82. Balancing Harmony and Hustle: "You Guys Are My Brothers" and Other Highlights

"I’ve watched people my entire career pimp Christ for dollars, and you guys are the REAL deal.” Over $600 a month seems like a lot for a mastermind... doesn't it?

WHY a brotherhood? WHY a Live Event every year? Why do guys spend money monthly to basically pay for friends, mentors, and trusted advisors? 

In this episode we're doing things a little different. We're taking a journey through our Live Event and hitting all the highlights so you can get a TASTE of what ISI is all about. If you've ever felt lonely, if you've ever wasted money on conferences in the past, if you've ever wished you had a friend you could talk to about more than just the football game, you'll want to listen to this episode. 

Key Takeaways:

• If you've ever wondered why guys spend money to be a part of ISI, listen to this episode. 
• Nuggets of wisdom from the speakers that made a difference at our live event 
• Get a taste of what ISI is all about. 

We celebrate the growth, the strides made, and the insightful journeys our guests and members have embarked upon in this episode of growth, grit, and grace.

LinkedIn Group: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/group
Local Roundtable Events: https://go.viewfromthetop.com/isiroundtable

Connect with Big A and Wally:
View From The Top Website: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/
The Climb Newsletter: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/climb
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/
Wally’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinwallenbeck/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded men who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finances get through the valleys and up the mountain to their very own view from the top. Hey, we're just coming off a pretty cool, stinking awesome, fantastic weekend and I am glad you're listening in today, man. We just got off this weekend with a deep dive just men experiencing meaningful change in their lives and personal wellness and business and family and faith and finances and Big A and I are going to share some of our experiences, our takeaways. Man, we have an exciting announcement to share that we made at the live event as well, so listen in and let's get Big A in the studio. Big.

Speaker 2: 0:45

A welcome. Come on, wally man. I'm pretty excited. As you said in the intro, there we're on a pretty high, high right now I feel like I'm on Mount Everest right now, pretty jazzed up. I wrote an email today to our guys and I said the title of it was I'm pretty jacked up right now. That's the way I feel on this episode too, man, so good to see you today. How are you? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Doing well, man. Hey, you know, I don't know if you've got enough sleep or not. I had somebody ask me the other day, yesterday. Asked me like hey, are you taking Monday off, like you guys did? Like we have this big event?

Speaker 1: 1:25

We'll talk about it here throughout the thing but when he starts, I mean it starts like months ago, right it's. But man, like you know, a hundred plus guys in one space for essentially three days, three and a half days, and, man, we are doing some deep dives that we'll talk about here in a minute, but it's, it's a lot of. It's so good and it's so much, but it's a lot mentally right Over those few days.

Speaker 2: 1:47

So I had a guy ask me hey, are you taking Monday off? Were you tapped out Sunday Like when you left Sunday? Were you like spent?

Speaker 1: 1:53

Okay, so I did something this time that I haven't done in the past. I actually went to bed on time, so, and I struggled, man, I'll you know. So our event is at a like a like a conference resort center here in Nashville, and the events hosted at the same place where we stay, and so. But there's so many like public community spaces that that like the guys.

Speaker 1: 2:19

You know we're in the big conference center but we we break up into smaller groups, often like throughout the whole weekend and really, really deep dive, and so I just I was in a position where we were in my small group, where we were watching. I was able to watch guys transition from the conference area to, like, the hotel side and I was like, and so they're going. And then I was like, oh man, I should probably get to bed here soon. So I got up and I went and like all these guys are sitting around like getting after stuff and like I went and talked for a little while and I was like, man, I gotta go to bed. I felt bad, though, for leaving, so I'm like there's so much goodness here, like I could get so much out, like completely exhausted.

Speaker 1: 3:05

But I went to small group on Sunday night that we always go to a small group on Sunday nights and and from our church and we're sitting there, and about halfway through Sonia and I couldn't sit next to each other, so we got there a few minutes late and so where she sat across from me and I didn't listen to the sermon that's what we usually go over, right? So I didn't get a chance to listen to the sermon yet. So I'm kind of just listening and like absorbing and try to participate when I can like. Halfway through my demeanor changed. I was just like starting to check out, nodding off.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Yeah, she's looking at me like stay awake, stay awake, I'm trying, I'm trying. How about you?

Speaker 2: 3:40

Yeah, uh, suddenly I was good. Uh, I was in bad shape on Saturday when I went home. Yeah, because I got up at 2.30 Friday morning.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Oh man, your brain woke you up.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Yeah, because I had so much on my mind. We got 110 guys here. It's like man, I'm scared something's going to go wrong and I'm like going through my notes and going over my keynote again. And then when I got home on Saturday I didn't stay at the hotel because it's not 30 minutes from our house. So I drove home and I walked in about nine o'clock that night and Robin looked at me and she said get a shower and go straight to bed. I said that's exactly what I'm going to do. But you know I did and rested good and got up. I still got up early, you know, probably 4.30 on Saturday and Sunday. I was good. So you were saying, when I rudely interrupted you, somebody asked you if you took off on Monday.

