Daniel Hodges: The Unseen Journey Embracing Identity through Belief and Action

Embark on a transformational exploration as I, David A Specht, sit down with Daniel Hodges, whose life epitomizes the metamorphosis from darkness to purpose. His narrative, chronicled in "From Felonies to Freedom," delves into the intricate dance between belief systems and self-identity, demonstrating how our deepest convictions inexorably shape our choices and future. Hodges, now serving as the Tennessee State Director for 180 degrees ministry, shares his riveting journey from criminal past to a beacon of hope, encapsulating the essence of true change.

This episode goes beyond mere storytelling, touching the raw nerves of loss, failure, and the search for meaning. I open up about my own trials, from the grief of my mother's suicide to professional setbacks, and how these experiences have forged an unshakable faith and an understanding of life's intricate purpose. Together, we discuss the steps to authentic transformation, the liberation found in shedding false pretenses, and the discovery of the unique value each of us holds. It's a dialogue that reaffirms our belief in the potential to transmute personal suffering into service for the greater good.

To conclude, we underscore the profound impact of practicing the wisdom gleaned from our conversation. Hodges' story and insights aren't just to be heard but to be lived. I invite you to weave these principles into the fabric of your life, whether it's in pursuing a spiritual path or reshaping the way you view the influence of social media on your identity. Visit davidaspect.com to continue this journey of inspiration, and remember, the real magic happens when insight spurs action.

Episode Links:
From Felonies to Freedom Book on Amazon
180 Degrees Ministries

Want a signed copy of my book? Get it here!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello there, I'm David A Specht and I want to be your coach. If there's anything that I've learned in my 30 plus years of leadership and coaching, I have learned that mindset is everything. Join me and my guests as we explore the positives and negatives of that thing between our ears. This is Keep this In Mind. Welcome to Keep this In Mind, brought to you by davidaspectcom. Of course, I am David A Specht and today's show is going to be a very special one.

Speaker 1 0:36

Folks, I've got a, I'd say, a good friend. We've had a lot of great conversations over the last few years. We met about three years ago. His name is Daniel Hodges. He's the author of the book From Felonies to Freedom. He and I connected through a mutual mentor and kind of started conversations back and forth and I started learning about his ministry. He's the Tennessee State Director for 180 degrees ministry, but when I met him he was an entrepreneur. He was a landscape guy and was looking to exit that business and go into ministry full-time.

Speaker 1 1:11

But then, when I read the book, I got to hear his story. I got to read about how identity and what we believe our identity is truly affects every aspect of our life, and that's really what we want to talk about today. So, daniel, welcome to the show. Good to have you here, my brother. I want to jump right in because the concept of what do you believe it's how you start your book, and I want to kind of I want you to kind of take us down the historical path of this is what I believed, this is how I lived, this is what I believe now and this is how I live now, and kind of the progression to transformation, if you will.

Speaker 2 1:52

So we've been thank you for having me, david and so we've been taught by a good influencer that we start with our beliefs, and I think that's a great way to do it. So I do believe that the center of all of us is our belief system. The ministry that I teach 180 degrees ministry our curriculum is called getting your life on target, and I believe that all of us have a target. We are the target, and at the center of our target is what we believe about ourselves. Our beliefs therefore drive the term and motivate everything that we do. What I believe about myself is what I'm going to be, is going to create my mindset, which creates that second part of the target, and it shows in our behavior. So our behavior, then, is a direct result of what we truly believe about ourselves. Now, I believe you can watch somebody over a certain period of time and get a good idea of what they believe. But then also people, especially in the addiction realm, or master manipulators, can live double lives, and we know that and I've been one of those too. But the question then, really, because a lot of times, especially in addiction, really, anything we do, we ask the question what do I need to do and we go for behavior modification. And behavior modification obviously is needed, but statistics tell us that 93% of people go back to whatever it is they're trying to get off of or whatever. And that's not just drugs, alcohol set, I mean, it can be anything, any vicious cycle that we deal with in life. So, understanding what we believe because if you ask somebody, hey, what do you believe about yourself? Or who are you, if they really think about it many people struggle with that. I struggle with it because I never really just thought about it Most people equate who they are with what they do. And for instance, me, being a owner of Hodgestry and Landscape for 29 years, that was part of my identity but that also changed. So when that changed, if my whole identity was wrapped up in that, then how would I be able to operate? So these beliefs that we talk about, how do they get into us? They get into us through the different experiences that we've all gone through in our lives and that's why our processes is always unique, because we all share similar experiences but definitely different experiences.

