Trying to Impress my father after he died: Ed Slover

What would it be like to lose your father at a young age?

When many people would really need to have a father figure around and then try to navigate the rest of your life without having that presence in your life.

That would be incredibly challenging, and that's something that dr.

Ed Slover has navigated himself, we're going to dive into that today and how that shaped his base, his life trajectory because it's played.

It's obviously had a huge influence on who he is today, and getting to where he is today.

So, doctor Ed, thanks so much for being on the show today, it's pleasure.

Be here.

Thanks.

Thank you so much, coach Jon.

I'm glad to be here.

Yeah, and just so, where are you at currently?
What are you, what are you kind of up to?
And then we can explore your story in terms of how you got to this place.

Well, 18 months ago, I started a Consulting business and management consulting firm and it's, it's turned out to be more than I could have possibly imagined, especially being so young.

Along the way, I wrote a book, I started a podcast.

I started another other company mine's been Peak, Performance organization, and then subsequently published a second book.

So it's been a busy 18 months along the way with that, for the last eight years I've worked as an assistant professor of management marketing at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.

Okay, been an unbelievably rewarding experience prior to that in a former life.

I spent 16 years in the commercial health and fitness industry.

Okay?
See you've got to be a busy life.

You done a lot of things and you currently have a lot of things in your plate.

So it sounds like you don't you don't have too much idle time on your hands or your extremely efficient.

Maybe it's a bit of both.

It's probably a little little bit of both.

I mean, I guess it really falls into the bucket of busyness.

Dispels boredom.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

And so, you know, it kind of the early years of life did you like, did you grow up in Phoenix or where did you grow up?
I grew up in Ohio about 20 minutes, north of Dayton.

And if you're not Not familiar with where that is.

That's about 45 minutes.

North east of Cincinnati.

Okay.

And I had a pretty nondescript childhood up until about the age of 13 and then things changed quite a little bit.

Yeah, yeah absolutely.

And so is this the time that your father became ill It was, we found out that he was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer in May of 1987, and he died at the end of August, that year.

Yeah.

Wow, that's quite sudden and so leading up that point, did you have quite a good relationship or what was your relationship like with your father?
I would say my relationship with.

My dad was a good one.

My dad didn't speak unless he thought it improved.

The silence.

And I don't know how much of that was a generational thing.

He he and might he and my mom, they were absolutely in love.

They got married.

When they were 19, 18 respectively, they were married, ultimately, 20 years, three kids.

I was the baby and it was, it was a house full of love, but how my dad, and how my dad showed affection with me, was asking me to go outside and toss the ball with him, okay.

Yeah, those are.

Some of the, those are some Of the most impactful moments of time that I got to spend with him but otherwise he didn't outwardly engage with us.

We, he would engage if we came to him, he wasn't physically affectionate but he would hug us back, right?
Yeah.

And like I said, I don't know how much of that was generational or just his personality, but all in all I would say our relationship was was a good one.

Yeah.

And so, leading up to the time that he fell ill.

I mean, was there any indication of this or did it seem to be a rather sudden diagnosis?
It was quite sudden this, this is really interesting, my dad saw a life insurance commercial in December of 1986.

He was a smoker for all of his life because he was also quite Physically Active.

He was an exceptional racquetball player, and he sees this Shal for a life insurance policy and he calls the number and he goes through all of the various tests necessary to get this life insurance policy and sure enough he was able to purchase it.

Five months later he was stage 4 terminal terminal cancer.

Yeah.

And leading leading up to hit that diagnosis living in Ohio.

When when the weather cleared off in the early spring, he and my mom.

Would always walk around the neighborhood and he said, you know, Connie, I'm not feeling well, I think I need to go see the doctor.

And right, then John, my mom knew something was up because my dad could not have been more anti doctor right?
Yeah.

And they they ran a series of tests over a period of weeks and they ultimately landed on.

We need to go in and remove his gallbladder.

In retrospect that was probably code for.

We really don't know exactly what's going on here.

We need to go in and look right and right.

Okay.

The morning of his surgery, he goes in and the doctors come out.

20 minutes later.

This was a supposed to be a multi hour surgery.

They come out 20 minutes later and they're sobbing, they approached my mother and disclose the diagnosis and at that time his His liver was 80% tumor.

And, and for those that for those that don't know, with pancreatic cancer your pancreas is like a jalapeno pepper and as 11 Junction point.

Now, most pancreatic cancer starts out at the end which is why people are asymptomatic for a really long time and but once it hits the junction and it just it spreads like wildfire.

