Vilardi Digital Podcast #1 - Jason Sowell

Folding Hope: Jason Sowell on Laundry Project, Dignity & Doing Good Anyway

Before the world shut down in 2020, Jason Sowell stood at the altar officiating my wedding. Weeks later, laundromats were shutting down, people were bleaching their Amazon boxes, and we were all losing our minds over toilet paper.

Jason? He was out there with a bucket of quarters and a bold idea: The Laundry Project—a way to restore dignity one clean load at a time.

In this episode of the Vilardi Digital Podcast, we go deep (and sideways) with Jason—founder of @engagecurrent, the nonprofit behind @laundryproject, Hope For Homes, and Affordable Christmas.

We talk:
 🧺 How a single conversation in a laundromat changed his life
 💡 Why dignity matters more than charity
 🎤 Life as a pastor, a TEDx speaker, and a professional hope dealer
 🔥 Funny, awkward moments—including clearing up some wild rumors about STDs before we even start

This one’s equal parts hilarious, raw, and ridiculously inspiring.

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

P.S. Neither of us have or have had an STD... so thats good. 

#VilardiDigitalPodcast #JasonSowell #engagecurrent #laundryproject #HopeForHomes #AffordableChristmas #HopeDealer #PodcastWithHeart #FaithInAction #RealStoriesMatter #DoGoodAnyway

The Vilardi Digital Show is produced in our custom-built podcast studio in Trinity, FL; where bold stories and big ideas come to life. New episodes drop weeekly/monthly.

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• Website: www.vilardidigital.com

🎧 Want to be a guest or record your own show in our studio?
Book a session or apply to be on the pod here: vilardidigital.com/studio

Transcript

you so professional. Got you. Hey, man. You know your clap? I'm trying to do I did I Who told you I 0:16 had clap? Goddamn liars. Who have you been talking to, man? That's not true. 0:22 Like one time. It doesn't mean you have it forever. It's not a death sentence, dude. It's like a one freaking time. What a dick. Well, 0:29 cheers. Oh, yeah. Get your head get your cans on. You get an SD one time, suddenly you got 0:35 Yeah, dude. I've uh Thankfully, you know, since you brought it up, I've not ever um I've 0:42 never gotten one. Right. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks for coming. Cheers. I'm trying. Yeah. Bless you. 0:50 It's cool that you're here. Okay. So, um I'm going to do a little intro. Okay. For the people that don't know who you 0:55 are. Yeah. We're not brothers. Probably everyone. You can't you can't put your feet up here. Yeah, I got like little foot a little closer. 1:02 Yeah, man. Just you settle into the old Yeah. There we go. Sweet. All right. So, uh so Jason Soul uh 1:09 married my wife and I. Yes. Okay. So, he's Let's clarify. I officiated your 1:14 wedding. I didn't marry. We're not in a three-way marriage. This is very true. So, so you officiated 1:19 I officiated your wedding. You married us. Okay. Yeah. Just to clarify, you married us. Okay. And then two 1:27 months later, the world [ __ ] shut down. That's corre. Wow. That's right. So, do you So, do you feel at all 1:32 responsible for this or, you know, because we we could I I don't know if you're if some of the words you 1:38 said while beautiful, you know, maybe casted some sort of spell, some pandemic spell. Yeah. 1:44 Uh, you know, or if there was some sort of uh wizardry. Yeah. I like that you think it's me 1:51 officiating and not the fact that you got married. Yeah. Definitely not us. Well, look, so Pam and I forgive you, you know, 1:58 because, you know, we're Christians. I'm not referring to Pam. I'm referring to you got married. Yeah. 2:03 You specifically got married and the world cracked. Oh, yeah. Well, so I didn't think of it 2:10 that way. I like it. I'm going to I'm going to start thinking of it in in 2:15 different ways, but No, I didn't think about it. Um, yeah, but so so again, pandemic happened, businesses shut down. 2:21 Yep. You know, people were outside spreading their buttholes into the sun to try to get more vitamin D. True story. There 2:27 was a lot of craziness. People were wiping down Amazon packages with Clorox wipes. Um 2:33 and their fruit, not just and their fruit. And you know, the president at the time said, "Let's try 2:38 putting bleach in your bones." Or whatever he said. And then um you know, and then people bozos were hoarding 2:44 toilet paper. the great toilet paper shortage of, you know, 20 bubba bum. Yeah, whatever freaking year that 2:51 I don't know. There's so many years of chaos and then um everyone started to, you know, learn how to make sourdough 2:57 starter. I was one of them. I can make you some killer bread. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Like the world So you So you officiated our wedding. It 3:04 was It was awesome. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. I did a good job. I know. 3:09 I think it was very nice. Oh, which brings me to later in the show. Have you ever read your reviews on 3:15 what? What's your wedding link on your website? Oh, uh, you're probably referring to Wedding Wire. 3:20 Wedding Wire. Yes, it is. That is what I That's what I'm doing. So, I found some reviews. Okay. 3:26 They're very funny. We should read them. I found the best of the best, but we'll get to that later. Let's do that. But anyways, okay. So, so the world shuts 3:31 down. Meanwhile, you're out there. Yeah. 3:36 Slanging laundry detergent, slanging quarters. So, so names of the show. Can I run them by you? 3:41 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feels good. Okay. So, the first one was hope. Dealer in the streets, pastor in the sheets. 3:48 Yeah. Okay. You like it, right? Feels It feels felt appropriate. Let me get a hit of 3:53 that hope. I'd like that. Yeah, that's a good one. Could your hope dealer? How about this? Hope on in to the incredible world of 4:00 Jason Soul. Not bad. Yeah, not bad. Okay. 4:06 Pimps up, hopes down. Yeah, that one that one feels right. 4:12 They all have their own. But you are you familiar with the documentary Pimps Up Hose Down? Many many years ago. 4:19 Yeah. Um but I liked Pimp Pimps Up Hopes Down. Yeah. Yeah. It felt felt good. That is that is good. Those are 4:25 creative. Those are really good. I'll be honest. I think my favorite God, those first two 4:32 are really good. Yeah. Uh let me get a let me get ahead of that hope. But 4:38 no, but you got to say it like that. Yeah. Pastor in the streets. Pastor in the sheets. 4:44 So, I was going to go preacher in the sheets, but you're not like preacher for me feels southern and black, which is 4:50 fine. But I feel like pastor is more like Caucasian and tight jeans. Uh, good, good point. So, where how came 4:58 up in the South, sure, not in a black church, but uh in the 5:04 south, preacher is is appropriate. That was what everyone used. It wasn't pastor. We call we called them we called 5:11 him preacher. Okay. That's how we referred to him. So when did pastor become I think here's my here's my here's my 5:18 theory. Here's my theory. Um so you have this progression late 90s 5:25 early 2000s from away from your more traditional denominational type stuff 5:30 and then you end up with the um and I started one of these churches. you you 5:35 end up in like the casual non-denominational we've got a rock band on stage. Um the 5:42 pastors in tight jeans, that kind of stuff. Uh I think because pastor sounds 5:47 more professional, it sounds more corporate. It sounds more like CEO, you know. Yeah. Not just the guy in charge. 5:54 Uh CEO sounds more professional. Pastor sounds more professional than preacher. preacher has the connotation of 6:00 um we're here to we're here to uh no pun intended dog on your life. We're here to 6:07 we're here to preach down at you. Pastor sounds more more uh inviting 6:14 than preacher. But in the south at those two hand in hand preacher preacher is a sign of 6:19 respect. You get called preacher in the streets. Yeah, that's respect. What about in the sheets? 6:24 Well, in the that's a great question. I don't Oh, he's a preacher in the sheets. I don't know what that means. Sounds uh 6:31 biblical. Sounds good. It's true. Um so, but you're a for are you still a pastor or a former pastor? Because in my 6:36 notes I have former pastor. Yeah. Here's what I here's what I say. What I tell people is it's like being a doctor. You're always a doctor. Whether 6:43 you work for a practice or a hospital, you never you're never not a doctor. It's the same kind of thing. You're 6:49 always that profession to me is it's always you're always a pastor, preacher, 6:54 whatever term you want to put on it, minister. Um regardless of whether you're employed by a church or a 7:01 ministry. Sure. Like it is what it is like it but I also have philosophically not to get into all this 7:07 but the theologically that's why we're here. There is uh 7:13 we spend in that world in church world I went to Bible college went to seminary. we spend a lot more time getting people 7:20 focused on the career side of it rather than the calling slashcuriosity 7:26 of it. Right? So for me, for example, I went from being a pastor of a church that started a couple churches in Tampa 7:32 and then um leaving that and I was working 7:37 part-time at Starbucks. The first time around I was really embarrassed about it. second time around working at 7:42 Starbucks. I had landed on the mentality that like, oh, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I am just as much a 7:49 pastor in this environment as if I was working for a church, being employed by a church. Actually, probably even more 7:56 so in this environment as a barista at a coffee shop. I'm doing the same things 8:01 without but what we associate being a pastor with is being on stage 8:06 preaching pullpit talking to a crowd of people passing around a Jesit and some grape juice right the whole thing 8:13 that's what we associate with oh that person's a pastor but in reality pastors are shepherds 8:19 they're counselors they're um they are counselors they're therapists they're um 8:26 advice givers they're sounding board they're all of that and it just happens to be the person that knows about 8:32 scripture and applying scripture to those things that they're being talked to about. Sure. 8:38 That's what being a pastor is to me. So you so you still So I still So I was still categorizing 8:43 myself. I'm still a pastor. Okay. I'm just not employed by a church. So you're pastored 8:49 because you don't have a church, right? You're pastor. Yeah. Yeah. But do you still actively speak any given Sunday? 8:55 Sometimes if invited not as much if I'm invited 100%. Yeah. I'm absolutely in. Uh not as much as I used to. Um 9:03 just, you know, I don't know for any specific reason, but just not as much as I used to. I don't get asked to as much 9:08 these days. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think that is? I'm just kidding. Great question. 9:14 I could go down. No, no. Well, I imagine that 9:20 parishioners want So, so Watermark's perfect example. I've seen you speak at Watermark. 9:26 You weren't the regular pastor. you were I guess it called a guest speaker or guest pastor. Yeah. Um a standin and uh but I would imagine 9:35 that regular parishioners of any institution want the guy or the you know 9:41 or the person, right? Um like I don't know what Joel Olstein's numbers are, but I'm sure when like Rick 9:47 gets up there, they're like, "Oh, whatever Rick, where's Joe? Bring Joe out." You know, like I don't know. 9:52 Yeah. Um I honestly uh my take on it is depends on the type of environment 9:59 you've created. Sure. Granted, a lot of a lot of churches create an environment of the lead pastor 10:07 is that's the final authority. That's the guy everyone wants to hear from. It's by design. So parishioners take it 10:15 that way. Right. Sure. Um some places I think are really good at understanding this is not a cult of personality. 10:21 the the lead pastor is the current shepherd of this place. 10:26 Um but and oftentimes that particular pastor also understands they may not be 10:33 the best communicator. Sure. They might be the best leader and the best shepherd, the best pastor, but they may not be the best communicator for 10:39 that environment. So they will design a a scenario that I am sharing this 10:45 stage presence, this pull pit with multiple people that are are better at this than me, that are clearer 10:51 communicators, that are better at it. And that takes a lot of self- assuredness. 10:58 That takes uh and I I hate to say this, but 11:03 um actually I don't hate to say it. It's a true it's true by experience in most of my life. Pastors are some of the most 11:09 insecure people I've ever met. And um interesting. 11:14 There is uh they they design a space to design a place on stage for them where 11:21 they get the accolades because they need it. And an ego it's like an ego thing. 11:28 There's a lot of ego involved. There's also um there's been scientific studies on this. There's actually been therapeutic studies about um so spending 11:36 time on a stage. So, if you do that regularly, let's say on a weekly basis, you're on a stage, your body gives off 11:42 the same chemical um reactions to that crowd reception, 11:48 all of that. Your body gives off the same things that a that a drug addict goes through. 11:53 So, eventually your body hit the same kind of dopamine hits. Yeah. So, what happens is your 11:59 You know, that kind of makes sense, I guess, cuz you know, when I was in a band, you know, but here's the thing. I hated it. I used to sing with my eyes 12:06 closed because it actually I had like incredible stage fright. Like I 43 I still bite my fingernails. I have like this 12:11 Yeah. battle of anxiety and like you know self-deprecating. That's where 12:16 the humor comes from is I'm just going to laugh my way through everything. Yeah. Right. Right. It's safe. 12:22 That's a Yeah, it's So there's two things at play. So your body, they've 12:27 they've kind of likened um equated an hour of public speaking on a stage 12:35 has the same physical and mental stress 12:40 of working an eight hour day at just like a desk job or just all the it's the 12:47 everything your body's going through chemically, mentally, emotionally in that in in that scenario. And then 12:53 especially if you have a very receptive crowd and you're good at it, it becomes this dopamine hit that your body goes 12:59 through. So what happens is over time your body starts reacting the same way 13:05 that a drug addict's body does to whatever drug that they are addicted to. You have this and you see it with 13:11 pastors all the time. I've worked in that world for years. You see this Sunday is this really big high and 13:16 especially if you have multiple services. Let's say you've got three or four three or four services. You're on that stage. I've done it. I've done five 13:24 services somewhat in a uh four one on a Saturday night and then four on a Sunday morning. 