Breaking The Debt Cycle With Behavioral Stewardship

Debt is not just math, it’s pressure, identity, fear, and the quiet belief that you’re failing the people you love. We start with a hard look at how easy credit, emotional spending, and constant comparison normalize borrowing, then we bring it back to a biblical lens where debt can become bondage and limit the freedom God intends for us. If Proverbs 22:7 has ever felt uncomfortably real, you’re not alone.

My guest, Scott Mater of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, gets brutally honest about what financial bondage did to his mind, his marriage, and his faith. He shares the moment he realized he felt “worth more dead than alive,” and how a simple shift from hiding to communicating helped him and his wife fight their way out. 

Over 2 years and 11 months, they paid off $78,852.52 while living on a tight income, then turned that painful journey into a mission to coach other Christian men and couples toward freedom.

We also dig into practical tools for long-term change: the difference between career and vocation, why calling is something you uncover over time, and how the DISC personality framework can improve communication and leadership at home and at work. Scott lays out a clear framework for growth and an iterative process that makes goals and budgets actually work: plan, execute, then review, reflect, revise, and repeat. 

The key takeaway is simple and tough: you don’t change by willpower alone, you change when you find the why behind the what.

Subscribe for more conversations that train up better men, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the “why” you want to fight for next? 

Learn more about Scott at www.inspiredstewardship.com/innerman

Chapter Markers

• 0:00
• Welcome To The Ring
• 0:35
• Taxes And A Nation In Debt
• 2:47
• Biblical Caution About Borrowing
• 4:55
• When Debt Turns Into Despair
• 8:46
• The Conversation That Changed Everything
• 12:39
• Calling Is Bigger Than A Job
• 19:11
• DISC For Clearer Communication
• 30:08
• A Framework For Living Your Calling
• 36:54
• Plan Execute Then Review And Revise
• 39:57
• Find The Why That Fuels Change
• 42:43
• Resources Coaching And Closing Prayer

Visit www.thesavagepath.com for more on David, his book The Savage Path: A Memoir of Modern Masculinity, and the Savage Path Ministries Corp.

Transcript

Copy

Welcome To The Ring

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Wrestling with the Inner Man. Because the first fight we face each and every day is a fight with our own flesh. Do we listen to our selfish, sinful nature or to our divine nature guided by the Holy Spirit? Your host, David Stavage, is a product of the West Texas Desert and energy industry. His desire is to inspire and help other men win spiritual warfare. We hope you're ready to rumble because wrestling with the inner man begins now.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Good

Taxes And A Nation In Debt

SPEAKER_04 0:35

afternoon, wrestlers. Hey man, we're finishing up April, and you know that's when we all have to pay taxes. If you've overpaid, you might get some back. But as a nation, we are staring down an unfathomable number with a national debt now of $39 trillion with a T dollars. It's inconceivable. Most people, I mean, a trillion seconds ago was before Christ. So what a mighty wrestling match we all face when it comes to our finances. And here are three of the biggest contributing factors, which I researched using AI. Easy credit and normalization of debt. Credit cards, buy now, pay later, and long-term financing make it effortless to spend future money. What used to feel like a serious commitment now feels like routine, which blurs the line between needs and wants and weakens our discipline. Number two, emotional spending and stress. Money decisions are often driven by anxiety, boredom, reward seeking, or fatigue rather than intention. This is one of the hardest issues because it's not just financial, it's behavioral. And that's who our guest is going to help us with today, the behavioral issues. Number three, comparison and social pressure. Social media constantly resets expectations, what a normal life looks like. People end up spending to keep pace with peers or curated online lifestyles, not their own values or goals. So we had those and many other contributing factors, but the Bible treats debt as something to approach with caution, not always forbidden, but often portrayed as spiritually and practically risky. The concern isn't just financial, it's about freedom, responsibility, and trust. So in Proverbs 22, seven, it says the rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. This frames debt as a kind of bondage, which it truly is for anybody who's really been in it. Owing money can limit your choices and place you under another's control. And that's not, you know, the land of freedom and opportunity. So my

