Faith-Based Leadership: Knowing When to Push and When to Let Go

What does faith-based leadership actually look like when you're responsible for making difficult decisions? For me, it has meant rethinking the relationship between faith, hard work, control, success and knowing when it's time to let go.

There was a time when I thought faith meant believing hard enough that I could make something happen.

Visualize it. Write it down. Work harder. Manifest it. Push until the outcome becomes inevitable.

And sometimes it worked.

The problem was that some of the things I fought hardest to make happen eventually became some of the worst things that happened to me.

In this episode of The Gregory Vetter Podcast, I talk about how my understanding of faith has changed from putting faith in myself, the universe, the journey, and my ability to execute, to developing a much deeper relationship with God.

But faith doesn't mean doing nothing.

It's about one of the hardest balances I've had to learn:

When do you keep pushing and when do you trust that the resistance you're experiencing may be telling you something?

We talk about success and failure, manifestation, discipline, leadership, stress, clarity, and the pressure high achievers put on themselves to constantly make things happen.

For years, I associated chaos with progress. A packed schedule meant I was important. Stress meant I was working hard. If something wasn't happening fast enough, my instinct was to push harder.

My perspective today is different.

Faith has become what gives me peace when everything around me isn't peaceful. And that peace matters in leadership because a leader's job is ultimately to make good decisions. It's difficult to make good decisions when your mind is constantly operating from fear, stress, and chaos.

We also get into something bigger than business: what success actually looks like when you reach the end.

Money matters. Achievement matters. Building something meaningful matters.

But if you reach your eighties surrounded by people who love you, your children want to be around you, your grandchildren know you, you're still curious, still laughing, and still doing work you care about—that might be a richer life than any number in a bank account.

Faith doesn't eliminate the work.

It changes your relationship with the outcome.

Do everything you can.

Pay attention.

And have enough faith to understand that you don't have to control everything that happens next.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Greg Vetter Podcast Faith based leadership with Maurice Taylor in the house. Yeah. Back from Miami. That was one of I went to carousel. Okay. Given some beach vibes, some running shoes and some short shorts. Oh yeah. Had a good time too. So faith-based faith-based leadership is an interesting com uh conversation specifically for me because I think my faith over time has almost been a roller coaster with a faith in different things ending in the correct faith. Um as we all know, one of my favorite books of all time, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, faith without deeds is dead, is something he would just yell all the time. An unwavering faith is something he would yell all the time. And so in the beginning, when you're young and you're trying to build something, you don't really know what that faith is supposed to be in. So you're like, well, is it faith in me? In myself? Is it faith in the journey? Is it faith in the moment? Is it faith in my ability to execute? Is it faith in God? Is it a combination of all the things? And I remember I used to write a prayer, right? Because I have my mole skin, most important goal, critical and urgent, beneficial and important, goals and fuel, that's where my prayer would go. Timeline on the other side. So my uncle that died when I was 13 from cancer. He was only 34. My mom's youngest brother. So I always thought he was my guardian angel. So I'd pray to him to watch over me. I'd pray to uh anybody in my family that was deceased, that I needed to harness their power and have them kind of look over me. I would pray to Jesus. I would pray to God. I would pray. Napoleon Hill used to say infinite intelligence. I'd pray to that. I'd pray to universal intelligence, because maybe that's different than infinite intelligence. I don't know. What the fuck do I know? Right. I'd pray to the journey itself. And I'd ask all of these people, I wanted to leave no stone unturned. You know, like, please just let me make it through the day. And um as so for the first couple years, the list just kept getting longer and longer.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

So you would write down each name of people okay, I prayed to this guy, I prayed to this.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