Speaker 2 4:12

So I was raised in a Baptist church, very, very strict raising always at church, basically Tuesdays, wednesdays, any event. Even in high school I was only allowed to go out and do things if it revolved around church or sports. So I was heavily involved in sports and so I actually accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior at a young age and then kind of around 14 or 15, started really understanding what that meant and started living it out of my life. However, coming from that strict background and please don't hear me like I'm knocking my parents I had great parents, but hey, sometimes we perceive things and that perception leads us in the wrong way, and so I felt the trap of performance in my life, because my dad was Mayor Millington. He owned a long term gas station. My mom was a prayer warrior. Both sets of my grandparents were influencers in my town, and so I always felt like I had to be my best. People were looking at me to do this and nobody was knocking me or anything like that, but I felt like I said, I'll be perceiving that. So there's a difference between perception and perspective.

Speaker 2 5:21

And so, anyway, when I got out onto my own, 19 years old, I went to search for what I thought was freedom, and freedom to me was getting to do what I wanted to do, being my own man, getting my own place, working, creating my own life. But here's the thing the very things that I sought out for that I thought would set me free put me in the most bondage. And so the long story short. Obviously I'll talk about the book and how to get connected with me and hear more of the story.

Speaker 2 5:50

The long story short from the age of 19 to 30, roughly my life spiraled in and out of this vicious cycle. Started off just partying, having fun per se, searching for freedom, but got married at a young age. That marriage was not where it should have been. Both of our faults Blame and Herb is my fault just as much or even more so as the husband. But that spiraled out of control and the partying stuff led to addictions, to where I'm not justifying it either way, but one was about me having fun. The other one was that I was used as a cope of life, and so then that led into more hardcore drugs crystal meth, ecstasy acid, just about anything you can think of.

Speaker 1 6:38

Always alcohol was involved.

Speaker 2 6:42

And so in that period of time I was in and out of jail 13 different times. The last time that I went, I was convicted of multiple felonies and, like I said, jail 13 times. That's how I spent, I believe, six months of straight time in the Shelby County Correctional Facility and for DUI number four, habitual driving charge number four. And so when those doors shut though, as a believer, when those doors shut for the first time in 10 years or so, had I stopped and asked myself man, how did I get here? Like it was like. As soon as those doors shut, that question, god, just you know, put that in my face. Like, how did you get here? Like I knew what I had done, I knew the charges that had been brought against me and I knew that I was guilty of them.

Speaker 2 7:30

But when I was 18, 19 years old, that search from freedom did not look like me being 30 years old, divorced, broken, wanting to die, you know, without a license, for five years, probate, all that stuff. That was not my goal, but that's how, that's why I was at, and so after that six months, it was the best, it was really the best thing that happened to me gave me time to get clean, to get my mind back, focused properly. I had the business, started that business when I was really 17, 16, 17 years old, so I had grown it and basically ruined it pretty much. It was barely still alive when I was in jail. So when I got out, hey man, my life was different. I got remarried to my wife, angela wonderful, wonderful woman, very thankful for her and things got better because I had quit doing the alcohol and drugs, right. And so my main reasons were I mean, I wanted to live a gobbly life, there's no doubt. But my main reason was I didn't want to go back to jail, I wanted to have a good relationship with my wife, my family, I wanted to be productive and, hey, all those are great, they are great, but that's still not the full issue.