13:30 Geez. Or three on a Sunday morning and then one Sunday afternoon and the same message or just because the 13:35 groups of people are different. No, same Yeah, same message. So So different some people want to get up at 9:00. 13:40 Correct. Some people aren't going to get there till 11. Same service, same message. Some people, you know, it's like I can't 13:45 be bothered with the Lord till two, right? Exact. Yeah. 100%. And he gets it. You know, big guns. I'm 13:50 busy. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Um, so all right. So your body four body crashes, 13:58 dude. Yeah. Like your body crashes. So Monday is this hangover essentially because your body's so exhausted you're mentally 14:04 exhausted. You're emotionally exhausted. And then what a lot of churches do, which I think is a is a terrible idea, 14:09 is Monday is like staff meeting day. It's like all staff, right? Like that's a terrible day to have an all staff 14:15 because um not only Yeah. Let's make Monday the Sabbath, you know, and everybody takes a knee. 14:21 Yeah. Exactly. Because you think about it, not only is that is that lead pastor, that teaching pastor, whoever it 14:28 was, is just exhausted all the way around. Sure. Your staff is exhausted because they've 14:33 been working. They've been working. They may not have been on stage, but they have been doing everything else. Right. Sure. And all and plus whatever else you 14:39 had going on this weekend. You know, most churches are like, "Hey, you know, there's a youth group. There's a freaking there's a a feed of, you know, 14:45 feed of family. There's there's all sorts of [ __ ] going down. Exactly. Exactly. So your one thing that 14:52 I learned from my mentor that was a pastor, one of the things he used to say is never make decisions when you're tired or hungry. 14:59 Yeah. Like when you're exhausted, you make the worst decisions. You react terribly. All 15:05 that kind of, you know, so that's a sidebar all this. So what ends up happening is that person being on stage, 15:11 there's that dopamine hit. Your body has all these chemical reactions. you have this crash on Monday and then eventually 15:17 your body starts craving that that dopamine hit, right? So, it becomes this 15:22 weekly thing and I think a lot of pastors do end up in a situation unintentionally. I'm not this is not a 15:28 critique on them like yeah not a dig on any of them. Um, I think it just becomes this natural routine and rhythm that we 15:36 fall into and your body's just and then you mix that with the ego and the insecurity that a lot of pastors have 15:43 and it becomes the humanity of it for humans, right? Exactly. 100%. And it becomes 15:48 this we want I want to stay on that for a second because we want pastors to be 15:53 superhuman just like we want anybody in leaders leadership CEOs, the president, 16:00 whatever. We always want them to be better than better than the rest of us. 16:05 Better than all of us. You're here, right? And we forget that, oh no, 16:11 they've, you know, they fell from grace like the rest of us. They have desires and lusts and sin like 16:16 the rest of us. And sometimes, you know, they succumb to those things like the rest of us. And the idea is that, 16:23 you know, grace, I guess that's where grace and and love comes into play, right? Yeah. Correct. I also think there is a whether 16:30 you want to believe whether you think this is a myth or it's real whatever you take the Bible and the story of Jesus 16:35 Jesus obviously was a real historical figure but debatable for anyone on whether he's truly son of God whatever 16:42 is God is the Messiah whatever he is sure yeah 16:47 just want to make this clear I believe it he is I believe that but I'm not trying to push that on my my 16:53 point being there I think there is a reason that the Bible is so clear and talks about he 17:00 Jesus being fully God and fully human allin one. 17:06 I think we dismiss the fully human side a lot a lot of that. Sure. I think it's a I think it's a 17:12 representation of the understanding that just because you are a leader 17:18 you are also a human being. Sure. You are not perfect. And for those around you 17:24 skip his 20s for a reason. I imagine there was some there was some there was some stuff that went down in that that 17:30 middleish area. Yeah. Yeah. Where he was just like, "Fuck you, man. [ __ ] you, dad. I don't want to do this shit." 17:36 You know, right? Maybe. We don't know. Yeah. Um I think we I think we tend to downplay that a little bit. The 17:43 understanding of Yes. Like you said, pastors, whoever, leadership, they're all human beings, right? I think it's 17:50 most important with anyone whether it's a pastor whether it's the regular human being on the street that you encounter 17:56 whether it's a police officer whether it's uh a political figure anyone 18:03 I think all of us our starting point should be they are a human being first human 18:09 human being first whatever uniform anything else that they have on whatever title they hold 18:14 secondary is secondary sure yes human being first because That puts 18:19 one, it puts us all on an even playing field. Two, that helps us recognize imperfection. The vessel is the vessel. 18:25 The vessel can be cracked. The vessel can be imperfect. Yeah. In the Bible, God like again, 18:33 he used the donkey. He was a bush. Yeah. Like he used all kinds of things like that is like 18:39 Yes. The vessel the vessel is just a part of the whole story. What we tend to 18:44 do the wrong part of the story. Yeah. We focus on the vessel specifically, right? Um, and so 18:50 but this can't be legit cuz this person sucks. Correct. Right. Or this can't be true because this person's, you know, X, Y, or Z. 18:56 Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I tell people all the time, people ask me about like, uh, you know, do you misspeing or do you 19:02 love it? All that kind of stuff. And what I usually tell people, because I recognize my own imperfections in this, what I usually tell people is the best 19:09 that you will, if you want to see me at my best, put me on a stage in front of 10,000 people. 19:15 Yeah. That is when you now when I say you'll see me at my best. Sure. 19:20 What I understand is that I am I am good at that. I am good at being on a stage 19:26 and performing in front of a crowd in that way. I can take you can give me you 19:31 could give me five minutes before and go pick a scripture. Yeah. You're going to preach on it to these 19:37 10,000 people in five minutes. All right. So hold that for a second. Yeah. So 19:43 you are are you say am I understanding that any scripture? Uhuh. You you feel very comfortable in 19:50 speaking on for the most part. Let me tell you why. Okay. Let me hear why. That's actually pretty freaking amazing. 19:55 Cuz I literally had to do that as a teenager knowing that I was going to go to Bible college. My mentor, the 20:02 church that I went to, my mentor and the youth pastors that they literally that's how they that's how they coached us, 20:07 right? They would go great. And not only that, it was like um whose line is anyway? It 20:12 was like, "All right, I need a subject. I need a I need a top." Like, they literally go, "Okay, I need a I need a 20:18 book of the Bible." Yeah. It's like the ground the ground what do they call the ground the ground. Yeah. Yeah. It was essentially It 20:24 literally was ground. Yeah. It literally was like Yeah. Exactly. Uh wild. Yeah. So, literally like, "All right, I 20:30 need a somebody give me a book of Bible." Uh Exodus. All right. Give me a chapter 23. Uh give me a verse five. 20:36 Great, Jason. Exodus 23 vers5. We're going to do a couple songs and then you're up. 20:41 Yeah. Like it literally had to do that. Yeah. Now, I'm not saying the theology is great. Sure. But what it did Oh, and my point is 20:48 what it did for me is it taught me how to Yeah. This is the moment. I can capture 20:54 that moment. It may not be divine at all. It may not be God inspired. One piece. No, it's it's it's muscle memory. You 21:01 studying your ass off for years. It's practice, practice, practice. It's medicine. It's doctors to save anybody. 21:08 And it's also 10,000 hours. There's a Yeah, there's 10,000. There's also natural talent 21:14 in there. Oh, yeah. Like there's a famous pastor years ago, his name Francis Chan. Um that I 21:20 remember at a pastor's conference, him talking about this very thing. And I remember him saying just because a 21:26 church is large and a guy on stage is great at it doesn't mean God has anything to do with it. And he he he 21:34 equated it to himself. He said, "Listen, I know that I am good at speaking on a stage. I know that that's my talent. I 21:40 know that I'm great at it. You put me anywhere in the country. You You put me 21:46 on a stage, you give me a good band and a good lighting package, 21:51 and I'll draw a crowd. I'll build a church." Right. I love that. 21:56 Doesn't mean God has anything to do with it. No, no, that I was going to say I love that he said good band because band does 22:02 matter. And and I'll get to that here in a second, too, or follow up with that. But but uh lighting, 22:09 lighting matters. I get it. Yeah, it's setting a mood. But never once did he say, "Hey, give me 22:14 a a soap box in a corner in the shittiest street in 22:19 Detroit or wherever and God will move through me." Right. Because that's that's interesting. 22:25 Yeah. Because in my head, I would hope that Gohead. Yeah. So his point is Yeah. Just because 22:30 we have just because your church has 10,000 people in it and you have an incredible band and you're putting out 22:36 albums or you got 20,000 people and you got debatable on whether God is actually 22:42 blessed that or not, right? You might just be great at being on stage and you have a per cult of 22:48 personality. You were charismatic and people fell in love with you. People are attracted to that, right? and as so how do you discern then 22:56 as like a as a as a church as an attendee where does how does you know 23:03 that's a great question words how do you do uh we great question yeah again I think it comes back to 23:08 environment I think it comes back to a scenario of I in my opinion we we do it and teach it 23:15 all wrong in America in the American church though I'd say the western church specifically more than anything else 23:22 um so much of the world and church world has become Americanized over the years. Um, we don't teach people to learn how 23:31 to study themselves, right? We don't we don't give them the tools to 23:37 understand and discern scripture for themselves. And we also don't teach it in a way for them to recognize that your 23:46 what God is saying to you in this matters, right? We boil it down to there's one 23:53 truth and that's it. What I have said about this scripture is what the truth is. I was actually thinking about this 23:58 earlier today. I forget what triggered it for me. I also came up in a world where 24:04 they would teach us um that you could read the same script. 24:09 The reason you should read the Bible constantly every the reason you should read through the Bible every year, right? You got 24:16 people that are like here's how to read the Bible in 365 days, right? like this routine of reading it is because they 24:22 believe and they teach this that you can read the same scripture a 100 times and 24:29 God's going to teach you something different every time in that scripture. Now, what they don't do is they don't 24:35 apply that to you as a parishioner, reading that scripture. And if you come 24:41 up with a different truth from that scripture that applies to your life and that could apply to other people, they 24:48 downplay that you if that truth that you have walked away with is different than the pastor's truth that he walked away 24:54 with or she walked away with. They tend to downplay, well, but you're not you didn't you 25:01 didn't go to seminary. You're not you're not you're not educated on it, right? 25:06 Yeah. You're not educated on it. I'm saying what we don't recognize from a pastoral standpoint is that God does 25:13 reveal truth to the person reading scripture, not just to the person standing on stage, dictating scripture. 25:18 Correct. Yeah. Right. Um and then we also in church 25:24 world, we don't teach people to critically think. We actually downplay critical thinking because 25:30 uh for the American church to exist the way that it exists, there's some element of control that has to happen. The church world that I grew up in very 25:36 militant, very much a controlled um And why do you think that is? Like what's the purpose? 25:42 Money. It's all about money. Yeah. Because um if people 25:51 and again it comes back it comes back to the insecurity comes back to all this all this um what I would call um you 25:58 know I guess I would put it in this like it's basically tribalism right this is our tribe I'm the chief of this tribe 26:06 you we're not okay with people leaving the tribe. No because that means 26:11 something's wrong. that means uh you you disagree. Sure. 26:17 So instead of just recognizing like yeah this tribe just isn't for you or we're 26:22 not in the same we're not on the same footing as a tribe. There are other tribes there is a there is a pinpoint like what 26:30 I grew up with is that there is only one truth and that's it. Right? Nobody else. Like to the point 26:36 that the Baptist world that I grew up in short of saying this, I think actually 26:42 believe that the only people in heaven were going to be the same Baptists that they were because they were the only 26:47 ones that had truth. Yeah. But they're not the only ones that feel that way. They're not. I'm just saying my own 26:53 experience. Right. Sure. So, but so and you know, you mentioned cult of personality. There's there's cultish in every there's 27:01 cults in everything, but but sticking with Christianity specifically, there are so many different 27:06 denominations and then within their subsects of these denominations where people believe in like speaking in 27:11 tongues and some people think like that's that's that's poppycck or whatever. You know, some people think 27:16 the rapture is real. Some people think it's, you know, baloney and cheese. Well, like again, who 27:22 Yeah. Exactly. How do you know exactly who's right? That's why it's called faith, right? because no one knows. It's a 27:29 choice to believe, right? Um, but it makes it tough when you have a dude. Sorry, not to cut you off, but it 27:35 makes it tough because almost every church, not almost, every single church 27:40 has a whoever's in leadership has the I was this, God spoke to me. 27:47 Correct. And now here's this. You know, you're talking about hierarchies. All of a sudden now it's like, well, God spoke to this person. 