And I'd visualize their face. Okay. And then, you know, more and more people that I loved that were in my family would die as they got older and older, like my great-grandmother and then Genevieve's grandparents, and you know, so I I I just kept the list just kept getting longer and longer and longer and longer. I mean, that's I mean, it was it's gonna keep getting longer. It's just gonna keep getting longer. And so then I'm like, okay, well, truly in my heart, you know, who are actually my guardian angels? Who should I actually be praying to? Do I need to be repeating the difference between infinite intelligence and universal intelligence and God and Jesus? Like, should there just be one or two or three? And um, and then you just kind of realize that there's really only supposed to be one faith, and you don't you don't find that out until God chooses to find you, basically. So let's say that reckoning was a mixture of Johnson dying, and then my pursuit of finding or kind of diving into this thing of God. I read a bunch of books by C.S. Lewis, I went to this Friday morning group that's like uh we joke and call it dudes into Jesus. Um but at the time it was still just like I'm just trying to figure it out, and at that point I was just trying to figure it out because I I really wanted to believe that there was a heaven for uh Johnson. Oh we all just want to believe that, you know, and um but then in that journey I I found or opened my eyes to where your faith is supposed to be. It was a faith that Johnson always had, which was Jesus and God.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, Johnson was strong, strong in that. He wasn't D I can't come, I got to go to church.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

God, he was the best. And so then I look back on when things went really right versus wrong.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Ah yes, yes, they that that's a good one. Is how is your faith and success and how is your faith doing failure? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Well, it's interesting because faith and other things will give you temporary success. So need this thing to happen, I'm gonna manifest it, I'm gonna paint it, I'm gonna draw it, I'm gonna visualize it, I'm gonna do a walking meditation into it, I'm gonna write it down in the morning, I'm gonna write it down at night. And I literally believe there were years that I was like bending the universe to my will, that we weren't even supposed to be winning, and I was somehow making it happen. All of those wins in that moment ended up being horrible failures a year down the road, two years down the road. And you can look back on those moments once I found real faith and been like, fuck man, I didn't have any faith at all. I felt that I needed to make this happen because whatever plan was unfolding was not the plan that I wanted. And I'ma fucking make this happen. Come hell or high water. And it would happen in the moment, and you're like, yes, I did it. Fucking did it, dude. I got it. Another, you know, it's almost like a video game. Like, we made it to the next level. Well, you don't realize like all of your life force is being depleted in the process, right? A lot of hits, yeah. And the only way to make it to the end of the game is you got to be north of 80%. But every time you get to the next level, you're like, losing 10%, losing 10%, losing 10%. And and so you look back on these moments where at the time you're like, this is a huge win that maybe I created, and then it ends up being the worst thing that ever happened to you. And so then you start going, well, fuck man, like I don't know if I should be doing this. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

That sounds that sounds almost like a slippery slope because you do want to keep trying your hardest to make something happen. Yeah, and then you also want to have faith, but not having faith where you're sitting back like, I believe it's gonna happen. So I'm gonna just Yeah, I'm gonna chill.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Yeah, I'm gonna chill. You know what I'm saying? It's it is the hardest balance because it is what I what I found is if it's supposed to happen, it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

But if you make it happen, it's probably gonna happen. Maybe it was a little hard, but you kinda give you kind of us as hard workers or or people who you know achieve high achievers, we kinda make that like it's gonna happen because I'm gonna make it happen. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And you still have your faith, because you know, you know, like if it was meant for me, it's gonna be for me.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

