The Wealth Blueprint
Welcome to The Wealth Blueprint, where ideas spark, strategies unfold, and knowledge transforms. Dive into a world of entrepreneurship, real estate investing, financial markets, retirement planning, and the exploration of the human condition. This podcast is your creative and intellectual haven for understanding the intricacies of building wealth, fostering personal growth, and achieving financial independence.
Each episode invites you to join thought-provoking conversations with industry experts, visionary entrepreneurs, seasoned investors, and insightful individuals. We unpack the stories behind their success, uncover actionable strategies, and explore the profound lessons learned along the way. Whether you're scribbling down notes for your next big venture or pondering the deeper aspects of human existence, this podcast is designed to inspire, educate, and empower.
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The Wealth Blueprint
Called to Build: Faith, Real Estate, and Legacy with Stace Jones
God. Wife. Children. Family. Team. For Stace Jones, these aren’t just values, they’re the blueprint for a meaningful life.
As Owner and CEO of Christian Pre-School Centers, Inc., Stace leads with grit, grace, and a deep love for his people. His journey began with a legacy of obedience, when his mother unexpectedly inherited a preschool after the owner felt called in a different direction. She didn’t have a business plan, just a heart to serve and a vision to nurture children in a Christ-centered environment.
That simple “yes” became the foundation for what is now a multi-campus legacy of faith, education, and excellence.
Stace stepped in years later, not just to continue that legacy, but to grow it with excellence, intentionality, and vision. His heart for children extends far beyond the walls of his own schools. He serves on the board of the Texas Licensed Child Care Association (TLCCA), where he was honored with the Ruth Blessing Award for servant leadership. He’s walked the halls of the Capitol, advocating for policies that support educators, children, and the long-term health of early childhood education in Texas.
In every role, husband, father, CEO, investor, advocate, Stace is guided by faith and fueled by purpose. And in 2018, when faced with a personal challenge that required brain surgery due to Arnold Chiari malformation, that foundation held strong. Surrounded by his wife Krista, their children, and a deeply supportive community, Stace came through with even greater clarity, gratitude, and drive.
Stace is known for his resilience, his deep compassion, and his strategic mind. He’s not just a leader who works hard, he’s one who builds wisely. Every decision he makes is rooted in his faith, backed by diligence, and shaped by long-term thinking. He knows that legacy doesn’t happen by accident, it’s built, one intentional step at a time.
That same mindset carries into real estate. As President of Jones Brothers Properties, a company he co-founded with his brother, what started as a single rental snowballed into a diverse portfolio of residential and commercial properties across Texas. Stace approaches every project with a clear plan, a sharp eye for opportunity, and the patience to build well.
On this episode of The Wealth Blueprint, Stace shares how smart, strategic stewardship, guided by faith and built on love, can transform lives, businesses, and communities. From classrooms to closings, his story is one of purpose, perseverance, and building a legacy that lasts.
Welcome to another episode of the Wealth Blueprint. Today my guest is Stace Jones. Stace is a community leader, entrepreneur and investor and a man of deep faith, so we delve into a lot of strategy in real estate leadership and also how to be kingdom-minded at work and be a disciple for the Lord through our faith out in the community. Hope you enjoy today's episode. This is Stace Jones.
Addison Thom:I'm lending money to investors and like DR Horton, lenar Toll Brothers and they buy like big tracts of land, mainly on the West Coast, so like in Nevada, las Vegas. Nevada is where I grew up. They had these things called BLM auctions, so Bureau of Land Management, so the federal government actually owned like tons of acreage and then once a year they'd auction it off like sections of it. So you're talking about like 300, 400-acre pieces of land. Dr Horton would buy 300 acres for like these huge master plan communities and we'd lend them money. So I was always on the finance side and then started my own development company and then me and Preston teamed up he's my business partner and started Sidera Wealth. Okay, so we buy land or we buy lots, sidera Wealth Okay, so we buy land or we buy lots and then we build single family or duplexes on them and lease them up and then sell them off to investors or keep them.
Stace Jones:What's your cap rate right now that you're planning to sell it to Cap?
Addison Thom:rates are I mean unleveraged like 6% to 8%, is what we sell them for. That's what you're getting right now.
Stace Jones:It's pretty good, yeah. Yeah, like eight is kind of standard right now. Yeah, so you're getting six, eight. You're making a killing compared to most people.
Addison Thom:Yeah, some of them. I mean then, like you started a project in Abil and you were closer like nine, ten percent cap rates there. There's absolutely no like rental opportunity, yeah, yeah. So I think they built like five multi-family communities. They were like in the wiley school district a few years ago for the last like five years, yeah, but nobody has built like single family or duplex out there for like old central.
Stace Jones:Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I don't want you outside their loop, it's all you know. It's wiley district and area, but there's, it's all new crazy once you get outside their loop, it's all you know. It's widely district and area, but there's, it's all new development.
Addison Thom:So so we got lucky. That's cool being able to get some acreage out there probably four years ago and, like that whole the whole city of avalanche basically in like a flood zone. So finding, finding land that you can like maximize your usable acreage is really tough because you're like cutting off 30 40 percent of the land for flood, okay, which is also why they're not building a lot there's a, so we've got a piece of land on like buffalo gap yeah um, two acres, they just it.
Stace Jones:When we bought it a year, year and a half ago, it wasn't zoned, they just zoned it commercial. But the guy that bought right next to us did a whole big development like he. You know, he's using the frontage for commercial and then using the whole back and he's doing the development of kind of like what you're talking about yeah you know who it is? Kyle, this is me. Oh, I haven't actually seen him in person, but we just talked on the phone before, so what are you doing with that?
Stace Jones:land. We're selling it. You are, yeah, so there's an HEB that's going right down the street so we were going to keep it, but we bought it for less than $300 when we bought it a year and a half ago and it's worth almost a million now, dang. So we're like, okay, let's see if we can sell it. Now it's slow, it's still happening in Texas, it's not moving yet, but the next year or two, if everything around it develops, then yeah, we're kind of not needing to sell it, so we're just kind of hanging on to it. Good for you, yeah.
Addison Thom:Did you do anything to it or you just plottedatted it we? Haven't done nothing, just bought it. That's the way to do it.
Stace Jones:Yeah, I mean it wasn't on purpose. We didn't intentionally say we're going to buy this, I mean yes and no, we were going to build something on it, and then when it kind of escalated that way, it's like I think this would just be a better investment.
Addison Thom:Right man. I mean, I've been with the guys out there and after they leave it's 400, three to four hundred permanent jobs and they're expected that each one of those 300 jobs creates six indirect jobs that's great not a while, yeah, in the city like a boy, but you think like being in between, like what are we close to and love it we love it, right?
Stace Jones:you know what are close to my? We're close to love it you know, I guess technically Amarillo if you drive an hour and a half. Abilene is kind of like that middle way. I'm surprised that it hasn't exploded more than Amarillo or even Love it. It's so close to DFW and everything that's going on. I can be there and network and be close to Austin or know, without the same cost, but it hasn't like. Uh, I think it's like boat sales is the biggest industry in Abilene right now. Boat sales.
Stace Jones:Yeah, like Tige T-I-G-E boats there's like that's the biggest, where's like closest lake. No, I mean like their, their, their factories there.
Addison Thom:Oh yeah, Like where they put it, where they put it together, oh gotcha yeah like where they put it together, oh, gotcha, oh he's buying books from Abilene.
Stace Jones:Yeah, no, they're building them there because you know it's cheaper and stuff.
Addison Thom:I think that that Stargate project that Trump announced, you know where they're giving these big grants for these data centers.
Stace Jones:So that's how.
Addison Thom:Abilene got that first one. I think that their next one's going to be in amarillo and they have location, like eight to twelve other locations throughout texas that they're going to be building those. So after the industrial revolution, like in the early 1900s, all of these you know, the rust belt and all of these like small tertiary cities outside of big cities, were the ones that blew up right and then they built infrastructure to them like roads and freeways systems and all that stuff. We already have the roads and freeway systems, but that's why I think you're gonna see lubbock, amarillo, abilene, um, denison, sherman, like all of these, like smaller tertiary cities that are close to larger metropolitan areas, are just gonna go bananas.
Stace Jones:So what do you kind of predict? I mean, you're into land development, so what do you kind of predict Lubbock and Amarillo to do over the next 10 years? And let me say this I've heard this too right, like I've heard, once a population hits a certain growth, right, like then it brings in more industry or bigger jobs or things like the AI stuff, and so it brings in all this job opportunities, and so it's like at half a million it blows up to a million or whatever. But I've also heard like, watch out for Amarillo, because of the thoroughfares and the trafficking patterns and all that. It's like Amarillo could be the next kind of yeah and surpassed Lubbock even so and then some people are like well, that's crazy.