Speaker 1: 4:30

Yeah, they did, and I was like, no, there's so much goodness going on. Man, I can't take off. I know why you were actually so tired. You were so tired because you take so many pictures. Like you are the picture king, our team. I don't know how you do it, like I just I don't remember any of that. I don't lost in the moment or something. You're in the moment too, so I don't know how you do. I think you have like like camera in your forehead or something we can't see. But I love taking pictures. My goodness, just so many pictures I you took. Good, you took a lot of great pictures and, man, I was sorting, I was looking through them yesterday and I have a question for you. Okay, oh, I don't want to answer that. Go ahead. When's the last time you looked at a picture of yourself that someone else took?

Speaker 2: 5:15

Yeah, I hate to do that. Just to be honest with you, I always think I look better than I do. I thought I looked better than that. Like I look a little older and there's always this little belly. I'm like I thought I looked better than that, Like I look a little older and there's always this little belly. I'm like can I not do something to get rid of that belly? What in the world? It doesn't look like that big from here, you know, but from the camera angle it's like I got some work to do. I got that belly.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Man, I hear you, I'm the same, Like I had these pictures that you took. You took pictures of all kinds of guys and there's a couple in there of me and and I was looking at it and I'm going, oh my gosh, like I got a little belly thing I don't really haven't seen before.

Speaker 2: 5:55

So who's this old man?

Speaker 1: 5:56

And then I have this little. I asked Sonia yesterday I was, I had a moment where I was like last night we ate dinner and stuff and I was kind of quiet. She goes, what's going on? I was like, have you ever when's the last time you looked at yourself in pictures? I was like I had like this I said am I attractive to you, honey? Because I got this slouch thing going on a little bit, you know, and I'm like, ooh like, just not like what did she say? I'm curious to me. So that was good. But yeah, it's the older you get, it's man, it's hard, it's tough, I don't even know the word for it.

Speaker 2: 6:33

But yeah, wally, we're getting older, but it's just. You know, it is what it is. I will say.

Speaker 1: 6:40

I will say, I did think in some weird way, that I look smarter or wiser. You were tired when you looked at those pictures.

Speaker 2: 6:51

So it's. My kids bug me all the time about how many pictures I take and a couple of years ago when Google Photos came on and they said, download all your pictures for free, and I was like boy, that's going to be a tall order but I did it. It took 31 days to download my pictures off my desktop 176,000 pictures, high res pictures, because I love to take pictures. I got a pretty nice camera and take some real high res pictures and 176,000. Brooke and I have got a little contest going on. I've got 49,000 pictures on my cell phone. Brooke's got 76,000. I don't know if you know how many you have or not, but hey we got.

Speaker 2: 7:32

This is a picture taking family. You can watch pictures of my grandkids and it looks like a movie, like you can see them. You know the little hey man. I'm pretty amped up. Let's get to talking about this live event. I'm about to bust because I want to share with the world man what's going on at the live events, and so a little background about the live events.

Speaker 2: 7:52

We started, you know, 16 events ago. When I think about that it's like mind-boggling. And we went to the Moon River Ranch in Texas and I won't go through all that, but I was scared to death because I thought we'd gotten lost. And then we got out there in the middle of the boonies 6,000-acre ranch. This country music star owned this house and I thought it's got to be good. I was scared to death. We had about 50 entrepreneurs from all over the country coming in. I'd never been there and I said lesson learned don't ever have an event where you haven't been personally. But it ended up amazing. But the dirt roads and the tractors that had to pull us through the mud had me a little bit alarmed. But we learned some things.

Speaker 2: 8:37

Great memory yeah, had one here in Nashville this past weekend and it was phenomenal. Man, what a great time. What a great time. What a great time, hey. What was? Some things for you that maybe was a little different than previous ones, or maybe some things that were really highlighted for you.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Man, anytime we do these. We do these events typically a couple times a year and, you know, when you've got 100 plus guys coming in, I mean. So our avatar is what we call our David. Right, they've uh, they're growth minded Christian business leaders, uh, men and men. We just it the whole a lot of times. When you go to conferences, um, you know you're there and you sit in a seat and you listen and maybe there's some like networking things you might go to where you're kind of just, you know, meeting new people for the first time or, you know, trying to network Like this is different.

Speaker 2: 9:38

That is not what we do.

Speaker 1: 9:40

This is different. I think one of the big takeaways for me I don't know we're going to dive into some of the things that that's a little bit here as we go through this, but some of the highlights for me. A couple of them. One is I've been in. I've been in the iron sharpens iron master of mine now for uh be eight years in october, which is crazy to think as a member and you know I've been to this was my 14th event. I missed the first one and then I missed another one there because of some vacation. One of my daughters was a senior and the spring break was at the same time, so we weren't able to go. I wasn't able to go that one time but been to a number of them and I've been an ISI for a long time.

