Becoming A World Cup Dad

Today's guest is Zach Duke.

We go deep today, talking about:

How the DadWork Podcast inspired Zach to embark on his incredible goal to make the 2026 US World Cup soccer team
Habits, discipline, intentionality
Focusing on the few important things to be a great family leader, and repenting of wasted time and distraction
Speaking to God and hearing from Him
Giving all of our dreams and goals to God and doing all we do for His glory
Inspiring a childlike spark of fun, humility, and joy through sport

Zach Duke, known as World Cup Dad on socials, is on a relentless journey towards the momentous World Cup 2026. With a deep passion for soccer, he endeavors to inspire love for the beautiful game while dedicating himself to giving back to youth systems. His unwavering commitment to spreading hope and the value of hard work serves as a beacon of motivation for aspiring athletes.

Find Zach online at:
Instagram: @worldcupdad
YouTube: World Cup Dad
Tiktok: @worldcupdad
Email: zach@worldcupdad.com

Resources mentioned:

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0:00

And so one thing that the app would continually say is, um, it's about learning and growth, not about the results. So what did you learn today? What did you get better at today? And also I listened to repeatedly would talk about, don't have false expectations of where you're supposed to be. Like the work that you've put into this point is where you're supposed to be. Welcome back to the dad work podcast. This is Kurt storing your host, the founder of dad work. And I am very excited to be joined by.

Track 1: 0:31

World Cup dad himself. Zach Duke, welcome to Dad Work podcast. This is like, dude, this is full circle, isn't it? Tell me a little bit about that.

Zach Duke: 0:38

it? It totally is. Yeah. Full circle. I was sitting in coffee shop back in December of last year, so in 2022, and I'm listening to the Dead Work podcast, I believe it was episode 99, a hundred, which was, I think Matt, Boudreau, did I say his name correctly?

Curt Storring: 0:56

Borow. Yeah.

Zach Duke: 0:56

Boudreau and then Jonathan Rios. and their podcast just absolutely wrecked me, as they were guests on there, and specifically, I don't remember which one it was, but saying like, Hey, we've accepted the status quo. We've accepted the dad bod. We've accepted all these socio Norms of dads that is totally not in line with the Bible and who we were called to be as men, as fathers, husbands friends. And it was just a gut punch. And I realized as I was sitting there, just to make a long story short, that I could either sit there and say, Hey, this is really good information. I like what they're saying, even though I wasn't living it. Or I could take some massive, bold action and do something about it. And it just was one of those moments where I realized I have to do something now. I cannot go back from hearing this and live life as normal. And so it was a, it was a game changer for me. So I, this whole journey you're about to hear started with listening to this podcast. So I'm extremely

Curt Storring: 1:51

Man, that is so beautiful for me to hear, just like even,'cause when I started this, I was like, if one guy, if one guy cannot suffer or whatever, the way that I did, and I heard a couple podcasts ago from a guy who works with inmates at a prison and he's been running them through our anger course. And he's like, it's awesome and it works, and the staff loves it and the inmates love it. And I'm like, whoa, that's not. The impact that I thought I would have. But that's amazing and praise God for that. And same thing with you, man, like your story, which we're gonna get into is probably like one of my guilty pleasures to watch it because I don't consume anything. But if there's something that I comes up when I'm posting on Instagram, I'm like, oh, look how good he got and I'm pumped for you. So let's like walk through what you're doing, because I also want to get a little bit of the backstory, which is like, why were you listening to this in the coffee shop and sort of feeling down in the first place was life, like not great? What's motivated and what's changed? But let's start with sort of the details, the facts. You heard this podcast, you're like, man, I gotta take action because as we say here, action is the antidote to average. What did you do and what are you doing now?

Zach Duke: 2:58

Yeah, as I was sitting there and thinking through, okay. I feel this resolve in my heart. I have to do something. The next logical question was, okay, what am I going to do? so I begin thinking through, okay, what's gonna bring the fire back in my heart that's gonna push me to the edge, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically? And that's kind of what the podcast was alluding to, was like pushing to the edge, going to the absolute, limits something that your kids look up to, your family looks up to, that leaves a legacy. I'm like, what is that thing? And and I was an athlete growing up. I played division one football, at Liberty University. and I realized, man, I, it can't be football anymore. there's just no way I can do that. I'm too short for basketball, but sports always brought the best out of me. It was never an idol. I always put the Lord first, but it still brought the best out of me as a leader, as a person, my effort, my habits. And so, so I was like, man, I need to really pursue something in sports. began thinking. I'm gonna be going to India this next month and I was gonna be meeting up with, I think it was the former FIFA director of India or some big title like that. and they're doing work all over Southeast Asia of community transformation. And I began thinking, man, soccer is a global sport. It breaks through every socioeconomic everyone in the world plays it. It's a global language. And the World Cups coming here in 2026. always wanted to play soccer my whole life, but I never got the chance to play it'cause it wasn't something that my family did growing up. and the way that I'm wired, I need an impossible, crazy hard challenge. So I'm like, I'm picking soccer. This is it. But I'm not inspired to just try to get good at it. That won't fire me up and gimme that, that the edge to push myself semi-Pro doesn't do it. Professional maybe, but I needed the hardest challenge. I needed something so hard that I would have to think like this, eat like this, sleep like this, and train like this, wire my entire schedule on life around this one goal. and so my goal as crazy as it is, and I mean it with my whole heart, I am training to in the World Cup in 2026 of never playing soccer before in my life. I have never played before 2023. And so it is a wild, crazy, insane challenge, and it's pushed me to the absolute limit so far.

Curt Storring: 5:18

Man, that is so exciting and it's like, it's crazy guys. If you go on Instagram particularly, I think you got a YouTube as well. I dunno if you have anything else yet, but World Cup Dad, is that the, the handle on Instagram?

Zach Duke: 5:29

Cup out on Instagram,

Curt Storring: 5:30

Okay. Just like while you're listening to this, go look at that and just scroll through. And you've got this guy who's literally never played and, and you can kind of tell, right? Like you're athletic, but you can kind of tell, and then like, it's like 10 months later, here's what I've learned. And I'm just thinking like, what would I learn in 10 months? Like I've been playing hockey for a long time, not seriously, but I'm thinking like, dude, I haven't got better at hockey in like 20 years. And then here you are slaying. And there was something in there that I wanna come back to, which is like, you've put this as the number one thing that's sort of running your life. The question obviously becomes, well what about the family? How does that fit in there? How does the Lord fit in there? But I just want to go back to like, just, just fill in the last little pieces of this. So you're like, man, I'm gonna make the 2026 US World Cup soccer team. Ludicrous. And like if anybody's got a chance, like, holy crap man, you do And it's so, it's so fun. But what, like, you're now showing everyone, where did that come into it? Why did you do this publicly?

