Living Inside Out with John Peek
Welcome to Living Inside Out with John Peek!
Living Inside Out with John Peek
Do The Hard Thing Now
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Feeling ready is overrated; acting ready changes everything. Today we take on the gap between what we say we want and what we actually do, and we get honest about why comfort keeps winning. With Pastor Daniel Cisneros, we unpack how youth and adults alike drift toward shortcuts, then wonder why consistency collapses when life gets hard. We trade the myth of motivation for a durable plan built on faith, structure, and high-quality reps—on the mat and in daily life.
We walk through a practical set of principles you can use immediately. First, honor the gifts and opportunities already in your hands and remember the people who invested in you. Gratitude fuels follow-through. Then, protect your priorities with a schedule that leaves less room for drift. When resistance hits, use the three-second rule—count three, two, one, move—to beat hesitation before your brain negotiates you out of action. Over time, results teach your feelings to follow obedience. You don’t fall in love with discipline; you fall in love with the peace, confidence, and freedom that come after it.
We also connect these ideas to real-world training at DefendFit, where functional fitness meets practical self-defense. You’ll hear how we use clear systems—before, during, and after an encounter—to build competence without ego or avoidable injury. Training as both “good guy” and “good bad guy” teaches control, trust, and stress management that transfer to work, family, and faith. Finally, we revisit the Seven M’s—ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money—as a lifelong curriculum for living from conviction, not convenience. The goal isn’t burnout; it’s ownership and joy.
Ready to act before you feel like it? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, share this with a friend who needs a push, and leave a review to help more people live inside out.
Welcome to the Living Inside Out Radio Show with John Peake.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to Living Inside Out Radio Show on Patriot Talk Radio where we talk about faith, family, and freedom. Living Inside Out is all about leveling up, optimizing, and creating value with our time, with our treasure, and with our talent. Living Inside Out has a 7M which covers seven of the most important topics that I think we should be learning all the time, a little bit each day. And those are ministry, all about our calling and our purpose. Marriage, about every relationship, mentoring, giving and receiving, media guarding what goes in our eyes and ears, martial arts and muscles, similar but distinctly different. Martial arts about personal protection. That could be firearm, it could be learning to manage distance or get away, de-escalating, it could be pepper spray, it could be hand-hand combat. But having options and having skills really builds true confidence and really be you become the man God meant you to be or the woman God meant you to be by being able to defend and protect your pursuit of the life, liberty, and happiness, pursuit of happiness. So join us as we also complete that series with money. So we'll be having topics and all these things. We've got a great show lined up for you today. I've got a my good friend and pastor and student actually, uh Daniel Cisneros. He's a youth pastor at Townwood Church. And so if you have a teen or a youth in in the younger ages as well, Daniel and Townwood Church have a place for you. They have a way to teach in a very distinct way that helps to bring a lot of knowledge, understanding. There's a great mentoring and discernment, and to break free of things that have happened to you in the past is also a big part of our overcoming that they focused on. So, Daniel, thank you for being here today. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Our topic today, as we've discussed many times together, you and I, both as pastors and even on the mat training, how did how to do what you don't want to do? You know, and oftentimes I just use the word procrastination. You know, it can really get you in a big, big, big predicament by putting things off. My dad used to always say, Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today. And I'd as a smart aleck, I would flip that around on him just to kind of gig him, you know. I would say, why do today what I can put off tomorrow? But it's real important for us to understand how to live with integrity. And so one of the things I want to talk about is Daniel, when you're dealing with youth, you know, in all the struggles that come, doing what we know we should do, even when we don't feel like it. Let's start here. Here's a question. Why do you think doing the right thing, especially the hard thing, feels so difficult for young people?