Speaker 1: 10:25

And when you get a new guy that comes to this event and they sit there in that seat yes, in the conference area, but more so like when we have like three or four times hours, like blocks of hours, where we get with our individual groups and, of course, their name. So like I'm a member of the gunslingers group, which is pretty cool, and then I facilitate a group called the co-pilots and there's all kinds of names. There's the forge, there's a hundred percenters, there's a oh man, true grit, a true North, like there's there's there's 15 of them and it's awesome and so. But when you get a new guy that comes and he sits there and you just like watch his demeanor. And there was a. There's a new guy Ben is his name and he's he's a first time in cold pods. Actually, he joined just a week before ISI. He joined ISI the week before. So he was on one weekly call with us before we went to the live event.

Speaker 1: 11:30

We get to the live event and you know that first night we're sitting there and we did I think it was three or four hours and we had like three guys we did like deep dive hour long man in the middles. So the guys bring, like we have come as you will be, visions and we have scorecards and that helps us kind of those guys kind of frame up what's important for them, to kind of really dive into what topic it is. Some some guys were about their family and raising their, their sons and daughters, and someone was a marriage and one guy was about a business opportunity that he had and we got to break that down and and so we did that, like with three different guys, and we get toward the end and I was like, all right, we're going to finish it up. So a couple of guys had talked a lot, right During a couple of guys are just quieter. Right, they talked, but it was just not as much. And so I said, hey, I really want you guys to speak into this situation with this guy before we finish up and what's kind of your final takeaway for the night, before we go to bed and do it all over again the next day.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And this, this guy that was new Ben, he went last and I don't remember exactly the words, but this is what I heard. What I heard was a pause, first of all, like there's this hey, ben, like go ahead. I've never seen anything quite like this before. Like this is unique. This is not something that like that you guys are able to like raise your voice and almost like get in each other's face one second and the next second you're like hugging it out and we're praying over it Like deep stuff. He goes this just doesn't happen anywhere. And this isn't like 18 year old. This guy's 45 years old. He's had lots of business and life experience. Family been a believer forever. This is like something you know. He's not like he wasn't. He doesn't live in a hut in the middle of wherever Wally part of me is really excited he's like I'm both really excited.

Speaker 1: 13:37

He's like I'm both really excited and I'm scared Like at the same time.

Speaker 2: 13:41

I feel the same way. I'm really excited for him that he was able to experience that and simultaneously I'm very sad that he's never had that opportunity before. I know right, and I'm like what?

Speaker 1: 13:50

is wrong with us.

Speaker 2: 13:52

We need to have an opportunity to be able to share, with no condemnation, no judgment, a safe environment where you can really tell people how you feel. You can be transparent, you can be vulnerable, you can be authentic, and the other guys go hey, let me help you with this or let's shoot that down, change this a little bit and you're like oh my gosh. The perspective that they bring is invaluable in these groups and I wish that I had witnessed Ben.

Speaker 1: 14:22

I wish I could have been there and seen him go through that and there was a whole follow-up to that too. There's a whole follow-up to that too, right, but that was kind of the tip of the iceberg. I do have to say what he said on Saturday night. So this was Friday night. We met, you know, had breakouts and topics We'll talk about those in a minute on Saturday morning, and then we spent, we had a group competition. It was really fun and then we did a few hours in the afternoon of individual time, came back, did dinner and then we did some individual time in the evening.

Speaker 1: 14:50

And so Saturday night we're finishing up and I think he went last that night too, for some reason and kind of his, his statement of the whole weekend was was this? He said it struck me why I've, why I already value this so much and and why this already matters. So why so this is so meaningful to me? He goes I'm going to cry. He's like. He's like I have six brothers. This is what it was like growing up with my six brothers, and now we're all spread out apart, living in different countries and States, and he goes. You guys are my brothers, wow.

Speaker 2: 15:36

I would have bawled like an eight-year-old.

Speaker 1: 15:39

I would have.

Speaker 2: 15:40

I was like oh my gosh yeah, man what a breath of fresh air.

Speaker 1: 15:44

I know Another takeaway, then I'll let you tell me about your takeaways, your big ones, your big ones. So within the group there's a guy that I can use I can use first name, so Bo. He's kind of had his own flooring business for a long time and the reality is like we all agree with him, he's not a real good business operator. Like he's great at sales and great at execution and and working with you know the team to actually get the product, the floors put in and all that. But like when it comes to like operations, finance, all that he's not it's not his thing, and he's struggled.

