The Families of Character Show
We serve parents who want more for their family. Our show offers research-based parenting solutions to the most common family problems, real-life parenting stories, and authentic support. The host, Jordan Langdon, is a wife, mother, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who validates what parents go through and offers practical actionable steps parents can implement today to transform their families in joy and unity. Guests are experts in their field of work and provide high-value material for parents and families.
The Families of Character Show
Ep. #176: From Nike Glory to Family Priorities with John Olinger
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What if the scoreboard you’ve been chasing isn’t the one that matters? Former Nike executive John Olinger joins us to unpack a life-altering season marked by a 40-day prayer, a sudden family tragedy, and a career fork that forced him to define success on purpose. John shares how losing his mother young and later his father reframed time as both scarce and uncertain and why that urgency pushed him to choose people over projects without abandoning excellence.
In this episode we discuss:
• redefining success from accomplishments to relationships
• the 40-day prayer that reframed career decisions
• counterbalance as a practical alternative to balance
• presence for kids now, training as they grow
• daily couple prayer as a protective habit
• from consuming content to taking courageous action
Be sure to check out John's book, Worthy Wins: Pointing Your Life to What Matters Most, to discover what truly matters in life.
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At the end of your life, how will you know if you truly won? And I'm not just talking about professionally or financially, but personally in your marriage with your kids and with your own soul. If you're like most parents today, you are running at full speed, work, practices, meetings, endless to-do lists. And you're probably feeling like two ships passing in the night with your spouse. I know I can feel like that at times, but you might be wondering is this it? Am I spending my time, energy, and intention on what truly matters? Listen, if that's you, pause whatever you are doing and stay with me because this episode is your wake-up call. But it's not only your wake-up call, it's a beacon of hope. Welcome back to the Families of Character Show. I'm your host, Jordan Langdon, and today's guest is someone who knows what it's like to have it all and still feel the emptiness of misaligned priorities. John Olinger is a former Nike marketing executive who worked closely with legends like Kobe Bryant. He had a thriving basketball career of his own and a beautiful family. He's married and has three sons. And he also had a career that looked picture perfect on the outside. But then life hit hard. He experienced a real loss in his family, which forced him to re-evaluate everything. And that tragedy, like many tragedies do, became a turning point for John. And eventually the inspiration behind his new book, Worthy Wins. John, thanks for being here. Let's start at the beginning and tell us about some of the mountains and valleys that brought you to this moment. We're so glad to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, Jordan. Honored to be with you and uh your audience. So mountains and valleys. We hear that God's with us in both of those. And that has been the case for my life. And uh I I grew up, had a great life. I was only a child. Um, my life first started to get uh a bit challenging when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer uh for the second time. She'd had it once before I was born and then had it again um around the time I was turning 10. And um, unfortunately, her breast cancer just ended up ultimately taking her life. And so when I was in sixth grade, uh my mom passed away. And that had such a profound impact on what happened from there, and and even probably has impact on why I'm talking to you today. So that was a valley. In the midst of that, which was awesome, I um had an amazing group of men who came alongside me and had built this safety net for me in that space. And um, it's a longer story for another day, but basically in fourth grade, I started going to a young life group called Campaigners. It was a Bible study with high school guys. So I was in fourth grade hanging with these older guys, unbeknownst that the relationships that were being built there would be in place to support me when I went through this really difficult valley. And so uh a guy named Eric Schofield, amazing guy, invited me to be a part of that group as a fourth grader. It that was a mountain in the midst of those valleys. So um I went on from there. I've had some some awesome experiences. I I played basketball in high school and college and overseas, and for sure, those were mountain moments for me. I feel so grateful. Ended up ultimately coming back, landing a job at Nike and finding my way through um a gigantic organization of highly talented, highly intelligent, highly incredible people, and and also a place where the only thing that ultimately the company cares about is that you're successful at your work. And so in the midst of my 10 years at Nike, I had I had some awesome mountaintops. I'm sure we'll talk about some of them. I had some low valleys when maybe even it might have looked on the outside like they were mountaintops. And then and then ultimately, you shared briefly about it in the introduction, like my my big valley, my big unexpected moment came when my my dad ultimately had an accident. And the and the crazy background there is that you know, I'd come to a place in my career at Nike where I was really grateful, but Nike was re-organing. This was 2020. Y'all know it very well. Um, we'd be forever ingrained in our minds for different reasons, but Nike was reorganing in that time and it was possible I wouldn't have a job. And um so my wife had asked me, like, hey, have you thought about moving east? And she's from Florida, and so we'd had that conversation a bunch of times. And when she ultimately asked me that question, usually when she asked me the question the few times she had before, I'd always be like, Oh, I'm in the middle of this project or I don't know what's gonna happen. Like, I want to finish this thing that is fun or uh advancing my career, whatever. But on this time, I said, you know what? I'm open to it because the reality was I didn't know if I was gonna have a job at Nike anymore.