SPEAKER_02:Oh man, that's sounds like an easy question, but the answer can be very broad. But man, I mean, if we can put it in simple terms, it's simply because we don't want to do them. Now, with that, obviously, comes into the idea or the thought of, well, discipline, right? You discipline yourself to do the things that you don't want to do. For instance, we all want to be rich, we all want to have a nice car, we all want to live in a nice home, but no one wants to do the work required. We always, I mean, even in nature, you see this, right, right? There's that saying water takes the path that's of what? Of least resistance. Well, we try to do the same thing is we want to take the easiest path, which requires the less amount of work, less amount of effort, less amount of investment of our time and of our energy, but yet we want the maximum output or the maximum result for the work that we do. Unfortunately, because of the world we live in and because of how we're designed, it doesn't work that way, right? There's no cheat code to lose weight, or there's no cheat code to get instantly rich. And it's funny because whenever someone does for any reason uh find a shortcut and they use it, or or something that they wanted all of a sudden overnight becomes possible. You rarely ever see them actually be fruitful or be successful. Uh man, I I love talking to my youth about lottery winners. Uh, you know, there's this show that came out a couple years ago uh where it pretty much, you know, asks the question, well, where are they now? All those lottery winners. Almost all of them are either, man, doing uh further in debt than before. Uh some of them are even dead, some of them are in jail. Uh and the basically the moral of the story is well, you got something that you didn't earn. You got something that you didn't work for, therefore you didn't know how to cherish it, you didn't know how to take care of it. So, this question of why is it so hard basically really comes down to the sense of, well, how disciplined are you willing to be in order to receive what you want, in order to do what you want, right? That's basically how how I look at it, right? We live in a culture that's so driven by results and instant results, right? We've got the instant ramen, we've got the instant popcorn, we've got the movies on demand, we've got all these things where if we just want it, we go and we we grab it, and it only takes a couple of seconds or a minute. No one really wants to build anything solid, foundational, that's gonna be able to build something that's gonna last long, right? Because again, what does it require? Time, energy, effort, investment. So when we ask a question, why is it so hard to do the things we don't want to do? You're asking the wrong thing. You should really be asking yourself, well, what do I want to get in life? Where where do I want to or where do I want my life to leave a lasting impact on others? That's that's mainly where where I look at it whenever I answer this question, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's good. That's good. Yeah, when I think about the training aspect of it, you know, as a teacher, oftentimes I learn a lot from my students on how should I teach them, how should I word it, you know, what are the topics that I cover. And so one of the things that I think about, especially because uh I trained physically, is you know, discipline is no longer taught as a virtue, oftentimes with our youth. Yeah, youth are trained to ask, you know, what do I feel instead of what is right. And of course, you know, with social media, our youth are growing up with it, and we did uh we didn't have that social media when I was young. So we did a lot of experimentation with you know experiencing life in the rawest form, you know, just going out and doing. And so when we think about how do I feel and do I have an understanding of you know how social media rewards comfort and not character, I think a lot of young people have never been taught that discomfort is normal. We train them to avoid pain instead of endure it.
SPEAKER_02:That's true, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But growth spiritually, emotionally, even physically always involves doing things you don't feel like doing. So here's the second question faith versus or feelings versus faith. How do feelings get in the way of obedience to God?