Zach Duke: 6:30

Well, the, the main reason I did it publicly, I'm sure many of you have heard this analogy that you've gotta, you've gotta burn the ships behind you, or you've gotta cut the rope and go out to sea And so if I made this a goal, but I didn't make it public, would make it very easy to quit. if I put this out there as, as insane as it is, as humiliating as it is, honestly, to, to show how bad I stunk, I had to make it public for accountability to make sure that I do not quit. I'm putting this goal out there verbally. I'm saying what I'm doing, I'm saying why I'm doing it, and now I gotta, I have to follow through. And, and so it, it's easy to think like, does this guy want to chase Instagram clout? Does he want followers? even put my last name out there yet. Like, I just, I could care less about that. In fact, I, I've tried to shield my family from that. I did it strictly for accountability it's, it's really proven itself to be that so far. And it's been a lot of things. It's been, it's been really hard. It's been humiliating. It's been like, what the heck is this guy doing? And my soul needed that too. I needed prune to not care about what people thought about me. I needed, I needed to grow to really listen to the voice of the Lord and, and to listen to my family rather than being swayed by making decisions based on other people. So it's been so good and, for my soul to even go through this process.

Curt Storring: 7:54

That speaks to me so much right now. Just in terms of not caring what people think. And the, the way that I'm starting to look at it is, it's almost like, so I use Photoshop sometimes to do graphics and stuff like that, and you can change the opacity of a layer, so it's like fully opaque and then it's like transparent. But in that interim, it sort of like fades away. So I just imagine, like even when I'm at church and I'm like, ah, do I really wanna sing right now? And I'm just, what I do is I picture everybody else around me sort of like going to translucent, and when they go away, God's just looking at me and he's like, those are the only eyes of judgment I need to care about. And so I sit with this heavily as you're sharing that, and I'm really interested in some of these other things that you're learning. But that'll probably be sort of where we go next. But let's just talk about like what you're actually doing. Like give people a sense of, people think like, okay, you're making the World Cup, you're just playing soccer sometimes. What does your day look like? What does your week look like? What are some of the actual steps you're taking to do that? Because it's not just like playing soccer on the weekends. So what are you doing?

Zach Duke: 8:52

Yeah. So going back to the beginning when I, when I knew absolutely nothing, I didn't know where to start. I didn't know what to work on. I didn't know what to train, and I was badly out of shape like I was. I was 30 pounds heavier than I am right now. My muscles, my tendons, everything Quickness was just in the toilet, was not good. So I knew if I tried to just jump in hardcore immediately, I would get hurt and it would be game over. for the first three months, I focused on a couple key things. on rebuilding my strength from the ground up. I focused on mobility flexibility, and I focused on learning the absolute basics of soccer. so what that was, was I would, I would wake up, I'll just tell you my schedule to help kind of think through it. I would wake up at 4:00 AM every morning and the first thing I would do is I would put, coffee on, get that warm. And it took about an 18 minute process to do this, this Chemex. And so I would take an 18 minute nap. And I know that sounds silly, but it was a mind trick if I could wake up, coffee on and lay down on the couch, and something separate from my bed, my mindset, I'm up. So it was also a quick dopamine hit that, hey, I can get on the couch for 18 minutes as the coffee's warming up, that dings, and I'm up ready to go, and I spend an hour with the Lord. So from like four 30 to five 30, I'll spend it with the Lord. And what that would look like is I've written down a list of biblical truths. And I would read through those to remind myself my identity in Christ, my purpose as a man, as a follower of God, as a husband, as a father. and then I would, I love the Devotional Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. So I read that every morning. And then our church, we have a House church network and, and we're going through reading together. And so I'm going through that scripture and then I would finish it by doing soaps, if you know that, write down the scripture. What observation do you have, how we apply it, obey it, prayer, and who will you share it with? And so only after that then I go and do my training. I would then leave from like five 30 to eight and I would go train soccer, whether it was an indoor field, an indoor barn, or outdoor. And the way I would kind of structure it is after my warmup, I would spend about 15, 20 minutes on juggling, which is like kicking the ball up and down. 15 or 20 minutes on dribbling. would spend 15 or 20 minutes on wall work, which is kind of passing against the wall. And so those were the basic fundamentals I would work on, without, without fail every single day. Besides intentional rest days of wall work, juggling, dribbling, come home, spend an hour with the family before work. So from eight to nine, just get time with my family, see them off to school. And then from nine to noon, I got a, I got a day job. So I'm working, so I'm doing this with a full-time job from noon to one or one 30, I'll go in and do a lift, and then I'll work again till five or five 30 and have dinner with the family, spend the rest of the night with them and have be in bed by eight o'clock. that's just kind of the quick rundown of what my daily schedule has been, and it's been very, very, very consistent, these last 11 months now.

11:56

Hey guys, it's Curt Storing. I want to take a quick break to tell you about our family leadership blueprint. If you want to lead your family better, if you want to build an intimate marriage, if you want to confidently raise great kids, then I highly suggest you download the family leadership blueprint by Dadwork. You can find that for free at dad. work slash blueprint. It includes five main pillars that you need as a family leader to thrive and see success. Head on over to dad. work slash blueprint to download your free copy today. That's dad. work slash blueprint. Alright, let's get back to the show.

Curt Storring: 12:32

That's incredible. And I almost wanna dive into how you learn and how you plan, because I think that's very applicable to everyone. Because I asked you a couple months ago, I was like, Hey, how are you planning what you're doing? Is it yearly? Is it like day by day? Like how do you know the next thing to do? And so if you're out there, even if you're trying to learn how to become a better husband or better father or whatever, better at your job, better at whatever service, how are you looking at this? How are you learning? Because that's one of the things that I've noticed in you along your journey is you seem to be incredible at both learning and planning the structure of your learning. Can you give us some tips that you've learned along the way?

Zach Duke: 13:07

Yeah, absolutely. And, and just to give some encouragement to those listening, I'm actually not a great planner, and so if I'm able to do this as the last 11 months, I promise you, you can. I am not good at this. However, a couple things I did do that I was able to stick with is I tried to, I tried to chunk everything in three month Increments or quarters, right? So just very typical of planning. instead of trying to eat the elephant all at one time, I thought, okay, the goal that I'm trying to get to is in four years, just gonna focus hardcore these three months on these couple things. and so from January to the end of March, I focused on everything. I just shared, the mobility, the agility, flexibility, the basics, weight training. I told myself, I'm not gonna play a single game these first three months and, and I'm just gonna focus on these things. And so by the time March was rolling around, I start planning and thinking through, okay, what will phase two be for World Cup dad? What will, what will I need to be, do, be doing? And I believe phase two as I'm, as I'm looking back, was find a coach, start playing in games two to three times a week, start having more game-like scenario and training. start to really work on my speed and my agility., and I'm sure there's a couple more, but those were the basics of taking it to the next level. And so I'm currently in phase three, which is playing for an amateur team, which I've been able to do this time with everything else before, well as, getting and starting doing more collaborations, more strategic stuff to get this story out there. And there's a couple really cool things I can't even share yet. but we'll be announcing soon about even teams that have been reaching out. So really exciting stuff on the horizon.

