VP Mike Pence, Go Home for Dinner. Inside a Political Family

00:00 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you and I I'm a little bit older than you, but we came of age about the same time and I remember that that was the thing. It was work-a-day, world-emerging busy lives. Young professionals and people say the important thing is quality time. I've come to the conclusion that if you really want to put your family first, it's quantity time. I mean, I will tell you my kids never operated on an appointment schedule for sharing their emotional needs. 00:26 - Speaker 3 I mean, generally Right, it's never convenient. Hi, I'm Paul Lewis-Cohlin. This is Brave Men. Hey, I'm fired up. Your long for the journey today. 00:41 Tremendous interview with a man named Mike Pence, vice President Mike Pence and it was great meeting him, met him online, Of course, knew who he was, knew all the background. I didn't know his commitment that he made when he was in Congress. In fact he had made it in business and as an attorney before that. He had made a commitment that he would go home for dinner, that he would be with his family. And he says and well, I'll let him speak for this, but basically it set the tone for his family, his children, who they were in their marriage, and it's a really powerful story. I was so appreciative of Vice President Pence coming in and spending time with us. 01:29 He wrote a book called Go Home for Dinner Go Home for Dinner Advice on how faith makes a family and family makes a life, and he wrote it with his daughter, charlotte. And a powerful book. I got a text just a few moments ago and so we'll look at that, because that's what we talk about, the Christian Men's Network and Brave Men is fatherhood. And here's a man in the stress and the busyness and the tension of public service, of being a congressman for a dozen years and then the governor of Indiana. He's the 48th vice president. I mean, think about this. Only 47 other men have been vice presidents of the United States. It's a remarkable thing. Actually, it's fewer than that. I've got the stats somewhere in here anyway, because some guys have done it a couple of times and the bottom line is what a remarkable story to go to that level and in the middle of that, based on his Christian faith, to say you know what? The first thing I am before anything else, I'm a dad. The book is Go Home for Dinner. Mike Pence. I just got a text from Bruce Gibbons and actually it was followed up. I got his Sunday night and it was followed up by John Bowman right off that Lakewood church of their men being commissioned over the weekend and then a whole Maximized Manhood group starting, and they have been committed for over a dozen years now at Lakewood Church in Houston, pastor Jill Lohstein of discipling men, and I believe it's part of why they have a really strong bench. 03:12 They have a strong infrastructure, they have a lot of men, they have thousands of men that have gone through Maximized Manhood, hundreds of men that come every week to their ministry to men and I believe it's part of the strength of that church and Pastor Joel has said that to John. So it was great to get that and I'll put it on social media. You'll see it somewhere. There's some photos of the guys. And then Pastor Joel Brooks Stone's church in Kalamazoo. Why do you call the church stones? Well, we're going to find that out in the future and you don't need to imagine much more than he's a minister who believes in raising up strong men and they changed the name of the church to stones. I love that They've had a dozen men be commissioned and that is a ceremony that happens with the Christian men's network. 04:01 When men have gone through eight or nine of our books and their attendant materials in a men's group, it usually takes 24 months. It can take 36 months, it can take longer. I know Sam Masteller up in Pennsylvania is doing a two year thing and it's. The power of it is that when you build strong men, you have strong families and strong families make strong churches, and when the men have it right, when, when the heart of a man changes, you change the temperature of a church. So fired up to get those things in from them. It's cool to get texts like that. I'll put them out on socials as fast as I can do that. I probably don't do it fast enough, but I sure like having you with brave men, and here's one thing that Bryce, our producer, reminds me of Make sure you tell the men to hit not just the like thing, whatever that is, but hit the subscription. Subscribe, because when you do that, the algorithms of this online world put us in front of more people, in front of more men, and our goal is that men's lives would be changed from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so thanks for being a part of Brave Men. 05:19 It was great meeting Vice President Mike Pence, and you know I actually you know I'll introduce this, and I know probably his daughter, charlotte, might be listening to