I I do think it ends up being an expert, almost like running back, where you gotta just wait for the gap, and then you gotta fucking shoot the gap. Yeah. And that's how I visualize it now, where you know, there may only be one or two epic runs that you're gonna have in a game. Uh, you're gonna keep trying to get one yard and two yards, and Hall of Famers, I think, average what, five yards or something per carry, or six yards per carry, or something. I think. And that's not a lot. That's not a fucking That's a half a first down on every run. Yeah, but it's like in the grand scheme of a football field, that's not a lot of yards. Now, over time, and you're just smashing people in every couple yards, you know, it takes a toll on your body, and maybe you win the game. Yeah. Um, but as I got older, I really kind of understood, and I'm still trying to fully figure it out, but it's it's this thing of I'm gonna do everything that I can in my power, and I'm also really gonna observe what's working and what's not working, and I'm gonna think about that. Like, is it not working because it's not supposed to work right now? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I I I feel you on that. And is it working because this is the path I'm supposed to be on, and it's it's working for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Because it gives you the confidence and it probably gives you uh the will to keep on going. Because I remember when I first started, man. When I first started filming and and doing photography and stuff like that, I came out the gate. I did uh uh well when I first got to school, I did a music video for Raheem Devon, animated. I did that, and then I did a uh I started to do photography. I got the photography mentor from Annapolis, and then um I immediately started shooting weddings. So I did like uh what was his name? Something Brown. He was a politician, I can't remember, Anthony Brown or something like that. I did his wedding, and then after that, I went to I did, I started working with Idris Elba. So I was doing like BTS for Idris Elba before BTS was even really a high thing. I was following Idris Elba. We went to, I went to like MTV, I went to uh the Tonight Show. I was back here filming. I went to uh the what was it, BET, one of those shows on BET, but I was going everywhere, man. It was so dope, and I was like, yeah, I'm ready to take off. I think I filmed the one guy from uh Amari Hardwick. I filmed him when he went to the club in DC. So I was everywhere. I was just filming, I was doing BTS, and I thought, I thought, I thought I was in. I thought I was ready to do it. I was like, yeah. But now I realize that was just the taste. I think God gave me a taste, like, yeah, this, you can do this. This is, you know what I'm saying? And then it kind of like dwindled, dwindled down a little bit, and I went back to, you know, just doing regular stuff, still working, still grinding, still getting it. But I wasn't working with, you know, I thought I was the man I was working with, you know, I was working with Idris or Mark Hardwick. I was doing a lot of big stuff, but um, and I just felt like that was where I was supposed to be. So I guess in a sense, I felt like, okay, this seems to be working for me. Let me let me take this more seriously. So when you said that, I thought that might was a good omen for me. Like, okay, maybe I should be working with the camera and doing this type of stuff. And then, you know, after that, I went on to um, you know, doing murals, doing my artwork still, and then I finally came over with you guys. I just found my uh what's the letter you give? Um like an offer letter? Yep. I could found my offer letter. I just the first one. My first one, February 26th, 20, 2014. Really? Yep. I'm gonna frame it and put it on my wall. So yeah, I just found it going through some emails. But uh I really, I really see it that he gave me, you know, he showed me that in the beginning. And then me personally, you know, on my personal, I took that as okay, since I'm already starting here, I'm gonna be here for the duration of time now. But then it kind of just dwindled off, and I went back to, you know, just doing, like I said, doing my regular stuff and boop, boop, boop.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

In Napoleon Hill talks about beginner's luck. That was my beginner's luck. Right? The universe rewards you yeah, man, this is this is it, but this is just a taste, and the rest of this journey is gonna be a motherfucker.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, but I've when I look back at that work, I was I was if I look back at the work, I was a beginner. You can tell, I can look at the work. I will I was a beginner, and you know what I'm saying, and that was just definitely just a taste. That was definitely beginner's work when I look back at it now.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Well, everything is, I mean, growth is definite. Yeah, well, and it's like if you if you don't look back on yourself every six months or every year and feel embarrassed about how stupid that work is or those decisions, you're not growing. Yeah, I can see that. And you know, I look back on the shit we were doing in 2014, 2015. I remember my first label.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Garlic. Roasted garlic. Oh man, I remember that first. That was the first label I ever did that you said, well, why don't you make this label? Jeez, I I had so many iterations. That product was delicious. Everybody loved it. People would call me, say, can you get us some roasted garlic? I'm like, I don't know, it's not in the store. We were before our time, man. That roasted garlic was we need to need to just bring that back.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