Speaker 2: 16:28

He's a great man, though I'll tell you that this guy is a champion of a man.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Yes, he is. And what he discovered is he's come across this opportunity where there's a distributorship for a product, a flooring, floor covering product, and so a guy owns it, uh, there in the city that he lives in, and so he wanted the guy wanted to buy it at first and he wanted like 400 grand or whatever it was to buy this thing and it wasn't, it wasn't worth that. Like, at the end of the day, like when you run the numbers, it wasn't worth it. But what he did is said hey, but why don't you come, be like my sales guy and do what you're good at and I'll? I'll let you based on the number of revenue, amount of revenue, like I'll let you earn in over time? And so Bo's there, he took that opportunity, he's there, he's working through it, and we just ripped it apart that night, right, because now that Bo's there, he's like this isn't working, like this guy doesn't have this and this out there, and it's again, it's the all the operational stuff. This guy doesn't know how to do operational stuff any either. And so, anyway, end of the day, it kind of became a little bit of a Lance in the group.

Speaker 1: 17:37

He started off like a Friday night talking about. Hey guys, like it's good to be like in here, like we're. We're in here and we're like trying to, you know, move some dials and dobs and flip some switches and stuff on the exact problem. But sometimes it's good to like zoom way out. And so I did that. Like I zoomed way out, and I was like Bo, like, based on what you said here, over five years this guy is going to actually only earn out at $200,000. Half of what he initially said that he was going to buy it for, that he was offering it for, kind of went shark tank on him and I was like what if we could review this, look at all this and put together an LOI for this guy with a couple of partners, potentially myself and another guy in the group named Mike, who's like phenomenal at like like blue collar type operational work, trade type work. He had a big business that he sold and Mike, mike looks at me and he's like I'd be in for that and I'm like I'm coming for that too.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Look at the opportunity this guy has being in the group with this kind of input and impossible investors yeah, whether nothing comes of it or not right Now we're on that path and we even texted already since Saturday and Bo's got kind of his marching orders and Mike's putting some numbers together. So cool and so like I'm just like man, what a cool, like I don't know, like so many other things too. Right, I could say so many things, but what about you?

Speaker 2: 19:03

Golly, I'm like you, man. We probably have to do part series one, two, three, four to get some of these in. But I'll just give you a couple of highlights. So you know, we have a little kind of meet and greet the first hour on Friday. You know, everybody gets there and everybody's having fun. We got music playing in the background and there's all kinds of food out there and the guys are eating and drinking coffee and stuff.

Speaker 2: 19:25

And this guy walks up to me we're going to use first names, right, so we're not going to use last names but Paul walks up to me and man, he gives me I'm a hugger, y'all hug everybody. You're like I'll shake your hand but I'll hug you. And he hugs me real big and he steps back, he goes if you got a minute I can talk to you. And I said well, sure, that's what we're here for, we're going to talk for the next three days. And he said, no, a thank you for starting this. He said you well know that I've been in a tough spot for about 18 months and he said because of my guys in my group I didn't quit. And he said we were upside down a couple of hundred thousand dollars and I can't tell you how many times I said I was going to quit and my guys encouraged me. They said you can't quit. And they pushed him through and now he's doing much better.

Speaker 2: 20:20

And I'm like man, isolation is the enemy of excellence. There's so many guys out there today that would have quit because they didn't have that kind of advisors and that kind of encouragement. And I want to tell you, man, I've had businesses myself where I was really low. I mean, there was points where I was like I don't know what I'm going to do. Something's got to happen soon. And there's many times that I've wanted to quit also. And so I just hugged him man, wally, you and I are just alive. And I started crying. I was like I'm fixing to meet all these guys here. And I got my eyes are red. I got to go get a Kleenex and blow my nose. And what are you doing to me? And he said I'm just so grateful. He said I'm not where I need to be yet, we're not there. But I didn't quit and I've got an opportunity. And I thought how cool is this that your guys in your group were able to do that.

Speaker 1: 21:21

You know for me, wally, obviously I've been to every one of these. I tease you, praise God. I always worry you're going to get sick. Hopefully I won't. I always worry you're going to get sick or something like the day before, but God has protected you. You know what?

Speaker 2: 21:28

though If I did, y'all would never miss a beat.

Speaker 1: 21:35

That's what's so amazing is because the team has put together so many amazing processes? Yeah, but you would miss it, I would miss it, we would miss you, I would miss it, but y'all would never miss a beat.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Man Brooke's done a great job with her team, and they've rocked it, and so, yeah, and so. The thing for me, though, is the relationships. I love the speakers, I love the events, I love the you know, round table discussions, the breakout, the food is phenomenal too, by the way, they did a great job on the food but it's just those relationships. It's just being able to get caught up with the guys and hear their journey, their story, and the guys that come and say you know, man, my kids are better now as a result of me building some boundaries and being at home, and like I'm taking my wife on date nights.

Speaker 2: 22:17

And guys that have struggled, like, with almost a divorce Right, unfortunately, those things happen and they see the light because the guys in their group are going man, you can't do that. You can't continue to work that many hours. You've got to pour into your wife. You've got to be there for her. You've got to encourage hours. You've got to pour into your wife. You've got to be there for her. You've got to encourage her. You've got to spend some time with her.