Speaker 2 8:42

Because the Bible tells us, man, we are to live abundant lives, and a lot of times we equate that into eternity, and it definitely is an eternity, but we have it here now. And but the beginning of that verse says that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I come to give you abundant life. And so when we talk about these belief systems, right, we're buying into either truths or lies all day long. So about a year or two after prison, life got better. Business started growing, I was following the law, but I was under so much performance because I was looking back in my past.

Speaker 2 9:19

And this is a trick that the enemy tries to do. He tries to draw us back to our past and if we do that, we're gonna feel guilty, shameful and condemned over everything we've done and it's gonna hold us, it's gonna paralyze us. We might still be productive, but we're not living life to the full like we were created to do. And so I still had this big weight, like I wasn't doing the behavior stuff, but a lot of it was. My motivation was around performance, wanting to repay back society, all these things and once again, those are not necessarily bad things, but when they are, you're driving force. You can't hold up to that standard because we're gonna mess up. Whether that means not necessarily, you know, get back into addiction, but it's just that roller coaster ride that we ride on.

Speaker 2 10:03

And so the 180 ministries when it was introduced about two years after I had gotten out of jail, my church, first Baptist Church Millington, wanted to do something for addiction, and most churches don't know how to handle addiction the right way. And so they had found this ministry and they wanted me to lead it because I was obviously, you know, had been there and done that and all that. So I thought it was like everything else I'd been exposed to NA, subrat, recovery, aa, those things. Not knocking those programs on, hear me wrong, but, man, when I started going through this to teach it, that was my reason why it radically changed my life.

Speaker 2 10:43

And so, because of that, that, it helped me to really start seeing myself the way that God sees me. And I gotta ask, we gotta ask ourselves, number one if we believe the Bible to be true, okay, then we have to take it for the truth of what's in there. We have to ask ourselves whatever I'm going through each day, whatever I'm buying into, is it a lie or is it truth? And we can look at ourselves through our lens, right? Or we can look at ourselves through the lens that God says that we are. And so there's a big difference and I'm gonna stop right here and let you speak, but this is a big difference between being sober and living free.

Speaker 1 11:24

So you have so much that we could unpack, but one of the things that I kept hearing you say was the pressure of the past. Everything that had led you up to this point, good and bad, was like a weight, and I think a lot of people who have had a number of what society would consider failings early on in life, I think oftentimes are always waiting for the long arm of the past to grab them and either yank them back or some shoe to drop that either nobody knew about or few people knew about. How do you draw that line that says that that's who I was but that's not who I am?

Speaker 2 12:14

Yeah, so for me it all comes from, from the biblical background of if the God's word is true, it cannot change.

Transforming Lives Through Purpose and Accountability

Speaker 2 12:22

And then the way I see myself can change. You know, just like I said, my identity with Hodges Tree, landscape, that did change Me, being a father and a husband, that could change as well. You know, something could happen to my, to my family. I hope it doesn't, but it could. And what am I left with? And so when we're looking at these, we got we.

Speaker 2 12:42

You know there's, there's things that happen to us in our lives and I think a lot of people Never fully deal with their past. Some people do right. I don't look at failure. I look at failure as when somebody quit. I honestly believe there are. There are no absolute negatives in all of life, absolute negatives.

Speaker 2 13:05

Romans 8 28 says all things happen to the good of those that love God and call according to his purpose. Now, there can be negative events, don't get me wrong. But if we look at them through that right lens of man, how can I grow through this? What is God trying to teach me in this circumstance? How can this be used to make me better, right and to impact the world?

Speaker 2 13:28

And you know, I lost my mother to suicide about about a year old. It was the month that I started teaching 180, or when I was exposed to it, and she was a prayer warrior. She prayed for me, for you, and I've got books and journals that she wrote of. Just prayers is just phenomenal to read now. But she was owns, got some medicine. Long story short, I'm not going to go into all the details of it, but I truly believe that God could stop that if he wanted to out, and it's something that I heavily struggle with for about six months, but spending time with God and actually getting out of my environment. I actually went to the Philippines for 2011. I went for about a month just to get out of my environment and be somewhere different. And man, god really spoke to me and he said Daniel, he said I want you to go, I want you to use your story. I didn't bring you through all that stuff my addiction, my divorce, losing my brother, losing my both of my wife parents died at a young age. A year apart.