We were slow roasting garlic for like 12 hours, marinated garlic, and then blending it. It was fucking awesome. Um the dishes that Kristen was making with slow roasted garlic were just on another level. I used to use that all the time. But yeah, the faith thing, it's it's interesting because the concept of unwavering faith, like you have to be so dialed in and mentally tough and prepared for consequences beyond what you are socially prepared to endure to really actually have unwavering faith. You know, like it's people say they have it, and then the moment you're 30 days late on a bill, you crack and you go, all right, I gotta manifest this in into my own existence, or I I I have to I have to fix this problem right now. And having faith to endure and leave no stone unturned, but still be unbelievably aware of this isn't working for a reason. I need to now be open to whatever is supposed to be coming my way. You know, like the Michael Jackson movie was a great example where he's like laying in the pool and his brother's like, What are you doing? He's like, I'm waiting for the creator to send me inspiration because if I'm not there to receive it, he's gonna give it to Prince. You know, that was so funny. That was such a great line, but it is 100% correct in the sense that like when inspiration strikes or the gift is given because you're on this journey, you don't choose when you get it.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

And it feels so effortless at a point where it's just like you're just flowing through it, yeah. And then sometimes you don't feel like doing it, but you gotta keep on going, and then over time it starts to reveal itself, and you'd be like, oh, that's pretty cool. I I was in that state because I was helping the friend design uh a cover for his for his album that he's coming out, and I was like, man, it was this has been the longest cover art that I've been doing for the longest time. Because I was in it, I was like, because I've been doing this cover art since forever in time. That's how we met.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah, those dudes that was doing the dudes that were working the line, they go, you know, Moe's out there making rap album covers. And I'm like, well, how does that apply to me? They go, he can airbrush walls too. Go down to Moon's barbershop and see what he's done. Yep. So so I went and experienced racism for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

You always say that. You know, you just sitting in there.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

I go, all right. I'm just gonna fucking sit here all day until I'm seen. I don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

But now we do a now they do appointments. But I used to like when you could just walk in.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Well, I'd walk in. I'm like, so how do you make an appointment? They go, nope. I'm like, okay. Jennifer kept calling me, she goes, where the fuck are you? I'm like, I'm never giving up. I will sit here all fucking day. Yeah, D Mored, right? Uh or was it real? D Moore, I think, cut it eventually after I fucking sat there for two and a half hours. And just dudes are walking in, they're like, Yep, take a seat. And I'm like, So uh how do you get an appointment here?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

They're like, you just walk in, I'm like, okay, didn't Moon tell you give me a jab? Like, you should look at look at Mo. No, who was it?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

No, it was just all the I I just wanted to see the airbrushing situation. Oh. And then I obviously was in there, so I was gonna get a fade. They didn't touch the top, though. You know, they can't they can't cut the whites top the top of their hair, but they can fucking fade the shit out of the sides. I mean, been doing fade for years, dude, centuries. And the funniest was like, I don't know any of the lingo, so the first time I come out of there looking like fucking Eminem, dog. I mean, they're like, you want me to get the hooks? I'm like, sure. And he's like, yoink. I was like, oh shit. Oh yeah. So I fucking come in, dude. They lined up the front, hard loaded hook. Genevieve goes, What the fuck did you do to your hair? I'm like, I didn't know any of the lingo. But when you bit went back, they got you right. Yeah, of course, because I fucking tipped the shit out of them, too. I mean, everybody loves money, everybody likes a good tip.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

So uh, but yeah, man, you were doing rap album covers like airbrushing, and then that was the beginning of a hilarious journey of you doing work for us, and then when you didn't turn your shit in on time, I'll never forget that phone call. I was on 97 coming home from Essex. And I'm like, Mo, where's my shit, dude? You go, Yeah, well, um, there's been some issues with this and some issues with that. And I go, Your internet got shut off, didn't it? You go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Hey baby. I go, bitch. Come on now.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Why don't you come work for us full time?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

We'll give you a salary and health insurance. Yeah, well, we had a good time. That was that was I talked to everybody. Well, at least a few people about that. And just got some insight. And they said, Yeah, man, I think I think it'd I think it'll be good for you. And then I just follow through and I've been there ever since. You're the last one standing. I'm the last one on the mountain. It'd be like, like, uh, what was that uh that show on Nickelodeon? Or was it no, it was on US US USA TV, whatever it was called. Wasn't it called? The Gladiators. Love Gladiator. When they stand at the top at the end. Yeah, that's me right there.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

