Sierra Michaelis: Marathons, Medals, and Finding Faith in the Quiet

What does it look like to chase joy when you're wired to compete, perform, and be the funniest person in the room? Sierra Michaelis joins Matt to talk about running marathons (with and without training), growing up on a cattle farm in Jackson, Missouri, and the relentless pull toward winning that's followed her since childhood.

We get into the costumes she wore to embarrass her friend's middle schooler, the bits she commits to for an entire year ("Do you know who my daddy is?"), and why being roasted by your siblings might be the best gift a person can get. Sierra also opens up about a quieter thread running through her life: walking into a small Baptist church alone at 10 years old, drifting through college, and finally encountering grace at a Passion Conference right before COVID shut the world down.

It's a conversation about humor as a gift, solitude as fuel, land as a long-awaited homecoming, and the strange grace of looking back and realizing the picture was painted before you ever picked up the brush.

Plus: a closing quote on excellence that just might change how you think about work, play, and everything in between.

Follow us today for some weekly joy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to a Fiercer Delight. This is a Fiercer Delight. I want a Fiercer Delight, you probably do too. We want to enjoy our lives, have more happiness, have more joy, and that's an okay thing. So we just do that through having conversations with people. So I have a person across from me. And your name is Yeah, Michaela. Michaelis!

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Michaelis. It looks like Michael is. Yeah. So everyone says Michael.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Which do you prefer?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Um, probably Michaelis. I got Mituus once, which is pretty cool. I don't know where they got the you, but it sounds kind of in real. Yeah, I do like Mituus.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Do you correct it when it's wrong or do you just roll it?

SPEAKER_00 0:33

I just roll with it. A surprising amount of people call me Michaela instead of Sierra because of my last name, I think. Okay. So it happened yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Congratulations. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Feel good?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

You said you roll with it. I don't know you that well. I know you a little bit. Yep. And then we had a guest on recently, and you lived with that guest for a bit, so I kind of know you secondhand through that guest, but you said roll with it. You kind of roll with stuff, don't you? You feel like a roll with person.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Oh yeah. Um, it takes me it takes a lot to get me like riled up. But yeah, I like to roll with things. You're an athlete? I was. I wouldn't say I am now. I just ran a marathon on Saturday and I did not feel like an athlete.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

You are an athlete if you're running marathons. Yeah. It takes me a couple years. Every couple years I run a marathon. Yeah. Well, mine I gotta like add it all up.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

So if I go two years, I can get to 26.2 miles total on that year.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Are you a sticker person? Do you put it on the back of your car?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Like.002? That's what mine would be. I'm not I do like those ironic ones. You know you have the 26.2 and then the people like 50.4 or whatever, like show-offs.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I've seen a 0.01 and that one was really funny. I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

I really like those. Uh so you ran a marathon why'd you run a marathon?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Um you know, I don't know why I do anything. Roll with person. Did someone ask you? It was an ad on Instagram I fell for for Go St. Louis. And I was like, oh, I could probably do that. So I signed up. I did the Heart of America here in Columbia a couple years ago without training. That's what I was wondering. Next, did you So this was my second one, and I did train for this one, and it hurt just as bad as not training.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

So tell me about the not training one, because I always like one when I was young, and marathons were just kind of getting popular. I was maybe early twenties, and then everyone was like, used to just Olympians ran marathons, but then everyone had to.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

I was just gonna go out to the park one day and run a marathon. It was one lap around the lake, and I was gonna see how long it took me. But I was gonna stop and maybe sleep there. Yeah. My friends were gonna bring me fast food, and I was gonna document the whole thing. You kind of did that, except you didn't camp and stuff. You did no training. What does no training mean?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Like were you a runner? The most at that point I had run was around seven miles.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