Speaker 2 14:35

In a five years fan, we lost a ton of people directly in our family, failing at a business per se and then growing it back Just all the and feeling that way to that performance and that pressure to start seeing yourself through this way, for you not to use it. And I think, david, a lot of the issues come when we truly don't see. I call them, daniel Hodges, pretty party moments. Now, this is not knocking anybody's experiences, because some of the things we go through are tough. You know when? When I lost my mother, that I mean I would still call that a pity party moment, but it was emotionally tough. It was hard. It was something that I had to fight through.

Speaker 2 15:15

But I had a choice, and we all do. I could go back and handle it the way that I had already done before, which is escape, use something you know, use a substance or attitude or whatever, and just not deal with it. Or I could walk through that pain and start realize man is there, is, there's some kind of way that I can take this pain and use it for a purpose. And when we start doing that, yes, it hurts, it's hard, it sucks use the word sucks because that's what it does but man, god, will reveal himself to us in a mighty way and it is always for our good and his glory. But we have to choose. That's the key of this. We have to choose to see life through another lens.

Speaker 1 15:59

So, as your your building on all of this through your lifetime, you've got a calling on your life. You know that there's. There's no doubt. You your your call to, to minister, to others who are going through some of it. Like you said, everybody has different experiences, although there's some similar connections. What do you see are the absolutes? Like like it pretty much doesn't matter where you come from or where you go to. There are certain things that you have to and you've probably seen it time and time and time again as your minister into people in 180. You know these things must take place for transformation to happen. So what are some of the things that you've seen as the must take place things?

Speaker 2 16:44

Well, the number one thing that we all can agree on is that somebody has the want to change, and that is not something that can be co-hurst. It is that individuals like we can help. We can do all kinds of things to help people, but until they really want that help, or at least a piece of it. You know, I mean, even if it's, even if it's not full 100, I want to go in this, but I know I need help and I'm ready. And it's really about pulling the. We call it hiding behind the mask. You know, we wear these invisible backpack on us that has all these different masks in it and at different times we're putting on these different ones. And church is a big one. Most people that come into a church say, hey, I'm good and, man, they're struggling, they're hurting, but they don't want to pull that mask off for fear of being exposed or whatever that might be. And that's.

Speaker 2 17:35

I think all of us can agree that at certain times we aren't our authentic selves. And so when someone can come in and say, man, I need help, I'm struggling, I don't know what it is, and just be honest. You know, live hot. We call it living hot, honest, open and transparent and just be real about whatever you're, whatever we're going through, and then realize that, hey, we are all made by God, for God, so we should love and respect each other. But we also need to know that we're all unique and we have we'd have different talents, we have different gifts, we have different experiences that we've gone through in life and to be able to look through that lens and use empathy, where we're actually trying to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and to see that. So those are some absolute truths. Obviously, I am a big you know, all my truths come from God's word, so I know it. Not everybody agrees with that, and that's okay. I can still sit down and talk with somebody and have a respectable conversation and get something done, whether we agree or not, as long as I'm looking at it through the correct lens. So being honest, right.

Speaker 2 18:45

And the other one, the other key that I think all of us are missing not all of us are missing, but all of us need is accountability. And this is not just for addiction, this I don't care if you're a pastor, I mean, we get it Me and you met through a business coach. That was accountability. You know we were searching for someone to push us to another level. And, if we're honest, we think about our kids and they're playing sports and we take them to get them on a team so they can have a coach. And what's the? What's the point of the coach? To teach them what they need to get to know and to motivate them and get them to the next level. That's what a good coach will do.