Stace Jones:Well, you know.
Addison Thom:I don't think it's crazy at all, but I also don't think it's mutually exclusive. That would have to be one versus another, but I think it's gonna be all of them. I think that texas in general is like on a freaking starship right now. Yeah, um, you're getting all the migration from you know huge tech centers like california, seattle, upstate new york. Everyone's relocating to texas or florida for the most part, and has been since covid right. Texas is the most business friendly, texas has the most available land, texas has the most usable acreage and it's the cheapest in comparison. So, like if you're looking at building like industrial manufacturing data storage centers, you can afford the dirt and we have a ton of colleges here so you can recruit local talent and keep people right. I mean texas tech is a huge advantage that lubbock has. You've got 45 000 students right and if you can bring in the industry to keep you know those here versus yeah yeah, and so I I don't think it's mutually exclusive.
Addison Thom:Uh, I do think that one of the problems that amarillo has and is going to continue to have is they have like a it's like that old school mentality that Lubbock used to have, where the same five or six families owned all of the land.
Stace Jones:Okay so you're seeing the same thing. It's starting to change. Yeah. Yeah, but it's very much like you said five, six, ten people that are essentially running this town. They get to decide do we sell this piece of property? Doing that because they own everything, yeah, around, so they kind of box it in if they want to.
Addison Thom:Yeah so I think until that like breaks open for competition, it's going to be tough, yeah, and it's just, you know, if you're not creating competition for pricing or like one thing lubbock's done a great job of with the economic development chambers here is go out and try to attract new businesses to Lubbock and they're investing in that huge freeway system, the loop that they're putting in.
Stace Jones:Yeah, before we need it, right Before you need it.
Addison Thom:Yeah, and it's like an eight-year runway. So when it's done, that gives a lot of outside businesses, a lot more confidence to invest in a municipality. It's like I want to see the local government use its tax dollars to spend it on being pro-business and try to attract our money here. So I think that's a really good setup in general. So I'm obviously putting my money where my mouth is, but I'm very bullish on Lubbock, big on Abilene, dallas, fort Worth surrounding markets.
Stace Jones:Abilene's got to take off. It's got to, Especially with what you were just talking about. I don't know how it's stayed in the pocket that it's at. At some point it feels like it's going to explode.
Addison Thom:Yeah, and if you're talking about manufacturing and logistics companies, anyway, you want to be close to freeway systems and you want to have cheap land, so that's what they have both of those.
Stace Jones:What about Midland-Odessa?
Addison Thom:I love Midland-Odessa and I hate it at the same time. Like right now, it's really good. We're building we'll do like probably a hundred single family homes down there this year and we're raising rent like every couple of months because there's no available property there.
Stace Jones:How long have you?
Addison Thom:been in Lillith Five years.
Addison Thom:So the oil has still been okay so we, we jumped in when oil was like super low, you know during covid, when it was like I don't know 40 a barrel, and then now that it, like you know, it's spiked up to what 90 a barrel and everyone's making investments and all that stuff down in the permian basin area, so we benefited from that. That's the problem with Midland Odessa it's so tied to oil and gas they haven't diversified their economy enough outside of that. I think they're working on it, I think it's going to get there. I think that the faster they do that the better. So I'm cautiously optimistic about it. I'm staying around, you know, 50 to 100 doors.
Stace Jones:they've always scared me, yeah, you know, because it's like feast or famine you know, when it's feast, I mean you kill it, you don't do fantastic, and then it just like it drops in maybe of dollars a barrel to 50 and everybody just kind of freaks out and fanics and all yeah, whole thing falls apart a little bit.
Addison Thom:It feels that way, you know yeah, and the municipalities down there don't like really see eye to eye between midland and odessa, and so there's not like enough coordination between you know, running sewer and water to certain parts of the city, or permitting or all that kind of stuff, so, right, stuck in territorial battles. Yeah, exactly, they just need to get it together. They need to get out of their own way. It's what they need to do.
Stace Jones:Well, they got so much like opportunity and potential, like you know. You know check it out as as a, as a spot to be, but then it's like you start running into that. It's like even you. You're like I'm optimistic but I don't want to. I'd rather go to abilene or amroillo or Lubbock than you know. It's kind of eh, unless I'm an oil and gas. Yeah.
Addison Thom:I mean, for as much as you know, like Abilene, there's a lot of like inside baseball there too, of like local politics and landowners not wanting to sell to people from outside of Abilene or whatever. Yeah, the city of Abilene is awesome, like the conversations I've had with them and the engineering companies down there. They're very pro-growth, pro-business. They have their ducks in a row. I mean we can submit permits and have approval to start construction in like 10 days. That's awesome. It's like where else can you do that?
Stace Jones:Yeah.
Addison Thom:Not happening in Midland Odessa it's not paid that much.
Stace Jones:Right. I mean, we have those relationships got so many hoops you gotta jump through too yeah different, weird, strange hoops. So I don't know.
Addison Thom:I think that's probably like a growing pain that a lot of these places are going to have. Right, it's like for so long we've only done so much develop like development and expanding the county lines and running water and sewer out to places, and then all of a sudden you get hit with this like big influx and you have to grow almost overnight with like city employees yeah and one of the ways that these cities deal with that sometimes is they outsource, like plan review to like third-party companies and then that just makes things horrible to deal with because it'll extend your approval by six months.
Addison Thom:You're sending it to a firm in Austin to review your plans in Abilene. Let's say not, it's not happening that way, and then you're just stuck there. You know, talking to someone in Austin and then they don't necessarily know all the things that are going on in Abilene. They got to go back and and it just takes forever to get anything approved. Yeah, so Tell me about you, dude. How did you get into real estate? Yeah?
Stace Jones:So my parents have always kind of done some real estate in some form or fashion. They didn't really do houses because they didn't like people tearing up their stuff, so they always started with commercial Other than like a couple houses that they own that my brothers might have looked at older brothers. So when my brother, my, my younger brother, and I got the opportunity I guess maybe 11 years ago now we bought our first duplex, we bought it for like $50,000, which was great, you bought a duplex for 50.
Addison Thom:I know right. I know right 11 years ago.
Stace Jones:Yeah, on 25th and University, Okay, what kind? Of shape was it in. Good.
Addison Thom:I mean we did. It was a livable duplex for $50,000?.
Stace Jones:Yeah, that's crazy yeah that's, you know, pre-2020, you know yeah yeah, and so that obviously that investment started paying down and paying off. It was the right duplex because it's like one side paid for the bills and the others, you know, was able to do some updates and repairs to the place and eventually there was enough equity in that we bought our second place. Instead of putting any cash down, we just used the equity and we've kind of maintained that philosophy. So we've got a couple of different companies, but in that company specifically we've maintained that philosophy. So we've got a couple of different companies, but in that company specifically we've maintained that philosophy. As far as using the equity from one building to the next, to the next to the next, it's kind of a more aggressive approach. But as long as you can get it rented, you're all right. Now you don't get it rented, you start getting in a world of hurt, you know. But it's smart debt. It's but smart, debt Smart leverage Right.
Stace Jones:Better than buying a bunch of cars, right, yeah, or boats.
Addison Thom:I'm guilty of that sometimes, yeah.
Stace Jones:Is that your car up front, the Escalade? Yeah, that's sweet.
Addison Thom:Yeah, yeah, I love that thing, but that's all blacked out, it's like my sixth car in the last three years, I have a problem. Okay. Yeah, have a problem, okay, yeah, um, so what would you say to somebody like dave ramsey? That's like, don't ever take debt on. What's your philosophy?
Stace Jones:like his. His idea well, I mean like I, I can I understand that too, right? Um, his idea is like can you sleep at night? Well, when you have all of that debt, that over time it pays down and pays off, but in that initial phase it gets really challenging. Yeah right, you have one house like the worst that we ever had. It was when we had three houses and one was written it's like how are we gonna pay for that?
Stace Jones:right. You know it's like, okay, this is a problem and it sat for six months and so it's like, okay, this is, this is a real issue. Yeah, so as long as you're renting, then it's good, and then as long as you've got time on your side to pay some of that down see, you've got to pay some of that off. You know you've got it. You've got to get on the right side of things. So I think that's just what do you want. You know, what do you want to build? What do you want to buy? What kind of legacy you want to have? Like, I think that's your own personal goals. For me, I think it was the best and fastest and most realistic way to grow it, without somebody handing me a bunch of money and then like, hey, go buy some stuff.
