I just want to start by saying that being a man is hard. If you’re a man and you don’t think so, well you probably haven’t actually entered manhood yet. See, it should never be a walk in the park. Manhood is an endurance race that takes a lifetime to run. But this race is worth it—through the ups and the downs. Let me speak evidence of that through a little of my story.

I’m not here to talk about all the amazing things I accomplished in 2018 or even talk about 2019 New Years resolutions (because I don’t believe in them). I recently read James Clear’s Atomic Habits and one of the habits he’s established is to do an annual review of himself. He answers three questions, and I will too: (1) What went well this year? (2) What didn’t go so well this year? (3) What did I learn?

Since I have been about 17 I have always set clear and defined goals or objectives for the year. Some years I didn’t have a lot of goals, but just had a general focus. This has always helped me stay on track to see certain things through to fruition. The only problem is that at the end of the year I haven’t gone through to evaluate how things actually turned out. So, this is my year in review.

The theme of this year for me has centered around one main idea: manhood. More than ever before, I have been asking questions about the man I want to be, as well as who I don’t want to be. I have had dreams of the type of husband and father and leader I will become. As my curiosity stirs, I keep coming back to the idea that I want to be marked by love, marked by the very same love that Jesus showed us.

What could you do in the next six months? Lose some weight? Read a book? Or just keep on keepin’ on??? These questions speak of time. A specific block of time. Something I’ve always resisted thinking about most of my life.

My mom had given me the task of transporting some things she sold on OfferUp to the person she sold it to. To my surprise, when the buyer opened their door, she was in a wheelchair. She explained how she had a freak accident in her home tripping over her table and fracturing her leg in two places. The thing she bought from us, fittingly, was a wheelchair. We made small talk together while we figured out payment and she tested it out. Then we said our goodbyes and thanked her. “Oh! Could you do one thing for me?” she asked.

He,[1] was born July 13th, 1942 in Chicago Illinois to an advertising executive and former radio actress. He loved the Boy Scouts. Earning his Reptile Study merit badge working at a Scout camp during the summer and then reached its second highest rank, Life Scout before moving on to other interests. In 1960, he graduated from Maine East High School in Perk Ridge Illinois and was the first student voice broadcast on his high school's new radio station, WMTH...

Can you think of something in your life that at one point it was all that you could think about? Something that you wanted over anything else? You probably told yourself that you would finally be fulfilled and happy if you just got this one thing. When I was 9 years old I really wanted Heelys, you know those bulky shoes that had wheels pop out on the bottom so that you could skate around?

Last year I wrote about my teenager who was taking on the responsibility of paying some of his expenses. I’ll update you on that soon in a subsequent post. More recently, my nine-year-old, Henry, asked to borrow $20 to buy a video game. “Sure,” I said. “You can do jobs around the house and payment will be due by Sunday evening. If you don’t pay it back by Sunday night, I will add $2 to what you owe and another $2 every week after that if it’s not paid.”

I hear people all the time say, “If only I were them.” Successful entrepreneurs with multimillion dollar businesses, professional athletes with contracts worth a thousand times their salary, celebrities with big houses on the hill and a closet worth more than their house. But I’m not here to bash on other people’s success. Quite the opposite actually. I applaud their hard work and talent. The problem is that their success is one dimensional — it’s just material.

No, really... who? When you think of yourself, what comes to mind? How do you think people perceive you? How do you want people to perceive you? Or, most importantly, how do want to perceive yourself? What you think of yourself matters more than you might think.

For a long time, I have told myself that I hated change. I convinced myself to abide in whatever was normal and comfortable and to shy away from anything that was different. Whether it was a daily routine, habit, hobby, job, relationship, a new place to eat, or a new place to live. Big or small, I didn’t like change and I definitely didn’t like trying new things. But that changed (pun intended).

One of the most common questions that we get is, "How did you start a podcast?" So I figured I would write this to point people to so they know our process and what we recommend :) First of all, podcasting is not hard. In fact, once you have everything set up, it's really fun. It's just the getting started part that takes time and patience.

Recently I’ve settled on a few central themes of my life. I’ve always been an advocate for having goals, but it didn’t feel quite right to try to quantify and pinpoint what I actually wanted to achieve. So instead, I found it best to ask my self questions and then go from there. The three questions I’m asking myself right now are: (1) What habits do I need to build to become the person I want to be? (2) How do I be a better spiritual leader to Monique? (3) What steps do I take right now to become a full-time entrepreneur?