27:52 Correct. Right. And so now it's like who am I to question them? You mentioned logic 27:58 before. Who am I to question them? If I do, I'm going to be told, well, it's because you don't know. You don't understand what I understand, you know. 28:04 And then that just sets up this whole Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. It's by design. It's shitty. And it is. 28:11 Uh shitty. It was not that was not Jesus's intention. No, it wasn't. I don't remember that 28:17 part of the Bible. Correct. Jesus is very clear. You're all minister. You're all disciples. You're all minister. In fact, he said when he 28:24 talks about the simple things of follow me, yeah, when he says to those disciples, follow 28:30 me. What he's saying to them in that moment is multiple things. What I think 28:35 culturally we don't understand modern day and in America culturally what was happening there is 28:41 these disciples, one they've aged out of being a disciple in their culture in 28:46 that time to be the disciple of a rabbi was everything. It was status, right? 28:52 Like that was the pinnacle of status in that Jewish community at the time. And you had to be centured very young. Yeah. 28:59 By the time a Jewish boy in that track was was 10 years old, they had the 29:04 entire Old Testament, what we now consider the Old Testament, their scriptures at the time, right? 29:09 Was memorized. They had it memorized. Like they knew it front and back. They're like, "Jason, pick Exodus 5." 29:17 Which is interesting knowing that. It's interesting that when Jesus would address the Pharisees, the religious 29:23 leaders of the day, Yeah. when he would say things to them like, "Go and learn the meaning of this scripture," and then quote it to them, 29:30 it was a bit of a slap in the face because he didn't say, "Go and learn the scripture." They knew the scripture. 29:35 They knew as he started the words quoting that scripture, they knew the rest of the sentence. Sure, 29:40 he didn't say that. He said, "Go and learn the meaning of it because you have it memorized, but you don't understand what it means." Sure, 29:46 I'm about to drop some truth on you of what it means. That's what was happening. But what he 29:52 was saying to the disciples is in by saying follow me, I liken it to what Star Wars does what 30:00 you see with Jedi and Padawan learners. They exist all the time with that Jedi, 30:07 that Jedi master, right? Their mentor. Sure. What they are learning is not just about 30:12 the force. What they are learning is how to live within the force through the lens of the person they're following. 30:19 Sure. They're learning to how do they how do they maneuver every situation they're in? How do they use the force in this 30:25 situation? How do they discern? How do they discern all of these things what Jesus is saying, not just lightsabers and and choking out 30:31 the bad guy, right? Correct. They're learning existence. It's the same thing. So when Jesus says to them, "Follow me." Because in that 30:37 culture, a uh uh disciple following a rabbi, that's what they did. They lived 30:43 with the rabbis. They they were with them all the time. They studied. They ate with them. All of 30:49 those things. And these guys had aged out. They were teenagers at this point. 30:54 Uh kind of written off. They'd fallen back on the family business essentially, fishing. Yeah. Jesus comes along and says 31:00 multiple things to them in these simple words of follow me. Yeah. One thing he says to them is, "You matter. You have value. Just because you 31:07 have aged out of this, you have value. Sure. You're not a You're not trash that has 31:12 been discarded. You haven't missed your calling, right? You are valued. Two, I'm tell I'm asking 31:20 you to come follow me and learn how to discern and maneuver in this 31:27 world the truths of these these sacred truths that me as the son of God as your 31:33 rabbi is going to model for you when you're criticized or when I'm criticized. You're going to see how I 31:39 handle that. When the religious leaders of the day question me on why I am doing 31:46 a certain thing and teaching a certain thing, you're going to see how I handle that. To the point that when Jesus is 31:51 about to be arrested and Peter pulls pulls the dude's sword and cuts the guy's ear off and Jesus said, "Oh, no, 31:56 no, no, Peter. We don't do that. That's not it." Yeah. No, no, no. I'm going to put his ear back on. Peter, you got it wrong. You 32:03 missed you missed the point. That's not what I do. What you need to learn is what I do, 32:08 right? Because when I'm gone, it's on your shoulders, right? To pass that on to the next generation 32:14 and the next generation and the next generation. We don't teach people to do that because 32:21 that is less controlling. If we as pastors 32:26 try to do that, that's messy. Because what it means is you've got a Peter that 32:32 cuts an ear off, right? Like hypothetically, not like No, I understand. But what it means is you're acknowledging that people in your 32:40 people in in your service, your followers are dirty. 32:46 And we need to address the dirty, right? Just like we are. And we need to address the ugly and the dirty. 32:52 Correct. We don't ever like to talk about the ugly and the dirty, right? Unless it's in a private thing. And I get I get why that is. You don't want to 32:59 embarrass anybody, you know, you don't want a public stoning, emotional stoning, right? Correct. Um, so I 33:05 understand that, but like you know, but but I think we spend I think we spend a lot of time not having the hard 33:11 conversations. Yeah. You there's a weird dichotomy of you as the person on stage teaching 33:18 truth from scripture and also 33:25 you are dependent on the money from the people listening to you. So you can't 33:30 cut off the money. Can't say anything that's gonna cut off that money. Correct. Right. I know. I get it. It's a 33:36 business. It's a business. Which then in some ways Yeah. 33:42 Uh you don't want to Bud Light situation. Yeah. Like it it right. It puts it puts you in a 33:48 precarious situation, right? Because you got you got to tell the whatever 33:54 that line is. If you take the truth of scripture and it absolutely I mean look at it this way. I 34:00 mean, here's a very clear one. Yeah. With Jesus. Easier for a camel to go 34:05 through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven. His answer to a rich man who came to him and asked him, 34:13 "How do I get to heaven?" And he says, "Go sell all your possess or not sell, but go give all your possessions to the 34:18 poor." Yeah. Because it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is 34:24 for a rich man to get to heaven. Yeah. Because they coveret their stuff. Correct. Right. That's really hard to teach in a 34:32 mega church, right? With millionaires, literally millionaires. Yeah. 34:37 Sitting in the pews, right? So, listen. So, I'm going to change gears. All heroes. You're a hero. All right. We see all your beautiful 34:43 logos. You're a hero. Okay. You are. You're a local legend. You know, you got to pull the switch at the Lightning. 34:48 That's dope. You know how I feel about the Lightning. Yes. But I want to go back to the very beginning. You touched on a little bit. 34:54 You mentioned growing up Baptist. You mentioned growing up South. Yeah. Um, but before TED X, before Hope Dan, you 35:01 know, all that [ __ ] Uh, speak plainly unto me, oh wise Jason, 35:07 what strange lineage doth compel a man to clean souls and sheets and undergments. Like, where do you come 35:13 from? Tell me the story. Yeah. So, grew up in Panama City, Florida. Okay. Up in the panhandle. Right on. Um, redneck Riviera, as we like to call 35:20 it up there. Um, okay. I've never been. Or LA for lower Alabama. Okay. Um, 35:26 okay. Do you How many times have you told me I'm from LA and they thought you meant LA? LA. 35:32 Oh, I never say that I'm from LA. This is just local. It's a local thing. It's a We know. 35:38 Um, okay. So, if I say the redneck Riviera to people, they'll know. Oh, panhandle. Yeah, people know that. 35:44 The panhandle. Yeah. All right. So, um, I grew up there. My my dad was a 35:51 police officer. My mom was a nurse. My grandfather was a police officer. Got it. My uncle was a police officer. I come 35:57 from a lineage of that. Yeah. You were we texted about that and you said he was [ __ ] Uh no, I don't I don't believe I used 36:04 that word. Retired. That makes way more sense. Okay. Sorry. 36:09 Okay. Uh makes way more sense. I was like always damn like I thought I 36:15 was like Line of Duty, some cool ass like needle weapon story. No, it just turns out I'm an idiot and I read it wrong. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, 36:22 that happens. So, not the first time I've been wrong. It's not going to be the last time. Okay. Anyway, sorry. So, he's retired. 36:29 Retired. Retired police officer. Um I Yeah. I'm like fifth 36:37 from what I can track so far. Fifth generation Native Fidian from that area. My mom's adopted Native American. Was 36:44 adopted by my grandfather um and grandmother. And um 36:49 so what kind of Native American? We don't know cuz there's no records. 23 and me that [ __ ] or what? 36:55 Yeah, but it doesn't m like Yeah, we know native. There's no records of like what tribe. 37:00 Remember in the 1950s in Northwest Florida? Yeah. Not a lot of recordeping for native kids 37:08 for adoption. I think intentionally in this country there was a lot of recordeping when it came to Native Americans. They 37:13 intentionally were like, "Leave that part out." Correct. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Shitty. Anyway, 37:18 um Yeah. Yeah. Um, so anyway, I grew up I grew up there. Uh, you know, 37:24 incredible incredible I had a great family. Um, why didn't you become a cop? 37:30 So, here's the blood. Yeah, I know. So, here's the thing. Just be out there just like Danny Glover in it. 37:35 I know. You know, it's like I don't know if you can see if you're 37:41 listening this who can't see his his head movement. The old Danny Glover head. 37:47 Um, so I wanted to as a kid. That's what I wanted to do. Me and my older brother both wanted to be cops when we were kids. Uh, my dad 37:54 um did not want us to go in the family business. He was um I I can say this 38:00 now. He lied to both of us about why. Okay. Neither of us should be 38:06 Well, he didn't really lie to me. He told me the truth and it just worked. He lied to my brother though. My older brother. Yeah. 38:11 Uh to this day, my older brother's uh let's see, he's in his He's what? I'm 38:17 four. He's in his 50s. Mid-50s, right? No way. Really? Yeah. Yeah. He's nine years older than 38:22 me. So I'm 40. I'm 46. So he's he's 55. No, he turned 56 this year. 38:27 Yeah. Wait. The brother I know. No. No. You've met my younger That's my younger brother. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jake, 38:34 I'm talking about my older brother. The one I've never met. Okay. You've never met my older brother or my older sister. Like there's no [ __ ] way that guy's 38:41 he looks great, right? explains why he's good at banjo though. That just seems like an old person's 38:48 instrument. It's an old man's instrument. He is an old soul. Um, so my older brother, he is color blind. And so my 38:55 dad my dad told him, "Oh, you can't be a you can't be a 39:01 police officer be color blind. They're not going to let you be you're not going to let you be a cop." You know, they say dogs are color blind, but this dog barks at 39:08 this dog is not color blind. Um, so he he like he's like I mean if you 39:14 misidentify a car like you're you know whatever and so my brother for years he 39:19 believed it never went into it. But what was the real reason forward is that 39:24 so I I'll come back I'll come back. So, fast forward, my my brother's neighbor 39:30 at the time is a cop and he lives in Utah and they're talking about it one 39:36 day and he's like, "Yeah, I want to be a police officer. My dad, you know, I I couldn't or no," he said, "I wanted to 39:41 be a police officer, but I couldn't because I was color blind." And that and that guy went, "What do you mean? What are you talking about?" He goes, "Well, 39:47 my dad was a cop and he told us he told me I can't be a cop blind." And that guy, 39:54 like, dude, my lieutenant has an eye patch. And my dad and my that guy that guy's 40:00 neighbor was like, "That's not a thing, dude." Which ironically, you mentioned the eye patch. Literally, one of my dad's 40:05 co-workers now looking back on it, one of my dad's co-workers had a glass eye. Yeah. He literally had a glass eye. 40:11 But he wasn't other 100%. Yeah. He Right. So my my brother was so 40:18 pissed when he he when it had this realization of like, wait a minute, that's not true. So anyway, I for me 40:26 um what did he tell you? So I if I was going to here's the thing. If I had gone to the military, if I had 40:33 been a cop, I wanted to do the most extreme things possible. When I would go to the police station with my dad as a 40:39 kid, when I would hang out with him in his at his office, the guys that I was fascinated by and that I loved that I 40:46 wanted to spend all the time with at the department were the undercover 40:53 drug guys, like the like the hardest of the hard, the SWAT team guys. Those are 40:58 the people that I I love. The guys that came in long hair, ratty clothes because 41:04 they were undercover. You wanted to be Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street. I didn't want to do that. I wanted I 41:10 wanted You seem like a Richard guy. I wanted to be Mel Gibson and Lethal Weapon. [ __ ] yeah. Me too. 41:15 Like I still do. Yeah. Like I wanted to be Dirty Harry, you know? I wanted to be clean. Like 41:20 that's I wanted if I had gone to the military, I wanted to be like what's the what's the most extreme special ops I 41:25 can beat? That's what I like I that was my personality. He extreme and you'd get into you wouldn't 41:32 be a a pencil pusher. No, you'd be like under you'd be normal. I wanted to be an undercover guy. I 41:38 wanted Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. And he convinced me it didn't and he was 41:45 telling me the truth, but it worked. He was like, "Oh, buddy, you can't just go be that. You have to start as a uniform 41:53 officer. You got to do your time as a patrol officer and you got to write a bunch of traffic, right? You got to do all that stuff. You 41:59 got to write reports. Yeah. Like there's a lot of writing, bud. You cut your finger on the job, you got to write 42:05 a report about it. And I was like, wait a second. I can't just go be a detective, right? 