SPEAKER_01:And so now at this time, did you have any children yet?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. We had three kids.
SPEAKER_01:We had three, you had your three boys, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but at that point in time they were five, three, and one.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Not even one, five, five, three, and under one. And so we were, you know, quite possibly contributed to my willingness to consider this was, you know, we were in Oregon at the time, and I don't know where all the listeners are at on here, but they're all over the country probably. And Oregon was locked down. Like that, that's you know, we were we were five months into lockdown with three young, energetic boys, and um, they were they were awesome, but yeah, we were we were like retired and we're not getting much space. And so the thought of moving east to be a little bit closer to family, uh to Aaron's family was was appealing. And um so when I said yes to that question, she said, Well, what are you scared? Are you scared of leaving Nike? And I said, I'm I'm not scared of leaving Nike. She said, Well, what are you scared of? I said, I'm scared of leaving my dad. And my dad was in Oregon, but like I said, I was an only child. And so the thought of moving away from him, he lived about 45 minutes away from us, was something that I wasn't super excited about. And and he and my stepmom were not that far away, but they were also like, it was gonna be tough if we were gonna go somewhere else. And so ultimately we decided to pray for 40 days, and so we set out on this 40-day prayer journey of saying, like, hey, God, shape our hearts in this time. Give us direction, give us wisdom, discernment about what might be best. And so we started praying. And um, I think probably when most people set out on a prayer journey, or at least I'll speak for myself, there's optimism about the good that's gonna come from that. And and like, God, what are you gonna do? It's gonna be awesome. Um, and that was not our experience of our 40-day prayer journey. Um, because five days in, uh, we get to day five, and that will be good. Just a second. Let me interrupt you.
SPEAKER_01:All right, come on. Because I know, I know this is getting getting good, but I love the details. Okay, when you said you and your wife set out to pray together 40 days, what does that actually look like? If we're a fly on the wall, are you guys like once a day, you're getting together, you're kneeling down together, you're holding hands, whatever. The two of you are praying, or both of you are playing like individually.
SPEAKER_02:That's a great question. So it's both. And and what we did, we we weren't like so. Every night as is, we we pray every night before bed together. So that's like natur, naturally a rhythm already in our life at that point, and something we've been doing since basically we got married. And so that that was already there. And then there was individual sort of moments where we both were saying, Hey, we're we're both leaning in, connecting with the Lord on this, and then we would have times in the midst of that, outside of that, when we had breaks in the chaos from our, you know, our boys being home for where we'd where we'd do it together. So it was a blend, but some was together and some was on our own of sort of seeking God in that.
SPEAKER_01:Great. So the intention was set that you were going to be praying about the move specifically for 40 days and kind of on your own together and all of that. Love it. Okay. Now tell us what happened like five days into this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a great question. So um we're we're praying all you know, things are things are good. Um, and then I get a phone call on the morning of the the fifth day of praying, and it's my stepmom calling to tell me that my dad has had this freak accident. And um he basically went to the grocery store really early in the morning because he was um trying to avoid the crowds in in Oregon. And he was, you know, he was in his 70s and he was like, all right, I'm gonna go to the store. And um it was this was September, so it wasn't like it was slippery outside, but um it was one of these mornings where if you're in a place where it's been warm for a while, it hasn't rained for a while, the first rain, you know, creates some some slippery ground. And um, it had rained that morning, and somehow uh in the midst of loading his groceries in his car, he he slipped and ended up hitting his head and ended up with a traumatic brain injury. And so um we were like, wow, okay, God, that's not really how we saw this this journey going. And we decided in the midst of that, all right, well, we're gonna keep praying. This isn't like, okay, my dad hasn't had an accident, so we're not we're not stopping, but that was definitely not how we saw the the the journey going.