Biblical Caution About Borrowing

SPEAKER_04 2:47

guest today is Scott Mater, who has hosted the Inspired Stewardship Podcast since 2017 when he and his wife Carrie started Inspired Stewardship as a business to serve Christian men and couples that are struggling to live out their calling. They work to help align the way you use your time, your talent, your treasures so that you can identify and live a life that allows you to authentically live your calling, serve others, and provide for your family. That's a terrific little mission statement there, Scott. Welcome to Wrestling with the Inner Man. You know, please take a moment to further introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us how this business was born out of your own bondage to debt.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Sure, absolutely. Thank you for having me on. I look forward to our conversation today. So, yeah, the if I go back in time, I I've done a lot of things in my life. I actually started my first business when I was 12 years old. Um I started a painting and lawn and then lawn care business where and I say I started a business because I actually was hiring my friends to go actually do the work, and I was just finding the jobs. So you know, I I was paying them and then I was keeping a cut for you know finding the jobs and and getting things organized and getting the materials and all of that. Um so I've always kind of been an entrepreneur, had that as a spirit. But when I went to school, I I wanted to help others, and so I actually went to college to do medical research. I did that for a little while. I figured out that that's really about chasing grant money, and I didn't really want to spend all my time chasing grant money. So I pivoted and became a school teacher, did that for 16 years, and then uh left teaching, and I'll talk a little bit about that transition in a minute because it's related to the financial uh story that that you're alluding to. And I went into the corporate world, still in education, but for an educational testing company, and I did that for 11 years, kind of worked myself up into a senior position, and out of our own financial journey, the the coaching business was born. I started it part-time in 2011, took it full-time in 2017, like you mentioned, and I that's what I've been doing now ever since is I call myself a stewardship coach. So, where did it come from? Well, the

When Debt Turns Into Despair

SPEAKER_00 4:55

personal part of the journey is my wife and I, back when I was a school teacher, we got into a situation where we actually had about $60,000, $62,000 worth of debt. At that time, I made a little over $40,000 a year. Like a lot of men, I wanted to be a good provider, I wanted to be a good husband, I wanted to take care of my wife, and yet I looked up and realized we had more debt than I made in a year. I began to feel depressed, I began to feel suicidal because of it. I actually would, at the time I was still teaching school, I was working late in the evening with kids, trying to help them with science fair and doing all these after, you know, after school activities. So often I'd be driving home. We lived over an hour and 40 minutes from where I worked. I'd be driving home late at night, going down curvy roads out in the country. We lived out in the middle of nowhere. We lived two hours from the closest Walmart, Starbucks or McDonald's. You know, that gives you an idea when I said we lived in the country. We were really in the country. So it was a long drive home, and I was beginning to think about, you know, hey, if I drove off this road, then insurance would pay out and my wife would be taken care of. You know, there was enough insurance to take care of debt, they would take care of my wife, and I was worth more dead than I was alive. That was literally how I felt.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

Not a good place to be thinking.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Not a good mindset. And here's the irony. I was thinking about pretending to fall asleep to drive off the road, but I would turn talk radio on on the radio so that it would keep me awake. You know, I I wanted to stay awake while I pretended to fall asleep. It's like, you know, the the irony of the way our brain works when we're in those kinds of situations. And like you mentioned, you know, yes, this was math and this was debt, but it really wasn't. It wasn't the math side of it, it was the emotional weight of the decisions we were making. I'll be honest, mainly me, and the way we were spending and the way we were behaving and all of that, that was really adding to all of that. And one day they changed the lineup on talk radio from I believe it was Bill O'Reilly to Dave Ramsey. It was a rebroadcast of the Dave Ramsey show. And at that time, I wasn't really, I hadn't returned to church. I was kind of in a uh a dark place from my relationship with God as well. And I began to hear people on the Dave Ramsey show talk about getting out of debt, and Dave talking about getting out of debt and how you could do it. And and I argued with the radio all the way home. You know, I I I was telling Dave Ramsey how stupid he was, and telling these people on the show, you know, they didn't really understand the situation, they didn't know. Did that for a week, and on Friday at that time, Dave Ramsey used to do debt-free screams, and somebody called in and there was this man telling his story, and it wasn't identical to how I was feeling in my story, but it was close enough that I could hear those echoes of what I was doing and how I was feeling and what I was thinking. And then they were talking about getting debt free, and and the numbers were similar and the situation was similar, and you know, there was enough there that it was like, wait a minute, if they could do it, you know, maybe maybe my wife and I could. And I and I started to turn from arguing to listening. And so eventually I kind of came clean. And see, I was being a good man, I was protecting my wife from all of this. I wasn't sharing any of it with her. By the way, my wife's a smart lady, she knew everything, you know. Um, but she was gonna protect me. She didn't want to add to my stress, so she wasn't talking to me, I'm not talking to her. You know, secret of a good marriage. Never communicate. Uh that's sarcasm, by the way, far for anyone that thought I was serious.