Curt Storring: 14:52

man. Okay. Well, you're gonna have to send me a jersey with your name on it when, you're, playing next to messy or something. Okay. Oh, let's talk about like the, the failure along the way, because I'm just imagining myself and the way that my brain works. I'm like, dude, I'm gonna make this team, and then I go out to that barn or whatever you practice in and I'm kicking it and it's going everywhere. I'm like, Ooh, this is really annoying. Like, I want to be better than this right now. Can you talk to me, to us about that process? Like, surely there have been things where you're like, bro, I don't want this. Like, this is too hard.

Zach Duke: 15:22

Oh yeah. So, so many days I would come home to my wife and I'd be like, what am I doing? Like, this is just crazy. Like, I, I just sucked today. I was so bad. And she would just encourage me just to keep going. And, and so I've just, I, I've had a couple, key people, accountability people that have continued to encourage me as well as there's some, soccer apps that really speak into the mentality things. And so one thing that the app would continually say is, um, it's about learning and growth, not about the results. So what did you learn today? What did you get better at today? And also I will listen to repeatedly would talk about, don't have false expectations of where you're supposed to be. Like the work that you've put into this point is where you're supposed to be. If you keep working, you'll get to a new. A new level. And so a lot of it was like, yeah, I had so many discouraging days, discouraging games, moments where I wanted to quit. And, this is a very simple secret, but if you don't quit, you win. that's it. Like just, if you just don't give up, you get better at it. One of my mentors always tells me, uh, keep doing what you're doing and you'll get better at it. And I think about that often of like, I, I'm not that great. This ball is, it's coming off my foot and hitting the walls ricocheting and going the wrong direction. That's not fun. That's not good. But man, as I look back now, compared to January, uh, and February and March, I'm not the same person at all. the only reason is truly is I just didn't quit. stuck at it and showed up day after day after day. And that's what I was committed to, is like, you know what? I didn't do that good today. I have a lot I can work on, but I'm gonna be out here tomorrow.

Curt Storring: 17:01

Man, time is truly the inescapable variable in success, isn't it? Like we talk about, even in family, we talk about it financially. Everyone understands compound interest, but compound interest only comes if you're in the market or in the the position or whatever. And that means if you can suck longer than somebody else, you'll be better You'll win.

Zach Duke: 17:19

so true.

Curt Storring: 17:19

And it's, it's true for everything too. What are some of the other things you said? It's almost been like a sanctification process along the way. What are some of these other lessons that you weren't expecting that have had an impact on you, your family, maybe who you are, how you relate to God, all those things.

Zach Duke: 17:33

Something I found out very quickly was how much time I had been wasting and, and as I, as I took an audit of my life and I, and I've literally scheduled out every hour of my day and I, and I've given every hour purpose. I realized how much purposelessness and wasted time I had been given. And so there's honestly a lot to just repent of, of. Man, I, I was wasting so much. A, another thing that really come to the surface that was is sanctifying, is how much self pity that I had wallowed in. And that was really from the first moment I listened to your podcast was I would just feel sorry for myself all the time. And it was in that moment and that now that I've lived into it, it's like I, I have to take responsibility for myself. one's gonna work for me. No one's gonna raise my family for me. No one's gonna do my finances for me. Yes, God is our provider ultimately, but I have to get out of this pity party. Really just frustrating false mindset and really step up as a man, as a husband. And, so that's been sanctifying is realizing how not good I was doing it now that I'm into this journey., and so also I had no self-discipline. I. I grew up as a college athlete, and so I always depended on coaches to tell me what to do, and I was great at following other people's plans, but when it came to setting my own rigorous schedules, I would follow it for a week or two and then I would quit. And so dying to myself and, and enjoying self-denial has taken time. Like to actually enjoy that process of serving others and, and limiting myself on on different things has, has now become an actual pleasure. And that, that's a crazy thing to say, like self denial can become a pleasure. It's because the mindset shifted and, and you start to see just personal results, but fruit of the spirit results. And, that was the game changer for me is like, man, I'm seeing this to take over in a good way. My marriage and my relationship with my kids and how I am focused and clear minded, how my body is healthy, how I'm sleeping better. affected every area of my life positively.

Curt Storring: 19:49

Yeah, there, there's almost like a paradox that I think service entails because we often take so much time to do the things that we think are gonna get us the satisfaction of what we want. And I've found, and I know a lot of guys in like the, the programs that we have, they found that when you start to serve others, your satisfaction will never be higher. And it seems so paradoxical'cause you're like, well if I let go of what I want, I'll never get it. And it's like, dude, you'll get so much more of what you thought you wanted by getting others what they want. And I think that's sort of our role too. But do you wanna dive in and then habits and discipline and stuff like that?'cause I know this is really important for a lot of guys, especially that piece where you're like, yeah man, I like would quit after a week. I want to hear like, what stuck.'cause I have some ideas and I know like what's worked for me, but let's just compare notes almost and see how you are today. Because before we started recording you said. Motivation doesn't matter. Like I, I'm just disciplined. I got the habits. So talk about that.