SPEAKER_02:Ooh, man, in a lot of ways, right? But mostly, and then here's a dangerous part because feelings are obviously it's what we feel, it's what we it's our emotions, right? But the Bible itself is very clear when it talks about how we're not to be driven or we're not designed to be driven by our feelings. The Bible itself says that the heart is is easily deceived. Well, a lot of times, we're how do we associate how we feel? We we feel it not from our mind, but we feel it from our chest where our heart is. So the Bible already pretty much kind of exposes that lie that because I feel it it because it feels good, it should be good or it must be good, right? And a lot of times we make decisions, and I'm not I'm not saying that you know I've never made decisions based on feelings, you know, I've been a youth pastor going on 15, 16 years now. Man, I've made mistakes, and thank God I have a mentor and a pastor that's helped me see them and and confronted me on them. It's never easily being confronted, but when it comes to feeling versus faith, right, when it comes to that, that trying to, especially with your faith, trying to follow God, uh, but not based on how you feel. The basic principle, man, is if the Bible doesn't agree with it, then no matter how you feel, that's what's supposed to happen, or that's the way it's supposed to be. This is true for a lot of things. I mean, working in church, people don't realize that church a lot of times is like a hospital, right? For the people that go on a regular basis, well, that's their daily dose of medicinal faith, if you'd call it in which where they get faith filled up, they're reminded of who God is, and that's awesome. And throughout the week, they get confronted with situations where that faith is going to be used up, it's gonna be required. But then you got those other churchgoers that only go whenever they have issues, they only go whenever they have problems, and they come and they come with this expectation where, well, because uh see, I'm here because I know God can fix me, I know God can help me, uh, so that's why I'm here. And you know, it's funny because the second they get what they want, they're gone. They leave. Why? Because whenever someone has an issue, it's because they've been pushed out of their comfort zone and they feel vulnerable, they feel weak, they feel just insecure, so then they go looking for that security. But the second they find it within church, within their faith, they say, Okay, thanks. I don't need it anymore. And then they go, they leave. And it's always like the same, like, well, I'll see you again in a year, or I'll see you again in the next crisis. So faith based on feeling develops inconsistency. So then when those things where you're not confronted with having to do stuff you don't want to do, well, guess what? You were inconsistent in your faith, and the stuff that that has to happen on a daily, could it be that that's what caused the crisis that you're in now? To where now you're only acting based upon how it made you feel, but you never address the actual root of the problem. Now, faith, real faith, the belief in what we cannot see, says, Oh man, God is there no matter what. I believe in Psalms 139, I want to say 7 through 10, there's a verse that says, Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? And that's a beautiful, beautiful question that that David is asking as he wrote that because it's like, God, the situation that I'm in, it may feel right, it may feel like you're not there, but then he's reminded of what the Bible says, where it says, I will always be with you. So then he's kind of asking himself, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? And then he even gives examples that says, if I'm in the most peaceful part of my life, you're there. And then he goes, even if I lay my bed down in hell itself, you are there. I mean, man, that's talk about having faith over feelings, right? Being able to say, Yes, God, you're there, you're present in every way, even when I don't feel you. And that's what I did. That's how I I basically, well, that's how I would answer that question, right? With feeling versus faith.
SPEAKER_00:That's good. That's good. I mean, feelings are real, but they're unreliable.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Unreliable, inconsistent, roller coaster, man. You don't want that in life.
SPEAKER_00:And faith operates on truth but not emotions. Absolutely. Obedience often precedes motivation, and God matures us through resistance. I call it being in the desert. When I I've spent a portion of my life within what I call the desert where I feel like I'm suffering, but that's when we grow the most. You know, feelings make terrible leaders. If I only followed my feelings, I probably would pray less, I wouldn't forgive as much, I wouldn't show up consistently. But faith teaches us that obedience comes first and feelings usually catch up later.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, very good. So, what do you think about when you have had to go do training, for example, and you just don't feel like it? I'm sh I know you've had that. You're not feeling well, you're maybe nursing an injury or something that, you know, you just uh would rather do something else sometimes. And why do you go ahead and go, okay, no, I'm gonna go train anyway?
