had a moment where you're like man God is real and then like a week later you like this qualify that it was like God or maybe you saw somebody overcome something then you know that was God was involved this time goes on it starts to fade I didn't want that to be this and I said I'm supposed to pursue him and so I said what does it look like to like get coached by you or mentored by you and he he told me the price I'm like oh man all right so I paid the price and it was it was good you know it was a lot when I say good yeah it was it was a high amount and I knew that I was like all right this guy's not playing games no so one one hour per month every 30 days he would give me things for for me to become more aware of for me principles for me to install into my life he he gave me the parameters to go and have conversations with my wife to help us install core values a mission statement what are our non-negotiables what are you know what are the standards that we live by and as I begin to map all these things out my finances shifted and I was already like I did good in the NFL but I didn't I didn't know what I was doing and I certainly didn't tie 10% of what I was making when I was making all that money I tied but it was like what I thought maybe you know felt good right so just teaching me these kingdom principles and I'm implementing them and things are shifting things are growing in areas that they've been stuck for a long time I'm not talking about just finance sometimes my marriage dude here when I say this man marriage and I really grew in there because that I feel like the marriage your marriage is your ultimate test is if you can well you can lead your marriage so you can lead anyone or you can lead anything in the doctor Matt and I hunter doctor Matt Hubbard one of the quotes that I'm often reminded of in challenge spy is your wife is a reflection of your husbandry yeah you know I think it's great that men go out and build businesses and build their bodies and do all these mighty and great things for the kingdom but if your wife is at home and she's she's weak when I say weak like she doesn't have vision she doesn't have hobby she doesn't have joy she doesn't have connectedness she doesn't have friends because she's just holding it down while you're conquering the world but I'm not impressed with you now you know you're incomplete coach Bill McCartney years ago who started pk and and my dad was actually a mentor to him as he was doing that but but coach Max said one day he said you know you said your wife's face is a reflection of your heart yeah dude that is that's a hard saying but it's kind of like what Jesus would do he would divide the crowd by by saying things were difficult when people would go mad it's a little hard saying I'm out it's not it's not comfortable enough it still I'm talking with Steve weather for Steve weather for it has a veritas you know and you've got fitness products I use your the veritas greens yeah you know I got some right here you know I love that stuff I actually sent some to pastor Yerden a couple weeks ago so dude you know you didn't make sure you have this stuff thank you for so I did that too but tell me the we're what's the website for veritas so you can you can I guess the easiest place is going to be for you to go to weatherford 5.com I'm sure you guys can probably put up right what's her 5.0 link in the show notes for that and also probably the best place to get a hold of anything and everything that I'm doing is going to be Instagram you know also I'm going to share at the end of our time if you if you would I'd love to share a resource I'd like to to share a resource with everybody and they can do it right now and then we'll keep going no we can do it at the end okay it makes sense it yeah you're in charge yeah no I'm not I'm here I'm here to serve and I feel like I've got a resource I've got a resource it's going to help do okay really what I feel like this podcast is built to do a conversation you and I had before that on here yeah is you know we were talking about Bob from from Flagstaff yeah he said this podcast chains the way I think yeah and ultimately that's the greatest thing that you and I can can do for other men through this conversation is to challenge and shift the way that the way we think they think that's what brave men is about that's what podcast is about how they think you're going to shift how they be and they're going to shift how they do yeah your definition determines your decisions all behaviors based on belief right so okay let me go back to it let me I'm going to go to different things see whether for Super Bowl champion with the New York Giants play with the jets number of other teams 10 years in the NFL high school college all kinds athletics but really I guess the most the proudest you would be of your achievement is the photo you take every Sunday what photo you take every Sunday oh I take a picture of my family that's funny nobody's ever asked me that before but yeah I take a picture of myself my wife and all six of my children right before we walk into church because they've got child care like right when we walk in so I know I'm going to dump three kids over here three come to church with me and the reason that I do that isn't to be funny or to put something on social media I do share every Sunday to just let people know this is a standard that the weather for just live by and the reason that we do it is it's a standard of God so we're doing our best to be a righteous family but the ultimate vision is when all of my children leave my house because when it first started it was just my wife and my son and I and the picture more people have been added to the picture but now my son is about to turn 15 in November so now his face is starting to change and he's gonna get thinner and he's almost he's almost six feet tall now say and my daughter is 12 and she's about to go through the changes of women soon but I think it's going to be really cool I don't think I know it will be really cool to watch my family and that picture kind of transformationally grow like in a time lapse yeah and then it'll also get smaller yeah I mean think about it like you know for you and you you know you get smaller and it gets bigger right that's what I think yeah yeah so I plan to also do that exactly it so all of a sudden you've got this all of a sudden they're off to college and then that photo every Sunday is going to be a smaller yeah and then they're going to meet somebody you know husband, wife, but you have to keep taking a picture with your wife bigger and then grandkids come along which is the most amazing things ever happened to me in my life yeah so uh but Veritas the the weather for five by the way so everybody can follow on Instagram it's weather for five okay and it's ORD weather for five with just weather for five weather for five and on there one of the things you post a lot is working out right yeah because you are fit and you get stuff checked out I mean you like you you did a whole blood thing earlier this year like a whole workup right yeah I'm super scientific like you're I've been doing it for a long time yeah I'm not guessing anymore right so when we talk about your supplements it's not you guesswork hey this could be good for you whatever I know it really works I know I look like a gym bro you know because I've like a earring and all this stuff this is this is what I wanted to be when I was a little kid now I don't have