Zach Duke: 20:44

Yeah, no, you're exactly right. I, it's not that I've given up on motivation, I've just not let it be my leader anymore. the, the first thing that I did, number one, before I did any training session I had a friend years ago send me how a, an excel sheet that he made of tracking his own habits. And so for whatever reason, that popped back into my head of like, oh, I have this habit tracker. I'm gonna tailor it around my specific needs. And so I got the Excel spreadsheet out, which makes me sweat. I am not an Excel spreadsheet guy, so I'm like, all right, Lord, this has to be you if I'm going to keep this. so I, I tracked all the different habits that I wanted to keep. made that my main goal. And so yes, the, the world sees like this guy's trying to make the the world cup. He, he's crazy. but what I saw at the micro level was I'm gonna follow these habits to the core and I'm gonna trust this process. And so some of those habits that I, I tracked every single day is what time I would go to bed. What time I would get up, would I hit the snooze button or not? I would weigh myself every morning. How many hours of sleep did I get? Did I do my morning routine? I do my morning skills? Did I do and conditioning and weightlifting? Did I dad up for the day? That's a whole category I made, which is, did I serve my family well today? Did I learn something new today and did I have any unhealthy food or drink? be missing one or two, but that's, those are the, the habits I tracked every day. And I knew if I, if I could just do this for one week and then score myself, then I'm like, okay, now I'm gonna do one more week. And the reason why I said that is the hardest workout I had ever done in college was a workout called Squat Till You Drop. It sucks. You put on as much weight as you can squat, and then you do it as many times until they literally let you fall down. I. And you have no strength left. So I don't remember the exact number I did, but it was like I did 315 pounds and probably did 25 to 30 reps and I just died. here's the secret. I wasn't counting to 35. I would just say, I can do two more reps. That was it. I can do two. And when I did those two, okay, only two left. We'll do those two. Okay, I got two more. And so what works for my mind is I'm committing this to this habit tracker for one week. And then when I got to Sunday, committing to this habit tracker for one week. And that repeated for a couple months. And then after those couple months, you know what happened? The habits were set. And now there were many days where I would tell myself, I'm not gonna get up in the morning. And I would find myself in the gym in the morning thinking, how did I get here? Is because good habits die hard too.

Curt Storring: 23:23

Absolutely. Did you find it important that these were tailored to, or sorry, tied to such a big goal?

Zach Duke: 23:31

Yeah, I, I tried to tailor them specifically to that goal. Is that what you're saying?

Curt Storring: 23:36

Yeah, I found that when I finally had like a big why, it helped to almost overlay motivation, right? So yeah.

Zach Duke: 23:45

100%. So the way I like to look at goals is there's macro goals and there's micro goals. And so this macro goal, this is the big target that we're shooting at, almost like looking at, here's your end objective. Now let's reverse engineer this thing. And so I tried to build these habits that would reverse engineer getting to that destination. Or, or at very least, right, let's just say I don't make the World Cup, which is a realistic possibility that I've had to face in the mirror from day one. The, the fact is, if I follow these set of habits, whatever state I am, by the time the World Cup starts will be the absolute best case scenario for where I could have been. And I can live with that. And so I, I can't make something happen that's out of my control, but I can absolutely control my, my rate of growth until that point.

Curt Storring: 24:32

Yeah.

Zach Duke: 24:32

that's, that's exactly how I've tailored it and think through, I think through micro goals and macro goals.

Curt Storring: 24:37

Yeah. That's been so true in my life. when I have a big why and the why, which is kinda like the vision for me. That's how I say it, at least. Sounds like the big goals and the micro goals is the same thing. Like my vision is at the end of my life, here's the eulogy I want my kids to say about me. What do I have to do today for that man to become a reality? And if your lifelong vision and your daily moment by moment actions are aligned, you can't miss. And it might not be the exact path, like you said, but those two things, having like such an interconnectedness are the only way I've ever seen habits truly work. Because otherwise the most motivating factor of the day will win. And oftentimes it's gonna be comfort and it's nice to have those planned rest days because otherwise I think people burn out. What does that, maybe just real quick, what does a rest look like for you? Is it like once a week? Is it once a month? How often are you resting?

Zach Duke: 25:25

Yeah. It's, it's changed up a little bit depending on how many games I would have in a week. But I would say the typical week would be, I would have, I would have a rest day, most of the day, Thursday, and then I'd have a game that night. But I would still, I wouldn't lift or train on a Thursday. And then Saturday I would, would be a complete rest day. And then Sunday would have a game as well. So kind of like two, two and a half rest days. And my body's responded really well to that. And then also just general recovery, like lots of sauna time, Epsom salt baths, um, lots of, you know, rolling, you know, those roller sticks and, and rolling, uh, rollers in a gym. I would do, I do those every single day, multiple times a day. So not gonna be unnecessarily injured. I might get injured in this process, but it won't be haphazardly.

Curt Storring: 26:14

Mm. Yeah, that, that's actually really good because that's one of the things that I have frequently tried to savage my way through. I'm like, rest. Yeah. Right. And then like right now, a little bit of back injury and it's'cause I just wasn't doing a good job. So I, I almost wanna like go back to something you said about Intentionally planning out your whole day. cause I just wanna really drive that point home for guys that there's only a really few amount of things that truly matter that you're doing with your life. And if you're actually hitting all those points, there's not often a lot of time left for things that don't matter. And is there anything in there to maybe dive into May, maybe it's just me reiterating that point, but you said you've got like the big goal, you've got time with God, you've got your work and provision, and then you've got your family and there's not a lot of time for mindlessly scrolling. There's not a lot of time for going on the internet, looking for stuff you shouldn't be looking at. There's not a lot of time for sitting around drinking beer. there's just not a lot of things that if you want to be a great family leader, you need to be doing. And so I think auditing your life is something I highly recommend everyone do. Look at your schedule and then look around at the rest of your life and go like, am I where I want to be? And if not, like there's only four or five things that really matter. Why not? Was that, was there anything else that process?

Zach Duke: 27:25

absolutely. And I think this goes back to have to look at what your why is and, yes, one of my why's is reaching the World Cup. But as a follower of Jesus, that's not my main why. Like everything I filter through my mind, I would say Habakkuk 2 14 is a great example that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So my first filter that I think through every decision is this, bringing God glory and honor with every tribe, nation, and tongue. This, is the ultimate thrust of my life and my family. The second is, am I, am I empowering, serving and loving my wife and I, am I equipping my kids? Am I being present and showing up for them in the best way possible? Will what I'm doing enhance that or take away from that? And so those were the main thrust of thinking through time is, is this journey, would this, would this benefit those things? Will this make these things better or will this take away? And it was just an overwhelming yes, that this is going to bless my wife, this is going to bless my kids. This is going to gimme someone so much more opportunities and influence to, to shine the light of Christ in the nations in a very intentional and deliberate way, both in proclamation and demonstration. And, so I've asked my wife and kids many, many, many times these last 11 months, you want daddy to keep going? Is this a good thing for our family? And it's just a resounding yes. Like I'm a more present husband, I'm a more present father. I. I'm more intentional. And what's interesting as, you set and go into these habits and, work through this, time with these goals, those other things that your heart and mind cared so much about, you stop caring about those other things because you're so in tune with the goals you're trying to reach with the mission you're cultivating as a family. And, so like even in this process, we have now made a family mission statement, family core values that we share weekly with our family. Like it's just made us hyper-focused, on a family, on mission. for me, world Cup Dad and what I'm doing, it fits into the mission of honoring God and not the other way around. I'm not asking God to bless this thing I'm doing. I'm first looking at God, what is your mission? And how can I bless your mission? How can I be a part of what you're doing? And, I see me fitting into his mission rather than asking him to fit into mine.