But you'd go out and run weekly, but not trained, did you?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I didn't really start running. Obviously so, I played basketball at Mizzou. So um in the summers, we would have to run like three miles every once in a while. And I basically walked that entire thing. Like I was not in endurance, I was speed. Not even that, I wasn't even that fast. But um so I didn't really start running until I lived with uh Patrick and Heather, and they both run. Heather Heather runs a lot. Um and then one day um when I was living with them, Heather was like, You want to go on a run? So we went for like seven miles, and I was like, and we were talking the whole time, and I was like, you know what, this is pretty easy, I'm gonna and so then I made it my whole personality where I was like, I'm I'm the type of person that just buys whatever hobby they're into for like a month. So I was like, I'm gonna go get Hokas and a running vest and all that stuff. And I don't think I ever used it for like the first two years. Um and then I d I don't I don't really know how I got into it. But yeah. So I I signed up for the Heart of America a few weeks before it was time, or like it was closing, and it was hot because it's in September. Yeah. And Easily Hill from Cooper's Landing to Pierpont is just terrible. But you did it and you finished it.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

After you finished, were you just like, well, that was dumb. Why'd I do that?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

After I finished, I remember saying I'm never running another marathon. And then last week I was like, I finished and I was like, I'm never running another marathon. So in a couple years we'll check it before we run your marathon. This one hurt almost where it was all on uh pavement. So I I got tendonitis. I've been limping all week. I've got tendonitis on my left knee. Well, I think it's tinninitis, I'm not a doctor, but so according to Google.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Yeah, that's right. Chat's my doctor. Yeah, Dr. Google. Oh, you say you were an athlete, but then you ran a marathon. Sounds like you kind of still are. Or are you competitive? Is it competitive? I'm competitive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah. There's something weird where I just like will do anything for a medal. And this medal is awesome. I will do whatever. We were at Canakan.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

It never feels bad. There's something about two things never wear off for people. It always feels good to get a trophy or medal, even if you act Joe cool and like you don't want it, you do. Yeah. And it can be in anything. The other one is mascots. You watch how people interact with Truman the Tiger or Fred Bird, you know it's not a real giant bird. Right. But people like get pictures with it and like touch it.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

So those are the ones. So you're still team metal.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

You got that medal. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Do you have it on now? I I it's in my car. You want me to go get in? It's under my shirt. I just wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

My kids, if they get a medal, they will wear it for a couple days.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

No, I I wore it for a picture, and then I was hurting so bad that I was just like, I took it off and I didn't want to think about it. But a couple years ago we were at Kanicook family camp and it was an Olympic theme.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Um, so like one of the nights was like you get to compete against all of the other families. And so we were we were going really hard in the paint, and we got like second or third, I think, and we got medals, and I was like stoked because it was a real medal. Like I thought it was just gonna be like a plastic dollar medal, but like the rest of the day, I was like, guys, this is a real medal. This is a real and I just kept repeating that.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

So you got a silver medal, and all it cost you was a bunch of friendships.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah, I'm not here to make friends though.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

I'm here to make medals. It's weird though. So you're and again, I don't know this. I'm projecting here. You're laid back and yet you're hyper competitive.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

How's that work? Because that that that feels at odds. Usually people who are real laid back don't care what place they get, but you get in that environment and something turns on.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

There's just something about it's like the the Kobe, like the mentality. I don't know what it is. It's been since I was little. Like it could be anything. I was playing three on three crossing, the crossing uh three on three tournament last year. And um, like I'm I thought I tore my Achilles, but I was just like playing through it. Yeah. Well, I don't even know if there's a medal, but it was just the my my team was three girls and everyone else was a guy. Oh it's just like something to prove was my medal.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah. So how'd you do? I think we got third against all boys, yeah. On the podium. Yeah. It's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah. Alright. Uh so you compete, you engage with people in that way. Do you like it? Does that like bring you joy?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah. It brings me joy unless I lose, and then I'm the worst person to be around.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

For how long? Um What's the timestamp? So you got third at that thing. You how many times did you replay like the game that was like?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Well, just like constantly, and I've I've always done this, just like constantly like I did this, I just like remembering things I did wrong that I could have done right. And those just eat at me. Like I still think about a game-winning shot I missed in high school. Yeah. To go to state.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

So you like a perfectionist a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Um, only when it comes to winning. Other than that, I'm like, yeah, it's good enough. This is so interesting.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