Speaker 2: 22:38

And I know it's difficult. You know we all go through these challenges. You've been through challenges. I've been through challenges, we've all been through challenges in our marriage. But to hear the success stories over and over and over of these guys rekindling their relationship with their kids, it's just all about the relationship for me. So I love that. Everything else, like I've said, I love those things, but it's just the being authentic and genuine and these guys are so grateful. And then they come back and you know, they get reoriented to their goals and they stay on track and then in six months we get together again and it's just been really cool. And one guy I'm like you. I'll tell one quick story, we'll move on a little bit, but these are so good, they're so exciting that I'd love to tell it.

Speaker 2: 23:22

But there was one guy that's a little bit apprehensive about joining. I think we had like 17 or 18 first-time attendees there and I think we had six or seven guests that came this time and it was pretty cool because this guy's really strong in his faith and he was in a really solid group. I mean, this guy was in an amazing group and he said I can't really afford to be in both and he really kind of juggled back and forth which group he should be in. But he came up to me on Sunday after the event and I didn't know what he was going to say because he was expressionless. There was no expression. He just came up to me and he said hey, if you got a minute we can talk. Anytime somebody says that to me, I always like, oh my gosh, what did I say?

Speaker 1: 24:07

It's going to be extreme, right.

Speaker 2: 24:08

It's going to be like really good or like oh my God, really bad, or like what did I do? And so he said I've watched people my entire career pimp Christ for dollars.

Speaker 2: 26:31

And he said you guys are the real deal. He said, watching you from stage and me, seeing your heart and me watching you talk about your succession plan and the goals and what you're willing to do and not do. He said some of the stories that you told about you could have compromised your faith and there could have been a different outcome for your benefit, and you chose the latter instead of the former. He said I want to thank you for being real in your faith and it made my day, it made my whole weekend when he said that, because we don't know each other well, we're just getting kind of started in our relationship. But he could hear the conversations, the other speakers that spoke. He heard my keynote and he just said I'm so glad that I got off the boat I did and entered the boat that I recognized as being the one that I was hopeful would be the best. And he said I absolutely made the right choice and I was so encouraged by that, and so we're not perfect. Hey, don't hear me wrong.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Sharing this today. We make boneheaded decisions. You know we go down the wrong path. I'll disappoint you, I'll make mistakes, I'll do those things, but this one time this guy saw this and it really, really encouraged me. So, man, what about our speakers? I mean, there's no way we can get on here and say, oh, this was my favorite speaker. We can't do that. We would be in trouble. But there was nuggets from every one of them and I want to tell a cool story about something that happened. We had three TED Talks lined up and it was on harmony and hustle.

Speaker 1: 28:11

I'm going to interrupt for a moment here because Big A is not going to say this himself, right so?

Speaker 1: 28:15

Big A launched us Friday. We did a kickoff at 3 o'clock on Friday, kickoff at three o'clock on Friday and Big A launched us with an hour kickoff talk around harmony and hustle and man, it set the tone. God used that just to set the tone for the whole weekend and you know, obviously you being God, god allowing working in your heart for you to be real and transparent and authentic and genuine, always, but especially from a stage that's hard to do. That's hard to do. You're literally exposed on stage right physically, and then, alone, you expose yourself emotionally and intelligently, and I just want to thank you for that. It was a great way to start it off and really set the tone on harmony and hustle for the whole weekend.

Speaker 1: 29:09

So, I'll let you continue, but I just wanted to tell you, thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you for saying that. You never know. You think through it, you pray through it, you rehearse, you practice. I'm always changing things. You know 2.30 in the morning, you're changing things.

Speaker 1: 29:22

You're like oh, I need to say this instead of that.

Speaker 2: 29:24

Then, when you get through, you replay it and you go.

Speaker 2: 29:26

I forgot to say this or you know it's crazy, but anyway, yeah, god gave us an amazing time with Harmony and Hustle how to live a life with conviction. And so we had three other keynotes lined up and one of our guys Quentin amazing guy had an appointment that he had to make and he was called away and he had to do that. So I was like, oh man, what are we going to do? Like we don't really have time to get another guy and started thinking through it. And one of the things that we've addressed in ISI for years, but not really addressed it in a real forward manner, is addiction. And so I called Robbie Gallaty, my pastor, and I said, robbie, listen, we're going to talk on addiction, and do you have anybody? I couldn't even get the question out. Robbie just jumped in. He goes, cliff Roth, you got to call Cliff. And I said, well, let me finish my question. And he goes. If it's about addiction, cliff is your guy. And so Cliff lives in Kentucky and he hooked me up with him and I called Cliff and told him what we were wanting to do. This just shows you the sovereignty of God right here.