Curt Storring: 29:46

Yeah. That's wonderful man. And let's just go there then in terms of how it's impacted The wife, the children, and, how that looks very practically.'cause of course we've got guys listening going like, yeah, right. No way you can do all that stuff, man. Like, what are you talking about? And that's not all anyway, like you were telling me about the school that you've got, you're telling me about like your work. You've got so much going on at a very high and intentional level. When you make this decision, you bring it to them, very intentionally with your time. But still, has it just been easy? Have they been like, oh, this is so great the whole time? What has that looked like more practically than just like, go for it, dad.

Zach Duke: 30:26

Yeah. I'll start with my wife. I've always been a big vision guy. For better or for worse, right? Like, and sometimes I stick with those visions and sometimes I put them on a shelf and sometimes they, they go down burning in flames. And so my wife has really learned to listen to my ideas that I have. And if I'm still talking about it a couple weeks later, I'm serious about it. And if I'm really doing it, something about it a couple weeks later, then I'm really serious about it. So I think when I probably first brought it up, she probably thought, oh, this is a great idea. We'll see what happens. after a couple months went by, she's like, okay, he's really going for this. And then as more time went by, she thought, man, I, I'm loving the man that my husband is turning into. Not just physically, of course, but spiritually, emotionally, being present. And I would say one of the biggest things that it's done for my marriage and my mind is I live, I live so much in the future. I'm constantly thinking about what's next, pushing the envelope, bringing innovation, um, strategically 30 years in front. which can be helpful, but a lot of times it's really hard to pull that back and just to look your wife in the eye and say, how are you doing? And to fully be there without my mind being somewhere else. Now, I would say that's the number one thing that's impacted our relationship is I'm here not physically. I, am present with you. I'm present with my wife. I'm present in our problems. I'm present in, in our joys. And seeing, like, even as simple as seeing my kid play with tractors on the floor and just delighting in it, not glossing it over thinking, oh, I have, I've got more work to do tonight. But just to look at my son and be like, man, this is a short time period. I'm going to enjoy my son playing with tractors and cows and, any dad that's listening who kids have grown up. Like you can't get those times back. and so just learning to, to be in the moment to enjoy, to see the special season for what it is.

Curt Storring: 32:24

Man. Have there been, I, I dunno why this came up, but have there been any, sort of tragic circumstances that you've had throughout this journey? Things you've seen, things that you sort of had to let die in yourself, your family, things that maybe were pushed and broken because of your commitment. In here. And, like I said, I have no idea where that question came from, but let's run with it.

Zach Duke: 32:43

The only thing I can think that has been that is, some of my, and I love my family and friends with all of my heart, but it's definitely hard when some friends and family know what you're doing and 10 months later they haven't even asked you one time. That's hard. And so only thing I can control is how I respond to that. Will I love and return? Will I show Grace? Will I ask them how they are doing? Not take things personally. bUt that's definitely been hard, is like you, you want people to Support you and before you and be excited for you. But what do you do when no one's patting you on the back? For those that matter most to you, that. closest to you, that's really hard. And, and so that's why my wife's support has been so I would say working through that my own heart, my own spirit, and releasing that to the Lord is a constant battle. And, and that's why I, I have to just draw upon like, Lord, are you telling me to do this? Are you at, is this from you? Or is this my own selfish ambition? Am I doing this for my sake? that's what gives me the energy and the strength and the zeal to keep going forward is like, I, I hear you, God. I don't know where you're leading me, but I know this is of you. Almost every single day I ask the Lord, do you want me to keep going fully ready to give it up? And I feel his pleasure when I'm doing this. I feel like I'm in that, that fifth gear, of doing this. And, I'll do whatever he tells me to do. If he tells me to keep going, I'll keep going. If he tells me to stop, I'll stop. But I would say as far as just not, nothing tragic, nothing crazy, but just like the deep places of the heart, it's like, man, I, I wish those I love most would be the battle with me. You know? Championing it on.

Curt Storring: 34:29

Yeah, that, that's interesting that when,'cause I, I relate to sort of the visionary, the, the dreaming, the, the action taking innovator. And I think like, bro, I've got, I've got this idea and it's awesome and it'll be so good if you also buy in. And it's been so humbling because that leads me to believe that other people are so invested in their own lives in a way that I forget because I'm so invested in mine. And I think that's really good in like a humility standpoint to realize that. I'm just like a secondary character in even like close family's

Zach Duke: 35:04

Yep.

Curt Storring: 35:04

Um, and, and then, you know, that, that leads to just different action, I think. But can you go into how you're talking to God and hearing from God? This is a very important topic to me right now. I'm working with, a new mentor, I guess I'll call him. And he's working on, on prayer with me, and I'm like, I'm a Christian for a year and a half, so I don't know anything. And I'm like talking to God and I'm hearing from him for the first time rather than leaving voicemails. And it's like, dude, it's shocking. I'm, I'm skeptical of it still.'cause I went through a whole period of my life meditating and visualizing and all this kind of stuff, and I'm like, oh, is this that but with God? Or is that the, what we're doing here? Prayer without God? And therefore like, this is real. So can you just talk to me a little bit about your experience speaking to God, hearing from God and how you tell.

Zach Duke: 35:54

I, I would love to, this is this. I'll go on a quick little tangent here, but I I, it's, this matters so deeply to me. There's some scriptures in John that I love. One, one is that, Jesus can do nothing besides what the father is telling him to do. And that's just beautiful. Like Jesus is listening and watching the Father, he can do nothing except what the father tells him to do. So how much less can I do anything that the father tells him to do? It says in John eight that he's talking to the Pharisees and he says, the reason the reason that you don't hear from me is'cause you're not of me. Like all those that are of me will hear my voice. And then you have John 10 that says, my sheep know me. They hear my voice and they follow me. And then John 16 talks about how the Holy Spirit saw as much to tell you. He's gonna take what is the Fathers and he's gonna declare it to you. and so I think Christianity 1 0 1 is learning to hear from God and then do what he says, and then you repeat that. Learn to hear and obey. And I like, I like to put say it as like a three-legged stool that when you learn something, you obey it and you share it, you hear, you apply, you share. And so thinking about that man, listening to God is, everything to me, like you said, not just voicemails. I don't just talk to my wife and walk away and so I think we need to demystify the voice of God that's so important, our generation to demystify it. Here's a simple way to do it. Almost anybody I talk to is like, Hey, do you feel like there's ever lying voices in your head? Do you ever feel like that the enemy is speaking to you? Well, yeah, of course. All the time. The enemy's saying this and that, huh? So it's not weird for the devil to speak for you, but it's weird for God to speak for to you. And so we've somehow put the devil's voice up here that he's allowed to have permission to not be mystified in our minds. But man, God is mystified in our minds. And so when I'm coaching people to hear from God or, how to pray in a very simple way, I'm just like, all right, if what you're, let's practice listing. Let's ask God a question, just whatever question you want. And then we're gonna write down what we hear and then we'll ask these question is what you wrote down, does it align with the Bible? Awesome. It aligns with the Bible way to go. second Would the devil tell you to do this? No. Perfect. Okay. Number three. Do you think you should do this? Whether this is from you or God, Yes This would be a good thing to go tell my mom that I love her. That's a good thing. Way to go. Good job. So, so what we do is we practice doing this long enough, and then you can discern what God's voice is. But so often we stop and we're paralyzed because we don't know if it's God or if it's me. Well, if it aligns with the Bible, if the devil hates it, and if this is gonna bring good and encouragement to others, just freaking do it. And then you'll get better at hearing God's voice.