But it was um it was American Gladiators.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah, American Gladiators. Yeah. That was the joint. God dang, Saturday mornings. But nevertheless, I'm doing that the album cover and I'm starting it. I mean, it's taking me so long because I was like kind of doing it, but didn't want to do it. But and then I started doing it, it wasn't coming out right, but now, you know, I just kept on going. I kept on going through it. I kept on doing a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. Now I'm looking at it, I'm like, this is pretty dope. This is looking good. Yeah. And now, you know, I'm enjoying, you know, taking a little time and doing it. So, like you said, with the faith in the beginning, I was kind of like, uh, I don't know, but I just kept on going through it. I just, like you said, I stayed consistent and I had the routine to just do a little bit by little bit, and now I'm kind of really digging the final uh outcome of it.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

It is a discipline, and it's not, you know, you will get these beautiful moments of inspiration or a lightning bolt, or you will reach flow, you will get into a flow state.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

That flow state is so beautiful when you hit it.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

But the discipline of being there and making yourself readily available to then get into that state, that is the thing that most people don't do. And it is faith in its own sense of like you have to be there to be able to receive it. Like, yeah, maybe some maybe you'll be on a walk, you'll get an idea, it'll be beautiful, it'll unfold in ways that you've never experienced before. That happens without a doubt. But the other stuff is you're there at a time that you don't want to be there early in the morning. You feel like nothing's going on, you feel like nothing's coming together, and then the next thing you know, you're 10 pages into a book, or you're 90% done, a piece of art, and you just kind of look back and go, What the fuck was that about?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, you just wake up. So talking about faith and how you got to where you are through your faith uh developing over time. Yeah, how much does faith play or played in your leadership uh in your leadership role? Did did you have that faith and leadership together in the beginning, or was or over time did faith start to creep into your style of leadership and now where you are, how much faith is involved with your leadership skills and the way that you lead?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Well, I'm gonna slightly answer it differently. Faith now is for me my only mechanism for peace. So regardless of how stressful things are, regardless of how bad things get, regardless of how horrible things are looking, the faith component now allows me to have peace in a day. And I think you for a clear mind and to make good decisions, you cannot be in a chaotic, stressful state. That's not a great way to think. And a CEO's job or a leader's job is simply to make good decisions. Faith has allowed me the peace and the kind of calmness in a storm to be able to still see everything that's happening, but make the right decision for the most part. Now, I don't maintain that a hundred percent of the time. There's times where I get super fucking stressed out and I need to go on a walk or I need to write or I need to meditate or something. Like I need to do a reset externally somehow to kind of bring peace back into my life. But what I can say now versus five years ago, now faith allows me to be calm in the storm because I have uh the peace that comes with perspective, and I have the peace that comes with faith that it's all happening exactly as it should happen. And again, going back to the previous statements that we made and what we were talking about, I didn't have that before. You know, you almost thought like I need to be stressed out, or I need to be angry, or I need to be, you know, running at a thousand miles an hour to get something done in that chaos. Something will come my way. That may be true. I don't know if it's the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, does that make you feel, I guess, when when you feel like you're busy or you feel like you're stressed and you feel that everything is kind of chaotic, does that make you feel like I'm important, I'm doing stuff, I'm getting stuff done.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

I think it used to.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Okay. Right?