And it's a 95 percent mortality rate within 12 months of diagnosis.

It's a virtual death sentence, my dad's cancer started at the junction.

Oh man, You have this weird dynamic where he's buying a life insurance policy and by every measurable standard, he was healthy and five months later.

He's diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Yeah, you remember.

It was Alex Trebek.

He's a it was famous fella.

And remember him getting diagnosed with it, anything like maybe that brought some more attention to it as an illness, but he Right?
I've heard that it's essentially you get it and that's it.

And I don't know how much, you know, but I can't pretend to know a whole lot about it, but is it because like, you know, maybe not a medical professional but you do know, like why why it is such a death sentence.

Like why?
It's so difficult to treat?
If anything, I think it's it.

So you had the asymptomatic nature.

You don't know you're sick, right?
Right?
Yes.

You start feeling once you start feeling badly, like, in my dad's case.

The cancer is just simply spread too far too fast and for for him to go into surgery and then the doctors to come out 20 minutes later and communicate that his liver was 80% tumor and there's just simply nothing they can do.

Really serves to indicate how how lethal that disease is.

Yeah.

Yeah that's quite something because yeah it's I mean I think I think any time you hear the word cancer, it strikes fear in the heart.

Of the people because there is exactly it is exactly, it is kind of a death sentence now you know and maybe there's something philosophically could be said that all of us are kind of living with a death sentence anyways because we have a ticking clock but we go into this with into this life of kind of this expectation and a problem there's a good chance I'm going to make it old age and we look at you know especially living in North America.

You know a prosperous first world country we have you know, life expectancy nearing or close to 80 years kind of thing.

And so we kind of go into it with that that expectation and then One, suddenly you're presented with news that you're not going to get 80, you might not get to the next year of your life, kind of thing.

That's, that's quite a bit to cope with.

Do you remember, like, how did your dad cope with the diagnosis?
What was his first response?
To hear my mom tell that story once she was allowed to go in to the recovery room.

And once he woke up, she told him and he pursed his lips.

And just shook his head, now leading up to the surge of the few days he had to drink gallons of some something.

I don't I I never learned exactly what it was but it basically cleans you out.

Yeah.

And that was a completely miserable experience for him.

And so when he pursed his lips and shook his head, he's like I went through all of that for this and and then he didn't say a whole lot at least not right away.

Yeah.

And he came home and life was seemingly normal aside from.

He wasn't going to work anymore.

Yeah.

And as you might expect John he just got progressively worse over the course of the summer in.

We brought hospice in and in many ways that was just really help.

Manage pain is he would go, he would have these really, really nasty pain episodes.

And then for the, for the last, for the last three weeks of his life, he was in a coma.

Okay.

Yeah.

And the day the day, he finally, he passed away.

It was, it was almost a movie script where my mother was sitting in beside him and she could see he was, he was there.

He hadn't nonverbal.

Facial Russians, but he was he wasn't awake and she had.

She had the the conversation that it's okay to go.

And no kidding right before he passed on, he opened his eyes and looked better.

And yeah, yeah.

And then that he was gone and it's a weird psychology when you're dealing with someone that you love so much that's terminally ill.

That you know is in pain and you know they're holding on for whatever reason because they're in love with your soul and they don't want to wait to see your soul again.

Yeah.

And On some level, we were able to Exhale.

Yeah despite despite the sadness of knowing that it's going to be it's going to be a little while until we see one another again.

And you know I've heard it said that in one sense like cancer seems to be brutal but in another sense it's actually a merciful way to go because Very often, you're given a window of time versus say, a tragic accident, where things happen, sadly and boom, someone just torn out of your life and you.

So you probably go through a lot of the stages of grief, maybe while the process is still happening, maybe while they're still there, you're processing.

The fact and maybe there's little bits of hope that you try to hold onto your self as a thirteen-year-old did.

You was there any hope that you're kind of holding on to her?
How do you find?
Because that's like a really like transitional stage of life.

If you're going from you're no longer just a boy, you're going to be a teenager and really starting the transition over the next few years into manhood.

Like, there's there's a, there's a lot going on in a young man's life at that stage.

How did you find yourself coping with that?
That summer we during the day, we weren't around very often.

My uncle managed, a swimming pool because I spent most days all day at the swimming pool and because 13 year olds are supposed to get out and be with friends and play.

Yeah, and live life.

In my mom was aware enough to to create an environment for us to go do that.

Yeah.