Stace Jones:You know, you know, like Ram the Rams, he's got a great podcast, he's got a great media outlet, I mean. So he's made money in a lot of other different ways that allowed him to go and buy per property and purchase property and and so he's got revenue streams coming in that most people wouldn't have, you know. So, yeah, I like his philosophy, but he's also speaking from kind of a total different place than most people would be speaking from yeah, well, he also got burned like over leveraging himself at one point.
Addison Thom:I think that's why it's so like anti-debt. But I think that debt is like anything it should be used intelligently and with an exit strategy in mind, which it sounds like you have, it's smart debt. You're not putting a bunch of Pokemon cards on your 28% American Express and then trying to flip those over. Beanie babies, yeah, beanie babies, yeah, beanie babies. Did you grow up with that?
Stace Jones:Yeah, my mom went into the beanie baby phase for a minute.
Addison Thom:Did she yeah?
Stace Jones:We still have tons of beanie babies, yeah, so we've just never been able to sell them. Maybe that's something my kids can do to make a few extra bucks there you go. Try to sell her old beanie babies.
Speaker 4:I think there was a documentary about that. Oh no, it was Pez Pez Dispensers.
Addison Thom:Where they were making fake ones in the Ukraine or something, and the guy went over there and bought all of them and then sold them in the US and got sued by Pez.
Stace Jones:It's kind of an interesting documentary.
Addison Thom:But he turns himself into the victim, which is, I think, interesting in what we're talking about right now. He turned himself into the victim.
Addison Thom:Well, yeah, like Pez sued you because you were selling Pez dispensers that you had no right to be liquidating in the US in that market and you bought into a company that was all hype. You relied on that. There is no cash flow and you were going to trade shows and selling stuff for seven times what they would, you know, buy them for ordinarily or whatever right. Real estate's so much different. Where you can like, take on leverage, you build equity and your renters are paying your, your mortgage for you, which you can accelerate and pay down. But where most people get caught is what you were saying. It's like what is my time and distance to where I need to stabilize this property and have the reserves for that time period? And most people don't get to that point because they check it out, they're like, oh, I can't handle it, then you shouldn't buy it. But if you are going to give yourself that runway and then you turn one $50,000 duplex into three properties, what's your inventory like now?
Stace Jones:Yeah, so 900. We have a collection of like 43 different properties Okay, commercial and residential both.
Addison Thom:And that all started with a $50,000 duplex.
Stace Jones:Yeah, so we got in some commercial properties like zero down right Seller financed or what yeah, yeah.
Stace Jones:Okay, yeah, so we got in some commercial properties like zero down right Seller financed or what, yeah, yeah, okay, it's like, but you have to have some proof to show that you can make these payments or do something with it before somebody's going to give you that money. But it's like, if I can't get in, if I don't have the cash to get in, well, seller finance, right. And then if they're willing to do, if you can find a bank that's willing to do 20%, great, you're fantastic. But if they're not, are they willing to do 30?, are they willing to do 40? And so it's like negotiating with that owner. And if they're willing to get out well enough and don't have enough people prospecting for them, then yeah, you got a chance. The problem with that is that sometimes you have to kind of overpay what you could negotiate if you had the cash in, right.
Addison Thom:But if you don't have the cash anyways and it's irrelevant you pay a little bit of a premium for them to carry the financing for me to be able to get into that property and you're, what's your strategy with that? You're, you're doing a value add to the building by bringing in tenants and doing some renovations, or how do you get your, your exit there?
Stace Jones:yeah, exactly, I mean it's like as that instead of paying rent to something right or I've got zero, but my net gain already was zero before I had this property, and so by having this property now I can bring a tenant in and there's gain. Yeah right, so I'm making a little bit of money from the tenant to kind of set aside. But then also it's like I'm bringing in every month and paying some principal and then at some point I've got to refinance that thing. You know, about five to seven years I got to refinance it because now paying more in principal per se than interest and now I'm paying more in taxes because of that right and so it shows that you're making all that money when you're you're really not making that money you know,
Stace Jones:you know it's like, hey, it looks like you're making all this money. Well, yeah, yes and no, yeah, you know I'm not really making that, I'm putting it back to this mortgage payment, and so that's kind of the interesting game that you got to play. It's like, okay, every five years I've got to refinance this in some way or form or fashion, and what we've kind of been fortunate enough to do, or try to do, is like when I do that, at the same time I get to max this property out, but I get to pay some of these down and we're off. Yeah Right, so these come out, these are free and clear. Dave Ramsey approach. These are free and clear, that I was in sleep at night. But then, you know, my gain goes back to my this property, like my taxes go back to this property and I'm paying high interest, you know early, for the next five years.
Addison Thom:That's smart. I love the refinance value add. Refinance never sell and if you do sell, 1031 exchange because you know borrowing money from the bank's tax free, so there's all your income right there for the next. You know five year runway.
Stace Jones:Borrowing from them is tax free, but like paying them back is not taxfree. And I think that's where a lot of people have the disconnect to. If you get so far into it, it's like at some point you're paying this principal, that it shows that you're making. Like if you got a $20,000 payment and you're paying 10,000 in principal, well, it shows you're still making 20,000. So you're paying taxes on the 20,000. Okay, but I'm not really making 20,000 because it's all going to the mortgage payment.
Addison Thom:Well, how much is that right, you know, offset by the depreciation, though?
Stace Jones:yeah, I mean you can do accelerated depreciation and things like that.
Addison Thom:So yeah, absolutely, and that way you could almost end up at net zero right, especially for that you know five to seven year period, yeah but after that it's.
Stace Jones:you know, the accelerated appreciation You're only going to get like five years out of it.
Addison Thom:Well, that's why you've got to borrow against it. You've got to borrow against it.
Stace Jones:Yeah, I mean but seriously, you never. I think that's something I watched my dad run into. It's like you always want to get out of debt and so you talk about Dave Ramsey. He's like he was never. My dad was never going to get out of debt Because he's trying to pay it off. He's trying to pay it off faster, but it's showing he's making the same income when he wasn't Right Right.
Addison Thom:You end up just putting a payment plan together with the IRS. Yeah, if it comes down to that.
Stace Jones:Or you have to sell your property or one property to pay the taxes that you're not actually income, that you're not actually making. In essence, it's like when you start down that commercial real estate side of things, I don't know that you have unless you sell, I don't know that you ever get out of debt. Or unless you've got this extra stream of revenue that's just bringing in, like Dave Ramsey, has you never really actually get out of debt? Right, you know, you just keep passing it down, passing it down and paying things off, so what?
Addison Thom:But then you've got to refinance something else to keep it, keep ahead of it. So, that being said, because I'm always interested in this, I have my own philosophy. But like, what is the goal right? So it's not to get out of debt when you're accumulating more progress somewhere yeah when you're looking at your overall investment philosophy and you get into commercial, like what is, what is your, I guess, horizon, and like here's my plan for my assets.
Stace Jones:Yeah, I mean so as a long-term strategy. I want the investments to be able to pay me back. You know I want that rent to go to my pocket, so I do want to get out of some sort of debt I want to use, keep refinancing every five years, pay these properties off and then, you know, utilize that on this next property. I don't have a desire, like my hope is not to turn around and sell everything, like just pass this on right and I get to live off the proceeds. That being said, you know if we ever get a chance, my wife ever gets a chance to go to space? Yeah, we're selling one of the properties. She's going to space, okay, you know, Like just outer, Total side. No, yeah. Just like outer.
Addison Thom:That's the six cars that you bought that would be her six cars yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if that ever becomes commercialized yeah definitely going to space.
Stace Jones:But, yeah, long term strategies, I want them to you know that to be the mailbox money or so if you want to call it that, and just to have the flexibility and the freedom. So, like even now I'm trying to get my children into real estate. I got a 14 year old. She legally can't buy property till she's 18. But it's that same kind of theory that you're working on with your kids. How do I pay them a certain amount and then they can store that up and we can utilize that to buy property, because I want them to be able to do whatever they want to do, whatever god's plan then purpose them to do um, talent wise, and not have to worry about the financial aspect of it, like if they want to be a teacher, if they want to be whatever right it doesn't matter.
Stace Jones:Um, then I want them to be able to do that, you know, and have the wisdom to say, okay, I've got these things that are working for me I'm not working for them, right, you know? So, like, while I'm working in my hands are doing this and making an impact. This is working on my behalf financially. So that's I don't. That answers your question, but no it does peace.
Addison Thom:I think financial literacy for your kids is such a missing chess piece in, specifically, america, but probably everywhere. I had to learn all of that at a later point in my life and you, taking that time with your kids and teaching them like here's what you can do to sit like, so if they go into being a teacher or whatever their career is, they still have the ability to put their funds to work, doing something with a skill that they're like learned way earlier. Yeah, um, to be able to position themselves. I think that's awesome. I think more people need that. Like nobody knows how to balance a checkbook when they graduate high school. That's insane to me.