Speaker 2: 30:34

Cliff was in Tennessee. He was in just outside of Nashville at Evans Mill one of my favorite places on earth doing a conference Wednesday, thursday and Friday. And he said I'll just drive over, spend the night there at the Sinesta. And he said Saturday morning I'll do a talk for you on addiction. And I started laughing. He goes what I said what are the chances that you're here in Nashville instead of Louisville, where you're from? What are the chances you being here?

Speaker 2: 31:04

Comes over, brings his buddy with him and he gets up and he crushes it. He crushes the talk, and the thing that he talked about the most was how we stuff these addictions in a closet. And then we got these firefighters and managers that were always turning loose to help us work through that. But nobody ever opens the door. And he talked about how, in his childhood, some of the situations that he went through and how that remained there for decades and it was just devastating his life until one day he said I've got to work through this. And he did. He came clean with his wife they work through this. And he did. He came clean with his wife. They talked through it. He got help and now he's like the expert on addiction and he's traveling all over the country helping other people break free from these addictions, and so I don't know if you've got a highlight, wally, in regards to that talk, but, man, it was rock solid.

Speaker 1: 32:05

Yeah, man. So Cliff obviously told his story and, uh, I want to say his story resonated with 75% of the guys that were in that room. Um, you know, I love about guys, I love what we do here. I love it because we're raw and we we work to be authentic and genuine. Work at it. Actually, we just are authentic and genuine and and Cliff was too and when you do that and you relate to people in a way that, because it gives names to things that you've never been able to give names to before, it gives it, I'm not talking about giving it credibility, I'm just talking about giving it like something you can.

Speaker 1: 32:58

It's been in your mind or your heart that you've felt for so long, but you can't name it. But you can't name it. And Cliff talked about his journey younger and when it came to like pornography, he talked about his, you know, intro to pornography essentially was the JC Penny catalog and I was like guilty, you know, like like that. That was me. That was my very first introduction to that world. Looking at the bra section of the JCPenney kettle.

Speaker 1: 33:29

One of the things Cliff said I thought was so true is that God's designed us to have that curiosity and that excitement. The challenge we have as being young men is that very rarely this is Cliff's experience, it was my experience very rarely do we have with as being young men is that very rarely this is Cliff's experience, it was my experience Very rarely do we have a responsible, grown man, namely our dads, that can walk you through that, that walk us through it, and his experience was like mine. He got the courage up to like he talked about. I wasn't so sure about the closet analogy just because of how people use that term in our society, but the fact of it is when you use the word closet, we're just talking about a place where we stuff feelings and emotions and who we really are, like what we really think, what's really going through our head and what we're really going through, like the rawness of that. We put that behind a door and we close the door and we don't ever want to let anybody see it because that feels devastating, that someone would see what I really think about. And he gave some examples and he said man, finally, when I was like a teenager, I opened that door and I showed my dad one time and my dad's response was thank you for telling me, don't ever do it again and don't tell anybody else. And I was like I love my dad's. I was like that's pretty much my journey. And so he said we have this, this, these door, it's closed.

Speaker 1: 35:08

And then and then he used this example on stage where I lost it. Man, I was like because it just it made so much sense. He held his arms out, straight out, and and like normally you hold your arms out, your palms are up. He turned his palms so they're, you know, facing behind you, so he's got his arms out and his palms are up. He turned his palms so that they're, you know, facing behind you, so he's got his arms out and his palms are facing behind. And he's like we do this with all of our stuff, all of our inner thought. We hold it all back.

Speaker 1: 35:40

And you said we put these managers, these firefighters, we put these things in place like masturbation, pornography, and we use those as tools to help us cope. And it creates behaviors over a really long time and that's why 70% plus of men struggle with some type of pornography addiction. It just made so much sense and gave it names, and man, I was just so grateful for that. So I am so glad I love Quentin and I'm sorry he wasn't there, but I am so glad that God like, provided in that moment of need, through you, for that opportunity for Cliff to come and for the guys to experience that as well as be challenged by that and walk away with some application.

Speaker 2: 36:37

A lot of guys left there with a plan and they had opportunity to get with professionals to help them cope and deal with things that they didn't know the next right step. So that's what we're all about here. It's not just pointing out the problem, but it's helping you find a solution, and we were able to help a lot of guys at the live event this time with that. Hey man, what about our guy Jordan? Jordan rocked the stage as well, didn't he? Jordan Hammond, our Canadian brother. He brought it strong man. What was some of the things in Jordan's talk? We'll kind of go through these a couple at a time.