42:10 No, you got to put in time. I was like, forget that. I don't want anything to do. That sounds hard. Yeah, that's I'm going to go to Bible 42:16 school for 20 years. Yeah, exactly. I was like, this is crazy. I don't. So 42:22 that's how he talked me out of it as a kid. Um but the route that I went I always 42:27 attribute to what I have what I do in life currently is a direct result of the parents that I had, the family that I 42:34 had, the environment that came up in. They all all of their careers were 42:39 helping people. My mom was a nurse. Dad was a cop. People can argue all day about police officers and good or bad, 42:46 all that kind of stuff. I love them. Yeah. Here's here's what I know and understand. My wife's a nurse practitioner. My buddies are cops. 42:52 That's the world. Here's I grew up in and here's what I learned about uh the uniform and the 42:58 badge. That uniform, that badge is meant to represent hope for people that are in 43:04 trouble. Right? When that person is in danger, that badge, uniform, whatever you want to 43:10 call it, that is a representation. That person is going to stand between me and the danger and get me out of danger. 43:18 They are going to protect me. That's what that job is about. It represents hope 43:24 to a person that's in trouble. Yeah. That's what it's meant to be. It should, right? And it doesn't, right? It doesn't 43:30 play out that way of a lot of times like but that is that's what it's meant to be. That's the job, right? So what 43:38 that's what I learned growing up and what I learned in this life, the best 43:43 thing that you can do with your life is to serve other people. Protect and serve. That's the like age-old statement 43:49 of police, right? Protect and serve in the medical field. It's the do no harm. 43:54 It's the it doesn't matter if you like or disagree with that person, you help them. 43:59 Sure. Like if they're hurting, their arm is broken, you fix their broken arm. Um that's that's the job. And what I 44:07 picked up from my family, from that life, was yeah, we help people in this life, 44:14 whatever way that is. And for me, um, it became spiritually. That's the route 44:19 that I went. It was what better way to help people than to help guide them spiritually and help them in life. Yeah. But you didn't come to that on 44:25 your own. Something pushed you. I My grandparents were very influential 44:31 in my life. I grew up spending a lot of Yeah. Because both my parents Yes. So both my parents being first 44:37 responders, their work schedules were nuts. Sure. Uh, I have a lot of memories of childhood being with one parent, not the 44:43 other. Memories of like my mom, I'm my mom and I are walking out the door to go to 44:50 school and my dad's coming home from the night shift. Like, sure. I a lot of memories. And none of that is a complaint. Like my parents would maybe 44:57 would hear that and be like, "Oh man, I I missed it." Yeah. Yeah. I have no complaints. Sure. 45:02 Uh I love your experience. This is my experience. Yeah. I loved it. It was my Yeah. Um, I was proud of what 45:08 they did to the point that my dad eventually told me like, "Hey, man, don't just don't if someone asked you what I do for a living, just tell him I 45:14 work for the city and leave it at that because he didn't want me to get he he I was proud of it." But he, you know, 45:21 people don't always like cops and they don't want, you know, he didn't want his kid experience. You know who doesn't like cops? 45:26 Criminals. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying. Here's the thing. 45:32 Here's here's what I always tell people is criminals, not criminals. What it for me it doesn't matter. No one's having a 45:39 good day when they have to call the police. Sure. Like that job, not to get onto this 45:44 tangent, but that job is tough in that. Imagine your job every day is dealing 45:53 with the worst day of people at their worst. Yeah. 45:59 Like no one's calling you because they're having a great day. Hey, hi 911. How are you? Right. Yeah. I'm always pleasant when I 46:06 go. Yeah. So, and this is not to excuse uh abuse and all of other things that 46:11 happen at all. But what a lot of people don't understand when it comes to that job is that, and I experienced it as a 46:17 child growing up in that world, watching it, observing it, when everyone else is falling apart and stressed. 46:23 Yeah. They're the ones that can't be that way. And you were expecting again back to the 46:28 beginning of the conversation imperfect people to be perfect to be graceful right in in a stressful 46:35 situation. There 100% are bad people in those jobs. Just in the same way there's bad people in pastor pastoral jobs. 46:41 I'm a shitty podcast host. I know you're great. Um but in in jobs 46:47 of relevance like that everyone pastor there's terrible pastors that should be should not be pastors but they are. 46:53 Sure. There's terrible police officers that should not be police officers, but they are. There's terrible fathers that should be terrible fathers. Yeah, sure. You could 47:00 go down the line. Yeah, of course. Um, and it's not to excuse any of that, but it's an understanding of human being 47:06 wearing a uniform, wearing a badge, expected to perform at the best at all times. 47:12 Virtually impossible job. And they are 47:17 doing a job, a thankless job in a lot of ways. a job. They see things that no 47:22 human being should ever have to see. Sure, that is a tough job. And but what I learned from my family and observing and 47:31 growing up in church world is that with all the trauma and the and the god 47:38 terrible environment of a lot of the church world I grew up in, what I walked away with was like I said earlier, human 47:45 beings first. Yeah. Every person matters to God. 47:51 Yeah. Every life is difficult. Sure. We're all doing the best that we can. 47:59 Sure. Debatable. But doing the best I I would still to this day I would still argue, yeah, most 48:05 people are doing the best that they can based on the circumstances given to them. You got to give some allowance for the people that have a different starting 48:11 line. Sure. Because that's what Jesus would do, right? That's what we as human beings should understand about each other. I 48:18 think we have a hard time culturally these days especially with the balance 48:24 of personal responsibility and communal responsibility. I couldn't agree with 48:30 you more. How do you go from Bible college from Panama City to Laundry Project which congratulations 48:38 uh it sounds like 17 years since current initiatives right long time. And then the first thing you did 48:44 was laundry project. Correct. Okay. And then you all the other things and we'll get there too. But u Okay. So 17 years. Congratulations to you know my 48:50 marriage is in 17 years and I imagine a lot of the people you married didn't make sense. I don't know. I don't know. I don't 48:56 care. We're going to get to there too cuz I have questions. You don't follow up with anybody other than me? I mean I I became friends with some of 49:03 them but So how many of them are still married? I have no idea. I've done I've done hundreds of weddings. I don't know. 49:09 It's in the reviews. We'll get there. Um All right. So laundry project. Okay. So, how do you go from cop kid? 49:16 Yeah. Seminary school. Yep. Pastor, yep. Started your some own started some of 49:21 your own churches or were was a founding member. Yeah. Uhhuh. And then, 49:27 yeah, I'm going to wash some dirty drawers. How does that happen? Um, so got fired from a church 49:34 and uh may ask why both churches. No, I don't mind. Um, 49:40 church politics. I'll I'll put in that category. Okay. Um you don't want to get into specifics though. 49:45 Uh because you know I like juice. I like that juice. I know you do. But if you don't want to air it, it's all right. 49:50 No, no, it's fine. Um no one's going to watch this. I mean, no, seriously. We talked about co No one ever [ __ ] see this [ __ ] 49:57 No one ever see this [ __ ] show. No one's gonna see it because you're not 50:02 going to put it out. No, I'll put Yeah, I'll [ __ ] put it out. Dude, it'll never Dude, YouTube will [ __ ] throttle the [ __ ] 50:10 They'll see clips. Yeah. Anyway, so um I Yeah, I mean Yeah, 50:16 I'm not going to get into a lot of specifics like um No, sorry. I don't want to hear it. Church 50:22 politics are thing, you know. I I know pastors that won't that won't hire staff if they've not been fired from a church 50:29 because there's a lot of lessons to learn in that. And there's a lot of toxicity in church staff. There's a lot 50:35 of chat any [ __ ] business. It's a business at the end of the day. Exactly. Yeah. Um I And the reason I the 50:41 reason I go that I don't necessarily like going into a lot of detail about it because I don't have any um 50:48 I don't carry any animosity animosity any weight. I don't need anybody. It's cool. What happened? 50:53 No, I know. Yeah. Um, so I I get I get 50:59 done working with this church and I had done I was real passionate about missions work and did some of it. Didn't 51:07 do a lot. kind of hit this moment of, you know, we're always flying to another 51:12 country to go do work in another country and um 51:17 passing neighborhoods on the way to the airport that in a lot of ways just as bad off as some of the places we're 51:24 going. Yeah. But we're not doing anything for that. No. and kind of have an epiphany of like, 51:30 yeah, it's not as sexy to take photos five minutes down the road from your church in the United States as it is in 51:37 a developing third world country in the jungle with a tribe of people that don't 51:43 have the same technology. So, it's all ego [ __ ] Uh, yeah. I think I I don't know that I 51:48 would say it's on purpose, but I think it's just it's the system. It's the culture that we've created in church world. Um, 51:55 we have it so good here. Let's go be good there. Yeah. It's the white knight. It's the 52:00 Yeah, it's the night and shining armor. The Harvey Dent. It's the Harvey Dent. Exactly. This is what I was doing. I was trying to figure 52:05 out what I want to do if I could design my own if I could write down on paper 52:11 what do I want to do with my life from this point forward? What would it look like? And I kind of did that. Some of that was 52:17 missions work, but I kind of landed on I don't want to do, not that there's anything wrong with it, but I don't 52:22 necessarily want to go to other countries and do it. I want to help people in our own city, in our own 52:28 neighborhoods. Um, and then I was in Southern California. Um, 52:35 some friends took a homeless guy, some homeless people they worked with, they took him to the laundromat, washed his 52:41 clothes because that's what they did. They they were current they were working with homeless families. 52:47 That was their mission. This is not right. Okay. So, I'm getting to what became mine. Okay. I just happened to be with them. Went to 52:53 a laundromat with them. It wasn't the homeless guy. It wasn't what they were doing. It was being in a conversation 53:00 with a family in that laundromat saying um essentially we're not buying 53:06 groceries this week so that we can wash our clothes. Something I'd never heard before. Didn't 53:12 use the laundromat growing up. Never had to experience that. Never had experienced that kind of poverty. And 53:17 that broke my heart hearing Sure. And so I started doing some research and learning, hearing about some people that 53:23 were trying to help people in laundry, like get over that hump financially and whatnot. Um, and came to terms with 53:30 that's not a choice I am okay with anyone having to make. So when I came back to Tampa, I was like, I want to 53:36 help people in our city. How do I I'm starting this nonprofit. 53:41 This is going to be the thing. I'm just going to get into laundry. I'm going to help people that are using laundromats have to uh whatever I can do to help 53:48 them get past the uh financial burden of making the choice 53:53 of not buying food for their kids, right? Or washing their kids clothes. Sure. 53:59 I don't think anyone should have I don't think any parent should have to make that. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the United States, 54:05 considered the richest country in the world, that should not be a choice anyone 54:10 should have to make. Yeah. Why is that a choice in the United States of America? I still to this day, 17 years in, 54:16 I am once again reminded, man, I have it so good. So lucky. 