What If You’ve Been Learning Wrong Place Your Whole Life

We trained for almost everything that matters in life — reading, writing, careers, cooking, even driving. 

So why do we insist on winging the things that matter most? 

Relationships. Character. How we love, parent, and grow into the people we were designed to be. In this episode, Tim Owen shares how memorizing 13 VHS sales tapes under threat of being fired turned him into a Fortune 500 Corporate Trainer — and what that desperate moment taught him about the only training program that actually changes a life from the inside out. 

Whether you’re a skeptic, someone who feels too far gone, or a long-time believer running on autopilot — this one’s for you.

Check out our YouTube Channel “You Finishing Well” and our website: www.youfinishingwell.com

All you have to do is go to our website and sign up for updates - all free.

Stay strong, pure, and like Christ - Thanks for taking the journey with me!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, and welcome back to You Finishing Well. This is Tim Owen. You know, on every podcast, I try to share some truth that actually comes from the Bible. And as you know, I read the Bible cover to cover every year. So today I want to talk about what if you've been learning wrong for your entire life? Let's talk about it. So let's start with a simple question. How do you typically learn things? You know, if you really think about that, some of us have mentors, some have therapists, some by watching people, some have counselors, some read a lot, and some learn by making mistakes, which is life's experiences. But here's what I have learned over decades of working with people. Most of us do learn, this is kind of sad to say, the same way. So what way is that? Honestly, most of us learn the hard way, the long way, and the expensive way. And by the time we figure it all out, all these years have gone. So here's something I want you to sit with for a moment. And I really mean sit with it just for a second. Think about everything you've learned to do in your life. I mean, reading, writing, arithmetic. I mean, you just didn't learn those things by osmosis. Somebody actually sat down and taught you. There was a method, a curriculum, a teacher. Or maybe how to cook. Did someone show you? Or did you follow a recipe? Maybe you took a class. How did you learn how to make up a bed really nice? By the way, all you guys, very few men can make a bed up nicely. But someone, my mom taught me by the way, someone had to demonstrate it. What about fixing a car? Maybe you've read a manual, or maybe you've hung over a fender and kind of watched somebody do it. But the point is, most of you have gone through some form of training or onboarding, even in careers, training modules, certifications. We didn't just show up one day and just say we're gonna wing it. But a lot of us, listen, a lot of us live life that way. And we accept without question that almost every skill worth having does require intentional training. Almost every single skill that you are capable of doing. Because when it comes to more heavier things like relationships or lifestyles, the reason I'm mentioning this is most of us kind of wing that. We don't really give it our best. We actually don't read books, we don't get counseling, we don't go to therapy. For some reason, we wait till it just explodes in our face like a hang grenade in a foxhole, and then we go, you know what, maybe I need to consider learning more about this. And I tell you, I don't understand why marriage, parenting, emotional health, our character, the interior life, the inside of us, why do we not learn that the same way we learn other things? I don't think we would have ever had anyone hand us the keys to a professional kitchen and just say, figure it out. But that's pretty much how we approach the heavier things of life. And it's really, if you stop and think about it, one of the strangest contradictions of human nature. And I think that it really cost us far more than we actually calculate. So I want to share kind of a personal story with you. When I was 21 years old, I was selling copy machines. Now that's cold calling, the strongest survive, and I was failing miserably, by the way. So they handed me 13, if you remember these, VHS training tapes on how to sell. So I want to be clear, I did not sit down with those tapes because I was some 21-year-old ambitious young man, and I did not pop those things in the machine thinking I had some burning vision of my future sales. That company, Lanier Business Products back in those days, they were going to fire me because I was a horrible, horrible salesman. In that particular situation, learn this material or clean your desk out. That was a wake-up call for me. So I watched every single tape, I memorized all of the content, put it to work, and turned out that I was a top-top salesman with the company. And what's really interesting is I actually became a corporate sales trainer for that company because I actually walked through every step of the sale and how to sell through through those 13 videotapes. And not because I was some kind of smart person, because I was not. I mean, I barely got out of high school, I lived in Albany, Georgia. I mean, it's you've heard those stories about me possibly. And not because I had some kind of natural gift, I was scared to death of selling, believe it or not. And here I am doing podcasts now. But as I look back on that now and I think, what if I had done that in area, every area of my life? What if I had just tried, let fear rule me, and waited till it was too late and I was almost about to be terminated or I terminated in life? What if I attacked relationships, emotional health, spiritual formation with that same type of mental attitude? Well, I'll just wait till I have to. You know, you've heard me say this before, but there's only two reasons we don't do something. And one is because we're not aware of the problem, but the issue is most people don't fit that category. The other reason we do not change is because