Speaker 1: 37:14

Yeah yeah, so for me, jordan has been an ISI for over a year and one of the things we like to do that's different again in our live event is that we usually have one outside speaker like Cliff came in in our. Uh, in our live event is that we we usually have one outside speaker like Cliff came in, but then we have guys inside of ISI Like these are strong, like men like not perfect by any means.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Right, there's there. There's striving for success and significance in in all the five pillars that we talk about in ISI. You know their personal wellness, their relationships, their faith, their finances, their business, all of it. And so we have those guys. A couple of those guys every time get up on stage and share and they get to share about their business. They get to share about their families. But it was around stage and share and they get to share about their business. They get to share about their families. But it was around harmony and hustle. And Jordan's talk was about my takeaway. I think it was. I'm looking at your notes here. I think it's similar to yours. I don't want to steal your thunder here, but it was really that idea for me. What I took away from Jordan was his intentionality around, and I've watched him this last year like his intentionality around creating family structure intentionally so that he and his wife are on the same page, not just as parents, but about their future, their time, their investments, man he like, and he is so intentional about that.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Yeah, I even felt guilty a little bit because you know Jordan's what 40 years old, early late thirties, early forties. I got kids his age and it made me feel guilty because I'm not as intentional about my own family as Jordan was and the things that he talked about. He's a big EOS guy and he was talking about building out a structure similar in nature for your family and he was like man. I'm going to be just as intentional, if not more so, about the people I care about most more so even than my business, and the things that he does is really cool, very intentional. My business and the things that he does is really cool, very intentional. He really, really raised the level of aspirations up for guys to lead their family.

Speaker 1: 39:33

You know, most of us, most of us, most of us guys that are business leaders whether we own a business, building a business, you know, work in a business where we have some leadership responsibilities. It is so easy for us most of us to put frameworks around what we do in business. Right, we have systems, things that we put in place so that why? So that things go smoothly, things go better, so that we drive toward not just revenue but we drive toward profitability, which is value. Right, we put things in place so that we have great relationships in the business, so there's not drama, you know, because we're people and it's easy to go there. So we put things in place to have open communication and we do all this, like we keep track of our business finances, so that we don't go in the red. Right, we do all these things in our business.

Speaker 1: 40:25

I don't know if it was Jordan or one of the the guys I was talking to, another guy I was talking to about jordan's talk, but uh, I think it was jordan. He just said imagine if we put the energy toward our family, ministering to them and the importance of what like the profit of our family, the value of our family.

Speaker 1: 40:45

Jordan uses this word. He doesn't call it shoot. What is it? He doesn't call it businesses. He doesn't say you have a business. He says you have a something opportunity. Do you remember what that was?

Speaker 1: 41:01

I've heard him say it, but to be honest, I have to look it up and bring it back, but it was so good what it did. It put it in perspective Right. We tend to think of our business as identity Opportunity vehicle. That's what he says. He's like your business isn't like your identity, it's just an opportunity vehicle which feeds what you actually desire with your family long-term. And that was so good man. That was such a great reminder which we all need. We all need to hear that was great.

Speaker 2: 41:30

Our other brother is Seth Buechle, cathedral Consulting. Great guy, great friend. He's been in ISI also, probably eight years, close to it. Seth came up and rocked the house. You're not going to steal my thunder while I'm going first right here.

Speaker 1: 41:44

No, I have a different example.

Speaker 2: 41:46

Good because you're not going to share this one, because it was one of my main takeaways.

Speaker 1: 41:49

You go first on this one.

Speaker 2: 41:50

So he gave an example in Harmony and Hustle. He talked about the blessings that God has bestowed upon each one of us and he gave this analogy about he was reading in Exodus, to where the Israelites were coming out of bondage. Moses goes up to get a word from God and when he comes back, the Israelites have created a golden calf, right, and they're worshiping the golden calf. And he's like, hey, they were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, where do they get any gold? And God allowed them to plunder the Egyptians and they had all this gold and they melted it and they made a golden calf.

Speaker 2: 42:29

And Seth said, how guilty are we with melting our blessings into a golden calf or an idol? And I'm like, oh my gosh. And I went up to him afterwards and told him I said, hey, who'd you steal that from he goes? You know, honestly, I steal stuff, but who'd you steal that from he goes? You know, honestly, I steal stuff, but I didn't steal that. God gave me that when I was reading and I said, well, I'm going to use it and I'll give you credit for it the first time.

Speaker 1: 42:55

But after that I'm not going to give you credit for it.

Speaker 2: 42:58

But I'm going to tell you, man, I don't want to squander and melt my blessings either. I want to be able to use it, and it's so cool because we're surrounding ourselves with trusted advisors on a weekly basis. That is not going to allow us to squander our blessings, and so I'm so encouraged that I've got guys on my team that are willing to walk alongside me and ISI and call me out and call me up to something that's higher, greater and better. So, man, if you're out there today and you're wasting your blessings, enlist guys around you. Get guys around you that can help you, that can hold you accountable, that can call it out and throw a flag on things that you're not doing properly, and encourage your superpowers, because those blessings could be wasted, and we don't want to do that. So, hey, I know we're running long today, but talk about Curtis a little bit. Curtis brought it strong at the end.