As far as the five stages of grief, it's you bring up a really good point in that when we first found out clearly we were, I was, I was in denial and like, this is my dad, this isn't?
This isn't other people, this is my dad and no, no, this this isn't how this is going to go.

And of course, you're the one thing about the five stages of grief, is that some people like to think it's this linear progression.

Shin, but it's actually a progression regression.

As you're going through it even after your loved one passes on and I found myself all summer firmly immersed between anger and bargaining.

And I'm bargaining with God to say another month, another Another Day, right?
Yeah, then you get to the day.

He died now.

Yeah, you have to accept that fact.

Act but that doesn't change the residual sadness.

You're going to experience despite having accepted it and you clearly you can't deny it anymore.

So it I found myself toggling between anger and depression for for quite a while.

Yeah yeah that is am a just think about that.

That's that's a lot just to try to take in and I appreciate just kind of how you've unpacked the because you're right.

I perhaps we here maybe those who haven't Because his experience we hear about like the five stages of grief.

We kind of think like you go from this to this to this but there's this oscillation back and forth between the stages as as your mind is restless and trying to come to to terms with this and and you're witnessing your mother as she's losing like the love of her life as well.

And going through that and going through the grieving process while still trying to be a mother to you.

And, you know, provide a stable loving home environment, you know, that's something quite significant and were you able to be with your father at the time of his passing, or were you You somewhere else?
When that took place I was at school.

Okay.

School I try have two older sisters.

Yeah my oldest sister six years older than I am.

The the middle Troublemaker sibling is three years older than I am.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

My oldest sister was at home.

My middle sister was actually on the band practice field.

She was in high school.

I was still in junior high and my uncle came to get us.

He picked me up first.

As I was getting ready to get on the bus and let us know what happened.

We went and got my other sister and made our way home.

And when I walked in the front door, my mother had just cleared the hallway.

And she she she just looked at me and just just kind of shook her head.

And I remember, I remember probably being home 30 minutes being in my bedroom, sitting on my bed, just numb.

Yeah.

And my, and my mom came in and she sat next to me, and she just said, hold me.

It's the one and only time, I've, I mean, I've obviously hugged my mother, but that was the one in a room where she was so, emotionally raw and vulnerable, and she needed to find some measure of strength after having gone, through what she went through, in caring for my dad that entire summer and it certainly tough in the immediate aftermath Going forward, my oldest sister was and moved out, you know, a year year and a half later, my next system moves out.

So within at 18 months to two years after my dad died, we went from a family of five to a family of two at least, you living under the same roof.

And I mean that's an interesting Dynamic even in and of itself even when you're not dealing with with grief.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm curious, you know, I don't know how close you were or are with your sisters, and how did that Dynamic kind of play out like, did you support each other?
Imagine maybe each of you sort of grieved in your own individual way?
Because again, you're kind of at different stages in life whether you no one's getting ready to go to college ones and maybe the end of high school graduation.

And so maybe you're just the annoying younger brother or something like that.

But how did you, how did that sort of dynamic play out?
I don't know about my oldest sister.

I think the age difference at the time was such that we we think we couldn't really relate to one another before the variety of reasons.

But my middle sister, she and I were very, very close going through all of this.

And when she moved out and in and around that time, my mom got the first full-time job she ever had in her life and she started.

Stood her social life and she graduated high school and gotten married.

And so she never really had that, you know, a Social Circle and I found myself in this is not to this.

This is not to suggest that I was.

I'm feeling sorry for myself.

This is just what how this played out where I became a latchkey kid.

Crazy somehow, someway John, I found my way to school on time every day.

Homework was getting done.

I've taught myself how to do laundry and iron clothes and and figure it out while trying to cope with the emotions of the lost.

Now, my mom I will tell you throughout the summer, my dad was sick and even in the 18 months or so afterwards.

The one word I have to describe her as Grace.

Yes she is.

She it was my absolute hero when it comes to managing crisis, and she did an unbelievable job and upon reflection it was time for her to go live her life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That the challenge it, the challenge was there wasn't enough of a recognition as to the unintended consequences of doing that and I became very angry.

Angry.

I was angry at the world.

I was angry at God.

I was angry at my dad.

I was just an angry and how I ended up coping.

Was in philosophy, reading philosophy of all things and I found that my I was able to level up my thinking I started performing really really well in school.

My vocabulary expanded and I had no qualms tearing strips off of people.

If I if I didn't get good customer service.

If they said something that was You know, flawed in any way and and my sister and I had drifted apart.

Yeah.