a boss so I just beat but don't let that fool you you know I'm super scientific with my approach no I can tell yeah I do a two or three of the things that I do that I would recommend everybody doing this especially if you're over 28 years old right is the beginning your blood tested at least every six months I do it every 120 days so I do it three times per year and just see where it not just your testosterone but see where all of your levels are at because you can make natural adjustments through diet through exercise through sleeping you can shift some of the different things that you're eating and rarely recalibrate your blood work that's one thing that I would do it also get a dexis scan which is essentially for about anywhere from 60 to 100 bucks what is that what's a dexis scan is essentially it's like an MRI of your whole body you don't they don't put you in a tube you lay on a table that's just about like this and have an arm that passes over you and it scans every portion of your body you'll tell you how much muscle mass you have in your left versus your right wow how much bone density that you have in your your right femur versus your left femur and so as you shift and change the foods that you're eating right and the stimulus of the training that you're giving yourself and how you're recovering you can literally watch the correlation to how it reduces body fat and different areas of your body because if you look at your blood work and you're like oh my gosh my cortisol levels my stress hormone is super high I'm either too stressed out or I'm not sleeping enough and for most of us we don't sleep enough for America's you know I always say the the world's run by tired men yeah you know I mean basically well think of some of those elite elite operators that we have like Navy seals people that we trust to make the most you know split second most important decisions they'll stay up for 36 hours yeah you know and it's the same thing for think about like our president like I not this president a good president would would be willing to stay up for 36 hours during the war and make a war time this is Churchill guys like that this guy's going to be asleep by 8 p.m. we don't need to get into that but the point is I'm I'm very intentional right and very strategic with my physical fitness and with my mental fitness because I like I don't want to say I'm mastered it but I became guru status by 30 right because of my profession like I said 28 seconds per game home boy you better make them count because it's not like football or it's not like baseball where you can go like oh three out of four on your kicks or your punts yeah yeah you're going to be an officer you go three out of four you don't have a job I don't have a job my contract wasn't guaranteed so I became like Bruce Lee mental and then from a physical capability like I've mastered areas of that as well what's the most important thing I can do you know of course I'm older than most guys listening but what's the most important a guy thing a guy can do is say 30 years old or above for his health right now is it I would say is it sleep working out what I mean what's the what sleep is always going to be number one diets always going to sleep is sleep a constant number is it different for different people well I think it's different for different people but you need to know what your number is and a lot of people don't know what their number is I wear this band right here it's called a whoop band yeah and it's essentially it's it's a it's a strain track or like how hard is my day not just from training like if I actually do like you do if I'm training people that actually takes a ton of energy out of me because it's a lot of impartation it's a lot of like really really being locked in and never relaxing that can look I can look at my app and be like wow today like really really warm me out yeah and then also conversely when you sleep you might get nine hours of sleep but man if you had like two or three glasses of wine the night before you're going to learn really fast how negatively that impacts your sleep yeah and that allows you to do what ultimately you're you're equipping men to do um spiritually and physically I'm also doing that physically through this because you need to be able to lead yourself if you think that you're going to lead everybody anybody else but people men don't know how to lead their physical fitness and that's the gateway to any type of personal development we have we have left fitness out of yeah any talk about faith yeah we're restoring that let's go right we've done that for for decades and in fact it came to a point it it it became a kind of a thing and I'm trying to remember who who was it said it but it was one of the fathers in the faith from about 75 80 years ago and he said one of the negative things that's happened in our culture and this is years ago he said this is it has become a point of faith that a man exhausted himself for the gospel yeah and for me I'm looking at it saying yeah and he wasn't around for his grandkids yeah you know because of that and so my deal is is that uh we've got to be fit it also makes you more alert so I wore a fit bit for what it just broke a couple weeks ago but I wore it for a year and a half and I experimented with my sleep yeah because it had a whole sleep chart on it and I didn't realize how many times you wake up every night disturbances yeah yeah little things and then you don't even know your way then it comes up real shallow you know and I did so I experimented with whether it was tea or a melatonin or you know what I would do just before whether it was reading or TV or so if I could so if I watched like a television thing right before I went to sleep my sleep my actual sleep efficiency went down and I found if I was reading for at least 30 minutes before your brain winds down it gets into deep rooms and you're right so now then the other thing is are you reading print or are you reading on a tablet and is that tablet have blue lights or tablets so now you've got to have so now so we bought some our wife and I bought glasses because we both were glasses they had the blue filter on it was what I'm wearing right there I got I got 2012 vision man I don't need these 2012 that's like a baseball player yeah dude yeah my right is 2012 in this since 2020 I wear these for for blue lights because I'm on my phone quite a bit during the day it's like exactly literally my computer it's my camera it's my microphone so what was fascinating to me there was a book called rest uh seconded book came out about four years ago by a doctor out of I think he's out of the east coast somewhere but I actually DMed him and he DMed me back because it was such a great book it's just called rest and it was on the power of sleep yeah and one of the things he said that that I was surprised me was your brain is actually using 95% of the energy it uses when you're awake when you're asleep and because it's what it's doing is assimilating all of the things that happened to you that day because everything that ever happened used in your brain that's why I believe Steve in the power of the washing of the water of the work that's why I believe in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit because I believe there are things that have happened to us things were done that could sit in there and actually be so toxic it'd be like this mold inside the walls that you don't see but you know something's wrong