Stace Jones:It's wild right? Yeah, it's like it's fun Going to the world and but they know how to get a credit card.
Addison Thom:They know how to get a credit card and take out $200,000 in student debt. To be a psychology, major, which is okay.
Stace Jones:that's a scam. That's student loan, student debt, the way that the interest multiplies.
Addison Thom:Man, they screw a lot of people over with that. You can't get rid of it through bankruptcy and you can get rid of it through death. It passes on.
Stace Jones:It's like daily accrual interest. It's not the loans that you and I are taking out. You can actually see an intern to that. You can pay it off. The interest accrues so fast on these things it makes it near impossible to get out of and you don't know that when you're getting the loan. So even if they just change the terms on those, I think that'd be helpful for a lot of people. So I have a theory?
Addison Thom:Yeah, okay, a couple of theories. One you should not be allowed to accumulate that much in debt for the major that you chose. Okay, so if I go to school and I want to get a master's Like, look at the average pay for that.
Stace Jones:Yes, and not more than that. Yes, like one year or two years.
Addison Thom:Any degree. You have to show the financial ability to earn an income. Like it's an investment. I give you a loan to go to school. I want that investment back. Right, I'm investing in you to go get an education.
Addison Thom:There should be a process. It's like sitting you down hey, for this trade, you need to go earn this amount of money to pay this back. You're going to pay this much every year, whatever. Right, like getting a home loan Right, and every other aspect of our life. You have to do that Right. The second loan right, and every other aspect of our life you have to do that right.
Addison Thom:The second thing is you have to take the government out of it as a loan.
Addison Thom:If they just want to give you a controversial loan, right. But like take the government out of it because school used to be like one-seventh of the price that it is now, before the federal government got involved and started guaranteeing these loans to the universities, because it gave them the, the university, the ability to say well, I can charge whatever I want for this education because it's backed by the full faith and credit of the us treasury department. That's crazy to me too. So if you took that out and you had to get the loan from the school and show that you had the financial like ability to pay that back, your schooling would be one seventh of the price, or let's say with inflation now it'd be at least half. So instead of spending 20 grand a year, you're spending 10, and for a four-year degree it would cost you 50 grand instead of you know, 250 000 to get your master's in sociology right. That's crazy. You know how many people we have walking around with sociology degrees that are 180 grand in debt. How are they gonna buy home?
Stace Jones:Well, like the fine arts programs in general, exploded so much on college campuses, which is wonderful and great for that that person, but at the same time it's like is it though $80,000 in debt. Like when am I ever pay that back? And the answer is you're not Right, it's not going to happen.
Addison Thom:The U S taxpayers are going to pay it back or you're going to have to pass it down, you know, to your family as debt, which is it dies with you or something you know Right. So I think that's a hole that everyone's been stuck dude, I'm telling you, get on it. Yeah, working on it, we'll see You're in the school business too, right?
Stace Jones:Childcare, early education yeah, tell me about that. How'd you get in that? My parents started that 1981 is when I got into it and it was something that I grew up in and so the educational aspect of it big fan loved it. It was really helpful to me Because when I finally went to public school I struggled in private school. I struggled early on, but then when I got to public school they just told me how smart I was. They told me even early, but I just kind of excelled through it. So it's like give me the tools, equip me early, and it's part of the reason I put my children in private school right now. Well, one of the reasons there's lots of reasons, but it's like I want that. I want that, that academic excellence form. I wanted to push them. And they're smart, they get that from their mom, they're really intelligent, so that academic excellent just keeps keeps pushing.
Addison Thom:but yeah, they same poem. My kids get their intelligence from their mom, thank God. Makes things easier, yeah. So why do you think you struggled in?
Stace Jones:private school versus public school. Academically it was more challenging and I didn't know it at the time, but I think I had some, you know some ADHD or dyslexia. Like learning from my kids.
Stace Jones:It's like oh yeah that's right Like my youngest is she's dyslexic, she's definitely ADHD, and so, like watching them, it's like, oh, okay, that makes sense, that translates, and maybe not on the same level that she had, but it like, okay, that's what was going on, but it's like I learned some of this stuff. So when I went to third grade I went all the way through private school and then fourth grade I moved to public school and it was like repeat, like a lot of it was just repetitive, like I've done this and so from there it's just like I kind of took off.
Stace Jones:So did you ever go back?
Addison Thom:to private school. So you're a public school product dude? Yeah, Me too. I always question that with putting my kids in private school versus public school. There is like an isolation component of that. How have you kind of wrapped your head around that?
Stace Jones:Yeah, I mean. So why? What's your concern with it?
Addison Thom:well the funny answer is like if any of my kids are athletic, there's not enough black kids in the private school to compete in sports.
Addison Thom:Like literally like the best athletes are in public school and I want them competing against them yeah so the six white girls that are playing volleyball together against you know another private school that they only have like six to eight people to field the whole team. It's like you're not. You're not competing against the best athletes, right, academically, you get all of that like concentration and like hand-holding on the private school side and, yes, it is a lot more challenging, but you miss all the social pieces, like when I, when I went to school, you know I was the only white kid on my basketball team.
Addison Thom:We had a large population of Hispanic people, we had Korean, japanese, like from all over yeah my graduating class in Las Vegas was 2,500 kids, so I got exposure to a lot of different cultures, a lot of different kids that lived in different parts of town and, like I I that has served me so well in my life Like and just having friends from all different kinds of backgrounds, income levels, and you put your kid in private school. Everyone's kids, like a doctor or an attorney's kids there's a lot of them, yeah, and so it's like how sheltered that's not representative of the real world, separate from how competitive the academics are.
Addison Thom:I think that's great and pushing your kids, because public school academics are not great right now right, so I say that about the basketball team but like or like competing against black kids or his or Hispanic kids in soccer or whatever it is. But what I really mean is exposure to like real world demographics and how to get along in large groups of people instead of the, you know, small classroom sizes and that kind of thing. That's what I struggle with.
Stace Jones:So kind of my theory to that is like, what are my kids going to use when they're older? Are they going to use their feet for soccer or their hands for basketball, or are they going to use their brains? What are they going to use more of? And so they're going to use their brains, right, sure, I mean, how tall are you? Six, four, six, four. I'm five, nine. Like my kids aren't going to, we're not, are gonna make it with their brains. Yeah, whatever they choose to do. And so, as far as like the exposure, I like the, I like the small classrooms, I like the call it, hand-holding, I like the ability for them to work alongside their teachers and other peers more closely. Like my daughter, I mean, they're nerds, they, and they're celebrated for being nerds. You know that, as far as like they're, they're doing stuff on the weekends, they're calling their buddies and then they're working on a project, you know, regarding school. Sure, like that's not stuff that I did. I didn't grow up doing any of that, you know.
Stace Jones:I'm looking for you know something to do. You know, not a project for school, that I'm not trying to study more. You know, yeah, and they're studying, like she studied for a human geo test and they would do that at nights. They would get on a phone call with their, with their friends, and they would study together.
Stace Jones:I gotta do that every night like I wasn't that concerned, but she is yeah so I think that's really cool as far as like exposure, different people, different things and sports like there's enough clubs. Like, if you want to, if you want to really compete at the high level in soccer, join a club team.
Stace Jones:Right, that's gonna be, better than any school that you can. I mean friendships pretty good, cooper's pretty good, yeah, but you can join club teams that are even more elite than that and all these girls are coming, or guys, they're coming from club teams anyways. Yeah, to play school sports, same thing with basketball a you. If you want to do golf, you got AJGA, which is more competitive than any school environments gonna offer you, sure, as far as, like, the sports side of things, they create the competition outside of the schools.
Addison Thom:Yeah, so like my, daughter.
Stace Jones:She plays soccer. She plays at a high level and she also plays golf. So, like on the golf level, she goes to tournaments and she's like kind of at the bottom. Right now she's a freshman, she's trying to work her way up. She goes to the state competition. She's fourth in the state, you know, on the school so that's like a confidence boost for sure.
Stace Jones:She's trying to work her way up. She goes to the state competition. She's fourth in the state you know on the school. So that's like a confidence boost for sure. She's hanging out with you know her peers and do that together, but also you know she gets to do it on this side. Yeah, yeah it's no soccer like she's around.
Stace Jones:People that are committed and and cultivated towards soccer on that side is on that side too yeah and so she's getting to work kind of an elite level. You know, if we can continue to push that, which I think she's going to make, that she is making a switch to kind of golf, yeah, more so she's seeing more opportunity for success there yeah, I think like how I that was my biggest fear when we started it.