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Because that's that's the culture. You're busy, you're doing things, your schedule's packed, you're rushing, you're important, you're on calls, you're in meetings. Well, how many of those calls do you actually need to be on? How many of those meetings do you do you actually need to go to? Probably not a lot. And I got a buddy and he runs a company and he packs his fucking schedule to the max, dude. From like first thing in the morning till late at night every day. And you see it and you try and tell him, dude, this is not it, man. You're doing too much. You don't need to be there. You don't need to drive there, you don't need to be on this call. Do you need to be on some of the calls? Maybe. But in the grand scheme of the call, what are you getting out of it? Is it just a metrics call where you just need the data point? Well, just get the data. And if the people aren't delivering, give them a you know a performance improvement plan or change the metrics or whatever, or get different people. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And I do look at people now that are rushing at that magnitude, and I'm just like, that doesn't seem to be correct. Now, this has nothing to do with being busy, right? Like, sometimes you gotta make a train and you gotta fucking get there and you're gonna be rushed.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Sometimes you gotta get from the train station to the meeting and you gotta be rushed. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is what is your role in your organization, what is your purpose, and what is the greatest use of your time specifically, not what do you want to do, what is the greatest use of your time, and then that's where you live. It's the cross section of what is your role, right? What do people think your role is? What is the greatest use of your time? Are those aligned? I don't care what you want to do. And but yeah, I mean, if you look at every movie, every TV show of somebody super successful, run into the meeting, making stock trades, make picking up the phone call, the pursuit of happiness, Will Smith's running in, he's running out, he doesn't have a t-shirt on, he's just getting in the cab, he's just getting here, and it all works out. Well, I I don't makes for a good movie. Great movie. Love that movie. Yeah, but I don't know if that is that's not the key to clarity. I know that. Because I I mean that's been scientifically proven in terms of cortisol response and brain function and clarity. I mean, at the end of the day, the reason I wake up early is because that is a fresh brain, and that fresh brain sees things way differently than when I see them at seven o'clock at night at the end of a crazy day. Yeah. And you can see that the most with writing. So I write articles on Substack all the time, and I'll take a passage and I'll put it as like, you know, almost like a teaser before the article, and then I'll post that on LinkedIn and Substack and everywhere else. At night, I'll read through the article if it's in the queue. I'll go, well, where do I want, you know, what do I want my little teaser to be? Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. I and I won't know. The next morning, I'll read it and it just presents itself. Yeah. It's just there. The mornings are great. Well, it's clarity. It's a new beginning, it's fresh. The day hasn't fucked you, your faith is strong. You know, for me, it's like I read Jesus calling that little daily devotional every morning, lock in there, read a little something else, do a little meditation, journal in cursive now. Yeah, I'm writing in cursive. After you finish, I like the no one. Um in your brain's fresh, and your faith is fresh, and that is where, in my opinion, the best decisions are made and the clarity lives. So cursive, tell me.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yes. Well, why cursive now? I haven't written in cursive in God knows when I haven't written in cursive since I was in fourth grade.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

And so I read this thing that writing in cursive unlocks a totally different component or aspect of your brain, and it makes everything work differently, and it makes your goals, you know, come true faster, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm like, I don't even know if I can write in cursive. So I go, fuck it. I mean, I've done everything else in the world. I might as well start trying to write in cursive. So the first day was rough, dog. Yeah, you gotta remember. I'm like, all right. Capital cursive eye, does it connect into the word? You know, I'm looking this shit up. And the craziest part of writing in cursive now is if you are in a chaotic day, you could pick it up at any time. You're gonna slow down. You are gonna slow down, and shit comes out from a writing perspective the moment you start writing in cursive. It is like you're opening a different portal. It is crazy. It's crazy, dude. And I'm gonna start, I'm gonna do it, dude. And so I had to completely change the way I even thought about writing because I write in in uh print, all caps, small, I can fit a bajillion words on a little page. That ain't happening in cursive. You need those big swoops, and you got to be at a little bit of an angle, and you're trying to connect, and this and that, and um it's crazy. And even if it if the minimum thing that it does is now I know how to write in cursive again, fuck it. I like it. But I can tell you, and I will swear by this, the minute you start writing, your brain unlocks something, and you're like, whoa. Yeah, I was literally writing, I'm like, whoa. Okay, yeah, I literally was like, okay, I'm writing in cursive, and my brain is working differently, and I can use and I can feel it working differently, and um, and so it was it was pretty crazy, and I actually think about we went to um maybe it was the Saint John Newman Shrine in Philadelphia because St. John Newman is a part of the St. Mary's church. It was a you know, it was a field trip for St. Mary's, and um one, he's like a midget, he's like so tiny, and they have his body there as a shrine in a case. It's crazy. But they had all of his writing in these books, and he wrote and cursed. I think everybody from that time wrote and cursed. It was beautiful. I mean, that was the only way of writing. It was perfectly spread out. It was like they didn't even have line paper back. Dude, they didn't have line paper, and this dude is it was it was perfection. So that was before I decided to start writing in cursive. I then read something later on. But yeah, dude, I'm writing in cursive.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Well, that's good. Um do you think faith can make you a better CEO for the people out there?