SPEAKER_02:Oh man, it's one of those, you know, we all have that issue, right? Where again, it's like it's the day, it's the hour, you've been given time to rest, but your body just says, I want more rest. Or or even your your schedule even say you need to do this instead, you need to do that. But what I've learned, what I've seen is when I don't train, right? And and you know, John, you know me. I I yeah, there's been moments where I don't come, uh, or there's been moments where just something just gets my attention, have to tend to that first, and I miss training. I do notice when I come back, man, I'm rusty. I'm rusty, I'm slow, I'm forgetting. Sometimes I even feel like I slow the class down, even though I've been coming for years, but it's always like this sense of like, why I could be better. I need to learn more. I'm behind because I know I missed, or because I know I wasn't there. Uh so dealing with it is just that, just dealing with it. There's you can't reverse, you can't go backwards, right? You can't press the the rewind or the reset button. It's like, well, you're in the position you're in now, suck it up and move forward. Catch up if you can, but keep pushing forward, keep pursuing the goal of being someone who wants to be the protector. You know, that's why that's how we found you, John. We found you because my brother and I, David, we wanted to just not be prepared for something that could happen, but we wanted to be properly prepared. We wanted to be efficient, we wanted to be proficient, we wanted to be, in a sense, overly prepared for something that, you know, is very possible. We live in a world now where safety isn't guaranteed. You know, we could lock our doors, we can uh, you know, put alarms, put cameras, and yet with someone with a bad intention, they're gonna look at that and they're only gonna see as an obstacle, but not as a stop sign. You know what I mean? It's gonna it's gonna be optional for them. So when it comes to training and it comes to pushing myself to do it, man, it's really, really where your personal drive comes into play. And that personal drive, again, when you build it on inconsistency, it's not gonna be very motivating. But when you build it on something stronger, like your faith, and you're able to feed your faith. That's why uh I see, and and nothing wrong with that, because some of my youth do this and they do it properly well. Man, they love to work out, they love to lift weights, they brag a lot about how much they lift, and I'm impressed, I'm genuinely impressed with them. But in my mind, I'm like, okay, that's great. You've disciplined yourself physically, but now spiritually, where do you stand? Your muscles with time, they're gonna they're gonna deteriorate, they're gonna, they're gonna break down with age. Faith doesn't break down like that. So by the grace of God, it's one of those things where I think it's gonna be a forever kind of story for me where I'm just building up that ability to do something that I don't want to do.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Well, this is a this is a big subject, isn't it? We could spend quite a bit of time on it. And so what I'd like to do is bring you back on next uh week's show, and we're gonna expand on this thought of why how do I do what I don't want to do, and why uh what are some of the reasons why I don't do. Also, why am I doing what I don't want to do? We'll flip that question on the other side, right? Yeah, why am I doing the things I don't want to do? And so now I'm not only doing the not doing the things I should, I'm doing things I shouldn't. So uh it's a big subject, and I want to expand on that. We're gonna talk about that uh in my next segment where I'm gonna expand on that and give you some real tools, some practical things, and then also tie in uh to our training on firearm training and uh some hand-to-hand combat through Defend Fit. So don't go away, we'll be right back.
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SPEAKER_00:Welcome back to Living Inside Out Radio, right here on Patriot Talk, 9 20 a.m. and Spotify and Apple, where we talk about faith, character, discipline, and purpose. Today's theme hits every single one of us right between the eyes. How do I do what I don't want to do? Because let's be honest, most breakthroughs in life don't happen when things are easy. They happen when you do the right thing, even when your feelings vote no. Spiritual growth, physical training, learning a skill, building a business, raising children, and staying faithful. All of it requires doing things before they feel maybe natural. So today we're going to walk through some principles. But as I think back on this idea of doing things I don't want to do, most of my life, most of our lives, the whole day is doing things sometimes we don't want to do. Like getting up and going to work, for example, working on the car, doing the fixing repairs on the home or whatever it might be. You know, I own a company called DefendFit, and many times I would be on my way to teach class from