Curt Storring: 38:44

Amen. Let's go That's awesome, man. And that really speaks, I think, to also being in the word like that. That's one thing. God, for whatever reason, has put huge amounts of zeal in my life for him, and knowledge and wisdom. And I haven't missed a day in a year and a half now. And it's like, I love it. It's the greatest thing in the world. And I hear that the statistics are pretty sad. Like almost like most Christians, like almost a majority of Christians aren't reading their Bible daily. And my question, or my, my thought is not to judge. It's just like, bro, how like, it's so awesome. And at least for me when I'm like, is this the word of God? To know that it says this in scripture means that I'm in scripture. Like, is that a clear and obvious sort of corollary to this?

Zach Duke: 39:30

Yeah. It, it absolutely is. That's a non-negotiable for me, breathing oxygen. eating food, like sleeping. the word of God is, food, it's breath, it's life, it's water. And, so whether I'm feeling anything or not, this goes back to the motivation, right? Like I don't read to just feel, if I do feel praise God, like God created emotions. But I read to have communion with God. I read to spend time with my father who loves me and saves me to remember because I'm so darn forgetful. so I need to feast on him. and, I, I love how Jesus even says like to the Pharisees, like, you, you read this word, but you don't even realize that the whole time speaking about me. The whole thing points to me like we can actually read Jesus even into the Old Testament.'cause everything is a shadow of what's to come. And, and something that is near and dear to my heart is I, I had this dream years ago. I. I won't get into it, but the long story short of it is the Holy Spirit was showing me that the word of God is a locked box unless the Holy Spirit is leading you. And that's why it's so easy for academics or other religions, people to read the word of God and just look at it from a factual standpoint. But man, if you want to let the word get inside of you, we need to come, to it with a place of humility and say, holy Spirit, would you illuminate these words? Would you enlighten these words like John 14 and reveal yourself to me? And, so I, don't love just, to read to, grow a knowledge. I definitely do that. It's needed. It's, necessary. but I realize, man, as I, as he reveals himself to me, and I obey, that's where knowledge comes from. John 14, as we obey him, he will manifest himself more. And so I'm trying to obey, to gain understanding from what I'm reading.

Curt Storring: 41:22

Man, that's so good. I love this. Every time I hear something I'm like, I didn't know you could do that. And I'm so pumped up because it expands that, it expands the horizon of the relationship. And I was doing, speaking of the family values, family rules, missions, I'm sort of redoing ours because. It's been a crazy year. It's been a crazy couple of months even, and my identity has been sort of torn apart and rebuilt. And the first thing that I put on there is, it's sort of like a we are thing, like we are this, we are this, we are this for the, for the storing family. But the first thing I was like, oh, we are loved. Like, that's gotta be first. The, the love is the prerequisite to truth, in my opinion. Yes, there's truth, yes there's justice, but love has to come first. And so, I don't know man, I, I'm just, I'm, I'm in this season right now of really understanding what that means for the first time, because when you don't, when I didn't have the, the earthly father that made me feel as the beloved son, like, man, it's hard to get there. But only recently has he just been so gracious and revealing. That love. And I like, I even underline in John the other day and, and it's almost cliche, I'm like, I'm not gonna underline John three 16. Everybody knows that. And I'm like, oh, this is the most mind blowing thing ever. Even as so-called cliche as it is now because everyone knows it. It's like the one thing I knew before I was a Christian, it's everything man. So I, anyway, if I dunno why I'm talking about this now, other than to praise God, but, does that bring anything up?

Zach Duke: 42:46

it does. Yeah. Like, and John three 16 specifically for God's so loved that he gave, which goes back to what you're talking about, like if we want to experience we need to give, we need, we need to serve. Like love expresses itself in giving. And, and I think when you look at our culture, when, like, when they say, let love be loved, and if we just loved, you gotta define that, you know? And, and Jesus defines that as sacrificial, laying down of your life for the sake of others at your own expense. And, and love that we've defined it in our culture. Is, you know, at, at best, burger King have it your way, which I think is really just the, the same motto as the Temple of Satan, which is do what that wilt. And we've taken that as an entire cultural belief that, Hey, I just want you to be happy. I just want you to find love. I just, it's just a whole bunch of hogwash that, that absolutely souls. And so I think part of my calling, even in World Cup Dad, even in, in receiving the love of God, is I, I've been given a lot, I would say 95% of the comments and dms I get are very, very supportive. But I get 5% very, very negative coming at me. That's the best opportunity I have because now I get to show them love. I, I could care less about being offended. Why? I know who I am, called me to do. I know that my family loves me. I know that my mission my identity is secure. Man, this person obviously is going through something. They're hurting. What would it, what would it be if I consistently responded with love? And I think that's been one of the things that has really made me, stand out. And I get a whole bunch of messages and comments about, and man, like the way you respond to these people is just different. Well, the truth is, it's just Jesus.

Curt Storring: 44:40

Hmm.

Zach Duke: 44:41

It is. It's not me like I'm extending to others the love he gave me. And it's as simple as that. Like if we just let Jesus flow through us and we see how much offense we brought him and how much grief we brought him, and how much sin and grossness we put on him, how in the world could I ever withhold back that same love for other people? And, and so I think ultimately, if I had a guess the years to come, what this will be, I think it's gonna be many, many opportunities. To express the love of Jesus and to, to give and be generous in many ways.