SPEAKER_01:And so at that time, did you say could because I'm just thinking personally, like I can be quick to interpret what I think is God's message. Like, there it is, day five, dad slipped, he he had a bad injury, that means we should stay here, right? Because like that was a sure sign that like something is going on with him. So but it doesn't sound like you guys looked at it in that way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was uncertain. And it it wasn't it, it was it was something, but it was we we didn't we didn't take it as this is exactly what it is. Okay. But it was like, okay, let's keep praying. And ironically, I I was supposed to have a day of solitude that day. I I had like been planning to go have that day of solitude, and so still, I still went, but obviously it was uh a different kind of day than expected. So I I remember sitting there at this by a lake, uh not that far from our house, but uh by a lake, a restaurant that had this this space where you could sit outside and just being like, what the heck just happened? Um and and so much uncertainty. You know, he they put him in ICU, but it was just not clear. And because COVID was happening, um, it wasn't like I could go there. Uh because they would only allow one person per family per day to be able to go in. And so my stepmom went, which is totally made sense and and right. And I'm just sitting there waiting for updates. And and you know, there wasn't a lot of updates other than he was in and out of consciousness, and they ended up intimating him. And I ended up going to see him, I think about five days in, like once he'd stabilized some. So in the midst, we're just praying and wondering and waiting. And I'm my stepmom and I ultimately ended up alternating days. So she'd go one day, I'd go the next day, and we just sort of did that for the rest of the time. And in the midst of praying, my my wife at the time actually worked for Young Life. And so, in the in about 20, 20-ish days into the praying, she felt like it was time for her to take a step back from that. So she tapped out in the middle, she didn't like quit her job immediately, but she let them know, like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna transition out. So that that happened in the midst, and then um we're still praying, getting close to the end, and on day 39, I get an email from HR at Nike, and and they're like, Hey, you got a meeting tomorrow morning. And uh anybody who's been a part of a big organization or has been in the midst of reorg knows that when HR sends you an email, you're going to find out your fate in that meeting. So, not day 39, not day 41, day 40 of the 40-day prayer journey was the day I found out my fate at Nike. And Nike said, We love you and we have this great job for you. The only problem was that the job was a great job, but it wasn't the type of job that I wanted. And it was a great job. It was I was I was the and I ultimately, here's the foreshadowing, I I took the job and I'll explain why. But the job was leading global brand marketing for men's running. So it was a great job, a job that tons of people would love to have. But for me, I had been telling them for two years that I wanted a different type of job. And the type of job I wanted wasn't about title, it wasn't, it was about influence and how I could spend my life and my work helping pour into people so that they could have an easier journey at Nike than I did.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Because I I got thrown in the deep end of the pool and I figured out how to swim and I had had good success in the company, but it's a very secret swim kind of place. I thought I could help people learn to swim better. And so I'd been telling my bosses um that's what I wanted. But there was one problem. Five of my six bosses were fired in the wave of job cuts before me. So all the people I had, five of my last six bosses were fired in that previous round. And so when it came time for me to get placed somewhere, and and part of it was organizationally, there were just lim limits to what they could do. But all the people who knew exactly what I want were no longer around either. And so they they they showed enough to say, hey, we believe in you, we're gonna give you a job. If you work and running at Nike, that is that is a they've they've signed off and said, Hey, um, we we give you our seal of approval. And so when it and it was a take it or leave it. It wasn't, hey, can can I see the menu and pick some other item? It was, do you want this job or would you like to take a severance package?
SPEAKER_01:Ooh, and that was day 40, all of that in that one meeting.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Yeah. And um, and it was still unclear what what was gonna happen with my dad. Is he gonna fully recover or is he gonna be fully dependent on people for the rest of his life and just be a shell of himself? Those were sort of the two extremes that we were wondering about. And so when they said, Hey, do you do you want to be unemployed or do you want to have a job? I said, I'll take that job. And when do I get to spend more of my time on people? And they said, uh, we don't know, maybe a year, maybe a year and a half, maybe two years. And so what that day meant for me was it was the day that I knew that I was free to leave Nike whenever that time came. Not because I wanted to, but because um they didn't know when they could allow me to do the thing that I had said was really important to me. And it wasn't that I didn't get to impact people or influence people, but I had my my previous like basically three years had been like leading huge projects. And you're you're you're leading people in that, but you're all your investment is into the project, and and you get a little bit of like osmosis into the people by doing that. And I I was saying, like, hey, I want to spend 90% of my time on the people and helping them thrive and become the best selves because that will improve the way that we do work at Nike. So we get to the end of the day, you know, and I my wife and I get our kids down, and we finally get the chance to talk about the 40 days and say, Well, what do you she says, what do you feel like God said in the 40 days? And I said, I think God said, I trust you. You're free to choose. And she said, Yeah, I feel the same way. And so our choice at the end of that was to say, we might stay or we might go, but for now we're gonna have this holding pattern and see what happens with my dad. And we weren't ready to pack up and go, but we also weren't ready to say, hey, we're staying forever. And unfortunately, like his body and his brain just could not get back on the same page, and so he ended up passing away about 20 days later.