54:22 Um I am reminded that my story is not 54:30 that I'm reminded that I'm my story is a family that was able to provide for me 54:36 in a way that this family that I'm looking at can't. And 54:42 the idea, what I've learned over and over again, which goes back to some of the stuff we were talking about, it's the most of these people walking in this 54:49 laundromat right now, they're not taking advantage of a system. No, the deck is stacked against them. 54:56 Some some of it maybe, sure, some of their own choices play into that, but there's a lot of things that play into this. It's very nuance. It's not black 55:03 and white. It's not an easy solution. things like you get into things now like 55:08 you look at Tampa for example just Tampa Bay how expensive it is to live here from a from a state perspective Florida 55:16 is literally the least affordable state in the country to live in because our 55:22 not be not because things are necessarily that much more expensive they are inflation is a thing but 55:29 our incomes have not kept up with inflation and cost of living in Florida 55:34 Sure, we've not done anything to regulate that which has put people that are already financially struggling in a worse 55:40 position. And then you have a corporation like Tide or Gain or whatever. All these 55:45 things because of inflation, because of tariffs, because of stupid choices that politicians make over time, 55:52 um who who again aren't really feeling the effects that these decisions are [ __ ] making, 55:57 right? They don't shop for these things. Any politician that goes, "Yeah, I'm for the working class." No, you're not. You're not a working class. You don't 56:03 understand. And you don't know what you maybe lived at one point in your life. You don't anymore. You don't you don't 56:08 know what the cost of laundry detergent is, right? You don't know what it means to walk 56:14 into a laundromat and literally bring pine salt with you because it's the cheapest thing for you to use and you're 56:20 pouring pine saw into a laundry. Really? 100%. Yeah, dude. You don't know what it means to 56:28 have uh have to to stare down the barrel 56:33 of one, I can't get a place to live because not only do I have to pay first 56:39 and last month's rent, I also have to pay a security deposit. I also have to have a credit report. 56:46 Yeah. Some sort of good credit. Yikes. That shows that I have good credit. Yeah. and looking down the barrel of 56:52 rent. I'm trying to rent just a nominal place in Tampa and the starting rent is 56:58 $1,500. So, I have to put up $3,000 plus a security deposit, which is usually 57:03 $1,000 or more. I got to I'm looking at $5,000 right out of the gate. Right. And I got I got $80 in my bank in 57:10 my check, maybe. Right. Correct. Crazy. And then and then 57:17 I got to wash my kids clothes and feed my kids. And people will argue, "Oh, you shouldn't have had kids." 57:22 No, it's a head argument. Exactly. It's a um correct. And for me, like one, this the 57:30 deck is stacked against. So now, right, not only that, uh even if I want 57:35 off-brand, if I want I'm not even talking about Tide or Gain, name a big brand, right? I just want off 57:42 the shelf from the dollar store, right? It's still the thanks. Like, yeah, it's a dollar store, but you're still 57:48 spending three, four dollars for it. Yeah, it's not a dollar. No, generally a dollar. Generally, right? It's generally a 57:53 dollar. Um, dude, holy [ __ ] And that's just one thing. You're not talking about the logistics of getting to a laundromat. 57:59 Yeah. I get arguments. I've had arguments for years. People ask me for years, why don't you focus on getting people washer and dryers in their in the places they 58:06 live? All right. Well, you're assuming that they have a permanent place to live, right? You're assuming that they can afford the water bill. 58:11 They can afford the water bill. You're assuming that they can afford if they have to move out of that place that they 58:17 can take it with them to a place. You're assuming the place they're going to has a washerdryer hookup, 58:23 right? Like there's a lot of assumptions and you're also assuming the thing that we forget about most people don't 58:28 realize this is getting in the weeds of a lot of this. No, it's okay. That why we're here. Laundry mats are actually better for the environment 58:35 rather than everyone having a washer and dryer in their individual home. Sure. It's actually better energy-wise, 58:41 water-wise, environmentally to have a central hub within a neighborhood that everyone uses, 58:46 right, than for everyone to have a washer and dryer in their home. Unless you're in India, that's a bad idea because they use the river and that 58:52 river is [ __ ] up. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Um you're like, 58:57 "Thanks, dude, for [ __ ] on my beautiful emotional point." That's what I do. You're welcome. Digital, baby. 59:04 This is how we get down. Yeah. And I've seen arguments for years. People comment our on our social media 59:09 like, "Oh, people can wash their clothes in the bathtub. People do it all the time." What we're dismissing is the 59:15 intrinsic underlying value of it. It's a simple word, dignity. Every human being 59:21 deserves dignity, right? I understand that. Sure, we can pull ourselves up our bootstraps. We can wash 59:28 our clothes in our sink. You can all of those things, but dignity is the important piece of this. Empowerment as 59:34 a human being is what matters most, right? That we understand and treat people with 59:39 dignity. Dignity is not nobody cares. 59:45 I have clothes in a bathtub that I'm stomping on for my kids to wash their clothes. Dignity is not uh my kids are 59:52 having to do the smell test on their clothes this week to figure out what's the cleanest and smells the least bad 59:59 for them to go to school so they don't get picked on or it's picture day, dude. Or it's picture day. Um dignity is not I 1:00:06 have dirty clothes to wear to a job. You want me to get a job? I'm going to a job interview this week. I don't have clean clothes to wear to that job interview 1:00:12 because I can't afford to wash those clothes. Yeah. um or or the point you made in in in uh 1:00:18 that TED talk to you was like why are people stealing grocery carts 1:00:24 and you're like it's because that's their mode of transportation to bring 1:00:30 literally loads of laundry sheets weeks and weeks because they don't wash them 1:00:35 week over week like we're we're super some people are super fortunate. Yeah. Blocks 1:00:41 to the local laundry man. Holy [ __ ] No, you Uh, you're legit doing 1:00:48 the simplest thing. I get it. It makes sense. How in the 1:00:54 [ __ ] does Jason rally support behind this idea locally? 1:01:00 How do you get It's good. Good question. Yeah. How do you get people to buy into it? How do you get people to believe in 1:01:08 it? How do you get people um, you know, that's a lot of quarters, 1:01:13 Doug? Sure. Like, yeah. So, what's the secret? What's the secret to the 501c3? Hey, 1:01:19 we're going to go wash some some funky clothes in a in a community that nobody apparently gives a [ __ ] about right now, 1:01:25 and we should. How do we fix this? Uh, how do you get people to say yes? 1:01:30 Um, I think there's a couple ways. To start with, when I first started, I had 1:01:35 a I had a hard time personally trying to do it because I felt like I was raising money for myself. I didn't have anything 1:01:40 to show for it, right? Like, I had this idea Um there's nothing to show for it. I 1:01:46 started fortunat 1:01:53 former students that were in college. Kind of started as a college group. I just recruited these college kids to 1:01:59 come volunteer for it. Right. Helped raise some money for it. 1:02:05 Um got got some photos, got some stories to tell, that kind of stuff. My 1:02:12 biggest thing for people that I do often is I say, "Look, just if you have you have a 1:02:20 half an hour on Saturday between these hours between 10 to 1, yeah, stop by this place, hang out for a few 1:02:27 minutes and just be there to see it." Because I know 1:02:33 unless that person's just real shitty, right? They're going to stand in that laundromat. 1:02:38 They're going to feel it. They're gonna watch it. They're gonna see it. They're gonna feel it, right? Um along that line in the mix of all 1:02:46 that were people that that's how they grew up. I have a guy that has been one of my 1:02:51 adviserss for 17 years. Six actually 16 of these years. Um 1:02:58 he is a retired lieutenant colonel from the army. Um works in the White House. 1:03:05 Very highprofile person. I think I think I met him. You you maybe have Sure. Um rad dude 1:03:11 he was attended this cigar networking group 1:03:18 that I happen to be speaking at talked about the laundry project the 1:03:23 exact thing that you're talking about had a photo of a of a family young couple 1:03:28 just happened to capture this photo dad's pushing a grocery cart with their laundry in it. Mom's pushing a stroller 1:03:34 with their baby in dude. Yeah, that was the one I saw. I was like, "Fuck." Um, what is this? 1:03:40 This guy comes to me. He's like, "I want to have coffee this week, whatever." Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, great. I go to coffee with 1:03:46 him and he tells me the thing that got me is that photo. Because what most people 1:03:52 don't know about me is that I was that kid pushing, not that picture, but I as a 1:03:59 child was the kid pushing a grocery cart down the street to go to the laundromat to wash my family's clothes. 1:04:06 I know that experience. Yeah. So, I want to help because I lived it. I lived that story. And it's just story after story like 1:04:13 that of various people like that and then them bringing their friends along and people along telling their story to 1:04:18 other people of this is why I'm involved. And it just it kind of goes from there. It's kind of a grassroots people telling their story. 1:04:25 Yeah. People helping people. Yeah. Exactly. People helping people. People helping people. 1:04:30 Yeah. Dude, exactly. It's uh I laugh I laugh because it makes 1:04:35 me uncomfortable because it's so raw. It's so real and so raw. It's like and again even when I was there I remember I brought an an 1:04:42 ex-girlfriend to one of the times and uh she she didn't get it. I had 1:04:48 already done one. I did the one in Dun Eden. Okay. Yeah. Clear Water Den. And then uh the next 1:04:53 one I was like yeah I'm going to this thing and she's and and there was just a lot of why. Hey, if you've ever had a girlfriend, 1:04:59 you know, they love to [ __ ] burden you with the why. But anyway, so she's 1:05:05 busting my ass about it. And like u we went to the one that one that one was in Tampa and um and I didn't say anything 1:05:13 when we got out of the car. I just I didn't prep her in the car because again, I was just being bered. So I was just like kind of like I was like, "Hey, 1:05:20 listen. We're going to get there. I'm just going to go right to it." And I said, "What's I don't even think you were there actually." I just kind of went in and just like somebody else was 1:05:26 there from the team and and I was just like, "Hey, okay." And I just got right into it. Put the [ __ ] apron on and 1:05:32 was just like, "Nope, we got it. Did you start doing it?" There's so many layers of privilege that I think that uh most 1:05:39 uh most of us have and don't appreciate how hard 1:05:44 or how time consuming or how expensive. Yeah. And so the laundry project's 1:05:50 really rad because you take all of that into account when you bring in a [ __ ] 1:05:57 five gallon bucket of quarters. Yeah. You know, a multiple chunks of detergent and 1:06:03 softener. Yeah. And a and a group, dude. Like not five, like I was in one. There was 15 people 1:06:10 in there. Yeah. Wearing your aprons just like And all of us are stuffed with quarters and just and just doing it, 1:06:16 man. And it's like it's really really rad. So that's going well. And you go, this is not enough. 1:06:24 I'm not done yet. Yeah. I want to I want to do weddings. Which came first? I want to I want to marry 1:06:30 people because marriage is so important. Or you're like, "No, hopes for homes." 1:06:35 Yeah. Pimps up, homes down. Like you like what? So what came after Laundry 1:06:41 Project? Um the next thing we did was Hope for Homes. Uh that was born out of when I 1:06:47 started Current, I had a um weirdly just a large number of 1:06:56 um real estate investors that were involved. So they were doing they were working with homes already. 1:07:01 Jesus. So current's the if it's an umbrella, currents mothership. Yeah. That's the nonprofit itself. 1:07:07 And then you trickle down things are initiatives underneath that. Those are our programs. That's the initiatives of current 1:07:12 initiatives. These are happening currently. And so, so the current investors 1:07:18 Yeah. were a part of a laundry project. Uh, yeah. Some of them helped start the 1:07:23 laundry project. And then you said, "Hey, I didn't say it. Someone brought the idea to me. I just uh it was things 1:07:29 like, hey, you know, we these families that sold a house this family, not sold a 1:07:35 house, but like, you know, I know this family that they can't their home is in disrepair. They don't have the money for 1:07:41 it. We should help them." Yeah. which then turned into the hope for homes project. Sure. Um which is kind of is similar if you think 1:07:49 about like the old TV show um Extreme Home Makeover. Sure. It's essentially the same idea except 1:07:56 instead of tearing their house down and building a brand new house, right? We're just renovating the home that already exists. 1:08:02 Sure. Um for us it was great. Like these families, they've owned their homes. 1:08:08 They're just trying to get by. They work jobs. They're trying to make it. They're in that weird space of not quite 1:08:15 considered middle class, but they're also not lower class. Sure. There's no there's no program that helps 1:08:20 them. Sure. There's no um you know, they could pay 1:08:26 uh handyman to do some work, but that person didn't do it right and it made it 1:08:31 worse. And for us, it kind of just turned into like it started with one 1:08:37 family. Let's help them. some of them like the very first family we did. It was a woman who um man we crazy story. 1:08:44 She she had a criminal history. She had uh I forget what she went to jail for. 1:08:51 She had kids. She got out. She was rehabilitated. While she was in jail, her oldest son 1:08:59 um was accidentally killed by a driveby 1:09:04 shooting. He was the one that was taking care of the family, keeping things. She was in jail. Yeah. 1:09:10 He was down the street to a friend's house. Some people in that home had some beef 1:09:15 with some other people. Someone comes driving by, shoots up the house. No one's hurt except the kid that didn't 1:09:20 even live there dies. Um and he was the [ __ ] rock at the house. 1:09:26 He was the rock at the Yeah. Um and there's so many stories like that 1:09:32 that just piss me off. It's Yeah. And they own the house. They're trying to it's just falling apart and we come in and renovate it, 1:09:41 put a brand new kitchen in it, fix them up. They didn't have bed. Like some of their couple their kids didn't even have beds. They're sleeping on the floor. 