a couple of others, but you know it was. 05:31 You know you're not nervous, but at the same time, here's a man that that was right there in the midst of the things that went on with President Trump's first time as president and what went on in their lives, how he went from being a governor to the vice president, one of the most powerful men in the world and it's a remarkable story, and so I was a little trepidious as I witted to it and it found out oh, he's a normal guy, he loves his kids, loves his country, and it was really cool. So thanks for being with me today on Brave Men, the podcast for men that is being listened to around the world now. So here's Mike Pence, vice President of the United States, with his remarkable book Go Home for Dinner. Here's Vice President Pence Speaking with Vice President Mike Pence. Thank you, sir, for being on Brave Men podcast. It's a blessing to have you here and talk about some things and directives that the Lord's put in your heart to speak to men. 06:44 - Speaker 1 Well, thank you so much, Paul. It's an honor to be with you and thanks for the great ministry that you've had for men not only across the country but really around the world. It's deeply inspiring, and turning the hearts of the fathers back to their children has never been more important, and we appreciate you very much. 07:02 - Speaker 3 Well, you've been an advocate from the time you were a congressman. I'm sure before that though it may not be in some of the bios you've been an advocate for education and for raising people up. Lifting people up, so that's appreciative. Let me get right to something that struck me in all the materials. You wrote a book called Go Home for Dinner, which will be the center of what we talk about. But you and your daughter, charlotte and I think of what hit me about this statement was one of your heroes and one of mine is President Ronald Reagan, who said my great quote for President Reagan is 1987 when he said Mr Gorbachev, you know, tear down this wall. And my great vice president actually said it when you were, I think, running for Congress or maybe a governorship. When they asked you where will you be, sir, five or 10 years from now? And you said and this is such a signature quote you said home for dinner. Why would that be such a central response, mr Vice President? 08:08 - Speaker 1 Well, paul, you put your finger on not only the inspiration for the title of the book that we just released with my daughter, charlotte Pence Bond, but really the heart of what brought this book forward. 08:21 - Speaker 2 Because, it was. 08:23 - Speaker 1 But early in my career. Washington DC in many ways is a city of flatterers and one of the flattering questions after people see you a bit on TV or maybe read a bunch in the paper is where do you see yourself in five years? Because everybody got a plan, everybody's working on an agenda, and the reason I said home for dinner every time I was asked was because I think, like most men, paul, I never need to be motivated to work hard. I actually like to work hard and the opportunity to give voice to my values, to do my part, to make a difference for what I believe in in the political world, has been a great privilege for me. So I never needed to be motivated to do that. But as my daughter said she discovered in writing this book with her dad. She learned that particularly when our kids were young. 09:21 Sometimes the hardest thing that I did was shut off the computer, close the day planner and get in the car and go home and sit down and give my wife and give my three wonderful kids my undivided attention. And we made decisions along the way. We moved our family to the Washington area during the school year, when I was in the Congress, when I ran for governor of Indiana, we moved my daughter out of what would have been her senior year in high school just to keep our family together in that campaign. And so there's choices that you have to make. But I hope if people read Go Home for Dinner, they'll love, they might be encouraged to know that even in the busy life of public service as a congressman, as a governor and as vice president that making those choices has made all the difference for my marriage and family and I hope it's a blessing. 10:18 - Speaker 3 The subline on it is advice on how faith makes a family and family makes a life. And so I had an office in Washington DC in the 80s. We did a lot of television, media and so forth with a lot of people that you would have known. But one of the things I discovered moving into the Washington DC area working there, was how busy everybody was. You know, if you had a 7 AM meeting, then your team would do a 6 AM pre-meeting and then there would be a thing that night and then a thing after the thing that night and then things. How did you balance? How do you balance that? Because we're all busy, I you know it feels like America in particular in the Western world we live sort of on the edge of tired. How do you balance that? 11:08 - Speaker 1 I'm not sure we live on the edge, paul, yeah yeah, the busy world that we live in, the fact the whole world is at our fingertips. People can reach us 24 seven on our phone to text or a call or email. It's made things more complicated. I think, more than ever we have to kind of be honest that this if you want to put your faith in your family first, you have to be willing to make hard choices. 