SPEAKER_01:Gosh, John. That's a wild two months. Yeah, 60 days just took us through. And what I heard is the freedom that on day 40 you felt free. You felt this heavenly father give you permission to follow the passion that he had put inside of you as a young boy. Like, John, I'm joining you. I join you in your passions. I put these passions within you for a purpose, right? Like you are free. You are free to do this, but at the same time, you've got this grief that you're about to face. You feel freedom, right? In in the decision to follow your passion and your career, but then 20 days later, you get hit with this wave of loss. Again, how do you get through this? You and your wife, Erin, how do you make sense of this? How do you how are you navigating this? You've got an idea of what you're gonna do with Nike for a while, but then you're processing the loss of your dad and the news of that, and you're still in Oregon. How do you go about as a team moving through that while you're raising three kids and shut down?
SPEAKER_02:When you phrase it all that way, it's like, how did we do that? And think back to if we hadn't been praying, how would we have handled it? And how might that have been different if we hadn't entered into that step of inviting God in? Because it could have easily just been like, all right, well, do you want to move east? And I could be like, sure, let's let's consider it. And am I sure that there's times God speaks audibly to things? Yeah, for sure. Most times I don't get the audible answer, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't invite God into the journey that we shouldn't have invited God in. We invited God in, and that that transformed that. I don't think God was pulling the puppet strings of and saying, Oh, well, day five, here you go. Like, here's this crazy thing. I think like God joins us in the journey of life as the brokenness of the world unfolds. So I think the reality was we were in survival mode in the midst of that, but also we knew we were in it together. Ultimately, when the dust settled from my dad's passing, um, I I told my wife that I think we needed to move to be close to her family. And that wasn't necessarily what she had envisioned as moving east. So she chose to trust me in that, even though it wasn't necessarily exactly what she had planned or wanted. And we went on that journey of packing up our lives and saying goodbye to some really great friendships and stuff in Oregon.
SPEAKER_01:So when you say that wasn't necessarily her idea, was she thinking like a couple hours away or living on the beach?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, so her parents live in Northeast Florida, and so it was more like, are we going to Nashville or Raleigh or somewhere that's like an hour flight away from Florida rather than a full day of travel to get there from Oregon?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And there were lots of reasons for that. And it wasn't that I I had never planned either. I wasn't thinking we'd ever move to her hometown. But the the change in our circumstances and the reality of her parents at the state in life they were in and wanting to be involved and in the mix with our boys. And for me, you know, no longer having my parents alive, it's like what's it all for? Like, why wouldn't we go be near them? And and I don't think that's necessarily the right choice for everybody. Every family is different and every circumstance is different. But for us in that moment, that's what I felt like the right choice was. And that choice was founded because I wanted to pick the pieces back up, and I wanted to find ways for us to be connected to our parents, and I wanted to find ways for us to be more connected as a couple, and uh like having some other hands in the in the midst was going to be helpful.
SPEAKER_01:And I can tell Erin is a godly woman because of one word that you said, which was she just trusted me in this. It wasn't necessarily the idea that she had in mind originally, but I felt that that's sort of where I'm using my own words here, but I hear you saying, like, I kind of felt like the Lord was calling us to that proximity to her family. And she followed, she trusted and she allowed me as the man, the husband in this relationship, the father to these kids to lead. Because I think as a woman, I can say there are so many times when I take the reins from my husband, or I'm like, get in the passenger seat or the back seat, and I'm I'm gonna get in the driver's seat and I'm gonna drive this decision, you know, down the road. And I regret it every time. And it's the time where I can let go of the wheel, move over in the passenger seat, you know, allow him to be fully in the driver's seat and taking the wheel, that it's like, this is the right order. This is what God wants, is for this man to lead our relationship and lead our family. And even if the decision he makes ends up blowing up, we're in it together, right? Like that's that's cool, that's great. We we don't expect perfection from you, but to give you that kind of trust in that tender moment in that grieving time of you, that's a beautiful thing on her part. And for you to to just, you know, suggest this in confidence to her. I love that unity. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, she she's amazing and she's so capable and so smart and so wise. And yet she really chose to lean in to that and say, all right, let's do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Okay, so fast forward, you're in Florida now, and uh you got your your three kids. What year is this now?