1:09:48 Uh stuff like that. And it's the [ __ ] with kids that [ __ ] kills me, man. Yeah. To and because agreed. 1:09:55 I would suck a dick for my kids to eat food. Maybe that's not a popular opinion, but 1:10:00 like No, I understand. It's a I would there's not a thing I wouldn't do. Correct. And it's the the difficult 1:10:08 thing or maybe the easy thing when it comes to kids is that it's not their fault. They have no choice in the 1:10:14 matter. Absolutely not. Right. Like you could quibble over the parents and all that. And even then, I would still argue 1:10:19 [ __ ] happens. It's not even the parents fault necessarily because that parent was that kid at one point and it wasn't their 1:10:25 fault and they don't know any different. Sure. Right. It's that it's that whole like no one has helped them cycle. Yeah. Cycle of shenanigans, 1:10:33 right? And so, um, yeah, for me, when it came to that, like I literally that very 1:10:39 first one, I I'm not going to name the name of the furniture company locally, their big name. I literally was on the phone. It's a 1:10:47 Saturday. The they had they had promised some furniture that they did not come through 1:10:52 on. Sunday is when this family comes home. There's going to be news media there. 1:10:59 Saturday, we have no beds. You told us you were going to give us beds. You were donating beds. Where are they? We went to pick them up. You gave us other 1:11:06 stuff. I'm literally I I'm on the phone with the CEO. Yeah. On a Saturday, I can hear his kids in 1:11:12 the background at home yelling for him. And literally said to this guy, "Look, 1:11:20 I this family's coming home tomorrow. I know of three news stations that are 1:11:27 going to be there when they come home. And when they walk in that house and 1:11:33 they ask me why there's no bed, what story do you want? I'm going to tell them one of two 1:11:38 things. Sure. Uh it's essentially what I did. I went like, "What story do you want me to tell them?" 1:11:43 Yeah. What story do you want? Because if there's no beds, I'm going to have no pro. I'm going to say I get it, boy. 1:11:49 Your name's getting mentioned one way or the other. And it's either such and such donated these beds, part of this feel-good story. Okay. 1:11:55 Or yeah, there's no beds in this room because such and such didn't have the time uh told us they 1:12:03 were donating beds and then didn't do it. Couldn't be bothered. Couldn't be bothered. And I'm gonna give I'm I'm talking to you on your personal 1:12:10 cell phone number and I'm gonna give that reporter your personal cell phone number so they can follow up to call you 1:12:16 to follow up on the why and I'll say your number on that news story. Yeah. 1:12:22 And sure [ __ ] He was like give me a minute. I'll call you back in a few minutes. Right. Yeah. 1:12:28 Um but that's that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Like okay, you're cool you're cool with a nine-year-old 1:12:34 sleeping on the floor. Yeah. No, I'm not. I'm not. No, 1:12:39 no. Now, people would argue, well, they got a roof over their head. Yeah, but we're talking about dignity. Again, that's a [ __ ] thing. We're 1:12:45 talking about dignity for humanity. Like, you're right. People don't have to get everything handed to them. And that's the thing is people would look at 1:12:51 like, oh, you're just doing it all for them. No, we don't. We do the things that they can't get 1:12:56 done themselves. And then, you know what happens? Here's what here's this is a wild thing. We don't fix everything on 1:13:02 their house. Sure. We did we did a home where we we 1:13:07 fixed a lot of stuff. Um we left some of the rooms as is. We put 1:13:12 new beds in them, but we didn't paint them. We didn't paint the closets, that kind of stuff. Sure. Um we left the excess paint. I came back 1:13:19 a few days later because we had to like grab some other stuff. Came to check on them. 1:13:24 Bro, these people had already they they had their kids already paint had already painted those bedrooms on 1:13:30 their own, right? They had friends down the street that gave them furniture. They had those kids moving that furniture into those 1:13:36 rooms. And that's what hope does. Correct. Hope is contagious. Exactly. And what I learned 1:13:44 never life is never going to be this way and all of a sudden somebody hands you this beautiful free no obligation and 1:13:50 that's what grace is and that's what Christianity supposed to be. Yeah. and 1:13:55 Elizabeth this particular family that I remember a a person 1:14:03 um in that particular house we had a plumber coming they were telling us like the the sink wasn't 1:14:11 working plumber comes and doing doing their work and whatever come to find out this particular sink that they were complaining about literally it was just 1:14:17 the cap on the on the tip of the on the spigot that needed to be changed out that's why it 1:14:23 wasn't working Yeah. And this I remember this person going like why can why didn't they just change that like such a simple thing and I was 1:14:29 like right well you don't what you're not taking into account is that this Can I talk to you for a second? 1:14:35 Yeah. This single mom this single mom is coming home every day 1:14:42 to literally a hole in the roof. Yeah. She does not have a bedroom. 1:14:48 Yeah. Because there is a hole in the roof with a tarp hanging over it. She's sleeping. She's been sleeping on the couch for 1:14:54 years because of it. Yeah. You think she's going to be able to take 1:15:00 the time to focus on a excuse my language [ __ ] tip of a a faucet on the sink? 1:15:08 Yeah. And um what I what is perspective people 1:15:14 don't have that's the family that when we corrected all these things that were beyond their control. That's 1:15:20 the family that was kids were painting their rooms. Yeah. They're cleaning up. They're cleaning 1:15:25 out these closets that just like moldy clothes, things like that. It gave them the ability to step over that hump to do 1:15:32 the things they could do, right? My argument, the hope for homes has always been good people are what change 1:15:38 neighborhoods. And if we can give a good family in a neighborhood a step over the 1:15:44 hump, they are going to multiply that. Exactly what you said, hope is contagious. when they have some hope, 1:15:49 that hope becomes contagious in their neighborhood. Yeah. And that's a like if we just took a 1:15:55 little bit of a beat and went, "Oh, it's within my power to help. I can do that." 1:16:00 Yeah. Or I can call someone. I know someone that can fix that. Let me call them right now. Right. To help. Like you said, there's the 1:16:07 person down the street. But what when we see it is in disaster. When a natural disaster happens, suddenly because now 1:16:14 we're all on equal footing. Now we need every everybody needs. Everyone needs everyone selfishly. 1:16:20 Exactly. Selfish. Yeah. We're reminded, right? It's the selflessness part that matters. That's the the core, right? 1:16:28 Yeah. That's the of a person. Yeah. Right. Is the what happens when you don't need it? 1:16:34 Yeah. Who are you when you don't need it? Correct. Yeah. Right. Because when we need it or when 1:16:40 we want to, we're you know the our representative comes out. a representative comes out and tells you 1:16:46 we're so this and oh my god this is what I think and it's like no but 1:16:52 let me let me taste it who are you really right yeah you're and I would argue 1:16:57 you're an [ __ ] that we all but not you Charlie you're not an [ __ ] we all are equal parts the best of 1:17:06 society and the worst of society it's all with 1:17:12 equal parts within all of It's the it's the little nudges here and 1:17:18 there throughout our life. It's the experiences. It's the various things that push us in different directions. It's the natural disasters. It's 1:17:24 whatever it is, the introduction. It's the crisis. Introduction to a need. Sure. All of us have the ability to be the 1:17:31 worst of us. Sure. And we also all of us have the ability 1:17:36 to be the best of us. There's a theme about you, you piece of 1:17:43 [ __ ] That's that uh that so so from Laundry Project 1:17:50 to u to the homes for you know hope for homes. Yeah. 1:17:55 And then and then affordable Christmas which is uh um is it's it's uh it's exhaustingly 1:18:05 uh graceful and and beautiful. Well, thank you. You're a dick. You make me feel like, 1:18:11 you know, you make me feel like an [ __ ] I think that there's so much 1:18:19 that I don't know. Yeah. And there's so much that I expect maybe 1:18:26 even like from any government official that I 1:18:31 expect in some sort of naive pure it comes from your pure pure place 1:18:38 of like ownership and responsibility and [ __ ] I don't know honesty and integrity and all the things. Yeah. 1:18:45 Yeah. And I think that what the last 10 years 1:18:50 uh maybe longer, but the last 10 years has taught me personally is that 1:18:56 none of these [ __ ] know what they're doing. All these [ __ ] say all the [ __ ] they're going to say 1:19:01 and uh and all these [ __ ] are going to do what these [ __ ] are going to do. And we're here to just tow the line and 1:19:09 pick up the pieces and make it we make it work or don't work. We are the ones that do it. Uh, you know, you're doing 1:19:16 real hope. We put false hope in people in places I've never been, in rooms I'll 1:19:22 never sit in. Um, casting votes that may or may not make a difference only to come to the 1:19:29 realization that it's on us, man. Yeah. If you want real change, you said something in one of your things, uh, and 1:19:35 I I wrote it down, so I'm just going to kind of go back there. No, not pastor. It already said that. Okay. Don't change 1:19:41 the world. Change your world. Yeah. Right. And I might be paraphrasing, but you said something like that. Like our 1:19:47 community and I that's what all this do you can to change the world of the person in front of you. You can only do what you can do. 1:19:53 But if each of us does not do what we can do, the world doesn't get any better. We don't fix things. We don't 1:19:59 make the like right now. You're right. Can't fix all of that stuff is too big 1:20:04 for us. It's not my job. I'll never be in that room. Yeah. Make it smaller. He's [ __ ] Make the world smaller. 1:20:10 Make the world smaller, dude. Right. Yeah. Make the world smaller. Exactly. 1:20:15 It's so simple. Yeah. It's it's the And where I got it from originally is from an incredible uh 1:20:22 incredible human being that not a lot of people know about. Her name is Somali mom. Okay. Uh she is a Cambodian woman that was a 1:20:31 survivor of sex trafficking as a camo Cambodian child. She u was rescued as an 1:20:38 adult, became one of the most prominent um uh rescuers of Cambodian 1:20:47 uh sex trafficked girls. Wrote a book. There's a point in the book where part 1:20:52 of it's like an interview where she she has basically recorded this interview 1:20:57 that she had and this person asked her, "What's it what's it like to change the 1:21:03 world?" Right? And her answer was so profound. Her answer was, "Oh, I don't I don't 1:21:10 think I can change the world. I don't even try." Yeah. I simply 1:21:18 uh and I'm paraphrasing, I look at the life that's in trouble right in front of me. 1:21:24 Sure. And I try to help that child. And that that was her answer. It was 1:21:31 like, "Oh, I'm I can't change the world. I don't even try to change the world. I just try to help the life of the child 1:21:38 that's right in front of me that is in trouble. And how [ __ ] more impactful would we all be? 1:21:43 Mhm. The like So what's so crazy about what 1:21:49 about you and what you do is the real tangible impact 1:21:55 every [ __ ] weekend or every [ __ ] house project or every [ __ ] Christmas. 1:22:02 It's tangible. Yeah. And and it's real. 1:22:07 Yeah. And it's achievable. Yeah. You know, hope hope is tangible. 1:22:12 We talk about hope and like it's kind of an intrinsic new like this kind of weird like 1:22:18 ethereal thing that we talk hope. Hope is tangible. Hope is exactly what you talked about. Hope is 1:22:24 going to your neighbor and going, "Oh, you're oh, you need this fixed and you don't have the ability to do that. I'll fix it. Oh, you know what? I know a guy. 1:22:30 Let me call them." That's hope. That gives that person hope. That's tangible, right? It's doing what we can do. 1:22:35 Whereas all this other [ __ ] and again, I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't be uh we shouldn't worry about national 1:22:42 global issues, right? You should be informed. Absolutely. But I think that we're I I I think that 1:22:49 we're so concerned about here 1:22:54 that we'll never [ __ ] fix here. Yeah. Yeah. We forget because we forget the power of here, 1:23:01 right? Right. Like the power the real power is is happening here, dude. Like you know what 1:23:06 I'm saying? Absolutely. Like and I think that like how do we get back to that? Obviously you you you 1:23:12 figured out here. This is my way. You figured out here. Yeah. Right. Uh I love this. I love your heart. I 1:23:19 love your mission. I'd like to give. Is it really is the money really going where it needs to go? 1:23:25 Yeah. And what's the criteria specifically about the homes? Like how do you pick which homes you're going to help? Laundry mats make sense. You're 1:23:31 [ __ ] here. You use this. There's no red tape. It's like so here's the money. We're going to do 1:23:37 it. Are you going to answer for not just Hope for Homes, but also affordable Christmas? Sure. So Hope for Homes, 1:23:42 there's literally a I think a 12page application, 1:23:47 okay, that a family has to fill out. Yeah. It's a it's an exhaustive application. Sure. So, um, the families that we've 1:23:54 done that for, it's either they themselves have had to fill it out or a 1:24:00 representative of theirs, like a church that they attend or a community group, 1:24:05 someone on their behalf, vouch for them and like filled out this application. And it's a lot. It's extensive. It's 1:24:10 like it's things like, you know, legal stuff about their home, if there's leans on 1:24:15 the home, if there's any like legal if there's criminal records in the family, that kind of stuff. Yeah. There's a vetting process. there's 1:24:22 a vetting process. Uh