And I asked her I'm like, why don't we have a relationship anymore?
And she looked at me and she said, it's because you're a jerk.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's that's quite something to hear and, and, what a blessing.

It was.

Yeah, yeah.

It in your state.

Maybe, I don't know.

But did you did you receive that?
Like, did it shock you, I guess it did.

I wouldn't have expected that, but we you and I get that.

We need people in our lives.

To pull things out of our blind spot.

Yeah.

Especially knowing that we live so much of our day-to-day lives on autopilot.

Well, that had been such a habitual thought pattern bitch'll behavioral pattern for me.

She just had removed herself because she just didn't want to deal with me.

Yeah, and it was, it was when I basically gave her permission to tell me the truth by asking that question.

Yeah, I got an honest answer and I needed that and it was a light bulb.

Yeah.

And you've mentioned the word god.

A few times in here and obviously, so so like was your, it was your father, a man, if it's in like like we was your household like a church-going household or what was how did that factor into it?
A church household?
No, the only thing I knew growing up was my dad grew up Catholic.

Okay.

I just learned five years ago that my mom actually converted to Catholicism so they could get married in a Catholic Church.

I never knew that but we weren't practicing Catholics.

We were practicing Christians.

In fact, my first ever experience with anything church-related.

I went to a Sunday school with a friend and Going to say her name because I still remember it.

Mrs.

Clinton, she was a, she had red hair and she was asking questions, getting to know me before Sunday school.

And I told her what I just told you, the only thing I know is that my dad grew up Catholic and she proceeded to tell me that all Catholics were going to burn in the pit of fire.

Wow.

Wow.

That's quite something.

It's a good start.

Yeah.

And as As you might expect, whenever I got home, I shared that with my mom and my mom got her on the phone quicker than any.

Yeah, no kidding.

And but my mom always always had a personal relationship with with Jesus.

She she she would read scripture but she wasn't she wasn't dogmatically Christian.

Not a bible-thumping type of scenario and I always I always believe but I didn't know exactly what I was.

You what?
I was believing even to this day as a person of deep faith.

I'm not strong with scripture, right, right.

But I have conversations with God through prayer or how, you know, however that works.

I really feel like an immature Christian in so many ways based on how other people do it.

But it but it is it seems to work in it certainly is a grounding force in my life.

Yeah.

And so again sort of in the aftermath and as you're going forward to in the Years forward, you mentioned like you're angry at God.

And I mean, I think that's a myth.

It's Justified emotion, understandable, emotion, because you feel like I could go out as a giver and taker of Life.

He's taken away.

Someone who's extremely important to me before?
What I perceive is his time.

And so now I'm mad at you for making this this decision.

Did you ever find yourself wanting to like discard or let go of your faith?
Or, you know, say well maybe God does exist or anything like that frequently frequently throughout my certainly late teens and Early 20s and then on and off, you know, up until my early 30s and I'm not entirely sure what changed?
I was in my early 30s around the birth of my daughter and all of a sudden I'm seeing this miracle happen in front of me and it's certain certain atheistic perspectives or darwinian perspectives just stop making sense for me and then I started I just had started having more frequent conversations with God.

And there have been these moments over the last 15 years where I've I just feel a pull, I feel a pull to go in a different direction.

In the only way I can describe it is it's like I get tapped on the shoulder and it's like, okay, it's time to go this way.

Well, how do I, how do I know where I'm going?
And the answer I hear is that's not your problem.

Interesting.

Yeah, and you mentioned having having conversations with God and so for somebody who might be listening, you know, and maybe there are people of Faith listening to the people who are atheistic listening to me, it doesn't matter.

I appreciate that you're listening, but somebody might wonder.

What is this look like in your experience to have a conversation with god?
What is it look like for you?
And you know, because it may look different for many people.

For me, it's daily prayer.

That doesn't that doesn't last very long, it starts by it starts from coming from a position of gratitude immaterial of what's going on.

Just in the sounds somewhat cliche, John but just having the opportunity to be here and show up show up in our worlds, where we have a, we have a shot at saving the lives of the people.

We let into our world.

I just, I just believe so firmly.

That's an unbelievable gift.

Yeah.

And almost an assignment really where we're assigned to give the world.

Our best.

And to be, however, we can figure it out to be fractionally better today than we were yesterday.

And tomorrow versus today in whatever it is that we want to be for actually fractionally better than provided that adds productive value to our life.

As I tell my students and at the end of the day, life is a series of rooms or hallways or car rides or whatever and what a gift it is to have people come into our world.

And be able to positively affect them.