working a job, and I was like, man, I just really like to go home. I don't really want to do this. But, you know, you uh you commit to something and then you follow through. But I find that's pretty rare. Many people can follow through for a season, sometimes for a very short season, sometimes for a longer season, but eventually they quit doing whatever it was they committed to. And sometimes that's a good thing. You commit for a season, then you move on. Other things we should commit to for life. So that's why I created Living Inside Out to begin with, to focus on the seven most important things that we should do for life. At DefendFit, we're covering physical attributes that give us skills to protect ourselves from personal harm, protect our families, our homes, our country, our way of life. And we do that in a way that's safe, fun, engaging. It sharpens your mind, it gives you confidence. It honestly is hard to get any other way. And then it you know increases your health benefits in in ways that you can, it's hard to really, it's it's hard to explain the tangible increase of what happens to you when you train mentally, emotionally, physically, uh, and you're much more willing to overcome other difficult things as you conquer a difficult thing. And training can be difficult, but it's not out of reach. So let's talk about the four principles that help us move from resistance to discipline and from discipline to joy. This is living inside out, where obedience precedes motivation and character comes before comfort. So the first thing we have to do is knowledge, acknowledge, and develop the many gifts we have that were given to us that we didn't earn. It's God-given gifts. The first reason many people struggle to do what they don't want to do is this they undervalue what God has already given them. If you don't honor the gift, you won't develop it. The word of God makes this very clear. Lord of hosts, man, blesses the man who trusts in you. That means if God has placed something in your life, a calling, a talent, an opportunity, he expects faithful stewardship, not excuses. Oftentimes I'll read Proverbs as a way to start my day, and I came across Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, and it reminds us, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lead not only onto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. You don't wait to feel ready, man. You acknowledge God and He directs your discipline. Second Peter 1, 3 and 4 confirms it. Not some things, not most things, everything. So when you resist discipline, ask yourself, am I doubting God's sufficiency or avoiding responsibility? Honor God by fully developing what He trusted you with. Acknowledge the sacrifice others make for your success. Here's the truth that produces maturity fast. Your life is not just about you. Someone paid a price so you could stand where you stand today. Parents, mentors, employers, pastors, spouses, teachers. Philippians 4 18 says I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied. See, Paul acknowledged the sacrifice of others, and gratitude fuels by his faithfulness. Romans 12 10 commands us be voted to one another in love, honor one another above yourself. When you quit, when you procrastinate, when you waste time, you're not just dishonoring yourself, you're dishonoring the sacrifices made on your behalf. Hebrews 13 16 says, And do not forget to do good and to share with others. For with such sacrifice, God is pleased. Discipline is one way we honor those who invested in us. Sometimes the motivation you're missing is found in remembering who believed in you before you believed in yourself. Many of us had people that believed in us like that a coach, a parent, a teacher, a friend. Oftentimes we can see things in others. That they can't even see in themselves. And you you ask yourself, why isn't this person, you know, living up to their potential? And a lot of times it cuss comes from damage that happened before. I went and did this certain activity and didn't have a good experience, so I'm not doing that anymore. You know, I'm not trusting somebody because, you know, a person broke my trust. Hey man, don't be a baby. We all feel uh suffering. We all get hurt, we all have trust that's broken. But you just gotta put on your big boy pants, man, and move on. And don't forget, you're not alone. Use your time wisely by scheduling what matters most. Create a vision. Feelings don't run, disciplined lives, schedules do. Psalms 9012 says, Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Hey, wisdom doesn't come from intention, it comes from intentional structure. And I keep going back to the word of God, and some of you listeners may be like, Man, what's he just preaching at us? No, man, I'm giving you a secret weapon. I'm giving you things that come from the Bible because the Bible says, it calls itself, the Word of God says, I'm alive and powerful and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and bone and marrow, and is a revealer of the intents of the heart. I have that memorized, man, because