SPEAKER_04 8:33

You weren't you weren't finding the financial peace that David uh calls his uh calls his program. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

There was no peace in it, and there was no understanding of it. And so eventually I came clean, sat my wife down.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 8:46

We went out for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the back of the car. Uh, you know, that was date night, and we sat down and and I told her what was going on, told her how I was feeling, told her what I'd been thinking about, um, opened up to I I wanted to find a church community again, which you know she was all in favor of. I'd been the one that was kind of holding that back, and we opened that idea up, and all of this kind of turned around, and we began to say, okay, we're gonna do this together. We're not gonna get divorced, we're not gonna get separated, we're not gonna declare bankruptcy, we're gonna fight our way through this. You know, we've gotten ourselves into this mess, let's get ourselves out. And over the next uh two years and 11 months, I am not allowed to round that up to three years, my wife will kill me. Over the next two years, 11 months, we actually ended up paying off $78,852.52.58. Um, normally I can roll that off without even thinking about it. And by the way, anyone that was listening, I said 60 at the beginning and I just said 78. That was because while I was teaching, I left teaching. I started doing some other things while I was trying to figure out what else I wanted to do. And uh in the middle of that, I actually had a collapsed lung in December. They did surgery, and then I re-collapsed the lung in January, so they had to do everything all over again. So I got to pay for all those medical expenses twice.

SPEAKER_04 10:11

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

You know, yay, you know, that's so I'll be kick a man when he's down, man.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

That's what Satan does.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And that added about another $18,000 to our debt that we ended up paying off. But, you know, we fought through that. We were making $55,000 a year. So you can do the math, $78,000 paid off, average of $55,000 a year. We were living on nothing.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Yeah, that's very uh that's very Spartan like uh cave dwelling in the country. Maybe that's why you said it was a rural, it was in a cave.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

We were literally living and you know, doing nothing. Um, but we fought through it, got through it, and you know, that's when I started the corporate job and started all of that. And out of that the coaching business was born because literally what happened is somebody at our church that we had started going to kind of walked up to us and said, You know, you and your wife are weird. Do you think you could help us be weird? What they were talking about is the way we were living. People could see we were making different decisions with money. You know, we were we were being different than what you see people do. Uh we were talking different, we were using different language, and it wasn't all just Dave Ramsey stuff either. It's not like we were just quoting him. But but our biblical statements about it, you know, the decisions we were making around money were completely different than what they were used to. That's what they said, you know, y'all are weird. Could you help us be weird? And that was literally our first coaching client. Um, we got paid $135 to to coach that couple as they kind of worked through some things that they were going through. And from there I said, okay, this is I love this. This is what I want to do. I want to help other people not feel the way that we were feeling. Started the coaching business part-time and it kind of went from there.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

That's a good place for me to interject. So, you know, what you say, you know, in your coaching uh business and on your website, you know, is you're trying to help people find you know the like their true calling. And then the stewardship, you know, for time, talent, treasure is so that you can really live out your your true calling and purpose. So so you went through this almost three years of bondage, you know, of uh and a debt, and then you paid it off, and then you were free again, and then you found that calling. But you know, before we can live that, so how how can you first identify your calling, you know, to our audience out there? What if they're like, man, I hate this job, you know, and uh AI is going to replace me anyway, or whatever they're thinking, you know, how can they find their calling, or what would be the first step in that?

Calling Is Bigger Than A Job

SPEAKER_00 12:39

So calling is interesting because first off, we kind of have to define some terms, because I think there's a lot of confusion about what a calling is, because we kind of confound it with what we do for a living and what we get paid for. And I would argue that our calling should c show up in what we get paid for, but our calling is bigger than just what we get paid for.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

I like it, I like it.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

And so let me kind of give you two words. We we actually have two words in the English language, vocation and career. And we treat them like they mean the same thing. You know, people will talk about their vocation, they'll talk about their career, and they're talking about what they get paid to do. Technically, those words do not mean the same thing. So if we go back in time and look for the root word of career, the root word for career is actually the word for cart. It is a method of transportation. It is something that gets you from point A to point B. Okay, that's all your career is. It just is something that gets you from one place to another. Now, in that case, our our one place to another is usually around what we do for a living, but it's still just a mode uh it's just a method of doing something. Vocation, on the other hand, if you think about that word, it it sounds like vocal or vocalization. That's because the root that it comes from, vocalis, means to be called. It literally means you're calling.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

And your vocation, when I talk about calling, is more than just what I do for a living. It includes that, but it also includes how I how I get up in the morning. It includes how I'm a father, it includes how I'm a husband, it includes how everything, right? It should show up in all parts of our life. So when you realize that, by definition, calling is not something that you ever arrive at. It's something that you're always discovering or uncovering. It's a it's a process, it's not an event. You're not gonna wake up one day and go, I now fully understand my calling and all things that God doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

God reveals it to us over time if we listen to God and respond to that direction. So when God's giving you that still quiet voice, going, Hey David, oh over here. You you you need to you need to go that way. And we ignore it, we're not uncovering our calling. But when we lean into it and we go, huh, okay, God's sending me this direction, there's probably something over here. I have no earthly idea what it is, you know. I don't know how it's gonna show up, but I need to lean into it. And and it's that process that lets you find your calling.