11:38 And, as I said recently in an interview, if God didn't exist it would make no sense to give up time in your professional life Because there would absolutely be a cost and, frankly, oftentimes there is. But I love that verse in the Bible that we quote in the book that he, he, he, he prospers his beloved even while he sleeps. I hold the view that and I hope our life has some evidence of this that when you take steps to make God's priorities your priorities, when, particularly as as you make a priority of being the kind of husband God has called you to be, kind of father God has called you to be I in my lifetime, the more I have focused on that mission first and make it just to support that mission first, the more unexpected opportunities and blessings have come my way. Things. 12:33 I never imagined I'd have the opportunity to do in my life. We had the opportunity to do, but it all, it all came from making those, those choices to really put put feet on our faith and put our family first. 12:45 - Speaker 3 Yeah, when you say making choices, what you really mean Because it's why I tell men, don't make New Year's resolutions is because we are master negotiators with ourselves, right, and nobody can talk us out of or into something better than us. Yeah, so this is where you have to actually have the gonads. You have to sit up and say OK, somebody has to be the adult right now, and it has to be me, and you've got to make tough decisions and you have to decide against yourself. You know, it's the battle of faith against flesh. 13:18 - Speaker 1 And to me. To me, there's a real faith muscle to be exercised here. Yeah, and I write about it in chapter three of Go Home for Dinner. I was. I was listening to this sermon. My kids were probably three, four and five. I'd lost a couple of elections for Congress. I'd run a few times when Ronald Reagan was still in the White House, right and lost and I was. It was a wilderness time for me. I didn't know where my life was headed. I wasn't sure I was going to have the opportunities to serve. That had been on my heart, my aspirations, since my youth. 13:54 And I heard a sermon on Genesis 18, 19 that I'd recommend all your viewers and listeners go and check out it's. It's. It's a verse where God is talking to himself and he says that he's going to go ahead and tell Abraham his plans. And he says for I've chosen him. Now you could stop right there or go. What? What do you choose Abraham to do? Well, he chose him to leave his home, go, find the promised land, found the great faith. You know. You know his faith credited, his righteousness, all of that Right, but it's not what the rest of the verse says. He says he says, of course I'll tell him because the Lord says I've chosen him to see the members of his own household to do what you can, just so that the Lord would fulfill his purpose for him. 14:44 Yeah, and I remember Paul sitting in that pew in church, feeling as though a 90 pound pack like my Marine Corps son had to carry in, like a 90 pound pack came off my shoulders because I felt like what God put on my heart was Don't, don't look out to the world for what I am, what my plans are for you. 15:10 I want you to look down this pew and I want you to see Karen Well, and Charlotte and Audrey, and if you will focus on them and make decisions that make them a priority, training them up in the way they should go, loving your wife the way we call you to love, then the promise in that verse is the Lord will fulfill His purpose for you and that is so strong. It's a place, paul, I've come back to again and again in my life and even now, as we're going through a transition time in our life since we left the White House I recently suspended a campaign for president I go back to that verse and say whatever decisions that we make going forward. We're going to make in a way to put our marriage, our kids now, our grandkids, first and foremost and then just trust that God will open the door and light the path for where he wants to lead. I think that's a real place for men, particularly ambitious men, and I've met very few men that I wouldn't describe that way. 16:12 Most, yeah Well, I don't think I know what I'd like to achieve, and here's the deal. 16:17 - Speaker 3 I think I don't think there's a single man, mr Vice President, that wakes up hoping today is the day they screw up. I don't think there's any of us that wake up hoping today is the day that life tips over. But what happens is life hammers on us. Things happen, disappointment happens. Disappointment is not based on where you are, but where you expect it to be, and it's that gap that most men can't close, and that's what Christ does in a man's life is close that gap between expectation and reality. In fact, it's one of the things you talk about a lot. We're talking about the book Go Home for Dinner that Vice President Mike Pence wrote with his daughter Charlotte and, by the way, great job for your daughter, giver Kudos, on this. It's a very readable book short chapters, great illustrations, and so it moves you through it. I thought it was great. 