we're aware of the problem, but we're not sufficiently disturbed yet. And you know, I can still remember that disturbance of not being able to purchase groceries. My wife at the time was looking at me like, you know, when are you gonna make this happen? And honestly, I had to wait till I was sufficiently disturbed to finally start learning a more wiser way. You know, there's an old saying, as you look back and you think about your own childhood and how you've learned things and me as well, you've heard the saying, more is caught than taught. And I believe it's true. I think kids absorb what they see far more than what they're told. And the life you model, it is the curriculum that they are actually enrolled in. They're watching you. And now I've kind of noticed a new trend of young parents, they kind of move toward negotiating with toddlers. They want to talk about their feelings and their processing emotions. And I am not against all of that. I think feelings are very important, and emotional world of a child does matter a lot. But here's the thing, and I say this with great respect and love for children, but children are childish, and that's really not an insult, that's a developmental accuracy. And a child's feelings, as real as they are, may not be connected to reality or even truth. And you can, you can honor a child's heart without putting that child in charge of the classroom. I don't know if you've ever heard of Dr. Kurt Thompson, he's a Christian psychiatrist. He wrote a book called The Soul of Shame. And he writes about how our earliest relational experiences literally shape the neural pathways of our brain. We are formed in a relationship. And the question for these small children is what kind of relationship and with whom and what and toward what end? I think it's a profound question, and it doesn't stop applying when we turn 18. I think what it applies even while we are adults. We are being formed and transformed into something every day. The question is, what? So, what is the best way for an adult to learn? Because you are now an adult child. We're still learning, we all are. Well, John 18, 38, when Pilate was being looked at, uh Pilate was looking at Jesus, and he was getting frustrated with them because he wanted to know what in the world was going on, and he asked Jesus, well, what is the truth? And the tragedy of that moment, if you've ever gone back and read it, he just walked away. He turned his back and he walked away. And that's a picture of so many people today. We ask the question, we're standing like Pilate was right in front of the answer, but we just walk away. We live in an age of infinite, I mean it's infinite information, but there is no wisdom. Everybody, you included, listening to this, you believe in something. You do. And you have a platform. You do. What you speak, what you say, what you do, that is your platform. Because many of us have learned, but the problem is many of us have learned from the wrong sources. And many of us, I hate to say, are learning from experience, which I think is the worst, the most painful, and the slowest way to learn. We learn from the culture, and that the problem with the culture is it shifts about every five years. We learn from social media, which is mostly curated stuff, and now with AI, you don't even know what's real. You don't even know if my voice right now is real. And we learn, and here's the sad part, we learn from our wounds, which tend to kind of distort the reality, and it and it just doesn't clarify, especially if we're learning from pain, past, and our wounds. You know, my sister Kay used to say something all the time, which I thought was just profound. I don't know if she stole it or not, but I'm gonna steal it now. You know, they say I heard a guy say one time, notice I'm not telling you who the guy is. He said, first time I'll give someone credit, the second time I can't remember their name, the third time I own it. Well, I will still give this to my sister Kay. She said, Life is like a cruise ship. About the time you figure the ship out, the cruise is over. And it's so true, right? I have sat with people and still sitting with them today in their 60s and 70s, and they are still searching. They're still still trying to figure out the right way to live. They're still untangling the same relational patterns that they've had for the last 25 years. And I just feel so sad for those people because no one ever told them that there is a shorter path. And there is. So I want you to think about this. These older people are not people who didn't dream of starting new and starting fresh. Uh, they're not, they're people that actually studied for their driver's license. They followed recipes, they learned how to read, write, and do arithmetic, but they just never got trained for the things that matter most. I've seen these people struggle with relationship, and the problem with that is you don't have enough life to keep how many relationships can you go through? How many times can you fail? Before you know it, a year has turned into a decade, and a decade turn into multiple decades or even a life. You know, Proverbs 14, 12 says, there is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end, it leads to death. That is not where you and I want to go. It's that's just disappointment. That's death, that's just full collapse. So, pain, as true as it is, it is uh an effective teacher, but it's inefficient. And it cost you years in relationships, joy, missed opportunities. You it is the worst way to learn. Well, I'll just try it, and if it doesn't work, I'll try something else. No, there is a better way. I don't know if you've ever hired a contractor and they might say something like, you know, uh, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'll just figure it out as I go. You would probably fire them or not hire them. Or you wouldn't go to a doctor and they said, you know, I skipped most of med school, but I'll I'll just learn from my mistakes. Well, that's what you and I are doing if we do not improve how we learn and where we