I feel like uh a psychologist right now, but I don't understand any of the findings. Yeah. But they're all good findings. I like to be a mystery. Okay, so you like competing. It brings you a measure of joy. How long can you go without it? I don't know if I've clearly not very something's ticking and you're like it's time to test it.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Clearly not very long. I've never even thought about how long. I feel like every day I'm doing something competitive.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Okay. Yeah. So that's a big part. What other things do you engage in that kind of like make you feel like you?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I have to be the funniest person. Okay. Yeah. That's why I said I was threatened by you, because someone said you were the funniest person they knew. Yeah. And I was like, one person.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Yeah. If if you're ever threatened, that's why I came on your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I'm gonna be the host next week. You're gonna stage it.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

It's not that hard. Here's the thing if you're ever intimidated by the perception of me being funny, all you have to do is come to my house.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Because I have easily at this point thrown seven figure amount of jokes. So I've done over a million jokes to my wife, and I think I've gotten in 15 years two laughs.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Do you have a a very consistent joke where it's like every time you say it, someone laughs?

SPEAKER_03 8:38

No, I'm just a volume shooter. Okay. Yeah, I read a lot I get a lot of shots up.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Um and then I one thing that's cool is I'm semi-in-ministry. And so if you can find where that line of inappropriateness is, and not go over, because then you're a hypocrite. Right, right. Then you're a sleaze.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

If you can just get right up to the line and tow it.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Jesus jokes are funny.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I love a good Jesus joke.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

So if you're in a humor competition like we are now, what are your go-tos? How do you upstage everyone and be like, I'm the funniest?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

I think just being louder.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Okay. Interrupting. You have slapstick louder. I don't have a lot of slapstick. I uh there are times where I'll say a joke quietly and I know it, it's a banger, it's good. Yeah. But no one heard me. And then I have this mental thing of like, do you say it again? What if they did hear you and it wasn't funny?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

I I definitely would say it again.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

You just go louder.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, you got to.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Do you like uh physical humor? You fall down the stairs, wear costumes.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yes, so cost yes, 100% costumes. Um Patrick and Heather's daughter was at Southern Boone at the time, middle school, and every Wednesday I would go pick her up in a costume for a while during COVID. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

That's good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah. So I was a cheerleader, which was one of my tightest outfits. Um I was one of those like blow-up car salesman things that like wave in the wind. Um I was a grandma, I was an uh leprechaun. Um there was some I was a unicorn, yeah. And Hannah would be so embarrassed, she would just hide in the bushes.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

We did at the Art Kids one Christmas break. It was the week of Christmas break, or leading up to it, and my kid was like in first grade, but the whole family would wear crazy hats and it got like more and more exaggerated, but then by like day four, we were kind of out of crazy hats, so we didn't know what to do. But he was too young to be mortified. He thought it was awesome. It was the greatest thing ever. I was like, I cannot wait to do this when he's in eighth grade. Yes. Just keep your hats off. See him like yeah, dust your hats off.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, the key is to not get embarrassed.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

You can't get embarrassed.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Do you not get embarrassed or do you just you fake not being embarrassed?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Maybe a little bit of both. Where like I don't really care what people think. Because like if it's if they don't think it's funny, then like grow up. It is funny, you know. So it is funny.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

I think this is huge. This is a big thing. Uh a couple years ago I made uh kind of a New Year's resolution. It went, I have certain news resolutions that have always been there. To go to a water park, to bowl at 200. I went to a water park, so that one's off. I bowled once in like 10 years, so that one gets to stay on. But I had a real one, it was like to care less. And a big part of it was like, do care less about what people think. And I have to say things in front of audiences a lot, and that can be like a mortifying prospect. And so who cares? You're right. I'm just gonna do the best I can, and I think it's pretty good. And if you don't, that's okay. And I it's like been so helpful, but that's hard to get there.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

You are really there, or you have been in some ways, where like you really have been. Well, how did you get that? How did you get to a point? Because I think joy, one of the things why we don't have joy, we don't have happiness, because we're always constantly head on a swivel, getting our approval from other people, and it's a bad way to live.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