yeah you're not breathing right but I believe the washing of the water of the word I believe that the power and anointing of God can wash away those things out of a man's heart and life I believe that you know in the brain the things would have discovered I believe we're going to discover someday that there are people who are followers of Christ and they're going to be able to figure it out and look at the brain and say yeah you know that memory you had that happened when you and you were eight yeah it's not there gone yeah by the power God now yeah but see the real thing for us right now is sleep fitness what's the most important thing in terms of fitness I would say I don't want to overwhelm people right I would say sleep mastery like you ask the question and I kind of mentioned easy things like drink drink one green juice per day yeah you're doing that like you're not going to go to the grocery store and go get eat super foods get a great mixing great delicious right so that would be one of them but the second one is going to require a whole lot more intentionality and discipline that's not discipline it tastes good right you mix it up takes eight seconds sleep mastery sleep mastery is going to going to require you to recondition how you wind down because that's really what sleep mastery is it's more than just like getting a whoop it's actually coming up with a game plan and being disciplined to it and making it sustainable because I mean if we look if God is a God of order and you're listening to this right now and you're not taking 24 hours completely off every single week you're actually not doing it right right so yeah and for me what that looks like is Friday at 5 p.m. to Saturday at 5 p.m. I don't work at all so not like I'm not like active with my family and just really engaged I'm not like sleeping the whole time and I actually wake up at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning to go to mighty men leadership so my Sabbath means I don't work I don't toil I don't I'm not doing selfie video engaged in the office not at all and so the reason that I say that if God is a God of order you and I really need to learn how to work from rest not work for rest like working all weeks so we can rest I don't know I mean how familiar is that that is so good because I thought about this you know it says God rested on the on the seventh day why did God need rest it was a model it had nothing to do with God was tired like dude I'm worn out taking the day off it's God no it was a model for you and me of how we're supposed to live and you know it's it's it's about it's about really having a mindset and the ability to think and think clearly so you know let me just mention something I know here and I think this is really important do something every day and if you can't do it every day five days a week walk just go walk for 20 minutes I mean just there's a there was a report that just came out in the UK and it was published it said that people who walk rapidly in other words fast walkers who go out not joggers not on their bicycle just walking but they're walking rapidly four times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes lived 10 years longer than a person who doesn't do that wow yeah it just came out I think a we were in London it came out there was in the London one of the news reports I believe there's there's a lot of incredible studies about sauna as well yeah you know like very small installments of 20 minutes four times per week increases your longevity 12 years and they've done studies how many five times per week six times per week and others all these because they've been studying sauna play for ever so that would be another tip that doesn't really require a lot of effort exactly what about the ice bath tell me about that man I think the ice bath I think the ice bath is great but I also think a lot of people like oh that's two intense for me so the three things that you know that we've talked about would be drink a green juice every single day not like the sweet one and water right oh for sure gallon water I mean it's almost like I'm not trying to overcomplicate them it's not complicated let's give our people three things yeah great they're going to drink water green juice sleep mastery like that's the one that's really going to require you to take some time after this podcast and be like you know what would my like phase one of sleep mastery be the first thing that I would do would be get awareness aka get something to track it yeah if they want to use a whoop band if they go to my Instagram you can actually get one of these absolutely for free but there's a monthly I think it's like thirty dollars per month but it's fully worth it but you can get this used to be a hundred fifty bucks yeah they're giving them away for free so you can do that get awareness but then once you start to wear it for two or three weeks because for about the first two weeks of it it's going to give you kind of some weird feedback yeah it's learning you yeah and then after two weeks you can really start to pay attention to what portions of your week really demand of you and then you can start to really live your life like a freaking pro for me I knew I needed to peak one time per week for three and a half to four hours so what would my lifestyle need to look like in order for me to fulfill all of my responsibilities throughout the week but then also to be the best in the in the sharpest mentally physically and spiritually that I can be for four hours what does that look like well and so I really began that I mean I was doing that fourteen years ago you know because I I we just celebrated the Super Bowl reunion ten years was this year so I went back to get it was really cool don't want to get side track but I want to stay on sleep mastery but then you you have something that is starting to give you real-time feedback so when you wake up in the morning if you're like oh man I'm really just not motivated to go and do this that or the other and you look at your sleep tracker and you're like oh man I only got eighteen percent recovery last night and you really got three and a half hours per of sleep you know what you can do for yourself the no men are good at at all you can give yourself grace for real you're laughing you're not good at that but my goodness dude you want to why I'm successful in life up until about thirty five I'm literally the hardest worker in the room like adrenal fatigue is my freaking best friend but not anymore now I've reached a level in my life where I'm like I know that my value isn't what I do it's who I am so I spend a whole lot more time during the week working on developing myself because I know the more that I develop myself the more that that when I come on a podcast like this I have to offer I'm not here to talk about Super Bowl stories for and and I honor all the people that want to know those things and I'm happy to talk about them but my real value isn't the things that happened ten and twelve years ago it's actually the deep revelations that I'm getting right now and the new wine that God has bringing out of me because I'm leaning into the uncomfortable so like what does new wine look like well you got to get crushed before you get new wine you know what I mean and so like I'm leaning into crushing I'm paying three different incredible men largest amounts of money to coach me every single month in areas I suck at I don't want to say I suck at because I don't