We never know how we come off to anybody unless they tell us.

We never truly know and I'll never know the impact I had on a student at never said something that maybe got something for me that they can apply to their life in a really positive way simply because I showed up better that particular moment.

Because I'm thankful and so grateful for the opportunity to have this gift.

Yeah, I think whenever we go through an experience like something that you, you went through there, you know, everyone's experience of loss, especially sudden or unexpected early loss.

If we could call it a, you know, is different.

But I am inclined to believe that it certainly does lead us to ponder existential questions.

Why are we here?
What's the meaning of life?
Is there a God?
If there's a God, that loves us.

Why does our God allow this to happen?
This is different questions.

That kind of runs.

Where might we wrestle with this?
We try to come to to, to terms with it.

And and you mentioned like witnessing the birth of your daughter, really kind of created a shift for you.

And so I guess leading up to that what was it that you You know, you felt like maybe you want to throw this away and maybe was just an angry response, but what was it?
That kept you kind of being drawn back to this and go.

I can't totally throw this away.

I don't have a good answer for you on that one.

John there are there.

It was a nagging.

It really wasn't nagging.

It's almost it's almost, it's almost akin to this.

Where, if God is immovable, we have the choice as to how close our relationship is to him.

For example, Christians become atheist all the time and they have a really close relationship where they can hear God's Whisper and over time whether it's through personal tragedy.

Loss of loved ones or whatever.

They there's some distance that created and there's eventually there's no amount of shouting that God can do to get their attention.

I never drifted that far.

Okay yeah but I drifted far enough where I just it was this nagging.

It wasn't it wasn't this isn't that you may be appreciated in the moment.

Exactly, right?
Yeah.

Figure like this is annoying but it feels like God won't give up on me.

That's it, that's exactly what it feels like and to too many Christians.

That's really hard to understand and appreciate to non-believers, that seems nonsensical.

And if I were an objective Observer of my life and listening to what I just said out loud, I'd say this guy's nuts.

Yeah.

It's it's like trying to describe.

It is like trying to drink coffee with a fork.

Yeah.

It's like you can touch it but you can't really get at the at the true essence of it.

It's not unlike, how do we, how do we thoroughly?
Explain our love for someone?
Like I can't I can't put words to the love.

I have for my child.

Our language is too primitive to adequately describe it, which is why we defer to cliche, right?
Yeah, but I think of that and I've got, I've got, you know, a son who's going to be two very soon at the time of recording this and like I pick them up into my arms and it's like when he only sort of Nestle's into my shoulder like there really aren't Worth to describe what I feel.

All I know is like There's so many different I guess it is but it's like you combine all the colors of the rainbow into one and and you get you get white and it's like there's these different layers of things that I'm feeling you know whether it's a fierce protection, a gratitude and appreciation and awed at The Wonder of watching this little watching his little brain taken the world.

Like there's just so much that goes through your right there, really to really isn't isn't words.

And, you know, from a perspective of faith, I think, well, like Faith kind of like, because II went to the world of physics and astrophysics and math and high level in organic chemistry.

I was a science major and add those.

And maybe a lot of people in their 20s, kind of go through this, especially, those who might be Christians are of Faith, trying to figure this out, like am I nuts for wanting to even wanting to believe this but are the atheists, right?
Like, but I couldn't find adequate answers and no matter like, in the I would Grill these people.

And and I just I could not find adequate or satisfactory answers and so maybe it was a little bit of the same riff.

This nagging puller.

I was like, I just have a really hard time.

Like life doesn't make sense without this and so, what, you know, whether whether I like it or not, you know, I could try to argue it out of argue, got out of existence, but that doesn't change anything, you know, and not only that it's like, well, I think I'd probably just an angry nihilist if I didn't believe in God, much love.

What is the point in life?
You know, and I mean, I've heard you know what's his name?
Ricky, Gervais is a famous comedian.

Or whatever and he's atheist.

And he just talks about like hey if you're watching a good movie you don't want to skip to the end but you know and so that's how he tries to describe it and fair enough, you know, I don't I'm not biblethump I don't wear it on my sleeve or anything.

I just kind of go by business and I think if somebody sees something my life, well, hey that's that's really nice.

I you know, that's what I hope are what I aspire to do.

So I was gonna ask this does your faith play or how does your faith maybe play a role in your professional life because you have all these different things that you're doing your you know, you Stave off boredom.

Oven and whatnot.

How does that sort of factor into the decisions that you make?
At Grand Canyon University.

It I'm fortunate because it's the largest private Christian University in the country.