17:15 - Speaker 1 Thank you. 17:15 - Speaker 3 Paul. But how do you overcome that, if you will, that hammer of life? I think the old quote was something like most men die at 45. We just don't bury them till they're 75. 17:28 - Speaker 1 Well, for me, it all began with faith. 17:31 - Speaker 3 Yeah, there you go. 17:33 - Speaker 1 I walked away from the religion of my youth when I was in high school. By the time I went to college, I described myself as a agnostic or atheist, but then I began to meet some young men in my fraternity I joined who simply described themselves as Christians, spoke about having a personal relationship with God, which wasn't that, wasn't the language that I'd grown up with, and it was intrigued by it. I began to attend a Christian fellowship gathering that took place on on Tuesday nights at the chapel, the campus, and then it was in the spring of 1978 that I went to a Christian music festival. 18:15 - Speaker 3 Yeah, you went to Atheist. 18:17 - Speaker 1 In the early days of the Jesus revolution, I that had begun just a few years earlier and I, you know it was. It was there sitting on a hillside as a light rain came down on a Saturday night. That it was like I. It was like I heard the words of John 3 16. 18:36 The first time, and I stood up not out of a sense of just having been persuaded by eloquent preaching, but just because my heart was broken for what had been done for me. Cross by Jesus Christ I accepted as my Savior, and so everything begins there. Yeah for me and our relationship. You know that chapter in the book I got. I got asked as I was traveling to college campuses my first few years out of the White House and a guy came up and asked me for dating advice and I said talk faith first. 19:11 - Speaker 2 Yeah. 19:12 - Speaker 1 And he said what do you mean? And I said why? After I came to the Lord, I had a pretty consistent pattern of I wouldn't bring up that I'd given my life to Jesus Christ until maybe the second or third date. Sometimes it went fine, sometimes they're wonderful Christian gals, other times not, not so well. The tell people that you know we really wanted to center our life and center any future family and but when I met this beautiful brunette playing guitar in front of church, we sat down on our first date and I just laid it out. 19:49 I just told her here's where we are here's who I am, and it's been 38 years of marriage later, and that's fantastic. 19:59 - Speaker 3 You know that was the igthus festival in Wilmore in Wilmore, kentucky, paul, yeah, that's, is that where Asbury is? 20:10 - Speaker 1 Asbury. 20:11 - Speaker 3 University Asbury theological. My good friend, jim Garlow was part of that, james Garlow, who you've met at different times, you know this is. Let me ask you a question. We're talking about the book. I'm talking with Vice President Mike Pence here on Brave Men Podcast and Go Home for Dinner. It is a declarative statement. It is not like a. It's a yes or no statement. 20:36 You didn't leave any room on this thing, but they asked you a quick question and then we'll get back into a couple of things I read in the book that I thought were fantastic. But here you are. You're in public service. You've gone through a lot of different things. You talk about it in the book. You know how you had to balance things, how you had to like the time that when you were governor, when there was a big issue over a thing, you'd passed and you went with the family, you flew to Greece right To be with the family and all of that. But when you became the Vice President of the United States, what was like? I said, I've been around DC, I was around a lot of those things. What surprised you about that office? What was it that you went? Oh man, this is not quite. I mean, something was a higher stress level than you maybe suspected, or there's some different things. You only 40 other people in the history of the United States have been Vice President. 21:33 - Speaker 1 You know it was back in 2010. Some people had seen me as a leader in the Congress that encouraged me to run for president and, as Karen and I prayed about it, I just we decided to come home to Indiana run for governor because I just I didn't feel prepared. All I just didn't feel ready. And I think what may have surprised me the most I just said this to Karen yesterday we were driving back from taking my 91 year old mother out to dinner for her birthday Wow, was maybe what surprised me the most was the first day I walked into the White House, a sense of peace that I felt that I was right where I was supposed to be doing, right when I was supposed to be doing. 