So, how'd you get that? How'd you get to a point where I was like, I can wear a goofy costume and some people think I'm an idiot? So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I think just a product of my environment growing up, like what we were talking before the the podcast started, but like I I grew up in a very small town where everyone knew everyone. So like I didn't care what any of them like I've known them my entire life, like I know embarrassing things.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

It was like familial, you're all like they'll still be there tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah. And my family just like is constantly um the Michaelis family is just constantly making fun of each other. That is like nothing anyone can say can hurt my feelings. Um because like whatever you guys have said, it's already been said to me kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Did they call you when people did funny stuff? So I need to preface this, maybe give you more context. The word idiot was used in our house very freely. Like I got called an idiot by the age of 10.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

738,000 times.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

And so it never hurt me later in life and be like, you're an idiot, be like, Thank you. That's what mom says when I do a good job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

But you're being serious, it's not a joke.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

But did you have that kind of vibe going on?

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yeah, it was exactly like that. And I I have a brother who's not much younger than me. And um we we he's he's really tall and we we always looked like twins. And so we went through like our chubby stage around the same time.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

But he would I could never make fun of him having like man boobs or anything like that. But he would just like relentlessly call me like pork chop and steak fat and hamburger, and like those were my nicknames. Yeah. And my parents thought it was funny. Like they would never be like, hey, that's not nice. Like she's a she's a girl, she has body image issues, probably. Like, none of that.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

So it's kind of cool. We did that. I remember my sister, my youngest sister, she loved the Olsen twins, and we told her the Olson twins were doing a contest to add an Olson triplet, and then all you had to do was do a song and do a dance and write an original essay.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

And then for like two weeks, that's all she did. She was like seven, and we just hid under her bed in her closet and watched her like, and my mom knew about it the whole time. She's like, How's it going? Is it was it stupid today?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

It helps.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

And I my chore was to get the mail, and it was like a mile away, and so every day I'd have to go out and get the mail, and I'd be like, Man, I might go get it later. I sure hope the Olsen twins didn't write. And she'd take off like a bolt of lightning to do my chore. It helps having siblings. We were like mean to each other a lot of times, but somehow that was good. Yeah. It's a weird mail.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I think it like I'm really close with my brother, so maybe.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Yeah, my sisters and I are all like best friends, we're really close, and we do like rip on each other, but we also encourage each other and all that.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Um so if you're constantly trying to compete to be the funniest person, how do you feel you're funny? What makes you laugh? Where do you go to to like I have a couple things that I'll do that like man, if I'm just kinda kind of feeling down or kind of just not feeling that lightness of soul? There's a few places I'll go to that just get me laughing every time or get me like and it just changes everything. Like laughter's so good for the soul, I think. So where do you go? Like, what things just guaranteed is gonna get me like ugly laughing?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

I think trauma is a big one.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Didn't see that one. That's not where I go. And now we're just thinking about my trauma. So you just read obituaries, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

No, just like personal trauma, I think, has helped me be funny. My family's pretty funny. Like my I have aunts, uh, they're uh four and six years older than me, so they're kind of like my older sisters growing up. Yeah. Um and when all three of us are hanging out, it's just we're constantly laughing. Um it helps having funny friends too. So you just kind of feed off of each other, but there's always bits that I do. I pick like three or four bits every year. And like no matter what. Like that's that's what I'm my go-to.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Can you give me an example?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, so last year um something would happen and I'd be like, okay, well, do you know who my daddy is? And like if someone couldn't give me something, or you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 15:30

No.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

But like I don't know what you mean. What do you mean? Like uh just like when when rich girls say, like, do you know who my daddy is if they don't get something they want?