learn. We typically demand competence. We do. We demand training, we demand proven methods in every area of life, except I think, some of the ones that deeply shape us, which are really lifestyle and relationships. You know, I did not watch those 13 VHS tapes because I wanted to. I mean, that is the truth. I watched them because the alternative was losing everything I had worked for so far, and I really wanted to make it. So here's the uncomfortable question I want to ask you. What is it going to take for you, listen, to get serious about learning the right way to life? I mean, for some people, it takes a diagnosis or a divorce or a prodigal child or a moment where you're where the bottom falls out and you're finally sufficiently disturbed enough to submit to a method that isn't your own. But it doesn't, it doesn't have to come that way. You know, Romans 12 2 says, do not change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you. You will know what is good and pleasing to Him and what is perfect. Then things begin to make sense. Then you begin to absorb wisdom. It then you get a new way of thinking, not just better decisions, but a completely renovated mind. And you cannot renovate your mind with the same tools that built the problems in your life in the first place. You can't therapize, if that's a word, your way to growing and maturing. You can't podcast your way to transformation, even though I'm doing a podcast. You can't read enough self-help books, even though in and of themselves they're very good. I mean, good counsel does matter. Mentoring does matter. Great books, community, all of it has a place. But the question is always, what are you anchored to? What is that information that you're reading anchored to? The people that are giving you advice, what are they anchored to? Because here's the truth. If it's not anchored, I know this is gonna get a little religious, but if it's not anchored to the Creator, to God Almighty, the one who actually designed you, who knows you, who has designed the operating system of your soul, then, in my opinion, you're just rearranging furniture in an old house that frankly needs a new foundation. You are. So here's what I've never seen in 30 years of ministry or talking or working with people. I have never seen, this is important, not once, not even one time, a person say, I tried it God's way, and it did not work. I've never seen that, not once. I've seen people say that it got harder before it got easier, to be honest. I've seen people say that circumstances didn't change, but they did, they changed. But I have never seen God's way fail the person who genuinely, deeply committed to it. Isaiah 55, 11 says, My word, speaking of God's word, will not come back to me empty. It will do what I want it to do, and it will succeed in doing what I sent it to do. It's true, I've never seen it fail. So it's just not kind of a motivational thing. It is a true transformation of the heart, of the new way of thinking from the inside out. It's not behavioral change, it's not another book, another therapist, and another counselor, another new habit, another new life. It's none of that. It's God's word. That is the true training manual. Psalm 119.05 says, Your word is like a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. It's not a floodlight, it's just a lamp. It's enough light for the next step. You know, God, I don't know why, but he doesn't download the entire blueprint of your life. He just doesn't. He lights the path that you walk, and the path is leading somewhere that's worth going. It just really is. But you have to follow it step by step by step. You know, there is a religious word for this, and it's called sanctification. So let me translate it for you. Sanctification is simply this: it is God making you more of who you were supposed to be. It is a training program, and it's one that you've never been handed if you're not following God's word. Except it doesn't come with some kind of a binder. It actually becomes a relationship as you speak to him, pray to him, complain to him, ask him for help. It you build this relationship. It's not just a prayer without sitting still and quiet and not listening. You have to sit still, you have to be quiet and you have to listen. You know, those 13 VHS tapes, they did work because they were built on proven principles. They were tested, they were refined, they were delivered by people who knew what they were talking about. By the way, his name was Lee Du Bois, he's not alive anymore. And the Bible is 66 books, it's been written across 1,500 years by dozens of authors, and it never in one place contradicts itself over those thousands of years, not on one thing. Every principle in it has been tested and by me, not all the principles, but my life. I'm trying my best to live by biblical principles, and not once have they failed me or I have seen them fail in somebody else's life. So it's not just kind of a religious sales pitch. This is a true, proven track record that the things that God teaches and the relationship, it's just not a self-help book. It's a relationship. It just doesn't fail. And when you follow God's way, I think you raise your kids differently. You show up in your marriage differently, your worship becomes real. It's not a performance then. Your prayer life stops being kind of a formality and it starts becoming a conversation. And the growth, it doesn't just start some someday down the road. It actually starts now. When you begin to make that commitment that you know what, Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I want to commit and I commit sins, and I want to commit my life to him to save my soul. That's why he lived, and I want him to be the Lord, because something's gonna lord over you, of my life, and learn to follow love and get involved in the things that he actually would get involved in. 2 Corinthians 5 17 said, If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone, and everything is new. New. I mean, everything from the inside out is new. So I want to talk to three kinds of people today. If