know now at leading myself come on but like financial stewards yeah buddy you ain't met too many dudes that are as good at bringing it in as me but if I can be honest and transparent with everybody like managing those revenue streams and making sure that I'm tithing accurately buddy that's that's something that's an area that I get to grow in as a king because if a king is to create into steward I'm not a pro level steward or not keep it real with myself so if that's the case am I going to be like who I just need somebody to help me you keep me no you pay somebody who's a mother flipping guru and an expert and you say teach me your greatness yeah well keeping it real I think that's it that's part of it right there because we have to be honest with ourselves and most of us are not honest with ourselves we are master negotiators with ourselves and we can negotiate ourselves and we know we all know the two we all know the things to say to yourself the things to say we're going on okay buddy listen it's just porn you only give yourself about 10 minutes and you're not cheating on your wife and it's not all the other buddies that cheat on their wife guy tell me he goes I don't go to the bad porn size yeah right like I go only go to the ones that are guaranteed to be 18 and over come on man quit just to find yourself yeah hey okay okay here we go so green screen juice sleep mastery and third third I would say find something that you enjoy I'm with you for walking because it's super simple and here's the deal guys I don't really care if you like walking or not God gave you a body yeah you should be able to walk well and if you walk fast enough man that is that's going to get your your that's going to get your heart rate get going from 130 to 150 and that's actually just so you guys know this is a little tidbit for you and it's common knowledge but you mean you know common knowledge is not always so common if you want to burn fat off of your body like your stomach your butt your legs you don't get to pick where it comes from but if you want to be in a fat burning stage it's about 130 beats per minute to about 150 beats per minute yeah and so if you guys think about it next time that you go get on if you have an apple watch the actually the woop band tracks that for you as well that's not a plug for them just get real it's a good resource um if you go and you just walk on a on a treadmill at like 5% incline at four miles per hour which is really slow it's a 15 minute walk 15 minute mile walk uh your heart rate I guarantee you is going to be 140 which is exactly where you need it to be and if you do that for 25 to 35 minutes that is going to burn fat specifically off of your body right it's not going to go into uh it's only going to go into your adipose tissue which is your fat for fuel but if you go over 150 then you get into then you get into a metabolic stage where it's going to go to a different area for an energy source so you want to make sure that you're 130 to 150 and it needs to be for at least 25 minutes and I wouldn't go longer than 45 minutes because then you'll start to tap into a different type of um it starts it starts pulling from your muscle rather than from your fat not necessarily from not necessarily from your muscle example if you were to go in there and to do max bench press let's say you do 10 sets of two reps okay two reps takes you legit six seconds but that that won't even if you only do it for 25 to 30 minutes that won't burn fat even though your heart rate is up there you know probably state pretty high up there if you don't take that much of a break but it won't burn body fat did you know that no it's called low intensity you can google this later it's called low intensity LI steady state cardio LISS I'm a very specific brain so for a lot of you guys that look at people they're super lean you're like oh my gosh you must never eat carbs and this that the other no I'm just very intentional and strategic in the zone that I did I train in and that way I don't have to do too much I just do enough yeah and it's a really effective way to manage yourself so I say those things to say that's how you could walk most effectively to burn fat and a lot of us just want to be leaner because our food supply and quality in America is so fast sucks it's terrible no and we and I'm with you I don't make great food choices either but I know how to cheat well you know one of the other things that I would recommend for people from a health and wellness standpoint and especially if you're 28 years old or older is digestive enzymes did you know that we make 50% less digestive enzymes from 25 to 35 years old so it doesn't make sense like you could have a chocolate shake at like 25 and nobody else and then at 35 you're like oh my gosh dude 35 is when my stuff all started to get it yeah you eat it and then two or three days later if you have pizza and you're still carrying it around right yeah it's because your body doesn't have as many naturally producing digestive enzymes inside of your stomach and so we actually have those on weather for five to come I feel like I'm plugging my stuff a lot no no you didn't you haven't done enough if you take digestive enzymes five to ten minutes before your your biggest like richest most carb heavy crappy meal have you ever wondered how the the rock can eat like four pizzas and a bunch of pancakes and isn't it fat will he make sure that he takes digestive enzymes before you eat something like that so your body has what it needs to break down a ridiculously rich meal like that so I'll pause right there that would be the four things that are very simple um sleep mastery isn't simple but it's the freaking no no no but you want to perform like a pro or you got to sleep like a pro you know uh pastor Michael Phillips great friend of ours uh it wasn't Maryland just joined Bishop T.D. Jakes's uh team staff uh he's heading up what the urban uh did you say pastor Michael Phillips yeah he's the pastor now yeah shut the front no not Phillips Phillips oh I was about to say I was just I was like that did you mean the out of the gold medal man dude hey bro we are about to bring some news to Jesus for real anyway his and no offense not not the not the pastor Phillips isn't doing that too but huh T.D. Jakes foundation heads it up and he and his wife uh amazing couple and uh but he he wrote a book uh what's what's the book called okay I'm gonna I'm gonna look it up uh wrong lanes have right turns wrong lanes have right turns okay so but his his deal was growing up his dad was a pastor so I'm gonna come back I'm coming back this he was a great basketball prospect in fact he he was a D1 player of Virginia but he got mad at God because his dad died young but the reason is dad died young is because his dad never took care of himself physically and he got you know it's that thing of you know we're just gonna preach and we're gonna do this forgotten and and we bypassed the fitness and I'm telling you that's one of the big things right now Bishop Dale Bronner who's the chairman of our board one of the things that that he's believed very strongly in his own family and they're practicing it he believes in the power and strength and the need for grandparents and how important grandparents will be in the culture going forward and you think about fatherlessness and the fatherless young men in our culture and you think about men who are there who are followers of Christ like a mad Hubbard or uh