Speaker 2 19:21

Well, we need that in our lives. Somewhere in our lives we miss that. Right, it's good for kids, and but when we get in our lives, we have this big dream what our life would be. And, as Tim Story would say, a lot of times life knocks the shout out of us and we just lose those dreams and those aspirations. And you know, as noted statistics, 87% of people don't feel like they have a purpose in life, and so we're struggling around, searching for these purposes right and sticking our feet in five or six different things instead of really looking at man. Who am I? How do God make me, how am I unique, what can I do things differently and what am I passionate about? You know, we don't get to do this life over, and so it's very important to understand that. You got, to be honest, you got to want it, you got to be honest and you have to seek for accountability or the top three, and there's so many other things that are involved in those, but those three right there are definitely big leads for success.

Speaker 1 20:21

Yep, and I would go back to your statement about purpose too. You brought it up twice and I think and you and I are the same generation, at least within a decade of each other and you said something very early on. You said a lot of times we derive our purpose or our identity through our vocation. You know, I'm a landscape guy, I'm a businessman, I'm a whatever, and what I find is when that's ripped away from you, either through failure, you work for a company that goes out of business or downsizes and you find yourself looking, or you age out, you know, you retire that a lot of people lose it. They start losing that sense of purpose because they did tie their identity to their vocation. And I've seen it so many times, especially in the elderly if they don't find something new, they physically deteriorate. So this purpose piece, I think, is a vital piece as well. That, yeah, I can be intentional about fixing my life. I can be intentional about wanting to be the person that God wants me to be, but until I step into that purpose that he has for me, I feel like there's always going to be that missing piece and that is like the first step on the slippery slope into something that you don't want to do.

Speaker 1 21:47

So I love the fact that you put your story in print, that you put your methodology in print in from felonies to freedom. What was the catalyst for that, for the writing of the book, and what is the actual because you and I talked about it? I remember I said, hey, man, I just bought your book and you're like man, I hope it's a blessing to you. I didn't write this book to make money and I'm like get it. So kind of tell me what the purpose of the book was, why somebody would want to read it. So what has it led to since you've written it?

Speaker 2 22:20

Yeah, so I, you know I was asked to speak many different places Because it's my radical change, my testimony, and you know the testimony goes good for a while, it's always great, but you know, after 12 years you got to start branching out from that. So and I just had all this information in my head and I'd go speak, man, and I'd be here and here and here and here and this and that, and it was all good stuff. But actually coach Burke challenged me to write the book and get things in a specific Topic. So I'm actually writing two more books right now, but for from fellows of freedom. That's right here. They're available on Amazon Strategies to become who you were designed to be.

Speaker 2 23:03

So it has some of my life stories in there, but it's also got many of the concepts that we use in 180, and one of the concepts is that we are made as two key Dynamics in all life. We are made for a person, we are wired for a place. So if you're, if you believe in, if you believe in Christ, okay, this is what I believe. Once again, I know everybody's not gonna believe this. Some people don't think I'm absolutely crazy, and I might be, but whatever, I'm happy and I'm free. So I believe that God created all things, number one. I believe that he stands at the end of time and knows when all things will end. I believe that every one of us were created in his image and because of that, the Bible talks about three ways. He created. He either spoke, formed or breathe. Breath. Now he went into detail about how he created us. He formed us and, but he breathed. What does that mean? It means that we were created for intimacy with him. Okay, and so all of us are searching for a purpose. Our purpose is all universal and it is to glorify an honor God. That is our purpose. That is why God made us. Now, I know that sounds church, your Sunday school answers, but it takes also. So we're made for a person, we're made by God, for God. That's one dynamic. The other one is that we are wired for a place and this is where the vocation and stuff comes in. So we're we're all wired differently in how we go about glorifying an honor in God. That's our different. Our talents, our experiences, our pains are all that stuff that we've gone through. Right is what makes us unique and how we go about doing that, our different talents. Some people can write, some people athletic. You know. You know what I'm saying, and so that's one of the things that we talk about in from fellings of freedom is helping you, and it Takes both of those right. I could be.