SPEAKER_03 15:38

You would just flex that. Yeah, but then your dad's just like a normal dude.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Is that well I don't really even talk to my dad. It was just like a bit like.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

So I don't send you an email. Let's say we we're working together and on a project or something, I send you an email like, hey, actually I don't love any of this. Could we do something else? You'd be like, Do you know who my daddy is?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Okay. Yeah. And you just stick to that in the entire year.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, that was one of them. One this year that I really like is like if something isn't going to plan, I'm like, this is gonna ruin the tour. You just say I'm not on a tour.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

It's just funny.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

And you say it out loud and other people overhear you and then they try and figure out.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Like it's mysterious too. Like if they don't know, they're like, Maybe she is on a tour. Yeah. Maybe she is maybe I should ask for an autograph.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

How do you pick 'em? Do you like draftees in December?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

It's either I hear it from somewhere else or just the Holy Spirit gives it to me. So very faithful. Yeah, yeah. So thanks, God.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Well, there is something like that. Uh people are gifted in different ways. Yeah. And it's like humor's a gift. And if you do believe in a God, those gifts all originate from God. And so someone who has really deft timing, good with a joke or quirky, it's like there's some creativity in that. That's like actually God given.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah, I'd like to think I make God laugh at least once a day.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Sure. Yeah. And if not, you know who my daddy is.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

He's like, You know who my daddy is? This is God.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Yeah. Yeah. It's a circular joke. It's good.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, thanks. You can use it if you want.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Uh what else do you do you like animals?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Um, so I grew up on a farm, a cattle farm. Um something I just felt a vibe.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Yeah. I've never asked anyone that, but somehow I felt like you had a kinship with. Yeah, you had a kinship with animals or something.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

No, I actually don't love animals that much. I grew up on uh farms, we were just like we had you name it, we had it, like goats, chickens, cows. Did you do all the things for them? Yeah, so just like all of the chores. And it's not really like I would stay in the heated truck and my brother would kind of do it for me, but I just don't like having to like these aren't my animals was my mindset growing up as a a teenage girl. Just like these aren't my animals, why do I have to feed them or do them? You know what I mean? But they were feeding us, and that's the part I didn't really connect until my brain was fully developed. And now I do want like farm animals, but I just bought five acres. Whoa. But growing up at the time, I was like, this is just this is just a hassle.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

That's kind of a flex you snuck into that studio. I just bought five acres.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, I just bought five acres.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

It's acreage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

You own acreage.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Did you go walk the land? Sometimes you have a big stick or something, I would carry around a big stick. A big stick.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Just like a I put a plaque on a tree. Yeah. This is the land. Yeah. You can do whatever you want in that land. Yeah. You know who my daddy is. Do you know who my daddy is? Just echo. Um, but yeah, so eventually I'll build and stuff on it, but right now it's just a plot. It's just some empty land.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Do you know how I found out that my elementary school was probably kind of poor?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Was it your lunch?

SPEAKER_03 18:32

No, we had a field trip, and they were talking about this field trip, and then we walked out to our field trip, and instead of getting on a bus, we just went to the pod. That's where all the classes were circular, and there's a meeting space in the middle. And then this guy in overalls came sauntering in and he plopped down some boxes, and he was the field trip, and what was in the boxes were a bunch of cow parts. And he took them out and showed them to us and stuff. I got in trouble. I missed recess that day because me and Foodog were playing catch with a cow's heart.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Ew, that's disgusting.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Yeah. And so like when you tell your farm stories, like, yeah, I'm kind of the same way.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah, you grew up on a farm. That one day. I went to school on a farm.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

But you did stuff, like you milk cows.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, we had a dairy cow for a while, and that was my job was to wake up around 5 a.m. and milk her every morning. And I think it lasted a couple days, and then my brother, it became my brother's chore because it it had to be milked, but I just like wasn't doing it. So yeah, we we had a milk cow, um, chickens. The goats would constantly be eating through the fence, so I feel like we were constantly fixing fence somehow. But yeah. My um my dad and my brother are um they rope. Uh that's what my brother does for a living.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Whoa, for a living?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yeah, he's a professional team roper.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

So he's like a really good roper.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, he's just an old cowboy. But we couldn't be more different in that. Like, like I hated horses, all of that stuff. I was just like sports, so and he he was homeschooled, didn't play sports. It was just rodeo.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