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Yeah, because I think it faith makes you a better person. And when you're a better person, you lead differently because you have a different understanding of human behavior and you are more calm and you have a deeper appreciation of everybody's struggles or lack thereof, but at the same time, it also makes you a little bit more ruthless because you can see the bullshit, right? Because when you open your eyes to an understanding of people's problems, you also see when people are bullshitting and they're not real problems, and so you're like, yeah, no, that is not correct. Like, I will stand by you if you had a problem and this happened and this happened, and I understand that. This is bullshit. Right. So I do think having a deep faith makes you a better person, it gives you a different perspective. That different perspective and being a better person allows you to lead more effectively. And then when you're an effective leader and you're radiating positive energy with true intentions, I think people are more open and willing to follow because they know, or at least they hope that they know, that you are uh doing what's right. Yeah. And so if you're doing what's right and you're honest, and you're doing it for the right reasons, people are gonna be more willing to follow versus the opposite of that.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah, yeah. I think that's just a good skill, just just a good life. Living a good life is just to be honest. But you see, a lot of people don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

I don't know many people that do, man.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

I don't. I think it's I would feel it'd be hard to be not honest. I think that's just extra work.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

I think Abraham Lincoln said it, and he said, uh, I'm not good enough to be uh I'm not smart enough to be a good liar because I can't, my memory's not that good or something.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean that sounds that sounds about right because I think that's just a lot of extra work. Instead of just hitting it with the truth, hey man, I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Nobody has the confidence to say that though.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

I don't know what to tell you. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

I wish I could. Well, it but that is really the real test of someone that has a strong faith in themselves and their own character and their own journey when an opportunity presents itself and they're like, oh nah, dog, I don't have that.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

And that's oh, when an opportunity presents itself, that is that's that's also a straddle of the line. Like which opportunity you take and which opportunity you let pass. I be seeing these things where this one guy or or these actors um have a role. Let's just say, you know, they ask somebody else outside of Will Smith to be the person pursuit of happiness, and they'd be like, Yeah, man, they asked me to do it, but I turned it down. But now look at, or let's say Forrest Gump. They asked somebody before they asked him to do Forrest Gump. Like, he said, you know, I I was supposed to audition for the Forrest Gump part, but I told him, yeah, I really like the script, so I let it pass.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Well, how about Matt Damon with um Avatar? Do you how much money he lost on that? That was James Cameron, right? Yeah. He was gonna give him a percent of the movie. And the amount of he would have made off that franchise in cash over a billion dollars and he turned it down.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

And that's the one, like those opportunities, like I guess there's no way you can well, I vet, you know, me and you, we vet the opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Yeah, we're gonna listen.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah, yeah, but uh, you know what I'm saying? But still, sometimes they'd be they be hard to uh to decipher. But you used to always say, hey man, don't be you out here chasing rabbits. We're chasing elephants. Right, we're going with elephants. Yeah, we're we're chasing elephants, man. You can't chase every single rabbit. No, even though that rabbit might look like look good, we gotta get this elephant. Yes, and you know that rabbit, you know, you hit him, boom, you can hit about six, seven rabbits. But it's gonna take you a year, three years, five years to hit that elephant. You know what I'm saying? And I think sometimes you get lost in that five years, and sometimes you go and you get yourself a rabbit here and there.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Well, they're easy, yeah. That's what it is, and they die quick. And the elephant is you only need one. Tell me about it. And you know, we're still chasing, I'm still chasing that elephant.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah, we're chasing the elephant that's probably extinct. Was that the Willy Mammoth?