Speaker 2 24:54

I'm designed to teach 180 because of my extreme past. I'm very passionate about it, as you could probably tell, and man, the 10 to 14 years that I spent in and out of trouble and all that stuff used to be a huge Liability in my life and now it's my greatest asset. Like I didn't want to talk about it now I want everybody to know, because I know that it has power to help some other people, and that is how God has wired me uniquely. Now I do believe somebody could be at the epicenter of exactly what God created them to do, and know exactly what God created them to do and Be doing it, but still be miserable inside because they missed the first part Glorifying and honoring God with it. And we get busy the four letter word that we don't like. We shouldn't. You get busy, right, we load our schedules and even when we're sitting down trying to rest, we're busy thinking about what can I be doing next? And and there's a fine line between being motivated and going after and understanding how to Navigate life without going crazy. Right, because you can do a million things but be missing the one or two things that you were specifically created to do, and so that's the one of the reasons why I wrote for felonies of freedom. It's also it does have a lot of my story, so I really wanted this out there number one for my kids.

Speaker 2 26:16

When, when, probably maybe when you was brought up to once again, I'm not knocking my parents but we didn't talk about so I was from a bad this religion, so we didn't talk much about Addiction or we really didn't talk about it at all. We were. I wasn't grew up, I was raising the 80s, so Nike said just do it. The Reagan said you know, say no to drugs. Like what do you do here? Right. And so the whole basis behind my upbringing was like you don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't have sex or you're gonna get your butt whipped and it's a sin, and I agree with. I agree with that right. And and my parents didn't know how to have those conversations, so that they came from their upbringing. So not knocking them at all, but I know, because I know that that was the issue for me not not being able to talk to my parents about man, why is this happening? Did we have struggles in my path, you know, in my, my family tree, here, or any of that stuff? So I know these things.

Speaker 2 27:15

So one of the biggest reasons I wrote this book is for my kids to be able to read it, see it and know every. I want my kids know every single thing that I struggled with. Now, I know some parents don't want it and I'm not telling you how to raise your kids, but I want to be completely, 100% authentic with my kids and let them know hey, I struggle with this and here's why. And so I'm not only my kids, but anybody else who. Because, man, we got a lot of hurting people around. We got people that are addicted, we got people that are not living life to the fool and they're struggling, trying to find this purpose, this meaning in their life, and they're picking up this to go in here or, like you said, that they're on this path, and then, all of a sudden, man, that path gets knocked out of them.

Speaker 2 28:01

And what do you do when you're kept? What happens, what comes out of you when your kettle is bumped, is heated, and it comes out, and so, understanding who you are once again, I would. I would tell you that I am God's fully accepted job. That cannot change. I would say that I am free, that I'm forgiven, that I'm loved Unconditionally, and those cannot change.

Speaker 2 28:25

The benefit of being here on this earth is that I get to be a husband right, I get to be a father, I get to have a job and to promote, but those are things that I do.

Speaker 2 28:36

Even being a husband is something I get to do. It is a benefit that God gave me. I'm so. So when I think about it in that way is a privilege, right, it's not a duty, it's a privilege, and because of that I can love my wife in a deeper way, I can be more honest with my kids, because I can say, man, my motivation is coming from. I am so thankful For what God has taken me through now. It wasn't easy getting to that point, so don't get me wrong, it was. It was a process, and we have a whole session on just nothing but what is called the process, and the process once again sucks. Nobody likes the process. We want to get to that outcome, right, but, man, when we start thinking as we start looking at life through that thankful lens man and just saying, man, you know I might be struggling right here.

Speaker 2 29:23

But, god, thank you for allowing me to go through this, because I know whatever it is, I don't might not know the outcome, but you do and I'm gonna trust you through it. And so that's really. A Lot of people look at the 180 ministry as just an addiction ministry, and it greatly is. We do a lot of things, but we also counsel with people and try to help them understand that they can live a powerful, impactful life and Not just have to have to live this average, mundane life, and that is not. I'm not talking about wealth Financially at all. That is a byproduct and that can be a wonderful, great tool. I'm not definitely not knocking it. I love to make money there's no doubt about that but that in itself can be a trap as well, and so we have to look at all things through the right perspective.