There's probably a million times you're out on that farm thinking, when I get out of here, I'm never gonna do any of this with these animals. Oh, yeah. And now you have the acreage, and you're like, I gotta be a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

It's weird how we returned to some of those kinds of or just like kind of how we grew up. But when I was growing up, I was like, I can't wait to get out of here. So um and then I ended up coming to Missouri, so I really didn't get out of there. Yeah. I'm from Missouri.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

So And now you have acreage and Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

It's in it's like a Hartsburg address. So and it's right on the Missouri River.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Oh, that's cool. Pretty nice, yeah. Congrats. Thank you. Are you gonna like just have a farm? You can build a house, a little homestead?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yeah, I'll build a house and hopefully a greenhouse here pretty soon. But you're gonna put it in a basketball court? No, it's it's uh kind of on a slant. So yeah, no basketball court.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

That's how our driveway is pretty slanted and we put a goal up.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

And it's uh a seven and a half feet because my kids are little.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

And so if I get on one side, I can throw down like a beast. But then from the other side, yeah, I gotta get rejected by the rim because it's like a two-foot difference. Takeoff side.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Where are you from? Originally, uh Jackson, Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Do you know that?

SPEAKER_00 21:05

No.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

It's like southeast Missouri. Okay. It's pretty exciting. Yep. I bet they look pretty similar. Probably. Yours is windier.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Mine's rolling hills. I like here in Columbia, there's like cliffs and stuff that I when I was playing in Shomi State games growing up coming here, I was like, oh my gosh, Missouri has mountains. That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

And you're just rolling hills.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah, ours is just grass and windswept, yep. Windswept farming. Yeah, cornfields. That's all it is, is cornfields.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

What else? Um talking about happiness, joy. It's kind of interchangeable, kind of different. But what other things just like bring you lift?

SPEAKER_00 21:40

I like to read. Um, I love to be outside. What do you read? I just finished The Ove of Golden. Yeah. That's a pretty good book. And then I started um today actually, uh, The God of the Woods. It's a mystery thriller, I think. I don't really read this is my first ever mystery thriller book, so I like to read. Um any nonfiction or memoirs or historical fiction.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Historical fiction from all over the place. Or what's is there a historical? Mostly World War II. Okay. Usually people have an era that they like.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah. One of my my I would say my all-time favorite book is Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Okay. If you guys haven't read that. I haven't.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

I'll put it on the list.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah. What are you reading right now?

SPEAKER_03 22:22

Oh, all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah. The Bible. Oh, of course. The Bible.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

The good book.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

The good book.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

We call it in my house. Yeah. Yes, reading Philippians, actually, right now a fair bit. But uh there's a book called Peace Like a River. I'm leading a group on that. Lovely book. Great. Um and then there's a nonfiction book on storytelling I'm reading right now. Okay. It's pretty good. The science of storytelling. It's interesting. Just finished to Kill a Mockingbird. Okay. With a bunch of things.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Oh yeah, I saw you carrying that.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Yeah. And so I'm always I have started Theo of Golden. Everyone's reading that, it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, I feel like everyone's reading it as well.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

So you're sort of um, I don't know. You have big pol like you're polar in some way. So you you are an extrovert, you wear costumes to school, and yet you escape into historical fiction. Yeah. So it feels like, do you have that meter running where it's like, okay, I've been the funny person, I've been the center of attention, I've been competing hard, and now I'm gonna like retreat for six hours.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah. So um it's kind of gonna get deep, but I feel like I always had to be around someone, um, like high school and college. Yeah. And uh maybe a little bit after college. I was just like struggling mentally. Um so I was afraid to be alone, I think. So I was constantly around somebody all the time. I I would say I'm like an extrovert, but as I've gotten older and like um I started like actually like taking my faith seriously in 2020. And so like just like building that foundation and like walking with Jesus. I've like as I've gotten older, really, really love being alone and just like reading, or I watch friends like religiously. So just doing stuff on my own.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Yeah, they have a term now, they they have terms for everything. They've probably had this for a while, but it came in vogue a handful of years ago, but ambivert. And it's someone who has extroversion skills and likes that, yeah, but that's not they're more wired as an introvert, but then they use their introversion to fuel their extroversion. Right. And that's where I land.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