SPEAKER_02:This is like We moved in 2021, so we've been here about four years now. Okay, okay. And so it's yeah, which is crazy. We just hit four years and it is absolutely flown by.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm sure. Well, you mentioned right before that that you said, you know, once we got here, we were just thinking like what what matters the most? You know, where are we spending our our time and you know, our energy, and what are what are we thinking about? You know, how did this transition lead up to this book that you just released? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, the the the thing was the choice to come here was was founded a lot by the some of the realizations coming out of my dad's death. And so when my dad died, he was 74 and I was 37. And it was the first time well, I should take this back. Like I knew when I was a kid that life was finite because my mom passed away. I had a seriousness about myself that my friends that people didn't understand because because I had seen somebody close to me die. Yes. But like like most things, you know, the further you get away from an event and experience something, you know, the sensation fades, the intensity fades. And have I been pretty intentional in my life? Would my friends describe me as intentional? Yes, for sure. And yet at the same time, like most people, I think, I'm doing the best I can, trying to trying to live about what I can, but life is going and it's moving fast. And the more variables that come in, the the more likely that's the case. And so we're going along and we get there, and then it's like, oh man, I might be halfway done. And my dad, my dad being me being half my dad's age, was like that, like could I live longer? Yeah. Could I live shorter? Yeah. But the reality is if I live as long as he did, then I'm at the halfway point. Yes. And and you know, when things start to become scarce and we know that they're running out, they become more valuable. And so for me, it was this realization of like, I don't want to waste any of this valuable time that I have left. And what happened was I ultimately ended up saying, I'm gonna, I want to share my reflections with my friends because most people my age hadn't lost both their parents. And so I had a perspective that most of my friends didn't have. And so I said, All right, I'm gonna start writing a weekly email to about a hundred guys all over the country, all over the world, people that I love, and just say, hey, I'm gonna reflect on what does it mean to win in the places that matter most. And so I started writing this email, and guys, you know, were responding and just encouraging me to keep going and being talking about how they related and talking about how it was causing them to think. And so I that was sort of the foundation of where worthy wins came from. And uh, as I went along, you know, I was writing the email and people sent it to a friend, and then I ultimately turned the newsletter public and just started just wanting to encourage people to learn from the things that I had learned. Not because I had it all figured out, but because I had a perspective that other people may not have. And ultimately what I realized through my time at Nike, and this is where the Nike part comes in, you know, I would go sit in these conference rooms, Jordan, and there'd be 20 people around the table, all amazing, bright, competent people. And all 20 of them would have a different idea about what success looked like. And so that taught me this truth that is true in organizations, but it's so true in our own lives. So the biggest takeaway I had from my time at Nike was this learning that winning is subjective.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And in order to truly win, we have to, we have to make it objective. Otherwise, we could do all invest all of our time, energy, and attention into something and actually get to an outcome that isn't what we desire.
SPEAKER_01:And yes. Like you're saying, uh at the end of your life, how have you spent your time, energy, and attention? What was it going towards your vision of success? And as Christians, right, our vision of success has to look different from the world.
SPEAKER_02:And, you know, there's the reality is we're not all the same either, just in the same way as those conference rooms, like we're all wired, created different. God, God has said that each person is unique. They have, you know, their own story. So, so not everybody's gonna define success the same in our lives. But what we're at risk of is ultimately winning at things that don't matter. And the world is gonna tell us a bunch of things that matter. You know, our devices are gonna pull us into things that don't actually matter in the end. And so it goes back to that that time at Nike. So I'd sit in these conference rooms and everybody would have a different idea of success. And so then I'm sitting in this role where I'm the global brand director for Kobe Bryant. And Kobe has this tragic accident, his daughter dies, these other wonderful people pass away unexpectedly and tragically. And I'm one of the few people in Nike that has Kobe in their title at that point. And my job as the global brand director is to help steward the brand of Kobe. And so, what that ultimately means is that amongst all the well-intentioned, amazing people in Nike, ultimately I need to be the one who helps Steward. What are we gonna do in response to his passing? And because winning is subjective, how are we gonna make sure that whatever we do is actually successful? And you have people from China, Europe, the Philippines, New York, LA, Chicago, Oregon, where we were, everybody had an opinion. And so what we had to do is we had to get extremely clear about what success looked like. And so ultimately there ended up being one slide that went into every single deck that went around the company. And the slide said this it said, our objective is to pass Mamba mentality on to the next generation of athletes, starting with Gen Z girls. Wow. And it didn't mean that other people didn't matter, it didn't mean that Gen Z boys didn't matter, it didn't mean that you know, older generations, it didn't mean that any of those people didn't matter, it just meant there's gonna be tons of ideas about what we could do here. If your idea doesn't pass mama mentality on to the next generation of athletes starting with Gen Z girls, we're not doing it. Very clear. Yes. But then you in China, you in Europe, you in New York, LA, great. If you're doing that, awesome. Have at it. Like do it your own way, do it that thing. But like we had to we had to get everybody clear about what success looked like so that then they could go pursue success. There was actually when we got to the end of the project, we were going to say, hey, we we got there.