Hmm.

So I can I can openly talk about it.

In fact it's it's welcomed so and but I high temper, it knowing that 99% of my students are going to end up working for a secular organization.

Yes.

So how do you, how can you bring your faith to work while knowing you have to be Be a bartender because you can't talk about sex religion or politics, right?
Yeah, yeah.

Now I do qualify that by saying, if you get the question, answer the question.

If you have a co-worker that asks you about your faith, Communicate your faith.

One of the things that I find off-putting about bible-thumping Christians is that when they get the question, they open the fire hose on that page.

Yeah, and it's like, what about this?
What about crafting your answer, well enough?
So that person is then curious to ask the next question, where it actually becomes a dialogue.

And Exchange rather than a monologue.

Hmm, I think that I think we do a disservice to our belief system because we, we take Liberties that we shouldn't have otherwise taken.

Now, going back to your question as it relates to Quest consulting or The Quest For Life.

I'm I'm open about it.

The clients that I've worked with since really, the start of last year, I've Had No Reservations communicating that I'm a person of faith and, and I live out in through those values.

If that happens to be something that they don't want to go anywhere near.

That's okay.

That's their decision.

I can respect that.

I don't have to like it.

Yeah.

But the Option.

John has been overwhelmingly positive.

Yeah and I feel like I can't explain that.

Well I feel that despite how I don't know maybe media and social media would largely like to portray this and you're right.

I'm Canadian and I there's you have to admit there's something seemingly unique about some of the flavors of Christianity.

If you will that I hear about or or, you know that One of the u.s.

that, like, just like, that seems a bit weird.

Like, that seems a little over the top or like it's hard for me because I'm just just quietly go about my business, you know, I guess I'm not like this ostentatious whatever.

I'm not afraid to talk about it, but I just quietly go on business and you're right.

It's like because I feel like, you know, God didn't thump down the door to my heart, like, a domineering Tyrant, but it was just like, it was kind of, like, you said, like a -, like, a knock at the door and be like, you know, are you interested in getting to know me?
Would you like to let me in, you know, I'm not, I'm not actually.

A tyrant.

I will, in fact, just let your life take its course and leave you alone.

If that's what you want.

But it's I have things that would like to offer you, you know, and a better life and you could probably have of your own accord.

And so you write when I love the fire hose analogy, just like because I used to be firefighting in the Navy and I'm like, man, those hoses pack, a lot of force and that's really like the worst thing you could do because everyone's journey through this life, you know, even just trying to figure out some sense of like, what's the meaning or purpose of life?
The, the greatest existential In there might be, it could take years.

There's a reason that God gives us years of life because it probably takes us that amount of time to sort of come to terms with with it.

And, you know, do you feel like or maybe at this present time where you're at right now?
How would you how would you put into words, what you feel like the meaning of the purpose of life is Put simply to look more like Jesus every day, if you, if we use the metaphor of diamond.

Now, for for believers that are dogmatically Christian, this has this metaphor has some holes in it because there's no such thing as a perfect diamond, but just hang with you.

Yeah, what, what are the three things necessary in order to produce a diamond?
You need a lot of time.

Time you need a lot of heat and you need a lot of pressure.

Those three things are the metaphor for life whether you're a Believer or not.

Yeah.

And what I've come to learn is that alongside that God doesn't really care so much about my safety and comfort.

What he cares about is looking more like his son, hmm.

And to end the operative word being more Knowing that we're, you know, at at various points in our lives, we think we have arrived.

We've never arrived.

They're our Rivals and we take stock of how well, we've done, you know, the proverbial Journey along the way and going back to what I said earlier about, how will we show up?
What if, what if we show up, looking more like Jesus moment, to moment?
What's the downside to that?
And what I've learned also learned is anytime we can engage in Anything that doesn't have a downside.

Why wouldn't we do it?
Hmm, even if it's just to learn more about it, I had a friend a number of years ago, we were getting ready to play tennis and he was talking about his wife being a non-believer and he grew up in the church, but he was lukewarm about it.

And I asked him like, what if it's not true, what if none of it's true?
What if it's all just stories?
Is there a better guide book for life than the Bible?
I mean, generally speaking is in terms of living ethically living yo a moral life, living having a strong, a strong work, ethic, treating people, others ill are treating people, well, like the Golden Rule, And if Jesus isn't who we, I believe him to be based on how we live, wouldn't you follow him?
I mean, that's the mark of leadership.

Where if you want to, if you want to assess the strength of anyone's leadership, you don't look at the leader.