it means something to me. And because it means something to me, it's active in my life and powerful. Ephesians 5, 15 and 16 tells us, be careful then, how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. Because the days are evil, the time is neutral. You either redeem it or you waste it. Jesus simplifies everything in Matthew 6.33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Listen close. Discipline starts by deciding what comes first. If it's not scheduled, it's not sacred. If it's not prioritized, it will be replaced. You don't drift into excellence. You design your days around obedience. And listen, that's not an easy road to be obedient. And that doesn't mean you won't fall short. That doesn't mean you won't stop something. But anytime you stop, you fall short. You feel like you were incomplete in something. All you have to do is restart. Hard work pays off. You want to work smart along with working hard, though. You want to keep it simple, smart, but not too simple. Join our family of warriors at Defend Fit and join a group of people that are doing these very things. Not everybody that comes in here is a believer in Jesus and follows the Bible. And we're certainly not quoting scripture on the mat. We're not going to shove that down your throat. But you will gain a lot of skills. You will hear a lot of application for the skills into your everyday life. You will overcome, you will get healthy, you will feel more confident. We're going to meet you right where you're at on the mat. But you have to work long and hard enough until the discipline becomes a joy. Something that's hard and you're struggling. When you get good at it, you feel good about it and you're willing to do more of it most of the time. And if you get really good at it, it's because you did it enough. And there's momentum that picks up. So this is where people most people quit too early. They stop before mastery. Second Peter 1 5 through 7 says, For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness knowledge. And to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance. Notice this self-control is not automatic. It is built layer by layer. Galatians 5.22, it's called the fruit of the Spirit, and one of the fruits is called self-control. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Fruit grows over time, not overnight. Proverbs 25-28 gives us the warning. Mastery is freedom. Whether it's martial arts or music or language, whether it's business, whether it's student development. For me, I think of student development because I'm a teacher. Physical training because I'm teaching physical things. Spiritual growth because I'm a pastor. You work long and hard until it becomes natural. Then joyful. The goal isn't burnout, the goal is ownership. A lot of times I'll hear people say and I've said it, man, that person's so good at what they're doing, it's like they're a natural. And there is a lot of natural ability in something that you're drawn to. Oftentimes, you know, that's why you got good at it because you had some natural ability. But what without the work ethic, the natural ability would be squandered. You have to have the discipline, you have to schedule it in, you have to prioritize it, you have to commit to it, and then it will lead to mastery and excellence, and you will have the reward that comes from that. Ownership. So here's a your living inside out challenge. Honor God by developing the gifts He gave you. Honor sacrifices made for you. Honor your time like it matters. Because it does. And work until discipline turns into delight. Because obedience doesn't wait on emotions. Emotions follow obedience. This is how you do what you don't want to do. Until one day you realize you've become the person who does it, quote, naturally. The work ethic is the underlying foundation. Do the work, typically you get the reward. Work smart, work hard, work long enough to get to mastery, and transformation comes. You don't have to master everything, but you should be looking to master the seven M's. Master your faith. Master what's important to your calling, your purpose. Master the art of a relationship. Guard against bad ones, develop the good ones. Master mentoring and being mentored. Oftentimes people can give, but they can't receive well. It's good to receive, and it's good to give back. Master the art of guarding your eyes and ears. Build in some control mechanisms that prevent taking in things that you shouldn't take in and stopping the pollution by compromising your integrity. Master the fundamentals of personal protection. Empty hand, knife, gun. Demonstrate and use and exercise your right to carry a gun, your right to train with a firearm. Protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Master building your body to be strong. And master money. Don't let money master you. This is Living Inside Out. So train your spirit, order your life, and walk worthy of the calling placed on you. This has been Living Inside Out Radio. Thank you for joining us today. Join us next time at Living Inside Out.