SPEAKER_01:Whoa. That is awesome. So many things are popping up for me first. One of the things I want to comment on is that I I totally see the red thread throughout this whole thing. It's like the loss that you experienced with your own parents from the time you were, you know, in sixth grade through the loss of your father and then to be the global brand marketing guy for Kobe Bryant and then experience his loss. This was just God's design to have you in this role and for everybody to be looking at you and saying now what are we going to do? What are we going to do now that this amazing famous athlete has been tragically killed along with others in this horrible accident you know what is most important and their eyes are on you it sounds like you are the one that had to make kind of this decision on what does success look like now for the followers of this fine athlete and then for you to be like and your team to say we're we're passing on the Mamba mentality to specifically Gen Z girls like we are passing on the legacy of Kobe Bryant in this way. Like I just see it like it just makes sense like God sets us up for these things in life that we could never see coming or never really truly understand why am I in this role? You know why is everybody looking to me for this but it's like with your experience and your personal connection to loss it had to have given you the platform to understand what people who maybe idolized Kobe were going through or just looked up to him you know needed in that moment. Wow. Thank you for sharing that and just the inner workings of the business and like what happens right you could all put your ideas in and everybody could go in a million different directions but ultimately that's not going to pass on the legacy of this man. And so it sounds like that particular situation in combination with the other losses that you've experienced in your life and just listening and hearing from God is like okay what really matters right what is a worthy win like what is winning when it comes to your life and and your wife and your kids and your soul at the end of it all is that kind of was that the springboard for like this reflection email that you started sending out and and sort of this following that you had to consider what you're doing with your time your energy and your attention yeah yeah because ultimately right the the world tends to define success by what we accomplish and it doesn't mean that accomplishments are bad.
SPEAKER_02:You know God is God has put us on the planet to steward the planet and do things and do well. But if we overinvest in accomplishments and underinvest in relationships then we're ultimately going to get to the end of our lives and not have one in the places that mattered most.
SPEAKER_01:And so we can't afford to do that. We don't have time.
SPEAKER_02:No and we don't the two truths about time that have become abundantly clear for me through this process is is one for everybody time is running out so it's it's scarce. And the second one is that it's indefinite we don't actually know how much time we have you know we might have tons we might have not very not very much and so if we spend too much time focused on our accomplishments then we're at risk of of missing on things that that matter most. And so I I wrote the book in a way you know my my faith is laced through it and it will it will encourage people who are followers Jesus and it also is a book that I wanted to write in a way that my bosses, my VPs, the leaders at Nike who have given their whole lives to Nike could read it and say wow what do I really want to win at? What really matters? And I start the I start the book with a a question from John Ortberg where or a quote from John Ortberg that's basically like hey the world doesn't teach us to pay attention to what matters and so the starting point for all of us is like so what really matters? What is most important? And we're all going so fast. Just like people were going so fast on that project with Kobe they had all their ideas we could do this we could do this we could do this we could do like everybody's just going. And so worthy wins is a is a call to action to just pump the brakes for a second and stop so you can define what what actually matters the most to you. And it might be different than what matters the most to me. But the the things that matter the most at the end ultimately are relationships. And the accomplishment accomplishments matter as well but the relationships matter the most and for me you know that starts with my personal relationship with the Lord it starts with my physical health because if I'm not if I'm not healthy haven't taken care of myself then and haven't and if I'm I'm not connected to God then that impacts everything. So that's the starting point and then okay my wife she's a relationship at the end of my life I want to be able to say hey we were connected in a world of disconnection we were connected and so how do we fight for that and in my current age of my kids and right seasons change the current age of my kids at their age like presence is the thing that I'm trying to bring them. As they start to get a little bit older that's gonna like still presence is important but I'm gonna transition more into training and helping prepare them that much more for them going out on their own. But if I if I'm missing on those first three buckets myself in connection with God, my wife and my kids great and so I tell a story in the book where about seven years into my journey at Nike I'm leading this awesome project. So I'm the basketball lead for the Olympics for 2020. And that basically means all right well I'm leading the basketball work and so we're gonna tell this awesome story and you can read the book I don't need to tell you all the details about it. They don't really matter here's what matters two weeks or two months before we're supposed to host all these athletes on Nike's campus, my wife has our third son, which is awesome. I take a few weeks off I go back to work and it's this is like right after Thanksgiving and so we're sprinting because we're gonna host all these athletes right after January 1st.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So we're sprinting and yet at home my wife's suggesting to have a third kid you know at that point we have we have three boys four and under so it's it's chaos and this is pre-COVID but it's still it's still and I'm just cranking and and this is like pre-Zoom culture anything. So like we're doing like conference calls but I'm coordinating all these people across Nike you know eight or nine different departments getting everybody on board. Great we're all lined up it's I'm going going going um and I get to Christmas Eve and I have this harsh realization Jordan I didn't get my wife a meaningful Christmas present. And it wasn't that she wanted it wasn't about money spent. It was that what she wanted to know was she was thought of that she was worthy of my time, energy and attention as she raises our then six week old child. And so against Christmas Eve and realize that I don't have one and there's nothing I can do to salvage a meaningful gift. And so I had to do this walk of shame where I went and confessed to her hey I babe I d I dropped the ball. And she was gracious but so hurt. Oh and I didn't intend to not get my wife a Christmas present right I believe you I didn't intend that but intentions aren't gonna get us there on their own and so like I don't want to and to the project at work winning. Everybody loved it everybody was happy received super well at home I lost in you know the second most important relationship in my life and so that was a really that was a really pivotal moment for me and in thinking through you know all all my time at Nike was was teaching these lessons and weaving it together but ultimately you know then my dad passes away after that and all this stuff and it's like hey I'm at risk of winning at things that don't actually wow and I think everybody else is too I agree with you.