"Man up! Or in other words, "Act more like a man!" It's the cringy phrase every man will hear in his lifetime. But your manhood is not tied up in your ability to be tough. The Bible has a different perspective.

“What in the world are we doing?” I bet Abraham asked himself this question when God commanded him to uproot his family to Canaan. I asked myself the same question about a year ago when my wife and I decided to move our small family of three across the world. Up until December of 2017, my personal faith journey had only taken a dramatic turn probably once or twice. I fell into a pretty routine schedule of balancing family, ministry, and work. When I got a job at a growing tech company in downtown San Diego, I had this idea that my life - including that of my family - was now in order. It seemed like things were really falling into place. Then God did what He does best and disrupted everything.

For just about all of us, we aren’t facing something as heavy or difficult as this circumstance, yet we still find ourselves overtaken by fear and pressure and find ourselves turning around and giving up. Some of us find ourselves even giving up before we hit a roadblock; we don’t take any action in the first place. Maybe you are battling a temptation or sin that has been going on for years and you can’t find victory. You desire to be a God-fearing man or woman who walks uprightly, but you keep failing. Maybe it’s a relationship or a marriage that you are just discouraged with. You might have a vision to change your workplace, start a business, a ministry, or even a church. We all have something that we are facing and we have to decide that we are going to hold on a little longer and see it through until the end.

“While Discipline and Freedom seem like they sit on opposite sides of the spectrum, they are actually very connected. Freedom is what everyone wants — to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline” Jocko Willink said in an interview with Forbes. We cannot actually handle complete freedom. Given total freedom to whatever we want, we usually default to destructive things, or even to doing nothing at all. The fact is that freedom without bounds isn't freedom at all. We need discipline to fully enjoy, and fully take advantage of the freedom that we do have.

The Germans have a linguistic practice that is quite unusual. When they lack a word for something, they cram two or more words together into one, making a new word to describe that thing. For instance, in some primordial time, Germanic peoples presumably did not have a word for “pet,” as in a domesticated animal. Thus, they took “Haus” (house) and “Tier” (animal) and rammed them together, creating today’s word for pet: Haustier (house animal). Strange as that may seem, it gets more interesting when it comes to words that the Germans have that the rest of us do not. With this same frame of mind, “Resilient Joy” seems an oxymoron upon a cursory examination.

The imposter syndrome was real. Here I am — I have a great job, I've secured a great place to live, I'm marrying the woman of my dreams, I have great friends and family — and yet I still don't feel like a real man. I was taking on the identity of a husband, a provider, a future father, and the second half of my wife. How does one learn to be these things? And more importantly, what does it really mean to be a man?

If you Google “The Power of One” you find info on movies, books and lots of quotes on how amazing and important a single person can be at positively impacting their lives and the world. Even Hollywood loves to have a hero or heroine as the center of the story-line in their movies. And all of us love to hear how someone overcame great odds to win the prize, conquer the foe, or get the girl… or the guy. We imagine being that person and how awesome it would feel to experience those victories and get all the “goods.” In truth, however, life isn’t really like that.

God is a Being in eternal relationship with the 3 persons of the Godhead. He stamped all of us with His Image. There is a lot to this, but one thing that is certain is that relationship is part of that Image… even for introverts.

Aziz Ansari is just a recent example of many, a convenient symbol to point at and say, “We have a serious problem in who we take advice from.” Romance novels written by lonely women, op-ed columns by people who have never been within a hundred miles of a committed relationship, and baked-in messages of fantasy in the T.V. shows you binge on Netflix all add up to some knee-jerk opinions on pursuing marriage that are, well, wrong.

Jesus says the greatest commandment, after loving Him, is to love my neighbors as myself. When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). And that parable boils down to this: your neighbor is anyone who needs your help – anyone. Regardless of age, sex, race, class or religion, your neighbor is anyone, even strangers, maybe especially strangers.

I have heard many a guy ask the question – why do women say they are fine when they’re not? If you take the answer “I’m fine” at face value and leave it alone, you know you are making the situation worse. You feel like you just can’t win when this is the response you get from your wife or girlfriend. So, why?

Lately, the idea of being fathered has been on my heart. This used to be something that never crossed my mind because I didn’t think that I could relate. I grew up in a full house with Christian parents that loved me. I’m realizing that no matter what upbringing someone may have, we are all wounded and we all deal with this thought of being fatherless, especially as men.