now to be honest that it's if you make it through this 1:24:27 entire thing and you send everything in that is required really the only that none of those are 1:24:34 disqualifiers even clearly the very first one we did isn't criminal record that doesn't disqualify you. We just 1:24:39 want to know all that stuff because um we want to know the story. For us it's a little more like great you have a 1:24:45 criminal record. What now? That was then what's now? Are you is that still the 1:24:50 case? Have you made it past that? Are you recovering? Are you And why does that matter to the 1:24:56 organization? Um, a couple things. Part of it's legal, part of it's uh um I for me personally, 1:25:04 it's a I want to know that. So if someone comes along, they start digging, they go, "Hey, do you know this person 1:25:10 has a record?" "Yeah, of course I know." Yeah. You don't want to be surprised, right? Cuz you're doing a bunch of PR. You're you're the face of this thing. Yeah. 1:25:16 And you want to just You don't care. It's not a judgment. Correct. Just preparation. I want Correct. And I want 1:25:22 to be in a position of I'm going to change the narrative of your story. If they ask that question, 1:25:29 I'm going to change the narrative, right? Yeah. Why does it matter that they have a criminal record? Yeah. 1:25:34 Because So, they don't deserve this. Right. Because that was 5 years ago and they've done the work to be better now. 1:25:40 Sure. Great. You got them. They had a criminal record. Yeah. So, they should they don't deserve help. 1:25:45 Sure. It's the same thing as like Good. Just getting ahead of it. Yeah. I I I had an argument 1:25:50 PR, dude. It's all PR. Yeah. I had an argument with a with one of the home projects years ago with one 1:25:57 of the sponsors that was they were bitching about we had to rip up the floors and they had committed to redoing 1:26:03 the entire like when I say the floors, not just like I were pulling the tiles up and putting down new like down to the 1:26:10 structure of the floor. They had to rebuild the entire structure. Turns out it was worse than they thought. So, they were giving me a hard time about like, 1:26:16 uh, we need we we needed more lumber for this more than we thought. We didn't 1:26:22 sign up for this. And, um, they were like, who's going to pay for the extra lumber? And I was like, well, 1:26:28 you guys are because you're a multi-million dollar company that committed to fix the floors. And they 1:26:34 were like, and they were there literally was like $500 worth of that they were arguing over. 1:26:39 And they what what tripped me Yeah. was they used the statement, 1:26:47 well, we got we got throwaway wood like they're getting this for free. They 1:26:53 should be thankful for that. And that's what threw me. And I I went like, "Oh, motherfucker." 1:26:58 Yeah. I literally like, "All right, gloves are off now, buddy. You motherfucker." And you call yourself a Christian 1:27:04 company. Great. We're about to have a conversation. We're about to throw it out, dude. You know, I went to seminary school, right? So I said, and I literally I just said 1:27:12 something to the effect of like monkey. I went, "Oh, 1:27:17 so because they're poor and black in a predominantly black neighborhood, they 1:27:22 should just be thankful for what you, the white person, gave them." Yeah. And he was like, "You're trying to call 1:27:28 us race? You are you trying to say I'm racist?" And I went, "I'm not trying to say it. I am saying it. 1:27:34 You've said it." And I was like, listen, let me let me school you on our philosophy. 1:27:42 Um, if it's not good enough for your own family, 1:27:47 is this how you would do it for your kids and your home? If the answer is no, then it shouldn't be good enough for 1:27:52 them, right? That's we don't do the standard. We don't do charity that way, right? 1:27:57 Charity to me means if it's not good enough for my own family, it's not good enough for their family. Right? if I wouldn't do it for my own 1:28:03 kids, my own family, uh it shouldn't be that way for them. 1:28:10 And literally the like his his general contractor had to get his jaw up 1:28:15 like got in the way. It was like, "Oh, we'll take care I'll take care of. I'll take care of." He understood the implications. 1:28:20 I was like, "Listen, I will physically fight you in the middle of this kitchen in these people's home." Yeah. You're not going to stand here 1:28:27 and and they and they did it. But for me, it's Yeah. I want to know all of 1:28:32 this information because I I know people coming into this are going to have questions. They're going to come in with 1:28:39 bias. They're going to come in with uh preconceived ideas about why your home is in disrepair. I want to know 1:28:44 everything because I want to change your narrative to them. Sure. I want that multi-million dollar 1:28:50 Christian-owned company that's going to look at it like, "Oh, you should be thankful that you're just getting scraps." 1:28:56 No. Absolutely not. That's not the Jesus way. You're a Christian. That's not what Jesus would do. You think that's how 1:29:02 Jesus would handle this situation? I don't think so. Right. What is that? 1:29:07 Yeah. Like, no. That's why we want to know that kind of information. Um, I want to help change the narrative 1:29:12 of your story. Yeah. With Affordable Christmas. Yeah. Um, the families that come to Affordable 1:29:19 Christmas are um invited by community organizations that are 1:29:24 already working with those families. They know their stories. They know their financial situation. And for me, that's 1:29:30 not because we want to make sure that they need this. It's the opposite. It's that I want to make sure that this 1:29:36 family, even though they maybe are only going to be spending $30 on on gifts for their 1:29:43 kids. Yeah. That that $30 is also not going to break them. They're not sacrificing something 1:29:48 else to spend that $30, right? Because we have set this up so that that $30 of 1:29:55 like those six or eight items that they have they have bought for their kids retail would cost them $300. 1:30:04 If they were spending $300, they were definitely going to sacrifice a bill or something. I want to make sure that that 1:30:10 $30 is not also going to break them because if that's the case, we need to do something else for them. Sure. This is for the family that Yeah. I've 1:30:18 got two kids. I can't afford $100 for Christmas for them without not paying my 1:30:24 light bill or not paying my water bill. Great. You're gonna be able to pay all 1:30:29 your bills. You have an extra $30. You can afford that. Great. Let's get you some brand new unused gifts that your 1:30:36 kids are going to love that you picked out, right? And you're paying for. You're paying for and it's within your 1:30:41 budget. Well, and that was the [ __ ] Jason, that blew my mind the many years ago. So the 1:30:46 first again it's like several minds blown like like Kurt Cobain 1:30:52 but like with hope though you know I lived through it. Oh my gosh. But like affordable Christmas legit like 1:31:00 blew my mind. Y continues to blow my mind because coming from church you know church 1:31:06 background it's just like oh I get it. We're just going to give them like these people are struggling. We're just going to [ __ ] you know Santa Claus them. 1:31:13 Right. Right. Yeah. And that's not what Affordable Christmas is. No. For So, here's the thing. I 1:31:19 It's crazy. It's brilliant. I love it. And I never got it. Yeah. I wish I I wish I could take 1:31:25 credit for the idea. It's not my idea. You could. It's just us. But then 1:31:31 [ __ ] it. It's trying to Did you see it, though? I'm not tripping. Right. I see. No, it's a hair floating in the 1:31:37 air. Yeah. I got it. You got it. All right. Um Miyagi that [ __ ] Um not on my set. 1:31:44 Um yeah it's the again dignity and 1:31:50 empowerment right so a lot of I think charity oftent times happens without 1:31:56 considering the dignity of the person receiving the charity sure 1:32:03 we tend to go oh I identify a problem I have a solution to that problem I'm 1:32:08 going to provide the solution what we don't do especially in nonprofit world and church world, we don't take the time 1:32:16 to take the next step and go is how we are about to provide that solution 1:32:23 dignifying and empowering to the people receiving it. Uh I remember specifically 1:32:29 we did Christmas for some families and we did this uh pseudo angel tree 1:32:37 type of thing. We had these families. We got their Christmas list. What their kids wanted specifically. 1:32:42 People in the church, took a took a kid's name and an item. They went and bought it. They gift 1:32:48 wrapped it. It was a surprise to these families. They show up to church that Sunday. They like we invited them to 1:32:55 this special thing. Here's all these families show them to church. They've got these hidden like Christmas gifts under their chairs or under the pew, 1:33:00 whatever. Oprah Winfrey like basically, right? brought these families to the front in 1:33:06 the front of the stage and then hey we're gonna like Christmas carols and stuff and here come all these people 1:33:12 these strangers with like all right Justin you're there with your wife and here's your your kids standing in front 1:33:18 of you and uh here's this wrapped gift for your son 1:33:24 stranger handing it to your son open it up it's like uh wrapping paper everywhere kids going nuts like oh my 1:33:30 god I got this Sega whatever it is And here's a dad standing behind their kids 1:33:36 watching a stranger hand this gift to their kid that they could not provide 1:33:42 for their kid right at the time in front of everybody in front of everybody and at the time 1:33:47 not even not recognizing what was happening right years later doing Affordable Christmas 1:33:55 still not having the language for it understanding the the heart behind it 1:34:00 the very first project affordable Christmas that we did. There's a single 1:34:06 dad that shopped. I just happened to be the person walking him out to his car with his gifts. I'm 1:34:13 pushing a bicycle that he bought for $10. A brand new unused bicycle retailed 1:34:18 for like $80, $90 at the time. Uh and I ask him, I just happen to ask him like, "Hey, who's who's the bicycle for?" He's 1:34:25 like, "Oh man, my son. Uh man, he's made good grades, blah blah blah." He's 1:34:31 bragging on his son and he goes, "The one thing that my son asked for for Christmas this year was a bicycle." And 1:34:38 I had to tell my son, "Don't get your hopes up cuz dad can't afford that this year." And then I got invited here and I 1:34:46 got to buy this bike. I He's like, "I know you're not going to believe it. I've seen this exact bicycle at Walmart. I know how much it cost." 1:34:54 I thought to myself, "That's the perfect bicycle for my son. I come here. I get to buy this bike. $10. It's inside my budget." And those are the words he said 1:35:00 to me. Now I get to go home and be the hero to my son. And in that moment took me back years 1:35:08 earlier standing in a church watching these people and realizing 1:35:13 we let we took Justin out of the hero spot to his son and we made this random 1:35:19 stranger the hero to his son rather than creating a scenario where how can Justin be the hero to his son? 1:35:25 Be the man. Yeah. Be the dad. Yeah. and the message that sends to his son. Yeah. 1:35:31 And it it just all in that moment hit me. It just all Oh my god. You're right. Holy [ __ ] 1:35:36 You should be the hero to your kid. Not me, not these people. You should be able to go home and look 1:35:41 at your son in the face and say, "I got this for you, man." Jason, it's the hand up. It's the over the hump. 1:35:47 Yeah, dude. I never I never thought about that. It's so It's 1:35:53 so humbling and it's so embar It's embarrass me for all the times I have. I'm sorry, brother. for all the times I 1:35:59 have given cuz I feel like I've given and for me yeah I give for them 1:36:04 I listen I wish I could say I wish I could say I was that smart I 1:36:09 learned this from people that live that experience I have some incredible people that I 1:36:15 learned from that they grew up very poor like one of the guys that I mentioned 1:36:21 pushing the grocery cart I learned from them the lived experience 1:36:28 of receiving charity in an undignified way. 1:36:33 Right? I well to the the rest of my life, I'll give credit to that single dad that I 1:36:39 say it every time. That was not my language. That language came from that man. He said it to me. I get to be the 1:36:45 hero to my son. I never would have thought about it that way had he not said it. I only know that because he 1:36:52 said it to me and that was his lived experience. And that changed my mentality. Oh, you're right. It's not 1:36:58 about me. It's not pat myself on the back. It's you. You get to go home. I 1:37:04 don't care if your son never knows the rest of his life how you got that. And I even asked him, "What are you going to tell him when you get home? He's going 1:37:11 to think you stole this bicycle." I literally said that to him. I was like, "You told your son you can't afford it. 1:37:17 You're going to come home with his brand new bicycle. He's going to stole it." Yeah. Where'd you get this dad? And here's what he said. Here's what he 1:37:23 said to me. He said, "Two things that will stick with me forever." He said, "Number one, this bicycle is going to 1:37:29 sit in front of the Christmas tree until Christmas day." It's like, it's like three weeks until Christmas. He's like, 1:37:35 "This bicycle is going to sit under the Christmas tree until Christmas Day." 1:37:40 Sure. He's going to appreciate it. He's gonna have to look at it every day. Not going to get to ride it till Christmas Day. 1:37:48 Number two, he said, "Oh, he didn't rewrap it. It wasn't wrapped. wrapped his bicycle. Well, he didn't wrap them. Sorry. He 1:37:54 didn't wrap them. No, he just He's like, "No, it's going to sit there." Wait, you're trying to tell me y'all didn't [ __ ] give him wrapping paper 1:37:59 to wrap for a bicycle? What kind of charity is this? I'm just joking. Yeah, bicycles 1:38:05 are the worst to rap, right? So, there's that. And then put a bow on that [ __ ] 1:38:10 right? And he goes, he literally said to me, "I'm going to tell my son, 1:38:17 God made a way for your dad to afford a bicycle." That's the story I'm going to tell him. 1:38:23 I fantastic. I love I don't care. He does not need to 1:38:29 know anything about us. The charity that you got invited and none of that. Right. I want your son to be able to look you 1:38:34 in the eye and go, "Man, my dad came through for me." Yeah. 1:38:40 Dad found a way. Yeah. Because that's going to change his life. Until next Christmas. 