you're a skeptic of all of this, I'm not asking you to abandon your intellect. I'm not. I mean, you've already been trained in many, many things, and you know the right teacher can make all the difference. But as I watch those 13 tapes, because I was desperate to admit that I didn't have the answers on my own, I was sufficiently disturbed. And that's all that God is asking of you. Just a level of honesty and a willingness to say, you know what? Maybe, maybe, there's a better method than the one I've been using. So I mean, just look at the fruit of the people that have genuinely, I'm one of them, that has submitted their lives to Christ. We're not hypocrites. Now we are people that still make mistakes, but we carry a peace. We carry a rest. There's a weight to us, there's a fruit that you've never had before. And it's quite amazing. I mean, don't you want to try your the old way's not working? How's it working for you? So the second person, you might feel like you're just too far gone. And the weight of your past and your history, you just think the door would never open for you. And these are the exact people that Jesus Christ had in mind. His track record is with broken people. They are the people that think they can't do it. And that's where you they're the people that are sufficiently disturbed. And that's the people that he came for. And the third person is you could be kind of a believer. You trust in Christ, you've given your life to Christ, but for some reason you become numb or bored or uncomfortable, and you just feel like you're kind of running out of spiritual gas. So let me ask you a question. When was the last time that God actually changed some listen, something in you? Not some new habit, spiritual, go to church, listen to music. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about something. When was the last time God changed something in you? Not around you, but in you. Because growing and maturing and learning, I hope I do it until the day I die. There is no retirement age for learning and becoming a new person. You know, at the end of the day, in closing, my sister, she really was right. But here's the deal. Yes, you finally know the ship at the end of the cruise, but the cruise, man, it it goes fast. It goes faster than you think. If you're learning through experience, you're gonna run out of life before you learn it all. You just are. You trained for your career, you trained for your driver's license, you followed the recipe, you took the class. You like me memorize the VHC tapes and you have it all done. So there you do believe that there is a way to learn. And sometimes the best thing that can happen to all of us is we finally get sufficiently disturbed and worn out and just tired, and we want a better way. And that possibility can start right now. It can. You can draw a line and write the word start and give it your best to call Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, follow God's way, follow Jesus Christ's way, and watch your life grow and change from the inside out. You can. And when you go back to the old way, and you will, you'll screw up somewhere along the way. If you've listened to any of my podcasts, you've heard me say this, and it's worth saying again, just draw another line. Write the word start and try to finish well. And way down the road, you're gonna look back and see all those lines. And you won't be, you will not be where you want to be, but you certainly won't be where you were. So um when John 14, 6, Jesus Himself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. That's what you're looking for. You're looking for the truth, you're looking for life. And I would not wait until you're sufficiently disturbed enough. Because why? When you could be more proactive rather than reactive, it's just the smarter way. So, as always, let me pray for us as we uh are wrapping up. I hope this has meant something to you. I hope you will not just turn it off and go, that's a good thing. I want you to do something. You gotta do something. You have to say, I'm a sinner, I want my sins forgiven, and when I die, I want to go to a beautiful place. I want to go to heaven, I want to live in a new earth and in a new heaven with a new body where there is no pain, no tears. I mean, don't you want that? And not only are you is your soul saved, but even today, your life can be fulfilled simply by living the way that Christ prescribes for us. I am not declaring that you'll never have any problems. I'm not declaring that the circumstances might even change, but I will make you a promise, you will change. So, Heavenly Father, somebody's listening now, hopefully, that's tired. They're tired of learning the hard way, they're tired of climbing the same mountains, they're tired of almost getting it right, but then they watch it fall apart again. It's like building a wall and it keeps falling. And then some of them, if they're honest, they're probably even a little embarrassed about it all. Because these are smart people, Lord. They're people that you gave a good brain to and a good capability. They have figured out careers and kitchens and car engines and all the stuff, but the stuff that matters most, the relationships, the interior life, the person that they are when nobody's watching, that part to them, and we confess it, feels unfinished. So just meet them right where they are. Because sometimes, God, the most spiritual thing a person can do is simply admit that they don't have the answers. And they need a teacher, a method that they've a new method, because the old method just stopped working. So help them believe it, please. And most importantly, find a friend that's confidential that can help them and let them know I want to change, and I want to change today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, my good people, do something with this. Do something. Don't listen, don't turn it off. Do something. Just don't say this is a pretty good idea, pretty good. Do something. Okay? You guys have a beautiful day. Thanks for being with me, and I'll talk to you later.