SPEAKER_02 43:04

So whenever we can. We're like, so there's this giant elephant, really long hair, long tusks. Have you seen it? If you're like, yeah, I saw it in a book, bitch. We're gonna find one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

On Earth? Yes. Still here. Are you sure? Pretty sure we're gonna find it.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Yeah, we're gonna get it. All right, see ya. Yep, we're working it. But yeah, man, I would say that's faith.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

That's faith. We're gonna find that, Willie Mammoth.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

We're gonna find something close to it. Yeah. It could be a genetic defect, giant elephant, but you know. But I will say the difference between me today and the difference of me a couple years ago deep, deep, deep faith today. And I think before I had surface level. Level faith in a lot of things, and a lot of them were the wrong things. And I can tell you the ability to persevere and endure, and you said it earlier, just be a good person when things aren't going your way. That's hard as well. Right. Because at the end of the day, man, and I'm seeing this with my dad right now, he's got a buddy worth hundreds of millions of dollars. End of his life, health is going, wife's health is going, no relationship with his kids, got a shitload of money. And you look at my dad, shitload of grandkids, all his kids love him, super active. You would have no idea what age he is, strong as a fucking ox, you know, laughing, living, doing all the shit he wants to be doing. And that to me, going back to this like faith of being a good person, you would think, looking at his life, he's the richest man on earth. And that is what I want when I'm in my 80s with my kids near me, with my grandkids near me, every day waking up with my wife smiling, having lunch on the porch, working on shit I want to be working on. And it's like, and I think that that happens. This dude has the ultimate faith, right? His joke on his tombstone, he wants he had a plan after all. That's the quote he wants on there. So you want to talk about faith that it's all gonna work out? That dude.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Every tool. Like, oh Mo, have I told you where I got this fire axe from? I was young. I left to go to work. I was only 15. I just started walking around the road. Dropped out of high school.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

He said, and I wind up on this small island. Yes. Off the coast of Washington State. Yes. He was on a trailblazing squad. They were fucking blazing trails for the Olympic National Forest. That motherfucker dropped out of high school, hitchhiked from Ohio to the Olympic mountain.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Like I'm a I'm gonna film him telling that story sitting behind, sitting in front of his tools with all his tools on the wall. So yeah, I gotta get it for it. Every tool on that wall, and there are hundreds. Has a story, everything.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Yep. This is my great uncle Louie's. This is my father's.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

This is my I think he had his grandfather his uh sickle. Yeah, his sickles. Yeah. That reminds me, my my grandmother still has some of her father's tools as well. So it'd be like, I mean, it just saves stuff. Some things are just worth saving. Well, and trying to get into this thing.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Well, and he said something he was gonna like sell some of them. I go, what the fuck are you talking about, dude? I go, you're giving me all this shit. Right. He's like, you want these things? I'm like, why would I not want them? He's like, well, I didn't know you were interested in them. I'm like, you're busy using them. What am I gonna do with them right now?

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Right. Like those things are like I got my grandmother cameras. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you know, I I'm taking her cameras. I got all her photos. They like in the big barrel, like it's all the photos that she she took of the family and everything. So I got all those and everything. So, but yeah, man, some things you know, you just need those those memories to look back on. You know what I'm saying? All we are are memories.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Literally. Think about it. Your whole life is just your memories.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Right. You only can live right now, right then the moment. Right. And then after that, it's gone. Just think about that. That'll fuck you up. Two seconds ago, how it's gone now. Forever. Love it. Anything else on faith? I think I think we covered it. That was that was a good talk.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Yeah. Greg Venner Podcast, Mo Taylor talking about faith. Holly at your boy.