SPEAKER_01:I agree with you we are all just a hair away from uh these misaligned priorities and and if you're listening right now going uh I'm my priorities are misaligned right now I am more focused on on work. I love my career John I love what I do at families of character coaching parents doing all this and at the end of the day if I prioritize this over my spouse my kids my relationship with God the whole thing has been flipped on its head yeah and and I am actually idolizing my career and my work and my my business and so I I heard you say you know it was the walk of shame man I had to come to her and admit that I had prioritized this project over people over her right and that there wasn't anything I could do with it. I I was caught red handed and she wasn't gonna have something the next day and uh again a woman of God she has grace right she's able to forgive even in her hurt uh I had a client one time and she had she had lost a child and and a nurse told her she said you know during your grieving the thing that is going to feel most unfair to you is that you're going to have to forgive people you're the one that experienced the loss but you're going to have to forgive people they're gonna say the stupidest things the most insensitive things you're gonna compare their story to yours and whatever and you are called to higher ground. You are called to forgive them in your own pain. And I hear that that's what your wife did that maybe it wasn't perfect the way she did it or her response to really well considering the circumstances she did awesome. Man but that's another teaching point for us listeners is like you know you're not gonna get it right personally I'm gonna fall down and I'm gonna need the forgiveness of my spouse and Josh is going to forgive me over and over when I prioritize things above you know our relationship with God and our relationship with each other and our kids and the important part is that we get back on the horse right that we go okay this is the turning point it's time to reorder the priorities in our lives and uh focus on what matters most those things that are worthy wins.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah yeah and and here's here's the other part that I I think for a long time I felt like in order to do worthy wins I needed to walk a tight rope and that I needed to have perfect balance and that was the only way that I was going to get worthy wins. And I was I was sitting with this pastor his name's Daniel Grothy from Colorado Springs and I was sitting with him a couple years back and he's similar to me a little a little further on in life than me but same thing three kids you know big responsibilities at his church wife you know lots lots of things going and I'm like hey man how do you balance it all and he's he looks at me Jordan and I'll I I will never forget the look he just says balance is a myth. You dropped the mic bro and now I need to know now I need to know more. So can you tell me more and he goes on to tell me like ultimately the reality is life is constantly going to pull us out of balance and so if if we think that we're somehow going to walk the perfect typerope it it's not realistic. And and even like the truth is like to accomplish significant things things maybe God's put on our life to do it's gonna pull us out of balance. And so he's like I actually focus on counterbalance as a as a tactic rather than balance because counterbalance he said if you think if you think about it visually look at a helicopter and a helicopter has every helicopter has two rotors whether they're stacked on top of each other or one in the back and one in the front and the reason they have two rotors is because they could fly with one but they couldn't be in control and make sure they safely got to their destination they they they'd lose control. But the second rotor creates counterbalance all that power all that stuff so they can ultimately end up in the place they want to go and land safely and travel safely and so in our lives it's the same thing. How do we counter with investments of our time energy and attention to pull us back in and it doesn't mean that we should always be going to the extreme and never spend any time but the reality is seasons of life are going to pull us out of balance and big investments of our time energy and attention to invest in things that are meaningful and are important might pull us out of balance. So like it may not mean that we're home every single night at 5 p.m to be home for dinner. And so Daniel was giving this example he's like hey sometimes at church there'll be like three week sprints where we're deep in it. And so he was like what I really try to do is I try to try to communicate really clearly with my family about what's going on. I make commitments to what I'm gonna do to counterbalance in the midst of that and then I have to follow through on those things. So he gave the example he's like you know I might say hey I'm a three week sprint but the three days before that I'm gonna be off work and I'm gonna be home and I'm gonna be present I'm all in. And then I can't be home for dinner every night but uh Thursdays and Sunday nights I'm for sure going to be home in the midst of those three weeks. And then when the when that three week sprint's over I'm gonna take a few days off and I'm gonna be back in and and those were his examples of saying like here's how I counterbalance in the midst of crazy seasons. And so I think for your listeners who whether regardless of the age of their kids or anything that's going on like we are going to get pulled out of balance and it's that is okay. That's reality. That's what like if it and the world handles things differently than us the problem is if we don't have the counterbalance to pull us back in we'll just keep going and going and going and going.