You look at how many willing followers they have.

And then you have other people throughout history that like like a Gandhi or a Mother Teresa or others where Nelson, Mandela where people willingly followed because of what they stood for.

So, even if none of it's true, it's probably a really solid guidebook for life and that's that, that's a, an individual that you would want to follow above me on the fact that there's really just no downside.

Yeah.

You know, just to take a slightly different laying here for a moment.

Because I think a recall coming across something in your story, just where it may be for a period of time in your life.

You were trying to impress your father after he had passed away and I guess the question that was thinking of here was just how long did that last?
And then what point in time, you know, what caused this shift, we realized.

Maybe I don't have to, I don't have to do it for those reasons.

Class in 20 years after he died.

My dad put a premium on education.

He when he was 18, just before he was starting his freshman year, in college, the summer.

Before his dad had a massive heart attack at age 48 and died at the pool and that had a profound effect on him, they were very, very close.

And my dad was an incredibly intelligent and he went through the first semester, he ended up on academic probation.

He went through the second semester, he was suspended and kicked out and he never went back to school.

He always put a premium on education and to learn about my dad through other people after he died.

I was told by numerous people that he would have made.

Sure.

I got to college and he would have made sure that I was a mediocre.

Our engineer.

Because he was crazy conservative in you know you have a good paying job.

You work in that job for 30 40, 50 years, that's how that would have gone but knowing that he put such a premium on education, I ended up doing that too.

Yeah like I graduated I graduated with my bachelor's a year and a half later I started my masters.

Here and a half.

After that, I started my doctoral program.

And I had my, I defended my dissertation in in early, 2007.

And let me tell you working in the health and fitness industry that was academic.

Overkill.

Absolutely.

I mean, to have to have a doctor of management and organizational leadership in the gym business, that just didn't happen.

But it was fulfilling and expectation that I thought he would have had had for me, and it without the knowledge of whether or not, he would have ever expected anything like that.

Right?
And raised.

And what you, what you, what I came to realize is while That was a tremendous accomplishment.

It was fulfilling for me because I was able to validate myself.

I didn't need external validation to make me feel accepted or like I belong to you or that he loved me more.

You looking down from on high, it wasn't a situation like that and I was able to release that I was able to release whatever, whatever standard I thought he had.

For me, I was able to release It.

And it was, it was this period of my life in my mid-30s where I came to recognize that when we live by the expectations of others.

That's always going to be a moving Target.

Yeah.

But what about that again, right?
But what about this?
What about Going to work every day and doing it, well for the sake of doing it.

Well, not to get recognized, not for the promotion, but doing it well because you have a standard that's higher than anybody else's.

And if you don't live up to that standard, you have to walk to the parking garage and reconcile for yourself that you didn't do that.

I can't, I can't even fathom that some days are better than others, but the effort is always Lifted to that standard.

And what's interesting about that is that when you show up with that mindset where I'm going to do, I'm going to perform this well for the sake of Performing this.

Well All of a sudden someone comes in Taps, you on the shoulder and says, hey would you want, would you like to interview for this promotion or they give you the promotion or they gave you an award or they recognize you somehow?
And what that all that is, is proof of you having lived by and through your values?
Yeah, so we're not, we're not actively seeking it because we all, we all know, John, that there there are people that we cross our path.

That verbally give us their resume.

Right.

Yeah.

And we understand why that is they wouldn't do it.

If it didn't work for them, in terms of getting attention, they just they would do something else, right?
Yeah, right, so that's, that's worked for them, but I just choose to say, you know what, that we had there are societal standards.

There are familial standards are like, you know what, what about, what about, grounding in our own value system, and not living for everyone else, and this ties, back to what I said earlier, because That allows us to show up better both for ourselves and for others and just just lastly, you know, the fascinating just hearing you, share your thoughts.

I just enjoyed exploring this conversation along the way.

You have a wife and you've got at least one child, I realize now I don't know whether the rest of your family Dynamics, but you know your wife then has at least watched some of this stage of your journey.

Play out and take place, and how has she assisted you in kind of navigating, because the person that you might have met and fell in love with and married, you know, number of years ago isn't the same person.

Today, you've both evolved through this kind of Journey and she's had the you both really had the privilege of witnessing the transformation that each one goes through.

And how is she supported?
You going through all of these different things.

Unwavering unwavering support the so, where we've been together.

10 years next month.

Awesome.

And everyone who's been in a long-term relationship knows.

This is quite normal.

Yeah, yeah.

That's actually.

That's actually good.