22:14 That I felt prepared. Wow, and for four years, as I wrote in the first book I came out with about a year ago and titled so Help Me God, I tried every day to be informed, to be prepared if history called and to be of service. But when I looked back at my years as the leader in the Congress, years as leading Indiana as governor, it maybe surprised me the most that when I walked in I felt a steadiness from the first day and through a lot of tumultuous days over four years that never left me. 22:50 - Speaker 3 Well, it was. You know, for those of us who have been around this for a long time, it was tumultuous and you did walk through it with great grace, including to the final days. You know, you said something on page 13 in the book we're talking about the book Go Home, pretender, which was Be Present. Be Present, you're talking to fathers and potatoes talking to men, which is basically who we're talking to right now, and it was a Be Present thing and that was such a good word because I think we don't live present so often. Right, I was at. You put that right up. You and your daughter, charlotte, put that right up near the front of the book. 23:30 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, I really do hope this book has a little more credibility, because I wrote it with my daughter, who's actually a best-selling writer in her own right. 23:38 - Speaker 3 In her own right Works with a daily wire. 23:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, but she, you know, she lived it, and so I hope it has more credibility than just a book where a guy's saying let me just tell you about all the great things I did, yeah. 23:52 - Speaker 2 I thought this story you were going to bring up. 23:53 - Speaker 1 Paul was the one where I, when I was governor and I didn't put my family first. 23:57 I was a tough gen after the right but I wanted to be honest with people and I haven't made every right call. But on this to be present business, you know the little house that we had just outside Washington. We had a home in Indiana, a little house we had in Washington. I'd walk in in the evening and there was a piano right by the front door, a little standup piano and had a dish on top of it and we had the practice back. I had a Blackberry back in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had one of the first Blackberries issued on Capitol Hill in the early days. 24:28 - Speaker 3 It's actually in the book. You talk about that, which is a fascinating story. I don't know if we get into it, but yeah. 24:33 - Speaker 1 Yeah, really good it was. I had a Blackberry and I so before everybody had iPhones. In the consulate district, I had one of those on my hip and Karen would invariably say there's a little silver dish on the piano. She would say phone in the dish and it became a maxim in our family. It's that we try to live to this day, which is when you're present. Be present. 24:58 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 25:00 - Speaker 1 You know, don't be constantly glancing down to what the latest text is coming in from work. The latest email is come from work Doesn't mean you don't have to get back to it after dinner, doesn't mean you don't have to get back to it in the evening. But the gift of undivided attention is something we routinely deny our family, we routinely deny our friends. But to actually be present, to be engaged, to be listening and taking an interest is, to me, part of the calling of go home for dinner. 25:38 - Speaker 3 Yeah, and go home for dinner really is about and let me just kind of frame it for me in my life in business. 25:46 I would decompress a little bit before I walk through the front door yeah go home and I tell them in this all the time have a cup of coffee, go get a drink with a friend, whatever that thing is, read a book for 10 minutes. Just dial it down so that when you walk through the door you belong to your children, right? And the fact is they're gonna get busy, they're gonna jump. You know my boys would come running down the stairs and they'd just leap from the you know, from the top of the stairs and jump on me, and then my daughter would have something to show me in and you're just present, rather than saying, hey, give dad some space for a little bit, because children don't understand that. And you talk about this really well in the book. You talk about the difference between quality time and quantity time, because most of us are hooked into the misnomer of well, I just give them quality time, right? 