SPEAKER_04 15:28

So I read a book in 1986, 87. So I'd gotten my engineering degree. We both went to Texas AM University, so a shout out to my Aggies out there in the audience. And uh, so I had gotten my professional engineering license, and uh, but I was like, you know, I'm I'm kind of outperforming my peers by significant margin, but it's not reflected in my pay. And I was a little disgruntled about that. And I had discovered this book called Work with Passion: How to Love What You Do for a Living by Nancy Anderson, I believe. Are you familiar with that book? Sure. Okay, so and it was amazing because it had written exercises at the end of each chapter, you know, and it's like go to Dunn and Bradstreet and look up these other things and make it kind of like just you're on a like a scavenger hunt.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

And and then, you know, but the first chapter was the hardest. It was like write your life story, you know. It was like 30 pages is handwritten, and then you kind of get a better understanding of just how you were shaped and who influenced you. And and I went through with extreme discipline and did that whole book, and then it kind of spit out at the bottom, you know, that I should be in sales, which I hated from my experience as a youth selling, you know, junk, candy, wind chunk, whatever for scouts and band that people didn't really want or need. But when I learned that there was true professional technical sales problem solving, and people really need these products, it really changed. That's when I made a big career shift and went into chemical engineering and technical sales. So that was very helpful to meet because I'm passionate about relationships. So, but you're right, it is an evolutionary process. I I think my calling now is this podcasting, trying to help others, my retirement.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

So uh I would actually argue that's not your calling. That's simply the mode that you're using to live out your call.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

So what's your what's your mission statement? What are you trying to do in the world?

SPEAKER_04 17:19

I I'm trying to help men uh be better men, better fathers, you know, um better husbands, and provide the tools to young men who might have grown up without a model uh with a Christian definition of masculinity.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

So that's your calling.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

So it's showing up today in the podcast. But if you go do if you write a book, which you've written a book, yes. If you show up on at church on Sunday and you lead a youth group, that it shows up there. You know, so it it literally your calling that's what I mean by your calling is bigger than what you're just doing. It's the thing that drives what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

So this uh DISC or disk, uh, you know, how can you use that to find not just how you communicate, but understand others so you can lead others well? I know that's a tool, and I've was in this Sherpa coaching thing. So we're talking about that tool a little bit for people that may have.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

You sent me your disk, and and I'll I'll talk about that a little bit. But but first to kind of give people a background. I like disk. There's a ton of these out there. They're different personality assessments or communications assessments, they're used in different ways. You know, there's something called bank, there's something called Myers Briggs, there's Enneagram, there's Disc, you know, there's Strengths Finder. There, I could go on, right? There's a million of them. And I always think of it like this. All of them, none of them are bad, all of them are good. They're all ways that you know God has made us in unique ways. They're our way of trying to get a little glimpse of how God has made us.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, you know, so it none of them ever show us the complete picture because God's picture is bigger than that, but they should they give us insight into it, they give us a lens by which we can view it. So,

DISC For Clearer Communication

SPEAKER_00 19:11

why do I like disk? I like this because it's simple enough that I can carry it around in my head and I can explain it quickly, and I can apply it quickly. And so it's literally out of expediency that I lean into disk. It clicks in a way that we can use it quick. So, literally, in the next few minutes, I can explain it to people in a way that you can actually go apply it in five minutes.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

All right, that's here.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yes, D I S C. It's what it is, is it came from a gentleman by the name of Marsden who, when everybody was studying abnormal psychology, he said, wait a minute, why don't we study normal psychology? You know, bigger. It's kind of hard to understand abby normal if you don't understand normal, you know.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Jim Frankenstein, I reference it.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah, abby normal, exactly. Abby Normal was the name of the brain.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