ADS 2: 45:17

Hey guys, it's Kurt Storing. I want to take a moment to tell you about our private training community, Dadwork Legacy. If you're a married Christian father, I want to invite you to join us inside of the Dadwork Legacy community. Joining us inside Dadwork Legacy gives you the full Dadwork course library, giving you everything you need to know about family leadership. Fatherhood, marriage, communication, emotional mastery, and so much more. But you also get access to a community forum of like minded Christian fathers. This is a place where you can come to learn everything you need to become the role model for your children, the shield. For your wife and children against the degenerate culture. We're doing it all inside of this private community. If you are ready to level up your fatherhood marriage and leadership game alongside other good men, join us over at dad. work slash legacy, hit the button to apply, fill out a quick form, and we will get you in the doors. That's dad. work slash legacy. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.

Curt Storring: 46:17

Yeah. That's incredible man. And that's one of the things that I've been doing my best at as well. I, I don't feel as secure in that identity yet. It's something that he's really put me through a crash course the last two, three months, and I'm way farther along than I was. It's almost like, I don't know, there's like old video games where you hit that like speed burst and you just go, and that's what I feel like he's doing recently. And it's almost been like, I've almost said like too much, it's too much, too fast. And yet he's been so gracious with it. And I have started to just reply, reply to people with like, Hey, I'm sorry you're hurt right now. Like, I'm gonna pray for you. me, that has been, that's been wonderful because the same sort of thing, I had someone reach out the other day going like, oh, it's really interesting how you're responding to people. And I love that. And it, it speaks well. It looks, it, it looks good basically for God's glory. And I'm like, oh man, I gotta do this more and I've gotta have more opportunities for this. And rather than being offended, forgiving, dealing with it, moving on, praying for them, I need to get more to the point where I'm just like, opportunity, man. Thank you.

Zach Duke: 47:23

I'll, share one more thing. All of us and anything that we're doing, whatever God has called us to, we, we only have such a limited viewpoint, right? So, so know a little bit about this journey that I'm on. I know a little bit about my purpose and mission behind it, but the truth is I don't have a clue on the big purposes of God and what he's gonna wanna work in this with people, my own family, my own neighborhood, across the world and the different nations that this is, that this is impacting, inspiring. I don't really know what God is doing. I don't really know what the ultimate purpose is. And so the best thing that I can do, knowing that he's working his purposes in me, is just to be as Christ-like as I can. the goal isn't for me to make the World Cup I, that, that is the macro, that's the macro goal I'm shooting for, I 100% know that God has way bigger goals through this process and journey, and I'm completely committed to that. So, so who we are and, and what we do our journeys and how we treat people and how we serve and our relationships and interactions along the way, those mean everything. You just, we just never know the ripple up, the ripple effect we're gonna have by just being salt and light every single day consistently. And so, man, I, I, I so hope I reach that goal, if I don't, and along that process, I was able to inspire and impact and be the light of Jesus, whatever his purposes are, are gonna be way better than mine.

Curt Storring: 48:48

Yeah, that's been a very interesting thing that's come across my plate as well, particularly as it relates recently to forward vision and not knowing, because my. Inside workings are like, I need to know everything to feel comfortable. And if I can just use my binoculars to look far enough in the future, I'll see the point where I have everything I need to feel safe and secure, and then I can relax. But until that point, I need to be sure that I'm not missing anything. So it's almost like I had my fingers on every little part of my life and I wasn't leaving any room for him. And after these, this new sort of style of prayer that I've been introduced for, to this last month or so, I was reading through Matthew a couple days ago and I was at the part where it says, you can't serve God and money. And I'm like, yeah, I've underlined that part. I get it. I'm prone to Looking for money. I'm prone to looking for that for my security. But in that moment, I was just convicted. He's like, you wanna do this now? It's like, no, I don't,

Zach Duke: 49:47

I'm not ready. God.

Curt Storring: 49:48

no, but, but I had to. And so I sat there and like, I prayed on that specific thing for like 45 minutes just going over and over and over. And what I, what I almost envisioned in my head was I gave Jesus my binoculars. I was like, look, I get that. I can't look ahead. I get that. I cannot see what's going to happen. But you've traded my like, long-term vision for an immediate and clear vision of you. And if I want to look forward, if I want to wonder, Lord, where is this going? Where, how am I gonna be secure? How am I gonna be provided for if I stop looking ahead and like looking through the blurriness? And I just look at the fact that he's right there with me the whole time and he's got me, and there is enough, he is enough for me. Like, dude, that's all I need. And so I'm literally right now in my life trying to wrestle with this difference of vision and giving up that ForSight like you're talking about, not knowing, which is very difficult for me. I'm not knowing what's gonna happen, but trusting that it's good because it's of him and for him and from him. So anyway, I just wanna share that'cause it's been such a transformational thing to take my eyes off what I thought the prize was and put it where the, the, the real prize

Zach Duke: 50:57

No, that's, that's nailing it, man. And, and I, going back to some of the hard part of this journey, and specifically how I am, like if you think about Matthew 14 and Peter getting outta the boat and coming to Jesus really what this is for me, it's never hard for me to get out of the boat. It's hard for me to continue walking on the water, keeping my eyes on Jesus when the waves are crashing and it gets hard. And, and there's been so many moments where I've just been sinking and I start looking at the waves, which, which we call vision, right? Like, but we see this and then we have to control that because this wave is coming. So we need to do this. I. And the whole time he's like, I'm right here. I'm right here. I've got you. won't let you sink you. You will make it all the way to me if you just look at me and time after time, I have to call out to him to my hand, to pull me back up. and so it's so easy, even this journey and the goals that we have, we would be lying to ourselves if we don't get sidetracked and if we don't get discouraged and we don't lose focus on vision. I think part of the skill is how quickly can we rubber band back to seeing him and, and instead of making it a month long process to get our eyes back on him, can we make it a week? Can we make it a day? Can we snap back in an hour of just like, whoa, am I feeling this anxiety and this and this feeling on the inside? Oh, I'm trying to control again. I'm trying to, I'm trying to strive again. I'm trying to do this whole vision with my own strength. This is not what you called me to. Father, I release everything and every one to you again. have to do that continually because I, quickly lose focus on just other things, things that I think that I need to do.

Curt Storring: 52:43

Yep. That, that lands with me. That is my life all the time. Anyway, and, and it's getting better. Praise God. I want to, this is really good, by the way. Like, I had no idea we're gonna go here, but I really appreciate it. I was like, oh, this is, I, I just felt as though you were the right guy to talk to as this is coming up in me. So I appreciate that you're able to, to share your sort of wisdom and your experience on this. I, I do want, in sort of the last few minutes that I've got you to maybe just go over some of what you alluded to before our call, just in terms of, dad's leading and your own sort of family, your own background. And again, I don't want you to have to go into too much if you don't have the time to do that, but we haven't even talked about the fact that like, you've got a, a fairly large family, you're a family leader, you do a lot of this kind of stuff in a Sort of private homeschool, hybrid, private school sort of thing. So is there anything in there that I would be remiss if we didn't get to? Is there something here, family, leadership wise that we can leave the guys with, very practically in terms of everything that you are doing right now or your background?