Addison Thom:It hasn't been an issue. I think a lot of that falls on the parents too, of like traveling. My church is very um like broad as far as the people that attend there, so she gets a lot of exposure to that traveling um and like going and doing things you know, going to events around town and stuff like that. I mean just you can, you can expose your kids to a lot um and not sacrifice the academic side of it. And that's where I was too. I mean I think my kids are going to be using their brains. I've seen my daughters, you know, gravitate towards sports, but they're like really smart, you know, and they will come home and do all their homework and read their I don't know if that's a generational thing or what happened.
Addison Thom:Me and my friends were not doing that at all. I came home and I was like give me my rollerblades, I'll be back when the streetlights come on or whatever it's also like.
Stace Jones:Why am I putting you there as a parent? I'm putting you there academically. Sports is secondary. I want you to learn all the things from sports. I want you to learn all the values and the competition and the team building and teamwork and all the things that go along with it. But at the end of the day, like I'm putting you here to learn, you know and I'm watching what you're teaching or what you're learning more involvement in that. Like I can do sports, I can't teach the way these teachers are teaching. Like human geo, I'm not doing that. I can teach about real estate, but I'm not teaching about biology Her mom maybe, but they can do a much better job than I ever could. But I can get you into sports. I can get you in the right places. I can get you in a church plugged in and I think that's kind of on the parent side. I can get you in different environments and different areas but I want you around like-minded people that are thinking academically and knowledge-based.
Addison Thom:Well, since the tax write-off now.
Stace Jones:It's going to be yeah, $10,000 a kid. I was excited about that. Yeah, I got more kids. Huh, I got more kids. We've got three. Yeah, but with all your real estate. You've got three, yeah, but with all your real estate, you got to see what kind of because you're you probably I don't know what you're making, but it's like you're it's going to show that you're making more so that's been really good.
Addison Thom:Private time, like quiet time before the kids wake up and all that. But before that, you know, when I'm driving to work or going to look at properties or whatever, I'm in my car by myself and I spend a lot of time in my car and I'm drinking my coffee and that's like I don't know like a zen place for me. So I just always wanted to be in a car. That made me feel peaceful yeah, or fun or whatever.
Stace Jones:I think that one downstairs would do both. It does both. Yeah, it's got a.
Addison Thom:It's got a corvette engine in it, that's yeah, you got the V. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's a lot of fun. Yeah, before that I had a Mercedes AMG 63, the G-Wagon thing.
Stace Jones:I rode in one of those the other day.
Addison Thom:And I love the old. It's the old body style, uh-huh, so I love that. And then something broke and I can't remember where it was now. I went to go get it fixed and they were like it's $8,500 to replace it and I was like, just take it, that's kind of a nice feeling.
Stace Jones:That's a cool, that's a cool feeling.
Addison Thom:Yeah, they actually paid me what I paid for it, Even with even better fare. So I was like sold.
Stace Jones:take it I bought a car and put 50,000 miles on it before COVID, sold it after COVID and sold it for what I paid for it. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Addison Thom:Yeah, COVID same thing, yeah, I did the same thing.
Stace Jones:It's like there's no point in keeping this car. No Make what I spent on it.
Addison Thom:Yeah, if I had met zero, no loss and I got the deduction on it. Yeah, yeah, that's good an engineer and he has driven. Before he bought his last car, he drove a Honda Accord for 25 years smart, extremely smart and very practical. And I'm just like the complete opposite and it drives some nuts. Every time I fly out to love it can come visit me. It's like what it? You got another car. I'm like, yeah, he's like Addison, be careful with you money?
Stace Jones:What's your dad do?
Addison Thom:He's a nuclear engineer.
Addison Thom:Well, he's a civil engineer that works on the nuclear side. So in Las Vegas there was a project called Yucca Mountain, which is where they would take nuclear waste and then, in order to store the nuclear waste, you turn it into these rods and you bury it really deep in the ground and the half-life like basically all the radiation goes away. You have to bury it deep enough and then it's way above my pay grade. So he did that. That's how we ended up in las vegas, and now he does something with, like defense, the defense department, like weapons manufacturing or something, and now he like really can't tell me about what he does for work. So that's cool.
Stace Jones:Yeah, I'm just like how's work good, can't really talk about it.
Addison Thom:Kids get all the smarts from the mom yeah yeah, yeah, that's cool I think I'm intelligent on like a, an eq basis, but like I was never like the best test taker or well you know anything like that. I could figure things out and I'm more like an active learner, but I'm not a bookworm at all.
Stace Jones:I have a big problem, so I put it in front of me. I like to find the solution. That's why you get paid the big bucks.
Addison Thom:It's like the more problems you solve, the more money you make, and there's always problems to solve. There's always problems to solve, that's true. That's true. So, on the on the school side, christian, based early childhood education.
Stace Jones:What? What ages is that? So, yeah, I mean so it's through 12 as far as like after school, but school it's just zero to five or six years old. That's our kindergarten. How many staff do you have?
Addison Thom:over 300 dude. How do you manage that in a real estate career really?
Stace Jones:good team, really good team, like you got to have good people around you. If you don't, it's not worth it and it doesn't work. No, that's kind of the point of it. Right is kind of hopefully build the team, people that you can love, be loved by um in the biblical sense. Right um show, show god's love to them in return show it back, surround yourself with those kind of people and I wouldn't say it makes it easy, but it makes it worthwhile.
Addison Thom:How does your faith affect your like leadership style and it's everything, yeah.
Stace Jones:So my first leadership book that I read was the Bible. Okay, and then from there it's like it's. I really started getting into more and more leadership. Like man, I gotta get better at this, or you know, you're trying to get exceptional at something it's like. Then I can base it off of my biblical learning and on how just how do you treat people Right? Love God first.
Stace Jones:Okay, so what does God tell me to do? Am I doing that to the best? I can then love other people as yourself, so do I love myself? You know, as God tells me, who I am, I'm man on purpose. I'm created, I'm in his image, love, redeemed, forgiven, grace, I'm all of these things right, and so I have to understand that I'm all these things and then share that with others, that and believe it for them too, like you're loved, you're forgiven, you're grace, you're redeemed, and no matter what you do, god loves you and he died for you and he lives for you. He didn't just stay dead, he constantly lives with you and now he can be with you, in you and a part of you, and he can help you make good choices and right choices that are great for your family and not just here.
Stace Jones:Turn that, not just here on this world, but eternal right, like it's everything um and do I live by? Yes, am I perfect? Absolutely no. But I have days that, you know, I get frustrated, I get upset, I get angry that I don't do something well or right. Sometimes I get off my process or my schedule, my morning routines or whatever, and it's like but that's the point of the cross. But you can point everything back to that, like okay, if I know what's good and right, if I know this process is good and right, if I know this Waking up at a certain time, doing this with my wife, like you were talking about, is good and right and it's better for us.
Stace Jones:You know, then why do sometimes I not do it? Right. And you don't. You're not perfect at it. But it's like, when I get off, do I just stay off of that? No, no, no, no, I get back on it. If I get off the rails over here, the point of the process is I can get back on the rails, I can go back towards and I have a point. I have a point of reference that I can focus on and say that's where I want to go and then start walking towards it.
Stace Jones:And then God says I stand at the door and I knock right. That means he's always there, so he's just waiting for me to align with Him. He hasn't left me, he hasn't gone anywhere. Why am I not seeing the fruits of it? Why am I frustrated? Why do I have so much anxiety to it? I'm not aligned with. Him. I haven't given it to him.
Stace Jones:It's not just giving it and saying, hey, I'm not going to touch it anymore. It's giving it and saying I'm going to do the best that I can and work with excellence as much as I can, as hard as I can, but I know that you're in control of this. So, no matter what the outcome, you're the outcome and it's going to be okay because I'm following you. And that's the part that I get off on the rails on like I so much of a problem. So I was like I want to get on it and say how do I fix this? I can fix this, I can do this, and that gets to a point like I run out of me.
Speaker 3:you know, and I don't know that until it's, you know, too far yeah, you know, and that's where it's like I gotta get back on the rails here and go. Okay, god, this is yours yeah, I think that's really beautifully said and I've always struggled with that too.
Addison Thom:It's something I'm still trying to figure out.
Addison Thom:It's so easy to go to God with the blessings that you have and thank you for my family, my health financially, my kids and their health and all of those.