That's right, I remember.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

So he he sat down and he says, Okay, so he went and observed. He did stuff that nowadays we look at what he did and go, Oh my lord, you can't do this. Because like he went and observed in elementary schools, and when somebody would get in a fist fight, he didn't intervene, he just watched, and then he'd go up and talk to the kids after the fight and like ask about why it started and stuff. Um, you know, so it nowadays none of that would fly. But back then when he was doing it, it it's about 35 years old now. He he was studying this, and so he came up over time, he came up with these four tendencies, and everyone is a blend of those four at different levels. So it's not your one of these or your two of these, or even your three or your four, you're a blend of all four, always. And he treated it as they're somewhat situational, and then they're somewhat normal. And what I mean is a good disc test will actually give you two assessments. So yours that you sent me on actually has one. I I can give you another one that'll give you two that's a little deeper, a little better. The reason it gives you two is one is called the environmental graph, it's how you show up when people are around, and the other is your natural graph, it's how you show up when nobody's around. Okay. Okay. And and what's interesting is if those are different, you're opposed to natural, it tells me something. Well, it tells me something about stress. It tells me that you're putting yourself in a situation where you feel like you can't be yourself for whatever reason. Okay. I don't know the reason, but I know that there's stress. I know that there's there's tension, there's something pulling on you, and we can dig into that. So, what are the four tendencies? D stands for dominant, think of that as direct, okay? The D's the D personality type, there's about 10% of the population that is a high D. What it means is they're the results oriented folks. These are the folks that it's like lead, follow, or get out. Of the way. Okay. These are the folks that they just want to get it done. You know? And well led and well understood, Ds are very high drivers, high production people. They get a lot done. The problem is they sometimes leave bodies in the wake when they do it because they don't necessarily think about the people side or the effects. They're just get it done. A lot of times people think Ds are yelling at them when Ds are just talking normally. So how do we know kind of these? Well, let me finish the three and then I'll come back to how we know. So the second tendency is the I. These are inspirational folks. These are the folks that are high energy, they're lots of fun, they're very engaging, they love uh communicating and talking and engaging with other people. They're very people-oriented, but high energy people. The eyes, these are the folks that if you're at an event and somebody on stage says, I need a Vala, before they even finish the word volunteer, the eyes are at least in line, probably already on the stage. Okay. You know, they're like, let's go. They're ready to be the center of attention. The next tendency, the S, these are supporters. These are the nicest people on the planet. By the way, I's are about 25% of the population. S is about 35% of the population. So S's and I's make up more than half the people in the planet. They're like 60% of the people in the planet. The supporters are the they're very people-oriented, and their secret isn't fun. It isn't results. Their secret is kind of calmness and the status quo. They like things to be fair. They like things to be justice. They they don't have consensus builders. Consensus builders, you know, they don't like conflict. You know, they they want everyone, you know, they're the ones that are singing kumbayads. Yeah, we all get along, you know. And then you go to the last uh candidacy, which is the C. C stood for cautious, and these are folks that are driven by getting it right. They want things to be, they like checklists, they like systems, they like processes, they're the they're great bug testers, they tend to be very financially financially minded folks, they tend to be, you know, everything is about getting it right. Not fair, but correct. Okay, it it could be unfair and be correct. So they just want it to be correct. So how do we know these? Well, he came up with two kinds of axes, an X and a Y axis, if you think your old geometry days, you know, you drew the X, Y coordinate. And on the Y coordinate, up at the top, he says, some people are outgoing. Now let me be clear: outgoing is not an extrovert. Extroverted and introverted is a different system. Outgoing has to do with your energy. Outgoing people run at high speed. These are the folks that they're go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, 24-7. Right? Their energy is high. On the next, on the bottom of that that y-axis, okay, on the bottom side is reserved. These folks tend to be calmer, they tend to take a little bit more time to make decisions, they just process things a little slower, they communicate a little calmer, their energy is lower. And notice, by the way, as I was talking like a I outgoing, talking like that, reserved folks just talk like this.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Cautious.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

The cautious and supporters are going to be reserved. And the D's and the I's, the direct and the inspirational, are both going to be outgoing. So if you're a DI like you, you're double outgoing. Your energy is like you get up in the morning and you go to bed at night and you have it stopped, okay, all day long, uh, is what I would predict about your behavior. So that's talk about the x-axis. On the left side of the x-axis, so this is going to be the D's and the C's, is going to be task-oriented. These are people that think about getting it done. They think about the task first. If I give them an assignment, they're thinking about what is the assignment. On the other side of that x-axis is people-oriented. People-oriented people, when I give them a task, their first thought is who needs to be involved in this? Not the what needs to be done, but the who part of it. In the case of an S, they're thinking about what's the impact of this on people. And in the case of I's, they're thinking about, you know, kind of who do I want to take along on this ride with me. But they're both people sided. So you'll notice that the D and the I, they're both outgoing, while the C and the S are both reserved. And then the D and the C are both task-oriented, and the I and the S are both people oriented. So you end up with, you know, some people are like you, DI, you're double outgoing, but you can kind of switch between the people side and the task side. You've got some energy in both of those. Okay. I, on the other hand, I'm a DC or C D actually. So I've got the reserved and the outgoing that I can switch between very easily. Okay, but it's work for me to think about the people side. You know, I gotta, I gotta work harder to get over there. And that's really how this lends itself to understanding things like your calling and how you communicate and how you relate to other people. Because once I understand me and I can then begin to recognize other people. So when I talk to somebody who I've picked up on the fact that they're an S, which by the way, if I have to guess, I'm gonna start as if people are people oriented, they're DIs, because that's 60% of the population. I always start with people language. I don't talk about things in terms of what's the task. I talk about things in terms of how does this affect people? Because odds are good the listeners started there. And by the way, I can listen to them and listen to their language. What are they talking about? Are they talking about fairness? Are they talking about fun? Are they talking about results? Are they talking about getting it right? It's I can listen and observe and start to get an inkling of how people are wired, and then I can adapt my interactions to be more like them.