Speaker 1 30:11

There is a something I want to kind of bring up, kind of in closing, but it may go a little bit longer, I'm not sure just yet, but the you said something about. There's so many people that are struggling and nobody knows they're struggling. One of the things I've seen and you're right, we were brought up suck it up, knock it down, get over it, get past it, don't do it. I can tell you some phrases my father used that would just curl your hair.

Speaker 1 30:46

But I do recognize that the generations behind us have such a struggle on so many levels, and maybe it's because they're more willing to talk about it or at least verbalize that life sucks for them. But what I've seen is there is so much hopelessness in the generations behind us. I did a stint as an Uber driver for a while and I would pick up these people and take them to work and they're in their 20s and one girl said I could smell the weed on her and she was like, yeah, I smoke weed. I know it's not good for my lungs, but I'm not gonna live long enough for my lungs to be a problem. I'm like why would you say that?

Speaker 2 31:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:37

And so I think a lot of people's perspective is really skewed, that this is as good as it gets and this sucks. Yeah, have you seen that? And have you in the people that you minister to obviously without giving any specifics that would identify anybody, but have you seen this as a pattern among folks now? Is there a sense of hopelessness?

Navigating Truth and Belief in Society

Speaker 2 32:02

I think it's a pattern for all of us. We have hopelessness in us if we go that route, and there's many, many things that could factor into this and I'm not a full expert on every detail. But, like you said, we were raising that error of just keep pressing forward, and that's one of my motto is keep pressing forward. I actually wrote a chapter of book in there, but I think there's a huge gap between the just keep pressing forward and then like where we're at now, where everybody is feeding off their emotions and trying to figure out what truth is. Because, if we're honest, I think that's what it all boils down to. People wanna know what is the truth, and I would have to tell you, as a believer, that the truth is in Jesus Christ, and so we're trying to fill ourselves with anything else. It's not ever gonna work, and we can fill it with money, we can fill it with relationships, we can fill it with dissonance, but I don't think it ever is gonna get to that point until we are truly okay with who we are. And many people are trying to go out. And let's just be honest too. We have social media now that we didn't have growing up. I am so thankful that it wasn't video phones when I was coming up. I'd probably still be in jail for sure still. But you know how many identities are seen just through or captured through a TikTok video and it's what people think. This is how life should be and my life is not like that right. And they don't see all the struggle a lot of times that are behind that. And so when I try to and by means of my I'm not perfect by any means, but I really try to when I share on a live or whatever I really try to explain both sides. You know the hurt and the struggle, cause the struggle is what gets us into a better part of life, to understanding who we are right, but many people are left.

Speaker 2 33:59

We're also dealing with the breakdown of the family. We're dealing with fatherless homes. We're dealing with an epidemic of no accountability. You look at how schools are now Back in back. When we were going to school, if I got in trouble, I got whooped at school. I was getting whooped at home before it was even talked about what I did. It didn't matter, it was getting a whooping either way. And then we talked about it and then it kind of went to another stage. And now it's like the parents are taking up for the kids, no matter what. Oh, you're not. Oh, my kid didn't do that. There's a lack and breakdown of accountability and it goes all the way up to the top with our pop.

Speaker 2 34:37

You know from the presidents I'm not getting political here, but nobody believes anybody. You know, you can vividly see that lies are everywhere around us, and the younger generation now we can see that because we've experienced both sides. But the younger generations are really buying into these lies and what is painted to them through all these different avenues is what they think life should be like. And how can you even get there, man? It's a trap. And you're caught in this trap, the American dream, or whatever you want to call it. And the question I always ask people to come in to me is whatever you're going to, how's this working out for you? Because if it's not working out for you, good, then the only way to fix this is to start looking at it in another way, or we're going to do like the Israelites did 40 years on a 14 day journey. Right, take another lap, I call it, we call it. Taking another lap around the mountain, trying to want a different outcome, but still doing the same things, and so it gets uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 35:37

But people are looking for something real and the breakdown in the church a lot is because of they put their vision in this in mind. Maybe somebody heard them A lot of times. The people are putting too much focus on the pastor instead of God, and then the pastor or somebody in the church messes up and then they don't want to go to church. And there's been a lot of hurt and pain, and I'm not just talking about churches, but there's been a lot of hurt and pains in all kinds of different areas and people look for these. I mean, I mean, dude, I was raising a very good home with a lot of encouragement, a lot of good positive. My dad had us listening to the Zig Zigler when I was eight years old and but I struggled, I think, about if I was raised without a father or a mother or whatever. I would have to say I'd probably already be dead.