Addison Thom:It's easy for me to give thanks, right, it's really hard for me to go lay a burden down his feet and say like I need your help, right, because I'm such a type A personality and like problem solver too that I'm like I got this figured out and I'll get like in these modes where you know I'll work 12-hour days and, you know, start ignoring my family life or my health or whatever it is, and you can get sucked into that and you know, just going to him, be like and just in prayer, has solved a lot for me of this. God, I'm out of options. Like I need your wisdom, I need your, your strength right now to give me that and man, that's been a huge burden lifted and I think a lot of people that are like high performers, entrepreneurs, high level problem solvers we all are guilty of that. Like I got this because I've done it so many times. I've got this instead of being like I don't have anything.
Stace Jones:Yeah, I've got the skill set that he's given me, but like I'm stuck right now and you know another 12 hours in the office isn't gonna fix it, I need to figure something else out well, I think the thing that I've realized in this last year where I struggle to give it to him because I want the outcome that I want, no, if his outcomes different, right, like I, you know, it's like it is rebellious. It doesn't feel rebellious at the time. It is rebellious. It doesn't feel rebellious at the time, but it is rebellious in the sense of no, I want it like this. I want this to be the outcome.
Stace Jones:I want you to come through in this way, because it you know, like this sucks, or this is hard or this is. If it doesn't happen, if this doesn't come through, then this whole thing falls apart. Right, and so you're like no, I need you to come through this way. And so like in your heart and in your mind, and then you're even like those to combine and create your soul, like am I actually giving it up to what his outcome is and trusting and walking that? And then I had to answer I'm no, over and over and over that. You, you know, when it gets one time too stressful, it's like no, I'm not, because I.
Addison Thom:I want it to be like this yeah, and he's gonna's going to answer it in different ways. Like one of my favorite sayings is, if you pray to God for flowers, he might provide you rain, and so, like the outcome that you're hoping for, he might not directly answer that, but he's going to provide something else that you have to be, you know, aware of, and that's the other thing I've been thinking about, like with this. You know saying the 5 am thing and I want your opinion on this too. But, like you, we've never been more distracted in our entire life, with our cell phones, with media, with politics. It's like all 24, 7 and the things that you're putting into your body. You know fast food, and like your soul is so distracted that, even if you prayed to god, is your mind and your heart still enough to even hear him?
Addison Thom:yeah, that's good and that that that's the thing I've been really trying to work on too, of like, where's the stillness with god? Right, and we have such this like immediate gratification problem, that like, if you pray to God, were you praying once a night before you go to bed and he doesn't answer your prayer for a week? What you give up, you don't think he's listening. Why aren't you praying all day and just being still and putting yourself in the position to like hear him. Maybe he is trying to answer, hear him. Maybe he is trying to answer you. Maybe he is knocking on the door, but your life is so loud that you can't hear him knocking. Right, and that's the thing I've been really trying to work on too. Like man, I just need to eliminate distractions. Uh, like working out has really helped me with that, because it causes it's an ego death when you're exhausted. Yeah, and you can hear him and then just like trying to be silent.
Stace Jones:Yes, you know that's really good I get. I get two thoughts to that. Yes, congratulations first of all. Then you're able to do that and get there, you know not everybody does. And then, like I read a book recently about presidents and it talked about kind of their routines as presidents- and every US president, okay, and every president had a morning routine except for Taft and Bill Clinton, and even Bill Clinton.
Addison Thom:they put him on a routine Smoking cigarettes and jogging.
Stace Jones:Yeah Well, he didn't have a morning routine, he just kind of showed up late and they're like dude, dude, this doesn't work, you're gonna have to be on the team to be president. And he followed that, I figured out. But he ended up being successful in that way, but it's like okay. So what does that tell me? Like every leader of this country, I mean, you could say that each one of those people were successful. It's something to be able to get there right. Yeah, every one of them had a morning routine and a lot of them involved walking and prayer and seeking that outside leadership, that outside counsel to help lead this country in the right way.
Stace Jones:And almost every one of them talked about walking and prayer. Those two things were synonymous with their morning routines. And so, yeah, I think there's something to that, there's something methodical to that. It's like I know, if in the morning I'm going to get up at this time and do this thing, that's the routine to it. And then I think people not getting into the routine of prayer like are you just praying the same thing, yeah, I think that can happen, but I'd rather get into that routine of it than just be non-existent.
Addison Thom:I love that you're bringing that up right now because I literally just had a long conversation about that. But finish your thought because I have a couple questions for you.
Stace Jones:No, I mean, that's kind of it. I'd rather get methodical about what I do as much as I can, and then when I find that I'm non-existent in it, I'm so methodical, then that's time to change up your routine a little bit and it can just be a different variant Instead of walking on the treadmill, you can be riding a bike. You can just change a variant up slightly and all of a sudden it's like but I still do my. You talk about doing that with your wife. That's beautiful. It's like when do I pray in the mornings? The best time before I touch that phone?
Addison Thom:and give the world my access, or give access of myself, to that. So I started with that routine and then I found myself sometimes praying for the sake of praying. Yeah, and I hated that, because if you ever like prayed for stuff and you don't really like mean it, you're just like it's like you're going through the act of praying.
Stace Jones:So I didn't like that.
Addison Thom:I was like this is kind of like disingenuine, and I was writing down prayer lists and stuff like that which helped, right, like organize and develop a prayer life. So now when I pray, I pray all day and sometimes my prayer not to sound like a Pharisee or anything like that, but like I try to pray on silly things, like I'll be driving my car and I'll think of something and I'll just be like you know, pray over that for 10 seconds. Somebody I'm talking to and I say, hey, is there anything I can be praying for you? Anything you need help with, whatever, and they tell me and genuinely respond to me, I'll pray with them right there. That's perfect, that's great. Christians have a bad rap. They're like, oh, bless your heart, I'll pray on it or whatever. It's like, okay, why don't we just do this right now? Just go ahead and get it done. But my brother's much better than I am at that like he, yeah, he won't pray like, okay, let's do it. Yeah, I love that. That's made a big change in my prayer life.
Addison Thom:But the thing that's been a huge benefit is that the morning routine is setting your intention for the day yeah I think that's the power of that like sometimes you can pray and you can feel God's presence, and sometimes you won't. But you get like your meditative moment of like, hey, these are the things that are on my heart, god, like I'm coming to you with this, and then that helps set your intent for the day.
Addison Thom:Absolutely, and like doing that before business meetings or walking into a new relationship, you know that you're trying to develop business wise or whatever, and just saying a prayer before that like, thank you for introducing this person to my life, let your will be done, and I'm going to try to, you know, move forward in your footsteps of how you would like me to act in this situation. Right, that sets my intention for that meeting. Yeah.
Addison Thom:So, regardless of this, you know, god's not like there's not a loud speaker voice going. Addison, do this immediately, you know, or whatever. But that intent is as close to godliness as maybe I need at that point Like, hey, I already gave you all the stuff to go do this. Here's your intention for that meeting and not praying for an outcome. Right, not God. Please let me sell this building for $1.2 million versus $900,000. You know like that. But if you want to throw that in too, that's great.
Stace Jones:But if I'm really asking that wouldn't be terrible either.
Addison Thom:If they wanted to counter and there's a bidding war, that would be great. No, and I think that just not requiring that outcome or expectation of God, because His only expectation of me is that I live as close to Him as possible, and so for me to have unreasonable expectations of Him selfishly is like that's out of balance with our relationship.
Stace Jones:It's out of line with what he's asking us to. He said don't, don't ask for that extra 300,000. Ask for the wisdom, yeah, right, yeah. Ask for the discernment, yeah, um, ask for me to send the right people in the right places at the right times yep, exactly.
Addison Thom:Yeah, I think that's uh, I don't know that's helped me out. I'm not perfect about it, but I pray before meals.
Stace Jones:For that reason people like do you have to pray before meal? Yeah no, it's not biblical. And in the sense that you should pray before every meal, yeah, necessarily. I guess we can get there if we kind of go around. But essentially it's, you know, it's like what? Who's my provision, who's my provider? And so every meal time I try to remind myself where does my provision come from?
Addison Thom:yeah, so you brought up morning routines. Do you have a morning routine, or is there one you try to stick to?
Stace Jones:yeah, I mean, this is the same, the same kind of stuff you do. A Bible like right now I'm working on it's a book that the owner of Hobby Lobby wrote. It's a daily devotional, okay, and so somebody gave me that and I'm like, yeah, I, I'll try it out. It's been really cool because he talks about it from a business perspective and some of the things that he faced and it's like there was a period where Hobby Lobby was going under and he's like man I used to hide under my desk from creditors. You know he just talks about it in a real sense that people you know, you don't see and how did I trust God? Yeah, through all of that, regardless, right, and so you know he's pretty old now, so it's just kind of the wisdom there that in his biblical walk. So, yeah, you try to read her day, the devotional and try to write up the bike, and then the shower time is my morning prayer time.