Zach Duke: 53:43

Yeah. You know, I, I've listened to quite a lot of the episodes. So some of this will be, um, I don't want to say redundant, we'll say that we want to continue to stir each other up, reminding each other of some things. And so, first everything that drives me comes from the word of God, right? And, and I have to first look back at all the mentors and people that have poured into me. And, and so we are resting on the shoulders of the giants who have poured into us, who have loved us, who have coached us. and so that's been modeled for me. And I want to pass that on to my kids and, and to my family of these incredible examples. I just wanna highlight my own father and my own father-in-Law, who are exceptional men of God, who I look up to, who are heroes of mine. And so all the men that are listening, like, praise the Lord for the men in our lives, even if they're not our dads, who have modeled this for us, to give us a, a picture, a painting of what we can pass on to our own kids. And, and even Genesis one, you know, 28, where it talks about how we we have been blessed by God to go out and to spread his glory, the whole earth, right? Like we are blessed to be a blessing as Genesis 12 talks about, we are created in his image, husband and wife, image bearer, starting in our own home. And so he calls us to multiply that. and so my wife and i's whole identity in our home is not just, Hey, go multiply kids. We've got five, they're awesome. But what's God really saying? He, he's saying, Hey, I have imprinted my image on you. I want my image to cover the earth. And so everything that that we do as a family, my wife and I, we are one, not because the state said we're one, we're one because Jesus said we're one. And so we're one in mission, we're one in mine. We talk through discussion like every decision together, we are on the same page with one another and we are supporting one another. And so our kids see that, our kids pick up on that. So we've created a family mission that we have together. We've created family values, we have together. and then through that, like my, my job is I do leadership development and help disciples and churches get planted. Like that's my passion. And so everything that I do is for disciples. And churches, because churches are just gatherings of disciples that are going to go make more disciples in a very short way to put it. And then on top of that, we have started a school in our own and now it's our fourth year. We've got pre-K through fourth grade, and it's a private school homeschool hybrid. we're trying to empower families to teach and disciple their own kids. so we kind of look at it as, as we are Sherpa, right? A Sherpa doesn't just tell families to go up the mountain, hope you make it. And they also don't just say, Hey, just outsource your kids to us. We'll take'em up the mountain. What Sherpa do is they say, Hey, we know some of this route and you have some passion and zeal and some strength and climbing. Let's, let's go together. And, and so coming alongside these families, not only in education, but in training their kids to be leaders, to take initiative, to take responsibility, to know, to have a biblical worldview, um, to, to really grow up with, an entrepreneur mindset. that they'll be entrepreneurs, but we're not trying to raise just employees. We're trying to raise people that know how to think that, know how to lead that, know how to serve, that, know how to love, and really cutting out this humanistic adolescence that we've just made up. instead, why don't we help them think through what their majors will be, where they're younger? What if we help them start businesses in their teenage years and empower them to do that? They're very, very capable and all of human histories shows how those people of those ages are capable. So anyway, all of that, our passions of ours is to raise up families, to raise up men, to raise up women who are leading strong in their own homes. when I, when I look at my life and I look at the ultimate goal of giving God the glory. else fits into that. How can I use World Cup Dad to see more disciples in churches? How can we use this school to see more disciples in churches? How can we use our family and our own home to get to more disciples in churches? To me, it's just really simple. flows through that to see his kingdom expand until there's no place left.

Curt Storring: 58:04

That's really good, man. It's very simple, but so hard. at

Zach Duke: 58:08

very, it's it's very hard, but very simple. You're right,

Curt Storring: 58:10

Yeah. No, that's good. thank you for this by the way. I think we could probably go like so much longer. I was like, okay, we're gonna talk about soccer. I hope other things come up. And I knew they would, but this has been such a blessing. Is there anything on your heart that needs to sort of come out before we, close this out? Otherwise, please just let me know where guys can find you.

Zach Duke: 58:28

Yeah. You know, just kind of circling back to, to soccer, It's been su it's been such a special journey. thought I would love this sport as much as I do. fallen in love with this sport much so that I've practiced basketball and football my whole life. I've put in 10,000 hours. I've played at high levels. You know, I, I've, I've ran routes for Tim Tebow before. Like, I, like I've been, I've been in those places. I never enjoyed practicing. When it, when it comes to soccer, I, I have found a childlike joy again. I haven't had in a long time. And, and I praise God for that. and so I know whether it's soccer or something else that God is calling us to, he's not calling us to be experts. He's calling us to become children, not childish, but childlike experts think that they can't learn from anybody. Children are always willing to learn and to grow, and so that doesn't mean we shouldn't be the best in our field. It's just the posture of the heart. so soccer has, has brought me to this place of the beginning again, of learning something in a very simple way of becoming a child. Again, asking everybody questions because I literally know nothing. it's just, it just taught me to be a kid again in the right type of ways. And, my heart needed that. And I think in some way we all need that, of just coming back to why does Jesus say that the children will inherit the kingdom of God? They're not proud. ask questions. They're always willing to learn. They'll always come. You know, they have no, pride, And, and so anyway, grateful that the Lord has used soccer to really be that drill in my life, to, to plant just his life and me more deeper. I don't know if that helps or not, but it, it's been a blessing to me.

Curt Storring: 1:00:23

Yeah, no, that's inspiring. And I can see the lack of that in some places in my life and it's having me consider what he has for me that can, that can get that, or that can bring that up. So, yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. And do you wanna send to people anywhere other than Instagram or just Instagram

Zach Duke: 1:00:41

Yeah. a a couple places. I mean, Instagram's definitely where I've spent the most time as far as, this content. But find me at World Cup dad, just at World Cup Dad on Instagram. YouTube is at World Cup Dad with a period. And then TikTok World Cup dad. it's literally all the same content so far. So if you're looking for different things, I would just send you to Instagram. my email is zach@worldcupdad.com if you wanna reach out to me. And, I'm working on the website. I'm working, actually, one thing I'm working on right now is a free 21 day course for Habits and Disciplines. And so I should have that out by the end of the year of 2023. So hopefully that can be a blessing for people too.

Curt Storring: 1:01:21

Amazing. Zach, thank you for doing this. This is such a cool sort of circular thing that you're now just launching and taking even further than, than I'm doing my stuff here. So, I hope that God continues to bless this and I really appreciate you, man.

Zach Duke: 1:01:34

Hey, thank you. Really grateful for you, bro.

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Becoming A World Cup Dad - Zach Duke

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