Speaker 2 36:27

And so how this society now is going. You also have two parents working. Most of the time they're running back and forth. So what are we really doing, man? We're all. Once again, I think the biggest word that's messing us all up is being busy. We do not stop and get good information. We don't stop and listen to what's on God's heart. We say we do. We might listen to a podcast here and there. Well, how often do we really slow down and think about man, what do I believe? Where's my life going, how can I do things differently, who can I ask, who can I get to help me, or any of those things? Typically, we don't do that until it gets to a certain point and we're miserable and we're way past the point where we should have already started getting help.

Speaker 1 37:13

Which, as funny as it sounds and I don't mean to use funny but we've come all the way back around to the very first question that was asked at the beginning, and that is what do you believe? What you believe affects it all. It does, and so I think that's probably the biggest thing that I could not only take away from our conversation today, but also what 180 degrees does, because it attacks what do you believe. It helps someone establish, because, like you said, if there is no absolute truth that you can believe, then there's no grounding in truth, because truth would be relative to your circumstance or relative to your belief system or whatever. So there may be people listening to this podcast that really need some help, and maybe not just an addiction, but the concept of what they believe and how they believe and what is their purpose. How would somebody, what would be your suggestion for those people, how to get in touch with you or, through the ministry or the book, what would be some of your key tools for them?

Speaker 2 38:34

Yeah, so we've got many different things that we do. So obviously I did write the book from Felonies to Freedom. Okay, it is available on Amazon. In here we've got ways to contact us in the back. We have a website for the ministry. It's 180 degrees ministries. So that's with the IEFscom. There's ways to contact us there. There's ways to learn more about the ministry that we do, the teachings that I do in groups excuse me, that we do. We set them up at churches, facilities, prisons, it doesn't matter, anywhere that'll have us Number one. We go and we speak. I get asked to speak all over the country for different things, so I'm always available to do that. But we have our curriculum in a workbook series and we actually have a video. I was about to say DVD, but we have it on video series too, where it's taught and then you have, and so we utilize that greatly in different places.

Speaker 2 39:36

I do one-on-one counseling. Our ministry does so. We help people through all kinds of addiction, marriages. If you just not, you know, just not feeling like you're getting what you know, I guess you could call it life coaching or spiritual coaching. All of that together it's not really limited. I guess the benefit of me also is that I have an extensive business background and have owned four or five businesses at once and led a ministry and all that. So I have that knowledge as well. But to get ahold of me personally being we're on here, I'll just give you my put out my phone number, which is 901-499-8986. You can email me the easiest way probably would be the hodge-the-h-o-d-g-e 0731 at gmailcom, again the website's 180degreesministriescom, and then if anybody's interested in our material, or just really, if you have any questions and want to connect deeper, just reach out to me, obviously on social media Facebook, instagram, all that stuff so you can connect there as well.

Applied Knowledge Is Power"

Speaker 1 40:46

We'll put all of that information as well in the show notes for anybody who happens to come across us that way. Daniel, thank you so much for being on today, but for your friendship and your guidance. We've had some deep conversations in the past year or so but, folks, I just want to encourage you. You've been armed with a lot of tools today, a lot of knowledge, a lot of concepts that, if you will grab ahold of them, they will radically change who you are from the inside out. But as I say at the end of every episode and certainly it's true in this case it's not knowledge that's power, it's applied knowledge that's power. That is going to do it for this episode of. Keep this in Mind. For more, visit davidaspectcom. Like, follow and subscribe. Thank you for listening and remember applied knowledge is power. God bless.