or a Steve Weatherford who are actually gonna be able to speak into the lives of friends of your sons right and their kids because it's uh uh my friend uh who pastors in uh pastor in Jackson Mississippi and uh he said we were talking about the issues in the in the culture there and he said uh the issues there's no there's no grandfather's on the front porch is anymore no no grandfather's on the front porch is and so what was that he said well that was how culture and his where he grew up in a black community he said that's how basically it was policed in that sense neighborhood watch and that's the grandfather's yeah on the on the front porch he said there uh if we and we talked about it we talked about the fact he said man those guys now they all still think they're players you know it's the viagra syndrome is what we call it the viagra syndrome yeah guys still thinks he's a player but it's all chemicals yeah you know so talking to Steve weatherford we're talking about real-life stuff and i thank you for being on brave men today and going through some of these things uh weatherford5.com right uh fitness and all those things you've also got uh one of the things you've done is a metabolic reset is that right what is it yes about four years ago um well actually shoot man it was almost six years ago so five and a half years ago i got a phone call from muscle and fitness and they asked me hey um can you be ready for a photo shoot in 36 days we'd love for you to be on the november issue and this is like in may and you're in your thirties now oh yeah i was thirty thirty thirty thirty two and a half thirty three and uh i had just moved to california and i had been living off of hotel food with the kids for a month and a half and it was bigger than i'd ever been not fat but i was 250 pounds yeah and uh this is my big shot and so as soon as i got the phone i'm like oh yeah i'm in great shape i'll totally be ready so go out for the phone and and i called my friend i'm like dude we need to put a team together because i i need nutrition i need to make sure that the training that i do that's how i learned all this low intensity steady state cardio as i work with a bunch of specialists for a program to create for me and i got so much and i shared the whole journey because i just told people on social media i'm like oh my gosh it just got the most amazing phone call but i'm freaking out cuz i'm i'm not shredded right now but i was big and strong so i knew i just needed to lose a lot of fat and thirty three days so we put this game plan together and it was cool i documented the whole thing i took drug drug tests so people could tell i wasn't taking anything and everything and just everybody knows i'm 39 years old right now and i'm not natural so um but i was natural at the time and um and it was an unbelievable transformation and so like they wrote articles about and everything and so after i got done people are like man what what plan did you do and i was like i pretty much just had it written down my wrist you know from three different doctors and i said well do give me about six weeks and i'll formulate this into three different categories you can based upon your body type you can choose a nutrition plan and do the exact protocol of supplements basically i would take supplements at three different times you know in a very intentional way because a lot of people might get the supplements go to this even go to my store and go by the supplements but unless you're taking the correct dosage at the correct time and some things need to like digestive enzymes if you take those at night after you've eaten they're not going to help you at all you're going to waste them so you need to know how to take the supplements exactly digestive enzymes take them five to five to ten minutes before and it will change your life but if you take them after you're wasting your money so to be able to map how to actually how to take supplements so people maybe they are taking the right supplements but maybe they're taking them the wrong way and they're frustrated so to be able to map everything out for everybody and share it with them what really worked well for me according to doctors that put it together for me i believe gave people a lot of assurance because i had already played in the NFL i wasn't trying to like money grab people right right come up with some gym gym bro pro yeah yeah you know it was actually something that come up with some gimmick it's like self-help books because it's like why do they write more every year because the other one didn't work that well well how many they had a new idea how many leadership coaches and like expert gurus and these different areas have popped up on the internet in the last five years oh my god it's unbelievable i couldn't tell you how many people and i'm not like offended by how to get it it's branding it's marketing how many people have in like their Instagram bio and i can speak to this because i played there professional athlete and then i'll like oh man i had no idea my friend was a professional athlete and i'll look it up and he played in a league that you had to buy your own tennis shoes and you didn't make money but other people paid money to come so technically you say your pro i'm like buddy but people are doing that in regards to their leading men with like you know what we do but here's the deal we do that with everything in this world i mean listen when i when i first got an internet and internet just sprouted some up every now is first when we were first married i was a carpenter and so i did the deal you go down into your in apprentice one or apprentice two you got to take these tests and then i found out there were guys that were buying their journeyman cards so they could go on a on a project on a job as a carpenter and and make three times as much money and they would just pay for those things and i remember one of them and i think the way that we discovered is because he was cutting an opening for some sheet metal that was coming in for ducting for air ducting and he was on the third floor of that's you know when somebody gets hurt you know when a guy gets hurt it's always funny when it happens to somebody else right so it's like it's like those videos of guys getting hit the nuts and we all laugh and my wife looks at one of them and she goes why is that funny i go because it happened to him and now this guy cut a hole opening but the problem is when he cut the opening with a skull saw he cut it he stood in the middle cut a square and when he cut the fourth cut fell down two floors right now he was okay he's all scraped and all this kind of stuff but it was hilarious and right then the format on the job goes dude where did you get that tournament card right we all do that i don't care what the profession is we're all playing these games and that's why we have to keep it real what became real after this god experience in raising your family six children now what became real yeah what the game plan yeah real simply the game plan and like what did it look like to go pro as a father what did it look like to go pro as a husband what did it go what did it look like to go pro in leading myself when people weren't around yeah you know like what does it look like to be a man of integrity honor and accountability like those are three things that to me you know when i had that radical god moment i went back to my family and the one thing that i didn't share and and tie up about