unknown 28:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Even though I'm a C D, my biggest favor, my biggest like compliment is when I'm talking to somebody and they're like, oh, you must be an S. I'm like, no, but you are, you know. So I'm gonna communicate like that. Yeah, go ahead. What were we gonna do?

SPEAKER_04 29:04

Well, so I I I think that was a great way to describe it, and it's used a lot, you know, and and like at Malco, we had you know what was called the versatile salesperson was very similar. You know, we had drivers, amiables, you know, when you're cross-quadrant from those people, those people that you struggle with, you know, because they're so different from you, or there's analyticals and expressives, you know. So uh like I don't like it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah, by the way, disk is open source, but what they can copyright is they'll put their own flavor on top of it, and then they copyright that flavor. So, like what you're talking about is somebody has used disk as the fundamentals, and then they've added their own kind of you know, layer on top of it. That way they can sell it and copyright it.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

So, you know, so let's say to our audience out there, all right, you're you're you're in this job, maybe you're not feeling like it's your calling, or you know, you're you're really just a cart. You're just you know going through your career. I thought that was fascinating. I hadn't heard that before. So, what is this four-part framework you use in your book, Inspired Uh Living, to help people, you know, find their calling? You know, what's the four-part framework? Can you cover that quickly?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Sure, absolutely. So

A Framework For Living Your Calling

SPEAKER_00 30:08

it the idea behind it is invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world. That's the framework.

SPEAKER_04 30:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

So the idea is, first off, if it's a framework, not a process. And that's important because a framework applies no matter where you are. So no matter which of those situations you're talking about, this framework would still apply. Because let's say you're in that job, let's use that as an example. You're doing that job and you hate going to work every day. Okay, the first place to start is you. Not the job.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Most of us start with, oh, I must need a no job. Maybe, maybe not. Why do you hate the job? You know, what is it about you that is not aligning with the job? Because it could be you're the problem.

unknown 30:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

And it also could be the job's the problem. I don't know yet.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

You do have to do the uh introspection, you know, the self-reflection.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Because guess what? If you change jobs, you still went to that new job, you know. So the you is the common factor. You've got to figure out what you need. And this is where we do some work like reflecting. Like I have an exercise that you do where you write down all of the activities you've ever done in your life, and I don't just mean jobs, and then you reflect on what did I love about this and what did I not love about this. And the reason why you can do that is when you start looking at the patterns, what keeps showing up, that gives you an idea of how you're wired and what God has intended for you to do. Because guess what? The stuff that God intends you to do, you get energy from that, you get joy from that, you get peace from that, you get a, you know, you get feedback that tells you, huh, this is an alignment. Doesn't mean you don't still have to do some of the stuff that you don't love, but at least you're aware of what you do so you can work to have more of that show up. That's an example of investing in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

The next step is invest in others. Because here's the cool thing if all you ever do is work on yourself, you never actually get enough feedback. Because God has created a world or a world where feedback comes from relationship. So this is where you actually take what you do, take what you love, take what you found out, take what you've got joy from, and you begin to engage with other people around it. So, for you, an example, doing this podcast. That's an example of taking your calling or your passion and engaging with it in a way that engages with other people. You get feedback, people listen or they don't. Right, right. People engage or they don't. You begin to get, you know, echoes come back to you from people that tell you, Yes, David, this this is what you're meant to do. And you get more energy. And so if if you don't take it out of yourself and go to the second part of the framework, which is invest in others, you never get that feedback loop and that momentum building.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

And what's interesting is if you do those two things, invest in yourself, then invest in others, which will cause you to invest in yourself more, which will cause you to invest in others more, naturally what happens from this is you begin to develop influence. Influence is simply being recognized as somebody that is good at, and I put that good at it, air quotes. They they have meaning behind this. You know, when I want to talk to somebody about wrestling with the inner man and and what what you mean by the Christian method of masculinity, and how does this apply to young men? And I I want to talk to you because you know about this. You know, when you want to talk about disc, you can come to me because I know about disc and how to apply it, whatever it is. So it's not just the content, it's it's literally the fact that that person has an influence around that topic. They know about it, they're engaged with it, they get energy from it, they get joy from it. Because think about it the people you want to learn from are the people that really seem to enjoy what they're teaching.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