Speaker 1: 43:53

Oh yeah, curtis, he was our MC and he also did a devotional on Sunday morning and, man, I'll tell you what like we're going to have these. I'm going to actually make this the opportunity I said. There was a surprise kind of coming at the end and announcement, so I'm going to, I'm going to blend this in Uh, we recorded all these, these uh keynotes, the talks and Ted talks and challenges and all that, and, and we recorded all those, just like we have for previous events, but what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 44:31

So I'm excited about this man, I'm super excited about this. We've had so many guys that will be like, hey, like I listen to your podcast, I get your newsletter, I followed you on Big A for a while on social media, whether it's, you know, on the greenway or some other Avenue, and you know, I've seen you guys and I, I understand that you guys talk about the mastermind a lot and that's great, like, and I kind of understand it. Maybe I don't quite understand it. Or it's like, man, you know, I'm not, I'm, I don't know if I'm ready to commit like an hour a week to that. It seems like a lot. Or or maybe it's the price point of, like, you know, I think it's valuable, but I don't really know if it is yet.

Speaker 1: 45:15

So what we've done God's been working on our hearts on this for quite a few months. We've been working hard on this and what we're doing is we're actually launching what we're calling the ISI community and so we've got the mastermind, which is like special forces, if you will right. It's a group of a small group of guys really honing, diving in lots of accountability, lots of tools and things, and then we've going to have we're going to have the community, and the community is like an army of guys, right. So the community is really around the idea of bringing together growth-minded Christian business leaders that really are looking for meaningful connection and engagement in that environment, and we're going to provide a way to do that. We're going to have a monthly round table, a virtual call that's going to be very well organized. We're going to bring up a topic related to one of our five pillars in ISI and then we're going to do a breakout. So you're breaking up into individual, you know, smaller groups where you're really diving into that, some questions around that topic and evaluating and challenging yourself, as well as being able to speak into other other men.

Speaker 1: 46:34

Man and there's other some of. There's some accountability baked into that on the back end, and so if you run those guys listening, that's like. It's like I would love to hear Curtis's talk because it sounds amazing. I would love to hear Jordan's talk or a big A speech, or those are going to also be inside the community and we'll have more and more resources like that that we're going to add as time goes on. And so, man, if you're interested in that at all, I would encourage you to go to viewfromthetopcom slash community. That's viewfromthetopcom slash community. That's viewfromthetopcom slash community. And, man, you'd be able to learn more about it there, and it's at a price point you can afford, I guarantee it, and you're going to love it. It's going to be amazing. So Curtis's talk was amazing. He did great.

Speaker 2: 47:25

If you haven't, he's the best communicator I think I've ever heard. Andy Stanley probably is my favorite communicator.

Speaker 1: 47:34

He's right there he just brings that biblical truth right to eye level. It's like, oh my gosh, he did such a great job, such a great job.

Speaker 2: 47:45

Man, what more can we say about the event? I mean it was absolutely incredible.

Speaker 2: 47:51

We could have two episodes, three episodes over this. But, man, as you guys really process through and think through this, we wanted to give you a little peek behind the curtain. We wanted you to be able to be there without being there, to really understand what it is that we're trying to communicate. We're trying to level you up successfully, significantly. We don't want you to fail in any area of your life. We want you to be there personally, professionally and spiritually, and that is our heart, that's our mission, is to really shore up guys to help you, to walk alongside you.

Speaker 2: 48:25

You know, as we wrap up this episode, really, it's clear to me that Harmony and Hustle event it wasn't just a meetup, it was a transformative experience for everybody involved. You know the power of in-person connections. It fosters deep relationships way beyond anything else that we can ever imagine. It helps us really to explore new opportunities through networking, because you're there with guys that maybe you've met before, you've got a long relationship with these guys, or maybe it's new guys that are just starting on the journey, and it really allows us to focus without the usual distractions. If you're like me, man, if I'm always in the same spot, always with the same people, it disallows me from having these kind of opportunities. You may already be attending a Mastermind Meetup, but if you're not, I want to encourage you strongly to consider joining us here in the future. Thank you so much for being here, and the reason that we keep doing these is because we want you, too, to have that view from the top.

Speaker 1: 49:36

Hey, thank you all again for listening in with us. Some guys ask us hey, how do we connect with you guys? How do we, you know, ask a question? Maybe we could put it on the podcast. The easiest way to do that, honestly, is just go to you, send us an email at pod P-O-D at viewfromthetopcom. That's the quickest way. Bring your phone up right now and just shoot that to us. And also, too, just like we announced, I kind of weave that in there at the end, but that's our announcement. We talked about the community. If you're interested in that and want to learn more, go to viewfromthetopcom slash community. We'd love to be able to connect with you there and be able to just continue having conversations and just influencing and impacting each other's lives in a way that God called us to do. So have an awesome week, make it amazing and we will see you again.