Stace Jones:So you know I get a lot of inspiration when I take my showers it's like a baptism, it's like quiet time, you know, it's like I don't know what it is about it, but yeah, I hear probably the most in the shower, so you know my pastor preached on it like where's your prayer room? And it's like that's probably.
Stace Jones:I mean like you know, in a weird way, that's probably my prayer room and but it's the same idea like pray without ceasing pray throughout the day, but that's when that's before. Anything's just been turned on. Right, like you, you haven't turned your device on, you haven't done anything. It's like I'm just getting ready for the day. Talked about setting my attention towards that, towards him, towards the direction he's going to take me.
Stace Jones:I need my daily provision, you know. So help me out here. You know, you know, give me my daily bread, my daily victory, my daily love, my daily care, my daily kindness, my daily passion. My daily bread you know, give it to me. I need it because without you I can't. I'm gonna do this well or right. I'm gonna get angry, I'm gonna get frustrated, I'm gonna you know do wrong.
Addison Thom:Yeah, you're gonna be human.
Stace Jones:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know Paul talks about die daily right To yourself, so it's kind of that idea. And, like you talk about working out in the morning, yeah, I think that's part of it. It's past being comfortable. You're putting your body past the place of being comfortable. I think it's important to do that emotionally, spiritually, physically, because, as a Christian, tell me when you're actually really comfortable. Tell me when it's actually really comfortable, just like, yeah, I'll pray with you right now. That's not a comfortable necessarily thing to do.
Addison Thom:Maybe you've done it enough to where it's gotten more comfortable, no, but then it pushes you outside to the next thing. Right, it's awkward every time, yeah, and I struggle to find the words sometimes, and but it's really helped. You know, in my connection with other people too, because I, like, I'm not happy with how I view the world. A lot of times and other people, just like I have I, can have a really Negative and low opinion of other people really in the world, yeah, and and really high expectations that they would. You know, I put these expectations on them or that world or whatever, and they, you know, fall short of those expectations and then, because of that, I'm like, oh, like not cool, yeah and so for a long time you're just proving yourself right over and over yeah and if somebody were to come with me in like a time of need, you know, 10 years ago I wasn't the person that wanted to hear that you have a drug addiction, too bad.
Addison Thom:You're a weak person, right. You are, you know, overeating, or your wife doesn't like you ones. The last time you made her feel beautiful or sexy or, you know, gave her any attention like I, just didn't have any like patience right to try to help that person. And that hardens your heart, man. It makes you I don't know you rot a little bit from the inside when you can't show love the way Jesus did to other people. And so that was a big thing that I wanted to fix, and so I prayed to God for a long time to just soften my heart, and I think one of the ways that he's helped me with that is to genuinely and attentively ask people how they are doing and what you can help them with and what you can pray with them over.
Addison Thom:It doesn't sound like a lot. It's not like I'm going to the homeless shelter and bailing people out with my money or like any of those things, but like just that act has really changed my view of the world and Mike having maybe more of a fatherly heart towards them. Yeah, of, like what can I help you out? And then trying to find those words and ask God to, to you know, help them and at the same time, that's helping me. Yeah, that's really. That makes sense.
Stace Jones:No, absolutely A hundred percent, absolutely, um, and I think it's, I think for people that you know, when you work really hard and you see the fruit and success of that and you see a lot of successes in those spaces, and then you see kind of the other side of people that complain a lot, you know, wow, this happened to me. I encountered the same thing. You know I was part of like a Chiari group for for I had brain surgery, right. And that was brain surgery. And so like I had to skip over yeah.
Stace Jones:Yeah, arnold Chiari, malformation. So you know, there's there was this group out there and it's like you know, trying to learn about it and go through it. It's like, yeah, I experienced some of that. I experienced some of that, yeah. But then it's like, but I got out of bed, but I did that, like you know. So you look at me like not to try to be judgmental, but it's like, man, I gotta get out of this group. Like they're killing themselves. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be sucked right in down with them.
Stace Jones:Right, it's like, regardless of what pain you're feeling or what experience, like I still gotta make a choice to get out of bed or not. Yeah, like I still gotta make a choice to show up. I got people that depend on me, I've got a mission to do, I've got a purpose to accomplish, so I've got that choice. Or I've got the choice to sit there and wallow, and every now and then you wallow, but it's very rare. So I think that creates this distance from yourself than when somebody's whining and complaining. Well, I got a drug problem. Well, deal with it.
Stace Jones:But, you know, but in reality I don't really know their circumstance necessarily. I can pretend or I can put myself maybe in there, but I don't know. No.
Stace Jones:I don't know, but what I do know is like if I walk, start walking this way towards Christ, then you know it gives me a better path and a better purpose.
Stace Jones:And so what I started doing and it's been it's I'm going to be honest with you it's really sucked Because it's really hard, and it's like vulnerable, like being vulnerable with people, like opening your heart to people, because I think, when it says, love God first and then love your neighbor as yourself, how do I receive love from God unless I'm vulnerable and how do I give it unless I'm vulnerable?
Stace Jones:That means I've got to be able to be willing to be hurt or be willing to be wrong, and I don't like to be wrong. I get a lot of things right, and so Bob Goff wrote this book and he talks about walking or putting your hands open, and so sometimes I'll find myself clenching my fists or getting frustrated or shutting off towards a person or situation or circumstance. It's like, how do I approach this? Just this simple act of like flipping over my hands reminds me and puts me in a different mind frame, like, okay, I'm going to ask one more question, or I'm going to listen for one more minute, or receiving or yeah, no, yeah, I'm going be open versus closed. I'm gonna be open to listen and to actually hear what they're saying and then maybe actually you know receive some of what they're what they're putting out you know, and then maybe I can give back, you know, if the opportunity presents itself.
Stace Jones:So it's like, you know, it helps me, like, not be as judgmental either way. Like people that are really closed off and you really frustrated and really judgmental, I'm like, dude, what's your deal? But they're no different than the person that's being judged right or the person that can't get out of bed. It's like they're the same. It's not the same sin, but it's similar. We're not loving each other, showing that to one another in this perfect light.
Addison Thom:So how can I?
Stace Jones:be and other showing that to one another in this perfect light. So how can I be? And it's worked for my teammates, you know. And so what we work is try to create like vulnerability, and that's a really forward and really difficult and really big challenge, and that's that's the challenge. That's what we want them to do within our teams and within our communities so how do you?
Addison Thom:what's some advice on creating a kind of a safe place to be vulnerable for 300 people?
Stace Jones:Yeah you got to do it in small groups. Yeah, I mean you got to start with leadership. Yeah. You got to create vulnerability within the leadership, and I've got leadership that will be vulnerable, but maybe not with me or with with others, but maybe they don't show that to their team yet, and so that's amount of patience and time, and that continued follow-up, continue work you know.
Stace Jones:You know I've got some really great leaders, man. They're, they're dynamic, they're awesome, they listen well, respond well, they get things done. You know, because at the end of the day, still got. You have a job to do, but it's. You know, you got numerical success and you've got mission success, and one without the other doesn't work. And so you got to understand that and our mission, success is our people.
Stace Jones:So, yeah, it's. It's really hard, you know, but we do it one at a time and then you do it three at a time, you do it five at a time and then they take that do it one at a time and then you do it three at a time and you do it five at a time and then they take that. Do it one at a time, three at a time, five at a time. But within the teams, that leader, that principal, has to meet with people, has to figure out how to carve time to do one-on-ones. You have to have the one-on-one time. If you don't have the one-on-one time, it doesn't work. To have the one-on-one time. Yeah, you don't have the one-on-one time didn't work you can't just do it in the team.
Stace Jones:Yeah, because you really get the opportunity to kind of break down walls and really listen to people, and if you don't create that, it doesn't work. Yeah, and you've got to do it as often as possible yeah, I agree with that.
Addison Thom:I think, another thing that helps and can help to is just doing hard things in general yeah challenging people to do hard things yeah, what does success look like?
Stace Jones:yeah, that's what we call. What does success look like? It looks like this, and I'm gonna hold you accountable.
Addison Thom:Yep, to that yeah, and like getting like struggling together as a group. That's why I think you know, whether you're like working out or running or jujitsu or whatever it is, jujitsu I used to I having kids, I don't just because I'm kind of like a crazy person where if I can't commit to being really good at it, I don't want to do it. Yeah, I got you.