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. That's such great advice yes I love the counterbalance and just the analogy of the helicopter right you got to have that second rhetor to be able to to get where you want to go and I appreciate that the practical examples of like you're not trying to be home every night at five o'clock and and just have this structure that's exactly the same all the time like this life that God has called us to is a wild ride. We prioritize we communicate what's going on with our spouse you know and to our kids and we make the moments that we have with them matter make them meaningful and fully attentive right we put work aside we put our devices away and we give them our full attention that that may look way out of balance to someone else but it is doing what matters most and and winning in a worthy way right is to to take the sort of ride that God's got us on and adjust to it and still keep in priority order our relationship with God, our relationship with our spouse and the unity of our family. I love it. John, we have an accelerator program. It's called the Thriving Family Accelerator and it's a coaching course where we take about six couples through six weeks where they write a faith-filled family mission statement. So they identify a vision where do we want to go what is the end game for us here that's what we do right off the bat. And then we teach couples how to pray together as husband and wife just like you talked about at the very beginning of the podcast. You said, you know, we have always kind of prayed together that's just been part of our relationship since we got married. There's a statistic that shows that you know 75 or 50% of people are married couples are getting divorced. If you get married a second time you have a 78% chance of that marriage failing. Even worse yeah second time around you go to church with your spouse you have a 26% chance of divorce. Okay we're getting better this there's hope here right get the family to church go to church this is good if you pray together as husband and wife every day not family prayers but just the two of you just a short it could be 30 to 90 seconds a day you have a 0.0006% chance of divorce less than 1% everything you talked about today is points back to that union with your spouse and inviting God in yeah life is throwing us curveballs all the time right and God's okay with that he understands we can handle the curveballs of life he's prepared us equipped us to lose our parents to you know get fired from jobs to have a total pivot you know in your career and if we invite him in collectively as a married couple in our into our union we're like unstoppable yeah right that that will bring us to the end of our lives where you know we we look back and are able to say you know for me and my house we have served the Lord we have followed the path we have answered that great call the commission to go out and share our lives with other people you know and that's that's what it all means. Yeah I was gonna tell you just something that popped up in my mind right before we got on this interview is I was thinking you know I thought there's this kind of the word on the street about you know listening to podcasts or going to talks at your church or going to a workshop that someone puts on about parenting that that uh there's there's 20% like this 20% of people go to 80% of the things or listen to 80% of the podcast right there's there's a small percentage of people the same kind of people that are doing these things. But the negative word on the street about us folks is that we are consumers that all we want to do is read the book is listen to that episode and and go to that talk because there's a part of us that feels like we are not equipped and and we are deficient in some way. And so we need this knowledge we need to go hear from John. We need to go hear from Jordan at this thing at church or whatever and we we've got these deficits that we've we have to fill up. And so we do that but then it goes nowhere. All this information this knowledge just sits with us and it struck me that you know what this 20% of people who are listening who are going to these workshops who want to develop their intellect we've got to engage our will also if we just fill our minds with information but we fail to answer the call which is what I heard you say you did when when you were in that space where you thought you know what I feel I feel a nudge to just email a hundred guys that I really love and just share something that's on my heart with them. You could have said no that was a crossroads we have freedom right to choose whether we do the thing we feel the Holy Spirit's nudging us to or we go but what will they think? If I send an email and you know 75 of them don't open it, that's not winning. That's not success. You know no you just went I feel compelled to share my reflections and myself with other guys and look what it's led to right that's what the Great Commission is about. Go out and and spread the good news share your life the gospel with others in whatever unique awesome way God has equipped you to do that. So John, thank you for your willingness to not keep your story to yourself because that's a choice that you always have is to just keep that within you but by your willingness to share it through email through podcast episodes like this interviews through your work now that you are part of at Unite Us right this is where where the Lord is like setting you on fire right he's like yes I'm joining you in your passion so that you can prepare people to really understand worthy wins. First your relationship with God then your spouse then your kids make it count. So thank you for being with us today John this message has been amazing. It's blessed me personally and uh I can guarantee it will bless many people for months and years to come.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you Jordan it's been a pleasure and I'm so excited about what you're doing with your work too. So it's been fun to get to know you and see the awesome work you're doing in the world.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. Let's stay connected and guys check out his book you can get it wherever books are sold and on Amazon Worthy Wins by John Ohlinger. Thank you so much and we will catch you on another episode of our show real soon