1:38:46 I'm just joking. Do you have any repeat? Do you have any repeat customers? 1:38:51 Uh, we try not to. It's the hope that that dad found and 1:38:56 that son found in that bicycle that will live forever in their in their lives and 1:39:03 in their hearts. You're not wrong. Have you ever wanted to quit? Like I look at all these things that you're doing 1:39:08 all the time. Yeah. All the time, man. Why you keep doing it? Um, 1:39:14 like really? Don't give me the PR answer. No, that's great. Jason, why you keep doing this, dude? uh because it's right and it's right for 1:39:21 me. It seems like a good time to change. I I I want to jump over to uh if you're okay 1:39:27 with it personal. Yeah. Um and we we touched on it briefly, but I I want to touch on it real quick. 1:39:33 You're uh you're re-engaged. You've re-engaged marriage. We are re-engaged. 1:39:38 Congratulations. So, can are you uh can we talk about it? Absolutely. Okay, cool. So, uh first of all, am I 1:39:44 invited? Yes. It's okay if I'm not. Uh, but you know, I should be. Yes. Um, you should be 1:39:50 and more. Should I get ordained and should I maybe pay it forward and take 1:39:56 care of it? Absolutely. Who's doing it? Well, then can I meet the person who's doing it? 1:40:01 Yes, you can. All right. Uh, is he taller than me? Yes, he is. Is he more handsome than me? 1:40:07 You son of Oh, I mean, no. No. No one's more handsome than you. Oh, God bless. Come on. Ah, that's so nice to hear. Who's doing 1:40:14 it? a friend of mine named Michael Leblanc. He is a uh He sounds dumb. Uh you should probably 1:40:21 let me try Can I try out? What are tryyous? Look out for this thing. You remember in the Wedding Singer where like John Levitz is doing like the the 1:40:28 You know, let me try Can I try out? No. Cool. Uh when's the date? When when is 1:40:34 it happening? April of 2026. I can't do it. Well, sorry. Sorry. You can't be there. 1:40:39 Look, it makes sense that I you know, even if I even if you wanted me to fish you, I just can't. Yeah, I'm I'm washing 1:40:44 my hair. I get it. You're booked up. Yeah. So, we got engaged a couple weeks ago. Shitty. Yeah. It's the best, dude. So, it was just a 1:40:50 couple weeks ago. Yeah, it was like two weeks ago. So, how did you ask? Tell me everything. Um I I'll give you the quick version. Um 1:40:58 so, I want the slow long long drawn. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead. We The ongoing joke for me is been 1:41:07 I I didn't propose to you six years ago. Yeah. You already said yes. It's the same 1:41:12 ring. She said yes. You took her to the neighbor. It looked like the pictures were that the beach. Uh, no. Is that a So, so she loves 1:41:21 hiking. She currently lives in Lakeland. There's a 1:41:26 like a what do you call it? A nature preserve in Lakeland. Hiking around lakes and that kind of stuff. She loves 1:41:33 her family goes there. They go walking there a lot. I hate hiking. Um, but I I 1:41:39 figured out figured out how to do it without hating it. I figured out a way 1:41:45 Yeah. to get there to like, hey, let's go for a walk without her being 1:41:50 suspicious of like, you hate hiking. Why do you want to go there? Worked out. So, I'm on my way on my way 1:41:55 to Lakeland to meet her this night. It's not rain for months. Torrential downpour. 1:42:00 Perfect. That night, it's like hail on the way there. Yeah. Metaphor. That's a metaphor. for 1:42:07 marriage. Um, figuring out like, oh man, I've got it all planned with her brother and sister-in-law. They're like gonna like 1:42:13 secretly be there and take photos and all this. And it didn't stop raining. Looking at the radar. We'd like like 1:42:20 let's just go. So, we go there. We're in the parking lot. No one's there. Still raining. And I just was like, well, I'm 1:42:26 just gonna do it because it's taken so much work to get to this point anyway. Yeah. I I don't care. Her her brother's 1:42:32 texting me secretly. And I was like, "Listen, if it doesn't stop raining, I'm just going to do it in the parking lot 1:42:38 and at the entrance to the hiking trail, right?" Cuz so anyway, literally got out of the 1:42:43 truck. Her brother and sister-in-law pull in the parking lot because I was like, "Yeah, just come on. I'm going to do it." They're pulling in and I went, 1:42:49 "All right, I've got a surprise for you." She sees them pulling in. It's raining. Like, got to get out of the 1:42:55 truck. Um, this is happening. So, I literally proposed to her in not in the 1:43:00 parking lot itself, like at the entrance to the Sure. hiking spot. It's pouring down rain. 1:43:07 Proposed to her, she says yes. Literally 10 minutes later, 1:43:12 rain clears up, sun comes out, rainbow, there's no one else at this is a very 1:43:19 busy uh uh nature preserve. No one else is there because it's 1:43:26 pouring down rain. clears up, we go on a hike at sunset around the lake and 1:43:33 that's where all our pictures are from and it's just us, no one else in the park except us and her family taking photos of us. 1:43:39 You ready for some reviews? I'm just going to wrap this up real quick. Are you cool? I'm going to wrap this up. Okay. Do you remember Mandy Rutnik? 1:43:49 Um, so here's her name. Okay. She goes, "Hey, uh, this is from Mandy Rutnick." 1:43:54 She goes, "Yes, still dealing with the emotional shrapnel." Uh, Jason, remember me? Flower, crown, sunburn, tears. You 1:44:02 married me and Todd. Do you remember Todd? Uh, behind a barn while reading something you swore was a roomie poem, 1:44:09 but I'm 99% sure it was a Yelp review for smoothie place. 1:44:14 This is a This is made up. Uh, you wore a with no shirt under it 1:44:20 and it said the Union is a vessel. Todd made up. Todd is now Todd now lives in a van. 1:44:27 Get out of here. Yeah. So, you told us marriage is Stop. You told us marriage isn't about 1:44:32 perfection. It's about intention. Jason, I intended to have a husband. Instead, I got a man who thinks almond butter 1:44:39 counts as protein. And once tried to fix our relationship by suggesting we get a 1:44:45 matching tattoos that said frequency. You made this up. I don't know what this 1:44:50 is. I hope every time you say bespoke ceremony, a woman somewhere gets a gut 1:44:55 feeling and a rash while it's on your website. And I hope one day she says you 1:45:02 have to sit through a marriage you officiated while they fight over who clogged the shower with crystals. 1:45:07 Oh, okay. [ __ ] Mandy. What a [ __ ] Yeah. Anyway, okay. This one says her name's Tori. Okay. Lake wedding. Lake wedding. 1:45:15 Do you remember Lake Wedding? No. No parking. Okay. She says, "Jason said our 1:45:21 relationship had the playful energy of dolphins. Six months later, her husband or my 1:45:27 husband cheated on me at a Dave and Bustards." That's from her. That's from Tori. Emily says she was a rooftop 1:45:34 wedding. She says Jason said our souls were already married in the stars. 1:45:40 Uhhuh. I don't know. That doesn't sound like you. But uh she says, "My husband now believes in aliens and Venmoed his cousin $800 for a 1:45:48 conspiracy retreat. We are getting divorced." So that's good. Kenzie uh 1:45:53 this you remember Kenzie, she's a backyard wedding. No. She said, "Jason made us lock eyes and 1:45:58 say, "I see you. The man I saw was already planning to leave me for a girl who owns six geckos 1:46:06 and spells energy with two eyes." Do you remember Kenzie? 1:46:13 No. Divorce. These are all ending in divorce. Jason. Jason. Oh, here's another one. Jason said, "Marriage is a 1:46:18 canvas." She said, "Mine is a finger painted in poop and regret." 1:46:27 This is Married by Jason. So, uh, here's another one. He had us light a candle to symbolize forever. It went out during 1:46:34 the vows, and I should have [ __ ] known what that meant. It was an omen. 1:46:39 Here's another one. He told us to whisper one thing we love about each other. My husband said your shoulders 1:46:47 and that lasted four months. You don't follow up with any of these [ __ ] people. No, I don't know any of these people. 1:46:52 Uh this is another one. He described love as a river of trust. That sounds like me. Yeah. 1:46:58 Yeah. Ours had piss stream and dead raccoons in it. 1:47:03 Yeah. Okay. Uh we did a wine box ceremony. Do you remember? You remember 1:47:08 wine box? He drank the wine alone during our first dance. These are 1:47:17 Look, you've never looked at these reviews, man. They're all there. Uh, he 1:47:23 quoted Harry Potter in her vows a lot. Is that You seem like a lot. 1:47:29 She And then she put unironically uh like are you a Harry Potter guy? You 1:47:34 seem like a Star Wars guy. I'm a Star Wars guy. Yeah, I should. read things that people ask me to read in their weddings. 1:47:41 Oh, so she Well, that makes sense. You know how quote You know how these [ __ ] reviews are, they're one-sided. 1:47:46 U reviews. Yeah, they're [ __ ] They're all made up. It sounds like 1:47:53 my husband said, "We're twin flames." And Jason clapped. 1:48:00 She She said, "I didn't know twin flames meant matching DUIs." What a [ __ ] [ __ ] you, lady. Uh, he 1:48:09 wore a bow tie. This is one's [ __ ] has to be real. He wore a bow tie and a feather in his hat and said marriage is 1:48:16 a ritual. Uhhuh. Okay. Have you thought about anulments 1:48:21 as like a side? No. I would. Dude, bro, I think you're leaving cash on the table, but you could 1:48:28 just be like, "Hey, how's it going?" Oh, not so good. Well, Jason, you know, Nolman's by Jason. 1:48:33 Uhhuh. Yeah. No, I'm good. I'm not saying like I want this, but I'm just like it's, you know, sounds like you do. 1:48:38 The last one here says, "He fist bump, he fistbumped my husband after the 1:48:44 kiss." And we weren't sure if we weren't even 1:48:49 sure if it was over. Like, they didn't know the ending. Like, when are you done? Cuz like 1:48:58 they didn't know when the wedding was over. Um, in all fairness, I made all these up. I spent a lot of time. I was up to 1:49:04 like you did a great job and I thought it was funny. You got me with the first one. Here's the thing. 1:49:09 Yeah. Mandy Redneck. The name because it feels like I don't remember people's names. 1:49:15 No. Why would you? Yeah. And cuz how many weddings have you done? Hundreds. Hundreds. 1:49:20 I don't know how many. Hundreds. Yeah. As a hope dealer. Sure. Is there not some sort of moral 1:49:26 obligation to prequalify a couple? No. You don't give a [ __ ] You just want 1:49:33 that check. No, it's not that. No, it's there's no moral obligation. It feels like there's a moral obligation. 1:49:40 Um, who told you that? Nobody. It's a feeling feeling. Listen. 1:49:45 Okay. All right. My like Star Wars, my feelings betrayed me. Your feelings? Yeah. I'm just 1:49:51 saying. No, but you know what I'm saying? Like I'm not saying it's your fault at all. What I'm asking, I guess, is the question is that like 1:49:57 there there used to be that saying when people does anybody object to this [ __ ] Sure. Here's here's my thing. I so many 1:50:05 the stop with you though. I could be like, "Yo, y'all [ __ ] suck. Don't do this." No, definitely not. Uh, if the two of 1:50:12 you should not be married, that's not my job as a third party to address that 1:50:17 with you, right? You're not clarify, right? I don't know you. Sure. Um, if you two shouldn't be married, you 1:50:23 have friends, you have family, you have people known your whole lives that at this point should have told you. 1:50:31 And if they haven't, that's on them and you. I don't know anything about you. 1:50:36 Hey man, so you've been rad. You are you're changing lives. 1:50:41 Like really are. Yeah, right. You got a big thing coming up. It's that linking partune. Let's start over. Hold 1:50:47 on. Linking. Jason, you love Lincoln Park. Hit me with it. No, let's do it one more time. 1:50:53 Upcoming events for Jason and Laundry Project is Cocktails for Cause June 23rd 1:50:58 in St. Pete at Lincoln Heights. Linking Heights. Talk to me about this event. Are you excited about this? Yeah, very excited. It's uh um Noro 1:51:08 Tequila and Mezcow. They are sponsoring it. They uh 50% of all their cocktail sales going to the 1:51:15 laundry project. Nice. 10% of everything else from Linking Heights that night is uh going to the 1:51:20 Laundry Project. We've got they've got some games and prizes, things like that people can donate towards raffle off to 1:51:27 get um to get some prizes and stuff that all goes to the laundry project. Helps us do more laundry projects in St. Pete. 1:51:33 Sure. And this is how you raise a lot of the money for laundry projects. Yeah, that's one of the ways. Yeah. It's people like you, it's people, it's 1:51:40 companies, it's uh small businesses, people that sponsor. It's things like this. Uh yeah, companies that are 1:51:46 willing to host fundraisers like this. And uh yeah, that's that's what we got. 1:51:52 So come out, drink some drinks from 6 to 10 at Lincoln Heights. Absolutely. And uh you know, keep blessing people. 1:51:59 Absolutely. And I hope I hope as you've blessed people that you're blessed. I am. I sleep well at night. 1:52:06 And I hope that your marriage is blessed and it would be so blessed if you let me 1:52:12 I'd be blessed and you'd be blessed if you let me officiate. Just talk to Danielle. Ask Danielle what she thinks. 1:52:18 Okay. Before you say no. Think about it. Don't say no right now. Just think about it. I will ask her. Yeah. Yeah. 1:52:24 Just think about it. I will. Um I feel like you're rushing the list. I'm Look, I'm not rushing this. I could 1:52:30 be available that date. I'd have to check with my wife. I'm just saying I might move some things around. 1:52:35 I'll have the conversation. Don't say no. Look, you've been saying no your whole life. Say yes. I'm saying I'll have the conversation. 1:52:43 I promise you you won't be disappointed. I 100% believe that 1:52:49 I can't promise you that you won't be embarrassed. You've been around, dude. I appreciate your time. Of course, man. Thanks for having me. 1:52:54 Review the transctip to right the best show descriptiopn that will work for all the platforms