that week and the reason it was even more cathartic than just Keith coming back into my life is later on that week and we took those burdens you know and we took the the worst and the porn and the pills and i was one of the leaders on the team and so i prayed with you know 15 20 guys we had 50 guys on our team and they you know prayed for them binding rebuked these things and Jesus name and they threw it into the fire right and then i was about to huge bonkers i was about to just take my off and throw it in right because i was a leader and then some guy that i don't remember who it is i couldn't even tell if you walked up to me he's like hey can i pray with you before you throw that in i was like yes yeah and it wasn't like some amazing prayer where like fire came down or anything like that so um it was just real simple it was just him and i came into agreement that these things don't belong in my life it was brotherhood and in the the picture i want people to see is is there was an exchange made yeah you know it wasn't like him throwing this board that has porn and pills and and lust and worthiness into the fire that i like yes i don't want them anymore but the prayer was in exchange like when you give this up Steve what are you willing to exchange for it and i wanted peace and i wanted purpose i had per i had pursued performance and results and then and it didn't fulfill me right um and that was a really powerful moment where things shifted for me where porn was never a place that i went to again and i went home and i told my wife and she knew that porn was a part of my life but i went and i had a real conversation with her i'm like this is out of the basement of my life forever and this is what i'm committed to doing then this is who i'm committed to being and this is how i'm going to get down and i think me making that declaration but also in in in rolling her into being being the one that's the rib the one that's protecting me protecting my vital organs my heart and my lungs and also protecting your vulnerable breathing life into my lungs because here's a deal you know if men listen to this right now about 90 to 9 out of 10 of us have an issue with this so for you for you 10 percenters just relax and have a drink of water right now but for you 9 out of 10ers man don't think you can do this alone don't think you can just get with men and part of getting with men is really that analogy that i shared with you all earlier about the mold mold can't survive in the light yeah but if you leave it down in that dark and damp the you know the basement that nobody goes down to nobody says hey i'm gonna have a get together i'll meet y'all down in the basement you know many people down there you don't bring them down there by your porn collection or by your bad habits or by are down there by the fact that you got abused when you were 12 years old or the fact that you know because of that you thought conquering women would make you not gay like whatever whatever your story is that's mine but whatever your story is yeah everybody's got a story you you get to own it but then you get to release it because i really believe that god has something so big for each and every one of us that you can't fully receive what god has for you if you're holding onto yesterday if you're holding onto what was done to you if you're holding onto the coping mechanism that you created because of it like you get to release and let go of those things and then you can fully receive what it is that god has for you and i'm actually getting to experience like heaven on earth in areas of my life where i didn't think that my marriage could ever be this way like so it changed so that so what happened your might the mindset change was it changed the game plan on your marriage game plan with parenting so now you're parenting on purpose oh yeah right not even just on purpose intentionally yeah parenting on purpose you know like what does it look like to take pictures every Sunday not just have a cute video right but the fact that that's what you're gonna do every Sunday and because of that you're gonna create something that's actually gonna be legacy for other families because they're a big thing this dad this dad said at at 27 i'm gonna take pictures every Sunday for the rest of my life yeah because i want to prove to people and here's what it will prove and i believe this in Jesus name it will prove that my life was not a fluke it will prove that my excellence is followable it will prove that it's not proprietary to weatherfords yeah because all the other people that are touched because of my family and when i say my family it's because we're committed to righteousness we're not perfect but we have core values that we don't get off of right man the weatherfords are core values yeah we are of discipline non-negotiable yeah we are a disciplined and fearless family that honors and grows always in all ways with the joyful spirit of excellence so discipline fearlessness honor growth joyfulness and excellence those are things that like my kids even down to four years old and my little girl golden she's still figuring it out but the point is is they all know our families mission statement it's not memorized so we can be like the bond the bond trap family no they memorize it because that's the thing they use to guide themselves they need to know what fearlessness looks like it gives them their true nor you're never gonna die yeah you know you're never gonna die if you've received Jesus you can walk and full authority and full boldness of a lion because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world so just letting them know the meaning behind those words according to us yeah because i'm the king of my family so i'm the one that gives meaning to meaning so those for those core values they don't get to give meaning to them i've given meaning to them for us right and i believe that will be the followable excellence if god takes me home on my way home from this interview my my family gets it and they know it so it's almost like a constitution the intentional father that will allow them that don't like my wife she'll probably wonder why do i raise them by myself now use the mission statement in the core values that i've left you and like for me this is not for my family this is just for me and i like encourage other men to do this as well as like what are those core values that if you implore those and enroll those and practice those and train those into your life that would unlock you and for me it was integrity it was honor and it was accountability and the reason it was those three things is because i wasn't those three things you know when Keith came into my life and a little bit before he came into my life i was broken beaten and defeated because i my Wikipedia page was jacked loaded it was amazing but i felt the way that i felt and so i on my own decided i have to change things because i've already checked so many boxes there's not going to be another box it's going to fix the skyse hole inside me so it was a combination of awakened and those moments of me coming back every seven days and getting refilled back up and then just being desperate to go back to mince perks i'm like i'm dying right but you'd get refilled back up but what happens in between there you have to lead yourself and so i got really serious about leading myself and what does that look like i woke up every single morning and i said at the end of today if i can look in