Addison Thom:So I competed for a little bit and then, when we had our first daughter, I was training four times a week and then it was too much. Yeah, you had to be a dad over. Yeah, just. But my kids are getting to the age where I might start getting them back into it and then they'll be fun for me and, you know, not take it so seriously and being able to go do that, yeah, but, like we mentioned earlier about society and distractions, like I also think it's never been easier to be comfortable throughout history than it is right now.
Addison Thom:And that thing in your head, like, if you don't believe in the supernatural, next time you're sitting in bed and you have a brain injury or whatever and it could be something as simple as like should I go to the gym today or not, there's a little voice in your head that tells you not, not to get up, not to go do this. What is that? Why is the same thing exist in your head that also tells you like get up, let's go. What is that battle? That is not. Like there's no evolutionary explanation for that. There's no thing in your brain that you can tap to. It's like, hey, that little guy that wants you to stay in bed and not do anything with your life is fighting with the guy that wants you to be the best version of yourself. I think that that's a spiritual battle at its very core, and if you listen to one of those over the other, your life will improve dramatically or it will go absolutely nowhere and it will like literally rot from the inside. And so I think one way to beat away that other voice is to get up and just go, do those things and to struggle through things as like deeply as you can, whether it's helping the person that has the drug addiction, whether it's working out when you don't want to, whether it's, you know, getting up after a brain injury and like I got to show up for my family, I got to show up for me and for God and like get that done.
Addison Thom:That struggle and getting on the other side of that struggle brings you closer to God, because you're listening to the angel, supernatural piece of you that's inside of you saying get up, let's go, like the Cain and Abel story, present your best version of yourself before God. And if you don't do that, here's what's gonna happen to you. You know, offer your best sacrifice. So you, the sacrifice is a struggle. That's not an easy thing to give up. Like, how do I lay myself down? How do I struggle through that and present the best version of myself to god?
Addison Thom:I think that that if more people would push themselves towards getting on the other side of that struggle, rather than listening to the man, I'm going to sit in bed and eat a turkey sandwich and watch reruns of whatever that's the thing that will slowly rot you, and the devil doesn't just like jump on you all at once. It's like little, bit by bit by bit, until 30 years down the line You've never accomplished what you wanted to accomplish. You didn't pay attention to your kids or your wife. You didn't start the business that you wanted to. You didn't like struggle enough to actually become close to God. I think that, like if I was gonna build down the entire Bible and my relationship with God, it would be that, yeah, if I had 30 seconds to do it and that's really cool yeah, that's a really cool thought theory.
Stace Jones:It's something good to digest.
Addison Thom:I can't support it with any scripture. No.
Stace Jones:You've got to marinate on that and digest it. That's good.
Addison Thom:I just think when someone that doesn't believe in God and I used to be that person- I want to keep pushing this a little further.
Stace Jones:We talk about would you say that it's helpful to be around people that are like-minded in that way? Does that help push you say that it's helpful to be around people that are like-minded in that way? Does that help push you to that inner voice of doing this well, 100%, okay so we go back to the school thing.
Stace Jones:Yeah, I want to be around people that are pushing that way right, yep, but, and then it can create within your sports team. I want to be successful. That's what success looks like. Do we do that as a church? Struggle through it.
Speaker 3:Well and I don't have the answer, like I'm just like proposing the question.
Addison Thom:I haven't digested it and and processed that enough, but I'm like I don't know so I've kind of got an extreme version of that, that I've been talking to my pastor and just like kind of meeting people where they are, sometimes too, but I don't think we do a good enough job of that as as a church and as Christians in general. But I also think that that goes back to your philosophy of like you have to do it in smaller groups, right. You need to create vulnerability amongst you know people that want to disciple the word and struggle together as Christians in smaller groups of you know three to five people, maybe it's all men, maybe it's all women, maybe it's mixed, whatever it is. But I think it's really tough for people to be vulnerable and to struggle together in large crowds. Put it that way, yeah. And so I think we have to do a better job of kind of breaking that down and then meeting that person where they are and where they are in their faith and like, like with anyone.
Addison Thom:Like if you showed up at the gym tomorrow, you haven't worked out in 30 years and you're 60 years old, I'm not going to tell you to go do deadlifts and, you know, try to max bench press. It's like let's see where you're at and we'll put you on like a little a plan to help get you to where you need to be right. And I think you you have to kind of treat the patient, the individual, with that and faith too. Sometimes of like this conversation we're having right now we couldn't have with somebody that just walked into the church for the first time. But how do you address that person? What would you prescribe them? Does that answer your question?
Stace Jones:Yeah, no, I think that's a piece of it. Yeah, I think you're onto something like the small group stuff. Right, because churches get so big and that's fine if they're big, but how do you break it down into those small teams of people, small groups of people? Because what I found is like even you know with, with our work, I found like my faith has been strengthened with the people I work with, because we've done really hard things together in faith, like in faithful things, and so that's been really cool to see and to do. I haven't ever experienced that in the church, in in a quote-unquote church setting, as well, as I have in a work setting.
Stace Jones:Yeah, um and it's like you know you're trying to do mission work while you're working. That's part of the, the goal with whatever work that we do as Christians, right, yeah, and so, like I just haven't thought about it deep enough to say, okay, what does that really talk about? Doing hard things? I never put it in that context, as a church setting and as a group, I bet does that?
Stace Jones:look like because we, because it do our things to be successful. Now, what is, what is the hard thing that we're doing? Showing up for Bible study right, and who's made the nachos like I, you know, I don't know right um showing up to church on sunday and raising our hands, like some people don't even put their hands up, like I think this ain't that hard, you know like um, I guess we can help with the children's ministry.
Stace Jones:You know, that's cool, that can be, that can be a challenge. Yeah, you know. But what are we doing? Really hard together in reaching people, making coffee in the morning we had to get up 30 minutes early.
Addison Thom:I don't think you have to look that hard to figure out what God wants. He says go and make disciples of all nations Right. You are required, if you really believe in the word, you are required to take action. It is not enough to say I believe in God and show up at church, raise your hands or don't, but like if your relationship with God is coming to this is going to sound like so extreme but like if your relationship with God is to come to church, do the worship, say the prayer, listen to the preacher and that's the all of the forethought or afterthought that you give to your relationship with God and you are not taking action as a disciple, you're not doing what God and Jesus require of you.
Addison Thom:You are required to take action with that information.
Stace Jones:Right, you're required to have a relationship that's not a, relationship's a, but even high five if you.
Addison Thom:If you just have a relationship with god by yourself, you're also not doing what god asks of you right go and make disciples of all nations in in the way that I've taught you in my teachings.
Addison Thom:you go and do that, and so he gives you these pillars of like what it is to be a Christian and then he says go and make disciples. That is a call to action. You're required Now that discipleship can take. You know many different forms. Not everyone's going to like quit their job and go over to Thailand and try to, you know, minister to a group of people that have never heard the word of God before. But what are you doing in your daily life to disciple to the world, to the people that need to hear it, and to take action together? That's a struggle. That's the thing that the church needs to do a better job of. That's the thing that we, as men of God, need to do better together too. Of how do we reach the people that aren't reached?
Stace Jones:So I got this. You talk about radical view. How do we reach the people that aren't reached? So I got this let's talk about radical view. In the last few years I've kind of morphed my view into what the church could be, should be. Maybe it's more about we go to the church to what? To corporately worship, to corporately praise, to say, man, hey, these are some of my struggles, these are some of the things that were successful there. Let's share God together. Let's share some of that. Right, this is what I did. That was hard and that's a place of accountability for that. That's a place of getting to share that and high fives for that. Right, like people, these are my like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ right, we should be like-minded. Right, and we're bringing people obviously to church with us to share in that victory celebration and you're celebrating every Sunday. That's cool, I get to be around my peeps.
Stace Jones:But I got this kind of I haven't heard it a lot and I'm kind of morphing my views towards it. It's you know, the church. We should have business. I mean business should be for the church. We should have business. I mean business should be for the church. Right, we should have church in the business. We should have mission in our business, we should have Christ in our business, and so what does that look like? Are we making disciples within our business?
Stace Jones:And so I don't know that the church necessarily is like work up, and it can be right, but I don't know that the church necessarily is like and it can be right, but I don't know that it's necessarily like a gathering on a Sunday to just, you know, sit on a pew. I think it's a gathering to say, look, here's some things in our groups that really were hard. Here's some things that were helpful. Here's some healings that we saw. Here's some miracles that we saw. Here's Jesus here's how we saw Jesus show up this week and here's how I didn't see him Like. Here's some of the battles that I faced, and then we get to celebrate, you know, hopefully some of those victories, because then what I got to do is come right back out and go back to my mission field, which is our business, which is the things that we do, and how do I disciple and, ultimately, how do I love people Right in that space, and then create.