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SPEAKER_00:So today we're going to also tie that into what we can do in terms of our preparation and training around self-defense and firearm training. Many of our listeners are very interested in that kind of training, and so at DefendFit, we have the opportunity to kind of bring it all together in the 7M. So we're covering seven of the most important categories that I think we should be working on every day: ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money. So we've been talking about this motivation aspect to how to do what I don't want to do. And so let's have a little bit of a confession time. If motivation were enough, we'd all be shredded, fluent in multiple languages, debt-free, spiritually disciplined, and emotionally hell uh and emotionally healthy. But let's be honest, we don't have a motivation problem. We have a follow-through problem. Because somehow I'm motivated to scroll, motivated to snack, motivated to been watch a show I've already been seeing, uh been watching. Um but when it comes to prayer, discipline, practice, studying, planning, suddenly I need a sign from heaven. And God's like, you already have a sign. It's called obedience. So the real problem, feelings are terrible leaders. Here's the biggest lie we we believe. When we feel like it, I'll do it. But feelings are like a toddler with a credit card. They should never be in charge. If I waited until I felt like working out, I'd still be stretching since 2004. If I waited until I felt like doing the hard spiritual work, I'd still be saying, Lord, I'll start Monday. And Monday never comes. Well, it's the same way with training. If you want to get good at self-defense and firearm training, you have to do the reps. But the thing about getting the reps is you have to get the right kind of reps, the right quality training, and then have a you know, follow a plan, a system. So that's something we have at Defend Fit. We give you a system, a system of thinking. We give you a path through, not just during, but I have this concept of threes that I teach from before, during, and after. Distance, long range, being range, short range, levels, high, medium, and low, position, over, under, and around, use of force, restraint, incapacitate, terminate. So when we teach you hand-to-hand combat, we have a system to think from using precision, speed, aggression, deception. And then your path through that flows through identify the primary threat, strike, clinch, finish. And so you have all these things to think about before and during, but I think a very rare aspect of the training is most people aren't thinking about afterwards, a post-engagement protocol. So I have it built into the school with words and language all around tied into our high I-beams that are holding up our heavy bags and our pole pads. They have these words that give you instruction. Like our post-engagement protocol covers fight, avoid, pick up, rescue. That means look for the next threat. Avoid fixed objects that you could run into as you're trying to get to safety. Pick up the things that you need most, like your keys, wallet, phone, and then don't forget rescue. Don't leave your family behind, loved ones, maybe even innocent people. You know, be a helper and help to make sure everybody's secure if it's within your ability. So let's tie some scripture in to this discipline of getting going and starting and finishing. The Bible never says walk by feelings. It says walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5 7 says faith acts first, feelings catch up later. Discipline is doing what's right before it feels good. So here's the truth nobody puts on Instagram. Discipline is not doing what you don't want to do until one day you actually want to do it. Nobody wakes up loving discipline. They learn to love the results of discipline. You don't crave prayer at first, you crave peace after prayer. You don't enjoy practice for first, you enjoy confidence after mastery. You don't like boundaries at first, you love the freedom after obedience. Proverbs 423 says, Guard your heart for out of it flow the issues of life. Translation. Stop letting your heart drive the car, put truth in the driver's seat. You know, excuses uh sound smart until results show up. We're professionals at explaining why we didn't do what we said we do. I didn't work out because I was tired. I didn't read because I was busy. I didn't pray because I was distracted. You know, funny how we're never too tired to scroll, never too busy for what we really want. The truth is, excuses don't move consequences. I'm sorry, excuses don't remove consequences, they just delay growth. God isn't fooled by our explanation, he's waiting for our participation. So let's talk about the participation in class at DefendFit. You're in a group class or even in private lessons, you have interaction with another person, and there's a real momentum that picks up, and there's a feeding back and forth on good guy, bad guy scenarios, and you're actually helping the other person and they're helping you, even in terms of how to be a good bad guy, right? There's a right way to help somebody learn. And so I teach the other side of it as well the how to be a good bad guy. For example, if I'm working with somebody and we've just met, I start slow. I build their trust and confidence so they know that they're I'm not gonna hurt them intentionally. And then I go at a speed and intensity that they can understand. They know what's coming, I do it at a speed and intensity that they're able to deal with. We get lots of reps, they feed me the same way. And part of being a good good guy is I'm gonna make sure they're gonna help me stay safe. So, for example, if we're in a position where, say, a knee's coming in, well, yeah, I'm gonna be blocking that knee, I'm gonna have a boundary for that knee, you know, protecting, helping them protect me, I'm gonna help them be a good bad guy just like I'm gonna