That is so true. I mean, I know thought leadership is very popular, like kind of a buzzword thing, too, and everyone wants to just call themselves a thought leader, but truly, you know, happy people are who you want to be around. You don't want to be around complainers all the time. You want to be this guy's like, man, he's he's excited. He's he's putting out a positive energy vibe behind it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

There's a connection that it's a relational process, it's not a transactional process. This isn't about I'll teach you something and you give me something. This is about I sincerely, you know, I think everybody should understand this. Right. You know, I I think everybody should understand the financial stewardship. I think everybody should live their life with stewardship as a lens. I truly believe that.

SPEAKER_04 34:57

You're passionate about it, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:59

I get, you know, it's fun to me to talk about it. I'll talk about it until I'm blue in the face. And people go attracted by that. So that's the influence. And then out of influence comes impact. Because now, all of a sudden, when I begin to talk about disc and people go, well, he's not just talking about it, you know, boring, or or when I talk about finances and I share my own story and talk about going through the suicidal minimum. People look at me and go, you know, that's real, that's authentic, that that has an impact on me. Think about it. Why did I decide to change? Not because Dave Ramsey told me mathematically how to get out of debt, it's because somebody came on his show who had a personal story that I connected with.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

That's what actually caused me to change. When it was in when it was just informational and transactional, I was arguing. Right. Right. When it became relational is when it connected. And so that's the impact that I'm talking about, is that relational impact we have. It's not about scale. So I say impact the world, but the world here doesn't mean 10 million people. The world means when you touch that one person at a deep enough level that their world has changed, you've impacted the world.

SPEAKER_04 36:15

Yeah, that's that's exactly what my whole endeavor is at this point, you know, in my career. I'm in this sage stage of life where I said, I want I want to give it away for free, but I want to help people because there's a lot of people that need help. And, you know, if I can offer them anything that will be beneficial to them, uh, you know, that would just be so uh joy-filled, you know, for me. I mean, and I and I think I I can sense you know you feel the same way. So those are the that's the four-part framework. Is that different? Or, you know, you talk about this iterative process you teach to help others master their time, hone their talents, and align their treasures. Is is the iterative process the four-part framework, or is it something different?

SPEAKER_00 36:53

It's actually

Plan Execute Then Review And Revise

SPEAKER_00 36:54

something different. It lives within the framework. So going back to invest in yourself and or any of the others, I literally could start with any of them, but invest with yourself because most of us skip that step, is the idea of when you're doing something, you you sit down and you make a plan. Most people are good at that. They they decide they're gonna do something. You know, they they at least kind of roughly put together a plan. Well, then what do you do? You execute the plan. Again, most people are somewhat good at that. You know, they at least put the plan into practice. Again, some of us stall out there, but let's assume that we plan and we execute. Okay, here's the iterative part of it, and this is where most of us fall off. You then need to review, reflect, and revise. What I mean by that is when you have done something, whether that's I went to work, you know, whether that's I planned my day and sat down and put a schedule and you know it all fell apart, whether it's I planned my kid's birthday party. I don't care what it is.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

I read work with passion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

You read work with passion. But spend the time to actually review, reflect, and revise that plan and then repeat. So it's plan, execute, review, reflect, revise, repeat. And if you do that on anything over and over and over and over, guess what? You get a little bit better each time you do it. But if you get a little bit better every time you do it, eventually you're an expert. That's just how it works. Because instead, what most of us want to do is we plan something, we execute something, it didn't work right. So then we go come up with a different plan, but we've never actually sat down and did the work of going, what worked, what didn't work, why did it work, why didn't it work? What do I need to do different? You know, and that's that review, reflect, revise piece. And so again, I use it whether we're talking about time management, whether we're talking about financial management. You take that approach, and the other thing about it is it lets you realize you're not gonna get it all right the first time.

SPEAKER_04 39:01

Of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

That's okay, you know, because what happens? People sit down and do a budget, the budget doesn't work, right? And so they quit doing a budget.

SPEAKER_04 39:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Guess what? The budget's never gonna work.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

You said a key word there, and so you know, as we begin to kind of wrap, I want you to think about so our audience is out there, you know, a lot of people do New Year's resolutions, and and like there's a high number that fail. You know, they don't make it to the end.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Most of them on February 14th.