Yeah, it's doing that because it has flatlined yet.

Yes.

Yeah.

The so we're a blended family.

My biological daughter is Is Jocelyn, my stepdaughters Evelyn, my wife's name is Carolyn, so it's the house of Lynn and Ed.

Yeah.

Like, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people like to think that a blended family is where you take some fruits and vegetables and put them in a blender.

And it makes a really nice smoothie.

Well Blended families require broken glass and nails and other other stuff in the theater.

And it has, it certainly hasn't all been all been easy and she but she's she's been an absolute Rock in absolute Rock.

For example, I had an opportunity to get out of the health and fitness industry and into higher education, but in a part-time role.

This is going back to 2014 doing so would have required that she hid her sales goals every month to offset my Salary, decrease.

And for 10 months until I was able to get a full time role at Grand Canyon, she hit keep in mind, John that in the seven months.

Prior she only hit once rate.

It was utterly utterly fascinating and now fast forward to to this spring.

I've been I've been wrestling with God over the last few months and have never felt fatigued.

Like I've like I felt and it's this it's this back and forth with do I stay at Grand Canyon and have Quest or do I just stay Grand Canyon or do I just hit?
Do Quest.

Great.

Yeah and I've been able to have been able to finally get to a place of calm and peace.

And with the unwavering support of my wife, this will be my last semester as full-time, faculty at Grand Canyon.

Okay, that's remarkable.

Quite quite a story arc and quite a quite a journey.

Even on end.

The certainly isn't the, the end of the road for you.

And, you know, there's many more things I would love to explore.

And so I think I would encourage people to go and have a listen to your podcast.

In fact, why don't you plug some of the resources you put out there because it means so much more more of you to be explored here.

Yeah, so I'm in the first stages of season 3 of The Quest For Life podcast.

So that's Quest the number for life and the whole design of me starting, it was just to try to help improve people's lives.

My first two seasons, I didn't really have specific themes.

It was really topics that I was interested in learning more about and talking about this season, it's really Focused on helping people level up their mind set.

So they can achieve Peak Performance, whether it's an interesting aspects of life or business, and spent, Wednesday tell you it's absolute therapy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, there, I just love getting to engage in conversations like this, you know, it's part of the reason why I podcast as well and you know, for those who are listening again, I thank you so much for for tuning in.

It means the world to me to have people.

Who find Value in these conversations and I love podcasting as a media form because it's like for the listener, you get you get to be an eavesdropper into like a personal and intimate kind of conversation.

And so I love that, I love everyone who supports the show and thank you for that.

And at as we as we wind up, I always like to ask my guess.

If someone's been listening to this conversation today.

What is what is one nugget of wisdom that you would like them to take away from from hearing what we shared today?
To unmemorable as our past self.

And whether whether or not that's through prayer or meditation.

Other mindfulness, Pursuits, what whether it's sitting in, in a, in a quiet room, or becoming engrossed in, in a book, that blows your hair back.

Something that feeds our soul in a Current way because neurobiologically if you imagine when we're little our brains are dry flat riverbeds and as we start learning, we start cutting these neurochemical grooves.

Well, if we're living a life of pain we're continuing to cut that Groove.

If we're living through fear, the groove gets cut and we need to unmemorable eyes that at least enough to start cutting new grooves.

Like pick one thing every day to do a little bit differently.

If you're not engaging in physical activity, take a ten-minute, walk be fractionally better today than you were yesterday.

If you, like cookies for dessert, instead of having five have for insane and celebrate, those small wins because what we end up finding, and as a way to unmemorable eyes are past cells, is that these little, Many victories start building momentum and create a positive feedback loop and we end up feeling better about ourselves.

We end up feeling better, physically, we have more energy, we show up differently.

People take notice all of a sudden, we really gain some positive momentum to to direct our lives in a different more productive way.

I love that so much and I think that fractional fractional change is so crucial because we try to do it in big leaps and and we end up falling falling flat, but this is working with their brain, the way that our brain works.

And so some of the best advice, that could be out there.

Thank you again, for being on the show, it is truly been a pleasure.

Thank you, John pleasure to be on.

Thank you so much for tuning in to between the before and after if you've enjoyed this episode please subscribe and leave a review because that helps his podcast to reach and Inspire more people.

I love exploring the stories that take place between the before and after the powerful experiences that shape who we become and I love you.

Human potential.

I love the possibilities that lie within us.

So, whatever you may be up against.

I hope these stories inspire you because you're still here, your story's not done yet, so, keep moving forward.