the mirror and say my name Steve weatherford i'm a man of integrity, honor and accountability and i'm a son and a warrior of the one most high and what i just explained to everybody listening is that's the who and the who's that i am that's my identity and that's my purpose and so if i can get really clear on my identity i'm not Steve weatherford the super bowl champion i'm not Steve weatherford the sexual abuse survivor i'm not Steve weatherford the porn addict i'm not Steve weatherford you're not an ex anything i'm not any of those three things five seventeen new creation god shows me god named new creation and so here's the one thing that i want everybody to know if you don't name yourself the world to do it for you you said it earlier romans twelve two do not be conformed to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind right and so that's what i needed to do i needed a renewing of my mind and guess what god said you got to do it with me so every single day i woke up every single morning and looked at the mirror and i had a i had a poem on my mirror it's still on my mirror it will be on my mirror till the day that i die it's a poem called choose your heart and next to choose your heart i had my declaration of independence what's going to make you different now Steve well i am a man of integrity honor and accountability i'd make myself say that to myself at the beginning of the day and then at the end of the day and there were some days at the beginning once or twice in a month that i felt like i went through my whole calendar of the day and i was a man of integrity honor and accountability i'm telling you what pastor that felt so good like better than any trophy yeah because i had done something that i hadn't done before i'd grown in an era that i was uncomfortable and so that was the thing that made me different than who i was before because i was already saved and so what i did was i gamified my decision making i gamified the way that i invested my time my talents and my treasures and at the end of the day that's what god cares about for us your time your talent your treasures and your heart so where were mine i knew that they were misaligned but every single day i realigned myself i realigned myself and it's a it's a habit it's a muscle so it says a renewing of your mind but really what i'm hearing is it's a renewing of your mind but how do you renew something you recondition it you know you get out that sandpaper you get out that bible every single day and you just rub it just a little bit not until it bleeds not until it bleeds but i've been i've been rubbing that sandpaper for five years right now and i'm dude the one thing i'm excited about being with you is like you know way more about god than i do you know in mean so like i started out of messed up and i was like yeah but you're swayed though you know i mean think about it like what is swayed suites off and it's nice people people can get fooled by swayed but suites started out as out as a saddle leather you know i mean it's been conditioned it's been renewed it's been stained it's been treated and that's what you are it's been years and decades in this process and so that's how that speaks to me so i don't want to go off on like a crazy tirade but for everybody that's listened to me i know like i know there's a reason why i'm here i know that's why there's a reason why you're here like you probably have some mold in your basement because we all do and so really the reason that i feel like i'm here and i hope you don't mind me doing this is man i'm giving you permission to go down into the basement right now and pull those things out like those things that have been like continually being those shackles or those chains and those things that you hang on to god wants you to release them right now and he wants you to open your hands up he wants you to have a defining moment he wants you to have that that moment where you take that that that burden off of your back which is all those things that you don't belong and you don't want to take back from from that Bethel moment you can have a Bethel moment now and throw that into the fire and the only way that you can have true and permanent change isn't reading no cards or scriptures every single day is laying that down and giving that to somebody else that can actually carry the weight and the crazy thing is is like god's been waiting for you to do this the price has already been paid you've already been justified you've already been renewed you just have to you just have to do something you have to take an action if there's a i've got a riddle for you there's three frogs on a log one of them decides to jump off how many frogs are on that log if you're thinking to your mind right now where there's two because one of them decided to jump off making a decision doesn't get it done there's still three frogs on that log you need to make a decision and then to take action so get it out of the basement whatever that thing is and make an exchange not just lay it down Jesus paid the price for you and so now you get to be the beneficiary of his greatness you get to be the beneficiary of him being the son of god and him already doing it for you so if you don't make this the decision right now it's actually wasted because god already did it's like god paying dinner for dinner for you but then you saying like I don't want to eat it and just letting it sit there well guess what it will be continued to sit there for the rest of your life because it's already been paid for so what I'm asking you to do is pull your chair into the table because god has already prepared a place for you and and he he has already anointed you he has already named you he already knows the hairs on your head he already knows that you're a man of integrity honor and accountability he wants to partner with you so you can be a better version of that so I want to read this poem to for you that I'm actually going to I'm going to text you guys if you if you text the number nine four nine seven six three fifty nine thirty four and just send me that again nine four nine nine four nine seven six three fifty nine thirty four and I'm sure that we can put a link in the show notes but this poem is called choose your heart I have it printed out to this day and I read every single morning and it helps me to recalibrate life is going to be hard either way man I've been in life's fast I've been an addict and I've had moments where I feel like God couldn't be more proud of me every every part of that was hard yeah so this poem is is by my mentor Keith craft being your best is hard being normal as hard making wise decisions as hard making bad decisions as hard being in shape is hard being out of shape is hard losing weight is hard being fat is hard working out is hard being weak is hard being disciplined is hard being lazy is hard getting outside of your comfort zone is hard standing in your comfort zone and never changing is hard starting a business is hard working for somebody else is hard making a lot of money is hard making a little bit of money is hard being rich is hard being poor is hard man hear me when I say this guys having great relationships is hard having bad relationships is hard fighting for your marriage it's hard man it's real hard divorces hard and I know men hear me when I say that living on purpose is hard living off of purposes hard doing life God's way is hard I've done it the other way for 36 years guys doing life