be a good, good guy. So there's a lot of these different viewpoints on training that I rarely see in a in all environments. Sometimes I've seen these kind of good, this gold culture come out of schools, and I've seen, frankly, a lot of bad culture in schools as well, where the mat's unsafe, there's a culture of ego, uh, there's uh too hard, too fast, too soon kind of approach. And sometimes I've seen people aren't going hard enough as well when it's time to go. There's no stress inoculation, for example. Or they're working in a stressful uh, you know, 90% of the time they're at a high level of stress and they're not learning much, and there's a high injury rate. So to find that sweet spot in training requires a lot of thought. So this is my 41st year of training and teaching, and so I got a lot of knowledge to give, a lot of mistakes along the way that have been fixed, and so you're getting the benefit uh from the trial and error that came before you. So you should look us up for training in all the things we do. We do American boxing, we do uh Muay Thai kickboxing, we have Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, we have Modern Arnice, Prab Maga, we have firearm, tactical firearms training, both dry fire at the school during the week and live fire uh events uh to be announced and scheduled on the weekends. We have a combat fitness program uh where we we uh uh just basically bring you up in the physical performance department, agility, speed, mobility, strength, strength endurance. So the reason I'm mentioning that and tying that in is because this first of the year, a lot of people are making new commitments around their health and wellness. And there's a real benefit for finding a passion for something that also teaches you more about yourself, gives you skills, and builds confidence so you can protect yourself. And the health aspect is almost a byproduct. You know, it's a secondary issue as you start gaining skills, you see and you see how they important they are. Let's tie this back to this commitment. So scripture, Proverbs 16, 3 says, Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established. Now notice the order. You commit the work, then your mind lines up. So almost everything we do is simply a battle of the mind, and that pesky free will. That free will, it often gets in the way. I would say at times I wish I didn't have the free will. It would um it would make things simpler. So one of the things you can do is really start to have a a way, a strategy of way to overcome this thing. So let me give you something simple you can use today. I call it the three-second rule. When you know what you should do and you feel resistance, count. Three, two, one, move. Because if you wait longer than three seconds, your brain will negotiate you right out of obedience. Nike didn't say just feel it, they said just do it. Turns out they were closer to scripture than we think. Action kills excuses. Motivation breaks hesitation. Motion breaks hesitation. So say that again. Action kills excusion. Let's say that again. Action kills excuses, motion breaks hesitation. Having a system of thought, having some boundaries and rules in the way you think, the way you want to think, takes intention. And oftentimes, to get the right direction, it's good to get a mentor. So that's the third category in our seven M's ministry, marriage, mentoring. And so oftentimes we need to be mentoring others at the same time we're being mentored. If you're young, you might be receiving a lot more than you're giving back, and that's great. When it's time, when you've mastered a particular area of life, it is good to give that back. One of the things that we do here at DefendFit is allow you a position to help others. We call it a family of warriors training with purpose. Iron sharpens iron as one person sharpens another. I can't tell you how good you feel when you're coming away, gaining knowledge, and passing that knowledge along as well. Oftentimes giving back feels better than receiving. It's sometimes it's uh you know something to get used to because you're not used to giving back. You haven't been in that environment, or maybe you haven't been learning much lately. You know, it's been a while since you put yourself in a student position. I know a lot of instructors will reach a certain level of mastery in a skill set, then they'll stop being the student anymore. They don't put themselves in new environments to learn new things because they remember how inadequate they felt when they were a beginner and don't want to go back to that. Let's talk about identity before action. Here's the big takeaway today. You don't do hard things to become disciplined. You do them because of who you already are. You're not trying to earn identity, you're acting from it. You don't do what's easy, you do what's right. And one day you look back and realize the thing you didn't want to do is the thing that changed your life. Let's close with this scripture from Philippians 2 13 today. For God is working in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. You move your feet, God shapes your heart. So this week, don't wait to feel ready, act ready, and let God do the rest. Thank you for joining us today at Living Inside Out Radio. It's been my great pleasure to bring you some of these things and have guests on. We're gonna have some great guests next week as well. Daniel Cisneris is gonna join us again, and I may have as a surprise guest as well. So we're always gonna tie this back into our training at Defend Fit and hand-to-hand combat, physical fitness, and firearms. Don't forget to look us up on the internet. We're in Western Texas, 17317-El Camino Real, 77058, just right around the corner from Johnson Space Center. You can also look us up at Israeliselfdefense.net. So I'm your host, John Peake, and look forward to bringing you some great content next week. Take care and have a great day.
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