I can you know I got about a two-hour counter where I can be all in, yeah, I don't know, on a stage or center of attention, and then it's like someone will meet me after that and they'll be like, Are you the same person? But oh no, I'm in this different phase. We're like wandering the woods.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

There's certain people like my aunt or like some of my friends where I could just like spend my entire life with them and that would be fine. But then there's like it's just draining sometimes having to perform, be funny. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

It's good that you know that though, because otherwise you get and obviously it sounds like there were seasons of life where that did kind of suffocate you. It's almost like our strengths are the most dangerous thing to us.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

So you have these strengths and then they consume you, and then you realize, wait, if I steward this strength better, it actually like helps.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

And so now humor's this thing you can rejoice in and have fun in. Right. Instead of a thing that is like miserable to you. Right. Because there are probably some expectations to be funny, like, man, I don't want to get up today because I have to be so on.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, yeah. Well, there's times too where it's like if I'm not really that talkative or I'm not like cracking jokes, then someone's like, Are you okay? Like, what's wrong? And I don't like that either. So I'm like, Yeah, I'm just like I just want to be quiet right now.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

Well, you kind of feel diagnosed when that happens.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Like, are you okay? Right. Like, I'm great until you ask.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Right, now you're gonna get punched in the face.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Let's run a miracle on it.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

So yeah, but uh one more question, I have about 30, but we'll just do one and then I'll let you.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

You can ask all of them.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Uh you said, and this isn't some kind of like now we get Jesus-y, because I kind of hate when that happens. Yeah. But you did say when I started taking my faith seriously, what did that what does that mean? Like why did you do that, or what brought that about, or what does it look like to take your faith seriously as opposed to what unserious?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

So my parents didn't go to church, but for some reason when I was about ten years old, um, I woke up one Sunday and asked my mom if she could drop me off. Um at we have a Baptist church, a really small Baptist church in in Mercer. And for a very long time, I was just like kind of going by myself and sitting in the back pew. Um Wait, how old were you? I was ten at the time. And then I got to do it.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

So at 10 you asked to go to church by yourself and sat in the back? Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard that.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

No, I I was weird. And I don't know why. It had to have been the Holy Spirit. Like now that I'm an adult, I was like, that's odd. So Yeah, I think it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

It's cool, but it's different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah. So I just turned 12. Um uh so I was in sixth grade. So December 3rd, 2006, I got baptized um at in the Baptist church. And um then I could start driving when I was 16, started bringing my friends, so I wasn't going alone. Uh but we were talking about this earlier, like never went to church camps and like didn't my parents didn't really go to church like at maybe on Christmas or Easter. Like honestly, I don't I don't remember them going to church or reading their Bibles. Um but when I was in college, just kind of like went my own way and was like, I I was I didn't we played on Sundays, so I didn't go to church. Um and was like kind of doing the athletes in action FCA thing, uh just because all my friends were doing it, but got really into like wanting to drink all the time and like I said, was like not doing well mentally and emotionally on top of just like being a student athlete. Um and then I graduated in 2017 and I was just really struggling until COVID, and at the time I was dating a girl, and we went to the passion conference together, which I'd never heard of prior to getting a ticket, but um it was John Piper and he was on stage and um everyone else was asleep because he's kind of boring to listen to and he's old, but and we were like it was like late still. Like these are these are like uh conference where it's like it's 1 a.m. we just wrapped up, be here at 7 a.m. the next morning kind of thing. So uh yeah, John Piper was speaking, and I don't remember anything that he said, but he said this at the end was like, um, what is 80 years on this planet in light of eternity? And for some reason that just hit me like, what am I doing? Because I I I grew up kind of going to church, so like I have I know I know what he's talking about, but I've never like experienced grace in in my church. Like we didn't talk about that. It was just like, here's what not to do, yeah, yeah. So you can stay out of hell, kind of. So I was just like, it's just a bunch of rules. But for some reason that conference just like felt different, like the the Jesus felt different to me. So um and then yeah, I was uh started living with Patrick and Heather, started going to the crossing um and got involved with the crossing, and then uh really not far after that, Keith was like, Hey, you want to be our high school girls director? So did that for like four and a half years. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