SPEAKER_04 39:28

Right. And you know, it's like quitters, right? You know, so no one wants to think of themselves as a quitter, but a lot of us have quit on things that we began. And so if I'm sitting out there and I'm in the audience and I'm going, man, you know, I've got this crushing bondage of debt, and I've tried these things and I've and I've quit on it before. You know, you get to where you're beating yourself up, but what would you say to that person who's who thinks of himself as a quitter, you know, to get him to a different place?

SPEAKER_00 39:56

The first

Find The Why That Fuels Change

SPEAKER_00 39:57

thing you need to find is figure out the why behind the what. So most resolutions fail, most goals fail because we sit down and we create a goal, which is good, or we make a resolution, which is fine. I actually prefer goals over resolution because goals have a little bit more meat, but but regardless, whatever you've done, and then we don't ever say, but why do I want to do that? Because guess what? The why is the fuel. The what, the goal is the map. So it's just like getting in your car and driving across country. If you get the map, but you never put gas in the car, you're not gonna get where you're going. You know, you're gonna end up called out. And so that why piece, finding the why is the most important thing. And by the way, why is not I want to get out of debt. That's not the why. That's still a what. That's a goal. I know it's a goal because it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I want to get out of debt, I'm getting out of debt, I've gotten out of debt. That's what makes it a goal. A why is deeper than that. It's kind of like our calling that we were talking about earlier. Right. The why is the passion behind it. Why did I want to get out of debt? Because I wanted to be in a situation where I never felt like I was worth more dead than alive.

SPEAKER_04 41:19

Yeah, that's a big word. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Okay. I wanted to be in a place where I could give to my wife and my son and support them and be a good provider and really be a good provider. You know, I wanted to be in a place where I had freedom and flexibility to make decisions and not have to worry about the money side of it. You know, I I could think about it from the point of view of is this the right decision? Not can we afford it? That's what I wanted. That's the why. That's the fuel, and that's what people have to find.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

That's so true because I think some of the happiest people I've ever met have been in some of the lower paying jobs, but they're just they're just so happy doing it. Like I go uh whitewater rafting, you know, and these rafting guides, you know, they're not making a lot of money, but man, they just love what they do. And then they, you know, when the uh summer's over, then they go work in a ski resort, you know, and they you know, but it they love it. They just love it. And and in that book by Nancy Andrew, you know, she said, look, there was a guy whose dad was an attorney and he wanted his son to be the attorney same law school, and he was just miserable. And they asked him, What do you like? He goes, I like to go whitewater rafting. Well, he ended up founding ORS, which is a huge, successful whitewater rafting company that you can actually make money at too, if you're really good at it and you're working with that passion. So there's a a positive story to uh to take at the

Resources Coaching And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_04 42:43

end. So we're we're running a little short on time, Scott. So why don't you tell us uh where where can people find uh your book and learn more about you? Mention your your website and your book.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Sure, absolutely. So I actually put together a landing page just for your listeners that makes it really easy. So if you go over to my website, which is inspiredstewardship.com, and then just put in forward slash inner man, all one word, don't put a space between it, just forward slash inner man. What you'll find there is there's some free resources. So for instance, we talked a little bit about that calling activity that I mentioned, I've got that, some things about disc, um, some things about time management, all of that's over there. You can download those free resources. There's a link to purchasing my book. You can find my podcast there. And then there's also a place where if you want to jump on a 30-minute call and talk about coaching and finances, you know, if you're feeling that suicidal feeling around money uh that I'm talking about as a man and need to reach out to somebody, no obligation, no pressure, it's just a place to have a conversation. And you can find all of that over at inspired stewardship.com forward slash inner man.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

Okay. So I can put that link in my show notes then too. Absolutely. Okay, excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I'd like to go ahead and close us in prayer if that's all right with you.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you for Scott for his energy, for his wisdom and his coaching. You know, he's been a teacher his whole life, and there's a lot that was packed into this uh this episode. And we just ask that for those out there who might be struggling with financial bondage, and look, as a nation we are. I'm not sure we can escape our $39 trillion debt as a nation. So help us to begin one person at a time with that why, finding out that why and helping us find our true purpose so that we can be reflecting your glory, helping others, loving others, and just uh living the way that you intended us to live. And we just thank you for Scott Bless him, bless his ministry, and bless all those who hear this and let it uh glorify you. Christ name. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Thanks for listening to Wrestling with the Interman with David Savage. We believe the winners in this ring courageously follow God's work, loves and protects God's women, excels at God's work, and betters God's world with his children. For information, reach out to David at David at the Savagepath.com. That's David at the Savagepath.com or visit his website, thesavagepath.com. Tune in next time as Wrestling with the Interman tackles more tough topics to train up a generation of better men.