your own way is hard everything is hard we have to choose our hard and I want every man if you want to have a reconditioning of your mind read that every single day it's not scripture but it's going to point you in the right direction because you know either way is going to be hard so let's be the types of men that when before we even brush our teeth we remind ourselves who we are according to God and that there's a decision to make which hard do you want well that what that does is lean us and men are like trees we tend to fall the way we're leaning and so that's it I get just leaning that way and that's where we're going to fall that's fantastic that's really good so thank you so so the mold part of this guys is I don't want to just you know explain the difference between religion and relationship and and talk to you about my my moment and my story like I want you to have the beginning of your own story you can have your superbowl moment tonight you can have your defining moment the day that every single thing change in the in the picture that I feel like God's putting in my mind right now is I don't know if you guys have seen that movie the Matrix you know when Morpheus stands before Neo and Neo is like the freaking he's the chosen one and that's how I feel like God thinks about you he loves you you are the one to him to me that's like so overwhelming but he feels the way about you yeah you are the one but I'm standing before you right now and I'm Morpheus and I have a blue pill and I have a red pill if you take this blue pill you can just go on to the next podcast you could stop it right now and in the movie Neo would go down to the car and he would get in it and he knew they would wake up and he would forget this and his life would go back to how it's always been and that's you have that choice to do that or you could take this red pill and Morpheus says if you take this red pill you can never go back you can never go back but you will things will be revealed to you and you will have access to all of the wonders and all of the mysteries of what this life is about so Neo grabs that red pill and the only reason that you know about this movie is because Neo decided to do it he decided to be a man of freaking action not just a decider but a doer and I know this is a made up movie but I'm I'm setting the context for you in your life if you want to be the superhero in your story don't just make a decision like take action and you're asking yourself well what does take action look like I don't know if you've ever stepped into a relationship and you've heard of Jesus and maybe you're listening to this for for leadership tactics but I'm telling you this man I've done it every kind of way that you can in leadership and I've ever done I've tried to win every single kind of way there's only one way to permanent change there's only one way to fix that god-sized hole inside of you in his name is Jesus and it's really simple so if you're listening if you're in your car or you're in the gym go for it like I just want you to pull your car over right now and I just want you to sit here for a minute I'm going to give you a second to do that because this is the most important decision that you'll ever make and simply what you're doing right now is just acknowledging that Jesus is the Son of God and he lived the perfect life and he came here to forgive us of our sins to make us sacrifice to die on the cross willingly and he died and he rose again he defeated the grave to make an exchange for us so whatever that thing is that's in the basement come on he wants it he wants to take it he's already paid the price but the thing is is he wants to make an exchange with you he wants to give you peace he wants to give you grace he wants to give you forgiveness he wants to give you an abundant life but you can't receive what you don't believe so if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and you say right now I know that I'm incomplete I know that I'm broken I know that I'm not enough but I repent of my sins and really sins are just all the times that we missed the mark all the times that we weren't perfect all the times you missed the aim of being who you know God wanted you to be so repenting of your sins and receiving him as your Lord and your Savior this is the only way to permanent change and so if you're if you're praying that prayer right now I want you to know that angels are rejoicing that's the most important decision that you'll ever make all of your tomorrow's will be different you just you just welcomed yourself into a club that's undefeated a club that can't die a club that has favor more than anything so brother you if you prayed that prayer and and here's the deal if you're already a Christian I want and you want to recommit yourself to being a man on fire one of my favorite quotes is from DL Moody and he said and I think you'd be surprised and the world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully submitted let's be those men he said also we should be so on fire for God the people come to watch us burn I think that was John Wesley oh the Wesley yeah John Wesley said light yourself on fire yourself on fire will come from miles around to see you burn and I'd like to add on top of that and they'll and they'll come closer for warmth yeah because people want to see somebody who believes something yeah and truly I believe more in this than anything else that I've ever experienced because I've done all the dopamine kicks and I've achieved all of the I've climbed mountains I've won supermoves I've done these things and every single time that I go back to do at the second time it's never as good Jesus Christ is the only thing that gets better the deeper you go yeah so if you made that decision I honor you it's such a pleasure to be here and I'm not saying that the show has to go over but I feel like God wanted me to go there man's no that was awesome me the liberty if you need tools for resources for disciplinary men you can find them at christian mn.men if you've got comments about this or questions you can write to me at Paul at cmn.men and Chris shields is here Bruce Robox who's here in the studio with us all respond to that make sure you get get responded to if you want tools materials weatherford five now when you say five it's the number five yep right so weatherford five dot com for veritas for the supplements and and then the phone number we'll put in the show notes so they can get that uh choose your hard poem yeah choose your hard I think it's fantastic yeah thank you hey see if thanks man thanks for being here today it was a pleasure to be here man it was an honor to be here thank you for being an encourager to me he's not just a guy that says hey come be on my podcast and never hears from me again he's been encouraged me for a far for for a while man so it's awesome to go with you and the weather for five uh that's your website so you got to keep it but your weatherford six now you're right right maybe well six seven no no come on bro keep bringing it it's and Lord bless you what to do and we pray that the Lord keeps you deep within the grip of his favor and grace and that that the blessings of God overwhelm your life and that his face shines upon you amen amen I receive it all right love you bro bless man thank you you just experienced brave man with Paul Lewis Cole Paul is president of the Christian men's network connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man