But that's an interesting story too, and I have a kind of a similar one in some ways, in that you kind of had this faith epiph epiphany, and then the world shuts down.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

And so you kind of get to work it out with just a trusted few or sometimes no one.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:15

And a lot of times when people are coming to faith, it's like, now let's get you in 74 groups and let's get you on doing this, and let's get you right, let's get you burnt out.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Yeah, that can get overwhelming.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

So I was the same way. I kind of had my like faith experience, and I wasn't sure if I believed it, but I think maybe I did, and I kind of wanted to. And I had like backloaded experience, so I kind of had some knowledge, but like, is this kind of getting to my heart now? And then I did a study abroad in my last semester of college where I was in England, and no one cared at all about me or what I was doing. There was no like performance part of it. Yeah, so I could actually like go through the deck and see what the cards were. Right. Like it was almost good to experience some of this faith in isolation, and maybe that's with the person who's the performer who wants to be funny or wants to like you probably because it was COVID, didn't have a ton of like attention-seeking things coming from your faith. Right. So it was like, this is true. Yeah, it's not a performance.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yep. And honestly, like Heather and Patrick were incredible, and just like the timing was like so god, it would just be like I met them in like 2018, and then just like kind of domino affected from there. But yeah, I don't know if I would be here if it weren't for those two.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

If there is a God, he planned the picture before painting it for you. Exactly. He had it in his mind before you did. And then when you catch up, like you said, you said the thing, it's like when I was 10, I look back and it was like probably the Holy Spirit. It's like, oh gosh, if there is a God, he's a pretty good planner, actually. Even though sometimes his plans seem jacked up. Right. When you get to the other side, you're like, whoa, I like farming. Right. Just go get a cow in an acreage. Gardens aren't so bad. Yeah. So yeah. Well, it's awesome. Thank you for sharing. I when I ask you to come on here, you're like, as long as I don't have to talk about my life a whole bunch. And then it's like, whoops. Uh but I didn't think we're gonna talk about that. I really thank you for sharing some of that. Awesome, be vulnerable. Any last words uh that you want to share about happiness, about joy, about life, your collected wisdom in a few sentences, or you can say, pass. What you got?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

My collected wisdom. I love this quote. I wish I had can I grab my phone and read it? Please do. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

All right, we're gonna pause here. She is going to grab her phone. She's walking to grab her phone. We might cut this part out, but I'd rather not. She is walking across the room. I'm gonna narrate this. Sierra grabs her phone. Her thumbs twiddle away with frenetic pace. She sits. She got the phone, she found the quote.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

My favorite quote. All right. Um The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

Chesterton? Who is it?

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Uh a Zen Buddhist. That is great. It was Jesus, I mean. Jesus said that.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

That is so great. Yeah. Uh we've been talking about that some uh just with some people, some friends. Thank you. And some are in like the creative realms, but it is like excellence is just a beautiful pursuit. And it's a reward in itself. And you're not actually pursuing excellence for other people, you're pursuing it for the love of other people, but not just do the next right thing as well as possible. Right. And it's such like a rewarding way to live. Right. And you don't have to keep score. Cosmically, God is, and his scoreboard's way different than we think. And so, yeah, I love that. Thanks for sharing that quote. That's a good one. I'm gonna think about that. Yeah. Alright, well, we were here with Sierra Machalas.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Michael. Michaela. We're here with Michaela.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Yeah, we're here with Michaela. Uh, she did a great job talking about her life. Um, and we'll have someone else next week, hopefully, here talking about their life. And if we piece all this together in all the episodes, maybe you'll find a pursuit for your own life towards joy, happiness, something that lasts, and you can smile about, laugh about. And so, Sierra, thank you for making us laugh, for sharing your humor, sharing your heart and your life. And we'll see you all next time.