26:37 - Speaker 1 You've made that point all through the book on this. 26:40 Yeah, you and I I'm a little bit older than you but we came of age about at the same time and I remember that that was the thing it was work a day. World emerging, busy lives, young professionals and people say the important thing is quality time. I just I've come to the conclusion that. But if you really want to put your family first, it's quantity time. I mean, I will tell you my kids never operated on an appointment schedule for sharing their emotional needs. I mean generally Right, it's never convenient. 27:10 I don't remember at the times that my kids jumping off the stairwell when I walked in. Maybe they did. But what I remember is a lot of times that you walk in and you're present to your kids and you look at them and say, well, how to go to school today? One word answer fine, fine and well, can you tell me anything? It's just normal day done, and but it's by staying there, being present. I've lost count of the number of times that then, just at an unexpected moment, you know, a daughter or my son would just crack open and go hey, by the way, this is happening in my life. 27:52 - Speaker 3 It's always the second question. 27:55 - Speaker 1 It must be. 27:56 - Speaker 3 Yeah, it's like with friends. It's how are you? Yeah, I'm good, no, I, you know really, actually how are you, which is a signal, if you will, that I'm about to listen. And it's another big thing you put in this book is to listen to. Actually, there's no greater gift. You talk about wealth, true wealth. What greater gift could you give someone than to listen to their story? And why wouldn't you give that gift to your children? 28:21 - Speaker 1 Right, right, and I think everybody wants to. But I love the fact that you picked up the title of the book is it's the 11th Commandment yeah Well, it's Go home for dinner, it's great. My daughter really blessed me when she In one of our early TV interviews on this thing she said they said well, she'd had really always home for dinner. She said you know no, but we knew he wanted to be. 28:51 - Speaker 3 Wow, that's so strong. 28:54 - Speaker 1 And I don't think this is a small matter. You started off referencing Ronald Reagan when we first signed on. You know there's a Reagan quote. At the end of our book we reflect on what's happened to the American family and you know when I think about how divided these times have been and I think about the challenges the family is facing, I love that Reagan quote. That where he said in his farewell address all great change in America begins at the dinner table. Yeah, and I have to tell you I've lost count of a number of people since this book was first announced who've come up to me and just said that they get it, that they grew up going home for dinner and that they and their family have moved away from that and that they recognize that there's something that happens at the dinner table that doesn't happen anywhere else. 29:56 When you sit down, you break bread, you have conversation, and so, whether it's one day a week, whether it's seven days a week or somewhere in between, you know, my hope is that, more than anything else, people might look at this book and say here's a very simple place to start, and that is at the dinner table and in the Jewish tradition we call it the father's table, and it's where they learned their identity. 30:25 - Speaker 3 And one of the things that struck me about what Harvard went through because Harvard, most people don't know, is not accredited school. It's only accreditation is it's Harvard and the accreditation of Harvard is that it's turned out great leaders. Now, when they begin to change the way their intake was based on test scores, they discovered something and what they discovered is they had left out something and what they had left out is character and courage and, as you talk about boldness, and they had left that out. And when they begin to realize they left out, basically, you know the center of a person's heart. When they begin to shift that and go back, here's one of the things they found. They found if a young man or woman had dinner with their family at least twice a week, it increased the chances that they're going to be great students, great leaders, that they're going to live a great life, they're going to live with character. Isn't that fascinating? I love it. Yeah, that just really blew me away. 31:27 I want to finish, shar-tahman. I thank you. We've been talking with Vice President Mike Pence. Go home for dinners the book. You and your daughter Charlotte wrote this together. My first question I thought of was did you ride it in a red truck together? And you have to get the book to know the background of that question. But I love that whole red truck piece and what it meant was you passed down traditions, that's right. 31:58 - Speaker 1 You have a family legacy. Yeah, the chapter by the red truck was very sweet to write because one of my favorite memories with my daughter and we write about more than a few of them between the two of us was given a Saturday morning when we'd be home from Washington, is climbing in a little S10 Chevy and driving to the gas station to pick up a newspaper and cup of coffee and grab donuts for everybody, and driving through the cornfields of Indiana with my daughter next to me and two door pickup truck, but by the red truck. That became a tradition, having a red truck in our family. And now I got a son in the Marine Corps, my daughter is a great writer but also married to a fighter pilot in the Navy, and my other daughter is a working prosecutor, lives in Miami, married, but I'm proud to say two out of three of my kids all have red trucks. 32:49 - Speaker 3 And the other one needs to just to frame the whole thing. I want to do one final thing and, by the way, your son, michael, is a Marine Aviator and your wife is actually a licensed pilot, so this all kind of runs there. I want to hit one last thing and I want to just recommend the book, and of course we'll do that in our social media and so forth, mr Vice President, but I love this part about beat the bridge. I love that whole picture of you and your wife, and would you just briefly tell that, and then we'll close you bet it's in a chapter called, you know, train. 33:28 - Speaker 1 Together, Karen and I decided, when I was in the Congress, we decided to do the Marine Corps marathon, which is an annual event in Washington DC, and so we trained, you know, a couple in our fifties. At the time we said let's train to walk, run, marathon. We weren't going to set any records, but we're going to finish at a certain pace. You have to keep a certain pace to, as you said, to beat the bridge, to be able to get all the way back to the Iwo Jima Memorial. But the experience we had was about, I don't know about, 15 miles in. I was feeling great, I was, you know, the whole endorphin thing was kicked in. I felt like I could sprint, you know, the last eight miles and my wife was, she was starting to get blisters, I think just had some bad shoes, frankly, and, being Karen Pence, she just said you know what I can tell you feel great, Just go, you know, get your best time and I'll see you at the finish. And I took off, you know I was within. Yeah, I sprinted ahead. I started passing all these people that had passed us. I was feeling good. I'd gone about a quarter mile and I thought what am I doing? And I backed it off and slowed it down and and walked as she caught up with me and she said she said what are you doing this for? And I said, look, we trained together, we're going to run this thing together, we're going to finish together, and the smile she gave me will be with me the rest of my life because I could just sell shoes like, okay, all right, you got it this time. 35:07 And there's something about setting out on a path together like that that just just forget, never forget, that it's it's, it's we, it's not us. As men, we're very individualistic. We tend to think I'm going to go take that hill, I'm going to climb that mountain. But for those of us that have stood in an altar and made promises, it's it's we from there on out. And and hopefully this little book will encourage people to think in just that way, Because I really do that if you, if we make God's priorities our priorities I hope our small life is some evidence, Paul, I know yours is that God will bless you Beyond anything you can ask or imagine, but if you keep your focus on him and on those that that he's called you to lead and love. 36:00 - Speaker 3 I love that and I love the whole sacrificial piece of that, because that is when we talk about Christ and he said I didn't come to to be Lord over. Everything I came to serve came to serve. And he said that over and over and he taught his men to serve and serving is is the ultimate strength and you're only qualified to lead to the degree you're willing to serve. And so thank you, mr Vice President. I love that story and you're going to have to read the book, go home for dinner to find out what Vice President Mike Pence found out in an Irish pub in 1981. That's in the book. 36:39 There's a few other, some great stories and I love you guys being transparent about it and honest about it. And for your three children and your family and your wife Karen, we pray the Lord will bless you so you go forth into a new season. I mean you've got a new adventure coming up right. I mean, whatever you get the book, you got some other things you're framing the Lord's putting in your heart. So we pray every place you put your feet will be holy ground and everything your hands touch will prosper and to the Lord will cover you and your wife and family with the shroud of his love and grace. 37:11 - Speaker 1 Paul Cole. Thank you so much and thanks for the great voice and ministry of Brave Men podcast. God bless you. 37:18 - Speaker 3 God bless you, Vice President. 37:20 - Speaker 2 Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over a hundred nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmn.men. That's cmn.men. Your host has been Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you're finding podcasts or downloaded. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.